“Who is he?”
Eleanor felt nausea rise through her body with the warmth of the tea. “Really, I don’t know. All she’s told me is that he’s called David and she met him through a work thing.”
He flinched at the information as if she’d burned him. “But is it serious enough for her to do this—for her to leave?”
Eleanor thought of Nancy’s pale face from the night before, from this same night, really, which was an absurd thought. It was true that she’d wanted to end the affair, but she had also been visibly devastated, and it was always so hard to tell with Nancy what was real or exaggerated. Eleanor comforted herself with the thought that Nancy was impetuous and daring. It was possible that she had done something this stupid. Eleanor looked back at Robert and his sharp blue eyes, his solid being, and she couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been enough. She’d gone to bed that night feeling guilty that she hadn’t been nicer to her friend, but now she thought she hadn’t been harsh enough.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s been going on for about a year.”
Robert rocked back with her words.
“But really, she was in the process of ending it, or at least trying to. She wants to try to make it work with you.” God, Nancy deserved less than this.
“So this could just be one last…” His words trailed into the air, their sordidness sullying the perfection of the new kitchen Nancy had just put in.
“Oh, Robert, this is fucking ghastly. You don’t deserve this. I am so sorry.” Eleanor thought of the times she’d sat around this table, eating Robert’s food and drinking his wine, of the weekends spent at their Sussex house, of the comfy beds and hot baths, of the fireside chats and the long walks. And it seemed shameful that she had betrayed him.
“Anyone would have done the same in your position. I mean, Nancy’s your friend.”
“But you’re my friend too.” She reached over and put her hand over his as she spoke, and his skin was surprisingly soft.
The smile he gave her was stretched and tight.
“If it makes it any better, I’ve told her how much I disapprove of it all since the beginning. I’ve never encouraged her.”
Robert checked the clock above the door, and Eleanor followed his gaze. “I suppose I should be getting ready for work,” he said.
“But it’s only five thirty.”
“We’ve got a big case on.”
“But I mean, surely today. Are you really going in?”
“I can’t sit around here moping. And I’d rather not make any decisions before I’ve spoken to Nancy. It would be better to keep busy.”
“So you’re going to forgive her?” Eleanor’s voice sounded shrill to her ears. “Without knowing any of the facts?” The charm of Nancy’s life reverberated around her, and for a moment she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear that Nancy would get away with this as well. But she pushed that thought away. She needed to stop letting the last year sour her feelings. Nancy was also a woman she loved and cherished, who made her laugh, who was always at the other end of the phone, who often took care of her.
“I didn’t say that,” Robert said.
Eleanor heard the pureness of the anger in his voice. His hand was gripping the side of the table, the veins standing out on his skin. “But we’ve been together for a very long time. And there’s Zara. I mean, you don’t just throw away more than twenty years.”
The moment felt unreal, maybe because it was so early and still as dark as night outside. Eleanor swallowed her tears along with her shame—of course she didn’t know what it was like to consider those sort of things—other people, longtime loving. But then Robert stood, so Eleanor did the same. He clearly wanted her to leave.
“Thanks for coming,” Robert said as they made their way back up the stairs.
They stopped at the front door. “How did you know she was having an affair?”
Robert shrugged, his eyes refusing to rest on hers. “Something’s obviously been up for a while. I suppose it’s just one of the things you consider.”
Eleanor rubbed Robert’s arm through his jersey. “I think you’ll sort it out. I hope you do.”
He opened the front door, and the chill of the early morning was penetrating. “If you hear from her today,” he said, “let me know. She might not call me.”
“Of course I will. And you me.” She was shivering with the cold, but Robert hadn’t seemed to notice. “Anyway—” She turned to go, but as she did, a white car pulled up outside the house. She looked back at Robert, and his face told her that she wasn’t wrong. They both watched in the silent, thick stillness of the morning as two policemen got out of the car and turned toward the house.
“Oh God,” Robert said behind her.
As the two men came up the steps, their uniforms blended into the dark.
“Mr. Hennessy?” one asked.
“Yes,” Robert said.
“Can we come in please, sir?”
Robert stepped back, and Eleanor remembered that you had to invite vampires into your house—they couldn’t just walk in.
They went back into the hall. Eleanor wanted to shake them all, to ask the policemen why it wasn’t strange to find them standing on the doorstep before dawn. She didn’t want to be part of their world, in which everything and anything was probable.
“Is there somewhere we can sit down?” one of the policeman asked, so Robert opened the door to the drawing room, which was painted in the bright yellow Nancy had always loved. One room in every house should be sunny, Eleanor recalled her saying, as she sat on the sofa as if they were a group of friends who happened to be meeting before most people were awake.
“Sorry—and you are?” the policeman said to Eleanor.
“Oh, sorry, this is Eleanor Meakins. She’s a good friend of my wife’s.” The statement hung terrifyingly in the air when it should have needed explanation.
“Please, Mr. Hennessy, sit down,” the policeman said.
“No,” replied Robert, “I’d rather stand.”
The policeman removed his hat, and his colleague copied. “I’m very sorry. The body of a woman in her late forties was found just over an hour ago, and we have reason to believe it is your wife, Nancy Hennessy.”
At that, Robert sat down, right next to Eleanor; she felt the sofa compress and his body sink against hers. She concentrated on that for as long as she could while the rest of the world spun around her.
“What makes you think it’s Nancy?” Robert asked finally.
“Her bag was found with her, and her driving license was in her purse.” The second policeman still hadn’t spoken, and Eleanor wondered if he was on some sort of training exercise.
“Oh my God. What happened to her?” Eleanor said, her mind filled with the thought of Nancy spending the night out in this freezing cold.
“At the moment we’re not entirely sure. But it looks like she suffered a head trauma.”
Eleanor tried to make sense of the words that were being said. They had called Nancy a body, and now they were talking about a head trauma. Surely someone hadn’t hurt her in some way, surely there was some mistake? She felt a sickening anger at that thought, and a desperate desire to rush to her friend and soothe away her pain.