Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

She took in the bottle of special birthday wine, eager for praise. ‘Will you open it?’ she asked, producing the madly expensive corkscrew that Matt had seen in a restaurant and had insisted on sending off for.

‘Yeah,’ he said absently, still watching the TV. He opened the bottle and handed it back to her. When she’d poured two glasses and assured herself that the steak was getting along fine without her, she returned, gave Matt his glass and curled up beside him on the sofa.

‘Nice day?’ she asked.

Matt grunted in return.

Hope tried again. She was absolutely determined they were going to have a lovely coupley evening in for his birthday. She adored nights like this. She and Matt having a companionable dinner together and their beloved children asleep upstairs – that was what happy families were all about. She knew it, she insisted on it.

But Matt was having none of it. He watched the television intently, his lean body sunk back against the sofa cushions, his handsome face in profile with his eyes hooded as he concentrated.

After a few more of Hope’s attempts at conversation, he sighed and asked when dinner was.

‘Now, soon,’ Hope said, jumping off the sofa and heading back into the kitchen.

She lit the candles on the kitchen table, repositioned the burgundy linen napkins someone had given them when they’d got married and dished up the second dinner of the day.

Instinctively, Matt appeared as soon as his plate landed on the matching burgundy linen mat. He dug in hungrily.

‘This is lovely, isn’t it?’ Hope said.

‘Mm,’ grunted Matt, one eye still on the television which was visible from his seat at the table. News had been replaced by the monotonous roar of motor racing.

He cut his steak into small pieces so he could fork it up without missing a bit of the action.

‘Is everything all right?’ Hope asked.

‘Yeah, it’s lovely. Nice bit of steak,’ he replied.

‘I didn’t mean the steak.’

Matt sighed and took his eye off the TV for a brief moment. ‘Hope, do we have to have one of these “is everything OK?” conversations tonight? I’m tired, I’ve had a hard day and I’d like to relax if that’s not too much to ask.’

Her eyes brimmed.

‘Sure, fine.’

The commentator’s voice droned on and Hope ate her meal mechanically, not tasting anything, worrying.

There was something wrong, she knew it. Had known it for weeks. Matt wasn’t happy and she was sure it was nothing to do with his job. It had to be personal, something about him and her, something terrible.

He’d been depressed since his favourite uncle had died in Ireland two months ago, and at first, Hope had thought Matt was feeling guilty because he hadn’t seen Gearóid for years. Matt’s family were terrible for keeping in touch and when they’d first been married, Hope, who’d expected to be welcomed into the bosom of a real family at long last, had been astonished to find that the Parker family had only one trait in common: apathy about family get-togethers. His parents were remarkably self-sufficient people who’d had Matt, their only child, late in life and clearly weren’t pleased at the intrusion of a small child into their busy lives. Now that he was an adult with a wife, they appeared to think they’d done their bit. Hope found it impossible to understand this, but was grateful that, despite his upbringing, Matt was so passionate about her and the children.

Sam wisely said it was clear that Matt was determined to live his life very differently from the way his austere and cold family lived. ‘He’s insecure about people loving him and he needs you. That’s why he’s so controlling,’ Sam had added, with a rare touch of harshness.

Hope just wished she was sure her husband needed her. If she was sure of that, she wouldn’t be so nervous about asking him what was wrong. Was it Gearóid’s death? He’d been incredibly fond of the eccentric uncle he used to spend summers with as a child.

But when she’d tried to comfort him about Gearóid, Matt had snapped at her, so perhaps it wasn’t that. What was it, then?

She knew she should be quiet, that it was fatal to probe at this unknown awfulness, because once she’d probed, she’d know and she wouldn’t be able to bury her head in the sand and pretend everything was OK. But she had to probe.

‘Don’t tell me it’s nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘I know you’re not happy, Matt.’

‘OK, you’re right, you’re right,’ he snapped, slamming down his fork. ‘I’m not happy. You win first prize for noticing.’

‘I just want to help,’ Hope said in a small voice.

‘I’m just…oh,’ he threw his hands in the air, ‘I don’t know. I’m a bit down, that’s all. Unfulfilled, pissed off, depressed, I don’t know what you call it.’

She stared at him mutely, not knowing what was coming next.

‘Don’t say it’s a mid-life crisis,’ he added harshly. ‘That’s what bloody Dan said. Said I’d be running off with a seventeen-year-old soon.’

Hope flinched.

‘He was only joking,’ Matt said, seeing her face. ‘Who’d want me?’ he added in a voice resonant with bitterness. ‘I mean, I’m forty and what have I done? Nothing. Worked my butt off for years for what? A decent car and the chance of a good pension. I haven’t done anything, not anything I’m proud of.’

‘You’ve got Millie and Toby,’ Hope said weakly, not wanting to add ‘…and me,’ in case Matt didn’t feel as if she was much of an asset.

‘I know, I know, it’s a…male thing.’ Matt seemed lost for words, possibly for the first time in his life. He couldn’t appear to say what he meant. Or perhaps he knew exactly what he wanted to say but wanted her to figure it out. He was leaving, that had to be it.

Hope waited, guts clenching in painful spasm. This was it: Matt was leaving. People left all the time. Her mother and father had left before she’d had a chance to know them, just when she needed them. All right, they’d died, so that was different. But Hope had been expecting Matt to leave almost from the moment she’d fallen in love with him. History repeating itself. There had to be a price for winning such a handsome man – you could never be sure of him, never keep him. All the fears Hope had successfully kept to herself over the years were coming to the surface.

Matt was watching her across the table. He knew her background, knew her horror of being abandoned. ‘It’s alright,’ he said sharply, almost harshly. ‘I’m not going to leave.’

The tears Hope had been successfully holding off now flowed unchecked. She knew he was lying: it was obvious. There was someone else, he wanted to leave her and it was just a matter of time. He’d merely decided not to dump her on his birthday.

‘I’m going through a bad time and I’m trying to deal with it,’ Matt said. ‘I’m better if you leave me to it.’

‘But I can’t,’ whispered Hope. ‘I love you so much, and I can’t bear it if you feel upset. I mean…’ she pushed aside her plate, her appetite gone, ‘I’d do anything to make it all right.’ She was too scared to ask him if there was someone else. Too afraid that he’d tell her the truth.

‘You can’t make it all right,’ Matt said bluntly. ‘I’m the one suffering the mid-life crisis, not you. You can’t magic it away so we can play happy families. Life isn’t like that. Now can we just have our dinner and try and have a relaxed evening? Please,’ he added more gently. ‘I don’t feel up to talking about it.’

Hope nodded. She poked her steak around the plate, trying to pretend she was hungry. Matt went back to eating and watching the television.

She watched him surreptitiously, her nerves in tatters, wishing she wasn’t so needy and pathetically hungry for love that she’d take any excuse. She didn’t believe a word of it. Matt was lying. If only she were stronger, she’d demand the truth. Someone like Sam would have sent the entire dinner flying and demanded an explanation. She’d have yelled that he wasn’t moving from his seat until he told her exactly what was wrong and cut all the crap about how he was better off dealing with it on his own. Hope knew how Sam would handle this situation, because Sam’s responses were programmed into her brain. You didn’t grow up practically joined at the hip to your older sister without knowing everything about her. But that didn’t mean you could apply her no-holds-barred type of reaction to your own life. Sadly no.

Hope, hating confrontation and loving Matt almost obsessively, was content to know nothing if that was what Matt wanted.

Matt finished his meal and smiled at his wife. ‘That was lovely,’ he said kindly. ‘Let’s forget about everything and watch a video. I stopped at the shop on the way home.’

‘I can give you your presents,’ Hope said, eager to leave the desolate place she was currently in. If they had a nice evening after all, it meant their marriage was OK. Didn’t it?

Matt was up early the next morning. An early meeting, he said as he threw back the duvet at half six instead of the usual seven. Hope, head heavy after a practically sleepless night of worrying, couldn’t move. She was exhausted, her head throbbed with tiredness and her eyes felt piggy, as if someone had injected them with some type of swelling agent. She knew she should get up and talk to Matt – anything to convince herself that it was all okay – but she was too tired. The speediest dresser in the world, Matt was showered, shaved and ready in twenty minutes. Wearing the black Armani suit with a white shirt and his new tie, an outfit that made him look like he was auditioning for an Italian James Bond, he stopped by the bed to pick up his watch from the bedside table. Hope sat up on the pillow and rubbed frantically at her sleep-filled eyes.

‘Bye darling,’ she bleated. ‘Love you.’ She hoped he’d kiss her goodbye but instead he smiled briefly and busied himself with his watch strap.

‘Bye, I’ll see you this evening,’ he said and he was gone, without kissing her.