The Sunshine and Biscotti Club

Eve nodded.

‘Excellent.’

‘But what about the kale.’

‘Bugger the kale. I was brought up on frankfurters and chicken Kiev. I’m OK.’

Eve rolled her eyes and went back to the washing up. Then after a minute, after she’d heard Peter get a beer out the fridge and flip the cap, she said, ‘The thing is, sometimes I just want a proper chat about things like kale. I know it’s neurotic so don’t look at me like that, but sometimes I need to talk about it. It’s important to me.’

She saw him sigh. ‘Eve. I’ve had a really long day. I don’t need to talk about kale. You don’t need to talk about kale. You want to talk about kale because you don’t have anything else to think about at the moment because you’re refusing to think about work.’

‘I am not refusing to think about work.’

‘OK, well maybe if you put as much energy into thinking about work as you did about kale then you’d have come up with something new by now.’

She scoffed, indignant. ‘It is not that easy, Peter. I haven’t got any inspiration at the moment. Nothing. I can’t do it if I have nothing.’

He took a swig of beer to mask his slight shake of the head.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked, referring to the head shake.

‘Nothing.’

She raised a brow.

‘I just reckon it’s bullshit. Sit in your office, do some work. Just do it,’ he said, and then the phone rang before she could reply. Peter reached round to answer it and said, ‘It’s for you. Libby.’

Eve frowned. ‘From Italy?’

Peter shrugged, handed her the phone and walked out into the living room.

She watched him go, quite grateful for the excuse to end the discussion. There was something simmering underneath her and Peter’s relationship at the moment, had been for a while. Nothing noticeable in the everyday, but just a fraction less between them. Conversations reached sighing point quicker. Less tolerance maybe for the other’s nuances. Less kissing, less sex, less closeness as a couple, while still cemented as a family.

‘Hi, Libby? How’s it going?’

Peter was scrolling indecisively through options to watch on Netflix when Eve walked into the living room. It was by far her favourite room in the house, one she could happily cocoon herself in forever. It had taken her years to get it just right. The sideboard was her most cherished item, vintage wood laminate with a yellow Formica top that she’d got at a car boot sale in the village. She spent a lot of time artfully rearranging the little antique fair statues and old French café jugs she had lined up along it after the kids walloped into it or decided to use it for a dolls’ tea party.

Peter chucked the remote down on the coffee table without picking anything to watch and said, ‘What was that about?’

‘She wanted me to go to Italy. Jake’s gone apparently. She caught him on that affair website, you know the one on the news?’

Peter’s eyes widened. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, then sat back into the big grey sofa and added, ‘Mind you, kind of thing he’d do, isn’t it?’

Eve frowned, refolding a blanket she had draped over the armrest. ‘That’s not very helpful.’

Peter rolled his eyes and picked up the remote again. ‘Are you going to go?’ he asked, staring at the Netflix options.

‘No,’ she said with a shake of her head, catching sight of some rogue Lego figures and bending down to get them out from under the table. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said, stretching her arm to reach the last one. ‘Jessica and Dex have said they’re going to go, so that’s OK,’ she said, chucking the Lego into the box in the corner of the room. ‘I don’t really want to leave the kids.’

There was a second too long a pause before Eve realised what she’d said and as she walked back to the sofa added as casually as she could, ‘And you.’

‘And me,’ Peter said with the raise of his brows.

‘Of course you, it goes without saying,’ she added with a laugh, checking to see if there were any other toys lying about the place.

‘It doesn’t, Eve.’ Peter shook his head.

‘Of course it does,’ she said, spotting a small plastic cow hiding behind one of her French café jugs and going over to pick it up.

‘No,’ Peter said, the rows and rows of Netflix options skimming past at unreadable speed.

Eve was just going over to stand the plastic cow up with the rest of the plastic animals on the toy farm when Peter said, ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

‘What?’

He leant forward so his elbows rested on his knees and his fingers steepled to a point in front of him.

Eve went and sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of him, the plastic cow still in her hand. ‘I didn’t mean to miss you off when I was talking about holidays. I really do just include you by default.’ A small frown appeared on her face—that had sounded better in her head.

He took a breath in. ‘Something’s gone wrong, Eve. With us.’

‘No, it’s fine.’ Eve shook her head. ‘Look at us—lovely house, lovely kids, lovely, lovely, lovely.’ She used the plastic cow to emphasise the point, trotting it in front of her like she might with the kids, and immediately regretted it.

She felt Peter waiting as she put the cow down next to her on the table. Then he said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s unfixable, I just know it’s there.’ He sat up straight, running a hand through hair that really needed a cut. Eve found herself thinking that he could take their son, Noah, with him to the barber’s at the weekend. Noah would like that. ‘I nearly had an affair,’ he said.

‘What?’ Eve stopped thinking about the barber’s and almost laughed. ‘Are you joking? Is this because of Jake?’

Peter shook his head. ‘No. Maybe. I’ve wanted to tell you for ages. I didn’t do anything. One hundred per cent I didn’t. But I thought about it, Eve. I thought about it. And in the past I would never have even considered it.’ He sank against the sofa cushions.

Eve pulled her hair back from her face, holding it there as she said, ‘Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you all? Why are you all having affairs?’

‘I didn’t! I didn’t have an affair. Don’t lump me in with Jake. But I feel like if I don’t tell you then I am like him,’ Peter said. ‘Eve, the only person I’ve wanted to talk to about this was you—and you’re the only person I couldn’t talk to about this.’

‘I feel sick,’ Eve said. Right deep inside herself sick. Like everything precious was slithering away.

She swept the little plastic cow off the table in annoyance and for a moment sat with her hand covering her face. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked.

Peter sat forward again. ‘I have no idea what it means. It just means that things can’t go on as they are. It feels like we’ve got a chink. Both of us on different roads. I don’t know,’ he said, rubbing his forehead, ‘I’m shit at explaining stuff like this. That’s what it feels like to me. Like we’re running parallel on different tracks.’

‘Who was it? Do I know her?’

‘That’s not the point.’

Eve bit her lip. ‘I just want to know. So I can see it, you know, in my head.’

He closed his eyes for a second. ‘A supply teacher.’

Eve frowned. ‘Not the little blonde one?’