But what I don’t tell my husband is that while I’m watching Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Come Dine With Me and Lark Rise to Candleford and whatever other rubbish is on, that I’ll be planning and plotting how I’m going to change my life. And that it may or may not include him.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Lauren let herself into her apartment. Her sister might not be looking forward to rushing into the arms of her dearly beloved husband with overwhelming lust, but at least there was someone there waiting for her. She’d give her right arm for a bog-standard, boring marriage with a husband you could always rely on, she thought as she threw her overnight bag on the lounge floor.

Perhaps she should think about getting a cat so that there’d be some other living presence here to welcome her home. She did once have a goldfish for a while as someone told her they were a low-maintenance kind of pet, but it hadn’t seemed to quite reach the spot. You couldn’t cuddle a goldfish when you felt alone and miserable. It was unlikely to keep you warm in bed. So when it turned its fishy fins up after a few months she didn’t bother with getting another one. Yes, a cat would be nice – but then it might confirm her status as a mad, sad, single person, and she wasn’t ready for that. And, anyway, she didn’t know whether Jude was a cat person or not. She didn’t want to give him any more reasons to stay away.

In the absence of anyone to fuss over, or anyone to fuss over her, Lauren’s first job was to check the answer-phone messages. The little red light wasn’t blinking to tell her that Jude had called. There was always the chance that she might have missed him on her mobile while she was on the Tube and that he’d called here instead to tell her that he loved her. She pressed the button just in case the red light wasn’t working properly. The machine whirred and thunked before informing her, ‘You have no messages.’ The emphasis, unnecessarily, on ‘no’.

Her stomach twisted. If only she could speak to him, reassure herself that nothing had changed, that he still loved her, then she could get through the rest of the day. Maybe she should text him. Something that couldn’t be misconstrued, something innocuous about business that would give him a valid excuse to ring her. But then Jude hated it when she became so insecure that she risked exposing him. If she did that, then he backed away from her for a few weeks, as if to punish her, and that made things even worse.