Erin Kaye - The Art of Friendship

‘Hello, darling,’ she said brightly and descended the stairs. ‘Laura went out just now. Did you see her?’

‘I saw her in the car. With Louise,’ he said and attempted a smile. His face was tired, wretched even, but he acted as though nothing was wrong. ‘Where’s she off to, then?’

‘Oh, just round to Catherine’s.’

Patsy went over and put her arms around Martin’s waist, still slim but thicker than it had once been – but then he’d been a beanpole when she’d first met him. She rested her head on his chest and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m tired,’ he said, and he stiffened a little. He did not put his arms around her. ‘And I’m starving.’

Was this how people kept secrets? Using half-truths as diversions? Acting as though everything was normal when clearly it wasn’t?

Patsy swallowed the lump in her throat, broke away and said, ‘I’ll get your dinner. Do you want to change first?’

What on earth was he hiding from her?

‘No,’ he said, pulling roughly at the dark blue tie around his neck. It bore narrow green stripes and the bank’s logo, a gold harp intertwined with shamrock. He discarded the tie on a nearby chair. ‘I’ll just eat like this.’ He took off his suit jacket and threw it carelessly on the coat stand.

Patsy moved automatically to the kitchen followed by her husband. He went to the fridge, got himself a bottle of Becks, flipped the cap off and sat down at the table. He took a long swig as Patsy set his dinner in front of him.

‘Watch, it’s hot,’ she said, letting the plate slip gently from her gloved hands onto a wicker place-mat and removing the metal foil she had used to cover it.

‘Thanks, love,’ he said. ‘That looks great.’

‘I’m just in the middle of something,’ mumbled Patsy, laying the gloves and lid quietly on the granite worktop. She slipped from the room and left him there, eating at the table alone, because she could not bring herself to engage in meaningless chit-chat. Not when her heart was so heavy and Martin was lying to her.

She went into the snug and sat with Sarah, watching the television but seeing nothing, and thought of all the things he could be hiding. Drugs, alcohol, gambling debts – all the usual vices that people fell victim to, even people like Martin who were sensible and balanced. But none of them rang true. None of them seemed to fit the Martin that she knew. And neither did adultery. He must’ve received bad news of some sort. But, if so, why hide it from her? Was it his health?

At this thought she got up immediately and went back into the kitchen. Her timing was perfect: just as she walked through the door, Martin pushed his empty plate away.

‘That was good,’ he said with a smile and ran his hand over his face as though wiping away his worries. But whatever they were, they remained etched on his face.

Patsy sat down on the chair opposite him, rested her elbows on the table and clasped her hands together, as though she was about to pray. ‘Martin, I know something’s wrong. Are you going to tell me what it is? Or are you going to lie to me?’

Martin’s pleasant expression, placed there by a square meal and the beer, fell away. He looked like he’d been caught out, taken unawares. The corners of his wide mouth turned down and he stared at her for some moments, long enough to make Patsy uncomfortable.

‘Are you ill?’ she asked softly and blinked. And when he did not answer immediately, she stretched her hand out and put it over his. ‘Are you, Martin? Because whatever’s wrong you know I’ll face it with you, don’t you?’

He laughed nervously and made a tutting sound. ‘Of course I’m not ill. I’m perfectly well. Just tired, that’s all.’

He slipped his hand out from under hers and went and got another beer. He prised the cap off and stood there drinking it, in front of the open fridge door. ‘The share price fell again today.’

‘Again?’ said Patsy and she put a hand to her throat. Almost all of their hard-earned savings were in bank shares – they’d planned to sell shares to fund Laura through uni, just like they’d done with Sarah. But they’d had to watch helplessly these last few months as the markets fell and the value of their investment plummeted.

‘They’re now worth less than a pound, Patsy. From nearly six pounds just a few months ago.’

‘The value of shares can go up as well as down.’ Patsy reminded herself, as much as Martin, of this mantra. She removed her hand from her throat. ‘All we have to do is hold onto them and they’ll go up, won’t they?’ she said, optimistically. ‘Maybe the worst is over.’

‘It’ll be years before they recover.’ Martin shook his head and took another reckless swig of beer. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid, Patsy,’ he said angrily and stared at her, his face tight and pinched. ‘We shouldn’t have put everything in the bank’s shares. It’s such a fundamental error – not to spread the risk. I don’t know what I was thinking…’

‘Please, Martin, don’t beat yourself up about it. It was a…a joint decision,’ said Patsy, limply. ‘Who could have foreseen this happening to banks?’

‘I should’ve.’

Patsy did not refute this. Martin was the financial expert – she’d always left these things up to him. What did she know of investments and shares and stock markets? But even she knew not to put all your eggs in one basket. She relied on him and he’d got it wrong. Her resentment took her by surprise – she bit her lip and tried to focus instead on what this meant in practical terms.

‘Well, what’s done is done,’ she said, trying not to sound like she blamed him. ‘There’s no point fretting over it now. We’ll still be able to put Laura through uni, Martin. That’s the most important thing. We’ll just have to cut back on luxuries for the time being. It’ll be tight but we can do it out of our income. And, if worst comes to worst, she can take out a student loan.’

Thanks to careful management of their finances, Sarah had graduated unburdened by debt. And even if Laura had to take out a loan they would repay it for her – eventually. The situation was disappointing but not desperate.

‘Hmm,’ said Martin dully.

‘Cheer up, love,’ said Patsy. ‘It’s not the end of the world. All we have to do is weather the storm and the shares will eventually recover their value. Other people are much worse off. Other people are losing their jobs.’

She took Martin’s plate and cutlery over to the sink where she rinsed them. She hummed loudly and thought nervously of the deposit she’d laid out for the safari. She glanced at him. He was seated again, long legs splayed apart, with a third bottle of beer, already half-drunk, in his hand. He was staring at the black-and-white poster of the Eiffel Tower on the wall opposite. A place they’d visited with the girls when they were in their early teens.

Twenty-five years they’d been together and they’d never had a holiday like the one she’d planned, just the two of them. They’d no money in the early days and then, when the children came along, holidays were always family-focused – Disney, Eurocamping and, lately, packages to the Med where they’d all squeezed into too-small apartments so the girls could spend a fortnight topping up their tans. If ever they needed a holiday like this, it was now.

She thought of Martin’s thinning hair, her own recurrent backache. They were getting older faster than she liked and they weren’t as close as they used to be. She longed to rekindle their romance – she wanted to feel the way she did when she’d first met Martin and truly believed she could not live without him.

It probably wasn’t prudent to take a luxury holiday in the midst of economic uncertainty but, if they didn’t go this year, when would they go? It would never be the right time. There’d always be something else to spend money on – in a few years it would be weddings and grandchildren. She had saved hard for this holiday – her own, hard-earned money Martin knew nothing about – and it meant so much to her. It was now or never.