Rose despised Margery Foster’s insistence on calling them ‘couple friends’ and on having ‘Sunday suppers’, and every other smug particularity. Each time Margery said ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, it made her long for her single days with an intensity that felt like grief.
Normally, at the Sunday suppers Margery policed her husband’s diet – ‘naughty’ she said, slapping his hand away from the mash. Tonight though, Margery has prepared a feast. For once she sat at the head of the table, wearing a new smile. Swathed in a shawl and clutching a glass of picpoul she watched her husband eat. After he wiped the plate clean, she declared: ‘You. You have eaten my lover.’
Her husband Paul only looked hurt for a second. Then Margery flung her napkin down and issued a parting shot: ‘You are not the man I married.’
Paul was still recognisable, beneath several layers of Paul. Margery Foster had finally become an interesting woman. They might even become friends. How strange of Margery, to start cooking such delicious food now, Rose thought. How wonderful.
Only William could scowl through such a meal; lamb, tender, falling apart; bread which burnt her fingers as she tore at it and left cumin seeds under her nails. Deliciously singed aubergine. Bottles of champagne. Rose gladly drank William’s share.
On the way home William drove as if they were on their way to the hospital. He did not want to talk or listen to music, even music that he liked and she hated, like Mahler. Rose hiccuped, mutinous and drunk. If there was one thing William hated, it was being made to feel ridiculous. He glared at the sky, as if the moon and stars were conspiring against him.
When Rose woke up, she knew she was alone. It’s Sunday. She opened her eyes and sure enough: William was gone.
It wasn’t the first time. A few years ago, her friends had come up from London for dinner. She had reassured them about just how much she missed London. ‘There are too many stars here,’ she had told them. Her impressions of William’s assistant, and of his mother, went down well. Afterwards, she felt luminous, chatting as she washed up and William dried wine glasses. She tried to ignore his rising impatience. Looking pointedly at her wineglass as she topped it up, he muttered, ‘I hadn’t realised it was funny voices night.’
