Part 8 (2/2)

'But I'm your husband. Be reasonable, Sarah. It goes with the job.'

'That's my point.'

'Christ, why do you have to be so sanctimonious all the time? You never bleat about my job while you're spending money.'

'I don't notice you being particularly supportive about my career.'

'What career?'

'Yeah, thanks a bunch. Congratulations, Mark. You really have turned into one of the s.h.i.+ts we used to hate so much in college.'

'I work b.l.o.o.d.y hard '

'You spend all day a.r.s.e-licking on the phone. I tell my friends you sell crack to schoolkids. I don't want to alienate them.'

'You've been a real b.i.t.c.h these past months, did you know that?'

'And you turned into a yuppie p.r.i.c.k about three years ago.'

She couldn't believe what she was hearing herself say; it was like watching somebody have an accident there was nothing you could do to prevent. The damage they did now would be with them long after they'd both pretended to forget it. Later they'd call it clearing the air, but it had more in common with biological warfare.

'. . . Turned into a what?'

'I didn't mean that. But Christ, Mark, what am I supposed to think? This wasn't what you'd planned.'

'This is news to me?'

'All I meant was '

'You think I wanted it to be like this? You think I woke up one morning and thought, I never really wanted to fulfil my life's ambition, maybe I'll go and work for a bank instead? You think that's what happened?'

'So what did happen, Mark? You tell me, since I can't work it out for myself.'

'Things change, that's all. Is that so hard to take in? You think life's all straight lines and easy choices? How many people get to live their student daydreams? h.e.l.l, people we know'd be running the world if that happened.'

'And that's your answer, is it? Things change. Brilliant.'

'What do you want? An apology?'

'I just want to know what happened to us, Mark! One day you were full of ambition. You were going to write books, for G.o.d's sake. What turned you into a shark instead?'

'I'm not a shark!'

'Your job is making b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like Inchon richer. What would you call it, radical philanthropy?'

'My job pays for everything we have.'

'I'm not interested in what it pays for, Mark. I'm worried about what it costs.'

'Oh, pardon me while I write that down!'

'I'm being serious here.'

'So am I. You wish I'd made it in academia? Me too. But I didn't. s.h.i.+t happens, Sarah. What am I supposed to do, curl up into a ball and spend the rest of my life crying about it? Would that make you happy?'

'Maybe I just didn't want you to give up.'

'Well, that's f.u.c.king easy for you to say. What did you ever work at?'

'I work at this. I work at us. But you're never here, and when you are you aren't interested!'

'Oh, grow up.'

She didn't realize until then how loud they'd been shouting. There followed one dull, excruciating moment when she knew the neighbours must have heard them, and another of pure pain as she realized they'd never fought like this, not even back in the early days when everybody fought. How did you get out of a corner you'd just painted yourself into? She fell back on the old; the tried and trusted: 'I'm sorry.'

He pretended not to hear that.

'Mark? I said I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said any of that. I didn't mean it. I love you.'

He mumbled something she wasn't meant to catch, and went and locked himself in the bathroom.

So Monday was h.e.l.l, even more than usual. She found a s.p.a.ce above the airing cupboard she'd never attacked, had always a.s.sumed was spider heaven, and spent the whole morning with it, though you'd need a ladder and torch to appreciate it afterwards. Then she cried for a while, skipped lunch, and walked into town to buy something expensive from the butcher's. This is what good little wifey is supposed to do, a voice in her head informed her, but she was too miserable to pay attention. When you were in h.e.l.l, you always did what you were supposed to do.

And in the evening Mark played the good hubby anyway, getting home early with flowers and chocolates, which made them even. They went to bed first, then ate chocolates, and had fillet steak sandwiches for a midnight snack. It was a little like life five years ago; four at a pinch.

'I'll call him,' he said, far too casually. 'Tell him we can't make it.'

'No, let's go.'

'You don't want to.'

'No, but we have to. It'll be all right.'

'Are you sure?'

'No. But let's go anyway.'

He was pleased, but tried not to show it. 'I'll make it up to you. I promise.'

'I've been meaning to mention it,' she said. 'I spent three hundred pounds last week.'

The next few days, Sarah mostly spent gearing up for what she was calling, in her mind, The Inchon Weekend: a name which made it sound like a particularly dire novel. But with a dire novel you could give up half-way, and The Inchon Weekend would have to be lived through minute by minute. It occurred to her, had occurred as soon as Mark had confessed they'd been invited, that this had been the point of having the Inchons to supper; the quid pro quo he'd been angling for from the start. Not much chance of doing business with Wigwam and Rufus about. But with a whole weekend to play with you were away, though what banking business involved, the kind you could do just talking about it, Sarah didn't know. Presumably, though, The Bank With No Name would be happy that its brightest and best was rubbing elbows with a fat potential client. At the fat potential client's country seat.

'Which is where, anyway?'

'Out in the Cotswolds.'

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