Days Like These Read Free Page B

for home. Me? Is that what I am? Scared, more like it. And angry. This was the last thing she had ever thought marriage to Jamie would bring.
    *
    Come Monday morning, Meg went to work again. She was glad to get out of the house. No word from Jamie all the weekend, and by now she was beginning to tell herself she didn't care. She could manage. If necessary, she could live without him. She'd done it before. She could do it again.
    'No Robert?' she asked Carol, who for once was early.
    'Not yet.' Carol glanced at the clock on the wall and added, 'Perhaps he got a better offer.'
    'What – on a Monday morning?'
    Laughing, they got on with their work. For Meg, it was a relief. She'd spent enough time sitting and thinking, and wondering what was going to happen.
    Robert arrived at ten, the very last moment allowed under the flexi-time system.
    'Cutting it fine, Robert!' Carol called.
    'The Tyne Bridge fell down,' Robert explained. 'I had to wait till they got it back up again.'
    Carol laughed and shook her head. 'That's a new one,' she said. 'I haven't heard that one before.'
    'It must have taken them ages to put it back up again,' Fiona suggested.
    'Oh, it did,' Robert affirmed. 'They can't get the staff these days.'
    Meg smiled to herself at the exchange. Then she chuckled out loud. She thought it the funniest thing she'd heard in a long time. Since Jenny's wine joke, in fact. From Robert, as well! Who would have thought it?
    She glanced across at him. He looked as if something had happened. Not bridge collapse, perhaps, but something. Hair all over the place. Shirt with a button missing. No tie. It wasn't like him to look so dishevelled. He must have been in a terrible hurry this morning. He caught her studying him and gave a little grimace. She smiled sympathetically.
    Later, she went to see him about a report they were working on together.
    'Good weekend?' he asked.
    'Not really, no,' she said with a shrug. 'But I'm feeling better,' she added, to pre-empt his next question.
    'Good.'
    But Robert didn't look good, she thought. There were lines on his face and dark bags under his eyes that were not there normally.
    'How about you?' she asked with some concern.
    'I'm fine, thanks.' He smiled, making himself look even more ghastly. 'Come on! Let's get on with it.'
    But he wasn't himself. She could see that. And his brain wasn't as sharp as it usually was either. The work was slow going.
    'Meg!' Carol called, putting an end to her wondering. 'Phone call.'
    She returned to her desk to take the call. It was Jamie. She thought she would fall apart when she heard his voice.
    'Hi, Meg. How's it going? All right?'
    'I ….'
    'Look, I haven't got much time. Can you do me a favour?'
    'Jamie, what's…?'
    'When I was round the other day, I couldn't find my passport. Can you have a look for it? I need it. Just send it to the office.'
    'I'll...'
    'Thanks, Meg.'
    The line began to buzz. He'd hung up, she realised. She was dumbstruck for a moment. Then she was furious with herself. She hadn't even said anything. Not one damned thing!
    Passport? What did he want with that? She knew where it was, all right, but she wasn't sending him it. The cheeky so-and-so!
    But how typical, she thought. How like Jamie.
    *
    They worked on till lunchtime. Then Robert suggested a sandwich in the staff restaurant.
    'Good idea,' Meg said. 'I haven't brought anything today, and I'm starving.'
    'Me, too,' Robert admitted.
    'No breakfast?'
    'Not today. No anything today.'
    She laughed and went to pick up her jacket and handbag.
    'So what's the problem?' she asked as they waited in the queue in the restaurant.
    'No problem,' Robert assured her.
    She got herself a salad, and a wholemeal bun to go with it. Robert went for mince and dumplings, and then spent most of the time playing with the food instead of eating it.
    'You should eat,' she told him.
    'Yeah.' He sighed, sat back and gave her a rueful smile. 'Having spent all that money on it, I should eat it. You're right.