Singled Out Read Free

long-suffering over this. I’ve let you go your own way, do your own thing … I even let you go off and work in New Zealand for six months … but now any point that needed proving has been proved. You should come back. I’m still your husband, and husbands do have certain rights.’
    Laura gazed at him in disbelief. ‘Michael, don’t you listen? Haven’t you heard any of the things I’ve been saying over the last few years? Our marriage is over. We are going to get divorced.’
    He shook his head with infuriating calm. ‘There’s no reason for us to get divorced. I haven’t got anyone else. You haven’t got anyone else.’
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜I know. I keep an eye on what you’re up to, Laura.’
    She looked up sharply, but with a smug smile he avoided eye contact. His words had stimulated a suspicion which had been growing for some time, the suspicion that Michael was spying on her. That morning wasn’t the first time he had appeared as if by accident. There had been occasions when Laura felt sure she’d glimpsed him on the street when she was out shopping, or seen a white DS flash by as she arrived at or left her office. She didn’t think that she was getting paranoid.
    â€˜Michael, you must cooperate on this divorce. Admit we made a mistake. We married too young, before we’d found our own personalities.’
    â€˜I’d found mine. And I was established in my work. When we got married I was already a partner in the agency, for God’s sake.’
    â€˜Yes, but I wasn’t established in my work. Or in my personality. I am now, and I’ve changed. I’m different from the person you married, Michael.’
    â€˜That’s certainly true. And don’t imagine for a moment that I think it’s an improvement.’
    Laura looked down at her watch. ‘I must get to work.’
    He appeared not to have heard her. ‘We should have started a family straight away …’ he mused disconsolately. ‘Then none of this nonsense would have happened.’
    â€˜By “nonsense” you mean my career, do you?’
    â€˜Not just your career. I mean this stupid situation we’ve got ourselves into – living apart, sniping away at each other all the time. We’re both thirty, for God’s sake.’
    â€˜Not quite in my case.’
    â€˜Near enough. What we should be doing at this time of our lives is bringing up a family.’
    â€˜What
I
should be doing I think you mean.’
    â€˜Hm?’
    â€˜If we had children, would it affect your life much?’
    â€˜Well, obviously.’
    â€˜Would you stop working, stop selling houses, stop wheeling and dealing on the property market …?’
    â€˜No, of course I wouldn’t, Laura.’
    â€˜But you’d expect me to.’
    â€˜I’d have to keep working to pay the bills, simply to –’
    â€˜I make more than you do, Michael.’
    As ever, he was stung by this fact. He looked away shiftily, then changed tack, reaching forward to take her hand across the coffee table. ‘The main thing – the thing that seems to get lost in all this other stuff – is that I love you, Laura.’
    She gave him a wry look. ‘I wonder.’
    â€˜I do.’
    â€˜I wonder if you actually know what love means. Perhaps you do love me, according to your definition of love.’
    â€˜And I want you.’ His voice became thick and urgent. ‘I want to make love to you.’
    â€˜But I don’t want to make love to you, Michael.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜We’ve been through all this. Because love didn’t seem to have anything to do with what we used to do in bed. It was just you taking me, an exercise in power. It was you trying to colonize my body.’
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous.’ His voice was heavily dismissive. ‘Is that a quotation from Germaine