‘Carla, please,’ said Matt, glancing around at the other tables.
‘And what about Jonas?’ she snapped. ‘Have you thought about him? For three years you’ve been banging on about how Jonas should have a father. I’ve bent over backwards to make sure you have your weekends together. So how come now, given the opportunity to be a family again, you’re running for the hills?’
‘Of course I’ve thought about Jonas,’ said Matt angrily. ‘I want our son to be brought up around love, not around two people who have nothing to say to each other any more.’ He surprised himself that he was quoting his mother’s letter.
Carla looked at him with contempt. ‘What is this, Matt? Some sort of payback? Just because I hurt you once, you’re sticking the knife into me at the first opportunity?’
‘Of course it’s not like that.’
The waiter came over to take their order, but Carla waved him away.
‘You’re a jerk, you know that?’ she snapped, her mouth puckering to nothing. ‘You’ve had every opportunity in life, and you’ve thrown them all away. You could have had a job in the City, but you chose your stupid little practice in Hammersmith. You could have me, and yet . . .’ She stopped, her eyes widening with the thought that had occurred to her. ‘You’ve met someone else, haven’t you? Who is it? A secretary? The office girl? You’re the only man I know who chooses to punch beneath his weight.’
‘Carla, I’m not involved with anyone,’ he said firmly. ‘But that’s really not what this is about.’
‘What is it about, then?’ she said, her face sour. ‘Go on, surprise me.’
‘Do you want me, Carla?’ he asked quietly. ‘Do you love me? And I mean me, not the shiny new version of me with a great job and money to afford restaurants like this?’ He shook his head. ‘Do you like who I am? Even know who I am? That I like blues guitar and Fulham Football Club. That I spend my Friday nights ordering in the world’s best dumplings from the takeaway on Chiswick High Street. That I come home from work and want to do nothing but read a Robert Ludlum book and listen to Seventies jazz I collect on vinyl.’ He felt a huge wave of relief, knowing he had pinpointed what had always been the problem with his marriage and what he had never wanted to admit. ‘I’m not special, Carla. I’m just an ordinary bloke. This is who I am, but I like who I am, and honestly, if you look inside yourself, I think you want something very different to me. Jonas is all we have in common. I’ve wrestled with it and I’m not sure it’s enough.’
Her beautiful face sneered at him.
‘So that’s what you think?’
He nodded.
‘You’re right. I suppose we should end this charade and let you get back to your Chinese takeaway,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Carla, please . . .’
‘Have a wonderful life, Matt, thinking about what could have been.’
She threw her napkin on to the table and stalked out.
Watching her go, Matt realised that he would always be a little bit in love with her. In love. Wasn’t that the thing that everyone aspired to be? But right now, it felt like a shallow, flighty emotion. He desired Carla. He always would. But he didn’t love her. Not any more. He wasn’t even sure he liked her.
He picked up the champagne bottle and filled his glass to the top, knocking it back in long, greedy gulps. He waved for the bill, apologising that they would not be dining tonight after all, and made his way on to the street. A vendor on the corner handed him an Evening Standard and he used it to wave down a black cab.
‘Chiswick, please,’ he said, slumping back into the seat.
Relaxing in the creaking plastic, he felt an enormous sense of relief. He would never know if he had done the right thing. One day he might even be able to discuss it with his son. But it felt right. It felt honest.
He unfolded the newspaper on his lap. ‘Sam and Jessica Reunited!’ it announced, above a picture of the celebrity couple. For a minute he forgot about his own dilemma back at the restaurant as he speed-read the short accompanying story.
Poor Anna, he thought, feeling his mouth droop with sadness. She had been out of the office for the last couple of days, but when he had spoken to Liz Hart the previous afternoon – she’d called him to thank him for his contribution to the case – she had told him that Anna had gone to Wiltshire to see Sam Charles.
He looked at the photograph of Sam and Jessica Carr and felt furious. He was glad that Anna wasn’t seeing this silly, shallow sod any more, but the thought that Sam had been cheating on her made him feel mad.
She didn’t deserve that. Not after the office rumours he’d heard. That her ex-boyfriend, the newspaper guy, was marrying her sister. How could anyone handle two slaps in the face like that?
He pulled out his mobile and stared at it for a moment. It felt strange calling up a colleague to ask her about her love life. But he remembered how lonely it could be in those first hours, days of betrayal. When his relationship with Carla had ended, his friends and colleagues had avoided him. ‘We wanted to give you space,’ they later said. But all he had wanted to do when she had left him was talk to someone, and right now, all he wanted to do was check that Anna Kennedy was okay.
Thirty minutes later, the taxi grumbled up to her little whitewashed cottage in Richmond. Matt didn’t need to ask how she was feeling when she answered the door. Dressed in grey marl j
oggers and a baggy T-shirt with a cartoon pig on the front, she had a sullen ‘who cares?’ manner about her.
‘I hope you like curry,’ she said, gesturing towards the silver cartons on the table. ‘I’m slobbing out with a takeaway.’
‘Perfect,’ said Matt, pulling off his tie. ‘My meal at Claridge’s got aborted.’