Читать книгу Obsession: The bestselling psychological thriller with a shocking ending - Amanda Robson, Amanda Robson - Страница 10

The children are in bed. It took me an age to settle them. Carly, you are sitting in the easy chair in the kitchen, watching me cook a stir-fry with your piercing eyes of china blue. With your Marilyn Monroe looks and your volatile personality. Carly. So colourful. So challenging. You have put on a little too much make-up, as you always do just before I come home. Tonight it has smudged around your eyes.

‘Have you been crying, Carly?’ I ask.

‘No,’ you reply, taking a large slug of wine and crossing your legs, forcing me to admire a pair of shiny high heels I haven’t seen before.

I stir the sweet and sour noodles.

‘Are you sure?’

A flicker of the lines around your mouth.

‘Why?’

I take the stir-fry off the heat.

‘Well, your make-up’s smudged.’

‘Are you criticising me again?’ you ask with a smile. An over-egged smile that doesn’t quite work. Carly, sometimes your smile frightens me.

I serve the food into large china bowls and we sit opposite each other at the table, a lighted candle and the cruet between us. Without tasting my endeavours you take the salt and pepper and lash it across your food. I want to reprimand you. But I cannot. You are like an awkward teenager and I need to address one issue at a time. And tonight I have a more important mission. I take a forkful of food.

‘Carly, why did you slap Matt on the way back from Snakes and Ladders?’

‘He deserved it,’ you say violently. A pause. ‘Are you going to call the police?’

‘Of course not.’

I lean across the table and put my hand on your arm. ‘I just want to talk about it.’

‘I’m not one of your patients, Rob. Leave me alone.’

I remove my arm. We sit and eat in silence for a while. I can’t resist saying more.

‘Are you still cross with me about Jenni?’ I ask softly.

‘It shocked me that you want to fuck her.’ You emphasise the word fuck almost jubilantly; its guttural ending spitting out of your mouth.

‘Fuck her? When did I say that?’

‘That’s what you meant, isn’t it?’

‘You twisted my words. You pushed me.’ I pause. ‘Please, Carly, stop this. I love you.’