I was about to ask how he was when it happened. I must have let go of the plate before he had gripped it; it clattered to the floor—accompanied by Ben’s muttered Shit!—and shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces. “Sorry!” I said, but Ben did not look at me. He sank to the floor, cursing under his breath. “I’ll do that,” I said, but he ignored me and instead began snatching at the larger chunks, collecting them in his right hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m so clumsy!”
I don’t know what I expected. Forgiveness, I suppose, or the reassurance that it wasn’t important. But, instead, Ben said, “Fuck!” He dropped the remains of the plate and began to suck the thumb of his left hand. Droplets of blood spattered the linoleum.
“Are you okay?” I said.
He looked up at me. “Yes, yes. I cut myself, that’s all. Stupid fucking…”
“Let me see.”
“It’s nothing,” he said. He stood up.
“Let me see,” I said again. I reached for his hand. “I’ll go and get a Band-Aid. Do we—?”
“For fuck’s sake!” he said, batting my hand away. “Just leave it! Okay?”
I was stunned. I could see the cut was deep; blood welled at its edge and ran in a thin line down his wrist. I did not know what to do, what to say. He had not shouted, exactly, but neither had he made any attempt to hide his annoyance. We faced each other, in limbo, balanced on the edge of an argument, each waiting for the other to speak, both unsure what had happened, how much significance the moment had held.
I could not stand it. “I’m sorry,” I said, even though part of me resented it.
His face softened. “It’s okay. I’m sorry too.” He paused. “I just feel tense, I think. It’s been a very long day.”
I took a paper towel and handed it to him. “You should clean yourself up.”
He took it from me. “Thanks,” he said, dabbing the blood on his wrist and fingers. “I’ll just go upstairs. Take a shower.” He bent forward, kissed me. “Okay?”
He turned and left the room.
I heard the bathroom door close, a tap turn on. The boiler next to me fired to life. I gathered the rest of the pieces of the plate and put them in the garbage, wrapping them in paper first, then swept up the tinier fragments before finally sponging up the blood. When I had finished, I went into the living room.
The flip-top phone was ringing, muffled by my bag. I took it out. Dr. Nash.
The TV was still on. Above me, I could hear the creak of floorboards as Ben moved from room to room upstairs. I did not want him to hear me, talking on a phone he does not know I have. I whispered, “Hello?”
“Christine,” came the voice. “It’s Ed. Dr. Nash. Can you speak?”
While this afternoon he had sounded calm, almost reflective, now his voice was urgent. I began to feel afraid.
“Yes,” I said, lowering my voice still further. “What is it?”
“Listen,” he said. “Have you spoken to Ben yet?”
“Yes,” I said. “Sort of. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Did you tell him about your journal? About me? Did you invite him to Waring House?”
“No,” I said. “I was about to. He’s upstairs, I— What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s probably nothing to worry about. It’s just that someone from Waring House just called me. The woman I spoke to this morning? Nicole? She wanted to give me a phone number. She said that your friend Claire has apparently called there, wanting to talk to you. She left her number.”
I felt myself tense. I heard the toilet flush and the sound of water in the sink. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Recently?”
“No,” he said. “It was a couple of weeks after you left to go and live with Ben. When you weren’t there she took Ben’s number, but, well, they said she called again later and said she couldn’t get through to him. She asked them if they’d give her your address. They couldn’t do that, of course, but said that she could leave her number with them, in case you or Ben ever called. Nicole found a note in your file after we spoke this morning, and she rang back to give the number to me.”
I didn’t understand. “But why didn’t they just mail it to me? Or to Ben?”
“Well, Nicole said they did. But they never heard back from either of you.” He paused.
“Ben handles all the mail,” I said. “He picks it up in the morning. Well, he did today, anyway…”
“Has Ben given you Claire’s number?”
“No,” I said. “No. He said we haven’t been in touch for years. She moved away, not long after we got married. New Zealand.”
“Okay,” he said, and then, “Christine? You told me that before, and… well… it’s not an international number.”
I felt a billowing sense of dread, though still I could not say why.
“So, she moved back?”
“Nicole said that Claire used to visit you all the time at Waring House. She was there almost as much as Ben was. Nicole never heard anything about her moving away. Not to New Zealand. Not anywhere.”
It felt as though everything was suddenly taking off, things were moving too fast for me to keep up with them. I could hear Ben, upstairs. The water had stopped running now, the boiler was silent. There must be a rational explanation, I thought. There has to be. I felt that all I had to do was to slow things down so that I could catch up, could work out what it was. I wanted him to stop talking, to undo the things he had said, but he did not.
“There’s something else,” said Nash. “I’m sorry, Christine, but Nicole asked me how you were doing, and I told her. She said she was surprised that you were back living with Ben. I asked why.”
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “Go on.”
“I’m sorry, Christine, but listen. She said that you and Ben were divorced.”
The room tipped. I gripped the arm of the chair to steady myself. It did not make sense. On the television, a blond woman was screaming at an older man, telling him she hated him. I wanted to scream, too.
“What?” I said.
“She said that you and Ben were separated. Ben left you. A year or so after you moved to Waring House.”
“Separated?” I said. It felt as if the room was receding, becoming vanishingly small. Disappearing. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Apparently. That’s what she said. She said she felt it might have had something to do with Claire. She wouldn’t say anything else.”
“Claire?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. Even through my own confusion, I could hear how difficult he was finding this conversation, the hesitancy in his voice, the slow picking through possibilities to decide the best thing to say. “I don’t know why Ben isn’t telling you everything,” he said. “I did think he believed he was doing the right thing. Protecting you. But now? I don’t know. To not tell you that Claire is still local? To not mention your divorce? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right, but I suppose he must have his reasons.” I said nothing. “I thought maybe you should speak to Claire. She might have some answers. She might even talk to Ben. I don’t know.” Another pause. “Christine? Do you have a pen? Do you want the number?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, please.”
I reached for a corner of the newspaper on the coffee table, and the pen that was next to it, and wrote down the number that he gave me. I heard the bolt on the bathroom door slide open, Ben come onto the landing.
“Christine?” said Dr. Nash. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t say anything to Ben. Not until we’ve figured out what’s going on. Okay?”