MICHELLE MACKINNON
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Photographic Memories
‘What do you want, Jane?’ he asked finally.
It surprised him when Jane gave a rueful laugh and shook her head. Her dark hair fell forwards and she pushed it back from her face. She looked at him pityingly and he took an involuntary step backwards. ‘Ironic really,’ she murmured. ‘In all the years we were married, you never asked me that once.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You never asked me what I wanted.’ She stared at him in the same assessing way he had been staring at her, just moments earlier.
Harold felt a complicated swirling in his stomach. Jane had always been the clever one with words and he had a horrible feeling she was about to say something he wouldn’t like. After all this time, why the hell had she come to see him if it wasn’t to apologise?
Then Harold had another thought while Jane fidgeted with her handbag. Maybe she was going to ask him for her share of the furniture. Maybe she wanted money. Ah! That must be it. She’s probably got some fancy lawyer telling her she was entitled to half of everything. These women are all the same, they promise to love and obey, you buy a house together, and next thing you know they screw you for all your hard-earned cash. She must have heard about the latest prize he’d won for his photos.
He felt his jaw tighten and he started to formulate what he would say when she asked him.
‘Even after I’d gone, you still never asked,’ she said musingly. Then she gave her shoulders a slight shrug as if she were offloading a coat. He heard her take a breath.
The uncomfortable tightness in Harold’s stomach grew and he could feel it pressing on his diaphragm. He had a sudden longing for a double whisky, and then he remembered how she had disliked his drinking. God, anyone would think he was an alcoholic the way she had carried on about it! It was only a few drinks with the boys after a busy photo shoot. And it wasn’t as if he did it every time. There were plenty of times he had come straight home to her.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d still be living here,’ she said, interrupting his thoughts.
And why shouldn’t he be still living at the same address? She’d better not ask him for money. If she did, he’d tell her how he’d been paying the mortgage and he’d remind her that it was his money that had paid for the furniture. He’d earned far more as a photographer than she had in that stupid office job!
‘It’s a bit cold out here . . .’ he said, hoping she’d get to the point and then he could go back inside and shut the door on her. The trouble with Jane, she always took ages to say what she was thinking.
‘Oh, no, I don’t need to come in.’
And that was the other thing he remembered he didn’t like about her: she jumped to the wrong conclusions all the time. Had he been going to invite her inside? No. Had he been having sex with her best friend, Carol? No. Not that he was averse to the idea, and Carol hadn’t seemed to be either, but they’d never done anything. She was only using their shower for God’s sake, when Jane walked in on her. He remembered he was in the kitchen cooking the tea and Jane had looked at him silently with those puppy dog brown eyes. She never said anything, but he knew she was thinking it. You and Carol! Even when he’d tried to explain, she still hadn’t said anything.
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