Part one

If my car hadn’t made that rattling noise on the Mons ring road one Monday in November, I still wouldn’t know anything. I often say so now, laughing. I owe my new life to a front left wheel bearing.

The mechanic said three days. Laurent said: “Take mine, a colleague can drop me at the office.” Laurent is a sales rep for a medical equipment company. He drives a huge amount. He leaves on Tuesday morning and comes back on Thursday evening, every week, for his rounds in Flanders and Brussels. We have been married for nineteen years. For nineteen years he has left on Tuesday and come back on Thursday.

I’m a pharmacist. I’ve had my own pharmacy in Jemappes for twelve years. I work a lot too. Maybe that’s why I never noticed anything.

His car smelt of his aftershave and cold coffee. There were chewing-gum wrappers in the door pocket, an umbrella on the back seat, a phone charger dangling. The sat nav came on with the engine, with the lady’s voice saying “Hello”.

I wanted to go to my pharmacy. I knew the way by heart. But out of habit I touched the screen to enter the address, and the “Favourites” menu opened.

There was “Home”, our address in Nimy. “Office”, in Mons. “Mum”, my mother-in-law’s in Frameries.

And “Home 2”.

An address in Uccle. Avenue des Tilleuls, number 14.

I didn’t know anyone on the Avenue des Tilleuls. We didn’t have a second home. Not in Uccle, not anywhere.

I sat in the car park for a long time with the engine running. Then I opened the trip history. The sat nav keeps everything, I didn’t know that. It keeps everything for years. And for years, every Tuesday evening, my husband’s car had driven to the Avenue des Tilleuls in Uccle. And it had stayed there until Thursday morning.

There were no rounds in Flanders.

I pressed “Home 2”.

I didn’t go that day. I don’t know why. Maybe because I was scared. Maybe because I’m a pharmacist, and a pharmacist always checks twice before handing anything over.

I cancelled the route. I went to work. I served customers all day, cough syrup, painkillers, hand cream. I smiled. That evening, I photographed the sat nav screen with my phone. The favourites. The history. All the dates.

Then I did something else. Laurent has a company fuel card, and the statements come to our house in an envelope every month. He never opens them; his company’s accountant deals with them. I keep them in a binder, out of habit. I got out the binder.

Q8 station in Uccle. Total station in Uccle. Texaco station in Drogenbos. Every Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. Since 2017. Hundreds of fill-ups. Paid for by his company, which thought he was driving around selling hospital beds in Ghent and Antwerp.

Laurent came home on Thursday evening, as always. He put his case down in the hall, kissed me, asked what was for dinner. He told me about his week. A difficult client in Ghent, a hospital in Antwerp torn between two models of bed, a monster traffic jam on the Antwerp ring road. He gave details. Lots of details. I had never noticed it before: he always gave far too many details.

I watched him eat my spaghetti. I watched him put his phone on the table, screen down against the wood, as he always did, which I had always thought was polite. I watched him fall asleep in front of the news, mouth open, as he had for nineteen years.

I thought of all the times I had defended him. When my sister said he was never there. When my mother said a man who sleeps away from home two nights a week isn’t right. I used to answer: “It’s his job. He does it for us.” I was proud of it, even. Of not being a jealous wife.

That night I didn’t sleep. I listened to him breathing next to me and I counted. Two nights a week, forty-five weeks a year, since 2017. More than eight hundred nights. More than eight hundred nights when I slept alone without knowing it.

The following Tuesday, Laurent left at seven, as always. He kissed me on the cheek and said:

“See you Thursday, love. I’ll call you tonight.”

He called at nine. He said he was at the hotel in Ghent, that he was shattered, that he’d eaten a disgusting beef stew. I laughed. I was parked on the Avenue des Tilleuls in Uccle, fifty metres from number 14. I could see his car outside the house.

It was a pretty house. A white Brussels townhouse, with bay windows and a little front garden. There was a light on downstairs. There was a pink scooter leaning against the gate.

A child’s scooter.

I got out of the car. I crossed the street. I couldn’t feel my legs any more. I climbed the three front steps. On the doorbell there were two names handwritten on a little label: “C. Moreau — L. Verbeke”.

L. Verbeke. Laurent Verbeke. My husband.

I rang the bell.

I heard footsteps in the hall. A child’s voice shouting: “I’ll get it, I’ll get it!” A woman’s voice saying: “No, Lina, I’ll open it, it’s late.”

The door opened.