Lethal White

… ailing and languishing in the gloom of such a
marriage…
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
In retrospect, Robin knew that her anniversary weekend had been doomed

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before it had even begun, down in the House of Commons crypt where she had
turned down Strike’s request to tail Jimmy.
Trying to throw off her sense of guilt, she had confided Strike’s request to
Matthew when he picked her up after work. Already tense due to the demands of
navigating the Friday night traffic in the Land Rover, which he disliked,
Matthew went on the offensive, demanding to know why she felt bad after all the
slave labor Strike had had out of her over the past two years and proceeding to
badmouth Strike so viciously that Robin had felt compelled to defend him. They
were still arguing about her job an hour later, when Matthew suddenly noticed
that there was neither wedding nor engagement ring on Robin’s gesticulating left
hand. She never wore these when playing the unmarried Venetia Hall, and had
entirely forgotten that she would not be able to retrieve them from Albury Street
before leaving for the hotel.
“It’s our bloody anniversary and you can’t even remember to put your rings
back on?” Matthew had shouted.
They drew up outside the soft golden brick hotel an hour and a half later. A
beaming man in uniform opened the door for Robin. Her “thank you” was
almost inaudible due to the hard, angry lump in her throat.
They barely spoke over their Michelin-starred dinner. Robin, who might as
well have been eating polystyrene and dust, looked around at the surrounding
tables. She and Matthew were by far the youngest couple there, and she
wondered whether any of these husbands and wives had been through this kind
of trough in their marriages, and survived it.
They slept back to back that night.
Robin woke on Saturday in the awareness that every moment in the hotel,
every step through the beautifully cultivated grounds, with the lavender walk,
the Japanese garden, the orchard and organic vegetable beds, was costing them a
small fortune. Perhaps Matthew was thinking the same, because he became
conciliatory over breakfast. Nevertheless, their conversation felt perilous,
straying regularly into dangerous territory from which they retreated
precipitately. A tension headache began pounding behind Robin’s temple, but
she did not want to ask hotel staff for painkillers, because any sign of
dissatisfaction might lead to another argument. Robin wondered what it would
be like to have a wedding day and honeymoon about which it was safe to
reminisce. They eventually settled on talking about Matthew’s job as they
strolled the grounds.
There was to be a charity cricket match between his firm and another the
following Saturday. Matthew, who was as good at cricket as he had been at
rugby, was greatly looking forward to the game. Robin listened to his boasts

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about his own prowess and jokes about Tom’s inadequate bowling, laughed at
the appropriate moments and made sounds of agreement, and all the time a
chilled and miserable part of her was wondering what was happening right now
in Bow, whether Strike had gone on the march, whether he was getting anything
useful on Jimmy and wondering how she, Robin, had ended up with the
pompous, self-involved man beside her, who reminded her of a handsome boy
she had once loved.
For the first time ever, Robin had sex with Matthew that night purely because
she could not face the row that would ensue if she refused. It was their
anniversary, so they had to have sex, like a notary’s stamp on the weekend, and
about as pleasurable. Tears stung her eyes as Matthew climaxed, and that cold,
unhappy self buried deep in her compliant body wondered why he could not feel
her unhappiness even though she was trying so hard to dissemble, and how he
could possibly imagine that the marriage was a success.
She put her arm over her wet eyes in the darkness after he had rolled off her
and said all the things you were supposed to say. For the first time, when she
said “I love you, too,” she knew, beyond doubt, that she was lying.
Very carefully, once Matthew was asleep, Robin reached out in the darkness
for the phone that lay on her bedside table, and checked her texts. There was
nothing from Strike. She Googled pictures of the march in Bow and thought she
recognized, in the middle of the crowd, a tall man with familiar curly hair, who
was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. Robin turned her mobile face down on the
bedside table to shut out its light, and closed her eyes.

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