‘Earth to Hannah. Over. Are you reading me? Over.’
She looked up. Tom was scrutinising her, eyebrows raised. The new bottles of beer were on the table; she hadn’t noticed them arrive. She picked hers up and took a swig.
‘Should I amuse myself for the rest of the evening?’
‘Sorry.’
The waiter returned with their main courses. Hannah drew patterns in the top of the mound of rice while she waited for her skillet to stop its demonic bubbling. Tom engineered a great ball of noodles round the ends of his chopsticks and stretched his mouth almost indecently wide to accommodate it.
‘Hmm,’ he said, as soon as he was able to. ‘I always think this place can’t be as good as I remember, and it always is.’ He took another giant mouthful and chewed. ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘What?’
‘Something’s on your mind. Is it the job-search?’
‘No. I mean, yes, of course, but . . . Everything’s fine, honestly. I’ll find a job sooner or later. Everything’s fine.’
He made a single upward nod, unconvinced, she knew, but not about to push it if she wasn’t ready or willing to tell him. She pincered some beef, opened her mouth to eat it then put the chopsticks down. Across the table she saw him watch her as she took a long pull on the beer instead.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘If I tell you something, do you promise me you won’t judge?’
He frowned, dimly insulted. ‘Of course. Anyway, whatever it is, I can’t think any less of you than I already do.’
‘I’m being serious.’
‘No, of course I won’t judge you. What have you done?’
‘It’s not me. It’s . . . It’s something with Mark. It might be nothing. I’m almost certain it’s nothing.’
Now Tom put down his chopsticks. ‘What?’
Come on, Hannah, he’s your brother. ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I was expecting him to come home last night and he didn’t.’
She told him the whole story, everything she’d discovered over the course of the day. He listened in silence, the vertical lines back between his eyebrows. When she told him about her savings, his eyebrows deepened momentarily into a dark V before, realising she’d noticed, he consciously straightened them again. When she’d finished, he was quiet.
‘Well?’ she said, the silence making her more nervous. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’ll be something to do with the business, won’t it?’ he said.
She sat back in her chair, relief flooding her. ‘That’s what I thought. There’s probably some cash-flow issue and he’s using the mortgage money and his and my savings to tide them over while . . .’ She trailed off, remembering the path her thoughts had taken in the office. The relief ebbed away. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I don’t think it’s that. I think they’re doing okay.’ She thought of something new and lowered her voice, as if eavesdroppers from the business-software industry were seated at the tables around them, listening as if their lives depended on it. ‘This is really confidential – don’t ever let on to Mark I’ve told you – but they’ve been approached by one of their big rivals for a takeover, a buy-out. That wouldn’t happen, surely, if the business was tanking? So they must be doing all right. They’ve got new clients, and I know they’re being careful about spending in the recession, cutting overheads – it’s the whole reason why I’m not in New York any more. Also, David thought we were in Rome, didn’t he?’
‘Does Mark tell him everything?’
‘I don’t know. Why lie to him, though, if he’s involved?’
Tom grimaced slightly, acknowledging her logic.
Hannah thought about the service stations. ‘And,’ she said, ‘what about the trips up the M1, if that is what they were? Why did Mark tell me he was in Germany if he wasn’t?’
‘What’s this M1 thing? Where do you think he was going?’
She shrugged. ‘No idea.’ She put her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. ‘Look, will you tell me if I’m being mad? I keep thinking about Mum, what she was like in the weeks before Dad left – before she drove him away, should I say? – and how I’m behaving exactly the same: sneaking about in Mark’s office, reading his bank statements.’ She lifted her head again and looked her brother in the eye. ‘Am I nuts or do you think he’s having an affair?’
Again Tom was quiet. Hannah waited. Please, she thought, lie. Just once, Tom, lie to me.