Free Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell Page A

on these things. There would be no children. It had been her decision and it was the right one, ultimately. Monica was sure of that. Earrings in, hair done, lipstick applied, but not too much, as Peter didn’t like the taste of it, Monica stood up from her dressing stool, ready to face the evening.
    By the time Peter came in—in a pair of filthy overalls, reeking to high heaven of turpentine—she had the table laid with a white linen cloth, candles lit, the silver salver filled with shelled almonds, just as he liked.
    “Darling,” she murmured, as he came through the kitchen door and almost went to kiss him but remembered her frock in time, “what have you been doing?”
    “I had a brilliant idea.” Peter tossed a handful of nuts into his mouth. “Remember that pine table I told you I’d got hold of last week? Well, I suddenly thought in the night …” Peter continued to talk. Monica watched his mouth moving, eyed the oil stains on his overalls, wondered whether they’d got through to the clothes underneath, asked herself how soon she could request that he take off the overalls so that she could check, noticed his black-rimmed fingernails sifting through her nuts. He was still talkingabout how he and his helper had set about the table with some metal chains to give it “that worn-in patina” that people were starting to go crazy for. Monica thought that she had to say about the cat soon, otherwise it would seem strange. She had to tell him. She had to get it out.
    “Peter,” she interrupted.
    “… don’t know why I’d never thought of it before. Buy new stuff or recent stuff and then just duff it up a bit. No one will know the difference. It’s genius.” He seized her around the waist, his overalls pressing up against her tiny pearl buttons, like rows of frozen tears. “Your husband is a genius.”
    “Darling—”
    From the hall, the phone rang again. Peter released her and made as if to go and answer it.
    “Leave it,” she said, and she was, inexplicably and suddenly, crying, the tears coming from nowhere, spilling down her cheeks, dripping onto the high collar of her dress. “Peter,” she sobbed. “Peter, listen—”
    He was there right away, cupping her face in his palms. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
    The phone was still ringing. Who on earth was plaguing her like this? Why wouldn’t they go away and why couldn’t she stop crying today?
    “What’s the matter?” Peter said again.
    Monica found she was about to say: Aoife came, Aoife saw. The words were ready in her mouth: It would have been almost three.
    But she managed not to. She managed to stop them, to swallow them down, she managed to change them into: “The cat died.” She got these words out instead; she managed to say them to her husband, to the father of the children who had loved the cat.
    •  •  •
    The phone rang again while they were having dinner: a rather successful casserole Monica had made. She’d got a new recipe from a magazine, which said to add dried apricots. She didn’t normally like sweet things in savory dishes but this had come off quite well.
    Peter went to answer the phone. She poured herself a touch more wine, the red liquid glugging throatily from the bottle. She tore a crust off the bread and ate a mouthful of the soft innards. She had that washed, tremulous feeling you get after a bout of crying. Like a London street after the cleaners had been down it; dark, wetted, cleansed.
    Suddenly Peter was back in the room, standing beside her chair. She turned in her seat to look up at him.
    “Monica …” he began, laying a hand on her shoulder.
    She didn’t like that voice; she didn’t like his grave face. “What?” she said, flinching away from his touch. “What is it?”
    “It’s your brother on the phone.”
    She continued to stare at her husband. “What’s happened?”
    “You’d better talk to him.”
    Monica sat for a moment, then darted out of her seat. Halfway