The Forever Girl by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

trip. I’ll go and make coffee.”
    “No,” she said. “That’s not the point. The point is that David doesn’t know that I went out. I didn’t tell him.”
    He stared at her. “Oh.”
    “Yes. I didn’t tell him. George bumped into me at the tennis club and asked me on the spur of the moment.” That was not strictly true, she thought, but it would become too complicated if she had to explain further.
    “He just suggested it? Like that?”
    “Yes.” She wondered if that sounded implausible.
    He seemed to be weighing up the likelihood of her telling the truth. “So what you’re saying is that this was an unplannedouting that you didn’t tell David about. And now you think that David will be …”
    “Will be suspicious.”
    He looked out of the window. “You must forgive me,” he said. “As a bachelor, I’m not sure that I understand how these things work. Are you saying that a husband would automatically be suspicious if his wife went off on an outing with another man?”
    She wanted to laugh. Was he that unaware of how the world worked? “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. And he would be. As would a wife.”
    “Always?”
    She thought about this. “Well, it depends on the circumstances. You couldn’t go out for dinner with another man, for example, unless you discussed it with your husband first.”
    He asked about the position of an old friend of both husband and wife. Could he take the wife out for dinner if the husband was away?
    “Of course. An old friend could do that, yes. As I said, it depends on the circumstances.”
    “Well, that seems reasonable enough. But …” He frowned. “But you’re telling me that David would think that you and this doctor … George Collins were having an affair?”
    She did not answer him immediately. It was possible that David would not form that impression, but there was a good chance he would. She explained her anxiety to John, who listened attentively. But halfway through her explanation, she faltered.
    “I suppose I should tell you the truth.”
    She saw the effect that this had on him. He drew back slightly, as if offended.
    “I would hope you’d tell me the truth,” he said stiffly. “Wholikes to be lied to?”
    “I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t want to be lied to. The problem is, you see, that I’ve felt attracted to George Collins. I like him. I’d go so far as to say that I’m interested in him, but I haven’t been having an affair with him. We discussed it – yes, we did talk about it, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.”
    He looked at her intently. “I’m sorry that you feel you can’t trust me with the truth.”
    She was aghast. “But what I’ve just told you is absolutely true.”
    “Is it?”
    She became animated. “Yes, it is. It is the truth.”
    He held her gaze. There was an odd expression on his face, she thought; it was as if he were just about to pull the rabbit out of the hat.
    “Well,” he said evenly. “If that were the case, then I must have imagined what I saw from our boat.”
    She looked puzzled.
    “I saw,” he continued, “the two people in that boat kissing. I’m sorry, but that’s what I saw. I just happened to be looking through my binoculars at the time. We’d seen the signalling and I was interested to see what was going on. I looked through my binoculars.”
    She stared at him in silence. George had kissed her – that brief, entirely chaste kiss of relief. It was not even on the lips. A kiss on the cheek. And he had been seen.
    “That’s not what you think it was,” she stuttered.
    He spread his palms in a gesture of disengagement. “I saw what I saw. Forgive me for jumping to conclusions.”
    “He kissed me when he saw that you were coming to our rescue. It was the equivalent of … of a hug. That’s all. There wasnothing more to it than that.” She paused. “I promise you, John. I give you my word.”
    She could tell that he did not believe her. And had she been in