She was typing up some notes for her students when her colleague’s mobile phone rang. They’d shared an office for several years during which they had perfected a tactful ignorance of each other’s occasional personal calls. This was evidently one of them. Her keyboard clicked steadily, not enough to annoy, just enough to say, “I am not eavesdropping, I am concentrating on my work.” Which was of course not entirely true.

“Yes. No. Pet …”

She could hear that he was embarrassed; he evidently wanted to say something but was prevented by knowing he was overheard.

“I didn’t, honestly …” She kept her eyes on the keyboard. The one sided conversation continued. Eventually she heard him say, “JUST CHILL WILL YOU! Right. I won’t. No. I’ll be back by ten. Honestly. Yes.”

Serious. She had been through similar scenes herself in her early married life. He usually ended his wife’s calls with “I love you.” Not today.

She worked on, and there was silence for a few minutes. He was a nice young fellow, she thought; deeply in love and completely faithful to his fiery, artistic wife. She observed him fidgeting with the pens on his desk, not getting on with his preparation the way he usually did. She felt rather sorry for him.

He said pathetically, “Are women always suspicious of a bloke’s motives?”

She hedged. “In what way exactly?”

He hesitated. She waited.

“Well,” he said, “I was going to go to our Share Club meeting tonight. But Matthew phoned this morning – and he said everybody seemed to have something else on, so he was going to postpone it.”

“So?”

“Well, at lunchtime two of my climbing mates called and said they were coming down from Scotland and staying in town tonight then going on south in the morning, and did I want to have a meal with them. So I – er – said Yes.”

“Because you were going to be out anyway, only the Share Club was cancelled?”

“Exactly. But one of my mates has just rung to confirm where we’ll meet – only he rang my home number instead of my mobile.” He sighed and pulled a face.

“And your wife is mad?”

“Phew, is she. Now she’s accusing me of having organised it all beforehand and not told her.”

She chuckled. “Poor you.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Why doesn’t she believe me?” His astonishment was almost palpable. “I really don’t understand. Doesn’t she trust me?”

She took her hands off the keyboard. “Of course she trusts you! The trouble is, a woman never does anything without having at least three good reasons. If she doesn’t have three good reasons she won’t do it, or if she does, she’ll feel a bit guilty about it. And if three different people ask her why she’s doing it,  she’ll offer a different reason to each of them. Not the whole truth – just enough of it to be convincing to that person. It isn't lying, it’s just the way her mind works.

“So, my dear, you really need to go and buy your wife a bunch of roses; because even though you haven’t done anything wrong, your wife can’t imagine that you are doing something so simple as telling her the whole truth.”