by Kate Field
‘Why ever not?’ Leo stared at me, blatantly nonplussed. ‘Have you explained who I am? My credentials? They can’t have understood, Mary. You must try again.’
‘They don’t care about any of that. They saw the article in The Times and didn’t like it. They won’t let Alice be sexed up.’
‘Oh, that was the journalist being sensational!’ But there was a tell-tale colour on Leo’s cheeks that told me it wasn’t all down to the journalist. He’d known exactly what he was doing, maximising the publicity. He was too clever not to have known. ‘What do they intend? To bury the book again and let no one see it?’
‘No.’ I glanced at him, weighing up the best way to approach this. ‘They looked on the internet and found details for Lucas Flynn.’
‘Flynn?’ Leo stopped walking and goggled at me, his cheeks mottling to deep purple. ‘No,’ he said, and it seemed a struggle to even manage that much. ‘No.’
His reaction was even worse than I’d expected. What was it about Flynn that riled him so much? They’d been at Oxford around the same time, shared a love of literature – they ought to have been friends, not rivals.
‘There is an alternative,’ I said, shamelessly exploiting the moment. ‘They might let me edit and publish the book.’
‘You?’ It wasn’t quite the same tone he’d given to ‘Flynn’ but I detected an unflattering degree of surprise in the word.
‘Yes, me. Who else, after you, has such a comprehensive knowledge of Alice? And I’m not totally ignorant of what it takes to create a book fit for publication.’
That hit home, as I’d intended. Leo walked on, and I could see the battle of his thoughts scarring his face. I knew him too well not to understand what he was thinking. Finding and publishing Alice’s lost work had been one of the chief ambitions of his life. And now the miracle had happened, and the public would finally be able to read it – but only if he stepped aside. What would be the greater torture for him? Seeing someone else work on the manuscript, or allowing it to be lost to the world for another generation?
I said nothing, and let him struggle with his thoughts, while the path led us past an old-fashioned bandstand and a graffiti-covered skateboard park. A few teenagers were flipping and jumping at horrifying speeds, but otherwise the park was quiet except for dog-walkers. My hand felt oddly empty without Dotty’s lead.
‘You’re right, Mary,’ Leo said at last, when I had begun to think we would return to our cars without exchanging another word. ‘If the Archers have determined against me, it will have to be you. The manuscript must be published. It’s too important a piece of literary history to lose. Lucas is not the man for this. You must persuade the Archers to let you edit it.’
Relief buoyed me so high I could have floated across the park. It was the answer I’d wanted to hear. Not because I needed his permission to pursue it – I would have done that anyway – but because I needed to know that Leo was, despite everything, the man I had always thought him to be.
‘Thank you,’ I said, and I threw my arms round him and hugged him. ‘I knew you’d support me.’
‘Of course.’ Leo squeezed me back, briefly. ‘Better you than Flynn. The Archers need never know that I’m helping in the background.’ He pulled away. ‘Why did you have any doubt?’
‘I didn’t really, it was just something Ethan mentioned in St Ives …’
‘Ethan?’ Leo frowned. ‘What did he say?’
‘It doesn’t matter now, just some nonsense about you not always being loyal to me …’
My hand covered my mouth. It was an involuntary action: if I’d acted consciously, I would have covered my eyes, so I didn’t have to see the truth hovering on Leo’s face. A series of rapid blinks, the raised colour, the sudden short breaths all told me what I’d been reluctant to believe. And I thought back to Leo’s wedding – the conversation before the kiss – the bit of the day that I’d blocked out, in my usual fashion, and pretended hadn’t happened.
‘How did you celebrate in Oxford, Leo, when you found out you’d got a First?’
‘Mary …’
I sat down on the nearest bench, brushing a Greggs’ paper bag to the floor and sending pie crumbs scattering across the path. This wasn’t true. I wouldn’t believe it. Leo would not have done that to me. Oh, but he had – the guilt and apology clung to him like smoke fumes and echoed in his voice.
‘You had sex with someone in Oxford.’ I looked up, then put my head in my hands; it felt too heavy to hold up. ‘Or was it more than one? Was it going on the whole time you were there?’
‘Only one. Only once.’ The bench wobbled as Leo sat down beside me. ‘And not sex, as such. It was a man – a student.’ I said nothing. ‘I’ve never slept with another woman. I’ve never wanted to.’
‘It makes no difference!’ My shout disturbed a mother passing by, and she pushed her pram to the other side of the path. ‘I don’t care if it was a man or a woman. We had something pure and innocent. We weren’t like other people. When we married, I believed that we had only slept with each other, and that would be true for our whole lives. It was perfect loyalty. But none of it was real. You ruined us.’
I pulled my jacket tighter across my chest, but shivered all the same. Perhaps it made no sense that I was more distraught about an old infidelity than the one that had ended our marriage. But it felt like our past had been rewritten, and our history was crumbling like a sandcastle constructed with too-soft sand. The Leo I’d thought I was marrying – the reliable, safe, loyal Leo, the man I had chosen – had never really existed. And though I tried to hold back the question, it wouldn’t be silenced. Would I still have chosen him if I’d known?
‘I tried to live up to your idea of perfection, but it was impossible. I have faults like everyone else. Sometimes the need to be myself was inescapable.’
‘Infidelity isn’t a fault, it’s a choice! And so is loyalty.’
‘And where was your loyalty when you kissed my brother?’
The flash of temper came from nowhere – a side to Leo that I had never seen before.
‘We’re divorced!’ I said, feeling absurdly guilty all the same. ‘What does it matter now?’
Leo stiffened.
‘You mean you kissed Ethan recently? The opportunistic bastard. The ink on the divorce papers is barely dry.’
‘Dry enough for you to have a new marriage certificate!’
I stood up, huffing out short, angry breaths, and had stomped a few metres away before the significance of what Leo had said occurred to me. He hadn’t known about the kiss at the wedding – his reaction had proved that. So if that wasn’t the kiss he had meant … There had only been one other. I turned and looked back. Leo had risen from the bench, and was standing, arms folded, watching me. The wind was blowing his hair, messing it up so he resembled my Leo, not the polished stranger that Clark had created. And yet he felt unfamiliar – a man tight with anger and secrets, whom I barely recognised at all.
I walked back to him.
‘How long have you known?’
‘Always.’
And with that, the past made sense. So much was explained: the hostility between Leo and Ethan; the reason why I had never visited New York, or even known that we’d been invited there; Leo’s insistence that I change my choice of university so I could live at home near him instead of going away to Durham with Ethan. I needed time to think through all today’s revelations, but one fundamental thing jumped out already. Now I understood Leo’s odd behaviour when he returned home after graduation, when I feared that he would leave me; his hasty proposal was stained with guilt, not love.
‘Did Ethan tell you?’ I asked.
‘Surprisingly, no.’ I felt a prickle of relief; I had wondered whether Ethan had betrayed me to make mischief with Leo. ‘Or not immediately.’ Leo took my hand. ‘What has he been saying to you, Mary? That he’s been loyal for twenty years, waiting for you? Don’t let him fool you. He had his chance. We discussed what to do about the situati
on. The choice was his – and he decided to let you go.’
Chapter 25
‘Mary, my darling, are you sure you’re well enough to go?’ Audrey slapped her hand against my forehead, checking my temperature. ‘You look peaky.’
It was kind of her to say so. The truth was that I looked appalling, my hair dry and limp, my eyes puffy and bloodshot, and the end of my nose red and flaky due to constant abrasion from a tissue. Over the last few days I must have cried all the tears I’d held back, growing up. It was a wonder that we hadn’t ended up swimming round the house like goldfish. But what else was I meant to do when my past had been turned inside out, and my future had soured before I’d even decided if I wanted it?
‘I have to go,’ I said, attempting a smile. ‘Leo’s agent is too busy to mess around. There may not be a second chance if I cancel.’
‘There may be no first chance if you turn up looking so maudlin. You should be happy! This is a marvellous opportunity. You need to buzz and sparkle!’
I wasn’t convinced I’d ever buzzed or sparkled in my life; and if I had, the days were long gone. But Audrey was right: I did need to brighten up before my meeting. I had so much to be bright about: the Archers had finally telephoned and agreed to let me work on the publication of Alice’s book. Leo had called his literary agent, and persuaded her to see me. This was exactly what I’d wanted. I should be thrilled. And I was, for sporadic flickers of time, until I remembered, and sadness bowled me over again.
‘Have you no time for make-up?’ Audrey persisted, scrutinising my face. ‘Some blusher? And perhaps with some clever eye shadow those dark circles could look like a fashion statement rather than a disaster.’ I shook my head. ‘I wish you had let Ethan go with you! He would have laughed those shadows away.’
I didn’t reply, and busied myself with setting out Dotty’s bowls on the kitchen floor. I was only going to London for the day, but it would be a late night, and Audrey had agreed to look after Dotty and to feed the children when they returned from school.
‘You need to talk to him, Mary.’ The stern note in Audrey’s voice made me glance up. In many ways, she was the negative image of Mum: soft and warm on the outside, but with a hidden core of steel, rarely seen but more powerful for that. ‘This time next week he’ll be back in New York, and who knows when we’ll next see him!’
As if I weren’t aware, almost to the second, of how much time there was left! I filled Dotty’s bowl with biscuits, and stroked between her ears as she immediately dived on them.
‘He’ll pitch a tent on your lawn if you keep on avoiding him!’
It was about the only thing he hadn’t tried yet. The notion of giving me time had faded away under a deluge of increasingly bewildered texts and emails. Gifts appeared on my doorstep every morning, thoughtful, sweet gifts that carried shared memories with them: a bottle of the beer we had drunk together in France as teenagers; a cupcake decorated to look like a bonfire; a postcard of a girl cartwheeling. He had rung the doorbell on numerous occasions while I had lurked out of sight, refusing to answer. I’d had years of practice at avoiding issues and people I didn’t want to face: I should have worked for MI5 with my skills.
‘He’s terribly upset, my darling, that you won’t see him.’
‘I don’t know what to say to him.’
‘Then you must listen to your heart, Mary.’ She stroked my hair back from my face, and kissed my cheek. ‘You must let it have a voice at last.’
It was past ten o’clock when I arrived home, exhausted by a day spent sitting on trains and negotiating the busyness of a city that couldn’t have been more different from my quiet village life. It had been a good day; Leo’s agent had agreed to take me on as a client, and hadn’t minded at all that the book wouldn’t be the steamy novel that Leo had suggested. She loved my ideas, and the whole story behind my move from being in Leo’s shadow to making one of the most important literary discoveries of the decade. In fact, at times, it felt that she was as keen to promote me as much as Alice, but I was sure I could dissuade her from that. It was impossible not to be buoyed by the knowledge that at last my work would go out in my own name.
The light was on in Audrey’s sitting room when I let myself into the house.
‘It’s only me,’ I called, pushing open the sitting room door. Audrey wasn’t there. Ethan was sprawled on the sofa, apparently asleep, one leg dangling on the floor, one arm around Dotty who was spread-eagled across his chest.
Before I could retreat, Ethan opened his eyes and smiled at me. His movements disturbed Dotty, who tried to sit up, but slipped against his shirt and ended up on her back, a mass of flailing legs and fur. Ethan placed her gently on the floor before he stood up. Listen to my heart, Audrey had said to me that morning, and in that little act of kindness to my dog, I heard my heart loud and clear. I loved him.
‘You look shattered,’ he said, meeting me where I still hovered by the doorway. He didn’t kiss me – a relief and a disappointment, all in one twisted mess. ‘How did it go?’
‘It was great. I’ve signed a contract to work with Leo’s agent.’
‘Your agent.’ Ethan hugged me. ‘That’s fantastic news. I knew you’d do it. You’re an official academic, like you always wanted.’
That had been my dream a long time ago. I had wanted to complete my degree and work at the university, as Leo had done. But an early marriage and a swift baby had shelved that dream. Instead of following in Leo’s footsteps, I’d lurked in his shadow, invisible. No more.
Ethan drew back his head, still holding me, and his eyes met mine. If I’d expected or hoped for desire, I was disappointed. He was uncertain, for possibly the first time in his life, and it endeared him to me even more. I pulled away.
‘Where’s Audrey?’
‘At your house. Ava needed the printer for her homework.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘They must have decided to stay over there.’
If it had been anyone else, I’d think I’d been set up, but Audrey wasn’t like that. She wasn’t the interfering type, or not beyond the words of encouragement she’d given me this morning.
‘I’d better go home.’ I turned to leave, but Ethan grasped my hand.
‘Mary, wait.’ His thumb grazed the back of my hand. ‘Have you thought any more about what I said? I have to go back to New York in a few days. I can’t avoid it. I need to know whether I’m staying there or …’
He let it hang, but I didn’t need that ‘or’ spelling out. I knew full well what that ‘or’ involved, and my skin burned as the thought of it filled my head.
I sat down, perched on the edge of Bill’s chair. I had lived so much of my life in this room, in this house, from the moment our new neighbours arrived. I had rushed in here, dragging Leo by the hand, to announce our engagement – to share my delight in becoming a proper member of the Black family. I had drunk a toast in here on my wedding day; brought my babies here first to show them off to their grandparents; held Audrey in my arms on the sofa over there when she had struggled to cope with Bill’s sudden death. I was part of the fixtures of this house as much as the bookshelves in the alcoves, and the oak fire surround on the chimney breast. But my place here was secured by being Leo’s girlfriend, his wife, his ex-wife, and the mother of his children. How could my role segue into that of Ethan’s something, without sending ripples through all our lives?
‘I’ve spoken to Leo,’ I said.
‘Right.’ Ethan sat on the sofa again, a baffled frown creasing his forehead.
‘I asked him what happened in Oxford.’
Ethan’s eyes didn’t leave mine.
‘Did he tell you?’
‘Yes.’
He half rose, and suspecting he planned to come over and comfort me, I held up my hand to stop him.
‘Does it matter now?’ he asked.
‘Yes! Because even though we’re divorced, I had the memory of something good, something solid – some sense that the last twenty years had a meaning and a purpose. But now
I wonder whether any of it was real. And the absolute worst of it is, I can’t help asking myself whether I would still have married him if I’d known.’
‘Oh God, Mary, don’t say that. Don’t do that to me.’ Ethan put his head in his hands.
We didn’t speak again for a few minutes. Dotty wandered over and licked Ethan’s hand, resting her front paws on his knees, before settling down on top of my feet.
‘Leo’s not the only guilty one, though, is he?’ I said. Ethan looked up. ‘Leo knew all the time about us. What we did.’
‘It was a kiss. It hardly compares …’
‘It’s worse! I was engaged to Leo! He said you discussed it. Why would you tell him? Was it just a way of making mischief?’
‘Of course it bloody wasn’t!’ Ethan jumped up, and Dotty raised her head and gave a low growl. He sat down again. ‘We didn’t have a discussion. It was a blazing row. I asked him not to marry you – or at least to tell you the truth, and let you choose for yourself.’
‘What? When?’
‘A couple of weeks before the wedding.’
I’d known nothing about it, hadn’t suspected a thing. How could my wedding have been in jeopardy, without my knowledge?
‘What did Leo say?’
‘He said no. He wouldn’t call it off, and refused to tell you.’
‘And so, what? You said okay and walked away? Leo was right. You claim to have loved me for twenty years, but it’s nonsense. You can’t have loved me enough. You let me go.’
Ethan stood up and wandered over to the fireplace. There was a photograph on the mantelpiece of Leo and me on our wedding day – so young, so happy, or so I’d thought. And yet two weeks before, Leo had been negotiating with his brother about whether that day should happen or not. Ethan stared at the picture, tension fixing his shoulders.
‘He told me you were pregnant.’
‘What?’
‘Leo refused to call off the wedding because he said you were pregnant.’
‘But I wasn’t!’
‘I know.’ Ethan looked at me. ‘I worked that out when Joe was born eleven months later. What was I supposed to do by then?’
