by Ali Knight
I felt a shiver of transgression. ‘So she’s an idealist.’
‘The last one left,’ he said.
‘Maybe you should let her in on the real world.’
He shook his head, took another long sip. ‘That’s what you don’t understand. When it’s your own flesh and blood, you want to wrap them in cotton wool forever.’
‘So when the gentlemen callers come, you open the door with a pitchfork.’
‘I’d give it to them two barrels.’ He made a mock gesture of shooting someone with his two fingers outstretched.
‘So there’s been no one serious so far in her life?’ I asked. He shook his head. ‘She’s got it all before her then.’
He smiled. ‘I guess she has.’
‘If there was one piece of advice about love that you could give her, what would it be?’ I ventured.
‘I could ask you the same thing. What advice would you, an older woman – sorry, a more mature woman – give to my eighteen-year-old?’
There were so many things I could say to that. An image of Colin, standing in court, flashed through me and nearly killed my good mood. I flicked the side of my glass and it rang with a high tone. ‘I guess I would say seek out the good ones, avoid the mad, the bad and the violent. And pick the ones from loving families.’
He nodded. ‘Probably easier said than done. Why aren’t you married?’ he asked.
I made an indecisive movement, halfway between a shrug and an apology. ‘I couldn’t stay faithful. I’m scared of commitment.’ It wasn’t a lie, but it was only half of the truth too. I took a long drink, realising I didn’t care now to interpret his reaction because I was no longer working or getting paid for it. ‘I can give advice, doesn’t mean I can take it or live it.’
‘What even is a loving family?’ Gabe asked.
‘I know what it isn’t,’ I said and failed to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
‘Sounds like you have experience,’ he said.
‘Far too much,’ I snapped, realising too late that I needed to dial it all down and keep it light. I called the barman over and began to try and order another drink but Gabe stopped me. ‘I’m doing that,’ he said forcefully, and two more martinis were before us.
‘Cheers,’ he said as we chinked glasses and nibbled olives. ‘So, sounds like you have family difficulties,’ he probed.
‘My mum left me when I was seven. One day she just walked out and kept on going. I’ve never seen her since.’ I took a long drink. ‘I was made a ward of court and placed with a foster family.’
‘Jesus,’ Gabe said quietly.
‘Yeah, quite the happy childhood I had.’
‘I’m amazed you can be sarcastic about it.’
‘It’s the only way I can describe it,’ I retorted.
He gave me a long look, absorbing the information. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you seem to have done an admirable job in overcoming this …’ he searched for a suitable word, ‘disaster. You have a good job, you’re a bright, entertaining person.’ I said nothing. We sat in silence for a while. ‘Have you ever forgiven her?’ he asked.
‘No.’ My voice was a bark.
He swirled the drink around in his glass. ‘Do you think not being able to forgive has altered the course of your life?’
‘I think her running out on me has altered my life. Full stop.’ I took another long slurp of martini. My hand was shaking. I rarely told anyone the story about my mother. I was too ashamed to accept that even at seven I had been as unlovable as that. I took a long look at Gabe, at the glass behind the bar refracting our images into a thousand distorted shapes and I thought about the damage tainted love inflicts. How it clings to a person through the years, how it burrows down into the very heart of our dark and twisted selves.
The barman came over. ‘Would you guys like another round?’
We looked at each other. I knew I had to stop drinking. But knowing what was good for me and then doing it was not something I had ever been very adept at.
Gabe pushed his glass away and grinned at me. It was a beautiful lopsided grin that turned up at one corner. I wanted to tell him everything about my past, and I wanted to hear everything about his. I wanted to spend the rest of the night comparing stories and exchanging feelings and enjoying myself and watching him enjoy me in my turn.
I knew his gestures, I knew when he was having a good time and when he wasn’t because I had studied him so carefully over four weeks, through long nights and quiet contemplative moments. I had seen him at restaurant tables when his eyes glazed over and his train of thought took him elsewhere, I had seen the indulgent pride he had for his daughter, I had seen him efficient with his secretary, I had observed him apprehensive with his lover. But I felt, with the clarity that only too many martinis can give you, that I had never seen him with such glittering eyes as he had in the Langham with me.
‘What are we going to do now?’ he asked.
I could think of many pleasurable things I could do with this cheat sitting next to me. Professional pride, morality, his wife, for a moment they were cast aside as nothing. It took all of my self-control to say goodbye, get my arse off that bar stool and out into the street. It was one of the biggest struggles I’d had with myself in years.
CHAPTER 43
Alice
Three weeks and two days before
I got home from work to find Helene in the kitchen with a bandaged hand and a bottle of wine already nearly finished. She wouldn’t tell me how she hurt her hand, so I left her be, as Lily was coming round. The house stank of perfume, which was weird, but then Helene had been acting pretty weird lately.
Lily and I watched a film, and everything was kinda normal until Poppa came home around ten.
As soon as he came in the door, Helene rounded on him, screaming. ‘That woman was here, in our house, your whore—’ Poppa tried to say something but Helene was in full swing now. ‘Don’t lie to me! She stole my keys, didn’t she? Like she wants to steal my husband! She can’t find her own so she takes someone else’s!’
Poppa’s voice was much louder and angrier now. ‘What are you talking about?’
Lily and I had sat up now, the film forgotten. We stared at each other, listening to their voices.
‘I know who she is,’ shouted Helene.
‘What did you just say?’ Poppa’s voice was strangled.
‘You’re a lying bastard!’
I hurried out of the living room into the kitchen, Lily following behind me. Helene held a tight fury in her that made her hair lift and spit fly from her mouth.
I had never seen a row like this before. Poppa and Helene went snippy and snipey when they argued, with long meaningful silences that faded away over time. But this was jealousy in action, love splintering. I sensed such a great explosion coming I stood in awe of the emotional currents in the room.
‘Get out,’ Helene said to me sharply, turning Lily and me into shocked statues who couldn’t comply. Poppa took the opportunity to hurry from the room instead. As he left I saw a look of hatred and contempt pass across Helene’s face that sent a sliver of ice into my heart. No one who was married should look at a partner like that, I thought, it was too horrible. All Poppa has done is to love you. I fumed silently. I felt a flash of dislike for my stepmother.
‘Did you say you lost your keys, Helene? Only they’re here.’ I picked them up off a kitchen shelf and placed them on the counter.
Helene stared at them with wild fury. ‘That’s the least of my worries,’ she muttered under her breath, as she yanked at the door of the fridge and pulled a new bottle of wine out and unscrewed the top and tossed it aside. It rolled off the counter before bouncing noisily away on the tiles.
‘It’ll all pass in a few hours,’ Lily said inappropriately. ‘Can I have a glass of that, Mrs Moreau, my headache is banging.’
Helene stood still for a moment, then silently got a glass out of the cupboard and poured for Lily. Her hand was shaking with the effort of k
eeping her temper. Lily pulled out a stool and sat down. Helene tossed a packet of Japanese crackers contemptuously on to the island and Lily opened them and began munching. The sound of her teeth cracking the puffed-up pieces of rice was the only noise in the room. Lily was relaxed, even enjoying herself. She was used to a house full of bickering and reforming family and lives with the high drama of slamming doors and raised voices, threats of lawsuits and divorce ultimatums.
‘Cheers,’ Lily said to Helene and took a big gulp. I braced myself. I didn’t think Lily appreciated how out of the ordinary Helene’s behaviour was; that bigger explosions might be yet to come.
‘My mum says men are like house cats,’ Lily began. ‘If you pet and feed them, they’re less likely to show you their nails.’
‘Claws,’ I said.
Lily looked at me. ‘What?’
‘Cats have claws, not nails,’ I snapped at Lily. Here she was, I thought meanly, a woman with one of the best educations the world has to offer, sitting in a kitchen with nothing to do.
‘Chill out, Alice, arguing is just life, OK?’ Lily said.
I gave her a dirty look and stomped out of the kitchen and found Poppa in the living room. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked him. ‘Who was in the house?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Who is this woman Helene’s talking about?’ He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘Tell me, Poppa!’
‘No.’
‘Does this have something to do with the notes that were delivered here and at the office? I saw them, you know.’
He went white. The colour drained right out of him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, but he lacked the conviction to make it real.
‘What notes?’ Helene said. She had followed me into the living room. ‘Has she been sending notes to you, Alice?’
‘Who? What is going on?’ I shouted.
‘The graffiti on our wall, that’s from her too, isn’t it?’ railed Helene. ‘You’d better tell me the truth.’ Her voice was full of threats unspoken.
The strength seemed to fail in Poppa’s legs and he sat heavily on the nearest chair. He was gearing up for something, and for a terrible moment I wanted to block my ears to defend myself from what he was going to say. ‘This is not what you think, it’s not about sex, it’s not what it looks like—’
‘Oh no, you don’t,’ Helene shouted. ‘You don’t get to make us sit and listen like good little women. Just shut up.’ Helene grabbed Poppa by the arm. ‘Just get out. I want you out of this house!’ There was confusion as Poppa stood and I tried to get him to sit down. ‘Out of the way, Alice, this doesn’t concern you.’
That put me in my place and I had something else to get angry about as Lily entered the room, wine glass in hand, Japanese cracker in the other, perfectly calm.
I hated Lily, hated Helene, hated the world.
Poppa was bundled out of the room by Helene. I heard his protests in the hall, Helene’s high angry voice, and a moment later the front door banged.
Lily was still leaning against the living-room wall, not looking like she was in a hurry to go anywhere.
‘Just get out, Lily!’ I screamed.
She held her hands up, unconcerned. ‘I’ll catch ya later,’ she said. She cocked her head towards the kitchen where Helene had gone. ‘Give her some Valium, she needs to get some rest.’
I walked into the kitchen. ‘Just give me some fucking space!’ Helene yelled. I ran upstairs and past Poppa’s bedroom. I saw thousands of beads of broken glass shimmering on the bathroom floor. I ran into my room and slammed the door as hard as I could, not once but five times. With each slam I was thinking, Helene doesn’t get to throw him out. We belong here, not her. Whatever he’s done, it’s me and him, not me and her.
CHAPTER 44
Helene
Three weeks and one day before
All the old certainties of my life, of how I saw the world, were hanging by threads. My sanity was stretched thinner and thinner. In my last meeting with Maggie Malone, she had shown me those pictures of Gabe and asked me so casually what I was going to do, as if it was a choice between a skirt in blue or one in grey. She didn’t care, but then again, why should she? If she had ever gotten emotionally entangled in her job she would be rocking in a white suit in a room with padded walls. Her job was to deliver the bad news and then get the hell out.
She hadn’t experienced the invasion of that woman in my bathroom, lording it over me, signalling her triumph with her naked flesh. What made her tick? Was Gabe just the latest in a long line of saps whom she had snared? Or was she the dumb bitch who really thought she was in love? Both types were dangerous to my marriage. I knew, because I had been a mistress myself.
I have always known what men wanted. Ever since I was young, I had that thing that drove them crazy – I could stoke desire in them that obliterated everything else. Passion that made them forget they were married, forget they had children, that what they wanted to do to me could ruin their lives.
It was everywhere. Walking down a street, sitting at a café table, the eyes of men would fall on me, and for a few moments their humdrum, day-to-day concerns could be forgotten and I had them in my hands, in my power.
I didn’t care about the wives I cheated, I didn’t give them a second thought. They weren’t real. There was only one rule I lived by, never get emotionally attached. And I never did. I was a master at being a mistress.
I got off on the power of powerful men. I learned how to dress, how to act, how to maintain a façade. It was trial and error in the early days, but practice made perfect. And if you work hard at something, you expect to get paid. Not the sleazy transactions of the hooker, that’s not what I was. I showed those men a good time and in return they showered me with gifts to prove how much they valued me – jewellery, clothes, weekend-away breaks, a nice flat, a cookery course. And I would sell on most of those things, and if I couldn’t, I would convert them into something far more precious – class. The money I earned I put to good use, and after years of practising I became perfect.
I loved being a mistress, a mistress to powerful men even more. The game playing, the anticipation and the risks made the hotel rooms more beautiful, the beds softer, the meals tastier. It was all such a turn-on – I was the one they betrayed their wives for, even though they had made vows to them, even though they loved them. That’s how irresistible I was.
And now, many years later, I was old and vulnerable and on the other side of the hard bargain. And I saw with brutal clarity the pain that I had caused those wives, the humiliation I had wrought. Maybe I had got my just desserts.
Maggie didn’t have the woman’s name, but she had an address. She had advised me not to go to that Chelsea flat, she had urged me to talk to Gabe. But I imagined over and over the intense joy of the moment of surprise, when she would realise I wasn’t as dumb as she had thought, that I wasn’t someone to underestimate in such a dismissive and casual way, that flaunting her naked body in my bathroom would not stand.
She was going to pay for that. I now had the upper hand after all these weeks of torment and it gave me a perverse sense of power and satisfaction. I wasn’t going down without a fight, and I knew how to fight. That’s what I disliked about Gabe – deep down I had always suspected that he thought me fragile or weak. He was always the strong one, the one that had overcome death and tragedy and ploughed on, keeping a smile on his face and his family together.
Well, wives can have secrets from their husbands in return. Tit for tat, Gabe Moreau. He had no idea what I had walked away from in a different life; he had no idea that he didn’t know the real me at all. I hadn’t accepted the shitty cards I was dealt. With the right work and application it had been possible to leave it all behind. But people who manage to do that are people who fight.
I ripped Maggie’s photos of Gabe and that woman in half, right through the two of them. The slag’s arm ended up severed from her body.
I left the café and took a taxi to Chelsea, got out a f
ive-minute walk from the bitch’s house. I stood in her darkening street and then I approached and knocked on her door.
CHAPTER 45
Maggie
Three weeks and one day before
The next day was strange. The Blue and White was underemployed; we wasted our time in the office building paper airplanes and throwing them out of the window, Simona defrosted the office fridge and found a Pret ready meal that was two years old. We spent an hour discussing whether to recover the old sofa. I really wanted to do it in velvet, which Rory thought was hideous.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Rory asked at one point, as he noticed me listlessly staring out of the window at nothing.
I got defensive. ‘What? Nothing’s wrong.’
‘Liar,’ he said. There was a companionable silence. ‘What does a wife who suffers from insomnia say to her property developer husband when they’re lying in bed together?’ he said.
‘I don’t know, Rory, what does she say?’
‘Darling, tell me about your work.’
Neither Simona nor I could raise a titter.
‘You two are no fun at all,’ Rory complained.
I got up and wandered over to the window, stared out at the cranes above Paddington. ‘Does something strike you as odd about the Moreau case? It feels unresolved.’
‘What do you mean?’ Simona asked.
‘Helene sacked us just when it was getting interesting.’
Rory gave me a dismissive look. ‘Thank God for that, I say, we were getting into complicated territory. It ended just at the right time – any longer and he would have begun to turn your head!’
I coloured and said nothing, but Rory had seen. ‘Jesus, Maggie! He really did!’
He was interrupted by the phone ringing and Simona had a short conversation that involved a lot of ‘of course’s and ‘no problem at all’s. She hung up and looked pleased. ‘We’ve got a new client on her way. A mother who’s worried about her teenage daughter’s boyfriend.’
