She clenched her hands into fists. He was going to lie to her. To her face. It was difficult to keep her voice steady but critically important that she did. ‘I’ll ask you again – are you leaving me? And I would warn you, I already know the answer.’
He knew he was cornered. She could tell by the way he was breathing – quick and shallow, like an animal faced with danger. His eyes narrowed slightly, as if assessing both her and his options. Lie and hope she was bluffing? Tell the truth and hope she would understand? Come on, Geoffrey – make your move.
‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but—’
So this was how he wanted to play it. Right. Slowly she unzipped her bag, pulled out his passport and the e-ticket. Exhibits A and B. She laid them on a copy of Hello magazine, obscuring the beaming smiles of William and Kate. Geoffrey’s expression was sheepish and shifty and scared all in one. A triumvirate of disappointments. She had seen that expression before, in the drawing room, when faced with telling his parents she was pregnant. The French doors had been open on to the garden and she thought he might make a run for it. This time she was standing between him and the door.
She waited for a response.
‘So you’ve been going through my things?’
That was it? Feigned chagrin was his defence? The intensity with which she hated him at that moment was quite terrifying. She wanted to injure him, grievously assault him, to see his smug, lying face smashed into the wall.
‘Leave if you want but for fuck sake have the balls to tell me. Thirteen years of marriage, and you plan to sneak off without so much as a word?’ She was shouting now but why wouldn’t she? ‘Was I supposed to report you missing? Believe you were dead? Lie awake night after night, not knowing what happened to you, worrying myself sick. And what about Edward?’
Geoffrey spoke in a deliberately quiet voice, hoping, no doubt, it would encourage her to do the same. ‘I had no choice. I did something bad and I had to get away. Trust me – it was for the best.’
‘For the best? What did you do – kill someone?’
He squirmed, his creased forehead shiny with sweat. ‘I can’t—’
‘Don’t you dare say you can’t tell me. If you’ve done something so bad you have to disappear, I need to know what it is.’
A minute ago she had wanted to see him in pain and hey presto, wish granted. His expression was one of pure agony. ‘I had an affair with Ruth.’
Olivia felt as though she had been Tasered. She reeled back, momentarily stunned. Even though she had suspected, his explanations had seemed plausible, her misgivings unreasonable. She had weighed everything up and given him the benefit of the doubt. What had swung it in Geoffrey’s favour was that she simply couldn’t believe he would cheat on her with Ruth – the hypocritical liar who had treated her with utter contempt. The adulteress who had spread malicious lies about her. Ruth Rutherford – the enemy.
It was only pride that stopped Olivia crumbling into a snivelling heap of hurt. She took a breath. ‘And you don’t think foreign exile is overreacting, just a tad? The woman is dead, after all.’ She knew it was cruel but she felt cruel. Geoffrey looked destroyed. Christ, had he been in love with her? Was he so devastated that he had to run away and lick his wounds?
He rubbed his forehead as though trying to erase a stain. ‘I was with her the night she died.’
Another zap of the Taser, then a slowly dawning horror. ‘It was you.’ She reeled back, her legs suddenly weak. ‘It was you.’
He turned away, unable to look at her. Oh no you don’t. She grabbed his arms and turned him roughly so that he was facing her again. His tears threw her, but only for a second.
‘The bruises – did you hurt her?’
He was crying properly now, his breath ragged. ‘Of course not.’
‘Then how . . .?’
‘She liked it.’
‘Liked what? What did she like? Tell me.’
‘Rough.’ He was mumbling and sobbing. She could barely hear him.
‘What?’ She still had hold of his arm and gave it a hard shake to say, come on, spit it out, Geoffrey.
‘Rough. She liked it rough.’
Olivia pulled her hand away. An image of the pair of them fucking like caged animals branded itself on her brain, never to be expunged. Then another image – Martin, Alice, Maisie, Ruth’s parents. A grieving family.
Such was the force with which Olivia’s open hand made contact with Geoffrey’s face, she cried out in pain. Her palm burned. An electric jolt shot up her arm and came to a shuddering stop in her shoulder. He staggered back, his mouth gaping. Olivia glared at him with undiluted hatred, her breathing laboured, her heart galloping at a dangerous pace.
‘Rough enough for you?’ she screamed.
She fled the room in a haze of tears, her whole body alight with fury.
*
It seemed impossible that life carried on as if nothing had happened. People parked their cars between white painted lines, piled on and off buses, came and went without a second glance at the woman who had been sucked into a cesspit of depraved revelations.
Olivia lowered herself on to a cold metal bench, too dazed to move. Every scintilla of energy had been drained in that room and her limbs and head felt too heavy to carry. A woman with a pushchair hurried past her and dropped coins into a collection box. Christmas carols piped out from somewhere inside the hospital. Santa Claus in full regalia made his way through the revolving doors.
Slowly Olivia realised that this wasn’t just about her pain, her suffering. The shock waves would spread like a tsunami, swamping not just the Parrys but the Rutherfords and St Bede’s.
The possibility of rape had devastated Martin, but would the truth be any less devastating? That his wife had an affair with a man he trusted, a man he invited into his home. And if the police took DNA from male staff members, Geoffrey’s would be a match. Would they believe the sex was consensual? What if they didn’t? There would be a trial, a media frenzy, journalists camped out at the school, Martin and Olivia hounded, their children stigmatised. Edward would have to leave St Bede’s, life as he knew it irretrievably lost. Panic tightened around her until she could barely breathe. She stood up, her bottom and thighs numb from the freezing bench, and tried to calm herself. Damage limitation – that was the way forward. A strategy, a plan. One of them needed to show courage and it sure as hell wouldn’t be Geoffrey.
Back inside the hospital she peeked into Edward’s room. Rowena had her back to her, a magazine open on her lap. Edward was asleep and there was no sign of Geoffrey. Olivia sneaked away without disturbing them, determined to track him down. She marched along the starkly lit corridors, past the drinks machine and Costa Coffee, expecting to see him skulking in a corner, feeling sorry for himself. He was a known flight risk but Olivia had the car keys so he must be around somewhere. The last place she looked was the chapel and there he was, kneeling, his head bowed low as if in prayer. Again she thought of Ronald and how disgusted he would be with his only son.
Olivia sat down at the end of Geoffrey’s pew and looked straight ahead at the cross. ‘We have to go to the police,’ she said. A command, not a suggestion. Geoffrey didn’t respond. ‘I’ll tell them about young Tom, about the sort of woman Ruth really was. It’ll make your version of events more plausible.’
He turned towards her but she couldn’t look at him, preferring to stare steadily at the cross. ‘You’d do that for me?’ he said.
She almost laughed. ‘God, no. As far as I’m concerned you can rot. I’d do it for Martin and for Edward – try to minimise the possibility of scandal and make this degenerate mess go away.’
He nodded. ‘I don’t know what to say, except I’m more sorry than you will ever know.’
‘Running away doesn’t say sorry. Running away says spineless.’
‘I deserved that.’
‘Oh, you deserve much more, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’
If she didn’t do i
t now, she might lose her nerve. It felt wrong to leave Edward, but Rowena was with him and he seemed to be sleeping most of the time. They would drop by the ward and explain that they needed to get a change of clothes.
As Olivia stood and turned to the door, Geoffrey got off his knees and followed at a respectful distance.
*
It could have been worse, considering. Olivia was interviewed by the policeman and woman who had been at Martin’s the afternoon she arrived home with the kittens. They listened as she recounted the scene in the cricket pavilion, Geoffrey’s confession of an affair, her hope of avoiding a damaging scandal. It was difficult to say if they believed her. How many loyal wives had they caught out lying for their cheating husbands? Without committing themselves either way, they showed Olivia to a waiting room but couldn’t say how long she would have to be there. She called the hospital and the nurse said Edward was comfortable and resting. Olivia promised she would be back soon and could the nurse please tell Edward that if he asked where she was.
It seemed like an age before the policewoman came back and said that her colleague had spoken with the groundsman and he had corroborated Olivia’s story. Geoffrey had been interviewed separately and wouldn’t face any charges.
‘It was brave of you to come forward,’ she said. ‘Not many wives would do that for their husband.’
‘I didn’t do it for him.’
The policewoman gave her a knowing look.
‘What about Martin Rutherford?’ asked Olivia.
‘We’ll update him.’
Olivia felt sick at the thought of it. If he must hear the whole sordid truth, then he should hear it from her and Geoffrey. ‘I think my husband and I should speak to him too.’
The policewoman raised her eyebrows. ‘Are you sure?’
‘No, not really, but this is personal – intensely personal. It involves all three of us and we need to be brave and own up to our part.’
‘What about your husband? Will he agree?’
Olivia couldn’t help her wry smile. ‘Bravery isn’t his strong suit, but yes, he’ll agree.’
Geoffrey was outside smoking a cigarette. In the scale of things it was pretty irrelevant, but that didn’t stop Olivia registering yet another way in which he had lied and gone behind her back.
In the car on the way back to the hospital, Geoffrey attempted bumbled gratitude but Olivia ignored him and stared out of the window. They didn’t speak until he had parked, when she told him that first thing tomorrow they would go and see Martin. She expected him to object, make excuses, let his inner coward list all the reasons why that really wasn’t such a good idea. Instead he acquiesced, a distinct element of defeat in his voice.
‘Whatever you think best.’
They walked into the hospital like strangers. Edward had been moved from the intensive care unit to a side ward. When Olivia saw his empty bed she panicked, but the nurse calmed her down, said he was much better and didn’t need to be in intensive care any more. For a minute or two the sight of him sitting up drinking chocolate milk made everything else fade into the shadows. One more day of observation and then they could take him home, the nurse said brightly.
But where was home? Not the Rectory – not any more. Her parents’ house was empty so she and Edward could go there, but how would she explain that to him? She didn’t want to do anything that might upset him. A thudding heaviness settled in her chest as another vile truth revealed itself. For the moment at least, Olivia was trapped.
Sixteen
The nurse on night duty – a timid young man with wire-rimmed specs and an earnest expression – brought a folded camp bed, a pillow and a couple of those hospital blankets with little square holes in them – Edward had a smaller version when he was a baby, except in pale blue. Seeing him lying there, his curls hidden under a thick white bandage, it was inconceivable to Geoffrey that he could have walked out of his life. What the fuck had he been thinking? That he could start again – make a new life in France and forget all about his family? Even if he had boarded the plane, he would probably have been back within a week. Anyway, it didn’t matter now that the police knew the truth. If he had gone to them in the first place he wouldn’t have needed to run. Olivia often told him to ‘man up’. She used her jokey voice but they both knew it held a hard little pellet of censure.
Geoffrey insisted Olivia take the camp bed and he would have the chair. She refused to look at him or speak to him but when he stole the odd furtive glance, he saw that she was wrecked: deathly pale, parallel worry lines between her eyebrows, her mouth set in a tight frown. And all because of him – because of what he had put her through. He hoped she was asleep under the blanket and not just pretending. Edward must be in a deep sleep because he barely stirred. The nurse said it was normal, that he would still have some sedative in his system and why didn’t Geoffrey try to get some sleep as well? Not a chance. His long day of reckoning was still whirring around his head, each snapshot memory deepening his savage sense of shame.
The policewoman had done all the talking while the policeman sat next to her, silently studying him. She had eased into the interview benignly enough: where had he and Ruth met on the night in question, what time had Ruth got there, what time did she leave? Geoffrey badly needed a cigarette. The policewoman jotted his answers in a notebook – her writing slanted and incongruously childlike – and then put down her pen. For an uncomfortably long time she stared at him without speaking. Was she waiting for him to fill the silence or trying to unnerve him? He was already unnerved so that was redundant. The policeman’s inscrutable expression didn’t help. If they were playing ‘good cop, bad cop’, Geoffrey hadn’t figured out which was which.
Tell me, Mr Parry, did you rape Ruth Rutherford?
OK, she was bad cop. It was crucial he appeared credible, a victim of circumstance, a good man caught out in a bad situation. He realised he was drumming his fingers on the desk and shoved his hands in his lap.
No, I did not.
She didn’t write that down. The subject turned to sex – intercourse, she called it.
So you’re saying Mrs Rutherford consented to intercourse?
Yes.
And you had intercourse in the car?
Yes.
Whereabouts in the car?
The front seat.
Did you undress?
No.
What position were you in when you had intercourse?
Ruth, sorry, Mrs Rutherford sat astride me.
Did she undress?
No. Yes, sorry. She pulled down her underwear.
Did you restrain Mrs Rutherford?
No. Well, sort of, I mean, she wanted me to.
She asked you to restrain her?
No. She slapped me and I grabbed her wrist, so she slapped me again with her free hand and I grabbed that one too. I could see it excited her so I put her hands behind her back and held them there.
Held them with enough force to cause bruising?
I didn’t know I was causing . . . I didn’t mean to cause bruising. It was in the heat of the moment.
Mrs Rutherford had traces of blood on the sleeve of her blouse. Can you tell me anything about that?
He pointed to the scab on his earlobe. She bit me.
Mrs Rutherford bit you during intercourse?
Yes.
So, Mrs Rutherford bit you and slapped you and you restrained her while you had intercourse.
I know how it must seem but—
Did you rape Mrs Rutherford?
No, I did not.
Mrs Rutherford had bruising and scratches on her inner thigh. Can you tell me anything about that?
She caught it on my belt.
Your belt?
Yes, when she climbed off me.
Mr Parry, I’m going to ask you again. Did you rape Ruth Rutherford?
No, I did not.
Geoffrey had sweated guilt from every pore, squirmed in his seat, picked at the dry skin around his fingernai
ls. Relating the intimate details of a sexual encounter – that sexual encounter – to a young woman, was degrading. Indecent. He heard how it sounded; how it made him sound. She glared at him, unflinching.
Someone knocked on the door and handed a note to the policeman. He read it, showed it to the policewoman and said the interview was concluded for now, but Geoffrey should wait there – would he like some tea?
A minute ago he was being asked if he was a rapist and now was being asked if he’d like some tea. The policeman’s demeanour offered no clue as to whether or not he believed him. After one last scorching stare, Geoffrey’s interrogator closed her notebook with a decisive snap.
Geoffrey had been raised to place an inordinate amount of store in the opinion of others, to be acutely concerned with what people thought. And here he was, a rape suspect.
Two hours of solitary self-loathing later, the policeman returned with the news that he wouldn’t be charged. Geoffrey had buried his face in his hands, overcome with relief. It didn’t last long. Despite the policeman’s neutral tone, Geoffrey felt the sharp sting of judgement. He knew what sort of man Geoffrey was. Olivia knew what sort of man he was and tomorrow, Martin Rutherford would know too.
‘Dad?’ Edward stirred, a welcome diversion from the disgust and humiliation that clung to Geoffrey like a bad smell.
‘I’m here, son.’
‘Can I have a drink?’
Geoffrey filled a plastic cup from the water jug and held it while Edward took a few sips. He hoped to God that Edward would never know what sort of man he was, but irrespective of her own feelings, Geoffrey couldn’t imagine Olivia would say anything that might hurt Edward.
Geoffrey wished she would talk to him: shout, scream if she must. The scene in the family room had been terrible, but this glacial silence was almost worse. If she gave him the chance he would explain that he had told Ruth it was over, that he was determined to be a better husband. He realised it was futile, that Olivia would probably never believe another word he said. And maybe she was right. There was no way to dress this up and make it look pretty. He had fucked another woman and now she was dead.
An Unsuitable Marriage Page 25
