Not for a second do I agree with him, and, if I’m honest, I’m not sure that I believe him, either. Maybe I’m being unfair, but it sounds like a line to me.
Staring at myself like this in the mirror, with Luke’s words echoing in my head, makes me want to jump up from the stool, lock myself in the bathroom and possibly cry. I don’t know why.
Instead, I sit there, trying to remain icily composed, yet inside feeling so exposed and vulnerable, as if I am an actor on stage who has forgotten their lines. Or perhaps I feel more like a specimen under a microscope in a laboratory, with Luke the probing scientist.
I want to get up so badly, but the one thing that keeps me pinned in place is not wishing to appear rude. As stupid as that sounds, I don’t want to offend him.
And neither do I want him to know how profoundly lonely and unhappy I am.
It’s almost a relief when he starts to nuzzle my neck once more, then steers my head until our lips connect. Anything is better than looking at our reflections in the mirror.
I don’t want to see.
I frown at that strange thought as Luke is kissing me.
See what? I wonder. I have no idea what I mean. Or maybe that’s a lie. Perhaps I do know.
Looking at our reflections forces me to confront the possibility that our entire relationship is built on a foundation of smoke and mirrors. I am looking at me, at us, through a distorted lens, from the outside in, instead of the inside out, and by doing so I am seeing myself from a different angle, in a different light.
And I don’t want to see. I don’t want to confront the truth of us.
I wrap my arms around Luke’s shoulders and return his passionate kiss, relieved when he tugs me in the direction of the bed.
Because I want – no, I need – for us to be okay.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It’s Wednesday morning, and the day stretches out before me – normally an endless passage of time with nothing to fill it. It is suitably different today, however, as Beth is coming to lunch – and I have honest-to-god butterflies over it. For some reason, I want this girl to be my friend so badly, but I worry that I will come off as desperate. Honestly, I am so nervous, this feels more like a date rather than a casual lunch with a girlfriend.
Potential girlfriend, I remind myself.
Usually, at this time of the day, I take Bella out for a stroll in the park, but since I was mugged just five days ago, I’m still feeling nervous about venturing out. Because, if I’m being entirely honest with myself, I’m using this lunch with Beth as a convenient excuse for not going out. I haven’t been on my usual walk with Bella the last two days, either.
I jiggle Bella on my hip as I busy myself making yet another pot of coffee, wondering if I’m going to turn into one of those crazy, reclusive types – or worse, perhaps I would go the full hog and develop agoraphobia and never want to go outside ever again.
“Agoraphobic and paranoid,” I mutter, letting out a bark of humourless laughter. Bella gurgles her approval.
She’s started to say a few words now – the usual suspects like Mummy and Daddy, as well as blankie and pluggy when she wants her comfort blanket or dummy. Mostly though, when she speaks her vocabulary is still of the goo goo, gaga variety.
“Yes, that’s right, baby. Mummy’s crazy,” I say solemnly.
“Pear pear,” she says in response to me saying baby.
Just lately, pear pear is one of her favourite things to say, and whenever I call her pear pear instead of baby, she goes into peels of gurgling laughter. She’s started to refer to herself as it in the third person too, a self-appointed nickname that appears to please her no end.
God, sometimes I love this little girl so much it’s a physical thing, and I feel like I’m going to burst with it.
“Pear, pear,” she says again, as I pour myself a mug of black coffee.
“Pear pear,” I agree, and she giggles.
I carry the coffee and Bella out into the hallway, feeling lost. I don’t want to start preparing lunch yet as it’s still too early, and I’m only making salad, served with a selection of dips, cold meats, king prawns and tapas. I’ve already hoovered downstairs, mopped the kitchen floor, given the bathrooms a quick going over and tidied our bedrooms. It took a total of half an hour. Okay, so the entire house isn’t gleaming like it used to after Isobel had put in her three hours every weekday morning, but it’s still an entirely respectable level of clean. I suppose that when the grime and cobwebs build up, it’ll take longer than half an hour.
Which reminds me… I’ve put an ad in the classifieds of the local paper for a cleaner, which will go out today. Just as I think this, so the landline rings the second I step through the living-room door. I gasp and flinch, set Bella down in the middle of the large, Persian rug, then rush over to the phone where it sits in its cradle on the stand next to the widescreen TV.
A mobile number that I don’t recognise glows green on the tiny screen, and even before I say hello, I know that it is going to be someone calling about the cleaning position.
This is great, I think. The sooner I can find someone, the better.
*
Beth arrives at half past twelve on the dot. She is brandishing a bottle of Prosecco and a bunch of flowers, which, inexplicably, I am absurdly touched by.
I usher her through the front porch and into the hallway. “You didn’t have to bring those.”
“Wow, won’t you just look at this place,” she says, twirling around on the spot and staring open-mouthed. “It’s fucking incredible. Shit, sorry,” she says, on realising the colourful language that she’s using, in light of the fact there is a toddler in the house.
“It’s okay, Bella’s down for her nap,” I laugh, leading her down the spacious hallway in the direction of the living-room, Beth’s heels click-clacking on the black and white tiled floor as we go.
When we reach the door to the living-room, I pause, and poke my head around. Bella is still fast asleep in her cot, lying on her back and sucking on her dummy, her little hands twisting into fists in her beloved turquoise blanket.
“She’ll be down for a good half hour yet,” I murmur softly. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”
Beth and I make our way down the hallway. “Jesus, this place is massive. How do you even hear Bella if she wakes up in a different room from you?”
“Baby monitors. Thank God for those, that’s all I can say.”
We reach the kitchen, and I busy myself finding a vase for the flowers. Beth is over by the patio doors, gazing out at the swimming pool beyond. I think how dressed up she is for what was intended to be a casual lunch. She is wearing a figure-hugging, long-sleeved, knee-length dress in a bold, geometric pattern of orange and blue that assaults one’s vision. Her centre-parted blonde hair hangs in a heavy, glossy sheet almost to her waist. She looks incredibly glamorous, and a far cry from the slightly sweaty woman I had met last Friday in the jogging attire. The orange heels she wears complete the polished look, and I can’t help but notice how the shoes accentuate the muscular contours of her shins and lend her toned backside an almost shelf-like appearance in the snug dress.
I feel positively underdressed in comparison, and suddenly way too tall, lanky and pale, as I’ve always secretly longed to have a curvier figure, like Beth’s.
When I say I feel underdressed, I don’t mean that I look like a slob – I’m not and I don’t. I’ve always been a very neat kind of person, it’s just that today I am wearing a pair of cream slacks, flat, beige ballet pumps and an off-white, roll-neck, cashmere sweater. My style is entirely minimal and understated at the best of times, but today I feel quite bland compared to Beth. She is a tanned, glowing bird of paradise to my washed-out, magnolia wallflower. Unlike Beth, I am also hardly wearing a scrap of makeup, and my hair is scraped back in a high bun.
“You look lovely,” I say, on locating a crystal vase under the sink. “I feel bad now that you’re so dressed up just to slum it in my kitchen.”
&nbs
p; She pivots gracefully on the spot, turning to face me. “Slumming it? Are you serious? I hope you realise that I can never invite you back to mine now, after seeing all of this. I mean, this kitchen is off the charts. It looks like an exhibition room in the Tate Modern, or something.”
“Well, I guess that was my inspiration when Luke gave me free rein with the décor.”
I’m sorry, what? Rewind there a second,” she laughs. “Your husband gave you permission – and enough money – to do whatever you wanted? Not being funny, or anything, but do you fancy swapping husbands? Even if we had all the money in the world, Tom would still moan at me if I wanted anything more extravagant than flat-packed furniture from Argos.”
Tom, I think absently. So that’s his name.
Laughing, I carry her bottle of fizz over to the tall, silver fridge, where I pop hers into the wine rack, and produce an already chilled bottle of champagne.
“I thought that we could start on the cold one, first. I hope you didn’t drive over.” I pause. “And if you did, I have no idea where you might’ve parked your car. This street is something like twenty quid an hour to park, unless you have a resident’s parking permit. Or a garage, of course.”
“Drive? Are you kidding me? Who has a car in central London?” I think of Luke’s BMW in the garage, and she laughs, perfectly reading my expression. “Right. You have a car in central London. Of course you do, given this house.”
“It’s Luke’s car,” I’m quick to point out. “I haven’t driven since I moved to London. Between the underground and taxis, and the fact that ninety percent of our shopping is delivered, I just don’t feel like I need to.”
Just as I locate the champagne flutes in a high, white cupboard, the landline rings. I curse under my breath, for one of the four cordless phones is located in the living-room and the last thing I want is for Bella to wake up prematurely from her nap, as that will only make her grouchy.
“Can you see to the fizz?” I call over to Beth as I lurch across the kitchen to the sideboard where the phone lives. “Hello?” I gasp into the handset, praying that the two sets of ringing won’t be enough to rouse Bella. I gaze pleadingly at the baby monitor on the sideboard, willing it to remain silent. By some miracle, it does.
It’s another woman calling about the cleaning position, and I take down her details, also asking if she would like to pop by tomorrow for a chat, which she agrees to.
“Sounds important,” Beth says, over by the kitchen Island as I press end call, before setting the phone back in its receiver.
“Not especially. It’s just another person calling about the cleaning position I have advertised.”
“Oh, right.” As she says that, she pops the cork of the champagne bottle and I flinch as surely as if a gun has been fired. A second after that, my gaze flickers upwards to check for light damage.
It’s okay; the lights are still intact.
“The last cleaner was stealing from me. I hope I have better luck with the next one.”
I wander over and stand on the opposite side of the Island, where she is pouring our fizz. I guess you could say that I’ve done the pretentious thing, and not had any cooking appliances installed on the Island. There are plastic and chrome stools on each of the Island’s four sides. Luke and I very rarely sit here, but I still find the idea of this Island pleasing – it’s a point of centre in the big kitchen where everyone can gather. Not that anyone ever does, for when we have guests – as in, his work connections – we always sit far more formally.
I love the way that Beth sighs heavily, pulls out the nearest stool, and plonks herself down on it like it is the most natural thing in the world. She chugs back a generous mouthful of champagne as soon as her backside connects with the shiny plastic seat.
“So, what was she stealing?” she asks me, her blue eyes shining with humour.
“Just stuff, you know? Perfume, cosmetics. Tampax.”
She regards me thoughtfully. “Well, she either fancied a bit of Chanel No. 5, then came on her period, or you have a bona-fide, psycho-bitch stalker on your hands.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”
She shrugs. “That’s okay. Living like this, you’re bound to attract a few jealous nutjobs.”
I laugh, then sip my champagne, loving the way that it burns a fiery trail of instant happiness to my gut, accompanied by a sense of freeness that I haven’t felt in a long while. “Do you think?”
“Totally. I mean, I don’t want to be rude, or anything, but you and your husband – whom I have clearly never met – are loaded, beautiful, and therefore open to attack.”
I take another sip of champagne. “That’s a pretty bleak way of looking at things.”
“No, not bleak. Just the truth. It’s the haves and have-nots, baby. You, dear Tanya, are in the upper echelon, you’re gonna attract these freaks and geeks.”
“I am not in the upper echelon,” I protest.
“We both know that’s a lie.”
But she says it with a twinkle in her eye, and no obvious malice. “Have you had many applying for the cleaning job?”
I nod. “Five so far. Two of those can make it tomorrow for an interview. And if either of them are any good, I’m just going to take one of them. I hate lording it over people.”
I catch myself. Not only am I babbling because I’m nervous, I also have a sneaking suspicion that I’m coming across as out-of-touch, rich, and stuck-up.
Bring out the violins, I think. Poor little rich girl is looking for a cleaner and it’s so terribly difficult for her. One just can’t get the correct class of hired help nowadays…
I clear my throat. “Sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to hear this. Tale about first world problems.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, really, it’s just, Luke insists that we hire a cleaner. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t bother.”
“You’re lucky that your guy doesn’t want you slaving away mopping floors. If you’re in a position to hire someone, then you’d be foolish not to.”
A lump rises out of nowhere in my throat, and I swallow it down as I slither off my stool. I am suddenly – and quite irrationally – tearful, but I figure that I should be able to nip them in the bud if I keep moving. I mean, it’s not like I’m distraught, or anything.
“Best get lunch going,” I say breezily from over by the fridge.
I open the tall, silver door and start grabbing at all the dishes of salad, meats, fish and tapas that I prepared earlier. I figure that we can just eat on the Island.
“Is something the matter?” Beth asks me when I carry the first batch of food over to where we’re sitting.
“No,” I say brightly, setting down the stuff. But I can feel the tears coming – a hot, prickling swell behind my eyes, an unstoppable tsunami. “It’s fine, really.” Yet it’s clearly not fine, because my voice cracks and I hastily swipe at my damp eyes.
Beth gets to her feet and walks over to me. “Come on, sit down. I’m pretty sure that lunch can wait a few more minutes.”
She guides me back onto my stool, she too sitting down, this time on the stool nearest mine. Once seated, she pointedly slides my glass in front of me.
“That’s gotta help,” she says.
I let out a funny little sound that is part suppressed sob, part laugh. I’m not quite crying, but the threat is ever-present.
“Sorry, I’m just feeling a bit…” I pause, because the truth is, I don’t actually know what it is that I am feeling. “God, sorry, I’m fine. Really, I am. Have you ever just felt really overwhelmed by everything and nothing?”
“All the time. Life is such a pain in the arse. There is always something getting chucked at you.”
“Never truer words spoken. I’ll drink to that.”
I drain my glass, and Beth is already re-filling it from the bottle in front of us. “So, what’s wrong? You may as well spill. A problem shared is a problem halved, and all of that.”
I gaz
e at her, my mind racing. I think about how I do not know this woman. She could be anyone. And then I tell myself that every friend that ever existed since the beginning of time started out as a stranger. I want a friend so badly. I want to trust her.
Sod it, I decide. She is here in my kitchen for a reason – because she is a good person.
So, I speak:
“I think that I jumped too fast into a relationship with Luke because my mum died, and I’d been having an affair with a married man. My name was mud and I wanted out of Brighton. Then, a few days ago, I smelled perfume on Luke’s shirt and jacket, and sometimes I feel like I’m married to a stranger. It’s just, he can be so distant, and aloof with me. I feel like I don’t know him anymore, and I’m lonely.”
I stop. I’ve said all of that in a breathy rush, getting it all out in a mostly matter-of-fact way to trick any leaking tears into submission.
“Do you think your husband is having an affair?”
I raise the glass to my lips when she asks that question, shocked to see that that my glass is once more, almost empty. When had I drunk that, exactly? “I didn’t, until I smelled the perfume.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Now I’m confused. “How do you mean?”
“If you trusted him one-hundred percent then the smell of perfume wouldn’t bother you. It’s the whole, lipstick on your collar thing, isn’t it? If you had no reason to doubt him, then the smell wouldn’t even be an issue. You would just take it for granted that there would be a logical, reasonable explanation. You might even mention it to him, and then have a good laugh about it.”
I hadn’t thought of it like that. Could she be right? “Perfume on clothes is pretty damning.”
She shrugs. “Not necessarily. You smelling the perfume just triggered your underlying mistrust. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it is always to trust your gut instinct. A woman just knows.”
From the Inside Page 10
