by Zoë Folbigg
Always the foreign girl, always the extranjera.
He could hear Ricky’s words. He could see Benny’s contemptuous face, but he couldn’t help it.
‘Gallega?’ he said, laughing at her Iberian lisp.
‘Yes,’ Pilar said, trying not to blush as she rolled her eyes at him.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m here to meet the children who’ll be joining us for the new term. Is Sister Miriam available?’
‘Not here here. What are you doing in Mexico?’
‘Why not Mexico?’ she said with a sassy smile. She was the sexiest schoolteacher Hector had ever seen, way cuter than the teacher he had when Sister Miriam used to drop him and Benny and the other children at school. There were fewer children at the orphanage back then, the sisters did the school run themselves. But Pilar was visiting for her first transition meeting, there were eight children starting Primaria that September.
‘Ahhhh, you must be Miss Cabrera, do come in,’ said Sister Miriam from behind her tiny wire-frame glasses.
‘Your caretaker was just letting me in,’ Pilar said with a lisp as she looked at Hector’s soft muscular arms in his faded T-shirt.
‘Hectorcito? He’s not the caretaker, he’s an old boy, still comes to help us out.’
‘I’ll get the broom,’ Hector said with a playful smile and Pilar was struck by his face. He was the most handsome man she had seen since arriving in the country two weeks ago.
Soon Hector was sketching cartoons of SupaPila and sending them to school with the children. ‘Make sure Miss Cabrera gets this!’ he’d say, while giving them a little circular disc of De La Rosa marzipan for their efforts.
A cautious double knock taps the door and Hector turns with a start.
‘Come in!’
The door opens unsteadily and Xochitl peers through it.
Her face is as round and flat as the moon and her long black eyes are separated by a small straight nose. Her lips are a deep shade of oxblood; her sombre beauty is accentuated by sadness.
Hector stands and removes his cap.
‘You took your time.’
Xochitl walks into the room and puts her hands to her face. She’s horrified to see her friend, so tiny and lifeless, lying on the bed; tubes going in and coming out of everywhere, so it seems. She gasps and leans on the bar of Pilar’s hospital bed for support, then turns to Hector with solemn eyes.
‘Hector I was scared.’
Hector thinks of how scared he’s been feeling. Of Pilar not waking up; of never meeting Cecilie.
‘Scared of what?’
‘What they’d do to me. What my parents would think.’
Hector gives Xochitl a dismissive glance and turns the corner on the page of his book and shuts it, launching it onto the chair.
He turns back to see the depth of Xochitl’s sadness and softens.
‘They won’t do anything, Xochi, they don’t care about you.’ He motions to Pilar. ‘They don’t care about her. They’re too busy involved in all their shit to think about this… this… inconvenience.’
‘Hector, I’m sorry I left her that night, I don’t know what I was thinking going off like that, that behaviour isn’t me. And now… look at her! Is she gonna be OK?’
A soft moon crumples and a tear runs down her face. Hector walks over and holds Xochitl tight. She sobs into the curve of his arm, the inked flame on his bicep warms her forehead.
‘Shhhhh, it’s OK,’ Hector says, not sure if things ever will be again.
‘I’m so so sorry,’ she sobs.
‘Shhhhh, don’t worry. That shit isn’t you, Xochi. Get out now while you can. You’re better than this.’
‘Oh Hector, I thought you’d be mad at me.’ She wipes tears and make-up from under her eyes as she pulls back, leaving snot on Hector’s khaki T-shirt.
‘I’m not mad at you. I’m not even mad at her any more. I just want her to wake up.’
Forty
November 2018, London, England
Kate marches up the platform at Liverpool Street station, under a crystal and iron roof as breakable and as worn as her beating heart. The platform is almost empty at this time, so she charges freely towards the front of the train because the back won’t reach the short village platform of Claresham’s nearest station. Steam emanates from the low square heels of her round-toe boots.
Antonia fucking Barrie. I can’t believe it. She must be at least ten years older than me!
Suddenly it all makes sense. The long blonde hair was Antonia’s shade of impeccable. The lunches with ‘B’ were for Barrie not Baz Brocklebank. The hours spent in the hotel at the Shard weren’t long business lunches. The pulsating green spot of Find My iPhone that taunted Kate was actually George pleasuring someone else. Antonia fucking Barrie. How George disabled Find My iPhone around the time Kate was cottoning on, getting closer. His compliance to come to Antonia and Archibald’s annual cheese and wine party when he usually eschewed such ‘ghastly’ events. The ease and comfort with which he opened Antonia’s fridge door and helped himself to a beer…
And then there was Antonia’s patronising and belittling little looks up and down at Kate’s shoes, her clothes, her bakes. Were they out of pity or anger? Did Antonia want George all to herself or was George just a toy boy; a distraction for the cougar? A court jester there to entertain the bored judge’s wife?
That day Kate saw Antonia and Amber Barrie on the train, as they glided past her with their noses high in the stuffy carriage air; the day he had ‘Lunch B’ in the diary and Kate interrupted George’s firing of Bethany, were they heading into town for a cosy lunch with George? Did Antonia see Kate on the train and tip George off, so he cancelled and decided to sack Bethany in anger?
Perhaps he’s fucking the pair of them, the shit.
Kate shivers, and starts to feel travel sick as the train snakes out of the station and back to the shards of a shattered idyll.
*
‘Where to, love?’
Kate slumps into the back seat of a blue Vauxhall taxi and thinks of her cold broken house, its garden grey and threadbare, and wraps herself tightly in her belted parka. There’s no one at home. Chloe is at secondary school, Izzy and Jack won’t need picking up for another hour. Home is empty. She could go there, flop on the bed, curl up into a ball and sob until her tear ducts dry up. Or she could go and see Antonia Barrie. Look her in the eye and tell her she knows all about her grubby affair with her husband.
My husband.
‘Barrie Manor please,’ Kate says, remembering Bethany’s amusement at the name, although she still doesn’t feel like laughing.
‘The judge’s house?’
‘Yes.’
As the taxi peels out of the quiet station towards the large Italianate house on the edge of Claresham, Kate feels anger overtake fear; incredulousness cancels out British reserve; a need for answers overrules the worry that perhaps no one is at home and this journey will be for nothing. Kate’s vision is so tunnelled, her objective so huge, as the car sweeps through the walled front garden of Claresham Hall and up a driveway to an ornate manor house.
‘That’s £7.60, love. Want me to wait?’
Kate looks at the grand wooden double door, flanked by two immaculately trimmed green orbs. A red and silver Christmas wreath hangs, even though it’s not yet mid-November.
Kate presents the driver with a crisp ten-pound note from her shaky hands and then remembers the school run.
‘Actually yes, yes please.’
‘Right you are,’ says the driver, turning off his engine and reaching for the rolled-up newspaper on the dashboard.
Kate gets out of the car like a shot, before she can talk herself out of it, and walks across the circular driveway at the top of the grand approach. She raises a heavy brass ring before banging it down as loudly as she can. The thud thud thud of the knocker beats as loudly as her heart. Kate can hear someone vacuuming on the other side of the door and knows it won’t be An
tonia.
The vacuum is turned off and the door opens. A small woman with short blonde hair that’s black at the roots peers around it. More staff.
‘Yes?’
‘Is Antonia in?’
‘Yes, who shall I say…’
‘Kate Wheeler.’
Kate says her name boldly and confidently without a single hint of a wobble in her voice, and the lion inside her roars. She feels proud of herself.
I can do this.
The maid doesn’t say anything but indicates that she’s just going to look for the lady of the manor.
Kate inhales the dreary grey day and waits to be invited in. Even braced for a showdown, she could never storm into someone’s home; she’d have to be invited in first.
Antonia arrives clutching a golden Christmas bauble, her face has an icy curiosity about it, but before she can even say hello, she knows why Kate is at her door. She flashes white teeth.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asks. Ever the impeccable hostess.
‘How long? How long have you been shagging my husband?’ Kate demands.
‘Oh let’s not do this on the doorstep,’ scoffs Antonia, ‘do come in.’
Kate wants to raise her arms like the decrepit windmill you can see from the Barries’ vast garden and wheel them in a rage towards Antonia. Wipe the smug look off her face. But she curbs it, for now, and follows Antonia inside to the kitchen.
The maid closes the heavy front door behind them.
‘Don’t worry, Marta, I can get these, if you can carry on untangling the lights… I got into a terrible pickle with the red and gold ones.’ Antonia smiles and nods Marta away before sashaying into the kitchen, towards the kettle on the Aga. Even for a day of sorting out Christmas decorations, Antonia looks elegant and crisp in a white shirt and jeans as blue as her eyes.
‘Don’t bother with the tea and the pleasantries, Antonia. I already know what a slut you are.’
Antonia’s face drops.
‘I just want to know, how long has my husband been lying to me for?’
Antonia looks taken aback, stunned to be insulted in her own home, but runs her fingers through her bouncy blonde hair casually, defiantly, and fills the kettle with water from the sink on the island anyway.
‘Oh, I don’t know, a year perhaps.’
A year?
Kate swallows her disgust so she is able to speak.
‘How did it start?’
‘Well you know, badminton is such a passionate sport…’
‘How can you be so breezy about this? Can’t you see what you’ve done to my family? To me?’
‘Oh come on, Kate, grow up. These things happen all the time.’
‘These things happen? My husband has been sleeping with… with… YOU and you expect me not to take umbrage?’
‘Archie knows. In fact he’s been rather accepting…’ Antonia raises an audacious eyebrow. ‘I mean, he doesn’t exactly want to start playing golf with George, but I think he’d rather I were happy. Archie always was a bit of a teddy bear really.’ Antonia looks wistfully out onto the fields beyond the kitchen windows, to the old ruined windmill in the village beyond.
Kate is floored. ‘Your husband knows about this?’
‘Yes,’ Antonia replies with a surprised smile, as if it were perfectly obvious he would know, and be accepting, of his wife having an affair with a man twenty years younger than he. ‘Amber too. She and George get on spectacularly actually. Clarissa less so, and the boys are still a bit young, but give them time…’
Her daughters know.
Antonia puts the lid on the kettle and cranks up the heat.
‘Time?’ Kate stands like a dishevelled cat, her big brown eyes wide and shocked, her mouth hanging open in disbelief.
‘Yes, time. For them to get used to the idea.’
‘Used to the idea?’
‘Of course. Have you not even talked to George about this? Am I really your first port of call?’ Antonia gives a smile and shakes her head in disbelief. ‘George wants to move in. Archie is working on a deal, an exit strategy if you will. For them both.’
‘An exit strategy?’ Kate is astonished how businesslike Antonia is being. How devoid she is of any human emotion.
‘Well, Archie’s far too old for the commute; for rough and tumble with Alistair and Bertie. He’s wiped out after a day in court, he can’t keep coming back here. He’s moving into the apartment on Chancery Lane – George is moving in here. Did he not mention that?’
For the first time ever, Kate sees a flash of insecurity and doubt glide across Antonia Barrie’s self-assured smug face. Polished lines crack just a little. But it doesn’t offer Kate any comfort. The water in the stovetop kettle starts to bubble and the steam erupts through a hole, sending a whistle and a hiss screaming into Kate’s brain. She looks at the ivory and silver sparkles of the granite worktop and her vision starts to blur.
‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
Heat inflames her cheeks as bile rises in her throat. Kate slams her hand against her mouth and runs to the front door with the charge of the kettle whistle. She pulls the heavy door, opens it and is hit by an afternoon chill as she vomits all over the pruned green sphere to her right. She looks to the taxi driver, embarrassed, but is relieved to see he’s fallen asleep; leaning back like a bear in winter, mouth rattling as he snores, newspaper draped over the steering wheel in front of him.
Kate takes a second to clean the corners of her mouth with an anti-bac wipe and opens the taxi door with deliberate noise.
The driver wakes with a start.
‘Oops. You got me there, love. Where to?’ he says, not looking into the mirror to see Kate’s pale and pasty horror.
‘The Finches,’ she says meekly.
Home. I just want to get home.
Forty-One
‘Where are the kids? It’s eerily quiet,’ says George, pausing by the front door to peer into the dark living room. A swirl of soggy brown leaves settle on the doormat before he can close the door; sideways November rain lashes on the bay window. The TV isn’t on. Tinny music doesn’t pour out onto the upstairs landing. Jack isn’t playing Crossy Road on the iPad at the breakfast bar. The girls and their mates aren’t upstairs. George walks into the kitchen. There isn’t any sign of leftovers for him to nibble on while he waits for Kate to finish preparing their meal. In fact, George is starving, and he can’t even smell the usual wafts of Bolognese, chicken pie or quiche that usually greet him when he comes home. ‘What’s going on?’
Kate leans solitarily against the cluttered island, clutching a hot cup of tea. Her face still white, her hair bedraggled as if she’s been pulling it out. George opens the fridge door and leans in, looking for a morsel, which reminds Kate how comfortable he looked helping himself to a beer from the enormous fridge in the kitchen at Barrie Manor.
‘Why so quiet?’ George says, taking a cold cooked chicken leg out of the fridge and gnawing on it clumsily.
He doesn’t know.
‘The girls are staying at the Coxes’, Jack is having a sleepover at Herbie’s.’
‘On a Monday?’ George gives Kate a disparaging look.
She hasn’t told him.
‘On a Monday,’ Kate whispers.
‘What’s wrong, Kate? You look awful.’
Kate widens her eyes to offer a silent and sarcastic thanks.
George puts his manbag on the breakfast bar stool and unwinds his stripy scarf in three shades of blue from around his neck. That scarf.
Kate grips her cup tighter, her knuckles look as ashen as her face, as she stares into space in the middle of the room. Family photos on the fridge look down on her with pity. Chloe playing Nala in the Year 6 performance of The Lion King. George teaching Izzy how to fish off Southwold pier. Jack holding his rugby under-8s player of the week trophy in the sunny autumn sunshine from a year ago. Kate pinned them all up there. The photos showing triumphs, achievement, pride and love. There are no photos of her up t
here. No one is proud of her.
‘When were you going to tell me you were moving in with her? After you’d gone?’
George gives a nervous laugh with chicken still in the corners of his mouth.
Shit.
He’s not sure how much Kate knows but he’s got good at acting, so he smiles his best bumbling smile.
‘What?’ he asks, blinking rapidly.
‘That old… old… BITCH!’ Kate rages.
George looks alarmed.
‘In her mansion! When were you going to tell me? In fact, when were you going to tell the kids? Hers know all right.’ Kate’s wobbly voice quietens, as if she’s worried the children might hear her from across the village.
All the blood drains from George’s grey face.
‘Kate…’ he says, walking towards her.
She bats him down.
‘Don’t “Kate” me, George,’ Kate says with a quiet tremble. ‘It’s not a misunderstanding; I’m not being paranoid. You utter bastard, you can’t make me look mad any more. I was right all along.’
‘Kate, please…’
‘She told me herself! How the dodgy old judge is even in on it. And her daughter! I knew it!’ Kate clutches her face in despair.
‘Just listen…’
‘What will Chloe and Izzy make of you choosing her daughters over your own? How will you explain it to Jack? His teacher’s mother?!’ The thought is too much, and Kate puts her tea towel to her mouth and sobs into it as George walks to her and pulls her into his coat.
‘I’m so so sorry. I’ll end it, I promise. I’ve been trying to end it for ages…’
Kate pulls away, her eyes and nose streaming, a hurt face in despair.
