Once you begin to find your way into somebody’s head, the path becomes clearer and straighter, as if it’s signposted. Inspiration and opportunity strike when you’re least expecting them. Fran wasn’t on my mind at all when I was shopping in the high street the other day and saw her and the smallest daughter – Caitlin, I think her name is – going into the art shop on the square.
I sat on the bench beneath the oak tree and watched; I was in shadow, so unnoticeable at a distance. They were in the shop a long time and I’d begun to lose interest when out they came, the child practically dancing, changing a small carrier bag from hand to hand. She stopped and bent down to do something to her shoe, and another bag, one of those kiddy ones, slipped off her shoulder and landed right there on the pavement. She didn’t notice. Neither did her mother.
It’s a pretty little bag, denim with appliquéd cats, and those dangly charm things attached to the zip tab – Zoe’s got quite a collection herself, although she mainly keeps them in her bedroom now, as if she still likes them but feels she’s getting that bit too old for them. But it’s what I found inside the bag that’s of interest. A little money – shame about that, and the bag itself, but they’ll be replaced easily enough. The notebook, though; pink, satisfyingly chunky to hold, and not so easily replaced, considering what’s written in it. How extraordinary that it came into my hands at just the right time.
It’s here, in the bottom drawer of my bedside cabinet. Ben has no cause to look in there, nor Zoe. She has all she needs; nothing I have is of any use to her. The small change I dropped into Zoe’s money box, and the bag itself I put out in the wheelie bin on collection day, wrapped in newspaper.
I check my watch; Zoe will be home in ten minutes. But it’s enough time for my daily fix. The writing has become familiar now – small, round letters, carefully spaced. She writes well for a child of her age. I’ve turned down the corner of the page of my favourite part:
We went to London today and in the big shop the escalator was broken and we wanted to go upstairs. Kitty and Hazel went in the lift but Mum went all funny and squashed my hand really hard so I went up the stairs with her. There were hundreds of stairs to the top but I didn’t mind because Mum has something called clostofobia which means she gets really scared in small places like lifts. I wish she did not have that thing. I don’t like it when Mummy is scared.
The key turns in the front door lock, and I hear chatter. Zoe’s home, and it sounds as if Hazel is with her. I shove the notebook back in the drawer and I’m still in the bedroom when Zoe calls out.
‘Mum? You there? I’m giving Hazel some mags. Is it okay if she comes up?’
‘Of course!’
I hear Zoe coming upstairs, Hazel clumping behind. The child has a heavy tread – how she ever did ballet I’ll never know. Her elder sister is as lithe as a show pony, and the little one’s shaping up to be the same.
I come out onto the landing and say hello to the Olivers’ middle daughter.
‘How is your mother?’ I smile at Hazel.
‘Fine, thanks.’ She smiles back with a touch of shyness, her eyes sliding past mine.
Zoe gives me an exasperated look and the two girls vanish into her bedroom and shut the door.
A fountain of girly chatter erupts now that I’m out of their hearing. I can’t help but smile as a wave of love for my daughter pitches to shore and curls itself around my heart. I would never put her through the trauma of separation from her beloved daddy, no more than I could be apart from her myself.
When I was Zoe’s age, I lost everybody I loved, and everybody who loved me – if they did love me; that was never a given. My father had a string of other women going back years, and my mother, at the end of her tether and sick of pretending everything was fine, eventually stopped protecting me and my sister, Amelia, from the truth. She would make pointed remarks to us behind his back, in front of him, too, sometimes, which he would brush off as a joke. But it was more what was not said than what was; our father’s absences, the loaded silences. Not that Amelia and I hadn’t already worked out for ourselves what was going on. Why she hadn’t divorced him years before was a mystery to me.
And yet, perhaps it wasn’t so strange. My parents had married when my mother was twenty-one, my father thirty-two. He was the manager of a small scaffolding firm. My mother was a nurse but hated it, and instantly gave it up when she married my father. Thoroughly immersed in domesticity, she would have found it hard to return to the world of work, had she been willing. And with the two of us to care for, she needed my father for financial security which, although limited – there never seemed to be much spare money – was the only thing he had to offer, as far as I could see.
He left us several times, sometimes on my mother’s insistence, occasionally of his own volition. Then, one day, he left and never came back. A cautious peace settled over the house, and I began to think that life with just the three of us may not be such a bad thing. But before long, my mother retreated, as surely as if she’d found herself a cave and dragged a boulder to its mouth, shutting herself inside and everyone else out. Amelia and I looked after ourselves, went to school each day, and kept our small terraced house in a scruffy Plymouth street in reasonable order. And we looked after our mother, when she let us.
Amelia was – is – two years older than me. As time went on, I began to notice how like our father she was, in looks and in mannerisms, whereas I didn’t seem to be like either of them. Somehow, she made contact with Dad – I never knew how; she kept it secret from me, but perhaps he wrote to her – and she went to live with him, somewhere up north, I understood. I never heard from either of them again.
Everyone gone. I include my mother in that because, living inside her own little bubble, she might as well have been. She did eventually stir herself sufficiently to move from Plymouth to a tumbledown cottage in the Devon countryside, a place I managed to visit only once because I didn’t feel welcome. She’s dead now, in any case, killed in a horse-riding accident five years ago. Nobody was more surprised than me that she’d taken up riding. It was her escape, she said, in a rare moment when she said anything at all.
Ben is nothing like my father. Too handsome for his own good, he’s tempted by a pretty face, a willing victim in the games these women play; women like Maria, and Fran. He doesn’t have feelings for them. They’re his entertainment, his little sideline – Ben has the lowest boredom threshold of anyone I’ve ever met.
Ben loves me, would do anything for me. I wanted Rose Cottage from the moment I saw it. I deserved that house. It was a stretch even with Ben’s salary – he worked then, as he does now, in television advertising, braving the daily commute to London – yet he bid more than the asking price to make me happy. Our lifestyle, our family, is all I’ve ever wanted.
This is how it must be. The Grammaticus family unit, with all its flaws, is forever. Others must pay the price.
Five
FRAN
As instructed, we gather at seven pm in the small back room of The Crown, conveniently opposite Tessa’s house, which is a Grade II listed affair: leaded light windows, dark beams splicing dirty-cream walls, thatch as heavy as a frown. Its name – Rose Cottage – is engraved on a bit of slate that purports to be rough-cut, attached to the wall beside the door, around which the eponymous pink roses gallivant in supreme artistic formation.
Okay, I’m being catty. It is a beautiful house, much admired, too big to be called a cottage. Hector would love to live in it, or something like it, instead of our practical box with no kerb appeal. He would move in an instant if he found something like the Grammaticus’s house that we could actually afford. But I like our house. I’ve grown fond of its angular ugliness. One day, I may have to face Hector’s hankering for wonky walls, impractical rooms, and an inglenook, but not yet.
There are eight of us around the table in the pub, squashed onto an L-shaped banquette or perched on stools. Like Grace and me, the other women – they are all women – are most
ly Oakheart Academy mothers. The school is Tessa’s favoured hunting ground when lassoing her volunteers. It makes things easier, I suppose. Grace nudges me and makes a face as Tessa, in a chair with arms, set a foot or so apart from the rest of us, sips her iced-and-sliced tonic water as if it’s finest champagne, which it wouldn’t be as Tessa doesn’t drink. The rest of us sink into our glasses of wine or halves of cider and wait for our leader to begin.
The red-brick Victorian building that houses Oakheart’s public library and small museum has a function room with a kitchen on an upper floor, and this is apparently where the coffee morning will be held. Tessa looks around us all for approval – a rubber-stamping exercise since she’s already booked it, but we all agree it fits the bill. Obviously, we can’t hold the event at the hospice itself, and anyway, it’s too far out of the village. We go on to discuss ideas for publicity, ticket prices, what food to serve with the teas and coffees, the practicalities, logistics, and economics of the event. Tessa taps efficiently into her tablet before closing the lid with a snap. The rest of us scribble on bits of paper, doodle into phones, or simply will our brains to remember what’s been decided.
Being face-to-face with Tessa, knowing I’m going to be spending time with her, is easier than fielding an unexpected phone call, or running into her at school or in the village with no prior warning. I’m never completely relaxed – my penance never ends – but I am prepared, as much as I can be, and tonight is fine. Usually, her gaze slides over my face as if she’d rather not be looking at me at all. She doesn’t single me out for this treatment, it’s the same with everyone. If she did, I would be truly alarmed, even after all this time. But tonight, something is different. Her steel-blue eyes flick constantly in my direction and it’s all I can do not to look away in order to avoid them. I notice, too, that Tessa’s chin-length, pale-blonde hair is less razor-edged than normal, her complexion less even. Infinitesimal changes that nobody but me would notice.
The faint discomfort in my gut makes me fidget, and Grace slides along the seat an inch, thinking I haven’t got enough space.
‘Naturally, the venue will need to be checked out beforehand, assessed for any possible hitches, and our use of the space planned out. We don’t want any hiccups on the day.’ Tessa lets out a brittle laugh. ‘Wendy, perhaps you’ll come with me to do that. And… Fran?’
I double-take, hopefully not obviously. ‘Of course, yes. Whenever.’ I smile brightly, too brightly. ‘Text me a time.’
Tessa leaves the pub first. Through the open door of the back room where we’re gathered, I can just see her through the pub window, walking purposefully across the street – every movement she makes is purposeful – towards Rose Cottage where Ben will be waiting. This thought, coupled with my slight discomfort at being around Tessa, brings a peculiar taste to my tongue. I go to pick up my wine to wash it away, but my glass is empty.
The others trickle out of the pub, leaving me and Grace.
‘Well, you’re the favoured one, being chosen to check out the venue.’ She laughs. ‘Another drink?’
‘No thanks, better not. Or actually, yes, just a small one.’ I could do with the soothing effect of a drop more alcohol. ‘I thought she’d choose one of her cronies. Anne, or Cherie, maybe.’
‘I’m not sure she’s got any cronies.’
I don’t reply. I know what Grace means. Tessa doesn’t seem to have any close friends, which is surprising as most people seem to like her, even if they do find her a touch bossy. Not that we follow her life that closely, it’s just our impression. I never quizzed Ben about his wife; I didn’t seek out information about her that I didn’t already have. I had no need – I never felt jealous of her, and I figured that the less I knew, the better. It was as if Ben’s wife and family were connected to us, but separate, like different carriages at opposite ends of the same train. He felt the same about Hector and the girls. It had to be that way, otherwise our… whatever it was, would have been tainted from the start, and what would have been the point of that?
This, by the way, is how I felt at the time. Now, viewed from a distance, the whole thing is a regretful muddle and nothing more.
A few days later, I arrange a late start at work and dutifully turn up at the library where Tessa is waiting in the foyer. She’s wearing a loose-fitting yellow shell top over cropped jeans, with spotless white trainers. Even in casual clothes, she exudes a businesslike air. Wendy joins us a minute later. Tessa has acquired the keys to the room, and we puff up three flights of stairs behind her.
The high-ceilinged room, the size of a small hall, feels chilly, even though it’s a warm day. I rub at the goose-bumps on my bare arms and regret my decision to leave my cardigan at home. I’m about to mention it when I realise it might be me, and not the room. But again, I was prepared to meet Tessa today, and I tell myself it’s fine.
I’m glad of Wendy’s friendly company as we follow Tessa about, agreeing with her suggestions as to how to arrange the tables, where to put the raffle prizes, how much circulation space to leave, agreeing with everything. Wendy looks at me; we are of the same mind. Tessa has already decided how it’s all going to be, and we have no idea what we’re doing here.
‘Fran,’ Tessa says, ‘I wonder if you’d be in charge of meet-and-greet on the day? If you’re in the foyer, you can direct those who need it to the lift? For example, if that nice man from Church Close comes, he uses a wheelchair, so there’ll be no option. Although…’ Tessa stops to think for a moment ‘…I don’t imagine it’s his sort of thing. Anyway, there are bound to be a number of older people. They love the chance of coffee and cake and a natter while they support a good cause at the same time,’ she adds, quite patronisingly, I think.
Her smile flashes across the room like the dusty sunbeams that pour in through the high windows and lands on me. I glance down at the treacly floorboards.
‘There’s a lift?’
Wendy interjects. ‘Yes, if you go right to the back of the foyer past the library, it’s by the door to the museum. There are rather a lot of stairs. For some, I mean.’
I remember now bringing Caitlin to the library one day and seeing the clamped double steel doors of the lift at the end of the dark corridor, an image I would have frogmarched out of my head right away.
‘A little encouragement might be needed, Fran,’ Tessa says brightly. ‘People don’t like to admit they can’t walk up the stairs. You could pop in the lift with them and see them out on the right floor.’
I don’t bother to point out that there is only one floor they could get out on. Tessa is looking at me, waiting for me to concur, like it’s something of mammoth importance. She’s making heavy weather of this stairs-and-lift business. But I guess it is all important to her, every detail catered for, every box checked. Again, I can’t fault her efficiency in ensuring everything runs smoothly on the day, which it will. The coffee morning will be a roaring success and the hospice will benefit from our efforts.
‘Fine,’ I say, smiling. ‘I can do that, no problem.’
Wendy and I are released soon after, and ten minutes later, I’m at work. The surgery is quiet, thank goodness – my head isn’t precisely where it ought to be. Whether this is due to my recent dealings with Tessa, I have no idea. All I know is I feel raw and exposed, and have an irrational sense of impending doom.
Sally, the other receptionist on duty, tilts her head and taps a fingernail at an appointment on the screen for later this morning: a dog to be euthanized. It’s commonplace, but there’s always a ring of sadness about it. I know the dog’s owner, Giles – a sweet widower in his seventies. He’s lived in Oakheart all his life, as has Samson, his lumbering old Golden Labrador, whom he’s had since he was a pup. Samson’s time has come, as it comes to us all in the end. This gloomy thought follows me through the morning until Giles leaves the surgery alone, bravely waving us goodbye, the dog’s lead clutched tightly in his fist like a lifeline.
I amble through the rest of my shift, part of
my brain giving the job the attention it warrants while another part spits out random thoughts and snatches of memory, like sparks from a Catherine wheel. As I walk home later – the long way, through the village, not via the woods – my mind latches onto Ben and refuses to be side-tracked. This gives me a clue that it was indeed being with Tessa twice in one week which put me at sixes and sevens today.
Two years on, and I’m no nearer to understanding how I could have let it happen. At Hazel’s ballet class, of all places! What kind of a woman – one with a husband and three children, at that – makes a date with her daughter’s friend’s father right there among the jetés and the brisés and the wobbly arabesques? What sort of a mother does that make me?
More accurately, we didn’t make a date then. Ben gave me his number, that was all. But all was everything. After the way he’d been looking at me, and the way I’d been looking at him – mesmerised, intoxicated, appalled, thrilled, all those things – the rest was a given.
I walked into that hall a perfectly sane woman, and at some point between the twisting of soft hair into buns, the adjusting of Lycra straps, the re-tying of shoe ribbons, and the last triumphant chord from the tinny piano, I became quite the opposite.
A kind of madness – that’s the only way I can describe it. I was gripped by it, held in its power for the two months it lasted. And beyond, of course. That kind of crazy obsessiveness leaves a mark, a bloody great stain. It grows fainter with time but never disappears completely, like indelible pen on a white gym shirt.
A kind of madness. Sounds like an excuse, doesn’t it? But that is, truly, the way it was. I may be many things but I’m not so blind to my own flaws that I go around making up excuses for being unfaithful. Hector is not a wife-beater or a serial adulterer or a compulsive liar or a controller, or anything at all that might have given me the palest of reasons.
The Wife's Revenge Page 4
