Refusing to be defeated in my attempt at distraction, and still leaning towards the physical, I joined an evening yoga class at the community centre. It turned out to be held in the same room as the ballet classes, and instead of being alarmed at the coincidence, I decided it must work in my favour.
It wasn’t the resonant tang of stale milk, cheap floor polish, and feet that had me retreating after only two sessions, nor even the discovery that my body refused to bend in the ways the tutor expected it to. It was the shock I felt when, at the end of my second session, I queued to tick my name in the book and pay my six pounds and saw the tall, lithe blonde in front of me place a tick against her name – ‘Tessa Grammaticus’. I’d observed her cool, perfect performance on the yoga mat from my chosen position in the back row, but once I knew who she was, it was impossible for me to carry on, even if I’d wanted to.
‘It wasn’t my cup of tea,’ I told Hector and the girls, and nobody questioned me further.
The ballet classes themselves weren’t a problem. The week after the Ben incident, Hazel had a cold and didn’t go. The classes broke for Easter after that, and I embraced the respite, feeling in some way that I’d been let off the hook, while I knew I didn’t deserve that kind of luck.
Of course, I had no idea whether it would be always be Ben accompanying Zoe to ballet or if her mother would take over, but I didn’t want to risk it. When the time came for the class to resume, I had a mild headache but pretended it was worse than it was, and Hector took Hazel, Kitty going along with them. They didn’t stay throughout the lesson, as I usually did, but nipped home in between before fetching her two hours later. I had no intention of quizzing Hazel as to whether Zoe had been at the class; I didn’t want to know.
I was told anyway.
‘Guess what, Mum? Zoe said could I go to her house on Saturday morning. I can, can’t I, Mum? Isn’t that fab?’
‘Fab,’ I muttered.
‘Zoe’s got loads of great stuff.’ Hazel sighed, eyeing the both of us.
‘And you haven’t?’ I said.
‘Err, no?’
We didn’t rise to that.
‘Zoe seems a nice child,’ Hector said, handing me Hazel’s bag containing her ballet clothes, which were all screwed up, I noticed. ‘Her mother’s a pleasant sort, too. You’ll meet up some time, I expect.’
I said nothing about Tessa being at the yoga class; I hadn’t actually met her anyway.
It was out of my hands. Hazel needed to be dropped at Zoe’s house – the delectable Rose Cottage, as I found out then – and it would be me doing the dropping off as Hector had other plans for Saturday.
We stood at the gate of Rose Cottage at the appointed time, Hazel virtually airborne with the excitement of spending time with her new friend, and me scanning the windows of the house and praying to any higher deity who would listen that Zoe’s mother would come to the door and I could wave my daughter off and hurry away to some fictitious commitment.
My prayers were not answered. Or perhaps they were, depending on how you look at it. The front door of Rose Cottage was flung wide before we were halfway along the path, Zoe darted out, grabbed Hazel by the arm and pulled her inside. I was left facing Ben, as the girly giggles died away.
We looked at each other for what seemed an extraordinary length of time, and then he invited me in for coffee. I should have refused. For one thing, I wasn’t prepared to come face-to-face with Tessa and have to go through the motions of making her acquaintance in front of Ben. The whole thing would have felt forced, as well as embarrassing. For another, well, there were too many reasons to count as to why I should run away as fast as I could.
But somehow he made it impossible to do anything other than accept with thanks, and I found myself sitting on a trendily battered-looking leather sofa in a country-style kitchen, watching Ben as he made coffee – instant, I was pleased to note, nothing fancy from a machine – and wondering if the rub of dark stubble on his chin that suited him so very well was permanent or he hadn’t shaved because it was the weekend.
Then, of course, I remembered he’d looked exactly like that when I’d first met him at the ballet class, which brought me to thinking that sporting just the right amount of stubble, exquisitely shaped, was a high maintenance way of carrying on.
It was a diversion, focussing on Ben’s shaving habits. An attempt to manoeuvre my head into some kind of sense and touch base with reality. Because this was not reality, the way he passed my coffee to me whilst his eyes never left my face, the way he stood for a long moment, cradling his own mug, before he seemingly made a decision and sat down on the sofa next to me.
We chatted. Don’t ask me what about – I couldn’t have told you even straight after. I know he mentioned Tessa without going into detail, and I mentioned Hector and the girls in a general kind of way, but that was all. While we chatted, we listened to bumps and squeals coming from above, and exchanged indulgent-parent smiles. I had begun to think I was safe, that whatever had taken place between us could be written off as one of those silly moments following a mutual flash of attraction.
Then Ben stood his mug down on the flagstone floor and his hand crept along the ridges of the leather seat and touched mine. A brush of fingertips, a ghost of a touch. That was all it took.
I sighed. I remember that. A long, deep sigh that seemed to come from somewhere, or someone, else. I stood my own mug down, keeping my eyes averted.
‘What is it the locals call that hill, the one above the old chalk pit?’ Ben said, his tone conversational, nearly fooling me into thinking we were back to the small talk, which had not felt small at all.
‘High Heaven?’ I studied my hands in my lap, twisting my wedding ring twice around my finger. I sensed Ben’s searching gaze, the question it contained.
‘That’s the one. High Heaven. Very appropriate.’
His words fell into the quiet room, soft, burning with meaning. I had to look at him then, and once I had, I felt as if I would never look away.
Seven
FRAN
It’s Saturday, the day of the coffee morning in aid of the hospice, and I’m not looking forward to it. But it’s in a good cause, I’ll have Grace, Wendy, and the others to have a laugh with behind the scenes, and it will be fine. I’m telling myself this as I stand at the bathroom mirror, apply an extra coating of mascara and gather my hair into a ponytail in case Tessa has any hygiene issues with it being loose.
I check my appearance again in the full-length mirror in our bedroom, and decide I look more than presentable in my blue-and-white cotton dress, worn with flat sandals in case I fall over with the plates or something. Grace would snigger with delight if she saw me going to all this trouble – she’ll probably be in faded jeans and a slogan t-shirt – but the last thing I want is to give Tessa any cause for criticism.
Voices float up to the open window, and my stomach jolts as if I’ve driven fast over a speed bump. I look down to see Ben’s car at the gate and Hector talking to him in our front garden. Somewhere from the direction of the woods comes the sound of a chainsaw, splitting the air with a squeal and whine, and Hector steps nearer to Ben, tilting his head in order to hear better what he is saying. The stairs creak and bump as Zoe and Hazel descend from Hazel’s room before appearing on the front path. Hazel’s rucksack hangs loosely from her shoulder; there’s a bottle of water in her hand.
I hadn’t forgotten that Hazel is going with Zoe to the trampoline park, and that Ben is driving them – Tessa being otherwise engaged – but somehow I’d missed the part where it was arranged for Ben to pick up my daughter. I’d assumed that she would walk along to Rose Cottage and they’d leave from there. I watch the two men: Hector’s compactness and fair, slightly tousled hair contrasts with Ben’s lean strength, his sculpted darkness. Two dads on Saturday morning child duty, making small talk. An ordinary, everyday scene, yet it steals my breath and heats the back of my neck.
Ben turns towards his car, raising a farewell hand t
o Hector. The girls climb into the back seat and as the car pulls away, Ben glances through the windscreen, upwards at the window where I’m standing. This is how it appears, although the sun was on the windscreen and I might have imagined it.
As Tessa predicted, the charity event is a sell-out; the room is packed predominantly with the over-sixties, and well beyond, judging by the undulation of grey hair and pink pates. Having flogged up the stairs to secrete my handbag in the kitchen area and touch base with Grace and the others, I scurry down again before Tessa feels the need to remind me of my meet-and-greet duties. There’s an A-board propped up inside the front entrance telling people which room to head for, with a huge green arrow pointing to the staircase, so I have no need to give directions. Instead, I nod at the paper tickets as they’re held out, smile and exchange a greeting with people I recognise, which, this being a village, is quite a number.
I only remember the lift, having studiously not thought about it since my last visit, when two elderly women both leaning heavily on walking sticks doubtfully eye the staircase. My stomach quakes as I shepherd them along the Victorian tiled corridor towards the steel doors, which, surprisingly, are already standing open. It’s only one floor up repeats itself like a mantra inside my head. Just do it.
Okay. Telling the new arrivals hovering in the entrance to go on up and not to wait – I don’t care if they’ve got tickets or not – I step into the lift as if I’m entering a shark’s jaws. The women follow me in, and my voice takes on a ridiculous jollity as I press the button and say ‘Up we go!’ as if I’m talking to a couple of three-year-olds.
The lift is small, confined, no room for more than six people, with a mirrored wall at the back designed to give the illusion of space. It’s not the newest bit of kit you’ve ever seen, but there’s no earthly reason why it shouldn’t take us to our destination and, more to the point, release us when we get there. But since when did phobias have reason? That would defy their definition.
I fight the urge to hang onto the sleeve of one of the women as I press the button again, thinking I’d been too hesitant the first time. Nothing happens. The doors don’t close. The lift goes nowhere. I pat my clammy palms against the cotton of my skirt, and then the doors grind, slowly and apologetically, towards each other but don’t quite meet in the middle. The lift moves, hardly noticeably, but to me the tremor beneath my feet might as well herald an earthquake as the floor rises about six inches then shudders to a stop. I stare at the blank, unlit face of the button panel and think I might very well be sick.
‘It’s busted,’ says one of the women. ‘Typical council building.’
The other woman tut-tuts in sympathy and they both look at me. But I’ve lost all concern for their welfare, if I ever had any. All I want to do – need to do – is get out of this box, and I twist both hands sideways, sliding them into the gap between the doors, and use all my strength to lever them apart. It works, the doors open almost to their fullest extent and I leap through them shamelessly, landing heavily on both feet. Turning back to the lift, I help my companions down one by one, taking their weight against me as they calmly negotiate the gap. We head for the stairs, the walking sticks tapping a resigned symphony on the tiled floor.
A uniformed caretaker with a florid complexion marches towards us. He holds up a hand as if he’s directing traffic.
‘No, no, you can’t use the lift. It’s out of order,’ he says, leaving me to wonder where he was when we were heading in the other direction.
‘We know, dear,’ says one of the women. ‘This kind lady took us in, but it didn’t go.’ She gives me a crinkly smile and pats my hand. I feel grateful to her for recognising my discomfort in the lift, if not my sheer panic.
‘It might have been an idea to put an out of order sign on it,’ I say, sounding rather haughty as I gather my scattered wits.
‘There is a sign. I stuck it on myself, personally, first thing.’
‘I think you’ll find there isn’t,’ I say, and the two women echo me in agreement.
‘Ah-ha!’ Our uniformed friend wheels round and points to a darkened alcove beside the lift.
We look, too, and see what looks like a large white cardboard sign slung to the rear of the alcove.
‘Kids! I don’t know. They come for the museum and get up to all sorts.’
We leave the caretaker to retrieve his sign, and I plod up the stairs behind the women, watching their slow progress as they grip the polished banisters, ready to leap into action should one of them stumble.
As if the last fifteen minutes hasn’t been enough, Tessa is there to meet us at the top, peering over the banisters with a concerned smile on her lips while her eyes say something quite different.
‘Before you ask,’ I hiss, not needing any of her nonsense, ‘the lift is out of order.’
‘Oh dear, I’m so sorry, ladies,’ Tessa gushes to the two women, leading them away and ignoring me completely.
Quietly fuming, I sidle through the buzzing crowd to the back of the room and stalk into the kitchen.
‘The stragglers can find their own way up,’ I say, in answer to Grace’s enquiring look. ‘Effing meet-and-greet.’
Grace laughs, and together we plate up more shortbread fingers, cheese straws, and miniature scones, to replenish the tables out in the hall while Wendy controls the ferocious steam-belching urn, Anne and Cherie circulate the hall with pots of coffee and tea, and the other helpers ferry dirty china to the kitchen and wash up in the inadequate sink.
The two hours we’ve allowed for the event whizz by. The raffle has been drawn by a senior member of the hospice staff who then gives a little speech, to much applause, and I’ve long forgotten about the lift incident by the time Tessa exerts her authority, with a bonhomie so fake it might have been cut out of cardboard, and ushers everyone out of the door. At least she doesn’t ask me to go downstairs and see them all safely off the premises, and I wonder if she’s feeling guilty about stationing me down there in the first place.
The coffee morning has been a rousing success. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and apart from Tessa perhaps needing something to do with her time, she has to be admired for taking on these things.
Admired? Okay, not quite the right word, coming from me, but I try my best to be dispassionate about her and, most of the time, I manage it. I’ve had plenty of practice, after all, and I’m the one in the wrong, not Tessa.
‘Such a nuisance about the lift,’ Tessa says, when she and I are the only ones left and I’m stacking the last of the china in the cupboards. Her voice cutting through the silence makes me start; I thought she was still downstairs talking to the caretaker and hadn’t heard her approach. ‘I do hope it wasn’t too much of a bother for you, Fran.’
‘No, it was fine,’ I say. ‘There were only those two women with the sticks, and they made it up here as good as gold.’
As Tessa well knows.
She smiles. ‘You were all right, though?’
Puzzled as to why she’s labouring the point, I turn fully towards her and see her eyes searching my face, which heats up under her gaze.
‘Yes, as I said, it was fine.’
Tessa nods, turns towards the kitchen door and then turns back, as if she’s just remembered something. ‘Fran?’
‘Mm?’ I go to the cupboard where I stashed my handbag, take it out and close the cupboard door, the noise of it loud in the echoey kitchen. I want to be out of here now. My duties are done, I’ve no reason to be closeted with Ben’s wife any longer and I’m beginning to feel uncomfortable. I pray it doesn’t show.
Tessa leans against the ledge of the closed serving hatch, and I have the impression she’s aiming for a casual stance, when in fact it looks anything but. I take a long breath in and put on what I hope is a friendly, enquiring expression. Now she’s got me cornered, she’s probably going to ask me to help with her next charity shindig. What else would it be?
‘I think there’s something you should know.’ Tessa bo
ws her head in that way people do when they want to seem unwilling to say something but actually can’t wait to say it.
‘Oh?’ I loop my bag across me and glance at my watch.
‘I ran into Mrs Hayward – Mirabelle – that woman who lives at Graylings. She was in the square, outside the art shop. I’d popped in to buy a card and she waylaid me when I came out.’ Tessa gives a forced little smile. ‘She can chatter for England, that one.’
‘I know.’ I hadn’t realised Tessa knew Mirabelle. No reason why she shouldn’t, of course. ‘She does go on a bit if you get caught.’
‘She was talking about you, Fran. In fact, she made rather a serious allegation, and I thought you should know. You know how gossip runs around the village like wildfire through heather. If she told me – and I hardly know the woman – then who else is she telling?’
I feel hot all over, scared of what might follow. ‘What’s she saying about me?’
‘That you killed her cat.’ Tessa flaps a dismissive hand. ‘I expect it’s complete nonsense, but I thought it best to warn you.’ Tessa’s face is serious, but tuned in to every nuance as I am, I don’t miss the spangle of delight in her eyes.
‘Ha, that’s old news, and for the record, totally untrue,’ I say, relief pounding through me. It’s not great that Mirabelle is still spreading her poison, but it reinforces my theory that she is responsible for the strange things that have been happening to me.
Although I really don’t need to, I explain to Tessa exactly what happened that day at the surgery. ‘Mirabelle won’t be swayed from her version, but the important people know the truth, the vets included.’
The Wife's Revenge Page 6
