‘Meeting Kitty with her science project,’ she half-mimed at me, and I sensed a relief in her that she couldn’t actually reach me.
I nodded and smiled, then Zoe sidled up to me, Tayler peeling off and disappearing into the melee.
‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ my daughter said.
‘I didn’t plan to. I fancied a walk and it was time so… Not a problem, is it?’
‘’Course not.’ She shrugged and tried to look pleased, and I felt glad she’s still young enough to make the effort.
‘Look, there’s Hazel over there, with her mum,’ I said.
Zoe shrugged, as if to say what of it?
Hazel was standing beside Fran, looking impatient. Seconds later, I saw Kitty come through the gates and push her way towards her mother, her arms wrapped protectively around some kind of model.
It seemed like an omen that as Zoe and I weaved a path along the crowded pavement, we passed Fran’s car, parked in a tight space with two wheels up on the kerb. The girls were in the back, Kitty’s model wedged in front of their knees. Fran’s window was halfway down. I gave her a knowing smile.
‘Yeah, it’s going to take an age to get out of here.’ She nodded towards the stream of traffic, then remembered her manners. ‘Would you like a lift? That’s assuming we ever get on the road. Zoe can squash in the back.’
‘Oh, no, we’re fine, thanks.’ I said. ‘I came out for the walk. We don’t have as far to go as you.’
‘Right.’ Fran smiled. ‘Well, see you around.’ She scanned the traffic for a gap, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.
‘Actually,’ I said, leaning towards her window, ‘I was wondering if you and Hector and the girls would like to come to dinner at ours one night next week, say, Friday? Nothing formal.’
‘Oh.’ Fran’s face was a portrait of surprise and uncertainty. ‘That’s very kind of you, Tessa. Friday? I’m not exactly sure what we’re doing then…’
‘That’s fine. Let me know.’
‘I will. Thank you.’ She edged the car out, and Zoe and I walked on.
‘What did you do that for?’ Zoe scowled at me.
‘We’re too insular, the three of us. Not social enough. It’ll be fun, don’t you think? Hazel’s your friend, Fran is a friend of mine, Dad has met Hector a number of times, so why not invite them?’
I knew I was sounding too enthusiastic, and probably defensive. But I need to keep an eye on Fran, and putting her and Ben together, in the same space, for a few hours at least, well, that was a masterstroke. The invitation will be accepted; Fran won’t want to seem impolite. And I will be watching.
It’s the day after I invited Fran and her brood to dinner. As I expected, she texted last night to say they would love to come. Deal done.
It’s no surprise when another opportunity to further my campaign arrives in the form of Mirabelle Hayward, gesticulating at me across the high street, indicating that I should go over. Perhaps she remembers telling me about Fran killing her cat, perhaps she doesn’t, and thinks I’m a complete stranger. Whichever, I cross the road with alacrity and say hello.
‘I saw you outside the art shop, didn’t I?’ She points a scarlet fingernail at me, a smile opening up her pinched face.
She does remember. ‘So you did,’ I say. ‘How are you, Mirabelle?’
She thinks for a moment. ‘I’m very well, thank you. I’m sorry, I can’t think what your name is.’
‘It’s Tessa. Tessa Grammaticus.’
‘Grammaticus.’ She pronounces the name slowly, spacing out the syllables. ‘My, that’s a mouthful.’
‘Was it something particular?’ I ask. She looks puzzled. ‘You waved me over, just now.’
Her small grey eyes emerge from deep sockets, gleaming like marbles. ‘Ah yes. I know what it was. I wondered if you knew what that film was called, the one with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon? It was set in World War II and there was a Nazi pilot in it. The title escapes me, and I thought you might know.’
Momentarily fazed by the random question, I half-regret my decision to cross the road and engage with this daft old hag, until I think about how useful she could be.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t. I’m not very up on old movies.’
Mirabelle studies her brown brogues, then looks up again. ‘It had a woman’s name in the title, I’m sure of that… Mrs somebody?’
‘Mrs Miniver?’ The answer spirals up from the depths of my memory. After my father left for the last time, my mother would watch old films in the afternoons, sitting prim and upright on the sofa with the curtains closed. Our curtains were often closed during those days, as if summer belonged to everyone apart from us.
‘Yes, yes!’ Mirabelle’s brogues hammer the pavement in a little jig. ‘How clever of you!’ She taps the side of her head and speaks in a half-whisper I have to lean in to catch. ‘Mind you, I should have known, even though it was a long time ago. I had a lot of fun playing that role. A lot of fun! They were all in love with me, you know, all the men on set.’
‘Right…’ I glance along the row of shops. ‘I was just going to have coffee in that café, just there. Would you like to join me? My treat.’
Mirabelle clutches her throat. A string of seed pearls catches around her thin fingers and she has to disentangle them. ‘I would love that. Thank you, Tessa.’
The café has a main area inside the door, where the service counter is, and a cluster of smaller, cosier rooms leading off. I lead my companion to a room with a shallow glass conservatory filling one wall. The only other occupant is a smartly dressed man thumbing through a set of documents, pen in hand, and I figure that the peace and quiet and the view of the garden with its stumpy apple trees and dangling bird feeders will help Mirabelle feel settled. After all, she and I are almost strangers, although Mirabelle doesn’t seem to make any distinction between people she knows – if she knows anyone – and the population of the village in general. We’re all fair game for her nonsensical ramblings.
The waitress takes our order for coffees – flat white with soya milk for me, black for Mirabelle – and toasted teacakes.
‘This is nice.’ Mirabelle says, looking around. ‘Do you often come in here? I don’t think I’ve ever been.’
‘Sometimes. It is nice, isn’t it?’ In truth, I’ve never been here before, but it doesn’t fit the occasion to say so.
I make small-talk about the weather and so on until our order has arrived. I slide half of my teacake onto Mirabelle’s plate to offload some of the carbs, and she twinkles a child-like smile.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you told me,’ I say, ‘about Francesca Oliver having something to do with your poor cat dying. It was on my mind, after I left you. What a tragic thing to happen.’
Mirabelle looks up from buttering her teacake, her eyes darting lizard-like to mine, not in surprise that I’ve raised the subject but with gratitude that she has an ally.
‘Poor Humphrey. It was tragic, and wicked, the way she handled him. Mishandled him, rather. Do you know her, that woman? Do you know her, Tessa?’
‘I know of her, that’s all. Her children go to the same school as my daughter. I don’t have any dealings with her otherwise.’
Mirabelle pats my wrist with a buttery hand and it’s all I can do not to flinch. ‘Good. She isn’t the sort of person you should be having dealings with. I’d keep it that way, if I were you.’
I nod. ‘Mirabelle…?’
‘Yes?’
‘I wondered if you’d thought about exacting a little revenge on her?’ I give a little laugh, put a hand to my throat. ‘I don’t know where that came from, I’m not the revengeful type. Take no notice of me.’
I sip my coffee, gazing out to the garden, as if the subject has flown from my mind.
‘Revenge, you say? Really, she should get her comeuppance. I am the only one who knows what really happened. That other woman on the desk at the surgery was busy doing goodness knows what and taking no notice at al
l, and the vets of course know nothing. They sided with Mrs Oliver because that’s what they do. I stood no chance of a fair hearing, no chance at all.’
I stay silent, waiting while the seed I planted swells and bursts and sends out a tiny shoot.
‘You’ve made me think, Tessa,’ Mirabelle says, eventually. ‘You certainly have.’
I hold up a hand. ‘No, no, forget what I said. It was silly of me.’
The shoot develops leaves. ‘Something to alarm her, something a little bit nasty to make her all twitchety…’
‘Twitchety.’
‘Yes. Like I felt when I realised poor Humphrey had stopped breathing and his dear little heart had stopped beating. Like I’ve felt ever since.’
The grey eyes are moist and I pray Mirabelle isn’t going to cry, not here in public – not anywhere if she’s with me. But if it serves a purpose…
I reach for her hand but stop just short of touching it. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t get upset.’
Mirabelle takes a deep, huffy breath, and smiles. ‘I’m fine dear. It’s not your fault.’ A pause, and then, ‘She wouldn’t need to know it was me, would she? Putting a little nuisance her way would be enough. And, do you know, I think it would help me, knowing I’d taken some action against her. It’s so frustrating otherwise.’
I can’t help smiling. Batty or not, Mirabelle Hayward is a woman after my own heart.
‘You have a point there,’ I say. Then, when we’ve sat in pensive silence for a while, ‘She has children, three girls, I think.’
Mirabelle flaps a hand. ‘Oh, I can’t worry about them. I expect they’re as hard-hearted as their mother. Although the brown-haired one seems quite a nice girl.’
‘I expect they are,’ I say, ignoring her last comment as I’m thinking how easy it is to influence somebody if you catch them in the right frame of mind, at the right time. Timing is all – I’m thinking of Fran again.
‘I believe,’ I begin, gazing out of the window again, ‘they live in that private road, the one with the British Legion club on the corner. But I could be wrong.’ It’s not a good idea to admit I know too much about Fran.
‘Oh no, you’re absolutely right, dear. Woodside Villas. I followed her home, when I was still all of a dither over poor Humphrey. She went through the wood, the public footpath. It’s a shortcut. And then I saw her come out the other side and go into that modern house halfway down. Oh yes.’ Mirabelle clatters her cup into her saucer. ‘I know where she lives all right.’
Thirteen
FRAN
‘We can’t not go. I’ve accepted the invitation now.’
It’s Thursday evening, and everyone but me has forgotten, or pretended to, that we’re going to Rose Cottage for dinner tomorrow, until I reminded them just now and met with a barrage of moans from the girls. My own private wish that we do not have to do this could not be more fervent than theirs. The impending occasion feels like a physical thing, an industrial-sized wheel with lethal, jagged teeth, rolling unrelentingly towards me. But what could I do? If I’d said we were busy on Friday, Tessa would have proposed another night. She wouldn’t have let it drop. Once she’s made up her mind about something, it happens, no matter what. That much I have learned about her.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Hector says, rubbing his hands together in the same jolly-father way he did when the girls were small. ‘We all get on, don’t we? And Mum helps Tessa with her charity stuff. In fact,’ he turns to me, ‘I suggested we invite them here for a barbecue, didn’t I?’
He did indeed. I’d forgotten about that, or rather, I’d deliberately wiped it from my mind. Hector’s reminder somehow makes the prospect of spending an evening with my secret ex-lover who seems to have lost the plot, and his wife, whom I can’t bring myself to like, ten times worse.
We’re expected at seven for seven-thirty, Tessa having first checked with me that it’s not too late for Caitlin to eat. This consideration helps soothe my anxiety a little, reminding me that Tessa’s intentions are sound, if a little off the mark at times.
We’re on the cusp of leaving the house when Hazel decides she detests what she’s wearing, vanishes upstairs to change again, and my carefully planned timetable goes awry.
‘She’s got a point,’ Kitty says, sinking down on the stairs and automatically reaching into her pocket for her phone. ‘That top is miles too tight across the bust for her. It has been for ages. I told her that when she put it on.’
In my wired state, the idea of my twelve-year-old having a bust in the first place is enough to send my nerves flying in all directions.
‘Kitty, go up and tell her to get a shift on, will you?’
‘Fran…’ Hector gives me a smile that means ‘stop stressing’. ‘We’re fine. It only takes ten minutes to walk to theirs. Did anyone feed the cat, by the way?’
I screw up my face as if I’m trying to remember.
‘I’ll take that as a no, then.’ Hector disappears to the kitchen.
Caitlin plucks at my sleeve. ‘Are we going soon? Because if we’re not, there’s something really important I have to do that I didn’t have time for.’
‘No, Caitlin, you stay right where you are.’
‘How can it be important?’ Kitty says, from the top of the stairs. ‘Nothing you do is important.’
‘Kitty!’ If she upsets Caitlin now, the whole evening is doomed. Like it wasn’t already. ‘Where is Hazel?’
‘I’m here. There’s no need to panic, Mother.’ Hazel flounces down the stairs. She’s changed from tight jeans and a top into a pink and grey striped mini dress and her denim jacket. She looks fresh and pretty, as do her sisters, and I’m proud to show off my daughters.
Hector returns and, finally, we leave.
‘So sorry we’re late. The girls and their outfits…’ I gabble at Tessa as she opens the door of Rose Cottage and ushers us inside.
‘You’re not late at all, Fran.’ Tessa beams round at all of us. ‘Anyway, it wouldn’t matter if you were.’
She has more makeup on than I’ve seen her wear before, and I wish I’d put on eyeshadow as well as mascara, except it makes me look like a clown. She’s wearing navy-blue wide leg culottes with a belt tied in a bow at the waist – which only someone as slim as her can get away with – and a mango-coloured Bardot top revealing creamy-smooth shoulders. Her inverted bob hairstyle has recently been trimmed.
Yes, Tessa looks perfect; stylish but the right side of casual for such an evening. I look fine, too. I may be a seething mass of anxieties, but I’ve learned enough to feel reasonably confident in the way I look. Tonight, I’m wearing narrow, ankle-grazer trousers the colour of summer sea, and the white linen shirt I bought in Worthing worn loose, the sleeves rolled back neatly to elbow length. I’m wearing a simple pendant and matching earrings. My hair has behaved itself for once and falls in shiny waves to skim my shoulders.
‘You scrub up well,’ had been Hector’s comment before we left home, but his eyes spoke of deeper compliments. The things that remain unsaid are often the most telling, don’t you think?
Hector and Ben greet one another in an effusive all-guys-together manner, which comes across as slightly fake on Hector’s side – for all his so-called enthusiasm for socialising, he’s actually on the shy side. Of course, it’s totally fake on Ben’s, but he hides it well. I can’t help wondering what he’s making of all this. I decide I don’t care. Now we’re here in the same room, my anger towards him for that stupid thing he said on Worthing Pier glows hot inside me, as if a dying fire has been rekindled. It’s not a pleasant feeling, and I avoid looking at him directly in case I give him a clue that he’s ruffled me. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
I move to Hector’s side and link my arm through his as we stand about beneath grey-painted beams in the plaster-pink dining room, drinks in hand. I need the support, both mentally and physically. Or perhaps it’s to show Ben that my marriage is solid, I honestly don’t know.
This is already worse than I’d en
visaged, and the evening’s barely begun. Hector glances at me quizzically, and I smile, giving his arm a squeeze before detaching myself. I stand at the window, feeling stranded like a non-swimmer in the middle of a pool, and admire aloud the back garden of Rose Cottage. My admiration is genuine; it’s not a huge garden but it’s a controlled riot of cottage garden flowers, with two rose-covered arbours, honeysuckle climbing the fence, and the brightest of emerald lawns, free-form in shape and clipped to perfection.
‘Thank you, Fran.’ Tessa is beside me. ‘I have to say it has come on well this year.’
‘We do have help with the garden,’ Ben says, almost crossly. ‘Be honest, Tessa.’ He fastens her with a glacial look that Hector and I don’t miss. Hector widens his eyes at me, just perceptibly.
‘I never said I did it all myself, nor that you did,’ Tessa says, through a brittle smile. She turns back to me, while her eyes flick to Ben. ‘We managed to track down a gardener when we first moved here. He’s a bit creaky but worth his weight in mushroom compost. The garden’s a work in progress, though.’ She chuckles. ‘A bit like me.’
I laugh, too. ‘Aren’t we all?’
I’m starting to believe I can get through this. Tessa’s sense of humour has been hiding itself away, but this glimmer gives me hope, and again I wonder if I’ve been too hard on her in the past. Which is not surprising, under the circumstances, but I owe this woman. I owe her normality and peace and security, and if I could give her that on a plate, I would. I sense a froideur between Tessa and Ben that scares me and makes me sad, in case I am partly to blame. I made things right between me and Hector, hopefully before he noticed anything was wrong, but perhaps Ben did not achieve that so easily.
The Wife's Revenge Page 9
