I can’t believe, she thought as she slipped the Alfa into gear, that I was so stupid as to come this way. The lights changed and she yanked the wheel to the right, cutting in front of the traffic coming toward the city. She could hear the blaring horns of angry drivers as she turned. Then she groaned again. She hadn’t spotted the traffic cop astride his motorbike before she’d pulled her illegal maneuver. She pressed the button and her electric window slid down.
“You know that there’s no right turn at that junction?” The guard peered into her car.
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I was in a hurry.”
“You wouldn’t believe how many people say that,” he told her. “This your vehicle?”
She nodded again.
“May I see your driving license?”
She wasn’t sure that she had it with her. She rummaged in her bag while the guard walked around the car, checking it, Cate presumed, for any defect that he could also pull her up over. She felt queasy. They’d only fine her for this, she hoped. Not take away her license or anything like that. She needed her license. A lot of her time was spent out and about meeting various clients. She couldn’t be without her car.
I thought things were bad earlier, she muttered to herself as she continued to search her bag, I didn’t actually think they could get any worse.
Suddenly, her feeling of queasiness intensified. She realized that she wasn’t just feeling queasy, she was feeling sick. Very sick. In fact, she thought as she flung open the car door and jumped out, she was going to be sick.
She threw up beside the front wheel. The guard looked at her with both astonishment and concern.
“Are you all right?” He put his notebook into his pocket and came closer to her.
She nodded gingerly and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
He was looking at her suspiciously. Cate realized, with a mixture of amusement and horror, that he thought she’d been drinking. He was probably going to breathalyze her!
“I’m pregnant.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.”
Was she imagining it or did he look more sympathetic? As well as slightly uncomfortable.
“It’s still early in my pregnancy,” she told him. “I know I’m supposed to be sick in the mornings but I seem to feel sick at all sorts of odd times during the day.”
He definitely looked more sympathetic.
“Being pregnant doesn’t give you the right to make illegal turns,” he said sternly.
“I know,” said Cate. “It’s just—I usually drive home this way. Only tonight I’m staying somewhere else. I forgot.”
He pursed his lips.
“I’m a safe driver,” said Cate. “Honestly.”
“What you did certainly wasn’t safe,” he told her.
“I know.”
His eyes searched her face and then he sighed. “Oh, go on,” he told her. “Only no more mad right-hand turns.”
She beamed at him. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“I hope you have a lovely baby,” he said. “And that the sickness wears off soon.”
“I hope so too,” she agreed.
She felt much better as she got into the car and drove off. Getting sick like that had been humiliating but ultimately useful. Men were nervous about pregnant women, she realized. Despite society trying to make them at ease with the experience, they remained unsure of the whole biological thing. As she was herself. But for one brief moment she’d felt as though she and the baby were acting together to get her out of her predicament. Which she knew was silly. She had said that she was pregnant, though. Just like that. As though she had a perfect right to be pregnant. As though it was OK. As though it was a normal occurrence in her life. Maybe, she thought, she was getting used to the idea. She actually wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted to be used to the idea.
She arrived at Bree’s flat half an hour later. Bree was sitting by the window, the crossword book in her hand. She looked up as Cate entered the room.
“Hi there,” she said. “Her distant object isn’t worth very much.”
“What?” Cate went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Throwing up had been a good way to get out of her encounter with the police but it had left a vile taste in her mouth.
“The crossword,” called Bree.
“Penny farthing.” Cate came back into the room sipping the water.
“Huh?”
“Not worth very much,” said Cate. “Penny. Plus it’s a girl’s name. And a distant object is a far thing. Penny farthing. Simple.”
“I’ll never truly get to grips with this crossword,” Bree grumbled. “Some of it is utterly twisted.”
“Most of it is utterly twisted,” admitted Cate. “That’s why I like it.” She finished the glass of water. “I had an incident on the way home,” she said and recounted her experience with the guard.
“I’m surprised he didn’t issue a summons,” said Bree. “They’re on performance-related pay you know. All the same, puking was a clever ploy.”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Cate. “One minute I was fine, next—I couldn’t stop myself.” She shuddered. “That’s the thing about being pregnant, Bree. You can’t stop it. It just goes on and on and you know how it’s all going to end—painfully and horribly and—”
“It won’t be that bad,” said Bree.
“I wish I could be so sure of that.” Cate sighed. “I know that Nessa probably enjoyed every pang of labor but it’s not high on my list of great ways to spend an afternoon.”
Bree grinned and then looked serious again. “I followed Adam today,” she told Cate.
“And?”
“He met someone.”
“Oh, Bree!” Cate bit her lip. “Poor Nessa. Have you told her yet?”
“Of course. I couldn’t keep it from her. You know, she only wanted me to check him out today and tomorrow. If I hadn’t found out anything she was perfectly prepared to pretend that everything was all right.”
“I can understand that, amazing though it may seem,” said Cate.
“I don’t see how she could go on living a lie!” Bree sounded indignant.
“You’d be surprised.” Cate shrugged. “Has she confronted Adam yet, I wonder?”
“She sounded murderous on the phone,” said Bree. “I don’t think he’s in for a very comfortable evening.”
Nessa wished she felt murderous but she simply felt inadequate. She’d spent the entire day trying to figure out what had happened to her and where it might have gone wrong. OK, she told herself, so she looked after the house and did all the stuff Adam expected her to do but had she changed too much over the last ten years? Had she turned from fun-loving Nessa to floor-sweeping Nessa? Maybe putting on some weight had been a big turn-off for him no matter what he said. Despite the fact that she lectured Cate about being too thin, she secretly envied her sister’s fat-free figure. But though she’d often thought about going on a diet herself, she never quite managed to get around to it. It was too difficult when she had to cook for Adam and for Jill and so she was secretly relieved whenever Adam told her that her bum didn’t look big in anything, even when she knew he was probably lying. Her bookshelf was full of ways to lose twenty pounds and still eat the things that you liked but none of them worked because they required a discipline that she knew she didn’t possess. Anyway, she never really started any of them. They were always for tomorrow. But, she thought sadly as she sucked in her stomach and stood up straighter, maybe tomorrow was too late.
Adam phoned later in the afternoon to say that he had yet another meeting and it was scheduled for half-five so he wouldn’t make it home by six after all. But he’d be home by seven for sure. She didn’t pick up the phone and he left the message on the machine. He ended it by saying that he’d had lunch so not to bother making anything for dinner. She gritted her teeth at that and deleted the message.
When Adam finally came home—at nearly half-past seven—she was worn out with practicing what
she was going to say to him. And as soon as she saw him she forgot it all anyway.
He poked his head around the living-room door, told her that he was going to make some coffee, and asked her where Jill was. She’d sent Jill out to play with Nicolette and Dorothy. They were at Dorothy’s house right now, probably driving poor menopausal Darina Richardson around the bend.
“Sure you don’t want any coffee?” asked Adam as he walked into the living room with a mug in his hand.
She shook her head.
“What a day!” He sighed theatrically. “We lost electricity this morning. Apparently some telephone company managed to cut the wrong wires or something when they were digging up the road—pity they didn’t cut their own wires because the noise was shocking. It was so hard to think! And we had loads of meetings so everyone was trying to keep their wits about them but finding it incredibly difficult.”
“So difficult you went out to lunch?” asked Nessa.
“You couldn’t blame me,” said Adam cheerfully. “Besides, I was working.”
“Good lunch, was it?” she asked.
“It was great to get out of that hellhole,” he told her.
He wasn’t in the slightest bit fazed by her questions. Nessa felt the surge of hope run through her again. But Bree had seen him, she reminded herself, seen him kissing a woman. In a public car park. She had to keep that in mind.
“Who did you go to lunch with?” she asked.
He looked at her warily. “What d’you mean?”
“I mean, who did you go to lunch with?” she repeated. “It’s not a difficult question, Adam.”
“No,” he said. “It’s the way you asked it.”
“How did I ask it?”
“Accusingly,” he told her. “As though I shouldn’t have been at lunch.”
“I’ve no problems with you going to lunch,” she said. “It’s the kissing in the car park afterward I have difficulty with.”
He drained his cup and put it on the coffee table. “Kissing in the car park?”
“Don’t bother to tell me you didn’t kiss someone in the car park.” She kept her voice under control with difficulty. “And don’t bother to pretend that it was the first time either.”
“You’re talking about Annika, I presume,” said Adam calmly.
Annika! xxx A Annika. Wish you were here Annika. Nessa swallowed the lump in her throat.
“This Annika?” she said carefully as she handed him the postcard.
He took it from her and turned it over. He read the message on the back and turned it over again. Then he smiled slowly.
“Is this a case of adding two and two together and getting four hundred?” he asked. “Which is what happens when you burrow around in people’s private papers.”
“It fell out of a book,” she said flatly.
“Which book?” asked Adam.
“I don’t remember.”
“Not any of the books you read,” he told her. “Not a historical romance book. Not one of those doctor nurse things that you like either.”
“I read other books too,” she said. “Don’t patronize me, Adam.”
He sighed. “Annika Boyd is one of our best clients,” he told Nessa. “She’s a charming woman but very effusive. I can’t help it if she kisses me.”
“But you can help kissing her back!” cried Nessa.
“It’s not important,” said Adam. “I meet Annika quite regularly, I’m her account manager so I don’t have any choice. She’s a very tactile kind of woman. Enjoys kissing and hugging, that sort of thing.”
“You’re seriously telling me that you were hugging and kissing this woman in Gleeson’s car park because that’s the kind of woman she is?” demanded Nessa. “You hate kissing in public, Adam. You don’t even like holding hands in public! At least, not with me. So don’t give me that crap.”
“You’re being silly,” said Adam. “Who saw me with Annika anyway?”
Nessa said nothing.
“OK, have it your way,” said Adam. “Decide that someone who saw something completely innocent is right while I’m telling you a pack of lies.”
“It wasn’t just Gleeson’s,” she said tightly. “It was somewhere else too. You had your tongue stuck down her throat.”
“Nessa, this is ridiculous.” Adam stood up. “I’ve told you what happened and you can believe me or not.”
“I want to believe you!” she cried. “Of course I do. But—but you’ve been seen with this woman more than once and she sends you cards from her holidays…”
“Nessa, loads of people send me cards. Loads of people send you cards. It doesn’t mean that we’re having affairs with them. Because I presume that’s what you’re accusing me of, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand why you need to see her for lunch and kiss her,” said Nessa mutinously.
“Because she’s a client,” Adam said. “I’ve told you. She’s a touchy feely kind of client but she pays the company good money and I’m not going to tell her to sod off just because my wife is jealous of an innocent kiss.”
“I can’t see how it’s innocent if you’re sticking your tongue down her throat.”
“I didn’t stick my tongue down her throat!” cried Adam. “I just kissed the damned woman.”
Nessa blinked. She wanted to believe him. He sounded so sincere. But it was his job to sound sincere, wasn’t it?
“If you loved me you wouldn’t kiss another woman,” she said stubbornly.
“For God’s sake, Nessa! I told you. It was perfectly innocent.”
“We have a good life, don’t we?” she asked. “There’s no need for you to kiss other women.”
“You’re blowing this up out of all proportion.”
“In a car park.” Nessa’s eyes glistened with tears. “Why did you kiss her in a car park?”
“This is a futile conversation,” said Adam tersely. “It doesn’t matter what I say, you’re prepared to believe the worst.”
“I need to know,” said Nessa. “I need to know why you betrayed me.”
“I didn’t bloody betray you,” snapped Adam. “For God’s sake, Nessa, you sound like a particularly corny episode of EastEnders or something.”
“You’re my husband!” she cried. “And you kissed someone else.”
“I’m not staying here to listen to this rubbish.” Adam took his keys from his pocket.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said furiously. “To find some woman and stick my tongue down her throat, I suppose.”
He stormed out of the house and banged the front door behind him. Nessa picked up the xxx A postcard from where it had fallen on the floor. She turned it over and over in her hands as she heard the sound of the car starting up. She rushed to the window, expecting to see him reverse into the gate. But he didn’t. He pulled out into the road and drove away.
26
Moon in the 7th House
Subject to mood swings, seeks close emotional ties.
Things hadn’t gone the way she’d expected. He hadn’t denied kissing Annika but he’d made her feel small and silly for asking him about it. As though she was a paranoid woman with nothing better to do other than to wrongly accuse him of having an affair. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was blowing things up out of all proportion. She moistened her lips. What was she supposed to do now? Forget about it? Carry on as normal? But she didn’t know what normal was meant to be. And how could she carry on if she suspected him of telling her lies?
Could he be telling the truth? she wondered. Was it possible that it was as innocent as he’d asserted? After all, he’d been so supportive about Bree’s accident, he’d been there whenever she needed him—surely that wasn’t the behavior of a man who was having an affair. Nessa wasn’t entirely certain what the behavior of a man having an affair should be but she didn’t think that being loving and caring toward his wife was part of it. Surely he’d be distant with her, not wanting to be with her? And Ness
a knew the sort of woman he claimed Annika to be. The kind who hugged you and kissed you even when you didn’t want them to. But Portia had described a very different kind of kiss. And so, reluctantly, had Bree.
She needed to talk to Bree face to face. To get some idea of how her sister had assessed the situation. To get a feel for whether or not Adam was a lying shit or simply misunderstood.
She picked up the phone and called Ruth Butler, a sixteen-year-old who lived at the top of the road and sometimes baby-sat for them. Ruth agreed to stay with Jill until Nessa got home. Jill, who’d come in just as Nessa was saying goodbye to Ruth, wanted to know what was going on.
“Dad’s gone out,” said Nessa. “And I have to drop over to Bree’s for a little while. So Ruth will look after you.”
“Why didn’t you and Dad go out together?” asked Jill.
“Because he had something to do and I have something different to do,” Nessa told her.
“You never go out together,” remarked Jill. “Lots of people go out together but you don’t.”
Oh God, thought Nessa, she’s right. We don’t. Not anymore. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d gone for a meal or to the movies or even to the pub. The magazines warned against not going out together. Against getting into a rut. Taking each other for granted. That was where all the trouble started. How was it, she asked herself, that the fabric of her marriage had started to sag but she hadn’t even noticed?
Ruth arrived with a video starring Colin Firth and loaded it into the machine. Jill sat on the sofa beside her.
“Bed when Ruth says,” warned Nessa while her daughter looked at her pityingly and turned back to the TV screen.
Nessa got into the Ka and drove across the city. It seemed to her that her mind was unable to focus on either Adam’s guilt or his innocence for very long. As soon as she thought he was telling the truth a hundred little doubts came into her mind. Whenever she decided he was lying, a hundred different doubts challenged that. She’d thought that challenging him would result in a black-and-white solution. But it had made things worse.
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