I ask Becky whether she’s looking forward to the end of term, coming up in the next couple of weeks, and the planned renovations to her and Paul’s house.
“God, yes,” she says, “but mainly because we’re moving out and letting the builders get on with it until September.”
“Where are you going to stay?” My eyes flit across the room to where Will is chatting with some of his work colleagues. I don’t know all the women in the group he’s talking to, but I’m certain none of them is Catrina.
Becky launches into a description of her parents’ place in Spain, where she is heading the day after term ends.
“Of course I’ll miss Paul,” she says, giving her husband an affectionate smile.
“And I’ll miss you.” Paul turns to me and grimaces. “Thanks to work, I won’t be able to join her for ages”
“Over a month.” Becky kisses his cheek. “Aw, sweetie.”
I stare at them, trying to dispel the envy I’m feeling at the ease of their intimacy. Even in the good days, Will and I were never one of those couples who finish each other’s sentences.
“So where will you stay before you fly out to Becky?” I ask Paul.
“One of my mum’s places,” Paul explains. “She owns a few houses in the area.”
I nod. I know very little about Paul’s mother. As a teenager, he had a falling out with her—and with his stepfather, whom he’d loathed. I’m aware they’re in touch, but it’s obvious Paul isn’t close to his mum, even now. Neither Leo nor Martha ever mention her, though I do know that Leo’s marriage to his first wife ended when Paul was very young, long before meeting Martha. Paul has never seemed bitter about that, maintaining with a wry smile that if he’d been married to his mother, he’d have left her too.
We carry on talking and drinking for a few more minutes. Leo and Martha’s cat, Snowflake, a beautiful white Persian with blue eyes, stalks by, drawing many admiring glances. Will comes over and he and Paul start chatting about motorbikes, the shared passion that sparked their original friendship. Paul has, apparently, just bought a new Ducati. Will’s eyes widen as Paul tells him the exact model. I know he would love a bike himself. Will sold his last motorcycle when Hannah was a baby so that we could buy a new car, and his own bike-riding days are now long behind him.
Becky is still talking about Spain—Andalucía, to be precise—and the hikes she and Paul enjoyed on their last holiday there. By now, there’s a fixed smile on my face. It’s not just the display of wedded bliss I’m having to witness, that’s making me feel uncomfortable but also the fact that I’m all too aware Catrina will be here soon. If she isn’t already.
After a few more moments, Martha says she has to check on the food and slides away to the kitchen. Becky follows her. Paul and Will are still talking about bikes. so I gaze around the room. This is hell. My glass is empty. I’ve knocked it back far too fast. The waiter wanders over with another tray of wine and champagne. I take a drink and press the cool, damp glass against my cheek as Leo strolls over.
“Hey, Dad.” Paul gives his father a pat on the back. “Good party—the clients are loving it.
Leo acknowledges the compliment with a small smile. I notice—not for the first time—that Will shrinks into himself a little in his boss’s presence, as if attempting to adopt a more deferential air. I wonder if Leo realizes that.
Another few minutes pass. More guests arrive. I find my eyes constantly drawn to the door, watching and waiting. Leo spots me looking and touches my arm. There’s nothing inappropriate about his touch, yet his hand feels too heavy on my skin.
“We really appreciate you coming, Livy,” he says in an uncharacteristically gentle voice.
I can feel my cheeks reddening. He knows about Catrina too. I glance around. Paul is watching me while listening to Will describe some classic motorbike he saw yesterday. Does he know as well? Does Becky?
For a few sickening moments, I wonder how much they know. Catrina had been working in the office for a while. Probably all the guys fancied her. Probably Will thought he was the luckiest man in the firm when their eyes met over the photocopier or however the whole sleazy business began.
Leo’s hand is still on my arm. I shift slightly away from him and he removes it at last. As he turns to Paul, I close my eyes, remembering the days of obsessive worrying and imagining. How did it start? How many times? How good was the sex? When and how and where was I lied to?
And through all the fights that followed the confession I forced from my husband’s lips: Will’s terror that I would leave him. His insistence that it had been a moment of madness—well, two months of moments. That I was the love of his life. That our home and our children and our life together were his whole world.
I forgave him—and I tried to forget. But over the past six years, the memory of the affair retains its power to corrode my trust, like acid or rust. It’s ironic: when I was younger, before it happened, I imagined an affair would be a nuclear explosion in my marriage, obliterating it. The reality has turned out to be more like a nail bomb, leaving shards and fragments in unexpected places. Less annihilation, more attrition—though possibly just as fatal.
I open my eyes. Both Paul and Leo are watching the door. Simultaneously, their gaze switches back to me. I look over to the door myself. Oh God. It’s her. She’s shorter and curvier than I was expecting, in a clingy blue dress. Her face is smiling and open, but she is attractive rather than pretty. Certainly not beautiful. I stare at her. I’ve spent so long imagining a lingerie-toting supermodel that it’s hard to accept the ordinary-looking girl I see in front of me. One thing’s for sure—she is young. Her skin is plump and fresh, her eyes sparkling.
I realize I’m still staring and look away. Will presses his hand into the small of my back. I’m here.
I don’t look him in the eye. Can’t. I feel flushed and exposed. I wish I weren’t here. I wish I were anywhere else. At home, reading Zack a story or listening to Hannah argue for the millionth time how everyone else in her class has an iPhone.
Will is talking now, some detail about work with Leo and another colleague. I stare down at the beautiful parquet flooring and notice that the polish on my right big toe has chipped. And then I feel Will stiffen beside me. Instinctively, I know that this means Catrina must have come over. I look up. Freeze. She’s standing in front of us, that blue dress hugging her curves, a pair of elegant drop earrings glittering in the lamplight. She extends her hand to Will, and he has to take his palm from my back to shake. She is as groomed and polished as Julia predicted, but utterly without the Parisian sneer.
“Will, it’s been ages,” she says with a smile. She has a Yorkshire accent. I’m taken aback. I wasn’t expecting this … this mix of down-to-earth friendliness and sophisticated glamour.
She turns to me. “Laura, is it?”
“Livy.”
We stare at each other. Beside me, I feel the tension radiating off Will.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She is young, but her nose is slightly blobby and her eyes set too wide apart. There’s an appealing vulnerability in her manner, but she’s no femme fatale.
Still, I’m certain the mistake with my name was deliberate. Which surely means she cares. She still cares. I look anxiously at Will. Does he care back?
I watch him talk to Catrina, trying to read the body language between them. He is reserved and awkward. Is that because of her? Or just the situation? Catrina is all surface poise, but her unhappy eyes give her away. Will’s hand is back on my spine, pressing my dress against my damp skin.
“Please excuse us,” Will is saying. “There are so many people I want my wife to meet.”
He steers me away. I catch a glimpse of Catrina watching us.
“Livy.” Will leans into me as we cross the room. “Are you okay?”
I say nothing. I’m trying to process the fact that Catrina still wants him. Perhaps I imagined that. I look around again. She is still watching us. She looks desperately miserable.
“You do know how much I love you, don’t you?” Will’s voice is an urgent whisper in my ear.
I turn and face him properly. I see no desire for Catrina in his face. Only concern for me. For the first time since we left the house, I relax a little. I’ve met her now. And Will doesn’t want her. It was all a long time ago. Over. At least as far as he’s concerned.
“I think she still likes you,” I say with yet another forced smile, searching his face.
Will shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It wouldn’t matter even if she did.” He lowers his voice. “It’s only you, Livy—you know that, don’t you?”
His eyes plead with me. I nod as Martha appears at the end of the room to announce that dinner is ready.
The next hour passes in a blur. Martha has tactfully sat Catrina at the opposite end of the table from Will and me. I can see her chatting with Paul and Becky.
Dinner itself is delicious and served by more men in tuxedos who glide silently around the room, ferrying silver platters of Greek salad, then lamb noisette to each guest.
Dessert is a selection of mini mousses and tarts. Then we have coffee. The evening is drawing to a close—Leo and Martha’s dinners are never late affairs; Leo is famous for rising early, even crediting his business success to the hours he puts in before the working day begins—and I’ve almost forgotten how humiliated I felt earlier, when Leo pitches up again. His cheeks are flushed and he carries with him the vague scent of cigar smoke.
“Crisis in Geneva,” he growls. “It’s bloody Henri again.”
Will, who hasn’t left my side all through dinner, frowns. “What does he want now?”
Leo explains. Lucas Henri, as I already know, is Harbury Media’s biggest client. He owns a high-tech company based in Switzerland that supplies electronics goods to several outlets across the South West. Will hates him with a passion. Everyone at Harbury hates him, as far as I can tell. “He’s got all the worst qualities of a client,” I remember Will telling me once. “He never knows what he wants, only that you haven’t provided it. He micromanages. And he’s always trying to slip extra jobs into the workload when they’re not in the original agreement.” Tonight, it seems, someone has messed up on the dates for a hugely expensive marketing campaign, and Henri is panicking.
“He’s threatening to pull his entire operation.” Leo sighs. “I need you out there with me, Will. Right now.”
Will shoots me an apologetic look.
“It’s fine,” I say. I’m used to these last-minute business trips. It’s one of the penalties of being married to someone who speaks fluent French and German. Catrina must speak great French too if she works in Paris. A spike of jealousy pierces me.
“The distributor has a charter leaving just before midnight,” Leo goes on. His earlier, jovial air is completely gone. He’s stern and focused, all business mode. Will stiffens and straightens beside me in response. “Go home, pack an overnight.”
“I guess I’ll be going home too, then.” I mean it to sound light and funny, but the words have an edge. I shouldn’t let my housewife status get to me, but surrounded as I am by strong, successful women like Becky and Julia, it’s hard sometimes not to feel sidelined.
Leo looks at me, his gaze softening. “Sorry, Livy, but I need my best man on the job.” He pats my arm. Again, his hand feels too heavy, too insistent somehow. “Don’t worry, it’s Geneva, not Paris, just me and Will.”
Oh God, he must think that I’m worried Catrina might be traveling with them. My cheeks burn, but Leo doesn’t notice.
He has turned to Will again. “The girls are e-mailing you your ticket right now. Nothing else to be done.” And with that, he strides off.
Will opens his mouth, then shuts it again. I can tell he doesn’t know what to say and that he’s worried this will be the last straw after everything he’s put me through tonight. It’s funny. Will is valued at work for soothing neurotic clients in three languages, but he’s tongue-tied around his emotions with me. Not to mention hopeless when it comes to anything practical like putting up shelves or mending the garden fence.
“I’m sorry,” he stammers at last.
“It’s okay.” I smile. At least now we get away from Catrina. “Everyone’ll be leaving soon anyway.”
We say good-bye to Martha. Catrina looks up from her conversation with Paul to wave at us both. I nod in response. Then we head home.
I breathe a sigh of relief as we get in the car. Will’s phone rings immediately. It’s Leo again, with an update on the situation in Geneva, which appears to be getting worse by the minute. I stare out of the window as we drive the short distance back to Heavitree. I know these streets so well. I grew up in Bath but came to university in Exeter twenty years ago. I haven’t lived anywhere else since. Usually the lack of adventure in my past doesn’t bother me, but right now it feels like yet another way in which my life and experiences are limited. Certainly I’m more limited than Will, who comes from London—and had already spent a year in France and Germany when I met him—and Catrina with her undoubtedly chic Parisian existence.
Will switches off his phone with a sigh, then asks if I’m all right. I reply rather curtly that I’m fine, then feel guilty for being short with him. After all, he has done everything tonight that he possibly could to reassure me.
As we walk up to the front door, I take his hand. “Hey.”
Will turns to face me, a worried frown on his forehead. I reach up to kiss him, letting my lips linger on his mouth. He responds by pulling me into a hug.
“Oh, Livy.” His breath is hot against my ear. There is so much feeling in his voice—relief and desire and love—that I suddenly feel stupid for having doubted him.
“Hey,” I say again, drawing back and holding his face between my hands. “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”
Will smiles; then we let ourselves into the house. The kids are both in bed and asleep. While Will disappears upstairs to pack a bag, I pay Bethany, our babysitter from along the road, then go to give him a hand. There’s a small kerfuffle over the exact location of his laptop, which turns out to be lurking underneath Hannah’s in a corner of the living room. And then he’s off in a taxi to the airport. Miraculously, the children have slept through his entire departure and the house is suddenly, oddly silent. I watch TV, then take a long bath. It’s only as I’m getting ready for bed that I remember Julia’s earlier text and the call I didn’t answer. I switch on my phone. She’s left a voice mail asking me to ring her. The message says it’s important, so I send a text asking if she’s still up. There’s no reply, and as it’s well past eleven now, I send a second text saying I’m sorry I missed her and that although Will has had to go away, the kids and I will see her for lunch tomorrow as planned.
I sleep soundly, far better than I did the night before, when the dinner was still ahead of me. I awake with a jolt to Zack bouncing onto the bed, tousle-haired and smelling of sleep and chocolate; there’s a telltale smear around his mouth.
He dives under the covers and throws his arms around my neck. “Mummy,” he croons in my ear, his hands in tight fists, pulling me toward him. “There was three Ben 10s in a row.”
I snuggle him close, feeling the familiar rush of love that Zack brings out in me. At seven, he is getting leaner, no longer a chubby-limbed little boy, but his huge appetite for physical affection shows no sign of diminishing, thank goodness.
“When are we going over to Julia’s?” says Hannah, speaking from the door.
If there is a more scathing tone of voice in the world than the one a twelve-year-old girl can put into the most anodyne query to her mother, I have yet to hear it.
I glance over the top of Zack’s head. Hannah is leaning against the doorframe, her blond hair snaking down her back. She is on the verge of puberty—narrow-hipped, long-legged like a colt, and with small buds of breasts. With her pale skin and gray eyes, she looks more like Kara every day. I soak her up as the memories wash over me: Kara as a little girl, giggling w
ith mischief; Kara wide-eyed as she described her first student party; Kara weeping when our dog was sick and had to be put down—
Kara dead.
I shiver. I never actually saw her body, but sometimes I imagine her stone-colored eyes as they must have been in death: cold and hard and empty.
“Mum?” Hannah’s tone is impatient. “What time?”
I shake off my morbid thoughts and glance at the clock by the bed. It’s almost ten. No wonder Zack’s been eating chocolate. I can’t remember the last time I slept this late.
“Are you hungry, baby boy?” I ask.
Zack nods, nuzzling into my neck and planting a huge slobbery kiss on my right earlobe.
“I’m right here.” Now Hannah sounds injured. I look over.
Oh God, she’s welling up.
“We’ll go to Julia’s at eleven,” I say, trying to smile in the face of Hannah’s volatile emotions.
“Fine.” She flounces off.
I sigh, then reach for my phone. My call goes to Julia’s voice mail, so I leave a message saying we’ll see her soon. Julia still hasn’t responded to the text I sent late last night. Thinking about it, I realize she’s probably still in bed. Whom did she say she was seeing at the moment? Some younger man. He was fair-haired, “my Dirty Blond,” she’d confided with relish. I can’t recall his actual name—or even if Julia had gotten around to telling it to me yet.
I bribe Zack up and off me with the promise of a bacon sandwich. I make one for myself too, but Hannah refuses to eat.
“I’ll have something at Julia’s,” she says.
I shake my head. It’s pointless to argue. Julia will have provided food—there’ll be nibbles from her local deli, along with huge gin and tonics for me and her, followed by something super-sophisticated for lunch, with no quarter given to the idea of a kids’ menu. “Quail eggs before chicken nuggets,” she always says, refusing to make any allowance even during Zack’s long year of eating only sausages.
Over lunch, Julia and I will drink Pouilly-Fuissé wine, her favorite, and there’ll be a jug of proper lemonade for the kids. Julia will slip two cubes of ice and a slice of lemon into Hannah’s glass to emulate our earlier G&Ts.
You Can Trust Me: A Novel Page 2
