The Other Woman’s House

by Sophie Hannah

  Charlie Zailer-Waterhouse. No, it was out of the question. Unlike Liv, Charlie did not hanker after the trappings of aristocracy; a double-barrelled surname would be an embarrassment to her, as well as an opportunity for everyone at the nick to take the piss.

  ‘Why don’t we pick a new name?’ she called out to Simon, who was in the pool – or, rather, on it, lying in an inflatable boat that they’d found bobbing on the surface when they arrived. His arms and legs trailed in the water as he drifted aimlessly. Sometimes he used his hands as oars to turn himself round or push himself along; once or twice he’d kicked back from the edge, to see if he could propel himself all the way to the other side. He couldn’t; the pool was too big.

  Charlie had been secretly watching him, pretending to read her book, for nearly an hour and a half. What was going on in his mind? ‘Simon?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘You’re miles away.’

  ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘Instead of me taking your name, why don’t we choose a new one? For both of us.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. No one does that.’

  ‘Charlie and Simon Herrera.’

  ‘Isn’t that Domingo’s surname?’

  ‘Exactly. We could start a new tradition: the first person you meet on your honeymoon, their surname becomes your married name.’ Domingo was the villa’s caretaker: a young muscly chain-smoker with a deep tan, who spoke little English and appeared to live in a small wooden chalet-style building at the far end of the garden. He had picked Simon and Charlie up at the airport and driven them to Los Delfines, then given them a tour of the house and grounds without asking – perhaps because he lacked the vocabulary – whether they would prefer to wait until morning. The tour had taken nearly an hour; Domingo had insisted on stopping in front of every appliance and pointing at it, before demonstrating, in total silence, how it ought to be used.

  Charlie hadn’t cared. She had walked through the wooden gate set into the high, pantile-topped white wall, smelled the warm, spicy air in the garden, seen the pool lit up like an enormous glowing aquamarine stone, and fallen in love with Los Delfines on the spot. If she had to watch Domingo mime the turning of keys in front of keyholes and the setting and unsetting of the burglar alarm in order to be allowed to stay here for a fortnight, it was a price she was more than happy to pay.

  Everything about this place was perfect. So perfect that it made Charlie worry about herself and Simon in comparison. What if the only thing wrong was them? She knew it was stupid to compare oneself with other people – to compare herself and Simon with other married couples – but it was hard to avoid doing so. Charlie knew of no other newlyweds who had approached their honeymoon in the way ex-mobsters-turned-informers might approach entry into the witness protection programme. Kathleen, Simon’s mother, was as terrified of flying as she was of most things in life, and wouldn’t have been able to cope with the thought of her son getting on a plane, so Simon had told her he and Charlie were going to Torquay for their honeymoon – by train. Kathleen had asked where they were staying, in case she needed to contact him in an emergency. He could have named a hotel in Torquay, real or imaginary, but he knew Kathleen would try to reach him there within a couple of days and discover he’d lied, which had left him with no alternative but to refuse to tell her. ‘There won’t be an emergency,’ he’d said firmly. ‘And if there is, it’ll have to wait.’

  Kathleen had sulked, wept, begged. At one point, after one of her trademark soggy Sunday lunches, she had fallen to her knees and grabbed Simon’s legs. He’d had to pull her off him. Charlie had been shocked, as much by Simon’s apparent lack of surprise as by anything else. Michael, his dad, hadn’t seemed surprised either. His only verbal contribution had been the occasional muttered, ‘Please, son,’ to Simon. Please, son, give her a way of contacting you. Make my life easier.

  To Charlie’s great relief, Simon had stood firm. To her utter bafflement, he had accepted an invitation to lunch at his parents’ house the following Sunday. ‘Are you mental?’ Charlie had snapped at him. ‘It’ll happen again – exactly what happened last week.’ Simon had shrugged and said, ‘Then I’ll walk out like I did last week.’

  He liked to believe that his mother didn’t control him, but then he did things like insist they go all the way to Torquay to get married – ‘to make the lie a bit more true,’ he’d said, unwilling to acknowledge the irrationality. Charlie would have preferred to get married at Spilling Register Office; she hated the thought that anything about their wedding was dictated by her pathetic mother-in-law. Simon had shouted her down: ‘I thought you loved Torquay. Isn’t that why we’re pretending to go there for our honeymoon?’

  Oddly enough, Kathleen hadn’t tried to impose a church wedding on them, as Charlie had feared she might. She’d voiced no objection when Simon had told her that the wedding would involve only himself, Charlie and two witnesses, neither of whom would be her. ‘She’s relieved,’ he’d explained. ‘Nothing’s expected of her. Think about it: most weddings, the mother of the groom spends the best part of a day being friendly and welcoming to the guests. Mum’d never have managed it. There’d have been a sudden illness, and Dad would have had to stay at home and look after her.’

  Charlie’s parents had also been thankful to hear that their attendance wouldn’t be required. Her father would rather play golf than do anything else. He’d have taken a day off, for Charlie’s sake, and tried to enjoy her wedding, but he’d soon have found an excuse to sink into a foul mood. Any day that involved no golf was a disastrous day for Howard Zailer, and for all those unlucky enough to encounter him in his golfless state.

  ‘What about Melville?’ Simon shouted from the swimming pool.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Our new surname.’

  ‘Why Melville?’

  ‘As in Herman Melville.’

  ‘What about Dick?’

  Simon stuck two fingers up at her. Moby Dick was his favourite novel. He read it once a year. He’d brought it with him to Spain; it was supposed to be his honeymoon reading, so why wasn’t he reading it? Why was he content to float aimlessly, as if there was nothing else he wanted to do? The leaves and petals on the pool’s surface looked as if they were making more of an effort.

  Why wasn’t he having sex with his wife?

  Weren’t you supposed to spend most of your honeymoon in bed? Or was that only if you hadn’t slept together before the wedding?

  Charlie sighed. Was she expecting too much? After years of avoiding all physical contact with her, Simon had decided last year that it was time they consummated their relationship. Since then, everything had been fine. Well, fine-ish. Charlie still didn’t dare make the first move; she sensed Simon wouldn’t like it. It was equally clear that talking – during, immediately afterwards, or on the subject of – was forbidden. Or was Charlie imagining barriers that weren’t there? Maybe Simon wanted nothing more than for her to say, ‘Do you like having sex with me, or do you only do it because you feel you have to?’ Physically it seemed to work for him, but he always seemed so removed – eyes closed, silent, almost robotic at times.

  The mid-afternoon sun was scorching. Charlie considered telling Simon to go inside and put on more sun-cream. And then she could go in after him and…No. The rule of never initiating sex was a good one, and she was determined to stick to it. Once – years ago at a party, long before they were officially together – Simon had rejected her advances in a particularly brutal way. Charlie was determined never to allow it to happen again.

  She heard a noise behind her – footsteps. Domingo. She tensed, then exhaled with relief when she saw that he was holding a rake and a hoe; he was here to work, that was all. The garden that surrounded Los Delfines on all sides was evidently somebody’s pride and joy – perhaps Domingo’s, perhaps the owners’. It was bursting with more colours than Charlie had ever seen together in one place before: flame red, burgundy, purple, lilac, royal blue, orange, yellow, every shade of green. It m
ade most English gardens look anaemic. Charlie’s favourite thing in it was what she thought of as ‘the upside-down lily tree’, from which white lilies hung like little lampshades.

  She put down her book and headed for the pool. Not because she wanted to be closer to Simon, but because the heat was blistering and she needed to cool off. She walked down the marble Roman steps into the water. ‘Exactly the right temperature,’ she said. ‘Not cold, but not warm. Like a hot bath someone ran two hours ago.’

  Simon didn’t reply.

  ‘Simon?’ What was he so focused on, that he couldn’t hear her when she was right next to him?

  ‘Hm? Sorry. What did you say?’

  It was hardly worth repeating. It seemed a shame to waste this opportunity; she ought to say something more important while she had his attention. ‘Every time I see Domingo heading in our direction, I panic.’

  ‘Scared he’s going to try and show us some more light switches?’

  ‘No, it’s not that, it’s…His mobile number’s on the website. That means we’re contactable via him, doesn’t it?’

  Simon struggled to sit up in his boat. ‘Are you worried about my mum? She doesn’t know where we are. No one does.’

  ‘Olivia does.’ Would he be angry that she’d told her sister what was supposed to be their secret? Apparently not. Charlie battled against the urge to ask him if she had his full attention. ‘When I told Liv how much this place cost, she insisted on seeing pictures. I had to show her the website.’

  ‘She’s not going to tell my mum, is she?’

  ‘It’s not Kathleen I’m worried about,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s work.’

  Simon made a dismissive noise. ‘The Safer Communities Forum can manage without you for fourteen days.’

  ‘I mean your work. No one cares if I’m not there.’

  ‘What, the Snowman? After months of looking forward to his Waterhouse sabbatical, as he calls it? He’s hardly going to seek me out. You know the last thing he said to me before I left? “Let’s both make the most of our two weeks off, Waterhouse. I might not be going anywhere more exotic than my office and the canteen, but without your constant plaguing presence wherever I turn, I shall be on holiday in my heart.”’

  ‘Believe me, Proust can’t wait for you to get back. He’s counting the days.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Simon warned her. He hated the idea that his DI might feel anything but loathing for him.

  ‘We left Liv and Gibbs alone together,’ said Charlie. ‘What if Liv got even more pissed than she was already and told Gibbs, and what if…?’ She didn’t want to put it into words, in case that would make it more likely to come true.

  ‘Gibbs?’ Simon laughed. ‘Gibbs makes no effort to speak to me when I’m sitting next to him. He’s not going to go to the trouble of tracking me down in Spain. Why would he?’

  ‘All it would take would be for something a bit less mundane than usual to come up at work, and everyone would think, “If only Simon were here, if only we could ask him what he thinks…”’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t. They’d think, “Thank God Waterhouse isn’t here to over-complicate things.”’

  ‘You know that’s not true. Sam Kombothekra doesn’t think like that. And if Gibbs—’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Charlie! Olivia isn’t going to tell Gibbs where we are, Gibbs isn’t going to tell Sam, Sam isn’t going to stumble over a problem in the next fortnight that he needs to talk to me about. Okay? Relax.’

  He was right; it was unlikely they’d be disturbed by anyone from home. So why couldn’t Charlie shift the anxiety that was taking up space in her lungs, space she needed for breathing?

  ‘I’m all yours for a fortnight, so count yourself unlucky,’ said Simon. ‘What’s that Mark Twain quote? “I’ve worried about thousands of things in my life, a few of which have actually happened.” Or words to that effect. Look.’ He pointed to the gap between two trees, to a large mountain in the distance.

  ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘The mountain. See the face?’

  ‘The mountain face?’

  ‘No, an actual face. It looks like it’s got a face.’

  ‘I can’t see anything. What, you mean like eyes, nose, mouth?’

  ‘And eyebrows, and I can see an ear, I think. Can’t you see it?’

  ‘No.’ Charlie tried not to sound cross. ‘I can’t see a face in the mountain. Is it attractive?’

  ‘It’s got to be a trick of the light, but…I wonder whether it’ll change as the sun moves. It must be something to do with the shadows cast by the rocky ridges.’

  Charlie stared for a long time, but no face made itself apparent to her. Stupidly, she felt left out. Simon and his boat had floated to the other side of the pool. Might as well do a few lengths, she decided, keep herself fit. She resolved not to panic from now on when she saw Domingo coming her way, even if she did have a startlingly clear image in her mind of him ambushing her and Simon with the words, ‘Phone, England,’ waving his mobile in the air.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘What would you do if…?’ Simon shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘What would I do if what?’

  ‘Never mind. Forget it.’

  ‘I can’t forget it, and you know I can’t,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘Tell me!’

  What would you do if I asked you for a divorce? What would you do if I said I wanted us to sleep in separate rooms?

  ‘I’m imagining bad things here. Do you want to put me out of my misery?’

  ‘It’s nothing bad,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to do with you and me.’

  Meaning that if it was something relating to the two of them it would, by necessity, be bad?

  Stop creating problems where none exist, Zailer.

  Charlie swore under her breath. She knew she was about to spend at least the next two hours trying to make him tell her, and she knew she would fail.

  ‘You’ve got to go,’ Olivia told Gibbs, pressing her hands against his ribcage. For the past hour she’d been trying to push him out of her bed, but he was stronger than she was, and resisting.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ He was lying on his back, arms folded behind his head.

  ‘Yes, you have! We’ve got to start pretending not to be wicked Godless degenerates. If we start now, it won’t take too long for it to become convincing – we might believe it by this evening if we’re lucky.’ Gibbs almost smiled, but didn’t move. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, according to Olivia’s phone. Her hotel room was as dark as it had been when they’d stumbled in here twelve hours ago. The black-out blinds and thick curtains were more serious about the preservation of night than any window-dressings Olivia had ever previously encountered, and had joined forces against the daylight.

  ‘Don’t you have to get home at some point? Haven’t you got a life, plans, a curfew? I’ve got all three.’ She gave up pushing. It wasn’t going to work, and it was hurting her hands.

  Gibbs rolled onto his side so that he was facing her. It was funny: though she called him Chris, she could only think of him as Gibbs, which was what Simon called him. Would that change? Silently, she reprimanded herself for thinking about him in the future tense. She needed to pull herself together, but how could she, with him lying next to her, radiating heat?

  ‘Trying to get rid of me?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, but…not in a bad way.’

  ‘Is there a good way?’

  ‘Of course. There are loads. There’s the self-sacrificing “cut me loose and save yourself while you still can” good way, and there’s…’ Olivia stopped, remembering that he’d compared her to a Sunday colour supplement, and his reason for doing so. ‘We’ve got to be out by three o’clock,’ she said briskly, to disguise her embarrassment. ‘I can’t ring and ask for another extension.’

  ‘What are the other good ways?’ Gi
bbs asked. Could he really be interested?

  She couldn’t tell him the truth. She’d just had sex with him, three times. If ever a situation called for the opposite of the truth, this was surely it.

  ‘I’m going nowhere unless you tell me,’ he threatened.

  ‘For God’s sake! All right, then, maybe this’ll do the trick where trying to push you out of bed failed. Another good way is: I need you to go so that I can spend the rest of the day thinking obsessively about all aspects of you, and going over your every word and action in my mind, to the exclusion of all else, for the foreseeable future.’

  Gibbs grinned. ‘It’ll be easier for you to think about me if I stay here.’

  ‘Wrong. For as long as you’re here, I’ll be too busy wondering what you’re thinking to do any thinking myself.’

  ‘I’m not thinking anything, apart from I want to fuck you again, but I’m too knackered.’

  ‘Not listening, not listening!’ Olivia covered her ears with her hands. ‘Stop adding more words to the ones I already have to think about. I need to deal with the backlog. Don’t laugh – I’m being serious. Please just go. Don’t say anything else.’

  ‘So that you can think about me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And about nothing else?’

  ‘Not until I’ve cleared the backlog, no.’

  Gibbs nodded as if her request were entirely reasonable. He sat up and started gathering his clothes together. Olivia looked at her phone again. Five past two. She felt excitement welling up inside her at the prospect of him leaving. There were things she needed to attend to, urgently. First on the agenda was the letting off of steam in an undignified manner: running in circles round the room screaming, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!’ Second was standing in front of the full-length mirror by the door and studying her face and body as if she’d never seen them before and never would again; trying to see them as Gibbs saw them, through his eyes. Then she would ring Charlie. Or rather, she would ring the caretaker at Los Delfines, the one whose number was on the website, and ask him to pass on a message for Charlie to ring her. Any decent sister – and Charlie was, generally – would want to hear this sort of news straight away.