The Perfect Couple

by Lisa Hall

  ‘Ahhh… we didn’t really used to,’ Rupert says, not taking his eyes off the road, ‘Caro and I just used to go for the day usually. My mother is looking forward to spending time getting to know you.’

  He smoothly changes the subject and I don’t press him for further information. Caro’s parents had invited him to a church service this evening, a tradition they had held when Caro was alive apparently, and I had let out a sigh of relief when he had firmly but gently turned them down. I don’t want to spend the holidays thinking about Caro – Rupert has been working ridiculous hours, and I feel as though Christmas is the perfect time for us to get things back on track.

  Rupert’s mother is waiting on the doorstep when we arrive, wrapped up in a thick grey jumper against the cold. A battered old Land Rover sits on the drive, next to a gleaming Jag, which I assume belongs to Will and Amanda. A brisk, icy wind, laden with the scent of the sea cuts across me as I step out of the car, and I am relieved to see smoke pouring from the chimney. Rupert’s mum – ‘Diana, darling, call me Diana, you’re family now’ – bustles us into the house, calling to his father, and to Will and Amanda. The afternoon is spent catching up, drinking pot after pot of tea, as Diana stirs, and bakes, and chops in preparation for tomorrow’s big lunch, before we move onto wine, a deep, spicy red that complements the beef stew Diana has prepared beautifully.

  ‘Having a good time?’ Amanda appears beside me at the sink as I wash the dinner pots. We have packed Diana, Eamonn – Rupert’s father – and the husbands off into the living room, while we clean up. I had offered after Diana had done all the cooking, and to my surprise Amanda joined me.

  ‘Yes, brilliant, thank you.’ I scour at the burnt-on gravy in the casserole dish. ‘It’s been a long time since I had anything like this to look forward to on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Oh?’ Amanda looks at me questioningly as I scrub. ‘It feels a bit different this year for us too, if you must know.’

  I lift the heavy pan from the soapy water and set it on the draining board, not sure what Amanda is getting at. Different good, or different bad? ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Just… everyone here, together. It’s what Diana loves, and we didn’t really do it when Caro was alive.’

  ‘I suppose she had to spend time with her family too.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Amanda doesn’t look at me, as she starts to stack plates in the ancient dishwasher. ‘She liked to go away at Christmas, most times anyway. She and Rupert would go to the Caribbean, or Malta, or Africa, somewhere where it was hot. It would just be me and Will and the parents most years.’

  ‘Oh.’ Spraying cleaning solution, I start to wipe over the battered, pockmarked oak table, with its stains of paint and slashes of biro, where Eamonn sits to do the crossword every morning, and where, once, Rupert and Will sat to do their homework. ‘I don’t have anyone to spend Christmas with here, so I was just happy to do what Rupert wanted.’

  Amanda tucks the tea towel into the handle of the warm Aga and turns to stand in front of me. ‘It’s nice,’ she says quietly, reaching out to rub the top of my arm. ‘I mean, it’s nice that we’re all together. Diana is happy, so everyone is happy.’

  She gives me a crooked smile, and walks out into the living room, leaving me standing in the kitchen, pretty sure that the warmth I’m feeling is from her words, not the Aga.

  We spend the evening playing Trivial Pursuit, finishing off the rest of the red wine, and laughing until my sides hurt. There is something sweet, something intimate, about hearing the stories of Rupert and Will growing up together, the scrapes they got into, and I hang on every word as more and more of him is revealed to me. Finally, just before midnight Diana gets to her feet and claps her hands.

  ‘Right, bedtime, children. It’s almost Christmas Day.’

  Rupert and Will both groan. ‘Mum,’ Will says, ‘we’re both over forty years old, I think we know what time we can go to bed.’

  ‘Not on Christmas Eve,’ Diana says, as Amanda and I slide a glance towards each other, our mouths curving into twin smiles.

  ‘Come on.’ Amanda pulls Will to his feet, and they slip from the room with a wave, Will blowing kisses at his mother as Rupert and I follow behind them, slipping into Rupert’s childhood bedroom that still has his swimming trophies on a shelf above the bed. It makes my heart give a little squeeze, the idea of spending the night in Rupert’s old bedroom.

  ‘Come here.’ Rupert reaches for me, his fingers cold on my skin, and the taste of red wine on his lips as he kisses me.

  I shiver, and not just from the chill of his hands. ‘No, Rupert, your brother is right next door and your parents are across the hall.’ I laugh softly, pressing my mouth to his bare shoulder to quiet myself.

  ‘I got you something.’ He jumps off the bed and starts to rummage in the holdall he packed before we left.

  ‘I thought we were doing gifts in the morning?’

  ‘This is something extra. Close your eyes.’

  I close my eyes and tentatively hold out my hands. When I feel him place something there, I open them, and there is a deep blue velvet box on my palm.

  ‘Rupert?’

  ‘Just open it,’ he says with a grin, and my heart turns over in my chest.

  ‘OK.’ Slowly I lift the lid, to reveal a silver brooch in the shape of a dragonfly, two tiny sapphires glinting in the corners of the wings. ‘Oh, Rupert. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘The sapphires represent us,’ Rupert says, tracing a finger along the stones. ‘Sapphire is the birthstone for September, and I know neither of us were born in September, but we did get married then so…’ He gives a tiny, embarrassed shrug and I launch myself across the bed, kissing him all over his face.

  ‘I love it,’ I breathe, as I sit astride him looking into his dark blue eyes – eyes the colour of sapphires – before one thing leads to another.

  Later, as Rupert snores softly and I start to drift off, reliving what has been the best day I’ve had in a long, long time, I chide myself for thinking that Rupert was anything other than the perfect man I saw when I first came to be interviewed as his housekeeper.

  Christmas morning, and I wake up with a mild red wine hangover, to see Rupert leaning over me, an excited smile on his face. Honestly, I think, he’s worse than a child, but that doesn’t stop me from grinning back at him, my limbs aching from the previous evening.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ he whispers, keeping the noise down so as not to wake his brother and Amanda in the next room.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ I whisper back, forgetting to hold in my morning breath. I jump out of bed and hurry for the small en suite (imagine, growing up in a house where you have your own bathroom attached – I was lucky to get a space in the family bathroom at all when I was growing up) quickly showering and brushing my teeth before we head downstairs for breakfast.

  Christmas is definitely as traditional as it comes in the Milligan household – Diana stirs a vat of scrambled eggs on the Aga, as Will butters toast and Amanda shreds smoked salmon, all while Eamonn sits at the table drinking coffee. We toast ourselves with Buck’s Fizz, and I am touched when Diana hands out tiny stockings to each of us, including me, that contain chocolate, small bottles of perfume or aftershave, a pair of socks each and an orange. I have to blink back tears as I accept it, retreating to the downstairs loo to blow my nose.

  Staring at my reflection in the mirror, my cheeks flushed with the early morning alcohol and the heat of the kitchen, I think about my mum, and about Mags, and wonder what they are doing, whether they are thinking of me this morning. I’d like to think they are, but the truth is they probably haven’t given me a second thought. I push away the image of Harry that creeps into my mind, unable to see him any other way than when I saw him last, as he squeezed my throat hard and I struggled for breath, and I thank God that I found Rupert. I think about Caro, and how selfish she was to throw herself off a bridge and leave this wonderful family behind. And then I think about how lucky I am, that she did do what sh
e did, leaving this wonderful family for me to be part of.

  Mid-afternoon, once we have eaten lunch and Eamonn has refused to turn on the Queen’s Speech, Rupert’s father claps his hands together and starts chivvying everyone along.

  ‘What are we doing?’ I ask Rupert in confusion, as we all pile up in the back hallway and Diana hands out pairs of wellies.

  ‘Here, these should fit you.’ Diana hands me a pair of black wellies with a jazzy silver glitter running through them and I wonder briefly if perhaps they belonged to Caro before shoving my socked feet into them.

  ‘Dad has a tradition,’ Rupert explains as he steps into his own wellies. ‘Every year we walk along to the beach to collect coal for the Christmas fire.’

  ‘Coal? On a beach?’

  Rupert laughs at the expression on my face. ‘You’ll see. We don’t find a lot, less than we did when we were kids, but Dad loves it, so we all go along with it. It’s nice to be able to do it with you. I haven’t done it for years.’

  I follow him through the back garden, out onto the little path that leads to the beach. Will calls to Rupert and he walks ahead to catch up with Will and Eamonn, the three of them all so similar I can see an older Rupert in Eamonn, a Rupert with grandchildren, and grey hair. Amanda leads the way, her wild curly hair tangled in the sea breeze and I find myself stepping in time with Diana, the two of us bringing up the rear.

  ‘I was worried about you, you know,’ she says, tucking her arm into mine.

  ‘Worried? What about?’ My heart skitters in my chest and for a moment I get a panicky feeling that maybe all of this was a ruse, that there is no happy family.

  ‘Well, it was quick wasn’t it? The courtship, the wedding.’ She watches me closely, her feet slowing to a stop. ‘Rupert closed himself off after Caro died. I didn’t think I’d ever see him happy again. He hid himself away in that big, old house she bought, and I thought he’d never get back on his feet again. He drank heavily for a while, you know. Called me, rambling on about guilt, and how he had failed Caroline.’

  I didn’t know that. Rupert has never told me about how things were after Caro died. I flounder for a moment, ‘Diana, I…’

  ‘Thank you, Emily.’ Diana lays a cold hand against my cheek. ‘You brought him back to us.’ She starts walking again, the rest of the family already off the path and onto the sand. I can hear Rupert shouting to Will from the rocks that litter the edge of the landscape. ‘Caro would never have done this, you know.’

  ‘Amanda said she didn’t spend much time here.’ I am careful what I say, anxious about saying the wrong thing.

  ‘No. It was always her way. Never Rupert’s. She certainly wouldn’t have indulged Eamonn in his coal hunting; that definitely wasn’t her thing.’

  I say nothing, just smile and tuck my arm back into Diana’s, ready to comb the beach with the rest of them. I’ve just found my first piece of coal, a tiny piece that probably is best left on the beach, but I am triumphant nonetheless, when my mobile buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, hoping that perhaps my mum has read my message to her and replied – it’s just gone ten o’clock in Florida now, after all – but my heart sinks as I see it is from an unknown number. My eyes flick towards Rupert, but he is too far away for me to call to him without drawing attention to myself. I swipe the screen.

  Your first Christmas together. And your last.

  I raise my eyes and scan the horizon, sure I can feel eyes on the back of my neck, my skin starting to prickle uncomfortably, but there is no one there, no shadowy figure watching for my reaction. There is only Rupert, and his perfect family.

  Rupert perches on a footstool in front of the tree, as we all sit in the living room ready to exchange presents. Rupert’s brooch glints at my lapel in the light from the fire, the coal we collected fizzing damply on the wood beneath it, and the scent of pine and cinnamon is on the air. It should be the perfect end to a perfect day, but instead all I can think about is the message on my phone and the fear that spiked in my veins as I read it.

  ‘This one is yours, Mum,’ Rupert is saying, as he passes her a neatly wrapped gift in red paper. It’s the scarf I chose for her, and she is thrilled with it. I paste a smile on as she thanks me, barely even aware of what is going on. I don’t miss the shared look between Rupert and Will though as Rupert gets to his feet. ‘There’s a special present I need to go and get… hang on.’ He gives me a wink and I force that smile back onto my face.

  Rupert returns a few moments later with a large cardboard box, gaudily wrapped, the top loosely closed, and hands it to me. ‘Here. This is for you, so you won’t be on your own anymore.’

  I take it, setting it in my lap before I carefully lift the flaps of the box open. Inside sits a tiny tortoiseshell kitten, her face turned up to mine. She lets out a tiny meow as Amanda presses her hands to her mouth.

  ‘A kitten? Oh, Rupert, you got her a kitten!’ she cries, rushing to sit beside me as I look up at Rupert, shock etched onto my face.

  ‘Well? Aren’t you going to say something?’ Rupert asks, uncertainty passing over his features and I gently lift the kitten from the box. Immediately she snuggles into me, letting out a rumbly purr as she kneads at my jumper.

  ‘Rupert, she’s lovely. I don’t know what to say.’ No one has ever given me a gift like this before. ‘I already love her. And you.’ Rupert crouches down to kiss me, his hand rubbing over the kitten’s tiny head.

  ‘Her name is Lola. That’s what the breeder called her, but if you want to change it, we can.’

  ‘No,’ I say, my fingers running over her silky fur, the tiny pads of her feet. ‘Lola is perfect. Thank you.’

  ‘There’s another present under here,’ Will calls out. He has taken Rupert’s place on the footstool and is rummaging under the tree. ‘It says it’s for Emily.’ He holds out a gift, the firelight making the gold writing of my name glint.

  My stomach drops as I take it from him, the kitten making her escape onto Amanda’s lap. Hand delivered. Familiar words scrawled onto a familiar parcel.

  ‘Where did this come from?’ I say, my voice cracking on the last word. Rupert is frowning, a deep V etched between his eyebrows.

  ‘Under the tree,’ Will laughs, ‘it was tucked at the back there.’

  ‘It was in the bag of presents that you left by the front door,’ Rupert says finally. ‘Didn’t you put it there?’

  ‘No,’ I say testily, ‘I didn’t put it there. Rupert, I put this behind the bin.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ Amanda pauses in her stroking of Lola.

  ‘Who put it in the bag? Did you, Rupert? Please just tell me if you did.’ I can feel the panic rising, the tightness of my chest reaching up into my throat.

  ‘No, I didn’t. I thought you did,’ Rupert says, ‘Anya probably put it in there, you know how she is. She probably saw it was a present and thought you’d forgotten to pack it.’

  I stare at him incredulously, my fingers shaking as I run my hand over my name. ‘No…’

  ‘Emily, why don’t you just open it?’ Will says, smiling, although there is confusion on his face. ‘Does it matter how it got into the bag? Just open it and see who it’s from.’

  I nod, taking a deep breath. It’s probably nothing. Just a gift, it is Christmas after all. Your first Christmas together. And your last. Forcing the words from my mind, I strip off the wrapping paper, gasping as I tear off the tissue paper underneath to reveal the present. It is a photo, in a silver frame, last seen on my mantelpiece and one that I hoped never to see again. It’s Rupert and Caro’s wedding photo.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘I don’t know what you want me to do, Emily.’ Rupert keeps his eyes on the road as the glow from the streetlamps lights his face in strips of black and orange. We are travelling back from his parents a day early, after a tense Boxing Day, the two of us barely speaking.

  I huddle against the car door, watching the verge of the motorway speed past. ‘I want you to believe me,’ I say eventual
ly. ‘I told you someone was… harassing me, I suppose. That’s the only way I can describe it. I showed you that text message I received on Christmas Day.’

  And I had. After I had unwrapped the photograph of Rupert and Caro on their wedding day, Christmas had been ruined. Diana had swooped down and scooped it up, as I had rushed from the room in tears. Rupert had found me sitting on the edge of his childhood bed, my phone in my hand.

  ‘Here,’ I say, thrusting it towards him, ‘I got this earlier while we were on the beach.’ I watch his face as he reads it.

  ‘Who is it from?’

  ‘I don’t know, Rupert. An unknown number, just like the ones before. The other ones I told you about that you just brushed under the carpet.’ Bitterness leaches into my voice and I shake my head, tears dripping off the end of my nose.

  ‘It could be a wrong number.’

  ‘Jesus, Rupert.’ I get to my feet and start pacing. ‘What do I have to do to show you that someone is trying to get to us? To me? This is proof – how can I be exaggerating, or misreading something when it’s right there in front of you?’

  I had snatched the phone back and refused to discuss it with him again.

  Now, he says, ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you. I do. I saw the message. I was just trying to… I don’t know, make you feel better, I guess.’ He blows out a long breath and flicks on the indicator to come off the motorway.

  ‘We could call the police,’ I say, thinking of how Sadie suggested it before the holidays. ‘Tell them someone is harassing me.’

  ‘Really?’ He glances towards me but looks back at the road before I can read his expression. ‘I’m not saying this to brush it away, Em, but it’s just a couple of text messages. I don’t think they’ll do anything.’

  ‘But someone was in the house, Rupert, I heard someone when I was in the shower.’ Irritation makes me snap, and I bite the inside of my cheek hard in frustration.