The Perfect Couple

by Lisa Hall

  Rushing from the room, I press my hand against my stomach as it swoops and swirls, slamming the lock home on the bathroom door. I lean on the sink and take a deep breath before running the cold tap and splashing water on my face and wrists to cool myself down. I raise my eyes to the mirror, to my reflection staring back at me. Sadie is right, I do look awful. I think of Rupert and I together in Sadie’s downstairs loo at her Easter party, my face flushed, my eyes sparkling as I watched us in the mirror. Today, by contrast, my face is pale, dark circles smudge the skin under my eyes, despite the caking on of concealer, showing the lack of sleep I’ve had. I flush the toilet for effect and splash my face with water once more, drying my cheeks on the soft, almost linen-feel paper towels that Amanda has left out for her guests. As I step on the pedal to raise the lid of the bin, something catches my eye. Leaning down, I pick it up, careful not to touch the end, and look back at myself in the mirror. This explains why Amanda doesn’t want a glass of champagne.

  When I return to the table the two women are a little flushed and giggly. I sit back down, apologizing for rushing off so quickly, as I try to shake off the feeling that perhaps they have been talking about me.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Sadie asks. There is concern in her eyes, but she still reaches for her champagne glass.

  ‘Yes, sorry. I just needed to cool off for a moment.’ I laugh and mime fanning myself.

  ‘Well. As long as you’re OK,’ Sadie says, a slight tinge of suspicion in her tone. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be a mother hen,’ she tries to smile but it doesn’t quite work, ‘Caro kept dashing off like that before she died.’

  I open my mouth to ask why, but Amanda breaks in, clearly unable to wait to tell us her news.

  ‘Girls, I have something I need to tell you.’ Her face glows as she struggles to hold in a smile, pushing her plate away. When Sadie does the same, I lay down my fork, my food untouched, grateful for an excuse to leave it.

  ‘I’m pregnant!’ Amanda announces, and Sadie lets out an ear-splitting squeal, shoving her chair back and running round to squeeze Amanda tightly.

  ‘Oh, darling, this is wonderful news!’ Sadie beams, turning to me, as I smile and whisper my congratulations. ‘Em, it’s taken Will and Amanda simply ages to get pregnant, hasn’t it, darling?’ She squeezes Amanda’s hand tightly.

  ‘Lovely news,’ I say, unsure of how to react – after all, although I don’t know Amanda terribly well, this child will be my niece or nephew. ‘How far along are you, Amanda?’

  ‘Only six weeks,’ Amanda says, her joy evident on her face. ‘To be honest, I only did the test last night. Will is the only one who knows – apart from you two now – so please, please don’t say anything just yet. I’m feeling a little superstitious. Plus, you know, Will wants to tell his parents before anyone else.’ Amanda’s hand goes almost unconsciously to her belly to stroke her still flat stomach.

  ‘Oh, Diana and Eamonn will be over the moon,’ Sadie cries, ‘especially after…’ She falls silent and Amanda says nothing, leaving me to look at them both questioningly.

  ‘After what?’ I say, a confused smile tugging at my mouth. Amanda gets up and takes the plates from the table, moving to the sink, her back turned to me. ‘Sadie? What do you mean, especially after? And what were you saying about Caro rushing off earlier?’

  ‘Caro was…’ Sadie lays her hands flat on the table, looks down at them. ‘Caro was pregnant when she died.’

  ‘Pregnant?’ My mouth is dry, and I reach for my water, condensation making the glass slick under my fingers.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ Amanda turns from where she stands at the sink, her hand still cradling her non-existent bump. ‘Did Rupert not tell you?’

  ‘No. No, he didn’t.’ Why didn’t he tell me? ‘I had no idea. How… how many weeks was she?’

  ‘Eight, ten. Something like that. Not many, but still. It made everything even harder.’ Sadie sniffs, knocks back the rest of her champagne. ‘I’m sure Rupert had his reasons for not telling you.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure he did.’

  I don’t know what to think. If Caro hadn’t died, Rupert would be a father. His child – a little boy with his cowlick and his dark blue eyes, or a girl, with Caro’s smile – would be a toddler, starting to walk, to talk, to be a little person in their own right. How could she do that to Rupert? To her own child?

  Marching back up the drive, my head down and lost in thoughts of Caro, and Rupert, and the baby that never was, I am on top of it – of her – before I realize what it is. A bundle of fur curled up at the entrance to the drive. At first I think she is sleeping, although why Lola would be sleeping on the cold block paving instead of her warm bed is a mystery, and it’s only as I scoop her up that I spot the blood on her head, the way she is limp in my arms.

  ‘Oh no,’ I whisper, tears starting to fall as I begin to process what has happened. My tiny kitten, my little companion, dead. I stumble inside with her in my arms, calling to Anya even though I know she has left for the day. Wrapping Lola’s tiny, cold body in a towel, I rush upstairs for an empty shoebox to bury her in, my feet slowing as I reach the top of the stairs and the scent of nectarines fills my nose. My heart starts to hammer in my chest as I inch forward, pushing open the door to the spare bedroom. The perfume is stronger in here, and my stomach does a slow roll. I think for a horrid moment that I am going to be sick, right there on the carpet, and I suck in a deep, shaky breath, grabbing at the shoebox and hurrying back downstairs. Once Lola is tucked safely in the box, the splash of blood on her fur the only sign that she isn’t just sleeping, I call Rupert.

  ‘Rupert? Something awful has happened.’ I blurt out the words as soon as he answers.

  ‘Em? What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s…’ My throat is thick, and I have to push the words past the lump there. ‘Lola is dead. I came home and she was curled up at the end of the drive. I think… someone hurt her.’

  ‘What? Em, are you sure?’ Rupert’s voice is quiet, and I have to strain to hear him.

  ‘Of course, I’m sure! There’s blood on her head, she was definitely hurt by something. She didn’t die naturally. Rupert, listen, someone called the house this morning. They called me a bitch, they whispered it down the line. What if someone deliberately did this to her?’

  As the words leave my mouth I start to shake, and I have to sit down before my legs give way.

  ‘Emily, please. We live on the main road into the village; the chances are that she was hit by a car. Please don’t freak out about it. I’m sorry, of course I am, I know how much you loved her.’

  ‘She was hit by a car that just so happened to be outside our house?’ I snap. ‘Can’t you see, someone did this deliberately. To hurt me.’

  ‘Em,’ Rupert lets out a long breath, ‘OK. I can see that maybe it could look that way, but – be honest, it could just as easily have been a car that hit her. Do you want me to come home?’

  I think about Sadie’s expression as she tells me that Caro was pregnant. About Lola’s tiny face, and how she’ll never wind her way round my feet again. ‘No,’ I say, ‘it’s fine.’

  I arrange with the vet to take Lola in for cremation, and then head upstairs, a bone-aching fatigue tugging at my entire body. Lola might have only been in our lives for a short while, but I was attached to her, and I’ll miss her winding her way round my feet all day. As I reach the top of the stairs, that nectarine-scented perfume hits my senses and I see Caro’s Facebook page in my mind’s eye, her face smiling up at Rupert as he gazes down at her in adoration. Enough is enough, I tell myself, opening the door to the spare room and heading straight to the wardrobe. It’s coming up to the second anniversary of her death, so maybe the time is finally right. Maybe if her things aren’t here, I won’t smell her on the air anymore, and the house will finally start to feel as though it belongs to Rupert and me. Maybe I’ll start to feel as though I belong. Maybe by getting rid of every trace of Caro, I’ll let whoever it is th
at is calling me – that shadow that follows me everywhere I go – that I’m not taking it anymore. That they can send me all the text messages, and call me as many times as they like, I am here to stay. I run my fingers over the fabric of her clothes and start to pull out the hangers sorting them into piles.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  I jump, catching my hair in the empty hangers that dangle above my head. ‘Shit, Rupert, you scared me.’

  I manage to disentangle myself and stand, tired and aching, as Rupert surveys the spare room, the piles of clothes that lie on the bed, the dressing table, the floor.

  ‘I asked what you were doing.’ He doesn’t step forward to kiss me hello, like he usually does.

  ‘I’m sorting Caro’s things out,’ I say, heat making my cheeks flush pink. Maybe I should have checked with him first. ‘I don’t want to upset you, Rupert, but I live here now. It’s hard for me to live in a house where your first wife’s clothes still hang in the spare wardrobe.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry. You just caught me unawares, I wasn’t expecting it.’ Rupert steps over a pile of high-heeled sandals and pulls me into his arms. ‘And you’ve had a horrible day too.’

  ‘Pretty shit,’ I say into his shirt, as he kisses the top of my head. ‘Amanda’s pregnant.’

  ‘Oh?’ Rupert slides a hand under my shirt, as he traces a line of kisses along my jaw and down to my neck. Despite the shot of desire that makes my knees weak, I place a hand on his elbow to stop him. It feels weirdly wrong, when we are surrounded by Caro’s things, her perfume staining the air.

  ‘We’ve never talked about it, have we? About starting a family. I don’t even know how you feel about children.’ Now is his chance to tell me about Caro. I wait, turning to the clothes on the bed, pretending to fold them.

  ‘I, ahh…’ Rupert runs a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know how I feel really, I haven’t ever thought about it much.’

  ‘Really?’ I turn back to him, my arms folded across my chest. ‘Not once? You never thought about maybe turning this room into a nursery?’

  ‘No. Emily, what is this about? Have you suddenly decided you desperately want a baby or something? Because, not being funny, you’ve never mentioned it either.’

  He’s not going to mention it. ‘Sadie told me about Caro.’ I watch his face as a whole range of emotions flicker across it; fear, anger, and then finally sadness. ‘Why didn’t you tell me she was pregnant when she died, Rupert?’

  ‘What was I supposed to say?’ He finally raises his eyes to mine. ‘Don’t you think it was hard enough to tell you how she died? I wanted to tell you but…’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ I say, flatly. ‘I had to find out from Sadie like some sort of idiot, who doesn’t even know who she’s married to.’

  ‘God, Em, please don’t be like that.’ Rupert moves towards me, but I hold up a hand.

  ‘I felt like a fool, Rupert. I’m sorry, but I did. You should have told me.’

  ‘It was too hard, OK?’ Rupert almost shouts the words, and I feel something in me crumple. Maybe I’m being unreasonable. Cruel, even. ‘I couldn’t tell you because it was too hard. It was bad enough telling you she killed herself – what would you have thought of me if I told you that life with me was so unbearable she took our child with her?’

  A single tear tracks its way down his cheek before he walks from the room, slamming the door closed behind him leaving me standing alone in a room filled with his dead wife’s things, wishing I had just kept my mouth shut.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I apologize to Rupert again in the morning, pressing my body against him before the alarm clock goes off and he has the chance to slide out of bed to go to work. He rolls over and kisses me hard, pulling himself on top of me, knotting his fingers through my hair until I wince.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, tracing my fingers over his cheeks, following the track his tear made. Lying by omission isn’t really lying, is it? That’s what I tell myself – that Rupert didn’t really lie; he just didn’t tell me.

  ‘Let’s not talk about it.’ His voice is gruff, his face scratchy with stubble, and I let him move on top of me, biting against his shoulder to stifle my cries. Later, as I watch him knot his tie and slide his feet into fancy loafers, I push myself up on my pillows and say it again. ‘I really am sorry, Rupert. I didn’t think before I spoke, but you know you can talk about Caro to me. I won’t be upset.’

  ‘I know.’ Rupert leans over and kisses my forehead. ‘We’ll talk about it later, OK? I’m late. And don’t forget we have that dinner tonight.’ And then he is gone in a cloud of aftershave. At least he’s wearing the Tom Ford now.

  I slump back against the pillows. I had forgotten about the charity dinner tonight. It’s being hosted, as it is every year, by an important client of the company Rupert works for. Caro’s father’s company. I didn’t want to go, but Rupert told me it was expected. Rupert has to attend, and therefore I have to as his wife. I go cold at the thought of Caro’s social media photos, the pictures showing her and Rupert at this event in previous years. At the thought of running into her parents.

  I spend the day running errands and working on the garden, even though Rupert said it was fine as it is. I haven’t given up all hope of the pool just yet, and I could maybe even see about getting rid of the old shed at the bottom of the garden, and putting in a new one as a pool house for changing in, if I could get it for a good price. I let my mind wander as I burn the piles of dead wood, bushes and leaves that I have cleared and plant a rose bush in memory of Lola. The grass seeds have taken, and the lawn is looking more lush than scraggly in places at long last, and I prune and weed, all the while trying not to think about tonight’s event. Rupert isn’t best pleased when he arrives home to find me sipping brandy, watching the bonfire as the flames leap high into the sky.

  ‘Sorry,’ I pass him what’s left in the brandy glass, ‘I lost track of time. What do you think?’

  ‘It’s great.’ Rupert gives me a thin smile, and I think how tired he looks. ‘You don’t have to though; I’m happy living with it like a jungle, I told you that.’

  ‘Ha. I’d never have guessed.’ I check my watch. ‘Yikes. I really am going to make us late.’

  I hurry upstairs and into the shower, relaxing at last now that Rupert is home and any last remnants of our argument seem to have been forgotten. Riffling through my wardrobe I take great care with the dress I choose. I did do some shopping with my black Am Ex, choosing three dresses, and now I select the one that is least like any of Caro’s, no longer hanging in the wardrobe next door but bagged up and delivered to the local charity shop. I deliberately delivered it to one of Angus Beaton’s shops, sure that Caro would have been pleased with the idea.

  I pick out a slinky, midnight blue dress, cut much lower than anything Caro owned. I twist my hair up into a chignon, a few strands falling artfully around my face. As I push tiny gold hoops into my ears, my gaze falls on Caro’s jewellery box, still sitting at the very back of the dressing table, behind the huge mirror. I pull it towards me, noticing the light sprinkling of dust on the top. Glancing towards the en-suite door, where steam escapes and I can hear the hiss of the shower running, reassuring myself that Rupert is not going to walk in on me, I open the lid, letting out a small gasp as I drink in what lies there.

  Gold necklaces, earrings, a fat, glistening ruby on a square gold setting – I pick that one up and slide it onto my finger where it spins, far too big for my slender hand – a brooch, not dissimilar to the one Rupert bought me for Christmas, only instead of a dragonfly it is a bee, the white of its stripes made from diamonds. These things must be worth a fortune, and I imagine, just for a moment, being a woman who owns thousands of pounds’ worth of jewellery. I imagine my mother’s face if I rocked up at her house wearing this ruby ring, the bee brooch attached to my coat.

  ‘Em?’ Rupert’s voice shouts to me through the door of the en suite and I hear the shower switch off.<
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  ‘Shit,’ I whisper to myself, thrusting the brooch back into the jewellery box, knocking the whole thing from the table in my haste to put it all back where it was. Gold and silver spills from the box and I scramble onto my hands and knees, scooping up rings and earrings, tumbling them all back into the box, reaching right under the dressing table to pull out an expensive-looking diamond stud earring that has rolled almost out of arm’s reach. I fumble under the dressing table, looking for the other one but it’s no good, I can’t find it. Flushed and panting, I shove the box to the back, behind the mirror, and am sitting fixing my hair, which has escaped its grips, by the time Rupert comes out.

  ‘Mmmm,’ he kisses the back of my neck as he passes, ‘you look fabulous.’

  I give him a smile and slide a secret glance towards the box, making sure it’s exactly as it was, hoping that by the time we get into the cab to go to dinner, my heart rate will be back to normal.

  Amanda has cried off the dinner, citing extreme morning sickness, so I am sitting with Sadie, according to the table plan. Rupert sits opposite me, next to Miles, and another couple I’ve never met before also are seated with us.

  ‘Hi,’ I whisper, sliding into the seat next to Sadie. We are slightly late – it turns out Rupert really did think I looked wonderful, and I ended up taking my dress off before the cab arrived. ‘Sorry we’re a bit late.’

  ‘How are you?’ Sadie asks, head on one side as she lays her hand on mine. ‘I’m so sorry about the other day, at Amanda’s. I just assumed that Rupert would have told you. You didn’t have a frightful row, did you?’

  ‘No,’ I lie, picking up the small menu in front of me. I have no idea what half the items on it are, so I lay it straight back down. ‘Of course not. It’s fine, nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Sadie presses her hand to her chest, ‘I’d hate to think that I’d caused any trouble between the two of you. He’s so happy since you came on the scene and we see so much more of him.’ She looks across the table and I follow her gaze to where Rupert is listening to something Miles says, before tipping his head back and letting out a huge belly laugh.