by Lucy Diamond
Somehow she managed to navigate through the evening meal on automatic pilot. The girls were less tearful, thank heavens, and now just looked shattered, in need of a hot bath and an early night. Hugh seemed to be tiptoeing around her, but she remained tight-lipped, unable to look him in the eye. Oh, Hugh! How could he have let her down? Not only that, but he’d made it so obvious, leaving his unused gym stuff there, knowing she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from putting it in the wash. Did he want her to find out?
The thought shook her. Maybe he was building up to telling her something awful. Maybe he was seeing someone else. What if he had been playing away all this time, cheating on her, weaselling out behind her back to meet some temptress under the pretence of being at the gym, week after week after week? He had been there a lot recently, even by his standards. Something else struck her. Was that why he’d sneakily roped in Lilian to look after the children while she was meant to be in Paris? Was he planning a little trip of his own, with this woman? Talk about a tangled web!
She felt like crying as the questions kept unfolding in her head. It was only the process of running a bath for the children, pouring in the bubbles and fetching clean towels that stopped her from collapsing in a puddle of dread. Hugh … and somebody else? Hugh … having an affair?
She tried to get a grip of herself as she bathed the children and helped them get ready for bed. Silly woman! One unworn gym kit and she was leaping to all sorts of ridiculous conclusions. There was probably a perfectly good explanation for it. Perfectly good. Maybe Hugh would even offer it up himself that evening. You’ll never guess what …
It was sure to be nothing. There was little point in her even mentioning it really, was there? She didn’t want to cause a fuss.
Wuss, taunted the voice in her head. Hiding your head in the sand? Scared of what you might find out? The voice sounded more like Sandra every day, thought Alicia, trying to block it out. Where was Christine when she needed her?
‘Alicia?’
There was Willow again, looking younger somehow in her pyjamas, with clean, shining hair. It was uncanny how she seemed to know when Alicia needed a distraction. ‘Yes, darling?’
‘Can we go to see Mum again tomorrow?’
‘Of course you can, my lovely. And hopefully tomorrow we’ll bring her back with us, won’t that be good?’
‘Maybe we could make her a welcome poster,’ Willow said. ‘And some balloons. She likes balloons.’
Alicia cuddled her. Willow was adorable. ‘What a good idea,’ she said. ‘And what a lucky mummy she is, having you to think of all these special things for her.’
Hazel was already in bed, her thumb in her mouth. ‘Do you think it’s nice in heaven?’ she asked when Alicia leaned over to kiss her goodnight.
Ah. Good question. As a scientist, Alicia didn’t have an awful amount of truck with the notions of heaven and hell, or religion full stop actually, but she knew exactly what was required of her here. ‘Oh, I imagine it’s wonderful up there,’ she said, stroking Hazel’s hair tenderly. ‘And I bet Daddy will be looking down on you and blowing kisses, and thinking what a lovely, brave superstar you are.’
‘And Willow too,’ Hazel said, sounding sleepy.
‘Definitely Willow too,’ Alicia agreed, tucking the covers in around her. ‘Night-night, sweetheart. Sleep well.’
Willow hugged Alicia tightly before climbing into bed. ‘Thank you for being so nice to me and Hazel,’ she murmured. ‘I really like being here.’
It was enough to slay even the flintiest person. ‘You’re welcome,’ Alicia replied chokily. ‘You wait until I tell your mum how good you’ve been. She’ll be so, so proud of you. Even more proud than she already is.’ She bent down to tuck Willow in. ‘You sleep well, okay? Tomorrow will be a better day.’
Tomorrow would be a better day, she repeated to herself as she went back downstairs. Today had been pretty tough, all things considered, with worse possibly yet to come. Could she really bring herself to grill Hugh on what he’d been up to?
She hesitated on the bottom step, her hand on the newel post. He was in the kitchen, opening the fridge. Seconds later she heard the pop of a wine cork.
Should she do this? Did she really want to find out the truth?
Steeling herself, she marched in. She had to know what was going on. If she didn’t ask, she’d be wondering and wondering and the doubt would eat away at her.
Hugh waved a wine glass at her as she entered the room. ‘Glass of Château le Bordillot?’ he asked amiably. ‘2006 – it’s a good vintage apparently.’
She ignored him. Tough and to the point. ‘Hugh,’ she said abruptly. ‘Be honest. What were you really doing all day today?’
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was the same Saturday and Emma braked as she nosed her car into the Mulberry House driveway. She was frowning, still puzzling over the strange thing she’d seen on her way down. She’d stopped for petrol near Ilminster, but, as she slowed to park at one set of pumps, she’d been certain that David’s brother Hugh was getting into his car beside the pumps opposite. She waved and smiled – coincidence or what! – but he hadn’t seen her. Too busy talking to the young woman in his passenger seat.
Emma had stared in shock, her eyes actually boggling in their sockets like a cartoon character. Wait a minute … Had she made a mistake? She yanked on the handbrake and turned off the engine, but before she could go over and say anything, Hugh – if it was him – had driven away.
She’d sat there for a good twenty seconds with her mouth open. Hugh … and a pretty auburn-haired woman? No. No way. She must have been mistaken. But if it wasn’t him, it was the spitting image of him.
Shaking her head, she got out of the car. She was definitely mistaken. It was almost laughable, the thought of good old Hugh cheating on good old Alicia. It was probably someone he worked with, that was all. (Did he work on Saturdays?) Or maybe he was kindly giving a girl from their street a lift somewhere. But Hugh, doing the dirty? Never. That was her, leaping to warped conclusions, her with cheating on the brain because …
Because what, Emma?
She wrinkled her nose as she slotted the petrol nozzle into the tank. To be fair, she wasn’t exactly cheating on David as such. Not technically speaking. Not if you forensically analysed the evidence so far. That wasn’t to say that cheating on David hadn’t crossed her mind during the last week. It had.
She and Nicholas had met again since their first ‘chance’ encounter on campus. He’d taken her for lunch on Thursday, to Bordeaux Quay, one of Bristol’s classiest restaurants. Her stomach felt light and fluttery as she walked up to the entrance, her heart actually flipped when she saw him seated at a table, smartly dressed in dark jeans and a soft grey cashmere jumper. The older man. History repeating itself. This time she was going to make sure events panned out her way, though.
They sat there together, terribly polite, talking about this and that, safe subjects, all of them. They clinked wine glasses and admired the food, the sun twinkling off the harbour outside. It almost felt like it was the first time they’d met, had it not been for all the deep, murky history washing unmentioned between them. By the time they finished eating she could feel the tension throbbing like an electrical charge. Was he still attracted to her? He didn’t have the same thrall for her any more – she wouldn’t have looked twice at him in the street. But if he could give her what she wanted, then who cared? Ironically, it might even save her marriage from imploding.
‘It’s so good to see you again,’ he said once she’d dragged out a coffee for as long as she could get away with. ‘I can’t remember why we ever lost touch.’
Her face flushed. Did he really not know? Was she merely one of a string of affairs, which had melded into an amorphous blob of memory over the years?
She probably should have held her tongue, but after a midday glass of wine she’d never been able to rein herself in. ‘I got pregnant. That’s why we lost touch,’ she blurted out, more accusi
ngly than she’d meant to.
A lesser man might have flinched, but Nicholas had always been one to keep his composure. ‘Ah yes,’ he said after a moment. ‘That’s right. Now I remember.’
Silence fell while they both remembered. She remembered sitting on his wall weeping, being shooed away in no uncertain terms in case his wife saw her. She remembered the sterile clinic, the weeks of crying and heartache afterwards, the emptiness inside her.
Suddenly she wanted to get out of the restaurant, to run as far from him as she could possibly go. Reopening the wound was more painful than she had expected. The scarring was deep and still tender. And her being here at all was a completely mad idea.
The chair squawked as she pushed it away. ‘I’d better get back to work,’ she mumbled. She had a three o’clock meeting with a client about a bathroom refit; she mustn’t rock up there red-faced and dishevelled, stinking of wine, lust and bad memories.
He put a hand on hers. ‘Wait. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And I’m sorry for how things ended between us. I behaved very badly. I was unkind. Yes,’ he said firmly, holding up a finger as she opened her mouth to protest. ‘We both know I was.’
And there it was, an apology of sorts: words she’d wanted to hear, fifteen years too late.
She tried to brush it off, not wanting him to know how much pain he’d caused. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Water under the bridge.’
‘Do you have children now?’ he asked and she winced. Tactful, Nicholas.
‘No,’ she said.
‘But you are married, yes? I noticed your ring.’
‘Yes.’ She felt wrong-footed, suddenly, no longer in charge of the situation, and half-rose in her seat. ‘Listen, I really do have to go. Let me leave some money.’ She pulled out her purse and began fishing for a twenty-pound note, but he waved a hand.
‘No need,’ he said. ‘This one’s on me.’
Now she’d definitely lost the lead. ‘Honestly, no, let’s go halves,’ she said.
He’d already placed his credit card on the table. ‘My treat,’ he said. ‘Next time, maybe you could take me somewhere.’
She managed a smile, although she felt as if she’d just slipped out of the shallows and into uncharted, turbulent waters. He was playing her just like he always had. How had she let it happen? ‘That would be nice,’ she said and brushed an imaginary crumb from her skirt. ‘Well. Thank you.’
He smiled back. Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly. ‘I’ll ring you.’
She stumbled away from the restaurant feeling like an idiot – a teenage fool lusting after the sexy lecturer all over again. Oh God! So much for her calling the shots. So much for going in, taking what she wanted and exiting again. Already the situation had become complicated. Was he hitting on her? Could she seriously go through with what she’d been planning?
The lunch date wasn’t her only transgression. To her shame, the very next night she had …
She blinked. The fuel tank was full, the nozzle had cut off, and was silent and still in her hand. How long had she been standing there in a daydream? Quickly she fastened the cap on her tank and shut the little hatch. The less she thought about last night, the better.
She paid for the petrol, her head still full of Nicholas’s enigmatic smile, his low chuckle, the frisson she’d felt whenever his skin touched hers. She had to tread carefully, she told herself. Very, very carefully.
It was a relief to come down to Dorset, to escape the temptations of the city for a weekend, she thought, sliding back into the car and starting the engine. And she was definitely losing her marbles if she thought she’d seen Hugh Jones with some young fox on a Saturday afternoon.
She drove away, resolving to put Nicholas Larsson firmly out of her mind from now on. The man was nothing but trouble.
Mulberry House felt rather subdued when Emma arrived forty minutes later. According to Eddie, Lilian was in bed with ‘one of her heads’, Charlie had gone to visit a friend in hospital, and David was hard at work in the holiday chalet, down the garden.
‘I’ll make him a cup of tea,’ Emma said, still feeling guilty about her shenanigans over the last forty-eight hours. ‘Would you like one?’
‘Bless you, love, I could kill for one,’ Eddie said. He’d come in from mowing the lawn and smelled of grass clippings and sweat.
More caffeine. She’d been mainlining the stuff all day, trying to shake off her horrendous hangover. She had needed a Diet Coke, two cups of tea and the mother of all bacon sandwiches before she could even stagger into the shower that morning.
Her hands shook as she set out the mugs. What was happening to her? She seemed to be falling apart, as if her carefully constructed self had cracked and the secret mess inside her head was leaking out everywhere.
She couldn’t even properly remember what had happened last night. It had begun innocently enough, as a post-work drinking session that she had actually bothered to go to for once. She’d been drinking too fast, too much, but she was having fun for what felt like the first time in weeks and didn’t care. Drinks and chat in the pub turned into a pounding club night, and Emma had gone with the flow. Why not? she’d thought impulsively. There was nobody to hurry home to, was there? Nobody to text explaining her whereabouts. She remembered bright-pink cocktails, fruity with a kick. She remembered laughing like a drain at her colleagues’ banter and thinking what a laugh it was, going out with them. She also remembered dirty dancing with Greg, provocative and too close, his hand on her back, his hips grinding into hers.
Oh God.
And then … What happened next was a blank, however hard she tried to piece together the details. How had she even got home? She had absolutely no recollection of leaving the club or making her way back. Her next definite memory was of the flat spinning around her at about three in the morning, then of being repeatedly sick, pinkly sick, in the loo for some time afterwards. They didn’t advise that as best practice on the getting-pregnant websites.
She had woken up still dressed, her tights ripped, makeup smeared across her face and some deely boppers wedged on her head. Deely boppers? Where had they come from?
She shuddered now as she poured the tea. If Nicholas Larsson was trouble, Greg was worse. Much worse. Greg was loud, indiscreet, shameless. He wouldn’t have thought twice about putting his hand up her top – or any other woman’s, for that matter. She hoped she hadn’t snogged him. Please let her not have snogged him. Surely she’d have remembered that? She gritted her teeth, feeling queasy and already dreading Monday morning’s recriminations at the office.
My marriage is on the rocks, she thought grimly, stirring in the milk. I’m behaving badly. David hasn’t even bothered to say hello. What’s to become of us? And is there any way back?
‘Ta, love,’ said Eddie and she jumped, having forgotten he was still in the room with her. She hoped he couldn’t smell alcohol seeping from her pores. He went back outside with the mug, whistling, and she watched him go, wistfulness and angst clashing inside her. He was a proper husband, if ever there was one: dutiful and steadfast, spending his free time making his home better for him and his wife. That was how a marriage should be. Not the two of them spending weeks apart, barely speaking and misbehaving.
She saw Eddie walk down the garden and then David appeared, coming towards the house.
At that moment her phone buzzed with a text. Greg. MADAM! it read. Never knew you had it in you! ;) G x.
Oh shit. Madam? Winking emoticons? This didn’t look good. This didn’t look good at all. The back door was opening and so, with a deep breath, a big fat fake smile and creeping nausea, she stuffed her phone into her pocket and waited to greet her husband.
They drove out to Charmouth and walked onto the beach together. The sea breeze tugged at her hangover, pulling it away, and she gulped in the salty air, feeling slightly more alive.
‘You’ll never guess who I saw on the way down
here,’ she said as they tramped along. ‘Hugh – and some woman. Don’t tell me he’s got a bit on the side?’
‘Nah,’ said David. Did she imagine it or was there the slightest hesitation before he answered? Did he know something? ‘Not Hugh. You must have been mistaken.’
‘I’m sure it was him,’ she persisted, wondering uneasily if Alicia knew about her husband’s mysterious rendezvous. Should she mention it, or would that throw a spanner in the works?
David said nothing. The Joneses closing ranks once again. There had been a time when she and her husband had told each other everything, trusting one another not to break a confidence, even that of a brother or close friend. Now look at them, clutching their secrets protectively close.
She shook herself. She must be imagining it. Probably just hangover-induced paranoia, she thought, deciding against pressing him any further.
Her mobile buzzed again and she opened the text without thinking. Thinking about you. N x.
She rammed her phone back into her pocket, and a hot flush reared up through her skin. She was sure her heartbeat was audible through her clothes.
David glanced over. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Fine,’ she said, wincing at her own lie.
They walked in silence for a while, then sat down on some dry rocks, watching the waves roll in and out, glittering in the weak April sun.
‘I’m not pregnant,’ she blurted out miserably before she could stop herself. The words seemed louder than the sea for a moment; the world shrank to the two of them, together but alone on the rock.
He said nothing for a moment, then reached out and took her hand. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
There seemed to be nothing more to say as they sat together, joined by their fingers, yet miles apart. A mob of seagulls jeered overhead and she felt utterly desolate. What now? she wondered. Where can we go from here?
