The Party

by Lisa Hall

  24

  DECEMBER – THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE PARTY

  The handles of the carrier bags cut into my palms, turning my fingers white from lack of circulation as I stagger up the road from the bus stop. It’s only two weeks until Christmas, the only Saturday I have free between now and then to get my Christmas shopping done, and it’s typical that my car wouldn’t start when I got back to the car park. Even more typical that I forgot my mobile, left on the kitchen side unit when I left the house in a hurry this morning, so keen was I to get the shopping over and done with, so I couldn’t even call Gareth and ask him to come and fetch me. Not that he would have come – he and Robbie were supposed to be going to watch West Ham v Chelsea, although as I approach the house, shifting the bags from one hand to the other for some slight relief, I see his car is still in the driveway. I don’t think anything of it – he probably decided to get the train in, thinking the crush of the Christmas shopping crowds on public transport would be less hassle than the traffic jams on the roads.

  It’s a shock then, when I finally manage to juggle my door keys and the hundreds of bags I’ve carried home and let myself in, to see Gareth standing in the hallway.

  ‘Oh.’ I drop the bags to the floor and massage some life back into my aching fingers. ‘I didn’t realize you were home – I’ve had to leave the car in the car park, it wouldn’t start …’

  ‘Shut up, Rachel.’ Gareth’s voice is brittle and hard, as though he’s holding something back.

  ‘What?’ I stare at him, open-mouthed. ‘You can’t speak to me like that.’

  ‘I can speak to you any damn way I please.’ His mouth slashes a grim line into his face, and I can’t place his expression. If I had to choose, I would say something close to hate. My eyes drift downwards, to where I spy my mobile phone clamped in his right hand. All of a sudden, the atmosphere changes, becomes so thick that you could cut it with a knife. Shivers race down my spine and my heart rate speeds up, fear racing through my veins.

  ‘Where’s Robbie?’ I whisper, anxious that he will be a party to whatever happens next.

  ‘Now you wonder about Robbie!’ Gareth lets out a harsh bark of laughter. ‘You probably should have thought about him before, you know. He’s out – thankfully – I wouldn’t want my boy to hear this.’ He looks at me closely. ‘Out with the girls last night, wasn’t it? That was the excuse.’ He juggles the phone from one hand to the other as I look on, nervously.

  ‘I was out with the girls. You can call any of them.’ I really was out for a few drinks last night with the mums from my NCT group. Eighteen years on and we still meet for drinks every six months, to gloat about our children’s achievements under the guise of friendship. Gareth slides the unlock button on my phone and taps at the screen.

  ‘Tomorrow night. Seven p.m. I’ll tell him I’m going for a run. Can’t wait to see ALL of you x,’ he reads out from my text screen,‘sent to someone named “T”.’

  My breath sticks in my throat and for a moment I feel as though I’ll never be able to breathe again.

  ‘When did you send that, Rachel? When you were knocking up a bowl of pasta for Robbie and Sean last night, pretending you give a shit about their day? While you were putting your make-up on? While you were sitting across the table from me, telling me you wouldn’t be late home because you think it’s time to call it a day on the NCT drinks? When all the time you were lying. To me and to our son.’ By the end of the sentence his voice breaks, devastation showing on his face as I struggle to hold back the tears that spill down my cheeks.

  ‘I never sent that text,’ I say, reaching out a hand that he ignores. I know I didn’t send it, I never would have sent Ted something so explicit and obvious.‘I never sent it, I swear.’

  ‘You can swear all you want, Rach, only I called the number.’ A blaze of triumph sparks in Gareth’s eyes. ‘Do you want to guess who answered? He was mighty pleased to have your name come up on his call screen.’ He steps closer to me, uncomfortably close, shoving the phone in my face.

  ‘Oh no, Gareth, please I can explain …’ Taking a step back to widen the gap between us, I cover my mouth with my hands, trying to hold in the scream that itches to escape the back of my throat.

  ‘Explain? Explain what? That poor old Ted, Ted fucking Durand, that sad little man whose wife left him, who everyone has been feeling sorry for, has been fucking my wife?’ Gareth’s voice is quiet now, scarily calm and I am more unnerved by this than I’ve ever been when he’s lost his temper before. ‘Is that why she left him? Because of you? Because she found out you were just another old slut, eager to jump in his bed?’

  ‘No!’ I shout, swatting the phone away from my face. ‘It wasn’t like that! I’m not a slut.’ I tilt my head back, blinking back the tears that sting my eyes. ‘Angela was gone before … before anything happened.’

  ‘Oh, well that’s OK then, isn’t it?’ Gareth snorts, his face an alarming shade of red as he allows anger to sweep over him. ‘So Ted was a free agent … it was just you who had commitments, only you who was actually still married.’

  ‘Please, just let me explain. I can tell you everything if you just let me explain.’

  ‘There’s nothing to explain!’ Anger radiating off him with a white-hot heat, he comes towards me and I flinch, but it’s too late as his raised hand cracks me across the cheek and he storms away from me, leaving me shocked and frightened, a large red handprint raising itself on my white, chilled skin.

  I cower on the stairs for a moment, my cheek smarting with pain and my eyes filled with hot, stinging tears. I should have known that this moment would come – I promised myself over a month ago that I would call it off with Ted, after we nearly got caught that time, but something made me go back to him time and time again.

  I hear the sound of Gareth opening cupboards, and the noisy slosh of liquid into a glass. Much as I don’t want to, I have to go in there and explain to him how things were. I have to try and salvage something from the ruins of our marriage, for Robbie’s sake if not my own. Slowly, I push myself up to standing, catching a glimpse of my face in the hallway mirror as I do so. A purple mark already sprouts under my eye, and I foresee a couple of weeks of daily make-up routines to cover it.

  ‘Gareth,’ I say quietly, as I enter the kitchen to see him slumped, head in his hands, at the kitchen table. ‘Please just let me explain.’ He waves a hand in my direction, but doesn’t speak, just raises the glass to his lips.

  ‘It wasn’t like you think with Ted. I didn’t … I don’t love him. It didn’t mean anything to me.’ Gareth raises his head to look at me, his eyes red-rimmed, his mouth twisted in a grimace of pain, and I hate myself. ‘I was lonely – you aren’t ever around, and when you are here, it’s like you don’t want anything to do with me. I talk to you, and you blank me, telling me you never heard what I said, but all I feel is that I’m not good enough, not interesting enough for you to pay attention. You shut yourself away in your office and don’t tell me anything; you don’t want me to help out with the business any more. On the rare occasion we do sit in the same room, you spend the entire evening on your phone, doing God only knows what. I was so desperately lonely, Gareth, I just wanted some affection, to be made to feel as though I am worth something, to someone.’

  ‘So, this is all my fault?’ His voice breaks, and I understand that it’s me that has broken him. ‘I made you feel shit, so you went somewhere else, is that it? Fucking hell, Rachel.’

  ‘I’m not blaming you; I know this is all my fault. I’m just trying to tell you how I felt … I don’t love Ted, I love you. I want to be with you, but I felt as though you didn’t want to be with me.’ There is a pain in my chest so sharp, that I am convinced it is my heart breaking. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have done this to us?

  ‘You could have just talked to me. You could have just told me how you felt and we could have fixed it. How can your running off and jumping into bed with Ted Durand fix anything between us?’ He sl
ams the heavy crystal glass down on the table, making me jump. ‘Jesus, Rachel, you have no idea about the shit I’m dealing with at the moment, do you? I’m trying to support our family, and you … Aaron said …’

  ‘Aaron?’ I cut him off, sharply. ‘Is that where this has all come from? Did that bastard tell you to check my phone?’ Did he somehow get hold of my phone and send that text to Ted, purely so Gareth would see it? I know I didn’t send that message. My blood runs cold as I realize that Aaron did what he threatened – and he’s clearly more dangerous than I ever thought he could be. ‘There are a few things you should know about Aaron,’ I say, determined not to let Gareth believe whatever shit Aaron has spouted at him. ‘You should know that he’s been threatening me.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Rachel.’

  ‘It’s true!’ My voice rises, and I struggle to get myself back under control, Gareth won’t believe me if I can’t even tell him without getting hysterical. ‘He saw me with Ted at a pub. He called me over to the Riverside house, pretending to be you – remember that time, with the keys? – he tried it on then, telling me he never got over me.’ Gareth frowns, but doesn’t speak, so I carry on. ‘Then, when I took Thor to the vet, he locked himself in my car with me and told me that if I didn’t sleep with him he would tell you I was having an affair with Ted.’ I stop, eyeing Gareth expectantly to see his reaction. I am stunned when, a few seconds later, he starts to laugh.

  ‘Fucking hell, Rachel, I can’t believe you would stoop this low.’ He shoves his chair violently back from the table and scrubs his hands through his hair. ‘That you would actually concoct some ridiculous story about Aaron to try and get yourself off the hook.’

  ‘It’s not some ridiculous story, it’s the truth – and I told you about Ted, didn’t I? I got caught, Gareth, and now I’m trying to be honest with you to try and save what little we have left.’

  ‘Why the hell would Aaron proposition you like that? I’ve known him for years, he works for me, he’s my second-in-command. I’ve talked about making him a director, for God’s sake, why would he risk that? Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know, Gareth,’ I cry, frustration welling up, ‘all I know is that’s what he said – he would tell you if I didn’t sleep with him.’

  ‘Aaron didn’t tell me anything,’ he says, as he walks away from me, back into the hallway. He reaches into the cupboard under the stairs, pulling a jacket from a hook. ‘You left your phone behind, and you got a text. Apparently, Amy found your scarf at hers after the last time you went over. I was going to text her back to say I’d collect it for you because you were out shopping, and instead I found your text to Ted.’

  ‘But you said, Aaron said … I thought he’d …’ I trail off.

  ‘I was going to say that Aaron said maybe I should encourage you to take a bit of time off – maybe the two of us go away for a weekend – he was worried that you didn’t seem yourself lately.’ He gives that strange bark of laughter again, harsh and grating. ‘Looks like he was right.’ He tugs his jacket on roughly and snatches up his keys from the table by the door.

  ‘Gareth, wait.’ I snare his jacket between my fingers, tugging at it to make him stay. ‘Where are you going? Can’t we talk about things?’

  ‘I’m going to see Ted,’ he says, and sharply shakes himself free, slamming the door in my face.

  As soon as his car leaves the drive, I call Ted.

  ‘Rachel!’ Ted’s voice is warm, pleased to hear from me, the complete opposite to Gareth. I feel a tiny pang before the sick, queasy feeling brought on by guilt swarms over me. ‘You’re not cancelling tonight, are you? I think we got cut off earlier when you rang.’

  ‘It wasn’t me that rang you. He knows, Ted,’ I say, urgently, ‘Gareth knows and he’s on his way. I told him everything.’

  ‘What? Why? He’s on his way?’ Ted sounds hurt and more than a little confused. ‘Why would you tell him about us? Does this mean …?’

  ‘He found a text on my phone … it’s … ugh, it’s a long story, but he knows and he’s on his way to see you.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’ For a moment, I think I hear hope in Ted’s voice, but I am too frightened of what Gareth is about to do to him to dwell on it.

  ‘Everything. It’s over, Ted,’ I say in a rush, ‘that’s it. It’s over between us; I can’t see you any more. I told you I wouldn’t ever leave Gareth. Don’t call me, don’t try to see me. And it might be an idea to go out before Gareth gets to you.’ I don’t wait for him to speak; I just hang up, my nerves jangling.

  I pace anxiously for what feels like hours, before I shut myself in the living room as darkness falls. I have tried to call Gareth, but his phone is going to voicemail and I am reluctant to leave a message. Robbie comes in, eats, and goes to his room; blissfully unaware that anything is out of sorts between his parents, as I hibernate in the living room, not wanting him to see the mark on my face. Finally, I hear the click of the front door closing and Gareth appears, dishevelled and tired, shadows marked on his face by the glow of the small lamp I have switched on.

  ‘You’re back.’ I go to stand up but he raises his hand to me, so I sink back into the armchair. He comes across the room, kneeling at my feet, and places one hand on my face. I feel the slight throb of my cheekbone under his fingers, where he hit me, the bruise already a bright range of purples and greens.

  ‘I’m sorry … for the way I behaved earlier,’ he says, ‘I was angry.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, not telling him it’s OK, because regardless of what I did, it’s not OK. ‘Did you see Ted?’ I don’t want to ask but I am scared, frightened in case Gareth has done something we will both regret.

  ‘Don’t even think about Ted,’ his voice hardens, ‘I mean it, Rachel, if we’re going to make this work, you can’t even think about him. You can’t see him, you can’t speak to him. Not if we’re going to get through this.’

  ‘OK.’ I nod frantically, the bruise on my face rubbing against his hand, the pain making tears spurt to my eyes. ‘I promise, I won’t have anything more to do with him. It’s you I want to be with. It’s you that I love.’

  Gareth gives a sharp nod and strokes his fingers gently against my bruised cheekbone, before he gets to his feet and leaves the room. I hear the dull thud of his office door slamming shut behind him and I am left alone in the dark, wondering how on earth we will ever recover from this.

  25

  JANUARY – FOUR WEEKS AFTER THE PARTY

  I’m not stupid. I know Gareth is hiding something – his outburst the night he came back from his trip just reinforced my suspicions – the only thing is what? I can’t shake the creeping feeling that it has something to do with the party – he still hasn’t confessed to grabbing me by the arms that night, and as far as I know he is still unaware that I know about it. He’s been even cagier than usual since he came back from Croatia. Why did he want to leave the party so urgently? And what did he do after I refused to go with him? I know he grabbed me, but did he go further than that? Is that why he wants me to drop my own little investigation into that night – is he scared that I’ll uncover something that will incriminate him? The very idea of it makes my stomach turn and I have to take a deep breath, breathing out slowly and counting to ten, just to stop myself from losing my mind. He has worked from home for the past ten days, ever since he got back from Croatia, and part of me thinks that perhaps he knows that I’m just biding my time, waiting until he leaves the house so I can get into his office and have a good snoop around.

  Today though, seems to be the day. He’s been holed up in there for most of the day, I’ve heard him muttering and occasionally, his raised voice, as if talking to someone on the phone. Now, I hover in the doorway, a cup of tea in my hand, which he clearly isn’t going to drink.

  ‘Are you going out?’ I ask, innocently. ‘I brought you a cup of tea, it’s been a while since lunch.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Distracted, he shoves some paperwork into his laptop bag, before surveying
the chaos that is his desk, pushing his hands through his hair. ‘Yes. I’m going out. I’ve got a meeting, I won’t be long.’

  ‘Will you be back for dinner?’ I need to gauge exactly how long I think I’ll have before he returns. The last thing I need is to be caught rummaging through his desk drawers – how on earth would I explain it? ‘Sorry, Gareth, just going through your things to make sure it wasn’t you that attacked me at Liz’s party. Shall we get a takeaway?’

  ‘Probably. I don’t know. Does it matter?’ He frowns at me, grabbing one last file from his desk before coming to the doorway. Nudging me out of the way, he pulls the door closed and locks it, tucking the key into his jacket pocket. He pecks my cheek, and I almost spill the tea down my top.

  ‘See you later,’ I say quietly as he rushes along the hallway, slamming the front door behind him, my mind already racing. Why has he locked the door? What is it that he wants to keep from me? And how on earth can I get inside?

  I wait fifteen minutes, sipping at the tea I made for him just in case he’s forgotten anything and comes back for it, but he doesn’t return and I start to relax, thinking the coast is clear. Headed to the junk drawer in the kitchen, I rummage around looking, hoping, it’ll be as simple as finding a spare key to the office, but no, of course it isn’t. He’s hardly going to lock me out, and then leave a key for me to find. I realize that this is going to be a lot harder than I thought.