by Hilary Boyd
‘Death of death, and hell’s destruction …’ As the last hymn ended, Marsha began to feel calmer. The eulogy was over and she realised she was absolutely starving.
‘Wonderful send-orf,’ A bluff old gentleman, whose name she thought might be Gerald, told Annie as he bent slowly to retrieve his umbrella from the hall stand in her mother’s flat. ‘Eleanor must be in seventh heaven.’
She looked at him quizzically and the old man chuckled.
‘Well, you never know with Eleanor … she usually got what she wanted. Perhaps she bullied the Almighty into fast-tracking her up to the seventh level. Sorry, sorry, no offence meant, but you know what I mean … she was always the star of the show.’ He held out his hand. ‘Thank you so much, Annie. I’ll miss the old girl, you know.’
At last they were all gone.
‘God, that was quite a marathon.’ Marsha kicked off her black heels and wiggled her toes into the faded-rose drawing-room carpet.
‘Well, we started out at nine this morning and it’s now nearly five,’ Richard pointed out with his usual precision. ‘Your speech was brilliant,’ he added to his daughter. ‘Not an easy thing to get right.’
Annie was only half listening. It was just the family who had sat behind in the cortège on the interminable journey to Putney Vale, the traffic up Putney High Street almost stationary as usual. Mercedes had gone home to finish making the smoked-salmon sandwiches for the wake. The crematorium passed off without incident, a quick dispatch to the majestic strains of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, rendered tinny and ridiculous by the crematorium sound system. She had felt as cold as death as her mother’s body rolled off behind the dull blue curtains, but still no tears. My mother, the redoubtable Eleanor Westbury, reduced to a jar of ashes? It seemed impossible … ludicrous.
She looked around at her family now and it was as if there were a veil between her and them. They wouldn’t understand how I’m feeling, she thought. It was a longing … not for her mother as such, but for a mother, any mother, who might hold her, keep her safe, give her the love Eleanor had never been able to show, and now never would. It was like a huge hole had opened up inside her chest.
‘Tea?’ Ed was suggesting. But Mercedes was ahead of him and appeared in the doorway with a tray holding Aunt Alice’s massive silver teapot, pale green polka-dot Royal Albert china cups and saucers, a silver milk jug, matching sugar bowl complete with tongs, and a saucer of thinly sliced lemon halves. Annie hadn’t seen the set in thirty years – Eleanor used to bring it out for her ‘girls’, to show them how to preside over a tea table properly, despite the fact that almost no one ‘took tea’ by the sixties. Now the thought of her mother’s anachronistic rituals made her sad.
‘What will happen to Mercedes?’ Lucy whispered when the Spanish housekeeper had gone back to the kitchen to clear up.
‘Mother has left her a good chunk of money. She says she’ll go back to Spain to be near her daughter.’
Ed poured the tea, smiling as he offered her a cup; her hand shook as she received it. They were all being so kind. Emma hadn’t turned up to the funeral – she was ill, Ed said. She didn’t believe that for a second, but she was grateful not to have to deal with the girl. Daniel’s name had not been uttered by any of them since Eleanor’s death. She’d texted him to tell him the news, but he hadn’t responded. She sighed and pushed the painful thought to the back of her mind.
19
It was nearly two weeks since her mother had died, and still Annie hadn’t been able to cry. The numb emptiness that settled in the day she stood beside Eleanor’s coffin had not gone away. It frightened her, because she felt that if she gave way, even a little, she would be consumed by such sorrow that she might be fatally overwhelmed. To avoid any chance of this, she filled her days with constant, almost frantic activity that kept her busy from morning till night; it provided a certain sort of comfort.
She would manage to sleep, at most, for four or five hours, yet her body seemed to have a false energy which propelled her through the day. She was up at six and walking on the Heath, then swimming, the gym. She stayed long hours at the bakery, and when she got home she cooked, sometimes late into the night. Endless, elaborate, largely uneaten meals, including cakes, puddings, biscuits, which Richard surreptitiously consigned to the freezer. But cooking, as always in her life, was therapy of a kind.
Richard, as co-executor of Eleanor Westbury’s estate along with her lawyer, Leo Silver, began to deal with probate while she responded to the letters of condolence, many eulogising her difficult mother. There were no surprises in the will. Eleanor had left the Cadogan Gardens flat and the bulk of her money to her daughter, with small bequests to the three grandchildren, and a sizeable legacy for Mercedes. She’d told Annie what she was doing over a decade ago, then never mentioned it again. In Eleanor’s strict code of etiquette, it was very vulgar to dwell upon one’s money.
‘Jamie … are you busy?’
She heard him groan on the other end of the line. ‘Uh, no, just lying here sound asleep, seeing as it’s six thirty in the bloody morning.’
‘God, is it?’ Annie looked at her watch. ‘I’m so sorry … I didn’t realise it was so early.’
‘I can hear traffic. Are you out?’
‘I’m walking to the gym. I’m not sleeping much these days.’
‘Clearly.’
‘Do you mind if I run something by you?’ She heard her friend heave himself out of bed.
‘Nope, I’m awake now. Go ahead.’
She paused as she crossed the road. ‘You know the Carnegie thing? The day Mother died?’
‘Yes … you and him stark naked and just about to get it on when your mother calls from the Astral Plain … Don’t do it, Anneee, don’t do it. That Carnegie thing?’
‘I wish I’d never told you the last bit,’ she muttered.
‘And?’
‘I think I should tell Richard. I don’t think it’s fair …’
She heard a loud spluttering.
‘Do not! Do absolutely NOT tell Richard a single thing. You’re trying to absolve your guilt by ’fessing up. I get it. But it’s unforgivably selfish. The poor man might never get over it. Men, as a rule, don’t.’
She thought about this for a moment. ‘I thought it was the right thing to do. He’s my husband. Shouldn’t I be honest with him?’
Jamie harrumphed. ‘No, you certainly should not. Honesty is a very overrated commodity – it should carry a government health warning. For “honesty” read “selfishness”.’
‘I don’t mean to be selfish.’
She heard him sigh. ‘I know, I know, of course you don’t. But this really isn’t the time to be making decisions like this.’
‘Maybe not.’
‘Oh, darling … you sound so miserable. Fuck the gym. Come over and bring some croissants. I’ll put the coffee on.’
‘No … thanks, Jamie. I’d better get going.’
*
‘Annie.’ Richard was looking at her with concern that night. ‘Sit down will you? I can clear up later, it’s definitely my turn.’
She turned to him. ‘It’s OK, I’ve started now.’
But Richard came up behind her and put his arms round her body, pinning her yellow rubber-gloved hands by her side. ‘Please … stop.’
She stood tense in his embrace. She didn’t know why, but the pressure of his body against hers was almost unbearable these days. She felt so raw and irritable and, frankly, mad. She wanted to shake him off, but she knew she couldn’t do that. So she waited, waited until he let her go. Richard, unwittingly, still held her tight, both of them stranded stiffly next to the open dishwasher.
‘I wish you’d talk to me. You seem so …’
‘Mad?’ she suggested softly.
‘No … no, of course not. Just closed up and miserable. I know it’s been hard, losing your mother so suddenly, but don’t you think you should talk about it? You haven’t cried since the day she died. And you’re not sleeping.
Please … tell me what’s going on.’
She gently shook him off, and stubbornly resumed rinsing the plates.
‘I’m fine, really,’ she replied. ‘I just need a bit of time.’
‘Me and the children are worried about you. We don’t know how to help.’
She tried to summon up a smile for him. ‘Sorry … sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. We’re just concerned for you. Is it Daniel?’ Richard asked. ‘Has he still not been in touch?’
She shut the door of the dishwasher carefully, pulling off the rubber gloves and laying them over the edge of the sink.
‘No, he hasn’t, but it’s not just Daniel. I don’t know …’ She couldn’t articulate the mess that churned around her brain, didn’t even want to try.
‘Let’s go up,’ he was saying, holding out his hand to her. ‘I’ll run you a bath and we can get an early night.’
Later, as they lay in bed, Richard reached for her, letting his hand gently stroke her bare shoulder. She didn’t move, but he must have taken this as a signal, because he leaned over and kissed her on the lips. Don’t push him off. What’s wrong with you? You know you love him. But she felt so tight inside, wound up like a clock, holding on … to what she didn’t know.
‘Please, Richard, don’t … I can’t.’
He drew back, his face neutral. But his hand still rested on hers. ‘Let me hold you at least, Annie,’ he said, pulling her over until she rested in the crook of his arm, her head on his bare chest. ‘We all need cuddles.’
For a while they lay in silence and she found some comfort in his embrace, a slow, almost imperceptible letting go in what she knew to be a place of safety. He reached and turned off the light.
‘I’m so sorry if I let you down over Daniel,’ she heard Richard say softly. ‘I’ve been a worse brat than my son, and with less excuse.’
She didn’t know what to say.
‘But I thought I’d lost you, lost the Annie I knew. It was pathetic, I admit that. But I couldn’t cope. Not with Daniel, and certainly not with that Carnegie man.’
She could still hear the edge of jealousy, which he was obviously struggling to control.
‘It’s not as if I’ve behaved rationally either.’ She thought of Charles and winced. Do not tell him; Jamie’s ringing command echoed in her brain. She looked over at the shadow of his profile. ‘I thought I was losing you altogether, not just the Richard I used to know.’
She heard Richard swallow. ‘Yes, well … at one stage …’
The sleepy, almost tender mood in the room changed in an instant, as if sparked up by a bolt of lightning. That tone, that’s what he sounded like on the bench by the sea that night, when he looked so distressed. She sat upright.
‘At one stage? What do you mean?’
She turned the bedside light back on. Richard was still lying flat on his back, his hands clasped across his chest. He reached for his glasses and slowly pulled himself up against the wooden headboard. He wouldn’t look at her.
‘Richard?’
He sighed heavily, the long breath out sounding unnaturally loud. Her heart was hammering.
‘Annie … you’re not going to like this, but I … I really have to tell you something. I didn’t want to, but we shouldn’t have secrets, should we, not after all we’ve been through.’ He paused but she found she couldn’t speak to urge him on as she wanted. ‘I … I had sex … with someone else.’ The words seemed dragged by force from somewhere deep within him.
‘Kate.’
He looked surprised. ‘Kate?’ Then horrified. ‘Kate at the office? God, no! She’s a child.’
She waited. So not Kate then. She felt sick.
‘The lawyers hired an expert in Belgian tax law because of this merger … and this woman came over for a couple of days …’
‘When you stayed out all night? Saying you were at Andrew’s?’
He shook his head. ‘No, this was weeks ago … before Cornwall. The night you saw Carnegie the second time. I tried to tell you, but that Morag woman interrupted us and then I just couldn’t.’ His expression was abject.
All this time, when I was beating myself up about Daniel, he was off shagging a Belgian tax expert?
‘So this has been going on all summer?’
Again, he looked horrified. ‘No … no, Annie, of course not. It was just once. I was drunk, we’d worked really late and I walked her back to her hotel … it meant nothing, absolutely nothing.’
‘What’s her name?’ she asked, without knowing why. What the hell do I care what she’s called?
‘Marie. She was …’
‘What? What was she, Richard? Good in bed?’
She saw him wince. ‘Don’t.’
‘Well, was she … better than me?’
He reached for her hand but she slapped him off. The bastard, the bloody, bloody bastard. Her whole body, every single cell, was alight with rage.
‘Why are you telling me this now, Richard? In fact, if it was only one night and meant nothing, why are you telling me at all?’
‘I thought … it’s been tormenting me. I feel so guilty. It was such a terrible thing to do. I thought I owed it to you to be honest. No more secrets.’
She heard Jamie’s words again: You’re just trying to absolve your guilt – and her own betrayal came back to her with sharp, uncomfortable clarity. I’m going to tell him about Charles. Why not? Why should she suffer, imagining her husband crawling all over that woman’s body and let him off scot free? He’s already jealous of Charles – it’ll hurt and it serves him right!
‘You just want to be forgiven.’
He nodded. ‘Do you think you can … forgive me?’
‘You shouldn’t have told me. I didn’t need to know.’
She glared at him, Charles’s name on the tip of her tongue. But won’t he feel better if I tell him? Won’t it let him off the hook?
‘I was drunk, I promise to God, Annie, it meant nothing. I hardly remember it.’
Yeah, right, she thought, her mind reeling as she tried to take in what he was telling her. She heard him groan softly.
‘It was so difficult between us after Daniel turned up. You were—’
‘Don’t you dare start blaming Daniel for this. Or me. What you did was inexcusable.’
He didn’t reply.
‘So what if I was a pain to live with? We’re married, aren’t we? Married people do that to each other sometimes. It isn’t a bloody charter for you to go out and shag the first available bit of skirt. Cheating on me … just because I wasn’t paying you enough attention? And you made me feel so guilty. I thought you were drinking and being mean because I’d brought Daniel into the house, when in fact you were just suffering from a shed-load of your own guilt.’
‘I know … I know that.’
She could tell he was thoroughly contrite. She felt almost sorry for him. Almost. But I stopped, she thought. He didn’t. That’s the difference.
‘I think we’ve been lucky, you and me, with our marriage.’ He spoke softly as if he was nervous of being too confrontational. ‘It’s never been challenged before. Even when the work stuff was difficult and the children were small, we’ve always pulled together. Maybe we got complacent.’
She knew he was probably right. It had never entered her head that either of them could be unfaithful. And yet, tempted by Charles and his playful seductiveness, she had been on the verge of succumbing.
She got up.
‘Where are you going? Annie, please … don’t go.’
‘I want to be on my own.’
‘But if you sleep in Marsha’s room, Lucy will know something’s up.’
She hesitated.
‘You’re not going to tell Ed and the girls, are you?’
‘Of course I’m not.’ She was suddenly too tired to do anything, and she sat back down on the bed. The thought of them knowing this about their father was too awful to contemplate. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t want him to comfort her.
She wanted to hit him, but she knew she couldn’t. She wanted to indulge in the searing, uncomplicated pain of his betrayal, but she knew she didn’t have the right.
‘Annie?’ She heard his voice as if from a long way away.
‘Don’t speak to me.’ She lay down and turned her back to him, hearing his sorrowful sigh with stern indifference.
Jamie sat on Eleanor’s barely used divan, watching Annie as she stood by her mother’s chest of drawers holding a roll of black plastic bags.
‘Christ, darling … he waits nearly thirty years and then picks a Belgian tax inspector!’
‘Expert, not inspector. And it’s not funny.’
‘Well, it is a bit. I mean it’s not as if you weren’t just as keen to get your leg over Chelsea Charlie, if Mother hadn’t intervened.’
She groaned. ‘Don’t start that again. No, I know. But still. It’s bloody upsetting.’
‘I’m sure it is, but not fatal.’
‘No, not fatal, I suppose,’ she conceded.
‘Did you sort it out?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. Well, we’re speaking, sort of. So as not to upset Lucy. Although I think she’s given up on us being anything more than civil these days.’
She glanced nervously around the room. She’d been putting this day off; it seemed sacrilege to go through her mother’s things.
‘Creepy, isn’t it?’ Jamie followed her gaze and gave a theatrical shudder.
‘What if there’s private stuff, like diaries, letters, in here.’
‘You read ’em, darling! Well … perhaps not if it’s your mother. But I reckon you’re safe. Eleanor didn’t strike me as a reflective person exactly.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘No, I suppose not.’
Her mother’s clothes were all immaculately kept, each item encased in clear plastic pockets, neatly stacked; Mercedes’ work no doubt. There were the big knickers of the old; strange antique corsets; stockings rolled and bagged; piles of identical navy and cream silk polo-necks; elbow-length satin gloves from the fifties with buttons at the wrist; leather and gold-chain belts, all redolent of musty lavender, mothballs and another era. There was no sign of any papers. Richard had taken a whole pile away from the drop-leaf desk in the study, but nonetheless, Annie opened each drawer gingerly, terrified she might stumble across some dark and unpalatable secret.
