‘Why now?’ My brother is first to speak.
I glance across at Beth.
‘I asked him to tell you,’ she says. ‘I asked him to tell you this afternoon and he knew if he didn’t do it straight away, he’d talk himself out of it.’
Karen frowns.
‘Ben, you did your grieving over all those years.’ I almost choke at the mention of grief. ‘I’ve realized lately that I have yet to do mine. Maybe telling you is part of that.’
‘Plus … Karen is having a baby.’ Beth addresses Ben. ‘When you have your baby, God forbid, what if you had to face what Kiera Pugh did? What if you needed to know?’
‘I don’t know who your father is, Ben.’ It’s my turn to slouch back in a chair. ‘But if you ever need to try and find out, I do know someone it might have been.’
‘Tell me everything.’ Ben hunches forward, his head in his hands. ‘Everything you know. Now.’ He closes his eyes again. Karen cuddles up against him, slides an arm around him.
I tell them about the time I found Mum with a guy when I was at college. I tell them about the time many years earlier that I’d seen Mum in town having lunch with that same man. I remind Ben of the times the man had been present in our home over the years. He was an old school friend, someone we knew only as ‘Dave’.
‘Right,’ he says again when I’ve finished talking.
‘You know what? It’s late.’ I stand and Beth stands up right after me. ‘We should go.’ I catch Ben’s eye. ‘I’m sorry. You guys have a lot to talk about.’
Ben gets to his feet, crosses the room, opens his arms and envelops me. ‘No, I’m sorry for what they did – to you, to me, to us.’
I pull back. ‘They were flawed, very fucking flawed, but they probably did their best.’
I look at Karen, who is unconsciously rubbing her tummy. ‘Beth says you’re not feeling great. It passes. In a few weeks’ time, you’ll be glowing.’
‘And a few weeks after that,’ she too stands up, ‘I’ll be fat.’ Ben pulls her to him. I can see he’s already in protection mode.
It’s as if he’s read my mind. ‘I know you were only trying to protect me, but you are hereby officially released from that.’
We say goodbye quickly; enough has been said. Back in the car, Beth asks me what I want to do. I shrug, unsure of what she means.
‘Do you want me to drop you back to the storage depot to get your car? Or you could just come back to mine, the spare room is made up. I can drop you to your car early in the morning.’
No contest.
It’s ten thirty. I’m in Beth’s kitchen sipping hot chocolate.
‘Are you hungry?’
I shake my head.
‘Well, we should eat something. All I’ve had all day is half a Danish. While you were in the loo, I took some shepherd’s pie out of the freezer. It’s in the oven.’
A freezer full of food. It’s one of Beth’s things. There was always cooked home-made food ready to come out of the freezer at The Lodge, usually the end of a lasagne. ‘Not lasagne?’ I ask.
She grimaces. ‘I never make it any more,’ she says, reading a text that has just pinged on her phone.
‘I’m not stopping any plans you had, am I?’
She shakes her head and I can see she’s lying.
‘You’re lying,’ I say. ‘I’ve always been a better liar than you.’
‘You have. Okay, I did have plans, but they can wait.’
‘The guy you’re seeing?’
She hesitates, then nods.
‘I’m sorry. I’ve messed up your night.’
‘It’s fine.’ She pats my arm as she makes her way to the oven. ‘We’ve rearranged.’
‘Is it serious? This thing with this guy?’ I’m half hoping she’ll lie again if it is.
‘I’m not sure. He’s a lovely man, seems kind, sincere. We get along.’
My chest feels like there is a tightening vice around it. ‘Tell me about him.’
‘No …’ She comes to the table and sits beside me. ‘Tonight, we talk about you. Anything you want to talk about. Anything that didn’t get said at The Rookery. I can take it if you can.’
I say nothing.
‘Look, it’s not obligatory either. It’s just you seem to want to talk now whenever we’re together. And I don’t want you to feel that you can’t. If you’re up to it, I don’t want you to hold back.’
‘What if all I have to say is that I want you back.’
She has her elbow on the table, her hand over her mouth, thumb placed on one cheek and her fingers stroking her lips side to side. I want to reach across and kiss her, taste her again, but I wait for her to speak. ‘It’s not going to happen, Adam.’
‘Because of this other guy?’
She sighs aloud. ‘No. He has nothing to do with you and me. You and me are like Humpty Dumpty. Not even the king’s horses and—’
‘I made mistakes, Beth.’
‘Who’s Rosie?’
‘She was a girl at The Rookery. Just a young girl I met there.’
Beth makes a face. ‘Were you and she …?’
‘God, no. She’s no older than Meg. She was a girl in group therapy. Had been abused by her father.’
‘Shit.’
‘She was great, a really wise old soul in a young person’s body, you know?’
Beth nods.
‘She killed herself. Hanged herself with my Dr Who scarf, the one you got me a few Christmases ago. I’d lent it to her to keep warm.’
Beth’s mouth drops open.
‘I know. It’s like flies to shit: trouble and death – all drawn to me. It’s why I left early.’
She goes to the fridge, pours two glasses of wine and hands me one. ‘What did the police say?’
‘She left a note. There was no doubt that she … They still have my scarf.’
Beth takes a sip of wine. ‘You seemed so together when you left The Rookery. Even when you left early, I was so sure that it had worked for you.’
‘It helped. I left the morning after they found Rosie. I couldn’t bear more navel-gazing over the whole thing. Tom would have had me talking about my parents and her for another year. I just had to get out of there.’
She walks to her oven. It’s a small range, not like the one she had at The Lodge. She pulls down the door and, with gloved hands, removes the pie, placing it in the centre of the table. ‘Leave it for a while,’ she says. ‘It’s hot.’
There is a silence sitting between us right next to the pie. I break it first. ‘I guess I’m a work in progress.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault, any of it.’
‘I know that, but it’s still shitty.’
‘That, it is.’
‘Are you going to be okay?’
I reach across, touch her face with my fingertips and stroke her cheek. A memory flashes in my head. Me bringing her coffee in the loft at The Lodge. Her, perched in her wheelie office chair, both screens lit up in front of her, her headphones on. She’s singing, quite loudly but doesn’t realize it. Her eyes are closed. Both her palms are up and she’s pushing the air rhythmically, shoo-bopping to some track. Beth … ‘Did you mean what you said? That there’s no chance for us?’
She chews her bottom lip, nods her head. ‘I meant it,’ she whispers. Tears cloud her eyes as she places her own hand over mine.
‘I’ll be okay.’ I sit back in my chair. ‘Not as okay as I’d be with you, but I’ll be okay without you.’ I can’t help staring at my wife’s beautiful face. I can’t bear the fact that someone else will look on her beautiful face and touch her like I just have. In my head, I wish I could summon all the king’s horses and prove her wrong. But she’s probably right, and there is nothing else to be said.
The next morning it is strange to wake up in a single bed in Beth’s house. It is strange to have her dropping me off at a storage depot in Wandsworth. It’s strange to feel the way I feel, like something has lifted from my shoulder
s – but what, I don’t know. I can’t make sense of it. In the office I bury myself in work. I glance at, but don’t read, the ten CVs Matt has asked me to study. ‘We really have to appoint someone soon!’ is what he’s scrawled on a Post-it attached to the pile.
At midday, it’s also strange to bump into my brother in the corridor. For a moment, I wonder if I’m dreaming, then I remember he’s doing some forensic accounting for us, some due diligence stuff on the US expansion.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘You okay?’ He looks drawn, charcoal shading under his eyes.
‘I’m okay.’ I give him a hug. ‘You? Did you get any sleep?’
He tells me he did, chats for a while about work stuff. It’s a bit like last night didn’t happen, but I know Ben, and he’s just taking time to absorb everything. I listen patiently, aware I’m now running late. Glancing at my wrist, I tell him I’ve got to run. Sorry.
‘You all set for next week?’ he calls back to me.
I smile and nod, don’t tell him that I haven’t started to pack my stuff from his flat. I don’t tell him that I haven’t got any further on the flat in Fulham. Having accepted my offer, they’re pressuring me for solicitor’s details and I’ve not called them back. I tell him none of this and head down the corridor towards the boardroom. The Granger brothers will be sitting in there with Matt, plus two people they’re introducing us to with huge family office needs in New York.
All of this seems and smells like chaos, but I’m strangely calm. Since early this morning, lying in Beth’s spare room, I’ve known how all these jigsaw pieces will fall. I’ve seen how the new picture will look. It’s not ideal. It’s far from my ideal, which saw Beth and me finding a new way of being – slowly but surely getting back together. Since this morning, I’ve seen that the new world order means that loving Beth means letting her go. Thank you, Rosie Bloomfield, for your wisdom. As I place my hand on the door to the boardroom, I do it in the knowledge that I’m going to suggest dumping the CVs, ceasing the search for a new hire. I’ll kill a few birds with one stone. I’ll go to New York.
Chapter Forty-Seven
I’m fine. Meg is fine. Jon is fine. Karen is pukey but fine. Ben is fine. Adam is … okay. ‘Fall Apart’ has trended on Twitter. My website has, according to Bear, had so many hits that it almost crashed. Production is in place for Marilee Garcia to release ‘Fine’ as a follow-up single. Money that I could only dream about has hit my bank account this morning. Everything is fine.
Only it’s not really. I have a bad feeling I can’t shake off. Ever since the night Adam stayed over. I’m terrified that because I let him back in my space, somehow he’s infiltrated it, somehow he’s just here. And he wasn’t here before I let him stay. I flick the kettle on to boil.
My hands shuffle through the brochures on the table. Jon brought them around last night – various options for garden rooms. We’ve measured it out and I can have a pimped-up shed as a proper music studio in the back of the garden without it impacting on the space too much. That way I keep the garage. Giles says it’s a great idea, that I should always do that for resale purposes. So, I decide this morning, I’m going to have me a garden studio. I hover my forefinger above one of the brochures, let it land on it. This one – I’ll have this one.
I pour the water into two cups from the kettle and head back upstairs. In my bedroom, he’s still lying down, his face turned towards the window. Slices of light slip through a crack in the curtains, which I hate but he loves. I place a cup of tea beside him, bend over to kiss him. ‘Jon, some tea.’ He takes my hand and kisses it.
Without opening his eyes, he says, ‘Thanks.’ I know he’ll take a few minutes to wake up. I know he won’t mind if his tea is cold. He’ll still drink it. He’ll still have a smile on his face. And I know all of this after only a few weeks of him waking in my bed or me waking in his.
I sit up, on my side, plumping the pillows behind me, and sip my tea. In a few minutes, I’ll have a shower and I’ll try to wash it off – this feeling that I can’t shake. Last night, when Jon and I made love, I imagined he was Adam. I feel so bad about this, I can barely admit it to myself. I don’t think I could ever say it aloud. If I was still seeing Dr Caroline Gothenburg, would I admit it? Would I say, ‘Last night I was making love to the man in my life. I imagined he was Adam. Not Johnny Depp. Not Liam Neeson. Adam.’
I drink my cooling tea, listen to Jon’s gentle snore, reach out and stroke his back softly. He stirs a little. If I could see his face, he’d have a tiny smile on it, just a faint curve on one side of his mouth. He has a lovely mouth – full plump lips and a Cupid’s bow that many women would kill for. I love how he kisses me. They’re not melting kisses, or Pink-type ‘I am going to die right here and now’ kisses, but they’re tender and loving and …
In the shower, I soap my body all over. I have a chat with Lucy Fir and Babushka. Lucy is, for once, trying to reason with me rather than shouting in my ear. She asks me if I want tender and loving in my life. Babushka interrupts. She tells me what I don’t need in my life is Adam. She is firm. She is adamant. She asks me to remember how the man makes me feel when he hurts me and he will hurt me again if I let him. That, Babushka says, is certain. I rinse the soap, stand under the scalding spray for ages, let the water run over my neck muscles. I stretch my legs, my arms, my fingers. Singing softly, I acknowledge the voices in my head. Round one to Babushka.
Towel around my head, dressing gown on, I head back downstairs. It’s Saturday. Jon has obviously decided to sleep in. I look out over my garden, think back to the days in The Lodge. The reality is I feel for Adam. He’s in my head because I feel for him since the scene with Ben last week. It’s tragic stuff, but his tragic stuff, I remind myself. I cannot own it because I feel sorry for him and I cannot let him commandeer head-space that currently belongs to Jon. Or Johnny Depp. Or Liam Neeson.
Closing my eyes, I rub them with my thumb and forefinger. Though I need him to be gone from my head, I accept he probably never will be. He’ll always be there lurking in the background, looking on. And I’ll probably let him, because I loved him so very much for such a long time. I still do. I acknowledge I love the man, not in the same way I did, but I can’t turn it off completely. I can’t close it off and tighten it like a tap. It’s different. I still call it love but it’s not the same. I smile, tell Babushka and Lucy to move over and let him in. I reassure them that he won’t be there often, but ask them that, when he is, to please play nicely.
While I make my second cup of tea of the morning, I start to plan how my studio will look. I take a few sips then run up the stairs. I pull the towel from my head and lean over Jon, tickling his face with my wet hair.
‘You’ll catch cold,’ he mutters, his hand reaching out and opening my dressing gown. I let it slide off me and he pulls me in beside him. ‘Good morning, Beth-all,’ he says. ‘How are we feeling this morning?’
I giggle. I told him once about Lucy and Babushka and now he refers to me as ‘we’. If only he knew, Adam has been offered some space as well. It may not be a long-term thing, probably just a short-term lease, but I’ll see. For now, I ignore my busy head and enjoy being cuddled by this man. No one else. This man. Jon no ‘h’ Roper.
It’s only two hours later that my rationale is challenged. I have metaphorically put my husband to bed. I have filed him appropriately, kindly allowed him into my head under controlled supervision.
So why, when I listen to his voice on the phone, does my stomach plummet and my heart hurt? He talks for a while. There are lots of good reasons, all of which I agree with. I know this because I’m nodding, but he can’t know it because I’m speechless.
‘Beth, are you there?’
‘I’m here …’
‘You’re not saying much.’
‘I’m not sure what to say. Two weeks ago you were buying a flat in Fulham. Today, you’re moving to New York.’
Jon looks up from reading his newspaper at the table. ‘Adam’, he mouths to me. I nod.
>
‘It’s really the best thing, for all the reasons I’ve just said. Besides, it’s not forever. I could have it all set up in six months or it could take a lot longer. Who knows?’
‘Who knows?’ I repeat.
‘How do you feel about it?’
I want to burst out laughing, but stop myself. Now? Now, he thinks to ask me how I feel. ‘You have to do what you have to do,’ I say. ‘Meg will miss you. We’ll both miss you.’
He sighs. ‘You know I’ll miss you both more. Anyway, I’m off in five days.’
‘So soon?’
‘There’s no point in waiting. I have to move out of Ben’s. We need someone in New York urgently. No reason it can’t be me.’
‘What will you do? Get a flat there?’
‘A hotel for a few weeks until I find my feet. The office is sorted, more minor hires in place. I’ll find a flat in a few weeks. Listen, I’m trying to arrange a meal. A kind of Last Supper. You, me, Meg, Jack, Ben and Karen. Sybil if she’ll come. Are you free tomorrow night?’
I look across at Jon, who’s pretending that he’s not listening. ‘I will be. Let me know where and when.’
‘I’ll text you later. Just need to talk to Ben.’
‘Have you talked to Meg?’
‘I called you first.’
I don’t reply.
‘Hey, I heard your song on the radio this morning. Surreal … That lyric, the one about falling apart and the glue?’
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s good. Great lyric. Great song. You bloody deserve all the success, Beth, you really do.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Of course, you wouldn’t have been able to tap into heartbreak with such feeling unless I’d been a shit. So I like to think in some way I’ve helped.’
I can almost see him grinning.
‘That’s what Josh says.’
‘He’s right.’ Adam laughs.
‘Probably …’
Jon stands, gathers up the brochures and moves to the living room. We’re going out in a minute to the showroom, to choose the size and model and order it.
You, Me and Other People Page 32
