She looked at him. She could hardly believe that just over a week ago she had clung to him, trying to absorb his very skin into hers in her desire to be close to him. Now the man in front of her seemed a stranger. She didn’t want to touch him; the very thought of close contact made her recoil.
Would that repulsion fade over time? Did she want it to? Did she want to be able to forgive him for what he had done? Or would she live the rest of her life wondering what else he was capable of? She had misread him so severely; to have overlooked the fact that he had such a calculating streak showed she was an appalling judge of character.
‘I need time to think,’ she said softly. ‘I’m not going to walk out, or kick you out. That’s not going to change anything, or help our situation. But at the moment, I can’t forgive you. Or see how we’ve got a future together.’
He nodded in understanding, then managed a smile.
‘At the moment?’ He was repeating her words back to her. In a flash she understood him completely. He was a gambler, a risk-taker. He always had hope, which was why he would never come to terms with their childlessness. That was the difference between them. And that was, in the end, what would drive them apart.
The following week was a nightmare. Ed’s misdemeanour was all over the papers on Monday, with varying degrees of disparaging editorial comment. Ed was put on immediate gardening leave pending an investigation into what he had done. As Charlotte was essentially self-employed, she negotiated a few days off work, shuffling her diary around to give herself some breathing space. It wasn’t that she wanted to be at home for Ed; it was more that she couldn’t face the people she worked with, or her clients.
They barely spoke. Charlotte threw herself into spring-cleaning: a mindless task, but vaguely therapeutic, and as they would no doubt have to sell up, her time wasn’t wasted. Everything was filed, or folded, or shredded, or thrown away. She dusted, polished and buffed until everything shone. There wasn’t a misshapen pair of pants or an out-of-date magazine or a worn towel left. She defrosted the freezer, chucking out anything that couldn’t be identified.
She didn’t know what Ed did, apart from go running along the riverbank, and then shut himself in the office. She cooked enough supper for two, but didn’t set the table as usual; just helped herself to what she wanted and went and sat in front of the television. For once she was grateful for the inanity of reality shows and soap operas. They helped avoid the need for conversation, and filled in the hours before bedtime. When Charlotte found herself actually looking forward to the next episode of EastEnders, she wondered in how many marriages it helped to paper over the cracks.
Not a single friend had phoned to commiserate, or see how they were. This wasn’t surprising, as many of their friends worked in finance or in the City, and to be associated with a high-profile fraud like this, even though it involved relatively small amounts of money compared to the sums they were used to dealing with, was professional suicide. Throughout the course of the week Charlotte picked up several voicemail messages cancelling social engagements they had been invited to.
‘I’m afraid we’re cancelling our drinks party on the twenty-third, as my mother is coming to stay . . .’
‘Can’t do dinner on the twelfth after all. The au pair’s going back to Romania for the holidays . . .’
One was refreshingly blunt: ‘Won’t be coming to the races with you, under the circs. Will give you a bell when it all dies down.’
That said it all, really.
They were social lepers.
She had taken the precaution of phoning each of her parents before the news hit the papers, in order to prepare them for the worst. Her father was sweet. Gruff but sanguine, he had told her she could come and stay until the furore was over, but she couldn’t imagine going to live in a three-bed semi in Potters Bar with his second wife and her two stroppy teenager daughters. Her father, she suspected, was under enough stress.
Her mother was icily disapproving.
‘You’ll have to come home to me. You can’t stay there with him.’
Charlotte wanted to retort that her mother was making Ed sound like a criminal, then realised that of course he was.
‘I can’t just leave him. He is my husband.’
‘By staying with him you’re condoning what he’s done.’
‘I am not.’ Charlotte was defiant. It had taken her till she was thirty to be able to stand up to her mother, and she still resented having to defend her decisions. ‘And he knows that perfectly well.’
‘What about other people?’
‘They can think what they like.’
‘You’re being very foolish.’
Charlotte didn’t give her the benefit of a reply. Nothing would change her mother’s opinion, and the only way to stop the debate was not to retaliate. Her mother rang off in a huff.
The only person who hadn’t treated her like a leper was Gussie, her dearest and oldest friend. Gussie had been the witness at her wedding; Charlotte was godmother to Gussie’s oldest son Pip. Gussie was a brick, reminiscent of a Famous Five farmer’s wife, capable, comfortable. But Charlotte knew that if she went to see Gussie she would fall apart, would fall into her arms sobbing, and lose all her resilience. And so she kept away, but appreciated Gussie’s regular texts and phone calls.
In the meantime, life had to go on. On Wednesday morning Charlotte dragged herself out of bed and headed for Sainsbury’s. They had to eat, even though she didn’t feel like it. As she rounded the pasta aisle, she spotted Davina Cumiskey loading linguine and papardelle into her trolley. Davina and her husband Dom had been for supper on countless occasions, and they’d been to theirs, usually for drunken Sunday lunches. But as Davina looked up and spotted Charlotte approaching, she turned on her heel, pulled her trolley round and marched smartly off down the aisle and round the corner, her retreating back stating very clearly that she did not want to be followed.
Charlotte stood by the rice, shaking. She felt utterly humiliated. Davina wasn’t Charlotte’s best friend, but she was certainly more than an acquaintance. Her cheeks burning, Charlotte carried on her shopping. By the time she got to the freezer section, her eyes were filled with tears and she couldn’t find what she was looking for. Unable to face finishing her shop, she purchased the few items she already had and fled to the car park.
She sat at the wheel of her car for a few moments, taking deep breaths to calm herself down. Was she a total pariah? Was she going to be blanked for the rest of her life, even though she was guilty of nothing? Was that how shallow everybody she knew really was? Backing away from her as if they might be able to catch something nasty? As if fraudulent tendencies were transmitted like germs through the air?
As she started up the ignition and drove out, she saw Davina wheeling her shopping towards her car. Charlotte quailed for a moment, feeling the urge to duck down behind the steering wheel so she wouldn’t be noticed, unable to face the ignominy of being blanked again. Then she gave herself a talking-to. She wasn’t going to be a victim of this hideous situation.
She wound down the window and stuck out her head, waving madly, determined to confront her, determined that she should be recognised.
‘Yoo hoo!’
Davina looked up, startled, then stood petrified in the middle of the car park, clearly searching her mental guide to etiquette for the appropriate greeting.
‘Hello!’ she responded eventually, her voice an octave higher than usual, her face fixed in a false grin. ‘Must dash - my frozen goods are melting.’
She shot between two cars, even though there was barely enough room for the trolley to pass between them. Charlotte left her engine idling for a moment, knowing that Davina was trapped, that she couldn’t come out until she was sure Charlotte had gone. But eventually someone gave an impatient pip behind her and so she drove off.
When she got back home, Ed was ashen.
‘I called Simon,’ he told her. ‘I called him to apologise. And to try to explain.’
>
Charlotte started unpacking food from the plastic bags. Ed raked his fingers through his crop. His voice was shaking.
‘He told me that using my wife’s infertility to justify my crime was lower than low. That he would have preferred it if I had just admitted to wanting to make a fast buck, as that would have made me more of a man.’
Charlotte looked at a pot of Greek yoghurt with honey, as if it might have some sort of answer written on the label.
‘Stop looking for absolution, Ed,’ she said. ‘There is no justification for what you did.’
She slammed the pot down on the island and it promptly burst open. Yoghurt shot everywhere. Over the work surface. Over the shopping. Over Ed.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he swore violently. ‘Jesus! What did you do that for?’
Charlotte looked at him coldly.
‘It was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose. It wasn’t pre-meditated . . .’
She couldn’t believe she was so bitter; that the words falling from her mouth were so unreservedly acerbic.
Ed stood there, splattered in white, as if someone had flicked a paintbrush full of emulsion over him, and seemed to deflate before her very eyes.
‘Why doesn’t anybody understand?’ he asked. ‘The only person who seems to get what I did is my mother.’
‘That’s what mothers are for, isn’t it? Unconditional love?’ She spat this back at him, and he sank onto a stool, his head in his hands.
‘I had no idea you could be so cruel.’
‘We’re learning a lot about each other, aren’t we?’ retorted Charlotte, opening the fridge and feeling an overwhelming urge to climb in and shut the door, then curl up inside its cool white walls to become gradually, comfortably numb.
It was over. She knew she would never be able to trust him again. Or respect him. She felt sure she could feel her heart break in two as she made the decision; there was a physical pain deep inside her chest that wouldn’t go away.
Things went from bad to worse.
On Friday, on page five of one of the red-tops, there was a picture of Charlotte parked in front of the Gucci flagship store on Bond Street, climbing out of Ed’s Porsche, which she had borrowed the day before to go to drop off some samples to a client who had been badgering her.
With her sleek groomed mane, her designer clothes and her fifty-thousand-pound Porsche, Charlotte Briggs carries on with life quite oblivious to the fact that her husband has deprived any number of terminally ill children of a comfortable place to die. Never mind - she’s got her Gucci!
‘It’s not fair!’ Charlotte stormed to Gussie on the phone. ‘They must have tailed me for days before they got me parked outside there. I wasn’t going to Gucci! I was going to a client, for heaven’s sake, not bloody shopping. And I have to look the part. I can’t turn up in dungarees and a headscarf. I’m selling a lifestyle.’
‘In two weeks’ time they’ll have forgotten all about it,’ soothed Gussie.
‘But it’s so unfair. I knew nothing about it.’
‘You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last, to be made guilty by association.’
‘Fucking Ed.’
‘Forget it. Chuck it in the bin. No one who knows you will believe it. And it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.’
But it did. That afternoon, Charlotte had a call from Connor.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding quite genuine. ‘I can’t let you work on any of my projects for the time being. My clients are very high profile. They won’t want to be associated with a scandal like this.’
‘But it wasn’t anything to do with me!’
‘Darling, I know that. But that’s not how it works.’
‘So, I’m sacked?’
‘Not sacked, because I don’t actually employ you. I’ll honour your most recent contract, but that’s it.’
‘Thanks for nothing, Connor.’
‘It’s business, sweetie.’
‘Well, I hope I can return the favour one day,’ snapped Charlotte and hung up with trembling hands. She thought of all the times she had worked into the small hours to help him meet a deadline, the work she had put his way, the trade secrets she had shared with him. And this was how he repaid her loyalty.
Her palms were sweating. Her chest felt tight. The edges of her vision went blurry. She thought she might be having a panic attack. She sat down and took several slow deep breaths to calm herself. She had to pull herself together. She’d already lost her husband, her job, and her home. She didn’t want to lose her mind.
On Saturday, another of the tabloids ran a heart-wrenching story about a little girl who had been waiting for a place at the hospice. Next to her photograph were juxtaposed pictures of Charlotte and Ed holidaying and partying - pictures that could only have come from friends. Charlotte wondered just how much money they had got for their betrayal. Probably not even enough to cover a decent meal out, but they obviously hadn’t been able to resist. Did it make them feel better about themselves in some way? She couldn’t imagine wanting to put someone else through the degradation she was now going through.
As she came out of the newsagent’s she bumped into a thickset middle-aged man with a plethora of tattoos.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she apologised automatically, then frowned as he folded his arms and looked into her eyes. She could feel the hostility radiating from him, and her stomach twitched with fear. She hadn’t meant to bump into him—
Then she understood. He knew who she was. And what she was supposed to have done. He turned his head and spat on the pavement next to her, a magnificent quivering blob of spittle that said everything.
She drew herself up with as much dignity as she could muster.
‘For your information,’ she informed him, ‘it was nothing to do with me.’
‘Yeah, right,’ he sneered, pushing past her.
Charlotte stood in the centre of the pavement with her eyes shut. She wanted the ground to swallow her up. She felt as if everyone’s gaze was upon her, as if every last whispered word was directed at her, as if people were crossing the street to avoid her. A double-decker bus drew up next to her, and without thinking she jumped on it, ran upstairs and hid herself away in the furthest corner, away from any other passengers. She sat on it for miles, with no idea where it was heading, until she alighted in some far-off corner of south-west London - a dreary high street with rows of dull, utilitarian shops selling cheap jewellery, kebabs, insurance, pet food. It smelled of petrol fumes and frying onions. It was a million miles from the bijou parade of shops she frequented near home, with its fishmonger boasting monkfish and red snapper, the bakery crammed with pains au chocolat and cupcakes.
Get used to it, she told herself grimly as she jumped off the bus.
She chose the least salubrious hairdresser she could find, not least because she couldn’t afford the usual hundred pounds it cost her to have her tresses tended to. She walked in with trepidation and asked for an appointment. She got one straight away. There was a three-month waiting list at her salon.
She showed the stylist a picture of a Kiera Knightley crop in a magazine.
‘You won’t end up looking like her,’ the stylist said, not unkindly.
‘I know,’ replied Charlotte with a sigh. ‘But I want a change.’
‘If you’re sure.’ The girl picked up her scissors, clearly unconvinced. ‘Some people think they can just walk in with a picture and walk out looking like a film star.’
Charlotte didn’t answer. She just wanted to look as unlike herself as possible, but she didn’t want to explain.
Ten minutes later she looked at the mirror in horror. She’d imagined that she might look chic and gamine. Instead, a twelve-year-old boy stared back at her. The shortness meant her usual blonde looked mousy. It was as severe and unflattering as a haircut could get.
She blinked back the tears, cursing Ed for the trillionth time.
‘What you need,’ said the girl helpfully, ‘is some false eyelas
hes. To give you some definition. It takes a bit of getting used to, a crop.’
Charlotte managed a smile of thanks, handed over twenty pounds then fled the salon. She looked back and saw the junior sweeping her golden locks into a dustpan. She went back to the bus-stop and tried to work out how on earth she was going to get back to civilisation. She decided to give in and go to see Gussie. She needed her friend’s sympathy almost as much as she needed one of her industrial-strength gin and tonics.
Marriage and Other Games Page 6
