Authors: Elise Alden
The scent of James’s shirt tormented me all the way back to Valencia. I wanted to vent my grief with tears but they refused to come. When I got to the airport the next morning James was nowhere to be seen and we boarded the flight to London without him.
* * *
They say bad things come in threes and I’ll sign up to that. I lost my parents, James and Ryan, and when I went to work on Monday morning I lost my job. “Suspended pending further investigation” was the way they put it but for all intents and purposes it was the same. I was officially under suspicion for the theft of client funds.
Nervously, I faced Mr Lemane, the other partners, Greg and James across the meeting room table, my attention on James. There were tension lines around his eyes and his jaw was hard.
“James,” I said as calmly as I could, “I didn’t steal from our clients. You said you believed me, remember? I don’t know how to do the more complex banking transactions.”
He didn’t look at me. “You can explain yourself to the Metropolitan Police. The bank informed us this morning you called in the transfers personally, using your passwords. An officer will be here shortly.”
My jaw dropped. “No way! I never transferred any money. There has to be a mistake.”
Mr Lemane stood up, signalling the end of my trial. His eyes were full of disappointment and anger. “We would greatly appreciate it if you would clear your desk and vacate our premises with minimal disruption to our staff.”
James left the room without a backward glance and Greg accompanied me to the office suite like a guard dog. Did they think I would try to steal the hardware? I tried not to notice the hostile stares, making my way across the floor with my head high. Well, not bowed anyway. Somebody had set me up, but who and why? Nothing made sense.
I told myself there was no need to panic because I was innocent. But since when has innocence ever guaranteed justice? I slumped at my desk, not caring if Greg saw how worried I was.
“Hurry up, Betty,” he said. “My wife will be here soon and I’d hate for her to see you getting hauled off to jail. Not in her delicate condition. And don’t even think about turning your computer on. It’s heading down to the police station for examination.”
I didn’t bother to answer, staring at my desk morosely while he gloated at my misfortune. When people got fired in films they spent ages packing a cardboard box they happened to have at hand and bitching about their circumstances to a supportive colleague. No so for me. I had the Moshi Monster pencil Fleur Anise had given me, a Mars bar and Greg.
He watched me with a satisfied grin, which made me want to punch him. Then Velma buzzed through on my phone. Her cheerful voice announced the police officer as if he were a lover with a bouquet of flowers. I took one last look at James’s desk before I headed out.
“Goodbye, Greg. It was nice meeting you. Shame about the getting to know you part.”
“It could have been much better, Becks. There are plenty of satisfied women around here.”
I spun around at the door to look him over. “If we were the last two people on earth I’d find a moving island so I could keep away from you. And if you managed to haul your carcass on board I would dive off and drown rather than sleep with you.”
Greg stood up. “Shut up, Elizabeth.”
“I don’t think so,
Greggie
. The fact you cheat on your wife shows how pathetic you are. You’d better hope your father-in-law pops it soon because that poor, clueless woman might catch on you only married her for the money or discover your affair with Patricia and all the other women you screw. You won’t be giving up work and living the high life if she divorces you for being a philandering bastard.”
“What?” a woman screeched from behind me.
I jumped and looked around. Greg’s wife was in the doorway and James was with her.
“Oh crap.”
Greg’s wife was shaking, looking between Greg and me with wide, stricken eyes. “Is that true?”
Oh God, she wasn’t asking
me
was she?
“Darling, she’s lying,” Greg said.
I sucked in my bottom lip and averted my face. She lurched backward, clutching her pregnant abdomen. Then she gave a small cry and stumbled past James. Greg went after her, stopping briefly when he got to me.
“I hope they lock you up and throw away the key.”
I dropped onto the edge of my desk, feeling rotten. Why hadn’t I kept my mouth shut, let Greg have the last word and then left? I berated myself, all the while conscious that James was standing in front of me. He didn’t say anything, but one glance told me nothing had changed.
“Old habits die hard,” he said scathingly, and turned on his heels.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Heavenly Delight
The officer took me to Holborn Police Station and I was interrogated until I thought my head would explode. Repeatedly, I answered the same questions voiced in different ways. My teenage record was dredged up and with it the restraining order Francesca had filed against me. I’d lied to the police about my stalking activities, only owning up when they’d showed me the video of my black-capped self in front of Matham Manor, so why should they believe me now?
Like Greg said, I had motive and opportunity. They kept me in for eight hours and then they let me go without charging me. However, I was warned not to make any travel plans for the foreseeable future.
I lived in a haze of stress and anxiety. I did my own sleuthing, visiting Banc Suisse and getting nowhere. People who worked at Flintfire didn’t take my calls so I stopped phoning in hopes of finding out the latest on the investigation. Marcia’s flat looked like a dentist’s nightmare, so many pots of sugar with my name written inside them Fleur Anise asked to take one to show and tell.
I cooperated with the police but I was formally charged a few days after they’d first taken me in for questioning. I felt like Bridget Jones in that film where she ends up in a Thai prison accused of drug-smuggling. I hoped to God a certain dark-haired lawyer would swoop in and save me at the last minute, but James didn’t show.
Marcia and Tarzan visited me in the clink. They mouthed calm, positive words while their eyes shrieked with fear. What can I say about that time except that it sucked? I was scared witless, wondering if I would be condemned for a crime I hadn’t committed.
One week later I was given my personal items and released. The officer in charge of the investigation told me Mr Scott-Thomas had produced overwhelming evidence clearing me of embezzling our client’s funds. A large bulk of the money had been transferred out of client accounts during Manuel’s visit, when James knew I was nowhere near my computer.
James had also hired an expensive criminal lawyer for me, one who was competent enough to get me released quicker than I would have been otherwise. I was nonplussed at his intervention, even more so when I discovered he’d been to the jail and spoken to the officers about my case. It was in his capacity as my boss, they said, but I buried that knowledge under the hope he’d forgiven me.
Why hadn’t he asked to see me?
Duh
, my mind answered,
because you’re the lying bitch who ruined his life.
Twice.
Still, I hoped James had softened towards me. Of course, I was also grateful for his help and I phoned to thank him immediately.
He didn’t answer my calls.
A few days after I was cleared the real criminal was revealed. It was little Miss Sunshine from Down Under. Velma had stolen my passwords to fatten her purse before slinking back to Sydney. A computer whizz, she had appropriated my Paisley Benton identity and used it to open an offshore bank account and deposit the funds.
I always knew she was a bitch.
To tell the truth I was disappointed that Greg wasn’t the culprit. Mr Lemane invited me back to Flintfire to finish my probation period but I declined. James didn’t want to see me and I wanted to show him I
wasn’t
selfish, that I cared more about his wishes than my own.
Besides, I’d heard that Greg’s wife was divorcing him and there’s nothing worse than working with two men whose marriages you’ve destroyed, is there? So what did I do?
I wallowed in misery.
Once again, telling the truth had cost me everything. But hey, wasn’t I supposed to feel “freed” by my confession? I should be able to look in the mirror, comforted by the happy knowledge that I’d done the right thing.
But what if I didn’t want to look in the mirror? What if when I looked at myself it hurt too goddamn much? And what if I wanted to look at
James
but he would never let me see him again? What then?
Fu—
Hell if I knew.
The heaviness of guilt had been trumped by the finality of loss. James seemed able to wipe me out of his life easily but I couldn’t do the same. When my schedule allowed I skulked outside Ryan’s school for glimpses of him, hoping that James and not the nanny would pick him up and I could get my fix from a distance.
No such luck.
* * *
The problem with having friends is that they can gang up on you and haul your depressed arse out of the house whether you want to go out or not. Marcia, Tarzan and I had gone salsa dancing at my favourite club but I’d left them there, unable to enjoy it.
I’d had the uncanny feeling I was being watched. The back of my neck tingled and my senses heightened. Several times it felt as if someone were in the shadows, observing me, but when I looked there was nobody there. Paranoid after my time in jail, I left the club early. My heart hadn’t been in it anyway and I decided not to go dancing again.
Autumn was in the air and I wrapped up to take long walks. Marcia called it my walk-and-wallow habit. It was my new addiction, although I didn’t usually head to Matham Manor on a Sunday morning.
I let myself out of Marcia’s flat and got to Hampstead Heath by ten-thirty. I finished the walk part and headed towards the bench I normally occupied for the wallow bit. It had a good view of Matham Manor through the trees.
On weekdays I sat daydreaming that James saw me, came out with Ryan and told me I was forgiven. On Saturdays I watched a bunch of tossers get shouted into fitness by military types. Usually there were two or three groups of adults, all wearing coloured bibs that designated them to a particular “sergeant.” They got insulted, yelled at and told to “drop and give me forty.”
It was hilarious.
The woman I made bench friends with said it was called “boot camp” and would whip your arse into shape in no time. Money was tight and so was my arse so I declined the offer of a trial session. I’d started out eating kebabs while I watched them suffer but eventually the dirty looks I got made me switch to bananas.
Being a Sunday, there weren’t any overweight wannabe army cadets around. Instead there was a charity event. Lots of fit, muscular men battling it out around a specially designed obstacle course, in pairs. After they’d negotiated the obstacles they did a boot camp session, a contest to see who could do fifty push-ups and then lift a fifty-kilo bar ten times the quickest. It looked painful.
A crowd of people cheered them on, encouraging them when they faltered. Shouts of “You can do it!” or “Move it!” rang across the heath. I paid the one-pound fee to enter the viewing area and join the cheering onlookers, choosing a competitor to support for every contest. There’s nothing like a good shout at the top of your lungs even if you can’t shout about what you want.
I’d just finished watching my fifth race when I saw James join the group of contestants. It was then that I realised my heart hadn’t been beating for almost six weeks. At the sight of him, it jump-started into frantic pumping, reminding me of what it felt like to be alive. I sighed, half in despair, half in irritation. I’d been doing so well lately, pushing thoughts of him away from me as soon as I woke up.
Why did he have to ruin it?
It was time to leave before James saw me. I had books to stare at, TV channels to flick and, well, I shouldn’t be wasting my time watching a man who despised me run around in the mud. I got closer and hid myself among the crowd, breathing deeply and gulping in my fill of competitor sixty-two. He was in black shorts and a white tank, stretching and limbering up next to his rival.
Oh crap, James was competing against
that?
Don’t get me wrong, James was fit. Muscular arms and pecs, thighs that made me want to test his endurance more than any obstacle course could. But number forty-five looked like Conan the Barbarian minus the hair. James and Conan entered the obstacle course and I inched closer. The crowd shouted encouragement, myself along with them.
“C’mon sixty-two!” I yelled, ducking behind a few spectators.
James and Conan scrambled up the climbing wall, slithered through the mud tunnel and jumped over the hurdles. After the monkey bars they did the Tarzan swing onto a platform and slid down a fireman pole. Then they climbed the higher, trickier wall and ran two laps around the course.
They had to do this twice and by the end of it James’s hair was wet with perspiration and Conan’s veins were bulging. Conan got to the boot camp section ahead of James. I moved to the front of the spectators and upped the encouraging shouts. James saw me, faltered, and didn’t drop for his push-ups.
“Get down and give me fifty, Scott-Thomas!” I yelled. “Push your tush or I’ll do it for you!”
James dropped to the ground. I guess I should have stopped shouting but what do you know? Yelling at him felt great so I did it again, and then I couldn’t stop. Conan looked pretty solid although he was sweating more than James, pushing his massive body up and down to deafening cheers from his fan club. When he got to the weights he looked as though he was feeling the pain and James didn’t look too steady either. Both men settled on the bench press and lifted their fifty-kilo bars. Conan had an eager supporter pandering to his ego.
I ditched the crowd and stood over James like a drill sergeant. “Push it, James! Faster! Coat that hussy with your man sweat and make that bar your bitch!”
James’s shoulders shook with laughter and the bar tilted. He would have lost but Conan’s muscles seized and he collapsed, unable to sustain his fast pumps. James finished his last lift and got up from the bench. He grinned at me and for a fraction of a second I thought he’d pick me up and kiss me just as he was, streaking with mud and sweat.
I took the few steps that separated us and grinned back at him. His eyes dulled and he retreated, avoiding my outstretched hand as if I were the grim reaper reaching out to take him to hell.
“I never got to thank you for helping me,” I said. “I can pay you back for the lawyer as soon as I’m back on my feet.”
“It was my responsibility to find the culprit, no matter who it was. Flintfire put up the lawyer.”
He was lying.
“Please, James,” I said beseechingly. “I know you’ll never forgive me, but please let me see Ryan.”
For a moment, just a millisecond, I thought he would say yes but then he turned his back. I watched him walk away, paralysed by indecision. I could run after him, try to force him to listen and make him forgive me, or I could respect his wishes and leave him alone. I locked down hard, digging my heels into the mud and forcing my body in the opposite direction.
I went through the days that followed alternating between hope and despair, like flipping a coin every five minutes. Like I flipped the upper I’d bought in Brixton. Some things never change and I still knew where to find what I wanted. The little white pill whispered to me, promising me instant oblivion. I smoothed it between my fingers, picturing James at work and seeing him on the beach at Casa Escondida. I tortured myself with images of him in bed with somebody else.
Then I got a letter from James’s solicitor stating that James had decided to allow me to see Ryan. I had to sign a strict agreement though, and adhere to its terms. In true James style the document was filled with quid pro quos and almost unintelligible legalese. Basically, I could see Ryan every other weekend accompanied by his nanny and I wasn’t allowed to tell him that I was his mother. James would decide when and if that happened.
I should have been jumping for joy instead of smudging my signature with useless tears. But I couldn’t. No matter how happy I was about being a part of Ryan’s life, I was miserable at not being part of James’s.
* * *
Two weeks later I took Ryan ice-skating at the open air rink at Hampton Court Palace for a pre-birthday treat. My son is bright and bullishly stubborn, like me, and had wanted answers about my sudden addition to his life. James told him that I was family on the Benton side and he seemed to swallow that explanation. Although, there was something in his eyes that sometimes made me wonder.
It had snowed earlier in the day and the ground was covered in a thin layer of sparkling white. Christmas lights and a festive atmosphere made up for the chill—from the weather, anyway. Francesca was supervising instead of the nanny and she watched us glide around the rink, her face as glacial as the ice.
So far I had avoided Francesca’s eyes—and her mouth. I didn’t want to see or hear her thoughts on what I had done to James. We skated past her and Francesca gave Ryan the thumbs-up. She looked wan, much thinner than at her party, and she was rubbing her arms.
Damn, a hot drink was what she needed but she wasn’t going to budge. Did she think I’d abscond with Ryan the second she turned her back? With an internal groan I left him skating and went to buy two hot chocolates from the kiosk. I pretended not to notice Francesca’s agitation while I sipped my drink and watched my son.
Francesca took a deep breath and cleared her throat.
Here it comes
, my mind warned
.
“I have cancer.”
Speechless, I gaped at her. My surprise was quickly overtaken by shock. Horror. Thoughts of Ryan and how her illness would affect him ricocheted in my mind and my heart clenched. Now I knew why Francesca had been so anxious to help me, so desperate to believe I was sincere and so willing to trust my promises! Shame washed over me. For years I had been dismissive of Francesca’s role in Ryan’s life, slotting her in the “grandmother” box because anything else was too painful.
But who had kissed him better along with James? Who had watched his first steps, listened to his troubles and been a steady, loving presence?
Francesca was Ryan’s real mother, not me. She couldn’t bear the thought of him suffering and was willing to put aside her feelings about me in hopes that he wouldn’t. I read the selfless love she had for Ryan and wished her reason for wanting to help me was anything but her illness.
True
, my mind agreed, much to my relief.
“Are you having chemo?” I asked.