The stairs creaked. Hugh set the tea bags in the mugs and ran his fingers through his hair. He hoped this was Emma coming downstairs. She never followed him downstairs in the morning. She lay back in bed and waited for her tea.
The footsteps came closer, along the corridor. Hugh’s heart was pounding. He looked round with a forced smile. The smile turned, very quickly, into horror. He was surprised and displeased to find himself wanting his mummy.
Jo was dressed. She had had a shower. Her hair was still slightly wet. She was wearing lipstick. When she smiled her face was filled with menace.
‘Hello!’ she said, enunciating every letter. ‘You must be Matt. I’m Jo.’
‘Christ,’ he whispered. He looked around, checking that they were alone, as well as looking for escape routes. ‘It is you. I thought it couldn’t be. What the fuck are you doing?’
She whispered too. ‘What the fuck am
I
doing?’
‘Shit.’ He spoke louder. ‘Cup of tea?’ Then whispered again. ‘Can we talk about this later?’ He listened to the excited chatter coming down from upstairs. ‘You mean, that’s . . . ?’ He pointed to the ceiling.
‘That’s Oliver, yes,’ she said, speaking in a normal voice. ‘He and Alice get on like a house on fire. It’s lovely to see. You should watch them playing together. They have so much in common. You know what?’ she said grimly. ‘It turns out that Alice is only a few weeks older than he is!’
Hugh looked down. ‘You haven’t said anything to Emma yet, have you?’
‘No. Hugh, that woman is
Pete’s Emma
! She has been part of your family folklore for years. You all talk about her. And you’ve . . . You are Alice’s father, aren’t you?’
He didn’t answer. He knew he didn’t need to.
Jo looked as if she was going to cry. He had never seen her cry before, not even when she was pregnant, not even when she was in labour. ‘Does Pete know?’ she asked.
He managed to nod.
‘I came here to confront her,’ she said, swallowing. ‘I was all ready to scream and shout and fight her. Then I realised she had no idea. I can’t exactly warm to her, but objectively I can see that she’s sweet, and she no more deserves this than I do. You should have heard her talking about you last night.’
‘How did you . . . ?’
She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’d known there was something up for ages. You’re not quite as clever as you think. Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to go through this properly before you tell her. You’re going upstairs with that tea – and no thanks, I won’t have one, I’d rather drink Olly’s diarrhoea than take a hospitable drink from you, you fuck – and you’re going back to bed with a headache. I’ll go up first and take Olly into the spare room so you won’t bump into him. Olly and I will leave straight after breakfast. He’s not going to see you.’ She touched his arm. ‘Now, you have a wonderful weekend in this gorgeous house,’ she said, in a voice that made him shudder. ‘I do envy your lifestyle. You’ve got the best of both worlds, haven’t you?’ She lowered her voice again. ‘Don’t even think about coming home. Come to the gallery Monday morning.’
Hugh held out a cup of tea, then took it back. He left it on the trestle worktop, and left the room without looking back.
The new school term was starting at the end of August. Alice was wildly excited. She had missed her friends over the summer. I was excited too. Alice had graduated from the
tous petits
section to the
petits
. My tiny girl was growing up. Moving from very small to small was progress, of a sort. I took her on a shopping trip to Villeneuve, the biggest town for miles around, where we bought new shoes, new slippers, pens and pencils, a new school bag, and a spare napkin.
‘I want to show Daddy,’ she said, all the way home. ‘Mine new bag. Mine new sandals. Mine new slippers. Mine new pens.’
‘Daddy will be back this afternoon,’ I assured her. I had not heard from Matt during the week, but I knew he was busy with work. He was trying to put the hours in, that week, to impress everyone enough to make them grant his request to work from home all the time, a request he was judiciously going to make the following week. School began the week after next. I hoped Matt would be at home full time by then, so that we could all turn up at school together for the first day of the academic year. I knew, though, that it was unlikely.
We passed the rest of Friday splashing around in the paddling pool. Fiona called round with a Tupperware dish of fairy cakes and a camera crew. I thanked her fulsomely, while secretly vowing not to eat any, and made a pot of tea. Then I realised that I had to eat at least one, to avoid being rude. This was a shame, as I was trying to stick to a halfhearted diet. I didn’t want to carry nine extra kilos around for ever, particularly not since I was living in France. My rule was that I ate fatty things only if I really, really liked them.
‘How are you, then, Fi?’ I asked her. I was only friends with Fiona because we were English but Alice adored her. She was already sitting on her lap and eating her second cake. A third was clutched defensively in her left hand.
‘Well,’ Fiona said, head on one side. ‘Interesting, I suppose is the best word for it.’ She winked at me.
‘What do you mean?’ I was surprised. Fiona normally brushed that question off with the word ‘grand’. I looked at her. She was bursting with excitement. I thought she was probably pregnant, and prepared to offer my congratulations.
‘Rosie?’ Fiona asked, eyebrows raised.
Rosie rolled her eyes. ‘OK, OK. Fine. We’ll look the other way again. We’ve got enough of you two together anyway. Come on, lads.’ They trooped off.
‘Oh, Emma,’ said Fiona, sounding relieved. ‘I have to tell you. You mustn’t tell a single soul, specially not Matt.’
‘OK.’ I took a bite of fairy cake. Unfortunately, I really, really liked it, so I finished it within seconds and picked up another.
Fiona glanced at Alice. ‘Alice, sweetie, could you fetch your very favourite toy to show Auntie Fifi?’
Alice nodded and slipped off Fiona’s lap. ‘I’ll show you my garage,’ she said solemnly.
‘No darling,’ I intervened. ‘You can’t bring your garage downstairs on your own, can you? Why don’t you fetch your dinosaurs?’
‘Because I don’t even like my dinosaurs any more.’
‘Get Buzz Lightyear then.’ Buzz had been a gift from Bella. He was high on Alice’s list of favourite items.
Alice nodded and stomped off. I turned to Fiona. ‘Not easy to be alone, is it? Well?’
She grasped my hand. ‘Emma, you mustn’t be shocked or anything, but I’ve been having an affair!’ She clasped her hand to her mouth. ‘That’s the first time I’ve told anyone, face to face! Oh, Emma, I’m so excited, you can’t imagine! I know it’s terrible but I can’t help myself. I just can’t. I do try, but I can’t. I’m even wondering whether I might be in love!’
I was astonished. I had only ever had intimate female friendships with my sisters. Neither of them had ever confided anything like this. We had been socialising with Andy and Fiona more and more lately. I was going to have to look Andy in the eye and pretend to be normal.
‘Who with?’ I asked, wide-eyed.
‘Oh, look at you!’ shrieked Fiona. ‘You are shocked, aren’t you? Poor Emma. I think you’ve led a more sheltered life than we have. Don’t worry, lovie. Andy’s no angel. Don’t feel bad on his account. I swore I’d never stoop to his level, but I have, and here I am. I’m loving it.’
‘Wow.’ I tried to think of a response. ‘So, who’s the lucky man?’ It sounded forced and clichéd and I wished I knew how to say the right thing.
Fiona giggled. ‘The lucky man is none other than Didier, the gardener. Can you imagine? I’m a proper Lady Chatterley, aren’t I? Didier’s a little bit older, extremely experienced, if you follow me. I feel like I’m seventeen all over again.’
‘How long have you been . . . ?’ I floundered. I had been about to say ‘together’, but they were not really together, and for a moment I couldn’t think what to say instead. ‘Seeing him?’ I finished.
‘Bonking him? Since May. Three months. I’ve been watching my step, I can tell you. Every time I turn around there’s a bloody telly camera in my face. And what with Andy not working, it’s been a bloody nightmare. I’ve covered my tracks so far. I’m afraid you’ve been my alibi more than once.’
‘Right.’ I had no idea how these conversations were meant to go. ‘Erm, I’m pleased you’re happy. What’s going to happen next?’
Fiona leaned back in her chair, stretched out like a cat, and smiled. ‘A weekend! Didier’s married too, of course – they all are here, aren’t they? So we’ve never managed a whole night together. It’s always been a quick fumble in the shed or some such. I’m dying to be in an actual bed with him, and to wake up with him in the morning. He’s telling his missus that he’s doing a job for some English in the Dordogne, which he got through me and Andy, and I’ve got my girlfriends lined up to back me up on a shopping weekend in Paris. Of course, we really will go to Paris so I can do the shopping, otherwise Andy would smell a rat instantly.’
I stared at her. ‘You’re going to Paris for a dirty weekend with the gardener?’ I tried to imagine wanting to do that. It was impossible. For me there would only ever be Matt. I could not empathise, but I tried to share in her excitement.
Fiona giggled and blushed and put her hand over her mouth. ‘Isn’t it brilliant? I’ve always been a little bit mad, but this takes the biscuit.’
I looked around, and saw Alice standing in the doorway with Buzz cradled in her arms. Fiona saw my face change, and turned to follow my gaze. She was not fazed for an instant.
‘Alice, sweetheart,’ she said happily. ‘Did you fetch your toy?’
Alice walked towards us, holding Buzz Lightyear out for inspection ‘I brought my Buzz. Let’s play Zurg.’ She pressed buttons on Buzz’s torso. ‘What means a dirty weekend with gardener?’ she asked conversationally.
Buzz chipped in. ‘Now,
that
’s an impressive attack pack!’ he observed.
Matt did not come home.
I went to bed confident that he would creep in after catching the last flight. I dozed, listening for the crunch of his tyres on the stones outside. I woke with a start at three in the morning. His side of the bed was empty. I had been sleeping half under a sheet, hot in the pyjamas I only wore when Matt was away. Normally he pulled the sheet back over me when he got in, and I often took my pyjamas off, still in my sleep, to cuddle up to him. My pyjamas had a photo of a kitten on them. Matt laughed at them because they were so twee, but they had been a present from Christa, and so I liked them.
I walked to the window and opened the shutters. It was a clear night, and for a second I admired the millions of stars and the bright, almost full moon. A moment later, I saw that his car was not outside. I shut the shutters and checked the phone line. It was working. I wondered whether he had left a message on my mobile, or sent a text, whether I could have been out of earshot of the phone any time during the afternoon or evening. I knew I had not been; and Matt knew that we didn’t get reception for mobiles at the house. I decided to go up the hill and check the phone in the morning.
I went into the spare room and switched the computer on. I felt gradually sicker. The shutter was open here, and the keyboard was bathed in pale moonlight. I sat in the eerie half-light and thought about death.
Something must have happened. That was what people said when they didn’t want to speculate about death. It was much easier to say ‘something must have happened’ than ‘he might be dead’. In the same way, people said, ‘I hope she doesn’t do something stupid’ because it was easier than saying ‘I hope she isn’t planning to kill herself ‘. Of course, once she had killed herself, people no longer referred to it as stupidity. They just didn’t talk about it at all. I knew that because I had gone out of my way to block out the fact that my mother had ever existed. I was a master of ignoring uncomfortable truths.
I went straight to the BBC news site, which was our home page, and scanned it, petrified, for an aeroplane crash between Gatwick and Bordeaux. There was nothing. Even if he had been on the last flight of the night, a crash would have made it to the news by this point, for sure. Then I checked again for accidents in London. There had clearly not been a massive terrorist attack, which had long been my constant fear. Nothing on the tube. No collapsed office buildings. A fatal accident involving, say, a Gatwick-bound taxi, would not, of course, make it to the BBC news. In search of the most local news I could find, I clicked a button saying ‘England’. From there, I chose ‘News where you live’ and selected London. All the news there seemed to be about footballers on rape charges and children being abused. There was nothing so mundane as a traffic accident.
An hour passed, and I found nothing at all. I pulled myself together, admitted that I was being silly, told myself that there was certainly a perfectly innocent explanation, and assured myself that Matt would stroll in, apologetic but pleased to be home, at some point during the morning. I started padding back to bed, floorboards creaking beneath my feet, when I remembered that French roads were more accident prone than British ones, and that August was the peak month for road deaths in the south of France. I went straight back online to see if I could find news of road accidents south of Bordeaux. Nothing turned up.
Everything outside was silent. The trees and the electricity poles and the buildings cast pronounced shadows in the moonlight. I walked up the hill, still in my kitten pyjamas, with my green espadrilles on my feet, and I looked back at our house. It was grey and forbidding in the moonlight. All the shutters were closed, except for the side door. This was my home, but from time to time it felt more like a prison.
I stared at the phone in my hand. The letters SFR came up, with almost full reception. I watched and watched, willing it to beep into life in my hand with a message explaining why Matt wasn’t here. I tried to convince myself that he might have told me he was not coming back till tomorrow, but I knew it wasn’t true. I would have remembered. Matt had always come home on Thursday or Friday. My whole life was based around when he was coming back. I waited for a message for fifteen minutes, and then I went back into the house.