It’s foolish at my age but my first response was to be aware of the thinness of my nightie. My arms were clasped around my knees and I pulled the fabric tight across my calves, bunching it with my hands at my ankles. I clenched my buttocks. I felt suddenly chilled, both vulnerable and embarrassed, as if I had been caught somewhere I shouldn’t be. I breathed quietly through my nostrils, staying very still.
‘So yeah, me too. Yeah.’
It was like a whisper I caught then – a nothing, I couldn’t be sure it was anything at all.
‘Yes. If we can.’
There was no mistaking the shape of the body now, his arm-swinging gait. He had detached from the darkness of the bushes and was moving across the terrace, his voice a murmur. The white background of his patterned shirt gleamed like phosphorescence. He passed in front of the fire pit and there was the sound of a bottle being knocked over. He paused, bent to right it and then began to move away from the house again, taking a few steps to the front of the terrace in my direction. When he stopped next to the olive tree, I heard leaves rustle, saw a branch sway as he touched it. I could smell the woodsmoke on his clothes, the spice of his aftershave. He said, ‘We’ll have to try,’ on a sigh through his teeth. I held my breath.
Behind him was a grating sound, a rattle – a door opening – soft steps, the clink of the bottle once again knocked over, a muttered oath. A hiss: ‘Tom.’
‘Gotta go,’ he said.
The shape came closer, bare feet and legs, a night-shirt. ‘Who are you talking to?’ Delilah’s voice.
‘No one. Work.’
He raised his arm, holding his phone away from her and she tried to reach across to grab it. ‘You look guilty.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Who were you talking to then?’
‘None of your business.’
She took a step aside. ‘I don’t trust you, Tom Tilson. I never have.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘You having an affair?’ she said.
‘You leaving Johnny?’ he said.
‘You leaving Ailsa?’
‘Fuck you,’ he said again.
Now I’ve written them down, the words on the page look confrontational. But it wasn’t at all. I don’t know how to convey the ease of it.
He sunk onto the top step then, folding himself into a seating position. His knees were bent and he let out a small groan, twisted sideways to get comfortable. She stood above him for a few moments, and then he reached out both of his hands and placed them on her hips. She let out a gasp, or a laugh, somewhere between the two, and he drew her down until she was kneeling beside him. One of them said something – him, I think – but she lowered her head towards his, and I didn’t hear any more talking then, confrontational or otherwise, but only the soft suck of lips on lips, the sweep of hands in hair, the quick urgent rasp of clothes, the slide of skin on skin.
Chapter Eighteen
A bottle of Paul Newman’s Own Italian Dressing
Anaphylaxis, noun. An acute reaction to an antigen
(eg a bee sting) to which the body has become
hypersensitive.
I was chilled when I finally crept back to bed, stiff too from the prolonged stillness of my posture. Heavy petting, I suppose you would call it, of the type banned in municipal pools. Or frottage – a word no one has asked me yet to update, but which I see from my online OED was first documented in 1933 by H. Ellis as a form of aberrant sexual behaviour: ‘the special perversion of f— consists in a desire to bring the clothed body, and usually though not exclusively the genital region, into close contact with the clothed body of a woman.’ They finally broke off, in the end, by a sort of mutual consent – murmurs and groans, to my relief if not theirs, persuading each other to stand up and return to the house.
Lying on my bed, I was appalled by what I had seen and heard, but I would be lying if I didn’t also admit to a sense of satisfaction – vindication, the relief of having been proved right. Ailsa needed to know; I’d have to tell her. But I thought about the SSRIs and the self-help books, all the cooking, the constant diets; the thing she’d said that very day: ‘I’d have to kill him.’ It was bitterly cruel. Perhaps ignorance was kinder. I pulled the sheet up and then minutes later kicked it off. No, I had a moral responsibility. And yet – to be the messenger . . . no one wanted that. Better to know, though, than live in ignorance.
Dawn was creeping into the room under the door, at the edges and bottom of the blind. I was eager to get on with it now. Should I wait until nine? Maybe earlier; eight might be acceptable. I stared at the electronic clock, willing the numbers to turn over. I would dress, go up to the house and ask her to come for a walk. I thought about which words to use, how to phrase it. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this. I began to imagine ahead. She would want to leave. The train would be easiest. I pictured the two of us sitting in the carriage on the way back to London, Ailsa next to me where the woman with the tinny music had sat. She would probably cry, thank me for standing by her. I would take her hand. Max: perhaps we’d bring Max. She’d move into my house when we got back; both of them would.
Light was pooled on the pillow when I opened my eyes. A noise had woken me. I sat up. Maudie was on her back legs, scratching at the door. The numbers on the clock read 11:12.
I leapt to my feet, head swimming. My clothes were scattered on the floor, and I gathered them and got dressed. My lips were dry, the roof of my mouth scaly. I opened the door into a burst of sunshine and let Maudie out into the yard; she crouched to relieve herself. It was a blue day, achingly clear. A dove cooed on the roof of the shed opposite; jackdaws clucked. The events of the night felt muddled and vague. I tried to focus my mind. What should I do? Oh lord. I couldn’t find her now, claim urgency. ‘Something awful happened. And I wanted to tell you. But first I needed a lie-in.’
I gave Maudie her breakfast and shut her in the room. And then I slowly climbed the steps to the house. Whatever I did, I couldn’t skulk all day in the piggery.
When I got up onto the terrace, it was deserted. No one was on the tennis court; no sounds came from the direction of the pool. And on the driveway, the gravel showed tyre marks, but both cars had gone.
I let myself into the kitchen. Several mugs and a pile of dirty cereal bowls were perched on the counter next to the Aga. I opened the dishwasher, thinking to put them in, but it was full of clean things. Instead, I sat on a stool, wondering what to do. I couldn’t think where they’d disappeared to. Had they waited for me to wake up? I tried to remember if we’d planned a tutoring session. Dear God, let no one have come down to check on me, opened the door, seen the room in a state of disarray. They’d have gone – where? To church? No. Shopping? Maybe. A tiny worm of a thought: had one of them mentioned a market? A flea market? The thought grew into a certainty.
I stood up and opened the fridge. A stench. A stainless-steel container took up the bottom shelf; it was wet and gunky with raw chicken, knobs of garlic, red powder and thick slivers of lemon. People – those clients of Tom’s – were coming to lunch.
I closed the fridge, found a clean bowl and poured myself some Special K. I ate it dry, standing at the sink. Propped against a pot of jam was a cookbook open on a page for ‘Catalan chicken’. When Ailsa got back, she’d be stressed, in a rush to get the cooking on. I wouldn’t be able to talk to her. It would have to wait.
I left the empty dish with the others on the counter and looked around. The kitchen opened into a small hall, and I walked into it; the stairs curled up to the left, the sitting room was straight ahead. I poked my head in: it was square and smartly decorated, with an empty fireplace and a stiff-looking blue linen sofa and matching chairs, thick floral curtains and a lot of crimson velvet cushions. It smelt odd, musty and sweet like old pillows. Someone had been watching television – a plaid blanket lay crumpled on the floor, and a carton of Cadbury Heroes was on its side on the coffee table, with its lid off.
I paused at the bottom of the stairs, wond
ering whether to risk it. I was curious to explore, but if they came back and found me in a bedroom, it would seem as if I were snooping. My hand was on the bannister, and I was peering, head tipped back, which is probably why the sound reached me. It was so very quiet and muffled that for a moment I thought it was just the squeak of a window, or the creak of a door. But then it came again, and it was the kind of noise that you have to strain your ears to catch, but when you do you realise it’s only the tips of it you’re catching, that there is a low hum below, almost inhuman, animal-like, and yet at the same time the essence of human. A high keen, a catch, a whimper.
I didn’t hesitate. It was instinct. I took the stairs two at a time. I knew it was Ailsa; there was no doubt in my mind. I recognised the register of her voice and I understood, with a flood of certainty, what had happened. She’d found out. Something had alerted her. She’d seen them last night or he’d told her this morning. And now they were gone and she was up there, alone.
I reached the landing. Several closed doors faced me, but the sound came from the far right, from the bedroom over the sitting room. The door was ajar, and I stepped towards it; the sound louder now. I paused again, still doubtful. I didn’t want to interfere or embarrass her, and yet the thought of her sad and desperate was unbearable. And so eventually I did push open the door, though I didn’t immediately step into the room.
The bed was against the wall on the far side, between the two windows. Ailsa was lying in it alone, on her front, her face to one side on her pillow. Her body was humped in a strangely contorted position under the covers, her arms beneath her, and her eyes were closed. I remember noticing the phone on her pillow, how the screen was lit. The sound was coming faster now, little regular pants, and I was aware also of a low buzzing.
The blood rushed to my face. I brought my hand to my mouth. I think a yelp of embarrassment might have risen to my throat, but I managed to suppress it as I backed out of the room, and pulled the door to.
Over the course of that day, I kept remembering the exact moment in which discovery coincided with fear of discovery; the pall of horror, even as I saw her, that she might see me. It was a particular kind of mortification, and it was later to become muddled in my mind with my knowledge of Tom’s affair. I had watched them both in secret and it led to a sort of self-disgust that was to contribute to making me feel unwell.
It was a matter of minutes before cars rolled into the drive, doors slammed, gravel crunched. I was sitting at the kitchen table, pretending to do the crossword, when in a blast of noise and bags, they barrelled in. The kids ran off for a swim, and Rose and Gary went upstairs to pack. Tom and Delilah began to distribute the shopping: another giant carton of milk, a pat of butter, a dirty-looking lettuce, some Neutrogena hand cream, and a rectangular box bearing the word ‘Bodyguards’.
Tom, putting the lettuce on the counter, said, ‘You missed a great trip, Verity. The Barcombe flea. All that tat, right up your street.’
‘I shouldn’t have slept in,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No one’s judging,’ he said to me. ‘The boys were delighted with their reprieve.’
Delilah, in cropped jeans and a lacy top, was moving lightly around the room, quite a spring in her step. ‘’Scuse us,’ she said, squeezing in front of Tom to open the fridge. She was spooning coffee into a cafetiere when Ailsa walked into the room, her hair damp from the shower.
‘Just in time,’ Delilah said, too brightly. ‘Coffee?’
‘Yes please. I’d love one.’
Ailsa pushed past her and swung open the dishwasher; she began to empty it, clattering plates into the cupboard.
‘I didn’t know where anything went,’ I said.
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘I found you a chemist,’ Tom said. He pointed at the ‘Bodyguards’ box on the table. ‘Vinyl, not latex, but they should do the job.’
‘Thank you.’
She took the lid off the hand cream, squeezed some out into her palm and rubbed it into both hands. Then she pulled back the lid of the box and peeled out a pair of thin cream gloves – identical to the ones doctors wear for a medical examination – and snapped them on. She twiddled her fingers in the air, like an evil scientist planning their next move.
I laughed, to make up for not emptying the dishwasher. But Delilah had put on a sympathetic expression. ‘Poor you,’ she said. ‘Have you thought of . . .’ She began to list various homeopathic remedies. I wasn’t sure how Ailsa received them – she had her back to me, first referring to the recipe book, then taking the plastic container out of the fridge, placing each piece of chicken on a stainless-steel tray, and finally putting that in the Aga, closing it with a slam.
I continued to take refuge in Saturday’s crossword as lunch preparations intensified, shifting, when I got in the way, to the table outside. I was aware that I could have been helping, but I didn’t know how. I had a strong and vexatious memory of my first few days at the council, knowing I should be doing something and yet too self-conscious to ask what. I felt a familiar paralysis in my limbs, the same embarrassed rigidity in my cheeks. Adrian Curtis came into my head and I felt sick. Gary, laying out the cutlery, asked me perfectly pleasantly what train I planned to get – clearly under the impression I was leaving that day. Lifting the newspaper to make way for a knife and fork, I explained I thought I had another night and he said, ‘Cool,’ but after he had gone back into the house I felt a wave of shame at my ineptitude, a sense that things were slipping away from me, that I was doing everything wrong.
We were already eating when the guests arrived. The kitchen and terrace had smelt delicious, of roasting juices and onion and then very slightly less so, of burnt garlic. Opening the Aga, Ailsa deemed the chicken ‘utterly ruined’. Rose and Gary were restless, eager to get on the road to Cornwall before it got too late, and the children, according to Ailsa, were ‘starving’, which seemed unlikely as they had been eating bread and Nutella all morning. Tom, who had been up to the lane several times to check – what, that two media millionaires weren’t sitting in a hedgerow? – eventually agreed that we should start without them.
We left spaces that made the table look as if it were missing teeth. Tom sat at the top, with a gap to the right of him, and Gary one beyond; to the other he had Delilah, Rose, an empty seat, and then Ailsa. I stayed at the far end, with Max on one side of me, and Melissa on the other. I was happy to be distracted by the children. Max and I played a game I’d borrowed from Radio 4 in which I gave the definition of three words and he had to decide which one was made up. Even Melissa and Bea joined in, though Ferg said it was boring. At the other end, Tom chewed with an aggressive churning of his jaw, making a point of the meat’s toughness, and Ailsa’s eating was at her most unhappy; she gave herself a minuscule portion but picked at the dish of potato dauphinoise, digging her nails into the burnt bits around the edges until, despite her initial good intentions, she must have eaten her own body weight in potato dauphinoise. Delilah told a long story about a party she and Tom had gone to as teenagers, how they’d missed the last bus and had had to walk home: it was so boring that even Rose found it hard to respond with any enthusiasm.
It was a relief when we heard the sound of a car pulling into the drive and purring to a halt. Ricky leapt out first, and immediately strode towards us, head ducked, arms rotating: half-dance move, half-semaphore.
Tom jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over, and the two of them met by the front door of the house, slapping their arms around each other in an overly jovial greeting. ‘We’ve started without you,’ Tom said, and then in a mockney accent I’d never heard him use before, ‘Soz, mate. You snooze, you lose.’ Springing away, he made the sign of an ‘L’ with his thumb and forefinger. Ricky, who was wearing tracksuit bottoms and a tight black T-shirt, caught him in a headlock. ‘Grrr,’ he said. He was looking at Ailsa over Tom’s shoulders, and he winked. She quickly turned her head.
Behind them, Pippa, havi
ng checked the contents of the papoose strapped to her chest, was walking towards us, long-legged and long-haired, in floaty white trousers and a white top.
‘Hiya,’ she said, waving her fingers. ‘I’m so sorry we’re late. It’s all my fault. I was awake half the night so I was slow this morning and then I misread the postcode.’
Her eyes were extremely clear and blue as if you were looking at them through a magnifying glass. Her voice was soft and airy, with flat Essex vowels.
Everyone got to their feet and paid court for a few minutes, peering in at the baby and lamenting over their journey as if Ricky and Pippa had just trekked barefoot from the North Pole. Ailsa was at her most gushing. It was so kind of them to come. She and Ricky had had another meeting, it transpired, about the London garden. Was he happy with the plans? Had he shared them with Pippa? Was she loving Bath? How often did she get up to London? And was she still working? She was? And the baby just fitted in. How marvellous. How jolly. She was at her most cloyingly fake and it was unbearable to watch. Bless, she kept saying. Bless.
Ricky complimented her on her dress. She’d changed into a long green silk wrap thing with straps. ‘Gorgeous,’ he said. ‘That’s your colour. Hope you’re keeping a close watch on this one, Tom.’
Ailsa looked pleased, and then embarrassed. She clasped her hands in front of her.
Eventually, the newcomers sat down. Melissa, Bea and Max were exhorted to clear the dirty plates and bring out the clean ones. I got up to help too. (Maudie was asleep in the shade, muzzle twitching and making tiny circular movements with her paws.) Ailsa said, ‘Can you bring out the salad? It’s on the side.’
‘Of course.’
‘And the dressing!’ she called after me.
The bowl of lettuce had been sitting on the kitchen counter in full sun and was looking floppy. I found the dressing at the back of the fridge – I assumed she meant the Paul Newman’s – and I slopped some into the bowl. But when I laid it down on the table in front of Ailsa, she sniffed and said: ‘What did you use? Oh no, really? I meant the homemade dressing. It was on the side.’ She pushed it to the centre of the table. ‘Sorry, everyone.’
Finders, Keepers: The mesmerising new thriller from the author of LIE WITH ME Page 20