by Ali Knight
‘She had a great future ahead of her,’ Paul adds, shivering. ‘She was a real ideas person. Sergei sent some flowers to her parents.’
‘I think we need to put some thought to the image of Forwood,’ John says. ‘She met Gerry because she worked on our programme—’
‘You’re worrying too much. Inside-Out is being rebroadcast on cable, that’s how much of a flop it is!’ Lex is talking over John as if he’s not there. ‘It’s great publicity. It might sound crass—’
‘There’s no might about it, Lex!’
At this he rounds on me. ‘Oh I get it. Kate thinks she’s above all this. But I’ve worked bloody hard for a long time and if I make a programme so successful it’s on the front page of every newspaper in the land, that’s good enough for me.’
‘Whatever the cost?’
‘Do you know, Kate, that the sale of magic sets has jumped several hundred per cent since Inside-Out aired? That’s the power of telly. Imitation!’
‘I can think of a victim I wish this imitator had chosen—’
‘That’s enough, both of you!’ Paul holds up his hand, seeking a truce.
‘Mummy, why are you arguing?’ Ava asks, staring at Lex.
‘Arguing is when two people disagree on something,’ Lex replies. ‘But your mum and I are actually very alike, we just express ourselves differently. I’m think I’m a little more honest.’ Lex gives me his best smile and I reply with a sarcastic grimace.
Ava shifts on my knees and pops her thumb back into her mouth. Am I just like Lex? I watch him standing with his back against the captain’s cabin as if he wants to command the boat. Paul’s used to our bickering, he’s been listening to it for years. Paul and Lex are an unlikely couple who have worked phenomenally well together. Their first big success was Whodunnit?, a reality-TV variant where the audience gets a say in the outcome of a crime drama by being able to vote for different endings. The revenue from the 09 numbers brought in the money to make reality-TV documentaries and crime shows that cemented the company’s reputation as a cash cow with kudos. Inside-Out is the latest – and most controversial – of those.
Whodunnit? allowed Lex to proudly proclaim, ‘I can make anything happen on TV.’ He is driven, maniacal about success, he wants to go all the way. He has me all wrong, I am not at all like him, but I feel no desire to put him right. The soft warmth of my daughter in my lap reminds me that I am already so much luckier in life than my lonely sister, Lynda, or my poor mother, still smarting with her unrequited feelings for my father. But I know Lex has no interest in hearing this; losers’ stories from the provinces are tedious to the privileged; I am cagey even with Paul about my broken and utterly ordinary family. Lex is jabbing his thumb and forefinger in the air to make a point, Paul is rapt. To be honest, the kind of wealth and profile Lex craves scares me. I like the status quo; the certainty that Paul is my husband and that he loves his family. Maybe there’s such a thing as too much success; it unbalances people, separates them from who they are. I imagine being tipped over the side into the cold and dirty water as Paul cruises away, my screams unheard amid the noise of the pleasure craft.
‘Are you shivering, Mummy?’ Ava asks.
I hug her in reply and tune back in to Paul, who’s reassuring Lex. ‘Keep the crowd on side, produce what the viewers want and we can see this crisis through.’
Lex grunts. ‘As long as it’s not like Whodunnit? and some other fucker gets to pick the outcome!’
John has retreated back into his shell as Lex and Paul talk on. He stands alone as we bump against the dock, the third wheel staring back down the river we have travelled. ‘You OK?’ I ask.
‘How’s the job, Kate? Going well?’ I nod and he ruffles Josh’s hair so he doesn’t have to look at me. Josh squirms away from his uncle in embarrassment.
We had planned to have a picnic but when Sarah cancelled I gratefully seized the chance to buy overpriced sandwiches and buns. The day is cold and few people are around. After dragging the children through Henry VIII’s bedroom and enduring Lex’s insinuations about venereal disease (which thankfully Josh is too young to pick up on) we emerge into the gardens and arrive at the maze. We find our way to the centre without much problem and are back out quicker than I expected. Ava is sullen and Josh looks bored. This was supposed to be the highlight of our family day out, but it’s less than we hoped.
‘Right, now we’re going to play a game,’ says Paul, picking up on the energy lag. ‘Hide and seek in the maze.’ The kids look unimpressed. ‘You’ve got to find me.’ He is swallowed up by the hedges as John and I offer words of encouragement to the children. Lex pretends he’s a ghost as we creep along a walkway. The kids giggle and run ahead, John following. I turn off down a path and find myself alone. I walk for a bit, enjoying the silence. Thick hedges of yew surround me, patches of bright green fuzz signalling the start of the growing season. Far away I hear a scream. I dwindle to a stop and rest against a railing. This is the first moment I have been alone all day and I feel exhausted. Last night has a hue like a lurid melodrama, I am too tired to process what it all means.
On the other side of the hedge I hear Ava’s voice. ‘Uncle John, where’s Mummy?’
I don’t move – let them come to me.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ John says, quietly but distinctly.
I hear a grunt and something I can’t catch. ‘She never signed the paperwork.’
‘I thought that was all finalised!’ It’s Paul.
‘Well, it’s not. I looked through it this morning. She didn’t sign. Unless there’s something at her house, we don’t have it.’
Paul’s swearing. ‘Where does that leave us?’ John says something unintelligible. I peer through the hedge, catching only the briefest glimpses of colour and movement and smelling cigarette smoke. ‘We’re keeping this between ourselves, don’t mention this to anyone.’
‘Let’s go this way, Daddy!’ Ava’s voice seems to boom after her dad’s private conversation. There’s a strange taste in my mouth. What am I not allowed to know? I almost jump out of my skin as I am tapped sharply on the shoulder.
‘What are you looking so guilty about?’ asks Lex.
‘Sure you’re not transferring?’
Lex grins, his sharp little teeth glinting. I smooth my hair, trying to regain some composure. ‘Come on, let’s hunt them down.’ I set off fast down a narrow path, but Lex pulls at my arm.
‘What’s the hurry?’ He links his arm through mine and slows to the speed of ambling lovers. ‘Tough week, eh?’ I say nothing. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you earlier on the boat, it’s just that I want the company to do well, Kate, I really do.’
‘Are you saying you’re more committed than Paul?’
‘No, but at heart Paul isn’t a reality-TV guy. He wants to make worthy shows about the Lebanon or children with no eyes in Africa or whatever, but they don’t make any money. Like it or not, this company sold because—’
‘Of you.’
Lex shrugs. ‘If you like.’
‘I don’t recall Whodunnit? ever getting the media profile you’ve got over the Gerry Bonacorsi programme.’
‘Oh, Kate, I love the way you stick up for Paul at every turn, whatever he does! God, I want a wife like you!’ Lex brushes the thick bank of yew with his hand, sending ripples across its surface.
A thought strikes me. Paul often does TV work, has done interviews all week, defending Inside-Out, promoting the company. Press and TV have clamoured for him, over and over again. They never asked Lex. For a man as vain as him, that must have hurt. Forwood TV is a partnership, Lex and Paul own forty-five per cent each, a variety of investors the rest. I wonder how enduring this partnership is. If Paul left Forwood or was disgraced, he could be forced to sell his share of the company and the other investors would be given the first opportunity to buy those shares. Lex could end up holding a controlling interest, and he’d make a lot more money when the sale is finally completed. A murder conviction would defin
itely be a reason to force Paul to sell.
‘You find out where Paul was on Monday night?’ Lex is as predictable as a carnivore chasing antelope: he attacks the jugular. ‘Presumably the police asked you?’
I try to give him my withering look, as if to prove his verbal punches don’t hit me. ‘They weren’t concerned about that. They were asking about her generally, how well Paul knew her.’ I could kick myself. In trying to sound casual I’ve walked straight into a worse trap. Lex gives me that grin again, as if he’s brimming over with secrets.
‘Strange. You seemed pretty keen to find out where he was in those missing hours.’ He holds my gaze. ‘In the light of what we now know, I’m not surprised.’ The grin has gone. He’s deadly serious – and still tightly holding my arm.
‘He was with me.’ Lex can’t keep the shock out of his eyes.
At that moment Josh, John, Ava and Paul appear around a corner and rush towards us. ‘Mum, I found him first,’ says Josh.
Ava is on Paul’s shoulders, shouting, ‘I can see over everything!’
Lex lets go of my arm as fast as if he’s been scalded. He’s never married. His relationships last a few months. I stare at him defiantly so there is no mistaking my intention. For better or worse, I have chosen my side and he’d better know how seriously I’ll root for it. Am I imagining it, or do I even see, for the very first time, respect reflected back at me?
17
Paul spends most of the rest of the weekend giving interviews and talking to John and Lex on the phone. On Monday morning I hurry Josh and Ava to school with the cold efficiency of the discarded woman. I’ve been granted my wish to work from home today but end up sitting down at the computer to search for electronic clues. The machine takes ages to hum to life as I tap impatiently on the table top. I want to be put out of my misery. I want to find something concrete, evidence of an affair at least, anything would be better than this unknowing purgatory of smoke and mirrors.
I type in Paul’s work email address and password. This is by no means the first time I’ve logged on to his email, and I’ve never thought of this as his private territory, that I’m trespassing on the unwritten codes that underpin our marriage. The red writing is irritatingly familiar; they don’t match. Several attempts later and I am staring at a horrible new reality: I haven’t typed the letters incorrectly, Paul’s changed his password. I sit very still, processing the significance of this. I know all the day-to-day details of Paul’s life. I haven’t consciously sought them out, they have seeped in from our years together. Or I did. His pin number, where his bank account details are kept, which taxi company he has an account with, what’s in his will. But now I’m locked out of his email, his personal communication with the world. And right now I have more than a curiosity to get in there and scroll through his inbox and the deleted and sent items, I have an insatiable obsession with being in there. I am his wife, it is my right.
I splay out my hands on the desk and try to grip the wood with the tips of my fingers, my nails scratch the varnished surface. I will break in if it the last thing I do. They work out passwords all the time in films, just type in the dog’s name and that’s the end of it. But I’m not in a film, this is real life and my husband has locked me out. Three hours later and I’m still here; I cannot do it. I have tried everything, logical and illogical. I know everything about Paul, every fucking detail of his life, and I have failed. I started logically, calmly and methodically. My name. The children’s names. Other family members and then nieces, nephews and grandparents. I typed in old schools, his favourite teachers. I tried former addresses – with and without the road and the number. I listed work colleagues old and new, his former girlfriends, his football club, the nickname of his football club, his tortoise’s name followed by the house he grew up in (this was a game we played in the pub years ago, Hercules Hamleigh is a mediocre porn-star name), his favourite holiday destination, where we got married, where he married Eloide, and of course I tried Melody, with and without her surname. Nothing. I typed in the names of books on the shelf next to the computer, the Marie Rose, his favourite public figure, the names on the designer clothes he wears, the builder we last used. I typed in the programmes he commissioned, the series he won prizes for and then I threw the keyboard across the room, upended a cup of tea and howled. He is playing with me. He is messing with my fucking mind. At that moment I hate my husband. I hate him more than I thought possible.
Paul is arrogant. He’s got a reason to be: he runs a big company, wins prizes for his work, employs many people. He’s well educated, finds it easy to win arguments about abstract things, can take an alternative view just for the fun of it. He’s brighter than me. He beats me at games: chess obviously, Monopoly, he can finish a crossword and he slaughters me at Scrabble. This last hurts. Every time it hurts, but I try to pretend it doesn’t. When he lays his last tile down and adds up the final score with the stubby pencil we keep in the box, he gives me his pitying-playful look and says, ‘Nearly, if you’d just picked up that J . . . who knows?’ Then he gives a little laugh. I want to rub that smile right off his face. Make that ‘scrub’, it’s worth four more points.
I go to the loo and calm down a bit, but I leave the tea dripping on to the carpet. There’s a piece of paper with some business notes scrawled on them on the side of the desk. I try them all. Nothing works. I look at his spidery handwriting. He writes in capital letters, which I’ve always found odd. Maybe it’s a bloke thing. He certainly can’t spell. He beats me at Scrabble but he can’t spell. He’s so talented but he often shouts at me from his laptop, ‘Does “lose” have one o or two? How do you spell “sheer”?’ It’s his Achilles heel. From left field comes a thought, since she’s been on my mind rather a lot lately. Eloide is a tricky name. I wonder how long it took him to master. Before I have time to think about what I’m doing, I type ‘melodie’. I press return, and am rejected. I type ‘meledy’. I press return . . . nothing. ‘Oh, Eggy, Eggy,’ I say to myself, tears starting to drip down my nose. I type in my nickname twice as I need a minimum of six letters and suddenly I am in.
I wipe away my tears with a shaking hand. My achievement at cracking his code doesn’t give me any satisfaction, it simply leaves more questions without answers. I force myself to concentrate on the job before me. His inbox is dull. There is nothing from Melody at all, no cheeky jokes full of sexual innuendo, signifying a long-established fuck fest, no passionate missives from a young and love-struck admirer. His deleted and sent items are similarly uninspiring. I feel cheated after all that effort and the hours I’ve spent. But am I surprised? Melody is dead. She was murdered. The most obvious evidence purge is an email. I feel I’ve arrived at a party long after the most interesting guests have left. In that situation I might as well just start tucking into the buffet. I go through everything else, just because I spent so long breaking in here. There are a few email exchanges with Lex; it sounds like he’s angling for a bigger share of the company. Typical. Lex is a L’Oréal guy, he always thinks he’s worth it. There are cool, almost abrupt emails from Portia detailing CPTV’s liabilities and umbrella strategies, whatever they are. She always copies someone else on these and she never signs off with the niceties I’m familiar with. She has a job so busy she long ago dispensed with the superficial. There are emails from Sergei offering to do Paul’s overdue expenses; a round-robin dirty joke from Astrid; and an art invite from Jessie that’s full of exclamation marks. Then I find an email exchange with John where Paul is asking if Forwood TV needs to protect itself. John has attached a long article about intellectual property rights. I follow this thread, they are trying to get clarification on who owns an idea as opposed to a programme that’s been commissioned or made. ‘Get her to sign a contract straight away,’ Paul has written.
‘It’s drafted, but she’s stalling, she’s waiting on legal advice,’ John replies a day later. The date is three weeks ago. Paul has not replied. I feel discomforted by this, seeing work disagreements set down in b
lack and white, but then my eyes settle on something far more interesting: an email from Eloide. ‘Well, I suppose you’re right. Why don’t I invite her round for lunch. Would that make you happy?’ The familiar tone grates. There should be a pecking order of familiarity with me at the top. Then I notice there are also no emails from me. Not one. I write to Paul a lot, mostly with appointments for his diary, sometimes I tell him I love him. A few clicks later I find them in the deleted folder.
I have a flashback to a private view I once went to with Jessie. We’re standing in front of a painting, being barged from right and left by the crowd. She holds her glass of white up to the canvas. ‘This is my favourite in the whole room.’
I glance dismissively at some not very well-painted peaches and a pineapple in a kitsch bowl against a dull black background. ‘This one? You’re kidding.’
‘I love it.’
‘But it just looks like a bad still life to me.’
‘See how dark the background is. The absences, the holes if you like, are what makes the picture.’
I shake my head. ‘I just don’t get it.’ Two Japanese students walk in front of the canvas and then move on and I look again. Suddenly the background of the painting has jumped forward, creating a delicate pattern of swirling and vibrant shapes, like a beautiful piece of black lace over the picture which is in contrast to the solid fruit and bowl. The optical illusion is amazing. ‘Actually, that’s really clever.’
‘It’s an old painting trick but the artist’s done it in a new way here. Gaps create as many shapes and patterns as objects,’ she smiles, triumphant. ‘Now, there’s a void in this glass that needs to be filled,’ and she turned towards the bar.
Paul may have cleaned up his email. But for every pattern he obliterates a new one is left. Unfortunately it seems the new design is writing out his wife.