by Tess Stimson
‘Of course it was her!’ I shouted, when Bella accused me of being the crazy one. ‘Who else would have done it?’
‘Literally anyone!’ Bella cried. ‘That loony farmer, kids, who knows! Caz isn’t some kind of psycho! She’d never do anything like that!’
I slammed the topaz-coloured earring onto the kitchen table between us. ‘You were the one who found this lying in the drive right by the garage,’ I snapped. ‘Tell me how it got there, since Caz has never been to our house!’
‘I told you! The stupid earring probably just fell out of the car!’ Bella exclaimed. ‘She’s been driving it the last four years, remember?’
The only thing that sustained me during the long dark nights of grief and misery after Andrew left was the knowledge that I still had the best of him: that Caz might steal my husband, but she could never take my motherhood, my children, from me. Listening to my daughter take her side against me hurts more than anything I’ve known since Nicky’s death.
The rain intensifies as I lock my car now and cross the road towards the care home. At first glance, it’s easy to assume Caz comes from money, with her English rose complexion and perfect Home Counties accent. But I always knew there was something off about her: even the younger royals adopt a glottal stop these days. Andrew clearly bought into her act. He’s a terrible snob: a working-class boy from a Manchester council estate who made good but has never quite trusted his success; he’s always had a thing for posh girls. My family’s cash had run out by the time I was born, but my parents still have the odd silver chafing dish knocking about the place, and Andrew used to dine out on the fact my godfather’s a baronet. I’m willing to bet good money he has no idea his current mother-in-law lives in a council care home in Dagenham.
I push open the door into the lobby, and am instantly assailed by an institutional smell of marker pens and boiled cabbage. It’s the weekend, and there’s no one behind the cheap Formica reception desk, which is littered with several half-drunk mugs of cold coffee, as if abruptly abandoned mid-shift. I lean over it, looking for a buzzer to summon someone. The blocky computer crammed onto the end of the desk hails from the last century, and a stack of cardboard manila patient files are propped carelessly to one side. The entire place oozes neglect and lack of funds, and I’m still front of house. God knows what the rest of the home is like if this is the face they present to the world.
A woman suddenly appears from a small office on the far side of the lobby, wiping mayonnaise from her lips. A prawn sandwich, judging by the small crustaceans clinging to the substantial shelf of her bright blue sweatshirt. ‘Can I help you?’ she asks suspiciously.
‘I’m here to see Ruth Clarke,’ I say.
‘Friend or family?’
I hesitate. ‘It’s personal,’ I prevaricate.
‘Room 243,’ the woman says, already bored. ‘Second floor. You’ll have to take the stairs – the lift’s not working.’
The stairwell smells of urine and cigarettes, and the cheap, scarred orange linoleum clearly hasn’t been replaced since the property was built in the Sixties. What the hell is Caz doing, dumping her mother in a place like this? She and Andrew have enough resources for them to afford something better. There’s a story here; I can smell it.
The door to 243 is wide open, like every other room I’ve passed. The residents are subjected to bed baths and catheter changes in full view of anyone happening to walk past. I knock pointedly on Ruth Clarke’s door before entering, but the woman in the wheelchair by the window doesn’t even look up.
‘Mrs Clarke?’ I say. ‘Do you mind if I come in?’
For a moment, I think she hasn’t heard me. Then she looks over her bony shoulder, and I suddenly see how Caz will look in thirty years’ time. The woman has the same fine features and high cheekbones, which are scaffolding for crepey skin grown grey from lack of sunlight. She has the same deep-set blue eyes as her daughter, too, though her hair is stringy and pulled back into an unflattering knot at the nape of her neck. But she is still beautiful, in her way.
‘Who’re you?’ she snaps.
‘I was married to your daughter’s husband,’ I say baldly.
Her gaze sharpens suddenly. She nods to herself a couple of times, then abruptly swings her wheelchair away from the window. ‘What do you want with me?’
‘I’d like to talk to you, if you can spare a few minutes.’
‘It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to be,’ she says acidly.
I glance around the room as I sit down in the only chair available, opposite her. There are no personal photographs anywhere: no pictures of Ruth holding Caz as a baby, or Ruth herself on her wedding day. The room is as bland and sterile as if she’d just moved in this morning, though I know she washed up here more than seven years ago. It doesn’t take a trained psychologist to see that leaving your mother to rot in a loveless cell like this is not the sign of a healthy relationship.
‘So what d’you want to know?’ Ruth asks.
‘All of it,’ I say.
Chapter 27
Caz
Andy leans across the kitchen counter to kiss Kit, holding his tie to the side so it doesn’t dip into his cereal. I try not to notice that just a few weeks ago, he’d have come around the island and kissed me too. ‘Don’t forget, the kids will be here this weekend,’ he says, straightening up. ‘You need to clear all that shit out of Bella’s room. You can’t just use her bed as a dumping ground.’
I want to point out that until a week ago, that room was my study. But now that the kids are coming up to London for their weekends, Andy has decreed that Bella needs her own space, so that she can have friends stay over.
It’s not all bad. Giving up my office has earned me lots of Brownie points with Bella, which will drive Louise crazy.
‘By the way,’ Andy calls, as he opens the front door. ‘We’re going down to Devon next week on Friday morning, now, not Saturday, so you’ll need to take the day off work. Celia’s invited us to a family dinner at the hotel on Friday night, and it makes sense to be there the day before the party, so we’re not in a rush.’
I chase him down the hall. ‘We’re not still going to the party?’ I demand incredulously. ‘After what Louise did?’
‘Of course we’re still going,’ he says shortly. ‘Nothing’s changed. I’m not ruining Celia’s big day because you and Louise had a bit of a tiff.’
‘A bit of a tiff?’
‘Caz, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but you need to sort it out. This weekend will be a chance for you both to put it behind you and make peace.’ He glances in the hall mirror, and straightens his tie. ‘I have to go, or I’ll be late for the morning briefing. We can discuss this later.’
‘She turned up at our house with a dead cat!’ I exclaim, catching his arm. ‘I’m not letting our son within a half-mile radius of her!’
He shakes me off. ‘I’m going to the party, and so is Kit. It’s up to you if you want to stay home and sulk.’ His expression hardens. ‘And he’s my son too, remember.’
‘Andy—’
He’s gone. I go back into the house, my entire body trembling. I feel sick and slightly dizzy. I don’t know what’s happening to us. Andy has never spoken to me the way he did just now, dismissing me as if I don’t matter. I’ve never seen him look at me like that, distant and unreachable. In all the years we’ve been together, there has always been fire and heat and feeling between us, even when we’ve fought. But for the past week, ever since the police came round, he’s been clipped and cold and surgically angry, almost precise in his dislike. I wonder if this is what he was like with Louise, in the dying days of their marriage.
Four years ago, when Andy finally left her, I thought I’d beaten her. But my victory was Pyrrhic from the start. Andy didn’t leave Louise for me. I won him by default. He turned up on my doorstep, incandescent with rage and misery, not because he’d finally realised he couldn’t live without me, but because he’d discovered Louise
had cheated on him.
It’s been a cancer at the heart of our relationship, slow-growing but always there. He didn’t choose me. He never chooses me.
I sink onto the bottom stair, the same place I sat last week to protect our son from his ex-wife’s lunacy, and bury my face in my hands. Most couples start their relationships in a cocoon of intimacy, but for Andy and me, that precious, irrecoverable time was marred by constant running battles with Louise. Somehow, we survived and made it into clear waters. She’s never gone away, a permanent thorn in my side, and Andy and I have often rowed about her, but she’s never driven a wedge between us like this. A month ago, I wouldn’t have thought it possible we’d end up here, more bitterly divided than we’ve ever been. We’re teetering on the brink of something from which I’m not sure we’ll be able to return.
Somehow, I pull myself together, and finish getting ready for work. I drop Kit at his nursery, and head towards the tube, grabbing a latte to go and trying to clear my head so I can concentrate on the day ahead of me. Patrick has stemmed the haemorrhage of clients after the Vine debacle, but I’m well aware I have a lot of ground to make up. I can’t afford another missed step now.
My phone pings with an incoming text from AJ as I climb the stairs to the platform at Parsons Green. Patrick wants to see me first thing.
I step out of the way of the tide of commuters, and put my coffee cup on the ground between my feet so I can text him back. Did he say why?
No. But Sheila will be there.
Shit. There’s only one reason Patrick would have someone from Human Resources sit in on a meeting. He’s going to give AJ a bollocking, and he’s covering his arse so AJ can’t play the homophobic card if things suddenly go south. Don’t panic. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Keep me posted.
I hope to God Patrick’s not going to take AJ off the Univest account, because that’ll leave me super-exposed with Tina Murdoch. But he’s been punishing everyone involved in the Vine fuck-up, taking us off prestige accounts and cutting back on travel perks. AJ’s only my acting deputy. Until Vine, he was on course to have the promotion made permanent, but Patrick can always throw him back in the pool with the other PAs.
I squeeze my way onto the tube, trying not to spill my latte as the crowd presses in behind me. AJ is more than my right hand: he’s my eyes and ears at Whitefish. He’s neurotic and occasionally daft, but he’s also intensely loyal, hard-working and that rarest of creatures: a gossip who knows when to keep his mouth shut. Losing him from the Univest account would leave me both short-staffed and politically vulnerable. He’s virtually the only person in my life I wholly trust. In many ways, he’s a better friend to me than Andy himself.
I change at Earl’s Court, and my mobile lights up with a flurry of emails as I come above ground. I scroll quickly through them as I walk down the platform. Four messages from Tina, a couple of cc’d emails from Patrick and Sheila – an ominous sign – and another from Nolan, plus a terse reminder from Andy to pick Bella and Tolly up from the station tomorrow. And it’s not even eight-thirty in the morning yet.
I suddenly stop in my tracks in the middle of the platform. Louise is screwing up my relationships both at work and at home, but there’s only one I can really do anything about.
I want to make things right with Andy. He’ll be tired when he gets home tonight, and because it’s easier than drilling down into what’s really going on between us, we’ll paper over the cracks and act as if this morning didn’t happen. Andy isn’t perfect, God knows; he can be narcissistic and shallow, he’s ridiculously weak around Louise, and he’s consistently rude to me. But he’s Kit’s father. And like the little girl in the nursery rhyme, when he’s good, he’s very, very good, even though when he’s bad, he’s horrid. I refuse to admit defeat. I know I can get us back to where we were, if I can just get us through this rough patch. I don’t want to spend another week the way I’ve spent this last one, sleeping with a stone-faced stranger who turns his back to me before I’ve even got into bed. I want to put this whole thing behind us, and if that means apologising to Louise, I guess I’ll just have to suck it up.
Shoving my phone back in my bag, I step back into the flow of commuters and hustle down the steps towards the Piccadilly Line. If I go over to INN now, I can catch him before his daily news briefing at ten.
Half an hour later, I walk into INN’s reception atrium. In four years, I’ve been here just once; there was some unpleasant publicity about me in the papers when Andy left Louise, who was well liked by his colleagues at INN, and one taste of their hostility was enough for me. The atrium is bright and airy, with acres of chrome and glass. Vast photographs of the network’s main presenters, including Andy, hang on invisible wires from the double-height ceiling like flags at the UN. Maybe I should stop hiding and make my presence felt a bit more. I don’t have to apologise for being Andy’s wife. I need to stop behaving as if I do.
‘I’m here for Andrew Page,’ I tell the girl behind the reception desk. ‘I’m his wife.’
She turns to her computer. ‘Just a moment, Mrs Page, and I’ll tell him you’re here.’
My phone buzzes, and I glance at the screen and see AJ’s number. Damn. He must have finished his meeting with Patrick, but I can’t talk to him now. I decline the call, feeling slightly guilty. One of the reasons Andy and I are fighting is because I’ve spent too much time and energy thinking about work instead of him. I need to put my marriage first if I want to save it.
‘Mrs Page? I’m afraid Mr Page isn’t picking up his phone. Would you like me to put you through to his secretary?’
‘That’d be great, thanks.’
She points to a phone on the reception desk, and I pick it up. ‘Hi, Jessica,’ I say. ‘Is Andy around?’
‘He’s out today,’ his secretary says, sounding surprised.
As a presenter, it’s rare, but not unheard of, for Andy to go out in the field. Maybe he’s presenting from a remote location, or doing a big interview. ‘What time will he be back, do you know?’
‘Is he expecting you?’ Jessica says.
‘No, I was just passing. Is he out on a story?’
‘Not that I know of.’
She’s deliberately evasive. The hairs rise on the back of my neck. ‘Do you know when he’ll be back in the office?’ I ask.
‘Actually, he’s not in at all today,’ she says reluctantly. ‘He’s booked a personal day. Declan’s standing in for tonight’s bulletin.’
For a moment, I wonder if I’ve got my wires crossed. And then I remember Andy’s sharp tone when he told me he’d be late for the morning briefing.
Chapter 28
Min
I change out of my hospital scrubs and grab a Snickers bar from the vending machine as I head to the car park. The graveyard shift is never fun, but sometimes you can at least get a few hours’ sleep in the on-call room. Either that, or a multiple car pile-up or chemical explosion will get the adrenalin pumping and make you forget you haven’t slept for twenty-two hours. But last night was the worst of both worlds: a steady stream of minor sprains and mysterious rashes that kept me busy but should really be the province of the local GP. We have enough hypochondriacs during the day, but there’s a certain group of worried well who love nothing more than presenting at the ED at four in the morning convinced they’ve got Ebola. I wouldn’t mind if, just once in a blue moon, one of them did.
I buckle my seatbelt and turn on Radio Four. It’s almost noon; I could grab a couple of hours’ kip before it’s time to pick Archie and Sidney up from school, but it hardly seems worth it. And anyway, I’m far too anxious about Louise to sleep.
On a sudden impulse, I unbuckle my seatbelt again, and grab my bag from the front seat. What I need is a brisk walk and some sea air. It only takes me a few minutes to make my way from the Royal Sussex down to the seafront, which is surprisingly quiet, given it’s the middle of summer. When I reach the promenade, I realise why: there’s a bracingly cold breeze blowing in off the sea,
and despite the sunshine, it feels more like October than July. Which is a good thing, because I need to clear my head so I can think.
Pebbles tumble and crunch beneath my feet as I go down onto the beach. I have no idea what to do about Lou. I was concerned when she moved into Andrew’s house and took that job at his wife’s office, but this whole business with Bagpuss is in a different league of crazy. One I wish with all my heart I didn’t recognise.
As an ED doctor, I’ve come across Munchausen’s syndrome a few times over the years. It’s one of the most difficult mental illnesses to diagnose, partly because people deliberately fake or exaggerate their symptoms, but mainly because you have to rule everything else out first. Even worse is when the patient is making someone else sick, generally a young child in their care, but occasionally an elderly relative. It’s terrible, of course, but they don’t usually do it to achieve a concrete benefit, like money; they want the sympathy and special attention given to the families of those who are truly sick. People with the condition aren’t wicked; they’re mentally ill.
Perhaps it’s a stretch to include a cat in the diagnosis, but Lou certainly has all the sympathy and attention she could possibly want now, especially from Andrew. And it wouldn’t be the first time she’s gone down this dark path.
A wave splashes across my feet, making me jump, and I turn and crunch along the beach, hunching my shoulders against the unseasonably chill wind. I desperately don’t want to believe Lou would do anything as awful as poison her own cat, I can hardly even bear to think about it, but I’m terribly afraid that’s what she’s done. None of us wanted to believe it last time either, when that whole business with Roger Lewison and his wife blew up, and yet it turned out to be true. If there’s even a chance it’s happening again, surely it’s better to speak up now, before things get even more out of hand? It was poor old Bagpuss last week, but what if – God forbid – it’s Tolly or Bella next time?