“The Sussex cottage,” said Sarah. “Expanded!”
Kat looked around, astonished. This was the room Scott had mentioned, but he had no way of knowing how perfect it was in every detail. It was as if Sarah had exactly re-created the Sussex gatekeeper’s cottage they had stayed in years ago: the colors, the furnishings, even the framed Mary Cassatt prints and bookcases along one wall. A cobalt-blue glass bowl holding sharp-green apples had been placed on a side table. Kat remembered one just like it.
“It’s exactly right,” Kat said. “Only bigger.”
“I know. I was there recently. Had it painted but kept the same color scheme and just updated the kitchen. I so love the place.”
“I remember it well. It was beautiful.”
“A retreat,” said Sarah. “I use it for a bolt-hole. Mrs. Evans brings me an evening meal down from the main house, and the rest of the time I fend for myself and walk and hike and do a lot of physical things. Get back into shape. Walk along the cliffs with the wind on my face. Breathe that lovely fresh air.”
Kat could taste the Sussex wind, the salt in it.
“You’re lucky to have such a place,” Kat sighed. “A place to hide.”
“But you can use it, too. I’ll give you a key,” said Sarah. “Come on, so I don’t forget. Have a key. If you need to go, it’s there. You remember where the cottage is?”
“Yes, but really, I can’t,” Kat began. But Sarah was already heading toward her office.
“Come on,” she called. “The key’s in my desk. An extra one. Go whenever you like. You don’t even have to tell me. Call in at the main house and tell them you’re staying, and Mrs. Evans will cook dinner for you.”
“Sarah, I can’t do that. Really, it would be impossible. It’s not so easy just to drop everything and pop over to Sussex from LA.”
“You don’t have to go,” said Sarah, turning to look at Kat. For a moment, Kat felt like a schoolgirl again. How difficult it was, always, to deny Sarah. She would insist and cajole, and in the end people just gave in. She made it seem churlish, mean-spirited, to refuse. Kat felt a bit like that now. She followed Sarah to a large office at the back of the house. A mahogany desk was littered with files. Kat saw one labeled with a company name: J. De Beaugrand. It sounded familiar, and for a moment she struggled to understand why. Was that the name of the company Brooke had joined? No. How could it be? Then, Kat spotted another folder labeled Falconbridge and felt a sharp bite of recognition. That name was definitely familiar. She turned to Sarah.
“Richard Falconbridge?” she said. “Wasn’t he the solicitor who controlled your trust fund?”
Sarah nodded.
“Yes. And about to get his comeuppance. No more than he deserves. He betrayed a confidence. The oily snake.”
“He never told Helen the whole story, though, did he?” Kat said.
Sarah looked hard at her.
“Ah, you remember that? The baby-sale threat?” She gave a short laugh. “I thought the blue blood might be worth rather a lot of money. No. He didn’t tell Helen that part. But he should have given me the money. I needed it. And it was my trust fund. What was left of it. You know what was funny that day? I told him if he didn’t give me the cash, I’d tell everyone he’d tried to touch me—and he laughed, just laughed in my face. He said that half of London would know I was lying, that he had no interest in the fair sex of any age or type, and Charles, his partner of twenty years, would happily testify to that. Then, he must have called Helen. Slimy little worm.”
She turned back to the desk, fumbled in the drawer.
“Here,” she said, handing Kat a silver key to a Yale lock. “The cottage key. This is it.”
Kat held it in her hand. It felt heavier than it should.
“I’m not sure—” she began.
“My goodness, nobody’s making you go, Kat,” Sarah said. “But keep the key in your pocket. Just in case. That place is soothing. It soothes the soul.”
She turned, touched Kat’s arm.
“Come on, back to the fray. Let’s see how Scott and Glenda are managing Luca Bianchi.”
Kat hesitated, staring out through the windows at the group, talking loudly now on the patio. She saw Bianchi gesticulating and then laughing, his white teeth flashing. Scott appeared to be laughing, too. Her husband looked like a stranger.
“They all seem to be getting along rather well,” Sarah said. “That’s good.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t find Luca amusing?” Sarah asked.
“Not much impressed by polished playboys.”
“Oh, he’s not exactly a playboy. Tough businessman underneath all that polish. Women usually adore him. Look at Glenda—she’s positively glowing. Though much of that, I suspect, is because he’s making her look good in front of Scott.”
As they watched, Bianchi leaned forward as if to whisper something. This was followed by more laughter, and Kat felt herself shrinking inside, not wanting to return to that table and produce more false smiles. She touched her head. A headache was beginning behind her eyes. Sarah, noticing the gesture, frowned.
“This is hard for you, isn’t it, Kat? Feeling as you do.”
“Yes. Well, tonight I’m not really able to—”
Where were the words? What could she say? I feel inarticulate. Unnecessary. Lost.
“You came. You made an effort, even though you’re obviously very hurt and upset. If you want to leave, Kat, then do. Please. Go home, rest. Have one of those long, scented baths you used to love. I won’t be offended. Honestly. Not at all.”
“I can’t leave. Scott will be furious if I try to drag him away now.”
“So don’t drag him. I have my car and driver here. He’s hanging around, waiting to drive Luca back to the hotel. My driver can easily take you home and come back for Luca. It would be simple.”
“Oh no. I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be—”
“Of course you can do it. This evening will be all business from now on. Why should you be bored and unhappy? You’re an adult, Kat. Make your own choices. Plead a headache.”
With that, Sarah strode back out to the patio.
“Kat has a bad headache and so the car will take her home,” she said to the group. “Luca, you won’t need it for a while, will you?”
“Of course not.” He stood up at once, looking concerned. “I am sorry.”
Scott also got to his feet. He walked over to his wife, took her arm, began to lead her away from the group.
“I’ll drive you. Just wait a little longer, Kat. Please. We’re almost done.”
“No. No. I’m just going to take a painkiller, go to bed. You stay. Finish whatever you have to do.”
He looked at her, uncertain.
“Please,” she said.
The driver appeared only moments later, and Scott and Sarah walked with Kat to the car.
“I won’t be long,” Scott said.
Sarah hugged her briefly.
“Feel better,” she said. “It breaks my heart to see you like this.”
In the back of the car, Kat turned to look out the window. Scott and Sarah stood together, watched the car until it reached the end of the drive, waved, and then began to walk back to the others at the patio table.
As the car waited to enter traffic on the busy Pacific Coast Highway, Kat turned once again to look back. She could see directly on to the softly lit patio: the Italian with the white shark smile and cold, assessing eyes was talking, laughing, his arms gesticulating. Glenda, next to him, leaned toward him, like a flower to the sun. Scott and Sarah, joining them, both smiling, pulled out chairs and sat together on the opposite side of the table. A happy foursome, enjoying time together on a winter night in California.
TWENTY-ONE
As the driver pulled into the driveway of her home, parking on the apron in front of the garage, Kat stared at the house for a moment, baffled. The drive from Sarah’s villa had been a blur of lights, a timeless fog. She had no memory of it. Sh
e recalled only What now? playing in her head like a mantra and the image of Scott across the table, laughing. A stranger.
The house felt cold. Scott’s coffee cup was in the sink; a square of crumbs indicated that he had buttered his toast on the countertop without using a plate. The peanut butter lid was at an angle. Kat noted these small domestic details in an oddly detached way, as if this house, this kitchen, this snacking husband, were all unknown to her.
A blinking light on the telephone indicated that someone, mostly likely her sister, had called. Kat lifted the receiver and then replaced it hard. She didn’t want to talk to Maggie. Nor to anyone else. What could she say? She felt a sudden, violent claustrophobia, as if a trap were closing over her head. Fearing another panic attack, she sat down on the kitchen chair, pushing her feet to the floor, trying to find balance. The room seemed to spin and then settled.
And so, what now?
She took a long bath, got into bed, listening all the time for Scott’s car. He would not be too late, surely? They had already begun to talk of contracts and agreements. How long could it take, this business chatter? When, an hour later, he had not returned, she felt the anger surge, a fast snapping in her head. Who knows what he was doing back there, in that luxury home by an infinity pool.
She recalled clearly the image of Scott rejoining the group on the pretty patio, the ocean view behind him, smiling as he pulled out a chair for Sarah. But who could blame him for preferring the company of a beautiful woman, a suave European, and a charming young associate to that of a wife who could no longer function in the world? With these thoughts, Kat felt the anger abate, the return of a hollow emptiness, and knew that it was not simply a case of bridging a gap—that the space between them was huge, a crater, unbridgeable.
Sarah was right. She needed to get away. Get away from the California sun. The light was too bright, too harsh. It dried everything. She wanted to walk, alone, in the shade, through cool, green, English lanes. Feel the rain on her face; listen to it tapping against the windows. She would like to spend time in solitude, so she could think clearly. And decide on the best way to live her leftover life. Decide, perhaps, if she wanted to live it at all. It was her decision. Hers alone. And one that must be made peacefully, away from everyone. She did not have to tell Scott exactly where she was going. She would say she was visiting Maggie. She did not have to tell Maggie the real reason for her visit, either. She had two bottles of pills saved now, hidden in her underwear drawer. And she had the key to the cottage in her purse.
She pretended sleep when, a long time later, Scott returned home, stumbling a little in the bedroom. He undressed quickly, edged into the far side of the bed. She could smell chlorine. He had been swimming, then, in that luxury pool. She allowed the surge of pain and then squeezed her eyes shut. She would be gone tomorrow. She could think about it all then.
When Scott returned from work in the late afternoon the following day, Kat had her flight booked, a suitcase half packed on the bed, the saved bottles of sleeping pills tucked into an inside pocket.
At the sound of the car pulling up, she turned from the closet, a sweater in her hands, and hurried to the window to watch Scott come into the house. He stood for a moment and then straightened his back before walking up the path. She moved slowly downstairs to greet him.
As he entered the kitchen and came toward her, his face was already creased with concern.
“How are you?” he asked. “Do you feel okay now?”
“Okay? Of course I’m not okay. I feel like—I don’t know what I feel like.”
Like Eliot’s ragged claws, scuttling across the seabed. She shook the half-remembered quote from her mind.
“I’m sorry,” Scott said. “I’m really sorry. That fight. I was—”
“Forget it. It’s over now.”
“And to be so late home last night. I’m sorry. I tried to leave. I kept trying, but—”
“So why didn’t you? Why didn’t you leave?”
“They couldn’t agree on the final clause. Sarah being stubborn. Bianchi, too.”
“So you decided to go skinny-dipping instead?” Kat asked, impassive.
“No. Of course not. Sarah thought that we were all getting foggy, that we needed a dip in the pool, and she produced swimsuits. The others were keen. It was idiotic, really. I swam for about two minutes and then got right out and got dressed. I thought, Fuck this, and picked up my jacket and car keys and said good night, but Sarah wanted me to check one paragraph in the documents and Bianchi came over to talk. Stood there, dripping, in his miniature Speedo. I said I had to leave—I was worried about you. He said he understood.”
“Oh, I bet he understood,” Kat said.
“No. I think he meant it. Anyway, he said we could finalize the agreement in the morning. He’d come to my office. So I got out of there and came home. You were asleep.”
“Did he? Come to your office this morning and finalize it?”
“Yeah, he did. Amazing.”
She turned away.
“Good. Anyway, do you want a glass of wine?” she asked. “Or a scotch?”
“Wine is fine.”
He was watching her carefully. He knew her too well. He was waiting for her to say whatever was on her mind. She poured the wine, handed it to him, and then spoke in a rush.
“I want to go to England for a little while, Scott. For a break.”
“That’s a good idea. Maybe later in the year we can visit, and go on to France, too, and—”
“No. I mean now.”
He shook his head.
“I could maybe do it in a month or so, but I can’t go now,” he said. “I’ve got a merger coming up and a whole load of—”
“You don’t have to come with me. It’s a break I need.”
“You want to go alone?”
“Yes.”
“That won’t help, Kat. It just won’t.”
“But that’s what I want to do.”
His eyes met hers; the pain in them clutched at her heart for a second.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You belong here with me, Kat,” he said. “Not in England. Look, I’m sorry you’re so upset.”
“Upset? Is that what I am?”
“Well, disappointed, hurt, whatever.” He stopped, looked at her, frowning. “You really think a trip will help?”
He looked so anxious that, for a few seconds, Kat came close to changing her mind, but the need for solitude reaffirmed itself and she nodded.
“Yes. I think so,” she said. “It might help both of us. You can work late if you need to. Work all night if you want. You won’t have to worry about me waiting here. We have different ways of dealing with things, Scott. Work helps you. That’s fine. Really. But right now, you can’t help me. And I don’t think I can help you much. I’ve got to find some way of my own.”
He scrutinized her face, considering this.
“You must do whatever you need to do, Kat,” he said.
TWENTY-TWO
Maggie, wrapped in a thick woolen coat, her face solemn, waited at Heathrow Airport.
“Are you okay, darling?” she asked, hugging her sister. “Such a surprise, your call.”
“Sorry,” Kat said. “Should have given you more notice.”
“Oh no. No. I’m really happy to see you.”
Kat had said nothing to Maggie about visiting Sarah’s cottage and was already dreading that conversation. Maggie would be confused by such a plan. And likely be angry, too.
“Scott called,” Maggie said in the airport parking lot as she started up her car. “He said to call him. He didn’t seem too sure how long you would be staying.”
“Well, that’s because I’m not too sure myself.”
“You didn’t tell him how long?” Maggie asked. “Did you talk about it?”
“We did talk,” said Kat. “A bit.”
“Is there a problem with Scott?” Maggie asked a minute or two later.
/>
“Not with Scott,” Kat said. “With me.”
“He told me about your adoption plans,” Maggie said. “I know it’s a disappointment, darling, but it really is for the best that you don’t—”
The best?
“Maggie, please,” Kat said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, fine. Fine,” Maggie said, giving her sister a sidelong glance. “You look tired, Kat. A long bath and a warm bed, how does that sound?”
Kat smiled at her sister.
“Perfect,” she said.
Maggie and Paul’s house, a Victorian brick structure, was set back from the road and surrounded by lawn and old oaks. Paul waited in the doorway and hugged Kat with the gruff affection he had always shown her. He was tall, thin, unchanged over the years; the absentminded academic look had stayed with him. Peering over his glasses, he inspected her and nodded.
“Not quite the pitiful creature your sister has been expecting,” he said. “But in need of some fresh air, certainly.”
“In need of a drink is what you mean,” said Kat.
“Indeed,” he said. “What will you have?”
Later, in the pitch-black of the bedroom, Kat lay sleepless. She felt calmer now, felt a kind of relief. She didn’t have to pretend anything for Scott’s sake. Once she was away from Maggie and Paul, alone in the cottage, she need not pretend anything for anyone, or even talk to anyone at all.
She turned restlessly in the bed and looked out the window. As dawn approached, the tree branches came into focus, charcoal etched against the sky. How to tell Maggie that she intended to go to Sussex for a visit? How to explain the cottage? Maggie would hit the ceiling, of course.
Maggie was fiddling with a brand-new cappuccino machine in her sleek modern kitchen when Kat, sipping her breakfast orange juice, finally found the courage to speak about her plans.
“I thought I’d go to Sussex for a few days,” Kat began.
“That’ll be a nice break. I’ll come,” Maggie said, tapping out the coffee. “We can stay at the Old Ship. Remember that time we all stayed there?”
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