‘Good God,’ I muttered under my breath.
With Becky clinging to me, I took in the rest of the room. It wasn’t necessarily to my taste, but God, it was impressive. The attention to detail was out of this world. The huge, minimalist, white leather sofa was as soft as butter when I trailed my hand over the back of it, and I couldn’t help but admire the 1960’s style rug that took up a good amount of floor space in front of the white sofa, the pattern of which was all swirling browns and yellows. There was a vibrant, red chaise-lounge under a sash window shaped like a pair of lips and the rest of the seating consisted of a mix of dark leather, Chesterfield armchairs and funky leather tub chairs that looked decidedly sixties in style.
I turned round slowly on the spot in the centre of the room, pausing to admire the art work on the walls. It was all modern art, some of the vibrant, aggressive shapes and colours reminding me strongly of Howard Hodgkin. Some of them probably were Howard Hodgkin’s, but I didn’t ask. On the back wall opposite the windows was a chunky, white cube bookcase, which I suspected didn’t come from Ikea.
Aaron wandered over to the large, G-plan sideboard sandwiched between the two sash windows. It had always amazed me how such an ugly style of furniture had rocketed in value in recent years, but somehow, in this carefully thought-out room, the sideboard looked good.
Wonders will never cease, I thought absently.
‘Becky, would you like a drink?’ he asked, turning round to face us.
The sideboard served as a drinks’ cabinet, for the large, silver tray that graced the top of it was cluttered with various bottles.
‘Becky’s not so great with real glasses yet,’ I said, opening my faithful shoulder bag and locating her pink, plastic cup with the lid on it. ‘But we can fill this up. Preferably not with whisky, though.’
‘How about some orange juice?’ he asked.
Ever so slightly, Becky nodded. I gave her a gentle push in Aaron’s direction.
‘Go on, he won’t bite.’
She didn’t budge but at least she seemed happy to walk with me over to Aaron. With a smile, Aaron took her plastic cup and filled it with orange juice from the unopened carton on the tray.
‘Shall we go through to the kitchen and have lunch?’ he asked me.
‘Shouldn’t we find Buster, first? I’d be a lot happier if he could come inside and get used to his new home.’
‘If that’s what you want. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to take over. I just thought Buster might enjoy a good run so that he was nice and tired before he came inside. But maybe you’re right. Shall we take a walk in the grounds and retrieve him?’
‘Thank you, I’d like that. What do you say, sweetheart? Shall we go find Buster?’
Becky’s eyes lit up. ‘Buster! Want Buster.’ She lurched clumsily for the door in her special, Becky kind of way.
‘I take it that’s a yes, then,’ Aaron laughed.
He grabbed my hand as we hurried after her, and a jolt of electricity shot through my body. When the three of us stumbled out the front door giggling, I realised that, for the first time in a long time, I was feeling something close to happy. It wasn’t that I was unhappy living with my mum, but right then, I felt free. The agony of the past few years crumbled away from me, leaving me dizzy with a plethora of emotions I hadn’t felt in a long time. Euphoric, I think, was the word. Whatever it was, it felt good.
The three of us ran laughing onto the gravel driveway, and Aaron, still holding my hand, steered us down the right-hand side of the house, through the walkway between the house wall and that high hedge.
It felt like the most natural thing in the world holding hands with him – it made me feel warm and safe, like I was finally waking up from the longest nightmare. We exploded out of the walkway onto scenery that made my jaw drop, and I ground to a halt.
The length of the garden had to be more than that of a football pitch, and was almost as wide as it was long. At the end was a view of the ocean that snatched my breath away. A low fence ran the length of the cliff edge, and I gasped at how flimsy it looked, how Buster, or, heaven forbid, Becky, could easily trip over it and fall to the rocks below.
‘But the fence…’ I began, irrational fear clutching at my heart.
‘There’s nothing wrong with the fence,’ Aaron said gently. ‘The fact that there are no fences on any of the clifftop walks aside, I was aware that there would be the occasional time I would get visitors in the form of children and dogs, so I had one put up. When you get close to it, it’s bigger and sturdier than you realise. It’s five feet high, and although you can’t see from all the way over here, the bottom three feet of it is solid, so no little legs, human or otherwise can slip through. My parents never had one when I was growing up, though.’
I couldn’t imagine anyone growing up in this house, yet alone what his parents might have been like, and made a mental note to ask him later about his childhood and his parents.
Becky, feeling somewhat braver, toddled off in no particular direction, keen to explore her new surroundings with Teddy.
‘Don’t go too far,’ I called to her, knowing that there was no real chance of her letting me out of her sight, but not wanting her anywhere near that “safe” fence, just the same.
‘It really is a beautiful garden,’ I said, admiring the large, raised, wooden gazebo near the cliff edge.
On second thoughts, I decided, it was nearer a bandstand.
Buster came bounding over, a streak of brown from out of nowhere, and I felt Aaron stiffen next to me.
He thinks he’s going to bite her, came the horrible thought. How could I even begin to tell him that he was wrong, that Buster would never harm a hair on Becky’s head? He would never believe me, and why should he?
‘He won’t hurt her,’ I said, gently touching his arm.
Together, we watched as Buster ran up to Becky, wagged his tail, then ran off again. He started to run in his big, sweeping triangles, so I guessed that he was happy. Becky tried to copy him, which looked so silly, I couldn’t help but giggle.
‘I’ve arranged for a dog trainer to come by tomorrow. Perhaps you and Becky would like to come by and help with Buster’s training?’
I stopped walking suddenly and gazed up at him in surprise. ‘But that must be so expensive. Why not just take him to obedience classes?’
As soon as the words were out my mouth I felt foolish. As if money was any kind of barrier for Aaron.
‘I thought some one on one time would benefit Buster. I’ve booked the man for two hours a day for a week. I suppose you could say it’s an intensive crash course and I guess we’ll see what kind of a dog we’re left with at the end of it. So what do you say? Will you come?’
‘I think Becky would like that.’
I smiled up at him and he stared deep into my eyes. ‘I would like it, too.’
I felt myself falling into those cold, steel-grey eyes, and I had to physically wrench my gaze away.
I cleared my throat. ‘Did you say something about lunch?’ I asked, feeling silly for standing there mooning over him like a lovesick teenager. It simply wouldn’t do at all.
‘I certainly did. Buster!’ he called to the dog.
Buster ignored him, and a frown creased his forehead. ‘I suppose it will take a little while for him to get used to me. Perhaps you could call him?’
‘Buster, here boy,’ I called, and the dog came running over.
I grabbed his collar and together the four of us went back into the house.
TEN
We had lunch in the kitchen, the room of which was equally as impressive as everything else I had seen so far, although maybe it was a little more basic. It was done out in more of a simple, classic style, with a heavy, dark oak table in the centre of the room with benches either side of it. The floor was black slate and the white cupboards were not dissimilar to the ones back home. And just like at home, the patio doors overlooked the garden and Buster’s basket had even been put next to them in
the exact same spot it had been in his old kitchen.
It was almost uncanny.
Becky and I sat on the bench on one side of the table, and Aaron sat opposite. He had prepared a lunch of cold meats and cheese, with a variety of accompanying pickles and olives. Becky was studiously ignoring the olives but making light work of the bread and ham. Buster was sleeping in his basket, having eaten a pile of dog treats and drunk his fill of water. We chatted pleasantly about nothing much, and I felt more relaxed than I had in ages and completely in the moment.
In fact, being there with Becky and Buster like that felt like being home. My mum’s words from yesterday played on my mind. Maybe she was right. She didn’t seem to be showing any signs of her illness and perhaps I had been a little premature in assuming me moving in with her was to be permanent.
Or maybe, I thought, I was just being selfish. But the fact was, even in my blackest moments after James’s death, I always thought about Cargreen Hill as “Mum’s place”. And being here now with Aaron, Becky and Buster made me miss the life I almost had with James all the more. I was still relatively young – who was to say that I was washed up, that I would never get the chance to find love and make a family environment all of my own, someday?
A family with Aaron.
No, I chided myself, not with Aaron. But there was no denying that Aaron had helped open the emotional floodgates to the possibilities of my future. Just because I was so attracted to him, it didn’t mean anything, it just meant that I wasn’t sexually and emotionally dead like I had been after James’s death.
‘Penny for them?’ Aaron asked. ‘You look lost in thought.’
I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to be married to you and have your babies, I thought.
‘Oh, nothing much. So, how many rooms does this place have, anyway?’
‘Not as many as you might think. Only five bedrooms, five reception rooms and four bathrooms. I’ll show you around properly after lunch, if you like.’
‘Only fourteen rooms?’ I repeated incredulously. ‘Jesus.’
And I thought my mum’s place was big with three, good-sized bedrooms.
‘Mummy, I’m not hungry. Can I watch telly?’
I’m not hungry was Becky code for I’m full.
‘Surely you don’t want to watch telly,’ I said. ‘Don’t you want to play in the garden?’
That was a silly question, because she knew that Mr Tumble was on.
‘No. Cold.’
Now that I stopped to look at her properly, she did look tired. Only recently had we stopped with the afternoon naps and sometimes it all caught up with her by early afternoon. I always made sure to take out her out of a morning, be it to a mother’s group at the local library, or a walk with Buster on the beach, and mainly she could handle that nap-free, but sometimes, like now, she would need to zonk out.
‘I think we can manage a bit of telly, if that’s all right with Mummy, of course.’
‘Well, if you don’t mind, I think Becky would love that.’
I thanked heaven that Aaron was so emotionally perceptive. It’s such a shame he never had kids, I thought. He’s a natural.
He swung his long, muscular legs over the bench and stood up. ‘I’ll tell you what, how would you like some pudding while you watch the telly?’
Becky looked delighted. ‘Ice cream?’
Aaron grinned at her. ‘Yes, ice cream. Is that okay, Mummy?’
‘I think you’ve made it slightly hard for me to refuse,’ I said with a smile.
‘Oops, sorry. Why don’t you two go into the living-room and I’ll bring her pudding on through?’
‘Yes,’ Becky said, scrabbling off the bench. ‘Come on, Mummy.’
I allowed myself to be dragged out into the lavish hallway, back into the art-deco living-room. I settled Becky into the squidgy while sofa, which was the nearest seat to the surprisingly modest TV. A minute later Aaron was there with the promised bowl of ice cream.
‘What about your posh furniture?’ I asked, knowing full well that Becky would smear chocolate and strawberry ice cream all over the white leather.
Aaron waved his hand dismissively. ‘It’s only furniture. It doesn’t matter. All things can be cleaned.’
Wow, he’s pretty much perfect, came the unbidden thought.
I watched him as he retrieved a couple of remote controls from the cube bookcase and the TV sprang into life. I told him the number for CBeebies, and Becky was away, lost in her own little world of ice cream and brightly coloured clowns. I sat down next to her on the sofa, placing a hand on her leg through the flowery trousers. Aaron perched on the opposite arm of the sofa, watching us. His gaze was a physical thing upon me, one which made me feel hot, prickly and painfully self-conscious. But it felt good too, for there was no mistaking the heavy desire his eyes held. Desire and something else; something that I couldn’t quite place.
I pretended not to notice, and after a short while, Becky thrust the bowl at me.
‘Not hungry.’
I took the bowl from her and stroked her hair. Aaron, his emotional astuteness not having deserted him, got up and retrieved a throw that was slung over the back of the brown leather Chesterfield armchair next to the chunky fireplace. It had the same, swirling yellow and brown pattern as the rug.
Gingerly, I stood up and picked up her legs so that she was laying semi-upright, her head cradled by the soft arm of the sofa. I tucked the throw around her and leaned down to stroke her hair again.
Her eyes were so heavy now.
‘Should we turn off the TV?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘No, she likes it. It’s comforting.’
‘Would you like to see upstairs?’ Aaron asked me softly.
‘Okay,’ I said, not taking my eyes off Becky.
Sure enough, in the time it had taken Aaron to ask me that question, she had already fallen asleep. Aaron raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, well, that was quick, and I smiled at him. He gestured to the door with the faintest flick of his head and I nodded.
ELEVEN
I always felt a bit strange when Becky slept in the afternoons. Disconnected, somehow. Lost. Becky was such a whirlwind, a true force of nature. She was the centre of my existence, and when she fell quiet, the world seemed to stop. That feeling of disorientation usually passed pretty quickly, but today it was different. My disorientation was mainly due to the dire effect Aaron was having on me, mind, body and soul.
Out in the grand hallway, I was aware of how alone Aaron and I were, now that Becky was asleep. Not wanting to stand still with him, I walked towards the door that led to the kitchen.
What’s the matter, Joyce, a little voice whispered in my head. Are you scared of what he might do? Or are you scared that you might fling yourself at him?
I stopped at the doorway to the kitchen and peered inside. Just like Becky, Buster was also fast asleep, curled up in his basket. I frowned, feeling inexplicably uneasy, but not quite sure why. Yes, Buster was more than partial to an afternoon snooze or three, but it struck me as a little strange that he should sleep right now.
Guess he’s tired out, too.
‘He’s not normally this lazy,’ I said to Aaron, who was standing very close behind me.
‘He’s tired, that’s all. He had a good run outside.’
That strange feeling of disconnect clung to me. ‘Yeah.’
Aaron reached over my shoulder and shut the kitchen door, and part of me almost protested. Why are you shutting Buster in the kitchen, was on the tip of my tongue, but of course, I knew the reason why.
It’s in case he savages Becky while we’re upstairs.
‘Shall we?’ he asked, walking away from me down the hallway.
I followed him, feeling dreamlike and strange. How did I end up in this mansion with this gorgeous man? Yesterday morning, I hadn’t even known that he existed.
He ascended the broad, stone stairs with me close behind.
Upstairs was equally as spec
tacular as downstairs. He led me to the first bedroom on the left-hand side of the wide hallway. Up here it was all dark oak flooring as opposed to the Herringbone floor of downstairs.
‘This is one of the spare bedrooms,’ he said. ‘It used to be my parents, so I’d feel weird sleeping in it.’
‘It really is quite something,’ I said honestly.
The high-ceilinged room was done out in reds and golds, complete with massive, four-poster bed. All the wood was dark, from the wall panelling to the thick, dark beams running diagonally across the ceiling. I wasn’t normally one for such dark colours in a room, but given the grandeur of the space, it worked really well.
‘All the bedrooms are this size, and three of them are en-suite, like this one.’
‘This place is a mansion.’ I stopped to think about that inane statement for a second. ‘Literally.’
He laughed. ‘Indeed.’
I wandered over to the giant sash window, entwining my hand around the smooth wood of a post of the bed as I passed.
The bed.
Sudden and unbidden, lurid images blared in my mind of me and Aaron on the bed, our naked, sweaty bodies entwined in the soft satin and silk of the throws.
I gazed unseeingly out at the ocean, keeping my back to him so that he couldn’t see the way my cheeks were flaming.
‘This is such a huge, lonely place,’ I murmured, more to distract myself from my own desire than anything else. ‘Don’t you ever feel isolated here?’
I heard the squeak of the bed when he sat down on it, and I turned round, reasonably confident that I looked normal again, that my “funny moment” had passed. Besides, I figured I was silhouetted standing there like that in the window, so he wouldn’t be able to see my blushing face, anyway.
He was perched on the end of the bed, one arm draped casually around the intricately carved post. He regarded me thoughtfully before speaking.
‘Yes, I get lonely. You’re the first woman I’ve brought back here, apart from Cynthia, of course. But I never lived here with her.’
I found that incredibly hard to believe, but not the part about his wife; the part about the other women. There was no way he could’ve been celibate for all those years his wife had been dead.
The Silenced Wife Page 7