And it looked very much like Aaron was shaping up to be that missing man; that person who would slot so perfectly into my life and make me and Becky complete. In many ways, I was horrified by that thought.
I don’t need a man to complete me.
But at the same time, as much as I didn’t need him, I wanted him oh-so-much. And so, it would seem, did Becky.
Ever so gently, I disentangled myself from my sleeping daughter, and made my way over to the door. I paused there to pick up my shoes, throwing a final glance in her direction. She was gripping Teddy in her sleep, along with the yellow-haired ragdoll that she had taken an immediate shine to. She looked so peaceful, so innocent, and the full weight of my responsibility for her care bore down heavy on my shoulders.
I hope I’m doing the right thing.
Only pulling the door to a little way so that the light from the hallway still flooded her room, I padded down the hallway in my bare, stocking-less feet, my shoes dangling from my fingers like a drunken reveller at the end of a long night clubbing. When the soles of my feet hit the stone steps I winced at the icy cold, thankful when I got back downstairs to the underfloor heating where I slipped on my shoes.
I found Aaron in the kitchen, placing some glasses onto a tray. He turned around on hearing me and smiling warmly. True to his word, I noticed that he had got changed into a dark grey shirt which perfectly matched his eyes. He wore it untucked over a pair of black jeans and my heart did a little back flip at how handsome he looked.
‘Is she settled?’
‘Yes. Fast asleep.’
‘That’s great.’
I suddenly thought about how vast this place was, how I might not hear her if she started crying for me, and an irrational terror clutched at my heart.
The smile dropped from his face. ‘What’s the matter?’
The irrational fear faded, leaving me feeling faintly ridiculous. ‘Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that if she cries, I might not hear her, because, you know, your place is so huge.’
‘Sound carries here. But if you’re worried…’
His words trailed off as he strolled over to the other side of the kitchen. I watched as he crouched down and opened a cupboard door and produced a smallish box.
‘I took the liberty of picking up a baby monitor when I was in Tesco.’
It was sweet of him to do that. Undeniably so. So then why did I suddenly feel so off-kilter? It was the same feeling I had experienced upstairs in “Becky’s room”; the misplaced sense that Aaron was somehow overstepping the mark when I had first spotted the new teddy and doll.
He straightened up and his face fell. ‘Oh God, you think, I’m interfering, don’t you?’
‘No,’ I said, far too quickly.
‘I found the books in the attic and thought that Becky might like them. And when I popped out earlier for some groceries, I couldn’t resist picking up a couple of toys for her. And when I did that, I spotted the baby monitor. This is such a big house, as you say. I sort of felt that it was a bit presumptuous of me to assume that you and Becky would even want to stay over again, yet alone do so tonight, but I thought that if you did, you might feel better if you could hear her when you were downstairs. I’m sorry, I’m coming on too strong, aren’t I?’
‘No,’ I said again, but this time I meant it. ‘It’s sweet of you to think of us.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really.’
He carried the unopened box to the long, oak table and set it down before continuing over to me. He took me in his arms and I immediately felt at peace with the world, that everything was okay. He looked deeply into my eyes while holding onto my waist, and I marvelled at the way his eyes were gleaming; gleaming with love for me.
‘You are an amazing woman, Joyce. Thank you for coming so unexpectedly into my life.’
He pulled me closer and kissed me. It was a slow, lingering kiss, like we had all the time in the world – a kiss that burned me up from the inside out and left me panting for more.
All too soon he broke away from me and I swayed slightly on the spot, vaguely embarrassed at the devastating effect he had on me.
‘I think we have time to set this up quickly before the guests arrive,’ he said, attacking the box, suddenly all business.
I cleared my throat. ‘Sure.’
It only took Aaron a few minutes to get the baby monitor working and I carried one half of it up to Becky’s room, placing the device on bedside table next to where she slept. I paused to gaze at her sleeping form for a second, smiling slightly at the way she could fall asleep so hard and so quick.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Aaron was nowhere to be seen. I wandered out into the hallway, thinking he might still be in the grand dining room, but when I poked my head round the door, he wasn’t there, either. On my way back to the kitchen, I noticed that the downstairs bathroom door was shut.
I smiled. So that’s where you are.
I continued on my way back to the kitchen, stopping dead in my tracks in the huge hallway when I suddenly thought about the lack of champagne in the fridge. Aaron and I had made light work of the opened bottle and we would undoubtedly need more for our guests. I remembered Aaron saying that there were “plenty” more bottles of champagne in the basement, so it occurred to me to nip down there and then and retrieve a few of those bottles so that they would have a chance to cool in the fridge.
The door to the basement was under the spiral staircase and it was a room I’d never been in before. Aaron had said that there was nothing to see down there; it was just a huge, barren room with a modest wine-rack in the corner. He had opened the door to it on that first day he had shown me around his house, but we didn’t go down the stairs because he said it was bitterly cold down there, plus the stairs needed work and were unsafe.
From the doorway, even with the basement light switched on, all one could see was the rickety, old wooden staircase with a stone wall one side of it and a high, solid wood banister on the other. There was a stonewall directly in front of where the stairs ended. Apparently, the basement was on the righthand side of the stairs, but it was invisible from the top of the stairs.
But when I tried the basement door, it was locked. I tugged harder on the modestly-sized, non-descript door, but still it didn’t budge.
‘What are you doing?’
I gasped and jumped guiltily at the sound of Aaron’s voice directly behind me and I spun round to face him.
‘You made me jump,’ I giggled.
He didn’t return my smile. ‘Why are you trying to get into the basement?’
‘I was just going to get some more champagne. Why is the door locked?’
‘Because I didn’t want Becky wandering down there. The stairs are dangerous and basements are no places for children to play in.’
My heart was still hammering from the little scare he had given me and for some reason, his reply made me uneasy. What he was saying was perfectly reasonable but I was unaccountably jittery. And for a second there, his grey eyes had looked as cold and as hard as glittering, black-ice.
‘Do you have a key for the door?’ I asked, not quite sure why I was pursuing with this line of questioning.
‘Not on me, no. Besides, there’s more champagne in the kitchen. I just forgot to put it in the fridge, that’s all.’
‘Oh,’ I said, having nothing else to say.
I allowed myself to be led back through to the kitchen and thought no more of it because when he smiled at me with love in his eyes, the disconcerting, bad feeling evaporated like melting snow on a warm, sunny day.
NINETEEN
We weren’t in the kitchen for long when the black-pad that was attached to the wall next to the fridge started flashing and beeping.
I looked at it in confusion. ‘What does that mean?’
Aaron laughed. ‘It’s the doorbell at the gate.’ He strode over to the device and pressed a button. ‘Hello?’ he said into the speaker.
‘Hello old boy, we
’ve arrived,’ said a well-spoken, perhaps somewhere past middle-aged, male voice.
‘Come on through,’ Aaron said, before pressing a few more buttons.
The device fell silent, and Aaron came to me, reaching for my hand. ‘Come on, I thought we could have a drink in the main living-room before we eat.’
Nervously, I waited in the art-deco living-room as Aaron stayed out into the hallway to greet his guests. I went to one of the sash windows, peering out at the taxi that had pulled up in the long driveway. Four bodies emerged from out of the vehicle – an older couple and a younger couple; Rupert and Camilla McMillan and Gary and Linda Flint respectively, I assumed.
The taxi drove off, and the foursome wandered over to the vast, pillared porch. I stepped back from the window, not wanting to be caught staring, their jovial voices drifting to me from the hallway.
‘…let me take your coat…’
‘…what a beautiful house…’
‘…the flight was delayed…’
‘…darling, you look fabulous…’
The voices overlapped and merged together, and the strangest feeling of disconnect washed over me. For a moment there I felt like I didn’t exist, as if I were a ghost, a spectator of my own life. Or at the very least I felt like an imposter, that this wasn’t my life. That I didn’t belong here. The strange feeling passed as soon as the five of them spilled into the living-room in a flurry of warm greetings.
‘And you must be the infamous Joyce Sanders,’ the younger woman said with a wide smile – the first of the five to enter the room.
‘And you must be Linda,’ I said, pasting on an equally bright smile.
She strode over to where I hovered in the middle of the room, and in those brief seconds I took her in. I would’ve placed her in her late twenties to early thirties if Aaron had not have told me differently. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, and I experienced an unexpected pang of jealousy. Her pale blonde, shoulder-length hair with the deep side parting was positively dazzling, and her full, ruby red lips instantly made me think of Angelina Jolie’s famous pout. She wore a floor-length, cream silk dress that would have looked more at home on the red carpet than at a dinner party. I went to shake her hand, and laughing, she gently gripped my shoulders instead and kissed me on each cheek in a decidedly French fashion, her orange blossom heavy perfume lingering in the air around me.
‘It really is lovely to meet you,’ she said, casting a theatrically sly glance at Aaron. ‘I’ve been dying to meet the woman that has tamed the allusive Aaron Bailey.’
What the hell was that supposed to mean? I wondered. Did she mean that she had never seen him with a woman before, or that she had seen so many of them hanging off his arm that she couldn’t keep track?
But there was no time to examine her statement and turn it over in my mind, because I was soon swept up in the rest of the introductions.
‘Gary Flint,’ Linda’s husband said, sticking out his hand to shake. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
‘You too, Gary,’ I smiled back.
Like his wife, he was a good-looking man. Not as handsome as Aaron, of course, but then, I reasoned, who was? He was thin-faced, slight of build, intellectual looking, and his blue eyes glittered with intelligence and humour behind his trendy, round little glasses. His brown hair, tinged with grey at the temples, flopped onto his high forehead and unlike his wife, he looked decidedly casual – scruffy even – in his faded blue jeans and plain black shirt.
I liked him immediately. I wasn’t so sure, however, about Rupert and Camilla McMillan. After the Flints had introduced themselves, Camilla smiled at me, but I fancied that the smile didn’t touch her eyes.
‘Hello, dear, it’s nice to meet you,’ she said in a crisp, upper-class accent.
I was the one to present my hand to her, and for a moment, I actually thought that she wasn’t going to shake it. When she did, her hand was cold.
‘It’s lovely to meet you, too,’ I said, determined not to let the smile falter on my lips.
Rupert’s introduction was polite, but perhaps with the slightest undercurrent of dismissiveness, and I felt an uncharitable twinge of dislike for the man.
Rupert was tall and thin, Camilla short and wide. Both had white hair and wore suits. Rupert’s suit was dark and pinstriped, Camilla’s a powder blue in a slightly hairy material, boxy in style, the skirt falling just below her knee. On a taller woman, it might have been a mini-skirt. In many ways, Camilla reminded me of a younger, more rotund version of the Queen; minus the crown of course.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ Aaron said.
Don’t leave me, I thought, perhaps a little childishly as I watched him leave the room. I felt unaccountably out of my depth – I suppose that I hadn’t socialised for so long, I had forgotten how I was supposed to act. I was overwhelmed by the Flints’ good looks and charisma, and the McMillans’ upper-crust standoffishness.
‘Joyce,’ Linda purred, linking her arm in mine. ‘Let’s sit down, I want to hear all about you.’
I allowed myself to be steered over to the white leather sofa, where Linda and I sat down side by side. Camilla sat down on the other end from us, and the men took an armchair each nearest the sofa.
‘So, how did you and Aaron meet?’
‘Linda, for God’s sake, give the poor girl a chance to draw breath,’ Gary laughed, his eyes sparkling. ‘You’ll have to forgive my wife, Joyce, she’s like a dog with a bone. She thinks she’s just being interested, she doesn’t realise that she’s being flat-out nosy.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, smiling. ‘It’s really not that earth-shattering. We met on the beach, when I was walking the dog with my daughter.’
‘Oh, how romantic,’ Linda sighed. ‘Was it love at first sight?’
I blushed hot. ‘I wouldn’t quite say that.’
‘I bet it was. There was Aaron, going about his business when he should bump into the most beautiful girl in the world… What was he doing on the beach, when he met you?’
I frowned slightly; I don’t know why such an entirely innocent question should make me feel suddenly so uneasy in the way that it did.
‘Just out for a morning walk, I guess.’
‘Linda,’ Gary barked, but there was no malice in his voice, just humour. ‘Stop giving her the Spanish Inquisition.’
All eyes were on me and I squirmed in discomfort. I hated being the centre of attention at the best of times, yet alone when it was about something so intensely personal, something that I didn’t yet fully understand myself.
‘Yes, I heard you had a young daughter, dear,’ Camilla piped up, and I swivelled round to look at her, perched on the edge of the sofa. There was a look of smug superiority to her. Or perhaps I was imagining it and she always looked like that. ‘Have you been divorced long?’
I was a little taken aback by the forthright question, and there was no mistaking the subtlest tinge of acid to her words. Maybe that’s why she had been a little snooty with me, I thought. Aaron had, of course, only just met me, so it was unlikely that he had given work colleagues full chapter and verse about my history. He hadn’t even been at work since I had met him. Perhaps Camilla sat in judgement of single mothers – it certainly went hand in hand with her demeanor.
‘I’m a widow,’ I said softly, ‘my husband died in an accident before Becky was born.’
Despite how much it pained me whenever I had to explain my past, there was no denying the vicious stab of satisfaction I felt on seeing her face drop.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I had no idea.’
Next to me, Linda gave my forearm a quick squeeze. ‘That’s rough, we didn’t know. God, I’m so sorry.’
‘Ah, wonderful, here comes the champers,’ Rupert said, sounding immensely relieved.
I had the sneaking suspicion that he was the type of man far more comfortable talking shop than dead spouses, especially with the girlfriend of someone that he probably didn’t know all that well on a personal level.
I jumped up, keen to play my part of hostess, rather than remain sitting there getting grilled, no matter how well-meaning the interrogators might be. I handed out the champagne, and when everybody had one, Aaron raised his glass in a toast.
‘Welcome. Here’s to a fun night. And to my gorgeous girlfriend Joyce, whom I love very much.’
His words had me squirming in a mix of embarrassment and pride as everyone echoed his sentiments. His arm snaked around my waist, making me feel safe and loved, and I all but forgot the brief stab of embarrassment. I really was the luckiest girl in the world.
Linda threw me the warmest smile, and I realised how much I could potentially like her. Initially, I had been intimidated by her beauty, but she seemed like such a genuine, lovely person, I couldn’t help but be drawn towards her.
She was making me realise how much I missed female companionship; how much I missed the girlish baring of souls, of discussing, scrutinising and analysing a guy’s every last little twitch, for example. I missed the giggling, and the gossiping.
And most of all, how much I missed Sally.
This realisation hit me like a ton of bricks, and I was instantly remorseful that I had been so slack lately with keeping in touch with my dearest friend. I vowed to remedy that, first chance I got. I returned Linda’s smile, harbouring the notion that Gary and Linda might become our first “couple friends”. In the space of a few seconds, I had it all planned out in my head – how the four of us would go out for boozy dinners, and away for weekends together.
‘…and go on through?’ Aaron was saying to me.
My head snapped upward to look at him and he was smiling lovingly down at me.
The Silenced Wife Page 15