by Lilac Mills
What had happened to make him fall out of love with her? Had there been a defining moment that she hadn’t noticed? Was he in love with this ‘Crystal’ woman, or was it simply a fling? Did it matter what it was? Cheating was cheating, regardless of the emotions – or otherwise – of the cheater. His motives were irrelevant. That he’d done it at all, was.
Lottie couldn’t imagine her life without Henry in it. She didn’t want to. It was unthinkable.
Yet, she had to think about it, for her own sanity and for the sake of her children.
There was no way she’d be able to sweep this under the carpet now, to turn a blind eye and pretend it hadn’t happened. She had finally accepted that even if she tried to carry on for the sake of the kids, the knowledge would rot her from the inside out, tainting every aspect of her life. Besides, her children deserved better than that, from her and from Henry. They could stay together for them, but she’d be so unhappy that her misery would be bound to rub off on them.
And what if he did it again?
Lottie let out a low moan as a terrible thought leapt into her mind. What if he’d done it before?
Was Henry a serial adulterer? He was on the road so much that she had no clue where he was, or who he was meeting. He could have been unfaithful to her for years, with any number of women.
Oh, God…
‘Mummy, Daddy said he’d bath me.’ Robin appeared in Morgan’s room, and Morgan sat up, wide awake.
‘I want Daddy to read me a story,’ Morgan said.
‘I’ve just read you one,’ Lottie told him.
‘You didn’t.’ He shook his little head firmly, forcing Lottie to wrack her brains. Had she read him a story? She couldn’t remember.
‘Where is Daddy?’ Robin asked. ‘Has he gone out again?’
‘Isn’t he in the kitchen?’
‘No.’
‘In the living room?’
‘No.’
‘Right, I’ll go and find him. Robin, you stay here with Morgan and see if you can help him choose a story.’
Lottie got stiffly to her feet, her heart a leaden lump in her chest. If Henry had gone out without telling her, she’d—
Do nothing, that’s what she’d do. There was no way she’d confront him tonight, not in front of the children. Their happiness was paramount and if she could spare them from their father’s fickleness for a while longer, she would.
She shot down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and thundered into the kitchen, glancing through the open door of the living room as she dashed past. Sabrina didn’t look up. Robin was right, his father wasn’t in the house.
Lottie was about to find her phone to call him, when she noticed that the shed door was open. Knowing she’d most certainly not left it like that, she guessed that’s where he was. He was fetching his phone. But surely he should have come back in by now? She hadn’t moved it; she’d dropped it back onto the workbench, feeling somehow soiled after touching it, and that’s where she’d left it.
With her heart in her mouth, Lottie opened the kitchen door and quietly made her way down the path to the shed. She had a fairly good idea what he was doing – he would be messaging his bit on the side, safely out of sight, thinking he was being clever.
She’d show him.
But it was worse than she’d feared. He wasn’t just texting the tart, he was speaking to her.
‘Sorry, I can’t tonight. How about tomorrow, during the day?’ He paused, then said, ‘Two o’clock, great.’ He reached for her notepad, scribbled something on it, then added: ‘That’s OK, Crystal, I’ll see you tomor—’
He broke off abruptly when he saw her, and guilt flashed across his face. The expression was only there for a second, but she noticed it. And she also noticed the way he hurriedly tore off the sheet of paper he’d written on and put it in his pocket. Lottie would give her right arm to know what was on it – it was clearly something he didn’t want her to see.
She shook her head, unable to speak, scared of what might come out of her mouth if she allowed herself to say anything. So she left him to it, and went back inside.
The hardest thing she’d ever done in her life was to act normally for the rest of the evening. She’d confront him, but she needed more proof, irrefutable proof that her lying, conniving, low-life husband couldn’t wriggle out of.
The question was, how was she going to get it?
And how was she going to carry on without him once she had?
* * *
Lottie had been in bed for at least an hour, her thoughts a whirling, jumbled mess of pain and desolation, when she had a lightbulb moment. She’d looked through Henry’s pockets earlier, searching for the piece of paper, but hadn’t been able to find it (which made her even more suspicious) and she had finally gone to bed – Morgan’s bed. She’d been lying there, listening to her son’s soft snuffles and getting kicked every now and again as he wriggled and squirmed in his sleep, agonising over what she should do. How to proceed? She needed to be proactive, not reactive. If she wanted proof, she’d have to get some: moodiness, lying about where he’d been and secret phone calls weren’t going to be enough. She didn’t want to give him the chance to offer a rational explanation that would make her doubt herself, not when she knew in her heart that something was very wrong.
Lottie would never have described her husband as manipulative or duplicitous, but what could she think? She clearly didn’t know Henry, that was for sure. If someone had asked her even as little as a couple of months ago whether she’d thought Henry would ever cheat on her, she would have given them short shrift.
But not now.
There had been something nagging at her subconscious all evening and when the lightbulb moment came, she sat up so quickly she almost woke Morgan.
‘Shh,’ she crooned, smoothing his forehead, and she waited until he’d settled back down before creeping out of bed and going downstairs.
Theirs was an old house, with creaks and groans abundant, but Lottie knew her home like the back of her hand, and she diligently avoided each noisy stair and breathed in as she squeezed through the half-open door into the living room, knowing full well that it squeaked at the smallest movement. After quickly finding what she wanted, she grabbed her phone from off the coffee table.
Going outside was just as fraught, as the back door tended to shut with a thunk unless you held on to it, and she winced as it clicked shut. Once outside, though, she was on safer ground, as her and Henry’s bedroom (was it to be hers alone before too long?) was at the front of the house.
Breathing more easily, she unlocked the padlock securing the shed as quietly as she could and slipped inside. She was tempted to turn the light on, but she didn’t, just in case. Instead, she used her phone to provide some illumination, and hoped it would be sufficient.
Her notepad was still on the bench and didn’t look as if it had been moved. Propping her phone against a pot of paint, she drew the pad towards her, crouching down so she was at eye level with it, and scrutinised it closely.
Just as she’d hoped, there were faint indentations in what appeared to be a pristine sheet of paper. If she’d have turned on the shed light, she probably wouldn’t have seen them, but in the oblique light from her phone, she could just about make out the marks.
Clutching the red crayon she’d appropriated from the children’s art and craft box firmly in her hand, and holding her breath, Lottie turned it lengthways and stroked it gently across the paper.
Like magic, the barely there writing began to appear, and when the words were finally revealed, Lottie realised she had what she needed.
An address.
* * *
‘You want to do what now?’ Delia asked the following day, the disbelief in her voice unmistakable.
‘Follow him. I know where he’s going to be and when.’
‘That’s not exactly following, is it, and are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
‘If you mean, “Am I sure I want to fin
d out what he’s been up to”, then yes.’ Lottie was speaking quietly because the children were hanging around her this morning, as if they knew something was going on. Sabrina and Robin were usually good at entertaining themselves, and Morgan more often than not joined in because his siblings were much more fun than his mother. But not today. They’d been somewhat subdued during breakfast and she’d hardly managed to escape one or the other of them for longer than a few seconds, not even to go for a wee.
‘Is this where I come in?’ Delia asked.
‘Please.’
‘I’m not too keen on sneaking around after Henry.’
Lottie was appalled. ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do that! I’d hoped you’d be able to mind Morgan for a couple of hours, and pick the others up from school.’
Delia’s sigh of relief wafted over the airwaves. ‘You don’t have a car,’ she pointed out. ‘And you’re not insured to drive mine.’ Her friend clearly wasn’t keen on Lottie’s idea. Lottie herself didn’t know whether she was keen on it, either. But she had to know for certain – she had to!
‘I don’t need to use your car. I’ve made other arrangements.’
‘Like what?’
‘Donald Mousel.’
‘You’ve asked Donald to help you find out whether your husband is having an affair?’
‘I didn’t put it quite like that,’ Lottie replied. ‘I asked if he could take me to Danyravon at one o’clock today.’
‘What do you intend to do? Wait in his taxi until Henry shows up at this woman’s address? And then what?’
‘I’m not that stupid. If I wait in the taxi, Donald will guess what’s going on and it’ll be all over Applewell by teatime.’
‘Sooner, knowing Donald. His heart is in the right place, but he’s a bit of an old busybody and he loves nothing better than a good gossip. Remember when George Nightingale got it into his head to run away to Liverpool?’
Despite her misery, Lottie uttered a small chuckle. George, ashamed that people knew he was a hoarder, had planned on leaving Applewell because he thought everyone had been talking about him. Donald’s taxi had been his transport of choice and Donald had been instrumental in making George see that no one cared about his hoarding – the only thing they cared about was George himself.
‘I’ll ask him to drop me off a couple of streets away, and I’ll wait for Henry to show up.’ Wait was too nice a word – she was going to lurk. Thankfully the Star Hotel – Lottie shuddered at the thought of what Henry intended to do inside its walls – was in the middle of the small village, overlooking the tiny harbour, so she wouldn’t look out of place sitting on a wall or a bench and admiring the view. All she’d have to do was to make sure Henry didn’t see her before she saw him. Lottie had checked out the hotel on the internet, and she’d even done a virtual walk past it. She was surprised that a small establishment like the Star Hotel rented rooms by the hour, but maybe business was slow. Besides, if the other occasions when Henry had been late were any indication, he would be in there for a damned sight longer than an hour.
Lottie clenched her jaw to hold back the tears. Now was not the time for breaking down – there’d be plenty of opportunities to do so over the days, weeks and months to come. What she needed to do now was to stay strong and hold her nerve. Which wasn’t going to be easy, and goodness knows what she’d do when he arrived at the hotel. Would she barge in and kick in the door to their room, to find him and his floozie in a compromising position? Or would she skulk away, her tail between her legs, and sob on a bench next to a litter bin?
Whatever happened, however she dealt with it, one thing was certain – after today, her life would never be the same again.
Chapter 33
Henry
Danyravon was one of those seaside places that had sprung up in days gone by because of its tiny inlet of sheltered water. Originally it had probably been a fishing village, but now it relied on tourism for its existence. There were several B&Bs, one or two pretty shops selling assorted gifts, a cafe, a Chinese takeaway and one proper hotel which was called the Star.
Henry rarely visited Danyravon as there wasn’t much demand for animal feedstuffs amongst its tiny population, but there was a riding school nearby that he was familiar with, and several farms on its outskirts.
The Star was right on the seafront. From the outside it looked less like a hotel and more like someone’s house, with net curtains at the windows and a chipped and faded gnome on the step. A ‘Vacancies’ sign hung from plastic suction grips in the bay window, and when he rang the doorbell, an old-fashioned ding-dong sounded from deep inside.
‘It’s open,’ a female voice called, so Henry pushed the door open and went inside.
Immediately in front of him was another door, this one already open, the olive-green tiled walls and floor of the porch leading into a wide hallway with a set of stairs carpeted in a garish blue, green and red pattern, and adorned with a hideous flowery paper on the walls. A chandelier hung from a ceiling that was Artexed to within an inch of its life.
When he spotted a short, rotund, middle-aged woman with blue hair, wearing an apron with the body of a naked man on the front (the picture’s modesty was preserved by a fig leaf) and wielding a feather duster, Henry wondered if he had the right address.
‘Uh, s-sorry, I was looking for a lady called Crystal,’ he stammered.
‘You’ve found her. Henry, I presume? Come in.’ She gestured for him to move closer. ‘What do you think?’ Her arm shot out to encompass the hall.
‘Very nice,’ he said, not meaning it in the slightest.
‘Don’t lie – it’s hideous. We’ve just bought the place and it needs some serious work. Talk about being stuck in the last century. If this doesn’t bring back awful memories of seventies guest house landladies, I don’t know what will.’ She lowered her voice. ‘We even found a stash of nylon sheets in the back of the airing cupboard. Remember them?’
Henry couldn’t say that he did; he had no idea what she was talking about.
‘Never mind. Let’s show you the piano, and if you see anything else you can take off my hands, feel free. We’ve moved everything we want to get rid of into the family suite at the front. It’s jam-packed, even though we’ve shifted loads already. You’re not in the market for a nineteenth-hand mattress, are you? I wouldn’t call it second-hand because it’s older than Methuselah, judging by the sag of it. And don’t get me started on the stains.’
Henry looked at her in horror. ‘Er, no, thanks. Just the piano.’ Although if there was anything else that wasn’t saggy or stained, he might be interested.
‘Follow me,’ Crystal instructed.
Henry was pleased to see that her rear was encased in a pair of leggings and a long T-shirt, with no hint of the naked male backside that he’d been secretly dreading. ‘Why the apron?’ he asked, as they came to the first-floor landing.
‘A friend gave it to me as a joke but it’s come in rather handy, and as I won’t be able to wear it when I’m serving breakfasts I thought I’d get my use out of it while we’re doing the renovations. And it makes Mrs Griffiths next door frown when she sees me in the garden with it on, so that’s a bonus.’
Henry decided he liked Crystal.
She stopped, a hand on an ancient doorknob with a keyhole beneath it. ‘Here we are. Brace yourself, it’s not pretty. The smell is interesting too – mothballs and boiled cabbage is the best way I can describe it, although why a bedroom should smell of cabbage is beyond me.’
Crystal flung open the door with a flourish.
Henry sucked in a breath. Crumbs, it was like looking inside a crammed-full junk shop. Was that a standard lamp with a pink tasselled shade? And that dressing table with the age-spotted mirror was simply enormous. He guessed the wood might be mahogany, but he wasn’t sure. It was dark and imposing, and a serious piece of furniture.
Crystal saw the direction of his gaze. ‘I’ve got someone coming to look at that later,’ she said. ‘I
was tempted to hire a skip and bin the whole lot, but surely someone, somewhere, must have a use for this stuff. A few bits are almost antique. The piano is over there, by the window. It’s only a small one, and the legs come off, and it doesn’t weigh half as much as it should because, as I said, the innards are missing. We found it in the second-floor bathroom.’ She giggled. ‘I didn’t like to ask what it was doing in there.’ She pointed to a picture balanced on top of what Henry thought might be a commode. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like a framed print of a flamenco dancer, would you? It was all the rage when I was growing up – my mother had one just like it.’
Henry looked at it. To be fair, it had a certain charm, but the woman’s swirling dress was so near the flames of the campfire he was worried it might catch fire.
‘Didn’t think so,’ Crystal sighed. ‘Maybe if it was mounted and had a different frame?’ She barked out a loud laugh. ‘Who am I kidding? I’ll have to persuade the charity shop to take it, but they’ve had so much off me lately that they cringe when they see me coming. It’s only a little shop…’
‘Have you tried the one in Applewell?’ Henry suggested helpfully. ‘They might be interested, and I know a lady who’d probably take any sheets or curtains you don’t want.’ He was eyeing the dusty, sun-striped, crushed-velvet monstrosities in a most alarming shade of mustard that hung at the bay window. The colour might have been called gold at one point, but it now looked more like baby poo. He pulled one of them across a fraction to check, and grimaced. Yep, baby poo. ‘This room has got the most gorgeous view,’ he said, gazing out at the tiny harbour with its narrow strip of beach to the side of it. ‘It’s peaceful, too.’
‘That’s what we’re hoping to achieve – a peaceful, tranquil retreat,’ Crystal said. ‘Sort of Zen-chic, if there is such a thing.’
Henry could see how that would work. Danyravon was a far cry from the bright lights of Aberystwyth, and the Star would make an ideal hotel in which to spend a relaxing holiday. Eventually.