‘Hi, I’m Faiza, a friend of Sam and James.’
He shook my hand for the shortest possible time then dropped it and walked up to James.
‘I heard what happened to you. It’s the talk of the City. Bad luck,’ said Rupert.
‘Rupert…’
James sounded as if he was warning him off. His face was so red that it looked almost purple.
I felt as if I was intruding, but also knew I shouldn’t leave James alone.
‘You’re a laughing stock.’
Rupert’s words were icy, but his smile showed that he was enjoying himself. James’s fists clenched as Rupert carried on speaking.
‘Passed over for promotion, doomed to stay a junior partner, at your age too. I heard they moved your desk to the stationery cupboard! I can have a word with them if you want. Ask them to keep you on as a charity case.’
‘You bastard!’ said James. It came out as a wheeze.
I didn’t know if Rupert was telling the truth. If he was, James must have been devastated. His job was everything to him. I wondered if Sam knew? It didn’t seem so. She was always talking about how busy James was at work.
‘Listen, I don’t think this is the right place…’ I said.
Rupert ignored me.
‘That’s no way to speak to me when I’m trying to help you,’ said Rupert. ‘Have you told the parents yet?’
James was starting to sweat. The anger in his eyes had been replaced by terror. I thought I saw tears. He looked as if he was being hunted and had no chance of escape.
James turned and walked away towards the house and Rupert moved off. I saw him grab a drink and join another group, already shaking hands and kissing.
I texted Sam that I needed to see her and that I was in the garden. Tom came up to me and I told him what had happened.
‘Can you please go check on James? I’m scared he might have a heart attack. I’ll try to find Sam.’
‘I don’t really know the bloke that well,’ Tom said. Then, looking at my face, ‘All right.’
I was suddenly alone. I looked around, afraid that Harry was nearby, but I didn’t spot him or Julia.
‘Hi.’
Sam tapped me on my shoulder and I spun around.
‘I just saw your text. Where’s James gone? Have you seen Harry again?’
‘No, but James was talking to me and Rupert turned up. They had words and I think you should go check on James. That brother of his is vile!’
‘What did he do? What did he say?’ said Sam. She was panicking, her eyes blinking fast. ‘Was James OK?’
She had that same look of fear that I had seen in James’s eyes.
‘I’ve sent Tom to look for him. He was saying things about James’s work and telling their parents.’
Tom texted that he’d found James in the library and I told Sam who stumbled in her heels as she tried to run.
I got another text from Tom.
James was in a bad way. He was crying.
Something was very wrong. James’s brother had been nasty but this reaction was worrying. So was Sam’s.
I had to go to Tom. I didn’t feel safe alone.
I walked through the darkness, under the lights intertwined in the trees, and went into the house.
‘I need to speak to you.’
It was Harry. I almost screamed when I heard him behind me. He smiled, as if he were greeting me with pleasure. I shuddered.
‘I’m sorry, I’m going to see my husband. I can’t.’
‘Your choice. I would advise you to listen to me though.’
I couldn’t ignore the threat in his voice. If he had other ammunition that he intended to use against me, it was better if I knew.
‘OK,’ I said, stepping out of the way as a waiter carried a tray of champagne bottles outside on a silver tray.
‘Not here. Follow me.’
He started to walk away from the party, towards a staircase at the far end, shrouded in darkness.
‘No, we’ll talk here,’ I said.
I stepped to the side of the large hallway. He turned back and shrugged and walked towards me. We moved to the back of the room, out of the way, but still visible to the others. He couldn’t do anything to me there.
Seventy-Two
‘Well?’
I raised my chin and stared at him, hoping that he would see my disgust. I wondered if I could still persuade him to drop this, to be reasonable. He had been so vulnerable when he’d talked about his daughter. He’d helped me so many times at work, had listened while I sobbed in his arms. A chill ran through me. I wondered if all those things had been part of his plan. He knew what he was doing when he got the client data from me. The story about his daughter was probably just to soften me up, his form of foreplay.
His eyes travelled down my body.
‘I like you in this dress. Very exotic, erotic.’
His words were as much of an assault as his actions, but I kept my face a blank.
‘What do you want?’ I snapped.
‘Look, there’s no need to be like this. I’m sorry I said those things, but why don’t you just admit it? Be honest, you wanted it as much as I did. I remember the way you kissed me. I keep thinking about your tongue in my mouth. You know you…’
His words were drowned out by a scream and I heard a woman’s voice shout, ‘You Paki slut!’
Julia had suddenly appeared next to him. She was wearing a strapless red dress and her blonde hair fell in a straight bob to prominent clavicles. Instinctively, I started to walk away from her and Harry, towards the centre of the room.
She continued to shout as I saw Tom near the French doors. He was soon at my side and took my hand.
‘What’s going on?’ he said.
More people had started to come in. There was a rustle of whispers punctuated by gasps.
‘You can’t say that to Faiza,’ said Lizzie, standing in front of Julia.
‘Who is that woman?’ said Tom. ‘This is unacceptable.’
I frowned, still watching Julia. I couldn’t believe that she had called me ‘Paki’. The force of her words had hit me like the waves from a nuclear explosion.
‘How dare you say that to me you racist—’ I said.
She didn’t let me finish. She moved closer, shouting into my face.
‘I know you’re fucking my husband!’
‘Julia!’
Harry grabbed her arm to pull her back.
Tom’s hand fell away from mine and I shook my head at him.
Naila appeared next to me, along with Lizzie. Tariq and Stewart stood next to Tom. Julia shook Harry’s hand off her arm.
‘I know you gave her fifty grand! I checked your phone. You bastard! I know everything!’
She turned to me, her wine glass gesticulating wildly as if any minute she would throw the contents on my face.
‘How many times did you fuck him to get that much? You bitch! Why didn’t you tell me you were working for my husband? I know you were in New York together, and I know you’ve been sleeping with him. Fucking whore!’
The room was beginning to sway and I leaned into Naila who put her arm around me.
Tom took my hand, but I didn’t feel any comfort in his touch. I let him lead me through the spaces between the other guests, who moved apart reluctantly.
Somehow, I was in our car and we were driving away. The world was black outside and I realised that I was crying. It took too much effort to hold my head upright and I let my chin sink almost till it touched my chest. Tom was driving too fast, not slowing at bends. A car beeped its horn in anger as we passed it around a corner, the headlights blinding us, but Tom still continued at the same speed. I shut my eyes. What would be would be…
Seventy-Three
He parked on a side lane by the Common, near the pond. There were no street lights there, just the deadly stillness of trees in the night. He did not touch me or look at me. After a minute or two he spoke, so softly that I almost didn’t hear.
‘Are you sleeping with Harry?’
‘No!’ I turned to him. I looked into his eyes. ‘I swear to you. I love you. I would never…’
‘Why was his wife saying that you had?’
‘I honestly don’t know. I was talking to him and she just started screaming. She called me a “Paki bitch”, for God’s sake. She probably just saw us talking and…’
Tom’s hands were clenched around the steering wheel. He gazed into the darkness in silence. He hadn’t asked me about the fifty thousand. Perhaps he hadn’t heard it. Julia had been screaming, almost spitting her fury into my face. It was such an outlandish thing to hear that maybe it had gone unnoticed, except by me and Harry.
I touched Tom’s arm. It stayed stiff.
‘Darling, you can’t really imagine that I’d ever cheat on you. I swear—’
He cut me off, his voice slicing through the air.
‘What was she saying about fifty thousand pounds?’
My mind flashed with possible answers. I’d say that I had no idea. That Julia was drunk? Confusing me with someone else? I had never met her before? I was about to provide a suitable excuse when Tom turned his head and his eyes locked on to mine. The face that I had loved for twenty-one years looked at me. He didn’t deserve any more lies. I closed my eyes and bent my head.
I told him everything.
Seventy-Four
He didn’t speak at all as I told him about the emergency fund and lying to him about the Post Office. I told him I’d sold my jewellery, taken out loans and a new credit card, and tricked my parents into giving me all of their savings. I told him that I had been lying to him about the money for the last six months – longer, in fact. He showed no emotion as I told him about that morning on platform six, about Harry giving me the money and then blackmailing me by saying he would tell the directors unless I slept with him.
As I said the words, the enormity of my lies hit me for the first time. I wanted to stop. It felt unbearable to say it and I knew it would hurt him to hear it. I forced myself to carry on and told him everything that I had tried so hard to hide.
I felt the heat coming off his face, saw his clenched jaw in the dull moonlight. Finally, I told him that Harry had kissed me. That I pushed him away but I waited a millisecond too long and kissed him back, but just for a minute. In that moment my world had split open and I regretted it straight away.
‘I am so sorry.’
I paused. His breathing was harder and he bowed his head and gripped the steering wheel tighter.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Tom about the attack in the car, though. He would be devastated and he would probably go and attack Harry himself. I would tell him about it later. At that moment I needed to tell him what I had done. I had to tell him all of it.
‘I’m so sorry I lied about the money. I made a terrible mistake, but I was trying to put it right. I couldn’t bear the thought of you hating me or leaving me if you found out. I thought that if I could just replace the money, we could go back to being us. That’s all I ever wanted.’
Without saying a word, he started the car and drove home, to number 30 Firewood Lane, the house we had bought with such excitement, in the right postcode, close to the best schools, with the perfect garden for the children to play football and have a trampoline. The home that I had decorated with our family photographs and countless drawings made at school, with Murano lights and marble countertops, studding the walls with oil paintings and the floors with oak parquet and expensive silk rugs It was no use to me now. The planning, the memories, the dreams, the careful construction of the perfect life. None of that could protect us in the end.
I thought that the money would insulate us against Life. In the end, it had proved useless.
The truth was that if Tom had lied to me for months, spent all our savings, and kissed another woman, I would have thrown him out of the car and told him never to come back. I could ask him to forgive me all I wanted, but I knew that I would not have forgiven him. He wouldn’t forgive me either.
I didn’t want the house or any of the things in it. I just wanted us. But the closer we got to our home, the more I realised that I was going to lose everything.
Seventy-Five
Tom fumbled as he unlocked the front door and we staggered into the dark hallway like survivors from a car crash. I turned on the lights and saw his eyes were glazed. I put my hand on his arm and he shrugged it off with such force that I stumbled back a little. He walked away to the living room. I wanted to run after him, but something in the way he held his body made me stop. I decided to wait a few minutes.
I stepped out of my heels and left them near the front door, then I pulled myself up on the banisters and went upstairs. My legs ached as if I had run a marathon and my arms felt bruised. I passed the children’s empty rooms, grateful that Sofia was staying at Meg’s house for the weekend, and the boys were with my parents. I had made the arrangements so we could have a romantic night alone. Now, it meant I didn’t have to pretend that everything was all right. I didn’t think I could have, anyway.
I paused on the landing, listening. I heard Tom in the kitchen, taking out a glass, turning on the tap. There was the scrape of a kitchen chair on the floor, then silence.
I pulled off the sari, bunching it into my hand as it unrolled from my body, then I dumped it on the bed and took off my blouse. Stepping out of the petticoat, I left it pooled on the floor. On my bedside table I saw the tuberose candle I’d put there that morning, along with a bottle of massage oil.
I had imagined Tom unwrapping me out of my sari, and had planned to do a jokey, sexy striptease in the candlelight for him, revealing the matching, see-through red underwear I had worn in anticipation. I thought that we had finally come back to ‘us’.
Instead, I pulled on black leggings and a T-shirt, tied my hair up in a ponytail and ran downstairs.
He didn’t look up when I went into the kitchen. He was at the table, staring into his glass. The ice tray lay on the counter with two ice cubes melting next to it. I refilled the tray and put it back into the freezer, then wiped the counter with some kitchen towel, before taking a deep breath and turning to face him.
He looked as if he had been knocked down by a punch and was still shaken from the fall. Every instinct in me wanted to go to him to smooth away his hair from his forehead, kiss his lips and hold him close. But these were empty gestures now. I couldn’t undo the damage that I had caused with a hug or a kiss.
‘Tom, I’m so, so sorry about everything. I’ve been so stupid. I don’t know what happened, I just…’
He looked up. I forced myself not to look away and he started to shout.
‘I’ll tell you what happened! You’ve stolen all our money and left us penniless. God knows what you’ve done with it all! You’ve lied to me, you’ve lied to your parents, you’ve betrayed us all!’
‘Darling, I promise you, I never meant for this to happen. I was always going to put the money back, I swear. And I know I should never have lied to you but…’
I stopped when I saw the look on his face.
‘You were with another man. All these years, I trusted you completely and you cheated on me. I never thought you could do that to us. I was an idiot.’
My voice was hoarse. ‘I know I shouldn’t have kissed Harry, but I promise you, it was just for a second. I pushed him away as soon as it happened. I realised I’d made a terrible mistake. Tom, you have to forgive me! You have to. I didn’t cheat on you. I would never, ever do that. I love…’
‘He’s a millionaire, right? Much more your type. I just never made enough money for you, did I?’
‘You know that’s not true.’
I spoke quietly, even though his voice had become louder and louder. He had a right to shout at me. I sat down opposite him.
‘Harry is vile. He’s blackmailing me. I was the idiot, not you.’
His hand was on the table. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I didn’t dare.
‘Why did he give you that fifty thousand? No one gives out that kind of money, not unless there’s something in it for them. Do you think I’m stupid? Tell me the truth for once. Are you sleeping with him?’
I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.
‘Don’t you believe me? I told you I didn’t sleep with him.’
His eyes searched my face and I didn’t know how I could arrange it to convince him that I wasn’t lying.
‘Did you sell him that information, then? To get that money? Is he telling the truth?’
‘How could you even think that!’ I cried out.
He pushed his chair back. It crashed to the floor and he came towards me. His face was red, his eyes the darkest shade of blue as he brought his face right up to mine, his breath hot on my cheeks.
‘How do I know what’s true and what’s not? I can’t believe anything you say, ever again.’
I flinched back into my chair and when he spoke again, I could barely hear him.
‘I don’t know who you are any more.’
‘Yes, you do, Tom! Of course you know me. What I did isn’t me – I made a mistake, a stupid, terrible mistake.’
He walked out of the kitchen. I went after him.
‘Stay away from me!’
He grabbed his car keys from the console table and I ran to him.
‘Tom, please, I beg you. Don’t go. Let me explain. I never meant any of this to happen. Just stay and talk, please.’
He walked towards me, his hands clenched into fists and I was suddenly aware of his height and the anger coiled up in his body. I shook my thoughts away. This was Tom. I trusted him with my life.
‘What did you spend it on? Spoiling the children with useless stuff? Clothes, shoes, the house? To impress your friends? You risked everything for that? I told you not to touch that money but you don’t give a shit about anyone except yourself. Not me, not the kids!’
I couldn’t bear the hate in his eyes. I backed away and my hands found the edge of the sideboard behind me. I held on to it.
‘That’s not true! I’d do anything for you and the kids. I know you’re angry, but don’t say this. Please. We love each other.’
Would I Lie to You? Page 26