She gripped the back of Victor’s office chair. Gabrielle? Was that the woman in Victor’s life? Obviously. Quite clearly she and he had a circle of friends she, Gaynor, knew nothing about. A private phone line – presumably in the flat – she also never knew existed.
She swallowed, feeling her heart thump. The lovely Gabrielle. Dressed no doubt in three hundred pounds’ worth of Voluptua lingerie. On Victor’s arm, walking into a party together. Gaynor felt horribly sick. She replaced the receiver, trembling.
She’d known already, of course she had. It had been adding up for a long time. Even before the lipstick on his shirt, the lingerie in the wrong size, the constant staying away. Even before that, there’d been his funny moods and distance. His snide comments, his readiness to put her down one minute, to make it up the next. He’d obviously been struggling with guilt or just plain fear of being caught, for a long time. Yes, she’d known.
But it was different now – a deep shock to really know. Though it wasn’t rage she was filled with as she would have expected, but misery. Misery and a deep, deep fear.
She suddenly hated him. Hated him for standing there in their kitchen – the kitchen in their joint marital home – where he was supposed to be honest and true to her and lying, blatantly lying, sipping at his Chablis and just making up a tissue of lies.
Gaynor took a swallow from her glass. He was clever, Victor, talking about his clients, mixing fact with fiction, spinning the sort of plausible story that meant he could never be caught out.
She looked at the phone card she was still holding.
Except this time, she thought grimly, he bloody well would be.
21. Zinfandel
Startling colour and depth.
She didn’t tell any of them. Lizzie would have insisted on coming too, Sarah would have urged caution. She hadn’t seen or spoken to Sam since she’d stormed out of the cottage. She had to sort this one out herself. She just told Claire and Sarah something had come up and she couldn’t work on Friday night, turning away from the expressions on their faces at being short-staffed again, threw some things in a bag and called a taxi to the station. She felt purposeful and strung out, half afraid, half thrilled, with a huge dead space inside.
It was one of the old trains and someone had left the window open so the carriage was freezing. There was the usual collection of burger boxes and empty beer cans left on the floor and a scrunched copy of the Evening Standard spread across seats. Gaynor buttoned up her coat to her throat, wishing she had brought her pashmina. Who cared if they were passé – they were just the thing to huddle under on rattling, draughty trains when you felt like shit. Or better still, to put over your entire head when someone you didn’t want to talk to got on at Margate and plonked herself opposite you.
“HELLO!” said the girl, pushing the newspapers to one side and sitting down directly across from Gaynor so their knees were practically touching. “How are YOU?”
Her voice was filled with the kind of surprised delight reserved for an especially dear friend one had been forcibly parted from for several long years. Gaynor didn’t even know her name. She recognised her, with her Barbie blonde hair and Alice band, little glittery top beneath the black velvet coat, as having been into Greens a few times – possibly with a floppy-haired boyfriend who drank lager-shandies – but that was about it.
This did not stop the girl giving Gaynor a full resumé of her life to date, with particular reference to Andy (presumably the name of floppy-hair) and his new job, where her mother thought they ought to live and the difficulties of deciding what to wear when you were going clubbing in Leicester Square.
At this last nugget of information, Gaynor’s heart sank. She’d been hoping the girl would hop off at Birchington or Herne Bay a few stops along, to visit an ancient aunt (which was about the best you could hope to encounter in either place) and leave Gaynor alone and in peace with her miserable thoughts.
“Are YOU going anywhere nice?” the girl trilled, breaking into them once more.
“Just to see a friend,” Gaynor said, looking out of the window at the distant lights across the black fields.
The message had said it started at nine. The soirée. Victor probably wouldn’t get there for the beginning but he was bound to go out for a drink first. Maybe even for dinner. She couldn’t risk getting to the flat too early and catching him before he went to meet Gabrielle. She wanted to be there when he returned. When he brought Gabrielle back to take her to bed. She was imagining he would do that. Unless they were going to stay at Gabrielle’s place instead.
At the thought of her plan being thwarted in this way, Gaynor felt deflated. The girl opposite, who was apparently called Amanda (“Mandy and Andy – it makes everyone laugh”) was still talking. It was a hen night she was going on
– wouldn’t it be? The final pre-knot celebration of an old school friend who now worked in Harrods. Gaynor smiled vacantly.
She’d been so excited just before she married Victor. It had only been a small gathering. Lizzie, Chloe, a few friends from work. They’d gone to a restaurant in Canterbury. Victor had pressed a huge wad of notes on Lizzie before they left, telling her to buy them all champagne…
Gaynor swallowed. OK, then, if they didn’t come home, she’d wait in the flat all night and see what time he did roll in. See how he could explain staying out all night when he was supposed to be with a male client. For the hundredth time her fingers closed around the key in her pocket. Suppose Victor had been telling the truth and Laurence was staying there? Well, she’d interrogate him – get some truth out that way. He must have some idea what was going on.
“I love a good wedding, don’t you?” asked Amanda, happily. “Always makes me cry.”
Gaynor’s nerves were strung out by the time they pulled into Victoria. “Have a lovely time!” Amanda cooed as she searched in a small sparkly handbag for her ticket. “Ah, here it is! We’ll be in to see you in Greens again soon…”
Can’t wait, thought Gaynor as she waited in the queue for a taxi to Bloomsbury. As the cab wound past Buckingham Palace, she thought back to how much she used to love doing this. Once she’d met Victor, going to London was full of glamour and promise again instead of sleazy bars and dispiriting bedsits. Trips to the capital meant treats and luxury. Then they’d hailed cabs for fun restaurants, the theatre or ballet, going back to their pied-a-terre tipsy and giggly to drink more champagne and make love.
Now she was heading for that same small flat to try and find him in bed with someone else. The driver was the friendly sort. “What are you up to tonight, then?” he asked cheerily, raising his eyebrows in the rear mirror. “Out on the razzle?”
Gaynor shook her head, smiling. “I’m going to meet my husband.”
Only, unfortunately for him, he doesn’t know it.
Outside the mansion block, she felt suddenly sick. Suppose Victor was still there. She’d have to say she’d come to surprise him – that she missed him, that she was sorry they’d rowed. She’d have to say that if he came home alone, too. Or should she confront him anyway? Ask who Tony was? Who Gabrielle was? More to the point…
She slotted her key into the front door and hit the light switch inside. The interior was dingier than she remembered it. There was a slightly stale airless smell in the corridor. The drab green carpet tiles had become worn. She moved towards the lift finding the atmosphere oppressive, feeling suddenly vulnerable and alone.
She pressed the button for the fourth floor, holding her breath slightly as the lift jolted into action. She wasn’t really claustrophobic, she’d never been trapped or anything, but she never quite relaxed in a lift, or anywhere she might be shut in, in the dark. She was always steeling herself for a horrible halt between floors and the lights going out.
She would look at the strangers around her, wondering who would become hysterical if they got stuck, which pair might want to have sex together to relieve the tedium, whether – if it went on long enough – anyone’s bladder would give way…
But today she was alone, and the lift creaked to a standstill at the fourth floor. She got out and stepped across more of the hard green carpet, past more dull cream walls to their front door. Victor’s front door. It must be over a year since she’d been here. She tried to remember the occasion. A dinner out or something – some sort of corporate entertaining. In the days when he used to take her with him.
She remembered one night, when they’d both been so drunk they couldn’t get the key in the lock. First he’d tried, then she had, then they’d collapsed against the wall, laughing. Joking about how they’d have to sleep in the corridor. She couldn’t remember who’d managed it in the end. She knew they’d both had hangovers. Victor’s was so bad he’d admitted to it.
She looked at the lock now. She felt nervous. Afraid, as though she were doing something wrong. She felt as she had as a teenager when the girls from school used to shoplift and she would watch them sliding eye-shadows and mascaras down the fronts of shirts, or tucking them into their bras as cool as anything, while her own heart thumped so loudly she was convinced the shop assistant would hear it.
I have a perfect right to be here, she told herself, turning the key with clumsy fingers. This is our flat – I can come if I want to. The hall was in darkness. She called out Victor’s name though she knew at once it was empty. Then she went through, flicking on lights, trying to feel safe.
In the kitchen, a bottle of whisky stood on the table, a used tumbler beside it. A mug was upturned on the draining board. The rest of the room was tidy and bare. So much for Laurence leaving it in a state.
She pushed open the door of the small living room. Victor had left a lamp on. There were a couple of newspapers on the dark blue sofa, his briefcase lay on the coffee table, with a couple of folders. It looked like the slightly spartan bachelor pad it was. Once, when Gaynor had stayed more often, there’d been flowers and candles; she remembered some beautiful embroidered cushions she’d picked up in Kensington High Street – they seemed to have disappeared.
No sign of Gabrielle so far then. She crossed the tiny hall to the bedroom and opened the door. Oddly, the cushions were the first thing she saw. Then she took in the rest and froze. She felt her skin tingle with little shocks that went deep into her solar plexus and down to her fingertips.
Her cushions were piled on the bed as though it were a lady’s boudoir and that’s exactly what the room was. Everywhere she looked was soft and frilly – undeniably feminine. There were candles and bows, drapes, and an ornate mirror on the wall. But there was worse to come. Across the bed was flung a black dress, a silver handbag tossed down beside it. On the floor, a pair of high-heeled jewelled sandals – the sort she might herself covet – lay discarded.
Over the back of a chair were tops and wraps and skirts. A pair of stockings dangled like two rats tails. The typical fallout of a woman getting ready for a night out. One who couldn’t decide what to wear.
Gaynor’s eyes swung round to the pine chest of drawers. There lay a hair brush, perfume, tissues, a jumbled selection of make-up. Gaynor breathed in sharply. Gabrielle had made herself pretty at home.
Shaking with rage and emotion she pulled open the wardrobe doors. There was Victor’s dark suit, a selection of shirts, the normal cluster of silk ties, a pair of casual cotton trousers, a polo shirt and one in deep green silk that she had bought him. “Fucking great!” Gaynor said out loud. Bloody marvellous – she’d bought him a shirt and here he was, wearing it out with this fat tart he’d picked up from God knows where.
Alongside was a whole rack of women’s clothes. She pulled at them angrily – they were all either brash, tarty, glittery dresses or rather dated flowing things in bright chiffon. A sort of Margot in The Good Life meets Patsy in Ab Fab . Where had Victor got this creature from? She snatched at the label on the nearest top. Yes – bloody size sixteen. Though the skirt next to it was only a twelve. So she wasn’t huge at all. She just had great tits. Gaynor ran a hand over her own thirty-four inch chest. Bitch!
Madly she began to pull at drawers. There were a few pairs of socks and boxers but a whole heap of lingerie, including, Gaynor saw, the bile rising in her throat, the very garment she’d found that fateful day at the bottom of Victor’s closet at home. She pulled it all out in handfuls and threw it to the floor. “Bastard!” she cried.
She was sobbing as she went into the bathroom. More make-up. She picked up a tube of foundation, a lipstick that was too bright. She examined it – was that the shade she’d found on her husband’s shirt? Then she deliberately snapped it in half and threw the case in the bin. It was all here: nail varnish, make-up remover, tweezers, hairspray.
This woman wasn’t staying the odd night, she was fucking living here!
A pair of earrings lay on a shelf below the bathroom mirror. Gaynor picked them up. And Victor had had the fucking cheek to call her Bet Lynch! She hurled them across the room.
What a charming creature Gabrielle must be – no taste, all that pancake make-up on her face, great big feet – Gaynor went back into the bedroom and picked up the shoes again.
Here and there were items of discernment. This footwear, a lovely silky wrap, an exquisite little beaded bag. These must be gifts from Victor – they were just the sort of things he would buy. The thought made her sob harder. “You bastard,” she cried aloud, again. “You fucking, fucking bastard!”
She went into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. There was nothing in it but a pint of milk and a bar of chocolate. Oh, so it was all right for the fat trout to eat it! Nothing to drink but the whisky on the table.
Gaynor hated the stuff. She poured some into the tumbler and took a mouthful, gagging as it hit the back of her throat. Spluttering, she drank some more. Needs must. She should have thought to bring some wine. There was a pub a couple of roads away but she couldn’t face going there now. Not like this.
She looked in the bathroom mirror. She looked deranged; her make-up had run, she was still crying. She wiped her face on the back of her sleeve, and then swept her arm along the bathroom shelf in fury, scattering pots and tubes, picking up the heavy glass bottle of Victor’s aftershave and flinging it into the old enamelled bath. It shattered with a huge noise – the smell was overpowering.
Choking, Gaynor stormed back into the bedroom, tearing the clothes from the hangers – his and hers – and flinging them about the room, actually ripping one of the dresses apart at the seams before collapsing on to the bed sobbing.
“Sam,” she cried suddenly, longing for the safe feel of his arms. “Oh Sam, I so need you.”
She’d closed the bedroom and bathroom doors and was sat in the little sitting room with just the small lamp casting a pool of light in one corner. She had got used to the warmth of the whisky as it burned a comforting path down inside her chest. But she had a headache now and the rest of her felt shivery and empty. It was nearly midnight.
She wondered when they would come home. What would Victor say when he saw her there? What would Gabrielle do? Did she even know about Gaynor? She wondered for a wild moment if Victor was one of those men who led a double life – perhaps he told Gabrielle he was away at work when he was with her? Though surely not, she thought, as she looked around the room. Wouldn’t Gabrielle wonder where all his things were? There were no real personal possessions, just a couple of books, a couple of ornaments.
And where were Gabrielle’s things if she lived here all the time. Books? Photos? Perhaps she didn’t have any. Perhaps she didn’t read – just lay about in frightful dresses and was too ugly for anyone to want to photograph. Gaynor reached down to the bottle of Scotch beside her.
She knew that really, Gabrielle wouldn’t be ugly at all. Victor loved beautiful things. Gabrielle would be tall and majestic – the sort of Amazonian woman who brings a grace and beauty to her stature. She would have a way of wearing clothes. Those things might look gross on the hangers but they were all clearly expensive and Victor wouldn’t be seen dead with her if she didn’t l
ook good.
Though this time he might have no choice, she thought, overtaken again with fury. Right now she could happily plunge a knife right through his treacherous heart. And then her own.
She’d got really cold now. The heating must have turned itself off. She should get up and switch it back on. She wanted to go and get something to put round herself, too, but she didn’t want to touch any of their bedding. Didn’t want to go into that room again. “Whore’s parlour,” she said aloud, hearing her voice slur. “A whore and a bastard. Fucking bastard…”
She sat up realising she must have dropped off to sleep. Her mouth felt disgusting and she needed to go to the loo. She stood up, shivering, looking at her phone for the time. It was quarter to two. Obviously they were having a good time at the party. She was stiff and chilled. She’d have to go and get one of Victor’s jackets. As she flushed the loo, she saw his red striped dressing gown on the back of the door and suddenly felt a fresh shaft of pain as she thought of Sam wrapping her in his old towelling robe. Holding her gently. Loving her, respecting her. He seemed a very long way away now.
Tears ran down her face. When this was over, she would go and see Sam. Try to talk to him. She lifted the dressing gown down off the hook, checking to see that it smelled only of Victor. It did, which made her cry again. Wrapping it around her she made her way into the kitchen and filled a glass with water.
What would happen? Would Victor beg her forgiveness? Promise never to see this woman again? Or would he get angry – shout that he was in love with Gabrielle, that he wanted to spend his life with her? Would they sell the house? Where would she go? How could he have done this to her, so blatantly, just set this woman up here? She lurched slightly as she crossed the room carrying the glass. Then she jumped in fear.
There was a sound at the door, the key going in the lock. Panic-struck she shot back into the living room, spilling the water in her haste, switching the light off, huddling back in the chair, body shuddering with palpitations as she heard them come in. She could only hear his voice. He said something about a drink.
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