‘Are you all right?’ asked Olivia. ‘You don’t look well.’
He managed a breath, and another. His throat hurt, like he was trying to choke down something too big and too dry. ‘Raped?’
The toddler had suddenly and inexplicably gone quiet, so everyone heard him say it. Geoffrey’s turn for collective opprobrium.
Olivia shushed him and leaned closer, lowering her voice to little more than a whisper. ‘None of this information has been released yet, but the police told Martin Ruth had bruises and they found a few specks of blood that apparently weren’t hers.’ Olivia did little more than mouth the next part. ‘And she’d had sex, but not with Martin.’
Geoffrey felt the muscles in his face loosen, his jaw quite literally drop. Olivia studied him, her eyebrows knitted together in either confusion or concern – it was difficult to tell. Did she think he was overreacting? He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and offered an explanation, albeit a lame one. ‘I think I’m coming down with something.’
‘Do you want to go?’
No, he wanted to know more about this spurious rape allegation. Geoffrey shook his head. ‘What were you saying about Ruth?’
‘I’m not sure if I should tell the police about young Tom. They said they might take DNA from male members of staff so if it was him, then I suppose they’ll find out anyway, but am I concealing evidence if I don’t say anything? He could well be the person Ruth had sex with.’ Olivia ran her fingers through her hair and gathered it behind her head, bunching it untidily in her hands. She looked achingly young and vulnerable. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Geoffrey knew he should put her first, reassure her everything would be OK, but he was in the grip of panic so that wasn’t going to happen. Blood coursed through his body at a ferocious pace. He could feel it, hear it, taste it. A few moments passed before he recovered his voice.
‘The police are going to take DNA from all the male members of staff?’
‘Possibly. It was mentioned.’
Oh God. Geoffrey was going to be arrested and charged with rape. He retched into his hand and grabbed the paper serviette next to Olivia’s mug. People were staring now, even the little monster in the high chair. Olivia jumped up and rubbed Geoffrey’s back, just like she did to Edward when he felt sick.
‘Are you OK?’
Geoffrey just managed to get outside before he vomited. Shoppers looked on in disgust, making sure to give him a wide berth. Olivia took a wodge of tissues from her bag and handed them to him. He wiped his mouth and tried to gather himself.
‘You should have told me you were ill,’ she said, her sympathy a punch to his aching gut. ‘I wouldn’t have dragged you out here.’
How sympathetic would she be if she knew why he was in this state?
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I need to go home.’
‘Of course. I’ll call Martin. The girls will be fine for a few hours.’
‘No, don’t.’
Geoffrey must have been too sharp because she looked hurt. He straightened himself up and took a few gulps of cold air. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’ll feel better after a lie down.’
He left her standing there alone and walked blindly across the car park in the general direction of his car.
*
Amazing what Scotch could do. The tumultuous panic he had succumbed to in front of Olivia had settled into a pleasantly numbing paralysis. He lay on his bed, fully clothed, the room swimming and spinning, half a bottle of Scotch on the floor beside him. Olivia had called twice to see how he was feeling. He only answered the first time and kept it short. ‘Better. I need to get some sleep.’ He did get some sleep too, if the alcohol-induced stupor counted. At the first sign of sobriety he drank more. His plan was to drink himself to death.
A single knock and his mother let herself in. ‘Olivia said you were sick.’
He rolled over to face her. ‘Olivia’s here?’
‘No, she telephoned. I told her that you’d looked peaky for a couple of days now.’
His mother took a few steps towards him and sniffed the air like a bloodhound. ‘Are you drunk?’
‘Yes, Mother, I’m drunk. And I intend to stay that way.’
She walked round the bed and picked up the bottle. Geoffrey closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see her disapproval.
‘Have you had an argument with Olivia? Has she upset you?’
Of course. His blameless wife was always to blame. ‘No, Mother, but you’re upsetting me so please leave.’
‘I wish I knew what was going on with you,’ she said, her tone tight with frustration. ‘If your father was here –’
‘Speaking of which, did you know about the paedophile curate?’ Geoffrey struggled with ‘paedophile curate’. Not easy to say when you’re pissed.
‘The what?’
Did he really have to repeat it? He did so slowly, enunciating each syllable.‘Pae-do-phile cur-ate.’
When he opened his eyes and saw two of her, both versions were slack-jawed with astonishment.
‘You know, the curate who sexually abused Johnny Reed.’
‘Sexually abused’ was difficult to get his tongue round too. If he failed in his quest to drink himself to death he might write a dictionary: Words You Can’t Say When You’re Shit-Faced.
‘Geoffrey.’ Her stern voice now, only deployed in extreme circumstances. ‘I don’t know what possessed you to get blind drunk in the middle of the afternoon, but I suggest you sleep it off.’
With this she turned towards the door, the bottle in her hand. She hesitated for a few moments before she looked back at him over her shoulder. The censure had gone from her voice, which trembled a little now. ‘And whatever problems you have, just remember there are two little girls who have lost their mother, and a husband who has lost his wife. Do you imagine he’s drowning his sorrows? No. According to Olivia, he’s bearing up with dignity. Perhaps you’d like to think about that.’
She shut the door behind her. No, Geoffrey would most emphatically not like to think about that. He rolled into a foetal position and, for the first time since his father’s death, he cried.
*
Two reasons not to down half a bottle of Scotch on an empty stomach. First was the brutal hangover. Nausea, headache, tremors, the works. With that came the second reason – a gradual return of memory. Had he really said those things to his mother and then cried himself to sleep? He sat mortified on the bathroom floor, his arm resting on the toilet seat, waiting for the next bout of vomiting.
A knock on the door and his mother’s voice. ‘Are you all right?’
No, he wasn’t. His head throbbed with the effort of standing. He splashed cold water on his face, avoiding his mirrored reflection, and unlocked the door. His mother was in her dressing grown and slippers.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ he said sheepishly.
‘You look awful. Can I get you anything?’
He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to be fussed over.
‘Well, if you’re sure, but I do need to use the bathroom.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And sorry. Really.’
Downstairs he made himself a cup of tea, took it to the snug and turned on the television. The local news was on, a solemn young presenter reporting that police were investigating the circumstances of a fatal car accident involving Ruth Rutherford, the wife of Martin Rutherford, headmaster of St Bede’s Preparatory School. Ruth smiled at him from the screen. Geoffrey’s insides seemed to liquefy as he wondered how long it would be before it was his face on that screen. He couldn’t prove he hadn’t raped her, that the sex was consensual and she liked it rough. Would a jury of his peers believe him or condemn him? He imagined himself being led from the dock, his distraught wife and mother watching wet-eyed from the public gallery. Five years? Ten? What did rapists get these days?
The bitter taste of bile filled his mouth. He needed to throw up again and just made it to the kitchen sink. A lot of painf
ul retching yielded nothing but hot sour liquid. He got a glass of water, his hands shaking. Sweat pricked his forehead, his palms, the back of his neck. How could he stand up in court and recount the debauched details of his sex sessions with Ruth? He couldn’t.
And then it came to him – his only option. Run. What did he have to stay for? Olivia would never forgive him, so no marriage. He had no money, no job, and was about to be made bankrupt. His mother would be alone again but if he went to prison she would be alone again anyway. But then there was Edward. Was it better to have an absent father or a disgraced, possibly imprisoned father? Surely the former. He would explain it all in a letter once things had settled down. Not the affair, but how he couldn’t take it any more – his money problems, the shame he felt over losing Downings and Manor Farm. If he dwelled on Edward he wouldn’t be able to go, so he pushed him to the back of his fuzzy, panic-stricken mind.
Geoffrey looked for the Scotch, figuring hair of the dog might help, but found the empty bottle in the bin. This must be how alcoholics feel every day, poor bastards. Pull it together, he told himself crossly. He washed down three aspirin with another glass of water and tried to marshal his thoughts into some sort of order.
The plan was to disappear for a while but with so little money, his options were limited. For a mad five minutes he considered South America, and finally having the gap year he missed out on after university. A quick Google search produced a list of last-minute flights to Rio de Janeiro but the cheapest was over six hundred pounds, and what would he live off when he got there?
He wished the aspirin would hurry up and work. Pain hammered in his head and he had to squint against the brightness of the screen. He needed to find somewhere closer and cheaper. As he trawled through bucket-shop flights from Bristol he spotted Toulouse – only a couple of hours’ drive from Alex’s vineyard. Geoffrey could crash there for a while and earn his keep helping out around the place. When he called Alex and got no answer he didn’t leave a message – his brain still wasn’t up to forming coherent sentences – but fired off an email instead. They had been friends for twenty-five years. It was the perfect solution.
Printing the e-ticket, holding it in his hand, made running away frighteningly real. Geoffrey had to remind himself he was doing it to protect his family – that his motives were honourable. As long as Ruth had deleted all trace of him from her mobile, no one would ever find out about their affair. And he wouldn’t be a rape suspect. No DNA, no evidence.
A scatter of disparate thoughts intruded as he searched for his passport. Imagine being defined by the worst thing you had ever done; all those years of good behaviour wiped out by one terrible mistake. It was so fucking unfair. He wasn’t a bad person; he had simply made some bad decisions. These last months had been a shitstorm of bad decisions. No, time away would do him good, if he could only find his bloody passport.
He turned out drawers, searched cupboards, emptied his briefcase, all in vain. He ransacked the bedroom in case Olivia had ‘tidied it up’. When he sat on the bed, livid with frustration, it dawned on him it might have been packed away and put in storage. Fuck. He kneaded his forehead with his fingertips. After an exhausting amount of pacing, he talked himself down. It was a setback, not a catastrophe. He’d go to the storage unit first thing and in the meantime, he’d try to get some sleep.
Surprisingly, he did manage a couple of hours. By the morning the worst of the hangover had passed and he tucked into poached eggs on toast with his mother. He wished he could tell her this was their last breakfast together for a while, that he was sorry to leave her alone but it was something he had to do.
When he finished eating he put his plate in the sink, kissed his mother’s cheek and told her that he loved her. She looked up at him with a puzzled smile, wondering, no doubt, what had prompted such an unexpected declaration. It would have been nice if she had said it back.
*
Boxes were stacked on boxes behind other boxes. God knows how he would ever find his passport among that lot. He ignored the labels, figuring it could have been tossed into any of them. The first box had a stack of photographs on top: family holidays, snaps of Edward at various ages, a candid shot of Olivia in a bathrobe. Underneath was their wedding album and the locket he gave to Olivia on their three-month anniversary, when she was already three months pregnant with Edward. Given its sentimental value, Geoffrey was surprised to find it there. Olivia used to wear it all the time. Things change, he thought sadly, as he thumbed through the photographs. He selected one of Edward, one of Olivia, one of all three of them together, and put them aside along with the locket.
The next box had kitchen paraphernalia, and the next. Panic bubbled up as he searched yet another box. Suppose his passport wasn’t here at all, that it had been lost or inadvertently thrown away. Stacks of paperwork they had no reason to keep: household bills, home insurance documents, old Christmas and birthday cards, and then eureka – his passport. He hugged it to his chest, eyes shut tight, and thanked a God he wasn’t sure he believed in.
Now he could get back and throw a few things into a rucksack. He’d pack light: shirts, jeans, pants, his laptop. Six hours until his flight but he wanted to leave early, hang around at the airport. Once he was through security it would be too late to change his mind. He’d have a few beers, steady his nerves.
It was his mother’s day for hospital visiting so he wouldn’t have to explain the rucksack. He would leave his Mercedes at the airport and email the leasing company telling them where to find it. Apart from a brief moment of bewilderment when he realised Rollo and Dice were the only ones he could say goodbye to, packing up and walking out proved deceptively simple.
Should he leave his house keys or would that arouse suspicion? He considered writing a note but what could he say? His mother would worry when he didn’t come home. He’d call her from the airport, say he needed to get away for a couple of days, and figure the rest out from there. Best not to think too far ahead. Best not to think. For weeks he had oscillated between anxiety, despair and, when he was with Ruth, an unhealthy conflation of excitement and disgust. But faced with the moment of truth, Geoffrey felt nothing much at all. Numb. Self-preservation perhaps. If he allowed himself to feel, he wouldn’t have the courage to leave.
Fifteen
The endless festive cheer was hard to stomach but impossible to escape. Bright and jolly Christmas cards dropped on to the matt alongside condolence cards. Martin had abandoned the one-hour television limit for the girls and every advert – there were an awful lot of adverts – showed happy families cooing over an epicurean feast, hanging sparkly baubles on a tree, opening presents to paroxysms of joy. At the centre of all this merriment was a loving mother, misty-eyed with wonder at her own good fortune. The girls hugged their kittens and watched.
Martin had begun to make arrangements for Ruth’s funeral and disappeared into his study for hours on end. The last funeral Olivia had been to was Ronald’s. The small parish church wasn’t able to accommodate all the mourners and they had spilled out into the graveyard. A couple of speakers had been set up outside so they could follow the service. Edward did a Bible reading from the pulpit, Olivia more nervous for him than he was for himself. She shed many tears that day, some of them tears of pride. She wondered how many people would turn up to pay their respects to Ruth.
Martin’s quiet resolve to put on a brave face was weakening by the day. In time he could have accepted Ruth’s passing as God’s will, he said, but the thought of a man forcing himself on her was too abhorrent. And yet he chose to believe it. The police had mooted rape as a possibility but for Martin it had become fact. When he raised the subject with Olivia over a late-night tot of brandy, a version of events in which the sex was consensual was never mentioned. If she thought it would alleviate his pain, Olivia would have told him about Tom and her suspicion that Ruth may not have been raped at all, but she sensed it would do the opposite. Rape, despicable though it was, allowed the marriage to remain in
tact. They had loved and honoured and forsaken all others until parted by death. Olivia understood that when someone you love dies, it’s only natural to focus on the good and gloss over the bad, which made her decision about going to the police all the more difficult.
Geoffrey had been no help, but then he was sick so it wasn’t really his fault. In all the years she had known him – through the raucous rugby tours and marathon drinking sessions – not once had she seen him throw up in public. Olivia had been desperate to confide the harrowing sadness of the Rutherford household, to explain about Ronald and Johnny and the secret that may well have ruined her friendship with Lorna, but how could she when he looked so unwell? There was something else stopping her too: a tangible sense of detachment. It had been brewing for months, reinforced by a lack of conversation, of intimacy, of sex, and sitting opposite him (in Tesco’s of all places) brought it into sharp focus. Confiding in Geoffrey would have felt wrong, like undressing in front of strangers.
The girls rushed downstairs to answer the doorbell – Alicia Burton with a casserole dish and a bouquet of white lilies. Olivia greeted her politely, took her coat and hunted around for a vase. The one she found wasn’t tall enough for lilies, so she cut the stems and arranged them in a spray.
‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee,’ said Alicia, looking round the kitchen. ‘The last time I was here, Ruth and I got tipsy on mulled wine.’ She smiled. ‘Drunk, actually.’
Olivia didn’t need to be reminded. That was the day she had gone through Ruth’s phone and found all those calls from Geoffrey. However many times she went over his explanations, she still couldn’t decide if she believed him.
‘She was so full of life,’ said Alicia. ‘It’s impossible to imagine she’s gone.’
When the girls ran in to show Alicia their kittens, she hastily wiped her eyes and made a big fuss of the furry creatures being placed in her lap. Five minutes later Maisie asked if they could watch television and Olivia said yes, but not too loudly.
‘They seem to be coping,’ said Alicia once they had skipped out.
An Unsuitable Marriage Page 23