Never Tell

by Seeber, Claire

  And then finally, I came across what I was looking for.

  A picture of Hadi’s wife, Alia, from the late eighties. Her photo stared out at me; a picture of the two of them at a polo match at the Royal Berkshire Polo Club. She looked a lot like Maya. And she wasn’t who I’d feared; she looked nothing like Huriyyah. Of course she didn’t – Huriyyah was far too young to have been Ash or Maya’s mother. I felt a rush of relief. I didn’t recognise her: thank God, I’d been wrong.

  And then another cutting, much earlier, from Tatler, 1972, preserved in a plastic sleeve. Alia was so young, pregnant, beautiful and glowing in an ice-cream-coloured dress. I looked again at the photo. Behind the elegant couple stood a tall imposing man. Lord Higham. Was it my imagination – I craned forward in the harsh light of Peggy’s basement – or was Higham’s hand almost clasping Alia’s?

  Silently Peggy passed me one last file. A small article about an oil company, a subsidiary of Shell, franchised by an Iranian-based conglomerate. There was a small photo of two men shaking hands at a do in Kuwait.

  ‘I always suspected that Higham was not to be trusted,’ she sniffed, pushing her glasses up her nose. ‘His own agenda and all that. The posh ones are never much good.’

  ‘British Government steps into oil crisis: Allies for the good of British industry,’ the headline said.

  Beneath it, a few lines about how the pair were allies not just on the polo field, but also in politics and oil.

  I looked closer. Higham and Kattan, shaking hands over a huge vase of lilies.

  Ghosts whom I thought had been at peace were back walking the earth – images I’d buried after university back in the forefront of my mind. For the first time in a while, I found myself craving a drink.

  Standing beneath the sprawling sycamore outside Peggy’s house, I called my dearest friend.

  ‘Take me for a cocktail? No work talk, I promise. No pressure.’

  He took me to his club in Shoreditch. It was full of young girls in long T-shirts and leggings, and men who’d snorted too much cocaine and talked too loudly about it.

  We didn’t discuss work. We talked about him, about his constant exhaustion at the moment. And then we ended up on the subject of my marriage. Hardly the lesser of two evils.

  ‘What’s going on, Rose?’ Xavier sipped his martini. ‘You seem – distracted.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I was defensive.

  ‘Distracted by your life. By it not being what it should be.’

  ‘That’s you talking, Xav, not me.’

  ‘You had so much promise, darling.’ He looked positively maudlin. I could see the grey in his cropped hair.

  ‘Christ, Xavier,’ I pushed my straw very hard into the tiny shards of ice at the bottom of my glass, ‘you sound like my obituary or something.’

  ‘I meant I didn’t think you’d plump for this.’

  ‘For what?’ I felt horribly raw and defensive. ‘Three beautiful children and a million-pound house in the Cotswolds?’

  ‘Oh, do me a favour, Rose. You were never about the money. You were about the ambition, the story and the …’ He was distracted by a beautiful mixed-race boy in jeans so low-slung the shadow of his arse was visible. ‘The kill.’

  ‘I’m really happy being home with my children, thank you.’ It was true – most of the time. ‘What you mean, Xavier, what you really mean is – you don’t like James.’

  ‘You said it, darling, not me.’

  ‘You might as well have done.’

  ‘And you married him, not me. Thank God.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘You know why I married him,’ I said quietly.

  ‘But it’s not enough, is it, Rose? It’s not enough being his nursemaid.’

  ‘I’m not.’ I was furious.

  ‘Or, dare I say it, darling—’

  I held a hand up in protestation. ‘So don’t say it, Xavier.’

  ‘His mummy.’ He ignored me, stretching with nonchalance, looking out at the high-rises that encroached on us. Canary Wharf blinked blindly.

  ‘Shut up! James is a good father,’ when he feels like being, ‘and he’s very talented. He’s passionate about his work. He’s made some brilliant music.’

  ‘If you like that sort of thing. But does he love you?’ Xav removed something from his back teeth with great delicacy. ‘I mean, really love you? Like you deserve to be loved?’

  ‘Don’t mince your words will you, Xavier? Christ, it’s not Brief bloody Encounter or something. It’s real life.’

  ‘I’m nothing if not a mincer, darling, you know that. So why do you stay with him?’

  ‘Because.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because I want to give my kids a chance. Because I want them to have what I had.’

  ‘Which was … ?’

  ‘A stable home,’ I said rather helplessly. ‘A normal loving home. Parents who liked each other.’

  ‘Rose,’ he said gently, ‘you can’t fake that type of thing.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  But we both knew I was lying. ‘I think I’ll have another one.’ I drained my drink.

  ‘That bad, eh?’ He waved at the waitress. ‘I just worry that your dear husband’s the kind of arsehole who hangs out here with his baseball cap on backwards aged forty, boasting to a couple of tarts half his age that he once took an E with the Chemical Brothers and stayed up till Wednesday.’

  ‘So what kind of arsehole are you, Xav?’

  ‘The kind who can’t resist one,’ he drawled. ‘Excuse me one moment.’ He slid off in the direction of the boy.

  I checked my phone again. Nothing. Funny how suddenly I was wedded to this bit of plastic. Like it was my lifeline.

  Xav slid back.

  ‘Blimey, that was quick,’ I marvelled. ‘You didn’t just—’

  ‘What do you take me for, Rose?’ He lowered his lashes. ‘Even I’m not that swift.’

  My phone bleeped. I read the message; my hand shook a little.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Xav narrowed his eyes. ‘Rose Langton. I recognise that look.’

  ‘No one,’ I said, but I was blushing. I found it oddly comforting that he knew me so well.

  ‘Rose,’ he sighed. ‘For Christ’s sake, be careful. You don’t need to get hurt now.’

  It was late, it was dark, London throbbed around me. Full up with adrenalin and nerves, I left the club.

  The moon was full, but the dim little street near Paddington Station was too narrow to absorb its light. A hanging-basket full of dead geraniums hung by the peeling front door of the B &B, half a bicycle with no seat chained to the railing. Somewhere inside, a couple argued in an African dialect, Yoruba perhaps, their voices floating out angrily from the ground floor, the smell of curry and rotten bins mixing in the chill spring night. I paused, unsure whether this was the right place. And then I heard a low tuneful whistle. ‘My Bonnie lies over the ocean … ‘

  The front door was open. I ran up the stairs.

  He was lying fully clothed on the small double bed, on top of the candlewick bedspread, smoking, the ashtray on his chest, the only light in the room the streetlamp outside. I stood nervously at the door, my back pressed tightly against it.

  The net curtain blew in the breeze from the half-open window, and I shivered in the chill. I was frightened. I didn’t remember ever feeling like this before. Happiness; excitement, perhaps. No, not so pure as happiness. Absolute anticipation.

  ‘Why are you over there and I’m over here?’ he asked, stubbing out his cigarette. I walked to the bed, and looked down at him. At his thick tousled hair, at the sharp freckled nose, the veiled eyes, the blue dulled by the dim room. The blue I kept falling into time and again.

  I wavered there above him, unsure – and then he sat up, put out a hand.

  I’d forgotten what it was to be wanted.

  He pulled me down to him. ‘Rose,’ he murmured into my hair and I breathed him in. The grotty room, the noise from the street
, the sirens in the distance faded until there was just us. Us – and time.

  He pushed back my shirt and put his lips against my collarbone. Never enough time, I thought, dazed, and then I stopped thinking.

  Afterwards.

  I slept for a while. When I woke, he was watching me, and I smiled, suddenly shy, pulled the sheet up around me self-consciously. We gazed at each other, the street-light dimly orange behind the nets.

  ‘I don’t know anything about you,’ I said. ‘It’s really odd.’

  He rolled over and away from me. ‘There’s nothing to know.’ He sloshed whisky from a half-bottle into a stack of plastic cups with Mickey Mouse on the side, and handed the top one to me.

  ‘I’d like to know something.’ I sat up a bit. ‘Where do you live, where do you come from, why do you do this strange job?’

  I wanted him to say something that made it all right; that made what he did acceptable in my eyes.

  ‘You don’t need to know, Rose.’ He stared at me and I could see myself reflected in his eyes. ‘Really. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, and I’d rather not share them.’

  ‘All right.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I don’t normally behave like this,’ I said eventually, sipping at the whisky. ‘I’m not – this is the first time – I mean—’ I choked on the fiery liquid.

  He grinned. ‘I’d never have guessed.’

  I liked the laughter lines around his eyes. Lots of laughter lines; lots of laughing at some point. Only not with me. He was still and watchful. Like a cat, waiting for the mouse.

  ‘Silly.’ I tried to smile. ‘You know what I mean. I mean, the first time – I mean, I’m not a bad person, you know. I don’t – I haven’t made a habit of this.’

  ‘You are very unhappy, that’s what I know.’ He took the cup from me and put it down. ‘It’s obvious.’

  He rolled me over gently and he traced my skin, my naked back with one finger and I shivered.

  I was terrified. Terrified by what I was starting to feel so damn fast, so fast I was winded by it. Terrified by what I might do. By what he might be able to make me do.

  * * *

  Later he asked me about my husband. I was reticent: it wasn’t part of this; of us. I didn’t want it to be. Thinking about James brought me back to the children – and then my guilt began to kick in.

  We lay tangled on the bed and he asked me other things: about my career, my times abroad. And for some reason, I believed that he was truly interested. I’d break off, embarrassed, and he’d prompt me on again. It felt like a luxury to be listened to this way.

  My husband didn’t want me, that was the truth. This man did. I was falling deeper, too quickly, I could feel it.

  And afterwards. This man pushed me backwards on the bed and held my arms hard above my head. This man kissed me like I hadn’t been kissed since I could remember. Since—

  Ever.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lust is not a noble emotion. I drove home at dawn, sick with a new feeling I couldn’t admit; sick with missing my children. In the fast lane of the motorway I opened the window, in need of fresh air. Sunlight slid down the sky before me; the watery golden shafts disappeared into the trees and I had a sudden vision of walking up them, escaping into the clouds through that letterbox of light.

  Lust may not be noble – but it was quickly turning to something else. Something I couldn’t seem to rein in.

  I shook my head. I needed coffee.

  All the lights were on in the house.

  ‘Hello?’ I called.

  There was a thump from upstairs; the old floorboards creaked.

  ‘McCready?’ I was confused. The cat shot through the banisters, making me jump. McCready must have arrived early.

  A door slammed shut.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ My husband stood at the top of the stairs, hair on end, in his pyjama trousers.

  My mind began to bang down dead ends like a fly against glass. ‘God, you scared me,’ my voice sounded hoarse. ‘I thought you were in Vietnam?’

  ‘I was. It went so well, the deal was done – I came home again to celebrate. You said you didn’t want to be left.’

  I’d never said that.

  ‘Only you weren’t here.’ He looked down reprovingly.

  ‘I went to see Xav about the Kattan story.’

  ‘Not that again,’ James snarled, starting down the stairs. ‘I told you to leave it, didn’t I?’

  ‘What are you so cross about?’ I walked away from him, thinking, trying to make it add up, into the kitchen. I put the kettle on, throwing my coat onto a chair, checking myself quickly in the mirror. I was pale, my hair tangled and messy, last night’s make-up smudged beneath my eyes. ‘Xav and I went for cocktails last night. It was too late to drive back, and I was pissed.’

  James followed me into the room. ‘You don’t get pissed.’

  ‘Not often, no.’

  ‘You never get pissed,’ he repeated, staring at me. ‘Not since—’ He stopped. We eyed each other like boxers in the ring, waiting to see who would take the first jab.

  ‘Well, I just felt like it for once,’ I shrugged. ‘No kids, no husband. Why not?’

  ‘And where are the bloody kids? I’ve been looking forward to seeing them.’ He was petulant as a small child.

  ‘They’re at my mum’s. You know that. She’s bringing them back this afternoon.’

  ‘How convenient,’ he muttered.

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’ I asked, chucking PG Tips into the teapot. I would not lose my temper. ‘It’s the first time since the twins were born that they’ve stayed there without me. It’s a treat.’

  ‘For who?’

  ‘For all of us. A breather. It was you, James, who didn’t want any of us to come with you to Saigon, I seem to remember. So,’ I changed tack to deflect the inevitable row, ‘did it go well?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘I got everything I needed. It’s all on.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ The kettle snapped off. ‘Listen, I’m knackered. I’m going to have a kip. That last margarita didn’t go down very well, I have to admit. Tea’s in the pot.’

  ‘OK.’ He’d started rifling through the post on the table.

  ‘You can tell me all about Vietnam later, yeah?’

  ‘Not much to tell,’ he shrugged indifferently. ‘Got what I needed, that’s all. We can relax again.’

  Upstairs I got straight into the shower, as hot as I could bear it, and scrubbed myself from head to toe. Then I drew the curtains and got into bed, but I couldn’t sleep, despite my exhaustion. I just wanted my children – wanted Effie’s plump little arms, and Freddie’s fat tummy, Alicia’s skinny frame – all in bed with me now. I couldn’t wait to see them.

  I’d just dozed off when the doorbell rang. I checked the clock; it was still much too early for my mother to have made it all the way from Derbyshire. I got up anyway, disappointed, and walked out onto the landing in my dressing gown.

  ‘Who was it?’ I called to James.

  ‘What?’ His voice was distant.

  ‘Who was at the door?’

  ‘I thought you got it.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I muttered. I went down to the kitchen and rang my parents’ house. My father answered.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ I said jovially. ‘Just checking what time Mum left.’

  ‘She’s here,’ he said.

  ‘Running late?’ I said, my heart sinking. I’d never craved my children’s presence more than this second. ‘Can I talk to the kids, please?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ my father said. I heard my mother enter the room behind him. ‘Hang on, Rose. Speak to your mum.’

  I doodled a heart in two halves on the pad by the phone. A dead fly twirled on a thread from the windowframe.

  ‘Hello, lovey. Had a good break?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I mumbled. ‘Looking forward to seeing my monsters, I must say.’

  ‘I’
ll bet. Sorry we’re not going to see you today, but actually it’s worked out quite well. It means I can play bridge with Marge later.’

  ‘What do you mean, not going to see me? Can I speak to Alicia, please?’

  ‘They’ve gone already,’ she said brightly. ‘They left about half an hour ago. They were so excited to go in that big car. And what a lovely man. So good with them all.’

  Cold sweat broke out on my upper lip. ‘What?’ I croaked. ‘What are you talking about? What man?’

  ‘James’s driver collected them. James’s assistant left a message with Dad this morning.’ But she sounded unsure now. ‘Derek? She did, didn’t she?’

  ‘James!’ I was screaming his name, ‘James, come here now.’

  I dropped the receiver as my husband ran into the room. ‘Rose?’ I could hear my mother’s frantic voice, tinny, suspended in thin air as the phone dangled, futile on its lead. ‘Rose, what’s wrong?’

  ‘What?’ James was staring at me.

  ‘Who did you send to pick up the kids? Tell me you sent someone?’ I grabbed his top. ‘Who did you send?’

  ‘What?’ His face was very pale. ‘Rose, calm down. I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t even know where they were.’

  ‘You did know,’ I was shrieking like a banshee, shaking him fruitlessly. ‘You knew they were at my mum’s. Who did you tell? Who’s got my kids?’

  He picked up the receiver that was still twirling as uselessly as the fly.

  ‘Lynn, it’s James. Can you explain what’s going on? Where are the children?’

  This then, this was my punishment. I could not possibly hope for a life outside motherhood – but I had – and so this was my comeuppance.

  I ran to the sink and retched violently.

  * * *

  We called the police. My mother had no details, she didn’t even know the make of the car, but she’d thought it was James’s, she was sure she’d seen him driving it before. Something big and grand, like the Americans drive, she kept saying. And the man, the man seemed so friendly, she kept saying. He wore sunglasses and a dark coat with a hood, and she didn’t know what colour hair he had because he had a beanie hat on pulled down low, but he definitely wasn’t dark. Well, she didn’t think he was. Perhaps he was a bit dark – but she’d been running round fetching the children’s stuff and making sure they had their sandwiches and done a wee and she just couldn’t think straight, she was so panicked she couldn’t think straight. He had an accent, maybe, she thought, some kind of accent. He knew James, she was sure of it; she’d met him before, she knew she had, she just couldn’t remember where, but she was sure he was James’s driver. He said he was. And the kids seemed happy to go with him, they knew him, they even kissed him hello – but she just couldn’t remember his name, or if he’d said it at all. My father had deleted the message from the answer-phone and so there was no way of hearing it back. I tried not to shout at my parents for being so careless; I knew it wasn’t really their fault. It was mine. I should never ever have left them. ‘They knew him,’ my parents kept saying, bleating in terror. ‘They definitely knew him.’