A Year in the Château

by Sarah Long

  ‘She has lovely handwriting,’ said Fizz, ‘all in beautiful purple ink.’

  ‘Darling, you’re missing the point here,’ said Beth. ‘Nicola has just discovered the most massive betrayal and there you are admiring the Other Woman’s style.’

  ‘I’m not admiring her, I’m just saying she has lovely handwriting.’

  ‘So that makes it OK?’

  ‘Steady on, Beth,’ said Will. ‘It was just an observation.’

  He was uncomfortably aware that this was what he and Fizz had done, only viewed from the other side. Added to that, he was the only person in the room who knew anything about this. As Dom’s confidant, he had lent a sympathetic ear at the time, just as Dom had supported him later, when he left Marjorie for Fizz. He remembered telling Dom that his marriage was over and how he saw just a flash of envy, a glimpse of Dom thinking: That could have been me.

  ‘It’s so distressing for you, Nicola,’ said Mary. ‘But can you be sure it really happened? All you have is a collection of letters and they could have been the work of a fantasist.’

  Nicola shook her head.

  ‘It’s the detail that gives it away. I might have thought that if it was just a couple of generic letters, but everything rings true. How he always insisted on hot milk in his coffee and couldn’t bear runny eggs. He even gave her a book that I know he enjoyed because I remember us talking about it – in fact, he probably gave her my copy, the bastard.’

  ‘And yet he always appeared to be the most devoted husband,’ said Mary. ‘What’s more, he’s not here to defend himself. There’s no evidence of him writing letters to her, for instance.’

  ‘I’ve always wondered how that works,’ said Leo. ‘Who keeps a copy of a handwritten letter they’ve sent? Only someone anticipating that their grateful public will want to read them once they’re dead.’

  ‘We are that grateful public,’ said Simon, ‘poring over the juicy details.’

  ‘It’s not funny, Simon,’ Beth snapped at him. Why did he always have to make a cheap joke out of everything? Couldn’t he see how inappropriate it was?

  ‘I don’t mind, Beth,’ said Nicola. ‘You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? And it’s a relief being able to share this with all of you. Group therapy. I’d be going mad if I was shut up on my own thinking about it. What I really want to know is where he met her. She doesn’t sound like she was a colleague.’

  ‘Pity you don’t know her surname, then we could google her,’ said Fizz. ‘That’s how I found out who my ex was seeing: she was a Miss England finalist.’

  ‘And not nearly as pretty as you,’ said Will. ‘Or as smart.’

  ‘Flora’s quite an unusual name,’ said Leo.

  ‘There was a mother at school called Flora,’ said Beth. ‘Do you remember her, Nicola? She had a son in the same class as Eva and Gus? We weren’t that keen on her, thought she was a bit stuck-up, but then her husband ran off with the nanny and we felt sorry for her.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Nicola. ‘It’s her! Of course it’s her. It was when Dom was going through one of his community-minded phases and was helping out with the lighting at the school play, and she was in charge of costumes. After rehearsals, all the helper parents went out to dinner together, or that’s what he said.’

  ‘Cosy dinner for two, more like.’

  ‘I remember now, him talking about how hard it was for her, being left in the lurch. And no nanny, obviously. The perfect middle-class tragedy.’

  ‘We were right to hate her,’ said Beth. ‘Scheming to put you through what she went through; how very unsisterly.’

  ‘And then she moved schools a couple of years later and we never saw her again. I had no idea; what a fool I was. It just never occurred to me that Dom would do something like that. This is so much to take in . . .’

  She put her hand to her temple; her head was throbbing.

  ‘I suppose you never really know somebody, do you?’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ said Mary. ‘We come into this world alone, and we die alone.’

  Beth frowned at her.

  ‘So here I am,’ said Nicola, ‘grieving my sainted husband, who turns out not to be sainted at all.’

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ said Fizz. ‘It doesn’t mean he was a horrible person. Look at Will, he’s not a horrible person and he fell in love with me even though he was already married. But Nicola’s a thousand times nicer than Marjorie, so it wasn’t really the same . . .’

  ‘Please don’t muddy the water, Fizz,’ said Beth. ‘We are here for Nicola and it is clear that Dominic did a bad thing, though that doesn’t make him a bad person. Hate the sin and love the sinner.’

  ‘It’s all becoming a bit biblical,’ said Nicola. ‘I’m going to have a lie-down. Thank you all for being so lovely.’

  *

  Upstairs, Dominic’s clothes were still scattered over the bed. Nicola pushed them onto the floor and slipped under the duvet. She closed her eyes and thought about this morning’s discovery. Did she hate him? No. Did it make his loss a little easier to bear? No. A couple of years wasn’t long in the total scheme of things, when she thought of the duration of their marriage. And he had chosen her and the kids – he had seen sense. But all that time of duplicity, of him coming up with excuses and cover stories. The months where she was being weighed up against some other woman, while Dom tried to make his mind up, all while she was blissfully unaware. She was furious that he wasn’t there so she could have this out with him, scream at him and demand that he explain himself. Her feelings about him were so mixed up now with confusion and anger, she was already nostalgic for the straightforward sorrow that had been snatched away from her by the simple act of opening an envelope.

  She was just dropping off when there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  Simon entered and closed the door softly, then came to sit on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ’I was worried about you down there.’

  She looked at him sitting there with his blocky silhouette and hope in his eyes, so unlike Dominic with his trim physique and fastidious habits. Not that they did him any good; it all came down to fate in the end. As a doctor, she understood why so many doctors drink and smoke. Chance and genes so often determined your moment of death, not your lifestyle habits.

  ‘Yes, I’m all right,’ she replied. ‘I hope you weren’t hoping to make it all right.’

  ‘I can’t believe he treated you like that. I would never have cheated on you, you do know that?’

  ‘Never say never, Simon. Who knows how things might have played out? You might have turned out to be a cheat, just like Dominic.’

  ‘I never would.’ He put an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Isn’t that what you’re trying to do now? Creeping in here behind your wife’s back to tell me how you would never have cheated on me? Get real! You and me, it’s ancient history, there’s no point in harking back. You are a very lucky man to have such a brilliant wife. I couldn’t have chosen better myself.’

  ‘I know.’

  He stared down at the floor, unable to look her in the eyes.

  ‘But she’s not you,’ he said.

  Nicola pushed away his arm and forced him to face her.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Simon. Don’t do what Dom clearly did – risk throwing something good and real away for the sake of some flight of fancy. Love isn’t in those letters that woman sent Dom. Love isn’t you putting a rose-coloured filter on whatever we had when we were young. Love is coming through in the end and treasuring what you have. Before you lose it.’

  She could see from his face that her words were sinking in, that he was acknowledging the truth of what she said.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m sorry, I really am. I’m going to try to make things better with Beth.’

  Watching him leave the room, Nicola thought he might actually mean it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


  ‘Let’s get this fire going,’ said Will, looking at Nicola curled up on the sofa. ‘Warmth and comfort is what you need.’

  He expertly constructed a loose pile of kindling, topped with a log that he had cut to size earlier. Using his chainsaw had become his favourite thing: the roar of the engine, the sense of a knife slicing through butter – it made him appreciate the joy of simple tasks. So much more rewarding than combing through the arcane intricacies of a legal document. He didn’t miss that life at all.

  Nicola looked up from her phone.

  ‘Will, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Ask away. There you go, that will be a roaring blaze in no time.’

  ‘Did you know about Flora? You were Dom’s best friend and if he confided in anyone, it would have been you. I’m just wondering if he ever said anything.’

  Will carried on staring at the fire, playing for time, considering his options.

  ‘He did mention it, yes. I thought about telling you yesterday but wasn’t sure there was any point.’

  He moved to sit next to her on the sofa.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nicola, maybe I should have said something. But he swore me to secrecy and it was a long time ago and you were so happy together recently.’

  It was true then. Any glimmer of hope that Flora was a deranged fantasist, the hope that had kept her awake last night, could now be put to rest.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He just fell into it, Nicola. I told him he was an idiot but she did all the chasing and he was flattered to start with, and then it all became unmanageable and he wished he’d never got involved.’

  ‘He did get involved, though. And then it became “unmanageable”. I do like your choice of phrase, as though this was a business problem to be resolved.’

  She thumped her fist on the sofa between them.

  ‘I so wish he was here, so I could give him a piece of my mind!’

  ‘He never stopped loving you, Nicola, you know that. But people are programmed that way: if something is offered up on a plate, we find it hard to say no.’

  ‘Don’t give me that stereotypical claptrap!’

  ‘I’m not excusing him, I’m just trying to explain. I know it myself: you find yourself on a hamster wheel, churning around, stuck in the routine of work and home, same old, same old. And then you find you can have this whole other secret life. It’s not real, it’s a fantasy, but you feel that anything is possible, that you can be . . . an expanded version of yourself, I suppose.’

  ‘So I kept him in a hamster cage, did I? Like a child with a pet? I was a hamster too, you know, running between the surgery and the kids. It didn’t mean I took a fancy man on the side! I wouldn’t have had the time, apart from anything else.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, he had a horrible time when he broke up with her.’

  ‘Diddums. Good, I’m glad his little heart was broken.’

  ‘She threatened to tell you; he begged her not to. In the end, she did the decent thing. I think she realised that the whole episode was a reaction to her husband walking out on her. And that she was at risk of behaving as badly as the woman who broke up her own marriage. I say woman – more of a girl, really.’

  ‘But it wasn’t the nanny who behaved badly, it was the sleazebag husband who abused his position of authority! Why do people always blame the woman? It makes me sick.’

  ‘He was so relieved when she decided to move away. He said he felt he’d been given his life back. He could write off the whole torrid two years. Couldn’t believe how lucky he was.’

  Nicola thought about when that would have been, based on the timeline of the letters that was imprinted on her mind. It was the year he booked an extravagant villa in Provence that belonged to a racing driver – way beyond their usual budget. Gus and Maddie couldn’t get enough of the infinity pool and Dominic had insisted on taking over all the cooking while she lay on a sun-lounger, working her way through a pile of books. They agreed it was the best holiday they’d ever had. It was also the best sex they’d ever had. With the benefit of hindsight, it was make-up sex, though she obviously didn’t know that at the time.

  ‘Was it Dom’s . . .’ She searched for the word. ‘Dom’s escapade that gave you the idea of leaving Marjorie?’ she asked.

  ‘Whoa! I thought we were talking about Dom.’

  ‘But you were still with her then, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. And unlike Dom, I wasn’t happily married. My fault – I should never have married her. But as I said, men are easily led.’

  ‘Poor little victims, dragged up the aisle and then dragged into infidelity by scheming women.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. But Marjorie and I married straight out of university, far too young. She was drawing up her wedding list at John Lewis in our final year – what kind of twenty-one-year-old does that? You should be experimenting with drugs at that age, not looking at saucepan sets. I’ve since read that you only discover who you are at the age of twenty-three. Before that you’re not a real person, just an evolving child.’

  ‘Fizz was twenty-five when you met, wasn’t she? Twenty-seven when you got hitched? Just about fully formed then.’

  ‘Touché,’ said Will uncomfortably. ‘I fell in love with her, pure and simple. My marriage was already beyond repair – nothing like you and Dom, you were such a great couple. Oh no, don’t cry.’

  He awkwardly put his arm around her, feeling that he was somehow complicit in Dominic’s misbehaviour, though he was merely the confidant. He was glad he’d told her, though, it was a weight off his chest.

  ‘We were great together, weren’t we?’ said Nicola through her tears. ‘That’s what’s kept me going through the last few weeks. I kept saying, Be grateful for what we had. I had this golden image of us as the ultimate happy couple, but not in a boring way. A happy couple living a dream life with our gorgeous friends. And then yesterday it all fell apart.’

  ‘That’s a welcome sight on a cold afternoon,’ said Mary, coming in with her jigsaw case. ‘Nothing cosier than settling down with a puzzle in front of a log fire. Oh, poor Nicola . . .’

  ‘No, I’m all right, just coming to terms with the idea of myself as the widow of a flawed man.’

  ‘We’re all flawed, dear,’ said Mary, ‘though after your discovery of those letters, I’d quite understand if you felt rather less inclined to commit sati.’

  ‘What’s sati?’

  ‘The old Hindu practice of a widow throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. Now banned, I’m happy to say.’

  Leo came in with a book and settled beside Nicola and Will on the sofa.

  ‘Hello, my darling girl,’ he said, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Would it be inappropriate to say that grief rather suits you? It’s brought out your cheekbones a treat.’

  ‘When were you ever appropriate?’ said Nicola, managing a wan smile.

  ‘I’m steadying my nerves before my hair appointment,’ said Leo. ‘I’m going to that place on the grande rue, though nothing very grand about it, if we’re honest, and I’m terrified I’m going to come out with an aubergine short back and sides.’

  ‘You’d rock that look,’ said Nicola. ‘You can get away with anything with your genes.’

  ‘How’s the jigsaw progressing?’ Leo asked Mary, who had set her board up on the coffee table and was peering at a piece of sky through her reading glasses.

  ‘Rather difficult because there’s so much blue – always problematic with a seaside horizon.’

  ‘You don’t worry about it being the most colossal waste of time?’

  ‘Not at all! It’s relaxing and brings the satisfaction of seeing the completed picture when you’ve finished. And no more pointless than doing a crossword. Or Sudoku. Now that really is a waste of time and I’ve often seen you doing them.’

  ‘Keeping my mind active,’ said Leo. ‘Have you ever neared completion of a jigsaw, only to find the final piece is missing? That happened to me the last time I did on
e; it filled me with despair. I heard a man on the radio talking about his volunteer work – he completed every jigsaw donated to his local charity shop so if there were pieces missing, they could throw it away. ’

  ‘I don’t mind, the pleasure lies in performing the task, and if you find some pieces missing, it is a good lesson in accepting that life is imperfect.’

  ‘The jigsaw philosopher,’ said Nicola as her phone started ringing. ‘Oh, it’s Maddie.’

  She took the call and could hear straightaway that all was not well.

  ‘Hello, darling, are you all right? No. What is it? Just a minute.’ She stood up and covered the phone with her hand. ‘I’ll take this upstairs,’ she said to the others. ‘She sounds a bit upset.’

  In the privacy of her bedroom, Nicola listened to what Maddie had to say. Between sobs, she managed to convey the vital information: that John had broken up with her.

  ‘Oh, sweet Maddie, I’m so sorry. Are you sure? It’s not just a lovers’ tiff?’

  ‘No, it’s not a lovers’ tiff, Mum. Stop making it sound so trivial! He broke up with me, don’t you understand?’

  ‘All right, sorry, I am listening.’

  ‘So I’m moving out of his place. I’m going back home. Gus has been sweet about it . . . but, please, Mum, can you come back? Just for a while. Please?’

  For a moment, Nicola forgot her own grief and anger. That fierce maternal urge to protect and comfort overrode everything else. She had marvelled with Dom about how when you’re a parent, no matter what kind of pain your child is going through, you would far rather it was happening to you. It’s the price you pay for that primal love, to wish their pain was yours.

  ‘Of course I will. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘I hope everything will be well with your daughter,’ said Jean-Louis, leaning forward over the steering wheel to get a better view of the road through the morning fog, which was slowly dissipating as the sun came through.

  He had insisted on driving her to the station when she rang to let him know her plans.

  ‘I think she is a strong person and only needs to see you for a short while. I hope so, because I need you here. I mean, for the markets.’