Before I Knew You

by Amanda Brookfield

It took Sophie a moment to grasp that he was joking. She grinned. ‘Tell him black tie is fine – whatever floats his boat.’

  ‘And you,’ Gareth slipped out from behind his desk and barred the door, ‘are to tell me the moment things feel like they might be getting too much. Promise?’

  Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘Okay … and enough already, as they say across the Pond.’

  ‘Our bodies talk to us,’ persisted Gareth, gently, stepping aside for her to pass, ‘and when they do we should always listen.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Captain.’ Sophie fired a mock salute as she hurried down the stairs, uncertain whether to feel offended or flattered by such solicitude and hoping the dinner party didn’t produce any more of it.

  They had waited what felt like an age for a bus and were within a few yards of their stop before Olivia gave any hint that her fifteen-minute walk from the school gates to her mother’s place of work might have had a purpose beyond the need for a set of house keys.

  ‘Dad’s really on my case at the moment, Mum. I don’t suppose you could get him to back off, could you?’

  ‘On your case?’ echoed Sophie, amazed. The closeness of Andrew and the girls was something she took for granted.

  ‘Like he wants me to join his stupid unaccompanied choir. I hate that singing – it sucks. And, anyway, we’ve just been to New York so I can’t see the point of going back there. In fact, I’m not even sure I want to do music any more,’ she blurted. ‘All the practising – I’m just fed up with it, to be honest. Like this afternoon, I know I should do loads because I didn’t play a note yesterday or the day before, but I’ve got so much work, not to mention my CUKAS application … I’m just so knackered, Mum, but then there’s this eighteenth-birthday party I really want to go to …’ She paused, inspecting and then chewing a fingernail. ‘The piano’s okay, I suppose, but sometimes I just wish I’d never even started the stupid violin.’

  Sophie had had enough experience of parenting to know that it rarely paid dividends to admit to being shocked. It helped that they were trying to get off the bus – fighting past bags and people and then waiting for the doors to hiss open. By the time they were on the pavement, she had even experienced – and dismissed – a pulse of pleasure at having her support sought over Andrew’s. She loved her daughters’ musical talents – and her husband’s – but the struggle not to feel excluded was always hovering.

  ‘That’s okay,’ she said at length, prompting a glance of incredulity and then suspicion from her daughter. ‘Of course you’re going to feel like this sometimes. Music has been such a huge part of your life. Now you’re older, you want time for other things too.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, that’s it exactly. But Dad doesn’t get it.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the choir tour. I’ll talk to Dad. As for wishing you’d never started the violin … I can’t quite believe that.’ She dared a smile, which was reciprocated. ‘You’ve just got a lot on your plate at the moment – work, A2s looming, college auditions. Go to your party, have a lovely lie-in, you deserve it, and by Sunday you’ll feel better about everything.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum, you’re the best.’

  ‘Who’s turning eighteen anyway?’

  ‘A friend of Clare’s – Clare Anderson. I’ll be staying at hers.’

  Later, with the front door echoing behind the clack of Olivia’s high heels and Milly helping her clear the dining room of the usual detritus that seemed to edge into it – books, laptops, correspondence, stray socks – Sophie probed for a little more information about the percussionist, whom she suspected lay behind this sudden flurry of a desire for more free time.

  ‘Oh, they aren’t together any more.’

  ‘Really?’

  Milly rubbed at a smear on a placemat with the sleeve of her school jumper. ‘He had commitment issues.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Sophie suppressed a smile, making a mental note to repeat the phrase to Andrew. ‘And is there someone else?’

  ‘Mum, how would I know?’ Milly snorted, her cooperation snapping.

  ‘And this new choir of Dad’s – a capella or whatever it’s called – I know Olivia’s against it, but what about you? Are you looking forward to the tour?’

  Busy placing the mats at exact distances, Milly paused to suck in her cheeks and close her eyes in a show of ecstasy. ‘Sooo much. It’s going to be the coolest thing. You know Meredith? She’s promised to come and listen.’

  ‘And one out of two isn’t bad,’ Sophie declared, having got to the end of a précis of the afternoon’s conversations while she and Andrew scrambled past each other in the bedroom a few minutes after eight o’clock, her in search of the right – her only functioning – lipstick, Andrew rummaging for a laundered handkerchief to counter what he had announced as the onset of a cold.

  ‘For studying music or the tour?’

  ‘The tour, silly. Of course Olivia won’t give up on music. She’s just flexing a few muscles, in need of a breather. Ten minutes after our chat she was looking through the RCM prospectus – so it can’t be that bad, can it? And life isn’t a straight line, is it? I mean, look at me, not even finishing my degree and I turned out okay, didn’t I?’ Sophie offered an impish expression at her husband in the wardrobe mirror, expecting to receive something similar in return.

  But Andrew, having found a hanky, merely grimaced. ‘I wish she would bloody come on the tour, though. And you, for that matter.’

  ‘Me?’ Sophie, her upper lip pink, swivelled from the dressing-table mirror in astonishment. ‘To New York?’

  ‘Yes, of course to New York. Where else?’

  An image of Carter flared and died. Sophie turned back to the mirror, pressing her lips together to spread the pink. ‘Not to sing?’

  ‘Well, no, obviously not, but as … support.’

  ‘Right.’ Sophie cleared her throat. ‘Well, the thing is, as I’ve tried to explain, we have only just been there, haven’t we? And the run-up to Christmas is always so busy …’

  Andrew shook out the handkerchief and blew into it, a mournful trumpeting sound that seemed to underline his disappointment in her.

  ‘Sorry, darling,’ Sophie added gently, ‘but I thought I’d already made my position clear. And it’s not like you’ll need me over there, is it?’

  ‘Do you love me, Sophie?’

  ‘Of course.’ She snapped the lipstick shut and went to kiss him, touched, but also a little bewildered. ‘You know I do. How can you doubt that?’

  ‘I need … I need to trust you.’

  ‘Andrew, what is this?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He pressed the handkerchief, a mangled mess now, against his forehead. ‘I just feel …’

  The doorbell rang, followed by the sound of Milly’s footsteps hurrying out of the kitchen to answer it. ‘False alarm,’ she shrieked up the stairs, a moment later. ‘Man selling dishcloths.’

  ‘Feel what?’

  But the moment had passed. ‘A little unwell, to be honest. Flu … something. I think it’s been building all week.’ He pressed his fingertips to his temples. ‘I could do without this sodding dinner party, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I’ll get you something.’ Sophie hurried along the landing to the bathroom, trying not to mind that Andrew had turned the once simple, pleasurable prospect of seeing friends into an ordeal. The poor man had every right to be ill, especially given the nameless virus with which she had burdened the family earlier in the year. No, it was the pressure to accompany him to America that had got to her, Sophie realized, shaking a couple of paracetamol into her palm and setting off back down towards the bedroom. The holiday had been incredible but she had no desire to go back to New York, or Connecticut, for that matter. It wasn’t even about Carter. She just didn’t want to return there. Ever.

  Passing the spare room, she saw that Milly – in spite of specific instructions to the contrary – had unceremoniously dumped all the items from the dining room onto the bed, including her and Andrew’s laptop. Still switched on
from her rushed check for Gareth’s email, it was teetering at a precarious angle on the edge of the mattress, its screen flickering. A new message had arrived, Sophie noticed, kneeling on the carpet to investigate. And from Beth Stapleton, too – a reply at last, about the cat, no doubt. Sophie’s pulse quickened. Who knew what a Persian kitten might cost? Hurriedly, she opened the email.

  Dear Sophie,

  Thank you for the offer of money but William and I do not feel that Dido can be replaced so easily. Besides, I still have this feeling that I will find her one day. Then how would that be, for her to come home only to see that her place has been usurped?

  Sophie clamped a hand to her mouth to stifle a small cry of disbelief, almost swallowing Andrew’s tablets in the process. How bad did this woman want them to feel? If it wasn’t sad it would have been hilarious. She shouted for Andrew before continuing reading.

  As to items left behind, I have found only one thing – a note from our neighbour, Carter, to you. Quite a composition. I see better now why you had such a great vacation. But did your husband enjoy it as much? That’s what I keep asking myself. He looked so nice too, in those photos of you and your beautiful family. And the letters he wrote you – in that box under your bed (excuse me for snooping, but they weren’t exactly hidden, were they?) – I’ve never read anything so moving, so romantic. I thought we were borrowing the home of the luckiest woman alive. Funny how, for some, being lucky just isn’t enough.

  William tells me your husband is paying another visit to New York soon. His friend Geoffrey has already suggested that we should all meet up. Now, wouldn’t that be fun?

  Sophie rocked back on her heels, snapping the laptop shut. Behind her Andrew put his head round the door, saying if he didn’t take something that minute his head would explode. Milly called up the stairs to say she could smell something burning. The doorbell rang again.

  Sophie uncurled her hand. The tablets, dampened, had shed some of their white coating on her palm. Andrew took them without a word and turned for the door. Downstairs the hall was suddenly full of voices – Gareth’s and Zoë’s – they must have met on the doorstep. Sophie watched the back of Andrew’s head as she followed him along the landing, the gingery boyish down curling over the edge of his shirt collar, the slight thinning on the crown. She should tell him everything, of course. Make a clean breast of it. What had Carter been, after all, other than a misdemeanour, a steppingstone on a path she had not understood but which circuitously, inexplicably, had helped to make her well?

  ‘Darling … you remember that neighbour of the Stapletons, the old fat one with the bow legs? Well, I saw rather more of him than I let on and he fell in love with me … Well, yes, I did encourage it a little … and, yes, I did respond, a little … I was kind of low at the time if you recall – flat out and face down on the proverbial carpet, in fact. The thing is, he made me feel good again – understood, interesting, worthwhile …’

  No. It didn’t work. It wouldn’t do. Especially not with so many weeks having passed already, so much mutual trust restored, so many good things said and felt. A ‘confession’ might destroy all that, let alone one triggered by a gun-to-the-head email from a creature mad and monstrous enough to break into private correspondence and conduct finger-searches of her dustbins.

  Having reached the top of the stairs, Andrew stopped to swallow his tablets – hurling them at the back of his throat and scowling at the effort of managing without water. ‘Into the breach,’ he muttered, twisting to offer Sophie a grim smile before heading down the stairs.

  Sophie caught up with him and squeezed his shoulder. Beth Stapleton wouldn’t really do anything, would she? It was a joke, a bluff … insanity. She was simply a pampered, ridiculous woman with too much time on her hands. The best response would be simply to ignore the whole thing. Or, possibly, to write back and say the problem was all Carter’s and Andrew knew about it and had she ever heard the phrase ‘get a life’?

  Sophie’s mind whirred as she exchanged pleasantries and cheek-pecks with her dinner guests, then rushed to check on the contents of the oven. The lamb steaks were dark – too dark, but soft and salvageable. She worked fiercely in the blast of heat released by the oven door, scraping up what was left of the juices and spooning them round the pan until the meat glistened.

  12

  Fall was in full swing. Somehow, at myriad indefinable unobserved moments, green had been turning into yellow, orange, crimson, gold. Trees across the county were on fire with it, swarming the iridescent sky and the dark lustrous evergreens like rampaging flames.

  It was enough, almost, to make one believe in God, Beth mused, staring out of the diner window, lightheaded still from the all the deep breathing with which they had ended the Pilates class. She was with two fellow attendees and the instructor, a young, taut-bodied girl called Erica, who put them all to shame with her suppleness and big smile.

  ‘But you’re looking in such great shape, Beth,’ she exclaimed, drawing Beth’s attention away from the window and tossing her sleek ebony ponytail over her shoulder so that it hung like an arrow down the middle of her back. ‘Are you on some kind of new regime you should be sharing with the rest of us ladies?’

  ‘Or maybe she wants to keep it a secret,’ pitched in a woman called Patty, a certain edge to her voice, perhaps from reputedly being the longest-serving member of the class and still its largest by some way. A professed martyr to calorie-counting, she had made a big deal at the till of asking for a low-fat muffin and double-checking on the ‘skinniness’ of her latte, while the rest of them had gone for regulars of both.

  ‘Oh, there’s no secret,’ replied Beth, coyly. ‘I keep busy, I guess, and try not to eat outside of meals.’ They all looked at their snacks and laughed. ‘And the other thing,’ Beth continued, smiling, especially at Patty, for whom, double-chinned, barrel-bodied, it was impossible not to feel pity, ‘I haven’t had kids, have I?’ She dropped her eyes quickly. It was so great to start to feel a part of this group (her painting class was so like an exclusive club she was thinking of giving up on it) and she was determined not to make a mess of things by implying any sense of superiority. And, of course, pregnancies did make keeping a figure harder – she knew that and needed them to know how much she respected them for it.

  Patty, who had four kids, was fond of laying public blame for the barrel stomach on her youngest – Stewart, a baby so heavy she claimed he had broken a county-hospital record. Cathy, sitting next to her, had three, and only stayed passably trim, she claimed, by being a slave to a cross-trainer in her spare bedroom. Even the lithe Erica had recently had a child, an impossibly cute round baby whom she had brought to show off to the class – along with her restored waistline – a few weeks after giving birth. Famous for its excellent state-funded public schools and spacious quality of life, the Darien area attracted families like bees to a hive. Beth had known this but not really understood the full permutations of it until coming to live there – unforeseeably jobless, and faced with the necessary challenge of making friends. Not being a mother had really set her apart.

  ‘And would you like kids?’ ventured Patty now, in spite of the other two women’s eyes boring disapprovingly across the table.

  ‘Actually, we are trying,’ replied Beth, softly.

  ‘Oh, honey.’ Cathy clamped a hand over hers. ‘Howard took years – years – but the girls came right along when I was ready. Or not ready, I should say …’

  And soon they were all pitching in with their conception and birth stories – the waits, miscarriages, the false hopes, the early arrivals, the pain. Beth, meeting their gazes now, nodding, listening, smiling, frowning, felt as if she was in a play – a marvellous play she had devised herself, with her in the lead as the tragic mom-in-waiting with her hopes high, the hopes that would surely fail; although no one knew that yet, of course, not these voluble, well-intentioned women whom she wanted as friends, and certainly not William, whose love she needed as much as the air she breathed.<
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  The warmth of it all was still upon her as she drove home. A request for discretion about her small intimate revelation had been agreed to with teary eyes. An invitation to join a cancer fund-raising committee had followed soon after, along with pleas for her painting instructor’s phone number, and the promise of a recipe for walnut brownies that never came out too dry. Most wonderful, however, had been the sense of inclusion; all they had needed, Beth saw now, was a nudge in the right direction, a clue as to how to place her in their circle, where she fitted in.

  Getting the hang of life never stopped, she reflected, slowing, out of habit, to scan the roadside for a stray bundle of fur during the final mile. Several weeks on from her disappearance everyone, including William, assumed the matter of Dido to be closed. And yet, privately, Beth couldn’t quite agree with them. A tiny tight inner part of her simply wouldn’t allow it, a part born not of optimism so much as a painfully acquired, self-preserving steeliness. Things wanted badly enough could be achieved. Hadn’t she proved as much to herself time and time again? Like all the difficult repercussions from the hateful house-swap holiday. Her world, briefly, had been turned upside down, tipping her back to places she didn’t want to go – but now she was fighting again, for her happiness, for William, whatever it took.

  Being gifted with the wherewithal to rattle Sophie Chapman had been the turning point: realizing the woman was silly, flawed and powerless, and having the courage to let her know it. Pressing ‘send’ on the email she had composed after finding the ludicrous love-note had been quite a moment – cathartic, vengeful, sweet but, above all, empowering. Beth couldn’t imagine now how she had ever let the Englishwoman get under her skin. There had been no reply yet, but there would be, she was certain. In the meantime the prospect of turning on her computer had become one of the highlights of the day.

  Indeed, such was her eagerness to check her correspondence on getting home that morning that Beth almost forgot to throw up. The remains of the muffin she had eaten proved unusually resistant to eviction too, eventually requiring some brutal throat-stabbing to get the process under way. By way of reward for the effort, she treated herself to a good long appraisal in the bedroom mirror afterwards, congratulating herself on the slack look of her Pilates pants, hanging in loose pleats off her hips, and replaying in her mind all the admiring comments from her coffee group. With results so good, who cared how they were achieved? And who would want to end up like Patty? she marvelled, shuddering at the recollection of sighting her new friend in the supermarket the week before, all four of her brood hanging off the cart, like pirates dangling from a ship’s rigging, yelping and snatching at items in spite of their mother’s protests. How could William wish even a fraction of such ugly misery on them? How could he?