‘I know. Perhaps it’s her way of dealing with it, and writing things down stops her from getting upset.’
‘So…?’ Why are you worrying? Hector’s eyes say.
‘Perhaps I should talk to her.’ I gaze past Hector to the garden.
‘And say what? That you’ve gone through her notebooks, invaded her privacy? Fran, she’ll never trust you again.’
He’s right, of course. I give a little nod, take the notebooks upstairs, and tuck them back in their hiding place.
Three
FRAN
Caitlin’s secret writings – though probably nothing to worry about, as Hector says – only serve to add to the uneasiness in my mind. The incidents of the cupcake, the fake phone call, the basket of flowers, the sensation of being watched in the wood, are strung together like beads on a rosary. I feel my way around them at regular intervals, strengthening the link between them but unable to stop.
Why have I not told Hector about these happenings – aside from the phone call he knows about – and the way they make me feel? It’s a question I ask myself. I think the answer is that I don’t want him to think I’m neurotic, no more than he probably does already, anyway. But it might be time to do some sharing – not with Hector, but with a friend who has no other agenda, and who won’t judge me and my wayward mind.
It’s early afternoon; there aren’t many appointments in the book and Evelyn is happy to cover. There is only one other car on the cinder patch that serves as a car park, and it isn’t Grace’s. I’m glad of a few more moments to gather myself. Out of the car, I roll my shoulders to loosen them, then walk up the steep, short path, the turf springy beneath my sandals. The path, no more than a balding stony strip flattened by decades of feet, pushes through a miniature forest of stubby, wind-deformed trees and delivers me to the summit where a bumpy stretch of grass rises innocently towards to the sky, hiding the shock of the sheer drop below the edge to the long-abandoned chalk pit below.
High Heaven, as it’s known locally – its official name is High Hovington – has dropped off the council’s radar, and the protective fence has long ago stopped serving any useful purpose, its posts sagging, the broken wires in between poking the sky like cats’ whiskers. The origins of the name High Heaven have been sandpapered away by time, but its dual reputation as a meeting place for illicit lovers and a suicide spot probably have something to do with it. High Heaven is a place of secrets.
I don’t mind heights; quite like them, in fact. They don’t frighten me, as other things do. I stand not far from the edge, sandals planted securely between tussocks of grass, and gaze out across swatches of green embroidered with woodland and threaded with tarmac ribbons, the fringes of Oakheart emerging from trees, the shy glint of the river. Turning my back on the view, my gaze rests on the middle distance where sheep graze perilously on the high slopes of the South Downs. I sense movement and see the red roof of Grace’s car as it bumps up the hill.
‘This is a bit cloak and dagger,’ she says, smiling as she traipses towards me. She’s carrying two take-out cups. She passes me one. ‘I thought we might need coffee, so I stopped off in Lower Hovington and nipped in the petrol station.’
‘Nice thought. Thanks.’ I hadn’t explained what it was I wanted to talk about when I texted Grace. ‘I didn’t mean to sound secretive. I just needed… well… to get some air. Plus, I wanted to talk freely without being overheard.’
Now I’m here, I feel a bit silly, as if I’ve magnified the whole business way out of proportion. But that’s what this is about, to get Grace’s take on things, which will be a lot more rational than my own.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m probably taking you away from work.’
Grace laughs drily. ‘I’m glad you did. I was about to ring a client and give her the benefit of my experience, so to speak. She’s driving me nuts, wanting me to put the price of her house up by another three thousand when there are hardly any viewers as it is.’ Grace is an estate agent, working from home; I’m always wary of taking advantage of her relative freedom. ‘I’ll leave it till tomorrow now,’ she says, ‘by which time I’ll be the epitome of calm.’
We stumble across to a lopsided wooden bench set back amongst the gorse bushes, and I recount the incidents in the order they occurred.
‘So, what do you think? I’ve gone doolally? It’s okay. It’s what I think, too.’
‘Except you don’t think that.’ Grace eyes me over the top of her cup. ‘Or you wouldn’t be here, telling me. I can see it, Fran, I really can.’
‘You can see why I’m a teeny bit freaked out?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Grace’s eyes look intensely into mine.
My shoulder blades settle against the wooden slats of the bench. I hadn’t realised I’d been holding myself so rigidly.
‘The cupcake with the chilli in it… my God, Fran, you could have given it to one of the girls. Think how that would have been.’
‘Oh, I’ve thought, lots of times. My greed saved them.’ I laugh without humour.
Grace and I spend a moment in pensive, lip-biting silence.
‘It could have been an accident, the cake,’ Grace says. ‘It could have come from a grateful animal-owner who had no idea what was in it.’
‘Yep. Except it isn’t me who makes the animals better, is it?’
‘No, but you play your part in their care, don’t you?’
‘A small part, yes.’ This, I’m thinking, is exactly what Hector’s stance on it would be; I should have trusted him on that and not kept it to myself, but the moment has passed.
‘Okay, there is doubt over the cake,’ I continue. ‘Then there are the flowers. Flowers are lovely things, thoughtful gestures, and maybe I shouldn’t complain. But when they’re anonymous, it puts a whole different complexion on it, and added to everything else, they gave me a bad feeling.’
‘Perhaps you’ve got a secret admirer.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ It’s all I can do to restrain the blush that threatens. I flap a hand at my face, as if I’m hot.
‘Well, then, let’s see.’ Grace stands her cup on the grass and taps a forefinger against the palm of her other hand, counting. ‘Your name was on the cake box so, whatever the intentions, it was meant for you. You were named personally on the flower delivery. The phone call, obviously for you…’
‘I might have dreamed the watching in the woods part,’ I say hopefully. I want that to be true, I really do. My eldest daughters use that footpath.
‘You might have,’ Grace concedes, ‘but if you did imagine it, it’s only because you were already stressed out by the other stuff, so it’s the same result, at the end of the day.’
I smile, blessing Grace for understanding.
‘Fran, are you okay otherwise? No problems at home or anything?’
She’s probably wondering why I haven’t confided in Hector.
‘No, no, everything’s rosy. I can’t tell Hector, though. Well, I could but he’d send for the men in white coats.’
Grace laughs. ‘He wouldn’t.’
I let a beat of silence land. ‘Hector thinks Asperger’s is something dreamed up by the psychologists to explain away behaviour that’s outside the norm, and to rake in a few quid in the process.’
Grace shows no surprise at my veering off-topic; we do it all the time. ‘Oh Fran, surely not.’
‘Okay, I’m exaggerating. But he does think I pander to Caitlin too much. Imagine what he’d say if I told him I got upset by a gift of flowers! It would kind of prove his point, that I make something out of nothing.’
‘Fran, your husband is…’
‘…intelligent, reasonable, supportive… I know, I know.’
‘So, he might surprise you.’
I just nod in response, feeling guilty that somehow I seem to be betraying Hector; I vowed never to do that again. I bring us back to the subject in hand.
‘I do have one theory. It’s a bit far-fetched but it’s all I’ve come up with.’
&n
bsp; I tell Grace about the cat lady.
Mirabelle Hayward lives in a beautiful but dilapidated Georgian house called Graylings, guarded by chipped lions on either side of the grand front door and a spike of black railings along the garden wall. I pass the house on my walk to work and can never resist glancing up at its murky windows, the lower ones partly obliterated by an indoor garden of herby-looking things growing densely in terracotta pots.
Mirabelle is well-known at our end of Oakheart as ‘a character’, which is one way of describing her. Apparently, she’s a retired schoolteacher, retired not on age grounds – she can’t be more than early sixties now – but because of her tendency to reinvent herself as old film stars and entertainers, mostly dead, at the drop of a board marker. Mainly, when she wasn’t being Mrs Hayward – legend has it there was a Mr Hayward back in the mists of time – she was Audrey Hepburn reincarnated, but it could have been anybody. Whether this tale is true or not, I have no more idea than have the people I’ve heard it from.
It’s mostly at the surgery where tales about Mirabelle are hatched and fostered, since she’s a regular client. Mirabelle has cats, five at the last estimation. They’re well fed and cared for; in fact they probably receive more care and attention than their owner gives herself. As Evelyn says, cats don’t care about a bit of dust as long as they know where their next meal is coming from.
We have no idea, by the way, if the house is dusty, but judging by the state of the outside and the grime on the windows, it’s a fair assumption. Mirabelle herself looks clean enough, if not particularly tidy with her wild, brick-brown hair fizzing around her head like a halo and an old pea-green coat thrown over something floral with a hem that dips up and down. She always wears make-up, with bright red lipstick, perhaps in homage to the Hollywood stars whose souls she inhabits.
Mirabelle never bothers with trivialities like appointments. She just turns up at the surgery with one, sometimes two, cats tucked into a fraying wicker cat basket along with an assortment of blankets, and the vets always see her. The receptionists have long since learned there’s no point in arguing the case and getting Mirabelle to come back at a more convenient time. We simply alert the vets on duty, Evelyn with a lot of eye-rolling and tutting.
Grace is, of course, no stranger to the status of Mirabelle Hayward in our community, and I cut straight to the chase.
‘A couple of months ago, Mirabelle turned up one morning with Humphrey – tabby cat, named after Bogart, apparently – and plonked him in the middle of the counter in his basket.’
I wasn’t in the best of moods at the time. I’d refereed a futile argument between Kitty and Hazel at breakfast, which had spun way out of control, ended in tears from Hazel, and put our whole schedule out. Hector was so fed up with it all he said he didn’t have time to drive Caitlin to school and left me to it, and anyway she’d kicked off, saying it had to be me. By the time I’d dropped an angry and tearful Caitlin off eight minutes late, and got myself back home and to work, I was hot and cross… as well as late.
‘God, I hate that, being late when it’s not your fault,’ Grace says. ‘So, what happened with Humphrey?’
‘He died, that’s what happened.’ I pull a face.
‘Oh dear. Poor thing. Right, so…’
‘So, David, the vet who saw him, said Humphrey had probably passed away on the way to the surgery, and if he hadn’t, he was in such a poor state he wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Old age, basically. Mirabelle had brought him in the week before, got the vet to sort out some tablets and what have you, but really, they were giving her false hope. Poor old Humphrey had reached the end of his days; he was at least twenty-one in human years and his body just said, “no more”.’
‘And Mirabelle?’
‘She wasn’t having it. She insisted he’d been fine when they left home and moving about in the basket when they got to the surgery. She’d only brought him in for a check-up, she said. She also said it was my fault.’
‘Your fault? How?’
‘She said I made them wait too long, and that I was careless with Humphrey. That’s what she said, made a holy fuss in front of a full waiting room. Honestly, all I did was to put the basket down on the floor beside the counter because it was in the way. Okay, I got caught up with other clients and it was a while before I could slip in and tell David the cat was there, but she never said it was urgent because as far as she was concerned, it wasn’t. Anyway, you know the way she swans in and expects to be seen right away, ahead of the queue. I wasn’t in the mood for her. Not that it would have made any difference what time the cat was seen. He’d passed on to the great cattery in the sky, and that was that. She said I’d mishandled him, and he’d been left sitting in a draught from the door and it must have affected his breathing.’
‘She didn’t blame the vet then?’
‘Oh no, the vets are all gods to Mirabelle. It’s those who stand guard in front of them she has an issue with, me in particular.’
Grace urges me on to the point of the story. ‘So, what’s this theory?’
I pause, gazing out at the view. A pair of hang-gliders appears in the distance, brilliant arcs of colour cutting into the blue. ‘I don’t know if it is an actual theory now. More of a vague suspicion.’ I turn to Grace. ‘Anyway, Mirabelle isn’t as level-headed as she might be. Do you remember those slogans she painted on the pub wall that time, about the evils of drink?’
‘That was her?’ Grace frowns. ‘Oh yes, it was, wasn’t it? She owned up, as I remember. The next thing we knew she was back in the bar herself, downing a pint!’
‘That’s what I mean. She’s not right.’ I tap my temple. ‘Up here. It’s not her fault, poor soul. But if she’s got it in for somebody, who knows what she could do?’ I shrug, appealing to Grace to support this theory because it’s all I’ve got, and goodness knows I need something.
Grace considers for a moment. ‘She’s wacky enough to play those sorts of tricks, I suppose. Is she that devious, though? Sending flowers anonymously when the other things – if they were down to her – were plain awful?’
‘She might be delusional but she’s not stupid. She might have thought about it and decided she’d make more impact if she confused me. If so, she’s got it spot on.’ I pull a face.
‘Unless…’ Grace’s eyes widen, ‘unless she regretted what she’d done, and the flowers were meant as an apology.’
I laugh properly this time. ‘I suppose it could be that. We could sit here all night and come up with all sorts of wild explanations, if we put our minds to it.’
Grace laughs, too. ‘Let’s not, though.’ She sees my face, which must display the hotchpotch of emotions that make my gut roil, and reaches for my hand. ‘Fran, you can’t let this upset you. If it is Mirabelle, and I can see how you’d think it might be, then she’ll soon get tired of playing silly games. If it’s not her, and there’s some perfectly innocent explanation, then…’
‘Then I need to forget all about it. Blame my hormones or something.’ I place both hands firmly on my knees. ‘You’re right. I just needed somebody to say it. Thanks.’
We leave soon after – Grace for home, me to fetch Caitlin from school. I can tell Grace isn’t convinced that these weird happenings are down to Mirabelle Hayward, no more than I am myself, but talking things through with her has definitely brought my stress levels down and convinced me – almost – that I’m not paranoid to have worried about it all in the first place.
As I head for Honeybee Hall, I put some music on in the car, a compilation of eighties hits. I play the second CD on the way home, and Caitlin jogs about happily in time to the music, the traumas of the rushed morning forgotten.
Four
TESSA
It’s three months now since I discovered the truth. Not that I didn’t know it already, in my mind, in my heart, in every cell of me, but that shred of hard evidence gave me the leverage I needed. Before that, I’d fed my suspicion by watching and learning. I observed her movem
ents, absorbed the pattern of her days, her working life, the dynamics of her family. This is Oakheart; it wasn’t difficult. I was never sure how I was going to use the information. I only knew that one day I would. Sometimes, playing the long game is the best way. The only way. Two years since it ended. For them. For me, it never ends. At least, it hasn’t yet.
I’d been searching the drawers of Ben’s desk in his study under the eaves, not to pry – that’s not my way – but to ferret out the paperwork from the time we had the beams treated for woodworm. Something the new insurance company wanted; I can’t remember exactly why now, only if I leave these things to Ben they tend not to get done at all.
Amongst the detritus at the bottom of the drawer, I found a photo, slightly out of focus, printed on ordinary paper and roughly cut out to size. Her. Francesca Oliver. Standing on a ridge that could only be High Heaven, her hair whipped across her face by the wind. The lower part of her face was hidden by her hand, and behind that hand I sensed a laugh, a non-serious protest against the camera phone.
I never caught them in the act, her and Ben; nothing so blatant as that. I could have, if I’d been so inclined. Other women in my situation would confront and blame and scream and shout, all the way to the divorce courts. I’m cleverer than that. Ben is my life, Zoe too. My marriage, my family, my beautiful home – nobody in their right mind would jeopardise all that because of the occasional worthless slut. They get what they deserve, in the end. Maria did. Besides, Ben needs protecting from himself; that has always been my job.
Eight weeks? Nine at most. That’s how long it lasted with Fran. Illicit lovers believe they’re invincible – Ben did, anyway. But it’s there if you care to look; the body language, the studious keeping away from one another whenever their paths meet by necessity or accident. Minimal direct speech. No eye contact. No touching. Definitely no touching.
Even now, all still there, so bloody obvious. Laughable, really, their naivety. As for her husband, Hector the carpenter, either he’s dumb stupid or as shrewd as I am. My money’s on the first, although he may yet surprise me.
The Wife's Revenge Page 3