‘Fran, Fran…’ Ben’s eyes search for mine. I meet his gaze, chin held high. I won’t be intimidated. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we? All of us? What harm is a quick coffee going to do?’
I sigh. Ben smiles. The smile sends my pulse scurrying. Muscle memory, that’s all it is. To tell the truth, I could do with a coffee, and The Pot and Kettle opposite which Ben indicates with a jab of a thumb looks busy with customers. It’s not as if we’ll be alone.
‘It looks full,’ I say, half-hoping for a last-minute reprieve. ‘There might not be a table.’
Ben isn’t listening. He shepherds me across the street, towards the black-painted café.
And so it is that this morning’s bête noir is not Tessa but Ben, Tessa only having had time to call a quick ‘hello’ across the hall. But all is well. We squeeze ourselves onto a table among the Saturday morning crowd, Ben allowing me to pay for my coffee without demur. We chat lightly about nothing of any note, and then I leave.
No unwanted remarks, no innuendos, no meaningful looks. No apology, either, for what he said on Worthing Pier, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected it. Ben, I have learned, is not big on apologies, mainly because he never believes he has anything to apologise for.
When I return later to collect Caitlin, he is nowhere to be seen. I exchange a few words with Tessa, who is clearly on a high due to a successful morning. And as I leave with my daughter, again I experience the weird sensation of having escaped, though from what I have no idea.
I have some time owing at work and take a couple of days off. Hector is busy with commissions and restocking his small display area with items for sale. An eighteen-year-old called Dillon has been taken on for six months to help out and further his carpentry training. Hector can’t leave Dillon on his own at present, and he apologises for the rotten timing. But in truth, I’m looking forward to having the house entirely to myself, a rare occurrence.
I’ve spent a lazy morning catching up on yesterday’s paper, answering emails, including a lovely newsy one from Natalie, and generally drifting about. The afternoon brings a rush of energy, and I’m in the middle of tidying Hazel’s room – I am not allowed to touch Caitlin’s if she isn’t present, and Kitty’s is definitely a no-entry zone – when my phone buzzes. It’s Grace. She has a free afternoon, and would I like to meet her for coffee in the park café?
I bundle the clothes I’m holding into the laundry basket on the landing – some of them might be clean, but it’s hard to tell – pull a sweatshirt over my vest top and chinos, and head out into the blue-skied morning.
I’m glad of the sweatshirt; the sun dazzles but deceives in terms of temperature, and Grace is sitting at one of the few outside tables on the decked area in front of the café. As it’s afternoon and we are creatures of habit, we forgo coffee in favour of a pot of tea for two and the café’s speciality – rock cakes.
‘Is everything okay?’ I ask, wondering if there’s any particular reason we’re here.
‘Yes, fine. I fancied a break and I remembered you were off.’ Grace bites into her rock cake and makes big eyes over the top of it. ‘Oh God, these are scrummy!’
‘Yep. There is something, though, I can always tell. And by the way, you’ve got crumbs on your chin.’
Grace swipes her chin with a flimsy paper napkin. ‘A bit of gossip you might be interested in, that’s all.’
‘Just what I need. Go on, then.’
Grace’s job in the property world means she has sophisticated ‘local knowledge’, as she puts it. The juiciest segments she unpeels for me with unbridled glee while holding up a virtual Holy Bible, swearing me to silence. I’ve not let her down yet, at least, not knowingly.
‘I wouldn’t be telling you this,’ Grace begins, leaning into the table, ‘if you were bosom buddies with Tessa Grammaticus. Tell me you’re not, only you did go to dinner at hers, didn’t you?’
‘We did, and no, we aren’t bosom buddies, or any sort of buddy. I don’t know why she invited us really.’ In my sombre moments I still wonder if there was something other than neighbourliness behind Tessa’s invitation. ‘Is this about her, then?’
‘Not as such.’ Grace purses her mouth, as if she might not, after all, share this gossip. I nod encouragingly. Grace continues.
‘Did you know they lived in Brighton before they came to Oakheart?’
‘Yes, Ben… they did mention it. Why?’
‘Did you ever wonder why they moved? They had a gorgeous house, Edwardian or something, in a nice street, good schools and everything. And he, Ben, commutes to London, which is a darn sight easier from Brighton than it is from here.’
I’m not sure about that, but Ben’s commute is irrelevant, and I don’t contest the point. ‘They wanted to live somewhere rural, and to move while Zoe was still young enough for the change of school not to be a disruption. They looked around the villages in Sussex, Tessa saw Rose Cottage, and that was it. Nothing strange about that. Rose Cottage is beautiful, inside as well as out.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ Grace pulls a face. ‘Tessa would never live anywhere that wasn’t picture-perfect.’
‘She’s worked hard to make it so,’ I say, for some reason feeling defensive of Tessa while wishing Grace would get to the kernel of the story.
‘When they lived in Brighton, they had a woman working for them, domestic help. Goodness knows why they needed her, except it was a big house, so…’ Grace notes my impatience. ‘I heard – and I don’t know if this is true, but it sounded credible – I heard that Ben and the domestic help became very close.’ Grace taps the side of her nose. ‘He was screwing her; you see what I’m saying?’
My stomach quakes. Of course I see what she’s saying! It couldn’t be plainer if she drew me a diagram.
‘He had an affair with her, or he might have done. I get it. Grace, who told you this?’
‘I was chatting to a friend, Tony, a colleague of mine. You might have heard me mention him. He’s an agent based in Brighton. It’s a small world, property selling. He sold the Grammaticus’s house, and the agent who sold them Rose Cottage is a mate of his. I don’t know exactly how they worked it out, or what they heard or saw, but as I say, it’s a small world. As is Oakheart, of course.’
I wish she wouldn’t remind me of that, not on top of what I’ve just heard about Ben.
‘Yes, but how did it come up in conversation, about this so-called affair? It seems a bit random to me.’
‘We were talking about the variety of situations you come across when you’re selling somebody’s house. The personal stuff isn’t always as hidden as they’d like it to be. The clues are there. And people talk, neighbours and so forth. A new For Sale board going up unleashes tongues.’ Grace nods at me. ‘I’ve told you a few tales in the past, haven’t I?’
‘Are you saying they moved house because of the affair? What happened? Did Tessa find out?’
‘Ah, now that we don’t know. But what we do know is that she – the woman – did no more than up sticks and follow them here. The agency in the high street, the one that handled the sale of Rose Cottage, put her in touch with the housing association which owns the new development near Tesco’s. Pretty places but tiny, more like rabbit hutches than houses.’ Grace chuckles. ‘The rents are reasonable, which I imagine was the attraction. Apart from Ben, of course.’
Oh God. My recent suspicion that I may not have been Ben’s only illicit lover joins hands with the possibility that his former lover lives in Oakheart, and a lugubrious, circular dance begins. Have I met this woman? Do I know her? I’m not aware of knowing anyone who lives in that part of the village, but that doesn’t mean a thing.
Was he seeing her at the same time as he was seeing me?
Is he still seeing her?
I recall the slight atmosphere Hector and I noticed when we went to dinner. If that was connected to this other affair of Ben’s, what else does Tessa know? I swallow in an attempt to relieve the dryness in my throat. Grace reads my mind
– or rather, she thinks she does.
‘I know. Poor Tessa. Whether she knew or not – I imagine she must have done and that’s why they moved – it’s still abominable, isn’t it? And when there are children involved…’
I think back to Ben and me. Children. My children. ‘One child. Zoe. Not that it makes it any better.’
‘She had a child as well, a little boy. No husband that we know of. She lived in Brighton with her sister, until she struck out and followed her heart.’ Grace tuts, shakes her head. ‘I’m being judgmental. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors? What lies in other people’s hearts and minds? I don’t condemn anyone, because you just don’t know. It is interesting, though, isn’t it?’
I remain silent.
‘You just don’t know,’ Grace repeats. Her eyes are sad. ‘She came to a tragic end. Whether this had anything to do with the affair, we don’t know. Tony seemed to think there must have been a link, but again…’ Grace shrugs. My heart dives.
‘Tragic end?’ My voice is hardly above a whisper. ‘What happened?’
‘Funnily enough, you already know what happened.’
‘Do I? Grace, stop talking in riddles!’
‘Do you remember that woman who killed herself by jumping off the cliff at High Heaven? When would it have been? Two, three years back?’
My brain forages for the memory, which doesn’t come. I shake my head slowly, my eyes on Grace’s.
‘It was in the papers, and on the local news. We saw the police cordons up around the bottom of High Heaven, don’t you remember?’ Grace frowns. ‘Actually, that might just have been me. Anyway, she was Italian, or of Italian descent. Dark, petite, attractive, you know the type.’
‘Italian, yes…’ Something triggers in my mind. ‘I do remember reading about her, now I think about it. That was her, the woman Ben was seeing? She committed suicide?’
‘Yep, that was the verdict. Nobody falls off High Heaven by accident.’
‘It’s not impossible. That fence has been broken down for years. If it was dark, or raining and slippery, it could happen.’
‘Could, yes. Not likely, though. Why would you go up there in the dark?’
I cast Grace a meaningful look.
‘Yes, all right, but no witnesses came forward – which I suppose they wouldn’t if they were up to no good – but the sister gave evidence that she’d been feeling low and that was it, case closed.’ Grace lets a beat of silence fall. ‘Poor woman. Her name was Maria. Maria Capelli.’
I feel quite shaky as I walk home from the café. Grace believed she was providing a harmless afternoon’s entertainment with her shock revelation about Tessa’s husband. I didn’t step up to the mark by joining in her theorising with theories of my own. My mind was too busy paging through the short history of my liaison with Ben, looking for something I might have missed.
Over the coming days, the story Grace told me haunts my thinking. I’m ashamed to say that Maria’s tragedy is not uppermost. I’m feeling aggrieved that he lied to me about not having any other lovers – if indeed the story is true. I can’t rule it out, though; I’d be even more of a fool if I did. Ben may have spun me a white lie so I wouldn’t see him as a serial adulterer, hardly an appealing quality. He wanted to make me feel special, and in that he certainly excelled. It might be simply that, or the gossip that came Grace’s way might be completely unfounded. I doubt I will ever know, and why would I want to?
And yet somebody died. A woman called Maria who may or may not have been Ben’s lover at some point, but whom it seems certain worked for the family, ended up dead at the bottom of a chalk pit.
Supposing the gossip is based on fact and Maria was having an affair, fling, whatever, with Ben? How did he react to the news of her death? Was he still seeing her at that time, or had it ended back in Brighton? Surely, if he’d been forced to move away because of the situation – Grace’s theory – he wouldn’t have carried on seeing her? Or, was he pleased she’d moved to the same village, been flattered – and foolhardy – enough to resume the relationship? Enough to risk his marriage? Ben is a risk-taker. He wanted us to carry on seeing one another, despite my insistence that we stop. He reacted badly when I told him it was over. I guess he gets off on the danger.
None of this introspection and second-guessing is helping. My peace of mind shatters into even smaller pieces than before. I had hoped that after our family visit to Rose Cottage, Ben and Tessa would be relegated in my mind to just another Oakheart couple who we know quite well through our children and are friendly with when we happen to come into contact. No more than that. No surprises, nothing to set my nerves on edge.
It isn’t happening. That’s probably my fault, but the end result is the same. And now Maria is factored into the equation and I can’t get her out of my head. I have to know what happened, or at least take a few steps nearer the truth, even if what I find is disturbing.
The good news is that nothing weird has happened to me lately; no odd gifts, funny phone calls, expired wildlife on the doorstep; nothing. I no longer have that eerie sensation of being watched when I walk through the wood, something which continued after the first occasion, although I would never give my voyeur the satisfaction of changing my route.
So, it looks as if Mirabelle Hayward has either forgiven me for my non-crime – doubtful – or she got tired of playing games. Small mercies.
Twenty
TESSA
I haven’t seen Mirabelle Hayward since the badger episode – at least, not to speak to, thank goodness. I was using the self-service checkout in the local supermarket when I saw her waylay some innocent passer-by outside. The shop door was open, and I caught the words ‘ignorant lorry drivers’ and ‘humps in the road’ accompanied by much arm waving, and I gathered she was back on her traffic-calming hobby-horse, presumably having forgotten about revenge tactics on Fran Oliver.
That’s quite a relief. Mirabelle came in useful but nobody in their right mind would want to spend more time in her company than strictly necessary. Besides, I’ve passed the stage where poking around in Fran’s head, causing her brief dips of anxiety that I can only visualise, is enough. It was a start; an oblique way of offloading some of my animosity towards her.
When she brought Caitlin to my art club – which went wonderfully well, by the way – she was all bright smiles, and clearly in control of her perfect little world. I didn’t go over and chat because I was busy setting out objects and photos for the children to use as inspiration, as well as doing a million and one other things. But Cleo booked Fran’s daughter in, so she would not have thought I was being unfriendly. Not that I care what she thought.
A little later, I was presented with a bonus, quite unexpectedly. One of the children decided to sharpen all his coloured pencils, holding the sharpener over the floor instead of the bin. I went to fetch a dustpan and brush from the storeroom where the cleaning things are kept; it’s at the front of the building and has a small window. I happened to glance out in time to see Fran and my husband entering The Pot and Kettle on the other side of the street. The storeroom window was grubby, the view of the café partly obscured by traffic, but the snapshot gave me enough to realise it was no coincidence that they were going in at the same time. He held the door open for her, and she performed a coy little bob as she ducked beneath the arch of his raised arm. There’s no doubt in my mind that they were together.
Had their little rendezvous been prearranged? It’s possible, in theory. Anything is possible. But I’d only asked Ben the night before if he could spare ten minutes to help me set out the tables, it being the first meeting of the art club, so my guess is that it was a spur-of-the-moment thing when they ran into one another outside the hall.
Honestly, I don’t know why I trouble my brain with the technicalities. Ben and Fran went for coffee together, and yes, you could say that’s a normal enough thing to do. What is not normal is the fact that he didn’t tell me about it later. Considering who his companion was,
there’s no way in this world he forgot.
She could have mentioned it herself when she came to collect Caitlin, but she said nothing. I knew she hadn’t spent the whole two hours with Ben because he’d had to be home to take Zoe to her swimming lesson, so I imagine she’d gone home after they’d had coffee. This time, I made a point of singling her out for a chat, using the child as a buffer – it’s not that easy, pretending to be somebody’s friend; you have to be super-cool about it. Fran, I’m sorry to say, didn’t falter. There’s an art to that. When it comes down to it, we’re all acting a part. Life is just a series of scenes in which we take on one role or another. We are all players; some are better at it than others.
Maria took her part well. The dutiful domestic help, all smiles, nothing too much trouble. Showing fondness for my cute daughter, leaving little posies in her bedroom, and once, a book about a family of frogs she’d found in a charity shop because Zoe liked frogs. Before long, it was Ben’s study she took more than a friendly interest in. My meticulous eye for detail picked up the extra shine on the antique wooden surfaces, the regularly damp-wiped picture-frames, the pens bunched in pots, the levelling of the books on the shelves. She even replaced one of the castors on the vintage rotating office chair, arriving one day with a bagful of screwdrivers and a cry of ‘It’s no trouble. I will fix it!’
I should have been warned then, casting my mind back to Suzanna Henderson. Our house in Brighton was large, with a lot of rooms to keep in order. I took on Maria for three sessions of two-and-a-half hours a week because I was working at the time as charity fund-raiser for our local hospice, but I did most of the housework myself. Maria was only expected to keep the bathrooms, kitchen, and utility room spotless and drive the vacuum round the rest. She should not have had time for personal touches, but make time she did.
Maria lived a few streets away from us, in a scruffy terraced house with her sister and family, and her own son, two years or so younger than Zoe. I saw the advert she placed on a postcard in the newsagent’s window, offering her services. When I found out she was fucking my husband, I wondered why she didn’t put the card in the phone box and have done with it.
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