It Had to Be You

by David Nobbs

  Surely nothing more would tear him apart today?

  A woman whom he didn’t know immediately detached herself from a group of Harcourts and buttonholed him.

  ‘I’m Dorothy Harcourt,’ she said.

  ‘Ah,’ he said meaninglessly. He didn’t think that he had ever heard of her.

  ‘I’m one of the Gloucestershire Harcourts.’

  ‘Well, how do you do? How are things in Gloucestershire?’

  Careful, James. But there was something about this woman, something to make you want to be sarcastic, something to make the flesh crawl.

  ‘I have something to tell you. I wondered whether I should tell you or not.’

  ‘Obviously you decided that you would.’

  Her skin was the colour of Wensleydale cheese, her hair clung limply to her scalp as if frightened of sliding off, but in her eyes there was glittering, ferocious life. James felt instinctively alarmed by her inner fires.

  ‘I decided that I must tell you for your own good.’

  ‘Why does that alarm me so much?’

  ‘I have a slight psychic gift, I put it no higher than that. I don’t wish to have it, it can be disturbing. I sense, James, that you are a troubled soul. I smell guilt.’

  ‘I really don’t know where this is leading.’

  She smiled smugly. It was a smile to curdle milk. This was a very sad soul, and, unlike most sad souls, there was something about the woman that repelled all sympathy.

  ‘I know men. Perhaps I should rephrase that. I know of men. I sense – correct me if I’m wrong – that you have been … disloyal? … unfaithful? … in some way. I sensed it in your eulogy … your very moving eulogy. I sensed that you were about to admit to something, and couldn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps you could speed this up a bit, tell me where it’s leading. There are lots of people here that I wish to speak to.’

  ‘Of course. I am just explaining why I think what I have to tell you may make you feel better. Your wife was not the saint that she is usually painted.’

  James tried to look unconcerned. He didn’t want to give this woman the satisfaction of knowing how much she was disturbing him. But he could feel the blood, which had only recently returned to his face after the shock of his confrontation with Mike, draining away again, and a spasm of hideous pleasure crossed the woman’s face as she saw this.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I was lunching with a friend …’ James saw in her eyes a hint of the wild hatred that was consuming her. ‘… Well I thought she was a friend … in a hotel near Diss last Wednesday. The day that Deborah died.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Your brother was lunching there too.’

  Suspicion hardened instantly into certainty.

  ‘He was clearly waiting for somebody.’

  ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  ‘He kept looking towards the door. It wasn’t at all an interesting door.’

  As Dorothy talked on, James couldn’t avoid casting a quick glance round the room. He saw Philip, looking at him rather anxiously, and tried to give him a reassuring smile. Beyond Philip he saw Charles. The great man was leaning on the piano, as if to remind people who he was. He was holding court, in his usual genial way. He always claimed to be embarrassed by the attentions of his fans, but in that moment James realised that he loved them, that he thirsted for them and drank them. This vicious, nosey, wretched, lonely, twisted woman was telling him how she had ‘happened’ to look into the hotel’s visitors’ book, how somebody called Mr J. Rivers had booked in and given an absurd address that was clearly false. ‘I’m certain it was him. There wasn’t anyone else it could have been.’

  James disliked this woman so much that he could hardly get the words ‘thank you’ out, and indeed he didn’t know whether he was grateful or not. He moved off, making his way past Roger Dodds and the Hammonds – no sign of Mike – and past a little bunch from the Kilmarnock factory. He could see that they wanted to speak to him, he didn’t want to offend them, God, social responsibilities were wearing. ‘See you in a minute,’ he said as he went past them.

  Philip was approaching him. He didn’t want to speak to Philip just now.

  ‘She’s told you, hasn’t she?’ said Philip.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That woman. That dreadful woman. She’s told you.’

  James was astounded.

  ‘You know about it?’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Philip looked puzzled for just a moment, then ploughed on. ‘I’m sorry, James. Sorry that you’ve had to find out. I don’t see why you ever had to know, not now that she’s dead.’

  James had been so certain about Charles that realisation was dawning only very slowly.

  He stared wildly at Philip.

  ‘You! It was you?’

  ‘Well, what did you think? Didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘She only said, “your brother”.’

  ‘Charles? You thought it was Charles? Oh, James. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

  ‘Our bedroom. My bedroom.’ He gave a twisted smile. ‘Deborah’s bedroom.’

  In the bedroom, James stood looking out over the apparent normality of Islington. He felt shredded.

  Philip came in very slowly.

  ‘So you thought she was talking about Charles?’ he said, shaking his head as if he still didn’t quite believe it.

  ‘I’d begun to think he was in love with Deborah.’

  ‘Oh, I think he was, but I think he could only express it in music. I don’t think Charles is a very sexual person.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, I hate to say this, I’m very fond of them both, but Valerie doesn’t look like a satisfied woman. Music is a life substitute for Charles, which is why despite his great success he isn’t really happy.’

  ‘Charles isn’t happy?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I feel as though I understand nothing. I feel as though I’m swimming in fog. So it was you!’

  ‘You still sound surprised. Even at this very serious moment in our relationship I feel slightly piqued that you don’t think of me as sexy. I do have four children, James. Four more than Charles, as it … no, don’t go there.’

  They were circling round each other, waiting for the moment to pounce.

  James pounced first.

  ‘How could you, Philip? How could you? You. Of all people.’

  ‘Oh, God, James. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that.’

  ‘Well, I’m not honestly sure I am, anyway. I mean, I can’t honestly say I wish it hadn’t happened. I was in love with her, James.’

  ‘Did you go to bed with her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But would you have done … that day?’

  ‘Who knows? I certainly don’t.’

  ‘Well, how long had this been going on? Come on. Tell me.’

  ‘Not long. We had a couple of meals when you … you know … were away with … her.’

  James felt the floor shift beneath his feet. So it really did happen.

  ‘You knew about Helen?’

  ‘Is that her name? Yes. We knew there was someone.’

  ‘Deborah knew?’

  It was a scream of astonishment and pain. James’s legs began to give way. He tottered onto the bed where he had slept with Deborah for more than twenty years.

  ‘She didn’t know when, where, how, but a woman knows a thing like that, James.’

  ‘Oh, God. Why did she…? Why didn’t she…?’

  ‘Who knows? Who knows, James? I didn’t know her that well.’ It was Philip’s turn to give a cry of regret, muted, but still passionate. ‘And now I never will.’

  His long, stern, statistician’s face crumpled into inconsolable grief. He sat on the other end of James’s marital bed, and wept.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Philip. She was my wife, not yours,’ snapped James.

  He strode out of the room, slamming the door.


  He leant against the banisters at the top of the stairs. He thought of all the people milling around downstairs, the hum of their conversation growing with each drink and each passing moment, as they appeared to turn their backs on their sadness.

  He’d made three enormous discoveries in a matter of minutes. He’d learnt for certain that Mike had murdered Ed. He’d discovered that his beloved brother Philip had been intending to cuckold him. He’d found out that Deborah had known about Helen. That was the one that shook him to the core. That was the one that meant that every moment in his life with Deborah in recent times had not been as he had thought it was. How could he walk down the stairs and join the throng? How could the stairs remain solid and not crumple?

  He squared his shoulders, drew himself up to his full height, and went downstairs to perform the duties of a man at his wife’s wake.

  James could see his mum looking in his direction; he really didn’t want to ignore her, but he couldn’t walk past Fliss without stopping.

  Fliss just stood there, waiting for him to come to her, clocking every delay, making a list in her mental Filofax of everyone he had spoken to before he spoke to her.

  He kissed her on both cheeks. She barely responded, but gave a half-smile.

  ‘Brilliantly read,’ he said. ‘Very moving. Honestly, Fliss, really well done.’

  She thawed visibly. Really it wasn’t so difficult, and in the ease with which he could thaw her he realised how insecure she was, and he felt the return of that affectionate love he had experienced in the chapel.

  ‘I didn’t want to do anything too obvious,’ she said.

  ‘Quite right. Deborah would have loved it.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. I do hope so.’

  ‘I’m sure so.’

  He wasn’t sure really, he had no idea what Deborah would have thought, but did it matter?

  ‘You didn’t think my hair let the side down?’

  ‘Your hair? It’s fine.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘It’s great.’

  He found himself wondering if Fliss also knew of his adultery. He could hardly bear the thought that she might. A great surge of contrition and regret swept through him. Well, James, he told himself, you shouldn’t have started down that road if you couldn’t accept the consequences. A ridiculous phrase crossed his mind. If you can’t stand the cold, don’t sit in the fridge.

  Fliss gave him a quick little kiss, which astounded him. So it didn’t look as if she knew. He had a sudden vision of people as packages: the skin was the paper, the contents were a secret until opened, but even then, the thoughts were unreachable. No pathologist could open a man up and say, ‘He’s secretly envious of his father.’

  James shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts, which were not helpful to conversation. He really must stop thinking about pathologists. He smiled at Fliss and felt an astonishing warmth towards her. He realised now just how insecure she had felt in Deborah’s presence. Pretty, but not as pretty. Liked, but not as liked. Stylish, but not as stylish. He hugged her impulsively, saw the surprise and even slight alarm in her eyes.

  ‘We must all keep in touch,’ he said. ‘We must keep Deborah’s memory alive together.’

  ‘We’d love that,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’

  A moment of peace, into which Stanley limped like a rusting dredger.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ said James. ‘Here comes Stanley, who’s also going mad, but without the excuse of strain.’

  Stanley raised his glass of red wine and said, ‘Groans.’

  ‘Groans?’

  ‘It’s my new greeting to friends on sad occasions. The opposite of “cheers”.’

  ‘Oh, very good, Stanley.’ James raised his glass, which contained only water. ‘Groans.’

  ‘Groans,’ echoed Fliss, and gave a slight giggle, happy to be in on a joke, however slight, that she understood.

  Stanley turned to her, and asked her, ‘Fliss, are you at all interested in your roots?’

  ‘I have to be nowadays,’ she said. ‘I have them coloured every eight weeks.’

  His mum had watched his efforts to get to her with quiet amusement inappropriate to the occasion. Not that she wasn’t sad. Like everyone else, she had liked, even loved Deborah. But her fondness was tinged with a little secret difficulty. In her heart she had been just a little jealous of Deborah and just a little envious of James. There had been happiness in their marriage.

  Inevitably, her mind today had wandered back to her husband’s funeral, to the quiet relief that she had felt during the service and the wake, in her release from his infuriating blend of solicitous physical attentiveness and cold mental cruelty, and the sudden sense of anticlimax that she had felt that evening, when the guests had gone and only her three sons remained, and she had begun to understand, if dimly yet, that she had also been released from her role, the protection of her boys from their monstrous father.

  Freed from their father, they had been released to fly out into the world, all at once, as if they were three red kites in a breeding programme. They hadn’t been cruel, they had done their best, but, almost overnight, everything had changed. They had no longer needed her. Now she had needed them. She had never really recovered from the shock, never again been quite the woman she had been before. She knew it, and hated it, and couldn’t change it.

  Today she saw it all, in James. She saw that he was frightened not to rush towards her, but she also saw that he was reluctant to face her. She saw that she had begun to drift, over the years, into the sort of mother that sons dreaded visiting. She also saw that, with James now alone, with Philip still alone, with Charles not as happy as everyone thought he was, she still had opportunities to play a role. Whether she was still able to play it she wasn’t sure, but today, while she definitely had a role – the widower’s mother – she would begin the attempt. And the role was, in truth, very simple. It was to become a nice old woman, to age gracefully. If she could pull it off…

  But there was an added little potential for drama in the role today. Every time she saw James looking towards her, she put on her disapproving face. How astonished her sons would have been if they had ever discovered that she practised this look in the mirror in her bathroom. Now, as she watched him leave Fliss, hug her (amazing), and slowly traverse the last few feet across the carpet, giving the impression that it was a really difficult ascent that he was making up the North Col of his own living room, she set her face into rock, into hurt granite, and waited for him to arrive.

  ‘My poor darling boy,’ she said. ‘What pressure they all put you under, my love.’

  Oh, but how she enjoyed the look in his eyes, the astonishment that he couldn’t quite hide.

  James was two people now, a schizophrenic. If he’d been a flat, he’d have been a duplex. On the upper floor, a widower, a host at a wake, a grieving husband. On the lower floor, a confused man, a shocked man, a man on the rack.

  The wake began to break up. He said goodbye to the Bridgend gang. Thank you for coming, boys. Charlotte had seen, seen, seen him with Helen in Porthcawl. See you in a couple of weeks, boys.

  And he said goodbye to the Kilmarnock contingent. Helen had been to Kilmarnock. Deborah had stayed there, though not in the same hotel. But she had known, known, known. Goodbye, lads. Thank you for coming. Challenges ahead, but we’ll meet them.

  Tom and Jen Preston. Sorry you missed Wimbledon. Really, it’s of no account. Charlotte looked so ill, ill, ill. Smiled, though, at least once. It’s been a great send-off. We’d have hated to miss it.

  Marcia wanted to kiss him on the mouth, but he managed to avoid this. How many times had Philip kissed Deborah on the mouth? Good luck with Willy the Wombat. Thanks. Don’t forget what I said. I’ll always be there. I won’t forget, Marcia. But he would.

  The Glebeland girls, leaving, as they came, in a gaggle. Had Deborah told them that she knew he was having an affair? Had Deborah, among the girlie laughs, been sad, sad, sad? He hadn�
�t spoken much to them, because, in truth, he was a little abashed by their gagglehood. Thank you so much for coming, girls. We couldn’t not. Deborah was one in a million. Oh, how very true. Grace Farsley not leaving with you? No, she said she’d stay on a bit. Interesting.

  The six members of his newly formed committee at Globpack. Deborah had met them all, and all the time she had known, known, known. Challenges ahead but we won’t mention them today. No, quite.

  Sandra Horsfall from the Dorking days. He’d once walked with Mike on Box Hill, near Dorking. He’d gone on a ramble with a killer! Sorry I didn’t get to talk to you, Sandra. Me too, James. Kiss kiss.

  Callum, son of his old school friend, and Erica, whose tattoos he still regretted. I’ll have to get used to tattoos, if Charlotte and Chuck come to live with me. Oh, I hope, hope, hope they do. We must meet, go to exhibitions, show you modern artists that we like. I’d love that. I really would.

  Roger Dodds, the Hammonds and the Meikles. Have you seen Mike? What’s he going to do now that he knows that I know? Shut me up? Kill me? Knife me? No, he seems to have just disappeared off the scene. Odd. Disturbing.

  Fliss and Dominic. You’ve seen her off most beautifully, James. Oh, Fliss, did you have to put it like that. You must come over to dinner. What would you think of Chuck? I’m going to have to learn to cook. You can be my guinea pigs. I hope we won’t have to eat them. That’s the nearest you’ve come to a joke in all the years I’ve met you, you boring bugger. Oh, very amusing, Dominic.

  Gordon and Stephanie Tollington. We must get together and have a really fabulous meal. I couldn’t care less if I never eat in another fine restaurant in my life. Been there, done that. I have something worthwhile to do now. Save, save, save my Charlotte. Some lies are so unimportant that they aren’t worth avoiding. That would be lovely.

  Grace Farsley.

  ‘I hope I haven’t outstayed my welcome,’ she said, colouring ever so slightly. James found the blush quite unexpectedly charming and exciting.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, and he couldn’t help smiling, though there was nothing in particular at which to smile.