by F. G. Cottam
The children were ecstatic to see him. He told them about his adventures in the west. He showed them the pictures he had taken of Topper’s Reach on his phone and described the stone circle above the village and said that he had been swimming in the sea and that soon they would all be doing that. They seemed interested. They even seemed interested in his description of Lord Byron’s letters sent to the old bare-knuckle boxing champion. But he thought Lillian subdued. He wondered if she was having second thoughts about the whole matter of moving before she had even seen their intended destination.
If she was, he was confident he could bring her round. All she had to do was to agree to a short visit without any commitment at all. He thought that as soon as she saw the bay from the plateau above it, she would be sold. She would remember the quaint details, all of them intact, that she had made the subject of those lovely student illustrations in the book. The house would seduce her. Dinner followed by a summer night of music at the Leeward would charm her completely. He knew his wife. The bay would prove irresistible to her if she just gave it a chance over one sunny weekend.
Jack went to bed at nine thirty. When he did so, Lillian was in the sitting room and James in the study, talking to Lee Marsden on the phone about Colorado. It occurred to James as he completed the call that the time difference between the two countries meant the Americans were just becoming animated about business when the British were readying themselves for a late drink in the pub, or for an early night in bed. He did not mind. The inconvenience was a small price to pay. He walked back into the sitting room, resuming the story he had been telling Lillian about Elizabeth Penmarrick’s concert performance of the previous evening.
‘. . . it’s just unbelievable that someone can turn a lungful of air into the sounds that were emerging from her mouth. I promise you, Lily, to believe it, you’d have to witness it in the flesh.’
‘Who was that on the phone?’
‘Lee. Lee Marsden called. There’s interest in the game, from America.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘It sounds very promising.’
‘There’s something I need to tell you.’
‘It’s a Colorado-based boutique tech company with deep pockets.’
‘There’s something I need to tell you, James.’
And something in the tone of her voice made him look directly into his wife’s face. And he knew. He did not want to know, but James knew anyway. A whole variety of small details that had not seemed quite right suddenly resolved themselves into a clear picture. He sat down. He sat down heavily, his legs weakened suddenly, his body an impossible weight to sustain, feeling as hopeless and weak and overwhelmed as the realisation of his wife’s deceit had just rendered him. He tried to remember how to breathe and a sob broke out of him. He put his hand to his eyes and began to descend in his mind into some dark abyss and to weep with grief for his marriage.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She took a step towards where he sat.
He held out a hand to stop her. He was hurt beyond endurance. Only one person in the world could comfort him. And he craved her comfort, but it was impossible, because she was the person inflicting this unbearable pain.
‘I’m going out,’ he said, levering himself to his feet, his legs still unsteady and his vision blurred by tears.
‘Will you come back?’ Her self-possession failed her on the question, her voice cracking with emotion and something that sounded not far removed from fear. ‘Will you?’
‘Of course I will,’ he said. ‘This is my home.’ He paused. ‘Oh, Lily,’ he said. And then he turned and went to walk out of the house, swiftly, because he could not bear the thought of her seeing her husband reduced to what she had made of him.
She caught him before he got to their door. She held him in her arms. He was aware of the familiar touch and scent and warmth of her, qualities all different now, like wealth he had once possessed, debased.
‘Please, James,’ she said. ‘Please, please listen to me. I made a mistake and I am sorry. I need to tell you about it and you need to listen to me. This is about more than the two of us. You need to be mature about this, for the sake of the two people upstairs. They can’t be mature because they are children. You are their father and they rely upon you.’
‘That’s a very nice speech.’
‘Don’t point-score, James. You’ve got all the points. I’m disgusted with myself, if you want to know the truth. The high ground is all yours. But we have to talk. We have to.’
They went into the study. It was the quietest room in the house, the room from which they would not be heard by one of their children lying woken by the human commotion at the door. Olivia, at eight, probably slept soundly and untroubled. But Jack, at thirteen, was easier stirred and upset already because he knew about his mother’s infidelity.
James looked out of the window, at where he thought he had seen that watching apparition a week ago. It was fully dark now. He thought that nothing would ever frighten him again after this. Nothing could possibly hurt him more than the mundane catastrophe of his wife’s betrayal.
‘Jack knows, James.’
‘You ended it because Jack found out?’
‘No. Jack found out because I ended it.’
‘Do I know your lover?’
‘You might have heard of him. His name is Robert O’Brien.’
‘O’Brien the writer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jesus. Jack reads his books.’
‘I don’t expect he will be reading any more of them. I don’t expect my son will ever forgive me.’
‘He’s our son, Lily. They’re our children. It’s our family. Don’t speak as though I was dead.’
‘I’ve ended it. It’s over. If you can find it in your heart to live with what I’ve done I want nothing more than this shot at a new life that’s had you so focused and energised. You came back this afternoon filled with confidence and optimism and when I saw you I realised how much and for how long I have missed those qualities in you. I have made a dreadful mistake. But it was a mistake and I want to move on from it. I don’t want to lose you, James. I don’t want our family fragmented and destroyed. We can move on, literally. But you have to give me the chance if that’s to happen.’
James thought about this. Then he said, ‘Tell me everything, Lily. Tell me what you did with him and tell me why you did it. Tell me all of it. Leave nothing out.’
He was not masochistic by nature. He did not relish hearing the detail. He was not sadistic either and did not want to punish his wife through the humiliation of making her relive her marital crime.
He suspected, under the shock and pain that had been his first, reeling reaction to her adultery, that he had provoked it. He thought that it would be easier to forgive if she confirmed this. His withdrawal into despondency had made her lonely and probably bored. He had not driven her into O’Brien’s arms, but he had failed her in the matter of love. Over the past year or so, he had not cherished his wife.
What Lillian said to him confirmed this. She did not try to exonerate herself. She did not try to shift blame and evade moral responsibility. But she was almost brutally honest about their growing apart and the reasons for it and as she spoke he found himself nodding with recognition and regret and even in the end with sympathy.
Lillian was not a high-maintenance woman in the WAG tradition of ski holidays at smart resorts and trophy cars and the frequent sprinklings of gifts from Bond Street. She was successful and admired and affluent in her own right. But she had her needs and he had failed to meet them and she had strayed.
‘Will you forgive me?’
‘I will only if you will forgive me,’ he said.
‘James, I’m so sorry to have hurt you like this.’
‘Don’t cry.’ He managed a laugh. ‘If you cry, I’ll feel even worse.’
She reached for him and held his head in her arms against her chest and kissed him.
He said, ‘Do you really think we
have a chance?’
Upstairs, the children slept, peacefully, their daughter unaware of the not quite imaginary friend, frayed and vigilant at the end of her bed. Outside the study window, if anything crouched silently and watched, the darkness was too full and the people behind the glass far too absorbed with one another to notice it.
‘I think we have every chance,’ Lillian Greer said firmly.
And so it was she omitted to tell James about the curious conversation with the teacher at the school who had supervised that morning’s playtime. Olivia had conducted a one-sided conversation, over by the school gate, through the railings with someone who wasn’t there. The teacher had thought it both odd and uncharacteristic and had said that they would monitor her to see if there was any repetition. Preoccupied by her impending confrontation with her husband, Lillian was distracted, listening to this. And then she forgot about it. In the circumstances, her failure to mention it to James was surely understandable.
Chapter Seven
Jack spoke to his mum about the affair three days after his dad’s return. It was the Monday and Lillian’s TLC commitment to her son had not noticeably wavered. There was work he knew she could have been doing because there was always work for her to do. Her stuff seemed to him to be wanted everywhere.
He thought that she could spare him the time because she was well organised and kept on top of her deadlines. She never did anything at the last minute, as he was apt to do with his homework assignments. That was how she was able to do it. The fact that she wanted to do it he knew was down to the fact that she loved him.
His dad had gone off to an afternoon meeting. There was to be a conference call in the afternoon in his agent’s office concerning the game. It seemed to Jack that he had been hearing about the game all his life; certainly for as long as he could remember. His dad had even let him play a version of it on his Xbox 360 and he had given it a solid nine out of ten. His dad had smiled and said when he ironed out the kinks it would merit a perfect score. Jack believed him.
They were in the kitchen. His mum was filling the dishwasher with the plates and glasses and cutlery from their lunch. She was trying to feed him up because he had lost weight in the period since the attack on the bus. But Jack knew that the scales did not tell the whole story. He had lost muscle mass. Muscle was denser than fat and weighed more. He had lost it because he had stopped his football training and eating his mum’s nourishing lunches would not help him put the weight back on.
He said, ‘You’ve told Dad, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I have,’ she said. She stood upright and closed the door of the dishwasher with a slam that rattled its contents. She said, ‘I promised you I would. I promised me I would, too. I told him the evening he got back from his trip.’
‘Was he upset?’
‘What do you think, Jack?’
‘Did he cry?’
‘Yes. We both cried.’
‘It’s weird,’ Jack said. ‘You seem happier than you were before.’
‘I’m just relieved. I’m relieved that I have ended something I should never have begun and I’m relieved that your father seems to have forgiven me for my stupidity.’
‘I mean, you both seem happier. He seems happier too. You’re much more cheerful around one another. You’re laughing. You’re touching one another.’
‘Had we stopped touching one another?’
‘Pretty much,’ Jack said. ‘That family hug in the hospital was the first time for ages I’d seen you and Dad holding each other.’
‘Maybe we weren’t as locked on as we ought to have been.’
‘But we are now,’ Jack said, ‘all of us. That’s the important thing.’
She paused and looked at the backs of her hands. She had rested them on the granite surface of the kitchen counter. ‘I want you to try to find it in your heart to forgive me too, Jack.’
‘I have,’ he said.
And he believed this to be true. He had seen his mother’s misery on the towpath at Hampton Court. He had seen that complicated expression of guilt and regret and shame and his heart had lurched for her. She was his mum. He would have forgiven her out of love at that moment, even if she had not always been, to him, the best mum imaginable. But she had been. And his father’s happiness made forgiving her okay.
He felt less forgiving towards Robert O’Brien. He thought O’Brien a preening tosser who had jeopardised his family when he had no right to. There were plenty of unattached women in the world. Someone as good-looking and successful as O’Brien was could probably have his pick. What was wrong with going out with a woman of his own age? O’Brien was only thirty years old. Why had he thought it all right to hit on a married woman, someone with a husband and kids?
Jack was not a violent boy by nature. He was strong and fit and had defended himself when attacked on the bus until the tyre iron had intervened. Football was a contact sport and he was a centre back and therefore no stranger to the physical side of the game. But he had never committed a deliberate foul and had never retaliated to one. There was no malice in his one booking, which had been a borderline dangerous play decision when he’d been judged by a fussy referee to have raised a foot too high.
He did not generally harbour ill-will towards anyone. But he wanted the three thugs who had beaten him senseless for his mobile and wallet punished. That’s why he was happy to go to court. And it occurred to him, there in the kitchen of his family’s Bermondsey home, that he would very much like Robert O’Brien taught a painful lesson for involving himself with his mum. He deserved to be brought down a peg. He deserved to pay a price for the awful damage to other people’s lives his mischief had come so close to causing.
He wouldn’t be punished, though. People like O’Brien were born lucky, weren’t they? They got away with things. They came through it all unscathed. He would just carry on writing his bestselling books and wearing his ponytail and parading his muscles on his windsurf board. Still, there was always the chance that he might windsurf somewhere hot. If he did, a shark might get him.
‘What are you grinning about?’
‘I don’t know, Mum. Nothing much, really.’
‘You okay with the plan for the weekend?’
‘Fine, I like Uncle Mark. He’s cool.’
Jack had been given the choice. He could have a weekend sleepover with a school friend, or he could stay there with Livs and Uncle Mark, his dad’s brother, while his mum and dad checked out Brodmaw Bay together. He’d chosen home because he really did like his Uncle Mark, could just about tolerate his sister and did not want to re-live the attack on the bus, which he thought a sleepover with any of his mates from school would make inevitable. They would be curious about what had happened to him and he would end up having to tell them.
What he really wanted to do, obviously, was go to Brodmaw with his mum and dad and have Livs stay behind in London with Uncle Mark. That wasn’t on the cards, though. His mum and dad had to make a grown-up decision and the kids were a distraction. It was a big decision. Distractions were something they could probably do without.
Uncle Mark would be fun. He was totally unlike his dad. He was a fanatical Man U fan and they would wind each other up about football. He was an engineer and had done work on the construction of football stadia throughout Europe. He’d been involved with something called cantilevering that Jack didn’t really understand. He had a pilot’s licence and had nearly killed himself flying too low over a forest in a helicopter he’d had to crash-land.
He was not married but had lived with Auntie Lucy for ever. Jack had asked his dad why Uncle Mark did not have any children of his own. His dad had raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Too much responsibility.’
‘You mean looking after them?’
‘I mean for them, looking after him.’
Jack’s mum had been in the room when he had asked the question and had snorted with laughter into the drink she was sipping from and gone into a coughing fit. Adult humour was sometimes a bit
lost on Jack. But he kind of knew what his dad had meant. It was very easy to imagine what Uncle Mark had been like when he’d been a child. With some adults, particularly teachers, this was impossible. Not with his Uncle Mark.
Maybe they would play tennis if Livs could be bribed to sit at the courtside without moaning for a couple of sets. Like most gifted footballers – and he knew he was a gifted player – Jack was good at every ball game he had ever tried from squash to snooker. He thought it would be interesting to play tennis against someone like Uncle Mark, who could handle a racket.
It would be slightly scary, too. He would learn whether the beating on the bus had done anything to damage his hand-eye coordination and hamper his balance. His eyes seemed to be working perfectly okay. But he wouldn’t know whether he could accurately sight and respond to a moving ball, in three-dimensional space, until he actually tried to do it.
Uncle Mark played from the baseline and hit heavily top-spun shots on both flanks. Jack wondered if there wasn’t some way he could persuade Livs that it was really fun to act as ball girl. He thought probably not. They would have to bribe her to get her to do it. His parents were strictly against bribery with kids. It was, they always said, the slippery slope. But Jack felt confident that Uncle Mark would be all for it.
James booked the room for them at the Leeward Arms he insisted on calling the Byron Suite. It wasn’t called that, of course. There would have been no point. It would have been a tourist ploy and the bay was beyond the geographic reach of weekenders and perhaps just too insular and self-contained to attract people for longer stays. It made James wonder why Charlie Abraham bothered to maintain a bed and breakfast facility at all. There didn’t seem to be the demand to justify the effort. And if his previous experience had been an accurate indication, the pub was a goldmine just on indigenous trade, without the hassle of renting the rooms upstairs.