The Memory of Midnight

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘I might have known Luke would be involved!’ said Vanessa in disgust. ‘Trust him to take you off to some quack. How do you know this guy isn’t a charlatan?’

  ‘I liked him,’ said Tess defiantly. She began to struggle to her feet, anxious to put an end to the conversation, and Vanessa leapt up in one lithe movement to help her. ‘It’s sweet of you to worry, but there’s no need.’ She removed her arm from Vanessa’s firm grip. ‘Honestly.’

  Vanessa was still looking worried. ‘I don’t like it,’ she said with a sigh, ‘but you’ve always been stubborn.’ It was news to Tess for whom Vanessa had always had a far stronger will. ‘I know there’s no point in arguing once you’ve got an idea in your head.’

  She started to gather up the children’s discarded jackets. ‘Come and have some lunch anyway.’

  Tess couldn’t wait to get away. Vanessa’s concern was smothering and she was finding it hard to breathe. ‘It’s kind of you, but I think I just need to lie down for a bit.’

  Vanessa looked at her narrowly, noting her pale face and the shadows under her eyes. ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘I’ll take Oscar back with me. I can bring him home later and check that you’re all right at the same time. I’ve got the new key you gave me.’

  Tess looked around for Oscar. Instinct told her that she should keep him with her, but he was racing around, his earlier fright forgotten, and having such a good time with Sam and Rosie that it seemed cruel to drag him back to the flat. Besides, there was a tight band of misery still behind her eyes, and her limbs were leaden with exhaustion. She needed to sleep, and she couldn’t do that and watch Oscar at the same time. And perhaps it would keep Vanessa quiet for now. She didn’t have the energy to argue any more.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Thanks. If you could keep an eye on Oscar this afternoon, I’d be really grateful. But don’t bring him back. I’ll come and get him. The walk will do me good.’ She summoned a smile, aware that she was being less than gracious. Vanessa was only trying to help. ‘You’re a good friend, Vanessa. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  Vanessa patted the jackets over her arm complacently. ‘That’s one thing you’ll never need to find out,’ she said. ‘You can rely on me, Tess.’

  A vicious headache raked Tess’s brain as she stood in St Helen’s Square looking at the church. This was where she had worshipped. Where she had buried Hugh. She turned slowly, not seeing the shoppers or the tourists or the patient queue outside Betty’s Tea Rooms. She blanked out the flower stall and the cycle racks, the buskers and the municipal planters, the shops and the bank. In their place was the churchyard, its stocks and its stile – and the pile of earth they were going to shovel over Hugh.

  Grief clawed at her anew. She wanted to drop to the ground, to scrabble away at the paving, and her fingers stung as if she were frantically ripping up slabs, tearing through the earth with her hands to get to her boy. Was he still there, far below, or had he rotted with the rosemary and the winding sheet long ago?

  Earth to earth. Tess could still hear the minister’s sonorous voice.

  Her vision blurred and her hands burned as she turned away to stumble up Stonegate and by the time she reached the door to Richard’s building, she could barely see. She was fumbling to fit the key in the lock when a voice spoke behind her.

  ‘Ah, so there you are, Theresa.’

  The words sliced through her wooziness, through her grief and her pain, a cleaver falling sharp and true to the heart of her fear.

  Martin.

  The key dropped from Tess’s nerveless fingers, and she span round, her heart thudding.

  There he was: her good-looking husband, clean-shaven, expensively dressed in a blazer and open-necked white shirt. His fair hair was neatly brushed. His smile was charming.

  ‘You look surprised to see me,’ he said.

  Tess’s mouth was dry. ‘What are you doing here?’ she managed, hating the waver in her voice.

  ‘I’ve come to take you home, of course.’ Martin stepped closer, bent to pick up the key, and it was all Tess could do not to flinch. ‘As soon as you rang, I knew it meant you were ready for me to come and get you.’

  ‘No.’ Tess retreated until her back was against the door. ‘I’m not going back to London, Martin.’

  ‘Darling, don’t you think you’re being a little childish? You know how important my work is and that I have to be in London. I can’t possibly move to York.’

  ‘I don’t want you to.’ Her heart rate had accelerated and her pulse was booming in her ears. ‘I want a divorce. And I’d like my key, please.’ She held out her hand, keeping it steady with an effort and, after a moment, Martin dropped the key into her palm.

  ‘You’re angry with me.’ His face changed, puckered with concern. ‘I don’t understand, Theresa. What have I done?’ A hangdog look under his lashes, a penitent smile. ‘Is it because I left it so long to come and get you?’

  ‘No.’ Tess moistened her lips and her eyes flickered around her. The street was full of tourists, but none of them sensed that anything was wrong. She was trapped in a bubble, where there was just her and Martin smiling at her. Already she could feel his implacable will closing like a fist around her, squeezing her, crushing her. She forced herself to straighten, lift her chin. Nell flickered into her mind. She hadn’t let Ralph break her spirit. Tess wouldn’t succumb to Martin either.

  ‘No,’ she said again. ‘I’m not playing games, Martin. I want you to go.’

  ‘Darling, why are you being like this?’ Martin looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Perhaps I should have come before but I wanted you to miss me as much as I missed you. Oh, perhaps I wanted to punish you just a teeny bit for leaving me without a word, but I think we’ve both learnt a lesson, haven’t we? And I’m here now. You’ve got what you wanted.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to come,’ Tess said steadily. She had been afraid of this meeting for so long, but after the initial shock of seeing him, she was calmer than she had expected. ‘I don’t want to be married to you any more.’

  ‘Theresa, this is crazy!’ His face worked with distress before he got hold of himself. ‘Look, why don’t we talk about this inside? I can see you’re pale. Aren’t you feeling well?’ He leant forward, all tender concern. ‘Your mother says you’ve been under a strain.’

  Thanks, Mum. Just what I needed.

  He looked so contrite, so anxious to please. A model for a loving husband come to woo his wife again. Of course they should go inside and talk in privacy. Then Tess thought about her cutlery drawer. She thought about the lingerie laid out in neat rows.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you inside.’

  ‘Is it because I was short with you on the phone the other day? Surely you knew that was only because I’ve been so upset? I don’t think you understand how much you hurt me by walking out like that, Theresa,’ he said plaintively. ‘I was gutted. I could hardly eat or sleep. I’ve been a mess.’

  In the past, Tess would have responded with automatic guilt but now she could look at him and think that he didn’t look a mess. He looked fit and as fastidiously neat as ever, and a wave of tiredness engulfed Tess. Resisting Martin’s will was exhausting. His presence sucked greedily at her energy until she was too feeble not to give in, but she wasn’t going to do that this time. She had to be stronger than him. She had to be strong like Nell.

  ‘I don’t want you in my home,’ she said, pleased with how calm she sounded.

  Something unpleasant stirred in Martin’s eyes, and was quickly veiled. He heaved a long-suffering sigh. ‘Then can we at least go and have a coffee or something? We can’t discuss our marriage in the street.

  ‘Please,’ he begged when Tess hesitated. ‘I know I’ve made mistakes, but all I want is for us to be together. A family again. I love you, Theresa. Please let’s at least talk. You can tell me what the problem is, and we’ll sort it all out, I promise.’

  Oh, he could be so convincing when he tried! Even when she was
on guard and determined to resist, Tess felt the tug of his words. To be a family again. To be loved. To talk. How could she refuse something so simple?

  Surely it would be possible to have a rational conversation now? She wanted to be civilized. She would make Martin understand that their marriage was over. She could reassure him that she didn’t want anything from him. No alimony, no child support. It would be better than antagonizing him. And what could he do to her in a cafe? If the worst came to the worst, she could get up and walk away.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘A coffee.’

  There was a tea room on the first floor of the china shop opposite. It was popular and they had to queue on the stairs for five minutes before they were shown to a table by a window looking down on Stonegate. Martin didn’t like to be kept waiting. His smile grew strained, and Tess could see the warning pulse throbbing in his neck. Her stomach tightened but she bit back the urge to apologize the way she would have done before. She didn’t need to placate him, she reminded herself.

  As soon as they had ordered, Tess pushed back her chair again. Instantly, Martin’s hand shot out to clamp hers to the table.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the loo,’ she said evenly. ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘But we’ve just got here,’ he protested, not letting go.

  ‘And I’ve been out all morning. I’m not going anywhere, Martin. I’ve said I’ll have a coffee with you and I will.’

  Reluctantly, Martin released her hand. ‘Hurry back,’ he said with a smile that chilled her. ‘I’ve missed you so much, I can’t bear to be apart another minute.’

  Tess felt his eyes on her back as she made her way to the cloakroom. Slumping back against the cubicle door, she fumbled for her phone.

  Luke answered on the third ring. ‘Tess.’ He sounded brusque as always, but hearing his voice settled something inside her.

  ‘I can’t be long.’ Quickly she told him about Martin.

  He didn’t waste time exclaiming. ‘Do you want me to come along?’

  She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to provoke him. I just want him to go away!’

  ‘Look, have your coffee. He can’t do anything to you in the middle of a cafe. I’ll come over and wait outside your flat, so I’ll be there if you need me.’

  Tess felt better as she made her way back to the table. Martin was waiting for her with narrowed eyes but he relaxed when he saw her and he got to his feet to hold out her chair for her with an adoring smile. Tess saw two women on a neighbouring table look at Martin and exchange glances. It was obvious they thought he was an attractive man and were impressed by his chivalrous gesture.

  ‘At last!’ he said, reaching a hand across the table. ‘Let me tell you how much I’ve missed you, my darling.’

  Tess ignored his hand, kept her fingers linked in her lap to stop them trembling.

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ he demanded, hurt.

  Seeing Tess return, the waitress brought over two coffees and smiled as she set them down. ‘Can I get you anything else?’

  Martin ignored her. His manners were for show and not to be wasted on mere waitresses.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Tess stiffly. ‘We’re fine.’

  ‘Now,’ said Martin, ‘tell me what’s the matter.’

  Where could she begin? How could she possibly get through to him? Tess picked up her cup, holding it awkwardly between her throbbing fingers. Perhaps this had been a mistake.

  ‘Theresa, I don’t have a lot of time for this.’ Martin sighed, carefully patient. ‘I’ve got a number of important bids coming up and a government contract that has to be fulfilled . . . but –’ He held up his hand in a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘I get it. I haven’t been paying you enough attention. I’d have thought sitting down and talking would have been one option, but no, you had to make a big drama and run away as if I was some kind of monster!’

  ‘I tried to talk to you about things,’ Tess managed, setting her cup carefully in its saucer. ‘You wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘I’ve been under a lot of pressure at work.’ Martin again, his voice cool and calm. ‘You know how demanding my job is, Theresa. When the government wants a contract fulfilled, I can hardly tell them to hold on, I need to go home and listen to my wife, who has nothing to do all day but spend the money I’m earning, can I?’

  Temper boiled beneath Martin’s surface, and it took all Tess had not to cower as she had done so often in the past. The next moment he slid a smile over it, a magician’s hand smoothing over the turmoil so adroitly that she wondered if she had glimpsed it at all.

  ‘But I’m here now,’ he said with one of those lightning-quick changes of mood that had so often wrong-footed her in the past. ‘And I’ve got something for you that will make it all better.’

  A familiar, queasy sense of impotence gripped Tess as he pulled an envelope from his blazer pocket and pushed it across the table towards her.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Open it.’

  ‘Martin—’

  ‘Darling, please.’ He smiled boyishly. ‘It’s for you – well, it’s for us.’ Leaning forward, he grasped her hands before she had a chance to pull them away. ‘I know I haven’t been as attentive as I should have been of late, but you know I adore you. I need you.’ He tightened his grip as Tess made to tug her hands free. ‘We were meant to be together – do you remember you said that on our honeymoon? You said nothing would ever keep us apart. Well, it won’t. I won’t let it.’

  Tess felt sick. ‘Martin,’ she tried again, but he wouldn’t let her finish.

  ‘Open the envelope, darling,’ he insisted.

  She glanced around. The two women on the next table were eyeing her with open envy. Tess’s stomach pitched nervously. She couldn’t face the scene that Martin was more than capable of creating.

  Reluctantly, she nodded, and he released her hands. She opened the envelope and drew out a piece of paper, bond, thick and classy. Unfolding it with a sinking heart, she scanned the type. It was an itinerary for a luxury trip to the Maldives. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A second honeymoon!’ Martin laughed delightedly at her expression. ‘Three weeks in a luxury resort. Our own villa. Just the two of us. Will that be enough attention for you?’

  Tess raised her eyes from the paper to stare at him. His gaze was clear, bright, rinsed of understanding.

  ‘What about Oscar?’ she asked, numb with disbelief. It was all she could think of to say. Martin hadn’t mentioned his son once.

  He waved the issue of childcare aside. ‘Your mother can look after him.’

  He was serious, Tess thought in dawning horror. He really thought that she was playing games and holding out for him to spend money on her.

  ‘Well?’ Martin demanded, his face hardening at her lack of enthusiasm.

  Tess dropped the itinerary on the table. Her hands ached savagely as she wrapped them around her coffee cup to raise it unsteadily to her lips while she tried to think of what she could say to convince him that she was never going anywhere with him ever again.

  Nell raised the goblet to her lips and sipped the wine. It was well spiced and welcome on this cold spring day. Around her was the hum of women. The chamber was crowded with them and the air was stuffy and clogged with the scent of pomanders and wine and the faint milky smell of a new baby.

  It was Cecily Fawcett’s lying-in – her first. Cecily was nineteen, the same age Nell had been when she had married Ralph. Her husband, George Fawcett, was a draper nearly as wealthy as Ralph. His first wife had died a year since, and he had been quick to marry Cecily to be mother to his four children. Nell wondered what it was like for Cecily to be married to a man more than twenty years her senior. George was fat with a small pursed mouth and mean eyes, but Nell had to admit that Cecily didn’t seem unhappy with her lot. She was sitting up in bed in a smock of the finest cambric, simpering at all the attention.

  Well might she look pleased with hersel
f. She had given birth to a fine baby boy, named for his father, who was being passed round the women, who held him up and clucked approvingly. Nell had had her turn. She had stroked little George’s soft cheek with her finger and thought of Hugh, four years in his grave. He would have been seven by then. He would have been a sturdy, laughing boy.

  Would Ralph have been kinder if his son had survived? Nell wondered that sometimes. Not that he had ever been an easy man, but since Hugh’s death, the darkness in him had intensified. To their neighbours he was an important man, a godly man. They thought of him as sober and discreet. One day Ralph Maskewe would be Lord Mayor himself, they said, nodding knowledgeably. They didn’t see the savagery in his eyes at times. They didn’t feel the malevolence that shimmered in the air around him. They didn’t sense the beast prowling beneath the surface.

  But Nell did, and so did their daughter. Meg was eleven, a pretty child with Nell’s coppery brown hair and blue eyes that reminded Nell heartbreakingly of Tom. She was afraid of her father.

  Nell kept Meg out of Ralph’s way as much as she could. There had been no more babes, or at least none that had lived. Two miscarriages, and a son stillborn. Each had torn at Nell’s heart. Ralph blamed her for their deaths, and for the fact that Meg was the only child who had survived, and she a girl.

  Ralph despised females, of that Nell was sure. And yet lately she had caught him looking at their daughter in a way that chilled her to the core. She didn’t want to lose Meg, but she wondered if her daughter would be safer in service with another family.

  But how could she be sure that Meg would be safe elsewhere? The face some folk showed to the world was not always the true one. Nell knew that better than anyone.

  If Ralph touched Meg, she would kill him.

  Nell had quite decided on that. She stood in her still room often now and thought about how it could be done. The surest way would be to hide ratsbane in Ralph’s pottage if she could be sure no one else would eat it. She would hang, no doubt, but Meg would be safe. That would be enough.

  Or perhaps she shouldn’t wait. Perhaps she should kill him now? More and more often, Nell found herself considering the question quite seriously. She ought to have been horrified by how calmly she could contemplate a crime so heinous, but her sense of what was right had been beaten out of her by her years at Ralph’s mercy. If anything happened to Nell, Meg would be powerless against her father. Ice spilled through Nell’s veins at the thought. She could not risk it.