Who Loves You Best

by Tess Stimson

  “Quite the domestic triangle you have there,” she says lightly. “What with the stroppy nanny and tricky husband.”

  “Scylla and Charybdis.” I sigh again.

  “As long as Jenna’s the rock, and Marc’s the hard place,” Fran quips.

  “Don’t even get me started on—oh! At last!” I leap up as the locksmith’s van draws up to the curb. “I’ll get a spare set cut for you, Fran, so we don’t have to go through this again.”

  “Just give me Marc’s,” Fran mutters, scrambling to her feet.

  I pretend not to hear.

  “Of course I’m sure it was her,” I hiss into the phone. “I know what my own nanny looks like!”

  “What were they doing?”

  “What do you think they were doing, Fran? I just told you, she was kissing him! She had her tongue down his throat. And no, I don’t think she was giving him the kiss of life.”

  I hear the click of her lighter. “As long as he doesn’t get her pregnant.”

  “It’s not funny! The twins were there!”

  “I think they’ll survive the trauma.”

  “But she’s my nanny!”

  “And he’s your brother. It’s a bit complicated, I agree, but it’s hardly the end of the world. It’s not as if he’s going to marry the girl. Xan’s not the type to marry anyone.”

  This much, at least, is true. “Well, at least I know now why she’s been so stroppy recently,” I snap. “As Davina would say, she’s getting ideas above her station.”

  “Clare Elias, don’t tell me you think your mother’s right?”

  “Of course not,” I say uncomfortably.

  I’m not a snob. I’m not! I’ve always thought of Jenna as my equal. In many respects, she’s a lovely girl: honest, loyal, practical, and organized. Just the sort of girl Xan needs, in fact. I wish he would meet someone and settle down; it’d be the making of him. It’s just … not Jenna.

  I can’t help it: The thought makes my hackles rise. I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t mind Jenna being my equal when it’s my choice. But the idea of her as my sister-in-law … with as much right to walk into Long Meadow as me …

  I turn into Kensington Church Street and begin the search for a parking space. For once, the gods are smiling on me: Another Range Rover pulls out of a large space close to the restaurant and I nip quickly into it, to the annoyance of a virtuous hybrid coming the other way, and get out.

  Spotting Jenna in a heavy clinch with my brother had one upside: It distracted me briefly from my nerves.

  I stop walking. I don’t know why I’m here. What was I thinking?

  I look down at my unfamiliar high heels, the clingy wool dress that Jenna persuaded me into buying at the sale last week—“body-con,” she called it—the beaten silver bangles on my wrists. It’s not the kind of outfit I’d normally wear, though I have to admit it’s younger and sexier than anything else I own. But I have no business looking young or sexy. I shouldn’t have worn this dress, or these ridiculous heels. I shouldn’t have spent an hour on my makeup this morning, or had my legs sugar-waxed specially at the salon.

  I shouldn’t have come.

  I make up my mind to get back in the car and leave, to call him with some excuse about work or the children; but somehow, almost against my will, I find myself heading not back towards the car, but into the restaurant. I push open the glass door, and give my name to the painfully cool girl at the restaurant lectern, smoothing down my dress yet again as she leads me over to his table.

  He stands as I approach, but to my immense relief makes no move to kiss my cheek, or even shake my hand.

  “I thought you’d changed your mind,” he says.

  “I did,” I admit. “Several times.”

  Cooper nods shortly, as if confirming my right to dither.

  “I can’t stay long,” I warn.

  He glances around the restaurant, as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. “Do you want to stay here?” he asks brusquely.

  I chose this smart Kensington restaurant because it’s vibrant and busy, a place to see and be seen in. There was to be no question of a small, discreet Italian restaurant in an unfamiliar part of town. Any number of my friends were likely to be lunching here. I had my explanation ready: I was meeting Cooper for lunch, to thank him for his help over Poppy, for persuading Ella to look at our case. There was nothing underhanded or secretive about it.

  But Cooper looks as out of place as a wolf in a cage of parakeets. He doesn’t belong indoors, in this kind of gilt-and-gingerbread setting. There’s something wild and elemental about him. In his plain, fine-knit gray sweater and jeans, he makes all the other men in the restaurant, dressed in their expensive suits and flashy watches and hand-stitched brogues, look somehow effete and immature.

  I don’t actually like it here, I realize. It’s chic and stylish and the food is amazing. I’ve been here a thousand times. And I hate it.

  “No,” I say, my heart lifting with the unfamiliar freedom of being honest and pleasing myself. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go to the park.”

  He pushes past the waitress, ignoring her outraged protests. I follow him outside, tripping in the stupid shoes, trying to keep up with his long stride.

  Cooper stops suddenly. “Take them off. They’re not you.”

  If Marc had said that, I’d bristle with indignation. Instead, I meekly slip off my heels and stand on the dusty, dirty pavement in my bare feet. Cooper isn’t being arrogant. He’s not telling me what to do. He’s simply stating a fact. The heels aren’t me. The fashionable restaurant isn’t me. The designer clothes, London, Marc’s shiny, glittery rich friends, the expensive car, the nannies and cleaners and gardeners: None of it is me.

  We turn into Kensington Gardens and I savor the whisper of cool grass between my bare toes. We walk across the park, past children shrieking with laughter, towards The Orangery and Kensington Palace. For perhaps ten minutes we stroll without speaking, my heels swinging in my hand, and I realize with a sense of mingled shock and relief that I barely know this man, but would follow him anywhere. It has nothing to do with love, or even lust. Trust. I trust him. For the first time in my life, I can relax my guard. I know this is someone I don’t have to care for or worry over or look after; someone who will take care of me.

  “You sent me camellias,” I say, as we reach the edge of the grass and rejoin the path. “To the Victorians, that meant ‘My destiny is in your hands.’”

  Cooper stops. He digs his hands in his pockets, ducking his head so that I can’t see his face.

  “I came to England,” he says, “to see a woman. She … possessed me. I can’t explain. I didn’t know if I loved her or hated her.”

  Ella.

  Abruptly, he starts walking again. We veer left, towards the Round Pond, its brackish gray waters reflecting the overcast sky. Cooper is silent for so long, I think he’s forgotten I’m even here.

  He stops by a bench and sits down, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. I sit beside him, leaving a careful space of green slatted wood between us.

  “I didn’t realize it until I came here, but it wasn’t really about her,” he says. “A long time ago, I gave up something I cared a great deal about for my brother. I don’t regret it. I’d do it again. But my brother was the sort of man who didn’t care very much about anything.” He smiles wryly. “In a good way. He was laid-back. Live for today. Everyone loved him. No one more than me.”

  I think of my brother, his reckless disregard for consequences, for the normal ties of love and friendship and family, his easy, careless attitude to life.

  “People can only do that when someone else takes on their share of responsibility for them.”

  Cooper glances at me in surprise. “Yes.”

  “I envy my brother that.” I sigh. “I know I’m too uptight. I want to control everyone, everything. I didn’t ask to be this way. But someone has to be the responsible one.”

  “Have you eve
r let anyone else try?” Cooper asks.

  I open my mouth, and close it again.

  “I never let Jackson grow up,” Cooper says. “I’d gotten so used to taking care of things. I never taught him how to take care of himself.”

  “But—when he married—”

  “If your brother got married, would you stop worrying about him?”

  I shake my head.

  “Ella was the one thing Jackson ever cared about. He gave up everything to be with her: his country, his job. Children, too: She refused to have any. And then she threw it back in his face.”

  I pick up a scrap of stale bread from the ground, breaking it into pieces and throwing them, one at a time, to the ducks.

  “I thought I was angry with her, but it was Jackson I couldn’t forgive.”

  He lifts his head and looks directly at me for the first time. His cobalt eyes blaze with intensity. “I didn’t hate her. I think I knew that all along. And when I met you, I knew I hadn’t ever loved her either.”

  My mouth is suddenly dry. My stomach swoops and soars, as if I’m riding a roller coaster. The backs of my knees and neck prickle.

  “I’m going back to the U.S. tomorrow,” Cooper says, “and then on to Afghanistan for a feature I’m writing. I don’t know when I’ll be back in the UK. I would never want you to … betray—”

  “I couldn’t,” I whisper; knowing in that second that, oh, I could.

  I stay at work as long as I can, putting off the moment when I have to return to reality; to Marc. I won’t leave him, of course. There was never really any question I would.

  I shut myself in my office and look up the number of a marriage counselor my GP recommended, the last time I saw him for my headaches. I make an appointment for the twenty-eighth of June; a cancellation, the receptionist tells me. I don’t ask if the couple reconciled, or divorced. I put the phone down wearily, feeling as if I’ve just had a capital sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

  I’ve made the right decision, I think, as I drive home. Marc and I have two young children whose happiness depends on us finding a way around our problems. We owe it to them to do everything in our power to succeed. This is your life, I tell myself. For better or worse.

  I let myself into the cold, dark house a little after eight. For a moment, I wonder where everyone is, and then I spot a sliver of light beneath Marc’s study door.

  I push it open and switch on the light. “Here you are. What are you doing, sitting all alone in the dark? Where’s Jenna?”

  “She’s out. Another date with her mystery man. It’s lucky she was in when I got home—my key jammed in the bloody lock.”

  I fight a surge of anger, knowing she’s with Xan.

  “I told her she couldn’t take the night off.”

  “She’d already given Poppy her medication and put them both down for the night. Don’t worry, they’re perfectly fine. I just wanted to have some time alone to ourselves.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “There’s a couple of things we need to talk about, Clare. Why don’t you come in and sit down?”

  I don’t want to sit and talk to you. I don’t want to deal with your problems. I need to go away and think about what’s happened to me today; I need to think about Cooper.

  For better or worse.

  I suppress a sigh, and unbutton my coat. “I’d rather talk in the sitting room. I’m just going to get some tea. Would you like some?”

  “Another Scotch, please.”

  I fetch him his drink and make myself a cup of peppermint tea. I’m tempted to add a slug of something stronger, but some sixth sense tells me I’m going to need my wits about me.

  For a few minutes, Marc makes nervous small talk, clearly working himself up to tell me something. My nerves jangle as I sip my tea. Please God, not more financial losses. I’m not sure how many more hits we can take before I have to go cap in hand to Davina.

  He clears his throat portentously, and I steel myself. Here it comes.

  “Look, we both know things haven’t been good between us recently. We’re constantly at each other’s throats. I’m miserable, and I’m sure you are, too.”

  I hide my surprise. It’s not like Marc to venture onto emotional territory. “All right. Yes. It’s been difficult.”

  “We can’t go on like this. It’s not good for either of us, or for Rowan and Poppy.”

  Maybe … maybe this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. If Marc and I are able to start communicating, perhaps we can begin to make up some of the ground we’ve lost since the twins were born.

  “I can’t remember the last time we sat down and really talked,” I say gratefully. “We never seem to have a moment to ourselves.”

  He scowls. Before I know it, we’re back on the same old treadmill, covering the same old ground. My company. It’s always about my company.

  It’d be so easy to give up and slide towards divorce. I’ve seen so many women walk out of their marriages because things aren’t perfect, like divorce is a lifestyle choice, rather than a last resort. I can’t let that happen. I intend to fight for my marriage; for the twins, if for no other reason.

  Nervously, I tell Marc about the counselor. “I didn’t want to go behind your back, but I thought one of us had to do something. I hope you don’t mind. I’ve made an appointment for us on the twenty-eighth—”

  “Both of us?”

  “Well, yes. You can’t go to this sort of counseling on your own.”

  “I’m not talking about counseling, Clare. Christ! I’m talking about divorce!”

  My stomach goes into freefall. Divorce. Even though I’ve been thinking the word all day, hearing it said aloud, having it thrown at me when I’m least expecting it, disorients me more than I would have thought possible. My head fills with a buzzing sound, like a saw or a hornet, and for a few minutes I can’t take anything in.

  “Come on, Clare,” Marc says impatiently. “Don’t tell me this is a surprise. We’ve barely spoken, let alone had sex, for months. How did you think this was going to end?”

  “Is there … is there someone else?”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned.” He leans on the mantel with studied casualness. “What about you?”

  Even though I know the question’s rhetorical, that he cannot possibly know about Cooper, I blush. “Of course not.”

  His tone drops ten degrees colder. “I don’t want this to get messy. If we can agree to everything ourselves, without getting lawyers involved—”

  “But the twins are only six months old! They need us, they need a family!”

  Marc shrugs me off. His stony expression doesn’t change, even when I beg him to reconsider. How can he look at me with such dislike? How can he be so cold?

  It starts to sink in that he’s serious. He means it. He’s leaving me. He’s not even giving me a chance to defend myself, or state my case.

  How can he do this to me? How can he do this to our children?

  “—we can discuss your access to the children tomorrow, when we’ve both had a chance to calm down.”

  I look at Marc in shock. “What do you mean, my access?”

  “You can’t possibly think I’m going to give you custody.”

  I don’t understand him, this man I married. I don’t even know him. Who is this stranger, who looks at me with such contempt?

  What kind of parent does he think he’ll make? What kind of example will he set for his son? Pushing his face into mine, snarling and spitting, using his size and his sex to intimidate me. He doesn’t really want full-time care of the twins; he’d go mad with boredom in a week. This is just posturing. Deep down he’s a Sunday father, happy to play with them for an hour or two when they’re clean and good-tempered, and then hand them back when the real work starts. He has no idea what real parenting is, the commitment it takes. If he did, he wouldn’t be doing this. He wouldn’t be ripping all our lives apart.

  “You’ve made your choice,” Marc snaps. “You can keep your damn compan
y. But I’m keeping the kids.”

  No. No. No.

  I jump up, my fists clenched at my sides, forcing him to step back. I will not let this bastard, this playground bully, dictate to me like this. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear.

  “You. Will. Not. Take. My. Children.” I’m very, very clear about this. “I don’t care if I have to give up every single shop. I won’t let you take them away from me.”

  “You’re an unfit mother,” Marc sneers, retreating towards the door. “You abandoned your children, and now, when it suits you, you think you can claim them back.”

  I stand petrified with shock as he slams his way out of the house. He won’t be able to get back in, I think stupidly. He hasn’t got a set of the new keys.

  “Bloody good thing,” Fran says robustly, when she marches to the rescue twenty minutes later. She hands me a bottle of champagne. “The man’s an ass. About time you kicked him to the curb.”

  “Oh, Fran,” I sob, “what on earth am I going to do now?”

  “I’m afraid this isn’t going to be very pleasant,” Nicholas Lyon says. “Marc’s hired Stephen Morton to represent him. That means things could get very messy.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask warily.

  “Morton’s tactics tend towards the confrontational. I’m afraid he’s not beneath using private detectives”—he says the words as if the occupation is on a par with muggers and rapists—“to get what he wants.”

  “Detectives?” I give a nervous laugh. “I’m afraid I’m not nearly interesting enough to have any skeletons in the cupboard.”

  Nicholas doesn’t smile. “I’m afraid that doesn’t always matter. This isn’t a criminal court of law, Clare; you don’t have to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s more a question of the balance of probabilities. No smoke without fire, that sort of thing. Family law doesn’t deal with black and white, but with all those tricky shades of gray in between. There’s no right and wrong. Whatever happens, everyone loses; especially the children.”