I could not speak. Instead I shook my head, hot tears pricking my eyes.
The humidity clung to my skin as I walked out of the house one Saturday afternoon a few weeks later, leaving David in the swelling silence of the house. Turning right, I followed the road towards the Heath, the usual parade of dog walkers, men talking too loudly into their phones, bristling past one another, settling my nerves.
Lowering myself onto one of the benches at the top of Kite Hill, I gazed at London’s skyline, reduced to a distant smudge of lines and curves under a haze of grey to the east; to the west, a single turret protruded through a thicket of trees at the bottom of a valley.
I thought of Thomas, placing a hand at the base of my stomach, imagining the lives growing inside.
‘Would you mind?’
The voice was a pant. When I looked up, I saw that the woman was older than me, dressed in a neon-green vest top, a stretch around the clean curve of her belly, her flushed skin dewy with a light sheen of sweat. Catching her breath, she gave a pained smile as she leaned back onto the bench.
‘No, please …’
My eyes grazed the woman’s belly. She must have been a little further along than I was, five or six months perhaps, but she wore her pregnancy with such authority that it was as if it were her natural state.
I felt my spine straighten in response, pulling in my tummy as the woman stretched her arms out behind her head.
‘Bloody muggy, isn’t it?’
She took a long swig from a water bottle.
‘Really muggy.’
I pushed my hair behind my ears.
‘Especially in our condition.’
She paused for a moment as we both cringed.
‘Sorry, awful expression.’
I laughed, ‘Yes, it is.’
‘How far along are you?’
‘Three months.’
The woman’s eyes widened.
‘Twins.’ I gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I seem to have suddenly doubled in size …’
I smiled awkwardly, still unsure how to respond to the attention my new body was attracting. There were women who said their pregnancy made them feel sexy; mine made me feel like a toddler whose cheeks were constantly patted by strangers.
‘You look amazing. Twins? Wow. I mean, I’m still getting my head around one. To be honest, I was slightly panicking that it might be twins – it was IVF, so it wouldn’t have been uncommon, but … I’m Felicity by the way.’
She held out a perfectly straight arm.
I took her hand, enjoying the easy conversation, the way Felicity’s eyes lifted at the corners when she smiled. There was something attractive about her. Magnetic.
‘I haven’t really got my head around it myself yet. My boyfriend, he’s—’
I stopped myself.
‘Panicking?’
She spoke softly, taking another swig before offering me the bottle.
‘I’m fine, thanks … Sort of, yes.’
The woman nodded sympathetically.
‘To be honest it’s hard enough on my own. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I was trying to negotiate someone else’s feelings alongside my own.’ She smiled conspiratorially. ‘I’ve never been that great at compromise.’
‘You don’t have a partner?’
The woman shook her head happily.
I was about to reply when I felt my phone vibrate on my lap. Harry. How long had it been since we spoke?
I felt a surge of warmth running through my body as I held the phone in front of me, turning apologetically to Felicity.
She smiled, waving her hands dismissively, standing to stretch out her legs against the bench.
‘Not at all, lovely talking to you.’
I turned, pressing ‘answer’, faintly aware of her eyes following me down the hill.
CHAPTER 28
Anna
‘And how are things between you and David?’
‘Fine.’
There was no reason not to tell him about the change in David’s behaviour, except that to admit it would be to concede weakness.
Harry’s eyes moved around the bar as I adjusted my legs to alleviate the discomfort in my lower back.
‘Did you follow up on the information I sent, about the receipt?’
‘We’re working on that. That was, well, it was invaluable. And you’re sure no one saw you?’
The muscles in my abdomen contracted, and I winced.
‘I’m sure.’
There was a pause and then Harry nodded.
‘OK. Good. Great. And the tension you mentioned between Clive and Jeff, is there any more on that?’
I shook my head, quietly exasperated. It was only a couple of months since Greece and with David working all the time, Clive was rarely around.
‘Have you told him yet – Clive – about the baby?’
‘No.’
‘OK, good. Well, why don’t you set something up? Get Clive and Jeff together – Jeff’s David’s godfather – it makes sense. Get them together to make the announcement and take it from there … Jeff’s wife, you mentioned she likes a drink. Get her sloshed and see if you can get her to open up.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Well, it won’t take much encouragement, you can believe that. But actually, I think it’s Jeff who is the weak link. He’s a proper pervert, he practically threw himself at me in Greece. One smile and I imagine he’d tell me anything.’
‘Perfect.’ He nodded approvingly at me. ‘Great. I appreciate it, Anna, more than you know.’
‘We should have a dinner party.’
David was sitting at the kitchen table working on his laptop, which he closed as I walked into the room.
‘What?’
‘I’ve been thinking, and we should have a dinner party, to announce it.’
I placed my hand across my belly as a signal, working hard to keep my voice light.
‘We could invite your dad, and maybe Jeff and May too – they are your godparents after all.’
David watched me move around the table towards him, his eyes narrowing. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘David.’ My voice was hurt. ‘We’re having children together, don’t you think that warrants a celebration – at the very least a formal acknowledgement?’
There was something about his face then that I did not like. He paused, and after a moment I began to move away in frustration, but he grabbed hold of my leg with his hand.
‘I told you, I wanted to wait to tell my father in person. And yes, I think you’re right.’ His smile was tight. ‘Of course we should. It’s a great idea. I’m just … I’m having difficulty adjusting, if you want to know the truth.’
When I looked closer there was a sadness in his face and I gently placed my hand on his.
‘I thought you loved me.’
It was a cheap trick but it worked.
‘I’ve never loved anyone as much as you, you know that.’ The words should have settled me, but instead they sounded like an accusation.
CHAPTER 29
Anna
‘I was thinking of trying to get hold of Meg,’ I suggested a few nights before the dinner, which had been arranged to coincide with Clive’s fleeting return to town.
I was chopping vegetables in the kitchen, my back turned to the room, watching David’s reflection in the window as he sat at the table.
‘If you like. If you’re sure. After what she did … Well, it’s up to you.’
I did not reply, the sharp burn of chilli scratching the corners of my eyes. It was a relief, I suppose, the tone in his voice; the perfect excuse not to bother trying to track her down. In hindsight, perhaps I understood intuitively that being left in the dark was a far safer option than finding out the truth.
The chicken was bubbling in the pot as the doorbell rang, the night of the dinner.
I had been to the high street that morning, and taking inspiration from a proof I had been laying out at the magazine, the table was laid wit
h bowls of Middle Eastern-inspired salads, between sprigs of freesia and nigella stacked in slender blue vases.
‘David, are you getting it?’
After a few moments I called out again, but there was no answer.
Wiping my hands on the dishcloth and tossing it over the back of one of the chairs, I hurried to the door. The night air rushed into the house, whipping at my cheeks, for a moment throwing up my dress so that it billowed over the small bulge of my belly. Not that Clive noticed.
‘Anna, my dear.’
His face was illuminated under the light of the porch so that I could see the blood vessels around his cheekbones.
‘Welcome … to your house.’ I laughed awkwardly, stepping aside, feeling the friction against my flushed skin as he kissed my cheek. It was more than two months since Greece and his tan had deepened, so the contrast when he moved was startling; the strap of his Rolex sliding down to expose a flash of white flesh.
‘How was Bata?’ I asked without thinking, as I took his coat.
He looked back at me enquiringly, and my mind flitted back to Harry’s flat as we pored over the details of Clive’s business dealings.
‘Do you know Africa? You are a dark horse.’
My cheeks reddened and I turned, resting his coat over the curve of the bannister.
‘Me? God, no. Sadly. David mentioned it,’ I lied.
On cue, David emerged at the top of the stairs, his hair slicked impressively to one side. The white shirt, which was rolled casually at the sleeves, fitted him perfectly.
Something about him then, in the way he held himself, so perfectly poised, made me stop and watch him as he greeted his father, moving in, exerting a slight pressure on the older man’s back. With a passing sense of sadness I realised how far removed he looked from the boy I had met that first day on campus, nearly four years earlier. His entire demeanour had shifted in a way that I couldn’t put into words.
I was at the sink making last-minute preparations when Jeff’s reflection appeared in the window that ran along the far wall of the kitchen, overlooking the garden. I shifted my attention from the broccoli I had been arranging in the steamer and turned to face him.
‘I didn’t hear you arrive. Can I get you a drink?’
‘That would be lovely. White for me. I just wanted to apologise.’
His breath was sour. From the hall, I could hear May’s voice, talking to Clive.
I gripped the wine glass in my hand.
‘What for?’
‘Greece, the party, I was … Well, I was pissed and I think I might have been … Anyway, I hope I wasn’t offensive in any way.’
‘No need.’
My face was tightly composed, trying to read his expression. Had he really bought my story about mistaking Clive’s office for the bathroom? He had certainly been drunk enough, and something told me that Jeff was not one to register things that happened to other people. In his world only one person took centre-stage, and that was the one standing in front of me now, his ruddy cheeks glistening in the heat of the kitchen.
I was about to steer the subject towards Jeff’s work when Clive’s face appeared around the kitchen door.
‘There you are! Come and join us, for God’s sake, you two. Anna, you look like you could do with a drink.’
I struggled to catch David’s eye over dinner, the conversation firmly divided between the men at one end of the table, and myself and May – who, for all her loose-lipped conversation in Greece, was apparently not in the mood for conversation tonight – at the other.
Whatever tension David had referred to between his father and Jeff, back in Greece, had clearly eased, or at least efforts were being made to overlook it now as Clive retrieved a bottle of whisky from the back of the cupboards in the dining room, where my fingers had encountered it, months previously, while David was working late one night. It had been the only thing I could ever find offering any trace of Clive’s existence in the house; the furnishings and pictures had all obviously been down to Artemis.
‘I’ll get more wine,’ I said to no one, pushing my chair back, the legs grating noisily against the floor.
Opening the fridge, I saw the bottles I had put to cool had already been removed. Placing another two in to refrigerate, I moved to the drawer to the left of the sink and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. I had not smoked since I had found out I was pregnant, but the urge was suddenly overpowering.
Wrapping my cardigan around my shoulders, I stepped out through the French doors, carefully avoiding the sensor so that the garden light would not flick on, giving me away to the guests seated in the dining room, which no longer felt like mine.
This was not the evening I had had in mind when I suggested the dinner. It was not so much nerves I struggled to allay as a sense of deflation. All along I had been telling myself tonight was about getting to Clive and Jeff, a chance to procure whatever information I could, but now I realised maybe this was more than that. The fact that David was clearly so loath to share our news irked me in a way it should not rightfully have done.
I stubbed out my cigarette with the heel of the black suede ankle boots I had bought especially for the occasion using David’s card, the one he sent me out with to buy groceries, always encouraging me to buy whatever else took my fancy – in this case boots that, to my disappointment, he had not noticed.
The scent of cigarette smoke clung to me as I stepped back into the house. From the doorway to the living room it was clear the dinner guests were sufficiently distracted that I could slip up the stairs, unnoticed, to wash away the lingering smell.
Moving quickly towards the bathroom, I left the light off, grateful for the break from my own reflection, pressing toothpaste onto my toothbrush and working it around my mouth, the bristles sharp against my tongue.
Washing my hands and drying them on a towel on the rack, I rubbed a small amount of amber-scented hand cream into my fingers and my neck. As I turned to leave, I heard a noise on the landing, through the crack of the bathroom door.
I called out David’s name, quietly at first, testing my nerve. But it was unlikely that I would have missed the characteristic sound of his feet thundering up the stairs.
Holding my breath in the relative silence of the bathroom, I strained to catch another sound. From the living room downstairs I heard a roar of laughter, muted from this distance. Exhaling, I realised it was just my imagination. The combination of the wine and my pregnancy, perhaps, setting my nerves on edge.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow moving in the mirror, and then heard the creak of a floorboard. Instinctively, my hand moved to my pocket but my phone wasn’t there.
‘Hello?’ I spoke loudly now, before I lost my nerve.
‘Shit!’
The voice came from just in the hall, and as I pushed the door forwards, the eyes that stared back at me were wide with shock. It was only when she stepped back that I could place the face, recognition delayed by the absence of context.
‘Maria?’
‘Oh my God, Anna, I’m sorry, you scared me so much.’ A mortified smile moved across her face, brightening her already perfect skin.
‘What …’
There was an uneasy pause and then she blushed self-consciously.
‘I am so sorry. I … This is so embarrassing. I needed the bathroom, but I saw these pictures and—’
‘There’s a cloakroom on the ground floor you could have used.’ I cut her off, then wished belatedly that I had let her carry on. ‘But what are you doing here?’
‘I’m …’ She paused. ‘Wait, David didn’t tell you I was coming?’
I pulled the bathroom door firmly closed behind me.
‘I’m so sorry. He invited me a few days ago, I assumed you knew. And …’
She indicated the landing we were standing on, facing one another.
‘The truth is, I went to find the toilet and when I reached the first floor I glimpsed one of Artemis’ paintings up here and I thought I cou
ld just … I’m sorry, it must seem so rude. I just … I wanted to see them.’
We were interrupted by Jeff’s voice calling up the stairs.
‘Anna? Bloody hell, here you both are! We were about to send out a search party!’ His eyes were glistening. ‘Come down immediately, I have an announcement to make.’
I was still looking at Maria, but she was walking back towards the stairs, only turning briefly back to me, her face caught in shadow.
CHAPTER 30
Maria
They had been watching that night from across the street, I would discover later, their bodies slunk low in the front seat of a Mercedes, parked in the bay opposite, the tinted windows shielding them from view as David opened the door to the house.
Would they have seen his face from where they sat; would they have noticed it change as he saw me there on his doorstep, for the first time? Of course, it wasn’t me they were interested in back then. It would be a while before I caught their eye. For now, they were simply watching it all play out. Biding their time.
It was just a meal, that is what I had told myself. Good food and an evening away from the flat. Besides, it was my first night off in as long as I could remember from the 24-hour burger bar on a dank stretch of pavement around the corner from my flat, and what did I have to lose?
From the look in David’s eye when I walked into the house, it was as if he had not expected me to come, after all. Perhaps that was unsurprising. The phone call had been brief; he must have heard the reticence in my voice.
I had been drying my hair when the phone rang on the bed.
‘Hello?’
There was a portentous silence and I felt my eyes strain, willing the voice on the other end of the line to speak.
‘Maria?’
‘Yes.’
I did not recognise him at first, though in hindsight it was hard to imagine who else it might have been. It was not as if I had had time for socialising since moving to London. My study workload alongside my schedule at the burger bar meant there was never any time even for talking to other students. Aside from snatches of conversation with my fellow workers, whose broken English allowed for little beyond communicating orders of refried chips and limp chicken nuggets to one another with only a degree of certainty, there was no one in the whole city I could really call an acquaintance, let alone a friend.
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