‘Let’s do it here.’
David lifted himself onto his elbows, his eyes narrowing suggestively.
‘You know you never need to ask …’
‘Ssshh, not that.’
I laughed back, seeing something in him I had not seen for months.
‘I mean, let’s get married now.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t want to wait.’
I held his eyes, not smiling any more.
‘I just think it makes sense. We’re here, and I mean I literally couldn’t think of a better place to marry. The girls are here, and your father …’
His face was unreadable. ‘But what about our friends? Your dad?’
I pushed myself to one side of the bed, positioning myself against the pillow next to him.
‘To be honest, I don’t even know if I’d want him there … You know, he hasn’t even bothered coming to see the girls, or to meet you. Honestly, he’s never really been that interested in my life.’
Pausing, I held my breath, letting David adjust to the idea.
‘And the truth is, I just want to marry you. It’s not about anyone else. I love you, and being here, away from everything, it’s given me time to think. About what I want from life. I just don’t see the point in waiting.’
When I turned to look at David again, lines had formed at the edges of his eyes. He took a moment before replying, nodding his head.
‘OK, let’s do it.’
I moved closer towards him.
‘Really, are you sure? You’re not disappointed?’
He turned to face me, and I saw it then, a flash of love tinged with hope, and something else I couldn’t read.
‘Why would I be?’
CHAPTER 42
Anna
We had only been in the Maldives twelve weeks and yet in that time everything had changed. By the time we returned to London – a shiny new backdrop waiting for our return in our new status as husband and wife – not a trace of our old life together had been left intact. Downstairs, the kitchen shone with glass and marble, floor-to-ceiling doors revealing a garden transformed into the scene I had always craved: forget-me-nots sprinkled across a bed of freshly laid turf, borders brimming with crocuses and tête-à-têtes, twinkling under a blue sky.
It wasn’t until you got closer that you would notice many of them had been killed off. It had been an early spring that year, the kind that fooled Mother Nature into believing it was safe, before a killer frost set in, wiping out swathes of frogspawn and blooms that had prematurely come to life in feeble patches across the city.
Even after having pored over the plans for months in advance of the building work, there was something disorientating about the absence of walls between the living room and the kitchen, once I saw it in person. Upstairs, David made me close my eyes as we approached the family bathroom. As I opened them, the words dissolved on my tongue as I spotted the new freestanding bath, which now stood centre-left, the cleaning cupboard that for so long had harboured my secrets having been wrenched from the walls, all traces of its existence filled in and finished in a pewter grey.
David’s voice was close to my neck as I surveyed the scene, pushing away the sense of unease that crept like fingers inside my stomach.
His voice seemed to have read my mind. ‘I’ve had them move all your things into our new en suite. No more having to fumble around the house in the middle of the night.’
In September that year, I finally returned to work. Despite the girls having turned nine months, and Maria’s unwavering presence in their lives, David could not fathom my desire to leave them.
‘I’m still not sure why you’re going back. I mean, for God’s sake, I’m earning enough and the girls … they need their mother.’
I appraised my outfit in the full-length mirror the builders had installed in the sparkling new dressing room David had added to the architectural plans, along with a few more additions to surprise me on our return home, a couple of months previously. Keeping my eyes locked on my reflection, I said nothing, though I knew my excitement at my imminent return to the office shone in my eyes.
‘If I’m honest, I’m worried that you won’t cope. The drugs you’re on, Anna, they … Well, I worry they affect your judgement sometimes. You will have a team relying on you, and your memory. It’s …’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Oh, come on,’ David’s tone was placatory. ‘I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know – I’m not being cruel, Anna, I’m saying it because I love you and I care about you. I care about you pushing yourself too hard, so soon after … Well, you know as well as I do how hard things have been.’
His eyes took me in, noting how the former swell of my belly had settled into a gentle curve, imagining, perhaps, the spray of faint silver scars that ran across the surface of the skin, my breasts reduced to two tiny mounds under a soft silk shirt, my hair pulled loosely away from my cheekbones.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. ‘Well, maybe I’m thinking of stopping them, maybe I’ve realised I don’t need them any more.’ I stood taller but I felt light-headed.
‘Anna,’ his tone switched, and he took a step forward. ‘For God’s sake. Please tell me you’re joking … Anna, look at me. That medication, it’s not perfect – I know how hard this has been for you, how you’ve struggled since the girls – but if you stop the pills now, things will be a lot worse. Please, Anna, remember what the doctors said. OK? I will not let you ruin …’
His sentence was cut off by the sound of his phone, a faint drone calling out from one of the rooms downstairs.
As if too pained to look at me, he turned on his heels and walked out of the room.
He had made himself scarce by the time I made my way downstairs where the girls were lying on their stomachs on the new cream rug in the kitchen, in front of the doors out to the garden. Maria, who had been steaming vegetables for the girls’ lunch as part of her carefully plotted weaning plan, looked up at the sound of my footsteps.
Her face broke into a smile when she saw me.
‘Anna, you look beautiful.’
‘Maria, are you sure you’ll be OK?’
I hovered in the doorway, knowing full well I was as much use to the girls here as I would be at the office.
‘Please, go, enjoy your first day! David is working from home, so if I need anything …’
I nodded, grateful for her reassurance, breathing deeply as I stepped out of the front door, the space rolling out in front of me as I made my way down the steps.
CHAPTER 43
Maria
Something changed in her, that holiday. Her movements, once languorous, had become lighter somehow, as if the wedding had buoyed her.
To the untrained eye, you might have believed it, if you had seen them there, the two of them, hands outstretched towards one another on the beach, David’s white suit complementing the white silk sundress Anna had shipped in from Italy for the occasion, the pair of them barefoot. The girls, in matching bonnets, held by Clive and me, their only witnesses.
You might have believed, and I might have too, to see them now, back at home, the lightness passing between them. You would have been forgiven for believing everything was going to be OK, after all.
Except, of course, I knew better.
When I looked at Anna, I saw a woman driven by self-destruction; a woman who hated herself so much, she was compelled to ruin any chance she had at happiness.
CHAPTER 44
Anna
My return to the office had been marked by admiration and praise from Clarissa, whose levels of impeccable glamour seemed to have escalated, if that were possible, during my absence.
‘My God, I can’t tell you how delighted we are to have you back,’ she had exclaimed that first morning after my return, as the lift doors opened onto our floor. ‘And you look extraordinary, so bloody thin! The virtues of being so young, I suppose.’
Faces lif
ted, breaking into short-lived smiles as I followed her through neat rows of desks, past Features and the picture desk towards my new desk in front of her glass office.
David, it transpired without any attempt at disguise, did not share my boss’s enthusiasm towards my journalistic progress. Rather, he interpreted my commitment to life outside the home as further proof of my inferiority as a mother. A slight to our family.
While his refusal to support me in my impressive rise through the ranks irked me, there was something reassuring, too, about him wanting more of me for himself. His possessive love for me, which had repelled me in those early days – the sense that he wanted me too much for me to give myself to him – comforted me now. It strengthened the stability, the sense of security, that life with him provided.
Even so, the mood between us gradually settled into semi-cordial indifference. There were the occasional moments of tenderness, still, which would creep up on us before we had the chance to question them; a shared look as Stella and Rose mouthed their first words, or his hand on my back as he passed behind my chair. But as soon as either of us became aware of them, there would be a mutual self-consciousness and our eyes would fall away to something less binding.
By the time the following summer came around, we had become little more than cohabitants of a shared space, two people joined together by a common history, rather than conspirators in a present life.
‘Everything OK?’
I had walked into the kitchen to find him at the table, his eyes passing between his laptop and a leather-bound notebook that I didn’t recognise.
‘Yes, fine. Just trying to book these flights for Dad and the fucking system keeps crashing.’
‘What flights?’ I held my glass under the filter tap, before drinking and then refilling it once more.
‘Just work stuff … He can run a company but he can’t work out how to book bloody flights.’
It was the first time I had heard David talk about his work in relation to his father’s company. It was another in a mounting line-up of questions I hadn’t dared ask myself. What was it exactly that my husband did for a living now that he was part of the firm, and how complicit was he in his father’s dealings? Words that were safer left unuttered.
Yet, while David being part of this was something I would rather put out of my mind, it would be foolish to suggest it didn’t suit the plan. The greater access David had to his father’s business, the greater I had too.
‘Surely it’s not your job to be booking his flights. What about his secretary, Moira, isn’t that her name?’
‘Hmm?’ He looked up distractedly. He was wearing a pair of glasses I hadn’t seen before.
‘When did you get those?’
‘What?’
‘Those glasses?’
He half-smiled. ‘Are you serious?’
I shrugged, by way of confirmation that I was, and he looked back at the computer screen, shaking his head. ‘About two months ago.’
‘Oh, come on.’
He flicked his eyes up only for a second but his look said everything.
Two months? Surely I would have noticed. Though it was true we had both been working so much that we rarely seemed to see each other these days, David often getting home after I went to bed, and me leaving before he woke.
I was grateful when David resumed our previous conversation. ‘Yeah, well, it’s not, but sometimes it’s like I’m his bloody skivvy.’ He paused for a moment and then continued. ‘He’s being a bit, I don’t know, paranoid. Moira’s off for a week and he says there’s no one else in the company he fully trusts. So he’s given me his diary and—’
I laughed. ‘His diary? What year is it? Surely he doesn’t keep a paper diary.’
‘He’s nearly seventy, Anna. How many people of his age do you know who trust a computer more than a piece of paper?’
‘Fair enough.’ I kept my voice casual as I walked towards him, carrying a glass of water, which I set beside him, giving myself the opportunity to cast my eyes over the book.
‘That’s for you. It’s really hot today.’
‘Thanks.’
‘So he keeps all his dates in that diary and he expects you to go through and book his flights for him?’
‘Nothing gets past you, does it?’ His tone was mocking and I nudged him with my elbow.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ From the hallway, David’s phone was ringing in his briefcase. ‘That will be Jeff. We’re supposed to be having a meeting later ahead of the annual review. As if I haven’t got enough on my—’
‘I’ll do this.’ I held his eye as his brow furrowed slightly.
‘No, it’s fine, I can—’
‘Honestly. David, look …’ I sat on the chair beside him and caught his eye, softening my gaze so that for the first time in a long while we were on the same level, looking at each other, our bodies almost touching. This time neither of us made to move.
I resisted the urge to reach out and touch his hand, measuring my movements carefully. ‘You’re up to your eyeballs. I have the day off; let me help. Please.’
For a moment I sensed him swallow uneasily and once again I wondered how much he knew about the secrets his father’s diary could reveal, in the wrong hands. But then he nodded, a strained smile forming on his lips. After all, whose hands would be safer than his own wife’s?
‘Well, if you’re sure. That would be amazing. That means I can head straight into the office. The flight details are all selected on the screen, I just have to input the passport details, which are just there …’
He pointed to a piece of paper that had been inserted into the Smythson journal.
‘And then you’ll need to pay. You can use my business card.’ He dropped a matt black credit card on the table in front of me.
For a moment he paused and I thought he was going to add something, but then he nodded to himself and walked towards the hallway.
‘What time are you back?’
‘Not until this evening. Maria’s taken the girls out.’
He shut the door behind him before I had time to reply. As the lock clicked, I exhaled, my body loosening, my pulse suddenly rushing as if being released from a cell.
Waiting five minutes, in case David should have reason to return to the house, I took the stairs two at a time to the cupboard in my bedroom. Slipping my second phone into the pocket of the burnt-orange silk pantaloons I had paired with a cotton T-shirt, I headed back downstairs.
Instinctively looking behind me, towards the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that lined the back of the house, my fingers shook as I lifted the phone above the pages of Clive’s diary, the camera silently capturing the private minutes of my father-in-law’s life.
CHAPTER 45
Maria
The heat in London was oppressive in a way that reminded me of Athens. Even the sound of the car horns seemed to expand under the glare of summer in the city.
It was a Friday afternoon and I had spent the morning with the girls in the lido on the Heath. A few months from their second birthdays, they had taken to the water with varied enthusiasm, Stella plunging herself with the full weight of her body into the deepest area she could find while Rose held back, squealing with horrified pleasure as the water rose to her knees.
We ate our lunch on the verge of grass opposite the lido, watching a group of lethargic schoolchildren on the running track that stood to its left.
For once, neither girl offered resistance as I lifted them one by one into the double buggy and pulled the sun-shade down. Before we had even reached the gate back towards South End Green, both children were asleep.
It was a struggle to heave their weight up the flight of stairs that led to the house, but I had perfected the skill and made no sound as I turned the key in the lock. It was only once I had pushed the girls quietly over the threshold, so as not to wake them, that I spotted Anna, immersed in something at the kitchen table. Parking the buggy in the cool shady hallway, I removed the sun-shade
and then made my way towards the kitchen.
When Anna looked up, it was as if she had seen an apparition hovering in front of her. With a yelp, she jumped back, her hand rising automatically to her chest.
‘God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you …’ I raised a hand by way of placation and she shook her head.
‘Maria, it’s you. You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought … David said you were …’
She was moving uneasily, edging away from the computer, and beside it a notebook of some sort, which was open on the table.
‘It was so hot, and the girls are sleeping, so I thought this afternoon we would play here, if that’s OK. Or …’
As I moved towards the sink to pour myself a glass of water from the ridiculously high-tech system, I noticed Anna’s phone on the counter. Turning again, I noticed her hand dropping in a bid to stop me spotting the other phone she was clutching with a tight fist.
Working hard to pretend I hadn’t seen, I lifted my glass to my lips.
‘Sorry, you’re obviously working in here. I’ll go up to my—’
‘No, no …’ Her voice was a shield. ‘It’s fine, I was just helping David with something for his father …’ She cast her hand towards the table and my eyes rested momentarily on what I realised was a diary.
‘He needed some flights, but I’m done now. All yours.’
She smiled and if I didn’t know better I might have believed it.
Only once her footsteps had faded and I heard her bedroom door close did I move towards the table and open the diary.
CHAPTER 46
Anna
‘I’m taking you out for lunch,’ Clarissa announced one autumn morning, leaning out through the door of her office.
I had taken to my new role with a trepidatious conviction, treading lightly along the delicate line between competency and deference, alert to any signs that I was overstepping the mark. Features Editor was a very different prospect to Assistant, and the lines were even more important to observe.
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