by Lucy Dawson
That much I’m certain of, but as for the specifics, I don’t know if we actually managed to do it for more than a moment, or if he came… I don’t really remember any of the details at all.
I don’t tell Alice that last bit, of course. It’s a) too shaming, and b) I’m her big sister. ‘He was much drunker than I realized, too,’ I say instead. ‘When he went to go, I noticed we’d left the front door slightly open – that’s how far gone we both were.’
‘Oh God, Sophie!’ is all Alice can say.
‘I know,’ I whisper. ‘I know. He took off at 3 a.m. I’m not even sure how he got home. It was awful. We both woke up and just didn’t say anything. We couldn’t. We lay there, about as far away from each other as we could possibly get, and then he suddenly said out of nowhere, “I’m not making excuses, but Lou and I haven’t slept together since Tilly was born… But then I expect you know that already, don’t you?”’
‘Did you?’ Al asks, curious in spite of herself.
‘No! Lou doesn’t talk about that sort of thing with me. I knew she had a rough time having Tilly, but I had no idea they’d not had sex in three years.’
‘Jesus!’ Al says. ‘Poor guy! I mean, he’s still a complete shit, but, wow… That’s a long time.’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t have any excuse, do I?’
‘No,’ Alice says, after a pause. ‘No, you don’t.’
‘I’m disgusted that I can have done this to Lou, and Marc. When Lou wanted to start seeing Rich at uni – which was ages after we’d broken up – she came and asked me if I was OK with it, and said she wouldn’t start seeing him if I minded, because my friendship was more important to her.’ I hang my head. ‘I mean, yes, I was horribly drunk, but I know she wouldn’t accept that as any kind of excuse, and as for Marc…’
‘You’re not going to tell them, are you?’ Alice interrupts incredulously.
‘Of course not! Do you know the devastation that would cause? Rich and I agreed no one must ever know. I shouldn’t have even told you.’
‘So what happened with Marc the next day, then? You contacted him, I guess?’
‘No. He came round to the house that afternoon,’ I say quietly, looking at the engagement ring sparkling on my third finger. ‘Just turned up out of the blue – didn’t call first or anything.’ I take a deep breath. ‘He said he was so sorry for the last two weeks, he was very grateful for my understanding, and that I knew him well enough to know how stressed he’d been, that he really needed some space to properly work everything out, but he’d given everything a lot of thought. He could see where I was coming from, and he’d considered carefully what he was going to say to me next… And that’s when he went down on one knee.’
‘Bloody hell,’ says Alice.
‘I know. I felt absolutely…’ I stop and swallow. ‘I felt heartbroken, actually,’ I say, after a moment’s pause. ‘He explained how hard he’s found it to learn to trust someone again, that it’s not just him he has to think about, it’s the children. That they’ve already had to cope with so much…’ I look up, my eyes full of tears.
Alice reaches out and takes my hand very tightly. ‘Are you in love with Rich? You must be, or you’d never have let this happen. It’s completely out of character for you. Maybe that’s why you got so angry when you saw him flirting with the woman at the—’
‘Al, I’m not in love with him at all! It’s been twenty years. If we still had secret feelings for each other, they would have come out well before now. It was a unique set of circumstances and I know how indefensible this sounds, but… I really was just completely out of it.’
‘But you accept you might have said yes to Marc because you felt overwhelmed and guilt-tripped into it?’
‘Well…’ I feel exhausted all of a sudden. ‘Possibly, but…’ The letter is just sitting there over in my bag, on the other side of the room. ‘It’s certainly not something I can think about right now in any case, and—’
‘No, Sophie!’ Al cuts across me. ‘You don’t understand.’ She suddenly looks furious, muttering, ‘I knew it! I told him it was a bad idea.’
I stare at her, bewildered. ‘Told who… what’s bad?’
‘I have to tell you something. They’re all going to go crazy but I can’t not – particularly after what you’ve just said. It would be totally wrong not to.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I say slowly, for an insane moment thinking that she knows something about the letter. ‘Tell me what?’
Al takes a deep breath. ‘The party later,’ she says. ‘It’s not a birthday party. It’s a wedding. Your wedding.’
CHAPTER FIVE
I stare at her in disbelief. ‘What are you talking about? Of course it’s not a wedding.’
‘Marc said he wanted to do something really romantic for you.’ Alice looks at me, frightened. ‘He’s organized the whole thing.’
‘No,’ I say slowly. ‘You’re wrong. We can’t get married. He’s not divorced from Claudine.’
Alice nods. ‘Yes, he is. It came through last month. He called Mum, me and Imogen and took us out to dinner. He said he’d had an idea and wanted to know what we thought. He wanted to surprise you with a perfect wedding on your birthday. Imogen practically started crying on the spot. She was all, “Oh my God – that’s like something out of a movie”.’
‘But you can’t just book a wedding on someone’s behalf!’ I exclaim. ‘You both have to give your notice to marry in person to the registrar for it to be legal.’
‘That’s what Mum said too, but Marc told her you’d already done that. After you went to look at Goldhurst Park as a possible venue…?’
I remember the day she’s talking about instantly, and gasp aloud as I realize she’s right.
‘It’s perfect,’ Marc had said to the wedding co-ordinator, as I’d wandered around the art deco ballroom open-mouthed with delight. ‘Once we know what date we want, I assume we just put a deposit down?’
‘We’re already booked for the rest of this year and quite heavily into next, actually,’ she’d replied apologetically. ‘We do sometimes get last minute cancellations though, and I know it doesn’t sound terribly romantic, but if you’re certain you want to hold your wedding here, it might be worth applying for your licence now anyway. Just in case something comes up.’
‘Can you do that?’ Marc frowned.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said breezily. ‘You just tell the registrar’s you’ve got, say, the third of September booked here, or some other date. They grant your licence, which is venue specific, but then you can use it for any other date that comes up here for another year.’
It had sounded sensible, so we’d made our appointment at the registrar’s, only to be told that Marc needed to supply written proof that his divorce was concluded.
‘My ex-wife has agreed to proceedings,’ Marc said confidently.
‘I’m sorry,’ the registrar insisted. ‘We need the actual paperwork. I can go ahead and process Sophie’s application, but I’ll have to put yours on hold, Marc, until you can get the documents to me.’
‘Actually’ I remember aloud, ‘Shortly after that was when Marc told me Claudine had called off the divorce again. I didn’t bother to tell the registrar to cancel my application. To be honest, I just forgot about it.’
‘Well, Marc didn’t.’ Alice says bluntly. ‘When Claudine finally did give him the divorce, he checked, discovered yours was approved and just waiting in the system, and applied for his! You should have seen him – he was beside himself with excitement. By the time we had lunch he’d already got the date booked at Goldhurst Park, sorted a florist, auditioned bands… even looked at dresses for you.’
‘But he doesn’t have the first clue what size I am!’
Alice nods her head again. ‘Oh, yes, he does.’
I start to feel faint, and have to lean forward to put my head in my hands.
‘He sent out the invites last month. He’s got an RSVP at don’[email protected]. He’s i
nvited all of your friends. Imogen and I helped him do the guest list.’ Alice is confessing everything in a burbled rush. ‘He nicked your phone while you were asleep to get all their numbers—’
Jesus – I don’t even know who is in my contacts list. My mind has gone utterly blank. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
‘He’s asked Mum to book you in to have your hair and make-up done. He’s got the rings – the works. He’s organized it all. Lou’s helped him a lot too,’ she adds, wincing.
I sit up again and stare at the wall in front of me, on which is hanging a print of Klimt’s The Kiss.
‘I’m so, so sorry, Sophie,’ says Alice. ‘If I’d had any idea about you and Rich, I’d never have gone along with it. I mean, at first I said to Mum I thought the whole thing was a bit control-freaky anyway, to be honest, but then, as she said, Marc can’t help being all lawyer-ish and detail-obsessive, and like Imogen said, it’s not as if you hadn’t wanted to marry him at some point at Goldhurst Park anyway. Plus, you had such a massively shit time with that anal-retentive Josh, who practically wet himself if you so much as tried to hold his hand… Imogen said she thought you deserved a grand public gesture, and I thought, yeah, you know what, if her fiancé wants to show everyone how much he loves her, and give her a day she’ll never forget, that’s got to be a good thing, surely? He wants to just throw open the doors once you arrive for the “party”, and the aisle will be there in front of you…’
‘I’m getting married later today,’ I manage eventually.
‘Yes,’ she says, in a small voice. ‘It never occurred to me for a moment that you ought not to be marrying him, or that something was going on. You’d just got engaged! I—’
‘It’s not your fault. Where is Marc now?’ I ask, dazed. ‘Not in Berlin on business, I take it?’
She shakes her head. ‘He said that in case you rang him and got the international tone. He’s gone to France to get Isabelle and Olivier. I shouldn’t have gone along with it. I don’t know what I was thinking! You’re a grown woman, so why we have assumed that you—’
But I’m not listening to her, because everything is falling into place with a horrible, juddering thud. ‘So Claudine knows what’s happening later?’
‘Yes. Don’t worry, he’s done it all properly and discussed with her how to tell the children – all of that sort of thing. He said that when she realized you two really were going to get married, she just stopped fighting it.’
I stare at Alice incredulously. Someone like Claudine doesn’t just give up. This woman has spent the last seven or so months making my life as difficult as she possibly can. They honestly thought she’d roll over, just like that, while wishing Marc and me a lifetime of happiness together?
I am getting married in less than twenty-four hours and my fiancé’s ex-wife has sent me a letter that I am only to open in front of everyone I care about most.
‘I feel dreadful,’ says Alice. ‘What can I do to help? Is there someone you want me to call? Or should I just leave you to have a think about how you want to play this, and what you’re going to say to Marc?’
Don’t even think about not showing up.
I WILL find you.
I reach out urgently and grab my sister’s hand. ‘I don’t want you to tell anyone that I know about the wedding. It’s really important. It would kill Marc when he’s worked this hard. No one need be any the wiser that I knew all along.’
She looks shocked. ‘But you’re not going to go through with it? Sophie, you can’t! You slept with your best friend’s husband two months ago! I’m sorry, but that’s huge. It’s—’
‘And I’m going to need your help to make sure that no one suspects I know a thing. Not Imogen, not Mum – especially not Mum! No one, OK? Promise me?’
‘But you just admitted to me that you’re not sure you said yes to Marc for the right reasons!’
I look at her desperately. No wonder she’s panicking – I would be too, if the situation was reversed. But she doesn’t understand. I have to be there. I have no choice.
And she really doesn’t have anything to worry about. Claudine has no intention of allowing the ceremony to go ahead – that much is clear to me. She must be certain that whatever is in that letter, it is powerful enough to halt a wedding.
CHAPTER SIX
I lie in bed next to a fitful Alice, waiting for her to slip into deep sleep, my wide-open eyes staring up at the ceiling in the dark. Marc has arranged our marriage, and his psychotic ex-wife has just delivered a letter to my house via some thug who had pictures of my baby niece on his phone.
I don’t know how to process any of this.
What the hell is in that letter? I know Claudine wants him back – she’s made that clear enough on numerous occasions. She must be either poised to humiliate Marc, so that I will want to walk away, or it’s got to be something that she believes is going to make Marc refuse to marry me.
My heart stops.
Rich.
But how can Claudine know what we’ve done? I’ve never even met her, and she lives in France. Until tonight, I’d not told a single soul what happened.
Unless Rich told someone… But he wouldn’t have done. He has even more to lose than I do. Lou and the children are everything to him.
I glance across at Alice’s alarm clock, shining away in the dark. The neon face reveals it is 4.20 a.m. I have to know if he’s told anyone. I glance across at Alice, now peacefully sleeping, and very quietly, so as not to disturb her, I peel back the duvet and slide out of bed.
Picking my way around the obstacles on the floor of her room – an upturned hairbrush and discarded books among them – something else occurs to me, and I tiptoe around to her side of the bed to get her mobile, before padding towards the door and squeezing through the gap into the hall beyond.
In the sitting room, I flick the light on, push the door shut behind me and look around.
Alice’s flat is fairly chaotic: there is a spread-out pile of magazines on the carpet, mixed in with some unopened post and a pair of her kicked-off shoes, next to a discarded dirty plate and glass, but I spy her laptop next to the sofa on the rug. I pick it up, sit down and open the lid. As it starts to whir into life, I dial 150 on Alice’s mobile and, after a few automated selections, I get through to the lost and stolen option.
Someone asks me how they can help me with my account today – as if it isn’t 4 a.m. at all.
I’m about to say that my phone has been stolen, when I suddenly realize that this may trigger the need for a crime reference number, which will also mean reporting it to the police – and I can hardly do that without explaining the circumstances. ‘Hello, yes,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m calling because I can’t find my phone anywhere, and until I can – and on the off-chance that it might in fact have been stolen – can you put a block on it, please? It’s not the number I’m ringing from.’
I give them the first two letters of my password, which is Mum’s maiden name, and then they ask me if I want to block all incoming and outgoing calls on the SIM, or just all outgoing calls and messages, and do I want to put a block on the handset too?
‘Er, can you do all of it, until I find the phone?’ I don’t want that man to be able to see my messages. WHY didn’t I put a more obscure passcode on it than the first four digits of my date of birth? ‘No calls have been made since last night, have they?’ I ask, dreading the answer. But, surprisingly, they tell me the last number dialled was at half-past ten last night, which was me calling Marc to say goodnight, so perhaps the passcode has done its job after all.
I block everything and, once I’ve hung up, I turn back to the computer, which thankfully doesn’t require a password. I tap Facebook into the search and it comes up, already logged on as Alice.
My sister and I need to become considerably more security-minded.
I sign in as me instead, and then type ‘Richard Hendersen’ into the ‘Search for people, places and things’ box.
Rich’s pict
ure is a shot of him with the girls and Lou, taken on their last holiday in Spain. They are all smiling happily.
I hit ‘Message’. You haven’t said anything, have you?
Definitely no kisses. I frown and read it back. I’m not putting anything more than that. I have no intention of incriminating myself in writing, and if by some God-awful chance Lou were to see it, we could just about explain it away.
I sit back and stare at the screen. Well, there’s nothing more I can do now. I may as well go back to bed. Yet I hesitate, and type in ‘Claudine Dubois’ instead.
She’s changed her profile picture. This time, she’s in some over-sized comedy pink glasses, sipping a cocktail – the woman who hired someone to break into my house. I wouldn’t have the first clue how to go about contacting a professional like that. I presume you can’t exactly Google ‘hitman’. She obviously knows someone, who knows somebody else… Given that she works in a world that also encompasses yachts, private planes, very wealthy contacts and customers, I’m pretty sure the circles she moves in are used to operating at a level well above the law. Marc once told me how, when he hadn’t been with her for very long, one of Claudine’s bosses had invited them aboard his yacht for a day’s sailing in the south of France. Everyone was snoozing and sunbathing after a lunch prepared by the on-board chef when Marc got up to look for a loo – and witnessed the boss calmly slipping a laptop overboard into the depths of the sea, as the yacht cut majestically through the waves.
‘What did Claudine say when you told her?’ I’d asked, fascinated.
‘Um.’ He’d tried to remember. ‘I think she just said, “It happens.”’
I’d pulled a face. ‘Not if you’re a normal person. I wonder what secrets were on that laptop?’