‘Only what?’
‘I messed that up as well,’ she said. ‘I made poor choices. I’m trying to get over them. But today – tonight – reminded me of how damn silly they were and how stupid I am too.’
‘You’re not stupid, and everyone makes a silly choice at some time,’ said Oliver. ‘The thing is not to let it ruin your life. As your maman used to say to me: always look on the bright side. Count your blessings.’
Hearing him repeat Carol’s words, exactly the way she used to say them, brought a rush of tears to Imogen’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ said Oliver. ‘I shouldn’t have … Don’t cry, Genie, please. Look, something’s obviously gone wrong for you and naturally you’re upset. Maybe I can help. Is there anything I can do?’
‘No. No. I’m fine,’ she said, brushing her tears away as he looked at her in concern. ‘I’m being incredibly silly, Oliver.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘I totally am.’ She spoke firmly. ‘Please forget I said anything.’
‘Genie …’
‘Thank you for a lovely day. Goodnight, Oliver.’
‘It’d be nice to do it again.’ He spoke gently. ‘But for pleasure next time. Without me using you as our free entertainment consultant! We could go a little further. Bilbao perhaps, that would be nice. Or maybe Biarritz for a day – do you remember we went there with Mum and Dad when we were kids? It’d be fun. What d’you think?’
‘I think you were very kind to bring me today,’ said Imogen. ‘But I don’t need you to make up jobs you consider suitable for me out of some misguided sense of sympathy. I can look after myself.’
‘Imogen …’
‘Goodnight, Oliver,’ she said.
He looked at her intently for a moment, then gave her an easy smile. ‘Goodnight, Genie.’
She walked up the pathway and unlocked the door of the building.
She didn’t look back.
Chapter 35
She hurried up the stairs and fumbled with the lock on the apartment door. She was close to tears again, and angry with herself because of it. She wished fervently that she hadn’t gone anywhere with Oliver Delissandes today and that she hadn’t met his mother either. She wished she didn’t feel so lost all of a sudden, as though the Plan was unravelling around her.
She opened the door and walked into the living room. She blinked in surprise as she realised that the standard lamp in the corner was illuminated. And then she stood perfectly still, transfixed by the shock of seeing him there.
‘Sweetheart.’ Vince got up from the chair he’d been sitting in. ‘I’m so glad I’ve found you at last.’
She couldn’t speak. Even as he stood in front of her, she doubted the evidence of her own eyes. He’d found her. Against the odds. Despite the Plan.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Nothing to say to me?’
She remained silent.
‘No apology for all the stress you’ve caused me? For the time I’ve had to spend looking for you?’
She stared at him.
‘Not even a “pleased to see you”?’
‘How …’ She cleared her throat and formed the words with difficulty. ‘How did you get into my apartment?’
‘Your apartment?’ he looked around. ‘Yours, Imogen?’
‘I live here.’ Her voice was strangled.
‘You live with me in Dublin,’ he said. ‘And I’ve come to take you home.’
‘How did you get in?’ she repeated.
‘Your neighbours,’ he told her. ‘The two girls next door let me in.’
Imogen closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the day, just after she’d first moved in, when the twins had been locked out of their apartment. She’d allowed them in to hers, and then Nellie had climbed precariously from her balcony to theirs and got in through the open patio door. Imogen had been so traumatised by the potential for the young Australian to plunge to her death that she’d immediately insisted on keeping a spare key. They’d done the same for her. It had seemed a good idea at the time.
‘They were delighted to discover that I was your boyfriend,’ said Vince.
‘Boyfriend?’
‘Well, they might not have let me in if I’d said husband,’ Vince told her, his voice calm and reasoned. ‘In case you’d spun them some kind of story about leaving a man who didn’t understand you. When the truth is I understand you only too well. Anyway, I told them I’d arrived as a surprise, and when you still hadn’t come back after I’d gone for coffee, they were happy to let me in. I showed them photos of the two of us on my phone to prove that I was one of the good guys.’
Imogen heard his words but wasn’t truly listening. She was asking herself what she’d done wrong. How he’d discovered she was in Hendaye in the first place.
‘You led me on a merry dance around France,’ he said, as though she’d asked the question out loud. ‘Paris. Montpellier – a good one that, Imogen – Marseille. Here.’
‘How?’ she asked him finally. ‘How did you find me?’
He took the printed photo of her and Gerry out of his pocket and handed it to her.
She stared at it in disbelief.
‘Where did you see this?’ she asked.
‘TripAdvisor,’ he said.
She felt sick. She hadn’t wanted Samantha to take the damn photo in the first place, but she’d comforted herself with the fact that she couldn’t be tagged in it and that Sam was a random stranger. But there were no random strangers on social media. Everyone was fair game.
‘So who is he?’ Vince’s voice hardened.
‘Nobody,’ she said. ‘The husband of the woman who took the photo. They were on holiday.’
‘And you forced yourself into their company.’
‘They asked me,’ she said.
‘They probably felt sorry for you,’ said Vince. ‘Thinking that you didn’t have a man in your life.’
She said nothing.
‘Despite the trouble and expense and heartache you’ve put me through, I forgive you,’ Vince told her. ‘Now get your stuff. We’re going home.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Don’t mess with me,’ he said. ‘I’m giving you another chance.’
‘I don’t want another chance from you,’ she said. ‘I came here to get away from you. I’m not coming back.’
‘Of course you’re coming back,’ said Vince. ‘You’re my wife and you belong by my side.’
‘No,’ she said again.
‘Don’t try my patience,’ said Vince. Then his voice suddenly softened. ‘Look, I know you’ve been upset lately. I know you hoped you might be pregnant …’
‘That’s utter nonsense,’ she said. ‘Even though you say it to people all the time. I don’t want a baby, Vince. And neither do you.’
‘Let me be the judge of what I want,’ he said.
‘I know exactly what you want,’ she said. ‘You want me in your life and following your rules. You want someone to order around. You want to control me, Vince, but that’s not going to happen any more. You don’t love me and I don’t love you. And I’m certainly not coming anywhere with you.’
‘How can you say that?’ asked Vince. ‘When I’ve spent the last two weeks searching for you.’
‘Wanting me back isn’t the same as loving me,’ she said.
‘Of course I love you,’ said Vince. ‘You know I do. And I know you love me too, no matter what you’re saying now. So sit down and let’s talk about this like grown-ups.’
She shook her head.
‘I’m not sitting down,’ she said. ‘And you have to leave.’
‘Listen to me, darling,’ said Vince. ‘I accept that something I’ve said or done has upset you. And I’m upset too. I admit that I was very angry with you. Furious, in fact. I’m still a bit angry, there’s no point in denying it. I still can’t believe you’d walk out without talking to me first. But no matter who’s right and who’s wrong in this scenario, we’re husband and wife a
nd we do love each other. This is a blip.’
‘I tried,’ she said. ‘I tried to do everything you wanted the way you wanted, but it was never enough. You kept changing the goalposts. I was always in the wrong.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Vince. ‘I agree I might have been a little bit compulsive about some things. I accept that. But I didn’t blame you for everything.’
‘You always blamed me!’
‘If it seemed like that, I’m sorry,’ said Vince. ‘Maybe I need to look at myself a bit more.’
‘A lot more,’ said Imogen.
‘You see.’ He smiled at her, the smile that had once beguiled her, gentle and understanding. ‘It’s all about adapting and making it work.’
‘I made it work,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who followed the rules. Who made sure that everything was where it should be. Who cooked the right meal on the right night. I’m the one who had to adapt all the time.’
‘It’s unfortunate if you feel that’s the case,’ said Vince. ‘I didn’t realise it was bothering you so much. You should have said something.’
‘I did!’ cried Imogen. ‘But every time I opened my mouth, you made me feel as though I was being ridiculous. You told me that we needed the rules. You told me it was for my own good. You told me how you wanted me to dress. You messed up my relationship with my family.’
‘Your family?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You used to say that I was all the family you needed. You called the others the peripherals. And when we met, you hadn’t spoken to them in months.’
She looked shamefaced. ‘That’s true. Though I never meant Agnes and Berthe when I said that. But you’re right about Kevin and Paula and Cheyenne. Boris too. I said some horrible things about them and I was wrong. They were the closest thing I had to family, after all.’
‘Until I came along,’ said Vince.
‘And you stopped me from talking to them.’
‘You’re exaggerating,’ said Vince. ‘I never stopped you from talking to anyone. You told me that you were glad you didn’t have to interact with Cheyenne and your stepfather any more. You were happy to walk away from them.’
‘At the time I was,’ she admitted. ‘But that was my problem, not theirs.’
‘Look.’ Vince walked across the room and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘We’ve made mistakes, both of us. We got it wrong. We need to make it right. And we can do that together. Because we belong together, Imogen. You belong to me. You know you do.’
She closed her eyes. She remembered when she’d first met him, when he’d persuaded her to have a coffee that she’d never really wanted, when he’d walked her to the bus stop even though she’d said she was fine on her own, when he’d given her his umbrella to protect her from the rain. She’d thought he was pushy and not really her type, but in the end she’d fallen for him because she was sure that everything he did was out of caring for her so much. And she had to accept some of the blame too. She was used to doing what other people wanted. At the start, Vince had treated her like a princess. A piece of fragile china. He asked her opinion on everything and it took her a long time to realise that what she thought was irrelevant. And in the end he chipped away at her self-confidence by constantly pointing out the mistakes she’d made and the rules she’d broken so that she began to believe that she truly would be hopeless without him.
It was only after Cheyenne’s wedding that she realised she had to escape before she lost herself completely. So she’d begun working on her escape route. And she’d succeeded.
She’d got here and she’d got a job and she’d made friends and she was living a happy life. She thought about René, and how he treated her as a rational, sensible woman. And Max, who was always helpful. She thought about Céline, who’d become a good friend. And Oliver, with whom she’d spent such a lovely day, even if she’d messed up at the end. But she didn’t feel hopeless about that. Just annoyed with herself for being silly. She thought about Lucie Delissandes, too, who hadn’t looked at her with disgust as the daughter of the woman who’d wrecked her marriage, but had treated her with kindness and affection.
She thought about the life she’d built and the life she’d left behind.
Who was she, really? Imogen or Genie? The girl who’d married to feel secure and who’d followed the rules to stay that way? Or the one who’d run carefree along the beach not caring what the next day would bring?
Everyone wanted to be the person running on the beach, she said to herself, but whose life was really like that? Perhaps it was for the Delissandes, with all their privilege. But for Imogen and everyone else she knew, it was harder than that. It was about dealing with complicated situations. Like the accident that killed her dad. Like her mother’s indiscretion. Like having to move every time she thought she’d found somewhere to stay. Like Agnes’s Alzheimer’s. None of it was simple. None of it was carefree. It was crazy to think otherwise.
‘Stop faffing about, Imogen.’ Vince whispered into her ear. ‘It’s time to leave all this behind. We’re going home. And we’re going now.’
She went into the bedroom. She stood in front of the mirror and looked at her clothes hanging on the rail. New clothes, bought since she’d arrived in Hendaye. Summer dresses. Shorts. Tops. And her navy suit, in the corner. It seemed a lifetime since she’d put it on for the trade exhibition.
‘We’re going to my hotel tonight,’ Vince called to her. ‘There’s a direct flight to Dublin in the morning and I’ve booked us on it.’
Had he been so sure he’d find her? she wondered. But then, he was always sure. Always self-confident. And he was right to be. Because he’d succeeded. He was in her apartment. Despite all her precautions.
A sudden insistent knock at the door startled her and made her heart race.
‘Imogen!’
It was René’s voice, loud and urgent.
‘Imogen! Are you OK? Open the door.’
She stepped out of the bedroom. Vince was standing beside the door. He put his finger to his lips.
‘No need to answer it,’ he murmured. ‘Let them go away.’
‘Imogen!’ This time it was Oliver. ‘Can we come in?’
‘What are they saying?’ asked Vince quietly.
‘They want to come in,’ she said.
He shook his head and put his finger to his lips again.
‘Imogen!’ Two voices together. Nellie and Becky, speaking English. ‘What’s going on? Please open the door. If not …’ There was a mumbled conversation on the other side, and then Nellie continued, ‘If not, we’ll climb over the balcony again.’
Imogen looked at Vince.
‘I’m opening the door,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘I’m not having them climbing into the apartment.’
‘Let them try,’ said Vince.
‘Don’t be so stupid.’ She pushed past him and turned the handle. The door was locked. She hadn’t locked it after her. So he must have, when she was in the bedroom.
‘Imogen!’ Both René and Oliver this time. ‘Is that you in there?’
‘For God’s sake!’ Imogen gasped as Vince pulled her away from the door before she could unlock it. ‘Let them in.’
‘Them? Them? Who are they?’ he demanded.
‘Friends.’
‘Friends? Male friends, Imogen. You’re married to me but you’ve made male friends?’
‘And female friends,’ she pointed out. ‘They’re people who live here.’
Before Vince could stop her, Imogen spun away from him and turned the key. At the sound of the click, the door was pushed open from the other side.
René, Oliver, Becky, Nellie and Céline spilled into the room.
‘Imogen.’ Oliver hesitated for a second as he saw Vince behind her. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Really. It’s all … it’s a misunderstanding. There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Céline. ‘Because, chérie, you don’t sound f
ine. And your dress …’
‘That happened earlier.’ Imogen glanced at the oil stain that had attracted Céline’s attention.
‘Is this your husband?’ demanded René.
Becky glared at Vince, who put his arm around Imogen’s shoulder again. ‘He said he was your boyfriend.’
‘Look, I don’t understand half of what’s being said here,’ said Vince. ‘But my wife has told you that she’s fine. Now can you all get the hell out and leave us. Thank you.’
‘Imogen, do you need help?’ Oliver’s dark eyes were fixed on hers. ‘Tell me what you want and I will do it.’
‘No French,’ said Vince. ‘If you have something to say, say it in English.’
‘We are friends of Imogen.’ It was René who spoke. ‘We are concerned for her.’
‘I’m Imogen’s husband,’ said Vince. ‘And as you can see, there’s nothing to be concerned about. She’s packing. She’s coming home with me.’
‘You’re leaving?’ Oliver’s eyes grew even darker as they shifted from Vince to Imogen.
‘Of course she’s leaving,’ said Vince. ‘She doesn’t belong here.’
‘Do you really want to do this, chérie?’ asked Céline in her heavily accented English. ‘Because if you don’t …’
‘I’ve asked once, politely, but I won’t ask again,’ said Vince. ‘I want all you people to get out. Now.’
‘If Imogen is leaving of her own free will, of course we will go,’ said Oliver. He continued to keep his eyes fixed on her face. ‘But, ma p’tite, if you want to stay, you only have to say the word.’
‘She doesn’t want to stay,’ said Vince. ‘She was packing when you started banging the door down.’
‘Imogen?’ Oliver spoke gently. ‘What do you want to do?’
She couldn’t believe that they were all here. Not knowing the situation, but clearly concerned. Looking out for her. Wanting to be sure she was OK. It was good of them to worry about her, but she was able to take care of herself. Besides, there was no threat to her physical safety from Vince. That wasn’t how it worked. It wasn’t how he worked.
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