by Sara Foster
‘You’re welcome,’ he replied, lifting his glass to his mouth and tipping his head back while he took an enormous slug of wine.
‘So, what’s going on with Alex?’ he asked, eyeing her carefully. ‘When’s he coming back?’
‘Soon,’ she said. But she had paused a fraction too long before answering.
‘Soon?’ He raised a prosecutorial eyebrow. Like a fox at a rabbit hole, he was scenting just how close he was to trapping her.
‘Mark, don’t,’ she began, her voice cracking slightly as she said it.
Various sarcastic comments ran through Mark’s mind, but then he leaned forward, took her hand, and said, ‘What’s going on, Chlo?’
She looked startled by the sudden intimacy of his gesture. His hand held hers, steadily, and he waited. Her mouth twitched a few times before she eventually answered with a bleak, ‘I don’t know.’
‘I presume it’s all to do with Julia?’ he asked, leaning in to her.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Have you seen her?’ Mark could hear the begging note in her voice, the desperation for any information he might impart.
‘Not since I saw her here last week,’ he said grimly.
Chloe cracked. ‘Well, it appears her real name might be Amy. Jamie just told me. What the hell is all that about? Apparently, she was attacked while they were together.’ Chloe had been toying with the stem of her wineglass, but now picked it up quickly and took a large gulp. ‘I just don’t know what to think,’ she said. ‘It was only a week ago, that awful night at the restaurant. Just a week. Some beautiful ex-girlfriend turns up out of the blue and my husband is immediately doing her bidding.’
‘I don’t think you’ve got that quite right, Chloe,’ Mark said, wondering why the hell he was allowing Alex any leeway.
‘Go on then,’ she demanded. ‘How does it appear to you?’
‘Like there’s a lot we don’t know,’ he suggested. ‘But any fool can see Alex loves you.’
‘Really?’ Chloe asked pathetically.
Mark tried to hide his grimace. ‘Really.’
‘God, but why couldn’t she be twenty-five stone and covered in boils? Why did she have to be so stunning?’
‘You’re stunning.’ The words were out before Mark thought about them. He tensed. But Chloe didn’t take it quite the way he thought she might. She laughed.
‘Yeah, right.’
Mark didn’t want to repeat himself but nor did he want to let it drop. So he said, ‘Of course you are. In fact, I was just looking at that photo,’ he gestured to their wedding picture, ‘and thinking that you look quite a lot like Julia there… when your hair was longer…’ He trailed off.
Chloe’s face had blanched.
‘What?’ Mark asked warily. ‘What did I say?’
71
Chloe stared at Mark, dumbfounded. She was remembering all too clearly.
He thought I was her. At the station. When we first met.
She could picture his face quite clearly: tentative, hopeful recognition quickly replaced with politeness.
He thought I was her.
Oh my god. What was she, really, to Alex? Just a second-string replacement in the absence of his one true love?
Mark had rushed round to her chair. ‘Chloe, what is it?’
She pushed him away blindly. ‘Nothing.’
‘Jesus, I thought you were going to faint. Here -’ He ran over to the tap and got her a glass of water, came back and placed it in front of her. Meanwhile, Chloe stared at the wedding photograph on the shelf, her favourite photo becoming an image of the two of them smiling like imbeciles while stupidly clinking glasses.
Was he thinking of her on our wedding day? When I walked down the aisle, did he pretend it was her until I came into sharp focus?
Was nothing real?
‘Chloe, please talk to me,’ Mark was saying, squatting down beside her chair. ‘You’re freaking me out.’
‘I think I just need to have some more wine,’ Chloe said, pouring herself a generous top-up, putting the baby right to the back of her mind.
This obviously signalled to Mark that she was coming out of her reverie, and he went and sat down again on the chair opposite.
‘I’m sure Alex will get whatever it is out of his system pretty quickly,’ he continued, oblivious to her thoughts. ‘There is something really wrong with that woman. She’s gorgeous, but… complicated… a bit, well, weird.’
Out of his system? Who did Mark think he was talking about Alex to?
Chloe clenched her fists under the table. She had no idea why she had ever dated Mark when he was like this. Now was one of those moments when she could see clearly what Alex saw – a smug, condescending, arrogant man. She sifted through her memories, recalling how he had made her laugh, how he had seemed confident yet, at times, uncertain when they’d first met. Every now and then he would show his vulnerability, and because of those times she had hung in there, but finding it was like hunting through heavy law books for the one small paragraph that might turn a case – both exasperating and exhausting.
‘How can you be so… so cold about it?’ Chloe asked sharply, ignoring the twinge of conscience she felt thinking of law books and the fact that they should both be going through the Abbott case notes right now. How could Mark dismiss someone he’d sounded so excited about just a week or so ago in a couple of swift sentences? ‘Doesn’t anyone ever get under your skin?’
Mark looked into his lap and gave a short bark of laughter. ‘You think I’m shallow?’ he said, looking up at her.
‘No,’ Chloe began, and then a surge of impatience overtook her. Why shouldn’t she say what she thought? ‘Well, yes, actually – at times.’
‘Now we’re getting to it,’ he said, staring at her, a malevolent glint in his eye. ‘You expect too much of men, Chloe. We’re not given to excesses of emotion. To women, things might be myriad shades of grey – but to men, it’s pretty much just black and white.’
‘Not all men.’
As soon as she said it, she knew she’d made a mistake.
Mark snorted loudly and derisively. ‘I presume by that you mean Alex? Really, Chloe, I thought you’d be the last person to defend him at the moment, since he’s proved to be so flighty.’
Chloe stood up abruptly, her wine glass wobbling dangerously as she did so. She was so enraged that she didn’t notice Mark reaching out quickly to catch the glass before it toppled. She had lost all efforts at control now. She came at him, her fists flailing, ready to inflict what damage she could. ‘How dare you!’ she cried. ‘How fucking dare you!’
She tried to connect, but Mark caught her wrists tightly with a strength that surprised her. She struggled with him but he held on firmly, and the small bolts of pain that shot through her arms stopped her in her tracks. Her face was contorted with anger as she spat at him, ‘Why do you have to be so bloody horrible, Mark? Why do you have to be such an arrogant, condescending bastard? You’re always so bloody rude. And you’ve always hated Alex. What has he ever done to you except be civil?’
‘He has you,’ Mark murmured fiercely, holding her wrists tight.
‘What?’ Shocked, she was suddenly still. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know full well what I mean, Chloe,’ he said, his voice full and deep. His grip on her wrists slackened and he leaned forward as though to kiss her. But she quickly stepped backwards.
‘You’re outrageous!’ she said, her voice high-pitched and shrill. ‘What on earth are you doing? You HAD me, Mark. A long time ago, you HAD me. And you blew it. You ruined it completely with your selfishness, your complete lack of… of…’ She felt agitated, breathless, and sat down suddenly, putting her head in her hands, trying to resist the urge to sob. What the hell was going on with her life?
She heard the scrape of a chair as Mark drew his closer to hers. She could feel his breath on her face, even though she wouldn’t look at him. He was quiet for a moment, and she waited, every nerve primed for what might come next.
She could feel his chin resting on the top of her head. It felt so nice to be held. She closed her eyes and imagined they were Alex’s arms wrapped around her, then wondered if that was what Alex did when he held her – imagined she was Julia – or if, at this exact moment, her husband’s arms were wrapped around a stunning brunette. For a second, hatred for Alex pulsed through her, and she gasped at the strength of it.
The noise made Mark move. He pulled back from her and looked into her face. ‘What are you thinking, Chloe?’ he asked.
She stared at Mark. She saw him every day. She thought she knew his every expression, but here, just at this moment, it seemed there was more kindness and concern in his features than she’d ever seen before.
He leaned towards her.
I don’t know where Alex is, she thought blearily. Or who he is any more. Or even if he cares. And Mark is here. He’s here for me, right now.
Mark saw how she was looking at him, and immediately pulled her close. As his lips pressed against hers, she blanked all other thoughts from her mind, just let herself feel his warm touch against her skin. As though brought back to life by it, heat was transmitted to her through that small, soft connection, and she felt herself stir, her own mouth beginning to respond in kind.
72
The plane journey was bringing back uncomfortable memories for Alex, of his journey from Australia ten years ago. Now he’d made another choice, and once again he was questioning the wisdom of it. Meanwhile, he was going through the motions, sitting as though in a cramped theatre, watching movies, sipping wine, eating questionable food, while they hurtled through the air in a reinforced metal rocket. He kept trying to focus on Amy and what she needed from him, but his thoughts reverted back to Chloe at every opportunity. Plus, now Mark was in their house, and he was helpless to do anything about that. And Chloe was vulnerable, and he had seen the way Mark looked at her – predatory – wolfish, almost, at times. Alex wasn’t blind to the truth, even if he didn’t always choose the best course of action in dealing with it.
He remembered the first time he had seen Chloe. It had been Amy he was looking for, but through the brief cloud of disappointment he had focused enough to see the possibility of something else – the emergence of a new fork in his path. And so he had taken it, and never regretted it. Even after the past week he had never once wished himself back to a time before Chloe; he had only wished away the pain of it all. How on earth had he got into this, and how was he going to get out?
The lights were dimmed so they could get some sleep. There were so many forms of entertainment to choose from on the LCD screen in front of him that he couldn’t seem to make a decision, but he knew he wouldn’t rest. Amy appeared to be sleeping, though he thought he knew better. She was a little too still. Her head had fallen towards his shoulder, but the only thing connecting them was a few fine wisps of her hair. A little earlier, as he glanced towards her, he’d thought he saw the damp course of tears on her cheeks, but had feigned ignorance. They were sitting too close to others to be able to talk.
He leaned his head back, closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the drone of the engines. He wanted the practicalities of the court case to take precedence in his mind, for he had the feeling that getting Amy and himself through the next few days was going to be quite a task. But one thing kept coming back to him: that this wasn’t over – and although he didn’t know exactly what would happen during the next few days and weeks, he was starting to dread it. If only this aeroplane could have flown him further away from the inevitable, but, like everything else in life, it was moving inexorably forward.
73
Chloe woke up with a start, a shiver of trepidation running through her before she even had time to think. She looked down to find herself sprawled among a heap of bedclothes that barely covered her. It was cold. She still had her bra on underneath her half-buttoned shirt, and her knickers. But that was all. And she could hear the radio playing downstairs. She shivered, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and sat up. Her head was pounding, though she didn’t remember drinking that much, and her eyes felt swollen.
A wave of queasiness washed over her as she thought about the previous night. Mark had kissed her, and she’d kissed him back. What a mistake that had been. After they’d broken apart she remembered bursting into guilty, hysterical tears, and ranting and crying while the expression on Mark’s face varied from sympathetic to shocked – mostly the latter. She recalled him helping her upstairs and cuddling her on the bed when she had finally calmed down, and then he’d started to undress her…
Shit! She jumped up and headed for the bathroom, confirmed briefly that yes, her eyes were red and half-shut, and grabbed her dressing gown, pulling it on in a rush as she ran down the stairs.
Mark sat at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper. He was wearing the shirt and jeans he’d been in the night before, but the shirt looked rumpled and creased now.
‘Morning,’ he said, looking up.
Chloe was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to be sick. She put her hand over her mouth with a squeak and ran to the kitchen sink, where she promptly threw up a watery mess. Acutely embarrassed, she avoided turning around as she ran water and rinsed the basin.
‘What a delightful effect I have on you, Chloe,’ Mark’s voice drifted over to her.
‘You stayed,’ she said uncomfortably, splashing her face with water and then turning around. She was remembering more pieces of last night and trying to block them out. She felt as though she’d had gallons of alcohol to drink, but knew she couldn’t have.
‘I couldn’t leave you, could I,’ he said, half-exasperated. ‘But I really should get going now. God knows what state my dad will be in after a night with just the whisky bottle for company. Hopefully not dead, is all I ask.’ He jumped up and came over to kiss her cheek. ‘I feel like a bloody nurse-maid at the moment. I’ll call you later.’
‘There’s no need,’ she began, but she didn’t have time to add anything before she was overwhelmed by the urge to be sick again. She turned back to the sink and felt Mark’s hands pull her hair back as she bent over double.
He reached across her to turn the tap on.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, feeling wretched and humiliated.
‘Don’t be,’ he answered. ‘Pregnancy looks like a blast,’ he added sarcastically.
She swung around, almost knocking him off-balance. ‘You know?’ she gasped.
‘Jesus!’ Mark held his hands up, a smile curving his lips although his eyes were solemn. ‘Chloe, how stupid do you think I am? You’re throwing up in the mornings, and you mumbled the word “baby” quite a bit last night – though it was hard to make out what you were saying at times – at first I thought it was an endearment.’ He mock-rolled his eyes at himself.
She could feel her cheeks burning. ‘You undressed me…’ she began.
He looked at her, and she saw his expression change to indignation as he realised what she was implying. ‘Last night…’ he began, then obviously decided to change tack. ‘I didn’t take advantage of you while you were sleeping, if that’s what you think.’ He snorted derisively. ‘I prefer my lovers conscious, and preferably not pregnant. Besides, I tried to help you but you wouldn’t let me near you – you took your own trousers off and then ordered me out.’
Chloe felt absurdly insulted and deflated by his words. ‘You kissed me,’ she added petulantly, berating herself as she did so. She sounded like a twelve-year-old in the playground.
‘Okay, Chloe, whatever.’ He held his hands up. ‘I really do have to go, you know. I’ll speak to you later.’ He came across and pecked her on the cheek, and she tried to avoid his gaze, feeling the intensity of it beating down on her, and leaving her more co
nfused than ever.
74
By the time they reached Perth it was too late to do much except find their hotel and grab a meal. Alex had prebooked a twin room over the internet, but there was an embarrassing farce when they were shown to a double and he had to go back and request two single beds. The young man on reception kept his face a mask of politeness as he sorted it out.
Alex wasn’t even sure if sharing a room was the right thing to do, but he considered Amy a flight risk, with good precedent, so felt he needed to keep her close. She hadn’t said much for the whole journey, and after dinner immediately took herself off to bed. Alex’s mind was tired, but he still couldn’t sleep, so he set up his laptop and began checking things out online.
It wasn’t hard to find details of the trial. The local media had been reporting it faithfully, even if just a paragraph on dull days of legal procrastination. The evidence against the three men seemed substantial. He couldn’t see there was any way they’d be set free.
He had been so quick to get them here that it was only now, when they had flown halfway around the world, that he realised their plan was somewhat absurd. What if, somehow, these weren’t the three men they thought they were? What if this was the worst decision they could have made? What if, against all the odds, these men were found innocent? They would have to stand by and watch them walk free. Jesus, Amy couldn’t do that; it would break her all over again.
Plus there were smaller problems. He had presumed they could get into the public gallery, but what if they couldn’t? It was a high-profile case; why had they just assumed they would be able to do what they wanted, when they needed to?
He looked away from the lamp-lit desk to the sleeping bundle that was Amy, in the shadowy corner of the room. He wanted to wake her and tell her that he was hopelessly out of his depth, that every decision he had made since this nightmare began so long ago became flawed in hindsight, even if it seemed right at the time. He didn’t trust himself any more. She would be better off with Chloe, he thought, who would have some idea of how to get into a courtroom, how to follow legal proceedings. He had a pang of desire to reach out to his wife and appeal for help, but he felt that would be asking too much of her. And what if Mark were still with her? Could he bear to know that, as he sat here thousands of miles away? No, he decided – he would wait until tomorrow, when he could tell her more about the trial, before he called again. Although, in the future, would this be another regrettable choice of his – yet one more thing that he’d long to undo?