by Jo Verity
‘Marry him?’
‘He was perfectly frank about his reasons. He said if I married him, he could stay here and carry on the struggle. He’d be “legal”. He didn’t pretend he loved me. He didn’t try to mislead me.’
‘For crying out loud, woman. He might be legal but what would it make you?’
Diane raised her fist in the air. ‘Mrs Marin Vexler, martyr in Romania’s battle for democracy.’
Elizabeth groaned. ‘Please, please tell me you came to your senses.’
‘Of course I did. But not, unfortunately, until a few weeks after the wedding. Around the time Marin disappeared with what little money I had. He did leave a note, though, saying how fond of me he was, thanking me for everything and promising he’d pay back the money when he could.’
Elizabeth watched a toddler chasing a butterfly, not sure if she was glad or not when the little boy tripped and the butterfly escaped. She felt distinctly detached from what Diane had just said, as if she were watching a play. Now it was the loyal friend’s turn to speak. ‘Didn’t you go to the police? Or the immigration people?’ (Was that the right sort of response?)
Elizabeth studied Diane’s face, waiting for a fooled you grin to turn this nonsense into an elaborate joke. But she stuck to her story.
‘Why would I do that?’ Diane looked puzzled. ‘I went into the whole thing with my eyes open. It wasn’t as if he’d conned me. And, besides, I’d broken the law by marrying him in those circumstances. You must have seen Green Card? We’ve got laws here about sham marriages, too. To be truthful, at that time I couldn’t face having my life raked over. And I certainly wasn’t planning to get married ever again. It seemed best to forget the whole thing and – dreadful phrase – move on.’
‘What d’you mean “forget the whole thing”? You had grounds for divorce. He’d deserted you. Maybe you weren’t ever technically married. Any lawyer would have been able to sort it out.’
‘No doubt that’s true, but I don’t need to tell you, of all people, that lawyers cost money. Money I didn’t have.’
The butterfly boy jumped up and down with excitement as a fire engine, siren wailing, screeched along the dual carriageway separating the civic area from shopping streets.
‘So you’re telling me you’re still married? You’re still Mrs Vexler?’
Diane held out her hand. ‘Ce mai faceti. That’s “how d’you do” in Romanian.’ She threw her head back, closing her eyes against the strong sun.
‘Who else knows about this?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘No one.’
‘Your family?’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘What about Carl? You must have told him.’
‘Must I? Why? We were simply, and happily, living in sin like half the couples we know. My being married wasn’t relevant. But now Carl’s gone and screwed everything up by proposing.’ She bared her teeth in a silent scream.
‘You’ll have to give me a few minutes to digest all this.’
Elizabeth had to face the fact (at least for the time being) that Diane wasn’t joking. Her friend needed advice not criticism and she suppressed the impulse to list the mistakes Diane had made from the moment that the Vexler character had entered the pub.
‘I really can’t see that you have any option but to tell Carl what you’ve just told me. He won’t like it but he’s not going to walk away, is he? Maybe, given the unusual circumstances, he’ll be happy to carry on as you are. It’s not as if Vexler’s a threat to your relationship. It’s not as if he lives round the corner.’
Diane cleared her throat. ‘That’s not quite the end of the story.’ Fumbling in her bag, she pulled out a small Jiffy Bag. ‘This arrived ten days ago.’
She handed the package to Elizabeth. The printed label on the front stated ‘Personal. For the attention of Diane Shapcott’ and was addressed not to the house but to the Art College where she taught.
Elizabeth squeezed the padded bag but it yielded no clue to its contents. ‘What is it?’
‘Take a look.’
The bag contained a fat manila envelope – unsealed – and, inside that, a wad of twenty-pound notes. They looked improbably crisp and colourful. ‘Are they real?’
‘I don’t know. How d’you tell? And, before you ask, it’s five thousand pounds.’
‘Blimey.’ Elizabeth stared at the notes then shoved them back in the bag as if they might fade in the sunlight. ‘Who’s it from? Was there any message with it?’
‘Nope. It wasn’t even sent recorded delivery so there’s no way of tracing it.’
Elizabeth peered at the postmark but it was no more than a dark smudge across the Queen’s stoic profile. Diane was watching her as if she had given her the necessary clues and was expecting her to fathom out the riddle.
‘Ahhh. You think it’s from him? From Vexler?’
‘I can’t think of anyone else who owes me money.’
‘How much did he steal from you?’
‘Borrow. Three hundred and twenty-seven pounds.’
Elizabeth raised the package. ‘This is a helluva good return on your investment.’ She weighed the brown bag on the palm of her hand. ‘Actually the money is irrelevant. Wherever it came from, it doesn’t alter things. If you intend staying with Carl, you’re going to have to come clean and tell him everything.’
Diane tugged at a clump of grass. ‘But if it is from Marin it means that he’s still alive.’ She pointed at the British stamps. ‘And, what’s more, he’s in this country. It’s not a nice thing to say but I had it in mind that he was dead. Fate kind of even-ing things out. Taking a husband I couldn’t bear to lose, then taking one that I could.’ She tossed a few blades of grass in the air and watched the breeze take them. ‘It freaked me out – Carl proposing and this money turning up, all within a few weeks.’
‘Assuming the money is from Marin, how did he track you down?’
‘Google? Facebook? No one’s life’s their own anymore.’
One rainy Sunday, Elizabeth had Googled ‘Elizabeth Giles’. There was a local councillor of that name who lived in Wednesbury, and dozens of entries mentioning long-dead Elizabeth Gileses – bait, she presumed, to lure family historians into subscribing to genealogical websites. But ‘Elizabeth Mary Victoria Giles’ simply wasn’t there.
‘It’s odd that he didn’t bring the money himself. It could mean that he wants to draw a line under what happened.’ Elizabeth said.
‘But why leave it until now? What’s he been doing for the past twenty years?’
‘Liberating Romania?’
‘Ha-bloody-ha.’ Di flopped back on the grass, covering her eyes with her forearm. ‘What am I going to do?’
Despite the money, Elizabeth was finding it hard to take Diane’s story seriously. And what was all that guff about not telling her because she valued her respect? It didn’t add up, especially when she considered some of the sordid escapades Di had cheerfully shared with her. So what was Di expecting from her? Shock? Condemnation? Envy? Maybe her attention was enough.
‘First of all, you must tell Carl everything. He worships you. He’ll understand that no woman reaches the age of fifty—’
‘Forty-nine.’
‘No woman reaches the age of forty-nine without a few skeletons cluttering up her cupboard.’
‘Except you.’
‘Care to swap places?’
Diane poked her tongue out. ‘Fuck off.’
An ice-cream van, mangling We’ll Keep a Welcome in the Hillside, parked on the pink tarmac a few metres from where they were sitting.
Diane sat up. ‘Fancy a Magnum?’
Lamenting as shards of chocolate sheared off and tumbled onto the warm pavement, they made their way to the bus stop.
9
MONDAY: 1.35PM
The smell of toast lingered in the hall. An array of used plates, bowls and mugs littered the kitchen table along with a litre container of milk, a box of cornflakes and a jar of strawberry jam.
> ‘Carl? We’re home.’ Diane frowned. ‘I wonder where they’ve got to.’
For the past few hours Marin Vexler and the packet of cash had driven Jordan Fry out of Elizabeth’s head. ‘Never mind them. Shouldn’t you put that,’ she nodded towards Diane’s handbag, ‘somewhere safe?’
‘Where’s “safe”? I don’t want Carl stumbling across it before I’ve worked out what to tell him. He’s very old-fashioned. My bag’s the one place he’d never go.’
‘You could put it in the bank.’
‘D’you know, I never thought of that.’ Diane frowned, seemingly perplexed by her own admission. ‘Maybe because I don’t believe it belongs to me.’
The day was turning out to be a scorcher and Elizabeth went upstairs to change into something cooler. Opening the windows merely let more heat in, the humid air seeming to press on her eardrums and damp down sounds from the street. Suddenly light-headed, she sank on to the bed, gulping down the remaining mineral water in an attempt to rid herself of the ice cream’s cloying aftertaste.
She kicked off her sandals and slipped off her clothes, mulling over what Diane had told her. Assuming he existed, this Vexler was clearly a dodgy character. If his life had been at risk, his first port of call should have been the Home Office or whoever dealt with asylum seekers. That’s what an honest man would do. And why struggle all the way across Europe? Couldn’t he have holed up in Italy or France? It wasn’t as if his English had been so hot.
He was evidently ruthless; sexy too, or Diane wouldn’t have looked at him twice. He’d lined her up as his target then procured the necessary documents – presumably fake – to allow the marriage to take place. That couldn’t have been easy. Or cheap.
She had the general picture but there were several things she needed to know. How old was Vexler? When, and where, did they get married? How long was it before he disappeared? And why on earth did he go? If his aim in marrying had been to become ‘legal’, wouldn’t it have been logical to stick with his wife and maintain the sham? It wasn’t as if Diane had thrown him out.
Some things made no sense at all. Why had Vexler targeted Diane, a penniless artist? And if, at any time in the intervening years, Diane had been desperate to sever connections with him, she could – money or no money – have found a way to do it. ‘It seemed best to forget the whole business.’ Tosh. Diane was no coward, no ostrich. If something needed saying, or doing, or confronting she was alarmingly ready to do it. And to relish the skirmish.
But however implausible Diane’s story or fanciful her version of events, there was no escaping the five thousand pounds.
Elizabeth’s clothes were still in her holdall. Typically, Diane had made sure she had a bag of sweets and a copy of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (their lodestar in nineteen seventy-four) but hadn’t thought that she might appreciate having somewhere to hang her clothes. Taking out a pair of shorts and a loose-fitting top, she flicked them sharply to remove the creases. When she’d rolled them, less than forty-eight hours ago, she had been looking forward to a lazy week with an old friend. A chance to catch her breath after a hectic end of term. A visit to the theatre or a concert. A stroll in the countryside. But Alex had more or less stymied that and what she’d managed to salvage was being railroaded by this Marin Vexler.
Her phone squealed. A glance at the screen told her that it was Laurence’s mother. She sighed. ‘Hello, Phyllida. How are you?’
Her mother-in-law proceeded to tell her at length about an ongoing tussle she was having with the refuse collection service in Swiss Cottage before demanding to know why Elizabeth hadn’t been answering her landline.
‘Actually I’m in Cardiff. I should have let you know. Sorry. It was a spur of the moment decision.’
Laurence’s mother was well into her eighties but sharp as a tack. She had been widowed forty years ago when Henry Giles – Laurence’s father – had dropped dead whilst giving evidence to a House of Commons Select Committee on public transport. ‘Farmer’ Giles – inevitable in the schoolboy culture of the Civil Service – had left his wife and only child well provided for. When she and Laurence were first married, Elizabeth had been terrified of her mother-in-law and the old lady could still, with a few remarks or, worse still, silences, make her feel like an inept provincial.
Phyllida enquired after Laurence – she had never been terribly interested in Elizabeth, or her grandsons – and Elizabeth updated her with what information she had, adding (although it wasn’t true) that Laurence had asked her to pass on his very best wishes.
In the hope that vigorous tooth-brushing might refresh her, she was on the way to the bathroom when she noticed that Jordan’s door was ajar. She knocked gently, knowing as soon as she did that the room was empty. She’d always been able to tell when a room was empty. It was the same when she phoned someone. One trrring and she could be absolutely sure whether anyone was there to answer. (Strangely enough, it didn’t work with mobile phones.) When she’d told Laurence that she possessed this gift, he’d smiled and patted her hand. ‘That’s jolly useful.’
She pushed the door open and surveyed the room. The bed was made, the floor uncluttered, the curtains drawn back. She hadn’t expected this. On Saturday evening, she’d seen how his rucksack had exploded, peppering Alex’s room with its contents. But now, were it not for that same rucksack stowed neatly in a corner, woolly hat and iPod on top of the chest of drawers, Jordan might never have been here.
Crossing to the window, she peeped out. Dangling from the clothesline was an assortment of T-shirts, underpants, socks and a pair of jeans, none of them large enough to fit Carl. He must have persuaded Jordan to hand over his fusty clothes for washing. She was impressed.
Her gaze travelled across the garden and over the hedge marking its boundary. Diane was right. This window gave a superb view of the Rain Man’s house. It was a lovely house, too. Built of dressed stone with a slate roof, handsome chimney stacks and sash windows, it was simple yet well-proportioned, sturdy yet elegant.
The door of the shed swung open. Jordan and Carl emerged carrying two bright blue bags. Recalling how she’d seen Jordan spying on her from the same spot, Elizabeth drew back from the window, watching as they emptied the bags on to the lawn and studied their contents. Something made of blue fabric. Coils of thin rope. Several slender poles. It was Carl’s tent.
She found Diane observing operations from the kitchen window. ‘Look at the pair of them. They don’t have a clue where to start.’ She draped an arm around Elizabeth’s waist. ‘It was selfish of me to offload like that. You mustn’t let it spoil your time here. I should have left it until later in the week. This is all a bit of a shock I expect.’
Diane sounded smug, almost as if she’d wanted to shock her.
‘To be honest, if I find anything shocking it’s that you’ve kept it from me for twenty years.’
‘You’re right. And I’m sorry. But it’s not as if anyone’s died or anything and, until a couple of weeks ago, it wasn’t a problem.’
‘So if Carl hadn’t proposed, would you ever have told me?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m not even sure I should have told you now.’ She chewed the skin at the side of her thumbnail. ‘But were things to … change… I wanted you to have all the facts.’
Carl spotted them, waved and raised a thumb. They waved back, as they might to encourage a child engaged in a harmless undertaking.
‘Doesn’t he deserve to know all the facts too?’
‘Yes. And I promise I’ll tell him soon. I just need to psych myself up.’ Diane held her arms straight out in front of her, fingers extended, hands palms down, and closed her eyes. ‘I feel as if I’m on the diving board at the swimming baths. The highest one. I’m poised, toes curled over the edge, safe until the instant I launch myself off. I might enter the water with barely a ripple or I might bash my brains out on the bottom of the pool.’ She glanced at Elizabeth. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m wondering how we’d all
communicate if metaphor were banned.’
‘We’d be ships without rudders.’
In fact she was wondering why Diane hadn’t been frank with Carl from the start. An army of men – Steve and Dev and Liam and Greg, and God knows how many others – had preceded him, all unambiguously temporary and therefore needing to know nothing of her past. Then Carl Ritter had turned up and Diane seemed to think that he was ‘The One’. But shouldn’t ‘The One’ be the one person who can be trusted to know everything?
Diane nodded towards the garden. ‘They’re making a pig’s ear of putting up that tent. C’mon. Let’s show ’em how it should be done.’
An hour later the four of them were sitting in the tent. It was a hi-tech affair with a central living area and ‘bedrooms’ at either end, separated by zip-around nylon panels – a far cry from the saggy faux bungalows that had, not all that long ago, been the epitome of camping luxury.
‘What’s the verdict?’ Diane asked.
‘Neat.’ Jordan said.
‘And next time it will go up faster.’ Carl checked his watch. ‘Now I must go and teach a young man who, despite evidence to the contrary, will try to convince me that he has been practising his French horn every day.’
‘Don’t you find that … disheartening?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘A little. His mother makes good coffee and delicious fruit cake so it’s not a complete waste of my time.’
‘You get paid.’ The rising inflexion in Jordan’s words might have signalled a question had they not been so laden with criticism.
‘You are right. And, in a strange way, it is to my advantage that my pupil makes slow progress. Should he improve too quickly, he will need a teacher who is better qualified that I am and I will be out of a job. To tell you the truth, I was the same at his age. I hated to practise. All those scales and exercises. It seemed so futile.’
‘You must have knuckled down at some point,’ Elizabeth said. ‘What persuaded you to change your mind?’