‘Good heavens, what’s this? The new boy-band look?’
He looked relieved at my light tone: not tight-lipped and resentful. But he had no idea what it was costing me. Actually, though, as he caught my eye, I saw that he had.
He ruffled his shorn locks ruefully, keeping up the jocular charade. ‘She did go a bit crazy, didn’t she? I just asked for something slightly neater, and of course I normally do it myself. But I didn’t want to look like one of the students.’
‘Have you met them yet?’ I asked as we unpacked the back of the car, the four of us, my heart pounding.
‘Oh, yes, I took a class on Monday. They’re a nice bunch. Very talented, too.’
‘Oh.’ I lowered the bundle of duvets I was carrying. ‘You’re actually teaching? I thought artist in residence meant – I don’t know, something more reclusive. On more of a pedestal?’
‘It can be whatever you want it to be, but I want to teach. I’m loving it so far, but it’s early days.’ He strode on into the house with Josh’s computer printer in his arms, but I stopped in my tracks. Sebastian loving something? And, what’s more, saying it? I had to take a moment before I moved on, following them all inside.
It was lovely, of course it was. A college house – which was rare, usually they were sets of rooms – was obviously not huge, but still with a staircase that managed to curl round a tall narrow hall, a domed skylight above. There were a couple of small but perfectly proportioned Jane Austen-style rooms downstairs, plus a more modern kitchen at the back with a sunny conservatory, and four bedrooms upstairs. But it was the garden that took my breath away. I hung out of what would be Tabitha’s bedroom window and gazed down. A long, narrow, leafy, walled enclosure, its borders full of tasteful blue and white colour even at this time of year and, near the bottom, a round pond with an elegant nymph statue pouring water from a jug into it. Beyond was a gorgeous weeping willow, swaying gently in the breeze. It was so beautiful it made me realize what they must think of Sebastian to give it to him. As I drew in my head I felt humbled.
‘It’s lovely,’ I said, clattering downstairs, but knowing I mustn’t stay: knowing the floodgates would open before long. ‘And where do you paint?’ I gabbled, even though I already knew. Had peeked inside.
‘Upstairs,’ he told me. ‘In one of the spare rooms. But also outside, which I haven’t done for years.’
‘Bit chilly for the sitters?’ I joked, keeping a breezy smile going.
‘Oh, I haven’t started doing that yet. Just a landscape, that’s all, that sort of thing.’
Our conversation drew to an abrupt halt at this point, as it did when we talked about painting.
‘Right, well, I’ll be away, then,’ I said lightly. I gathered my keys from a table, and my bag, glancing, for a final time, around the pretty, putty-coloured walls, hung already with Sebastian’s paintings, but others too: friends’ paintings – famous ones, mostly. It occurred to me I’d been wrong to tell Josh he didn’t have an inheritance. There was surely one here.
The children were outside, unloading the last of their stuff onto the grass quad, from whence they could transport it later.
‘I’ll just say goodbye to the kids.’
Sebastian put a hand on my arm. We were alone in the hall. The first time he’d touched me for years.
‘Thank you, Ella,’ he said, his hooded eyes heavy with meaning. ‘For doing this.’
I averted my eyes first. Nodded at the carpet. Knew he wouldn’t be so crass as to explain I wasn’t really losing them, that they’d be back all the time, and that by doing this I was enabling them in so many ways. Or that I’d done a wonderful job as a mother, or anything patronizing like that. Some sort of gross golden handshake. But it was all there, in the eyes. His gratitude.
I turned to go, feeling old and tired. As I walked down the gravel path flanked by late hollyhocks and roses, I held my arms out dramatically to my children, big beaming smile in place. Tabitha left what she was doing and ran to hug me, squeezing me hard. Even Josh gave me a clap on the back as he hugged me and said, ‘Cheers, Mum,’ in a gruff voice, which bloody nearly tipped me over the edge.
I quickly got into the car, turned the ignition and gave them all a cheerful, overenthusiastic wave as they stood together, the three of them. I didn’t buzz down the window in case I choked. Only the porter gave me a second glance as he let me out, opening the gate, and as I blindly scrabbled for my sunglasses in my bag. I shoved them on my already damp face. A blue car, which had followed us down the cobbled street as we’d arrived, was now parked outside the college gates. I saw the back of a woman in a camel coat getting into the driving seat, but I didn’t wait to see what she thought of my demeanour. Instead I drove past at speed, swung into another cobbled side street, and parked abruptly at the end of what turned out to be a dead-end lane. Then I switched off the engine and howled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I think I must have sat there for quite some time, because when I looked at my watch it was one o’clock. I didn’t want to go home, I decided, when I’d recovered. Or as much as I was likely to recover, anyway. I sat up a bit at the wheel. Didn’t want to go back to an empty house. I felt drained and limp and it occurred to me the best thing I could do was go to a restaurant and try to eat. I wouldn’t, I knew, but I could have a drink, read a newspaper or something, ring Lottie. And then go and spend a great deal of money I didn’t have in Brora.
I knew Sebastian wouldn’t have any food in the house and since it was lunchtime they might well do the same, I realized. If I wanted to avoid bumping into them, I’d have to go to the other end of town. Even as I thought it, though, even as I was driving back down the High Street, crawling along in heavy traffic, I saw them. The back of them, anyway. Sebastian, tall and dark with his long, lanky stride, between the two children. Tabitha, in a tiny skirt, was almost hopping beside him, excitedly, like a child; Josh, telling his father something, his face as I passed, glancing in my rear-view mirror, alight, on fire, as they turned into that huge buzzing brassiere, the Quad, for some lunch. Half of me wanted to vomit, but the other half, I was relieved to note, loved them enough to be glad. I hadn’t seen any of them looking so happy for a long time, I reflected sadly.
I went right to the other end of Oxford, to Browns, which was equally buzzing and cheerful, I thought defiantly, as I was shown to one of the few remaining tables for two. Newspapers were available in a rack, so I spread out The Times, ordered a glass of wine and an omelette, and made myself read and eat. The drinking came more easily. When I’d drained my glass I wondered if they’d thought to send me a little message? Tabitha might have done. I checked my phone. Well, of course not; they’ve just arrived, Ella, don’t be foolish. Tonight, perhaps, as she was going to bed. ‘Thanks, Mum, you’re a star. Hope you’re OK?’ Or something like that. There was one from Ludo, though.
Are you all right? Big day. Thinking of you. x
I’d texted him, finally. Properly. In response to about eight of his, telling him what was happening today: needing his love, somehow. Just as a friend. Some show of support. He’d been brilliant. He hadn’t rung, he’d just texted some really lovely words of encouragement, saying I was doing the right thing and that the children would benefit hugely from my big-heartedness. I didn’t feel big-hearted. I felt shrivelled. But I wrote back now:
Yes, I’m OK. Don’t worry. Thank you. x
As I paid the bill and closed my newspaper, I noticed that Jude Law, who was on the front page, pictured at some film premiere in an open-necked pink shirt, had a hairy chest too, which was interesting.
Brora was at the other end of town, the Magdalen Bridge end, the Sebastian and the children end, so I couldn’t go there. But Clarendon Street had a few boutiques and I made myself browse for an hour, just as I’d made myself eat. As I paid for a pair of velvet palazzo pants, which I could neither afford nor imagine where I was going in them, some feather earrings too, I resolved that it was important to make oneself do things.
And that when I got home, I would tidy the entire house and maybe even paint the sitting room, which I’d been meaning to do for some time. Had even bought the pretty yellow Farrow and Ball paint, just hadn’t got round to it. I certainly didn’t want to go back to Leanne and the gang upstairs. The very thought of them made me want to join Leanne’s mother, Arlene, comatose on the sofa. Copy a few of her over-imbibing techniques. The thought raised a smile, which was progress, I decided, as I walked back to my car, which was on a meter, opposite the Ashmolean, in Walton Street.
As I went to open it, though, someone across the road caught my eye. My smile faded. Eliza was coming out of the museum, a glossy catalogue in her hand. With a friend? No, on her own. I wondered, with a jolt, if she’d seen me. If I could get away quickly, but she had. She was coming towards me.
‘Hello, Ella.’
‘Eliza!’ I flushed. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks, and you?’
‘Yes, really well, thank you. Haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘No, that’s right.’
She was looking drawn, but slightly better than usual, I thought. Quite a lot of make-up. Her hair was still scraped back off her face in that severe manner and the Liberty scarf was firmly knotted round her throat. My mouth felt a bit dry and I scrabbled for conversation.
‘Have you been to look at the Peruvian Statues?’ I nodded at the posters advertising the exhibition on the railings across the street.
‘No, not yet.’
‘Oh, it’s just … I saw your catalogue. Thought – Oh, sorry. Won’t be a mo.’ My phone was ringing in my pocket. I plucked it out and went to switch it off, or quickly answer if it was the children, but it stopped ringing anyway before I could get to it. I glanced at the number, which was one I didn’t recognize.
‘It’s me,’ Eliza said quietly. She drew her hand out of her own coat pocket, holding her phone. ‘I’m ringing you. Which means you’re having an affair with my husband.’
She gave me a level stare. It seemed to me that she gazed into the depths of my soul. I gaped at her, horrified. Felt the blood drain from my face.
‘I took his phone while he was asleep,’ she went on. ‘Saw a number that kept recurring in his send box. I didn’t recognize it. It came up far too frequently. I suspected it was you. He talks about you too much. Mention-itis, I believe it’s called.’ She was still holding my eyes. I couldn’t speak. There was so much pain there, in that heavy hazel gaze. ‘It’s happened once before, you see. Years ago. Oh, he’s not a serial adulterer or anything like that, but he talked a lot about her, too. Just after we were married. I’m asking you not to do this, Ella. My family won’t survive it. The girls won’t survive it. Particularly Henrietta. I’m pleading with you to leave him alone.’
I felt as if someone had driven fast down the street and knocked me flying off my feet. I was hanging on to the bonnet.
I gulped, horrified. Still couldn’t say anything. Useless to deny it. To say that nothing happened. It had. We’d fallen in love. Nothing had happened in bed, but pretty much everywhere else.
‘He’s a romantic,’ Eliza continued. ‘I knew that when I married him. Romantics fall in love. More than once. They like to be in love. At all times. And you’re very lovable, Ella. Pretty and vulnerable in your charming, tumbledown farm, with your famous but arrogant husband who no one can believe can’t love you and could leave you. There you are, beautiful and dreamy, in your sweetly chaotic inherited farm and your flowery dresses and your wellies, surrounded by ducks and chickens, with your talented, clever children. You live the dream. All it really needed was for Sebastian to give you a black eye and the vulnerability would be complete. I knew when we first met you that Ludo wouldn’t be able to resist you. I hoped you’d resist him.’
I found my voice. ‘I have, up to a point,’ I managed. I didn’t recognize this person. This girl she was describing, like someone stepping out of a Cath Kidston catalogue.
‘Yes, I thought you might have done. A lot of frantic texts from him, but not so many from you, recently. But don’t backslide, will you, Ella? Now that Sebastian has well and truly abandoned you? Don’t weaken. Trust me, there will be plenty of men sniffing round your door, but there will never be any round mine. You’ll be fine, Ella. Men will always want women like you. Pretty, soft, disarming women. But they won’t want me. I’m too prickly. I wasn’t always, but it’s become my defence mechanism. My armour. I’m begging you,’ she gave a strange, twisted smile, ‘in the immortal words of Dolly Parton, not to take my man. He’s flawed, for sure, but I love him. And the girls love him. And we can get over this, as a family, if you let us. If you leave us alone.’
I opened my mouth to speak but she’d already turned away. She didn’t want to hear my denials. Or my apologies. Or know about my shame. She was already walking fast down the street in her camel Jaeger coat, the sort my mother used to wear, her hands stuffed deep in her pockets, no doubt clenched hard. I felt as if the vehicle which had knocked me off my feet had suddenly stopped and flung me from its windscreen into the gutter. As if in a daze, I watched as she stopped a bit further down the road. She fished a key from her pocket and, without looking back, got into a bright blue Polo, which, of course, I recognized. The one parked outside Christchurch: the woman in the camel coat. Moments later she’d driven away.
I stood there for a good few minutes after she’d gone, transfixed to the pavement. Turned to stone. Then I quickly got into my own car. My hand was trembling as I turned the ignition. As I pulled out I nearly ran over a traffic warden who’d appeared beside me, smiling at me through the window.
‘Just in time, luv!’ he observed in a friendly manner, but I ignored him. His face changed when he saw mine. Stricken, no doubt. I drove off.
With complete disregard for the speed cameras on the Banbury Road, I drove fast towards the ring road. I felt numb as I left it and headed for the lanes, but then abruptly, as if a switch had been flicked in my brain, my mind started racing at breakneck speed. I was the Jezebel. The predator. The sort of woman I so despised. The sort who stole other women’s husbands. Of course I was. But, somehow, I’d persuaded myself I wasn’t. After all, I’d rejected Ludo when I’d discovered Eliza wasn’t having an affair, but … that had been a shock, that discovery. And shocks pass. Fade, after a while, as we get used to them. How long would it have been before I’d persuaded myself that she might not be having an affair, but she’d still brought it upon herself? By dressing like my mother? Staking her claim in a territorial way, in what I now realized was a desperate way, deserving of pity rather than contempt? The only way she knew how? Everything about her, her clothes, her stern, disapproving demeanour, screamed: ‘No, Ludo, stop it! I’m your wife! Come back!’ Misguided. Badly judged. Unlikely to endear herself, or even engender success, but heartbreaking, surely?
And how brave, how much in love, to confront me in the street like that. To follow me all morning in her car. Had she followed us from the farm, I wondered? Or just chanced upon us driving into Christchurch? How hard would her heart have been beating, behind mine? How tightly would she have been gripping the wheel of her Polo, waiting for me outside Sebastian’s college, then Browns? Picking up a catalogue at the door of the Ashmolean, holding on to it tightly as she waited in the portico. And she was so right. Now that Sebastian had gone I could easily have drifted down the slippery slope towards Ludo again. Had already replied to his texts, when I’d told myself I wouldn’t. Had added kisses. Had admired Jude’s chest. How long before I was sitting in a different cosy hotel bar, miles away from Oxford this time, in Devon, perhaps, where circumstances were finally more conducive, and where we laughed about our hilarious escapade in Binfield?
Ashamed and humbled, I drove down the lanes that led to the farm. I felt, not a liking exactly for Eliza, but more than a sneaking admiration. A bloody great bucketful of admiration, actually. And a huge amount of guilt. My father used to say that the worst thing you could hear, the worst thing anyone c
ould say to you, was, ‘Shame on you.’ I felt it very much upon me now.
I purred slowly down my lane, shoulders hunched, not even wanting to go home. Just wanting to hide. But, just as I was convinced that my day could surely not get any worse, I swung through the farmyard gate and it took another dive. There, in the muddy cobbled drive, was my sister’s car. I shuddered to a halt, dismayed. Then I turned off the ignition and moaned low. All I needed right now. Really, all I needed. I slumped, defeated, at the wheel: even rested my head on it for a moment. Oh, God. Had Eliza phoned her best friend already? Told Ginnie, in no uncertain terms, that she was sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but she’d just confronted her little sister, who, for all her artful, whimsical ways, was actually a scheming adulterous witch? An arch, manipulative husband-stealer? I raised my head.
Ginnie was waiting for me by her car. Even she wouldn’t break into a locked house. As I sat up and trembled she peeled herself off her car and bore down on me. And she didn’t just bear down, she hastened, almost breaking into a run, hair vertical, lips tight, eyes madder than ever, full, it seemed to me, of homicidal thoughts. Slowly, I got out of the car to face the music. Braced myself inwardly. But I’d taken my sister’s grim demeanour for anger, when in fact it was intense, euphoric, satisfaction. An easy mistake to make with Ginnie.
‘I’ve done it,’ she told me tersely, chin jutting out triumphantly as I emerged. ‘I’ve dispatched the silly cow.’
I gazed at her. It took a moment, but slowly it dawned. And with it came relief. Not me.
‘Maureen?’
‘Exactly. Maureen. Not as quickly as I’d have liked, because what I thought I’d achieve in a day turned into a week-long campaign – the woman showed some metal, which surprised me. Don’t let the fluffy slippers fool you, incidentally. But it’s done. The deed is done. She’s gone.’ She clenched her teeth, almost quivering with satisfaction.
My Husband Next Door Page 35