‘No, but neither of them works, living as they do off your late father-in-law’s pension. But it wasn’t index-linked and is running out. Your husband knew that, and to that end intended to make a will which would be inclusive of them. That was why he’d gathered so much life insurance before he was killed.’
I regarded him steadily for a moment. This rang true. The only thing so far. Phil had gathered an unusual amount of life insurance. For a reason. I cleared my throat. ‘Do they have a case?’
‘In my opinion, no. You, as the wife and mother of his children, have rightly inherited his sole estate, as, I might add, most wives do.’
‘But they’ll fight it? I mean, if I refuse?’
‘Oh, they’ll fight it.’
‘Then we’ll fight back.’ Yesterday I’d have willingly given them some. But not now. Not when they’d so publicly humiliated me. ‘Write back and tell them so immediately. Tell them I won’t part with a penny.’
He made a quiescent face. ‘Could do, but that’s a fairly aggressive step. And you want to avoid slugging it out, particularly in court, which is heinously expensive. Although it might, eventually, be inevitable.’
Court. A vision of me trembling in the dock of an oak-panelled Old Bailey sprang to mind. Twelve stony-faced men and women staring accusingly at me. Cecilia and Marjorie in the gallery, weirdly wearing the hats they’d worn at my wedding, complete with quivering bird on Marjorie’s, except it was no longer a peacock, but a bird of prey. Their barrister, a hatchet-faced man, was cross-examining me: ‘Were you a good wife, Mrs Shilling? Were you?’ Silence. The judge reached for his black cap.
‘Right,’ I said miserably. ‘So … what would you advise?’
The fight had gone out of me and I felt like writing out a cheque. Three, actually. One to each of them. Emma, Marjorie and Cecilia. Oh no, four. I probably owed Sam too. Just leave me alone.
‘I would advise doing nothing at this stage and see whether they proceed. They haven’t actually issued proceedings, just written a couple of letters. Let’s see if it’s all hot air.’
‘Yes. Fine,’ I agreed.
I liked doing nothing. I was a big wait-and-see girl. My entire married life, it occurred to me, had been like that. Wait and see what happens. It might not be so bad. It was. Always. Why did divorce get such a bad name? Surely what I’d done was as bad? This ghastly acceptance? Surely it would have been braver to leave? Something small and hard and angry formed within me. I needed it to grow. I needed to take a steer on my life, that much was clear. I couldn’t let these Shillings walk all over me. I had to see them off, not just pathetically scramble clear of them occasionally, as I had done for years, dodging their blows.
‘Cup of tea?’ Sam asked quietly. I obviously looked very shocked.
‘Please.’
This small kindness touched me, and as he went to the door to ask Janice if she wouldn’t mind, I had to blink very hard.
He came back and sat down again; said one or two comforting things about people making threats all the time, and whilst it sounded dramatic, it was quite another thing to employ a solicitor, which they hadn’t yet done. Hadn’t put money where their mouths were. And anyway, even if lawyers were involved, it was often sorted out via correspondence.
‘I won’t have to see them?’ I asked, my voice coming from somewhere distant as Janice came in with the tea.
‘Not unless it goes to court, but we’ve already decided to try to avoid that at all costs.’
I nodded. Sipped my tea as he chatted, leaning forward with his arms on his desk. He offered me a biscuit, which I took but couldn’t eat, and even though I felt numb, a bit other-worldly, I couldn’t help noticing the elbow of his suit was very worn. The right one, the telephone-propping one, and the handle of his black case beside his chair was broken and tied with binder twine. Phil wouldn’t have been seen dead in a jacket like that or with a tatty briefcase, and I thought how much I liked Sam for it; and for somehow knowing I’d needed tea and a chat before I took to the high street.
Finally, when it became apparent that I couldn’t decently, or even indecently, take up any more of his time, that I’d been in his office for a good forty minutes and we both knew his next appointment had been sitting outside a while because Janice had popped in and told us so, I got to my feet. I felt warmer from the tea, if a little trembly.
‘You going to be all right?’ It was said briskly, but there was no doubting the concern. God, he was nice. But then most people were, weren’t they? I’d just been unlucky.
‘Yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you. And thank you for your advice.’
It was a shame I saw him surreptitiously consult his watch as he walked me to the door. He smiled and we said goodbye.
Outside in the street, something made me glance back up at his building, my eyes finding his window on the second floor. But if I was expecting to see him standing there watching me go down the street, hands in pockets, a wistful expression on his face, I was disappointed.
14
‘I can’t believe it.’ Angie’s mouth, painted fuchsia pink, dropped open in disbelief. She left it there for dramatic emphasis.
‘I know. Neither can I. Well, no, I can, actually,’ I said miserably.
‘But what sort of man does that?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Ropes his entire family into his extramarital affair and asks them to conspire against his wife!’
‘Phil,’ I said quietly. ‘A Phil sort of man.’
‘And – and what sort of family,’ she blinked, ‘agrees! Colludes with their son? And his mistress? Gives the relationship their seal of approval!’
I squirmed. ‘Marjorie and Cecilia,’ I said mechanically, noticing Jennie wasn’t saying anything.
She had her back to us. Strapped into a long white pinny at her Aga, she was stirring a vast vat of boeuf bourguignon ready to be put into Tupperware dishes and thence local freezers. Angie and I were at her kitchen table. Angie had popped in to retrieve a pashmina she’d lent and wanted to wear to a charity luncheon. She’d found me, pale, hunched and in mid-flow to Jennie. Naturally the story had to be retold. And I would, of course, have told Angie eventually, but there was a definite hierarchy. I might have waited until I was more poised. No chance of that now. And Angie’s incredulity was hard to bear, reflecting, as I felt it did ineluctably, on me. Jennie too had been shocked, but she could believe it. She knew Phil, and she knew Marjorie and Cecilia.
‘Phil could do no wrong in their eyes,’ I explained wearily, wondering if I’d have to explain these Shillings for ever. Wondering if I was going to make a career of it.
‘They clearly don’t know the difference between right and wrong!’ Angie exploded. ‘And this – this Emma chit – I thought she came to see you? Said she didn’t want anything?’
‘She did. But now the will’s been published she’s realized Phil was probably on the verge of making provision for her, as he was for Marjorie and Cecilia.’ I shrugged. ‘I suppose she feels entitled.’
‘Entitled, my arse!’ Angie stormed. She’d got up from the table and strutted angrily to the window, arms folded. Her eyes were bright, her face suffused with indignation. A few months ago Angie’s beautiful face had been terribly drawn, terribly wretched. There was at least some light to it now. Was it a relief, I wondered, not to be quite so firmly in the eye of the storm? For the baton to have passed to me? Not to be the one everyone felt sorry for? Not that she’d relish my misfortune – Angie was a sweet girl – but nobody wanted to be the unlucky one for ever. The one who had the worst time of it.
‘Don’t give her a penny,’ she warned, turning on her four-inch heel to face me abruptly. ‘Not a penny.’
I nodded, mute.
‘And what sort of a man is that bloody organized?’ she asked. ‘Starts to tie up his estate like that, in his thirties?’
‘The sort of man who has already bagged his spot in the churchyard,’ said Jennie without turning, still stirring. Then she did glance back. ‘He would have made it hi
s business, wouldn’t he, Poppy? Not to leave any loose ends.’
I nodded again. It was all so embarrassing. So … demeaning. ‘I can’t believe I made such a catastrophic mistake in marrying him,’ I said softly. I wanted to go on to say, ‘Such a lack of judgement,’ but knew my voice would wobble. Had I been all there, I wondered, six years ago?
Angie studied her nails, which were long and red, and Jennie kindly resumed her inspection of her casserole, which she’d done for some time.
‘I was thinking that today, at the solicitor’s,’ I said, half aloud and half to myself, when I was sure my voice wouldn’t falter. ‘Thinking: what must he think of me, marrying a man like that?’
‘Who cares what your bloody solicitor thinks!’ snorted Angie. ‘The important thing is not to give those grasping witches a penny. It’s all yours, Poppy, all of it.’
‘And if fighting for money goes against the grain,’ added Jennie, waving her wooden spoon at me, knowing I had a lot of Dad in me, ‘do it for Clemmie and Archie.’
Yes, that helped. For them. I’d already told myself that was the way forward. That might propel me. But sustaining the momentum would be nip and tuck. I wondered what I’d think if I was Emma. If the man I’d loved for four years had provided for me, would I want it? Feel entitled? Perhaps I would.
‘But she’s young, for heaven’s sake,’ pointed out Jennie, reading my thoughts. ‘She’s earning, she has no children. You don’t work.’
‘Don’t do anything,’ I said, feeling slightly panicky. Except, I thought, take my late husband’s money: the money of a man who didn’t love me.
‘None of us worked while the children were young,’ argued Angie. ‘God, I don’t work now!’
There was an uncomfortable pause. Then: ‘Exactly,’ Jennie said quickly.
If truth be told, we’d both quietly wondered why Angie hadn’t done something to contribute to the family coffers, now that she could. Jennie had once witnessed Tom coming in tired from work in his suit, standing opening bills in the kitchen and muttering about Angie’s spiralling Harvey Nichols account, to which Angie had airily said, ‘Have you thought about getting a Saturday job?’ Tom couldn’t speak for a moment. When he’d found his tongue he’d acidly asked whether she’d prefer him to have a paper round or be on the till at Tesco’s? Angie had angrily enjoined him to take a joke, for heaven’s sake, and Jennie had downed her wine and crept away.
‘Having two small children is hugely labour-intensive,’ Angie told me hotly. ‘Don’t you go feeling guilty about not working, Poppy. We’re the unsung flaming heroes.’
I sighed. I knew they were trying to make me feel better but, actually, I felt worse. Like a scrounger. Here I was, in the middle of the morning, having coffee yet again with my girlfriends, before going back to the house that Phil had paid for, and which, evidently, he’d have preferred to have lived in with Emma. Before I’d popped round here, a ridiculously simple riffle through the phone book had revealed that Emma Harding lived locally, up the road in Wessington. Meadow Bank Cottage. I can’t tell you how that had shaken me. How I’d almost got under the kitchen table in fright. Somehow I’d assumed that because she worked in London she must live in London, but she didn’t; she was moments away. Must have driven past my house countless times, thinking: that’s where I should be, with him, where we could be together. Perhaps she should have it now? Suddenly Dad’s life, held together with bits of binder twine, appealed. I wondered if he’d got a spare shed. And Clemmie and Archie could go to the local school, not the expensive village Montessori.
‘Well, we’ll see,’ I said wearily. ‘Sam said let’s wait and see. See if they follow it up. He said they may just be full of hot air.’
‘Sam’s the solicitor?’ asked Angie, and for some reason I bent my head to pull up my sock under my jeans.
‘Yup.’
‘Well, I hope he’s good. Who’s he with?’
‘A small firm in town. Private practice. But he was with a big outfit in London,’ I added, knowing Angie would be impressed by that.
‘Oh, OK. Well, listen, Poppy, April McLean at Freshfields may be expensive but she goes for the jugular. Let me know if you want to meet her. I came out of her office thinking I could rule the world.’
‘No, no, I’m very happy.’ I tried to imagine Sam going for the jugular. It was in the neck, wasn’t it? Baring his fangs across the Old Bailey at Marjorie. I wondered where he went after work. Where he lived now he was divorced. A rented flat in town? Or did he stay with friends, all guys together, meeting them for a pint after work? I couldn’t imagine that, somehow.
‘Anyway, thanks, you two. Good to share and all that. I’ve got to go and get Clemmie. She finishes at lunchtime today.’
When they’d murmured their goodbyes, with staunch messages of support, and kissed me, Angie nearly breaking my cheekbones, I took my leave. Went slowly up the hill. Archie, who’d just learned the words to Postman Pat, was kicking his legs in his buggy, singing his little heart out, but mine was heavy. How much was Angie asking for, I wondered. Half of Tom’s wealth? More? The house? Well, why not? She’d brought the children up there; it was their home. It just didn’t feel quite right. And not because Angie had never worked – oh, she pulled her weight in the community, sat on committees, chaired the council. It wasn’t that. It was just … I wasn’t sure I wanted to join that band of women who took their husbands for all they could. Because they’d been betrayed.
I’d overheard her talking to Tom the other day on her mobile in the street. I’d come up behind her, been about to greet her, when I realized she was on the phone: ‘Yes, Clarissa did meet some boy in London and she probably met him on an Internet site, probably didn’t even know him, but what d’you expect with the example you set? I’m surprised she’s not pregnant!’ There’d been a silence, then: ‘Oh, piss off, Tom!’
As she realized I was there, she’d turned, a look of pure hatred disfiguring her face. ‘Wretched man,’ she said, pocketing her phone. ‘Getting all parental at this late stage. It was only Hugo, incidentally,’ she muttered, ‘who Clarissa met.’
Hugo was Angus and Sylvia’s grandson. He was a lovely boy, who’d just left school and worked occasionally in the pub. I wondered why Angie hadn’t told Tom. I didn’t want to be like that. Vengeful. Spiteful. Taking my ex to the cleaners. You’re not, I told myself, as Clemmie let loose her teacher’s hand at the gate and ran towards me. Because for one thing he’s not an ex, he’s a deceased; and you’re not taking him to the cleaners, you’re preventing his mistress taking you. Do get a grip.
I hugged my daughter hard as she embraced my knees. But on the way home, Clemmie chattering beside me, an egg-box alligator swinging from her hand, I decided that the moment Archie was in nursery, I’d get a job. Go back to work. OK, my PR agency in London were unlikely to take me after such an absence, however sorry they’d been to see me go, and particularly for only a few mornings a week, but might they give me some freelance work? They had rung once, offered, but Archie had been only a few weeks old, and Phil so busy, I’d turned it down. So stupid, I thought angrily. Everyone knew you had to keep your hand in. But maybe it wasn’t too late? And maybe I could bang on some doors locally as well? I wasn’t naive enough to think it would be easy, but I’d inherited Dad’s breezy optimistic gene that said anything was possible. I just had to find it.
Angie had been right about one thing, though, I thought, as I paused to let Clemmie feed the ducks by the pond with some bread I’d brought for her. Child care was hard work, and very much unsung. I remembered last Christmas, when Marjorie and Cecilia had come to stay for four days. And how, with two tiny children, I’d produced one meal after another whilst they barely lifted a finger. They’d sat at the table, straight-backed and prim, Cecilia wearing the blue cashmere cardigan I’d bought her, waiting for me to run in with the plates as if they were in a restaurant. Phil, carefully decanting the one and only bottle of wine we were to have. And I thought of every Christmas when
they’d stayed in my spare room, in the sheets I’d changed for them, drinking the tea I’d made for them, all the time knowing about Miss Harding. The Shillings had a terrible tradition whereby we all sat on Marjorie’s bed on Christmas morning to open presents, whilst she sat like the queen in her quilted bed jacket, in my spare room, in my house. And all the time, life was not as I imagined. Earth-shattering betrayal was being played out around me. Part of me had been eager for family traditions, I’ll admit; eager for normality, a different sort of upbringing than my own for my children. I was ready to accept a great deal, not having a lot to hang my own hat on. I’d gone along with the present-opening scene with good grace. I’d even gone along with being led in a little prayer by Marjorie after the last one had been opened, bending my head and giving thanks to God. Jesus. Fuck.
The scale of their treachery suddenly threatened to overwhelm me. I felt so exposed. Had they all been laughing at me? I tightened my grip on the pushchair; felt my head swim. Breathe, I told myself, breathe. Because … perhaps they hadn’t known for years? Sam hadn’t said when. Perhaps they only became aware of Emma’s existence in the last year or so? Last few months? Yes, I preferred to believe that, I decided, waiting for my heart rate to come down as Clemmie told me about Damien, Mummy, who’s got a verruca. Preferred to believe no one could be quite so wicked.
The book club met at Angie’s that evening, Angie having the most beautiful house. And Jennie did the food. Oh, yes, food, not nibbles. No bumper-sized bags of assorted crisps were to be hastily shaken into bowls this week. Instead, bite-sized blinis were piled with cream cheese and caviar, asparagus and Parmesan cheese slivers rolled in Parma ham, and tiny baked potatoes topped with sour cream and chives. And we assembled, not in the kitchen, but in the vast drawing room. A roaring fire had been lit under the marble mantle and Angie’s clever decor – heavy linen curtains, creamy sofas, antique tables topped with enormous stone lamps, fabulous oil paintings on the walls – was softly lit by scented candles everywhere. And I mean, everywhere. Angie’s taste, generally impeccable, had a habit of lurching off-piste when confronted by a shop full of scented candles. Nevertheless the effect was beautiful.
A Rural Affair Page 17