“But Ben and you,” he said relentlessly, ‘it’s over, isn’t it? He’s gone? You’re going to need someone to look after you.”
“I really can’t discuss Ben.”
“But Catherine wouldn’t you be happy here?” His voice had risen, his breath was coming fast. “We both like the same things. We could make it the most beautiful house in the world. Antiques and pictures, and people in for lunch. Not all the time of course! We could go abroad for some of the winter, we could travel. But this would be our home, we could make the garden the best garden for miles. Oh, God,” he groaned furiously, “I’m making it sound as though it’s all about that! It’s not what I mean is, what I’ve been saying very badly, is that I want to look after you, Catherine, take care of you. I want that more than anything in the world.”
“Simon, please.” She waved a hand inarticulately. “Not now. This isn’t the time. I’m sorry.” She exhaled slowly. “If we could just go home.” She looked firmly ahead through the windscreen.
“Oh, I do realise it’s rather soon,” he gasped in a voice of sudden reason. “Of course I do. I realise you’re still upset about Rebecca. That’s natural...”
The name resounded darkly in her head. Rebecca.
‘.. . You’re bound to be. And I appreciate that you can’t actually decide at the moment. That you can’t make promises. I wouldn’t expect you to.”
Rebecca. In the instant that she felt the first stab of anguish, she also understood that Rebecca was the obvious choice for Ben in a time of trouble. He would have wanted sympathy, familiarity and lack of complications, more or less in that order;
he would have wanted someone who understood this instinctively, someone who knew him well, an old lover without expectations; or, with expectations and the shrewdness to hide them.
Ben and Rebecca. A story that she had interrupted.
She had missed much of what Simon had been saying. Now he was asking insistently, “Catherine? Will you? Will you?”
She looked at him helplessly, she made as if to touch his arm by way of apology. “Have you known about Rebecca for long?” she asked.
He didn’t want to talk about Rebecca, he frowned. “I saw them together once. I was trying to catch Ben one morning and ... I saw them.”
“At the house. She was at the house?”
He looked mildly abashed, as if he’d said too much, but not so abashed that he didn’t nod in confirmation, before resuming with quiet insistence, “Just say you’ll think about it, Catherine.”
“Sorry?”
“Say you won’t rule it out. That’s all.” He gave a laugh that seemed to catch in his throat, there was a sheen of nervousness on his temple. “We’d be so happy here, I know we would. Think this garden with two garden makers!”
The attempt at lightheartedness only succeeded in striking a note of pathos, and again it seemed to her that his longing hid a deep pessimism, that he knew his chances were hopeless.
She began to recite the ritualistic words of rejection. “Simon, I’m terribly flattered, and I’m terribly honoured, but I can’t possibly begin to think about the future at the moment, not in any shape or form. I have no idea where my marriage is. I have no idea what I want myself.” Seeing his pain, she ploughed on, forcing an overt note of kindness into her voice, hating the string of platitudes. “I like you, of course I do, I value your friendship, but I have to say that I’ve never thought of you as anything but a friend. And I can’t say that’s ever going to change. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
He turned his head sharply to look away through the windscreen. After a while he started the engine. “I understand,” he said in a voice that was very controlled, but also very close to breaking. “Thank you at least for being such a good friend.”
“No, no,” she said, far too quickly, “I’m the one who’s grateful to you.”
She thought: I got that wrong. No, she corrected herself, we both got it wrong. His timing couldn’t have been worse, and he had sprung it on her: he hadn’t thought it through at all. He hadn’t taken account of the upheavals that had shaken her life over the last two days; or perhaps he had, and rushed at the opportunity. At this thought, her indignation grew, and she began to see his declaration as an intrusion, wildly insensitive and very unfair.
They drove for a long time in silence. Wearied by the tension, she took out her phone and announced in a light voice, “Just going to pick up my messages.” In the dusk, his profile was severe. He didn’t look towards her and he didn’t speak.
She hadn’t really expected a message from Ben, but she was miffed not to get one all the same. Instead, there was her father’s standard message, complete with diversionary ideas it was a trip to the races now, a lunch with friends. Then Emma’s voice, diffident, loyal, a little troubled, possibly hurt, asking if she could do anything for her. In her mind, Catherine apologised: I thought it was you, Emma, and I was wrong. It seemed extraordinary now to believe Emma capable of such sustained and accomplished deceit, but a tortured imagination is a wild imagination, in which it’s a short step from an embrace to a well-established affair.
After Emma came three or four business calls that she would play back later. Then Alice, in a panicky tone that made Catherine instantly alert.
“Cath, wherever you are, please call me straight away. I went round to the house, but you weren’t there. I’ve got to speak to you. I’m at work. Usual number. But I’ll leave my mobile on as well, just in case.” A pause, then, distractedly: “Hope you’re okay.” And urgently:
“Cath straight away.”
Catherine ruled out a broken love affair; Alice had always been too proud to come to her with those. A family problem then? Pa running up debts and not telling anyone? Or Ben, going to Alice with some sob story about being thrown out? But even as she brought up Alice’s name on the display and pressed the dial key, she discounted that one. Ben was frightened of Alice; he would rather choke than confide in her.
“Where are you?” Alice cried hastily.
“On a motorway, coming back from the country.”
“When will you be back?”
“An hour or so.”
“An bourY A sigh of frustration.
“Why? What’s happened?” She was thinking of Pa.
As if reading her mind, Alice declared brusquely, “Oh, it’s not Pa.
Nothing like that. No, it’s ... to do with your burglary, Cath. Something you should know. Something that the police should know.” She was sounding slightly hysterical.
“Give me a clue.”
A hesitation, as if she couldn’t make up her mind how much to say. “It’s about Simon,” she said eventually. “Something really bad, Cath.”
Without thinking, Catherine glanced across at him. His eyes swivelled round and met hers briefly. In the instant before she looked away again, she saw a strange brilliance in his eyes.
“Tell me,” she said, selecting her most casual tone.
“But can you talk? Are you driving?”
“Hardly driving.”
“Oh no, of course not. God, no stupid of me. No ... But it might take a moment. Is it all right? Who’re you with? Who’s driving you?”
“A colleague.”
She made a nervous exclamation. “God, I thought for a moment it might have been Simon.”
“So,” Catherine said lightly, ‘what’s the problem exactly?”
A pause while Alice chose her words, which she delivered with a kind of agonised excitement. “You remember I went to the court that day when Pavlik first came up? The magistrates’ court? And Simon was there too?”
“Aha.”
“Well, when the bail was arranged, they mentioned the name of this man who was going to guarantee the bail or whatever the word is and well, I hardly registered the name. I mean, it was no one I knew. I never thought to remember it. And I was so appalled at the fact Pavlik was getting bail that I just didn’t pay much attention.”
“No.”
; “Anyway, I just realised a couple of hours ago well, in fact it was last week that I actually heard the name again, but it just didn’t click until today, I just couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before. You know how it is you hear names, and you just don’t connect them. It was only today that I finally realised it was the same guy. And even then I got Denise Cox to check the court records for the name of the man who put the money up. It took her all day to get the information. I couldn’t say how urgent it was, of course, and I went almost mad waiting, but at last she came through with it, and it was the same guy, Cath.”
“The same as who?”
Alice slowed down a little as she said rather stiffly, “The same as the man who left a message on Simon’s machine. While I was there. Last week. In Simon’s flat. His name’s David Frankel. He’s a solicitor. He’s the same man. But, Cath, he talked like a friend in the message. First name stuff. Sort of, how are you, Simon, and can you phone me some time. But, Cath why would Simon know him unless .. .? You see what I mean?” she cried on a rising note of fear. “It’s all wrong, isn’t it?”
Catherine said calmly, “I see what you mean, yes.”
“What should we do?”
Catherine said, “I can’t think just at the moment.” And it was true.
Her mind had stalled, her thoughts were all over the place.
“But, Cath, if Simon was involved with this man, if they put up the
bail, then ‘
“I understand what you’re saying. Let’s talk about this later. I’ll call you.”
As she rang off, Simon asked, with echoes of his old anxiety and attentiveness, “Everything all right, Catherine?”
Reaching the house, he stopped the car with a slight jolt and gripped the top of the wheel, his shoulders hunched, his head bent forward, like some awful parody of a boy racer. “I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he cried in a rush of anguish. “It was the last thing I intended. The last thing in the world! I knew it wasn’t the best moment, I knew it was a bit too soon. But I could just see us there, Catherine! I could see us in that house with all those beautiful rooms, and the garden, and the lake, and the country life. It’s what I’ve always dreamt of, you see. Always. From when I was small, when we lived in a rat-hole flat with filthy windows and dirty carpets. That’s what I dreamt of a place like that!” His voice had risen emotionally, and dipped again. “I knew it was hoping for a lot, of course, to think you’d want to share it with me. I knew the chances were a bit slim. I knew The words seized in his throat, he inhaled unevenly. “But you’ve got to dream a bit, haven’t you?” His nervous laugh emerged as a ragged gasp. “You’ve got to go for things, otherwise what’s the use? Got to believe it’s going to happen.” He turned to her. “Forgiven?” When she didn’t reply he begged furiously, “Please, Catherine.”
“Sure,” she murmured. “Forget it. It’s not important. But I’d like to get into the house now, if you don’t mind. I’m tired.”
Something in her voice must have alerted him because he stiffened and gave her a long searching look before climbing out of the car.
When he wheeled her up to the house, he seemed preoccupied, and it wasn’t until they were inside that he spoke again.
His words came as a statement delivered in a flat voice. “You’re not forgiving me then.”
“I told you it’s not important.”
He twisted his head, as if to catch her tone. “There’s something else,” he said tightly.
She began to pull off her coat and waved him firmly away when he tried to help. In the car, she’d decided to leave the business of Simon and Frankel to the police, she no longer trusted her judgement on matters involving explanations, excuses and lies. But now as she struggled ineffectually with the sleeves of her coat, her frustration got tangled up with a wider anger, and she said accusingly, “I’m told that you know someone called David Frankel.”
Freeing herself from the last sleeve, she threw the coat in the general direction of a chair and looked up to find him staring at her, white-faced, as if someone had struck him.
“Well?”
He seemed frozen. He might not have been breathing.
“David Frankel,” she repeated slowly as if addressing an idiot. “You know him?”
A barely discernible nod.
“He was the man who put up the bail money.”
He closed his eyes tightly. He seemed to shrivel visibly, to retreat into his body in a dozen minute ways, his head to settle lower into his neck, his hands to shrink against his body, his shoulders to slump by infinitesimal degrees.
“Well?” she demanded in cold exasperation.
“Oh, Catherine .. .” he whispered faintly. He lowered his head.
“You’re making me think bad things, Simon.” And now it was her own voice that was shaking. “You’re making me think you arranged Pavlik’s defence. You’re making me think he was working for you!”
He tried to speak, but only choked.
“For God’s sake!” she cried contemptuously.
“Oh, Catherine!” It was an agonised wail, a great cry of despair. Suddenly he clamped his hands over his face, and she realised with astonishment that he’d begun to cry. He tried to say something, which she couldn’t at first make out through the increasingly violent sobs. “I never meant .. . Never, never, never?
“For God’s sake!” she snapped, in terror at what he might say.
He dropped his hands from his face and flung them down by his sides, palms spread wide. With his bowed head and splayed hands, he was like a supplicant offering himself for retribution. And still he sobbed.
The tears dripped off his nose, tracking down a long skein of mucus
that dangled from the tip. Spikes of hair had fallen forward, masking
his eyes. “It was a mistakel A terrible, ghastly mistake? The
‘mistake’ was drawn out in a long moan of misery. “If you knew how
I’ve tortured myself how I’ve begged for it not to have happened! God,
there hasn’t been a moment, not a single moment that I haven’t begged
to be struck down, that I haven’t longed for it to be me. If I could
have been the one I’d have given anything for it to have been me! Oh
Catherine, if I could have brought you back, made you whole again I’d
have done anything I’d have died a thousand deaths a thousand million
deaths. Believe me, Catherine, there hasn’t been a moment not a second
that I haven’t wished it undone that I haven’t longed for it not to
have happened. I’ve dreamt so often of catching you as you fell, I’ve
rushed to catch you ‘
“It was Pavlik. You hired him. It was Pavlik who attacked me. Is that what you’re saying? Is that it, Simon?”
He raised his head. His face was distorted and ugly with despair.
She read her answer, and one part of her was in immediate and fierce revolt against it, refused absolutely to accept it, did not want to admit to the message in his eyes, not now, not ever, while another part of her was sickened with revulsion and betrayal, was recoiling from the depth of his treachery, though even as the rage shook her, it began to ebb rapidly away.
Simon was gesticulating violently. “Don’t you see, don’t you see, Catherine I didn’t realise it was you. I had no idea it was you. Don’t you see .. .” His legs buckled slowly, for a moment he stood like someone who’d been shot and refuses to fall, until he finally sank forward onto his knees, which met the stone with a sharp crack. Like my head, she thought. My head would have sounded like that. Crack!
“I thought it was her, Catherine!” He held his arms up wide, like a priest. “I thought it was the girl! I heard her ring, I saw her knocking! I saw the awful sick look on her face that they always get when they’re around Ben. The disgusting foul look before they throw themselves at him, just like cheap common tarts! I’ve seen them time and again, getting that same sick disgusting
look in their eyes.” With a whimper, he brought his hands down in a savage cutting motion, as if to haul himself back from some brink. “I saw her there,” he began again in a shuddering voice. “Knocking on the door, thinking he was there, desperate to get at him. And, Catherine, I realised he was betraying you just like he was betraying me! I thought: He’s doing to Catherine what he’s doing to me! And I felt sick, I felt disgusted, I wanted to kill him with my bare hands!”
He had begun to cry again, his cheek was dancing so violently that his face seemed permanently askew. “He sold me out, Catherine. Betrayed me!” he sobbed in a voice of fresh despair. “After all my work. After everything I’d put into that deal heart, soul, energy, bloody devotion and what did he do? He went and cut me out. Cheated me! Without a second thought, without a moment’s hesitation! Because I was nothing to him, you see. I was just a load of shit! Someone he could treat like dirtl Just like he was treating you, Catherine. He was going to have that girl, just like he’d had a thousand girls, and not care a shit! The fact that he was married to you, to someone as fantastic and wonderful as you well, what would he care?
He takes people and uses them. Always has. Greedy, greedy -always wanting more, more, more. Never enough money in the world for him. Never enough women. And loyalty? Christ, what a joke! Loyalty means fuck all to him. It’s just a word! He doesn’t begin to know the meaning He made the strange choking sound again and, clasping his head in both hands, sucked in long gulps of air as if he were suffocating.
“The girl,” Catherine said in a low voice, ‘did you mean to hurt her?”
His head came up slowly, he looked at her, aghast. “God, no! No! She you took me totally by surprise! I thought when Ben arrived that he was alone I thought he’d come back from France a day early without you. He was meant to be coming back the next day on his own, Catherine! You were meant to be staying on in France. That was what he told me! That was how we left it and when I heard him come in, and I looked down and saw him alone, it never occurred to me that you were somewhere behind him. When he caught me upstairs and we fought, I never thought for a second there’d be anyone else!”
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