The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes

by Catherine Robertson

  ‘Where are you going, Clare?’ said Patrick. ‘You’re not even dressed!’

  Clare glanced down. She had on a pair of knickers and the same old T-shirt of Patrick’s that she’d been wearing the night she’d said yes to Italy.

  ‘I’ll change in the car,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave the car seat. You can share the diesel with Darrell and Anselo.’

  She began to hurry to the door.

  ‘Clare, come on!’

  Patrick chased her and grabbed her arm. She shook herself free.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she said with a venom that made Patrick blench.

  ‘But … where are you going?’ he said helplessly and, before he could stop himself, added, ‘What about Tom?’

  Clare paused, hand on the doorknob. ‘Well, Patrick,’ she said, ‘now, it’s your turn to figure that out.’

  She wrenched open the door and went. Patrick listened to her rapid footsteps descend the stairs. He heard the front door slam. He lifted his hands to his head and found they were shaking.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said to the empty room.

  The clock on the bedside table said seven forty-five. Patrick had got up especially to take Tom to breakfast, and now he’d probably missed his chance. Charlotte would already have led Tom down to the kitchen.

  ‘Things fall apart,’ he murmured. ‘Yeats, me old china, you are a fucking wanker.’

  ‘Well,’ said Michelle, ‘what do you think?’

  Darrell dragged her mind back to the present. ‘About what?’

  ‘The French government’s policy on grain import subsidies.’ Michelle grabbed Darrell by the shoulder and shook her. ‘What do you mean “about what”? The big bust-up, of course!’

  ‘Do I need to have an opinion?’ said Darrell.

  Michelle sat back in the chair, and stared at Darrell through narrowed eyes.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ she said. ‘You used to have an opinion on everything. Oh, no, wait — that was me.’

  Michelle had come to join Darrell at the table by the loggia. Cosmo had just finished feeding, and was lying asleep in Darrell’s arms.

  I should lay him on the mat, thought Darrell, rather than keep holding him. But you know what? I can’t even be bothered doing that.

  ‘I haven’t known Patrick and Clare as long as you have,’ said Michelle. ‘Did you see this coming?’ Without waiting for a reply, she went on. ‘I mean, I knew Patrick hadn’t been overly enamoured with Clare’s parenting style, which he made sound akin to Russian tanks rolling into Warsaw. But I hadn’t seen any of that here, had you? If anything, Clare was like one of those paint-by-mouth chappies — completely hands-off.’

  Michelle sipped on the glass of water she’d carried out with her. Darrell eyed it enviously. Breastfeeding always gave her a raging thirst, but her hands had been too full with Cosmo and his load of baby necessities to bring water outside as well. I could have stayed inside, she thought, but Anselo was in the kitchen, and so was Charlotte, and Chad and Patrick were in the living room with the children, and I really, really needed to get some air. And now, here’s Michelle. I suppose I could tell her to go away, but we all know that will never happen, don’t we?

  ‘Chad usually refuses to comment on other people’s business,’ Michelle was saying. ‘But this morning, I forced him to, and he thinks Patrick and Clare had never discussed what would happen after Tom was born, whether Clare would go back to work, et cetera. Chad and I discussed it, in the sense that I told him how it would be, and he accepted it. Clear communication is so important in a marriage, don’t you think?’

  Darrell’s rational brain knew that Michelle was joking, but her primary response was that someone had landed a vicious punch dead centre of the vulnerable expanse of emotional jelly that seemed to constitute the majority of her being.

  I need to talk to my husband, she thought. We need to talk to each other. But it’s not happening, and I can’t see how it will.

  When the group had come home from Milan, Michelle had been full of stories — about shopping in designer stores and staying in swanky hotels and dancing at fashionable nightclubs. Michelle was full of praise for Anselo’s ability to dance, which she likened to John Travolta’s in Saturday Night Fever. (‘You know, that super hip-swivelly thing, as if his bottom half and top half aren’t connected. Uber cool.’) Darrell’s mood, which had been low to begin with, had begun a Jules Verne-like descent into deepest subterranean darkness.

  Anselo and I have never been dancing in a nightclub, she’d thought, admittedly because I rate it as slightly less enjoyable than treading on Lego bricks in my bare feet. He and I have never stayed at a swanky hotel; when we last went on holiday, we lived as cheaply as we could. The only designer dress I’ve ever worn, I borrowed from Clare. I know that was in the time before he started working for Patrick, in the time when we had no money left over for indulgences. But, still, where he got the kind of readies he seems to have spent on this spree, Lord only knows. And because I guarantee I will never ask, that knowledge with the Lord shall exclusively remain.

  Anselo had contributed very little to the story-telling session, Darrell recalled. He had also, during its entirety, avoided her eye. And he didn’t ask me once how I’d spent the two days he was gone, she thought, and for that, I have to admit I feel more relieved than hurt. Because what on earth would I — could I — tell him?

  This morning, we did speak, about Clare and Patrick, but it was brief and acrimonious. I annoyed him, he walked out of the bedroom, and I’ve been avoiding him since.

  Our relationship is unravelling obviously now, and at speed, thought Darrell, and all I’m doing is watching it, like a disinterested spectator. It’s not good enough — I know that — especially as I’ve been the one most at fault. But being the first to speak, to broach the subject that all is not well, where will that lead? I can only see it heading to recriminations, blame and failure. My failure.

  I’m simply not brave enough to face that, she thought. I’m not brave enough to make a decision about Marcus, either, even though I know full well what it should be. That’s why I’m sitting here, doing my best to avoid everything and everyone, until I’m forced to do otherwise, forced once and for all to act.

  Darrell became aware that she had not yet responded to Michelle. Good thing Michelle’s perfectly capable of carrying on this conversation without me, she thought.

  But then Michelle said, ‘Did you catch up with sexy Marcus? I can’t believe he wouldn’t come with us to Milan.’

  Darrell dithered frantically. Should she lie? No one had seen her leave with Marcus, nor come back. Oh shit. Except Charlotte …

  ‘I saw him.’ Darrell settled for a half-truth. ‘But I’m pretty sure he won’t visit again.’

  ‘Why in tarnation not? What are we? Chopped liverio?’

  Michelle, to Darrell’s alarm, seemed genuinely interested. Usually, all she wants is to talk about herself, Darrell thought. Why now of all times, plagues upon her, does she want to hear about me?

  ‘Um,’ Darrell began, ‘I don’t know. He’s busy, I guess.’

  Michelle was staring at her with uncomfortable intensity. ‘You seem reluctant to share news of him. Don’t tell me he tried one on, Italian-style?’ she said. ‘Offered to slip you the salami? Make the whoopio?’

  ‘No!’ Darrell knew her cheeks were flaming, and cursed her inability to remain unflustered. ‘Of course not! Don’t be stupid!’

  ‘Wow,’ said Michelle. ‘You protesteth muchly, like bitchface Gertrude in Hamlet. Hit a nerve, did I?’

  ‘You know how easy I am to wind up!’ said Darrell. ‘It was nothing like that!’

  Which is the truth, she thought. What it was like, however, is harder to say. No, not hard. Utterly impossible.

  ‘If I weren’t married to Chad, or if I were married to someone less perfect and godlike, I’d jump sexy Marcus in a nanosecond,’ said Michelle. ‘I can completely understand now why you were obsessed with him. At the time, I just assume
d you were mentally unhinged.’

  ‘I was,’ said Darrell. ‘A little. I hadn’t fully gotten over Tom’s death.’

  ‘And Marcus filled a gap, so to speak?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Darrell. ‘But, as you know, I have an active imagination.’

  ‘Good thing you snaffled Anselo, then,’ said Michelle. ‘He’s the right stuff. Solid. A man you can rely on.’

  Darrell was grateful for the sounds of childish voices that made Michelle turn away. Harry was running across the grass towards them, behind him Chad, smiling and carrying Rosie, and Patrick, considerably less cheerful, carrying Tom.

  Michelle turned back to Darrell and pulled a quick face. ‘God, look at him. The poor sod. If I start being my usual tactless self, can you shove a baby wipe in my mouth? I don’t think I could cope if I made a man that size cry.’

  I’m glad she didn’t ask where my own husband is, thought Darrell. I’m glad her family has turned up to distract her. And if I play it right, not one of them will notice if I quietly slip away.

  24

  Anselo sat at the kitchen table, watching Charlotte tidy away the children’s breakfast things, and wondering how he could trick her into telling him what his wife had been up to during the two days he’d spent in Milan. And who she’d been up to it with, he added mentally. I have my suspicions, but then again, isn’t that just my nature?

  He couldn’t ask Charlotte outright, because that would make him look like an idiot loser and, if his suspicions were indeed correct, a cuckold. One marriage on the rocks is probably enough for now, thought Anselo. I don’t need to make it a double.

  Ironically, he thought, it was this morning’s argument between Patrick and Clare, the key points of which had been audible to everyone, that had led he and Darrell to have their first exchange in days that comprised more than two or three words.

  Anselo had been in the ensuite when Clare had yelled at Patrick that he was an arsehole. He’d popped his head out and caught the eye of Darrell, sitting up in bed, looking shocked. They’d stared at each other while the yelling continued, and Anselo had seen Darrell’s expression change from shock to a kind of puzzled pain, as if she’d just overheard someone she’d thought a good friend say something nasty about her. She’d flinched when Clare had slammed the front door and, when they’d heard the car drive off, she’d looked down to her hands, which Anselo could see she’d cupped together, fingers twisted, nails digging into her palms.

  ‘I guess we’ll be sharing the Peugeot with Patrick and Tom,’ she’d said.

  ‘You don’t think she’ll be back?’

  Darrell had looked up at Anselo again. ‘Clare doesn’t like to fail.’

  ‘So she’ll expect Patrick to go after her, and make him beg and grovel for forgiveness? Typical.’

  Darrell had frowned. ‘I’m not so sure, given how he acted yesterday, sending Charlotte off like that, making Clare look after Tom. Don’t you think that’s what the argument was about? That he’s not prepared to compromise?’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Anselo found her whole attitude intensely irritating. ‘That’s it for them? Finito? Next stop, divorce? What about Tom?’

  ‘Are children still used as an excuse to hold failing marriages together?’

  Anselo had graduated from irritated to pissed-off. ‘One argument is hardly a failed marriage. Jesus, you can be a fucking doom merchant sometimes.’

  Darrell’s eyes had widened, but all she did was blink a couple of times, and then look back down at her fingers and dig her nails in some more. Anselo had had enough. He’d got dressed and out of the bedroom as quickly as possible.

  And now I’m in the kitchen, he thought, trying to figure out a way to get intel on her, on my own wife, because apart from that unsatisfactory conversation, she and I haven’t talked.

  I was right in saying one argument doesn’t make a failed marriage, he told himself. It’s the thousand tiny slights and stored-up resentments that do the real damage.

  ‘May I offer you a cup of coffee?’

  Charlotte had finished tidying and was now smiling at him. She was looking especially radiant this morning, thought Anselo. Her prettiness was distinctively English, he felt. It brought to mind fruit puddings and cream and the mellow luminosity of the countryside on a perfect crisp autumn day. She had on a fifties-style full-skirted cotton dress, with a print of pink and red roses on a white background. Anselo could not recall ever seeing Charlotte wear trousers. Dresses and cardigans, he thought, that’s Charlotte’s style. Feminine and pretty and sexy. Which was ironic, considering her personality was more akin to the kind of woman who breeds terriers and who wears scratchy tweed and men’s brogues and has stout black hairs sprouting from her chin.

  Perhaps that’s a lesson for me that I shouldn’t worry so much about how people judge my appearance, Anselo thought; that people actually care more about what’s inside. Trouble is, I doubt what’s inside me right now is in any way appealing. Right now, the seventh circle of hell could not churn any more black and noxiously.

  Charlotte was waiting for a reply. With an effort, Anselo returned her smile. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Coffee would be great.’

  As she busied herself with the stovetop espresso maker, Anselo knew that if he wanted information out of her, it was now or never. His suspicions had been simmering away for so long, he could almost convince himself that it’d be a relief to have them confirmed.

  ‘So what did you get up to yesterday?’ he forced himself to say. ‘On your day off?’

  Charlotte paused, a spoonful of ground coffee in her hand. ‘As it happens, I went for a walk. Up in the hills behind the village.’

  ‘A walk?’

  She gave him a look. ‘It’s an activity in which you put one foot in front of the other, and eventually, depending on your stamina, reach a destination.’

  ‘Thanks, yeah, I got it,’ said Anselo. ‘How was it?’

  Charlotte’s smile was almost secretive, he thought, as if she’s remembering a private pleasure. Anselo felt a pang of envy. Lucky fucking Charlotte. I wish my recent memories made me smile like that.

  ‘Energetic but highly enjoyable,’ she said. ‘I achieved quite dizzying heights. It’s a beautiful walk,’ she added, placing the espresso-maker on the gas. ‘If you ever feel a need to stretch your legs, I can highly recommend it.’

  Stretch them? thought Anselo. I want to run and run until they refuse to take me one step further.

  ‘Got any other ideas for stuff to do?’ He cast a lure and hoped. ‘You and Darrell seem to have the kid-friendly expeditions nailed.’

  The espresso-maker bubbled, and Anselo had to wait as Charlotte lifted it from the element, and poured the coffee into two cups. When she handed him his, and pulled out a chair opposite, her expression was thoughtful.

  ‘I’m not sure I’d have been keen to take a baby on such a long drive,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have the tolerance to remain cooped up in a car with the older children for more than fifteen minutes.’

  Charlotte paused to sip her coffee, and Anselo held his breath.

  ‘However, I suspect,’ she pursed her mouth, ‘that our Mr Reynolds’ standards are more relaxed than most.’

  Bingo, thought Anselo. Fucking bingo!

  But his quick hot burst of triumph was smothered as the churning noxiousness rose from his gut and filled him up, dark and relentless, until he could hardly see.

  Fuck, he thought. My wife took a long drive with douchebag Reynolds and did not think to mention it once. Not that I asked, but still — that’s a pretty fucking big omission.

  Whose idea had it been? It had to be the douchebag’s, Anselo decided, but how the fuck did he persuade her? Darrell had balked at taking Cosmo in a cab to London Bridge to get the train to Gatwick, he recalled, and that was a ride of no more than forty minutes. What had Marcus fucking Reynolds said to his wife, Anselo wondered, that made her OK about taking a long drive — and how fucking long, exactly — on Italian road
s? What had he offered her? A quick grope in a lay-by while Cosmo was asleep? His hand in her jeans? In return for her mouth around his—

  Anselo became aware that Charlotte was giving him an odd look, part wary, part questioning. My expression must have turned murderous, thought Anselo. And for good reason. If Marcus Reynolds walked in here right now, I would punch him to the floor and kick him to death. And then I would revive him by stabbing a giant adrenaline injection right in his heart and kick him to death all over again.

  Anselo took a deep breath.

  ‘You know what?’ he said to Charlotte. ‘That walk sounds like a fucking good idea.’

  But I won’t be walking up any hill, Anselo thought, unless it’s a metaphorical one. I’m headed straight to the garden to find my wife.

  Charlotte was rather thankful when Anselo left the kitchen. Dear God, she thought, I feared the man was on the brink of an aneurism. She knew she’d taken a risk telling him about Darrell’s day trip with Marcus, but so long as Anselo did not drop dead of a brain haemorrhage, it was all part of the plan.

  Last night, she’d slept surprisingly soundly — well, perhaps not so surprisingly, considering yesterday’s sustained and energetic exercise — and had woken clear-headed and filled with resolve. The best way to get back into Patrick’s favour, she’d decided, was to reconcile Darrell and Anselo. And the best way to do that was to make damn sure the pernicious influence of Marcus Reynolds was comprehensively neutralised. In telling Anselo what his wife had been up to, Charlotte intended to provoke a showdown between the two men. She did not have complete faith that Anselo would come out the winner, but she assumed that Patrick would always side with family, which would make it two against one (or, more accurately, given that it was Patrick, two-and-a-half). And to make the plan absolutely watertight, she intended to visit Marcus herself and sleep with him. Charlotte had no doubt he’d agree — the man was an inveterate fanny-hound — and then she would have all she needed to dash any hopes Darrell might foolishly be harbouring about the man’s commitment and integrity.