Before We Met: A Novel

by Lucie Whitehouse

  He exhaled and she felt his breath on her face. ‘I’m being melodramatic,’ he said, ‘I know I am, but . . . I’ve just got this really bad feeling. I’m scared I’ve put you in danger.’

  She felt a single sharp throb in her stomach. ‘What do you mean?’

  He hesitated. ‘The deal was I’d have Nick’s money ready the day he got out of jail – all of it, the exact day. Now I’m going to him with the offer of this incentive, but not the full amount.’

  ‘You haven’t told him yet? I thought—’

  ‘I haven’t told him.’

  ‘But when you went up there . . .’

  ‘I was still hoping I’d find another way – that I’d be able to borrow the money I needed from this guy Manso in the States. I didn’t want to tell Nick until I was absolutely sure I had to.’

  Despite the warmth of the bed, Hannah was suddenly cold. ‘And if the incentive’s not enough – if he doesn’t go for it?’

  Again he hesitated. ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

  ‘Mark – please. Just tell me what you mean.’

  ‘He’ll go crazy.’

  ‘Crazy?’

  ‘This is why I’ve been so desperate to get the money, Hannah.’ His voice was rising, the panic audible. ‘This is why I lied about last weekend and went to the Berkshires. It’s why I tried everything I could to see this guy even though I knew it might just be getting myself into a different sort of trouble.’

  ‘What do you mean by danger?’ she said slowly.

  ‘I don’t know. I—’

  ‘Mark, say what you mean. Are you trying to tell me Nick could be violent?’

  He closed his eyes as if to shut the question out. ‘I think so. Yes.’

  Hannah felt the word sink through the air and settle like poisonous dust around them. They lay without speaking for what felt like a long time, and she listened for sounds from outside, evidence that the real, normal world was still out there, still going on. It was early afternoon, however, and the streets were quiet.

  Mark was the first to speak again. ‘Han, being in prison for so long’s changed him. He’s . . . harder. And even without knowing about the money, he’s angry with me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For having been out living my life all these years while he’s been in there rotting. He blames me.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense – how can he? You didn’t do anything. He was the one who . . .’

  ‘But that’s it: Nick’s thinking doesn’t make sense. He can’t see straight because in his mind, everything’s distorted, pulled into concentric circles around him.’ Mark drew the pillow tighter under his neck. ‘It sounds mad but sometimes he doesn’t even seem to understand that I’m separate from him, a different person. He thinks I’m responsible – like I’m his super-ego or something and I fucked up. He’s been sitting up there stewing, with all the time in the world on his hands, and he’s convinced himself it was my fault.’

  ‘I don’t even understand how that’s possible.’

  ‘I brought Patty into our group, didn’t I? If I hadn’t started seeing her . . .’

  ‘That’s nuts.’

  ‘But that’s it – that’s how he thinks. It’s not . . . normal.’

  Hannah turned on to her back, away from him. ‘When is he getting out?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘This Thursday?’ Her voice was loud in the stillness of the room.

  ‘Two days,’ said Mark.

  ‘It’s going to be intense – I’ll be doing horrible hours. David’s been hard at work getting stuff ready but I haven’t been able to focus at all, worrying so much about . . .’ he stopped.

  Hannah sat on the old church pew and watched as Mark swung around the kitchen, consulting the recipe as if it was an alchemical text, pouring splashes of port and soy sauce into one of the copper pans, adding things to the mortar, a mad scientist at work in his laboratory. He opened the oven door, releasing a cloud of steam, and lifted the roasting pan on to the counter top to baste the pork again. He’d refused even to let her peel the vegetables, and instead handed her a glass of the incredible Barolo he’d picked up on his trip out to buy the rest of the ingredients. ‘You can talk to the chef,’ he’d said. ‘That’s your job tonight.’

  When the pan was back in the oven he paused for a moment. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘Afterwards, when all this is . . . resolved, why don’t we have a holiday? Somewhere lovely, hot, with nothing to do but swim and read, snorkel. I was thinking about Mauritius, or maybe the Seychelles.’

  She thought about their empty bank accounts, the terrifying mortgage. ‘Can we afford it?’

  ‘Not right this minute but if all goes according to plan . . .’

  Of course. If it all went to plan and Systema agreed with the valuation, he’d be able to afford almost anything. Even with Nick’s twelve per cent and the twenty-five that David owned, a buy-out would make Mark very, very rich. Earlier, lying awake, she’d worked out that if DataPro was valued at fifteen million, his sixty-three per cent share was worth just less than nine and a half million pounds. Mark would be able to go on holiday for the rest of his life if he wanted.

  ‘A proper break,’ he said, tearing the plastic off a jar of star anise. ‘We need one. We’ve both been under too much pressure lately, you with the job-search, me with all this DataPro stuff and . . .’ Again, he stopped himself. Evidently he’d made a decision not to talk about Nick tonight. ‘I’ve been thinking we could go for three weeks, a month, really relax, perhaps somewhere for some culture first – I’d love to see more of Japan – and then on to an island in some ludicrously beautiful turquoise archipelago somewhere. What do you reckon?’ He looked at her, his face flushed from the heat of the oven.

  ‘It sounds incredible.’

  ‘You and me, no stress, nothing to worry about, a real break.’

  Thousands of miles from your brother, out of his reach.

  ‘Then afterwards we’ll come back and regroup. I’ll think about what I’m going to do next, but no hurry – I don’t want to rush into anything. I want to spend some proper time here, with you, and maybe that would be a good opportunity to think about . . .’ He trailed off again. A week ago he’d have said it, a baby, but that was too much for tonight when, though neither of them would admit it, everything between them was tentative and not to be taken for granted.

  ‘We also need to have a conversation about your car.’

  ‘My car? Oh – no.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘No way.’

  He smiled. ‘Come on. How old is it, anyway?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t need to swap it. I don’t want to, either – we’re friends. That’s why I held on to it and kept it at Mum’s all the time I was in America.’

  ‘It doesn’t make economic sense, though, does it? You’ll spend more on repairs than it’s actually worth. And I worry about how safe it is when you’re doing those long drives up to Malvern. When the deal comes through, let me get you a new one. If you’re really wedded to VWs, you could have another one, brand new. It doesn’t have to be anything big – I know that’s not you.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not wedded to VWs, I just like the one I have. When it bites the dust I’ll get a new car but until then . . .’

  ‘Until then I’ll have a wife who goes about in an old rust bucket?’ Mark rolled his eyes in cartoonish despair and went back to his cooking. She watched as he grated a piece of ginger, head bent over the little hand-held grater, the muscles in his forearms standing proud. It was always a big production when he cooked: joints of meat from the specialist butcher, unusual herbs and spices, esoteric liqueurs. Usually she loved to watch, finding his intense man-at-work concentration quite sexy, but this evening she looked at his dark head, the furrow between his eyebrows, and found herself wondering what Nick looked like now. Did they still look as much alike or had Nick’s face hardened along with his character? What did it do to you, ten years in a maxi
mum-security prison?

  Are you telling me Nick could be violent?

  She took a gulp of wine and looked away. The brightness of the kitchen blocked any view of the yard but the people who lived in the house behind had switched on their outside wall lights and the fine upper branches of the ornamental cherry tree stood out like veins against the sky. They must have guests, Hannah thought, with a pang at the idea of other people, noise, conviviality. There was noise here, stirring and pouring and chopping, the Dylan Mark had put on the kitchen stereo, but it patched the silence like a plaster. She would have preferred to go out, sit in a restaurant surrounded with bustle and conversation, but he’d wanted to cook, to make a visible effort for her, she knew, rather than just hand over a card.

  ‘Where would you like to go?’ he asked. ‘Anywhere. You’ve talked about Brazil before. Perhaps we could fly to Rio and go on from there.’

  ‘Brazil – wow.’ She tried to direct her thoughts to exotic locations: he was trying so hard; the least she could do was make an effort. But could you really think about holidays when in two days’ time . . .? And – she quickly turned away from that thought – there was her own job situation to consider.

  ‘I forgot to tell you,’ she said, ‘Penrose Price called this morning before you got back. I’m through to the last round and they’ve invited us – you and me – to have dinner with the MD and his wife next week. Tuesday.’

  She watched a smile spread across Mark’s face. ‘Seriously? That’s phenomenal.’ He put the knife down and came around the counter to kiss her. ‘Good for you. See, I told you it was just a matter of time.’

  ‘It’s only an interview,’ she said. ‘And I’ve been here before, remember? I’ve had three final interviews and nothing’s come of any of them.’

  ‘This feels different, though, doesn’t it, Penrose Price? And dinner: they wouldn’t be doing that if there were many candidates left in the running. There’ll be two or three at most.’ He grinned and gave her another kiss. ‘You know, they’ve probably already decided and just want to check me out, make sure I’m socially acceptable.’ He went back to the counter, opened a pack of fresh rosemary and lifted it out on to the board. ‘God, that’s great news – good for you.’

  ‘So you can do Tuesday night?’

  ‘If there was anything else in the diary, it’s cancelled.’

  ‘Look,’ she said, feeling guilty in the face of his enthusiasm, ‘I feel like I should confess: I went to see Pippa at the weekend.’

  ‘Did you? Good – you should see more of each other. I’ve always thought you two could be friends. How is she? We should see them together, too, have dinner again – I’ll ring Dan and see if we can get a date in the diary for—’

  ‘Mark.’

  Her tone brought him up short. The knife was still, poised above the board.

  ‘She’d never say anything, I know, but . . . When I thought you were having an affair, I went to ask her if she knew anything, whether you’d spoken to them about it. I’m sorry for doubting you – us – I just didn’t know what to think. I . . . I told her you weren’t at your hotel and were claiming to have lost your phone and . . .’ Hannah stopped talking. Telling him about Pippa was one thing, but she didn’t want him to know she’d gone to DataPro, involved Neesha. Now, though, she remembered bumping into David by the lifts. Shit: he was bound to mention it.

  ‘What did Pippa say?’

  ‘That there was no way you were messing around and there’d be a simple explanation for the . . . weirdness.’

  ‘Well, there is an explanation,’ he said, dryly.

  ‘I’m sorry for embarrassing you.’

  He put the knife down and rubbed his eyes, looking exhausted suddenly. ‘It doesn’t matter. If I hadn’t put you in the position . . .’

  ‘It does matter, and I wanted you to know. I also want to say that when I went over there, I had no idea about . . . what happened. Do they know?’

  ‘No. I’ve never told them.’

  ‘I’d always thought you were at college with them.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘We were all at St Botolph’s but that’s pure coincidence. They’re three or four years younger than me, I’d just left when they came up. I met Dan later through work and we discovered the connection then.’

  ‘So why did I think you’d been there together?’

  ‘I don’t know. You must have just assumed it, I suppose, because they’re such good friends.’ He straightened the rosemary into a neat pile and picked the knife back up. ‘I don’t really have any friends from before any more,’ he said. ‘It’s like my life breaks into two parts, before and after, and I only want to be around people from after, Han. At the beginning I thought it was going to suffocate me, that I’d be crushed under the weight of the guilt, the horror of it all . . . I thought I’d never be able to live normally again. But then, thank God, time started passing and I saw a way forward – denial, essentially. Or lying to your wife and your best friends, whatever you want to call it.’

  Hannah stood up and crossed the kitchen. She put her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest. As she listened to his heart beating through the thin fabric of his shirt, the last of her confusion and anger burned away and in their place came an overwhelming sense of his loneliness.

  Chapter Eighteen

  What happened when someone was released from prison? Hannah tried to imagine it but all that came into her head were images from old television programmes of the seventies and eighties: a few outdated possessions handed back by a sour-faced guard, a door slamming shut to leave the free man standing lost on a stretch of desolate pavement until a car skidded round the corner to offer a lift back to the old life, one last job. But this wasn’t TV and Nick wasn’t a lovable rogue. What would happen to him? Would he go to a halfway house? Would he have a parole officer or, having served his whole sentence, was he now entirely free to go?

  Through the floor came the faint pip of the alarm. It was set for six forty-five, as usual, but she’d been up for over an hour already. When she’d opened her eyes, she’d seen Mark asleep next to her and for a few seconds it was as if the past week had never happened and it was a morning like any other. Then, however, she’d remembered. And now it was Wednesday: Nick got out tomorrow.

  Overhead, Mark’s feet hit the floor. Hannah turned away from the window and came back to the counter to fill the Krups machine. Perhaps she shouldn’t have any coffee, though. She’d been agitated and unsettled since she’d woken up and it wasn’t just the worry. She had the feeling that there was something at the corner of her eye, just out of focus, something that didn’t make sense. It was like watching a film and knowing there was something in the plot that didn’t quite add up but not being able to put a finger on it.

  The fridge was empty bar a cling-filmed plate of leftover pork, just enough milk for the coffee, and four eggs. She took them out to look for the best-before date and then, at the touch of hands on her waist, nearly dropped them. She managed, thank God, not to shriek with alarm; neither of them had said anything but she knew it was essential to pretend that everything was normal.

  ‘Old Mother Hubbard,’ she said, turning inside the circle of his arms. ‘The cupboard’s bare. It’s scrambled eggs for breakfast. If we’re lucky and there’s bread in the freezer, there might be toast.’

  ‘Ideal.’ He gave her a kiss then stood back to look at her, smiling. ‘I’ve missed your morning hair.’

  He went back upstairs to shower while the coffee brewed and she made the eggs, watching the sky above the skylight turn from the blue-brown of heavy light pollution through grey to a blank white. Last night when they’d turned out the lights, Mark had come over to her side of the bed and wrapped himself around her. She’d known what he was trying to communicate – don’t worry, I’ll take care of things; we’ll be all right – but she’d felt need in the tightness of his arms, too, a silent search for reassurance.

  Over breakfast they read each
other snippets of news and he talked about the issues he was going to raise at the weekly meeting with the programmers in the afternoon. She listened, nodding in the appropriate places, all the time feeling pressure building inside her. Eventually, she couldn’t pretend any longer.

  ‘Mark, when are you going to talk to Nick?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He put his coffee cup back in the saucer. ‘He said he’d contact me. It’s more power-play: I’ve been trying to reach him in Wakefield but he’s refusing to talk to me.’

  ‘Will he ring today?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Hannah – I really can’t say.’ There was impatience in his voice and at once Mark looked ashamed of himself. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t sleep very well last night.’ He pressed his eyelids shut then opened them wide. ‘It’s possible he’ll call today, but if I know my brother he’ll be enjoying this, keeping me stewing. Either way, by tomorrow . . .’ She waited for him to go on but instead he pushed back his chair and carried his plate to the dishwasher.

  They said goodbye at the front door and she watched him walk up the pavement to his car, straight-backed and broad-shouldered in his black winter coat, his leather laptop case under his arm. The Mercedes beeped once as he unlocked it with the remote fob. His self-possession was impressive. No one who saw him, she thought, would suspect for a minute that anything in his life wasn’t exactly as he’d designed it.

  As his car rounded the corner, she felt the day gape open like a chasm in front of her. She went upstairs straight away and changed into her running clothes. She did three laps of the common, one more than usual, but as soon as she got back to the house, the anxiety flooded in again. She showered and dressed quickly then packed her research file into her bag. Today she needed to keep moving.

  The Starbucks on the corner of Parsons Green was busy with the school drop-off crowd so she walked to Caffè Nero instead and set up shop at an empty table at the back. The file was proof in itself that she’d had too much time on her hands in the past few months, she thought. After some days away from it, she was struck by how madly detailed and over-organised it was, the sheer volume of information on successful recent campaigns collected at the front, filed alphabetically by name of the product, and then the agencies at the back. Each one had a full list of key personnel and an in-depth history including the partners’ previous backgrounds, industry awards won in the past five years and the names of all the clients her exhaustive research had uncovered.