Mark asked me many times to stay with him for the entire night, but I refused, rising in the early hours to drive my clapped-out old Fiesta back to my small rented flat. He couldn’t understand my reluctance, but I said that, like him, I needed to feel I was in control of my life. I didn’t want him to take me for granted.
Mark liked to know when I would be there, how long I would stay, what time we would go to bed, and I knew for him it was a battle to cope with my unpredictability. But I wasn’t going to be slotted into a Tuesday and Saturday night routine.
One of Mark’s rituals was to go to Cleo’s for dinner every Thursday night. I knew this of course, so when on one Wednesday night about three months after we had first slept together he said he was going to struggle to wait until Friday to see me, I told him I was planning to go to London on Friday.
‘I won’t be back until Monday or maybe Tuesday,’ I said, as I snuggled down on the sofa next to him. ‘I can’t believe I’m not going to see you for nearly a week. Shame we can’t see each other tomorrow.’
Mark was silent. ‘Maybe I could ask Cleo to change the day?’ he suggested, somewhat half-heartedly.
‘It’s up to you,’ I said.
After a couple of minutes, he eased himself off the sofa and went for his phone, giving me a grin as if we were co-conspirators, which in many ways we were. I followed him as he pressed the screen to place his call and I wrapped my arms round his waist from behind, sliding my hand under his t-shirt to stroke the soft hairs on his flat stomach.
I couldn’t hear what Cleo said, but I could sense her disappointment as Mark made some excuse. I was more focused on him than her, and I slid the tips of my fingers under the waistband of his jeans, moving to his side so I could see his face. He turned hot eyes on me, and ended the conversation abruptly, leaving Cleo hanging.
I quickly dodged away, laughing, running round the other side of the kitchen island.
‘Call your sister back now – invite her to dinner on Monday. I’ll come straight back from London and I’ll cook, but don’t tell her. It can be our surprise.’
Mark knew what I was saying. It was time that Cleo knew we were a couple. He looked slightly wary, but I raised my eyebrows, my face offering a challenge I knew he wouldn’t resist.
He made the call. I could hear notes of surprise down the line, and Mark said, ‘It’s not a special occasion. Just us.’
Cleo hadn’t understood then that ‘just us’ included me.
It seems like a thousand years ago now, and as I look at my beautiful daughter I know that it has to end soon, but not quite yet.
Slowly I make my way to our bedroom, where I know Mark will be waiting.
8
The discreet buzzer told Cleo that someone had come into the gallery, so she placed the strip of silver she had been working on back on the workbench and switched off the buffing machine. Giving her short hair a quick ruffle, she painted on her professional smile and walked out of her workroom and into the gallery.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, her smile widening as she saw the visitor was Mark. ‘I wasn’t expecting you this morning.’
‘Do I need an appointment to come to my own gallery?’ he asked with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
‘Sorry – I was concentrating on a particularly delicate task, but it’s good to see you. Have you come for some special reason, or were you just passing?’
Mark came to the gallery as rarely as possible. He didn’t want to get involved in conversations with customers who asked him too many questions about the technical aspects of his photos. He felt uncomfortable justifying his creativity, so he came to hang his pictures mainly when the gallery was closed.
‘Any chance of a coffee?’ he asked, pulling out one of the visitors’ chairs from opposite the small desk where all transactions took place.
‘Of course. It would be good to take a break, to be honest.’
As Cleo went into the small kitchen that sat between the gallery and her tiny workroom, she could hear Mark calling out to her.
‘Do you still enjoy doing the silver work, Cleo? Any time you want to stop, you know, we can sort out your income.’
Cleo smiled to herself as she poured boiling water onto the ground coffee. Mark thought she made jewellery for the money, but he couldn’t be more wrong. He had no idea how boring it could be sitting in this gallery day after day with only the occasional visitor interested in the photographs. The silver brought people in and it made the place a bit quirky – different. People liked that. And it gave her something to do when the shop was quiet.
She took the cafetière and a mug through to the gallery and, perching herself on the edge of the desk facing Mark, poured his coffee.
‘That’s very generous, but I need a purpose in life, and if I don’t have to earn a living – whether that’s commission on sales of your pictures or income from my jewellery – what would I do with myself?’
‘Probably spend more time enjoying yourself?’
‘Oh don’t you start.’ Cleo laughed. ‘I get that from Aminah all the time. I’m okay. I’ve got my work, my best friend, a gorgeous niece, and you. What more could I want from life? You’d be the first person to know if I wasn’t happy.’
Mark took a sip of coffee and Cleo could see he was waiting to say something.
‘Are you over him?’
She hadn’t expected that. Mark almost always avoided emotional conversations. He had never spoken of how he felt about Mia’s untimely death, although locking himself away for the best part of eighteen months had said it all. But he rarely asked Cleo how she was feeling.
‘I’m fine.’
‘That’s not what I asked. Look, I know you loved him and you thought he loved you.’
Cleo clenched her bottom lip between her teeth for a second to get herself under control.
‘He did love me. But that’s not the point, is it?’
Mark raised his eyebrows. ‘Some would say it’s the only point.’
Cleo laughed. ‘Oh yes. Don’t I know it. Love conquers all, and all that bollocks. I’m not the only one who loves him, though, so what right have I to put my happiness before someone else’s – especially when that someone else is a child? How can our love for each other be more important than the love of two little boys for their dad?’
‘Is that you speaking, or Joe?’
Cleo looked over her shoulder, as if mention of her lover’s name was going to be overheard. They rarely said it out loud. In fact, they rarely spoke of him at all.
‘It’s not him. It’s me. He would have left his wife, his family, but I wouldn’t let him. You can’t build true happiness on someone else’s misery and he’s not the kind of guy who could walk away without a backward glance. If he had been, I wouldn’t have wanted him. So how long would it have been before he started to subconsciously blame me for his unhappiness?’
‘So why not carry on what seemed to have been working fine between the two of you for the last year?’
Cleo felt her eyes fill with hot tears and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. ‘He couldn’t. He said it was too painful – he either had to leave, or he had to commit to staying. We agreed he had to stay.’
Mark stood up, and putting his mug down on the desk he reached out his arms to his sister.
‘Come here.’
Cleo felt the rare comfort of her brother’s arms. He found spontaneous affection difficult and had always been wary of giving it freely. She blamed their mother. Mark had adored her, and she him. She would sing and dance at any opportunity, even in the kitchen when concocting a plate of fish fingers and frozen peas, which was about the limit of her culinary skills. But there was something of the wild bird about her, and during the months before she left there were days when she had become angry – shouting and crying as often as she sang. Mark couldn’t remember it, but there were many nights in those final few weeks when he had crawled into Cleo’s bed, his little body shaking with distress.
Cleo was the one person in his life on whom he could rely one hundred per cent. Mark was safe with her and right now, having him hold her close, she knew theirs was a bond that nobody could break. She put her arms round his waist and hugged him back.
‘You haven’t told Evie about Joe, have you?’ she whispered against his neck.
There was a pause which was a beat longer than she would have liked.
‘Of course not. Does Aminah know?’
‘I’m sure she suspects and she digs from time to time, but I can’t tell her. She thinks I should be shagging half of the county for entertainment, so she’d probably force-feed me a vanilla slice and tell me to just get on and have some fun.’
Cleo laughed at the thought of her friend and wished, not for the first time, that she could be more like her.
The brief emotional moment passed quickly, and Mark finished his coffee while they discussed a few possible commissions.
‘Your French chum, Alain Roussel, seems to have been bragging about you, and we’ve had some interest from an acquaintance of his in Croatia. He’s just bought a sizeable motor yacht, and he seems to think a photo montage by you in the master stateroom would make his life complete. He wants you to take a look.’
Cleo had to smile at the look of dismay on Mark’s face. Most people would have been thrilled by the idea of an all-expenses-paid trip to Croatia.
‘Where’s the yacht moored?’
‘It’s in Zadar, but the skipper could sail it down to Split if that’s easier for you, and he’ll meet you there. Don’t look so miserable, Mark. Go for it. Split’s a lovely place, I’m told.’
Mark grumbled about it being a bloody long way to go when he could just as easily come up with some ideas based on an internet search. He only needed to go there for the final photography session.
‘If I do it, I’m not going until Evie’s hand’s better – I can’t leave her like this.’
Cleo preferred not to think about Evie’s accident. It raised too many questions in her head.
‘Why don’t you take Evie with you?’ she said. ‘I could have Lulu.’
Mark wouldn’t meet her gaze, and not for the first time Cleo wondered what was going on with her brother and his partner. She had found it hard to adapt to Mark having another woman in his life. She wanted him to be happy, but with Evie by his side he didn’t need his sister so much any more. And that, Cleo knew full well, was the reason she had fallen so hard for Joe. He had filled the vacuum that Evie had created.
After a few moments of silence, Mark lifted his eyes. ‘I’m not going to take Evie, but will you make me a gorgeous piece of jewellery, Cleo? Something extra special? I know all of your stuff’s beautiful, but I’m talking a big-budget item.’
‘Of course. Do you want to tell me more?’
He nodded. ‘It’s for Evie, obviously. Is there any chance it can be ready before I go to Croatia?’
Cleo thought about the commissions she already had. Realistically, Evie’s hand was going to be in plaster for another three weeks at least so that gave her plenty of time.
‘What kind of piece are you looking for?’
‘Something that reflects her personality – you’re so good at that,’ Mark said, and Cleo knew that it was true, usually. But she wasn’t sure that in this case it would work out the way Mark wanted.
‘Tell me how you see her,’ she said.
Mark put his head back and closed his eyes, as if summoning up a vision of Evie.
‘Beautiful, of course, and totally undemanding, but that’s not helpful. She’s clever, creative, but there’s something elusive about her. I sometimes feel she’s just out of reach.’
As she watched her brother’s expression, Cleo wished she hadn’t asked. He opened his eyes wide and looked at her.
‘I can’t lose her, Cleo. You do see that, don’t you.’
She leaned towards him and squeezed his arm.
‘You’re not going to, are you? I think I’ve got the idea of what you’re looking for. Is it for something special? I know it’s not her birthday.’
Mark dropped his gaze again and rested his forearms on his thighs, clasping his hands together.
‘I want her to know that, despite everything, I love her.’
Cleo felt her hackles rise. ‘Despite what?’
Mark sighed, but didn’t look up.
‘I’m not easy to live with, you know that.’
‘That’s nonsense. We all have our foibles, Evie included. I think she’s unbelievably lucky to have you.’
‘Not really. And anyway, she clearly doesn’t feel that lucky.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘I asked her to marry me again this morning.’
‘And?’
Mark spoke softly. ‘She said no. But I need her to know that she’s still mine, and even if she won’t wear my ring or bear my name, she has to understand that as far as I’m concerned we’re for keeps.’
Cleo was silent. For so long she had wanted to tell her brother of her suspicions – that Evie had been after Mark from the minute she met him. She must have heard of him, known of his wealth and unhappiness. He was the perfect candidate for a young, attractive woman who wanted to better herself. Yet Evie refused to do the one thing that would guarantee her future. She refused to marry Mark, and that made no sense at all to Cleo.
9
‘No, Anik, you can’t have an ice-cream. We’re going to Granny’s for tea and she’ll be cross if you don’t eat up everything on your plate.’
Aminah would happily have let her three-year-old son have an ice-cream if he wanted one, but her mother-in-law didn’t approve of Aminah’s ‘lax ways’ with the children. Why it was considered better for the child to eat the chocolate cake that Granny baked before each visit she didn’t know, but she wasn’t interested in a battle of wills. It was too beautiful a day to be spoilt with unnecessary tension.
She bumped the pushchair over the cobbles to the other side of the road and took in the view. Lifting Anik out of the pushchair, she held him up so that he could look over the sea wall. He kicked his little feet and she let him stand on the top. She held onto him tightly with both hands – the low railing offered some protection, but not enough. Anik loved the sea as much as she did, and they both watched as the gentle waves washed onto the rocks below.
‘Hi, Aminah.’ She heard the voice before she realised that Evie was standing right next to her.
‘Hey! Great to see you out and about,’ Aminah said. ‘How’s the hand?’
‘Bloody awful, if I’m honest.’ Evie cast a quick look of concern at Anik. But he was too excited by the waves to notice what she had said. ‘It’s not so bad that I can’t push Lulu around to give her a bit of fresh air, though.’
Lifting an indignant Anik from the wall and ignoring his shouts of protest, Aminah bent down to smile at Lulu. She was a delicate-looking child with fine bones and pale skin, her dark wispy hair falling in loose curls over her ears. She gave Aminah a sweet smile, and Aminah couldn’t help thinking how different Lulu was from her own rumbustious offspring.
‘She’s the cutest thing,’ she said, looking up at Evie’s pasty cheeks.
‘Thank you. I know I’m biased but she’s such a good little girl.’ Evie crouched down and gently kissed the top of her daughter’s head. ‘You’re Mummy’s little darling, aren’t you?’
‘You still don’t look too great, though,’ Aminah said. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
Evie pulled a face.
‘Trouble sleeping, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I’m not quite sure where to put my hand but it always ends up being somewhere painful. Maybe I should adopt your attitude to exercise in the future – it certainly seems a lot less dangerous to steer clear altogether.’
The two women shared a smile while an impatient Anik tried, without success, to scramble back up the wall. Aminah lifted him onto the top and wrapped her arm tight around his waist while she talked to her friend.
‘I can’t drag him away from the sea. God knows what’s going to happen when I can’t hold onto him any more.’
As if to give credence to her words, Anik shouted out a laugh and tried to jump up and down, pushing against his mother’s arm.
‘Stop it, Anik. I’m not going to let you go. It’s dangerous.’
She turned back to Evie, who if anything was looking even paler than she had a couple of minutes before. She was staring out to sea, as fascinated by the waves as Anik, it seemed.
‘Has Cleo ever told you that a boy died here?’ Aminah said, keeping her voice low.
Evie didn’t turn towards her but Aminah could see the frown between her eyes.
‘She hasn’t mentioned it,’ Evie said. ‘What happened?’
‘I’m not sure. Some kid – a boy of about eleven or twelve – was showing off walking on the wall in a howling gale. Cleo said she was shouting at him to come down, but he wouldn’t. Then a massive wave swept him off and down onto the rocks. It must have been terrible. I suppose that’s why they put the railing along the top, but you know what it’s like when it gets rough here. The waves come right over.’
She had the feeling that Evie wasn’t listening and had gone somewhere else in her mind. There was sometimes a sadness about her that Aminah had tried, and failed, to get to the bottom of, and she seemed so isolated. Even though Evie never said a bad word about Cleo, she would be in no doubt that Mark’s sister didn’t like her, and that was a shame. Everyone needed family.
Aminah looked at Evie now as her frown deepened, and it was a moment before she seemed to realise that Aminah had stopped speaking.
‘Sorry, Aminah. I just had a bit of a pain spasm. I can’t wait to get this stupid thing off.’ She raised a hand to scratch around the edges of the offending plaster. ‘Which reminds me. I have a favour to ask. Is there any way you could drive me to hospital when I have to go and have it removed? It won’t be for a couple of weeks, but I don’t know if Mark will be here and I don’t like to ask Cleo because she would have to close the gallery. If I know I’ve got a lift it would be great. I’ll have to bring Lulu, of course, so if it’s a problem I can arrange a taxi.’
And So It Begins Page 5