by Vivien Brown
A story like that, a story of true love so close to home, gave me some sort of hope, that things would work out all right in the end, for the rest of us. For me. They usually do, after all. One way or another.
***
I got the job at Grange Heath School. The previous deputy head having left quite abruptly due to ill health, they needed someone to step in as soon as possible, and that suited me perfectly. With references and medicals to sort out, and me still feeling I should be around during the daytime to help Dad for just a bit longer, we agreed on a start date straight after the Christmas break. New job, new term, new start …
I was desperately looking forward to teaching again. It would have been just over six months since leaving Wales by the time the new job kicked in, but it had been a very long and harrowing six months. The absence of any real purpose now that Mum had gone was messing with my head, leaving too much time and space for my thoughts to wander back towards Josh and what I had thrown away.
I was in no hurry to move out. Dad had decided to go back to the office in the New Year too, but for now he still drifted about in a daze a lot of the time and, left to his own devices, would probably forget to buy food or iron a shirt for work, so I knew he still needed me, and I suppose I needed him too. The thought of being alone again and facing a new job, new people, was not an appealing one.
It was good to be back in touch with Lucy, who had somehow turned up at the funeral without me even thinking to invite her, and to have her living so near. My years away had taken a toll on our once close friendship, but we were both eager to put that right. ‘You’ll be a godmother, won’t you?’ she said, as we sat at a window table in her favourite coffee shop, watching the world go by. She was toying with the remains of an enormous almond croissant, licking her finger and dipping into the sprinklings of icing sugar on the edge of her plate, her other hand resting protectively across her tummy.
‘Really? Me? I’m not very religious, you know. Well, not at all really.’
‘That doesn’t matter. The vicar’s cool with it, as long as at least one of the other godparents is a God-fearing person who knows her christening from her confirmation and what to do with the candle! And Rob’s sister fits that particular bill. So, why not you? You’d be perfect for the job. I’ve probably known you longer than anybody else, ever since primary school, and you’re the right sort of person, you know, to guide him in the right direction, teach him to read, buy all the right presents …’
‘Ha! So, it’s about presents, is it? I often wondered what a godmother’s duties were, and now I know.’
‘Of course it’s not. But you’re a teacher, you know a lot more about kids, and educating them, than I do. I don’t want my son to have godparents who fill him up with sugar or offer to babysit and then just plonk him in front of the telly all day.’
‘So I have to babysit as well? Is there no end to my duties?’
‘Don’t you want to do it then?’
‘Of course I want to do it! I’d be honoured. But I don’t know a lot about it. I’ve never been a godmother before.’
‘Not for your sister’s little girl?’
‘Oh, no. We were still not speaking when Janey was born. I would have been the last choice, believe me. And Josh insisted on a Catholic ceremony apparently, which is hardly my forte.’
‘Things better now though?’
‘Between Sarah and me? Sort of. I’m not sure we’ll ever be the way we were, but it’s civilised these days.’
‘And Josh? Is he behaving himself?’
I could feel the heat rising in my face. I lifted my coffee and breathed it in, letting the effects of the steam act as my disguise. ‘I suppose so. No idea. Why?’
‘Oh, once a cheat, always a cheat. Calls himself a Catholic! What a hypocrite. And if he could do it you, he can do it to Sarah. I’d be watching him very closely if I was her. Thank God my Rob isn’t like that.’
‘How can you be so sure he isn’t?’
‘Honestly, Eve, do you think I’d be having this baby if I had any doubts at all? No, Rob’s one of the good guys. A good husband, and definitely good father material. He has never so much as looked at another woman. And as for touching … God, no! A wife knows these things. If Josh is still up to his old tricks, Sarah will have an inkling, believe me. I know I would, if it was Rob.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘I guess not. It really is time we got you married off, you know!’ Lucy went on, oblivious to my discomfort. ‘No man on the scene?’
‘No. Been too caught up with life, work, Mum, just about everything else, to get mixed up with a man.’
‘It might do you good if you did. If you want babies of your own, you can’t leave it too long.’
‘Ah, but I’ll be a godmother soon, won’t I? A baby I can spoil rotten but hand back come bedtime. Sounds like the perfect arrangement to me.’
‘You don’t mean that. I know you don’t. And now you’re more settled, with a new job on the horizon, it’s the obvious next step, isn’t it? I’ll have to see who I can fix you up with. Maybe one of Rob’s friends?’
‘Lucy! Don’t you dare! When – and if – I decide I want a man, I will find him for myself, thanks very much.’
‘Well, don’t be too long about it. This little one will want a playmate around his own age. And I quite fancy being a godmother myself. A fairy godmother,’ she giggled, ‘with a big dress and wings, and a wand and everything.’
‘I hate to spoil things for you, but wands don’t work. There’s no such thing as magic.’
‘Cynic!’
‘Maybe, but men and babies and a life of domestic bliss are your dreams, not necessarily mine. And I might not even stick around long term, once Dad’s back on his feet. I might go back to Wales. I like Wales.’
‘Oh, come on, Eve. You can’t run away forever. You only ever stayed there after university to get away from Josh and Sarah, and you only went there in the first place to get away from that scumbag Arnie.’
‘Rubbish! I’d already applied and been accepted, before Arnie …’ I finished my coffee and pulled my coat back on. Arnie. I hadn’t thought of him in ages, and I certainly didn’t want to now. ‘Look, I don’t want to start some silly debate, or argue with you. We can’t change the past, much as we might like to, but Wales was good for me. I enjoyed uni and I loved my job. Now come on, let’s hit the shops. If I’m meant to buy suitably educational baby gifts for little Horace here, then I might as well start early.’
‘Horace?’
‘Well, if you’ve decided on a better name for him, you haven’t given me so much as a hint of it yet, so I’ll be guessing until I get it right. Cyril? Arthur? Buzz?’
‘Now you’re just being silly.’
‘Guilty as charged. Now, toys. How does a shape sorter sound?’
‘Great. As long as you promise to stop trying to push a round peg into a square hole and stay here, where you belong.’ She grinned at her own joke. ‘Think seriously about your future, Eve, please. Accept that Wales is not for you. Not anymore. I need you here. And so does little Horace.’ She linked her arm through mine as we headed out into the street. ‘I’ve missed you.’
Chapter 22
SARAH
Josh wasn’t happy. He never actually said it, but I could tell. Since we’d lost Mum the atmosphere in both homes had changed. We’d got through a low-key but quietly comfortable Christmas, based around a traditional turkey meal and lots of TV, keeping our gifts simple and raising a glass to Mum at what seemed the appropriate time, in the slow and satisfied gap after lunch where her home-made pudding would usually be trying to force its way in. Janey had cut up a lacy paper doily and made a new angel decoration in Mum’s honour, but Dad had decided not to put up the tree, with all its memories, so the angel had taken pride of place on the mantelpiece. Josh had gone easy on the booze, and everyone had been in bed by eleven.
It had been our turn to go up to Josh’s parents but Dad had needed us al
l to be together, and strong, so we had stayed, and they had come down on one of their rare but fleeting visits to us the day after Boxing Day. Josh had appeared pleased to see them, but the gloom soon descended again once they had gone. At first I thought maybe he was grieving for Mum the way I was, but the long silences, the gazing off into space, the valiant attempts to stick to his own side of the bed and the tossing and turning even when he’d managed it, all spoke of something more.
Call it intuition, but I had a feeling he was keeping something from me, and that it was something I really didn’t want to hear. I wondered, not for the first time, if there was someone else, if he was about to leave me, or was thinking about it at least. A growing sense of unease began to eat away at me and, like a dog with a bone, I couldn’t give it up.
It all came down to that day when Mum had died and I had sat at home alone and heartbroken, waiting for him to come back. There had been no evening out with the lads, no drunken falling asleep on some anonymous sofa, no Bob, I was sure of that. I had never challenged him about it though. If I had, he would only have lied to me anyway. So what was it? What did that whiff of telltale perfume mean? That it was Eve. It almost certainly had to be Eve. But was it just a one-off thing? An innocent drink together, for old times’ sake? A renewed interest that had started now she was back home, and was in danger of igniting into something I still just might have time to stop? The more I convinced myself it was her he had been with, her on his mind now, keeping him awake at night, the more I knew I had to find out for sure. I needed the facts. I couldn’t cope with my fears, or decide what to do about them, unless I knew what it was I was dealing with.
And so I started to snoop. Not a nice word, and not a very nice thing to have to do, but it was the only way. I must have been stupid, or at best naïve, not to have done it long before. Josh was always off out somewhere, disappearing for hours, days, weekends at a time, on business trips, courses, conferences. There had been so many opportunities for him to stray. A woman? Several women? A whole bloody harem, for all I knew. Yet I had pushed my doubts aside and never questioned too deeply. But now I wanted to know, and if there was something dodgy going on, there was sure to be evidence.
Josh worked in banking. He was methodical, analytical, sensible. He had bank cards and credit cards and he kept the statements. He hung onto his petrol receipts and his restaurant slips and hotel bills so he could make his expenses claims. He’d even done it when he’d been out with me in the pub that time, I remembered, when Mum had been ill and we’d gone for a scampi and chips that Dad had given us the cash for. No, I wasn’t a client, but the bank wasn’t to know that, and Josh wasn’t so honest as to miss a trick like that. I’d seen him pocket the receipt and had no doubt about why.
It wasn’t going to be hard to work out what he was up to, where he had been. The paper trail winding its way behind his every move would be like the crumbs on the path behind Hansel and Gretel. I just hoped it wasn’t going to lead me to the wicked witch that otherwise went by the name of Eve.
He kept everything in a big blue document case in the corner of our little box room, tucked under the small desk he’d always used to sort out the household bills, a desk that had slowly been taken over by Janey and her homework. It was all just her dad’s boring old stuff in that document case, as far as she was concerned, papers she had never been in the slightest bit interested in looking at, and neither had I. That was probably why Josh had never bothered to hide it, nor find a way to lock it. Dragging it out from its cobwebby corner was like taking candy from a baby. Almost too easy to be true.
They say you should keep important documents for six years, don’t they? In case the bank needs to query anything. Or the taxman. Or, in this case, the wife. And there it all was, stuffed into orderly little pockets, carefully and helpfully labelled. Electricity. Water. Council tax. TV licence. Insurance. Car. Household appliances. Travel. Work expenses. Wills. His life, our life, past, present and future, pound for pound, recorded on paper, for all to see.
After a brief flick through the house stuff, I could see from the dates on the bills just how rigidly Josh had stuck to the six-year rule. There was nothing older, no doubt all fed through the shredder as soon as its usefulness was up. I moved on to Travel, and there were the photocopies of our passports. An itinerary for a school trip Janey had been on to Devon. Details of family holidays: a day trip on the ferry to Calais, a week in the Lakes, our long weekend in Bournemouth. We never had made it to the ski slopes. Nothing unusual, nothing incriminating. My hand hovered over the prime suspect, Work expenses. Would he have kept receipts once they had been submitted and claimed? Yes, of course he would. Well, photocopies anyway. I lifted them out, trying to keep them in order, and not to drop any, as I laid them out on top of the desk. It was the recent stuff I wanted. For the day Mum died, and definitely the months since. Where had he been, and who with? What was making him so distracted, and so restless? So sad?
The hotel, when I found it, was surprisingly local. The Garden Manor. Only ten miles away. It sounded grand but its cheapskate price didn’t quite match up. Still, whether it was luxury or budget, what difference did it make? It was too near to home. He would have had no reason to stay there, when it was so easy to get home. Not for work anyway. Only for pleasure. The sort of pleasure he had chosen to keep secret. I felt the tears prickle at the back of my eyes as I tried to make sense of it all.
There was nothing since. Nothing that looked in any way out of the ordinary. No more hotels, no train tickets, no petrol for long journeys, no cosy meals for two. Nothing that screamed out at me that he was having an affair. Unless he had decided to be more careful, and destroy it all. But then, why not destroy the one vitally important hotel bill that gave the game away? And, if it was Eve, as I knew it must be, then of course he would have no need to travel far from home. She was living right here now, practically on our own doorstep. When was the last time he had been on a course, stayed away overnight? When had that all slowed down, stopped? Because it had.
I don’t know what made me look back further, to earlier dates, to times before she came home, but I did. And there it all was. Mixed in among all the other places, the genuine trips, but easy enough to pick out when you know what you’re looking for. Six years of it. Petrol receipts from garages in Wales, meals eaten in Wales, a florist’s bill for roses bought the day before her birthday. He couldn’t find a way to claim for those, surely? But it all added up. It all pointed to just one thing. Eve was still very much in Josh’s life, and almost certainly still in his bed – or hers – and had been for a long time. God, maybe they had never stopped. Maybe it had been going on throughout our whole married life. And me … well, I was probably the last to know, wasn’t I? ‘Mug’ written right across my forehead, in big red letters for all to see.
I waited for him to come home, felt the rage burning inside me the moment I looked at him, but I said nothing. Did nothing. I dug my nails into my palms, fought back the urge to hit him, scream at him, but managed to hold it all in. I had to give myself time to think, to plan, not to dive in and do something instant and uncontrolled that I might live to regret. I was his wife, and that meant something. Or it did to me. Walking away, separating, divorcing, was a huge step, one I would not find easy, and who would it hurt the most? Me. Me and Janey. And wouldn’t it be playing right into their hands? Like opening the door to Eve and inviting her in, to take my place, to take him. It would be giving him what he had probably wanted all along. Giving in. And so I bided my time, thinking, watching the pair of them, their every move. Hard though it was to carry on as if nothing had happened, that was exactly what I knew I had to do.
***
I’m not sure quite when I decided to play Josh at his own game. Oh, I wasn’t about to leap into bed with anyone else. That would simply give him the ammunition he needed to blame me, get rid of me, make me out to be the bad guy. But I was lonely, and in need of a sympathetic ear, someone who would listen and give me a hug and
be on my side. I couldn’t burden Dad, talking about it at work would look too much like I was asking for professional legal advice, and what did Tilly know about men and the trouble they cause? And so I did what I had wanted to do for so long. I opened the contacts list on my mobile and scrolled down to the fictional Carol.
He didn’t answer the first time I tried and I was far too cowardly to leave any sort of message. Hi, Colin. It’s Sarah. Sarah Cavendish … What if he didn’t want to talk to me, or didn’t even remember who I was? How embarrassing would that be? I hung up quickly and tried to put the whole stupid idea out of my head. The man was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. He was busy, important, and quite likely married by now. To some high-flying surgeon, or a sexy nurse. What would he want with me? Some girl from his past who he’d never really got to know properly the first time around, let alone the second. Come to think of it, what did I really want from him? That was the question I kept coming back to, but not knowing the answer didn’t stop me from phoning again.
‘Hello?’
‘Colin?’
‘Yep. Who is this?’
I held my breath, my thumb hovering over the End call button. If I was going to back out, now was the time. But I didn’t.
‘You might not remember me,’ I said, hesitantly, ‘but it’s Sarah.’
‘Sarah? As in Penguins-in-the-park Sarah? Of course I bloody remember you, you nit! How are you? And little Janey? Not so little now though, I guess. God, Sarah, I know you said you’d call, but it’s been years! I thought you must have lost my number, or just decided you didn’t want to talk to me ever again. Made me wonder what I did wrong!’
‘I’m sorry. You did nothing wrong. I just … well, life got in the way, you know, how it does.’
‘Still married, I suppose?’
‘Yes, still married.’
‘Shame.’
I laughed. ‘Colin Grant, you are such a flirt. Honestly!’