Jane Corry 21 страница

‘I’ve got an idea. ’ Ross was walking towards the window now and looking outside. His flat was in Holloway; the view wasn’t as pleasant as from our home in Notting Hill. An ‘our’ that would soon be a ‘their’.

‘Get out of London. Make a fresh start. Set up your own practice in Devon so you can be on hand for Tom. I seem to remember that you and Ed talked about this before. ’

I winced at my husband’s name. ‘It’s a big step. What if my clients don’t come with me? ’

Ross’s face conceded this was a possibility. ‘Suppose you suggest to the firm that you set up an offshoot in the south-west? Then they might encourage you to take some of their cases. ’

I hesitated. Leave London? Go back to the place that I swore I’d never live in again after Daniel? Yet it did make sense. It would put distance between That Woman and myself. And, more importantly, it would take the pressure off my parents. Tom might be at school during the week. But I couldn’t expect them to carry on for ever at weekends.

So that’s what happened. Even now, as I wash up Tom’s special knife and fork and place them back on the table under his watchful eye, I wonder how we coped in those first few weeks. The firm had been very understanding: true to Ross’s suggestion, they were quite amenable to the idea of setting up a south-west branch. It helped too having my parents there, happy to welcome us to their home. Although it was weird coming back to my old room with its dusty maroon and royal blue Pony Club rosettes in the desk drawer. ‘Just until I find my own place, ’ I said.

Yet once there, it seemed easier to stay; be cocooned by my parents. Protected. Hoping that Joe Thomas would now leave me alone in peace.

No one, I told myself, must know the truth.

The door knocker breaks into my reverie now as I stir the soup. Butternut squash. Soothing. Comforting. Devon in the winter months is much darker and colder than London, but I am slowly growing used to it again. There’s something about the determined way in which the tides go back and forth with reassuring regularity; it’s like a comforting grandfather clock.

I’ve always loved the sea. Tom loves it too. When he’s home at weekends, we spend hours walking up and down the beach, looking for driftwood. Mum has got him a dog too. A small schnauzer. The ones that look like old men with beards. Tom spends hours talking to Sammy. Like Daniel used to with Merlin.

Sometimes I find myself doing the same.

‘He’s here, he’s here, ’ crows Tom, now dancing around. He never makes this much fuss about his father coming down, I say to myself as I walk across the hall. Then again, I try to make myself scarce when Ed pays his weekend visits. Since the decree nisi, our ‘meetings’ are more of a quick nod at the front door before Ed takes Tom out for the day.

I can only imagine what those outings must be like; it’s awkward enough for a single father to entertain his children outside the home environment. With a child like Tom, it would be even more of a challenge. How does Carla cope? I wondered. Hopefully not very well. Despite that engagement gossip piece in a tabloid that one of the partners had awkwardly shown me, there had been no announcement of a wedding date.

I am relieved about that, although annoyed with myself at the same time for such a reaction. It means, surely, that Ed isn’t certain. Carla, I am convinced, would jump at the chance to have a gold ring on her finger.

‘Forget him, ’ Ross is always saying. ‘You’re far too good for him. ’

I know he’s just being nice. But I appreciate it. Ross has become important in our new lives. Tom always loves his visits, not least because he usually arrives bearing enough gifts to suggest it’s Christmas, whatever the month. My parents enjoy his company too. ‘I can’t understand why that man has never got married, ’ Mum keeps saying.

‘Hi! ’ He’s beaming now on the doorstep, staggering under the weight of flowers and boxes. ‘How are my favourite friends? ’

Tom frowned. ‘How can you have favourite in the plural? If you like one person best, it has to be in the singular. You can’t have more than one person as favourite because then they wouldn’t be your favourite, would they? ’

It’s the type of pedantic question with a certain logic that I am tired of, however intelligent it is. But Ross merely grins. He makes as if to rub Tom’s hair, like a godfather might do to his godson, but then stops, clearly remembering that Tom hates his scalp being touched.

‘Great point. ’

Mum appears beaming behind me. She’s taken off her apron and frowns at me, indicating I should have done the same. ‘Come on in. You must be starving after that drive. Supper’s almost ready. ’

Ross gives Tom a wink. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but I stopped off for a burger on the way down. But I’m still hungry. ’

Tom giggles. The conversation is a ritual, one they have every time. It’s a narrative that soothes me as well as my son. Indeed, it does the same to my parents. It helps to bring a normality to the house that is rarely there when it’s just the three of us, all trying to rescue Tom from himself, desperately making sure that what happened to Daniel will never happen to him. It’s the unspoken fear. The challenge that haunts us all.

No one, unless they have a child like this, can understand. I remember once, when Tom was younger, talking to a woman in a supermarket queue. Her son – about ten with gangly limbs flying everywhere – was in a wheelchair. People made way for her. They were sympathetic when he reached out to knock the tins flying from the conveyor belt.

Although I would never wish Tom to be in a wheelchair, I can’t help thinking that at least it would mean others would be understanding. When my son misbehaves in public – jumping on a wine glass in a pizzeria to see how many fragments he could ‘make’ is one recent example – I receive stares that say, Why can’t you control your teenager? Or even, That kid should be locked up. It makes my blood boil.

My research warns me that as Asperger’s kids get bigger and less ‘cute’, their melt-downs and challenging behaviour can turn others against them. The other day, there was a newspaper story about a cafe owner throwing an autistic-spectrum teenager out of his shop because the kid kicked up a fuss when given coffee with milk instead of without. The teen in question fell awkwardly on the pavement and broke his arm.

I would personally kill anyone if they hurt my son.

After dinner, Ross and I go for a walk with the dog. It’s another ritual. Sometimes Tom begs to come too, but it makes me fearful. The rocks on the edge of the beach are so high; it’s hard to check in the moonlight when he’s scampering on ahead that he’s not going to climb one and then fall. Tonight, to my relief, Tom announces that he’s tired. He’ll have a shower in the morning – he hates baths – and if his special Man United towel isn’t ready, we’ll all know about it. Bit by bit, I have got used to these ‘rules’, which are set in stone.

Difficult as he is, however, I find myself thinking that I am blessed in a manner that not everyone would understand. I might not have a conventional child. But my son will never be boring. He has a constantly enquiring mind. He looks at life in a way that others don’t. ‘Did you know that the average person produces enough saliva to fill two swimming pools during their life? ’ he asked me the other day.

‘How are you managing? ’ Ross now says as we walk under the overhanging cliff, gazing out at the lights flickering from boats on the horizon. It could be another world. One in which we live normal lives.

‘We’re fine, thanks. Tom’s school, touch wood, seems to be happy with him, and I’m building up quite a decent client base. I’ve also taken up spinning at the gym to give myself “me-time”, like you suggested. ’

He nods. ‘Good. ’

Something’s up. I can feel it. ‘What about you? How is work? ’

‘OK, although to be honest, I feel there has to be more to life. ’

‘I know what you mean. ’

We stroll on, past a plump seagull pecking at a discarded bag of crisps. Past, too, a couple arm in arm who give us a meaningful nod. They think we’re like them, I tell myself. It makes me feel like a fraud; one who needs to put Ross at his ease so he doesn’t think I have any feelings in that direction.

‘I really appreciate the interest you show in Tom, ’ I begin.

‘It’s not just Tom I care for. ’

I hold my breath.

‘I’m worried about you, Lily. ’

He takes my arm and I feel a slow warmth down my spine. At times, I tell myself that I’ve learned to live without Ed. Sometimes he seems like another life away. Sometimes he seems like yesterday. On those days, I want him here. Next to me.

‘There’s no need, ’ I say. ‘I’m fine. I’ve moved on. ’

My words are so clearly a lie that even the sea doesn’t believe me. It lashes angrily against the rocks. Liar. Liar.

‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you, ’ says Ross.

As he speaks, a plume of spray leaps up. We run ahead – him pulling me – but it catches us anyway. I’m not one of those women who look good with wet hair.

Ross takes my hand and strokes it, like a parent trying to soothe a child.

‘Ed and Carla have set a wedding date. ’

Did he really say that? Or was that the sea again? Shh. Shhhh, it’s saying now. Like a soothing lullaby.

‘I’m sorry? ’

Ross’s face is looking down at me. How stupid of me. His expression is one of pity, not admiration.

‘Ed is getting married. To Carla. ’

Ed. Carla. Marriage. Not just an engagement which can be broken at whim.

So she’s got him. Just like she gets everything she’s ever wanted.

‘That’s not all. ’

I begin to shiver from the cold and the wet and the anticipation.

‘She’s pregnant, Lily. Carla’s expecting a child. ’

In a weird way, Ross’s news is a relief. Just as it was when I found Ed and Carla outside the hotel. The shock haunts me still. Yet at least it was living proof that I hadn’t just imagined Ed’s behaviour towards me.

And now Ross’s early warning of a definite wedding date – soon to be heralded in the gossip pages – tidies things up. Shows me that there is no chance of Ed and I ever being reconciled, even if I wanted to be. Which I don’t.

That’s the other odd thing about a long marriage ending, at least for me. However bad it was, there were also good patches. And it’s those that I tend to remember. Don’t ask me why. I don’t dwell on the rows when Ed was moody or drunk. Or how he used to hate it because I earned far more than he did, and how he’d throw strops when I was home late from work.

No. I think of the moments in between when we’d lie on the sofa as we watched our favourite weekly drama. Or how we’d take long walks by the sea with our little boy, pausing to point out a particular shell or a crab scuttling under a rock.

The thing that really breaks my heart is that Ed now does these things with Her. I remember reading an article once about a woman whose ex-husband had married someone else. Two things had struck me. First, she’d been unable to say the other woman’s name, only referring to her as ‘Her’. ‘It’s because it sticks in my throat, ’ she’d explained. ‘Makes her feel too real. ’

I can see that.

The second was that this woman had been unable to comprehend how there was now another out there, bearing the same surname and sharing the same habits with the same man the first wife had once known intimately.

And that’s exactly how I feel. There’s something really odd about your husband having another wife. Carla will soon be Carla Macdonald. We will both be Mrs Macdonald. She will be my husband’s wife, because – even though Ed is technically no longer my husband – you can never really wipe away a marriage. A piece of paper is not a rubber or a bottle of Tippex. It can legally negate the ‘contract’ between two parties, as a lawyer might put it. But it cannot expunge the memories, the traditions, the patterns that spring up between a couple, no matter how good or bad the state of their relationship.

It hurts. Yes, it hurts to know that they too are building up traditions and patterns of their own. For all I know, she entwines her legs around Ed’s when they watch that new series on television that everyone is talking about. They now go for long walks along the sea with my son while I hide myself away at home, telling myself that it’s good for Tom to see ‘Daddy’. The thought of another woman playing ‘Mummy’ sickens me to the core. Tom is so gullible at times, quite capable of transferring his affection. After one of their recent visits, he talked incessantly about her hair. ‘Why isn’t yours as shiny as Carla’s? ’ he asked me. ‘Why isn’t everyone’s hair like hers? What makes hair? ’

The first question had run into thousands of others, like it always did with Tom. But I was still stuck on the first one. I don’t want to think about Carla’s hair or anything else about her.

But this – this hurts more than anything. A child of their own. A child who will be ‘normal’, no doubt. A child who won’t need watching twenty-four/seven in case he hurts himself, or worse. A child who won’t impose the same awful pressures on a marriage.

It isn’t fair.

After Ross’s revelation, I suddenly begin to feel the anger I should have felt – according to all the divorce self-help books – some time ago. Ed is the one who did wrong. Yet he’s come out top here. He’s found someone else. He gets to see the good bits of Tom, who is always hyper with excitement after his visits, which often means I have to change the sheets the following morning. (A new development. My research said it can be common in Asperger’s children, although it normally ‘dies out’ during adolescence. We can only hope. )

Nor does Ed have any of the problems that still haunt me.

Like Joe Thomas.

June

Months pass. For a while after moving down to Devon, I was on tenterhooks in case he contacted me. I even had to warn Mum, telling her I had a former client who had stalked me in the past and mustn’t be allowed in the house at any cost if he happened to turn up.

Not surprisingly, she was worried. ‘But why can’t you tell the police? ’ she asked, her voice laced with worry. ‘Surely they can do something about it? ’

It was on the tip of my tongue to confess everything. But that wouldn’t have been fair. My parents had enough on their plate with the unexpected arrival of their daughter. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? ’ I said. ‘But actually there’s not a lot they can do. ’

That was true. I’d once had a client whose ex-boyfriend had stalked her. The only way we’d managed to get the police to take it seriously was to get him followed by a private detective to show that he was doing the same to other women too. Even then, he only received a caution. The law makes some very odd decisions at times.

Frankly, I’m just relieved that Joe hasn’t tried to get hold of us here. The thought of poor Merlin still makes me feel sick. Still sends shudders through me. If Joe could organize that, what else is he capable of?

Meanwhile, I am banishing my fears with work. Work, work, work. It’s the only way I can get some peace, the only way to shut out the shrapnel of Ed’s engagement and the stress of Tom.

When I first came down, I was worried I wouldn’t have enough clients and that after a while, the partners would decide it wasn’t worth subsidizing a satellite office. But within a couple of weeks, some parents from Tom’s school approached me. They were convinced that their son’s epilepsy had been caused by dirty water from an old well which had got into the water system. It so happened that I knew a specialist who said this was not beyond the realms of possibility. It went to court and we won damages – not a lot but enough to prove that some children’s special conditions are not just ‘one of those things’, but could have been prevented.

Then a father from Tom’s school asked me to look into some hospital notes which had vanished soon after his son’s birth. There had been problems, he explained. The cord had been wound tightly round his son’s neck during delivery and the consultant hadn’t been available. We never found the notes (they would, no doubt, have been shredded long ago). But we did find that the same pattern had occurred a couple of times now, all when a certain consultant had been on duty. That resulted in a class action, with other parents being given compensation as well as my client.

‘You’re building up quite a name for yourself, Lily, ’ emailed my first boss, who had now retired. (We still keep in touch by email. ) ‘Well done. ’

How is Carla doing? I want to ask. Will she continue to work for you when she has the baby? But I don’t have the courage to raise the subject.

Then, one morning, as I am jogging along the front before work, I hear someone running behind me.

This isn’t unusual. There are quite a lot of us 6 a. m. joggers and we all know each other. There’s even a baggy-eyed mother who runs along with her stroller.

But intuitively, I know these steps are different. They match my speed. They slow when I slow. They speed up when I do.

‘Lily, ’ says the voice behind me. A voice I know all too well. ‘Please stop, Lily. I’m not going to hurt you. ’

48 Carla

June 2015

Carla looked down at her body in the soapy water. Her fourth bath in four days. But there was nothing else to do in the evening. And besides, it meant she could close the door and be alone for a while.

Since finding out she was pregnant, Ed had not allowed her to lift a finger at home. It was bad enough, he said, that she still insisted on going out to work. She should rest instead. They would manage somehow, despite those demands from the bank. He loved her. He would look after her.

The old Carla would have loved the attention. But life with Ed was not what she’d imagined. It wasn’t just his depression over unsold paintings or bank demands. Or even the drinking. Or Tom’s behaviour on their custody weekends, which upset Ed and affected them too, especially when she suggested that if Tom was ‘punished’ more often, he would improve. Nor was it the latest threatening note, which she had hidden from Ed.

WATCH YOUR BACK.

No. It was the wedding ring on her finger that really got Carla down. If it was not for the baby, she would not have agreed. Ed’s ‘care’ had become too controlling. But now she was trapped by her own pregnancy. How could she allow her child to grow up without a father as she had? No child of hers was going to be ‘different’. Look where it had got her.

So a wedding it had been. A small one, at her insistence. Just them and two witnesses off the street. The ceremony, she’d stipulated, had to be here, in the UK, in a register office. If they’d done it in Italy, the sharp-eyed matrons would certainly have spotted the small bump that had already started to appear.

‘So old-fashioned, ’ Ed had said, kissing the top of her head as though she was the child he had first known. Sometimes, Carla wondered if Ed wished she was that little girl still so he could control her completely.

‘I think it’s sweet, ’ one of the girls at the antenatal class had said when Carla had confided that her new husband would not let her do anything in the house. What Carla stopped herself from saying was that he wouldn’t even allow her to her put out his empties. Ed now drank far more than he would admit. It had led to a spectacular argument at an art critic’s party, right in front of everyone. Later, of course, he’d apologized profusely.

‘I am doing it for two, ’ he had joked, putting his hand over Carla’s own glass when she had reached for the bottle herself. ‘No, you mustn’t. I don’t care what the latest report is. These so-called medical experts change their minds all the time. Far better to play safe and avoid alcohol altogether during pregnancy. ’

Then he had stroked her stomach. ‘You’re carrying my child, ’ he said in a reverent tone. ‘I promise to look after you. Not long now, my darling. ’

Six weeks. Yet each day seemed to pass so slowly. How uncomfortable she felt! How heavy. Carla could not even bear to look at herself in the mirror, even though Ed told her, with the smell of whisky on his breath, that she was beautiful. Nor could she bear the touch of his hand on her stomach so he could feel the baby move like some monster inside her.

Soaping her breasts (so huge and the nipples so dark that they were scarcely recognizable), Carla allowed her mind to wander back to when she’d bumped into Rupert soon after the wedding. ‘How are you? ’ he had asked.

They were in court at the time. She was there to support the barrister. (It was, ironically, a case involving a man who had got drunk at an office party and been sacked for making inappropriate advances to his boss. Rupert was on the other side. )

She found it hard to concentrate on her argument, constantly looking over to where her old friend was sitting. He appeared to be looking at her too. During the break, they sought each other out. ‘I am…’ she began. And then stopped. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I am married to a near-bankrupt drinker. A man whose child I am expecting. ’

Rupert’s eyes widened. ‘I heard you had married Ed, ’ he said quietly. ‘But I didn’t know about the other developments. I think we need a coffee once the case is over. ’

Carla hadn’t meant to be so open. But it all came spilling out. Ed’s controlling ways, which could be interpreted as simply caring. The constant worry about money. (At the bank’s insistence, the house was finally going on the market, but they hadn’t had many viewers. ) The uncomfortable feeling about living in another woman’s home.

‘In the end, Lily left almost everything, even her clothes. It’s as though she was trying to tell me that I couldn’t replace her. ’

And then the note which had arrived out of the blue, threatening her for hurting Lily.

Rupert was clearly shocked. ‘What did the police say? ’

‘I haven’t told them. ’

‘Why not? ’

Her eyes welled up again. ‘Because then Ed would make a fuss and not allow me back to the office. He would keep me at home, shut up like a bird, in case someone hurt me. ’

Rupert took her hand. ‘This is terrible, Carla. You can’t live like this. ’

‘I know. ’ She stared down at the now visible bump in her stomach. ‘But what can I do? ’

‘All kinds of things. You could go -’

‘No. ’ She had interrupted him fiercely. ‘I cannot leave. I cannot be like my mamma. I will not allow this child to grow up without a father as I did. ’

Rupert dropped her hand. Don’t, she wanted to cry. Don’t.

Then he reached into his inside jacket pocket and handed over a card. ‘This is my private mobile number. I’ve changed it since we last knew each other. Ring me. Any time. I will always be there for you. My fianc& #233; e would like to meet you too. ’

‘Your fianc& #233; e? ’

Rupert blushed. ‘Katie and I got engaged last month. It was a bit sudden, but we’re very happy. ’

So that holding of hands and the flush on his face… Carla had got it all wrong. Rupert really was just being a friend. Nothing more.

That had been several weeks ago now. Carla kept the card close to her. Often she thought about ringing the number. But every time she did, a sentence came into her head. My fianc& #233; e would like to meet you.

Carla shivered. She had had enough of stealing other people’s things. This intolerable situation was her cross to bear for snatching Lily’s husband.

‘Carla? ’ There was a persistent knocking on the bathroom door. ‘Darling? Are you all right in there? ’

‘I am fine, ’ she said. Then she turned on the taps so she couldn’t hear his reply, and lowered herself down so that her head was under water, allowing herself to think clearly without Ed’s voice hammering through the door.

49 Lily

I pause. Grip the railings on the front. Try to steady myself by looking out over the sea and watching the light of a boat moored there. Bobbing on the surface of the water against the apricot sunrise.

Then I turn round.

Joe Thomas doesn’t look like a former prisoner. He seems much older than he did at our last meeting, but it suits him. Gives him a certain gravity. He’s grown a moustache, although his hair is still short.

But one thing hasn’t changed. Those eyes. Those black-brown eyes which are focused right on me.

‘We need to talk. ’

A chill passes through my bones.

‘I’ve got nothing to say to you. ’

He reaches towards me. For a minute, I think he’s going to grab my arms. I step back. One of my nodding-acquaintance jogger friends goes past.

Joe waits a few seconds. ‘I need to tell you something. Please. ’

He is actually begging. Momentarily, I am swayed. ‘Not here. ’

Uncertainly, I lead him across the road to a group of tables and chairs outside a cafe with an OPEN AT 9AM! sign. We sit opposite each other, away from the promenade and the occasional runner. ‘What is it? ’ I say curtly.

His eyes are boring into mine. As though they are trying to suck me into him.

‘You don’t have to worry about Carla. ’

At first, his words are so unexpected that it takes me a second to absorb them. When I do, I am both scared and – I have to admit this – excited.

‘What do you mean? ’

‘Your ex and Carla won’t last. ’

My mouth is dry. ‘How do you know? ’

‘Just do. ’

He moves his chair closer to the table. Without looking down, I can feel our legs are almost but not quite touching. A man goes past, his dog sniffing a stray chip left in the road then running on. To its owner, we might be any pair of runners sitting down, catching our breath, admiring the view. Or maybe we could be a pair of tourists staying at one of the hotels on the front, taking a stroll before breakfast.

‘I know it can’t be easy, ’ says Joe. ‘Your husband has married someone else. And now they’re having a baby. ’

‘So what? I’ve moved on now. ’

Those eyes are peeling away my pretence. ‘Are you sure? ’

No. Of course I’m not sure. I want Carla to have never existed. I want the old me to have told her mother that I’m very sorry but we couldn’t possibly look after her child at weekends.

But that’s not me. At the heart of things, I need to help people. To make up for not being able to help my own brother. For having failed him. For having failed myself.

‘Is that why you’re here? ’ I ask. ‘To see how I am? ’

‘Partly. ’ Little beads of perspiration are breaking out on his forehead. I can feel the same thing happening on my back.

I wait like a mouse waiting to be pounced on. Knowing what is to come.

‘I want a paternity test, Lily. I didn’t believe you last time when you said he wasn’t mine, and I don’t believe you now. I’ve been watching you, Lily, like I’ve always been watching you and everyone you mix with, since I got out of prison. ’

This is ridiculous. How? Where? ‘Is this one of your lies again? ’ I say sharply.

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