The Lie Read online

  She had left her phone in the car while she worked, not wanting any interruptions. When she checked it again, before driving home, she saw a text. About that walk, it said. Saturday is supposed to be fine, if you’re still up for it? Finch

  ‘Do you fancy a drink, maybe a bite to eat?’ Finch’s question was tentative as he and Romy rounded the corner and saw the car park up ahead. It was a beautiful day, hot for April, and Romy had struggled to keep up as they strode the two-hour route round the Roman villa, although she was sure he was modifying his pace to suit her own.

  She had been nervous the day might be awkward – she barely knew the man and they hadn’t seen each other since that night in the pub, nearly a month ago now. But her fears melted away as they walked. Conversation was so easy with Finch, as if they were tuned to the same wavelength. She couldn’t say exactly what they talked about, except neither ventured into very personal territory. But he made her laugh and she forgot, for a while, the thoughts that regularly tormented her. At times Romy sensed the weight of their pasts in the unsaid, but it was so enjoyable to walk with a companion for a change – especially someone as personable as Robert Fincham.

  She hesitated before replying to his suggestion. Part of her would have loved to sit with him and a glass of cold white wine, somewhere outdoors on this stunning spring evening, but another part clung to her default position. Before she had given herself time to think, the wariness won out. ‘That would have been lovely, but I’ve got someone coming over later,’ she blurted, before she could change her mind. She was sure her words rang false and she quickly regretted her lie.

  But Finch did not look discomposed in the slightest. He merely smiled. ‘Shame. Another time, perhaps.’

  The following morning, Romy woke up disappointed with herself. But the past few years had been so confusing, she wasn’t sure she could trust her instincts any more. It happened on Thursday, 13 June 2002 …

  As she lay there, uncomfortably catapulted back into the past, her phone rang. It was barely seven and she knew it would be Rex – it was the best time to talk from Australia.

  ‘Hey, Mum. How’s it going over there?’

  He sounded upbeat, as always. Her laidback son – now twenty-seven – seldom showed signs of stress, unlike his elder brother, Leo. Rex had deliberately chosen a lifestyle for himself that didn’t include it: a barista job in a trendy coffee shop in Sydney, blue skies and a nicely waxed surfboard, the stunning beach a stone’s throw away.

  She listened for a while to Rex’s account of a spectacular wave the previous weekend, and caught up with news of her brother, Blake – who had emigrated with his family to Sydney twenty years ago – before her son stopped mid-flow, his tone suddenly serious: ‘Tell me how you are, Mum.’

  ‘Well, I’m OK, actually. Better than I’ve been for a while.’ She went on to tell him about Maureen and the conservation group, Keith in the deli and his wife, Cathy. She didn’t mention Finch, although she wasn’t sure why not.

  ‘Go for it,’ Rex said, when she stopped talking. ‘Love it that you’re into Thermos tea again. Remember those sausage and fruitcake picnics in Scotland? And that day Dad swam in his Y-fronts across the freezing loch?’ She heard Rex chuckle. ‘I wished I’d been brave enough to go with him.’

  Rex and Leo had rarely spoken of Michael since their parents had split up. Romy didn’t know how to articulate what had happened between them to her sons, and they clearly didn’t know how to ask.

  But she couldn’t help laughing as she remembered the Scottish holiday. Those had been the best times. ‘Your father never does anything by halves.’

  Her son was silent for a moment. Then: ‘It’s good you’re sounding happier, Mum. You’ve got to go for things in life, you know.’

  She lay back against the pillows after they’d said goodbye. That last phrase ran through her mind, like a banner fluttering behind a plane. Go for it, she thought. And before she’d had a chance to change her mind, she texted Finch.

  I’ll cook you supper one night, if you like. R

  3

  Later that day she was in the kitchen, flicking through some paint charts on her iPad, when Michael rang. ‘Hello?’ Romy knew she sounded unintentionally wary. Until recently – when her growing optimism about life had opened up a welcome space between them – she’d still felt so tightly bound to Michael, even though they no longer lived together. And meeting Finch felt like another small degree of space.

  So now, speaking to Michael, she noticed herself becoming tense, convinced he would make some demand and impinge on her hatching independence. He tended to ring every few days, usually on some pretext, such as the boiler playing up or the windows needing cleaning, which he had to share with her because, he kept reminding her, she still owned half of the Chelsea flat.

  Or it might be to relay some gossip about one of their friends, a chat he’d had with Leo or Rex. It was almost, Romy thought, as if he hadn’t quite grasped that she’d left him, despite his spending the past year in the arms of the lovely Anezka, the Czech maître d’ at a restaurant off Fleet Street where many of the legal profession gathered.

  ‘Just checking in,’ Michael said. ‘Haven’t heard from you in a while.’

  ‘I’m fine. Nothing to report,’ she said, not choosing to point out that four days wasn’t exactly ‘a while’, but making it clear she was not in the mood for a gossip. She wondered, ridiculously, if her husband had somehow got wind of the text she’d sent Finch earlier, or yesterday’s walk. Michael always seemed to nose things out before anyone else – a useful knack in his line of work.

  ‘It must be lovely down there,’ Michael went on.

  ‘It is. Michael, I’m just about to go out. Is there something you want?’

  ‘Well …’ He seemed unusually hesitant. ‘I was hoping we could get together, have a talk.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s time to consider our position, Romy.’

  Heart fluttering anxiously, she asked, ‘What do you mean, “ our position ”?’

  Michael was silent for a minute, then he said, ‘I was thinking about maybe getting on with a divorce.’

  Romy was taken aback. It was fourteen months now since she’d left and even then there had been no official statement that they were separating. She had just moved out of the flat and not come back. More to the point, Michael had been brought up a Catholic – altar boy, First Communion – and, although lapsed since his twenties, he was, in principle, against divorce. Romy couldn’t imagine wanting to marry again, so it wasn’t a priority. And she had her sons to think of. But the word gave her a jolt, nonetheless.

  ‘Are you thinking of marrying Anezka?’

  ‘Heavens, no!’ Michael exclaimed, with convincing horror. Then he gave a short laugh. ‘Sorry, that sounded rude.’ He paused. ‘I suppose I just want to be clear about what’s going on between us.’ His voice was soft, uncharacteristically tentative.

  Now Romy felt the full weight of what seemed like a lifetime with Michael fall on her, like a heavy cloak. Their two boys, all the experiences they’d shared: the fun they’d had, the problems they’d weathered, the powerful love she had undoubtedly felt for her husband. No part of her wanted to go back, but she couldn’t help feeling the burden of the unfinished business between them. Unfinished business that – although Michael claimed to want clarity – continued to sit like a box stuffed in the attic. Ignored, but a constant presence above their heads.

  ‘If you want to go ahead, I’m fine with it,’ she said, her voice restrained.

  Michael did not immediately reply and she wondered if he’d heard. When he did speak, she thought he sounded distinctly disappointed. ‘Oh, right … Well, we can talk about it when we meet. I’ll send some dates.’

  After they’d said goodbye, Romy was slightly shaken. Was he testing me? she wondered. Trying to stun me with the reality of divorce – see if I still care for him? If he was happy in his relationship with Anezka – which her sons seeme
d to imply he was – then he should have sounded pleased, rather than disappointed. Whatever he’d meant, Michael, she realized, still had the power to unsettle her. She took a shaky breath as she silently mouthed those ink-black words: Even now, I sometimes have flashbacks that make me tremble and sweat.

  4

  ‘That was superb.’ Finch sat back in his chair and gave her a grin of satisfaction.

  ‘It’s all you’re getting, I’m afraid,’ she said, smiling at his compliment – it had only been a modest pasta: spinach and mascarpone fusilli. ‘There’s Brighton Blue and grapes. I don’t do puddings.’

  It was liberating not to feel the need to wade through complicated recipes for Finch and just do something she could cook with her eyes closed. Not because he wasn’t worth it. The evening had been so comfortable – really lovely, in fact – and Finch so appreciative of her efforts. But she remembered all those formal dinner parties she’d thrown for Michael, how they’d taken her all day to organize and cook and left her exhausted, with little appetite for being sparkling and witty with his clever colleagues from the judiciary.

  Finch’s eyes widened in horror. ‘What? No chocolate and hazelnut roulade? No tarte Tatin? What will the village say when I spread the word?’

  Romy started to laugh. ‘Probably confirm their worst suspicions that Michael left me because there weren’t three puddings on the table every night.’ Her face fell, his name casting a shadow. ‘Although it was me who left him,’ she added softly.

  ‘Cheese is perfect,’ Finch said diplomatically, as she reached across to clear his bowl. ‘Is it all right to ask why?’ he said after a minute, his tone cautious.

  Romy didn’t answer until she had placed the cheese and fruit on the table and sat down again. She knew she had to give him some kind of response, but she found she couldn’t meet his eye as she eventually spoke. ‘We were married such a long time. I think we just ran out of steam. Michael is a barrister. His first love has always been his work.’ She didn’t want to lie to Finch, but her deliberately evasive reply was playing with the truth.

  Finch nodded, but she could tell he had noticed her equivocation from the puzzlement she saw flash across his eyes. ‘Must have been a difficult decision.’

  ‘I didn’t feel I had a choice,’ she said, contradicting her previous statement, but realizing, for the first time, that this was probably true. The actual moment of leaving had been almost an anticlimax, as if she’d just wandered off to the cottage and could, at any time, wander straight back to Michael. It was certainly how her husband saw it – or, at least, he had, until he’d requested a divorce the other day. But it was, in truth, more defined than that: she had reached a tipping point, the letter changing everything.

  ‘How about you? It can’t have been easy since you lost your wife,’ she asked, hoping her question wouldn’t feel too intrusive. Finch’s wife had died before Romy was living full-time in the village. She vaguely remembered a pretty, gamine blonde – sort of Mia Farrow-ish, with a wide, slightly crazy smile.

  ‘Not easy at all. You’re right. It’s quite hard to describe it,’ Finch began, looking away. Romy saw his mouth working. Then he turned to her, the gaze from his expressive brown eyes seeming to hold hers with almost fierce determination. She guessed he didn’t talk about Nell’s death to many people and she felt honoured that he should trust her. ‘Nothing is what you expect. It’s like you’re standing on the edge of a deep, dark pit and constantly having to stop yourself falling in. But gradually you get better and better at negotiating the edge.’ He gave her a self-conscious smile. ‘I’m sure that makes no sense to you.’

  Romy smiled her understanding, because oddly, although it wasn’t a death for her, Finch’s analogy rang a powerful bell. She dared not show this too readily, though, for fear he would ask more questions. But it pained her that she couldn’t be equally open with this sensitive, empathic man.

  ‘At first I kept judging myself for not recovering quickly enough. A pull-yourself-together type of thing,’ Finch was saying. ‘Now I just feel what I feel.’ He smiled. ‘But I’m getting there. I think I can see ahead in a way that was impossible till recently.’

  Like me, Romy thought. But she wondered whether, also like her, Finch was ready for anything more than friendship.

  It was almost dark when they went through to the sitting room, where Romy had lit the wood-burner. Finch had to duck to avoid the lintel above the door.

  She had tidied up earlier, and the clutter littering the surfaces had been shoved unceremoniously into the cupboard under the stairs. All that remained were three framed photos of Leo and Rex as children – the one of her and Michael, windswept and laughing on a friend’s boat, she had moved to the spare room, unwilling, as yet, to hide it away in a drawer.

  The room – which had been extended into the garden – contained a faded rose-linen sofa piled with cushions and a small wingback chair in oatmeal tweed, two slim bookcases on either side of the fireplace and a coffee table made from reclaimed barn boards.

  Finch had settled on the sofa when Romy came back with coffee and the box of chocolates he’d brought with the Merlot. She wondered whether she should sit in the armchair across from him, or be bold and choose the sofa, too. After a moment’s hesitation, she followed her instincts and opted for the latter.

  The atmosphere in the room was warm and intimate, the flames from the wood-burner hypnotic. Glancing at the clock Romy realized it was nearly eleven – she and Finch had been talking non-stop for hours. The evening had gone in a flash.

  With Michael, Romy had often got the feeling that he was busy forming his next sentence while she was talking – keen to get his views across instead of really listening to what she said – so at first she’d been almost reticent with Finch. But as the evening had worn on, she’d felt as if they were old friends who had known each other all their lives – at the same time as being exciting new ones.

  Romy was acutely aware of Finch so close, the clean, orangey smell of soap, the strong hands with the long fingers curled around the stoneware mug, his thigh – clad in charcoal chinos – only inches from her own. It was as if she had been gathered up into a softly vibrating lacuna, where there was no need to go forward or to look back: she could just bask in that single moment. A log cracked loudly against the glass door of the stove and she jumped.

  Finch smiled at her. ‘What a lovely evening,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘Thanks for the delicious supper.’ After a pause, he added, ‘I suppose I should get going.’ Although he did not immediately make a move.

  Hearing the reluctance in his voice, which so exactly mirrored her own, she smiled. When he did get up, she followed him through to the hall, watched as he shrugged his broad shoulders into his navy peacoat and patted his pockets for his phone and keys.

  For a moment they were trapped close in the confined space as she reached past him to open the front door. Their eyes met. Neither moved. She held her breath, aware of the quickening of her heartbeat. For what seemed like a lifetime to Romy, they were anchored, only centimetres apart. Then they both drew back, looking at each other with a degree of embarrassed surprise.

  Finch raised his eyebrows at her. ‘These narrow hallways …’ he said, with a wide grin. She nodded, unable to suppress her own smile of relief that he’d defused the tension. Finch seemed to shake himself. ‘Night, Romy,’ he said, leaning down to give her a decorous peck on the cheek. Then he ducked his head to accommodate the low doorway and was gone.

  For a moment Romy stood at the door and took deep breaths of the cold night air, feeling the sea breeze caress her hot cheeks. She gave a quiet chuckle of disbelief. I think he nearly kissed me.

  But, as she went back inside and double-locked the front door, disbelief quickly turned to panic. Suppose he had? It had been such a wonderful evening. Finch had taken her out of herself, beyond the confusion and pain of the recent past. But the near kiss had brought it all back.

  Like the demand of a jealous lover,
she heard the siren call. Unable to resist, Romy found herself slowly climbing the stairs to her bedroom and unlocking the top drawer of her dressing table. The letter she drew from the envelope was creased and thumbed, but the handwritten words were still as clear as the day it had dropped through the letter box of the Claires’ Chelsea flat two and a half years ago:

  12 October 2015

  Dear Mrs Claire,

  We have never met.

  This is a difficult letter to write, and will be difficult for you to read, I’m sure. But watching the news the other night and seeing the triumph on your husband’s face on the steps of the Old Bailey – after successfully defending that creepy TV presenter accused of rape – made me feel physically sick. And furious with myself for keeping silent all these years.

  Because Michael Claire sexually assaulted me.

  I was sixteen years old.

  It happened on Thursday, 13 June 2002. I’d just finished my GCSEs and my mother had arranged for me to do a week’s work experience in your husband’s chambers.

  Michael was working late that night. All the others had gone home. He asked me to stay behind to help him sort out a ton of papers he had to read for court the next morning. It was almost my last day, and I’d had such a good week. Everyone had been incredibly kind to me.

  When I finished sorting the papers, he gave me a glass of red wine and had one himself. He didn’t have proper wine glasses, I remember, just Duralex tumblers. He was friendly and funny. There was a small button-back leather sofa in the corner of his room and he told me to have a seat. Then a few minutes later he came and sat beside me. I was uncomfortable and really shy; Michael was seen as a bit of a god in the chambers. I saw him as a bit of a god.

  He put his hand on my thigh first. I was wearing a red cotton dress, no tights – it was very hot that week. I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Then he moved my dress up and began stroking my bare skin, squeezing my thigh. I pushed him off, but he just laughed and took my glass from me, putting it on the desk. He seemed to think I’d given him some sort of message that this was what I wanted, because he said, ‘You’re such a tease.’