The Lie Page 5

  ‘Oh …’ Finch stopped beside her, halfway up the steps at the Regent Street exit to Piccadilly Circus, where there was still some shelter. It was not just raining, it was absolutely bucketing down, the streets awash, people pressed against the sides of the buildings, desperate to get out of the downpour. Their planned stroll to the theatre was barely ten minutes, but without an umbrella – and absolutely no chance of a taxi – it would leave them drenched.

  ‘We’re late already. We’ll have to make a run for it,’ she said dubiously, glancing up at the blackened sky and finding no joy.

  ‘Here, have my jacket,’ Finch said, beginning to pull it from his shoulders. But she stopped him, pressing her hand to his chest.

  ‘Thanks, but it’s coming down too hard to make much difference.’

  For another moment, they stood there in silence. Then they gave each other a resolute smile as Finch grabbed her hand and they ran, sploshing through the puddles, waiting impatiently for the lights to change and dodging the crowds of tourists – many in emergency waterproof ponchos – as best they could until they arrived breathless at the theatre entrance.

  Even in the few minutes it had taken, they had been soaked through and stood – arms held out from their wet clothes – looking at each other in amused dismay. Finch’s hair was plastered to his head, face slick with rain, white shirt stuck to his chest, his tan brogues now mahogany from the puddles.

  Romy began to laugh. ‘We can squelch through the first half and hope we dry off by the second. It’s probably warm inside.’

  Finch didn’t reply. He seemed to be considering something as they stood dripping in the milling foyer. ‘Or …’ he began ‘… radical suggestion …’

  Romy heard the urgent clang of the three-minute warning bell.

  ‘I’m a member of this place around the corner, for when I need to stay in London – two minutes away. It’s definitely warm there.’

  ‘You mean miss the play? Seems a terrible waste.’ But she was already beginning to shiver, the wet linen of her jacket clinging heavily against her skin. Plus she had been up to the common the previous day, where Phil, the group leader, had introduced her to coppicing. She had thrown herself enthusiastically into the task, but as a result every muscle in her body had stiffened achingly overnight.

  Finch held out his hands, palms up. ‘Decision time.’ He raised first his right like a scale. ‘Sit in wet clothes for two hours, get pneumonia and quite possibly die?’ Then he lowered his right and raised his left. ‘Or … get warm and have a large martini and a steaming bowl of chips?’ He was grinning mischievously as the rest of the audience filed past to find their seats.

  ‘It’s clear where your allegiance lies,’ Romy said, laughing, as he took her hand again and they went back out into the rain.

  The martini went straight to her head. They were sitting in the third-floor bar, in the corner of a black button-back banquette. It wasn’t a particularly stylish room, the decor modern but more functional than pretty. Romy didn’t care. It was toasty warm, the alcohol had loosened her tongue – loosened Finch’s too – and the conversation buzzed and flowed between them. She sensed a difference in him tonight – as if he had let something go. It made him more expansive, the light in his eyes sparky and flirtatious.

  They had munched their way through a large bowl of crunchy hot, salty potato wedges dipped in garlic mayonnaise and downed a couple of cocktails each, when Finch suddenly picked up her hand and held it lightly in his lap. It seemed like such an intimate gesture. More intimate than if he had reached down and kissed her.

  ‘You know,’ he said, not looking at her, ‘being alone for a while, you forget how much fun it is, doing things with someone else.’

  Romy squeezed his hand, letting out a long breath. She looked up and his eyes met hers. Neither spoke for a moment, then he whispered, ‘I would love to kiss you, Romy. But I can’t. Not here.’

  Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Against club rules?’ She felt his finger gently stroking the back of her hand, the small movement almost unbearably seductive.

  He gave a quiet groan. ‘I wish I’d never suggested that stupid play. I wanted to impress you, Romy, do something special, something away from the village, so you wouldn’t think me just this bumpkin colonel character. But here we are, stranded in the city, and I can’t even kiss you.’

  She began to laugh as he put his arm round her shoulders and they moved close together on the banquette.

  ‘We mustn’t miss the train,’ he said, bringing his watch up to his face in the half-light. ‘Ten thirty-six, isn’t it?’

  Romy automatically did the same. They both stared at each other.

  ‘Oops,’ said Romy.

  It was already seventeen minutes past. There was no way they could make it to Victoria in time, even if they left this instant and by some miracle found a taxi. They hadn’t yet paid the bill and they needed to collect their jackets from the downstairs cloakroom where they were hopefully drying off.

  ‘We could see about staying here tonight,’ he said, his voice tentative. ‘That, or the milk train …’

  Romy tried to think through the options, but the cocktails and the sexual frisson she felt for the man beside her weren’t helping. Her look must have appeared doubtful to Finch, because he immediately held up his hands.

  ‘I didn’t mean … We’d get two rooms, of course.’ He searched her face. ‘I wasn’t suggesting …’ He frowned. ‘Or we could go to Waterloo, get a train to Havant and a taxi from there. The trains go later on the Portsmouth line.’

  The thought of a dreary journey stretching into the small hours, with aching limbs in still damp clothes, did not appeal to Romy. ‘We’d be very late …’

  Finch pushed the table away and stood up. ‘Listen, I’ll go and check if they’ve got any rooms first, before we make a decision.’

  He left Romy feeling slightly apprehensive. Ten minutes before, her body had been on fire, aching to be alone with Finch. But suddenly being thrown together overnight, albeit in separate rooms …

  When Finch came back, he was looking nervous, too. ‘Well, the good news is, they have a free twin. The bad news is, that’s all they have.’

  ‘Right.’ Romy didn’t know what to say.

  ‘So you take the room. I’ll bunk off and find somewhere else.’

  ‘Heavens, no, that’s ridiculous, Finch. It’s still chucking it down.’ She could see the rain splashing in puddles on the outside terrace. ‘Anywhere you find that’s close will cost you a second mortgage.’ She hesitated. ‘We can manage. Two beds, take it in turns to use the bathroom. It’ll be like a school trip.’ She was trying to make light of the situation, trying to hide the nervous tingle she felt running through her body.

  But as she watched Finch’s face, she thought he didn’t seem entirely on board with her analogy.

  ‘I didn’t mean …’ She touched his arm. ‘Let’s give it a go,’ she said encouragingly, inwardly squirming as she thought of the embarrassment of sharing with a man she barely knew. She didn’t even have a clean pair of knickers and a toothbrush – the duo her mother insisted was all a girl needed for a night away from home. Don’t let me snore or dribble, she prayed.

  Finch was self-consciously twirling the room key in his hands. ‘Shall we go up, or do you want another drink?’

  Romy shook her head.

  The bedroom was like the bar downstairs: clean, neat, functional … and chilly. Romy sat down on the end of one of the single beds, Finch on the other. She looked at him. He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘So, come on, what did you get up to on school trips?’ Finch asked, a mischievous smile on his face.

  She grinned back. ‘Oh, smoke, snog boys, the usual.’

  He laughed loudly. ‘OK. Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.’

  ‘I bet you got up to much worse.’

  ‘I wish. No school trips for me … I was home-schooled by my mother until I was fourteen.’

  ‘Wow, unusual. Where did you live?’

  Finch didn’t reply for a moment and Romy felt his change of mood as he said, with clear reluctance, ‘The Painswick Valley, an old stone cottage miles from anywhere. My dear old ma was paranoid about the outside world. Xenophobic, even … probably bordering on survivalist.’ He paused, as if deciding whether or not to go on. ‘The basement was crammed with hundreds of cans of food. She owned three shotguns and a rifle. I could shoot and skin a rabbit by the time I was eight.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘She absolutely hated any kind of authority, which was why she wouldn’t send me to school. She considered all teachers lefty tyrannical morons.’

  ‘And your father?’ Romy felt almost rude asking, sensing a palpable reticence from the man on the bed next to her.

  Finch shrugged. ‘Married man. I only knew him by sight – a local landowner with a large family. He’s dead now, but he never acknowledged me.’ A wry smile formed on his lips. ‘Probably suspected Ma just wanted his sperm – which might have been true, knowing my mother – and didn’t want me getting my mitts on his estate.’ For a moment he seemed miles away. Then he added, ‘She was an extraordinary woman, but perhaps not the easiest of mothers.’

  Romy was amazed. Robert Fincham seemed the epitome of middle-class conservatism. She had assumed he came from some tidy family in the Home Counties, with two nice parents – father a dentist or in insurance, perhaps – a handful of siblings, two golden retrievers, a Rover on the gravel drive, maybe even a horse in some nearby field. We might have more in common than I thought, she decided. ‘Why on earth the army?’

  He laughed. ‘I know, sounds like an improbable choice of career for someone with my background. Nearly gave Ma a heart attack when I told her.’ He hesitated and she noticed him wringing his hands together in his
lap. ‘Being used to guns, I suppose, being part of something … And I think I wanted to prove I wasn’t a mummy’s boy … which was what the boys at school called me, of course, when I eventually got there.’

  Romy realized she needed to have a major rethink about Robert Fincham. He hadn’t told her a single thing about his childhood before, always brushing off any tentative enquiries she’d made. Talking now, he seemed almost apologetic – embarrassed even – about his upbringing, yet she’d always had the sense that this was a man enviably at ease with himself.

  ‘So,’ she said brightly, feeling the atmosphere was getting way too thick with Finch’s past and anxious not to start focusing on her own, ‘I suppose we should get some sleep.’

  Neither of them moved. ‘I’m sorry, Romy,’ Finch said. ‘I wanted this to be a perfect evening, and it seems to have gone a bit pear-shaped.’

  Romy began to laugh when she saw his stricken expression. He didn’t immediately join in and she knew she should control herself, but it wasn’t easy in her tired, slightly tipsy state. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time! Eccentric, perhaps,’ she managed to say through her giggles. ‘But certainly not the stuff of disaster.’

  He gave a rueful grin. ‘I’m normally good at logistics.’

  ‘You are good. You saved me from a life-threatening illness, remember? Made sure I was fed and watered, and now I have a cosy …’ she looked askance at the sad, chilly singles ‘… bed for the night.’ She got up. ‘What more could a girl want?’

  Finch was really laughing now, as he stood. For a moment they hesitated, watching each other in silence. Then he gently pulled her to him and wrapped her in his arms. She sighed with pleasure, knowing she was trembling slightly as she looked up to meet his eye. Then Finch kissed her.

  His kisses were soft at first, but as he felt her respond, they grew more intense, their bodies pressed together in the narrow gap between the beds.

  After a while they pulled back, a question on each of their faces. Romy was buzzing, aroused. But Finch seemed to be holding back.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t rush,’ he said, his voice croaky with desire, at the same time holding his palm against her cheek. Her eyes met his and she took a steadying breath.

  The desire she felt made Romy’s head spin. But now she couldn’t help projecting herself into the cold light of morning, waking in the club room scrunched, half dressed, beside Finch in the narrow single bed, make-up blotched on her face, mouth stale and no toothbrush, wondering what they’d done. That was the trouble with being older: you thought about these things.

  She reached up and kissed him again. Not a come-on kiss, this time, but a holding one, which spoke of promise and looked forward to the next time they might be in each other’s arms.

  10

  November 2016

  Nothing was ever the same in Romy’s marriage after the letter. It was as if a malign – and uninvited – guest permanently stalked the flat. Despite her outward support for Michael’s position – as in going along with his determination to do nothing – those words had created a seismic shift in their relationship. She was almost afraid to be with Michael, reluctant to look him in the eye for fear of what she might see. And as the months went on, the distance between them seemed to become solid and increasingly unbreachable.

  Until that point, her faith in her husband had been absolute. She had taken him at face value, warts and all, accepting his addiction to work, how little he was around when the boys were growing up, the way he took her for granted as his wingman, without ever questioning her feelings about being subordinate to his stellar career, because she loved him, because it hadn’t always been like that between them … because, although she knew he wasn’t perfect, she had always believed in his integrity. And his intrinsic love for his family.

  They had grown up in the same village in the north-east, known each other only by sight – Michael was older by three years and considered inaccessibly cool by her and her friends. When their paths did eventually cross one hot, crazy June night in a Stockton pub, Romy sixteen and star-struck, there had been no turning back for either of them.

  In those early days Michael’s drive and charisma had created an exciting life. He had seemed to need her by his side, his pride in his northern roots also tinged with self-consciousness among the mainly public-school crowd his pupillage for the Bar threw him together with.

  Now, when Michael was at work and she was alone in the flat, Romy, in an attempt to block out those stark words on the cream writing-paper, would summon up happier times, remind herself that it hadn’t always been like this between them.

  And as her birthday loomed – thirteen months after the letter’s arrival – she recalled a long-ago celebration with a smile: Michael standing by the door of their shabby bedsit near Russell Square, grinning and wheeling his arms impatiently as she put on her coat. ‘Hurry up, we’re going to be late.’ He had woken her before six that morning, handing her an envelope: two plane tickets to Paris concealed in a birthday card.

  Neither had ever been to the city before. ‘We must have the full-on Paris experience,’ Michael had said excitedly. ‘Do everything: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre. Float down the Seine on a bateau mouche.’ So they stayed in a chilly pension on the Left Bank, with brown tiles on the floor and no pillow, just a lumpy cylindrical bolster, which made them laugh till their sides ached. It was a raw, wet November, but Mona Lisa’s smile, endless steak-frites and a great deal of cheap red wine kept them warm. When they made love, the iron feet of the bed screeched on the hideous tiles and reduced them to more tears of laughter.

  They had been such a team back then. ‘It’s us against the world, Romy,’ Michael would say, with a confident grin. She worked for a firm of architects in Islington – they called her a ‘secretary’ in those days – while Michael completed his pupillage in Gray’s Inn. Most weekends they would throw spaghetti suppers in their tiny flat, with raucous, drink-fuelled rows about anything and nothing. Michael’s increased pressure of work as he rose quickly through the system, and the birth of the boys, had begun to alter all that.

  Romy’s birthday this year, however, would be more momentous by far than the Paris trip had been – but with none of the innocent enjoyment that had accompanied it. Because it was the day when she first began to think seriously that she might leave Michael, despite the trigger being almost ludicrously insignificant.

  Her husband had appeared agitated that morning. ‘I’m really upset, Romy. I ordered your present weeks ago and the bloody thing hasn’t arrived,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  When she’d assured him it didn’t matter – which it didn’t – he went through a whole charade. ‘Were you in yesterday?’ he asked, and when Romy said she wasn’t, he went on, ‘Maybe Mrs Ratti took it in. I’d better run down and check.’ And he’d gone off to ask the Italian caretaker, who lived in the basement flat, if she’d seen the package. But when the present did arrive – an expensive Mulberry handbag in soft cerise leather – Romy noticed the order date was the actual day of her birthday.

  It was such a small thing – in the past it might have been something they could laugh about. But his lie felt much more sinister to Romy than just a silly fib about forgetting her present. When she confronted him at breakfast that weekend, he initially denied it.

  ‘Are you accusing me of lying?’ he’d said, slamming his coffee mug onto the table, surprisingly full of aggression.

  She’d laughed, tried to make light of it. ‘Well, you did, Michael. I don’t give a toss that you forgot – you know me better than that. But there’s no need to lie.’

  For a moment he had continued to eye her indignantly. Then his face had collapsed into a sheepish grin and he’d held up his hands. ‘It’s a fair cop, guv,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, Romy. I felt terrible when I realized I’d forgotten.’

  But Romy had not been mollified. She’d totally believed the charade with the lost parcel. If he can lie so convincingly about something as trivial as my birthday present … she thought. Because the letter coloured almost every exchange she had with Michael these days, as if she were filtering all his utterances through the prism of the woman’s words.