The Lie Page 6

  Romy hated herself for it, but she found she couldn’t stop as the poison drip-dripped onto the fabric of their marriage, burning small holes at first, which soon joined up into huge jagged ones, until she felt there was nothing left but tatters. She had finally lost the strength to hold the fabric together.

  And Michael obviously felt it. She’d sensed him pulling away from her over the previous thirteen months – spending ever more hours at work – at the same time as she had taken a step back from him. But distance only spawned more distance, with neither able to talk about it. The moment seemed to have passed when she might have spoken, Romy realized.

  By tacit consent, they stopped entertaining – even for networking purposes – and he moved into the spare room: ‘I don’t want to wake you when I’m home late,’ he said, although he’d never cared in the past. Romy, in turn, began to make social arrangements with her friends, leaving her husband out of the equation altogether. They became like polite strangers, gliding past each other with only the briefest of acknowledgement.

  On the rare occasions when they sat round the table together as a family, Romy would search Michael’s face, check how this uneasy domestic arrangement was affecting him. But all she saw was a guarded acceptance, and a titanic effort not to meet her eye – Just in case I mention the unmentionable, she thought sadly.

  But it seemed as if there were light years between Romy’s first thought that she might leave her husband and deciding actually to do so. The prospect – which daily tormented her – made her feel physically sick. It wasn’t until six weeks after the incident with the Mulberry bag, on an icy January morning, that she finally plucked up the courage and confronted Michael.

  The moment had been planned for – over and over – in the preceding weeks. She would lie in bed, stomach churning, telling herself, Today’s the day, then for some reason – Michael would leave early, she would oversleep or simply lose her nerve – he would be gone and she still hadn’t said a word. Which proved both a temporary relief and a cause of weary frustration with her own cowardice.

  The Wednesday in question she had no plan. She’d been up early, working on the mission statement for a friend’s charity, which was raising money to save a large area of wasteland in East London that had been colonized by rare birds. When she heard Michael moving around, she had known this had to be the moment – it was days since they had spoken, she realized, even to say hello – but the tension remained. The shilly-shallying had to stop. She positioned herself in the hall, by the entrance to the kitchen and waited, holding her breath, her whole body rigid.

  Normally he would speed through from his bedroom to swallow a cup of coffee, eat a slice of toast and marmalade – although since she’d stopped making it for him, he’d stuck to just coffee – before heading off for another long day. But that morning, almost as if he knew something was up, he had forgone even coffee and immediately grabbed his coat from the hook, keen to be away.

  ‘I’m going to stay at the cottage for a while,’ she began, hearing her voice tremble.

  Michael stopped as he straightened his coat collar and frowned at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I love it down there,’ was all she managed to reply, even though she had spent the previous six weeks preparing an elaborate speech for this moment.

  ‘In January? Seriously? It’ll be freezing … and fucking miserable.’ Her husband turned away and picked up his bulging briefcase, as if that were the end of the conversation.

  ‘I know, but I’m going anyway.’ She heard her voice take on a resoluteness that had not been there before. And Michael heard it too.

  ‘What are you on about, Romy?’

  She took a breath, feeling her belly fluttering with anxiety. ‘I think it’s best we have a break, live separately for a while.’ Michael’s dark eyes narrowed, never leaving her face. ‘We haven’t spoken for days. It’s not as if we spend any time together any more,’ Romy added.

  Her husband did a double-take. ‘Wait … You’re leaving me? Is that what you’re trying to say?’ He shook his head in apparent incomprehension. ‘Listen, I’m late. Not the best time to drop a bombshell like this.’ Opening the front door, he turned, a frown on his face. She didn’t know if he was shocked, or puzzled, or simply annoyed. ‘See you later,’ Michael stated, as if she hadn’t spoken.

  And she found herself replying, ‘OK,’ because suddenly she felt ridiculous and small.

  As soon as the door slammed behind him, she burst into tears. But as the day wore on and she began to anticipate how she would explain to Michael what she felt, she realized she wouldn’t be able to. He would twist her words, make her feel she was overreacting, probably talk her out of her plan without making any concessions on his part – or even, she thought, properly acknowledging how bad things had become.

  So after lunch she packed her clothes and drove down to the cottage by the sea. Once there, she didn’t rest until she had unpacked her stuff, gone to the supermarket, made supper and opened a bottle of wine – settled in, in a very deliberate manner. But her eye was always on the clock as she waited for the time when Michael might come home and find her gone. The evening ticked by, her stomach churning, and there was no call.

  It wasn’t until early the following morning that he phoned.

  ‘Where are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘In Sussex,’ she said.

  ‘Without any discussion?’

  ‘I didn’t see the point.’

  There was silence at the other end.

  ‘Romy,’ Michael’s voice, for the first time in months, sounded uncertain, ‘this is silly. You can’t just up sticks and leave like that, without even telling me why. I know we haven’t been connecting much recently but … what’s this really about?’

  She didn’t reply for a moment. Where to start, without disparaging the whole thirty years they’d been together – without blaming Michael? She wasn’t even sure she was doing the right thing. All she knew was that she needed to get away from the stalemate, the deadness that shadowed the flat, the blank, disengaged stare of her husband.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  She wondered why he didn’t. Is he being deliberately obtuse? Or was he simply blind to what had been going on between them?

  She heard him sigh. ‘Well, I’m not going to beg.’ More silence. Then, ‘I’ve got to go, I’m due in court. But I’ll come down at the weekend and we can talk properly. Sort things out.’ When she didn’t reply at once, he added, ‘OK?’

  Romy took a deep breath. ‘Please don’t come, Michael.’ The line went dead.

  11

  Romy left Finch in the sitting room to go upstairs. She was tingling with the slow, tentative kisses that had begun soon after they were through the cottage door an hour ago, the wine and coffee she had promised entirely forgotten. She turned on the bedside light, surveyed the small bedroom and smoothed the duvet cover. She hadn’t come up to ‘slip into something more comfortable’ – her blue rayon dressing gown, apart from needing a wash and being a bit moth-eaten at the cuffs, would be a serious passion-killer. She wanted a breather, just a moment alone.

  They had met, early evening, on the back terrace of the pub looking out over the harbour. The tables were much sought after in the summer when the weather was good, but tonight they’d had the place almost to themselves. It was early in the season and not particularly warm, but there was no wind, the spring sky cloudless, and both wanted to watch the sun sink behind the masts of the boats floating gently on the water.

  The plan was to have supper. But in the end they’d just finished a bottle of cold blush rosé and picked at a plate of whitebait. There had been a quiet buzz between them. They hadn’t talked much, as if both were waiting. And finally she had got up and taken his hand. ‘I’ve got wine and coffee at home …’ she’d said.

  Now, when she went through to the en suite and rinsed her mouth with cold water – resisting the telltale smell of toothpaste – she stared at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed with wine and arousal, her eyes sparkling, her hair framing her face in as flattering a way as was possible with her awkward curls. Was she really going to make love to the man sitting on the sofa downstairs? Let him see her body in all its nakedness? Let him … She stopped. I haven’t made love to anyone but Michael since I was sixteen. The thought threatened to overwhelm her and she shook it off and hurried downstairs before she lost her nerve.

  Finch glanced at her as she came into the room. ‘Everything OK?’ he asked. He was looking at her questioningly, but his smile was gentle and confident.

  She went over to the sofa, standing quite still in front of him and holding his gaze, allowing herself to sink into those brown eyes until nothing else seemed to exist. The anxiety had gone, to be replaced by a patent desire. Her heartbeat quickened. Then she leant down and kissed him gently on the mouth. Finch took her hands and pulled her onto the cushions, returning her kisses with increasing intensity as he slid his hand beneath her shirt, making her gasp as she felt his thumb circle the smoothness of her naked breast. A moment later, his own shirt dispensed with, she was lying on his bare chest, delighting in the feel of his warm skin brushing against her nipples …

  They never made it up to the freshly laundered sheets on the bed upstairs. Not till much later, that is, when they fell beneath the cool linen in a daze.

  Finch turned on his side to face her, his hand across her body, tenderly stroking her thigh. It was early, the light beautiful as it came off the water, needle-bright against the white walls of her bedroom. The duvet felt cosy, his body warm as they relaxed against each other. Romy wanted to sing out with happiness.

  ‘That wasn’t as scary as I thought,’ he said softly.

  ‘You were as nervous as m
e? You didn’t show it.’

  ‘It’s not like we’re novices … but still …’

  Finch didn’t go on and instead she heard a pigeon’s strident cooing from the ridge of her neighbour’s roof where he perched and strutted all day long.

  Finch gently tipped her chin up to look into her face. ‘You were amazing, Romy.’

  She blushed, bringing his hand to her lips for a kiss. It had been amazing.

  ‘I could make scrambled eggs,’ Romy said, when they had lain, for a while, in sleepy silence. ‘Or we could go to the café for a bacon sandwich.’

  Finch stretched, letting out a luxurious groan, his long body suddenly taut beside her. ‘You don’t want to cook. Let’s do the café.’ He grabbed her up and rained kisses down on her face until she pushed him away under protest.

  Downstairs, she opened the doors to the garden and sucked in the spring sunshine. When she had left Michael, she had not been sure she would adjust to country living, after decades in the centre of the capital. But she had dreamt of moments such as these, on those days when, instead of breathing in the fresh salty tang of the estuary, she had opened the windows of the London flat to the metallic whiff of exhaust fumes.

  They strolled the short distance to the café and chose one of the tables on the tiny balcony overlooking the sea. No one else was there yet; the coach parties who stopped by for tea and cake in this destination café would not arrive for another hour or so.

  Two bacon sandwiches and coffee – cappuccino for him, a latte for her – were slapped on their table by the sullen middle-aged manager, who always succeeded in making Romy feel she was inconveniencing her by being in the café at all.

  ‘What are your plans for the rest of the day?’ Finch enquired, grabbing his sandwich, squashing it between his fingers and stuffing it into his mouth.

  ‘Well … I’ve got to follow up on a job I saw advertised on the Sussex Wildlife Trust website, in the environmental education programme. I’m probably not qualified, but it might be a toe in the door. I volunteer on a nature reserve at the moment, but I’d like to find something I can really get my teeth into.’

  ‘So this is part of the new life you talked about?’

  Romy nodded. ‘My parents were dyed-in-the-wool greens before greens were invented. It’s in the blood.’

  ‘I suppose Ma was green, too, in her own way, given that she never went anywhere or washed anything and the house was always freezing cold.’

  Romy laughed. ‘So was ours.’

  They ate in silence for a minute or two.

  ‘Maybe I could come with you to the nature reserve one day?’ Finch asked tentatively. ‘I’m interested … and I love a physical challenge, particularly outdoors.’

  Persuaded for so long by Michael to consider her passion a sideline, almost a joke, she was surprised by Finch’s interest and willingness to take her seriously.

  She gave him a smile. ‘OK, why not?’ Glancing up at the sky, she noticed the clouds were white and unthreatening. ‘Listen, I could do the job thing later … If you’re free, maybe we could have a walk on the beach.’

  But Finch didn’t answer. He was cocking his head, listening to something. ‘Is that your phone?’

  Romy, now hearing the buzzing too, dug for the mobile in her bag by her feet.

  ‘Mum, it’s Leo.’ Her son’s voice wobbled alarmingly, as if he was about to cry. Before Romy had time to ask what was wrong, he went on, ‘Where are you? I’ve called you a million times.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’ Anxiety stabbed in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘It’s Dad. He’s had a stroke.’

  12

  Romy stared at her screen. While she and Finch had been unbuttoning each other’s clothes on the sofa, her husband had been ill and alone, knowing he was in trouble and crying out for her to rescue him. The thought brought her out in a cold sweat and her breath caught in her throat. Where was Anezka? she wondered, yet she knew from Rex that, although Anezka had been with Michael for the best part of a year, she didn’t actually live with him yet.

  ‘What?’ Romy had gasped when she heard her son’s words. ‘Oh, my God …’

  Leo gave a shaky breath. ‘It’s really bad, Mum. Theresa found him when she arrived at nine. Thank God she had a key. The doctor says she thinks it happened early last night and he was lying there for hours. He was really cold and weak.’

  ‘Is he all right? I mean … how bad is he?’ What her son was saying just didn’t seem possible. Suppose it hadn’t been the day Theresa came in to clean?

  ‘They say he’s critical, Mum.’

  Romy’s heart was racing. ‘Where is he? Which hospital?’

  ‘Chelsea and Westminster. I’m here now, in the ICU …’

  She looked over at Finch and saw his concerned frown, his eyebrows raised in question. ‘Have you told Rex?’

  ‘I left messages, but it’s the middle of the night in Sydney.’ He paused. ‘Please come, Mum. He might die and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘I’ll jump in the car right now.’

  ‘OK. But hurry …’

  She’d taken a steadying breath. ‘Listen, Leo, I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s in the right place and he’s tough, your dad. Don’t panic, I’ll text you when I get close.’ Her bullish assertion was very far from the image in her mind. She knew that the longer a stroke is left untreated, the worse the outcome. And if he’d been lying there all night …

  When she’d clicked off, she saw that there were six text messages, three voicemails. Three of the texts were sent last night, each from Michael. They all contained a version of random letters: Dddgi poiif. As if he’d bashed his finger across the keypad in panic. The time stamp said they were all sent within a few minutes of each other, from 11.03 p.m.

  Now she turned the phone to Finch, who squinted at it in the sun as she explained what had happened. ‘He texted me,’ she said. ‘Three times.’

  ‘Last night? When we were …’ He winced. ‘God …’

  She got up, the metal chair legs screeching on the stone terrace. ‘I need to go.’

  ‘You can’t drive when you’re in shock, Romy. I’ll take you.’

  ‘No … No, I’ll be fine,’ she said, although she didn’t feel fine at all: her heart was thumping and she was slightly dizzy. It somehow didn’t seem right, though, to drag Finch into a drama concerning Michael.

  Finch had already risen from his chair, a determined look on his face. ‘I’ll fetch the car. Meet you at yours in fifteen,’ he said. ‘I can drop you off. It won’t be easy to park near the hospital.’

  Romy knew he was right and, after a brief hesitation, nodded. ‘If you’re sure.’

  As she randomly threw clothes into an overnight bag and shut up the cottage, seeing reminders of those wonderful hours last night in the scattered cushions on the sitting-room floor, the rumpled bed, his jacket still on the peg by the front door, she felt the whole thing had happened a million years ago, in a totally different universe.

  Romy stared down at the face on the pillow in the high hospital bed and heard her breath catch with distress. It was a face once as familiar to her as her own, but now it seemed like that of a stranger. Michael lay sunken, diminished, his normally animated features flat and pallid, like a clay mask. She placed her hand on his, as it lay on the sheet, gently squeezing it.

  ‘Michael?’

  She hadn’t expected him to open his eyes, but he did, his gaze unfocused. Then they slowly closed again. She had seen him asleep a million times over the years – it was the only time his spirited, intelligent face seemed to find any peace. But now she wanted to shake him awake, jolt him out of this horrible stillness.

  Romy turned to Leo. ‘Has he said anything?’ Her son, tall like her, dark like his father, but with her wide brown-gold eyes and mutinous curls, which he kept very short, looked haggard, blinking back tears that she rarely saw from her self-possessed boy. She took his arm and brought him close, but his body was rigid with tension and he did not respond, his eyes fixed on the figure on the bed.