My Husband's Wife Page 27

  Carla spent her last day in Devon walking with Ed and Tom along the beach – all part of vital preparation for the next move. Actually, it was good fun! She paid particular attention to Tom, teaching him some Italian phrases, and noted with pleasure that he seemed to like her already. He was a quick learner too, even though he had to hit his knee with his left hand every time he got a phrase right. ‘One of his rituals,’ Ed whispered, as if he knew she’d understand.

  Carla had also been careful to endear herself to Lily’s parents. ‘Tom’s at a special school during the week, you know,’ his grandfather said to her just before she left for the station. ‘We all find it very difficult. You, though, seem to have the knack.’

  ‘Come back again,’ Lily’s mother said, pressing her cheek against hers on one side. Such an odd English tradition not to do the second cheek! ‘You are good for us.’

  When the time came to leave for the station, Carla didn’t want to go. On the train she was buzzing. She and Ed had arranged to meet to discuss the sitting. ‘I can’t wait,’ he’d said, squeezing her hand as she’d left.

  The hostel had seemed even colder and lonelier when she returned. Despite knowing many of the girls by sight, she hadn’t made any friends. They weren’t her type with those ugly tattoos and nose rings. As if sensing the same, no one had asked her to join in the hostel New Year’s Eve party. Not that she had wanted to go. Instead, she had huddled up under the duvet and swotted up on some new precedents.

  She’d rung Mamma earlier. It was a big expense, but Carla needed to hear her voice. The line had been faint though. ‘I love you, cara mia,’ she had just about made out.

  ‘I love you too, Mamma.’

  Now, lying back on the narrow bed, Carla lit up a cigarette and exhaled deeply as she took stock. It was already January! Yet she still hadn’t achieved what she had hoped to by now. Something needed to happen to move things along.

  As she fine-tuned her next step, loud music began to vibrate through her ears. The girl in the room next to hers always had it on so loud! How could she possibly think with that racket? Maybe she’d go and have a shower to get some peace. Grabbing her sponge bag and dressing gown, Carla locked her door and stomped off down the corridor. She’d only been there five minutes or so when there was a hammering on the door.

  ‘Fire! Fire! Quick. Get out!’

  I can still smell.

  They say it’s the last thing to go.

  So all is not lost.

  Not yet.

  That’s the good news.

  The bad news is that something is burning.

  Even worse, the red stiletto shoe is no longer there.

  39

  Lily

  It’s New Year’s Day. Ed and I are spending a quiet evening in. Somehow neither of us could muster up the energy to go to the lunch party we were asked to by one of the partners. It wouldn’t look good, but there are times, I tell myself, when you have to put family first.

  The table is covered with sketches. Presumably, they’re from the last couple of days Ed spent in Devon. Carla laughing. Carla bending over Tom. Carla widening her eyes. Carla in thought, her hands round the stem of a wine glass. All that is missing is the subject herself, in the flesh.

  The phone rings. ‘Can you get that, please?’ I call out.

  A pan on the stove is boiling over. I turn it down. The green beans look slushy. I turn to Ed, who is, I now realize, clearly trying to calm someone down. My mother. Tom must have done something. Again.

  ‘How awful,’ he’s now saying.

  My heart tightens. I knew it. We shouldn’t have left. I should give up work and …

  ‘You poor thing.’

  Ed doesn’t usually call my mother ‘poor thing’. I hover by the phone, wondering what is going on.

  ‘But of course you’re right to ring. You must stay with us. Wait there. I will come and fetch you. What is the address again?’

  My husband grabs his jacket. ‘It’s Carla. There’s been a fire at the hostel. She’s outside in the street right now in her dressing gown.’

  ‘Is she hurt?’

  ‘No, thank heavens. Just scared.’

  ‘I’ll go if you like.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ He’s already at the door. ‘Maybe you can make up Tom’s bed.’

  Of course, it’s the right thing to do.

  When Carla arrives, her beautiful olive face is drawn. She is shivering in a pretty pink dressing gown and her hands are gripped together so tightly that her knuckles are white. ‘It was so frightening. We had to run down the emergency staircase outside. I thought I would fall …’

  News of the fire had been briefly on LBC. No one, apparently, had been hurt. Meanwhile, the cause of the fire would be investigated.

  Ed hands her a tumbler of whisky. ‘Take this. It will help a bit.’

  Any excuse to have one yourself, I almost say.

  ‘Sit down. Please.’ I remember my manners. ‘You’re safe now.’

  ‘But I have nothing, no clothes,’ sobs Carla, cradling the whisky with those elegant hands. ‘And my books are gone too.’

  ‘They can all be replaced,’ I say soothingly, taking her hands. Although I had enough opportunity to examine her at Christmas, I am reminded right now that she really is very beautiful. Those dark, almond-shaped eyes and thick black eyebrows would look masculine on a pale Englishwoman, but only make her look even more gorgeous, even in her distress.

  Perhaps having Carla to stay will be a good thing. Ed and I will no longer be able to argue with someone else here. Our guest will be a buffer – just as she was as a little girl.

  ‘It will be all right,’ I say.

  Carla lifts up her downcast face. For a second, I see the distraught look of the little girl I found outside her mother’s flat with the big bruise on her face. ‘It is so kind of you to give me a home. Thank you.’

  A sudden shiver goes through me.

  It’s only temporary, I want to say. But that would sound churlish.

  And I tell myself that this strange beat of premonition is nothing. Nothing at all. Haven’t I just told myself that she will be good for us?

  Besides, it is Joe Thomas I need to worry about.

  ‘Don’t take it so badly,’ says one of my partners when I return from court a few weeks later.

  But I do, I think. If I had used that photograph which Joe Thomas had sent me, I might have been able to prove that there hadn’t been any road marks on the day that my client had failed to stop at the T-junction. There were road marks there now, of course, but that’s the name of the game. He’d have been done on the drink-driving, but his sentence might not have been so heavy if I could have proved that those ‘Give Way’ lines hadn’t been there at the time.

  But road marks are allowed to fade. Accidents happen. And then miraculously the council lorry turns up and paints those lines in. Ask any lawyer. The problem is that you can’t always get photographic evidence to prove it.

  So much for me being able to sort out cases on my own. Maybe that’s why I’m not surprised when a two-line note arrives the following day.

  You could have won if you’d used my photograph. How is Tom?

  I sit and stare at it for some time before picking up the phone.

  ‘Do you have time for a drink?’

  Ross sounds both pleased and surprised at the same time. ‘Love to.’

  We meet at one of my favourite Italian bistros off Covent Garden. I say ‘favourite’, but in truth my life doesn’t include much time for fun. I’m one of those people who, when asked to write down hobbies, struggles a bit. When you are a lawyer, there’s little time to do anything else. I do go for a run most mornings, before work. But I see that as part of getting dressed.

  ‘What’s up?’ Ross asks.

  I look at our old friend across the table in his tweed jacket and jeans. A man of opposites, that’s Ross. He’d started out as Ed’s friend but soon became just as much mine – especially when it came to giving guidance ab
out my husband, who, as Ross often said, was a complete idiot at times. An idiot whom we both loved.

  Sometimes I wonder if Ross is gay. After all, he’s never been married. Never had a girlfriend as far as I know. I try not to pry.

  ‘I’ve got a problem,’ I say. My hands twist with anxiety under the table. For longer than I can remember, I’ve been wanting to confide in someone about Joe and the ‘helpful information’ he keeps sending me. But now the time has come when if I don’t share it with someone else, I’m going to burst. Naturally, there are certain bits I need to omit.

  ‘Wow,’ says Ross when I finish telling the story. ‘You poor thing. What an impossible position to be in.’

  I want him to tell me that it will be all right. That there’s something I can do to stop all of this.

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ he adds, ‘I think you did the right thing, tearing up that photo.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He sounds firmer now. ‘You can do this on your own, Lily. You’ve been doing it on your own for years. Yes, this man might have helped you now and then. But don’t let that suck away your confidence. You’re a good lawyer.’

  I want to tell him about the other thing. But I can’t. Instead, my mind goes back to the pub in Highgate. The time when Joe took my hand. That charge of electricity. That attraction which should never have been there. The guilt afterwards because I had drunk just a bit too much to be responsible for my actions.

  The real reason for my vow not to drink again.

  ‘You won’t tell Ed? Or anyone else?’

  I’m panicking now. Terrified in case Ross’s allegiances are divided. Of course I’m talking about the anonymous tip-offs. I can’t tell anyone about the Heath.

  ‘Promise.’ He glances at his watch. ‘Afraid I’ve got to go back now.’

  That’s the other thing about Ross. When I first met him, he was an actuary. It had been his knowledge of figures, remember, that had helped me to crack Joe Thomas’s code games. But after Tom was born and we asked Ross to be godfather, he changed jobs. Said that our experience had made him see life differently. Now he heads a big fundraising company that helps charities. He’s a good man, is Ross.

  By the time I get home after another late night in the office, Ed and Carla have eaten. They’re sitting at the table, Ed’s sketchbook in front of him.

  ‘I am sorry,’ says Carla apologetically. ‘I wanted to wait but …’

  ‘It’s my fault.’ Ed is smiling at me. Grinning in a way I haven’t seen him do for years. And I know why.

  ‘Your meal is in the oven, darling.’

  He hasn’t called me ‘darling’ for a long time.

  ‘It should still be edible. Now, Carla, I want you to put your head slightly to one side. Chin down a bit. Eyes to the left. Perfect.’

  Ed is happy because he is painting Carla again. Her idea, he keeps reminding me, as if he is flattered.

  Frankly, I’m relieved. It will give me space to figure out what to do about Joe.

  40

  Carla

  February 2014

  Carla woke, as she had done now every morning for the last month, in her pretty, cosy bedroom overlooking the back garden. It was so much nicer here than in the hostel! Despite what Lily had said about being overdrawn, she must be earning a lot of money for them to afford a place like this. And it wasn’t even rented. They actually owned it – although Ed was always referring to the ‘outrageous mortgage payments’.

  That was one of the main topics of the arguments she would hear between Ed and Lily through the wall that divided her bedroom from theirs. ‘You’re just pissed off because I don’t earn as much as you’ was one of his favourite phrases.

  ‘When are you going to get rid of that chip on your shoulder, Ed?’ That was Lily’s.

  When she’d simply been a dinner guest, Carla had noticed the odd tense remark and jibe. But now she was living here, it was like picking her way across enemy lines. The smallest thing would make either of them tetchy – especially Lily at the moment. ‘Please put the milk back in the fridge,’ she had snapped at Carla the other evening. ‘Otherwise it will go off like it did last week.’

  Ed had rolled his eyes to make her feel better. ‘Don’t worry – she’s working on a big case,’ he’d explained after Lily had stomped back to her study. He took off his glasses as if they were suddenly annoying him. ‘She lost the last one, so it’s essential for her to win this one.’

  He had said the word ‘essential’ in a slightly mocking tone. Then he put his glasses back on and picked up his brush again. ‘Can you put your hands round that cup of coffee and stare into the distance? As though you’re thinking hard about something. Perfect!’

  That wasn’t difficult. The inquiry into the hostel fire was about to take place. Everyone who had been staying there had been sent an official form asking if they had been smoking in their bedrooms on that night.

  Of course, she’d ticked the box that said ‘No’.

  ‘Would you like a coffee after lectures?’

  It was the boy with the floppy hair who kept asking her out to dinner. His auburn eyelashes were unnaturally long for a boy, and his manner of holding himself was uncertain for one so tall and good-looking. It was as though he didn’t realize how attractive he was; not just in terms of looks, but in his exquisite manners and the way he listened. Really listened.

  Most boys here were loud and arrogant, fond of the sound of their own voice. Rupert was different.

  Perhaps it was time to make an exception.

  ‘I’d love one,’ she replied, looking up from her book. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Shh,’ hissed someone from the other side of the library, and they smiled at each other in complicity.

  ‘What did you get for your last essay?’ he asked over a skinny latte in the students’ union cafe.

  ‘Seventy-five per cent,’ she answered proudly.

  His eyes widened. ‘Fantastic.’

  ‘What about you?’

  He groaned. ‘Don’t ask. Actually, maybe you could help me with this awful essay on contracts! We could talk it through over dinner.’

  ‘What dinner?’

  ‘Come on, Carla. I’ve asked you enough times. I won’t bite. Promise!’

  He took her to a small Italian restaurant off Soho Square. She’d expected him to falter over the order in the way that the English did when speaking her language. But instead, his accent was flawless.

  ‘You are familiar with my country?’ she asked as the waiter walked away.

  He shrugged, pleased. ‘My parents believed it was essential that we spoke both French and Italian fluently. We were always being packed off abroad during the holidays to improve ourselves. Frankly, I think it was to give them some peace, even though we were away at school during term time.’

  Just like poor Tom. Somehow, Carla found herself telling this good-looking, intelligent boy about Tom and Lily and Ed.

  ‘You live with Ed Macdonald? The painter?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know him?’

  ‘Isn’t he the artist who did The Italian Girl? The one which sold for all that money to some anonymous buyer?’

  She flushed. ‘You know of that too?’

  ‘I love art. So does my mother. All my life, she’s been dragging me off to some exhibition …’ His eyes widened. ‘Don’t tell me that the model was … it was you, wasn’t it?’

  She nodded, embarrassed and yet flattered too.

  ‘I’d love to meet him one day.’ Her companion was getting quite flustered. ‘But only if it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she promised.

  Carla let a few weeks go by, not wanting to bother her hosts. Ed was too busy with her portrait – it seemed to take up all his time, even when she wasn’t there to sit for him. And Lily was working so late that sometimes Carla heard her come in long after she had gone to bed. (There was usually a murmur of voices along with the sound of Ed’s disapproval.)


  But eventually she summoned up courage to talk to her hostess, who was surprisingly enthusiastic.

  ‘Lily wondered if you’d like to come to dinner one night next week,’ said Carla as they sat over their lattes in what had become their favourite coffee shop.

  Rupert’s face shone. ‘I’d love that. Thanks.’

  No. The pleasure was all hers. Rupert could be just what she needed.

  When Carla got back that day, there was a letter waiting for her on the hall table. It was a copy of the report on the formal fire investigation. The hostel had sent it to all former inhabitants. The cause of the fire, it informed her, was probably a cigarette. However, it had been impossible to pinpoint the culprit due to the extent of the damage and the fact that so many inhabitants had admitted to smoking in their rooms.

  That was lucky.

  Even better, her travel insurance would now pay out for her clothes and books. (She’d exaggerated the value slightly – the company could afford it.)

  The letter also informed her that the hostel would remain closed until further notice.

  Things were definitely looking up.

  ‘He’s just a friend,’ Carla had told Lily, shyly. ‘Someone who’s been kind to me at law school.’ But from the minute that Carla walked through the door with Rupert at her side, she sensed Ed’s hostility.

  ‘So you’re the Rupert that our Carla has been talking about?’

  Carla flushed at the way Ed had accentuated the ‘you’re’. And the ‘talking about’ suggested she was keen rather than the other way round. What would Rupert think? Suddenly, Carla began to have reservations about the evening.

  ‘That’s good to hear, sir,’ said Rupert, shaking Ed’s hand with a sideways glance at Lily.

  Thankfully, Lily (who’d been quite distant recently) seemed to pick up on Carla’s distress. Smoothly, she changed the subject, but all through dinner Ed was difficult. It wasn’t just that he was particularly tetchy when it came to his wife. (‘We’re lucky to have the pleasure of Lily’s company, you know. She’s usually working at this time.’) But he also made snide comments about Rupert and his old school. ‘One of my cousins went there when he flunked Eton.’