It Had to Be You (30 page)

‘She didn’t know when, where, how, but a woman knows a thing like that, James.’

‘Oh, God. Why did she…? Why didn’t she…?’

‘Who knows? Who knows, James? I didn’t know her that well.’ It was Philip’s turn to give a cry of regret, muted, but still passionate. ‘And now I never will.’

His long, stern, statistician’s face crumpled into inconsolable grief. He sat on the other end of James’s marital bed, and wept.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Philip. She was my wife, not yours,’ snapped James.

He strode out of the room, slamming the door.

He leant against the banisters at the top of the stairs. He thought of all the people milling around downstairs, the hum of their conversation growing with each drink and each passing moment, as they appeared to turn their backs on their sadness.

He’d made three enormous discoveries in a matter of minutes. He’d learnt for certain that Mike
had
murdered Ed. He’d discovered that his beloved brother Philip had been intending to cuckold him. He’d found out that Deborah had known about Helen. That was the one that shook him to the core. That was the one that meant that every moment in his life with Deborah in recent times had not been as he had thought it was. How could he walk down the stairs and join the throng? How could the stairs remain solid and not crumple?

He squared his shoulders, drew himself up to his full height, and went downstairs to perform the duties of a man at his wife’s wake.

James could see his mum looking in his direction; he really didn’t want to ignore her, but he couldn’t walk past Fliss without stopping.

Fliss just stood there, waiting for him to come to her, clocking every delay, making a list in her mental Filofax of everyone he had spoken to before he spoke to her.

He kissed her on both cheeks. She barely responded, but gave a half-smile.

‘Brilliantly read,’ he said. ‘Very moving. Honestly, Fliss, really well done.’

She thawed visibly. Really it wasn’t so difficult, and in the ease with which he could thaw her he realised how insecure she was, and he felt the return of that affectionate love he had experienced in the chapel.

‘I didn’t want to do anything too obvious,’ she said.

‘Quite right. Deborah would have loved it.’

‘Oh, thank you. I do hope so.’

‘I’m sure so.’

He wasn’t sure really, he had no idea what Deborah would have thought, but did it matter?

‘You didn’t think my hair let the side down?’

‘Your hair? It’s fine.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘It’s great.’

He found himself wondering if Fliss also knew of his adultery. He could hardly bear the thought that she might. A great surge of contrition and regret swept through him. Well, James, he told himself, you shouldn’t have started down that road if you couldn’t accept the consequences. A ridiculous phrase crossed his mind. If you can’t stand the cold, don’t sit in the fridge.

Fliss gave him a quick little kiss, which astounded him. So it didn’t look as if she knew. He had a sudden vision of people as packages: the skin was the paper, the contents were a secret until opened, but even then, the thoughts were unreachable. No pathologist could open a man up and say, ‘He’s secretly envious of his father.’

James shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts, which were not helpful to conversation. He really must stop thinking about pathologists. He smiled at Fliss and felt an astonishing warmth towards her. He realised now just how insecure she had felt in Deborah’s presence. Pretty, but not as pretty. Liked, but not as liked. Stylish, but not as stylish. He hugged her impulsively, saw the surprise and even slight alarm in her eyes.

‘We must all keep in touch,’ he said. ‘We must keep Deborah’s memory alive together.’

‘We’d love that,’ she said.

‘Good.’

A moment of peace, into which Stanley limped like a rusting dredger.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said James. ‘Here comes Stanley, who’s also going mad, but without the excuse of strain.’

Stanley raised his glass of red wine and said, ‘Groans.’

‘Groans?’

‘It’s my new greeting to friends on sad occasions. The opposite of “cheers”.’

‘Oh, very good, Stanley.’ James raised his glass, which contained only water. ‘Groans.’

‘Groans,’ echoed Fliss, and gave a slight giggle, happy to be in on a joke, however slight, that she understood.

Stanley turned to her, and asked her, ‘Fliss, are you at all interested in your roots?’

‘I have to be nowadays,’ she said. ‘I have them coloured every eight weeks.’

His mum had watched his efforts to get to her with quiet amusement inappropriate to the occasion. Not that she wasn’t sad. Like everyone else, she had liked, even loved Deborah. But her fondness was tinged with a little secret difficulty. In her heart she had been just a little jealous of Deborah and just a little envious of James. There had been happiness in
their
marriage.

Inevitably, her mind today had wandered back to her husband’s funeral, to the quiet relief that she had felt during the service and the wake, in her release from his infuriating blend of solicitous physical attentiveness and cold mental cruelty, and the sudden sense of anticlimax that she had felt that evening, when the guests had gone and only her three sons remained, and she had begun to understand, if dimly yet, that she had also been released from her role, the protection of her boys from their monstrous father.

Freed from their father, they had been released to fly out into the world, all at once, as if they were three red kites in a breeding programme. They hadn’t been cruel, they had done their best, but, almost overnight, everything had changed. They had no longer needed her. Now she had needed them. She had never really recovered from the shock, never again been quite the woman she had been before. She knew it, and hated it, and couldn’t change it.

Today she saw it all, in James. She saw that he was frightened not to rush towards her, but she also saw that he was reluctant to face her. She saw that she had begun to drift, over the years, into the sort of mother that sons dreaded visiting. She also saw that, with James now alone, with Philip still alone, with Charles not as happy as everyone thought he was, she still had opportunities to play a role. Whether she was still able to play it she wasn’t sure, but today, while she definitely had a role – the widower’s mother – she would begin the attempt. And the role was, in truth, very simple. It was to become a nice old woman, to age gracefully. If she could pull it off…

But there was an added little potential for drama in the role today. Every time she saw James looking towards her, she put on her disapproving face. How astonished her sons would have been if they had ever discovered that she practised this look in the mirror in her bathroom. Now, as she watched him leave Fliss, hug her (amazing), and slowly traverse the last few feet across the carpet, giving the impression that it was a really difficult ascent that he was making up the North Col of his own living room, she set her face into rock, into hurt granite, and waited for him to arrive.

‘My poor darling boy,’ she said. ‘What pressure they all put you under, my love.’

Oh, but how she enjoyed the look in his eyes, the astonishment that he couldn’t quite hide.

James was two people now, a schizophrenic. If he’d been a flat, he’d have been a duplex. On the upper floor, a widower, a host at a wake, a grieving husband. On the lower floor, a confused man, a shocked man, a man on the rack.

The wake began to break up. He said goodbye to the Bridgend gang. Thank you for coming, boys.
Charlotte had seen, seen, seen him with Helen in Porthcawl
. See you in a couple of weeks, boys.

And he said goodbye to the Kilmarnock contingent.
Helen had been to Kilmarnock. Deborah had stayed there, though not in the same hotel. But she had known, known, known.
Goodbye, lads. Thank you for coming. Challenges ahead, but we’ll meet them.

Tom and Jen Preston. Sorry you missed Wimbledon. Really, it’s of no account.
Charlotte looked so ill, ill, ill. Smiled, though, at least once.
It’s been a great send-off. We’d have hated to miss it.

Marcia wanted to kiss him on the mouth, but he managed to avoid this.
How many times had Philip kissed Deborah on the mouth?
Good luck with Willy the Wombat. Thanks. Don’t forget what I said. I’ll always be there. I won’t forget, Marcia. But he would.

The Glebeland girls, leaving, as they came, in a gaggle.
Had Deborah told them that she knew he was having an affair? Had Deborah, among the girlie laughs, been sad, sad, sad?
He hadn’t spoken much to them, because, in truth, he was a little abashed by their gagglehood. Thank you so much for coming, girls. We couldn’t not. Deborah was one in a million. Oh, how very true. Grace Farsley not leaving with you? No, she said she’d stay on a bit. Interesting.

The six members of his newly formed committee at Globpack.
Deborah had met them all, and all the time she had known, known, known.
Challenges ahead but we won’t mention them today. No, quite.

Sandra Horsfall from the Dorking days.
He’d once walked with Mike on Box Hill, near Dorking. He’d gone on a ramble with a killer!
Sorry I didn’t get to talk to you, Sandra. Me too, James. Kiss kiss.

Callum, son of his old school friend, and Erica, whose tattoos he still regretted.
I’ll have to get used to tattoos, if Charlotte and Chuck come to live with me. Oh, I hope, hope, hope they do.
We must meet, go to exhibitions, show you modern artists that we like. I’d love that. I really would.

Roger Dodds, the Hammonds and the Meikles. Have you seen Mike?
What’s he going to do now that he knows that I know? Shut me up? Kill me? Knife me?
No, he seems to have just disappeared off the scene. Odd.
Disturbing.

Fliss and Dominic. You’ve seen her off most beautifully, James.
Oh, Fliss, did you have to put it like that.
You must come over to dinner.
What would you think of Chuck?
I’m going to have to learn to cook. You can be my guinea pigs. I hope we won’t have to eat them.
That’s the nearest you’ve come to a joke in all the years I’ve met you, you boring bugger.
Oh, very amusing, Dominic.

Gordon and Stephanie Tollington. We must get together and have a really fabulous meal.
I couldn’t care less if I never eat in another fine restaurant in my life. Been there, done that. I have something worthwhile to do now. Save, save, save my Charlotte.
Some lies are so unimportant that they aren’t worth avoiding. That would be lovely.

Grace Farsley.

‘I hope I haven’t outstayed my welcome,’ she said, colouring ever so slightly. James found the blush quite unexpectedly charming and exciting.

‘Not at all,’ he said, and he couldn’t help smiling, though there was nothing in particular at which to smile.

‘I’ve had such an interesting time. I’ve heard so much about Deborah, I feel it’s almost as if I’ve filled in the missing years.’

‘That must have been rather moving.’

She’d be good with Charlotte.

‘Very. I’ve just had a chat with your uncle Stanley. He asked me how long ago my family left Hungary.’

‘I didn’t know you had Hungarian connections.’

‘Well, no, nor did I. Do you think he knows what he’s talking about?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘He
is
rather drunk.’

‘Oh, Lord, is he? That’s all I need.’

‘I told him I had almost no idea about my family tree, and he said, “Don’t you want to know who you are? Why are people so lacking in curiosity? Why are they so disappointing? Why are they so stupid?”’

‘Oh, good Lord. Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘I didn’t mind.’

She smiled. She had good teeth.

‘Well, I must be off,’ she said.

She gave him a quick, warm kiss on one cheek.

‘It’s not going to be easy for you,’ she said. ‘You’ll be in my thoughts.’

He watched her walk down the short path to the street. He was far enough away from her to notice for the first time that she had good legs. He watched her until she was out of sight.

The caterers had put some food aside, in the big fridge-freezer, for the family to eat after everyone else had left. Suddenly James found himself incapable of doing anything more. The day’s events had exhausted him utterly. He sank into a kitchen chair. He wasn’t even able to be James the Provider.

Philip the Capable took over, got the food out, arranged it on the kitchen table, opened bottles of good Côtes-du-Rhône, under James’s instructions. He poured a glass for James. James looked him in the eye, and felt for a moment too tired to be angry or resentful. He had a lot of thinking to do. He wasn’t ready for it yet. And Philip, he could see, was taking care to be entirely unemotional. Whatever was going to happen between them, there was no hint of it now.

James raised his glass.

‘First of the day.’

‘Really?’

‘Might not have stopped if I’d started. Didn’t want to be drunk at my wife’s wake. Wouldn’t have been seemly.’

That word again.

After a glass of wine, after ten minutes, sitting in the chair like a zombie, James felt slightly better. Philip offered to put food on his plate for him, but he roused himself to stand and suddenly realised that he was starving. He hadn’t got round to eating anything, not so much as a canapé.

He piled the food onto his plate – ham, tongue, pâté, prawns in mayonnaise, sweet herring, hard-boiled egg, tomato, sun-dried tomato, an artichoke heart, a spicy pepper, lettuce, chicory … he stopped, this was getting ridiculous. But oh, he was hungry.

They sat round the circular mahogany table in the cool, north-facing dining room. James, Philip, Charles, Valerie, Max, Stanley and Mum. On the sideboard stood several elegant decanters that Deborah had rescued from their lonely, unloved, sideboard-starved existence in antique shops from Cornwall to Northumberland.