Second Life (41 page)

It’s been an odd time, I want to say. I haven’t been a good friend either.

But I don’t.

He looks at me. ‘How’re you doing now?’

‘Not bad.’ I realize it’s mostly true; my grief hasn’t gone, but I’m beginning to
see a way I can live with it. ‘You know they caught the guy who killed my sister.’

He shakes his head. Hugh must not have told Maria, or else Maria hasn’t told her
husband. I tell him the story, and in doing so realize that the fog of Kate’s death
is lifting. The pain is still there, but for the first time since February it’s no
longer the prism through which everything else is refracted. I’m not stuck, wading
through a life that’s become thickened
with grief and anger, or else ricocheting
out of control, and I’m no longer angry – with her for getting herself killed, with
myself for not being able to do anything to protect her.

‘It still hurts,’ I say. ‘But it’s getting better.’

‘Good.’ He pauses. We’re building up to something. ‘You have friends around you?’

Do I? Adrienne, yes, we’ve spoken in the last couple of days, but there’s still some
way to go to reverse the damage done. ‘I have friends, yes. Why?’ He looks oddly
relieved, and I realize the reason he’s here involves me, somehow.

‘What is it, Paddy?’

His face is expressionless for a few moments, then he seems to make a final decision.

‘I have something to tell you.’

I try to focus, to pull myself into the present. ‘What is it?’

I don’t breathe. The air between us is as thick as oil.

‘Maria told me she slept with someone.’

I nod slowly, and then I know what’s coming. Some part of me – some buried part,
some reptilian part – knows exactly what he’s going to say.

He opens his mouth to speak. It seems to take for ever. I say it for him.

‘Hugh.’

His face breaks into relief. Still part of me hopes he’ll contradict me, but he doesn’t. I wonder when he’d known.

‘Yes. She told me she slept with Hugh.’

I can’t work out how I feel. I’m not shocked; it’s like I’ve known all along. It’s
nearer to numbness, an absence of feeling. I take a deep breath. The air fills my
lungs. I expand, I wonder if I could keep breathing in until I’m bigger than the
pain.

‘When?’ My voice echoes off the walls.

‘In Geneva. She says it was just once. Apparently, it hasn’t
happened since.’ He
stops speaking. I wonder if he’s waiting for me to say something. I don’t have anything
to say. Just once? I wonder if he believes his wife. I wonder if I do.

‘Hugh hasn’t told you?’

‘No.’ So that’s why Hugh hasn’t invited them round for months. It has nothing to
do with what Connor may or may not have seen in the summer house.

I feel cold, as if I’m sitting in a draught. Hugh and I have always told each other
the truth. Why hasn’t he told me this?

But then, look at what I haven’t told him.

‘I’m sorry.’

I look at him. He’s in more pain than I am. He looks empty, hollow. I can see he
hasn’t slept.

Then, I realize. That’s why he kissed me. He knew, or suspected at least. I was his
revenge.

I don’t blame him. I ought to reach out and hold him and tell him it’ll be all right,
the way I tell Connor things will be all right. Because I have to. Because it’s my
job, whether I believe it or not.

But I don’t. I keep my hands on the table.

‘Thank you for telling me.’

‘I thought I ought to. I’m sorry.’

We sit for a moment. The space between us seems to expand. We should be able to help
each other, but we can’t.

‘No, you did the right thing.’ I pause. But did he? It’s not so clear cut; sometimes
there are things it’s better off not knowing. ‘What’re you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t decided. Maria and I have some talking to do, but I know
that. I suppose we all make mistakes.’ He’s talking to himself, not to me. ‘Don’t
we?’

I nod. ‘We do.’

On the way home I call Hugh. I feel different, in some way I can’t quite determine.
It’s as if something has shifted within me, there’s been some violent rearrangement
and things haven’t yet settled. I’m furious, yes, but it’s more than that. My fury
is mixed with something else, something I can’t quite identify. Jealousy, that Hugh’s
affair has been short-lived and uncomplicated? Relief, that my husband has a secret
of his own, one that almost matches mine, and now I don’t have to feel quite so bad?

His phone rings out. I’m still not sure what I’m going to say to him when we speak
and I’m relieved when it clicks through to voicemail.

I hear myself speak. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’ I realize that’s
all I’d really called for. To hear his voice. To make sure he still exists, and hasn’t
been swept away by the tidal wave that has threatened everything else. ‘Phone me
back, when you get the chance.’

I end the call. I wonder how I’d feel if he didn’t ring back, if he were never to
ring back again. I imagine a car smashing into him, a terrorist bomb, or something
as mundane as a heart attack, a stroke. I imagine trying to live with myself, knowing
during the last months of his life I’d been resenting him, suspecting him, looking
elsewhere so that I could avoid confronting myself. As I try, I realize I can’t.
He’s always there. He always has been. I still remember getting off that flight –
the one he’d paid for, the one that brought me home. He was waiting for me, not with
flowers, not even with love, but with something far simpler, and far more important
back then. Acceptance. That night he took me to his home, not to his bed, but to
the spare room. He let me cry, and sleep, and he sat with me when I wanted him to
and left me alone when I didn’t. The next morning he set about getting me help. He
demanded nothing, not even answers to his questions.
He promised to tell no one I
was there, until I felt strong, until I felt ready.

He was there for me in the most real, the most honest, way possible. And still he’s
the person I go to, the person I trust. The person who I want the best for, and want
to be the best for, as he does for me.

I love him; finding out he’s slept with someone else – even boring Maria – has somehow
made that feel more real. It’s reminded me he’s desirable, capable of passion.

I close my eyes. I wonder if they really have slept together only once. Either way,
he’s had an affair that goes some way to countering my own. One of the holds Lukas
thought he had over me is shrugged off, as simply as that. Anna will erase the photos
and get him out of her life, and mine. For the first time in months I imagine emerging
into a future without Lukas, clean and pure and free.

Hugh comes home. He’s late; a case had overrun. ‘Sorry, darling,’ he says when he
comes into the kitchen. ‘Nightmare day. And Maria let me down again, at the last
minute.’ He kisses me. Again I’m relieved. ‘Some crisis at home.’

So she hasn’t told Hugh that Paddy knows everything. I wonder why she told her husband,
what prompted her confession. Guilt, I guess. That’s what it always boils down to,
in the end.

‘How was your coffee with Paddy?’

It occurs to me that if I’m going to tell Hugh, this would be the moment. I know
about you and Maria, I could say. Paddy told me. And I have something I want to tell
you.

‘Hugh?’ He looks at me.

‘Uh-huh?’

I pause. I’m serving dinner. I wonder what would happen, if I went ahead. If I told
him about Lukas. I wonder if he’d
understand, if maybe he’s already guessed. I wonder
if he’d forgive me, as I realize I’ve already forgiven him.

I change my mind. The secret I now know he’s keeping makes Lukas’s hold over me feel
somehow diminished. I love Hugh, and I don’t want to give that up. Two wrongs don’t
make anything right, but maybe they make things more equal.

‘Call Connor down, would you?’

He does, and a few minutes later our son comes downstairs. We eat together, sitting
at the dining table. As we do, I watch my family. I’ve been a fool, an idiot. I’ve
come close to losing everything. But I’ve learned my lesson – what good would a confession
do now?

That night we go to bed early. I tell him I love him, and he tells me he loves me
too, and we mean it. It’s not automatic, a call and response. It comes from a place
of truth, deep and unknowable.

He kisses me, and I kiss him back. We’re truly together, at last.

Chapter Thirty

It’s the day Lukas is due to go back to Paris, to Anna. I’m working when Hugh calls,
photographing a family who contacted me through the Facebook page I set up. Two women,
their two little boys.

It’s going well, it’s a distraction. We’re near the end of the shoot, or else I’d
have let the call go to voicemail. ‘D’you mind?’ I say, and the taller of the two
women says, ‘Not at all. I think Bertie wants to go to the loo anyway.’

I direct them to the downstairs bathroom at the back of the house and then answer
the call. ‘Hugh?’ I say.

‘You busy?’

I step outside into the cold autumn air and close the shed door behind me. I’m jumpy
today, on edge.

‘Just finishing a shoot. Is everything okay?’

‘Yes, fine.’ He sounds upbeat. The fear that had begun to grip loosens its hold.
‘I just wanted to let you know.’

‘Yes?’

‘They’ve accepted the offer of an out-of-court settlement. They’re dropping their
complaint.’

My shoulders sag with relief. I hadn’t realized how much tension I’d been holding
in my body. ‘That’s great, Hugh. That’s wonderful.’

‘I thought we should celebrate. Dinner, tonight? The three of us? You’re not busy,
are you?’

I tell him I’m not. It’ll help me to relax, I think, it’ll take my mind off whatever
might be happening in Paris. For a week I’ve been wondering what Anna is thinking,
trying to resist the temptation to call her, worrying that she’ll change her mind
and decide to stay with him. What would happen then, if she does? A demand, I guess,
for money. I never believed all he wanted was for me to leave Anna alone.

And even if it were, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave her to a man prepared to
lie in the way Lukas has. She’s my friend. My sister’s best friend. I owe it to her.

But all that is to come, I tell myself. Just one more week, and then it’ll be over.

‘I’d like that,’ I say to Hugh.

‘I’ll book somewhere. You’ll tell Connor?’

It’s just before lunchtime when I finish the shoot. I tell the couple I’ll email
them when the shots are ready and they can choose which ones they like. They thank
me, we say goodbye, then I put my equipment away, take down the lights. I’m thinking
about what Anna will have to do. I imagine her, having the conversation.
It’s not
you, it’s me. I’m not sure I want to marry right now.

Would it work? Will Lukas believe that it has nothing to do with me, that I’ve stayed
away?

She should do it in a bar, I think. Somewhere neutral, where he can get angry but
not violent. I should have suggested she change the locks first.

I wonder if I should go over there, to be with her. But that might make things worse.
For now, she’s on her own.

I finish tidying and go inside. I open the fridge; there’s some salad for lunch,
some smoked mackerel. I take them out and look at the time; Connor will be at lunch.
I take my phone and ring him. I tell him we’re going out tonight. He
complains, ‘But
I’m meant to be going out with Dylan!’ His voice implores, he’s looking for me to
tell him it doesn’t matter, he should spend the evening with his friend, but I don’t.

‘It’s important, Con. To your dad.’

‘But—’

I swap the phone to my other ear and take a plate from the cupboard.

‘I’m not arguing, Connor. After school, you need to come home.’

He sighs but says he will.

I finish preparing my lunch and eat it in the kitchen, then go back to my studio.
I look at the pictures I’ve taken and begin to think about the edit, making notes
of which have worked best. At about two in the afternoon the phone rings.

I jump. It’s Anna, I think, but when I answer it the voice is unfamiliar.

‘Mrs Wilding?’

‘Yes?’

‘Ah.’ The woman on the other end of the line sounds relieved. She introduces herself:
Mrs Flynn, from Connor’s school. ‘I’m just ringing from Saint James’s. It’s about
Connor.’

I shiver, a premonition. ‘Connor? What’s wrong?’

‘I just wondered whether he was at home?’

The world stops; it tilts and shifts. The room is suddenly too cold.

‘No. No, he’s not here. He’s at school.’ I say it firmly, with authority. It’s as
if simply by saying it I believe I can make it so.

‘I rang him at lunchtime.’ I look at my watch. ‘He’s there. Isn’t he?’

‘Well, he wasn’t in for afternoon registration.’ She sounds
unconcerned, in complete
contrast to the panic that’s beginning to grow within me, but it feels forced. She’s
just trying to reassure me. ‘It’s not like him, so we just wanted to check he was
at home.’