The Guest, page 4
Laure reached for her glass. “So does having a one-night stand strike you as something he would do?”
“Well—no.”
“Sorry, Gabriel, I’m not having a go at you.” Laure took a sip of wine. “It’s just that I’m wondering how well we really know Pierre. It’s not just that he had a one-night stand, or that he has a child. It’s that he doesn’t seem to regret any of it, even though it might destroy our marriage.”
“I’m sure he does regret it,” Gabriel said.
“Why would he, when it has given him something he didn’t know he wanted until now?”
Gabriel gave a sigh of frustration. “I wish he’d call me. I’ve left several voicemails, and all I’ve had in return is a WhatsApp message saying he doesn’t want to talk for the moment.”
“It’s because he’s too embarrassed to talk to you,” Laure said. “He knows what you will be thinking of him, after everything he used to say about people who have affairs.”
Iris allowed herself to drift out of the conversation. The last three days with Laure had been draining. As well as having to support her friend, she’d also had to put the finishing touches to her sketches and mood boards so that her latest clients—the owners of a surprisingly beautiful five-bed new-build outside Winchester—could approve the fabrics and color schemes. This morning, Laure had sat in the office with her, pulling out folder after folder of swatches, exclaiming over the patterns and materials, questioning Iris’s choices—Wouldn’t this one have been better for the sitting room? or I think this would be perfect for a child’s bedroom. She’d only been taking an interest, but it had had the unfortunate effect of making Iris question everything she’d already done.
“What will you be working on after this?” Laure had asked, unknowingly adding to Iris’s worry about the lack of work on the horizon.
“It’s not easy in the current economic climate,” she’d explained. “But I have a potential client in the pipeline. She’s in the process of buying a six-bed house in London and she wants an estimate, not just for the soft furnishings for each room, but also for furniture. It will be my biggest project to date and would look great on my CV. But I’m up against a couple of others. She was quite frank about that, which I appreciated. If I get the contract, I won’t have to look for anything else for a while, which would be great. If it goes to someone else, I don’t have anything on the horizon, so I’ll have to start looking, something I haven’t needed to do since I first started out.”
“Wow, a house in London! Can I see your ideas for it?”
Iris had hesitated, then brought up the file on her computer.
“This is amazing, Iris,” Laure had said, peering over her shoulder. “Those colors for that second reception room are stunning; who would have thought that blue and green would go together so well? You have a real talent, Iris.”
Iris had smiled, please with Laure’s reaction. She was hugely proud of the color schemes she’d chosen, glad that the potential client had given her carte blanche, saying she didn’t want anything bland.
“What would you do, Iris?” Laure’s voice broke into her thoughts and Iris swiftly zoned back into the conversation. “If Gabriel suddenly told you that he had a child by another woman, and that he wanted to have a relationship with that child, would you be able to accept it?”
“It’s a tough one,” Iris acknowledged. “It would depend on so many things—whether it was a one-night stand or an affair, if he’d only just discovered he had a child or had known about it for years, the age of the child—”
“But would you agree to meet the child yourself, welcome him or her into your home?” Laure interrupted.
Iris shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”
Laure sighed. “I’d love to think I’d be able to. But I know I couldn’t do it. Especially if Claire is the mother,” she added darkly. “It would be the ultimate betrayal.”
“We don’t know that she is,” Gabriel reminded her. “We don’t really know anything.”
“By the way, I’m going to London tomorrow,” Iris said. “To see Samantha Everett. My potential client with the town house in London.”
“Great,” Gabriel said. “Was that in your diary or did she suddenly ask to see you?”
“Neither. I was showing Laure my designs earlier and I thought it might be a good idea to hand deliver them rather than send them. So I phoned Samantha and said I’d be in London tomorrow and could I call in and see her. I thought it might give me an advantage if we met in person.”
“Good move,” Gabriel said approvingly. He pushed his chair back from the table. “Why don’t you two find a film for us to watch, while I try Pierre again?”
But Pierre didn’t pick up and Gabriel left another increasingly worried voicemail. Pierre, please, just call me and let me know you’re okay. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.
9
Iris closed the door extra quietly, because to close it any louder might have shown her desperation to be out of the house.
She’d left Laure sunning herself in the garden, her face lathered in cream, and hyper-fine gloves on her hands to protect them from the sun. Her plan was to say, when Laure asked why she hadn’t mentioned going for a run, that she’d thought she was asleep. Iris was heartbroken for her, for what Laure was going through, and had spent countless hours consoling her. But she had been with them for ten days now and it seemed to Iris that she never had any respite from Laure and Pierre’s crisis, because even when she was asleep, their situation haunted her.
Already feeling guilty for snatching these precious minutes for herself, Iris paused on the doorstop, giving Laure time to come looking for her, as she always did when Iris was out of sight for more than a few minutes. When there was no sound of Laure calling her name, or her footsteps running down the hallway, Iris slipped the black elastic from her wrist and gathered her hair into a ponytail. Laure always insisted on accompanying her on her daily runs, but it was a new sport for her and she hadn’t built up her stamina yet, which meant that Iris had had to adapt to a slower pace.
Their house was situated at the end of the village; if you went out of the gate and turned right, there were no more houses, just a stile and then two paths, one leading across the fields and up a slight incline toward East Markham, the other through woods that eventually led to the quarry where Charlie had been found.
Iris was in a mood to run fast and far, but instead of heading for her usual route across the fields, she turned left and ran through the village, intending to go as far as their local pub, then head straight back. The round-trip would only take twenty-five minutes but it wouldn’t be kind to leave Laure for longer.
Yesterday, after a day working in the walled garden—Iris was beyond grateful that Gabriel’s decision to restore the garden had become his raison d’être—he’d offered to go running with Laure, but she had declined, saying she preferred to stay with Iris. Gabriel had given her a helpless shrug—sorry, I tried—and she had loved him for trying to give her some space. She’d wished that Laure had accepted, not just for her sake but also for Gabriel’s, as it was the first time he had shown any desire to go for a run since finding Charlie in the quarry. He never went out on his bike either, something he had previously loved to do.
Despite the relentless heat beating down on her, Iris’s feet pounded the tarmac. As she followed the road around to the right, she waved to a woman sitting on a bench in her front garden, and further on, said a breathless hello to a neighbor walking his Dalmatian. She no longer socialized with many people in the village. Once Beth had left for boarding school, Iris had gradually lost contact with the other mums. It didn’t bother her much. She enjoyed her own company and until now, her work had kept her busy. But now and then, she would have liked to have someone she could drop in on for a chat, or have someone drop in on her.
Close to the village pub stood a house that Iris had always coveted. Set back from the road, the gray-stoned manor house sat at the end of a driveway bordered by trees and, despite its air of obvious neglect after being empty for years, it had managed to retain something of its original majesty. When it had finally come onto the market six months ago, Iris had tried to persuade Gabriel that they should buy it. She’d badly needed a new project, and restoring the interior would have been a dream. But Gabriel pointed out what Iris had already known, that the house was too big for the two of them, and that they would have had to take out another mortgage to be able to buy it.
Soon after, they’d heard the house had been sold. The removal lorry had been parked in the driveway the day Iris and Gabriel had left for Scotland. Now, Iris slowed her pace to peer through the open gates, and then she came to a stop, sweat trickling down her back, her eye caught by something bright and colorful coming into her line of vision, then disappearing again, then reappearing. It was a child, she realized, swinging backward and forward on a rope strung over the branch of an ancient oak tree, halfway up the drive. Intrigued, she watched as the girl, her arms stretched taut so that her body was almost parallel to the ground, swept to the left, then to the right on her makeshift swing, her flame-colored hair brushing the grass as she spun on each turn until, aware of Iris’s eyes on her, she pulled herself upright and slid off the rope, stumbling a little at the sudden loss of movement.
“Do you want to come in?” she called, grabbing the rope to steady herself, and Iris saw that it wasn’t a child, but a woman. Embarrassed at having been caught watching, unsure if the woman was being genuine or sarcastic, Iris hesitated. “Please! I need a break,” she called again. “And a friend! I don’t know anyone here.”
Her plea was so heartfelt that Iris found herself walking down the drive toward the woman, who was hurrying barefoot to meet her, her canary yellow dress billowing behind. She came to a stop in front of Iris and held out her hand. She was tiny, bright and beautiful, like an exotic bird.
“I’m Esme, and I’m dying for a cup of tea. Would you like one?”
Iris couldn’t help laughing. “I’m Iris and I’d love some tea.” Her hand, grasped warmly in Esme’s, felt like a giant’s.
“Please tell me you live in the village.”
“I do. At the far end.”
Esme put a hand on her heart. “Thank God. I’ve hardly met anyone yet.” She waved toward the swing. “I was trying it out before the baby comes.” Her hand slid down to her stomach and Iris noticed the bump protruding from under the folds of her dress. “Do you have children?”
“One, a daughter. Beth. She’s nineteen.”
Esme turned to Iris, her aquamarine eyes wide with surprise. “Gosh, you don’t look old enough to have a daughter that age. You must have had her when you were very young.”
“I was twenty-five,” Iris said, realizing that Esme now knew her age. She wondered how old Esme was. It was hard to tell; she could be anything between thirty and forty. “Is it your first?”
“Yes.” Esme’s eyes danced with amusement. “I’m what they call a geriatric mother.” She began walking toward the house. “Does your daughter live with you?”
“No, she took a gap year. She’s in Greece at the moment, volunteering at a dog shelter for the summer before she goes to Bristol in September.”
“How wonderful! Does she love it? All those dogs to cuddle!”
Iris smiled at her enthusiasm. “She does, although some of the dogs are so traumatized by their past experiences she says it’s impossible to even touch them. It’s a case of sitting near them for hours at a time so that she can eventually win their trust.”
They arrived at the impressively large front door and Esme pushed it open. “There is one little haven of peace amid all this mess, I promise,” she chattered as they picked their way down a hallway littered with paint pots and ladders. Darting forward, she opened a polished oak door, at odds with the rest of the house. “Here it is,” she said with a flourish. “The only room that is liveable, apart from our bedroom.”
“This is lovely.” Iris moved farther into the room and turned slowly, trying to take it all in. The room was vast, with a kitchen area at the far end, a long oak table with two cushioned benches in the middle and, in an alcove to the right, two fat sofas separated by a low table the size of a door. Looking more closely, Iris saw that it was a door—or at least, it used to be.
“I’d always wanted a big kitchen and I wasn’t bothered about having a separate dining room, so we broke down a couple of walls,” Esme explained, filling an old-fashioned red kettle, the water splashing noisily into its tinny interior. “I think it’s much nicer to eat in the kitchen, even when we have guests. It means I can keep up with the conversation. And, best of all, there’s a fireplace. I love a fire, it makes everything so cozy.” She spun around. “Is herbal tea all right?”
“Lovely.” Iris smiled at her. “Congratulations, by the way. A new baby and a new house. You’re going to be busy. When are you due?”
“The beginning of September, so twelve weeks to go.” She laughed. “Believe me, I’m counting!”
Iris walked to the window and looked out at the tangle of a garden. “I wanted to buy this house,” she confessed. “I wanted us to renovate it, but Gabriel, my husband, was worried I’d never want to move out and it would be too big for the two of us.”
“Are you good at that sort of thing, then—decorating? Because if you ever want to give us a hand, feel free.”
Iris smiled, her eyes still on the garden. “Not actual decorating. I’m a home enhancer.” She cringed inwardly at the name she’d invented to describe what she did. Although Gabriel called her an interior designer, she never described herself as such because she didn’t have any qualifications in interior design, something she was at pains to point out to potential clients. They didn’t care; her work spoke for itself. Her career had started fifteen years before, when she’d helped a friend choose furnishings and colors for her new house. The result had been stunning, and more work had quickly come her way.
Esme gasped and clasped her hands together. “I think God must have sent you.”
Thankfully for Iris, the need to reply vanished when a man came into view, pushing a wheelbarrow piled high with stones along a narrow path. From where Iris was standing, she could see the tendons in his forearms straining as he tilted the wheelbarrow and tipped the stones out.
“Is that your husband?” Iris asked.
There was a peal of laughter from behind her. “No, that’s Joseph. That’s Hugh, over there.”
Iris turned to look to where Esme was pointing, and moved to the mantelpiece where a photograph stood, of a man with twinkling eyes, a bald head and a bushy white beard. Aware of Esme’s eyes on her, Iris hid her surprise. He looked so much older.
“It’s all right,” Esme said cheerfully, as if she’d been reading her mind. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked if Hugh is my father.”
Iris smiled. “My husband is older than me too.”
“How much older?”
“Six years.”
Esme eyes danced. “Hugh is twenty years older than me.”
A noise, which started as a low moan before developing into a shrill whistle, had Esme reaching for a fat china teapot sitting on the side.
“That’s a sound I haven’t heard for a while,” Iris remarked.
“I love it.” Esme moved the kettle slightly off the hob, reducing the noise to a whimper. “Something as good as a cup of tea should be announced properly, don’t you think?”
As if mesmerized by an ancient ritual, Iris watched as Esme heated the teapot with water from the kettle and swirled it around before emptying it into the sink. Stretching to the cupboard above her head, she retrieved an old tin and spooned some of the contents into the pot before adding the still-boiling water.
“There!” she said happily. Grabbing a tea towel, she wrapped it around the handle of the teapot and carried it over to the low table. “Come and sit down while I get some mugs.”
Iris waited until Esme had poured the tea. “How did you and Hugh meet?” she asked, unable to hide her interest.
“He lived down the road from my parents, but I only really met him when I moved back home after I split up with my partner, who I’d been living with for three years.” Esme reached for her mug and brought it to her lips, holding it there a moment, warming her mouth against the hot china. “It was a painful time for me and I wasn’t in a good place. I was thirty years old and the man I’d thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with had suddenly got cold feet, probably because I’d been banging on too much about having babies. It meant I had to give up my job because we both worked for the same company, and it was too hard seeing him every day. So, there I was at Mum and Dad’s, trying to get my life back on track, when Mum asked me if I’d help Hugh out. His wife had died a few months before and he needed someone to pick up his son from school and look after him until he came back from work, and as I didn’t have anything else to do, I agreed to step in.” Esme paused to take a sip of tea. “I’d met Hugh once before but couldn’t remember anything about him except that he was old, so I never imagined I’d fall in love with him.”
Iris smiled. “But you did.”
“Yes. It was a gradual thing. At first, as soon as he arrived home in the evenings, I’d leave him and Marcus to it. But after a while, he began asking me to stay and have dinner with them and before long I was totally in love. When he admitted that he loved me too I was over the moon, although we were a little worried about what my parents would say. Luckily, they were really happy for us, and I found myself with a ready-made son.”
“How old is Marcus?”
“Twenty-two. He lives and works in London, where we lived before moving here.” Esme lifted her legs onto the sofa and tucked a cushion under her knees. So, your turn now—how did you and your husband meet?”
“Playing squash. We were paired together in the mixed doubles. I was twenty and still at university and Gabriel was twenty-six.”
