The Lie, page 22
‘Nell must have talked to her daughter, though, if you suggested there’d been some impropriety.’ It was unthinkable she wouldn’t. Yet Grace had told Finch her mother didn’t know. Maybe Nell sounded her out and Grace denied it.
James shrugged. ‘We stopped seeing each other soon after that, so I’ve really no idea. The whole thing put the wind up me, to be honest, Romy. My wife …’ He didn’t finish, just stood there in the doorway, looking – even at his age – like a guilty schoolboy.
Finch was so angry with me for protecting Michael, Romy thought bitterly. But it seems everyone – Grace, Nell, James, even me – we were all bending over backwards to keep his nasty secret for him.
‘Long time ago,’ James repeated. ‘What brought it up?’
She could see his question wasn’t as casual as he was trying to make it seem.
‘Michael and I were just talking. Life-threatening illness can sometimes change a person’s perspective.’ She also spoke lightly, leaving James to assume she’d always known and wasn’t fazed by it. But he appeared alarmed, crossing the kitchen to lean in to Romy, his voice lowered.
‘Best he doesn’t spread it about, my dear. Don’t you think? Any mea culpa stuff, even in his condition, even after all this time, in the current climate, it wouldn’t go down too well.’ James checked her face to see if she understood. ‘I’ll maybe have a word with him.’
‘Can I help in here?’ Wendy’s voice trilled in the doorway. She put the empty sandwich plate on the table. ‘Oh, doesn’t that look gorgeous!’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands together as she peered at the cake. ‘You’re so clever, Romy.’
Romy glanced across at James, who seemed miles away, his fair face twisting almost as if he were having a bad dream. She heard again the anger in his voice when he’d said, ‘If you could call it that’, and wondered what he’d really meant, and what he was remembering now.
44
Of the three latest people who’d come for interview, there was only one, Janice – a middle-aged, lifelong carer-housekeeper whose last employer had just died – whom Romy considered even remotely suitable. She irritated Michael on sight, however, with her saccharine sweetness and mindless chatter. In her heart of hearts, Romy knew Michael would always find something wrong with every candidate. The whole thing infuriated her, but Leo had been investigating other agencies and she was determined that one would soon bear fruit, allowing her to leave and get her life back on track.
Despite these frustrations, Romy couldn’t help feeling a creeping sense of hope. Michael was definitely improving. She could see it. He seemed happier, more energetic, apparently spurred on to get his body and mind back in working order. The probable reason for this change – getting the lies about Grace off his chest – almost offended her. But she was happy to see that he no longer lounged in bed with the television on and was up with the lark, washed, dressed and making breakfast for them both, becoming increasingly adept at a one-handed operation, his weak one now able to act as a pretty reliable anchor.
Some mornings she would find oats scattering the floor, milk spilt on the worktop, blueberries rolling about the kitchen table, but she didn’t comment. He was trying so hard and her heart went out to him, despite herself. But when she caught him watching her sometimes, a brooding look on his face, she resolutely ignored it.
In the evenings, Michael insisted on Scrabble. ‘I’ve got to chivvy my non-existent brain cells somehow,’ he kept telling her.
‘Bloody things,’ he exploded one night, as he accidentally knocked the rack containing his letter tiles and sent the small plastic squares tumbling across the kitchen table, many face up. She and Michael employed very different tactics: Romy liked to hoard, wait till she could get something truly spectacular, using as many letters as possible – once she’d managed ‘coquette’ and scored nearly seventy points. Michael played to win – small, strategically placed, one-syllable words with ridiculous scores. He was much quicker than she to spot the opportunities. But since the stroke, he got muddled and sometimes flustered, tired easily. ‘How the hell am I going to get on if I can’t even play a stupid board game without fucking up?’ He glared accusingly at Romy, as if she were to blame.
‘Don’t get antsy. I’ve often done that,’ she said soothingly.
But Michael was not about to be soothed. He dumped the rack upside down and flung himself petulantly back against the kitchen chair, like a toddler contemplating a tantrum. It was hot and close in the room, the lingering smell of garlic and rosemary from the chicken Romy had cooked earlier still on the air. She saw Michael was sweating, her own cheeks flushed from the two glasses of red she’d consumed.
‘I’d got “ mazy ” if you’d left that y open,’ she complained to distract him.
‘Mazy? What’s that supposed to mean?’
She laughed. ‘Sort of like a maze?’ She thought for a moment. ‘For instance, “ My, that path looks very mazy, don’t you think? ”’
He grinned. ‘Rubbish, never heard of it.’
‘Shall I look it up?’
Michael shook his head and sighed deeply, running his good hand back and forth over his shaved head. ‘You know James rang today,’ he said despondently.
Romy felt a pang of guilt, remembering her talk with the man at Michael’s birthday tea, a couple of weeks back. He’d made no attempt to lure her to lunch since then. ‘What did he want?’ she asked.
‘Basically,’ Michael replied, ‘he wanted to know if I thought I’d ever come back to chambers. If I’d ever work again.’
‘Right. So what did you say?’
He looked at her as if she were being disingenuous. ‘I said I’d be up and running, ready to take on the world by Christmas, no problem.’
Four months, she calculated, alarmed. ‘Do you think –’
‘Joke,’ he cut her off tersely. ‘Of course I didn’t bloody say that. For Christ’s sake, look at me, Romy.’ He shrugged. ‘Imagine me standing up in court, for starters.’ He shook his head. ‘Then imagine me wading through a two-box brief overnight.’ Another weary shake of the head. ‘And, finally, imagine me putting together a coherent argument for my client against some of the sharpest minds in the land.’ This time he didn’t bother to shake his head, just gave her a level glance that said it all.
‘You don’t know what you’ll be like by Christmas,’ she said.
Michael didn’t reply. He pushed his chair back and reached for his crutch. Then he turned back to her. ‘Go home, Romy,’ he said dully. ‘You’ve done your bit.’
She stared at him.
‘I’m fine on my own. You can stop looking for another bloody carer.’ He glared at her defiantly. ‘I may still be clumsy, but I’m perfectly capable of ordering food online. The surgery will drop off my pills. I can just about work the microwave, put stuff in the washing machine, shower and dress myself. It all takes me for ever, but I can do it.’ He paused only to gather breath. ‘I haven’t told you, because she didn’t confirm until tonight, but I’ve asked Theresa to come in for a couple of hours five mornings a week. So,’ he added, almost nonchalantly, ‘I don’t need you or anybody else any more.’
Romy didn’t reply. This is just bravado, she thought, although she was surprised he’d been so proactive with Theresa. She’d known from Leo – weeks ago – that Michael didn’t want her being responsible for his care after Daniel left, but now he was suggesting managing almost completely on his own. Was he really ready? If she’d thought he was, she’d already have gone.
‘Leave,’ he went on, a martyrish note creeping into his voice. ‘Go and find your brigadier, make it up to him. Get on with your life, Romy, while you still can.’
She frowned. Then she grinned. Michael looked offended. ‘Another gold star for melodrama,’ she said. ‘Chart’s filling up.’
‘I meant every word,’ he insisted, piqued.
‘I’m sorry.’ She tried, unsuccessfully, to stop smiling. ‘It’s just you sound like a bad Victorian novel. Doing the far, far better thing, setting me free to love, while you die a miserable death, all alone.’ She knew she should shut up, stop making fun of feelings that seemed to have been genuinely expressed, but it had felt like just another of his theatrical moments of self-pity. It was hard to take him seriously.
Michael gave her a wounded smile and said quietly, ‘You certainly know how to deflate a man.’
For a while they sat in silence. Romy heard Michael’s phone buzz with the arrival of an email; the fridge wheezed and clunked; a door slammed somewhere in the block.
‘Let’s give it a go, then, if you’re serious,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you for the weekend and see how you get on, OK?’
Michael’s face stiffened. ‘Bring it on,’ he said, through clenched teeth.
So Romy went home.
45
The cottage seemed small and strange to her, after the high-ceilinged London flat, and somehow blank, as if it had lost her essence, finally given up on her. She felt like standing in the middle of each room and waving her hands, like a conductor, encouraging the place to life.
Later that afternoon she curled up on the bed. The clean sheets and her favourite pillow, the cool breeze blowing in from the harbour – just being home and in her own space, by herself for once – made the previous weeks’ confusion melt temporarily away and she felt her body gradually relaxing, giving in to sleep. There was nothing she had to do, nowhere she had to be, no one waiting for her.
When she woke it was after six. She had slept for nearly three hours. In a panic, she jumped off the bed, dizzy and disoriented, then realized there was no reason why she shouldn’t snooze all day if she wanted to.
The evening was too beautiful to stay inside, though. She pulled on her trainers and sunglasses, a peaked cap to keep the setting sun from her eyes, then walked purposefully down onto the sea road. There were families out in force, it being a Saturday, kids jumping off the jetty, or swinging from the tyre suspended over the small stream that ran into the sea, weekend sailors tinkering with their dinghies, students from the nearby college sitting in heaps in the meadow outside the church, barbecuing sausages in foil trays, their bikes thrown to the grass in a circle, like wagons in the Wild West.
Romy breathed deeply as she walked, swinging her arms wide to embrace the delightful familiarity. But all the while her gaze panned from side to side as each group of people approached her on the rutted road – Was this tall outline against the horizon him? – knowing that at any second she might catch sight of him, running towards her, his mucky trainers splashing in the edges of the incoming tide, cheeks glowing, arms pumping, then his warm brown eyes suddenly meeting hers. It had to happen sooner or later. The cottage, the harbour, the village were chock full of memories of Finch, which kept coming at her like missiles, relentless and hard to bat away.
When Romy found herself back at home, she felt desolate that she hadn’t seen him. She wanted so badly to talk. Listening to Michael’s protestations of innocence, she had had her doubts. But James’s decided shiftiness at Michael’s birthday tea had been fuel to the flames. Nothing might change in regard to her and Finch’s relationship if she talked to him – although there still existed that tiny pinprick of hope – but at least she could voice her current suspicions, convince him that she wasn’t the monster he no doubt thought she was … and tell him she was leaving the flat for good.
The following morning was drizzly but still warm as Romy walked determinedly across the village towards Finch’s house. She had spent most of the night prevaricating. But she knew she had to try to make it right with him, or leave their memories of each other for ever stuck in that terrible altercation.
She wore her red anorak and cap – which she ripped off as soon as she turned the corner into his road, stopping on the narrow strip of grass opposite the solid seventies build that was Finch’s house.
Romy spotted his Toyota, parked on the narrow concrete apron beside a small front lawn. He’s home. Her stomach flipped. She was still wondering, in trepidation, how he would react to her impromptu visit when the front door opened and a young woman with bouncy blonde hair stepped out, calling over her shoulder to someone inside, ‘Don’t forget the book.’
Retreating behind a voluminous late-flowering ceanothus, like a spy in a fifties novel, Romy saw a man follow a minute later, also in his thirties or early forties, she gauged, clutching a glossy hardback. They got into a burnt-orange Kia, the woman driving, and pulled away from the kerb, passing close by Romy as she skulked in the bushes. She watched the man – nice-looking with a chubby, open face and beard – laughing at something as they followed the lane out of the village.
Romy knew exactly who they were: she’d seen a wedding photo in Finch’s kitchen. The woman was unmistakably Grace, the man beside her Sam. She stood stock still, shadowed by the shrub, not knowing what to do. Where’s Finch? The couple hadn’t called goodbye as they left, in fact had seemed totally absorbed in each other and their mission, whatever that was. And the man had turned to double-lock the door.
She continued to gaze at the house. There was no movement, no sign of life at any of the windows – the house did not seem occupied now. After another couple of minutes’ silent observation, Romy turned and walked slowly back the way she had come.
Grace – so real, so present, so huge in the insurmountable barrier she represented – had only brought home to her the hopelessness of any dreams she still harboured.
She quickened her pace in an attempt to get the blood flowing round her body and dispel the adrenalin that was making her buzz. The drizzle had stopped and the sun was out, but she barely noticed, she was so lost in regret. Tears for what might have been began to swim behind her eyes, mercifully hidden by her dark glasses.
Her eighty-something neighbour was snipping at the long tendrils of ivy spiking out of the privet hedge that sat along the low wall between her small front garden and Romy’s. She was wearing her floppy flowered hat and round, very dark glasses, her body encased in a shapeless blue nylon housecoat – like the one Romy’s mother had always worn. She peered at Romy and waved her gloved hand.
‘Hello, Vera,’ Romy said, moving quickly past to her front door. She was not in the mood for one of Vera’s long conversations about either of her favourite topics: the proposed development along the top road out of the village, or the bins.
But her key wouldn’t turn in the lock. She pulled on the brass doorknocker – which needed polishing, she noticed – to get purchase, but the bloody thing wouldn’t budge. She could feel Vera’s eyes boring into her back.
‘It’ll be the heat,’ Vera commented, as Romy continued to sweat and struggle with the Yale key, swearing under her breath.
She was on the point of giving up and going round the back to the garden doors, when she heard Vera say, ‘This is when you need that nice young soldier of yours.’ Romy, still with her face to the door, froze. ‘Shame he’s so far away,’ Vera added.
Romy swung round. What does she mean? She said, ‘He’s not my soldier, Vera.’
It seemed, from the politely raised eyebrows, that Vera knew this already. But she said, ‘That’s a shame, dear. He’s such a charming man, a proper gentleman. And all those exhausting marathons he does for the hospice … Jenny adores him. She was showing me a postcard he sent from Argentina at the safari supper last week.’
Romy found herself rooted to the spot. She wanted to turn and run, to get away from her neighbour’s inquisitive stare and the miasma of gossip that was clearly swirling round her relationship with Finch, but her feet would not obey her.
‘What’s he doing in Argentina?’ she asked, almost against her will.
‘Jenny says he’s on sabbatical.’ Vera chuckled. ‘Not sure you can have one of those if you’re retired, can you? But apparently he’s having a high old time with all those gaucho people. Jenny says he speaks fluent Spanish, of course.’ She leant on the wall with both hands, her secateurs discarded in her enjoyment of the gossip. ‘I think she’s a bit worried he won’t come back.’
Romy tried to take in what she was hearing, but her mind was in turmoil.
‘I’d better give this lock another try,’ she said, turning quickly away, her breath fluttering in her chest as she stuck the key into the door. Miraculously, it twisted with only slight resistance. Waving a hand to her neighbour, she went inside and shut the door with exaggerated care, not wanting the distress she was feeling to be obvious to nosy Vera Boyce.
Hurrying through to the kitchen, she threw her cap and sunglasses on the table and sat down heavily. Finch had gone to Argentina and she didn’t even know? And the postcard? He obviously hadn’t left yesterday.
Romy knew she had no right to be upset. Finch was a free agent. But he had left without telling her, had been away without her knowing and was sending cosy postcards to the hostile Jenny. She couldn’t help but feel incredibly hurt. The cold truth was that he had moved on.
46
Finch got back to his cottage on the Gutierrez estate around midnight, after an exhausting supper at which he’d earned his keep by recounting endless tales of derring-do to Luis and Jocelyn’s American clients. It was only nine in the evening in the UK, and he was determined to get hold of Grace on WhatsApp. He’d tried on and off all day, but the mostly flickering broadband had been completely down and he had only a weak signal on his phone.
Grace picked up immediately. ‘Finch!’ She sounded so happy to hear him, he knew Marty had been right and kicked himself for being so blind.
‘Hey, Gracie.’
