Silently, I count to five before answering. ‘No.’ No, no, no. ‘I’m not scaling down anything. This is a one-off crisis. Owen Mellish and I had to drop everything and come and sort it out.’ Come on, Nick. Think about it. Owen has nothing to do with Venice -he works with me at HS Silsford. I’ve told Nick many times that I think Owen’s jealous because I got the Venice job and he didn’t.
‘Owen Mellish?’ says Nick. Thank God. ‘The creep with the phlegmy voice?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh, right,’ says my husband, sounding mystified. I wait. All I need is for him to ask if something’s wrong. Even if I can’t give him any details, even if all I can do is answer his questions with a yes or no, it will be enough to alert him. He will contact the police.
I wait, breathing jaggedly, nodding as if Nick is speaking so as not to arouse suspicion. The gun is touching my skin. ‘Great,’ says Nick after a few seconds. Something has gone wrong: he sounds amused, not worried. ‘My wife’s run off to Venice with Mr Phlegmy-voice. Listen, I’ve got to go. Ring tonight, yeah?’
I hear a click.
‘What a disappointment,’ says Mark. The man who is not Mark. ‘You should have married a man with a career, not just a job. Nick will never understand.’
I can’t speak, or stop crying.
‘You need comforting so rarely-you’re so strong, so dynamic and capable-but now, when you really need him, Nick lets you down.’
‘Stop. Stop…’ I want to ring Esther, but he’d never let me. Esther would know instantly that I was in trouble.
‘Do you remember at Seddon Hall you told me you didn’t think you were cut out for family life?’
Disloyal. I was disloyal to Nick and the children, and I am being punished for it.
‘I don’t think that’s right.’ He puts his arm around my shoulders, squeezes. ‘I told you so at the time. Trouble is, you’re trying to be part of the wrong family.’
‘That’s not true…’
‘You’re the perfect wife and mother, Sally. That’s something I’ve realised recently. You know why? Because you know how to strike a balance. You’re devoted to Zoe and Jake-you adore them, you look after them brilliantly-but you also have a life and a purpose of your own. Which makes you an excellent role model.’ He smiles. ‘Especially for Zoe.’
I try to jerk my body away from him. How dare he talk about my daughter as if he knows and cares about her, as if she is our shared concern?
‘Don’t let Nick talk you into sacrificing yourself so that his life can be even easier. So many husbands make their wives do that-it’s not healthy.’ He tucks the gun into his trouser pocket and rubs his hands together. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘Lecture over. Let’s go and get you settled in your room.’
Police Exhibit Ref: VN8723
Case Ref: VN87
OIC: Sergeant Samuel Kombothekra
GERALDINE BRETHERICK’S DIARY, EXTRACT 6 OF 9 (taken from hard disk of Toshiba laptop computer at Corn Mill House, Castle Park, Spilling, RY29 0LE)
9 May 2006, 10.30 p.m.
Today I did what I’ve often fantasised about doing but never believed I would. I underestimated my own audacity. My mobile phone rang at ten o’clock this morning. It was Mrs Flowers, ringing to say that Lucy had been sick, instructing me to come and collect her. I felt as if concrete slabs were falling inside my chest one by one, a ‘domino effect’ of horrified realisation: everything I wouldn’t be able to do if I went straight to St Swithun’s as I was being ordered to.
Children are sick all the time; usually it is insignificant. I asked how Lucy was now.
‘Subdued,’ said Mrs Flowers. ‘She’s sitting on Miss Toms’ knee, reading a story. I’m sure she’ll perk up no end when she sees Mummy.’
I heard myself say, ‘I wish I could come and get her, but I’m in Prague.’ I don’t know why I picked Prague. Perhaps because its name is short and terse, easy to bark when you’re in a foul mood. ‘Even if I got on the first flight back…’ I stopped, as if I was trying to work it out. ‘No, you’d better ring Mark,’ I said.
‘I already have,’ said Mrs Flowers. ‘He’s recorded a message on his voicemail saying he won’t be back until after lunch.’
‘Oh dear!’ I tried to sound anguished. ‘Can you cope until then?’
Mrs Flowers sighed. ‘We can cope. It’s Lucy I’m thinking of. Never mind. We’ll give her lots of cuddles and try to keep her happy until we can get hold of Daddy.’
You’ll try, and you’ll succeed, I thought, because you’re brilliant with small children. I too was thinking of Lucy, however selfish Mum might say I am. Last time I picked Lucy up early from school because she was ill, I ended up threatening her, tears of fury pouring down my face. ‘I was poorly at school today, Daddy,’ she told Mark later. ‘And it made Mummy poorly too-she cried all the way home. Didn’t you, Mummy?’ Mercifully, she didn’t tell Mark the rest: that I shook my finger in her face and said, ‘If you’re ill, you’ll go straight to bed when we get home and have a long sleep; you’ll sleep for the rest of the day and let Mummy get on with all the things she has to do. If you don’t want to sleep, that means you’re well enough to stay in school and I’ll take you straight back there.’ A terrible thing to say, I know, but it was a Monday. I look forward to Mondays like nobody would believe; after each weekend, my need to get away from Lucy and have some time and thinking space for myself is overwhelming. I love my daughter but I’m terrible at being a mother. The sacrifices that are required of me are against my nature, and it is time that the world-including Mrs Flowers-started to take my innate deficiencies into account. If I said I was a dreadful tennis player, no one would urge me to keep trying until I’m as good as Martina Navratilova.
We ought all of us to ‘play to our strengths’. Which is why I felt betrayed when Cordy told me she is planning to give up her job when her new baby is born. So much for my theory about her leaving Dermot in order to be able to leave Oonagh and motherhood behind as well. ‘I can afford not to work for a few years,’ she said, in response to my asking why. ‘I’ve got quite a bit saved up. And I haven’t really enjoyed being a working mum. I want to be there for my kids myself, not have to rely on my ageing parents or a semi-literate childminder. I want to do the whole mummy thing. Properly.’
I felt bilious, and was unable to speak while I waited for the feeling to subside. So that’s that, I thought: the end of the career of one of the brightest women I have ever met. Cordy could make it to the top of any profession she chose. If she doesn’t like being a financial adviser she could do something else-train to be a lawyer or a doctor, write a book, anything. I have always had so much more respect for her than for the mothers who immerse themselves in what Cordy calls ‘the whole mummy thing’, the ones who are only so good at mothering because they have to be, because they are afraid of setting foot outside their own front doors and they need the perfect excuse. Can’t hack it in the real world? Have a baby, then, and let everyone praise you for your commitment and devotion to your child above all else. Pride yourself on stuffing your child’s school bag full of papayas and kiwis for snack time, instead of the small dented apples that working mothers rely on. Stand at the school gates twittering, ‘All I’ve ever wanted is to be a mum.’
People without children can’t get away with making an equivalent statement, can they? ‘Excuse me, madam, but why do you sit at home all day doing sod all?’ ‘Oh, well, it’s because I want to devote myself full-time to being a niece. I’ve got an aunt, you see. That’s why I’ve decided not to achieve anything ever. I really want to pour all my time and energy into my niecehood.’ People would be quite blunt and say, ‘Don’t you think you ought to do something else as well as being a niece?’ I know the obvious answer: babies and children take up more time than aunts. Nevertheless, there is a fundamental truth in what I’m saying.