‘Do you want to put the kettle on, Becky?’ Alison said, in a mild tone. ‘I’ll get the cheese.’
‘You don’t need to be tactful, Alison.’ I smiled at her. ‘We’ve known each other too long and too well for that. It’s fine. I’m fine. Really. I just thought you should know that Greg wasn’t being unfaithful.’
‘Good.’
‘It would be better if someone believed me.’
The man stood on my doorstep, barely visible behind the battered wooden rocking-chair he was holding.
‘Terry Long,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the chair for you.’ He looked at me expectantly.
‘I don’t -’ I began.
‘For my wife. It’s her Christmas present. You said you’d repair it for us. It’s a bit of a mess, as you see. It was her grandfather’s, though, so it has sentimental value.’
‘There’s been a mistake.’
‘I called you at the beginning of September. You said it would be fine.’
‘Things have changed,’ I said. ‘I’m not taking on new work.’
‘But you said…’ His face had hardened. He put the chair on the ground, and it rocked gently between us, making a clicking sound. One of its runners was badly damaged. ‘You can’t just let people down like that.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s it? You’re sorry?’
‘I’m very sorry. I just can’t. I really can’t. I’m sorry.’ I kept repeating the word: sorry, sorry, sorry. In the end he went, leaving the broken chair behind. Even his back looked angry.
I picked up the rocking-chair, shut the door, and went through the house and into the garden where I unlocked my shed; the door was reinforced and there had been three padlocks on it since the time a year ago when a gang of youths had broken into it and stolen some of my tools. Inside, there were several ladder-backed chairs, a corner cupboard in dark oak, a lovely little ash cabinet without a back, a carved chest with an ugly gash along its lid and scars where some of its raised designs had been, and a Georgian desk. They were waiting for my attention. I went in, without turning on the light, and ran my finger across the wooden surfaces. Even though I hadn’t been in there for days and days, there was still the wonderful smell of sawdust and wax. Curls of planed wood lay on the floor. I squatted, picked up a pale rind and fingered it for a while, wondering if I’d ever come back to work here again.
Greg and I had argued about stupid things. Whose turn it was to empty the rubbish bin. Why he didn’t rinse the basin after he’d shaved. Why I didn’t know how irritating it was when I cleaned up around him, huffing just loudly enough so that he’d hear me. When he interrupted me in the middle of a sentence. When I’d used up all the hot water. We argued about clothes that shrank in the wash, botched arrangements, overcooked pasta and burnt toast, careless words, trivial matters of mess and mismanagement. We never fell out over the big things, like God or war, deceit or jealousy. We hadn’t had long enough together for that.
‘So you don’t believe me?’
Mary and I were walking on the Heath. It was cool and grey, the wind carrying a hint of rain. Our feet shuffled through drifts of damp leaves. Robin, her one-year-old, was in a carrier on her back; he was asleep and his bald, smooth head bobbed and lolled on her neck as we walked. His pouchy body swung with each step Mary took.
‘I didn’t say that. Not exactly. I said…’
‘You said, “Men are such bastards.”’
‘Yes.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that men are such bastards. Look, Ellie, Greg was lovely.’
‘But?’
‘But he wasn’t a saint. Most men stray if they get the chance.’
‘Stray?’ I said. I was beginning to feel angry and rattled. ‘Like a sheep that’s got out of its field?’
‘It’s all about opportunity and temptation. This Milena probably made the first move.’
‘This Milena didn’t have anything to do with him. Or him with her.’
Suddenly Mary stopped. Her cheeks were blotchy in the cold. Over her shoulder Robin’s eyes opened blearily, then closed again. A thread of saliva worked its way down his chin.
‘You don’t believe what you’re saying, do you?’ she said. ‘Not really.’
‘Yes, I do. Though you clearly don’t.’
‘Because I don’t agree with you, it doesn’t mean I’m not on your side. Are you trying to push us all away? It’s rotten, what’s happened. Really horrible. I have no idea how I’d be dealing with it in your situation. Listen, though.’ She put a hand on my arm. ‘I do have a bit of an understanding of what you’re going through. You know Eric? Well, obviously you know Eric. You know what happened just after Robin was born – and when I say “just after”, that’s what I mean. Three and a half weeks, to be precise.’
A feeling of dejection settled on me.
‘He slept with this woman at work. I was woozy and weepy and tired, my breasts were sore, I’d only just had my stitches out so I could hardly sit down, sex was out of the question – I was a moony, overweight cow. And yet I was happy. I was so happy I thought I’d melt. And it wasn’t just once, a drunken mistake or something, it went on for weeks. He’d come home late, take lots of showers, be over-attentive, over-irritable. It’s such a bloody cliché, isn’t it? Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t realize what was going on. It’s not as if the signs weren’t there. But I was blind, in my own little bubble of contentment. I had to practically see them together before I knew.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ I remembered again the conversation with Greg, in which I had insisted I would have known if Eric had been unfaithful to Mary.
‘Because I felt humiliated. And stupid.’ She glared at me. ‘So fat and ugly and useless and ashamed. You must understand that feeling now, after what’s happened to you. That’s why I’m telling you.’
‘Mary,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. I wish we’d talked about it before. But it’s not the same.’
‘What makes you and Greg so different?’
‘He wouldn’t have behaved like that.’
‘That’s what I used to say about Eric.’
‘I have an instinct.’
‘You can’t face the truth. I’m your friend. Remember? We can tell the truth to each other, even if it hurts.’
‘It doesn’t hurt because it’s not true.’
‘Has it occurred to you that maybe he was sick of having sex to get pregnant?’
I couldn’t stop myself: I flinched in pain, as if Mary had slapped me across the face.
‘Oh, Ellie.’ Her face softened; I saw there were tears in her eyes, whether from the cold or emotion I couldn’t tell.
WPC Darby showed me into a small room. There were red and pink plastic flowers in a jug on the desk, and more flowers – yellow this time, a copy of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers – in a framed picture on the wall. I sat down and she sat opposite me, folding her hands on the desk. They were broad and strong, with bitten nails. No rings on her fingers. I looked at her face, weathered, shrewd and pleasantly plain under her severely cut hair, and was satisfied that she was the right person to tell. There was some meaningless chat and then I stopped.
‘It’s not the way it seemed,’ I said.
She leaned towards me slightly, her grey eyes on my face.
‘I don’t believe he was having an affair with Milena Livingstone.’
Her expression didn’t waver. She just went on looking at me and waiting for me to speak.
‘Actually I don’t think they even knew each other.’
She gave a nervous smile and when she spoke it was clearly and slowly, as if I was a small child. ‘They were in the same car.’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ I said. ‘It’s a mystery. I think you ought to look at it again.’
In the silence, I could hear the voices in the corridor outside. WPC Darby steepled her fingers and took a deep breath. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
‘Ms Falkner, your husband died in a car crash.’
‘He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt – but Greg always wore it. You have to investigate further.’