‘Are you home?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘For the next ten minutes?’
‘Yes.’
He hung up. I’d barely got dressed when the doorbell rang. It was Fergus, but he was different from when I’d seen him in the same spot on Saturday morning, distracted, not meeting my eye. He walked straight past me and into the living room. He sat on the sofa and I sat beside him. Without speaking, he took something from his pocket and placed it on the low table in front of us. It resembled a large narrow playing card.
‘I think you should look at that,’ he said.
Chapter Seventeen
It’s funny, the things you notice. Your brain can’t stop working. When I picked the card up and turned it over, my hands were shaking but, even so, I saw it was a menu with the date – 12 September – scrawled across it. There was a choice between goat’s cheese and walnut salad or watercress soup for starter, followed by either sea bass with roast Jerusalem artichokes or Welsh lamb with mashed sweet potato and steamed baby vegetables. Then, for dessert, chocolate fondant or fruits of the forest. I saw all of this, even as I was reading the bold handwritten message across the top. ‘Darling G, you were wonderful this evening. Next time stay the night and I can show you more new tricks!’ I didn’t have to read the signature to know who had written it: I had spent days looking at the handwriting on bills, receipts, business letters.
I laid the menu back on the table, face down.
‘Ellie,’ Fergus began.
‘Wait,’ I said. I stood up and went to the chest where I’d put the chart. I took it out, unfolded it and examined the grid for 12 September. An hour and twelve minutes was unaccounted for. At first I thought this was an amazing coincidence but quickly I realized it wasn’t a coincidence at all, because that’s the way reality fits together. I folded the chart and put it back in the drawer, then came to sit beside Fergus again.
‘Where was it?’ I asked him. My voice sounded quite calm. My hands were no longer trembling.
‘Inside one of his running books. I was going through them this afternoon. Jemma said I shouldn’t clutter up the house. I feel dreadful, Ellie. Was I right to show you?’
I gazed at him, although it was as if I was trying to see him through a fog. ‘You were quite right.’
‘I’m so sorry, Ellie.’
‘Thank you,’ I said politely, and folded my hands in my lap. I looked at the fingers laced together and thought I would be keeping my wedding ring off my finger after all.
‘You were wonderful, the way you trusted him.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’
‘At least you know now.’
‘That’s true.’
‘Can I get you a cup of coffee?’
‘No, thank you.’ He looked so wretched that I forced myself to make an effort. ‘This must be really horrible for you, Fergus. But I’m glad you told me. It would have been terrible not to. I’m grateful.’
‘He was a fool. An idiot. But he loved you, Ellie, I know he did. You mustn’t forget that.’
‘It’s nice of you to say so. If you don’t mind, I’d quite like to be alone now, Fergus.’
He stood up, and I remained where I was, so that he had to bend down awkwardly to kiss me on both cheeks.
‘I’ll phone later,’ he said.
After he had gone, I continued sitting on the sofa with my hands clasped together. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, or what I thought about. Perhaps those words: ‘I’ll show you more new tricks.’ What kind of love note was that, with its tacky and teasing suggestiveness, as if Greg was a circus pony and she the ring-master with the whip and black boots? I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop the images that were flooding through me. Perhaps I thought how extraordinarily, stunningly and flawlessly good he had been at keeping it secret from me, like a professional spy. Perhaps I thought it didn’t make sense, or that it made perfect sense, at last.
Finally I stood up and pulled out the chart again, staring at the gap in the schedule that I could now fill in: Greg was with Milena. I unrolled her much less filled-in chart as well. Nothing for 12 September there either. So. She had wanted him to stay the night next time. Had he? I couldn’t see when he would have done, but neither could I see why it should matter any more. I had the evidence I’d been searching for and dreading. As clearly as if she was in the room, I heard Mary’s voice: ‘Now you can get on with the rest of your life.’
Right. I stood up abruptly and went upstairs into our bedroom; into my bedroom. I opened the wardrobe and pulled out Greg’s handful of smart shirts, most of which I’d given him over the years, and his jackets. They would do for a start. I had been going to share them out among friends but now that didn’t feel right. On my way downstairs, I grabbed his old towelling robe from the back of the door. I wouldn’t be snuggling up in it on a cold evening any more.
In the garden, I bundled them into a pile and put a match to them. You’d have thought clothes would burn easily, but not those. It was nearly dark, and it was drizzling, which didn’t help matters – and the neighbour on the right, who had once complained to us about our loud music, was looking at me inquisitively while he put vegetable peelings on to his compost. I went into the shed, took paraffin from the top shelf and splashed a bit over the damp pile. I didn’t even need to add another match; an ember must still have been glowing in the folds of a jacket, because there was a bang, a ‘Whoa!’ from over the fence, and a violent orange flame roared several feet into the air. I could smell burning and realized my hair was singed. Who cared? Who cared what the neighbour thought, or his wife, who had now been summoned to watch the scene that was taking place? Who cared that acrid clouds of smoke were now rising from my fire, and petals of ash were floating in the air? Not me. I threw on his lovely leather brogues. They made a terrible smell. As I watched them blacken, I had a sudden picture of Greg buffing them with a soft cloth, that look of concentration on his lovely face, and wanted to rush forward and rescue them, but it was too late for that.
The elation had drained away and I felt empty, bleak, grim, defeated. Tired of the whole sorry business, of being angry, being ashamed, being sad, being lonely. Being me.
Perhaps that was why I returned to Frances’s the following morning. Because there, for a time, I wouldn’t have to be me. I could be Gwen: practical, calm and in control, helping other people sort out the mess of their lives. The previous night I had gone to bed early, without eating anything and hugging a hot-water bottle because although it was not a particularly cold evening I felt chilly and shivery. I lay there, wide-eyed, in the darkness. I wanted to cry, in the same way that sometimes, when I feel horribly nauseous, I want to be sick, but the tears didn’t come, wouldn’t. Several times, I had heard the phone ring and voices leave messages: Fergus, Gwen, Joe, Gwen again. They must have heard on the grapevine. Soon everyone would know.
It took me a long time to choose what to wear. I tried on skirts, tops, different shoes. I stood in front of the mirror, examined myself critically and didn’t like what I saw. I was pale; there were tired smudges under my eyes; my hair hadn’t been cut for months and was long and wild. In the end I put on a dress that looked a bit like a pleated chocolate-coloured sack, ribbed tights and my only pair of boots, although one of the heels was a bit loose. I put an amber pendant round my neck, because Greg hadn’t given it to me, and tied my hair back into a messy bun. I put on muted eye-shadow, eye-liner, mascara, lip-gloss. Finally, when it was after eleven o’clock and a pale sun had come out from behind the clouds, I looked enough like somebody else to venture out of the house.