The Three-Year Itch

‘How is Robert? I saw his photograph in the newspaper when I was on the plane. I thought he looked more at ease than I’ve seen him for a long time. Has there been some kind of reconciliation?’ she asked. ‘Is Susan going to the cottage with them?’

Grey didn’t answer, although his mouth hardened into a straight line. ‘Come on, let’s go out and enjoy ourselves.’ And it was only later, as she drifted off into sleep, that she remembered about the painting.

It was three days later that Abbie saw Grey with his ‘pretty piece’. She had been shopping and had decided to drop in and see if he could join her for lunch in a local wine bar they occasionally went to.

Her cab had just dropped her off outside the office when she saw his tall figure heading purposefully along the road and then turning into the small park in the square around the corner from his office. She set off after him. If he’d bought sandwiches to eat in the park she would happily share them.

The good weather had brought out the office workers in droves, and they were sitting on benches and lying on the grass, soaking up the sun. Abbie lifted her hand to shade her eyes and swept the area for Grey. For a moment she didn’t see him. Then she did. And in that moment she wished, more than anything in the world, that she hadn’t seen him. That she hadn’t followed him. That she had decided to stay at home and do some dusting. That she was anywhere but this small green City oasis.

A ‘pretty piece’ Steve had called her. Steve was right. But then he had a well-tuned eye when it came to a woman. She was small, with a delicate bone structure and the translucent complexion that so often went with very dark hair—hair that hung down her back, straight and shiny as a blackbird’s wing. Abbie felt a sharp stab of jealousy as she recognised that special kind of fragility that made men feel protective—the kind of fragility that she had never possessed as a self-consciously gawky teenager, a tall young woman.

Grey was the only man she had ever known who had to bend to kiss her, but never in the way he bent now to tenderly kiss the cheek of his dark beauty. Then he put his arm about her shoulder as he leaned forward over the padded baby buggy she was wheeling, reaching out to touch the tiny starfish fingers of the infant lying there. It was a scene of such touching domesticity that if he had been some unknown man she would have glanced at the pair of them and thought what a perfectly charming picture they made.

Abbie shrank back into the darker shade of the trees, her heart beating painfully, her throat aching with the urgent desire to scream, her hand clamped over her mouth to make sure she didn’t. She wanted to leave. Walk away. Run away from that place. The idea of spying on her own husband was so alien, so disgusting that she felt sick. But she remained rooted to the spot, unable to make her feet move, to tear her eyes from the two figures, or the baby lying gazing up at its mother, as they walked almost within touching distance of her on their slow circumnavigation of the path that rimmed the little park.

‘If there’s anything else you need, Emma, just ring me,’ Grey said as they passed, blithely unaware of Abbie standing motionless in the shadow of the trees. The girl murmured something that Abbie couldn’t hear and he shook his head. ‘At the office unless it’s an emergency.’ Then the girl looked up at Grey, her dark eyes anxious. ‘Yes, she came back a couple of days ago.’ There was apparently no need for further explanation. ‘I’ll take you down to the cottage as soon as …’

As they moved on, turned the corner, his voice no longer reached her. The cottage. He had arranged to take this girl called Emma to Ty Bach. All that talk about Robert had been lies … lies …

No wonder he had wanted her to go to America. He had other plans for his summer vacation. And it was hardly surprising that he didn’t want her to have a child. He hadn’t wasted much time in arranging for a job-share wife, it seemed. But obviously one family at a time was enough.

No, Abbie. A small voice inside her head issued an urgent warning. You’re leaping to conclusions. There might be a rational explanation. Must be. This was some girl from the office who had become pregnant, needed help. Or someone from the law centre. A client. No, not a client. He had kissed her, and kissing clients—even on the cheek—was asking for trouble. But something. Please God, something—anything. Think! But her brain was as responsive as cotton wool.

When the pair reached an unoccupied bench on the far side of the park, Emma sat down and Grey joined her, his arm stretched protectively along the back of the seat. They chatted easily for a while, laughed at some shared joke. Then Grey, glancing at his watch, produced an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. Emma took it, stowed it carefully in her bag without opening it and then, when Grey stood up, got quickly to her feet and hugged him. He held her for a moment, then, disengaging himself, he looked once more at the sleeping child and touched the baby’s dark curls before turning to walk briskly back towards the gate.

There had been nothing in their behaviour to excite interest. No passionate kiss, no lingering glances. They had looked for all the world like any happily married couple with a new baby, meeting in the park at lunchtime.

Abbie instinctively took a step further back into the cover of the bushes as Grey approached the gate, but he looked neither to left nor right. Then he crossed the road and stopped at a flower stall to buy a bunch of creamy pink roses, laughing at something the flower-seller said as he paid for them. A moment later he had disappeared from sight, and Abbie finally stepped out into the dazzling sunlight.

For once in her life—her ordered, planned, tidy life—Abbie didn’t know what to do. And then quite suddenly she did. It was perfectly clear. She was a journalist. Not the foot-in-the-door investigative kind, but nevertheless a trained observer, with a mind cued to extract information as painlessly as possible from even the most reluctant of interviewees. If this were a story she would go across to where the girl was still sitting on the shady bench and find some way to strike up a conversation.

It shouldn’t be difficult, for heaven’s sake. Babies and dogs were a gift—guaranteed to make the most reserved people open up. She didn’t want to do it, but she had to. And on legs that felt as if they were made of watery jelly, Abbie forced herself to walk towards the girl her husband had put his arm around and called Emma.

She had nothing in her mind. No plan. No idea of what she was going to say. But it wasn’t necessary. As she approached the bench the girl looked up and smiled. No, not a girl. Close up, Abbie realised that she must be hearer thirty than twenty. A woman.

‘It’s really too hot for shopping, isn’t it?’ she said as she saw Abbie’s bags. Her voice was silvery, light and delicate, like the rest of her.

‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ Was it hot? She felt so terribly cold inside that she couldn’t have said. But it was an opening and she sat down.

‘Did you buy anything nice?’

A simple question. Difficult to answer, but she managed it. ‘A shirt and a sweater. For my husband,’ she added, unable to help herself. No! Put the woman at her ease—talk to her, her subconscious prodded her. Forget that this is personal. Treat it like any other story. ‘And socks,’ she continued. ‘Men never seem to have enough socks, do they?’ Smile. Make yourself smile. ‘I have this theory that there is a conspiracy between the washing machine manufacturers and the sock-makers …’

Apparently the grimace that locked her jaw had been somehow convincing, because Emma laughed. ‘You could be right. But I wouldn’t care if I could only just go out and buy a pair of socks for my man. Unfortunately he has the kind of wife who would notice.’

‘Oh?’ Would she? Would she query strange socks in the laundry? Yes, she rather thought she would.

‘I can’t even keep things for him at my place. It would be so easy to get them muddled up.’

‘I suppose so.’ Abbie felt herself blushing at such unexpected frankness, yet she was well aware of how easily some people would talk about even their most intimate lives to perfect strangers. Especially if there were constraints on talking to family or friends. But the last thing on earth she wanted to discuss with this woman was her ‘man’s’ wife.

She stared at the buggy. ‘A baby is rather more personal than a pair of socks,’ she said, forcing the words from her unwilling lips. But she had to be sure. ‘The greatest gift of all.’

The woman’s smile was full of secrets as she leaned forward and touched the child’s fingers. ‘That’s what he said. And, while he may leave me one day, I’ll always have his child.’

‘How old is he?’ Abbie asked hoarsely, as jealousy, like bile burning in her throat, swept over her.

‘Twelve weeks.’ The woman called Emma brushed back the mop of dark hair that decorated his tiny head. ‘He was born just after Easter.’

When Abbie had been steeping herself in the miseries of an African refugee camp. Had Grey been with this woman, holding her hand, encouraging her as she went through the pangs of giving birth to his son? No! Her heart rebelled. Surely it was impossible. And yet … She leaned over the buggy, letting her hair swing forward to cover her expression, and as she came face to face with the sleepy child she felt the blood drain from her face.

‘He’s beautiful,’ she said, her voice coming from somewhere miles distant. As beautiful as his father had been as a baby.

Abbie remembered her laughter as they had looked through a pile of old family photograph albums that they had found when they had cleared his father’s house last year. Grey had been a bonny, bright-eyed baby, with a mop of black curly hair. The child lying in front of her might have been his twin.

‘What’s his name?’ she asked, wondering that she could sit there and pretend that nothing was happening. Grateful for the numbness that somehow stopped her screaming with pain …

‘Matthew.’

‘Matthew?’ Not Grey. At least he hadn’t done that to her. But it was bad enough as with every painful scrap of hard-won fact she became more certain of just what he had done.

Matthew Lockwood. Founder of Lockwood, Gates and Meadows, solicitors. Grey’s father, her dear, kind father-in-law, who had been dead for just a year. The child had been named for him.

‘It’s a lovely name,’ she said quickly, as she saw that some response was expected. ‘Your …’ What? What could she call him? Friend? Lover? Her mouth refused to frame the word. ‘He must be very happy.’

The woman leaned forward and touched the child, and his little hand tightened trustingly about her finger. ‘Yes. He’s thrilled with the baby—sees him whenever he can. But it’s difficult for him.’ She gave an awkward little shrug. ‘His wife would never give him a divorce.’

And that finally broke through the pain and at last made her angry. ‘Wouldn’t she?’ Abbie asked, a little grimly.

Now she knew, was absolutely certain, that Grey had been having an affair, deceiving her for at least the better part of a year. And in a way he was deceiving this woman too, with his lies. What had he said about her? How had he described her? Did the mother of his child know that when he left her bed, when he came home, he made sweet love to her as if … as if she was the only woman in the world?

Except that she wasn’t. How could he do that? The man she loved, had thought she knew, was suddenly a stranger. A stranger who could, it seemed, smile as if his heart was all hers, tell her that he loved her, with the taste of this woman’s kisses still upon his lips. The very thought was like a knife driving through her heart. How could she not have suspected? Not have seen the deceit in his eyes?

Only anger made her strong enough to sit there and carry on as if her world wasn’t disintegrating about her, kept her head high as she turned to Emma, determined to discover just how far his lies extended. ‘Has he asked his wife for a divorce?’

The woman gave the tiniest little shrug, the bravest of smiles. ‘I wouldn’t let him. A messy divorce would cause problems. With his job.’ She gave a little shake of the baby’s hand, turning her head away to hide the sparkle of tears. ‘And we can’t let Daddy have that, can we, sweetheart?’ And the baby gave a broad, gummy smile.

It was a nightmare. A waking nightmare from which there could never be the escape of knowing that, no matter how dreadful, it had all been nothing but a horrible dream. But still Abbie pushed herself. The greater the betrayal, the more it hurt her, the better. With every thrust of the knife the easier it would be to do what she had once thought impossible and hate him.

‘A divorce is no big deal these days, surely?’ she insisted, denying herself any avenue of escape. Then she added hopefully, ‘Unless he’s your doctor?’

‘Oh, no!’ Emma exclaimed, horrified. ‘He’s …’ She hesitated, as if she shouldn’t say what he was. ‘He’s a lawyer.’

‘I see.’ And she did see—all too clearly. She had wanted to be sure and now Emma’s words rang like the clang of doom, slamming the door closed on any possibility of doubt. His confession written in blood couldn’t have been more convincing.

One of Grey’s associates had been obliged to resign from the firm a year or so back, after having an affair with one of his clients. Her husband had turned nasty. She looked at the hand linked with the baby’s fingers and she could see the telltale mark where a wedding ring had once rested. Was that how she had met Grey? Sobbing out her heartbreak in her husband’s office? How impossible to refuse this fragile creature a comfortable shoulder to cry on. How easy to become emotionally entangled when your wife was away for weeks at a time.

‘I don’t mind, really. I knew all along that he would never leave her and I accepted that. At least I have Matthew.’

‘Maybe it will all work out,’ Abbie said dully. ‘You mustn’t give up hope. Things change.’

‘Do you think so? I do sometimes dream about it.’ Emma gave a little smile. ‘Sometimes we can be together for a while and pretend. He has a cottage in the country that he shares with his brother. They’re very close, and he’s been so good about us using it …’ She glanced at her watch and leapt to her feet. ‘Is that the time? I must be off—it’ll soon be time for Matthew’s feed.’ She kicked off the buggy’s brake, then paused to look down at Abbie, her face creased in concern. ‘Are you all right? You look rather pale. Would you like a drink? I’ve got a can …’

‘No!’ She made an effort to pull herself together. ‘Really, I’m fine. Thank you.’

Civilised behaviour. She should be scratching the woman’s eyes out … but what good would that do? The woman called Emma smiled uncertainly. ‘If you’re sure?’

‘Don’t keep Matthew waiting for his lunch,’ she said, forcing a smile. For a moment she remained where she was, watching Emma wheel the jaunty little buggy around the bright flowerbeds. Then she too stood up and walked away, leaving her shopping behind her on the bench.

It was just after three when she arrived at the flat. Plenty of time to put the matter beyond all doubt before Grey came home. Not that there was any doubt left in her mind, but the evidence so far was purely circumstantial. She knew enough of the law to know the dangers of convicting on that.

She took the ring binders from the shelf and flicked back through the credit card accounts, meticulously filed month by month and paid on the dot. April. The day after she had flown out to Africa. Petrol purchased at a service station just inside the Welsh border. The same date. A trip to a supermarket in Carmarthen. She and Grey had shopped there the last time they had stayed at the cottage.

May. Where had she been in May? Two days on an oil rig in the north sea. More petrol. Another trip to the supermarket. She wondered what had headed the shopping list. Disposable nappies?

June. Another trip to Wales. Each entry was a knife wound in her heart.

The July account had not yet arrived, but the slips were there to prove his lie. On the day he had told her he was working in Manchester he had filled his petrol tank on the M4 near Cardiff. She remembered that he had been wearing jeans the day she’d come home, the scent of woodsmoke clinging to them. For a moment misery threatened to engulf her as she clung to the desk. Then, taking a deep breath, she forced herself to go on. There was no time for misery. Yet.

She put the file back on the shelf and took down the one containing the statements for Grey’s personal account.

He hadn’t even bothered to disguise his transactions. Large single payments of exactly the same amount for the last three months. And, remembering the envelope she had seen him pass to Emma, she had presumably witnessed another of those payments today. Tucked into the correspondence pocket of the file was a letter dated two days earlier from the bank, confirming that a trust fund had been set up in the name of Matthew Harper, using the proceeds of the sale of the Degas …

She had asked him what had happened to the painting. He had told her that it had been sold to help Robert out of a financial jam. And she had believed him.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR a long time Abbie sat there considering the possibility of revenge. Why not? She could wreck his career, drag in his brother, throw the kind of mud that, no matter how much you tried to wash it off, stuck like glue. One call to Steve and all the deceit, the lies would be plastered on the front page. Not because anyone would care about Grey or her, but because of Robert. And hurting Robert would hurt Grey. And she wanted to hurt him. She wanted him to know how it felt to be betrayed.

She knew all the right people to call in order to do the maximum amount of damage. She could break apart his life, make him suffer as she was suffering now. She was hunched over the desk, her head resting on tense little fists as she forced herself to believe what a week ago would have been unthinkable: that he had lied to her, deceived her, betrayed her. She had every right to hurt him with any weapon she could lay her hand on …

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