Be Careful What You Hear (8 page)

‘The wind’s
picking up,’ I said, as the windows rattled. I looked across to the
curtains. ‘I hope the storm isn’t too bad.’

James pulled me
closer. ‘I think it will be okay. It’s not like it’s a
hurricane.’

‘No…’

Right on cue,
the windows rattled again, and for the first time that day, we
heard the sound of rain as it slapped against the panes.

I thought of
our little daughter. ‘I’ll go and check on Grace again in a few
minutes.’

‘I’ll go.’
James returned less than a minute later. ‘Sleeping like a, well, a
baby,’ he smiled.

‘Good, good.’ I
suddenly thought of Elsa Cartwright, and then explained the story
to James. I figured that if I told him, it would make me feel less
spooked. Because as much as I knew there was nothing to be
concerned about, it did make me feel uneasy. I felt scared to go to
the bathroom on my own. I knew I was being stupid, but I couldn’t
help it.

James listened
in silence until I’d finished explaining. ‘So that’s what you were
talking about in there. I came back in because I thought there was
some problem with the payment – you know, you didn’t have enough
cash, or they weren’t accepting your card. I didn’t realise she was
telling you ghost stories. She probably does that to everyone who
stays here, just to frighten them.’

‘Maybe. I can’t
help feeling sorry for her though – especially if Richard had
really run away with another woman.’

‘Yes,’ James
replied. He turned away. And then he began to sob. His shoulders
jackhammered as he screwed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of
his nose.

I brought my
arm around him. ‘What’s the matter, James? Please, tell me.

He shook his
head, before burying his face in his hands.

I tried again
to make contact. ‘I’m really worried about you.
Really
worried. Worried that you’re going to do something stupid.’

He muttered
something into his hands that I couldn’t hear properly.

And then I told
him. ‘I heard what you said to Grace on Thursday night. I heard it
over the baby monitor, when I was downstairs and you were putting
her to bed.’

That got his
attention.

He raised his
head slowly. ‘You heard me?’

‘You were
saying you were going to end it all.’

He looked off
to his right and shook his head at some thought. ‘I’m so sorry,
George, I’m so, so sorry.’

‘I don’t
understand. Sorry about what?’

He looked like
he was going to be sick, but what came out of his mouth only made
me feel ill. ‘I’ve been having an affair.’

‘An
affair?’

Even then I
hoped this was all a mistake. I even wished in that split second
that my illness had returned, and that the idea of James having an
affair was just in my head. But it was horribly real.

He closed his
eyes. ‘Yes. But it’s over now. I ended it. The conversation you
heard on Thursday evening. I wasn’t talking to Grace. I was talking
to her, telling her again it was over. She called me and, stupidly,
I answered. I completely forgot about the monitor.’

I swallowed as
my stomach lurched and rolled like the sea spread out in front of
us. With all my emotional strength I stayed calm, and asked the
question. ‘Who? Who is she?’

James, his eyes
still closed, pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Please, George, not
now, not here.’

That really
made me angry. I still however kept my voice measured. ‘Tell me
everything.’

He blew out his
cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘
Who
is
she?’

He pulled at
his lip, and I thought for a moment he wasn’t going to reveal the
name. But then he turned to me, his face filled with genuine
remorse and shame. ‘I’m really sorry, George. It’s Sophie.’

9

I felt sick to
my stomach. Sophie?

She had been
the person who had supported me so much, yet all the time was
having an affair with my husband? How could she do that to me,
while sitting there and listening to my problems, offering me
advice, being there for me? I could hardly believe it. But I knew
from James’ face that he was telling the truth.

I just stayed
there on the sofa, saying nothing, losing myself in the flames. All
this time, I had thought that James might be on the verge of taking
our lives, when he had actually been talking to his mistress on the
telephone.

What kind of an
idiot was I?

‘George, I
really sorry,’ James said at last, in an attempt to elicit a
response.

I closed my
eyes briefly, trying to shut out the situation that I found myself
in. ‘I need to give Grace a feed,’ I said, leaving the room. James
didn’t try to stop me.

When I
returned, he was still there, lying back on the sofa. He’d switched
the television off, and was just staring at the ceiling, hands
folded.

‘We need to
talk,’ I said.

He seemed
surprised, and reacted like someone who was unprepared for the task
they’d just been given. ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He sat back upright,
and bit down on his lip as I took the space next to him.

I gazed into
his eyes, not knowing yet if I was going to forgive him. I would
certainly need to know more about what had happened, even if really
it was the last thing I wanted to hear. And I needed to know now.
Not tomorrow. I wanted time to process this before the morning. I
swallowed back my fears and began. ‘How long has it been going
on?’

‘Three months.
But it’s over now. I finished it two weeks ago.’

I didn’t need
to pause and calculate when that was. It started at my lowest ebb,
a month before I really sought help. I was in such a state there’s
no way I would have been able to see the reality around me. I was
too busy dealing with my paranoid delusions about, ironically,
James having an affair with the locum dentist. ‘How did it
start?’

James bit down
again on his lip. ‘I know it’s a terrible cliché, but I didn’t
intend for it to happen. And there are no real excuses. But as you
know, we were in a really bad place, and Sophie was being so
supportive. But she started to open up too, about how the
miscarriage had affected her and her relationship with Michael.
Over those months, we got closer, until…’

He broke off
and just shook his head.

I was
surprising myself by how calmly I was dealing with this. But there
was really little other option. If I screamed and shouted, I would
wake up Grace. And given our location, throwing James out was not a
sensible option. At least by staying calm and controlled, we could
talk things through like adults. The truth was, I didn’t feel
angry; I just felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. I was grieving
the loss of innocence of our relationship, which would never be the
same again, whether we stayed together or not. ‘Why did you break
it off?’

‘Because I knew
it was wrong. And that I wanted to be with you, and Grace. I felt
awful, I still do feel awful for what’s happened, for what I’ve
done.’

I thought back
to September. ‘So the holiday. Us as a happy family. It was all an
act?’

‘No.’

I found that
hard to believe. ‘But you were still seeing her.’

He found it
hard to look me in the eye. ‘I know. But it wasn’t an act. The
holiday, being with you and Grace, it was amazing. I knew during
that week that it’s what I wanted. I decided early on in the
holiday that I was going to break it off with Sophie.’

‘Were you
planning to tell me?’

‘I wanted to. I
nearly told you, last Sunday, when we were out for a walk along the
Thames.’

‘Then why
didn’t you?’

‘I don’t know.
Because I was scared that if you found out, it would mean the end
of our marriage.’ He looked at me. ‘Does it?’

‘I can’t answer
that right now.’

He nodded. ‘I
understand. I shouldn’t have asked that.’

We sat in
silence for a few minutes. Meanwhile, the storm outside was closing
in. The wind had strengthened into a constant force and was
rattling the windows and whistling down the chimney breast. And the
rain was hitting harder. We were certainly under sustained attack
from the elements. It seemed as though the storm had arrived early,
as it was only just nearing midnight.

‘How does she
feel about it?’ I asked, turning my attention to the other person
in this sad triangle.

‘She wanted it
to continue.’

I shook my head
at the betrayal from someone I had called my friend. But, then, how
long had I actually known Sophie? Very little time, when I really
thought about it. I didn’t know what she was really like. She
wasn’t my lifelong buddy. In fact, she wasn’t really my friend at
all – she was James’. ‘What about her marriage? What about
Michael?’

‘Their marriage
is as good as over,’ he replied.

‘What?’ That
did shock me. Of course I knew that there had been problems, as
Sophie had told me herself. But I didn’t think it was that bad.

‘They’ve barely
spoken to one another for months,’ James revealed. ‘Sophie told me
that they live separate lives in the house.’

‘I never
realised it was so bad.’

James
continued. ‘It all began with the miscarriage, according to Sophie.
Michael bottled it all up, and Sophie felt abandoned. They never
recovered.’

I thought about
their plight. They hadn’t been able to withstand the devastation of
a future ripped away from them. Yes, like countless couples who had
experienced the same, they
could
have moved on, tried again,
and gone on to have a baby and be that family unit they had dreamt
of. But for some reason, they hadn’t been able. And instead of
rebuilding, Sophie had thrown herself into the arms of another – my
husband.

‘All the
support for me, was it genuine?’

‘From Sophie do
you mean?’

‘Yes. Was it
genuine, or was it just a way to get to you?’

‘It was
genuine. Sophie told me it was her way of helping to get over the
miscarriage. She had a real longing to help, and be useful. She
wanted to help you, and Grace.’

‘And you.’

‘Yes, and me.
But at first, that was just it. It was just help.’

‘But then
things changed.’

‘Yes. I’m
sorry.’

‘You said she
didn’t want your relationship to end. What did she say to you when
you finished it?’

‘She said she
didn’t want to go on, if nobody wanted her.’

I actually felt
sorry for her. This woman had tried to steal away my husband, with
his consent of course. But instead of hating her, I just pitied her
situation. ‘She threatened to take her own life?’

‘Nothing
specific,’ he said. ‘Just that she didn’t want to go on.’

‘And what did
you say to that?’

‘I told her we
had to stop what we were doing, that I
wanted
to stop it.
But I didn’t want her to do anything stupid. I asked her to get
help – from a doctor, preferably.’

‘Did she?’

‘Not that I
know of.’

I thought back
to how well she had looked in
Allemandi’s
, just yesterday.
It seemed crazy to think that the measured, cheerful exterior was
masking something altogether more fraught and wounded.

‘There’s
something else,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I think in the
past two weeks, Sophie has been doing things.’

‘Doing things.
What do you mean?’

‘Silent calling
me on my mobile. Sending strange things to the dental
practice…’

‘Like what?’ I
interrupted.

‘Two days ago I
received a letter. There were instructions that only I should open
it, so Elizabeth passed it on to me unopened. Inside was an image
of a heart, which someone had doctored to show blood flowing out of
it. On the back someone had written, “Broken hearted. Only just
started.”

I
shuddered.

‘And then the
other night, the person Max saw in our back garden.’

‘You think that
could have been Sophie?’

‘Of course. I
nearly told you everything then, but it just wasn’t the right time.
I was more concerned that I kept you two safe.’

‘Which is why
you booked the holiday away? So we’d be safe?’

‘Yes. For the
weekend, I knew there would be a lot of miles between us. I know
it’s not rational, that we have to go back to London on Monday, but
I guess I just felt the need to do something.’

Then I thought
of something. ‘The flat tyres. You think that was Sophie, too?’

‘I assume so.
It might just be a coincidence, of course, but I doubt it.’

And then I had
another thought. ‘She knows where we are.’

‘What?’

‘I gave her the
details of where we are staying. I texted her when we were at the
services.’

He looked back
at me in horror.

Bang!
Bang!

I tensed. ‘Was
that someone at the door?’

‘Just the
wind,’ he said.

But he didn’t
look at all convinced.

10

When we
finally did go to bed, at a quarter to one in the morning, James
offered to sleep on the sofa, and I let him. I still didn’t know
how I felt about his admission of infidelity, but I didn’t want him
so close to me that night – even though the storm, and the
lingering thoughts of Elsa Cartwright and Sophie, set me on edge.
You don’t hear your husband tell you he’s had an affair and then
promptly go back to bed with him, as if nothing has happened.

I lay there in
the strange bed, in the isolated cottage by the sea, listening to
the wind and rain battering us. The bed was comfortable, but my
mind was running at full speed, trying desperately to process the
day’s events. To my surprise, when I finally did fall asleep, I was
out cold. And the next time I opened my eyes, it was morning, and
there was sunlight streaming through the curtains. I checked my
watch on the bedside table – half past eight.