Out of My Depth (34 page)

When he saw the car was gone, he cheered up a little. He recognised that this was bad: it was depressing how easily he could make himself overlook the fact that he had, himself, presented her with an enormous glass of rosé with her lunch, and that her breath had already smelled alcoholic. But the fact that she had obviously taken the kids out somewhere lightened his heart. That, he was sure, was a good sign. Amanda never spent time with the children unless she couldn’t avoid it.

It was a sorry state of affairs when he was glad that his wife was drink driving with his kids in the back. That was why he had to take this blasted action.

He fervently wished that Tamsin hadn’t gone to the hospital. He and Tamsin could have had the place to themselves, probably for hours. Patrick laughed at himself, a little. It was a strange feeling, having a crush. It had rarely, if ever, happened to him before. Certainly, it had never happened in his adult life. He was energised by Tamsin. When he thought about her, a thrill ran through his body, like a pleasurable electric shock. He thought again about her hair. Was he strange to find glossy dark hair sexy? He liked the way it emphasised the curve of her neck. He liked it that Tamsin was fit and healthy and knew how to enjoy life. He loved the simple way she dressed and the slight Australian twang when she spoke. He liked her moderation.

Amanda had said that Tamsin used to be the geeky one without a boyfriend. Now that he’d met her, Patrick thought his wife was probably just jealous. He decided to spend his free time lying by the pool with a glass of water and a good book, hoping that the object of his awe would come back before his wife turned up.

Amanda was planning to stay in bed all day She had a bugger of a hangover, and it was Sunday, and there was no chance she was going to do any revision today, not the day after the ball. She half woke, noticed it was light, drank half a pint of water, and curled up to go back to sleep. A swathe of her brain seemed to be pulsing in rhythm with her heart. She decided to take some painkillers. She levered herself up out of bed, and put a foot to the floor in some trepidation. The room spun and bile filled the back of her throat. Sometimes, she remembered, it was not a good idea to drink so much water so quickly, when she was feeling delicate. Sometimes even water could upset the fragile equilibrium within.

Nausea struck. Amanda swallowed hard and ran to the bathroom. Not for the first time, she thanked her lucky stars that she had her own bathroom, up here on the top floor. She made it in time. She doubled up over the loo, and vomited an acidic mix of semi-digested alcohol and chips into the porcelain bowl. Even when she was certain that everything was out, she stayed in position for a minute, gathering her strength and preparing herself to stand up. Sometimes she thought she knew the inside of her loo better than any other part of the house.

Holding the edge of the basin with one hand, she splashed water over her face, then brushed her teeth. She took two paracetamols.

The world felt marginally better. She was glad to have the vodka safely flushed away. Not to mention the chips, which had been ill-advised. She and Suzii had made their taxi stop at Caroline Street so they could fill their stomachs before going home. It had been an entirely unnecessary loading up of thousands of calories, and now some of them were gone. A positive development. Her mouth felt fresh and minty, now. She would have a shower later.

Back in bed, she pulled her duvet back over herself and started drifting. She felt a nagging remorse. What had she done? She had got off with some boy. She did not think she had gone very far with him — certainly not all the way — but she felt guilty about it. She knew she would be hard pushed to pick him out of a police line-up this morning and she had no idea what his name was. She was still nominally going out with Julian, and he would probably hear about this, but that didn’t matter. She was more worried about Dai.

And that, she told herself, was silly. It was ridiculous. Dai would never know that she had pulled after midnight at the school disco, and he probably wouldn’t care if he did know. He knew she still had a nominal ‘boyfriend’. He knew that he was never going to be her boyfriend because of the social gulf between them. He probably got off with other girls. She didn’t want to know about it.

So why, as her head split in two and she waited for the paracetamol to kick in, did she feel that she had just betrayed him? Conversation between the two of them flowed, these days. They no longer just talked about Neighbours. He laughed at her for being posh and took the piss out of the way she said ‘loo’ instead of toilet, and ‘sofa’ instead of settee. She copied his accent, his ‘over by there’ and his ‘where to is it?’ She liked him more than she wanted to like him, and that, she felt, meant trouble.

Everybody in that room had expected her to pull a Cowbridge boy. Suzii had expected her to. She had dressed to pull and drunk to pull, and she had gone through the motions. But in a way she envied Tamsin, who had made no secret of the fact that she hated everything about the ball and had sat grumpily to one side looking at her watch until it was over. Amanda wished she had been strong enough to sit with Tamsin, or to take Dai, or not to go.

She closed her eyes and tried to lull herself back to sleep with her breathing. It must have worked, because when her mother knocked on her bedroom door, she had to pull herself up from warm slumbering depths.

‘Mmmm?’ she asked, not able to open her mouth. The painkillers had kicked in and her head was clearer. She felt fuzzy and shaky, and she knew that would last all day.

‘Amanda?’ said her mother. She opened the door and looked in. ‘Sorry, love.’

Amanda looked at her mother, who was dressed in a floaty cotton dress with flowers on it, and a long cardigan which flapped around her knees. She was wearing lipstick so she must have been to church.

‘What?’ Amanda felt her mother ought to know not to disturb her on a morning like this.

‘Sorry to wake you, darling. It’s Isabelle on the phone.’

Amanda turned over. ‘I’ll call her back.’

Her mother shook her head. ‘Love, it’s urgent. Come on. Get up and talk to Izzy.’

Amanda levered herself out of bed without thinking. Her mind was too blurred for her to register what urgent could mean. She staggered downstairs and picked up the telephone on the hall table. Her mother pressed a hand to Amanda’s shoulder. Amanda shook her off.

‘Izzy?’ Amanda complained. ‘It’s only half ten.’

She waited for Izzy to say something. After a couple of seconds, she heard a strange sound, which turned into a sob. ‘Izzy?’ Amanda asked. ‘Izzy, what is it? What’s happened?’ Suddenly, she was wide awake. ‘Isabelle! What?’

Izzy gulped a couple of times on the other end of the phone. ‘Mrs Grey drove off the road last night. She’s dead.’

Amanda could not compute this. She filed it away for later.

‘What about Tamsin?’ she asked.

‘In hospital. I don’t think she’s badly hurt. I think she’ll be OK.’

‘Jesus.’

And then Amanda realised. She realised that Izzy knew it, and she knew it, and Suzii knew it. There was quite possibly nobody else in the world who knew the simple truth: that this was Amanda and Suzii’s fault, that they had done it, and that they were going to have to live with the guilt for ever.

Amanda was enjoying herself. She was sitting too close to Roman, on the terrace of a smart bar, on the banks of a river. They were drinking champagne, although she was beginning to crave something stronger. And they were chatting in what Amanda thought was a surprisingly normal manner. It had been a while since she had considered herself normal.

‘This woman,’ Roman was saying. ‘She completely wasted Susie’s time. I mean, she’s a nutter. Raving.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s just a weird story that reminds you that there are some very unusual people out there.’ He smiled at her, and Amanda simpered. ‘I mean, Suze spends all her time shut away from the world, painting her pictures. She doesn’t have a great social life here, in France, because she’s not confident enough with the language. She’d be fine if she let herself go. She’s quite happy, I think, with the way it is. But then someone like this kook shows up, crying about her supposed stalker. She’s upset Susie, which she didn’t need right now. I made the woman bloody cry, I can tell you.’

‘Did you? You actually made her cry?’

‘And I’d do it again.’ He changed the subject. ‘So, what are you going to do about your marriage, my dear?’ He peered at her. She thought he was trying to read her mind. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he said, ‘but this morning you gave me the impression you were looking for excitement elsewhere.’

She laughed at how wrong he was. ‘Jeez, Roman. That was a joke. I’m not that kind of a girl.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Seriously, I’m not. Don’t you think I’d take more care of myself if I was out shagging? I honestly haven’t been interested in that kind of thing for ever. Not even with Patrick.’

‘Especially not with Patrick, by the sound of it.’

‘Well, certainly not with anyone else either. And don’t be mean about Patrick. He’s not well, for one thing.’

‘How not well?’

She drained her glass and held it out. She knew she must be very drunk indeed if she was sharing Patrick’s medical secrets. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have said anything,’ she said, as casually as she could. ‘It’s like this great bloody thing we don’t mention, Patrick and I. Banned from being thought about in the assumption and hope that if we ignore it it will go away.’

‘You seem to have a few of those things.’

She scowled. ‘I think Patrick genuinely never gives it a moment’s thought.’

‘“It” being?’

‘Being nothing.’

Roman emptied the champagne bottle into Amanda’s glass. ‘Tell me.’

‘Why?’ She knew she shouldn’t say any more. She knew it. There was no doubt about it: she should say nothing. Roman was not helping.

‘Because I want to know.’

Amanda looked at him. He was not being fair, she knew that, but then, neither was she. She knew she was acting stupidly and dangerously, just by being here. They must have been missed by now, by Patrick and the children at least.

‘And,’ Roman added, ‘because if someone’s ill, ignoring it is the most fucking ridiculous way of dealing with it.’

‘Now, that,’ she told him, ‘is the most sensible thing you’ve said all day.’ She liked the way his T-shirt hung down from his shoulders. The outlines of his muscular torso showed through it. He was in good shape, which wasn’t surprising considering how much exercise he did. For an instant, she thought of Dai.

‘So?’ he asked, leaning forward and staring wickedly into her eyes.

‘Well, he just has these headaches,’ she said, waving it away with a hand. ‘And he’s been going to the doctor about them. He tried to go without telling me, but I found an appointment card and assumed the worst. STDs, I mean. But luckily, no. He’s got a consultant’s appointment next week. I’m sure it’s just a load of fuss over nothing. I mean, everyone gets bloody headaches, don’t they? I know I do. But Patrick’s are apparently worse than everyone else’s. Partly, you know, because he’s male. You guys always have flu when we have colds, don’t you?’

‘Hope it’s nothing serious.’

‘Shut up. We don’t talk about it, do we?’ She knocked back her drink. ‘Come on. I’m leaving you miles behind, you lightweight.’

A waiter, wearing formal black and white, appeared next to them.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, politely. ‘Will you be joining us for dinner this evening?’

Amanda’s French was rusty, and she looked to Roman, who visibly pulled himself together.

‘No thank you,’ he said, in French. ‘We are expected at home. But thank you. Could we have the bill, please?’

Amanda looked at her watch. ‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ she exclaimed, causing the people at the next table to turn round and stare. ‘Quarter to eight! How in the name of Jesus did that happen?’

‘Better get off,’ Roman agreed. ‘Have you got cash?’

Amanda reached for her pocket, before remembering that her dress didn’t have them. ‘Um. Not really, no. I didn’t think about money.’

Roman looked at her, and she saw an element of panic in his eyes. ‘Then we’re up shit creek,’ he said quietly. ‘Because I neglected to take my wallet to the bins with me.’

‘Oh.’

‘Sit here calmly. We can’t do a runner because they know who I am. I haven’t got my phone. Have you got a phone?’ She shook her head. He thought for a moment. ‘OK. There’s a payphone in the lobby. I’m going to have to call Suze and ask her to bail us out. She might be able to pay over the phone, but I’d rather they didn’t know about our cock-up, so I guess she’s going to have to come down here with . . .’ The waiter laid the bill on the table in front of them; an innocuous looking piece of paper tucked into a plastic clip. Roman unfolded the paper. ‘Yes. With sixty-three euros and twelve centimes.’

‘Oh.’ Amanda’s euphoria evaporated.

‘And,’ Roman continued, ‘that is perhaps not the ideal outcome to this situation. I mean, we might not particularly have chosen to make Susie come right here, to see where we slipped away to and to pay for our champagne. It seems a little rude, when she’s done an emergency dash to the hospital.’ He paused. ‘And we don’t even know if Sam’s all right. We are the scum of the earth, Amanda, you and me.’