Out of My Depth (36 page)

‘Oh, gosh no,’ said Patrick. ‘No, that would certainly not cross Amanda’s mind. She has her faults, but liking sex too much is certainly not one of them!’ He half smiled. ‘Sorry. So what ought we to do?’

I shrugged. ‘I’ll try Roman’s mobile, but even if it’s with him, it won’t be switched on.’ I tried. It wasn’t. Neil Barron called back. I hung up on him before he got past the word ‘It’s’.

There was only one possible course of action, and that was to carry on without them. I could barely drag myself into the kitchen. I was sick of doing all this. My guests had been here for less than two days, and I was fed up. I had imagined myself a perfect hostess, tending to the needs of grateful friends, but in fact I was a slave. I was everything you didn’t see at hotels, everything that children took for granted. For the second night in a row, I was going to present a three-course meal. I wished I had taken them out for pizza.

I busded around the kitchen, imagining what Roman might be saying about me to Amanda, my old best friend. I knew he used me as a cashpoint. I knew our relationship suited both of us for different reasons. He kept me insulated from the world and from taking risks, and I funded his lifestyle and allowed him to do exactly what he pleased. It was a complex unspoken arrangement; and the trouble was, I really did love him and I wanted more. I thought that he had made it clear, over the years, that he didn’t.

I had been too scared to be alone here. Now, suddenly, I was ready. I wanted more than Roman would ever give me. I was furious with him.

‘Izzy?’ I called. She appeared in the kitchen next to me. I pointed to the pot of salted vinegary water on the stove. ‘When that boils, can you throw the langoustines in?’ I said, grimly. ‘They’re washed and drained. Just chuck them in. I’m just going to do something upstairs.’

Izzy put her arm round my shoulders and pulled me close to her. For once, I relaxed.

Are you packing his stuff?’ she asked softly.

I nodded. She squeezed me. ‘Do what feels right,’ she said, ‘but don’t be too hasty.’

‘How can it work,’ I muttered into her shoulder, ‘when he doesn’t know about my baby? And when he won’t let me have another? And when he won’t talk about five years’ time because he won’t be tied down?’

‘Do what you have to do,’ she said.

Once I started packing, I almost enjoyed myself. I sacrificed two of my biggest cases, and used all of his backpacks. In went his pants. In went his T-shirts, his socks, his trousers and fleeces and shorts. Old stuff, painting clothes, designer items, favourite shirts. I threw it all in. It felt good. It was time for us both to move on. There was a lot to work out, a lot of explaining for me to do. I knew that I wasn’t being fair on Roman. He wasn’t evil. He was just Roman, and I’d always known what he was like. He had never pretended to want to marry me or to want us to have a family, or anything. He had always made it clear that he liked a life where he could play hard and, well, play hard. He loved his dangerous sports, and he loved his food and drink and relaxation. Nothing was going to curtail those pursuits. A baby would have forced him to grow up, and he wasn’t ready for that.

We had never even hinted at the idea of growing old together. I had not, until now, given it much thought, but now that I did, I supposed that I had always felt that as long as I kept myself thin and fit, and as long as I kept earning, I would get to keep Roman. I knew that he would drift off when I was fat, or older, or poorer, or simply when he had a better offer. I had always quite liked that about him. I had enjoyed not being single, and I had enjoyed his company. He was fiercely attractive.

I had never opened up to him. It was not his fault that he wasn’t psychic.

Still, he could go now. He was out with Amanda and I was humiliated.

I stopped my frenzied packing when I realised that the langoustines would be long cooked and that my guests, the considerate ones, were probably embarrassed. I paused. At that moment, there was a gentle knock on the bedroom door.

‘Hello?’ I said.

It was Izzy. I looked at her and she smiled back. ‘OK?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Sorry.’

‘I didn’t cook the shellfish because if they only take five minutes, I thought it might be better to wait a while. Until we were ready.’

‘Until I was ready.’

‘It’s not as if there’s any hurry. We’re still two people down.’

I zipped shut the backpack I was packing and dropped it from the bed to the floor, where it sat on top of three other bags. ‘He can pack the rest of his stuff himself,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to try to be grown up about this. Amicable.’ A thought occurred to me, and I looked at Izzy. ‘What’s everyone doing down there? How are they?’

‘Oh, fine,’ she said, sitting down on the bed. ‘Patrick gazing at Tamsin. Kids embarrassed by him. God, Susie, I do envy you all this. This room is perfect.’

‘Yeah, it’s nice, for what that’s worth. Luckily absolutely everything is in my name.’ I wondered whether Amanda had crashed the car, drunk. I wondered whether Roman would have done anything to stop her.

‘Izzy?’ I said. ‘I’d love to have a look on Roman’s computer. To see if I’ve got any reason for being mad at him.’ I screwed up my face. ‘What do you think? Would it be terrible?’

Izzy raised her eyebrows. I was getting used to her new look. She looked nice, because her face was kind. I realised how few friends I actually had.

‘Of course it wouldn’t be terrible,’ she said, carefully. ‘I imagine that technically speaking it’s your computer anyway. But what would you be looking for?’

I stood up. ‘Emails. Websites. Come on. Upstairs is going to surprise you.’

I knew Roman wasn’t there, but I still half expected to find him downloading music or checking the tide times. I switched the light on at the bottom of the stairs, and Izzy followed me up. The attic still surprised me. I hardly ever went up there because, although he never said so, I knew that Roman didn’t like me there. I didn’t like him in my studio, either, so I could hardly argue. He had painted the cheap floorboards white, and, to my annoyance, I noticed that the original beams, which held the roof up to its point, were now white too. The boards that insulated between tiles and beams were, naturally, white. Even though it was clouding over, light flooded in through the Velux and dormer windows that looked out in three directions. The room glared. Roman kept his attic scrupulously organised. I sighed when I saw his climbing harness and ropes on the floor next to the window. He had been abseiling to the terrace again. He was like a child.

I switched the computer on and looked at Izzy.

‘Bloody hell,’ she said, eyes wide. ‘This is his? Sam would give anything for a playroom like this. Susie, your house is wonderful, but this is the best room in it. Why isn’t your studio up here?’

I smiled. ‘Because the light would be wrong.’

‘The light’s wonderful!’

‘Not for me.’ I stopped and thought about it. The light would be wrong had long been my excuse, but I wondered whether it was actually true. If I positioned myself correctly, I could harness the light, and it could be perfect. ‘Actually, you’re right,’ I admitted. I felt sad. ‘I’m very happy with my studio outside, but you’re right. Roman took this attic over without asking twice. In fact he bagsied it the first time we looked at the house.’

I tried to imagine what I would do here without him. I would not be able to speak to the neighbours properly. I’d have to translate all the paperwork and take care of it. I would be lost. Then the beginnings of an idea started forming. I asked before I had time to think it through, because I didn’t want the moment to pass.

‘Izzy?’ I said, casually, opening Roman’s email and scanning down his in-box. ‘Would Sam like this playroom? Would he like to go to French school? Would you and Sam like to move in with me?’

The phone started ringing. I ignored it. Someone downstairs would get it.

Patrick didn’t know what was going on, so he put all his energies into Jake and Freya. They lapped up the attention. Freya kept remembering new moments from their adventure.

‘One time I got on Jake’s shoulders,’ she said. ‘And I made myself as tall as I could but I still couldn’t see anything. Dad, I was so scared.’

‘Poor Freya,’ he said. He patted her on the shoulder, not really knowing what else to do. He paced around the dining room again, swamped by guilt. What did it say about them that not a single adult in the house had missed them? It was, of course, none of Tamsin’s business. Nor Susie’s, nor Isabelle’s, and certainly nothing to do with that Roman bastard. It was Patrick’s own fault; his and Amanda’s. He was trying not to think about it too hard. Any blasted thing could have happened to them. Right now, they could have been lying unconscious in the field, and he would not be missing them. He would still be feeling vaguely pleased that Amanda had taken them out for pizza.

And he worked so damned hard, he spent so little ‘quality time’ with his children, that it was particularly remiss of him to have overlooked the fact that, when he was, for once, in charge of them during daylight hours, they were missing and scared, lost in a strange country. He was a shoddy father.

And, even worse, his wife was a dreadful mother. He was certainly going to have to confront her. He just wished she would come back now, so he could get it over with.

‘How about a bath?’ he suggested, as both children came to the end of their second large helpings of pasta.

He saw them looking at each other.

‘A bath?’ echoed Jake, frowning. ‘Dad, it’s a bit hot for a bath.’

He looked outside. It was a bit hot, Jake was right. It felt humid, too. Sticky. Not bath weather at all.

‘Well, a shower then,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ Jake agreed. ‘We reek. We need a shower.’

‘I’m having the upstairs bathroom,’ Freya said, leaping up.

And I’m having some ice cream,’ Jake told her, with a winner’s smile.

The phone was ringing. Tamsin and Patrick looked at each other, waiting for Susie to answer it. Neither of them knew exactly where she was. It carried on ringing. Tamsin stood up and went to look for it.

‘Bonjour?’ Patrick heard her say, in one of the sitting rooms. ‘No, it’s her friend Tamsin . . . Oh. Hello, Roman. Mmm. No, not quite sure where Susie is, actually. I thought she was in the house but she didn’t answer the phone. Patrick? Yes. Sure.’

Tamsin came back to the dining room, holding a cordless phone out to him. ‘It’s Roman,’ she said, making a quizzical face. ‘He says he needs to speak to you.’

‘Oh, Christ Almighty,’ Patrick said. ‘Roman?’ He didn’t know what tone to adopt with Roman. He knew the man sneered at him. Roman was the kind of man he, Patrick, would never willingly spend any time with. He didn’t have the faintest idea how to get any rapport going with this sort of man. Their lives could only possibly have overlapped via their wives.

‘Yeah.’ Roman’s voice was lazy. ‘Look, Patrick, we need your help. That OK? Could you come in my car? Keys are in the white bowl on the end of the kitchen shelf nearest the door. My car, not Susie’s. Yeah? Bring some cash if you would. Be doing us a big favour. Then, what you do, you turn left at the top of the street . . .’

Patrick had written the instructions down. He was not happy, but he had no choice about bailing out his wayward wife and the vile Roman. He followed his orders to the letter, driving slowly and nervously, knowing that he had drunk too much. Tamsin had offered to go with him, but something in him had shrunk away from that. It seemed perverse to turn up with this enchanting woman to collect his wife from her careless liaison with a smarmy Frenchman. That would have been tantamount to an admission that the marriage was a sham. Tamsin had made him a strong coffee and had offered to look after the children and make sure they went to bed, while he headed off to see exactly where Amanda had disappeared to.

The fact that it was a hotel was a nasty surprise. He parked outside, in the town square, and noticed that the sky had clouded right over. The air felt static, as if it were about to rain rather hard. He walked fast, knowing that already he was starting to sweat, into the lobby of the hotel. It was a chic little place; exactly the sort of venue to please Amanda. There was a woman sitting behind the reception desk who turned a bored gaze, assessed him, and smiled dutifully. She was blonde and improbably skinny, with heavy make-up on. He wasn’t quite sure what to say to her.

'Où est le bar ici?' he tried.

The woman said nothing. She just pointed through the double doors at the far end of the foyer, and he walked slowly, not quite wanting to see either of them. Behind him, a telephone rang, and the woman answered it.

The bar was on a terrace next to a wide river. On the other side, willow branches dipped into the water, and a few wooden boats bobbed gently up and down. Patrick scanned the customers, feeling like a fool. He noticed the first drops of rain disturbing the surface of the river.

Amanda and Roman were at a table in the corner. When Patrick looked at them, Amanda caught his eye for a fraction of a second, and looked away, pretending she hadn’t seen him. She stared, instead, at the drink in front of her. It was something clear, in a tumbler. Something potent, no doubt. Roman, Patrick thought, genuinely hadn’t seen him, and was watching Amanda drinking at the same time as searching for something in the pocket of his trousers. There was a dark blue bowl in front of them with three peanuts and a coating of salt left on the bottom.