Chapter 9
9
C aro picked up the jacquard cushion, plumped it fat again and pushed it back into the corner of the chair, shuffling herself comfortable. As this meeting with Danny Abbot had been scheduled pre-lunch, she could easily get away with ordering a non-alcoholic drink. Danny would barely notice, which was good, because no one knew yet (except Kay and Helen) and she hadn’t even begun to work out how to expand that circle of knowledge.
She picked up her lime and soda and leaned back. A few hundred yards away, framed by the clean blues and whites of an English summer sky, Tower Bridge rose magnificent. With the glass at her lips and the cushion at her back, Caro felt the measure of this perfect moment. She was eight weeks pregnant. Her baby was the size of a kidney bean, its tiny limbs already forming tiny fingers and tiny toes. Ears had budded and eyes too. The formation of another person, in this most ordinary of miracles that she couldn’t quite believe and yet knew from the nucleus of her being was true.
And it was a source of wonder for Caro how, from the very beginning, she had felt those physical changes. How, from the outside, she could feel the miniscule and precisely calibrated alterations, how all those years of controlling and silencing her body through decades of birth control and dietary discipline had melted away in the face of these strange but most welcome upheavals.
In the beginning there was the tingling pins and needles of tender breasts, soon after a dragging fatigue thin as a bridal veil that she just couldn’t shake. And then for weeks the swell of nausea whenever she passed the roasting chicken spit in Sainsbury’s . And coffee. On her first day back at work she’d had to leave her CEO Matt’s office because of the overpowering smell of it.
Still this wasn’t enough. All her life, the only thing Caro had ever really placed her faith in was the tangible proof of her own endeavours; a sudden dislike of roasting chicken wasn’t going to convince her that this latest and most hard-won dream might be accomplished. So the steely will that had steered her career kicked into action and for the first time in her life she had ignored her symptoms. Coming back from Cyprus, fourteen days passed and she wasn’t even tempted to take a test. Then, on the morning of the fifteenth day, she had stood in her bathroom and watched the stick perform exactly how she had been expecting it to. After, it was with a sense of serenity that she had dressed and gone to work. It had all come together. All the decisions and choices Caroline Hardcastle of Artillery Terrace had made over the last thirty years slotting into place now like a celestial jigsaw.
But telling Matt, her CEO? Or her team? She wasn’t quite sure how that fitted. Let alone her mother. No, she wasn’t sure at all.
She turned her head to the sun and closed her eyes. She would just have to be open and honest. Why not? Sunlight seeped through the thinly porous skin of her eyelids as she took a deep breath. Worrying about other people’s reactions was like trying to shut out the sun and why would she try to do that? On a day like today, why would she do that? She lifted her chin higher, kept her eyes closed and soaked up the moment.
* * *
Looking around at the primary-coloured furniture and the huge blue Welcome sign in the bank entrance, Helen had a wobble. She hadn’t been inside for years. It looked more like the Holiday Inn than a place to do business. On the far wall stood a row of sleekly curved ATMs, framed either side by displays of brochures. Straight ahead, guarding a corridor that obviously led into the bank, stood a young girl dressed head to toe in navy blue and clutching a blue clipboard.
I’d love to help! read the blue sign next to her. And obviously she did love to, because despite the increasing irritation in the face of the customer she was currently helping, an elderly man in a lemon-coloured short-sleeved shirt, the smile never left her face.
Helen wandered over to the brochures, idly reading through the titles: Protect Yourself, Your Money, Reach Your Goals. Nothing as exciting as Learn to Sail she considered with a smile as she picked up the Reach Your Goals leaflet. It seemed the most appropriate.
‘I would prefer not to discuss that here!’ The customer in the lemon shirt grumbled and he turned around and glared at Helen.
Startled, she stuck her nose in the leaflet.
‘Certainly, sir,’ the I’d love to help! girl said, ‘but if you could just tell me how much you were looking?—’
‘Young lady!’ the man snapped. ‘I’ve been banking here since before you were born. When I say I have no wish to discuss my financial affairs in front of every Tom, Dick and Harry that is what I mean!’
Still pretending to read, Helen took a step back. Any further away and she’d be through the window. As the only other customer in the place, she was obviously Tom, Dick and Harry all rolled into one, but she wasn’t offended. On the contrary, the wobble she’d experienced coming through the door evaporated. And having no wish either to discuss her financial affairs in front of Toms and Dicks, she was now keenly interested in where this conversation would go. The whole forced make-yourself-at-home, let’s-all-discuss-it-together vibe 21st-century banking had obviously adopted wasn’t helpful. Confessors got more privacy.
‘Is it too much to ask for a little privacy these days?’ the man huffed.
Hallelujah, Helen thought. He’d read her mind.
And the girl looked at her clipboard. ‘There’s… I…’ Then, ‘I’ll just go and see if anyone’s free to help.’ And she turned and hurried off down the corridor.
Three minutes later, with the lemon-shirted man whisked off down secret passageways, and the I’d love to help! girl back on guard duty, it was Helen’s turn.
‘I want to set up a bank account,’ she said quietly. Behind her the Holiday Inn was filling up with Toms and Dicks and Harrys.
‘Certainly, madam,’ the girl said, one arm already raised to guide Helen to a computer perched atop a high desk next to the ATMs. ‘I can assist?—’
‘Not here,’ Helen said firmly. ‘I’d like to do it in person. With someone.’
The girl stared at her.
‘ In person ,’ Helen repeated.
‘I understand, but it’s a very simple?—’
Helen shook her head.
‘But it’s very simple,’ the girl said hopelessly.
‘In person.’ Helen smiled. ‘Could you see if someone is free?’ If someone’s free! Now that she’d gotten this far she could see further down the corridor to where at least two staff members sat staring at screens. On Facebook probably.
‘We even have an app,’ the girl tried. ‘All you need to do is take a selfie.’
Helen smiled.
‘No?’
‘No.’
The girl turned and headed away down the corridor. Helen watched her go. It wasn’t that simple; she didn’t have the app and the very last thing she needed right now was for her financial laxity to be hung out and displayed in front of Toms and Dicks and Harrys and I’d love to helps! and everyone else who happened to be strolling in off the high street.
* * *
‘ Caro! You star!’ The voice that boomed across the terrace was so loud it created a shadow.
Startled, Caro opened her eyes.
And there was Danny Abbott, looming over her in a blinding white shirt and mirrored sunglasses that reflected back her own startled expression.
‘Danny.’ Instinctively Caro sucked her stomach in as she stood up. Why was she doing that? She wasn’t even showing.
‘Caro! Blimey, you look well.’ Danny grabbed her shoulders and landed a smacker either side of her face. ‘This is Emir,’ he said and turned to a man standing behind him.
‘Emir.’ Caro swallowed down her surprise. She knew Emir was coming, that was the whole point of the meeting. And she knew he was young. But this young? ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said and held her hand out, wincing as Emir shook it firmly. His jaw was so square it could have been cut by a laser machine. He was wearing a leather jacket and jeans that screamed ￡￡￡￡.
‘Shall we…?’ she said, indicating the sofa and chair opposite.
Emir took the chair and Danny fell back into the low sofa without even checking it was there, which reminded Caro of the trust exercises she’d played as a child – lean back, eyes closed, arms crossed and hope the group will catch you – the exercise she’d never been able to do without cheating. Because what if no one was there?
‘Another one, Caro?’ Danny said. He’d turned to wave down a waiter.
She mouthed a no indicating her still full glass.
‘Really?’ He turned to her. ‘Not like you,’ he smiled and a huge dimple in his right cheek seemed to wink at her.
Caro smiled back, small and tight. ‘I'm meeting some friends for lunch,’ she said. ‘Need to pace myself.’ She was long practised in the little white lies needed to keep her clients happy.
‘Amongst them your friend Helen?’ Danny asked.
Caro nodded.
‘Sailing Helen?’
‘Sailing?’ Caro frowned.
‘I spoke to her on the phone, remember? When you were away. Cyprus, was it?’
She nodded.
‘That’s right. She told me all about a sailing lesson she’d just had, and,’ he turned to Emir, ‘gave me a right bollocking.’
Emir laughed. ‘I can’t imagine that.’
‘She did. Very protective she was about you, Caro.’
‘Well…’ Colouring, Caro reached for her briefcase. The memory of that day, coming back from the fertility clinic full of fragile hopes, was raw. She’d felt so protected, by both Helen and Kay. Perhaps more than at any other point in her life. It still moved her.
‘Anyway!’ Danny stretched back, one leg swung over the other, the embellishment on his black Hermes loafers shining like fresh liquorice. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well. That holiday must have worked wonders.’
Caro smiled. Yes it had: the biggest wonder of all. ‘Shall we get started?’ she said, and pulled out a file of papers. She wouldn't have scheduled this meeting if she'd had any other choice. Saturday meetings weren’t normal at all, but Danny Abbott was notoriously hard to pin down. For three weeks now, she’d been trying to fix this introduction to his friend and possible new client, Emir. She didn’t need long. A quick elevator pitch before lunch. Time enough to whet Emir’s interest and get him committed to a more detailed presentation later. Quality time that is, with no distractions. Specifically, no Helen-shaped distractions. She felt her stomach fold over itself, soft dough under strong hands. Danny, Helen, the pregnancy, it wasn’t a combination she felt comfortable with.
‘Why not?’ Emir shrugged now and all the buttery softness of his expensive leather jacket shrugged with him.
‘Are you meeting here?’ Danny drawled.
Caro nodded. ‘So,’ she said, her voice tight. ‘Shall we?—’
‘I have to meet this woman.’ Danny had turned to Emir. ‘She’s the reason I bought my yacht.’
Emir nodded, weaving his fingers together. ‘ The Catalina ?’
‘Yep!’
A waiter arrived, bearing mineral water for Emir and a Pilsner for Danny.
Danny leaned forward and scooped a handful of the accompanying bowl of nuts into his palm. ‘Best thing I’ve done in years,’ he said. ‘I'd like to thank her.’
‘Shall we?’ Caro said.
And Danny tipped his chin to the sky, elbows and knees wide as a starfish. ‘Off you go, Caro. Stage is all yours.’
* * *
‘You do realise you could have done all this online?’
Helen nodded lamely. What was the point of arguing? Besides, she was past the gatekeeper, had been ushered down the hallowed interior, into a nearly private cubicle, and was face to face with a real person. Well, semi-real. The young woman she’d been assigned had the usual high-gloss finish once only seen on cinema screens. Blown-out lips, marker-pen eyebrows, foot-long lashes. Willing herself not to stare, Helen opened her handbag and took out her passport and her marriage certificate and three Marks they should be sitting quite comfortably. Certainly she was. Every time she’d put her card in, money had come out. And it wasn’t as if she was running around buying designer handbags and having expensive facials, but she didn’t blink at the price of unfiltered olive oil and she never allowed herself to run out of Clarins Day Cream. Four hundred pounds? Had it ever been lower than that? How close had she come to handing her card over and having it refused? Her fiftieth birthday lunch had cost the best part of a hundred pounds. And Cyprus? Yes, Caro had paid for the hotel, but her flights had been nearly two hundred. So, how close had she come? And how hadn’t she known? She’d been blind. Walking along the precipice of a vertical drop, blindfolded. Swallowing down the angry confusion she was feeling, she said quietly, ‘How about this time last year? Can you go back that far?’ Because an idea was forming. Just a little niggle of a thought, standing on the horizon of her mind, waving its tiny arms determined not to be ignored. Well, it needn't worry, she was past the point of ignoring niggles. They only grew up to become loud insistent scolds.
‘Yes. Of course.’
And a few taps later…
‘There!’ Helen cried. ‘That’s the mortgage! That’s what it should be.’ She was pointing to a figure less than half the amount of what had been going out of their joint account for… For how long? She had, she realised, no idea. The last five months at least.
‘Yes,’ the woman tapped away. ‘Yes, it seems to be.’
Helen leaned back in her chair. ‘So when did it change?’
‘I’ll find out.’
But she already knew. Or she could give a pretty close guess. Everything was slotting as neatly into place as the clicks on a Rubik’s Cube.
‘The first time I can see the increase is the eighteenth of November last year.’
Helen nodded. ‘So how much has my husband re-mortgaged our house for?’ She watched as a strange expression flowed across the woman’s face, a mixture of surprise followed by astonishment, which was immediately shut down by something else. Sympathy? Probably. Wouldn't she herself, after all, feel sympathy for someone who'd been docile enough to get into this position?
The women looked at her screen and then back to Helen and then back at her screen. ‘The mortgage wasn’t in your joint name?’ she said, unable to meet Helen's eye.
Chin set, head high, Helen shook her head. Like bubbles escaping a bottle, she could see the next question already forming on this smart young woman’s lips. The question that would never be asked. Why?
And the answer, of course, that would never be offered, was because she had allowed it. That’s why.
The woman picked up her pen and tapped it against her lip. ‘I can’t access that information she said, but –’ and she glanced at Helen – ‘I can use our mortgage calculator if you like? It might give you a rough idea.’
Helen smiled. ‘Yes, please.’ But she had the feeling that her own internal calculator would be more accurate. The amount Lawrence had taken would be in the region of a hundred thousand pounds. As the woman tapped at her keyboard, Helen glanced up at the clock and looked away again without registering what the time was. A hundred-thousand-pound re-mortgage. A loan, using their biggest asset as collateral because on paper it was only his biggest asset. Without even mentioning it to her? Her intestines shredded to confetti. So did her mind. Like looking through a kaleidoscope, she couldn’t get two single ideas to hook together. So as the woman tapped, she began to lay it down brick by brick, measuring out each thought with her fingers on the table. One finger: their joint account had barely four hundred pounds in it. Two fingers: this was because the mortgage repayments had doubled. Three fingers: this was something she’d known nothing about. Four fingers… So where did that leave her now? And why hadn’t she known? Or more to the point, why hadn’t he told her? Or even more to the point, why why why! hadn’t she made it her business to know!
‘It could be as much as?—’
‘A hundred thousand,’ Helen finished.
The woman nodded. ‘If it's been a fairly short-term loan. Which given the age of…’ She stopped talking and pressed her pen to her lips and looked at her screen. ‘I have a friend,’ she said, ‘who once saw her house for sale in the paper.’
Helen looked up.
‘She was a bit surprised.’
‘Who?’
‘My friend. She thought they owned it. But it turned out it was rented all along.’
Helen blinked. She felt like a Polo mint, punched out in the middle by the demands of a day which had barely past its eleventh hour.
The woman put her pen down and pressed her fingertip over the fallen lash. ‘My friend’s husband used to drive around in Porsches, BMWs, the lot. We all thought he owned them as well, but he was just picking them up and delivering them from A to B.’ She shrugged, made a small turn and wiped the lash clear, letting it drop into the bin. ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘there’s a lesson in there somewhere.’
‘My husband’s not into cars,’ Helen said dully. She looked at the single lash in the otherwise clean bin. ‘Are they fake? she asked.
‘Extensions.’
‘Right.’
The woman raised her hand and touched a finger to her lashes. ‘They fix them to your own lashes.’
Helen nodded…
‘Instead of mascara.’
… and kept nodding.
‘So… Is there anything else I can help you with today?’
‘Mountains,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Mountains are my husband’s thing. The thirty-three-thousand-foot-high, one-hundred-thousand-pound type of mountain.’