Chapter 23
23
I n the end it was easy.
In the end all she had to do, was open her phone and send the text.
This is me and I’m in town for today only.
And then another to Tomasz.
Matt called. Crisis with the offering. He’s asked if I can come in. It’s lucky I was here. I should make it back, but I’ll be late. I’ll order a taxi. Don’t wait up.
She didn’t stop to ask why she was doing what she was doing. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to say. Wouldn’t have been able to explain how it didn’t matter that she wasn’t in competition with Helen anymore, because she was, and always would be, in competition with herself. Perhaps she had thought it was over? Felt the distance was run? ‘Beautiful,’ the bridal assistant had said and for the first time in her life, Caro had looked in the mirror and believed that too. And surely it was then that peace could have been made? A truce between the awkward child she had been, and the woman she was now. ‘There’s a glow about you, ’ Kay had said. ‘An aura.’ The glow of a woman loved. The aura of a woman who – at last – was comfortable in her skin, confidence and pheromones oozing because she was, finally, beautiful.
Like Helen had been when they first met. Helen, who had blown Caro away with her easy confidence and natural beauty. Who had turned every head when she walked into a room. Who could and did have her pick, had her fun, in this one and only life.
All this, unexamined and unthought, stoked the engine that had Caro taking a taxi from Helen’s flat to her own, where she showered and changed and was, within another hour, walking onto the terrace of the Langmere Riverside Hotel where shiny beautiful people, with good skin and deep pockets were enjoying the sunshine. A world in which for the first time in her life she truly felt she belonged.
And who would not want to test that? Who would not, just once, want to turn heads? Bask in the sunny uplands they had long coveted? Which was all she was doing. That’s why she was here, to do a little sunbathing, to test the water after all, dip a toe and nothing more. Drinks with a handsome man, on a sun-dappled terrace, by a river that had seen so much worse.
Spencer was waiting by the bar wearing that enigmatic smile and an exquisitely cut shirt. Watching every step she took.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he said and looked at a watch worth upwards of thirty thousand pounds. ‘Although it is a little early.’
‘It’s five o’clock somewhere,’ she joked. And a few minutes later as he handed her a glass of champagne, deliberately letting the back of his hand brush the back of her hand, she felt the explosion of desire in her stomach. ‘Cheers.’ She lifted her glass to her lips. One drink. That’s all.
‘Cheers.’ He had raised his own glass, and was looking at her over the rim, his eyes drilling through flesh, easy as a knife through butter. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said.
As she struggled to hold his eye, her hands tightened around the stem of her glass. No-one had ever said that to her before. Not once.
‘I’m hoping.’ He smiled. ‘That you don’t have a train this time.’
Returning the smile, she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. She had changed into a sleek summer wrap-over, a dress that showed her legs, that, sitting like this, rose high above her knees. She sipped her champagne and watched his eyes travel up her thighs, her stomach squeezing as she imagined his hands doing the same. Her whole body tingled with excitement, with the awareness of a power that was as extraordinary as it was novel. Often, standing upright, suited and buttoned, she’d been aware of the power she held over men. But that was cold, hard-earned and hard-edged; a power that came from being better prepared, and confident of the win. A power that stayed tame, confined as it was to the office or the boardroom. Nothing like this, nothing at all.
She felt as if she had stepped through the looking glass. A newly discovered land in which she was queen indeed, with knights like Spencer Cooper in the palm of her hand. And with his Rolex watch and his tailored shirt, Spencer Cooper was a knight of such calibre that Caroline Hardcastle of Artillery Terrace, would never have dared throw her handkerchief at. The decision was hers. She held all the cards.
Ah, but I’m afraid I do have a train to catch, she could say, allowing his disappointment to pool at her feet.
‘Not this time,’ was what she said. ‘No train this time.’
The second drink they took up in Spencer’s room.
The third drink Spencer poured wearing a white towel around his waist, his hair wet from the shower. His waistline held the shape of a rubber-ring, his back was covered with moles and, as Caro put her glass down on the bedside table and poured herself a tumbler of water instead, her arms were molten lead. What had she done? Underneath his amour, Spencer Cooper was a pale and heavy man. A phrase, she was thinking as she pulled the sheets around her knees, that could have described the sex. Pale, heavy and disappointing.
‘Shall I order typical something else?’ Spencer said, nodding at her untouched champagne.
‘No.’ She shook her head, watching as he took clean underwear from a drawer and went into the bathroom. Above her head an air-conditioning unit hummed, and across the room she could see herself in the large wall mirror, naked and small, adrift in an ocean of white sheets. She wanted to grab her clothing and run away, but she couldn’t move. She felt dull to the point of inertia. And where would she run to anyway? Where could she go that would rid her of the sight of his pale and hairy bottom, take away the weight of guilt filling every pore.
Besides, Spencer was acting as if there was nothing to run from. He was up, opening another bottle from the fridge, showering, as if this was something he was wholly accustomed to. As if he were only tidying up before the cleaners came. The water in her mouth doubled in volume, became such a lump she had to put her hand to her throat to help it down. Spencer, she understood, wasn’t acting. This was something he was wholly accustomed to, and there had been no pretence. A rush of selfish desire had taken them from the bar to his room, to bed, where two middle-aged people had had pale and heavy sex. He hadn’t put his arms around her and pulled her close. He hadn’t stroked the small of her back, he hadn’t pushed her hair behind her ear or looked into her eyes or kissed her neck. They had fucked. And after, he had got up and asked her if he should order something else, because he was the type of man who had the means to be able to order something else.
The bathroom door opened. ‘Are you going to shower?’ he said, pulling a shirt on.
Tumbler in hand, Caro looked up. He wasn’t a knight, and she had never been a queen.
‘It’s just …’ That smile came back, the manipulative self-awareness of a man, pulling a woman’s strings. ‘It’s just that I have an appointment at six.’
In other words, it’s time for you to leave. In other words, I hold the cards now. In other words, … in other words …. She didn’t get to the end of the thought. Scooping the sheet around her body she stood up and took the first step into fifteen blurred minutes of excruciation. A brief episode in which parts of her mind were utterly scrambled and other parts ordered with precision.
‘We could share a taxi?’ he said, as she stood dressed by the door.
This was all she would ever be able to remember, whenever she tried to touch upon a scar of time that never managed to heal, one kaleidoscopic moment.
Numb, she shook her head. ‘I really have to get going.’
Spencer put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. ‘That was fun,’ he said. ‘Look me up if you change your mind? I’ll take you for cocktails at One World. Show you the view of my town.’
‘Change my mind?’ Confusion swept through Caro like a flood. Had she mis-read the situation?
‘Matt told me you were leaving the city?’ He smiled.
‘Of course,’ she managed. And turning to go, she stopped. ‘Did he also tell you why I was leaving?’
‘Yes.’ Spencer nodded. ‘Yes, he did.’
‘And you still sent me that text?’
‘Which you answered,’ he said.