Chapter 31
Lorna followed him downstairs. ‘So, when you just said about booking another cruise, it wouldn’t be one linked with your job then?’
‘Oh, no, not at all. We could plan it together, a holiday, just you and me.’ He put the suitcase down on the doormat. His violin was already by the door.
‘Just you and me?’ She looked at him. ‘I don’t understand what you mean. It would be just you and me if I’d joined you on this one.’
He suddenly looked flustered. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be. It would be you, me, and the quartet, obviously.’
‘Oh, you socialise with them after work?’
Andrew shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t sit in my cabin all on my own, do I?’
Lorna had no idea what he did on the cruises because he never spoke about them. Why had it never occurred to her to ask what he did with his spare time? ‘Oh, right – so you’re, like, all good friends.’
‘Well, of course. We have worked together as a quartet on cruise ships for years, darling. You know that.’
Lorna stared at him. Was this what it was all about – he didn’t want her meeting his friends? Maybe he didn’t want her to be a part of that life. Why was that? Was he embarrassed by her? She didn’t see how that would be the case. Although she was turning forty this year, she had taken care of herself over the years – unlike her husband.
She was about to speak her mind when Andrew opened the front door to the taxi driver, who was standing outside, about to ring the doorbell.
‘Well, I’d best be off. I’ll see you in six weeks.’ He leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek.
‘Do you need a hand with that, mate?’ The taxi driver pointed at his suitcase.
‘Ah, yes please.’
‘And that?’ The driver pointed at the violin case in Andrew’s hands.
‘Ah, no, I’ll keep hold of that. It’s precious cargo.’
The taxi driver raised his eyebrows. ‘If you say so.’
Lorna started to close the front door. She didn’t want to watch and wave Andrew off like she normally did. It was different this time. She didn’t have work commitments. She wished she hadn’t received the text messages. Regardless of what he did or didn’t want, she’d be accompanying him in that taxi right now to the airport. In fact, after the conversation about his friends in the quartet, she would have been extremely interested to meet them.
She stared after her husband, thinking, Perhaps I will go on one of Andrew’s so-called work cruises, after all, and see what he really gets up to with his friends.
As Lorna closed the front door, she heard the sound of a mobile phone buzz with a text. It wasn’t hers because it was in her hand. She put it down on the table in the hall. She looked up the stairs, then quickly opened the front door wide and caught Andrew just as he was awkwardly climbing in the taxi with the violin case in his hands.
‘Andrew!’ she called out. ‘I think you’ve forgotten your mobile phone!’
‘What?’
She stepped outside. ‘Your mobile!’ she called out again. ‘I think you left it in the bedroom.’
‘Oh right!’ He struggled to get out of the taxi.
‘No, don’t bother coming in. I’ll go fetch it!’
‘No, please don’t!’ Andrew called out, still trying to get out of the back of the taxi with his violin case on his lap.
‘Don’t be stupid!’ Lorna called back. ‘Just give me a second!’
She ran upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. She grabbed the mobile off the bed and caught sight of the leaflet Andrew had given her containing the details of Briony’s research trip, which she’d made a point of discarding on the bed. She picked that up too.
As she walked down the stairs, her eyes on the leaflet, she caught sight of Andrew standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her.
She frowned at him. ‘I told you I’d fetch your phone. You didn’t have to come back in the house. You could have waited in the taxi.’
‘What are you doing?’
Lorna had been caught red-handed with the leaflet. Briony is just busy – that’s the reason she hasn’t been in touch, having too much fun on her adventure. Lorna had tried to convince herself. But still something didn’t sit right. Maybe it was mother’s intuition. And try as she might, that feeling just would not go away.
‘You’re going to phone that number, aren’t you?’
‘So what if I am!’ Lorna replied defensively. It was too late to whip the leaflet behind her back.
‘What happened to, and I quote, “I need to let her go” – hmm?’
Lorna eyed him.
Andrew slowly shook his head from side to side. ‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have given you that leaflet. Just leave her be. She’ll contact us when she’s ready.’
’You don’t know how it feels, Andrew. You’re not—’ Lorna stopped abruptly.
Andrew pursed his lips. ‘Go on, finish the sentence. I’m not …’
Lorna stared at him as she slowly walked down the last three stairs. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘What do you mean, it’s nothing? I want you to finish that sentence … I’m not … go on.’
Lorna stopped in the hallway and dropped her gaze to the floor.
Andrew said, ‘Let me finish that sentence for you – I don’t know how it feels because I’m not a real parent, not a real dad.’
Lorna looked up. ‘You knew what you were signing on for when we married, and we agreed we’d tell her the truth. But you didn’t want that.’
‘I’m her dad. Can you blame me for not wanting her to look at me any differently if she found out the truth?’
Lorna threw her hands in the air. ‘Why do you think I’ve avoided my mum all these years? For you. Because you wouldn’t tell Briony. And the last thing I wanted was for her to find out from my mother.’
‘Oh, right. Put it at my door – your estrangement. I know there’s more to it than that.’
Lorna remained silent.
‘Besides, you went along with it, Lorna. You could have told Briony any time, but you didn’t. And I know why. Because then Briony might want to know who her real father is, and you didn’t want that either. It suited you to leave things as they were.’ Andrew narrowed his eyes. ‘Who is he?’
Lorna looked at him in surprise. ‘Why are you asking me that now? You never wanted to know before.’ She grimaced. ‘I think you should go now.’ She looked at his phone, and was about to hand it over, when she saw the text that had come through. She cocked her head to one side, and read it aloud, ‘Can’t wait to see you.’ Lorna threw him a questioning look.
‘It’s just one of the guys from the quartet.’
‘Oh, really?’ Lorna noticed the person had signed off with their name. ‘Since when does a guy have a girl’s name – Susie?’
Andrew looked at her nervously. ‘It was just a figure of speech, you know. They’re not all actually guys.’
‘So I gather.’
They were interrupted by the taxi driver honking his horn and calling out, ‘If you want to make your flight, we need to leave for the airport now.’
‘Oh, right. Yes, better dash.’
Lorna stared after him. Any thoughts of joining him on that cruise – even if the hospital did get in touch now and it turned out her mother wasn’t at death’s door, and her visit could wait – had vanished the moment she’d read that text.
She stood at the door, watching Andrew get in the taxi. Just before the car took off, he looked out of the window. Their eyes locked. He didn’t wave goodbye. Neither did she.
Lorna turned around, closed the front door, leaned her back against the door, and cupped a hand to her mouth in shock. How long had it been going on – the affair with this woman called Susie? It all made sense now, why he’d never wanted her and Briony to join him on a cruise. And why that one-off cruise had turned into two a year, and then several.
Was Susie married too? What was the plan? Were they going to continue meeting on the cruise ships – just continuing their affair? Or were they waiting for their kids to leave home – assuming this Susie was married and had children – and then drop the bombshell to their respective partners that they’d met someone else, and were leaving?
Lorna rushed into the kitchen, switched on her laptop, and Googled the quartet that was on the cruise ship. She wondered why she’d never done it before. Shre guessed she’d just been too busy with work and with raising her daughter. Now both were gone, and she had time on her hands to figure things out – like her relationship with Andrew.
She knew he loved her daughter. But does he love me? In the beginning, of course he had, otherwise why would he have stayed with her and married her when she’d told him, soon after they’d met at university, that she was pregnant with another man’s child? She’d known even in the beginning that she’d never love him the way he did her. But he’d turned out to be all that she’d hoped for – a loving father and parent to her child. And a loving husband – in the beginning.
But they’d grown apart. She had to acknowledge that. They were going through the motions of being a married couple, a family, but Briony had been the glue that had held them together. Now that she was gone, what was left? A relationship, a marriage built on secrets.
A page appeared on her laptop with photos of the quartet and a brief bio of each musician. There were three men and one woman – Susan. She had thick, long blonde hair down to her shoulders, and bright blue eyes set in a round face. Even though the photo was just head and shoulders, she could tell that like Andrew, Susan carried some weight. But she looked like she carried it rather well. It suited her, as it did Andrew.
Lorna stared at her photo after reading the bio. She had been married since her early twenties. Now in her mid-forties, and recently divorced, she had two children at university and was looking forward to travelling extensively on round-the-word cruises, being off for months at a time.
Lorna sat back in her chair. So, that was the plan. When had he been planning to tell her that?
‘I’m such a fool.’
While she’d been busy taking a leave of absence from her job, putting plans in place to do some travelling with Andrew, starting with a cruise, looking forward to surprising him with her plans for the year they turned forty, Andrew was several steps ahead of her, planning a new life on the ocean waves with Susan. Both had been biding their time until their commitments of raising children were finished and they were free to leave.
Lorna realised that all his talk, a moment earlier, about planning a proper cruise, just you and me, had been just that – talk. He would have said anything just so he could be on his way.
He doesn’t love me anymore.
Lorna knew she should be sitting there, bawling her eyes out, but all she could think was that this was her mother’s fault. If she’d just let me stay at The Beach House with her, and raise my child there, I would never have met Andrew.
Thinking of Briony, Lorna’s eyes drifted to the leaflet containing the details of Briony’s trip. All she wanted to do just then was speak to her daughter, hear her voice, and know she was okay.
Lorna closed the lid of her laptop. She didn’t want to see Andrew or Susan’s smiling faces staring back at her.