Chapter Thirteen #2
Was this some sort of joke? Some meaningless flirtation? Wishful thinking on Ed’s part? Surely, it must have been. He fancied Caroline, I knew that. He made no secret of it. But to send her a card? And why did she keep it? She must have hidden it. Why?
Did this mean something to her as well? Were they…?
No, impossible. I’m not buying that. There has to be some other explanation. There must be.
I whirl and run from the room, narrowly avoid pitching headfirst down the stairs in my mad rush to escape. At the front door I stop, turn on my heel, and march back upstairs. I grab Ed’s card from the bed, leave the rest scattered there. I march out, slamming the door behind me.
Back in my kitchen I prop the card on the table and stare at it. My initial shock receding, I sift back through my recollections of Caroline and Ed, both separately and together. Did I ever see…? Were there any clues? Am I reading more into a silly birthday card than there really was?
Ed worked from home. I was out at work all day back then, commuting to Leeds and back.
Conveniently out of the way. Caroline worked part-time as a driving instructor.
Most of her pupils wanted lessons at weekends or in the evenings so she was often here all day too.
They had no shortage of opportunity. But even so.
I wish Ewan were here. He’d know what to do, what to think. He’d be able to make sense of this.
Or would he? Why should he find sense where there is none?
And now they’re gone, both of them long gone. No one to ask. No way to know.
Do I want to know?
Yes! I have to. Need to.
An hour later I’m still glaring at that lump of black paper. How can something so trivial, so unimportant, so fleeting, carry such significance? Damning evidence, that on its own means nothing. Tells me nothing. And everything. There must have been more. Some clue, some… some something left behind.
If only I’d known, suspected. I could have searched her room.
If there had been any sign, any residual trace of Ed left behind there, I could have found it.
But even if there was, Mike probably has it now; he took her personal possessions.
I toy with the notion of phoning him, asking him to come back so I can check through his boxes, his memories of his only sister.
Or maybe I could go to his hotel—he mentioned he’s staying at the Holiday Inn in Bradford.
I dismiss that notion. What would I say? That I believe his sister might have been screwing my husband, and could I just rifle through her things to find some way to prove it?
Hardly.
That just leaves…
I dial Ewan’s number, hoping that he won’t be tied up in a meeting, or in a dead zone somewhere. The connection takes half a minute to navigate the stratosphere and finally reach him. I hear the dial tone, and close my eyes.
Please be there. Please answer.
“Hi, darling. All go okay with Mike?”
“Ewan? Sir?”
“Faith? Are you alright? You sound upset.”
“Can you talk? I mean, I’m not disturbing you, am I?”
“Of course I can talk. What’s wrong? Is it something to do with Mike?”
“Yes. No. I found something. In Caroline’s room.”
“Yeah? What? What did you find?”
“Birthday cards.”
“I see. Cards. Cards she was going to send?” His voice is level, enquiring. It’s easy for him.
“No. Her cards, from her birthday. Just before she died.”
“Right. Okay. It was her twenty-eighth birthday a couple of months earlier. I missed it because I was away.”
“Did you send her a card?” I think I probably know the answer to that already, but I ask anyway. I trust Ewan, and I’ve already seen the evidence of Ed’s deceit with my own eyes, but still I need to hear him dispel any last shred of doubt that might remain.
“Of course.”
“What did it say on it?”
“How the fuck should I remember? It’s over a year ago now. Anyway, you won’t have found that. It was an e-card. Unless she printed it off, I suppose, though I don’t see why she would.”
“An e-card? You sent an e-card? Not a proper one, a black card with a heart on it? A card that said on the front that it was to the one I love?”
“No. Faith, what did you find?”
I drag in a long, deep breath, then spit out the words quickly. “It was from Ed. I recognised his handwriting. Ed sent Caroline a card. He said he loved her.”
Ewan’s muffled curse draws on vocabulary he normally reserves for the bedroom. Or the dungeon. I remain silent, let the bizarreness of all this sink in for both of us.
As if our lives were not already hopelessly tangled by fate, that this final, cruel blow should land now.
“Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”
“It’s his handwriting. He’s written inside that he loves her, that he wants to be with her.”
“What exactly does it say? Do you have it there with you?”
“Yes.”
“Read it out to me. Now.” His tone has hardened. This is his dom voice, and my emotional response is instant.
I open the card, though the words are etched on my memory.
I have no need to read them, but I do anyway.
“For my dearest, beloved Caro, on your birthday. I love you, and I can’t wait until we can be together for good.
Yours always. E.” I pause, then, “It’s his writing.
No mistake about that.” Then, in a whisper, “Did you know?”
“No, I fucking didn’t.”
“Wouldn’t she have told you? I mean, if you weren’t exclusive? You wouldn’t have minded if she slept with someone else, so why would she keep it from you?”
“I wouldn’t have minded for me, but I’d have been fucking furious for you.”
“You didn’t know me then.”
“I knew of you. I knew Ed was married. Carrie would have known full well I’d never stand for her screwing around with my next-door neighbour. I wouldn’t have tolerated her dumping on my own doorstep. Literally.”
“So that’s why she hid the card then. So you wouldn’t find out.” I’m starting to piece bits of this together.
“Maybe. Where did you find it?”
“In the bottom drawer of her dressing table. Under some magazines.”
Ewan says nothing for a few seconds. I can hear his low breathing on the other end of the line, as though he’s considering carefully what to say next.
“Faith, I always try to avoid saying anything negative about Ed. He was your husband, and I know you loved him even though I wasn’t fond of him.
But… you know better than anyone that he was a womaniser.
He flirted with any woman he saw, especially if they encouraged him…
Could this have been just more of that? It might not mean anything.
Not really. Just a bit of flirting gone too far. ”
I’d already explored that possibility, but in my gut I don’t accept it. Hearing the suggestion stated out loud by Ewan further convinces me. I can tell by his voice he doesn’t believe it either. I don’t answer him. There is no answer. Ewan picks up the theme again.
“Did you ever see anything, anything at all to make you suspicious? Ed wasn’t exactly the soul of discretion.”
“No. Nothing.” I can hear the hitch in my voice. In moments I’ll be in tears.
“Baby…” Ewan has heard it too. The compassion in that one word almost melts my heart.
“I wish you were here.” My tears are flowing now, unheeded down my cheeks.
“Me too, love.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. I’ll be there soon.”
“I know. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to wreck your day. I know you have business, and…”
“Faith. I…”
“I’ll call you tomorrow. Bye.” I hang up, before my grief completely overwhelms me. I drop the phone to the kitchen floor with a noisy clatter and lay my head on my arms. I give in to it, I stop fighting and face the truth. I stop fooling myself, there’s nowhere to hide.
I’m eye to eye with a relationship turned sour, the loss of the marriage I thought I had, the realisation that if he hadn’t been taken from me by death, I’d have lost Ed anyway. I probably already had, even before he sent his motorbike careering into that tree.
And what about Caroline? How could she look me in the eye? We were friends, or so I thought. All the time she was… what? What exactly was she doing with my husband? How far had it got between them?
I sob for the broken promises, the betrayal, the future lost, that I now know was never anything more than a fantasy.