Chapter two
That gave me a bigger jolt than seeing Martine; that familiar smell – house plants and seagrass stair runner and old books in oak bookcases.
It took me straight back to a different, brighter-coloured time in my life, when stepping through this door led to interesting conversations and questions and expensive wine and .
. . possibilities. Automatically, I wiped my feet on the coir mat, tucked my hair behind my ears, and glanced across to the gilt mirror by the front door to check I hadn’t smeared my lipstick or got a coffee moustache.
Mistake number one. While the house hadn’t changed, I had.
I think I still expected to see my twentysomething face with its centre parting and glasses, but there was the wider, older face that I’d habitually avoided eye contact with for some time now.
Mum’s apple cheeks, Dad’s furtive eyes. I flinched, and dropped my gaze to the bookshelf beneath the mirror.
Nothing had moved in the last five years: the same school French and Italian dictionaries, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanacks, Guinness Books of Records.
A Who’s Who (Longhamptonshire edition, for charity) – with Ray in it.
‘Do come in,’ said Martine, with more politeness than enthusiasm.
I hesitated. I sensed she probably wanted to kick off her shoes and pretend none of the last hour had happened, but this was such a weird and miraculous opportunity, a rare chance to see what Fraser had been doing, that I couldn’t pass it up.
And, of course, I had a duty to make sure Martine really was as OK as she claimed.
The sitting room was, again, exactly as I remembered: long sash windows looking out on to whitewashed houses opposite; Victorian plant stands with cascading waterfalls of purple tradescantia.
Coffee-table books stacked on the coffee table, invitations tucked behind the pair of Staffordshire dogs and gold clock on the mantelpiece.
Not a cup or a crumby plate or a pair of slippers in sight.
Nothing had changed.
Well, apart from the lack of Ray. There was no Ray Henderson sitting in the armchair by the window, reading a Dick Francis novel and sporadically rapping on the window to scare a cat off his borders.
Ray had died just over a year ago. I hadn’t been invited to the funeral, but I still followed Fraser’s sisters – Jackie, Cara and Heather – on social media so consolations had floated into my news stream like flotsam from friends of friends.
There had been an obituary in the Longhampton news group I’d never left (‘respected businessman and magistrate . . . stalwart of the sporting community . . . devoted wife Martine and four children . . . blackcurrant cordial . . .’).
I’d written to Martine and Fraser, remembering how kind Ray had been to me, how much everyone had always enjoyed his barbecues, and had received the printed card of acknowledgement in return.
Martine had written Thank you so much for your sweet words on the bottom of the card, but nothing from Fraser.
I have to be honest, I was a little hurt by his silence.
I’d thought it was a natural moment for us to pick up our friendship, because when you’d shared as much past as we had, surely that counted for something?
And I genuinely felt sorry for Fraser’s loss: he’d adored his dad, and I knew what it was like to lose a parent.
But grief was a confusing place. I knew that.
You had to stumble through the darkness as best you could, until one day you realised you’d stumbled back into lighter air, and while the world wasn’t exactly the same, it was familiar enough to keep going.
Ray maintained his patriarchal presence in a shrine on the piano opposite the door.
The grand piano was more than just a piano: it was the Henderson family display cabinet, laden in the Balmoral-approved style with framed photos.
I’d never seen anyone play it, although Fraser said they’d had lessons as kids – he’d been required to play the boring bits of duets with his more talented sisters.
It mainly demonstrated in a subtle way how enormous the sitting room was.
While Martine picked her way carefully to her chair, I furtively gobbled up any clues in the family portraits: centre stage was the black-and-white wedding photograph of Martine and Ray – Ray resplendent in morning coat, and Martine doll-like in a dress like a lace handbell – but the formal portrait of Ray as chairman of the bench had moved up next to it.
The photographer had captured Ray’s affable worthiness: a red-cheeked, white-haired, blue-eyed man in a tweed jacket, the human embodiment of the Union Jack and British countryside values. Family, business, golf, steak.
Around Ray were his children, and their own satellite children: Jacqueline, the oldest, married to Jerry or Perry (or Larry?); Cara, the financial analyst who’d moved to the US straight after university; Heather, the cellist; and Fraser, the golden boy.
There were quite a few children in sports kit, cellos, dogs and skis.
Every one radiating cheerful, healthy success.
I scanned the smiling faces for the only one I simultaneously wanted and didn’t want to see: an official shot of Fraser and the woman who’d replaced me.
I couldn’t see one. My heart lifted.
There was the sudden sound of a stack of books crashing to the floor, and I spun round to see Martine struggling to disguise the fact that she’d bumped into the coffee table.
‘Don’t!’ She raised her hands before I could speak. ‘It’s fine! I’m fine!’
I didn’t want to argue with her. ‘Why don’t I make you that cup of tea?’ I suggested, picking up the books and restacking them. ‘And then I’ll ring Jacqueline and—’
‘No! There’s no need to call Jacqueline!’ Martine’s face tightened.
‘Martine, I have to call someone. The paramedics were clear – you need someone looking after you for the next twenty-four hours. Unfortunately I’ve got a work call at three so I can’t stay long.’
She frowned. ‘There’s absolutely no need to disturb Jacqueline. She’s extremely busy.’
I couldn’t argue with that: Jacqueline was always busy.
As well as bringing up her children to be as accomplished and driven as her own siblings, the evidence of which I regularly saw on Instagram, she was the head of a nationally successful comprehensive, the sort that single-handedly controlled property prices in its catchment area; she’d appeared on the news a few times celebrating her pupils’ wide-ranging successes, which she put down to ‘community spirit’.
And presumably the sort of unflagging commitment to self-improvement that she’d learned from Martine.
‘Is there someone else who can sit with you? A neighbour perhaps?’
She winced. ‘Next door are away on holiday. And I don’t . . . I don’t really know the other side very well. New people.’
This was unlike Martine. She knew everyone.
‘OK. Is there a friend I could call? Or a cleaner? I mean,’ I corrected myself, remembering that Martine never had cleaners, ‘a housekeeper? Does Dawn still come?’
‘No. Dawn retired, so we moved on to an agency and they’re just not the same. They never send the same girls twice.’
I was running out of options. Obviously Cara was out of the question in NYC and I didn’t even know where Heather lived, when she wasn’t on holiday. It left only the elephant in the room. The handsome, elusive, cybersecurity elephant.
‘Well, shall I call Fraser?’ I asked casually.
‘Do not call Fraser.’ Martine fixed me with a gaze that I couldn’t quite interpret.
Did she mean he wouldn’t want me to? Or that she wouldn’t want me to? Or that she thought I’d been stalking him?
I swallowed. My heart rate had gone up a gear. But I had to ask. When would I ever get this chance again? ‘How . . . Um, how is . . . ?’
And then there was a ring at the doorbell.
Martine started to rise from the chair, but her knees failed, she staggered and slumped back, stunned by her own vulnerability.
I blanched. Maybe I should call Allen and postpone our meeting.
‘Can you get that?’ she asked, reluctantly.
‘Of course. Don’t move.’ I put out a warning hand. ‘I’ll be right back.’
The doorbell rang again, two impatient trills and a long one. I hurried down the hall, hoping it would be one of Martine’s many friends and acquaintances – not, of course, that she’d want them to see her looking less than her usual self, but needs must.
I flung open the door, and the almost-familiar woman on the step opened her mouth, stopped, stared harder, then said, ‘Beth?’
I pulled myself up to my full height. If I’d wished I’d worn something a bit less tent-like to bump into Martine, I definitely wished I’d bothered now.
Jacqueline – Jackie – was almost as sheeny as she appeared on social media, but what really struck me was how much like Martine she’d become since we’d last met.
She looked like a woman who had answers – and the spare keys, life experience, phone numbers, fail-safe tips.
Her face had sharpened into Martine’s model bone structure, and she was fiddling with a clover pendant that gave off Significant Birthday Present vibes.
She’d always looked younger than me, thanks to her diligent approach to everything extending to skincare and nutrition, but now she’d graduated into a different bracket of ageless womanhood.
I did a swift mental calculation: Jackie was nearly ten years older than Fraser – fifty. Ish?
Fifty-ish. Wow. I tried not to notice that this also made me nearer forty than thirty.
‘Hi, Jackie!’ I said, in case she thought I was a hallucination.
‘Beth?’ she said again, as if one of us was lying.