Chapter 27
27
CARINA
Carina lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the honking horns and revving engines of the traffic outside. This was why Spencer would only stay in rooms on high floors and with verified triple glazing. It was just another of his standards that Carina accepted and accommodated.
Well, sod him, maybe she liked listening to the traffic. It was weirdly relaxing and comforting to know that there was a whole world out there that would keep turning no matter what she decided to do with her life after today.
Since she’d arrived in Hong Kong, she’d put her marriage issues in a box and ignored them, choosing to stay in a little bubble of bliss and denial. In a strange way it reminded her of the first time she’d come here. Back then, she’d ignored the reality that her family would be outraged that she’d left her piano teaching post to perform in a bar. She’d lived in denial that they’d ever find out. And she’d gone about her life doing exactly as she pleased.
These last few days had definitely reminded her of that time. She’d ignored the reality of her broken marriage, lived in denial that she’d have to face it and gone about her daily life with Moira and Stevie, blocking everything else out. Until this afternoon.
When she’d returned from the hospital, she’d come up to her room, planning to let Moira sleep and then meet up later. She’d just been in the process of taking her shoes off when there was a knock at the door.
Must be Stevie. Or maybe Moira was bored already and had come to find her. Her friend didn’t have the longest attention span or the greatest capacity for being alone.
When she’d opened the door, she’d seen immediately that it was neither.
‘Hello, Mum,’ Imogen had said, as if she’d just returned from popping down to the shops for a loaf of bread or a pint of milk. Not that she ever had to do that. That was their housekeeper’s job and Imogen and Erin had led privileged lives where all such things were taken care of.
‘Hello, love.’ She took in her daughter’s calm, almost business-like demeanour and realised immediately that this wasn’t a woman in the midst of a career crisis or reeling from the betrayal of a father she adored. Which meant one thing. Spencer had talked her round. Placated her. Given her a solution she could live with. And now, she was here, so that meant…
‘So he sent you, then,’ Carina said, with calm inevitability. It had occurred to her that this was like a scene from every Godfather movie, when the consigliere was sent in as an advance party to smooth the waters before the boss arrived.
Her daughter didn’t even try to deny it. ‘He did. Can we talk?’
‘Of course, darling,’ she said, pulling back the door to the smallest room in the hotel. She wasn’t going to make this difficult for Imogen. She’d been a daddy’s girl her whole life and she’d just lost a best friend. Beneath the calm exterior, she had no doubt that her daughter was hurt. ‘I would suggest we go downstairs, because this room is more than a little bijou, but I’m guessing this is going to be the kind of conversation that we don’t want other people to overhear.’
‘Probably not,’ Imogen agreed, before stopping to let Carina hug her as she passed her in the doorway, then carrying on into the room.
‘Anyway, this is just fine, Mum. Cosy.’ She hopped onto the bed and plumped up the pillows, while Carina took a seat in the cool, leather bucket chair by the window.
‘How are you, sweetheart?’ Carina asked. This couldn’t have been a happy week for Imogen and Carina wasn’t sure that she had someone to talk to about it. There had been no calls from Erin, so the news hadn’t reached her other daughter in Shanghai. The sisters had a friendly relationship, but they’d always been much too different to be close. She definitely wouldn’t have been Imogen’s first call in times of crisis.
Imogen paused, and Carina watched her take a deep breath, then exhale a rapid burst of an apology. ‘Mum, I need to say I’m sorry.’
‘You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart,’ Carina said, surprised.
Imogen flicked back her long, glossy mane of chestnut brown hair, and Carina thought again how lucky her daughter was: smart, beautiful, confident in her decisions, fully aware of what she wanted out of life. Carina was in touching distance of sixty, and she still didn’t have that level of self-belief.
Imogen was still pressing her point. ‘Mum, I have. I saw her flirting with him and I said nothing. I thought it was harmless. He’s my father, he’s almost double her age, and he’s married – all factors I would have thought were blockers to a relationship.’
‘A reasonable assumption,’ Carina agreed. ‘I’ve known Arabella for a long time too – I’d never have thought she was capable of this either. I guess we were both wrong.’
‘I threw her out of our house. Honestly, Mum, I never want to see her again. Traitorous bitch.’
Carina wasn’t surprised by the reaction. It was perhaps inevitable that her daughter would direct the blame to her friend instead of the father she adored.
‘I’m sorry, darling. That must have hurt. Losing friends is a heartbreak, no matter how it happens.’ She hesitated, thinking through what she was going to say next. ‘But the thing is, darling, Arabella owed us nothing – except, perhaps, a bit of decency – so none of my anger is aimed towards her. Your father is the one who broke a promise. He’s the one who betrayed me. Betrayed us. He knew she was your friend, he knew she was almost thirty years younger than him, and unless he has amnesia, he knew he was married. So, all in all, he should have known fucking better.’
Imogen’s eyes widened and Carina realised it was probably the first time she’d ever heard her mother swear. And maybe that was long fucking overdue. Over the last week, she’d had so much time to think, and she could see now that she’d created this perfect world for them all, and in doing so, she’d faded into the background, her role in the family somehow becoming the person who facilitated everyone else’s happiness. It had taken all this for her to realise that. Maybe now it was time that everyone else started to see her , to consider her , to give a damn about her happiness. And if that called for a couple of bursts of profanity every now and then, she could live with that. Fuck, yes.
Imogen took a second to recover before agreeing. ‘He should, you’re right. And Mum, please don’t think I’m taking his side on this…’
Carina kept her mouth zipped on that one.
‘…but I just don’t want anything to change. I want our family to stick together. I want you guys to work this out so that everything can go back to the way it was. So…’
When she paused, Carina had a sudden foretelling of what her daughter was about to say.
‘He’s here, isn’t he?’ It should have been so obvious. Imogen had paved the way, so now it was time for him to follow up and seal the deal.
‘He is.’
‘Where?’
‘Downstairs. In the hotel bar. He says it’s where you met. And where he proposed.’
Oh, he was good. Go for the nostalgia. The sentimentality. Rewind this whole shit show back to what she’d always considered to be two of the best moments of her life.
Was it working?
She could refuse to go. She could pass on a message that he should leave. But wasn’t that just delaying the inevitable? They were going to have to speak at some point, so she could either avoid this or get it over with.
She got up from her chair and slipped her feet into the Ugg slippers she knew he hated. Then she went to the wardrobe and pulled on an old comfy sweatshirt that she knew he hated even more.
She was done dressing for this man, done with keeping up the image of perfection, done with giving a damn what he thought.
‘I’ll go speak to him.’
‘Do you want me to come with you, Mum?’
Carina didn’t have to consider the answer. ‘No. I think this needs to be just between us.’
Carina was almost at the door when Imogen said, ‘Okay, well, I’ll go back to my hotel and leave you to talk. I’m staying at the Grand Hyatt tonight and flying on to Tokyo for meetings tomorrow morning. Call me there later and let me know how it goes. I love you, Mum. And for what it’s worth, I really am sorry. Maybe when you come home, we can talk more?’
It was a small step to being seen, but she’d take it. ‘I’d like that, darling.’
On the way down in the lift, Carina knew she should be thinking strategy, preparing speeches, getting her points in order, but all she felt was a slow, insidious lava of anger ooze around her chest. He’d done this. He’d taken a wrecking ball to them all, to their whole family.
The lunchtime crowd in the bar had subsided, so now there were only a few people sprinkled around, most of them on laptops or nursing solo coffees.
Except for one. Spencer Lloyd was sitting at a table, facing the door, watching her as she approached.
When she pulled out the chair opposite him, he was first to speak.
‘Thank you for coming.’
‘I wasn’t going to refuse my daughter’s request,’ she said calmly, thinking that infidelity didn’t look too bad on him. He was more casual than usual, in an open-neck, short-sleeved shirt, but the Dubai tan, the outline of his shoulders, the lean abs, and the swept back hair made him look exactly what he was: a wealthy, successful businessman, who took care of himself.
As always, he went straight to his point.
‘Carina, I’m so sorry. I screwed up.’
‘You screwed a thirty-year-old in our bathroom at our thirty-fourth wedding anniversary party,’ she bit back, but her words were quiet, calm, measured. She wasn’t going to let him see the hurt. That was all hers.
‘I did. And I’m sorry. I need you to know?—’
‘I don’t need to know anything.’ Still cool, still calm, and she could see him sliding onto the back foot. This wasn’t a Carina that he recognised.
His hand moved to the side, and she saw it was reaching for a small red velvet box. Cartier.
She cut that off right there, with, ‘Don’t do it, Spencer. Don’t insult me. I’m not some cheap tart you can buy off and I’m not going to be swayed by a piece of fucking jewellery.’
He gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘What else can I do, Carina? I’m sorry. She was a mistake. I know that. And I’ll apologise another hundred times but I can’t take it back. All I can do is ask you to forgive me.’
‘How many others have there been, Spencer?’
‘None. It was one mistake, Carina, I swear.’
She’d bet that Cartier box that he was lying, but she said nothing. She wasn’t going to challenge something she couldn’t prove. Once was enough.
After a few moments, he was the one who filled the silence.
‘Carina, forgive me. Please. Come home. We are almost sixty years old. We’ve spent more than half our lives together and for the most part it’s been wonderful. We’ve set ourselves up for an incredible future together. Please don’t let one mistake take that away.’
The case for the defence rested, and he sat back in his chair, waited. When she was ready to speak, she did.
‘You know, Spencer, I’m not laying all the blame at your door. I played a part in what got us here. I lost myself. I think I became… uninteresting. And uninterested in life too. Disengaged. After the girls left home and I was no longer the person who steered the ship, I just settled for a quiet existence. Lost my spark, my purpose. I wasn’t prepared for this stage in my life. Neither was our marriage. We’ve taken each other for granted, stayed in our own lanes for so long that we don’t even know who each other is any more.’
‘I know who you are,’ he said. ‘You’re my wife. And I want you to come home. Please, Carina, come back. Let’s fix this.’
She already knew the answer to that.
‘I’m not ready. I’m going to stay here for a while longer.’
‘Because Ben’s here?’ he asked, both the question and the edge in his voice shocking her.
‘Ben? Why would he make me stay here?’
‘Oh, come on, Carina, he’s been in love with you for years.’
What the hell was this? ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she scoffed.
‘He has. He just didn’t have the balls to do anything about it.’
‘Or maybe he just had too much decency to even contemplate such a thing,’ she snapped, tired of this. ‘I’m not here because of Ben. I came to see Moira.’
It took him a second to catch on, and even then he was confused. ‘Moira? Who used to sing here?’
‘Yes. She’s here for a few days on holiday and I wanted to see her. Lisa was supposed to be here too…’ She went on to tell him a brief account of what had happened to Lisa, but he had only met her briefly, so while he expressed his sympathies, she could see it didn’t carry the sadness that she’d felt.
‘And how is Moira?’ he asked, obviously keen to keep her engaged in amenable conversation.
‘She’s good. It’s strange, but I feel like being back here, thinking about the past after all this time is giving both Moira and me a different perspective.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘When I came here in my twenties, the only thing I loved was performing. Even though my family objected, I had this hope, deep down, that one day I’d make it in that world. Neither Moira’s life nor mine has turned out how we thought. Moira gave up love for the dream. I gave up the dream for love. Neither of us got it right.’
‘I still think you did,’ he said. ‘I just need you to come home and give me the opportunity to prove it to you.’
‘Maybe…’ she said sadly, softly. ‘But not now. I need to decide what I want on my terms. To be sure I’m doing it for me. And I’m going to need more time. I’ll let you know what I decide.’
‘When?’ he asked, his eyes wide with surprise as she stood up.
‘When I’m ready.’
Those were her final words to him this afternoon.
Now, lying in her room, the whole world turning outside, she kept hearing his words. ‘…give me the opportunity to prove it to you.’
All she had to do was decide if she should give him that chance.