Chapter 75 Desk
You work so hard on one marriage only for the other to come up trumps at the eleventh hour.
On the way home, my mind rumbles with glorious cannon blasts and fireworks exploding.
Hollis is a billionaire. This failed entrepreneur, who couldn’t be trusted to put the toilet seat down, has built a company that’s worth real money, and he’s in love with me, even after I pushed him off the side of a mountain.
Has there ever been anyone as clever or beautiful as I am?
I almost want to clone myself so I can experience what it’s like to know me.
I turn off the ignition, sigh at the joy of serendipity and walk triumphantly into what is really now my former home.
The lights are all off and the house, despite all the things I tried to do with it, now looks rather dreary and commonplace.
You never realize you’re in the gutter until you look back down from the stars.
The house feels cold and uninhabited. Aimée is staying with Luca and Stephen has taken the children to visit Madeleine, no doubt to enable a bit of character assassination.
I take off my coat and head to the kitchen.
Purdy is sitting on the table. Her eyes hold me for a moment, then look away in disgust as I’ve neglected her all evening.
I scratch her chin to ask forgiveness when I hear something upstairs and turn quickly.
‘Stephen?’
No response. I reach behind me and pull a small knife from the knife block.
I’m going to need a new set at this rate.
I walk slowly down the hallway, slip off my shoes and head upstairs.
There is a single shaft of light coming from my study – where I keep my notes and to-do lists.
I breathe deeply, steadying myself. I hear someone ruffling paper.
The familiar creak of my Eames office chair.
I fear Josh Krill has broken in, seeking revenge, and hold the knife firmly at my side. I push open the door.
No, not Josh.
Stephen, my sometime husband, is sitting in my chair. My desk drawer has been jimmied open with a claw hammer. The wood has splintered. The private contents, including my journal and undeleted to-do lists, have been tipped onto the desktop.
‘What’s going on?’ I say. ‘I thought you were at your mother’s.’
‘We came back,’ he says, with no further explanation.
I fear that Georgie must have told him about the break-in and my threats. He picks up the claw hammer and stares at me with a strangely violent look in his eye that I’ve not seen before.
‘You don’t break into someone’s house, you fucking bitch!’ he snaps. He’s not awfully good at venom and it’s a little high-pitched, but I try not to smile. Men have fragile egos.
‘Is this about her teddy bear?’
‘Who are you?’ he says, and rises, pointing the hammer at me. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘You cheat on me for four years, break a perfectly good desk, and I’m the bitch?’
‘Don’t be funny with me. You terrified her! You stole her diary!’ He holds up Georgie’s stolen diary.
‘Did she ask you to get it back?’ I say.
‘Yes, she fucking did, and her teddy bear, where is it?’
‘I gave it to Nelly. I don’t think it stands a chance.’
‘You’ve made me feel like I’m the bad guy, and I find this fucking list. Your fucking scheming!’ He holds up my ten-point marriage-saving plan. Fortunately, I shred my daily to-do lists or I’d have a huge amount of explaining to do.
‘Everyone needs to plan, darling, or we’d get nowhere. I mean look at you and Georgie, four years and still fumbling around for five minutes together in a car park.’
‘Because we’re authentic, Lalla. I wouldn’t want things planned. Not like this. Every single thing you do. It’s all worked out, isn’t it? I thought that was really nice of you, but actually it’s just part of your game.’
‘I’m not the most spontaneous person, Stephen. You’ve always known that. We all have our different ways to cope.’
‘This is a script, not a life. Testosterone gel, for fuck’s sake! Getting pregnant just to keep us together. You can’t do that. Nothing’s real. All this time, I’ve struggled with feeling disconnected, and you’re planning our life one bullet point at a time.’
‘Reality is over-rated, don’t you think? I presume that’s why you pretended to be a good husband and father, while betraying the foundations of our relationship?’
‘Is it a surprise I found someone else? You’re actually a fucking robot. I loved you, you know, but you gave me nothing in return. I thought you were just a little on the spectrum, but this is something else!’
‘I gave you everything I had to give. A family. A beautiful wife. Children. A successful marriage.’
‘Successful? I wanted to feel loved.’
‘I’m not your mother, Stephen.’
‘This is why I’ve been so unhappy,’ he says, holding up my plan again.
‘You think I’m manipulative, do you? You have no idea,’ I say.
‘Idea about what?’
‘Do you know why Georgie wants her diary back?’
‘Because it’s her fucking diary, and you broke into her house and stole it while she was asleep,’ he says.
‘Have you read it?’
‘She doesn’t want me to read it.’
‘No, she wouldn’t. It would ruin your little fairy tale.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You’ve been scammed, Stephen, and not by me. I was just trying to save our relationship. That’s what that list is – the last attempt of a betrayed wife to try to be what you want.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘No, Stephen. I was willing to try anything to get you back, but I couldn’t win, not with those two working against me, playing you for a fool.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Georgie and your mother planned the whole romance, bullet point by bullet point. It’s all in her diary.
How they schemed to get you two together whenever I was pregnant, ill, incapacitated or away.
How they drip-fed criticism about me. Don’t you think it uncanny how she had that knack of always being there with her uncomplicated adoration? ’
‘That’s not true. That’s bullshit.’
‘After Georgie’s disastrous divorce, they hatched a plan to oust me and turn your head.
Georgie was amazingly always at your mother’s house visiting when you arrived.
And even had to stay the night for any number of dubious reasons.
How they plied you with drink. How she tiptoed into your room because she was feeling so lonely. They made it so easy for you to fail.’
Stephen is looking concerned now.
‘Did your mother tuck you both up in bed together?’
‘That’s disgusting.’
‘The truth is often disgusting, that’s why no one bothers with it any more.’
‘I don’t believe you. I love Georgie. Yes, OK, maybe she worked hard to get close to me again, but that’s because she loves me.’
‘Your mother bought her the house in Highgate.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t Georgie mention that?’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ he says. ‘Georgie inherited her family’s estate, she doesn’t need money.’
‘I looked up Georgie’s house on the land registry, and it’s registered to Madeleine Rook. And there’s a nice section in her diary about her financial situation. All she inherited was debts. Three million pounds of debt, after mortgages, death duties, legal fees, and taxes.’
‘I’m not listening to you.’
‘Your mother even threatened to disinherit you if you remained married to me, didn’t she? Your mother is a sociopath, and like all sociopaths she believes a successful marriage is one you can buy.’
‘You’re wrong about Georgie, you’re wrong about Mum. They’re right about you, you’re a lying bitch,’ he says, but the anger is gone from his voice. He’s realizing, I imagine, what it’s like to go from a frying pan to a cold bath.
‘Darling, your mother is selling you off to an impoverished aristocrat for a title. Your lover is more interested in money than you. I’m the only honest person in this relationship. It’s all in the diary. Read it for yourself. I’ve marked the interesting pages with Post-its.’
He pushes past me and says coldly, ‘I’m not reading it. I told her I wouldn’t and I won’t.’