Chapter 1
MARGOT
Fifteen minutes before midnight, Margot leaned across the bed to check that her husband was asleep.
She didn’t really need to. Perry had always been a heavy sleeper, a snorer, and once he was out for the count nothing would wake him.
It had been the same throughout their entire marriage and she doubted it would ever change.
She slipped out of bed and crept downstairs, along the hallway, and down another flight of stairs into the basement of their country house near Ascot, Berkshire.
The house was old and a bit creaky but they’d modernised a lot of the interior, and down here there was a gym to one side and on the other a walk-in cellar that could hold one thousand bottles of wine.
It was a showpiece Perry liked to impress all their visitors with.
She’d already been down here twice tonight – once with a business client of Perry’s following a dinner she’d hosted, to give them the ‘grand tour’ of the house.
And the second time was when Perry was cleaning his teeth.
She’d smuggled her laptop down here so she’d be ready to go.
Thanks to Perry and his job in technology, not to mention his drive to have the very best of everything, the Wi-Fi in the basement was excellent and it meant that every Wednesday she could be a part of the Midnight Book Club, a lifeline Margot hadn’t quite realised she’d needed until she got involved almost a year ago.
The Midnight Book Club, as it was known these days, was something just for Margot, and for her, the time worked out perfectly.
She’d joined up saying that she too struggled to sleep but really it was because this was the one thing she could do without Perry questioning it, or interrupting her, because he was rarely awake at midnight.
Being a part of the club made her feel like the woman she’d been before she became a wife who had no life outside her marriage, and maybe that woman was still in there somewhere.
Members of the club couldn’t always attend but every week herself, Faye and an older man called Howard, were always there.
And each of them was connected to Dorset in some way.
Howard had retired to Driftwick Bay on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, Faye was born in Poole and raised in West Lulworth, the town adjacent to Driftwick Bay, and Margot had grown up in Bournemouth.
They loved to talk about all things Dorset and one evening, Margot floated back to one of her fondest memories.
She usually kept her private life close to her chest. She was so used to not being able to share what went on at home, but over time she’d begun to like and trust these people, these friends.
She’d recalled how her mother told her that Driftwick Bay was one of the most beautiful towns in the area.
She’d shared how she and her mother had stayed in the bay for a short break, the sun shining down on them the first day as they admired the striking scenery of the coast, the rock formations of Durdle Door and Old Harry Rocks, the landscapes that stretched for miles in their beauty.
Wind and rain had come after the first two days, flattening the grass on the undulating hills, adding a ferocity to the sea that made them both feel incredibly alive.
Something Perry had never questioned was Margot going to see her mother.
He knew where she was and who she was with when she visited, but her mother had gone now.
Margot no longer had that escape. Her mother had, however, in her wisdom, passed down the money from the sale of her house after she died, to her grandsons, Margot’s boys, Sebastian and Alistair.
She told Margot when she rewrote her will that she’d done it so that her money couldn’t be something else that Perry could control.
Margot’s sons now both had healthy bank accounts with the inheritance that had bypassed Margot, and although she had been in tears when she realised that Perry’s controlling behaviour bothered her mother to such an extent she’d seen a solicitor to alter her will, Margot would be forever grateful that her sons had the freedom she herself lacked and craved.
She clicked on the Zoom link for the online book club.
Occasionally she joined the session early so she was ready to go, and a few months previously Howard had, by coincidence, done the same.
It was during their chat that first day and a few further conversations when nobody else was there that Margot had begun to open up.
She’d not done that with anyone else, but Howard had been there for her, much like a father figure or a parent, neither of which she’d had for a very long time, and she’d felt listened to.
She pulled her hooded cardigan a bit closer around her.
It might be July with its warm sunny days but down here in the still of the night it was chilly without the soft furnishings and deep carpeting of the rooms above.
Sometimes she was tempted to do this in the lounge given she could clash cymbals right next to Perry’s head and it still wouldn’t rouse him – his body was programmed to wake to his 5 a.m. alarm and not much else – but she didn’t want to risk having him find out and take something that she loved away from her. He’d taken enough already.
Was it crazy to wonder whether she felt the chill more now that the boys had left home and the house felt so ridiculously big?
Sometimes she longed for the little student flat she’d shared with three others during her first and only year at Middlesex university, with its haphazard layout of non-matching furniture in the lounge, the bathroom with the grotty tiles but at least fully functioning shower, and the small bedroom she’d taken and made into her own space with twinkly lights around her pinboard and a beautiful purple duvet for a pop of colour.
That year, embarking on a degree in English and American Studies, she’d felt as if the world was stretching out in front of her ready to grab with both hands.
Everything had changed when she met Perry, got pregnant, and the life she’d had planned had been upended.
What on earth had happened to the last thirty years?
Margot had met Perry on a night out in a pub.
They’d both been there with friends. His group had just taken part in the yard of ale challenge, which he won by a mile.
He’d left the rowdy bunch he was with and headed for the door but with her standing in front of it he’d had to squeeze past and they’d got talking.
‘You didn’t want to try to win a second time?’ she asked as another group lined up to attempt it.
Dressed in a deep-blue button-down shirt and jeans, with a jacket gripped in his hand, ready to face the cold January night, he was red-cheeked from either the alcohol or her attention.
‘Work tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I need to keep my head clear.’ And then he smiled. ‘Clearer than two yards of ale anyway.’
She melted beneath his gaze and his smile. ‘You finished way ahead of the others.’
‘I’ve done it before, but I know when to stop.’
The way he said it endeared him to her. He was much more mature than any of the boys she’d met at university. He sounded in control, like he knew what he wanted.
They talked about her studies and his, the fact that he’d finished university and had already started a graduate job working for a tech company.
‘Off they go again…’ She watched his friends gearing up for the next challenge.
‘They don’t like to lose. Neither do I.’ When she felt his hands on her waist it sent a shudder of pleasure right through her. He whispered in her ear, ‘Let’s get out of here.’
What had happened to that guy she’d met at the pub, the one who was mature and charming rather than controlling and manipulative?
Or had he always been like that and she just hadn’t seen it?
He’d told her that night that he didn’t like to lose, and that was Perry all over.
He liked to win. At everything. The guy from the pub had gone and in his place was a man she recognised less and less as the years went on.
Margot’s coping mechanisms to deal with Perry’s behaviour varied.
She kept a nice house, she was a dutiful wife, she kept everything and everyone organised.
And that was the way it had been ever since they got married.
But over time she’d given up friendships and her independence with every questioning glance and phrase he threw her way.
Sometimes losing herself in the pages of a book was the biggest and best escape of all.
She fell for heroes in a novel and became a part of the characters’ lives, relationships and situations, instead of facing her own dismal reality that she didn’t know how to get out of.
Margot had hoped Howard might be early on the Zoom session again tonight, but it was Faye, their host, who appeared first in a little rectangle with her name at the bottom corner.
Her gaze was upwards as if she might be moving her computer mouse around to do something on her screen as she waited for the connection, but she waved at Margot and Margot waved back.
She might not see friends in person any more, but book club was a weekly salvation that somehow kept her going.
‘Hey!’ Faye had the most interesting backdrop. It looked like she was sitting in a grass area, perhaps a garden, and the sun was definitely shining on the other side of the world.
Another rectangle on the Zoom session appeared, this time with Howard’s face filling it.
‘Howard, we can’t hear you.’ Faye’s lips exaggerated each word for the man you couldn’t help but adore. Her gaze went down and presumably she was sending him a message on the platform. He did this often. Sometimes he forgot the video, but usually he was on mute.
‘Better?’ he asked moments later, his voice now loud and clear.