Chapter 51
CHAPTER 51
Sophie was sitting at her dining table, feeling like she’d just had a lobotomy.
Juliet was sitting across the table from her. Gillette herself.
Less than an hour before, Juliet had sent Sophie a text, asking if she could make a date to come and see her. With her conversation with Charlie still so fresh, and fully committed to telling the boys the truth, Sophie had replied immediately, saying yes.
And when Juliet had come back saying she was actually in St Leonards, Sophie gave her the West Hill Road address and said she’d be home in thirty minutes.
And here they were. Sophie was sitting on Matt’s Mickey Mouse chair, which hadn’t been deliberate, she’d just grabbed the nearest one. Matt’s old leather jacket was hanging over the back of another chair.
‘So that was why I said that thing to your friend at the wake – Ray?’ said Gillette. Juliet.
Sophie nodded.
‘That’s why I asked him to tell you, “It’s not what it seems”, because if Matt had told you he was leaving you for me, I just desperately wanted you to know that wasn’t ever going to happen—’
‘Although you had been sleeping with him for a long time,’ said Sophie.
‘Yes. I’m sorry. Genuinely sorry. That’s all I can say. I don’t expect you to forgive me. It was wrong to have an affair with another woman’s husband, but for reasons I won’t go into – you don’t need to hear my sob story – I’m able to keep emotional things quite separate in my head and, in that way, I was able to put your husband in a kind of box, on his own, with no one else around him, because that was the context I met him in.’
Sophie looked at the woman across the table. She appeared genuinely distressed, and quite haggard compared to the one who had come to the funeral and the ultraglamorous business star she’d seen in the magazines. She almost did feel sorry for her.
‘I won’t deny it, Juliet,’ Sophie said, ‘when Matt told me about you, it nearly destroyed me. We’d just exchanged contracts to sell our family home and buy this one, which meant he had deliberately arranged it so I was going to lose my home and my marriage simultaneously. He told me he was going to start a new life with someone called Juliet. It was brutal.’
‘That’s exactly what I dreaded,’ said Juliet. ‘That he’d told you that, because I’d made it ultra clear to him that I was never going to live with him, or have any kind of formal connection with him going forward.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again. ‘It’s really difficult for me to prove that to you, though,’ she said. ‘Because we only ever communicated on Snapchat, so messages were read, then disappeared. The last time I heard from him, he’d sent me a letter, which I now understand he wrote just before he died, saying that he was going to tell you about us.
‘I sent him so many Snapchats asking him to ring me, so I could tell him not to do that and of course he never rang – but I didn’t know why for nearly two weeks... If you look on his phone, those messages might still be there, unread.’
Snapchat , thought Sophie. The boys had been mad about that when they were still at school, but she didn’t know any adults who used it and she didn’t remember seeing it when she’d opened Matt’s phone that time, but then, she hadn’t been looking for that.
So maybe there was proof there, if she wanted to go and look but she wasn’t sure she needed it. This woman had been decent enough to come to see her. Would she lie about that? More urgently, Sophie knew she had to ask a question she dreaded hearing the answer to.
‘I saw your daughter Cassady in that piece in Her magazine,’ she said. ‘And I did notice her striking resemblance to my late husband. Is she his child? I mean, that is very much a name he would have chosen, with the Kerouac reference and everything.’
Juliet nodded, unable to speak immediately. ‘They are both his,’ she said haltingly.
Sophie let that sink in. It was a lot.
‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘I remember you were in late pregnancy in that article. I worked out it could be Matt’s. Just. Did you have a boy or a girl?’
‘Another girl,’ said Juliet. ‘Hettie. That was one of the other names Matt had suggested for Cassady and I used it to honour his memory. Hettie Matilda. I’m so sorry. I know this must be terrible for you to find out, but once again, it all goes back to my stuff, which I don’t expect you to care about, but that’s why it’s always been my plan to have a family without a man involved beyond the biological...’ She trailed off.
Sophie was laughing. Really laughing. Her arms were down on the table with her head on them, guffawing.
‘Oh, you must think I’m mad,’ she said, lifting her head up, still laughing, ‘and I’m not going to explain, but Matt fathering two daughters and no one knowing is hilarious.’
That set her off again. The thought of Bella’s reaction – it was just too good. Would they have the party? Coldplay? For the two illegitimate Crommelin girls? Maybe Matt’s infidelity was what it had taken to shift the family jinx.
‘I know about the family thing with only sons,’ said Juliet, quietly.
Sophie stopped laughing.
‘Matt said in his letter that was why he had to be part of Cassady’s life,’ Juliet continued, ‘because she was his miracle girl. He said fate had sent her to him and he couldn’t spend another day not raising her. He was very insistent about it.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Sophie. ‘The no-girl thing really is a big deal in that family and it is typical of Matt – was typical – for him to see it as some kind of sign. Is his name on their birth certificates?’ It had been really nagging at her. On the birth certificate and the public record.
‘Yes – and no. They both have it as a middle name, no hyphen. Cassady Pauline – after my mother – Crommelin Mylan and Hettie Matilda Crommelin Mylan. He’s not listed as their father. That space is empty. He wanted to be on there, but I refused. It is up to the mother, fortunately.’
‘Well, as long as the name Crommelin is on there somewhere, I’m sure that will count,’ said Sophie. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to tell Sebastian. That’s one of Matt’s brothers. He had four brothers. Did he ever tell you that? They’re a very close family.’
Juliet shook her head. ‘He didn’t tell me anything about his life. Apart from that he was married and had two grown-up sons – and the all-boys thing. And I didn’t want to know any more. I did my best to block it all out of my mind.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Sophie, aware she’d got a bit needly then, talking about the family like that, wanting to make Juliet feel like the outsider she was. It was all so confusing. She should hate this woman, but it had been very brave of her to make the approach to come and talk to her, and Sophie was doing her best to respect that. She didn’t want to be horrible to her. What would that achieve?
Still, it was a lot to take in – especially as she hadn’t had the chance to tell the boys anything yet. But perhaps it was better to know everything before she did that. ‘Can I ask you something else?’
‘Of course. Anything. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Where did you first meet Matt?’
‘At Phillips. The auction house. I was looking at the works in a forthcoming sale. I collect late twentieth-century British art.’
Sophie nodded. Matt had started going on endlessly about auction houses and how he was thinking of doing a series of works around them from the point of view of people who really loved the art, contrasted with investors looking for ‘hard currency capital gains’. That was how he’d put it.
‘Who approached who first?’
‘I was looking at a painting and he happened to be standing next to me. He made a comment and I moved on, because I don’t talk to men in those situations.’
‘And did he follow you?’
‘No,’ said Juliet. ‘But I bumped into him again a few paintings on and he said something interesting that caught my attention. And then I saw him again by chance at another auction.’
Sophie nodded slowly. She could picture the whole thing. Juliet becoming part of the work he was doing, enmeshed in the structure he would obsessively build through preparatory works to eventually create the shown pieces.
And she now also understood how that all tied in with his refusal to accept that Juliet wouldn’t move things on to the next stage with him, because that had clearly become part of The Work in his head – and when he was at that stage of developing a show, he could become quite mad. Like when he’d filmed her dying mother, against all her sobbing pleas and even the doctor’s admonishments. He’d just filmed them too. He could be a cruel bastard in that state. Making The Work trumped everything.
‘Look,’ said Sophie, ‘we can’t pretend this isn’t difficult. I’ve been living with the knowledge that my husband was having a serious affair before he died for the last, well, nearly eleven months now, isn’t it?’
Juliet nodded.
‘And then I saw that article and realised you’d probably had a child together, possibly two, and I had to keep all that locked up inside me, while also grieving him, to protect my sons – and Matt’s family.’ She paused, just to check she really was sure about what she was going to say next and decided she was. ‘It’s only very recently, since I finally did tell someone the whole thing, that I’ve understood that it would be better for everyone to know everything. And I have to say, now we’ve talked, I think that will be much easier for me to do that. So, just so you know what’s going to happen next, I’m going to tell Beau and Jack about you and about the children. They are their half-sisters, after all. They may want to meet them. They probably should meet them.’
The front door opened and closed.
‘Cooee. Anyone in?’
Beau walked into the dining room and stopped dead, looking from one woman to the other, then sat down on the chair at the end of the table and put his head in his hands.
Sophie was bewildered. ‘Beau?’ she said. ‘Are you alright?’
He looked up again. ‘Hi, Juliet.’
‘Hi, Beau,’ she said, quietly.
Sophie was momentarily lost for words. ‘You two know each other?’ she said when she recovered.
‘Yes, we do,’ said Beau.
Sophie looked from one to the other with a sense of creeping horror. Had Beau had an affair with Juliet too? That she would not be able to stand.
Beau stood up and walked round to sit next to Sophie, putting his arm around her shoulder. ‘I think we all need to find out who knows what,’ he said. ‘Who wants to go first?’ Then he turned to Juliet, a deep frown forming between his eyes, as something occurred to him. ‘You didn’t just tell her about you and you know... did you?’ he asked, sitting up, clearly horrified at the idea.
Juliet looked nervously from one to the other.
‘It’s okay, Beau,’ said Sophie, holding up one hand. ‘I already knew that your father had an affair with Juliet.’
‘Agata was right,’ he said. ‘She guessed that you knew.’
‘Agata knows?’
‘Yes. Tamar and I just told Agata and Olive, and they’ll probably tell Charlie, who’s just turned up there.’
‘Hang on,’ said Sophie, starting to feel overwhelmed. ‘I’ve already told Charlie – but who the hell told you?’
Beau pursed his lips, looking uncomfortable. ‘That’s a bit of a long story,’ he said. ‘Dad gave me a hint – it was the last time I saw him actually – and then after he died, I kind of worked some things out and had others thrust upon me.’
He looked rather pointedly at Juliet as he said the last thing and Sophie wondered what that was about. It was all so much.
‘So you’ve been carrying all this since Dad died, as well?’ she said softly, feeling it was best to go back to the start of it.
‘You knew before he died?’ he asked, looking shocked.
Sophie nodded. ‘Matt told me the day he died, just an hour before, but I didn’t find it all out then. The full story has come out in bits over the months since and I’ve learned a lot of new things today from Juliet. One day we’ll talk it all over, but for now I think we just need to sit with knowing that the time for secrets is over. What about Jack? Does he know?’
‘No. But he’s coming home soon for Christmas, isn’t he? So we can tell him then. I don’t think it’s something for a WhatsApp message, or even a Zoom.’
‘I’ll see if he can come sooner,’ said Sophie. ‘He needs to be part of this, but right now can you please tell me how you two know each other? Did Matt introduce you?’ That seemed almost as bad as them having an affair.
‘No,’ said Beau, looking as horrified as Sophie felt at the idea. ‘I met Juliet because we’re both fashion jewellers and I love her work, so I asked her if I could do work experience and she didn’t know who I was and very kindly said yes. Until she found out I was Dad’s son and sacked me.’ He laughed, too loudly.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Juliet.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I do understand why you did it since I’ve had that little conversation with Gwen... Did she tell you about that?’
‘Yes, she did. I hope it wasn’t too much of a shock. I’m glad you know – she did me a big favour.’
‘Who’s Gwen?’ asked Sophie, starting to feel a bit irritated.
‘I’ll explain all that in a minute, Mum. But before we talk about anything else, I need to ask you both something.’ He looked at each of them. ‘Do you absolutely hate each other?’
‘No,’ said Sophie, firmly. ‘We don’t hate each other, do we, Juliet? Because how is that going to help any of us? We’ve just got to get to know each other – and most importantly, we need to introduce our families to each other. All of them.’
Juliet smiled back at her shyly, her eyes filling with tears. And then, reaching across the table at the same time, the two women grasped each other’s hands. Beau put his own hands on the top of theirs.
‘Who made the rings?’ Sophie said, noticing that the multicoloured crystal design Beau was wearing was the same as the one Juliet had on, but bigger. ‘I’ve seen your work in magazines, Juliet. It could have been either of you.’
Beau laughed. ‘Now that’s a bit of a story,’ he said, turning to Juliet. ‘Does she know?’
Juliet nodded.
‘Well, that’s good,’ said Beau. ‘Because in that case I can tell you that I made this ring and the one Juliet is wearing – but they were designed by Cassady. Dad’s daughter. My sister. I made them even before I knew Cassady was my sister, because I already loved her. She’s the most amazing little girl, Mum.’
‘I can’t wait to meet her,’ said Sophie, realising as she said it that she actually meant it.
‘How would now be?’ said Juliet.
Sophie and Beau looked at her.
‘She’s just round the corner, at the nursing home where my mother lives. I can go and get her. Hettie’s there too.’
Beau was already on his feet. ‘Tell me the name of the place and I’ll get her. Can you call them and say their big brother is coming to pick up Cassady and Hettie?’
‘I’d better come with you,’ said Juliet. ‘To explain to my mother.’
‘Bring her here as well,’ said Sophie, reaching for her phone to message Charlie to come round and bring all the others with him from Agata’s house. ‘I’ve got cake. Lots of cake.’
They were all going to be part of the same family. Might as well get on with it.