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‘No, no, just incompetent,’ he said.

‘Will you have to appear?’

He shook his head. ‘It would be easier if I did though. Somehow I have to make sure none of the directors look like criminals rather than incompetent, well-meaning buffoons.’

‘They’re lucky to have you,’ she said, and took his hand.

When they’d met, Robert had been a lawyer working for the Home Office. He was nearly thirty and she was twenty-two, but he was shy and it had made him seem younger than he was. Catherine was working for a newspaper – her first job. She was ambitious; so was he. They were both determined to get ahead and both of them were doing well. She remembers how surprised she’d been by his openness – he was so unguarded that it had made her feel protective towards him. The first time they’d met he told her he had
political ambitions.
Those were the words he’d used – a little coy, apologetic. She’d encouraged him to talk. It was the first of many ‘off-the-record’ chats they had in a pub in Stoke Newington: neutral territory, where no one from either of their workplaces would be likely to come. Robert had been a member of the Labour Party since he was a student; so had she, only she’d let her membership lapse, whereas Robert never had. He’d hoped to be selected as a parliamentary candidate – he would have been one of the youngest ever. It had never happened, but she knew it was a desire he still nursed. They’d talked about it last night. He’d smiled, pleased that she’d brought it up, but he’d shaken his head.

‘Nah, not now,’ he said.

‘I’d support you, you know, if that’s what you want.’ It was a relief to think about someone other than herself. She sees it as a sign of her recovery and sits up, leaning against the pillows.

It has been nearly a week since she sent the review and her instincts tell her it was the right thing to do. Stephen Brigstocke needed her acknowledgement. Now he knows that she recognizes what he has been through. It has helped her too, she thinks. Perhaps that’s another reason why she is sleeping better. Writing those words forced her to think about his pain, not just hers. She cannot accept responsibility for it, but she can begin to understand why it has driven him to such an act of studied hatred. Yes, it has been good for her to think about that. Perhaps some balance has been restored for both of them in different ways.

She gets out of bed and pulls up the blind. It is glorious out there. She doesn’t want to go to work – she’ll call and tell them she’s working from home. She goes downstairs and makes tea then sits at the table with her laptop. She opens the page for
The Perfect Stranger.
Her review is still up there but nothing else has been added. An image of the book’s cover hovers in the corner of the screen, producing a throb of anger in her gut at the memory of its invasion. She exits the page. She will never look at it again.

20

Early summer 2013

It’s morning. I have been up all night. I don’t feel like breakfast. It is ten a.m. according to my lapdog and I am stiff from sitting in my chair so long. I need to move. I suppose I have become a little ‘stir crazy’. Too much time in front of a screen. Not something that usually afflicts someone of my age. Three paces to the window and I open the curtains. It is a stunning day. I had no idea. It leaves me blinking as if I have run out in front of a car in the dead of night. It is the right kind of day to leave the house.

I have had duplicates made of the photographs, sending off the same negatives Nancy had sent off all those years ago. I half expected a nasty note to come back from the lab, but it didn’t, just a fresh set of glossy prints. I slip on my lightweight summer jacket, then pop the envelope with the prints into the pocket. Yes, this is the right kind of day to leave the house.

Whenever I step into one of London’s beautiful squares I regret that I haven’t made an effort to do it more often. It is so invigorating. And Berkeley Square is a gem. There’s nothing hidden about it, it is well aware of its value and shows it off shamelessly. This is where to come if you are in the market for a Rolls-Royce. Which of course I am not, and neither, by the look of them, are the fellows sharing the square with me this lunchtime. I close my eyes and raise my face to the sun and for the briefest of moments feel glad to be alive. I am still here, alive and ready to kick. But first I finish my sandwich, enjoying being part of this al fresco lunching club. I feel a comradely spirit between myself and the other diners, a few of us on benches, others lying on the grass or sitting on jackets. None of us knowing each other, yet relaxed nevertheless in each other’s company: privileged to be sharing this luscious green space along with the ancient plane trees, the only living things older than I in the square. I scrunch up the paper from my sandwich and drop it into a bin, appreciating its presence, appreciating the security that it is still there and hasn’t been removed for fear of a bomb being left in it. This is a safe place. As I cross the square I take the envelope from my pocket, checking the address again. No. 54 Berkeley Square.

The front of No. 54 has been partially torn out and replaced with glass, oversized slabs of glass, as if the building’s mouth has been forced open and these glinting tombstones shoved in to prevent it from ever closing again. A building permanently trying not to gag. It’s a humiliating expression for this once noble façade. I walk through its gaping orifice and present myself to a young woman behind the reception desk and hand her the envelope with a smile.

21

Early summer 2013

Catherine decides to spend the day in domestic bliss. She texts Robert and tells him she’s taking the day off work and asks how his day is going. Well, he texts.
Home by 7.
She sends him three kisses. Tonight she will make a decent supper. They will have a bottle of crisp, white wine; they will have food flavoured with fresh herbs and they will have each other. She still enjoys Robert’s company more than anyone else’s; there is no one she would rather spend an evening with; no one whose opinion she respects more than his. She thinks back to the night a few weeks ago when she almost told him everything. Thank God she hadn’t. Robert thinks he is the strong one, but he isn’t really and marriage is delicate, not just theirs, but all marriages. There is a balance to maintain, and she thinks she has succeeded in keeping theirs on course.

Robert hates any kind of confrontation. She has hardly ever seen him angry, even with Nicholas; even when he was at his most challenging. It was always Catherine who raised her voice, never Robert. He was the one who smoothed things over. Although at times this upset her, made her feel like the cuckoo in the nest, she can see why he did it. If Nick couldn’t or wouldn’t talk to her, he at least knew he could talk to his father.

Robert had grown up an only child between warring parents and become expert in mediation. It hurt her to think that she and Nicholas needed a mediator, but at times they did. Her fault, she admits. She hadn’t been able to reach him in the way she wanted to. He seemed to misread her voice, her tone, her facial expressions. It would take nothing for him to become angry with her and after a while she became self-conscious with him. Nothing felt natural. It hadn’t always been like that, but certainly was from adolescence onwards. She has never doubted her love for Nicholas, yet the bond they’d had seems to have been eroded. Perhaps if she and Robert had had another child, things would have been different.

It is hard for Catherine to think about these things; she normally pushes them away, but she allows herself to hope that now Nicholas has moved out, the distance and space might help them see each other with a better perspective.

She can’t remember ever looking forward to going to a supermarket, but she does today. It is good to be able to concentrate on the mechanics of ordinary life and she wallows in the experience. She picks up a bunch of flat-leaf parsley, its long stems flopping in her hand, and puts it in her trolley. She buys fresh food; things that, if they are not eaten, will rot and smell and remind her she is losing control again.

The dull task of putting away the shopping gives her as much pleasure as the supermarket. Something so ordinary and thankless is such a luxury when you have been feeling the way Catherine has been feeling. She savours the simple pleasure of taking the food from the bags and putting it away: everything has its place and she is the one making sure it gets there.

It’s only four o’clock – hours before she needs to start cooking. She goes into the sitting room and lies on the sofa. She is like a cat, languishing in the one sun spot in the room. She closes her eyes, though she is not tired, merely relaxed. Then she does something she has not done for weeks. She picks up a book and starts to read. It is a safe book – one she has read before – and she lies back on the sofa and disappears into it.

At six o’clock she pours herself a glass of wine and phones her mother. She never misses this weekly call, although recently they have been hurried, careless conversations and her mum deserves more than that.

‘Mum? How are you? How’s your week been?’

‘Lovely, darling. Quiet, you know … but very nice. When did you get back from holiday?’

Catherine hesitates, not sure whether to correct her; they haven’t been on holiday since last summer. Recently her mum has started getting confused about dates and times.

‘We’ve been back ages, Mum – you know, I’ve seen you lots since then.’ She tries to be gentle and not alarm her. There is nothing to be alarmed about, not yet. Her mother shrinks time but she remembers other things very well. Catherine gets her on track again: ‘So did you go and see Emma’s new baby?’ Catherine’s younger cousin has just had her third child.

‘Yes, they came and picked me up. They’re so kind. Lovely little thing. All smiles. And how’s Nick? Is he still enjoying his job?’

‘Yes, he likes it, he really does.’

‘That’s super, he’s such a clever boy.’

Nick and his grandma have always been close. When he was born, Catherine’s mother moved in for a few weeks to help. It had given Catherine a new respect for her. She helped care for Nicholas, but she cared for Catherine and Robert too. She made meals, babysat, allowed them to have naps in the afternoon, whatever she felt they needed. She was never a martyr about it, never told Catherine how she should do things, she simply offered her support and love.

‘Sorry I haven’t been over recently, Mum. It’s been a bit hectic, what with the move and all. Let’s organize a Sunday lunch and I’ll get Nick over too. I’ll come and pick you up.’

‘You don’t have to pick me up, Catherine, I can pop on the bus.’

‘Well, we’ll see, Mum.’ The last time Catherine’s mother tried to take the bus she panicked about where to get off and stayed on until it returned to the bus station. She knows she is tiptoeing around her mother’s gentle decline, not yet named but gradually making itself visible. Catherine has organized a helper to come in twice a week to lend a hand with cleaning and shopping. It is good to know that someone else is keeping an eye on her too.

‘Well, I’d better get on with supper, Mum. Speak soon, lots of love.’

‘And to you, darling, take care of yourself.’

At seven, she texts Robert to let him know supper will be ready for seven fifteen. She puts on some music; allows herself to turn it up loud; allows herself another glass of wine; allows herself to feel at home.

By nine o’clock Robert is still not back. Catherine is worried. He has not replied to her calls or texts. It is not like him to be so utterly thoughtless. To simply not show up. A knot twists in her gut. She leaves a message for Nicholas, asking him to call her if he hears from his dad, but she hears nothing from him either. She is beginning to rehearse what she will say to the police when Robert finally texts her. He is stuck at work. No apology. No kiss. Fucking hell. She is hurt. Bugger. Fuck. He hasn’t given her any thought.

22

Early summer 2013

Catherine is wrong. Robert has done nothing but think of her. For hours. Unmoving. Sitting at his desk when everyone else has gone home, his head on fire with thoughts of his wife. The package had sat unopened on his desk all afternoon and then, when he was about to leave, he had picked it up.

He had his jacket half on, ready to go home to Catherine, when he tore it open. He had, like her, been looking forward to an evening together, and that’s what he was thinking of when he opened the envelope. He had frowned and slipped out a fan of photographs, thoughtless, not really registering what he was looking at. A quick glimpse. There was something else in the package too. A book. The book Catherine had burned.
The Perfect Stranger
by E. J. Preston. He opened it to the first page:
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental …

And then he had sat down and taken his jacket off.

He went through the photographs again, this time giving them his full attention, studying them one after the other. There were thirty-four in all. He picked up the manila envelope they’d arrived in and studied that too. The handwriting on the front. He didn’t recognize it.
Delivered by hand
, it said in the corner, with Robert’s name written in fountain pen; not a biro, a fountain pen loaded with royal-blue ink. Then he had stood up to catch his assistant before she left.

‘Where did this come from?’ he had asked. She had been surprised by his tone, stopped what she was doing.

‘Someone left it in reception.’

‘Who?’

‘I’ll find out,’ she said, and picked up the phone with Robert standing over her. She turned to him.

‘It was a man. An old man. Lucy said he handed her the envelope and told her it was for you. He didn’t say anything else. She said he looked a bit … well, rough. She thought he was a tramp, but he was polite and he didn’t hang around, just left the envelope and walked out.’

‘Thanks, I’ll see you in the morning,’ and he’d dismissed her.

He is still sitting at his desk, the photographs spread before him like a Hockney collage: small images pieced together to reveal a bigger picture. Yet Robert cannot see what that bigger picture is. What he sees is Catherine. Catherine on a beach fingering the ties at the side of her red bikini with Nicholas near by, smiling at the camera. Catherine asleep, peaceful. Another with her propped up on one arm, her breasts pushed together, beautiful, spilling over the top of her bikini, her smiling face resting on her hand. Who is she smiling at? Catherine and Nicholas sitting in the shallows, Nicholas looking out to sea, Catherine looking directly at the camera. She looks sexy, swelling with it, and their little boy, five at the time, sitting at her feet.