Marriage and Other Games (7 page)
Charlotte had never really played along, because she never believed it would come to anything. She was practical and down-to-earth, knowing that with the best will in the world they could probably afford a substantial but dull modern-ish house on a pleasant-ish housing estate somewhere semi-rural but commutable, and she was happy to accept that. But Ed was perfectly entitled to dream.
But that dream had obviously become an obsession. It was the world they moved in that was to blame. Some of their colleagues and most of their clients had luxurious homes and fabulous cars and glamorous lifestyles. She had underestimated just how badly Ed wanted that too, not realising he was so consumed by his desire, or that he would go to such drastic lengths to achieve what he felt he was entitled to.
She turned down yet another street, realising she hadn’t a clue where she was. The terraced houses were smaller and shabbier than the area they lived in, with peeling paintwork and rusty gates hanging off their hinges, the hedges unkempt. She wondered how many criminals were harboured behind the doors, and what they had done. TV licence evasion, benefit fraud, possession of an offensive weapon, drug dealing, driving a car without insurance - she would bet that any number of crimes were going on inches from her nose. But none of them would be as despicable as what Ed had done. A young man on a good salary who just got greedy.
Her cheeks burned with the shame. She cringed inside as she recollected his rousing speech at the charity ball, the way he had urged the crowd on into competitive bidding. And all along he had known the more they bid the bigger his pot would be.
How long had he been planning it? More to the point, would people think she was in on it? Would they imagine that she had spent the best part of a year deciding themes, choosing menus, booking entertainers, all as part of an elaborate scam to get rich quick? Charlotte, who was generally good-natured and didn’t hate anyone, felt a sudden surge of pure loathing for her husband. How could he profess love for her and compromise her like that? Never mind his reputation; what about hers? No one was going to believe she was innocent. Even if he said she was, they would have their doubts.
She shivered. The night air was damp, and she only had on a thin cardigan. Short of checking into a hotel there was nowhere else she could go, and actually she was buggered if she was going to be shut out of her own home. She’d have to go back and face him. Anyway, there were questions to be answered. She tried to get her bearings, heading for what looked like a main road at the end of the street, searching in vain for the lights of a taxi.
It was just before dawn before she got in. Ed was passed out on top of the bed. She felt too exhausted for confrontation, so she slipped fully clothed under the duvet, trying to get warm, her eyelids burning from lack of sleep. Outside the dawn chorus started, and Charlotte knew there was no way she was going to be able to get to sleep. She felt as if there was a heavy stone in place of her heart, and a nest of writhing adders in her stomach. She hadn’t been able to face food. She’d managed half a piece of toast earlier, which had gone straight through her, and the half bottle of wine she’d resorted to felt like hydrochloric acid swirling round in her gut.
How did life manage to do this? Trip you up when you least expected it? When as far as you knew you hadn’t done anything to deserve it? In the blink of an eye, all her security had gone. She had made a grave error of judgement about the man she was supposed to be spending the rest of her life with; the man whose babies she had been trying to have. Yet again she thanked goodness she wasn’t pregnant. How would she have coped with that? Homeless, with a jailbird for a father? In the meantime, how were they supposed to manage? How long before your house was actually repossessed? Would they take her stuff as well as his? Was her name going to be dragged through the mud?
She rolled over, pressing her face into the pillow, longing for sleep but knowing that it wouldn’t come. Next to her, she heard Ed’s breathing become deeper, and she felt filled with rage. How could he sleep, knowing what he had done, while she was wide awake with worry?
She sat up and grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt.
‘You bastard!’
‘Jesus!’
He started awake and sat up in alarm.
‘What is it?’
She was sobbing violently, totally out of control. He put his arms around her, and she longed to be able to sink into them, longed to hear his reassurance. That was what husbands were for, wasn’t it? They were supposed to be your rock. They were supposed to make you feel safe. Not terrified. Petrified of the next day and what it might bring.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Hey, it’s OK.’
‘How can you say that?’ she demanded.
She pushed his arms away and jumped out of the bed. She couldn’t bear to be near him a moment longer. She wanted to get as far away from him as possible. Outside the spare room she stopped. It was four o’clock in the morning. Where else was she going to go?
Ed stood in the doorway of their bedroom behind her.
‘Charlotte. Sweetheart. Come back to bed.’
‘Leave me alone,’ she snarled. ‘And I’m not your sweetheart.’
For a moment she thought he was going to protest, then he sighed and slipped back into their room.
She pushed open the door of the spare room and clambered into the spare bed, grateful that she always kept it made up with fresh linen in case one of Ed’s mates stayed over after a boozy evening. She was also glad that she kept the room well equipped, second-guessing every guest’s need: she found a pair of ear plugs in the chest of drawers, along with pillow mist, condoms and a box of Alka Seltzer. Satisfied that they would shut out the almost deafening dawn chorus, she curled up and eventually fell asleep.
She woke at half eleven the next morning, confused for a moment as to why she was in the spare room. And then she remembered. She pulled the duvet over her head, trying to take refuge from the painful truth, but it wouldn’t go away. She was going to have to face the day, the consequences, Ed . . .
Feeling sick at heart she pushed back the covers and climbed wearily out of bed. She was still dressed from the night before; she felt grubby, worn at the edges, exhausted from the shock. Her limbs ached, her head throbbed, her eyes were gritty with unshed tears. She decided to have a shower, put on some fresh clothes and go to get some food. She hadn’t eaten properly since breakfast the day before, and although she didn’t feel like eating, she knew she would feel better if she did.
There was no sign of Ed as she crept into the bathroom and stood under a red-hot shower for ten minutes, allowing the powerful jets to pummel some life back into her. She pulled a pair of tracksuit trousers and a sweatshirt from the airing cupboard on the landing, picked up her shoes and went downstairs, stopping to rummage in her handbag on the newel post for her purse.
Then she opened the front door.
No sooner had she set her foot on the top step than a bevy of photographers rushed forwards, light bulbs popping. She froze in fear, wondering what on earth they were doing there, then realised they had probably been banging on the door since daybreak. With her ear plugs in, she wouldn’t have heard a thing.
Of course word would have got out. If the papers hadn’t got the sordid details from the police, then someone else would have been all too quick to inform them. Someone on the hospice committee, perhaps, hoping they could sweep up public sympathy and some nationwide exposure in the light of the scandal.
She was tempted for a moment to flee back inside. But she couldn’t stay locked in for ever. She needed to eat. And, she reminded herself, she wasn’t actually guilty of anything. Hiding from the press would make them even hungrier for dirt. So she held her head up high and descended the last of the steps, not looking straight at any of the cameras or the reporters who were jostling for her attention, firing questions at her. ‘Where are you off to, Charlotte? It is Charlotte, isn’t it?’ ‘Where’s Ed? Is he in there?’ ‘How do you feel about what your husband did?’
She put her head down and ran blindly to the car, her hands shaking as she put the key in the ignition. As the engine started up she pulled into the road, scattering photographers in her wake. They were wasting their time. She didn’t have anything to say. Yes, she could sit down and tell them how she really felt. Eviscerated. As if the last six years had been snuffed out like a candle. Hopeless. Bewildered. Betrayed. What would she get for selling her story? Not enough. Besides, she might no longer have her dignity, but she was going to hold on to her pride if it killed her.
She made it to the shop, and kept her head down in the queue. She bought a bag of Danish pastries and some doughnuts, and made her escape before she saw anyone she knew. Sunday morning here was usually a social whirl, as people compared hangovers and dithered over which overweight newspaper to take home. Thankfully she was spared the embarrassment of having to pretend to be polite, despite harbouring a ghastly secret that everyone would be privy to soon enough.
By the time she got home, Ed was sitting at the kitchen table. She dumped the pastries in front of him wordlessly, and went to get plates.
‘Do you want a coffee?’ he managed to ask.
Charlotte gripped the sides of the china she was carrying. How dare he try to pretend things were normal? She felt an overwhelming urge to throw the plates at his head, even though she wasn’t normally a violent creature.
‘No,’ she managed in a strangled voice. ‘I just want someone to tell me that this has all been a silly mistake. But that’s not going to happen, is it?’
Ed looked down at the table, spreading his hands out on it, taking in slow, deep breaths.
‘No, it’s not,’ he agreed eventually. ‘Charlotte . . . let’s try to get through this. Without—’
‘Without what?’ she demanded.
‘Without . . . doing any damage to us. I mean, that’s all that matters, isn’t it? You and me?’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Are you saying you want me to pretend it doesn’t matter? That it’s just a little hiccup?’
‘I screwed up. I know I screwed up.’
‘This isn’t something I can condone, or excuse, or rationalise. This puts a whole new light on the person you are, Ed.’
‘I was under stress. I wasn’t thinking straight. It’s been a tough few years. Even you’ve got to admit that.’
‘But this wasn’t something you did on the spur of the moment. You must have been planning it for months.’
‘No! Not until I heard about the buy-out. It just seemed like . . . such a great opportunity. We could change our lives in the blink of an eye without doing anyone any harm. It was a million to one that it went wrong. I guess I got unlucky.’
He looked up at her, his expression so bleak that for a moment her heart went out to him. Then she realised the truth: he just didn’t get it.
‘The problem is,’ she explained as patiently as she could, ‘that what you are blaming yourself for is the fact the deal went wrong. You can’t seem to see that the whole scam was inherently immoral. If you could have got away with it, you would. Even now. And that’s what I can’t handle.’
Ed’s face was expressionless.
‘Are you saying it’s over?’ he asked flatly.
‘I don’t know.’ This was the truth. Charlotte had no idea at all how she was going to deal with what had happened. She couldn’t bring herself to be supportive to Ed, to console him at all, to show him even a modicum of sympathy. But to walk out after six years of marriage, when until the night before she had loved him with every bone in her body, was anathema.
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