The Lie of Love (14 page)

‘And you couldn’t give me a bit
of warning?’

‘I told you, I didn’t know I was
going until late this afternoon.’

‘I’m sorry…’ Darcy said coldly,
‘but I left my mind reading equipment at Amanda’s so I had no idea where you
were. Perhaps a phone call would have been courteous?’

‘I didn’t think I was going to be
this long.’

‘I cooked for you!’

‘Yeah, well I didn’t know.
Half the time these days you’re missing yourself or too busy to
cook any decent food.
Bloody hell, get off my case! One night of my life
I went out!’
Ged
slammed the
milk back on the fridge shelf and shoved the door shut. Leaning against it he
folded his arms and regarded Darcy with the same belligerence she had seen many
times displayed on Jake’s face as she told him off for some childish
misdemeanour.

‘You could have called me to let
me know. It would have taken five minutes…’ Darcy narrowed her eyes. ‘And your
mobile was switched off.’

‘Ah, now we get to it,’
Ged
sneered. ‘You think I’m having
an affair.’

‘Are you?’ Darcy said, a new and confused
range of emotions rushing through her.

‘Of course I’m bloody not! Grow
up, Darcy.’

‘Why was your phone off?’

‘Battery
was dead.’

Darcy chewed her lip. He was
telling the truth – she could see it in his eyes. But he wasn’t going to admit
he was wrong about leaving her in the lurch, she could see that too.  It
wasn’t in
Ged’s
nature to
ever admit he was wrong.  The argument they were having would escalate
into something far more tempestuous if one of them didn’t call a ceasefire now
– the sort of argument that lasted days and ended in an emotionally draining
impasse.  They had been here many times before and each time it nibbled
away at their fragile goodwill towards one another, undermining the very fabric
of the marriage that already hung together on the whisper of a cobweb.

‘I was worried about you,’ she
finally said.

‘I didn’t mean to make you
worry,’ he mumbled back.

There was
no running into his arms, no crying,
no
kiss and make
up. There was only
Ged
peeling off his jacket and
throwing it next to his briefcase before heading for the TV, and Darcy staring
at the debris he had left for her to clean up, thinking about a text still
unanswered on her phone.

There were so many hotels in Weymouth
that it was easy to become anonymous there. Besides, Darcy was as certain as
she could be that nobody she knew would spot her amongst the hordes of tourists
that swarmed over the bigger town in the summer months. She didn’t come here
often – she didn’t really need to – but it seemed safest to disappear in plain
sight and Weymouth was far enough
from
Lyme
Regis to be out of the way but not too far
to prevent getting home quickly if she needed to.  As she sat in the room
waiting, the same one she had paid for in cash so it wouldn’t show up on the
bank statements, she was paralysed by fear, but also fired by a thrill of
excitement.  When she had sent the text asking if he could get to Weymouth
that morning and then later telling him what room of what hotel to find her in,
she felt like a seasoned adulteress and it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
She never imagined she could be this person. But at the same time the pull to
see him, to have him whisper in her ear, kiss her body, to make her feel
beautiful and wanted, was too great to deny.

There was a
soft knock on the door and Darcy leapt up.  Her breathing shallow, she
crossed the floor, her footsteps muffled by the plush of the deep carpet, and
opened it slightly. Harry stood in the doorway, smiling broadly, the flush of
desire evident in his face too.  Before she had time to open the door, he
had pushed against it and was in. Darcy was in his arms with the door slammed
behind him in one deft movement. There was no speech, no excuses,
no
white lies. He kissed her with a fiery need and then
lifted her onto the bed.

Over the next weeks, Darcy became intimately acquainted with
the insides of many of Weymouth’s
cheaper guesthouses as often as she could. She couldn’t help but reflect that
there was something clichéd about their preferred venues, but in the absence of
anywhere safer, they had to make do with chintz covered beds and faded
wallpaper.  There were times when Darcy would lie naked in Harry’s
impossibly perfect arms and wonder where it would all end. Once, he had tried
to tell her he loved her and she had hushed him with a kiss. She didn’t need to
hear his lies – she knew he didn’t love her, but what he gave her was enough.

She was
also aware of Amanda’s suspicions, and that her fundraising still had to be
fitted in.  Amanda was easy to placate, although Darcy suspected she
didn’t believe the increasingly implausible excuses for her being unavailable
on so many week mornings, but the charity work couldn’t be allowed to suffer.
Darcy devoted as much energy as she had always done to that on the days her services
had been required, and come the evenings, she would fall asleep in front of the
TV, having uttered hardly more than the tersest words to
Ged
about housekeeping or some small domestic job
that needed doing.  The kids were always fetched on time from school and
the house was always clean when they arrived back. As far as Darcy was
concerned, things were holding together… just.

It had rained all night and into the morning, the roads
slick with a grey drizzle that seemed to smother the car in a damp, airless
cocoon. Darcy had phoned Harry, fretting about him driving over in his battered
old Polo, but he had laughed and told her not to turn into his mum.  And
so she sat on the bed at the latest hotel – the Mermaid’s Song – picking at the
candlewick bedspread with impatient fingers as she watched the clock tick
onwards towards his arrival.  Sure enough, half an hour later the familiar
knock came, a rush of relief and the tingle of desire, and they were back in
each other’s arms.

‘I think you must be getting
quite attached to me,’ he murmured as he unbuttoned her top, kissing down the
flesh as he exposed it.

‘What makes you say that?’ she
whispered in return as pulses of pleasure flashed down her spine.

‘Worried about whether I’d be
safe driving…’

‘I worry about everyone. It’s
what I do so don’t get any big ideas that you’re special,’ Darcy smiled as he
worked his way down to her breasts and she plunged her hands into his thick
hair. But somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered whether there was
more truth in his words than she cared to admit.

Later, as they lay tangled
together, Harry stroked her hair back from her damp forehead and kissed her
lightly. ‘I don’t want this to end.’

‘Surely you don’t want to go
again?’ Darcy laughed.

‘No…
this
…
all of it.
I don’t want to stop even though I know we’ll have to one
day.’

‘Don’t think about that now.’

‘Ok.’ He was silent for a moment,
holding her close, stroking a gentle thumb over her shoulder. ‘My mum knows –’

‘What!’ Darcy shot upright and
Harry burst out laughing.

‘You didn’t let me finish. My mum
knows that I’m seeing someone and she’s been trying to get me to admit it. She
doesn’t know it’s you.’

‘You haven’t told her anything?’

‘Of course not.
It’s quite funny keeping her guessing anyway.’

‘Well, I hope she never guesses,’
Darcy muttered. ‘It’d be bad news for everyone if she did.’

‘Probably,’ Harry agreed. 
He pulled Darcy back down into his arms with a grin. ‘You know… I think I could
go again.
Just a quick one for the road?’

Darcy couldn’t help but smile.
She leaned in to kiss him, relishing the taste of him, the yielding of his
mouth on hers.  But then she pulled away with a frown and cocked her head
to listen.

‘Is that my phone?’

Leaping from the bed she crossed
the room to where her handbag sat on a scuffed old dressing table. 
Pulling her phone from the pocket, she gasped as she saw the five missed calls
from
Ged
and a voicemail
flashing. Cursing herself for her carelessness, she realised that in the throes
of passion she had obviously missed the shrill ringing of her mobile. She
dialled and clamped the phone to her ear, her frown deepening as she listened
to
Ged’s
frantic message.

‘What’s wrong?’ Harry asked.

‘It’s Jake…
he’s had an accident at school and been rushed into hospital!’ 

Hair soaked, Darcy raced onto the ward to find Jake
sleeping, his arm in plaster, and
Ged
sitting beside him.

‘You’ll have to pick up Sophie
from school,’ he growled, hardly looking at her.

He knows
, she thought, with
terror and guilt pricking at her heart.  ‘What happened?’

‘The teacher says he was trying
to scale the guttering.
Showing off.
He fell and
landed on his arm.’
Ged
turned to her, his expression stony. ‘He wanted you before they took him to set
his arm. He almost screamed down A&E for you. I couldn’t explain to him
that we couldn’t find you. He kept saying that you were always at home. And I
admit
,
I was a bit puzzled when the school called me
out of work and that nobody knew where you were.’

‘You called Amanda?’

‘I called just about everyone in
our phone book.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Darcy went over and
smoothed a hand across Jake’s brow, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I’m so
sorry.’

‘So where were you?’

‘I was in Weymouth,’
Darcy said, quickly deciding that a half-truth would be easier to perpetuate
than a full blown lie.

‘Weymouth!
What the hell for?’

‘I was following up a fundraising
lead.’

‘Yet Amanda didn’t know about
this?’

‘It came up last minute and I
didn’t have chance to tell her.’

Ged
was silent for a moment, staring into space and
working his jaw.  ‘I hope it was worth it,’ he said finally. ‘I told you
this charity stuff couldn’t jeopardise our family life and yet, here we are.
You have more than one child, you know. Jake already feels like second best,
with all the time you spend on Sophie.’

‘That’s not true!’ Darcy cried.
She checked herself as heads around the ward flicked in her direction. ‘I give
Jake as much love as Sophie,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I can’t help that
she needs more physical help. Jake understands that.’

‘He says he does, but
think
about it for a minute.  Do you really think at
his age he can fully understand all of this?’

Darcy collapsed into a spare
chair, unable to choke back the sobs that strangled her throat.  ‘I didn’t
mean for this to happen…. I didn’t want to hurt anyone…’

‘Well you have.’

‘
Ged
?
Please, don’t….’ she sobbed, looking into his
eyes for any spark of forgiveness, any sign that he had once loved her. There
was nothing but cold contempt.

‘I’m going
to get a coffee now you’ve finally arrived,’ he said.

Once Darcy had made the decision to phone Harry and end it,
she realised with a jolt what she had suspected for some time now: she was falling
for him.  But there were more important people in her life, and Jake’s
accident had shocked her into a stark realisation that she couldn’t always have
just what she wanted. Harry had
been surprisingly
understanding
as she stuttered through her excuses, sobs breaking her
sentences into staccato chunks of garbled words. He had wished her well and
told her he had enjoyed her company and that he realised it would have to end
eventually. The bizarre sense of courtesy and acceptance in his voice had wounded
Darcy more than if he had shouted at her, called her names, told her he hated
her.  Because she couldn’t work out if he was hurt but magnanimous, or
whether he really hadn’t cared at all.  In the end, it wouldn’t matter,
she supposed, and rightly. Her energies had to be devoted to her family; she
had continued to forget that and to believe that she could juggle everything,
but she had to accept that it just wasn’t possible.

Jake was
soon
back
to his normal self – cocky, cheeky, out to
wind Darcy up at every available opportunity – but she wasn’t fooled for a
minute. Although he wore his plaster cast with pride and boasted to his friends
about his ordeal, she knew that the incident had shaken him up more than he
would ever admit to anyone, not even
himself
, and the
idea of that cut her even deeper. She wasn’t sure she would ever forgive
herself for not being there when her vulnerable boy had needed her most. She
vowed that she would be from now on, not only for both her children, but also
for
Ged
, who showed that he
still hadn’t forgiven her by skulking around the house and keeping conversation
to the absolute necessary.

Jake was on the sofa watching TV when Amanda arrived a few
days later. Darcy had decided that he still wasn’t quite ready to go back to school;
he had complained of pain in his arm and she hadn’t wanted to risk sending him
off too early, despite that the doctors had said it was perfectly alright as
long as he was careful not to knock it.  Amanda crept over to the sofa and
ruffled his hair from behind.

‘
Oi
!’
he cried, until he twisted around and saw her. He gave her a huge grin.

‘I got you a present,’ Amanda
said, handing him a bag.  Jake reached in and pulled out a sleek looking
box.

‘A Transformer!
Cool!’