The Sudden Departure of the Frasers (18 page)

Christy was agape. The expression on Caroline’s face during this astonishing eulogy was almost romantic. How perfect Amber sounded, plainly the Lime Park beauty to Rob’s beast. She had an unwelcome image of Joe dining at Canvas with the scrupulously democratic bombshell, mesmerized by her reduced portions and
bons mots
.

‘You must all wish she hadn’t moved.’ This sounded childishly jealous even to her own ears.

Caroline nodded. ‘We just wish it hadn’t been so sudden. I would have liked to have said a proper goodbye.’

‘Why
was
it so sudden? We were never actually told. And Felicity as well – was it to do with this problem with Rob?’

‘Really, it’s not for me to say.’

That meant yes, thought Christy. Her habit of evidence-gathering was already ingrained. A shame it had to be so piecemeal. ‘The Frasers weren’t here very long, were they?’ she persisted. ‘Were they getting divorced?’

‘God, no.’ Caroline seemed personally offended by the idea. ‘They were together forever – if it’s ever possible to say that. Jeremy was a wonderful husband. Amber could have taken her pick, but she wanted him. He was older than her, you know, a bit of a father figure, I suppose. She didn’t have the greatest childhood, from what she hinted to us; it wasn’t like she’d led a charmed life. And then it looked like they were having trouble conceiving, though that may have changed by now, of course. I do hope it has.’

Christy’s eyes widened at this further gush of personal detail. ‘Are you not in contact with her any more then?’

Caroline looked down at her hands, at the large conch-shell ring that seemed an odd choice for so conservative a dresser and that Christy imagined her having bought at Amber’s instruction on one of their sprees. Her sadness was plain. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

She shook her head. ‘To be honest, I don’t even know where they went.’

‘Nor do her friends,’ Christy said. ‘One of them sent a postcard and another knocked at the door a few weeks ago, looking for her. Imogen, she was called.’

‘I remember Imogen. She was an old work friend.’

‘She said she hadn’t heard from Amber since January.’

‘Well, I’m not sure that’s good news. I thought it was just us she’d cut herself off from.’ With this, Caroline grew even more despondent and Christy, almost feeling sorry for her loss, had to remind herself that Amber had not died but was probably busy eschewing cupcakes as they spoke in her new neighbourhood somewhere on the other side of time.

‘She was going to try Jeremy at his office, but –’ She stopped mid-sentence, on the brink of admitting that she had done the same herself, but Caroline came to her rescue.

‘Oh, we tried that ages ago, but it’s no use. He’s taken a sabbatical.’

‘Some sort of long-service thing?’ Christy suggested, her face innocent.

‘If you believe
that
,’ Caroline said.

‘You don’t?’

But, bar the raised eyebrows, the conversation was over. Caroline slid from her seat, preparing to leave. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to say hi, see how you are, and bury the hatchet. Enjoy the rest of the brownies.’

‘Thank you. It was very kind of you to think of me.’

After exchanging numbers and email addresses, Christy saw her to the door before resettling at the bedroom
window to turn over what she’d just been told – or not told, as the case may have been – and consider the rather friendlier Caroline Sellers she’d been allowed to meet. She was in good time to see Rob return alone from wherever he had spent the afternoon, his expression typically stormy.

So it was official: he was the neighbourhood pariah, disreputable and disliked.

And the question still remained:
why?

When Joe came home, late as ever and emitting the now-familiar odour of a herd of intensively farmed corporate lawyers, she could scarcely resist launching into her account of the conversation with Caroline – until she saw his face in the full beam of the kitchen spotlights. Ashen and downcast, it was the face of a man who’d been roundly trounced.

‘What is it? How was work?’

‘Oh, as terrifying as ever,’ he said bleakly.

She was taken aback. ‘Terrifying? But in an exciting way?’

‘No, in a terrifying way.’

‘But why?’ Christy asked. He’d never spoken like this before, though the truth was he was home so late she wasn’t always awake to ask.

He grimaced, mouth sour, not a trace of characteristic humour in his tone. ‘A hundred reasons.’

‘Tell me them.’

‘I get no air cover from Marcus any more, for one thing. At first he was on holiday, so I didn’t realize.’

‘Realize what?’

‘That I’m not in his team any more. I’m not in anyone’s team, I’m
completely on my own
.’ He said this as if he’d been left naked and alone in a derelict building, a serial killer hurtling towards him. ‘The only business I get is the business
I
get. Once this pharmaceutical deal is out the door …’ he shrugged, helpless.

‘But you always knew you’d have to bring in the clients when you were a partner.’

‘Sure.’ Joe drank from the glass of wine she’d handed him – or rather discharged the liquid into an open throat – and looked at the empty glass as if he’d been tricked. ‘It’s not just that, it’s the lack of any kind of human decency. I went to the partners’ meeting today and everyone was jockeying for position and challenging each other, there wasn’t a scrap of camaraderie. Honestly, it was no different from how it was when I was a trainee trying to get noticed. If anything it’s worse because now I’m in competition with the people I used to get support from.’

Not having any better idea, Christy poured him more wine. ‘How long have you been feeling like this? A month ago you were still on a high.’ Wasn’t he? How could it have escaped her notice that he had plunged so low? ‘It doesn’t suddenly kick in, this sort of stuff, does it?’ She knew she should do better than this to console and encourage, but she could not find the words, could not remember the psychology. The effort was perhaps visible in her face as she passed back his glass, because he dispatched the
second as rapidly as the first before declaring himself sick of thinking about it.

‘Enough about JR. How was your day? How goes the one-woman Lime Park Road charm offensive?’

Christy felt her heart rate pick up. ‘Well, I have some news, since you ask. It’s quite mysterious stuff.’

Boosted by his uncharacteristic interest, she told him all she’d learned from Caroline Sellers and how she had, following Caroline’s departure, taken again to the Internet. What was it that Caroline was so intent on concealing? On a hunch, she’d googled ‘Trouble Lime Park’ and then added ‘Controversy’ and ‘Mystery’, but all she’d found were forums about speed bumps and news of improvements to the junction at Lime Park Parade. All local intrigue seemed to involve road traffic. (Perhaps Rob had injured someone when driving, she’d thought wildly, thinking of his anger at the wheel that time.) Taking things to their Hitchcockian conclusion, she’d tried ‘Lime Park killer’, which yielded a story about a teenager from a neighbouring area who’d stabbed someone on a bus bound for Lime Park and had now been jailed.

To her surprise, Joe responded to her report with a surge of hilarity.

‘I get it,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious! We must have infiltrated some kind of suburban swinging set. Amber Baby ran it and now she’s gone no one’s getting any.’

Christy stared. Could he really be dismissing Caroline’s opaque apologies and dark hints so lightly? The news that they had moved next door to a man so disliked by the rest
of the street that they worked collectively to avoid being in the same room as him? A man who had as good as threatened Christy with violence and had received poisonous notes from unnamed enemies? But before she could protest she heard the edge of hysteria to Joe’s jollity and understood that he needed to laugh, he needed to make a joke of this, however unlikely the material. The ostracism of Rob was inconsequential compared to his growing anxiety about work.

He felt
completely on his own
– and for him Lime Park Road was his refuge, not a place he needed to hear contained risk and scandal.

‘Why haven’t
we
been asked to join?’ she said, producing a plausible chuckle. ‘We’re not good-looking enough, d’you think?’

‘You have to have a black Lab and a Range Rover to qualify? Or maybe they
have
tried to recruit us but we’ve been too dense to notice?’ Joe grinned. ‘That’s why this Caroline came round, to see if you’re ready to be initiated. And the reason Rob is so bad-tempered is because he hasn’t made the cut. He’s too hairy.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s
one
theory,’ Christy said.

Underscored though the merriment was by the wrongness of ignoring Joe’s wretchedness about work, it was good to be laughing together; it felt like the old days – before they’d moved into the new house. These were the new days now, the Lime Park future on which they’d staked everything. Ironic, then, that it had come to feel so troubled. Ironic, too, that when she pictured herself in the cramped rooms of their old flat, the street light yellow
and stark even through dark curtains, traffic noise absent only on those occasions you happened to wake in the night, the loneliest hours, it was as a much happier woman.

And Joe – not yet a partner – a less terrified man.

I don’t like to boast, but the neighbours said there had never been such a good party on the street as the one we gave on the bank holiday weekend in late August. ‘Let’s throw some money at this,’ Jeremy said – and I needed no second invitation.

In my opinion, a successful party serves functions beyond the giving of a good time and in this case there were several: to show off the renovations, which were a magnificent tribute to Hetty’s bold taste and Jeremy’s deep pockets (even Gemma admitted to being impressed); to thank our neighbours for their suffering and goodwill during the works; and, possibly most importantly, to provide the hostess with a new opportunity to observe her husband and her lover together and reassure herself – again – that the former knew nothing of the latter. Call it essential maintenance.

To this end, I suggested Rob bring a date. ‘I know you don’t like to at these things, but it will look more realistic.’

‘That’s because it
is
realistic,’ he said in mock objection. He was far too self-assured ever to take real offence; this was a man who thought he was God’s gift – and if I’d believed in the Lord I’d probably have agreed. ‘Much as
you like to think I exist purely to service your insatiable sexual needs, I do have a private life of my own.’

‘All right, keep your hair on,’ I said. We were in bed, of course, my phone (turned to silent) on the cabinet next to me. ‘You really don’t need to remind me of your prodigious hit rate. So who will you bring? Not that girl from Joanne and Kenny’s dinner party?’

‘God, no, she hates me.’

‘Why? What happened that night, anyway? She went to pieces the minute she saw you and then she left without a word.’

He gave a shrug, enough to confirm to me his interpretation of the encounter, if not hers: at some unspecified time in the past, he’d used her for the night and she’d resented her morning dismissal. ‘Some people
say
“No hard feelings” but then they go and have them anyway.’

It was clearly a pattern of behaviour he’d observed in his women.

‘When was this?’ I asked.

‘A couple of years ago, maybe. I’m a bit hazy on the details, but you of all people can’t give me a hard time about
that
.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said. ‘It’s a small world when you’re a man of easy virtue.’

‘Or woman.’ His palm glanced carelessly over my left breast. ‘Anyway, she’s given Kenny some sob story because he’s been off with me ever since that night.’

‘Sweet Kenny,’ I sighed. ‘He’s like Jeremy, he can’t resist a damsel in distress.’

‘That’s his excuse, is it?’ Rob murmured.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m just saying, I’m not sure his wife thinks he’s so sweet – or she certainly
shouldn’t
.’

I smiled, intrigued. ‘Why, what’s he been up to?’

He kissed my shoulder, ran his tongue along my collarbone until I dropped my shoulders and arched my back. ‘You can be hilariously dense for someone so clever.’

‘Oh, I know he’s got a bit of a thing about me,’ I laughed. ‘But nothing’s going to happen, don’t worry.’

Rob returned his head to the pillow. ‘I’m not remotely worried.’

‘So who then?’ I said.

‘Who’s Kenny –?’

‘No, who are
you
bringing to the party – stop changing the subject!’

‘I think Pippa,’ he said, as if plucking her name from an extensive list of hopefuls. ‘We’ve been getting on pretty well.’

‘You mean there’s someone you’ve seen more than once?’ This was the first time I’d heard Pippa’s name.

‘More than twice. Three times, four maybe.’

‘Four, wow, that’s practically an engagement for you, Robbie boy,’ I said mockingly. ‘I’ll have to dust off my wedding hat.’ If I was honest (which I was not, not then), I preferred the idea of him bringing a one-off date to the party, a Caitlin he’d dispose of after the event, not a genuine candidate whom the whole street would welcome into the fold.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard us,’ he said, idly twisting a length of my hair around his fingers.

‘Heard you?’

‘Yes, Pippa and me.
I’ve
heard
you
.’

‘I don’t see how.’

The strand of hair pulled a little at my scalp. ‘Your bedroom is directly next door to my living room, Amber, there’s just a layer of bricks between us.’

‘You’ve drilled a peephole, have you?’

‘I haven’t needed to. You and the silver fox go to bed earlier than I do and I’m guessing your bed is up against the inner wall, opposite the fireplace.’

‘God, you
have
drilled a hole. Have you got a camera rigged up as well?’

He smirked. ‘Oh, it’s easy enough to visualize, believe me. I know your moves better than anyone. I’m pleased to hear that the quest for procreation continues apace, though, admittedly, he sounds more enthusiastic than you do.’

‘That’s sick,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to forget you ever shared that pathetic little insight.’

He chuckled, thrilled to get a rise out of me. ‘“Pathetic little insight”? You really know how to put a man down, don’t you?’

He was so delighted, I couldn’t help laughing with him. ‘Just bring your little playmate to the party and shut up.’

And soon we were tangled up again, kissing and pressing and rolling and pitching, thrilled by how well matched we were in this hot, breathless rectangular realm, all third parties, spouses or otherwise, temporarily forgotten.

Jeremy and I invited everyone within a fifteen-door radius, both those we’d got to know and those we had not, as well
as a smattering of friends. Every single person RSVPed yes, some even rescheduling return dates from holidays to be back in time, for it was customary among the families here to decamp for the whole of August to their second homes in France (already there was talk of Jeremy and me joining the Sellerses at theirs on the Ile de Ré the following summer). There were caterers and a DJ, flowers and fairy lights and lanterns and balloons. I’d even rented a small fairground carousel and candy-floss stand for the younger children and paid local teenagers to man them. At the last minute, I added a magician to the bill.

‘If this is a house-warming, I can’t wait to see what your children’s parties are like,’ Caroline said, as her own kids climbed onto the ride, squealing like monkeys for her to watch. She often spoke as if I were already pregnant, which would cause us to exchange a significant look. Naturally, I didn’t let her suspect that she was far keener for me to join the club than I was myself.

‘The dress looks good,’ I told her. It was a gorgeous style, a midnight-blue maxi, daringly low cut, and bought of course at my advice. While not wishing to give the impression of being a marital miracle-worker, I will say that since I’d become involved in her wardrobe marital improvements had been noted. Meanwhile, Liz, my other charge, was unrecognizable from the wild-haired lunatic I’d first seen on the Sellerses’ terrace. The cropped haircut had been the first of many gratifying improvements and this evening I’d supervised the sliding of her diet-shrunken figure into a vintage-inspired pink sundress with a full pleated skirt.

Both women had been taken for pedicures and bullied into the highest heels of their lives.

Not normally competitive about desirability, I had pulled out the stops this time with my own appearance and I knew very well that the object of my rivalry was neither Caroline nor Liz. No, that strapless ivy-green macramé-lace dress and those red peep-toe high-heeled pumps, that silky pin-curled hair falling on shoulders polished smooth in a Mayfair spa – it was all conceived to put one woman in the shade: Pippa.

Maybe it was that flippant little comment of Rob’s – ‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard us,’ as if their enjoyment of one another could not be contained, and which, turning it over in my mind with unhealthy frequency, had assumed the form of a taunt – but she had somehow gained a right of way to my thoughts that shouldn’t reasonably have been granted. Why had she been chosen over the others? What did she have that Caitlin and her ilk did not? Did she have something in common with
me
? I wished now I’d dug deeper.

She was, it transpired, a typical London girl working a mid-level marketing job: late twenties or early thirties, long blonde hair that had been teased straight when it would have suited her better to allow a natural wave, a mask of make-up that spoke of professional trickery and yet served only to conceal her true attractiveness, a summer tan and towering wedged heels: all the standard ingredients of glamour. She had charm too, was gushingly appreciative of the invitation and offered help several times; soon she had everyone eating out of her hand.

She deserved better than Rob, but I was unique in this circle in having insider knowledge of him and of course everyone else judged them to be perfectly matched.

‘How long have you been together?’ people kept asking, and, on ambushing Rob alone, ‘She’s
really
nice, could be the one, eh?’

My ear was tuned to the frequency of every last one of those happy exclamations. Liz, after one too many glasses of Pimm’s, even said she’d always thought how nice it would be for someone to stage a wedding in one of the gardens backing onto the park, in springtime, when the cherry blossom would supply the confetti.

‘Sounds charming. I look forward to an invitation to yours,’ Rob replied, which threw her slightly (her confidence had not quite caught up with the external improvements) and perhaps explained the sudden punch she landed on his arm. It was a rather heavier blow than she intended, I gathered, seeing Pippa scurry to comfort him, while Liz fussed about in apology.

‘It’s all right,’ Rob groaned. ‘I really don’t think there’ll be extensive bruising.’

‘Everything OK here, ladies?’ Kenny had appeared, his expression absurdly protective.

‘Of course,’ I giggled. ‘Liz was just beating up Rob – no less than he deserves, if you ask me.’

Still rubbing his arm, Rob winked at Kenny. ‘I do like an empowered female, don’t you, Kenny?’

Kenny smiled weakly.

I had made a point that evening of watching for evidence of ill feeling between the two men, but could detect
nothing more than this unremarkable exchange. Either Caitlin had not substantiated her accusations or the two-week break in Provence Kenny had just returned from had mellowed him on the issue.

As for the only other neighbour I knew to credit with a suspicious mind – wise old bird and feminist Felicity – she also proved nicely gullible that evening, hovering proudly over Rob and Pippa like the mother of the bride.

‘I take my hat off to you, Amber,’ she said. ‘Of all the parties I’ve been to on this street over the years, I’ve
never
known him bring a girlfriend. And that’s if he decides to turn up in the first place. What’s your secret?’

Recalling that strange paranoid moment in her flat when I’d delivered the Victoria sponge, I studied her face for signs of ambivalence – to no avail. Like everyone else here, she was genuinely thrilled to see Rob so prettily paired. Whatever she’d intended in forestalling Gemma that afternoon, it had not been to protect the double lives of adulterers.

‘Oh, just call me Cupid,’ I told her, laughing. I was regretting my strategy, however: I’d intended some sort of beard, not a people’s princess – that was
my
job. And yet I couldn’t help liking Pippa myself, too.

‘Your house is the most beautiful I’ve ever set foot in,’ she told me, with adorable earnestness. ‘Your husband is so charming and funny.’ There could be no mistake that
she
was paying court to
me
.

No, there was no contest between us. And nor was there any between her and Gemma or Helena, both of whom had arrived dressed to seduce and both of whom
understood immediately that they were too late. They surrendered unconditionally.

‘I can’t believe Rob’s off the market already,’ Helena complained, raising her voice above the jangle of the carousel. She was smoking, always a sign of defeat. ‘It’s only a few weeks since he said there was no one serious.’

‘Oh, they’re not serious,’ I said, refusing to admit to myself that I spoke for my own benefit, not theirs. ‘I’d never heard him mention her until about a week ago. You’ve still got a shot, girls, get to work!’

‘Amber, she’s a complete leech,’ Gemma said, bearing her imperfect teeth to tear at a stick of candyfloss. ‘There’s no chance for anyone else. Look how she keeps helping with the carousel to show what a brilliant mother she’d be! It’s so
obvious
. You watch, she’ll already be plotting to move in with him and get pregnant.’

I sincerely hoped not. I took a pinch of her candyfloss and let it melt in a gritty pool on my tongue.

Just as everyone was nicely inebriated, Jeremy made a little speech to say how lucky we were to have such tolerant and forgiving neighbours. ‘This marks a new tradition: every last Saturday in August we will hold a party, come rain or shine.’

‘Come rain or shine’ struck me as one of his old people’s turns of phrase, a thought I cast from my head as he went on to thank me for creating such a glamorous home for him, praise I gallantly deflected by pulling Hetty into the spotlight.

‘Really,’ I said, ‘I’ve done nothing.’

And Rob heckled, ‘No, really, she hasn’t!’ and in just the
right tone for a neighbour and friend, as opposed to a lover who had only two days earlier immobilized me on the floor of his bathroom and torn my underwear so badly I’d had to throw it away.

Hetty was laughing, Pippa was laughing, Caroline was laughing, Felicity was laughing, everyone was laughing, and then there were cheers and whistles as the music was turned up and dancing broke out in earnest (and with some of the fifty-pluses, believe me, it
was
earnest). As I wove among my guests, beaming, I told myself I was not monitoring Rob’s whereabouts out of the corner of my eye; I told myself I did not yearn to separate him from his new mate and lure him out of sight for
my
turn. No, I knew better than to take risks of any kind at a function like this; they inevitably led to exposure. You hear about it all the time, the stolen kiss witnessed by a child who later tells his mother (‘The pretty lady with red hair was kissing the tall man with dark hair, it was yucky!’), or that crops up in the corner of someone’s photo, slightly out of focus but unmistakably criminal. With iPhones being brandished even by infants, there was as much surveillance as if we’d fixed a camera to a tripod and made a fly-on-the-wall documentary of the event. (How much easier infidelity must have been in the pre-digital age!)