With or Without You (39 page)

Liv frowned slightly. ‘Gone where?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said, feeling foolish. He walked over to the other side of Felix’s bed and peered in at him. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘He’s got an ear infection. We’ve been up all night.’

Charlie tore his eyes away from Felix’s sleeping form and looked at Liv. Under her eyes, blue-black shadows hung above her apple-shaped cheekbones. The healthy glow that her skin had
sported recently had been replaced by a grey pallor that confirmed her story.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, looking up at him with tired eyes, ‘but he’s not going to be coming on location with you today.’

Before Charlie could stop himself, his eyes filled with tears.

Liv watched him with a puzzled expression as she got up off the floor and rubbed her back. ‘Look, it’s no big deal. There’ll be other chances,’ she said, before bending
over Felix once more. Charlie watched as she smoothed his curls to one side of his forehead and kissed his hot cheek. Even though he was in a deep sleep, Felix smiled at her touch and moved his
face a few millimetres towards her hand.

‘Come on,’ she said to Charlie, motioning to him that they should leave the room.

‘Just give me a minute.’

Liv looked at him for a few seconds, then left, closing the door gently behind her. Charlie knelt down beside the bed and looked at his son, sleeping soundly in the bright red racing car bed
that he loved so much.

Something inside Charlie seemed to crack and he wondered distractedly if it was the sound of his heart breaking. This child meant everything to him, and all he wanted – all he had ever
wanted – was to be a proper father to him. But he couldn’t do it.

Yes, he could buy a huge house himself and recreate Felix’s fabulous bedroom. But the truth was, he already had one. Here. At home with his mum. Where he belonged. Where he was happy.

Charlie rested his head on the smooth painted wood of the bed and finally gave in to his grief for all that he had lost.

A long time later he walked into the kitchen, where Liv was perched at the island in the middle of the room, studying a script. She glanced up at him with a look of curiosity mixed with
suspicion, but something in his expression must have alarmed her because she quickly looked down again.

‘Not long ’til you start shooting?’

‘No,’ Liv replied, biting on her thumbnail nervously.

Charlie took a deep breath. ‘Liv, I’ve come to a decision about Felix.’

The script dropped out of Liv’s hands and landed with a heavy thwack on the floor. ‘Oh no! Please, Charlie, please don’t . . .’ she began, her eyes suddenly haunted.
‘I’ll do anything. Just please don’t take him . . .’

Charlie closed his eyes, hating what he had done to Liv. Making her beg as if she was pleading for her life.

‘I’m not,’ he whispered, unable to speak the words any more clearly. Then he crouched down and buried his head in his hands, thinking that he couldn’t bear another moment
of this agony.

After a while, he felt a hand on his back. ‘Charlie?’ said Liv, her voice shuddering and tremulous.

He looked up, feeling hollowed out with sorrow. Liv’s own face was a reflection of his. ‘What did you mean?’ she whispered.

Charlie shook his head, suddenly feeling bone-weary and wrung-out. ‘I can’t do it. I so wanted him to be with me . . .’ he said, standing up unsteadily and gripping the island
for support. ‘But I can’t do it.’

Liv’s bottom lip wobbled dangerously. She closed her eyes and wrapped herself around him, pressing her damp face to his. Charlie inhaled her scent and thought about a half-remembered
moment many years ago when she had done the same. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured into his ear. ‘Thank you.’

As he left, promising to return later to check on Felix, Liv smiled at him in a way that he hadn’t seen for many years. It lit up her face as surely as if she had taken a magic cloth and
wiped away all the guilt, worry and sadness that had become etched into her skin.

‘I meant what I said, Charlie.’

‘About what?’

‘That if there’s anything I can do for you . . .’

Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t think anyone can do anything for me . . . I’m a hopeless case.’

‘You’re referring to Martha, I presume?’

Charlie stopped and gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘She’s gone. It’s over. End of story.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Me too.’

‘Will it make you feel better or worse if I tell you that she really did love you?’

Charlie smiled. ‘But not enough to stay with me. Story of my life,’ he added.

The blood raced to Liv’s cheeks. ‘You’ll find the right woman, Charlie. One day.’

Charlie looked back at her with a sad gleam in his eye, as he climbed into the car. ‘I thought I already did,’ he said through the open door. ‘Twice.’

Jamie leaned back in his chair and contemplated the little black recorder sitting on Martha’s desk on the other side of the office. Martha had been busy earlier in the
day transcribing her interview with Liv Mason, when Jamie had walked in unannounced to bring her a cup of tea. Martha had snatched the recorder up with suspicious haste and turned it off
abruptly.

Ever since, Jamie’s mind had been whirring with possibilities of what might have been said. He got up and opened the door to the office, listening out for signs of life in the house and
confirming that Martha had, indeed, gone out with Lindsay and that both children were fast asleep in their beds.

He swallowed guiltily and picked up the recorder tentatively. Almost in slow motion, he pressed the ‘Play’ button. At first he could just hear rustling, as someone, presumably
Martha, turned the pages of a notebook, followed by the scratch of a pen on paper as she wrote something.

Then he heard Liv Mason’s unmistakably upmarket voice: ‘So, how are things?’ she said. ‘You know, personally?’

Jamie put a hand over his mouth and considered switching off the recorder. One of his mum’s favourite sayings had been that prying eyes were liable to see things they didn’t like.
But, he reasoned, as he waited for Martha’s reply, she never said anything about prying ears.

‘Um, good.’ Jamie could tell from the tone of Martha’s voice that she didn’t want to be drawn into this conversation.

‘I’m glad,’ Liv said, followed by: ‘He’s a lovely man, Martha.’

Jamie’s heart swelled and he smiled to himself with relief as he heard Martha’s reply: ‘He is.’

‘I really appreciate what he did for me,’ Liv continued. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if it wasn’t for him that night . . .’

Jamie sat up, suddenly alert. He hadn’t told Martha what had happened that night because Liv had asked him not to. He was suddenly worried that she would be cross that he had kept
something else from her.

‘The night you went into rehab?’ Martha asked, and Jamie groaned slightly to himself.

‘No,’ said Liv. ‘That was the next day, after Charlie found out what had happened.’

‘I thought you were talking about Charlie?’

Jamie stared at the recorder in shock. So Martha hadn’t been referring to him when she’d agreed that he was a great guy. She had been talking about Charlie. The realisation hit him
like a punch in the stomach.

‘No,’ he heard Liv say. ‘I was talking about Jamie.’

‘Jamie?’ came Martha’s response. ‘
My
Jamie?’

‘Yes, Martha,
your
Jamie! Didn’t you know what happened that night?’

Jamie put his head in his hands as a feeling of dread swept over him. He should turn this off now but he couldn’t.

‘I can’t believe he didn’t tell you!’ Liv’s voice echoed through the room. ‘He was such a hero.’

Jamie listened in grim silence as Liv relayed the story of Felix’s disappearance, ending with, ‘He’s a really special guy.’

Jamie waited for Martha to agree, but there was silence. He shook his head and rubbed his face as Liv continued: ‘Martha? Please tell me you guys have worked through your
problems?’

‘You mean him cheating on me?’ he heard Martha snap, and he shrank a little further into his chair, unable to listen to any more but equally unable to turn it off.

‘Well, yes. I did know about that but he seemed genuinely sorry, Martha. And he really seemed to love you very much,’ came Liv’s voice.

Martha’s reply was barely distinguishable but he thought she said, ‘And I loved him.’

Past tense, he thought.

‘Past tense?’ said Liv on the recording, echoing his thoughts.

‘No, not really. I still do love him. But . . .’ said Martha, as Jamie tensed in readiness for what he suspected was coming next.

‘But you also love Charlie?’ said Liv.

‘I think maybe I do, yes.’

Jamie started to shake as the recording continued.

‘Have you seen him again?’ asked Liv, verbalising the question that was on Jamie’s own lips.

‘Yes,’ murmured Martha after an achingly long pause. ‘Yesterday. He came and found me.’

The bile rose in Jamie’s throat and he had to swallow hard to stop himself throwing up.

‘What are you going to do?’ he heard Liv ask. He closed his eyes as Martha’s answer reverberated through the room and through his brain. ‘I’m going to stay with
Jamie! What else can I do? I have no choice because of the kids . . .’

Jamie leaned forward and with a trembling hand switched off the recorder. He had heard enough.

It was early November and Jamie had taken Mimi and Tom to their school fireworks display while Martha wrote up a profile interview she had just done with a British TV presenter
who was enjoying a resurgence in his career. Normally she could find some sort of connection with her interviewees, but this one had been difficult because she had decided almost immediately that
she couldn’t stand the guy. He had been charming and friendly towards her but there was something about him that made her think he was essentially a bully who was used to getting his own way;
he had what Lindsay would describe as ‘bad karma’. She had tried really hard to hide her dislike, but transcribing the interview, she realised that she hadn’t been very
successful. The only answers she had been able to get from him were bland, boring and pat.

She sighed and stood up to look out of the window. The inky night sky was dappled with smoky trails, which looked like skinny ghosts when illuminated by each explosion. She used to love
fireworks when she was a child, but as she got older and had her own children they had started to scare her. She couldn’t enjoy them without worrying about what might happen if one exploded
in the wrong direction, so although Jamie was desperate to buy his own and have a mini display in the garden, Martha had always stopped him.

There was an almighty crack as a huge firework exploded into a cascade of white stars, like a waterfall of diamonds against the wide black sky. Martha thought about Jamie and the children,
wrapped up against the cold in their brightly coloured coats, scarves and boots, huddled together as they peered up at the spectacle above their heads.

She was worried about Jamie but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly why. He had been behaving oddly, almost shiftily, as if he was up to something. Whenever she tried to ask him about
it, he would simply reply that she was free to check his computer, his emails, his phone if she didn’t trust him. There was an eagerness about his urging that puzzled her.

In the beginning, when she had first discovered his affair, she had taken to checking up on him anyway, but as time went on she had realised that if they were to stand any chance as a couple,
she had to stop. She felt pretty sure that she wouldn’t find anything incriminating because Jamie was a whizz with the computer, and if he had anything to hide, she knew he would make sure to
cover his tracks this time. And it made her feel horrible about herself, reading through his private emails and texts, so she hadn’t checked up on him for a long time.

The fireworks display was reaching its crescendo and Martha sat back down at her computer, listlessly re-reading what she had written already and deleting most of it. Behind her, from
Jamie’s computer, came a sort of electronic grunting sound, which was the signal that he had a new email.

Martha glanced over at the screen. Jamie was downloading some photography tutorial and had set it running before he left. In the dock at the bottom of the screen, a little red circle appeared,
with a ‘1’ in the middle, signifying that he had one new email.

Bored with her interview, Martha rolled her chair over to Jamie’s computer and casually pressed on the email icon. At the top of the list of emails was the new one. The sender’s name
was
Debra Steele
.

Martha frowned as her heart began to race and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on her face. It couldn’t be.

Her eyes moved to the subject line, which read:
Hi Sexy!
The jauntiness of the greeting seemed grotesquely inappropriate, considering that they were the two small words that would
finally bring an end to her marriage.

The screen blurred in front of Martha’s tears and she tried to blink them away as she read the rest of the email, only confirming her suspicions that he had resumed his affair.

It wasn’t the same as before, when the shock had almost killed her. This time it was a seeping sadness that there was no way back. She closed the email and stood up, brushing herself down
as if that would somehow help. For a few seconds she wondered if she might faint, and she gripped the back of her chair for support. Gradually, the light-headedness passed and her balance
returned.

Slowly, as if in a trance, she walked to the window and looked out. The pavement outside was full of people leaving the fireworks display. In amongst them were Jamie and the children, who peeled
off from the crowd and turned into their drive.

As she watched, Jamie looked up and met her eye. The look on his face told her everything. She pressed her hand and her forehead to the glass. It felt cool under her hot palm.

Without losing eye contact with her, Jamie said something to the children, who took the key he proffered and let themselves into the house. He nodded and gave her the saddest smile she had ever
seen, before he turned and walked away from their house, from their marriage, and from their life together, with his back straight and his chin lifted.