You Can Trust Me (3 page)

She turns to me. “Laura, is it?”

“Livy.”

We stare at each other. Beside me, I feel the tension radiating off Will.

“Oh, I'm so sorry.” She is young, but her nose is slightly blobby and her eyes set too wide apart. There's an appealing vulnerability in her manner, but she's no femme fatale.

Still, I'm certain the mistake with my name was deliberate. Which surely means she cares. She
still
cares. I look anxiously at Will. Does he care back?

I watch him talk to Catrina, trying to read the body language between them. He is reserved and awkward. Is that because of her? Or just the situation? Catrina is all surface poise, but her unhappy eyes give her away. Will's hand is back on my spine, pressing my dress against my damp skin.

“Please excuse us,” Will is saying. “There are so many people I want my wife to meet.”

He steers me away. I catch a glimpse of Catrina watching us.

“Livy.” Will leans into me as we cross the room. “Are you okay?”

I say nothing. I'm trying to process the fact that Catrina still wants him. Perhaps I imagined that. I look around again. She is still watching us. She looks desperately miserable.

“You do know how much I love you, don't you?” Will's voice is an urgent whisper in my ear.

I turn and face him properly. I see no desire for Catrina in his face. Only concern for me. For the first time since we left the house, I relax a little. I've met her now. And Will doesn't want her. It was all a long time ago. Over. At least as far as he's concerned.

“I think she still likes you,” I say with yet another forced smile, searching his face.

Will shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It wouldn't matter even if she did.” He lowers his voice. “It's only you, Livy—you know that, don't you?”

His eyes plead with me. I nod as Martha appears at the end of the room to announce that dinner is ready.

The next hour passes in a blur. Martha has tactfully sat Catrina at the opposite end of the table from Will and me. I can see her chatting with Paul and Becky.

Dinner itself is delicious and served by more men in tuxedos who glide silently around the room, ferrying silver platters of Greek salad, then lamb noisette to each guest.

Dessert is a selection of mini mousses and tarts. Then we have coffee. The evening is drawing to a close—Leo and Martha's dinners are never late affairs; Leo is famous for rising early, even crediting his business success to the hours he puts in
before
the working day begins—and I've almost forgotten how humiliated I felt earlier, when Leo pitches up again. His cheeks are flushed and he carries with him the vague scent of cigar smoke.

“Crisis in Geneva,” he growls. “It's bloody Henri again.”

Will, who hasn't left my side all through dinner, frowns. “What does he want now?”

Leo explains. Lucas Henri, as I already know, is Harbury Media's biggest client. He owns a high-tech company based in Switzerland that supplies electronics goods to several outlets across the South West. Will hates him with a passion. Everyone at Harbury hates him, as far as I can tell. “He's got all the worst qualities of a client,” I remember Will telling me once. “He never knows what he wants, only that you haven't provided it. He micromanages. And he's always trying to slip extra jobs into the workload when they're not in the original agreement.” Tonight, it seems, someone has messed up on the dates for a hugely expensive marketing campaign, and Henri is panicking.

“He's threatening to pull his entire operation.” Leo sighs. “I need you out there with me, Will. Right now.”

Will shoots me an apologetic look.

“It's fine,” I say. I'm used to these last-minute business trips. It's one of the penalties of being married to someone who speaks fluent French and German. Catrina must speak great French too if she works in Paris. A spike of jealousy pierces me.

“The distributor has a charter leaving just before midnight,” Leo goes on. His earlier, jovial air is completely gone. He's stern and focused, all business mode. Will stiffens and straightens beside me in response. “Go home, pack an overnight.”

“I guess
I'll
be going home too, then.” I mean it to sound light and funny, but the words have an edge. I shouldn't let my housewife status get to me, but surrounded as I am by strong, successful women like Becky and Julia, it's hard sometimes not to feel sidelined.

Leo looks at me, his gaze softening. “Sorry, Livy, but I need my best man on the job.” He pats my arm. Again, his hand feels too heavy, too insistent somehow. “Don't worry, it's Geneva, not Paris, just me and Will.”

Oh God, he must think that I'm worried Catrina might be traveling with them. My cheeks burn, but Leo doesn't notice.

He has turned to Will again. “The girls are e-mailing you your ticket right now. Nothing else to be done.” And with that, he strides off.

Will opens his mouth, then shuts it again. I can tell he doesn't know what to say and that he's worried this will be the last straw after everything he's put me through tonight. It's funny. Will is valued at work for soothing neurotic clients in three languages, but he's tongue-tied around his emotions with me. Not to mention hopeless when it comes to anything practical like putting up shelves or mending the garden fence.

“I'm sorry,” he stammers at last.

“It's okay.” I smile. At least now we get away from Catrina. “Everyone'll be leaving soon anyway.”

We say good-bye to Martha. Catrina looks up from her conversation with Paul to wave at us both. I nod in response. Then we head home.

I breathe a sigh of relief as we get in the car. Will's phone rings immediately. It's Leo again, with an update on the situation in Geneva, which appears to be getting worse by the minute. I stare out of the window as we drive the short distance back to Heavitree. I know these streets so well. I grew up in Bath but came to university in Exeter twenty years ago. I haven't lived anywhere else since. Usually the lack of adventure in my past doesn't bother me, but right now it feels like yet another way in which my life and experiences are limited. Certainly I'm more limited than Will, who comes from London—and had already spent a year in France and Germany when I met him—and Catrina with her undoubtedly chic Parisian existence.

Will switches off his phone with a sigh, then asks if I'm all right. I reply rather curtly that I'm fine, then feel guilty for being short with him. After all, he has done everything tonight that he possibly could to reassure me.

As we walk up to the front door, I take his hand. “Hey.”

Will turns to face me, a worried frown on his forehead. I reach up to kiss him, letting my lips linger on his mouth. He responds by pulling me into a hug.

“Oh, Livy.” His breath is hot against my ear. There is so much feeling in his voice—relief and desire and love—that I suddenly feel stupid for having doubted him.

“Hey,” I say again, drawing back and holding his face between my hands. “Everything's fine. Don't worry.”

Will smiles; then we let ourselves into the house. The kids are both in bed and asleep. While Will disappears upstairs to pack a bag, I pay Bethany, our babysitter from along the road, then go to give him a hand. There's a small kerfuffle over the exact location of his laptop, which turns out to be lurking underneath Hannah's in a corner of the living room. And then he's off in a taxi to the airport. Miraculously, the children have slept through his entire departure and the house is suddenly, oddly silent. I watch TV, then take a long bath. It's only as I'm getting ready for bed that I remember Julia's earlier text and the call I didn't answer. I switch on my phone. She's left a voice mail asking me to ring her. The message says it's important, so I send a text asking if she's still up. There's no reply, and as it's well past eleven now, I send a second text saying I'm sorry I missed her and that although Will has had to go away, the kids and I will see her for lunch tomorrow as planned.

I sleep soundly, far better than I did the night before, when the dinner was still ahead of me. I awake with a jolt to Zack bouncing onto the bed, tousle-haired and smelling of sleep and chocolate; there's a telltale smear around his mouth.

He dives under the covers and throws his arms around my neck. “Mummy,” he croons in my ear, his hands in tight fists, pulling me toward him. “There was three
Ben 10
s in a row.”

I snuggle him close, feeling the familiar rush of love that Zack brings out in me. At seven, he is getting leaner, no longer a chubby-limbed little boy, but his huge appetite for physical affection shows no sign of diminishing, thank goodness.

“When are we going over to Julia's?” says Hannah, speaking from the door.

If there is a more scathing tone of voice in the world than the one a twelve-year-old girl can put into the most anodyne query to her mother, I have yet to hear it.

I glance over the top of Zack's head. Hannah is leaning against the doorframe, her blond hair snaking down her back. She is on the verge of puberty—narrow-hipped, long-legged like a colt, and with small buds of breasts. With her pale skin and gray eyes, she looks more like Kara every day. I soak her up as the memories wash over me: Kara as a little girl, giggling with mischief; Kara wide-eyed as she described her first student party; Kara weeping when our dog was sick and had to be put down—

Kara dead.

I shiver. I never actually saw her body, but sometimes I imagine her stone-colored eyes as they must have been in death: cold and hard and empty.

“Mum?” Hannah's tone is impatient. “What
time
?”

I shake off my morbid thoughts and glance at the clock by the bed. It's almost ten. No wonder Zack's been eating chocolate. I can't remember the last time I slept this late.

“Are you hungry, baby boy?” I ask.

Zack nods, nuzzling into my neck and planting a huge slobbery kiss on my right earlobe.

“I'm right
here
.” Now Hannah sounds injured. I look over.

Oh God, she's welling up.

“We'll go to Julia's at eleven,” I say, trying to smile in the face of Hannah's volatile emotions.

“Fine.” She flounces off.

I sigh, then reach for my phone. My call goes to Julia's voice mail, so I leave a message saying we'll see her soon. Julia still hasn't responded to the text I sent late last night. Thinking about it, I realize she's probably still in bed. Whom did she say she was seeing at the moment? Some younger man. He was fair-haired, “my Dirty Blond,” she'd confided with relish. I can't recall his actual name—or even if Julia had gotten around to telling it to me yet.

I bribe Zack up and off me with the promise of a bacon sandwich. I make one for myself too, but Hannah refuses to eat.

“I'll have something at Julia's,” she says.

I shake my head. It's pointless to argue. Julia will have provided food—there'll be nibbles from her local deli, along with huge gin and tonics for me and her, followed by something super-sophisticated for lunch, with no quarter given to the idea of a kids' menu. “Quail eggs before chicken nuggets,” she always says, refusing to make any allowance even during Zack's long year of eating only sausages.

Over lunch, Julia and I will drink Pouilly-Fuissé wine, her favorite, and there'll be a jug of proper lemonade for the kids. Julia will slip two cubes of ice and a slice of lemon into Hannah's glass to emulate our earlier G&Ts.

“A glamour drink,” she will say with a smile and a wink. “To get you ready for the big time, Hans.”

She's always had a special relationship with Hannah. In many ways, they're alike—brittle and egocentric but capable of genuine warmth too. I know the fact that Hannah looks like Kara has always haunted Julia as well as me. After all, it was my sister's death—and our impotent fury against her killer—that brought Julia and me together.

Hannah is dressed and ready to leave by ten thirty—she's in skinny jeans and a silk vest of mine that is both too old and too big for her. I am too busy bribing Zack to get dressed to say anything either about that or the eyeliner she's applied rather heavily. She adores Julia as much as Julia adores her. I understand why she wants to look good. Julia brings out that side of me as well.

Once Zack is ready, I hurry into my own tea dress and sandals. Julia is never late herself and hates unpunctuality in her guests. It seems odd that she hasn't replied either to my call or my text, but I don't give it much thought as we pull up in the sunshine outside her apartment.

And then she doesn't answer the door.

I frown. I've never known Julia—a self-confessed control freak—to miss one of our Sunday lunch dates or, indeed, be late for any arrangement. For all the force and flamboyance of her personality, Julia is one of the most considerate people I've ever met: well-mannered to a fault and as openly grateful for the stability my friendship offers as she is needful of constant change and stimulation in other areas of her life.

The two of us grew close after Kara's death. Before then, Julia was really my sister's friend. Unmarried and childless herself, Julia couldn't be more different from me. But she is godmother to my eldest child, and the first person I turned to when I found out about Will's affair.

“Oh, honeypie,” I remember her saying with a weary sigh, “Didn't Momma tell you never to put all your eggs in one bastard?”

She's always quoting Dorothy Parker—I gave Julia a collection of the author's sayings for her most recent, thirty-sixth birthday. Once we've settled the kids in front of a DVD, I know she'll be full of questions and opinions about Catrina and how the dinner party went.

I ring the doorbell again. Still no reply.

“But she's
always
here when we come,” Hannah says.