Before I Knew You Page 24

  ‘Sorry … I’m probably not supposed to come in here, am I?’ He directed the apology at two of her colleagues, Gina Logan, a maths tutor, and Alain Labrousse, responsible for modern languages, both of whom were seated at the table nearest the door. ‘I’m after … Ah, there you are.’ He smiled with sudden obvious shyness at Sophie, who was already on her feet. ‘I just wanted to say …’ He slipped through the door and crossed the room quickly, self-consciously, on the balls of his feet. ‘Sorry,’ he offered again, speaking in a stage whisper and glancing over his shoulder at the other two, busy now packing away their books, ‘I know I’m disturbing you. I just wanted to say thank you again for –’

  ‘No need to thank me for anything – truly.’ Behind him the door closed on Gina and Alain, leaving for their respective tutorials. As Sophie returned her attention to her visitor, the last of her apprehensions evaporated. On closer inspection it was plain that the hair wasn’t styled into its rather wild shape so much as bent at odd angles from compression among bedclothes. He looked, more than anything, exhausted – his eyes red-rimmed and lost in creases of fatigue, his skin as pallid as his son’s. He was also much taller than she had judged, either from the photos scattered around his home or the shadowy impression she had received in the dark outside the bar on Friday night. ‘There’s coffee, if you would like?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘Did it go all right upstairs? With Gareth … I mean, Mr Wainwright?’

  ‘Oh, yes … splendid … all sorted. I’m so grateful – I can’t tell you …’ He combed his fingers through the mess of his hair, looking about him with a suggestion of desperation, as if the walls of the room and more of Gareth’s tasteful prints might inspire the right lines of gratitude.

  The exhaustion looked layered and deep, Sophie decided – quite beyond jet-lag. ‘I’m the one who should apologize,’ she offered kindly, ‘for not introducing myself properly on Friday – I was just so cross with the girls and stressed out about the car –’

  ‘Yes, you explained on the phone. It’s quite all right. I would have done the same, I’m sure … At least, I hope I would. I admire anyone prepared to take a firm line with teenagers,’ he added, to the accompaniment of such a grimace that it took Sophie a moment to register that she was being complimented.

  ‘Look, Andrew and I would be delighted if you could come to supper tonight,’ she blurted. ‘I know you’re only here for five minutes and you’re probably fiendishly busy, but … well, there we are – the offer stands. We loved our time in Darien so much,’ she added gently, forgetting her fears about what Beth might or might not have said, her heart going out to him as he laboured visibly with indecision at her offer, running one hand across his mouth while the other stabbed again at the hopeless disorder of his hair. ‘The holiday of a lifetime,’ she pressed on diplomatically, assuming the agonizing was to find a polite way of saying no. ‘We were just so sorry about –’

  ‘Did you say tonight?’ His face was calm suddenly, the eyebrows raised, as if surprised by his own conclusion. ‘Actually, that might work pretty well … if you’re sure?’

  ‘Of course,’ Sophie cried, making a mental note to add mince, onions, mushrooms and spaghetti to the list of things to swoop round the supermarket for on her way home from work.

  ‘This trip to London was only supposed to be for the weekend but it’s all turned a bit hectic –’ He broke off as his mobile sounded from the confines of his trouser pocket. ‘Sorry …’ He plucked the phone out and gave a quick glance at the screen before turning it off.

  ‘It must be hard,’ Sophie ventured, wondering at the identity of the caller – so swiftly despatched – and speculating whether it might have been the American wife. ‘I mean, living abroad, away from your sons.’

  ‘It is.’ He looked at her then – into the heart of her, it felt – his bloodshot eyes so ablaze that for a moment Sophie had a vivid image of the man literally exploding into fragments in front of her, in a spontaneous combustion of all the nervous energy that seemed to be bursting to get out of him. ‘That’s why what you have done for Harry means so much,’ he added, blinking as the moment had passed.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Sophie countered briskly. ‘They hatched it themselves – Harry and Olivia. I’ve done nothing except ease the way – although he’ll have to work hard. Make no mistake about that.’

  ‘Good, I’m relieved to hear it. Retakes won’t change the world, but it’s a start, at least, a step in the right direction – hopefully one that will get him into a university next year. You’re English, aren’t you? Shakespeare, the Romantics – Christ, the lucky bugger.’ He shook out his overcoat, which had been draped over his arm, then fed his arms into the sleeves and shrugged it on over his shoulders. ‘I suppose you know he likes Olivia,’ he remarked, once the coat was in place. ‘I mean, really likes her.’

  Sophie pressed her lips together, hiding her surprise. ‘I had sort of gathered, yes, but …’

  ‘She doesn’t like him?’

  He was smiling now, but Sophie felt a sort of vicarious awkwardness at having to confirm the rejection of Harry’s emotions on her daughter’s behalf. ‘Yes … at least, of course she likes him – they’re tremendous friends – just not in that way. Clare on the other hand …’

  ‘Clare? Is that the red-haired girl? Oh, I see.’ He had dropped his phone into his pocket and started doing up the buttons of his coat. ‘Funny, isn’t it,’ he murmured, ‘people liking the wrong people? It starts so young and never seems to end.’

  Sophie glanced at him sharply, her stomach twisting, but there appeared no hidden agenda to the remark – indeed, from what she could tell, it had been made more for his benefit than hers. He looked much better in the coat, which seemed to sit naturally with the collar up, ruffling the ends of his overgrown hair. It was clearly an expensive wool and of a sufficiently dark blue to draw attention to the fact that, within the wrinkles of fatigue, his eyes were a strong, deep brown, flecked with green. ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ Sophie stretched the words out, puzzling even more at the man in front of her – so clearly not to be feared and yet so not what she had expected either from the sleek, affluent home or the monstrous wife. ‘I’ll see you out now.’

  ‘Yes, please – I’ve taken up more than enough of your valuable time.’ He glanced up at the staff-room clock and grimaced. ‘I’m already running late.’

  ‘Shall we say eight o’clock, then? You know the address, of course …’ Sophie turned for the door but he didn’t follow.

  ‘I say, that burglar of yours – did they get him?’

  ‘Pardon? Oh, goodness, you had that to deal with, too, didn’t you?’

  ‘Beth was mistaken for you, that was all. It freaked her out,’ he chuckled fondly, ‘but it was no big deal. Did they get him? That’s all I wanted to know.’

  ‘Thank you so much for asking and, yes, they did, thank God. Just a sad lost child, really. He’s awaiting trial, or something. I haven’t had an update for a while.’

  ‘Brilliant. Good. See you at eight o’clock, then. Assuming I survive my day.’ William strode ahead of her and held the door open, insisting with a sweep of an arm that she be the first to exit into the hall.

  ‘You have a lot to do, I expect,’ Sophie murmured, somewhat disarmed as she stepped past.

  ‘Too much,’ he growled. ‘Lunch with an old adversary in the City, rugby-watching my thirteen-year-old, trying to coax more than a scowl out of his middle brother, getting the cold treatment from my eighteen-year-old and – as if such delights weren’t sufficient – having to be more than usually nice to my ex-wife because she is ill … ’

  ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry to hear that,’ Sophie muttered, somewhat taken aback that a merely polite enquiry should have triggered such an outpouring of information. They had passed Reception and were at the door, which she had swiftly opened.

  ‘Breast cancer … I told Mr Wainwright as well. There’s a fair prognosis and so on – but I thought
it best that the college should know, in the circumstances.’

  ‘Of course. I’m so sorry. How very difficult for all of you.’ Sophie pulled her cardigan more tightly round her as a sharp wind gusted up the path. ‘Especially Harry … and his brothers. Three boys, then, is it?’

  ‘That’s right.’ The blaze was back in his eyes and he was tugging at his lower lip again with his teeth. ‘What’s that quote …? “Sorrows come not in spies … ” ’

  ‘“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”’

  ‘That’s the one. Thanks. That’s rather how it’s been lately. It’s been decades since I was in Harry’s shoes – my Hamlet’s a little rusty.’ He held his hand out to clasp hers but then pulled her towards him so he could plant a kiss on both her cheeks. ‘You – your beautiful daughter – this college – it was the help Harry needed. I thank you both from the bottom of my heart.’

  ‘The man is a complete wreck,’ Sophie reported to Andrew an hour later, catching a moment to phone between tutorials. ‘I said eight o’clock for dinner – I hope that’s okay. I’ll have fed Olivia by then – I’m sure she won’t want to be dragged into adult small-talk round the dining-room table. Milly, of course, is on that field trip.’

  ‘Oh, God, you asked him to dinner.’

  ‘You told me to,’ Sophie shrieked, keeping her hand over the mouthpiece even though she had taken the precaution of putting on her coat and stepping onto the front steps of the college so she could have the conversation in private.

  ‘Yes, yes, I did, but now I’ve had to schedule an extra rehearsal. Believe me, we need it.’

  ‘But how can I cancel?’ she wailed. ‘Oh, Andrew, this just isn’t fair. And how can you have an extra rehearsal without Milly? I thought she was the best of all of them?’

  ‘She is. But the others need it. I’ll be back by nine thirty – ten at the very latest. Just go ahead and eat – put mine on a plate in the oven to keep warm … Sorry, Sophie, love.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Andrew.’ Sophie snapped off the phone and stormed back to work, slamming the door so hard that even Gareth, coming down the stairs in the hope of having a word about their new student and not usually swayed from a chosen course of action, decided to seek out a cup of coffee instead.

  To: annhooper@googlemail.com

  26 November

  From: chapmanandrew@stjosephs.sch.org.uk

  Subject: NY Tour

  Dearest Ann,

  I just had to write and say (tempting fate notwithstanding) that – as of this very evening – we have just had the most excellent rehearsal yet. That old adage about high expectations producing the best results is so true. They are still way off on some details – not to mention the odd note! – but there is heart to their performance now, that magical component that is so hard to put one’s finger on although, by golly, you know when it’s there. We were minus Milly (geography expedition to Lulworth Cove), which seemed in some weird way a positive thing – perhaps because she’s so good it puts some of them off. Anyway, I can’t tell you how pleased – how relieved! – I am. After all your hard work it would be unforgivable of us to arrive with a second-rate show.

  As to your getting Stanley Hart to be one of my referees … words fail me. If I had known that a man of such potential influence and prestige was sitting blowing into a trumpet during all those rehearsals in August I might have been too intimidated to pick up the baton! But then, like so much recently, I feel as if events have gathered a momentum beyond my control and the wisest – the only – course of action is to go with the flow. I might not succeed, of course, but am certain now, thanks in a large part to your encouragement, that it would be nothing short of idiotic not to try. The only thing gnawing at me is whether or not to tell Sophie. It feels unnatural to keep something so potentially significant to myself but I have this (no doubt childish and irrational) fear that to tell her BEFORE might somehow jinx things …

  I’m tempted to pick up the phone and get your advice, Ann, wise, capable counsellor that you are. I might yet do so, but not now, as the rehearsal ran even later than I had anticipated. I can hear the school caretaker pacing the corridors, while poor Sophie has had to do a single-handed job of entertaining William Stapleton – over here seeing his sons, one of whom is a friend of Olivia’s and has just signed on to resit his A levels at Sophie’s college. Small world or what?!

  In haste therefore, but with love as ever,

  Andrew x

  PS Twelve days and counting …

  Walking briskly across the school car park a few minutes later, Andrew waved at the caretaker as he emerged from the gym. ‘Sorry, Bill – no rest for the wicked.’

  ‘No worries. Goodnight, Mr Chapman. I hope that wife of yours has got something nice and warm waiting for you.’

  ‘Oh, she has,’ Andrew fired back, aware suddenly, as he swung out of the gates, that he was hollow with hunger. Spaghetti, Sophie had said. No matter how congealed, it would be wonderful. A glass of red wine, a quick despatch of their guest, and he would tell her. He would tell her. He slapped the steering-wheel. Keeping it to himself was becoming increasingly hard. And if it was all going to come to nothing then why not share the lovely growing anticipation with her while he was still in the delicious thick of it, with everything to play for and nothing lost? Milly had spilt all her secret plans of going to the Juilliard earlier in the week and Sophie had been unhesitatingly – hearteningly – thrilled, catching his eye as she dropped kisses onto their youngest’s high ponytail, saying how kind of Meredith to be so encouraging and informative and that if Milly had set her heart on something she had every right to see it through.

  By the time Andrew arrived home, he was virtually groaning out loud with the weight of his own hopes. To blurt them to William Stapleton as well as his wife seemed entirely reasonable. When Sophie appeared in the hall, he stumbled towards her, arms outstretched, the words ready to pour out of him, but she pressed her index finger to her lips, pointing at the sitting-room door.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ssh … Goodness, you’re so late, I was worried something had happened.’

  ‘No, the rehearsal ran on – I’m sorry. Is he still here?’

  ‘Ssh. Yes. In there.’ She gestured again in the direction of the sitting room.

  ‘Why are you whispering?’

  ‘See for yourself.’ She stepped past him and pushed open the door. William lay curled up on his side on the sofa, his head on one of the old grey velvet cushions and a duvet tucked round him. ‘I went to make coffee and when I came back he was like that – dead to the world. I tried waking him, but it was like he was drugged. He came round for a second but then dropped off again.’

  ‘So you got him a duvet.’

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’

  Andrew frowned, torn between attempting to wake their guest himself and eating his supper. His stomach throbbed it was so empty. ‘If it was me, I’d much prefer to be woken,’ he admitted, whispering in spite of himself.

  Sophie stared at the sofa, shaking her head helplessly. ‘Me too. But I tried, honestly. You have a go.’

  Andrew went nearer and gingerly touched William on the shoulder. ‘Hey, mate.’ He gave the arm a proper squeeze and then shook him, all to no avail. ‘Blimey.’

  ‘See?’ Sophie murmured, with some triumph.

  They retreated to the kitchen where Andrew wolfed his plate of lukewarm pasta while Sophie gallantly sat opposite him, fighting yawns and reporting on the discussions she had had with their guest: the ex-wife with cancer, the difficulties with Harry, the embarrassing, endless gratitude about her assistance over securing the place at WFC. Andrew exclaimed at the high drama of it all while inwardly mourning the demise of his own plans for conversation. But it was clearly no evening for big announcements – at least, not ones so badly in need of a positive response. By the time his glass and plate were empty Sophie’s face was crumpled with fatigue, her eyes glassy.

  Having c
arried out all the rituals of locking up, he arrived upstairs to find her already in bed with the pillow tucked round her head. ‘Just five minutes,’ he murmured, reaching for the Howells biography and then reading for far longer, since the chapter covered the composition of the electrifying ‘Take Him Not For Cherishing’, which his own little troupe had delivered with such heartrending verve that very night. The simple coincidence made the hairs on Andrew’s arms stand on end. Reading on, through a description of a triumphant visit of Howells to New York, he felt, not for the first time and with mounting excitement, as if some benign, irresistible force had taken over the helm of his life, steering him towards things and places of which he – for years – had hardly dared dream …

  The whine of the burglar alarm brutally pierced what had been the deepest of sleeps. Andrew sat bolt upright, as if electrocuted, while Sophie floundered next to him, knocking over her alarm clock and then her glass of water.

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘Careful for heaven’s sake.’

  They were fumbling in the dark like blind people, Sophie to rescue items drowning in the spilt water, Andrew for his dressing-gown. Having got as far as their open door, he paused, slapping his palm to his forehead. ‘But of course, it’s him, isn’t it?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Our sleeping guest.’

  ‘Who?’ echoed Olivia, appearing on the landing behind him, shivering visibly in the skimpy vest and underpants that passed for nightclothes.

  ‘William Stapleton – he stayed the night. Go back to bed – I’m on it. And it’s my fault anyway, for being dozy enough to set the bloody thing –’

  ‘Andrew – for God’s sake – just get down there and turn it off,’ Sophie wailed, ‘or Mrs Hemmel will call the police for us. And you get back to bed,’ she called after Olivia, who was already scurrying in the direction of her room, hugging her bare arms.