Before I Knew You Read online

  ‘Of course not – all good ideas. Now get under that shower, I’m starving. And I’ve got some stuff to talk through too,’ William yelled up the stairs, the eagerness bubbling out of him. ‘Big stuff.’

  He felt as if he was floating after that – not really doing things but filling time, waiting: cutlery on the table, pouring a glass of white wine and getting a glass for Beth, but not pouring it yet so that it would be nice and chilled, just as she liked it. Catching sight of the cat-grooming box, he carried it down to the basement and then sat at the kitchen table, flicking through the Metro section of the New York Times.

  Beth appeared after what felt like an age, in loose black harem pants and coral turtleneck sweater, her hair black and sleek from the shower. He poured her wine and then began to talk, hesitantly at first but gathering conviction as the stark truth of their situation and the good sense of his remedial plan poured out of him.

  And it went beautifully, for a while. With her quick fingers, Beth rolled out her pastry and made neat parcels of it full of herbs and salmon. At everything he said she nodded – the absence of any bonus, the scale of their debts. Even when he got to the part about selling up and the hefty differential between a luxury property in Connecticut and a terraced house in west London, her head kept bobbing. He went on to tell her more about the lunch he had had with the ex-colleague in the City – the sniff of a job at his old bank in London. ‘It would only be for a couple of years – just to get our finances on an even keel until we could afford to live here again. And, of course, so I can be there for the boys while Susan fights her way back to full health. They’ve found another lump – under her arm. No one needs to do much research to know that’s bad.’

  William waited. The smell of cooking fish was wafting out of the oven. His mouth watered it was so good. Beth had transferred her attention to vegetables – eggplant, haricot beans – washing, drying, slicing, using for each task a slow, deliberate manner that suggested her primary absorption was with the irrefutable sense of what he had been saying.

  Before responding she looked up, carefully steering a coil of hair round her ear with the hand that held the knife. ‘But surely …’ she frowned, laying the knife down and crossing her arms ‘… surely your parents could look after the kids, couldn’t they? If Susan gets real sick, I mean.’

  William stared at her, his mouth dry, the end of his love roaring in his ears. He had been prepared to fight for it, for them. He had, truly, been in for the long haul. But in one sentence she had destroyed it all. The prudent slow-burn of their courtship made no difference; neither did the probable fact of his culpability in ever having allowed her to believe that his sons could be in some way separate rather than central to his life. She hadn’t the remotest clue of their importance to him and never would. A child of her own was the one thing that might have rectified that; the one thing they couldn’t now do.

  A moment could be the crescendo of years, but still pass in a flash. Turning away as Beth resumed her chopping, William was aware of just such a moment having passed. His feelings had changed. A piece of elastic, stretched inside him to breaking point, had snapped. And there was no going back.

  Emerging into the street after his interview, Andrew blinked at the garish streetlights, blazing on all sides like fireworks. The city had still been veiled in misty afternoon sunshine when he had gone in. Only an hour and it was like stepping back out into another world. It was noisier too, with the rush-hour in full swing. The long tunnel of the street was thick with vehicles edging homeward, the pavement a mass of hurrying people, their faces half buried under hats or coat collars. Horns, sirens, shouts – what did he want to join such a place for anyway?

  No sooner had the thought formed than Ann, in her white-fur-rimmed hat and scarlet coat, stepped out of the mêlée.

  ‘Not good?’

  Andrew shook his head, astonished that she should know – that she was there at all. ‘No, I don’t think so. Thanks for coming. You shouldn’t have.’

  ‘I thought you might need a drink,’ she replied drily, taking his arm and steering him into the crush. ‘How bad was it, anyway?’

  ‘There were three of them and one didn’t like me. I’m sure he didn’t like me.’

  ‘Curly grey hair, big eyebrows and droopy jowls?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Arnold Bloomberg – he wouldn’t smile if it was the last thing to save the world …’

  ‘Look, Ann, I don’t feel like celebrating.’ Andrew gently prised her fingers off his arm. ‘There is nothing to celebrate … For most of it I was a stammering idiot. I’m so sorry after all your hard work,’ he added bleakly.

  ‘My God, you do need a drink,’ she cried, seizing his arm again and increasing her pace.

  ‘But I should get back to the hotel. The children … ’

  ‘I thought it was a night off?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And you have two members of staff helping run the show.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Okay, then. We’re going to the Algonquin – not what it was in its heyday but still worth a visit. I’ve taken the liberty of inviting a few others – I hope you don’t mind – Larry, Francesca … and even Geoff said he might make it. Hey, there’s a cab.’ She put two fingers between her lips to produce a piercing whistle that turned several heads as well as summoning their ride.

  ‘In that case I might ask Meredith to join us,’ Andrew muttered, once they were inside, the firework lights of the city streaking by. ‘The dear girl kindly brought a whole group to the opening concert last night and I was too busy to say a proper thank-you. If that’s okay?’

  ‘Sure it is. The more the merrier. Hey, cheer up, you.’

  ‘Sorry, but I had such high hopes.’ Andrew pressed his hands between his thighs, keeping his gaze out of the window as dreadful memories of his lack of fluency surged back at him.

  Ann sighed. ‘I know you did, Andrew, I know. So did I, on your behalf.’ She took off her big hat and placed it on the seat between them. ‘But you know what?’ She shook her hair out and slapped his knee – so hard it stung. ‘You’ve just arrived in New York with the dearest, most wonderful school choir I have ever heard, getting a standing ovation on your very first appearance, if you can be bothered to remember. Besides, it’s nearly Christmas …’ she picked up the hat and playfully slotted it onto his head ‘… and right now we’re going to have a cocktail. Just one, but it’s going to taste so good.’ She licked her lips, adding a denser shine to the scarlet. ‘Now, then, daiquiri or highball, that’s the question.’

  Andrew tweaked the hat half over his face, pulling a comical expression, but only because the situation demanded it. ‘A margarita for me, lady,’ he quipped, aiming for something between Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart, while inside the bleakness swelled. If he’d blown the job it was going to take a lot more than a cocktail to recover his spirits. They’d be in touch, they had said, ‘in due course’. When they shook hands his had been clammy.

  But worst of all had been the walk down the corridor away from the room containing his panel of interviewers, with the distant lovely strains of boys’ voices at singing practice echoing in his ears – music scholars all, as he had once been. Faint and ethereal, the sound had woven its way round the patter of his footsteps, like an elegy for blasted hope.

  19

  It wasn’t until Sophie found herself driving in circles round the school car park that she realized she was nervous. With the holidays in full swing there were acres of tarmac from which to choose a space. The school buildings, locked and unlit apart from the occasional blink of security lights, looked soulless and sinister in the afternoon dark. A convivial atmosphere was brewing nonetheless among the other early arrivals, gathered in a cluster near the gates, busy winding down windows or getting out of their vehicles to share the excitement of the wait. Sophie performed a final slow loop, before pulling up at a distance sufficient to preclude the necessity of joining in.
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br />   She was excited too, of course, especially at the prospect of seeing Milly. The tour, by all accounts, had been an unqualified triumph – sell-outs for every concert, a two-minute standing ovation after the Kennedy piece in the cathedral – but Milly, even while reporting these successes, had sounded increasingly small-voiced and exhausted. In a last contact before take-off she had texted to request her favourite meal for supper on the day of their return, a fabled creation of Sophie’s known in family parlance as ‘chicken slop’. Sophie had all the ingredients ready in the fridge, along with the supermarket chocolate mousses of which Milly had been known to eat three in one sitting.

  The nerves were on account of Andrew, or rather Carter, who, in spite of her pleas, had called again twice. He was merely ‘communicating’, he had insisted both times, seizing the chance to nurture a friendship that meant the world to him. After days of dreading the ring of the phone, Sophie had come to her senses and recognized that the simple – the only – sure route out of the situation once and for all was for Andrew to be informed of it. Discovery by any other method (and the chances of that, in spite of her efforts and the passage of time, seemed doomed never to recede) would be so much worse. Zoë had been right: she should have made a clean breast of things from the start. But with that chance lost, all she could do was make the best of the situation as it stood. A sexual embrace with someone who had befriended her at a time when she had been feeling hugely vulnerable was hardly the most heinous of crimes, at least not in the context of twenty years of watertight fidelity. And now that same someone was stalking her – that was, surely, far worse, and something for which she needed Andrew by her side. Just the fact of that alone – Sophie grew certain – would win him round.

  Once fixed, this resolve had twisted inside her for every remaining day of the tour, curdling the simpler business of looking forward to the homecoming and a family Christmas. It had seemed, too, to cast an insidious shadow over her and Andrew’s brief transatlantic phone calls. Nothing she said felt quite apt or right, while Andrew, perhaps picking up on her mood, and understandably preoccupied, had sounded increasingly remote. Trying to talk on the final night, what with her nerves, and Andrew clearly anxious to get off to the tour farewell dinner, had been so laboured it had been a positive relief to put down the phone.

  When the coach appeared at last, hissing and puffing to a standstill by the kerb, Sophie’s first instinct was to hold back. She hovered by the school gates while the other parents surged forwards, crowding the door. Then Milly, hair streaming, rucksack bouncing, bowled into her out of the throng, and she forgot what there had been to fear. The task of her imminent confession felt tiny suddenly – easy – especially when Andrew ducked under one of her arms, asking impishly if he might be allowed to join in.

  Once home, there was the chicken slop and gifts: from Milly a set of fridge magnets of New York landmarks for her, and a T-shirt imprinted with a large half-eaten apple for Olivia; from Andrew a mug commemorating the tour for Olivia, and a tea-towel stitched with Home Sweet Home for her, its cellophane wrapping still bearing the price sticker of $4.99.

  ‘Because home is wherever we are, right?’ He caught Sophie’s eye across the table.

  She nodded vigorously, her heart skipping a beat. She would get her ‘confession’ over with that night, she decided, after they had made love; strike while the flame of reunion and intimacy was still warm. The truth will set you free, as the odious Beth Stapleton had, for her own warped reasons, once pointed out.

  And yet the chicken stuck in her throat. Andrew seemed almost manically happy to be home – in a way that was putting her on edge rather than relaxing her. Milly, in contrast, wilted through the course of the meal, speaking less and less, drooping on her elbows and then finally placing her cutlery in defeat over her half-eaten food. ‘Sorry, Mum … I’m just so …’

  ‘Bed. Come on.’

  She allowed herself to be led upstairs and then asked Sophie to wait while she peeled off her clothes and cleaned her teeth.

  When she was under the covers Sophie perched on the bedside and nuzzled her cheek. ‘Glad to be back, by any chance?’

  ‘Oh, Mum …’

  Sophie looked down in amazement as her daughter lunged for her, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Being a musical prodigy is an exhausting business,’ she soothed, squeezing herself onto the bed and manoeuvring until Milly was pinned under her arm. ‘Here.’ She pulled a clean tissue out of her cardigan sleeve and kissed the top of Milly’s head. ‘Sleep, that’s all you need.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to the Juilliard,’ Milly mumbled, in a thick voice.

  Sophie laughed. ‘Well, that’s okay –’

  ‘Don’t tell Dad.’

  Sophie twisted to look down at her daughter, frowning. ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘He won’t like it. He wants me to go there.’ She sniffed and gulped. ‘Because of Meredith.’

  ‘Meredith?’

  ‘I like London, Mum, I want to stay here … go to the Royal College or whatever.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Sophie murmured, stroking Milly’s hot forehead with the tips of her fingers. ‘It’s years away yet and, besides, I’m not sure how I would have coped if you’d bombed off to New York.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. I just thought you admired Meredith and wanted …’

  ‘I don’t admire her.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘She came to all the concerts but I don’t like her. And don’t tell Dad because … because he won’t understand that either.’

  Mystified, concerned, agreeing to everything, Sophie slid off the bed to fetch a glass of water and a fresh tissue. By the time she got back Milly was asleep – flat on her back with her mouth open, her lips and nose still reddened from crying.

  Downstairs a second surprise awaited her in the form of Andrew standing in the hall in his overcoat. ‘I thought we’d go to that wine bar.’ He dangled the door keys.

  ‘Gosh … right, then. That would be nice.’ Sophie glanced at Milly’s suitcase, open and overflowing with dirty clothes. ‘I’ll just put a load into the washing-machine.’

  Andrew blocked her way. ‘It can wait, surely.’

  ‘Yes, of course it can. I’ll tell Olivia –’

  ‘I’ve told her.’

  ‘I should comb my hair. I look a sight.’

  ‘You look fine.’ He unhooked her coat from the rack behind the front door and thrust it at her. Outside it was so cold that Sophie rushed back to grab Milly’s ear-flapped hat before catching up with Andrew in the street.

  ‘I lost that scarf by the way.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘I kept thinking it would turn up, but it never did.’

  They walked briskly, side by side, hands in pockets. It was nine o’clock by the time they reached the wine bar – an erstwhile Victorian pub stripped back to its beams and given a mezzanine level for those wanting to eat. There were a few diners but, even though it was Friday, most of the ground level of bar stools and leather chairs was almost empty. Andrew strode to the best of the corner seats, summoned the waiter with one look, then ordered the most expensive red wine on the list before they had even sat down. Sophie watched in wonderment. The success of the tour had clearly instilled a new forthrightness in him, a confidence she had never seen before. He was riding high and it showed.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’

  They had chinked glasses and taken sips. The wine was rich and smooth, coating the throat even after it was swallowed. Andrew was leaning forwards, legs open, rolling his wine glass between his palms.

  Sophie sat a little straighter, balancing her glass on her knee. ‘Me too, as it happens.’

  Andrew did not seem to hear. He started talking fast, glancing at her but in that way she didn’t like, when he was seeing his own train of thought rather than her face. ‘In New York I went for a job interview. Headmaster of St Thomas’s Cathedral School. I never thought I stood
a chance … I would never even have known about the vacancy if it hadn’t been for Ann. She’s been amazing. That charity choir and orchestra of hers, it was stuffed with the most incredible people and they liked me, liked what I did in August, which helped, but Ann’s networking on my behalf was what must have swung it. New York’s like that, you see, so much more about who knows who than we dare to be over here. I applied back in November, but I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up – or mine. And then the interview was so tough – I was certain I’d ballsed it up – but, of course, Cambridge counts for a lot, as did all those years of music-festival stuff afterwards with people they’d heard of, not to mention the practical business of being a deputy head and ten years of running the large music department of such a well-known school …’ He paused for breath, his eyes shining. ‘I’d given up on myself, Sophie, I really had. But they’ve offered me the job. They bloody have.’ He pressed his fist into his mouth, biting his knuckles and then blinking slowly, as if digging deep for the effort of bringing her into focus. ‘It will be an upheaval, I know, for you, for the girls, but financially it will be fantastic. Accommodation comes with the post, so we can let the house, not burn any bridges – and, of course, with Milly and Olivia doing their GCSEs and A levels in the summer, it couldn’t be better timing. Then there’s Milly’s passion for the Juilliard – talk about Fate … Christ.’ He shook his head, adding, when still Sophie had not said anything, ‘You’re upset I didn’t tell you, aren’t you?’

  Sophie stared back dumbly. She didn’t know what she was. Not having been told was indeed a shock but not nearly as unsettling as the fact that even now, in the telling, it had not seemed to occur to Andrew to factor her – her needs – into the decision on any level. She had married a man who was dreamy and driven, she knew that, but she had never, until that moment, thought of him as arrogant or selfish. ‘Yes, I suppose I am … sort of upset.’