Before I Knew You Read online

  Beth stood in the drive for several minutes after the sounds of the engine had died away. She was numb now rather than cold. Not even her fingers would flex, or her elbows, or her neck. A large part of her wanted to stay that way for ever, rooted, frozen, unburdened by the need ever to move – ever to do anything – again.

  Someone else. It wasn’t possible, was it? But the thought had its hooks in and wouldn’t let go. There was a symmetry to it, somehow; an inevitability she had sensed right from the start, stepping back after the horrible house swap into the altered world of her once happy home, smelling the Englishwoman’s scent, smelling the danger of her. The Carter flirtation had been both a warning and a red herring. Someone else. When William had called on Christmas Day sounding happy, in spite of all his protestations of concern for her – begging, at one point, for her to jump on a plane to her mother’s – the thought even then had dimly crossed Beth’s mind. Someone else … Sophie Chapman … It wasn’t such a great leap. And weren’t such leaps precisely what brought most relationships to an end? One dying because another had started; that was how it was, an endless chain.

  Beth swayed as the house came in and out of focus. She wished she had followed her instincts during the Christmas phone call and asked William straight out, given him some of that honesty he was so keen on. But then, she reasoned bleakly, he would only have said no. Her husband was a practised philanderer, she reminded herself. How many other women had there been with Susan? Three? Four? And those were only the ones he had confessed to. And what about the repellent Henrietta back in August? What would have happened then if she hadn’t been there, reminding him of his marital state? Once a line was crossed, it was easier to cross again. That was the sordid truth. Hal’s assaults had taught her that if nothing else, the first having taken place after a buildup of months and months, the rest following almost daily, as repetitious as the greedy compulsion of a rutting beast.

  When Beth moved at last, her steps were slow and stiff. Shuffling back into the house, she selected an old coat of William’s from the pegs under the stairs and plunged her face into it. The smell of him was unbelievably distinct – skin, man, cologne. She would have bottled it if she could. Slipping the coat on and carefully rolling up the too-long sleeves, she made her way down to the basement. The shelves were crowded but neatly arranged, just as she liked them to be. Tenderly she traced her fingers along the familiar objects, recalling their uses and origins and William’s teasing of her meticulousness as they had shared the task of stowing them away. He would have married her for her powers of organisation alone, he had joked, snatching a box out of her arms so he could get hold of her for a proper kiss.

  The canister of gasoline took some finding nonetheless, having been shifted somehow – by William no doubt – to the back of a top shelf behind several dusty tins of gourmet cat food. Dido. Beth waited for the pain, but none came. There was too much other stuff now, all of it so huge, so exhausting.

  Back upstairs, she tipped the tree on its side and lugged it out of the house to join the box of decorations, leaving in her wake a thick trail of pine needles through the hall and across the yard. For good measure she then fetched several other things as well – a couple of kitchen chairs, bags of clothes, rugs. A few minutes later, thanks to the entire canister and one lit match, she had produced a roaring fire. She stood close, holding out her hands to the heat, which stung her frozen fingers. The tree caught first, spitting, releasing the rich scent of pine. Soon flakes of ash were floating like snow, dusting her hair and shoulders. Beth took a step closer, blinking the water from her eyes, licking the dryness from her lips. What did the Hindus call it? Suttee. That was it. A wife throwing herself on the pyre of her husband. And William was as good as dead to her, wasn’t he? Her one big shot at happiness, lost.

  But the smoke thickened suddenly, releasing a choking, acrid smell of melting nylon and plastic. And the fire was probably too small for so grisly a task. Beth took a step back, coughing violently. Dizzy from the smoke and lack of food – she couldn’t recall her last meal – she staggered back into the house and slammed the door. The violent noise, the silence afterwards, helped bring her to her senses. There was packing to do all right, she saw suddenly, but not for Florida. For London. The obviousness of this decision exploded in her head with such clarity it hurt. Since when had she gone down without a fight? If Sophie Chapman was to be her nemesis then so be it. But the least William could do was admit that to her face. He might not love her, but she still loved him. If not knowing her was the problem then that was easily sorted. He wanted to know her, did he? Well, oh, boy, she’d let him have it. From Hal’s trips to her bedroom to the botched termination – he could have all of it. In person. Face to face.

  Beth ran around the house, grabbing things out of drawers and cupboards and dropping them into suitcases, her new plans fizzing inside her head. Showdown time, guns blazing – oh, boy, it would be glorious. He’d feel guilt at the very least. How sweet would that be? She would catch him unawares, maybe with Sophie – yes, that would be perfect. She could engineer that, surely, with a little imagination, a little steady thinking … if she could just lay her hands on her laptop and get into her emails.

  Beth put her hands to her head as the bedroom walls began to spin, slowly at first and then faster, like a carousel. She wasn’t cold now, she was sweating. Feeling her way round the bed, she steadied herself sufficiently to open one of the windows. A fantastic wall of icy air hit her face. She breathed deeply, moaning aloud with relief as her head cleared again and the room stabilized. She inhaled slowly, tasting smoke this time, but even that seemed to do her good.

  One message, that was all it would take, one clever composition, to engineer the perfect showdown. But she needed a drink first. Water. She was parched. And then maybe a drop more of William’s malt, which had, for several days now, been doing an excellent job of steadying her nerves. The room had come back into focus but she felt off-balance still, as if lucidity might desert her at any moment. It was quite a task she had set herself, after all: exposing the ugliness, after a lifetime of trying to forget it. Even the hardiest stoic would have felt giddy. Beth pushed off from the window-sill and made her way downstairs, opening more windows as she went.

  It was only once she was settled on the bed with the computer on her lap, tumbler in hand, that she noticed she was still wearing William’s coat. Crazy woman. She laughed out loud. No wonder she had gotten hot. But the house had cooled down so much she kept it on. The draughts of smoke-tinged air seemed to be getting stronger too, shaking the window as they blew in. Beth pulled the duvet over her legs and hurriedly logged on, remembering as she did so that there were two emails to write, not one. Her mother … How could she have overlooked that, even for a moment? The change of travel plans – Diane, of all people, needed to know. And the other stuff too, the stuff that had fermented for more than twenty years. If she was going to tell William she had to confront her mother, too, even if it was only by written rather than spoken word. Did that make her a coward? Beth hesitated, her skin goose-bumping.

  A shadow – Hal – had appeared in the corner of the room, by the closet. ‘Yeah?’ Beth sneered, staring right at him till he sank back into the wall. The room was growing misty, but her resolve stood firm. She had reached a tipping point, that was it. It might have taken more than two decades, but here she was, no going back. And it felt good.

  Sipping from the bottle of malt, which she had taken the precaution of bringing along for refills, Beth began to type, happy to use the fingers of one hand for the fact of it slowing her down, giving her time to pick her words.

  21

  ‘So, how long will you be gone for tonight?’

  ‘Not long – it’s only drinks. A surprise for William’s birthday, the email said. If you must know, I really don’t want to go at all.’

  ‘So why are you?’

  Sophie peered into the shopping trolley, checking on the safety of the bottle of champagne tha
t had prompted this daughterly interrogation. That she had agreed to meet Beth Stapleton in a friendly social situation was a matter of almost as much wonderment to her as the fact that Andrew’s early-morning abandonment of the sofa – three weeks and four days before – seemed to be proving permanent. After a couple of nights in a hotel he had taken a short-term let on a flat in Richmond. Ever since, he had made exemplary arrangements to spend time with the girls – including Christmas Eve and Boxing Day – but was continuing to refuse to discuss anything with Sophie beyond terms for their separation. Such was Sophie’s betrayal of his trust, he said, that forgiveness – a rethink on their position from any angle – remained out of the question. During their most recent conversation he had informed her that he had appointed lawyers, submitted his formal resignation to St Joseph’s and planned to leave for his new life on the east coast as soon as the summer allowed.

  So the Carter business had been her undoing after all, without any help from Beth Stapleton, had been Sophie’s first thought on spotting the American woman’s email that morning, wondering – with bitter indifference – whether she was to be subjected to any more of the vindictive threats. Instead, much to her astonishment, she had found herself reading a pleading, garbled invitation to co-operate in a small surprise celebration of William’s forty-fifth birthday at an address in Sheen. It had been an unnecessarily long composition too, so lacking in punctuation and ordered thought, so full of confusing descriptions of the logistical complications concomitant upon the project – rejigging flights, being between a home that was for sale and another that had yet to be bought, the supreme importance of keeping it all secret – that by the time Sophie had laboured to the end she had found herself in a state of baffled pity.

  The decision to accept had been purely on account of William. Because she liked him. And because it seemed the least the man deserved was a pleasant birthday surprise organized by his wife. But Sophie was aware of an undeniable curiosity too – sharpened by the now flailing state of her own relationship – to meet, at last, the twisted oddity that was Beth Stapleton, a woman whom she sensed had once truly, mysteriously, hated her but who was now, in this most recent missive, gushing gratitude for all the help Sophie had provided to Harry and William, and begging – no less than three times – for the two of us to be friends.

  ‘Mum, I asked why you’re going and you still haven’t said.’

  Sophie threw a sheepish smile at her younger daughter. ‘Maybe, if I’m honest, because I’m not in the sort of mood where I care much what I do. And maybe because the email was sort of desperate. They’re between homes, apparently – she said William’s been renting somewhere over here to help out while the ex-wife is ill and Beth’s trying to sell the place in Connecticut so she can go to Florida from what I could gather. It all sounded a bit of a mess and I feel sorry for them.’

  ‘What – they’re selling that sick house we stayed in?’

  ‘Milly, don’t say “sick” when you mean “wonderful”.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because “sick” is a horrible word for something nice.’

  ‘But why are they selling that house?’

  ‘I told you, I don’t know. There was quite a lot of what she said that didn’t make sense. And we haven’t seen Harry lately to get a proper low-down, have we? Or his father, for that matter. In fact it was news to me that William was over here.’

  Sophie picked up a packet of sliced salami and then hesitated, studying the trolley, which was already far fuller than she had intended, thanks to her daughters plucking items off the shelves every time her back was turned. With the start of the spring term, they had taken the chance of stocking up on stationery as well as the usual items of toiletry – pens, pencils, pads, highlighters, rulers, rubbers, files; there was enough equipment to start their own school. Sophie had scolded them for it, but only lightly since they were all three still too dazed to do anything but go through the motions of such rituals. The cost wasn’t something she could muster much worry about either, not since Gareth’s written offer of employment – rushed out, she was sure, to give her a much-needed boost, and containing numbers that made her giddy.

  ‘Can we try this?’ Milly cried. ‘It’s on special offer.’

  ‘It’s cream cheese – you hate cream cheese.’

  ‘But it’s got apricots in.’

  ‘You’ll still hate it. Now, find your sister and tell her we’re heading for the checkout. If she wants anything else she can pay for it herself.’

  Milly obediently put back the tub of cream cheese and sloped off, so easily quietened, these days, that Sophie’s heart ached to see it. Olivia’s anger had been far easier to deal with – Sophie had told her everything and they had had some shouting matches as a result, clearing the air to as good an understanding of the situation as either of them could manage. But her younger child had reverted to a state of clingy self-doubt – sucking the ends of her hair and dodging efforts to talk, stirring in Sophie the urge to smother her with hollow reassurances she was in no position to give.

  The fact was Andrew had gone and that could not be made up for, no matter how violent the urge to try. Zoë’s brand of assistance had been to say that he had always been pompous and uncompromising and Sophie should rejoice at being shot of him. At least Pete had wanted to work things out, she had claimed proudly, happy to refer to the virtues of her own marital hiccup now that she believed it safely past. Andrew, in contrast, had an evil, selfish side, she said, culling evidence from every distant quarter she could think of.

  Sophie accepted all such well-intentioned remarks without being able to take from them any real comfort. Rejoicing on any level was out of the question. A terrible year had come to a terrible end. And it was her fault. Andrew had loved her and she had driven him away. By being self-centred, stupid, selfish. Hunting for a shoe that morning, she had spotted the box of his treasured letters of courtship under the bed and read every single one, desperate enough to be glad that the snooping, odious Beth Stapleton had had her fill of them too. To have even so dubious a witness to those early wonderful feelings made them seem, briefly, more real.

  Olivia and Milly were joshing and giggling by the time they found her at the checkout. Having taken charge of loading the boot, they clambered onto the back seat together, taking turns on some game on one of their phones. The return of their once effortless primary-school closeness had been one of the rare, unexpected consolations of the last four weeks. They had been particularly thick that day, conferring behind closed doors and hands at every opportunity.

  They were five minutes from home when Milly blurted, ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, but Ollie thinks I should.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Sophie glanced in the mirror, more concerned with a black sports car that had been pressing at her rear bumper ever since the supermarket.

  ‘It’s about Dad.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Sophie pressed her lips together, tightening her grip on the steering-wheel as the black car roared past.

  There was a long silence before Milly spoke again. Next to her Olivia rolled her eyes and mouthed silent encouragements. ‘Dad and Meredith … they … at least I think they …’ She glanced imploringly at her elder sister who batted one hand in the air, in the manner of one trying to urge someone on.

  ‘Meredith?’ Sophie let out a whoop and then swallowed it. ‘Meredith?’ she repeated hoarsely.

  ‘Milly saw them, Mum,’ added Olivia, ‘late at night in the hotel.’

  ‘Twice. I saw them twice. They held hands.’

  ‘But she’s so …’ Sophie faltered as her thoughts – the grey scenery of west London – dissolved into a blur.

  ‘So it can’t just be what you told us – about what happened with that man liking you – can it?’ Olivia exchanged worried looks with her sister. The business of being concerned for their mother’s emotional state was still new, and while it had its horrible side it was also proving undeniably interesting. During the period when
Sophie had been so run-down the previous year Olivia and Milly had felt like nothing but irritants, useless, deliberately locked out. But with this far greater calamity, the opposite seemed to be going on. In fact, their mother was now so unnervingly open at times – shouting, crying, talking – it felt as if they were three grown-ups going through the same awfulness together.

  ‘You were right to tell me that, Milly, thank you,’ Sophie managed at last, her voice high and tight. Having parked, she left them to empty the car and went upstairs. The box of letters was still on her dressing-table, her fingerprints fresh in the dust on the lid.

  She sat on the bed, the box on her lap. Meredith. A new muse, a musical one this time. And younger, of course. They were always younger – at least, they were in the stories one read, the stories that happened to other people. Andrew was an artist, after all, an artist with a big ego that needed feeding. She had loved that once, when that ego had needed her. Now it was feeding off someone else … someone younger, more talented. No wonder he had been riding so high after the tour – the fancy wine, the fancy job. But seizing upon her stupid fiasco of a misdemeanour with Carter, that was the cruellest thing of all. All that self-righteous guff about not being able to forgive her … Sophie clutched the box, denting the cardboard with her fingernails. He had been looking for a way out, that was all; a way that would allow him to blame her.

  Sophie lifted the lid off the box and slowly, methodically, tore each letter in half. When the box was empty she tore that too before dropping the whole lot into the wastepaper basket. Crossing to the window, she stared down at the garden, at its most brutal in its January guise, brown but for the holly bush by the back door and the rhododendrons along the back fence, looking too sparse ever to manage budding again. Except that they did. They always did. With the branches so bare, she could see clearly the section of fencing that had been mended after the break-in. Andrew had wanted to put a roll of barbed wire along it, hidden in the undergrowth; but someone somewhere had said that wasn’t allowed, that such measures meant they would run the risk of future intruders taking them to court.