The Holiday Read online

  ‘With the vineyard, the gardens and the wall, we’ve got total privacy,’ Rowan continued. ‘All the vineyards inside the wall are part of the property, sloping down towards those trees.’ She put Odette down on the tiled floor and ignored her complaints, pointing instead to a thick line of trees about two hundred yards away. ‘We should all go down there later to have a look: apparently there’s the most spectacular gorge beyond the trees, with a little path cut into the rock face so you can get down to the pools below. Purest water you’ll ever bathe in – comes straight down off the mountains.’

  ‘Sounds a bit cold for me.’ As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew they sounded ungrateful, although Rowan didn’t seem to notice. What was wrong with me? I needed to be happy here, in this remarkable villa, with all the people I loved together for a week.

  ‘Below the balcony, on our left here,’ Rowan said, pulling me over to the left and gesturing with a perfectly manicured hand, ‘is the pool area.’

  The infinity pool was below us, the water a smooth, perfect blue stretching to the edge of the terrace, surrounded by sunloungers and umbrellas. It looked incredible.

  ‘Wow,’ I said, for what felt like the tenth time that day. ‘It looks like something out of a lifestyle magazine.’

  ‘Over there,’ she said, pointing at a church steeple, ‘is Autignac, ten minutes’ walk away. There’s a bakery, a little supermarché and a lovely little restaurant in the square. On a Wednesday morning they have the most wonderful street market – lots of local produce, food and drink and crafts. You’ll love it.’

  She pointed down at a tall, dark-haired man in a white linen shirt and chinos, talking on his mobile, pacing by the side of the pool.

  ‘Look, Odette, there’s Daddy.’

  ‘Daddy!’ the little girl shouted, her hands pressed against the stone balustrade of the balcony.

  The tall man continued pacing and talking, raising a cigarette to his lips.

  ‘Daddy!’ Odette shouted again, louder. ‘Daddy! Daddy!’

  He still appeared not to have heard, even as the echo of Odette’s call rolled away down the hillside.

  ‘DADDY!’ she shouted again, her voice so piercing that I had to lean away.

  Finally he acknowledged her with a half-smile and a distracted wave of his cigarette before going back to his phone call.

  I instinctively reached out to touch Odette’s arm, trying to calm her growing anger, but she batted my hand away and started pulling again at her mother’s dress.

  ‘Does Russ always have to be contactable for work?’ I rested my elbows on the parapet, the smooth stone warm against my skin.

  ‘Pretty much 24/7,’ Rowan said. ‘Money never sleeps – or whatever Gordon Gekko bullshit his boss comes out with.’

  I was only aware of Russ’s job in the vaguest terms: something high-powered to do with hedge funds and currencies and city trading. I knew it involved lots of money, but none of the detail.

  Rowan’s phone beeped with a message and she checked the display.

  ‘Mummy! Pick me up again!’ Odette was still pulling at her mother’s dress, leaving little sweaty hand marks on the beautiful fabric.

  Rowan began typing a rapid reply on the phone’s screen with her thumbs.

  ‘Why don’t you . . . go and see what Daddy’s doing?’

  ‘No!’ Odette stamped a pink-sandalled foot on the stone floor, her cherubic little face screwing up. ‘Pick me up!’

  ‘Mummy’s arm is getting tired.’ She continued typing.

  ‘Mummy!’

  ‘Just a minute, darling,’ Rowan said, moving back into the house and the vast living area.

  Odette shouted one last time and then ran into the house after her mother, her long ginger bunches bouncing with an angry rhythm.

  I had to suppress a smile at her display of temper. Odette had thrown the most incredible tantrums from before she could walk, and she didn’t show any sign of stopping. If anything, it seemed her outbursts were getting worse the older she got.

  My own daughter wandered out onto the balcony, phone in hand, yawning and stretching.

  ‘You’re awake!’ I said. ‘Oh, Lucy, come here and look at this amazing view. Isn’t it incredible?’

  She came to stand next to me, glancing at the landscape for perhaps a second.

  ‘Cool,’ she said, turning to me. ‘Have you got the Wi-Fi password?’

  3

  There were ten bedrooms, split between the ground and first floors. Ours was off the first-floor landing, with a creamy marble floor and antique wooden furniture, gauzy mosquito nets tied at each corner of the four-poster bed. Sean heaved our suitcases up onto the bed and we began to unpack.

  Daniel appeared in his swimming shorts, all skinny legs and arms and pale English skin. ‘I’m ready!’ He put his goggles over his eyes and gave us a double thumbs-up. ‘Are you ready for the pool, Dad?’

  Sean smiled, shaking his head. ‘Not quite.’

  ‘I want to be the first in!’

  ‘J’ai presque fini,’ Sean said, putting a stack of T-shirts into the chest of drawers.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It’s French for “I’m nearly ready”.’

  ‘Hang on, they speak French here?’

  Lucy leaned on the door frame, arms crossed. ‘Duh,’ she said. ‘That’s why it’s called France?’

  Daniel pulled a face. ‘I can’t really do French. Can you, Dad?’

  ‘Sure and us Irish have always had a lot in common with our French brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Neither of us can stand the English.’

  I threw a towel at him.

  ‘Just kidding,’ he said, catching it against his chest.

  I smiled in spite of myself. ‘Daddy’s just being silly, Daniel,’ I said. ‘We get along very well with the French, that’s why you’re learning it at school.’

  ‘Can’t really remember anything we’ve learned, apart from bonjour and pommes frites.’

  Sean found his swimming shorts in the suitcase, plucking them out from under a pile of shirts.

  ‘That’ll actually get you a long way, big lad,’ he said. ‘Hey, do you know why the French only eat one egg for breakfast?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad.’

  ‘Because one egg is un oeuf !’

  Daniel laughed for a hysterical moment, then stopped. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Un oeuf? Enough? An egg in French is—’

  ‘Jesus, Dad,’ Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘That’s literally like the worst joke I’ve ever heard.’

  Sean retreated into the en suite to get changed.

  ‘Hey, Daniel,’ he called through the door. ‘Did you hear about the French cheese factory that exploded?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There was nothing left but de brie.’

  ‘Ha!’ Our son shook his head. ‘I don’t get that one either.’

  ‘De brie,’ Sean said again. ‘Debris. Nothing left but de brie.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Lucy said in disgust. She turned and went back to her own room.

  Daniel wrinkled his nose. ‘What’s brie?’

  ‘What are they teaching you at that school, boy? Brie? The most famous French cheese in the world!’

  ‘Tell me it again.’

  Sean repeated the joke as he emerged in his swimming shorts, bare-chested, tossing his jeans, shirt, wallet and keys into a pile on the bed. He had started going to the gym and exercising regularly in the last few months and it was easy to tell – his chest and shoulders were broader and more defined, his waist slimmer. He hadn’t been in bad shape before, but he’d definitely been putting the work in recently. I felt a strange pang of insecurity and something else – jealousy? – as if he’d been working out to try to impress someone else. Someone other than me.

  Daniel was laughing again as he skipped out of our bedroom and into the hallway.

  With our son gone for a moment, the smile on Sean’s face faltered an
d died, and for a moment he looked grim-faced and serious. Deadly serious.

  I froze, a pair of shoes in each hand, not sure how to react. His expression was so unexpected, such a change from a moment ago, that it took me completely off guard.

  He caught me looking and plastered his smile back on. ‘Just going to the pool with Aquaboy, then.’

  ‘Sure. You OK, love?’

  ‘Grand. Never better.’

  ‘I’ll finish here. Quick shower then I’ll come and join you.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  I watched him as he walked out of our bedroom. He started in with the jokes again as they headed down the stairs, his deep Irish brogue echoing down the hallway.

  ‘Hey, Daniel, do you know why you can’t hear a pterodactyl going to the toilet?’

  Daniel’s reply was lost to me.

  I turned and went back to unpacking clothes into the wardrobe, a feeling of fear and sickness building so fast inside I had to sit down on the bed. I knew Sean better than I knew anyone else. I knew when he was unhappy, when he was telling jokes to hide nerves, when he was lying. And the look on his face as he’d said he was grand? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him like that. At his father’s funeral, perhaps.

  My phone beeped with a muffled sing-song Messenger tone and I stood up, digging it out of my shorts pocket, unlocking it with my thumbprint.

  No new messages.

  I frowned and put it back in my pocket.

  The beep came again, still muffled. Across the room.

  On the bed? I went to the clothes Sean had left there, a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. Without thinking too much about what I was doing, I picked up the jeans and felt the pockets. A few coins, but no phone. I dropped his jeans back on the bed and listened to the silence of the villa around me. From downstairs, outside, came the faintest sounds from the pool. Splashing, laughing, Daniel’s excited voice.

  The muffled Messenger tone sounded for a third time.

  Sean’s bedside drawer.

  From where I stood, it was close enough to touch. I put my hand out and snatched it back. Sat for a long moment, without moving. Then reached out again and pulled the drawer open slowly.

  It was empty apart from his phone, face-down. He’d started going everywhere with it, as if man and phone were connected by an invisible umbilical cord. So much so that I’d started watching him these last few days, only half-deliberately, looking out of the corner of my eye whenever he picked up his phone, trying to see what was absorbing so much of his time and attention. Trying to see the unlock pattern he traced on the screen. Trying to see if I really was going mad, or if this was the start of something unimaginable.

  I watched my hand reach in, pick his phone up. Watched my thumb press the power button. Watched the screen light up with a picture of the kids from our last holiday together.

  Just a quick look, I told myself. To put my mind at rest.

  Before I could talk myself out of it I drew his unlock pattern, my heart racing.

  I know I shouldn’t have looked. I know.

  But I did.

  And that was when everything started to come apart at the seams.

  4

  This is what it feels like: it’s as if you’re falling.

  As if a trapdoor has opened beneath your feet and you’re falling through it. One minute everything’s fine, you’re coasting along just as you have done for years. The next minute you’re dropping, plunging, plummeting into the dark. You can’t see the ground, can’t break your fall. Everything around you is falling, too. Everything you’ve built.

  And this is where it starts: with a little blue numeral indicating three unread items in Messenger.

  I clicked on it. At the top of the screen were new messages to and from someone called CoralGirl.

  Message me later when you can x

  Need to be careful this week like we discussed

  Remember to delete messages as soon as you’ve read

  I scrolled down to yesterday’s string of back-and-forth messages, reading up from the bottom. The first one was a seven-word message from Sean that stopped my heart.

  Can’t stop thinking about what you said x

  I meant every word

  Need to talk to you again

  Does K suspect anything?

  She has no idea. But I can’t go on like this

  We’ll decide when we’re in France. Figure out what to do

  I need to tell her. Soon

  We talked about this. Better a secret.

  I know but I feel so bad for lying to K

  I couldn’t bear to read the messages but I couldn’t stop either, couldn’t take my eyes off the little words on the screen, each one another bomb exploding under my marriage.

  I scrolled back up and read them again.

  Does K suspect anything?

  She has no idea. But I can’t go on like this

  Something splashed onto the phone’s screen and I realised that I was crying.

  In that moment, it was as if I didn’t know my own history any more, my own story. We’d had one life, our life together, and within a second it felt like fiction. I hadn’t even realised I was playing a role. With my hand shaking, I clicked ‘View profile’ on CoralGirl’s account. A generic silhouette instead of a picture, generic email. Lives in London. Female. That was it.

  I hastily marked the latest messages as unread, then locked his phone and shut it back in the drawer. Sitting on an unfamiliar bed, in a strange house, in a foreign country, staring blankly at the wall in front of me.

  Cold and hot. Angry and tearful and sick with betrayal.

  Falling backwards into the dark.

  A dozen questions, then a dozen more.

  Was it serious?

  Why had Sean done this?

  How could I have misjudged him so badly?

  But the biggest question – who is she? – was already half-answered, the clue right there in tiny black letters on a screen.

  We’ll decide when we’re in France

  France.

  One word. But as soon as I saw it, I knew immediately what it meant. Because this week was about the four of us: Rowan, Jennifer, Izzy and me.

  Which meant my husband, my soulmate, my rock, was having an affair with one of my three oldest and dearest friends.

  5

  He wasn’t the type to have an affair, I told myself.

  Not my Sean. Not my kind, loving, funny husband who told stupid jokes and gave the kids piggybacks and had sung them to sleep when they were babies.

  And yet all the signs had been there these last few weeks: he had been increasingly secretive and preoccupied. Serious, even defensive at times. Constantly on his phone, going to the gym, taking more care over his appearance.

  How could I have been so blind when it was happening right in front of me?

  Who was she? Which one of my friends had betrayed me?

  My heart was thudding in my chest, as if my life was at risk from some unseen danger. Fight or flight. I took my phone into the en suite and locked the door behind me, sat down on the closed toilet seat and called up the picture gallery, selecting an album from the last time we had all been together, a party at Rowan and Russ’s house in Chiswick, scrolling until I found what I was looking for.

  There. A candid picture of all four of us, one of a few that Daniel had taken. Rowan talking and frowning into her iPhone, gesticulating with her free hand. Jennifer, fussing around her two teenage boys with suntan lotion. Izzy, leaning back against the wall, taking it all in with a wry smile on her face.

  And me on the edge of the picture, looking distractedly at the camera.

  We knew each other’s secrets, I thought. Those secret things that bound you together for all time, a common language of memories. We had talked about things with each other that we hadn’t shared with boyfriends or husbands. Things we hadn’t shared with anyone else. I thought I knew them – and it turned out I didn’t know one of them at all.

>   But I knew this: I had wronged all of them in one way or another. That was all I could think about. Over the years of our friendship, I had said and done things that – deliberately or not – had caused anguish and pain and grief to all three of my friends.

  Maybe I deserved this.

  All of the adult stuff fell away and it felt like I was fifteen again, crippled with anxiety and self-doubt, as if the last twenty-five years had been a dream. Taking off my clothes as if on autopilot, I dropped them in a pile on the floor and stepped into the shower.

  I turned the water on and let the tears come, the rushing water stifling the sound of my sobs.

  *

  I knew, of course, what I should have done. I should have marched down to the pool and asked him about the messages, what they meant, who they were from. Who she was.

  But I didn’t.

  As the shower water pounded the back of my neck, it started to feel that it wasn’t enough, in the scales of our relationship: one flippant question weighed against twenty years together. There wasn’t enough weight to it, enough heft, to justify hurling this slender missile at him. It almost didn’t seem fair to justify wrecking what we had. It would have been . . . irresponsible, somehow. Our marriage wasn’t perfect by any means, but who has a perfect marriage? I was happy enough, and I thought he was too. Maybe if I could find out more, I could fix it, rather than destroying it with one reckless question.

  And of course I was scared, too. Scared that he would leave me and the kids, discard us for something new. I didn’t want it to be real. Didn’t want to make it real, any more than it already was. I was scared that saying it out loud would make it real.

  So I didn’t. I couldn’t. How do you even start that conversation?

  So, Sean, I memorised the unlock code for your phone and waited for you to leave it unguarded. So who’s the other woman? Who is she? What the hell is going on?

  How could you do this to me? To our family?

  I rehearsed it in my head, practised forming the words in my mouth. Imagined hearing myself saying them. But it all sounded crazy, even to me. So I didn’t say any of those things. I stood in the shower and let the water mingle with my tears.