The Holiday Page 6

  He grunted and took another swallow of brandy. ‘I bet you think I’m one of those blokes who can’t stand his wife to earn more than him.’

  ‘No,’ I said, not entirely truthfully.

  ‘Not like you and your other half.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’re like the perfect couple, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  He pointed a long finger at me. ‘That’s what Rowan says to me. “Why can’t you be more like Sean?” It’s her favourite line. And I say to her, “What, be more Irish?”’ He gave a mirthless, gravelly laugh.

  ‘Really?’

  He poured another inch of brandy into his glass. ‘Oh yes, your husband is quite the role model, apparently.’ He held the bottle out to me. ‘You sure you won’t change your mind about that drink?’

  Cognac was the last thing on my mind, but I wanted to keep him talking.

  Why can’t you be more like Sean?

  ‘Go on then. A small one.’

  I drank my water down in a swift gulp and handed him the empty glass, accepting it back a moment later with a hefty measure of the amber liquid in the bottom. At least a triple, I guessed. I perched on the edge of the chair next to him and we stared out into the darkness, the distant hills bathed in silvery moonlight. Somewhere below us, down in the village, a dog barked once then fell silent.

  I sipped the cognac, the fiery liquid burning as it went down. It reminded me of teenage parties, raiding my parents’ booze cabinet and grimacing through shots of dessert liqueur and Greek ouzo and long-forgotten cherry brandy.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what do you think she means when she says she wants you to be more like Sean?’

  ‘God knows. Better with Odette. Better at home. Just . . . better.’

  For one mad moment I thought about telling him what I knew. About the messages. To share this burden with someone, get another point of view. A neutral point of view. Russ was so drunk that he probably wouldn’t remember it in the morning, anyway, but I couldn’t take the risk. I had to keep this secret to myself, at least for now.

  ‘Sean’s far from perfect,’ I said. ‘I can tell you that for a fact.’

  ‘Oh well, I’ve a feeling it might be too late anyway.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  He let his head roll back onto the headrest of the chair, blinking blearily up at the stars, his chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm.

  ‘I’ve had some . . . suspicions recently.’

  ‘Suspicions about what?’

  When Russ spoke again, his voice was clearer, softer, stripped of all its hard edges. All the swagger, all his alpha-male toughness, had gone.

  ‘I think Rowan is having an affair,’ he said.

  13

  A wave of dizziness, as if I had stood up too fast.

  ‘An affair?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t do that, Russ.’

  ‘Are you?’

  Are you? Are you really sure?

  ‘Yes.’

  He pointed a finger at me, a lopsided grin on his face. ‘But you hesitated before you said yes. You hesitated.’

  ‘I’m still half-asleep.’

  ‘You hesitated, Kate. Admit it.’

  The urge to match his revelation with my own, to share what I knew about Sean’s betrayal, was so strong I could feel it tugging at me like a centrifugal force, pulling me away from my husband.

  Tell him what you know about Sean.

  Tell him what you’ve found.

  Tell him.

  I took a deep breath and plunged in with a question instead, before I could change my mind.

  ‘Who is it?’ I said quietly. ‘Who do you think she’s seeing?’

  Please don’t say Sean, please don’t say Sean. Please, not him.

  Russ shrugged.

  ‘Reckon it’s someone she’s known for a while. Not someone new.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Gut feeling. You’re her friend, you’ve known her since you were both . . .’ he waved his glass vaguely in front of him, more of the brandy spilling over the lip, ‘like eighteen, or whatever. Has she talked to you about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even a hint?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He snorted. ‘You wouldn’t even tell me if she had though, would you?’

  ‘She’s not said anything to me. She’d be more likely to confide in Jennifer, to be honest. They were always more of a pair when we were younger.’

  I was torn between defending my friend and getting Russ to open up, tell me about his suspicions. Wanting to carry on in blissful ignorance versus wanting to know everything.

  ‘What makes you say that,’ I said slowly, ‘about Rowan?’

  ‘Something’s going on,’ he said. ‘I just know it.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like she’s doing a very good job of keeping it secret, if you suspect something is going on.’

  ‘She thinks I haven’t twigged. You think I should ask her, point-blank?’

  Confronted with what might give the answer to my question, I was suddenly cautious. If Russ blundered in now, accusing his wife of an affair, I’d lose my chance of finding out the truth for myself. She would be on her guard for the rest of the week.

  ‘I think you should be . . . careful, Russ.’

  He snorted and took another slug of brandy, some of it dribbling down his chin.

  ‘Why should I be careful? She hasn’t been.’

  ‘Because once you ask her, once it’s out there, it’ll always be between you. The genie can’t be put back in the bottle.’

  And because you don’t know how much damage a single accusation can cause.

  But I do. I know. So does Rowan.

  I took another sip of my drink, wondering whether to tell him the truth. Whether he already knew the truth. An ugly, unpleasant truth that I had locked away years ago.

  Did you ever wonder why Rowan was single when you met her, Russ? Why she’d split with her first husband? Why a perfectly good relationship ended in anger and tears and bitterness?

  Because of an accusation.

  Because of me.

  Russ leaned back in his chair and exhaled heavily.

  ‘I knew you’d say something like that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sensible Kate. Always got your scientific head on, haven’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘You’re probably right, all the same. I’m supposed to be playing the “good husband”.’ He emphasised the last two words with air quotes. ‘Make sure there’s no impediment to her big deal going through.’

  I frowned in the darkness, feeling as though I’d missed something.

  ‘How would any of that affect her deal?’

  He took a drag on his cigarette, the tip glowing cherry red in the darkness.

  ‘How much has she told you about the potential buyers? Not the division she’ll be absorbed into, but the actual owners at the top of the tree?’

  I searched my memory. Rowan had not said much to me at all about this deal, even though it was potentially huge for her career. Why was that? It felt like another example of how far apart we had drifted in recent years. She had talked in generalities about her clients, her business, rather than who she was getting into bed with as part of this deal.

  I flinched inwardly. Getting into bed with seemed about right.

  ‘They’re a US-based multinational, I think?’

  ‘Correct. Garrison Incorporated is a family-based company, three generations and still going. They’ve run it since the 1950s, market cap somewhere north of eighteen billion dollars, headquartered in Oklahoma City for the last seventy years. And those three generations of Garrisons have something else in common.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘God.’

  I leaned forward a little, waiting for him to elaborate, but instead he dr
ew heavily on his cigarette again and blew out two thick streams of smoke from his nostrils.

  ‘God?’ I repeated.

  ‘The big man himself.’ He flicked the ash from his cigarette and pointed with the glowing tip, to emphasise each word. ‘They’re super-evangelical, fundamentalist Christians and they run their businesses accordingly. Massively conservative, Bible-thumping types who have certain expectations of their top people.’

  ‘In terms of personal life?’

  ‘In terms of everything. They’re doing the pre-signature due diligence checks now, and those bastards are thorough. They make HMRC look like fucking amateurs. They’re going through everything in forensic detail, not just the business and the company projections, but past history going back twenty years, potential staff issues, black sheep in the family, client connections, potential negative headlines, any skeletons in the closet. Needless to say, any hint of a potential new partner shagging around will send all the red flags up in Oklahoma City, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Would they pull out?’

  ‘If they find out she’s been playing away from home? Oh, they’ll cut their losses, no question. The slightest sniff of a scandal and it will be goodbye buyout, goodbye payoff. Goodbye eight million quid.’

  I took another small sip of the brandy. ‘And Rowan knows this?’

  He snorted. ‘Yeah, but she thinks she’s smarter than them.’

  ‘Then she’s taking an astronomical risk.’

  ‘That’s my wife for you. Always gung-ho, always the risk-taker.’

  ‘If it’s true.’

  He gave me an exasperated look, as if I’d not been paying attention. ‘Something’s going on. I’m bloody certain of it.’

  Creeping back to the bedroom, I climbed into the big four-poster bed and laid my head on the pillow. The air conditioning purred a steady stream of cool air; Sean’s breathing was deep and slow beside me.

  I pulled the sheet up to my neck and stared at the ceiling.

  Ten months earlier

  ‘This is the year that school gets real.’

  Her mum had been saying it all summer. She ignored it: hard work had never been a problem for her. Top 5 per cent since primary school, ever the competitive one. Just like she ignored the sixth-formers who said GCSEs didn’t really count for anything, that getting the top grades didn’t matter, were just a stepping stone to A-levels. That might be true for most people, but not if you wanted to be a doctor. The medical schools did look at your GCSE grades – they looked at everything, to decide who got a place and who didn’t. To make sure you’d not just fluked good A-levels after making a mess of your GCSEs.

  And anyway, when her mum said her thing about school ‘getting real’ in Year 11, what she actually meant was ‘This is not the time to get distracted’.

  In her mum’s eyes, distracted equalled boys.

  Boys will get you side-tracked.

  Boys will get you focusing on the wrong things.

  Boys don’t do as well as girls at school, and there are good reasons for that.

  Blah, blah, blah, blah.

  She understands all this. She gets it. She knows she’ll have to work hard to get the grades, and she’s more than prepared to put the hours in.

  But. But. There’s a new boy in her year.

  And he’s not like the rest.

  SUNDAY

  14

  The smell of fresh coffee woke me up. Sean put the cup down carefully on the bedside table beside me and I propped myself up on my elbows, mumbling a thank you without meeting his eye. How much sleep had I managed? A few hours? I felt shattered, hollowed out with fatigue, and took the coffee with me as I shuffled into the en suite.

  By the time I was dressed and had made my way downstairs, Rowan had fetched Izzy from the airport and they were chatting in the air-conditioned cool of the kitchen. We hugged our hellos and I asked about the journey from Bangkok.

  ‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ Izzy said. ‘To see everyone again.’

  ‘You too,’ I said, sipping a second coffee.

  It was months since I’d last seen her, but she didn’t look any different. She never seemed to age. She was dressed in a simple short-sleeved blouse and loose-fitting three-quarters from Vietnam or somewhere similar, and looked thoroughly at home in the heat. Her black hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, a green crystal on leather twine around her neck, plus her usual collection of bracelets and bangles for positive energy. She was the only one of us without kids, and single, and it seemed to me that she looked ten years younger than us as a result – no wear and tear, no stretch marks, no wrinkles and lines from all the sleepless nights. She was the smallest of the four of us, an elfin five feet two, slight and petite, and somehow that made her look younger too. Small, delicate features, cat-like eyes behind red-framed glasses and a mouth that was almost always smiling.

  ‘How are you, Kate?’

  ‘Great. Lovely.’

  Izzy grinned playfully.

  ‘Big first night last night, was it?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You look whacked, woman.’

  I shook my head, smiling in spite of myself. Izzy had always been one to call a spade a spade.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You always know how to lift my spirits.’

  ‘Just saying, that’s all. Concerned for you.’

  ‘I do feel whacked, actually, didn’t sleep that well.’ I reached for a convincing lie – one with a kernel of truth. ‘I’m actually a bit worried about Lucy.’

  In broad brushstrokes, I told the three of them how my daughter had been more withdrawn recently, her mood swings more pronounced with the pressure of looming GCSE results. And how I had failed to notice the signs until last night.

  Jennifer had joined us and was nodding along in sympathy.

  ‘It’s understandable,’ she said. ‘It’s a tough gig that you’ve set for yourself.’

  I shrugged. ‘No tougher than anyone else has got it.’

  ‘But it can’t be easy for you, keeping on top of everything with all of your . . . commitments.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You know,’ she said. ‘Your career.’

  I felt my hackles rising. ‘What about it?’

  ‘It must be hard, doing the mom thing and working full-time as well.’

  ‘No,’ I said, trying to keep my voice calm. ‘That’s not it. Not at all.’

  ‘I mean, it’s great and everything, but it can’t be easy fitting it all in. I don’t know how you guys do it.’

  Maybe it was lack of sleep, but I sensed a certain tone in her voice that I didn’t like. Rowan seemed to sense it too, jumping in before we slid into a full-blown argument.

  ‘Hey, Jennifer?’ Rowan said. ‘I promised Odette I’d bring you down to the pool this morning to watch her doggy paddle – do you want to come now?’

  ‘Sure,’ Jennifer said, following her out of the kitchen.

  Izzy and I exchanged glances after they’d left the room, both smiling and shaking our heads as if to say: a classic Jennifer comment. We went out onto the balcony and sat down at the end of the table, in the shade of a large umbrella.

  ‘So this is great,’ Izzy said with a smile. ‘Just like old times.’

  ‘How are you finding it, being back in Europe?’

  ‘Like I never bloody left,’ she said with a small smile. ‘Same as it ever was. So how are you really, Kate? Honestly? Now it’s just the two of us, you can tell me.’

  ‘Me? I’m fine.’ I shrugged, smiled back. ‘Same as I ever was.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. It’s just Lucy, like I said.’

  She took a sip of coffee and studied me for a moment. She had always been the most perceptive one of us, the most likely to see what was hidden. And she never held back, never left things unsaid – even if meant a difficult conversation.

  ‘You just look a little bit . . . I don’t know. Not quite yourself.’

 
‘Busy day yesterday, you know. Travel day’s always a bit of a slog, isn’t it?’

  ‘That just means you’re not travelling enough, woman. You need more practice.’

  Izzy had spent much of her late twenties and thirties travelling and working overseas, teaching English as a foreign language, first in sub-Saharan Africa, then in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia and other parts of south-east Asia. Some years ago, on one of her extended stays in Tibet, she had become a Buddhist and it seemed to have made her calmer, happier, less bothered about all the things that most people spent so long worrying about.

  She was a traveller, a citizen of the world, who had seen more countries than the other three of us put together.

  It was always Izzy, never Isobel, except for that first time we had all met in the corridor of New Orchard Hall on the first day of uni, all of us wide-eyed and hopeful – and secretly a bit terrified of what lay ahead – smiling as she explained why no one ever used her full baptismal name. ‘It’s Isobel on my passport but nowhere bloody else,’ she’d said in her lovely, lilting Irish accent. ‘Isobel is my great-aunt, who is the most dreary woman you could ever hope to meet. I’m Izzy, pleased to meet you.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what made you come back?’

  Izzy shrugged, gave me a smile.

  ‘I think maybe it’s time I finally put down some roots.’

  ‘You seeing anyone?’

  ‘It’s still early stages.’

  ‘You’re being very cryptic about it.’

  She waved a hand, coloured bangles jangling and clinking together on her wrist.

  ‘Don’t want to curse it.’

  She was from the same part of Limerick as Sean, and had been indirectly responsible for us getting together at university. As soon as she introduced him to our little group I was instantly smitten by this broad-shouldered Irishman who was always smiling, who could talk to anyone, who danced like a fool and whose heart beat so hard the first time we kissed that I thought it would burst out of his chest. He looked at me the way boys had never done before. Really looked at me. I had been amazed when he’d first asked me out. I’d always felt like he was out of my league – he could have had the pick of the girls.

  My Sean.

  Back in secondary school, he and Izzy had briefly been an item, but Sean never wanted to talk about it much and I wasn’t sure how it had ended. He had once told me – after a considerable amount of Guinness and red wine – that they had made a pact at the age of sixteen. That if they were both still single at forty – and Sean had not yet ‘made his first million’ – they would get married. One of those jokey, teenage agreements that was done tongue-in-cheek – but maybe meant more to one of them than they were willing to admit.