A Perfect Marriage Read online

  ‘Was that in London?’ My daughter’s voice is sharp.

  The short tweed jacket says, ‘It was at The Oval. I remember the cricket but I can’t recall seeing the headlines on the way. I only went to one test in that series. I couldn’t afford to take off any more time then and I can’t afford to now.’

  ‘I guess you wouldn’t have been following the cricket back then,’ the tall tweed jacket says to Charlie, before beginning to laugh like a department store Santa Claus, ho-ho-ho.

  ‘I guess not.’ Charlie’s voice is unfriendly and her brow furrowed. She turns her back to us and rests her elbows on the planking across the prow of the boat, with her chin cupped in her hands. Next to her Chris is still talking, as if there’s been no interruption.

  My heart is beating too hard and my palms feel sticky. Charlie will ask questions soon; I shall have to tell her what really happened. In the meantime I listen to the tweed jackets talk on and on about cricket.

  Kate taps me on my shoulder. ‘Would you like something to eat?’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll come in and get it.’

  ‘You stay here. Mind a place for me,’ she says, grinning. ‘Spread yourself out a bit.’

  I watch her as she ducks down the steps next to the two tweed jackets, and fights her way back through the bodies to where the food and drinks are laid out at the far end of the cabin. Chris soon decides to follow her example and vanishes into the cabin. I wink at Charlie. ‘Having a good time?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she responds like an automaton. She is looking perturbed, a frown creasing her brow. ‘Mum, you didn’t tell me Zoë had been bashed up. Those two guys were talking about it just now.’

  I look at the tweed jackets, who are now arguing about the European Union. ‘That was years ago.’ This is not the place to talk to Charlie about Zoë. ‘I’d forgotten all about it.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I can’t remember the details.’ She can tell when I’m lying so I avert my face and focus on the shore.

  ‘I’ll ask Zoë.’

  ‘Don’t do that. It was too long ago.’ I look Charlie in the eye. ‘It’s best forgotten, Charlie. Zoë wants to put it behind her.’

  ‘It is behind her, Mum. Well behind her. So I can ask her about it next time I see her.’

  ‘No, you mustn’t do that.’ I half shut my eyes at her. This is my way of signalling that we can’t discuss the matter here, not with the tweed jackets nearby. They might be arguing about the European Union but it’s possible they can do two things at once, talk and listen, and they clearly love a bit of gossip, especially the taller one. ‘I’ll tell you later, I promise. Enjoy the day, Charlie. It’s such lovely weather.’ Please, please, Charlie, I think. Please not here. Not now, not today. Not in front of everyone. Tomorrow I’ll tell you the truth. Tomorrow, when we’re at home and no one is listening, I’ll tell you what happened.

  She gazes at me; the iris of her eyes the exact same green as her father’s. Her face seems paler today: perhaps that’s the light washing over her skin that’s so fine you’d need a magnifying glass to see the pores. I tell her, ‘Let’s not spoil today by dragging up the past. Not yet. Wait a bit. I’ll tell you later.’ I turn away from her, back to the tweed jackets.

  Chris and Ben return laden with food. They’ve brought some for the tweed jackets and me as well. At Kate’s behest, Ben explains; she’s caught up with relatives inside. Charlie seems distracted and makes only a slight effort when the two boys resume the game of inventing lives for the people strolling along the towpath. Chris and Ben are showing off for Charlie’s benefit but she isn’t taking much notice. Soon she abandons all pretence of joining in, and stares at the water as it slips by, as if that will provide the answer to everything.

  We are now puttering past white-painted warehouses with balconies overlooking the canal. The boat slows as we approach the twin locks at Hampstead Road. One of the boatmen jumps ashore and winches open the gates to the lock on the left of the canal, and we drift into the coffin-shaped enclosure. I watch the rows of wet bricks lining the sides of the lock as the boat descends with the escaping water. In a few minutes we drop several metres, and the pit in which the boat is floating fills with the stench of diesel fumes. Tomorrow I’ll have to tell Charlie the truth and the prospect sickens me.

  When we reach the lower level of the canal, the far-gates to the lock are winched open and the boat moves out into a wide basin of water. How am I going to find the words to tell Charlie? I feel a deep foreboding. She will hate me for this. The trust she has in me will be broken.

  It’s a relief when Charlie and the boys disappear inside to fetch some more food, leaving me with a plate of largely untouched sandwiches and the two tweed jackets. The boat manoeuvres slowly around the basin, and I find myself face-to-face with a woman on the shore. She is slightly younger than me and is sitting with two men on the canal-side.

  ‘Give us something to eat,’ she says. She has an Irish accent.

  Before I can say anything she leans over and picks up the plate of sandwiches from the decking in front of me. Her action is faultlessly timed – as soon as she has the plate in her hand the boat swings away, and I hear her laughter ring out as the distance between us widens. I join the tweed jackets in laughing too, and one of them offers me his last samosa. The woman with my sandwiches and her two companions salute as the boat reverses round and we go back into the lock again.

  Behind the woman with my sandwiches is a warehouse building painted blue and grey, with a saw-toothed roof. Each gable of the roof is crenulated, and on the top-most crenulation sits a large eggcup, painted blue and white and containing a plaster egg. The whole scene looks so surreal that I might be dreaming. But I hear the tweed jackets continuing their discourse as if nothing has happened and I know that this is reality. After a while Kate joins us again, together with Clive and Martha from my department; our conversation flows with the boat all the way back to Little Venice.

  Charlie is sitting inside with Ben and Chris on the bench seat running the length of the cabin. Through the window behind them I catch a glimpse of my car parked high above us, and there beyond is the red mansion block of flats in which Zoë lives. We slip under the road bridge and back into the basin. A few ducks swim sedately out of our way, unhurried, as if they are big enough to induce our boat to change course if there is any danger of a collision.

  The boatman throws a rope over a capstan, and we are secured to land once more. People are gathering together their possessions and preparing to disembark.

  I sit down next to Charlie. ‘The boys have gone to find their coats,’ she says. She is radiant now, as if she has forgotten all about Zoë. ‘Ben’s asked me out,’ she whispers. ‘To a party in two weeks’ time.’ I look at her glowing face. In her delight she’s forgotten all about our earlier conversation with the tweed jackets.

  Kate and Jim are already off the boat and standing on the towpath. I hug each of them; they look so happy and right together. Charlie and I make our departure, leaving most of the other guests still milling around Little Venice basin with their last minute conversations and farewells.

  When we reach the car, Charlie says, ‘Can you drop me at your college library on the way home, Mum? I want to look up something for an assignment.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘I want to get it out of the way.’

  ‘Have you got your bus pass?’

  Charlie pulls it out of her pocket, together with a crumpled ten pound note. ‘Always prepared.’

  ‘Have you got your mobile?’

  ‘You rushed me out of the house so fast I forgot to pick it up. I haven’t got my keys either.’

  After unlocking the glove compartment of the car, I hand Charlie the bunch of keys kept there for emergencies. ‘Take these,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll go to the supermarket while you’re at the library.’

  I start the engine and pull cautiously out into the street. Charlie says nothing on the drive to Gower Street and I�
�m glad of it. What will I tell her tomorrow – or maybe tonight – when she brings up the topic of Zoë? Her joy at being asked out by Ben will buy me only so much time.

  There’s nowhere to park in front of the college library but Charlie leaps out when I slow down. ‘See you,’ she says before she dashes between parked cars. I blow her a kiss but she doesn’t look back, and I feel a splinter of hurt. The car behind me honks and I continue on, one small car in the steady stream of Saturday evening traffic.

  Chapter 34

  NOW

  The house is in darkness; Charlie can’t be home yet. The phone starts ringing as I’m locking up my car. It rings in stereo from the extension in the living room and the one in the dining room below. Picking up my canvas bags full of shopping, three in each hand, I stagger up the steps to our front door. Twelve peals before the answering machine kicks in and eight have gone by the time I unlock the front door. Dumping the bags on the hall floor, I race for the extension, reaching it on the eleventh ring.

  ‘Hello?’ One of my bags falls sideways, spewing its contents onto the polished wooden floorboards.

  ‘Sally! Sally, I’ve just arrived at Heathrow airport,’ Anthony says.

  ‘Heathrow?’ My voice sounds breathless, and this is not only from racing up the steps with the heavy shopping bags. ‘Anthony, are you here in England?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just got in. Didn’t you get my message?’

  ‘What message?’ I look at the answering machine and see that there are three waiting. ‘I didn’t check when I got back from the boat trip. But how lovely that you’re in London!’

  ‘I woke up this morning and wanted to see you. So I called the airline and managed to get a seat. I knew you’d be home tonight and tomorrow. You told me last Thursday when we spoke.’

  Overcome, unable to speak a word, I stand like a teenager smiling at the wall.

  ‘Is that OK, Sally? I do hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Anthony, I’m delighted. Really delighted. Are you coming here now?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll get the express train to Paddington, there’s one leaving in a few minutes. I’ll drop my bag off at my flat first and take a cab from there over to your place. I should reach you by about half-past nine.’

  I look at my watch. It’s a few minutes past eight o’clock.

  ‘I’ll hold supper for you.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all right?’

  ‘Yes. And it’s more than all right. It’s wonderful.’

  After hanging up, I look at my reflection in the mirror over the fireplace: I look radiant, I look years younger.

  I key in the digits for the phone’s message bank. The first message is from Charlie’s friend Amrita telling Charlie to meet her at Belsize Park Tube station at half-past eight tonight. I suppose Charlie has already been home and heard this, and saved it as message unheard as a way of letting me know what she’s up to. Odd that she hasn’t left a note though; she usually leaves details of where she’s going on the pad by the telephone. Next there’s a brief message from my mother, followed by one from Anthony. He phoned from Logan airport; I can hear flight announcements in the background. His flight is about to depart; he’s made a spur of the moment decision, he says, to fly to London for a few days, and hopes I might see him. The impulsiveness of his action is in stark contrast to the careful, reserved way he gives his message. Perhaps he thought I mightn’t be pleased. But pleased cannot describe the emotions I am feeling: I alternate between excitement and nervousness, and relief that there’s enough food in my shopping bags to cook a good meal.

  After pulling my mobile phone out from the depths of my handbag, I switch it off flight mode. It pings a few seconds later with another message from Anthony at Logan airport, the duplicate of the one he left on the landline. There is nothing from Charlie though. Leaving the phone on the bench, I race around the kitchen, putting the groceries away. Afterwards I inspect the rest of the house. It doesn’t look too bad. The cleaner came on Friday; we always tidy up before she comes, and we haven’t yet had time to reduce it to the chaotic level that we reach by mid-week. I put on a CD of Vengerov playing Prokofiev’s first violin concerto, and begin to prepare supper.

  We shall have pasta with broccoli sauce and green salad. I make up the sauce, mixing the broccoli with crème fraîche, braised garlic and anchovies, and set this mixture aside while I prepare the salad. Though the scherzo movement of the concerto makes me feel agitated, it is followed by the lyrical and calming third movement. After putting a bottle of white wine in the freezer to chill rapidly, I fill a large pan with water and set it on the hob ready to turn on when Anthony arrives.

  Next I have a quick shower and change into jeans, a navy blue cable-knit sweater, and my brown Hobbs loafers. The phone rings while I’m running wet fingers through my hair to restore the curl.

  ‘Is Charlie there?’ Amrita says. ‘We were supposed to meet at Belsize Park Tube unless she called me back to say otherwise. But she hasn’t turned up.’

  ‘Really? I thought she must have come home and gone out again to meet you.’ I look at my watch. It’s just after nine o’clock and Charlie doesn’t have her mobile phone with her so I can’t call her.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll turn up soon,’ says Amrita. ‘We’re going to have to go in now; the film’s about to start.’

  ‘I expect she got carried away at the library,’ I say. ‘She’ll probably arrive home any minute.’

  But I’m worried. I dropped Charlie off at five o’clock. Suppose it took her longer than two hours in the library, say three hours. And it would take her another hour to get home. That brings us to around nine o’clock. She should be here shortly. If not, surely she would have called me. She is usually really reliable like that; although maybe she tried to and was unable to find a public phone. They are few and far between in this mobile phone age and some of them require a credit card rather than cash.

  Charlie keeps a list of her friends’ telephone numbers on the bench next to the kitchen phone. I try calling a few of them without luck; her friends are either out themselves or don’t know where Charlie is. The last parent I speak to thinks I’m panicking unnecessarily. Charlie has probably run into some friends and gone to the pub, he suggests, and intimates that I’m over-reacting.

  ‘Charlie always tells me where she is,’ I explain. He promises that his daughter Lindsay will let me know on her return whether or not she’s seen my daughter.

  It is now nine-fifteen. I pick up my mobile phone, put on a jacket and a scarf, and go out into the street. All is quiet; cars are parked up and down the road but there is no through traffic tonight. No one is coming, no one is going; we might be in a village rather than in a huge city. I wander aimlessly around, unsure of what I’m doing out here. I don’t want to range too far away: I have to be able to hear our landline ring in case Charlie calls that instead of my mobile.

  At nine-thirty I go inside again and check the answering machine. No more messages. Although Anthony was the last person to call, I dial the call recall service, in case the phone rang while I was in the street and I didn’t hear it. The automated operator tells me that I was called today at 20.07 and that the caller withheld their number. That would have been Anthony phoning from his mobile or from one of those rare items, a public phone, at Heathrow.

  When I hear a car pull up in the street, I dash to the window. Anthony is climbing out of a black cab. I run to open the front door. He is carrying a bunch of red roses but he doesn’t have time to do anything with these because I throw my arms around his neck.

  ‘Anthony, how wonderful to see you!’ I would almost certainly not be hugging him like this were it not for the fact that a part of my brain – the cautious reserved part – has been shut down by my anxiety about Charlie.

  I bury my face in Anthony’s chest. He is taller than I remembered. His chest smells of clean skin and wool. The reason he smells so good, I remind myself, is that his genetically produced immunological attributes are quite di
fferent to mine. This is why his scent is just right. No other reason. He runs his free hand over my upper back before lifting my chin and kissing me gently. I push the front door shut with my foot, and he kisses me again; and for a few moments I forget everything.

  We are interrupted by the phone ringing. Charlie’s friend Lindsay has just got my message. She hasn’t seen Charlie, she says, but will call back if she hears anything. ‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ Lindsay says.

  My anxiety is increasing. I try ringing Zoë’s landline. Charlie does have Zoë’s keys on the big bunch that I gave her when I dropped her at the library, and she might have gone to her flat on some whim. I hold my breath as the phone rings on and on. No one picks up and the answering machine doesn’t click on. After a number of rings I’m automatically disconnected. Then I remember that Zoë is off somewhere, Amsterdam probably, I wish I’d listened more carefully when we last spoke. When I call her mobile number the recorded message clicks in at once: she either has the phone switched off or she’s out of range. I leave a message asking her to ring me when she can.

  Anthony and I sit in the living room. We occupy armchairs opposite each other, separated by the coffee table on which I placed a vase containing the long-stemmed red roses. Through the glass surface of the coffee table I see his long legs stretched out. His feet are a few centimetres away from mine. I focus on his slightly scuffed brown shoes while I begin to tell him of my fears. After I finish, I look up. His expression is intense, his eyebrows lowered in concentration. He runs me through the afternoon again: what was the time when Charlie and I left the canal boat, what was the time when I dropped Charlie off at the library.

  ‘When does the library shut?’ he asks, when I pause for breath.

  ‘Nine-thirty.’ In the excitement of the last couple of hours I forgot this. The time is now one minute before ten o’clock. ‘It’s too late to phone the college.’