I turn away and pace to the other side of the room. I can’t look at her. And I’m not sure I can bear to look at Cameron again either. Maybe we should get out of here now, like Ria wants to, go home. Maybe Olivia could sort a flight somehow? Perhaps we could get a private jet like those clients of Cameron’s he was talking about. Anything, anything to get away from this man who has slept with my wife.
‘No!’ Ria cries, interrupting my mental fuming. ‘Gross. He’s not an ex. Nothing like that. I can’t stand him. But we … we worked together. A long time ago.’
I turn and stare at her. ‘That’s what he said too. But if that’s all it was, why wouldn’t you have told me? There must have been more to it than that?’
She shakes her head. ‘There wasn’t. There isn’t. We worked together. That’s all. Look, does it matter? It was long before I met you and, before this week, I hadn’t seen him in years. I forgot to tell you about it. So what? There are plenty of other people I’ve worked with who you’ve never met. It’s now that matters.’ She throws back the covers and crawls across the bed. ‘Look, I’ve stopped taking those pills now so why don’t we …’
She starts fiddling with my belt buckle but I push her hands away. ‘No. I want to know why you lied.’
‘I didn’t lie!’ she shrieks. ‘I never told you I didn’t know him!’
‘But he was there at dinner,’ I say, slow and measured. ‘You didn’t tell me that you did know him. You must see that that’s not normal behaviour, Ria? You acted like he was a stranger. You arranged this trip, you didn’t mention it then either. He said you’d asked him not to say anything. So if he wasn’t an ex then …’
She slumps back on the bed.
‘There are things … something … from that time of my life I’m not proud of.’
‘We all have things in our past we’re not proud of. I’m your husband. You shouldn’t be keeping things from me.’ I pause. ‘Look, if you had a one-night stand with him or something, that’s fine, it’s not like I think there was no one before me, I’d just rather you’d told me what to expect before we got here, that’s all. I feel like he’s been laughing at me all week.’
Tears start to roll down her cheeks. ‘I never slept with him. I wouldn’t ever have wanted to. He’s not laughing at you, I promise,’ she says hoarsely. ‘It’s just that he knows stuff about me.’ Ria almost never cries. I feel myself soften inside.
‘Ria, come on, it can’t be that bad,’ I say gently. ‘What happened? Where were you working when you met him?’
She swipes the tears away. ‘Here. We were working here. We were ski instructors. We killed someone.’
56
January 2020, La Madière, France
Adam
Well, that was the worst day ever. Thank God it’s over. The day after tomorrow, I can be on my way back to Thailand and hopefully things can return to normal.
Poor Will. As soon as I get back in the car I wonder if I should have visited him in the mortuary after all. But I can’t imagine twenty years on a mountainside is kind to a body. Seeing him in that state isn’t going to help him, and it certainly isn’t going to help me. I don’t believe in an afterlife, so he’s not going to know or care either way.
It’s a huge relief to be back at the chalet. I’ve grown accustomed to living quite basically in Thailand, in spite of my recent inheritance. It makes a change to have a bit of luxury, especially being waited on so attentively.
When I arrive, Millie is laying out afternoon tea – homemade cakes, biscuits, and plates of fruit. As soon as I enter, she straightens up.
‘Good afternoon, Adam,’ she says. ‘I hope your day went to plan and wasn’t too distressing?’
‘Thank you. It was upsetting, of course, but Didier and Matt did everything they could to make it as easy as possible.’
‘I hope you feel that there’s been some … closure, if I may?’
‘Closure?’ I say, taking a beat or two to realize what she means. I hate these new-agey therapy-speak words. ‘Yes. I guess so. Though I will still have to arrange a funeral. I haven’t decided what to do about that. I haven’t really arranged one before.’ By ‘haven’t really’, I mean haven’t ever. Mum arranged Dad’s funeral, and bar a few emails and calls, I left the same funeral house and the family solicitor to arrange Mum’s a couple of years later. I simply turned up on the day. It might sound callous, but these people are dead, they’re just bodies. They don’t care what their casket is like or which flowers people choose. It’s all a giant fuss and waste of money as far as I can see.
Will’s funeral, though, was something which was brought up at the hospital. It was couched in the nicest possible terms via Didier’s translation, but the upshot was that Will couldn’t stay in the hospital morgue forever and I needed to let them know as soon as possible what I wanted to have done with the body.
‘Oh?’ Millie prompts. ‘Will you not want to, um, take him home to your family so they can, ah, say a proper goodbye?’
I spoon a few pieces of fresh fruit onto a plate and sit down on one of the lovely plush sofas. ‘There’s no family, only me,’ I explain. ‘My parents died some time ago. And I don’t have a base as such. I’ve been travelling for a long time and now I’m mainly in Thailand. But Will had never even been to Thailand, so it would be weird to take him there.’ Poor Will. So many things he never had the chance to do.
Millie nods. ‘I see. I hope I’m not speaking out of line, but in that case perhaps I wonder if you might like to have him cremated and his ashes scattered here?’ There is a pause. ‘As I understand it, from what you’ve said, he was happy here during your last holiday together – perhaps it would be somehow appropriate, if there’s no particular home for you as such.’ She pauses. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Obviously, the funeral details have to be your decision and I shouldn’t even be expressing an opinion about something like this.’
I see her blush as she starts fussing with the already perfectly arranged tea tray.
‘No. No, that’s a nice idea – thank you,’ I reply, because it is. And what else am I going to do with his body? At least this way I will be seen to have made an effort, rather than having Will cremated somewhere anonymous with no one there at all while it happens. ‘Perhaps I could arrange that before I go back. I’m not sure of the formalities, how long it would all take. Obviously, I would find myself somewhere else to stay,’ I add hastily, ‘I wouldn’t want to impose on your and Cameron’s hospitality any longer.’
She smiles. ‘We are very pleased to have you here. If you do decide to stay on, I can speak to Cameron and see if anything can be arranged. But I’m afraid it’s his call, not mine, and I know the chalets are very busy.’
‘Of course. I wasn’t fishing for an invitation,’ I add, embarrassed.
She nods. ‘Don’t worry, I know you weren’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and finish the hot chocolate and coffee. Do you have everything you need, or can I get you anything else?’