‘That’s just a pantry,’ said Ria as Pete took a step towards a door. ‘The stairs are this way.’
He followed her forwards, poking his head into the next room. It was empty apart from a vacuum cleaner and a box with cleaning equipment and cloths in it, small yellow Marigold gloves. They walked up the steep carpeted stairs; to the right was a tiny white bathroom, to the left the only bedroom. Pete pushed open the door and saw that this was where all the occupants’ energies had been concentrated. The bed wore top quality smooth white sheets, fat pillows. There were reed diffusers placed on various surfaces, Tara’s go-to choice, Jo Malone, though the scent had long since dried up. An old wooden dressing table with a hair brush, a glass bowl full of cotton wool balls; Pete recognised the Mac lipstick, her brand of make-up remover. A man’s toiletry bag snuggled up to hers, bearing an almost empty black and gold bottle of Atelier Rose Smoke cologne. He lifted it to his nose and the expensive scent punched his brain. This was what the father of her baby smelled like. On a long trestle table near the window was a record player, modern but fashioned to look vintage, a stack of vinyls. A record sat on the turntable, the cover propped up against the wall. Elvis, Hits of the 70s. The fourth track: ‘Always on My Mind’.
He snatched open the door of the mirrored wardrobe and saw familiar sweaters folded up on the shelves, scraps of underwear, packs of tights and stockings. Her tiny Jeremy Scott Angel Wing trainers that he hadn’t been able to find at home. On the bottom shelf, men’s underwear: white Hugo Boss trunks, socks, green Adidas trainers, a beautiful pair of Valentino Garavani calfskin derbys. Hanging up: a grey suit, shirts, sweaters, the black Vivienne Westwood dress he had bought her for their last anniversary.
Ria was rifling through the drawer in the bedside cabinet. A charger, a packet of menthol cigarettes, a lighter. There was a clutch of pictures taken with an instant print camera, also there. Selfies of a laughing Ria with a man. The same man in all the photos. In the last he was naked, asleep, a white sheet draped around him like a toga.
‘Who is this?’ asked Pete snatching it from her. His hand was shaking with fury and shock and pain as he held the photo.
‘I have no idea,’ said Ria. ‘I swear, I have no idea.’
This was him. Lean and handsome. He wore classy clothes and smelled expensive. The man who had been always on the mind of his wife. Where was he now? It looked as if no one had been here for months.
No, it couldn’t be. Pieces of a puzzle started to push together in his head, looking to fit. Fitting.
‘Do you want to take her stuff, Pete?’ asked Ria, but he had left the room to head back downstairs. In the kitchen he scooped up the pile of post, deposited it on the table, picked through the junk, ripped some open. Tara Ollerton – a Visa statement. She’d started having her post delivered here then. Tara Ollerton – an invitation to a fashion show in Derby. Tara Ollerton – a receipt for a delivered case of champagne. Then the name he had been searching for on one of the envelopes. He slit it open to find a rental agreement on this cottage. Paid a year in advance, cash. Mr Alexander Wilder. The man who had died in the same crash as his wife; Laurie’s partner.
Chapter 43
Pete drove home. He held on to the steering wheel as if it prevented him from slipping off the side of the earth. His head was a horrible merry-go-round of details blaring out a distorted tune. Laurie’s partner was his wife’s lover, the father of the baby he thought was his own. He’d find a photo of Alex Wilder to be sure, but he knew it would match. His name had meant nothing to Ria and he wasn’t going to enlighten her on what it meant to him. He took a corner too fast and Ria shrieked and he forced his thoughts back onto getting home safely and nothing else.
Ria had gathered two carrier bags full of Tara’s possessions and set them down on the kitchen floor in his house. He didn’t want them. Pete thought of the ring that Laurie wore around her neck, the ring that would have fitted his wife’s slim finger. Always on my mind. Poor Laurie. He had all the answers to the questions that were torturing her, but no answers to the load he had just inherited. He didn’t want to be the one to tell her. He didn’t want her heart to feel like the punchbag his did.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Ria. Pete didn’t resist. From the back Ria looked just like her younger sister and for a moment Pete let himself believe it was Tara, standing there, her belly swelling with another man’s child and he felt hate and sadness crash together inside him like rival seas meeting.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Ria, delivering the coffees to the table and sitting on the chair next to his. ‘I wish I hadn’t guessed what she was up to.’
But you did, he said inside, anger swirling within him like a slow-moving whirlpool. Ria had known his wife was sleeping with another man. He wondered if Tara was intending to leave him or lead a double life. I’ve got something I want to tell you. She didn’t know he couldn’t have children, so was she intending to let him bring up another man’s child? Did she know Alex Wilder had a ring in his pocket for her? Was Bakewell where they were both driving back from when the lorry hit them? Did he get to know on their last day that he was going to be a father?
Pete felt the stirrings of a painful pulse in his temple.
Ria’s hand slid across to his, her small, Tara-like fingers fell on his wrist, pressing warmth into his flesh. He looked up, saw her brown doe eyes shining. He reached over, threaded his hand into her hair, drew her face towards his, felt her gasp as his lips found hers, felt her yield as he gathered her into his arms. Tara’s scent assaulted his nostrils. He pulled away, saw the desire in her eyes.
‘Come on then, Ria, let’s go upstairs,’ he said.
She jerked, unsure if she had heard him correctly, gave a nervous laugh.
‘This is what you want, isn’t it? Come on, let’s do it.’
‘Pete?’
‘Your sister’s gone, I’m all yours. You both should have told me sooner. You and I could have been fucking for months.’
The F-word felt good in his mouth, cleansing and hateful, bitter and sweet at the same time. Rage let you act without conscience.
‘I think I ought to go,’ Ria said, crushed, disappointed.
‘Oh come on, Ria. Now’s your big chance to get your sister’s leftovers to go with her clothes and the perfume.’
Ria’s face was flushing crimson before his eyes, she looked as if she had been slapped. She picked up her bag and looped it around her shoulder.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ she said.
‘Don’t bother,’ snarled Pete. ‘And take your sister’s shit with you.’
Pete kicked the carrier bags. They spilled out their contents: his dead wife’s make-up, shoes, clothes, the thongs she had worn for another man – or not worn. Ria pushed them back into the bags, and scurried out with them. Pete slammed the front door hard behind her and the wonder was that the glass didn’t break. The reverberations of that car crash had rippled far further than the accident scene, crossing timelines to buckle lives as surely as it had buckled metal. The destruction had to end and it had to end now.
He took his phone out of his pocket, threw himself back down at the kitchen table. Without letting thought get in the way, he scrolled through his text messages, found the last one from Laurie and started to compose a reply.