‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I blurted that out,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had anyone to talk to and I’m going slightly mad, I think. Probably the menopause. I hardly know you and there I am telling you my most guarded secret.’ Her grey eyes were brimming with building tears. ‘You could tell Titus and spoil my plans. I must be ill.’
Marnie reached across the table and squeezed her arm. She felt freezing to the touch.
‘I give you my word, what happens in the Red Café, stays in the Red Café.’
Hilary smiled tentatively.
‘I don’t go down south to see my sister. Jennifer died two years ago but I didn’t tell Titus. I just carried on going down there every month. I’ve known Julian and his wife for many years, as friends. Then dear Louise died, weeks before my sister did. Jennifer and I were very close, twins, identical. Julian and I helped each other through our grief. I don’t think either of us thought our friendship would change into what it has.’
Marnie tried to think of something valuable to say. ‘Wow’ was all that came out.
‘Titus and I haven’t lived as man and wife for a long time. I’m merely someone who washes his clothes and pours him a brandy in the evenings after he’s eaten the meal I’ve cooked. I think I got used to living in the rut. I might always have been there as his unpaid servant had Julian and I not . . . found each other. I am making plans to leave Titus but I need to stay around for a tad longer. I want Titus never to forget the day, you see. I want him to realise exactly how much he has underrated me. But I shall be going very soon.’
‘Wow,’ said Marnie again.
‘Julian told me of his true feelings last month. I didn’t think my heart could hold so much joy. He’s the most wonderful man.’
‘Blimey,’ said Marnie as a variation on wow.
‘Tell me, I don’t look the type.’
‘You don’t. I’m in shock.’
‘I don’t know why I told you. I don’t trust very easily.’
‘I promise I won’t breathe a word,’ said Marnie, notching a little cross on her heart with her finger.
‘Julian has two children, both daughters, one pregnant. Beautiful girls. I shall be a sort of grandmother at Christmas.’ Though the natural set of her expression was a sad, slightly haughty one, when she smiled it lent a softness and warmth to her whole face. As if a light had been turned on inside her.
‘There will be children in my life at last. Not my own, but it doesn’t matter. I shall love them as much as I would if they’d been mine.’
Her eyes looked glazed with a slick of happiness. Marnie wondered if Judith had had the same delight in her eyes when she found out she had been approved for adoption. Before she realised she’d taken in the spawn of Satan.
A waitress passed and Hilary gave her a ten-pound note and told her to keep the change.
*
Outside the rain was subsiding now and the sun was trying to put in the odd appearance, when the clouds scuttling past allowed it to do so. Hilary insisted that Marnie drop her at Blackett Bridge and allow her to walk up to the Lemon Villa so that no one would see them together and start tittle-tattling.
‘Thank you for listening to me, Marnie,’ said Hilary as the car pulled to a halt. ‘And good luck with what you have to do.’
‘I’ll need it,’ said Marnie. ‘Some people are really not going to like me slashing all the monies they’ve been claiming from the estate. They’ve all got to stop, I’m afraid.’
She waited for Hilary’s expression to change but it didn’t.
‘We don’t claim anything from the estate ourselves. Titus draws – drew – a wage for doing the accounts. He didn’t need to do much though: record things, chase rents when he had to and arrange for maintenance when needed,’ said Hilary. ‘If only Lilian had told him how bad things were, he might have been able to help because he is very astute when it comes to financial matters.’
He certainly is that all right, thought Marnie.
‘He says that Lilian kept so much hidden from him, blundered on, made terrible decisions. Is he right? Is that what you’ve found?’
So, Hilary really didn’t know the truth of the matter. Marnie decided to leave her in blissful ignorance. For now, at least.
‘I’m still trying to get to the bottom of it all, but yes, it does appear that Lilian’s decision-making wasn’t that good.’ Lilian’s decision to keep Titus in the job, anyway.
‘Thank you for the lift.’
‘Good luck yourself,’ said Marnie. ‘I hope it all works out for you, I really do.’
‘You know, for years I believed that how Titus rated me was a fair assessment, until I learned from Julian that someone who doesn’t know your value can’t possibly tell you what you’re worth.’
And with that, Hilary Sutton got out of the car, put on her soggy raincoat and set off in the direction of the Lemon Villa.
Later, Marnie was in the process of making herself a hot chocolate before bed when she remembered the red box. She took it out of the under-stairs cupboard and put it on the kitchen table but she suspected she’d be throwing all the contents away because it looked to be full of junk. There was a hideous pot vase she’d made at school. It must have been shoved away in a cupboard because it had certainly not been out on display, gracing a shelf. A flood of memories came rushing back to her: sitting at the potter’s wheel creating it, giggling with Caitlin next to her, whose pot looked more like a giant erection. She had tried not to think about Caitlin because it hurt but they’d had some great laughs together and made so many plans that had come to nothing, as teenagers do: share a house, travel the world, have a double wedding.
There were a few old school books, a bracelet of her mother’s which was hideous and plastic and probably why Gabrielle had decided she could have it. A small teddy bear – a souvenir from a school trip to Chester Zoo; a programme from a play Marnie was in and a clear plastic document folder. Marnie tipped the contents onto the table to find letters from the adoption agency, cards with Marnie’s NHS and national insurance numbers on them and an old passport with a clipped corner. She opened it to see her eighteen-year-old self looking back at her, short cropped punk hairstyle, large bright eyes and lips set in a ‘fuck you all’ sneer. She wanted to climb into the photo and tell that girl she was all right, she was okay, she would survive. But to stay away from any man whose name began with a letter of the alphabet.
There was an envelope in the pile, handwritten to Miss Marnie Salt at her mother’s address. The top had been slit open precisely with a knife, but the letter was still inside. Marnie took the two folded sheets of light blue paper out. The sender’s name and address was written at the top, in neat handwriting.
Laura Hogg
‘Evergreens’
Sunningdale Avenue
Reading
Berkshire
It was dated 4 May 2002. Puzzled, Marnie read on.
Dear Miss Salt, or may I call you Marnie,
I hope you won’t mind me writing to you, but I felt I had to . . .
the letter began. She scanned it quickly to find out what it was about. Phrases leapt out at her from the page.