12
Cass put down the newspaper she was pretending to read and pressed the button on the remote to mute the TV. She was finding it hard to concentrate. Ever since they had bumped into Charles’s daughter-in-law earlier – Jen, that was her name – she had been aware of a flicker of anxiety in her stomach. At least, she thought it was anxiety. It had occurred to her that it might be anticipation. She knew that a part of her wanted everything to come out into the open. Even though that would probably be catastrophic. It was like when you leaned over a too-high railing. Who hadn’t thought, ‘What if I jump?’ Who hadn’t wanted to push things too far, just to see what would happen?
Or maybe that was just her.
In reality, though, she knew that she would never force the issue. She had no doubt that, if she did so, she would be running the risk of losing Charles from her life altogether. In fact, not even running the risk, it was a certainty. He had told her many times that he couldn’t openly acknowledge her. He had too much to lose. She almost certainly wouldn’t see him for dust. And, despite everything, she really did believe that he loved his family in Twickenham. All of them, even his wife, Amelia.
It had felt so strange – thrilling, almost – to meet the woman who was married to his son. Jason, she knew, was the eldest. Then there were the two girls, Poppy and Jessie. Their names were all so familiar to her. There were grandchildren too. Three, as far as she knew. She didn’t often ask, and he didn’t often share. Actually, she had told him a while ago, when they were having one of their fights (they often argued – in fact, they had been squabbling about something or other when Jen had come along) that she didn’t want to hear any more. She didn’t care about Amelia, Jason, Poppy or Jessie. They were nothing to her.
She hadn’t really meant it.
Still, it had given her an undeniable buzz. Meeting Jen. Shaking hands with her. Knowing she held all the cards. It had passed through her mind that with one sentence she could blow the whole thing apart. Throw their secret out into the open and watch his family implode. She could inflict unimaginable cruelty with just a few words. Thank God she hadn’t done it, hadn’t been overtaken by an urge to self-destruct. It was a powerful weapon to have, but one she knew she would never use. It frightened her just how tempted she had been.
It wasn’t in her nature to be mean. She was a people-pleaser, she always had been. At school she had always been the one with her hand up, whether she knew the answer or not. Please, Miss! Choose me! Like me! It was pitiful, really, her need for approbation. No wonder she had never met a man who actually wanted to plump for her as his life partner. She was too needy, too clingy, too afraid of rejection. She had always pushed her suitors away eventually, driven them to the point where they would turn round and say they’d had enough, and then she’d felt overwhelmingly let down when they left. Everything was a test to her. And few people ever passed.
Her mum had always told her she should just relax, be herself, and not over-think things too much. But since when had her mum been an expert on relationships? She hardly had an exemplary track record herself.
That reminded her. She must ring her mum. She usually tried to call her every other day, but sometimes she was so busy at work she would forget. Work had a tendency to take over her life, if she let it. She tried to remember if Barbara had said she was going out. Her mum had a hectic social life that usually eclipsed her daughter’s. Partly it came with her job. Barbara worked in the offices of a finance company – doing admin, nothing too glamorous – but the staff seemed to still be stuck on the eighties’ maxim of ‘work hard, play hard’ and Barbara was always going for drinks and cocktails after work. Not that Cass could remember the eighties. She was barely even two when they ended. But she’d seen Wall Street.
Barbara picked up on the second ring.
‘Darling, hello.’
‘Hi, Mum. I’ve not called you in the middle of something, have I?’
‘No, of course not, how are you?’ Barbara always said this, whenever Cass asked, so for all Cass knew she could have been in the middle of performing heart surgery, but set it aside to chat to her daughter.
‘Me too. I’m treating myself to a glass of wine before I start cooking.’
Cass knew that cooking meant popping a ready meal for one into the microwave. Barbara used to love to cook. She would come home from work every evening and prepare elaborate meals, sipping on a big glass of wine while she threw things flamboyantly around the kitchen. Now she rarely bothered. Cass, living on her own as she did, empathized. She could never understand why anyone would buy all the separate ingredients and spend hours putting them together when you could just opt for the finished product.
‘What are you having? I’ve got a Waitrose lasagne. It doesn’t look as good as yours, though.’
Barbara laughed. ‘You should come home, then. I’ll make you one. If I can remember how.’
‘Maybe at the weekend.’
‘Really? That would be lovely.’
‘I’ll drive up and we can load up at M&S.’
They talked for a couple of minutes about nothing much: Barbara’s frozen shoulder and the appointment she had with the doctor for a couple of days’ time; a dinner party she was going to the following night; the problems Cass was having with her washing machine. Even though neither of them would have admitted it, it was hard to find new things to talk about when they spoke so often.
Afterwards, Cass decided to have a long bath and then an early night. She needed to process what had happened, go through it moment by moment and wring every last trivial detail out of the memory. She needed to get it straight in her head before she could allow herself to think what, if anything, might happen next.