‘You don’t think I should ask Danny?’
‘No, Corinne. He’ll think you’ve been snooping around their bedroom. What am I saying? You were snooping around their bedroom.’
‘I wasn’t snooping. I was just …’
But what was she just? Now, when Corinne tried to remember how she’d ended up in Danny and Hannah’s bedroom two days before, her reasons seemed woolly and ill formed.
She put down the phone to Duncan, and picked up the photograph on the coffee table in front of her.
The woman’s angry red gaze glared back at her and, though she’d now examined it over and over, looking for clues, Corinne still flinched from the violence of those deep, red lines.
How angry would a person have to be to do that?
What else was a person that angry capable of?
Hurriedly, she turned the photograph over. The word BITCH slapped her in the face. Who was the woman with the dark curls and the dimple like a wink in the middle of her cheek?
And who on earth was her daughter?
Sitting on the charcoal-grey sofa in the lobby of the publisher where Hannah used to work – no, still works, she reminded herself – Corinne felt a tug of pure grief for the Hannah who used to be at home here in this bustling office, with the male receptionist who was always climbing mountains or running marathons for charity dressed up as a chicken or a giant burger, and the young girls with high ponytails sweeping in and out with piles of books and soft, pink cheeks.
How many times over the years had Corinne sat here on this same bloody uncomfortable sofa, leaning back against the orange cushions, leafing through one of the titles artfully laid out on the coffee table – many of which Hannah had fallen in love with and developed clever campaigns around and cried proud tears over when they made bestseller lists or were awarded prizes – waiting for Hannah to finish work so they could go to a movie or to dinner or to some publishing event? With Danny working away so much, Corinne had been glad to stand in as her daughter’s date.
‘Corinne. How lovely to see you again.’
Hannah’s friend, Becs, swooped in and wrapped Corinne in a tight hug before she had a chance to react. She smelled of handwash and cinnamon-flavoured nicotine gum.
‘I think coffee is called for. Don’t you think? Or gin, perhaps? Let’s get out of here.’
In the lift mirror, Corinne had a chance to study Becs’ outfit, a voluminous black affair. Becs only ever wore black. ‘Not because it’s slimming, because it bloody well isn’t,’ she once told her. ‘I go around perpetually looking like a fat person at a funeral. But it saves all that faffing about trying to match your clothes to each other.’
Today, she had on a long black velvet tunic over a long black skirt, with biker boots and a chunky silver necklace of mayoral chain proportions. Her frizzy brown hair stood out around her round face like the coir of a coconut, and her washed-out blue eyes gazed out serenely from behind a pair of severe, black-framed glasses, at exactly the height of Corinne’s shoulder.
They went to the coffee shop next door to the office building, where they were served by a man with a complicated top knot.
Corinne took the photograph out of her bag and lay it on the distressed-wood table between them. In the two days since she had found it in Hannah’s room, she’d handled it so much it was going soft at the edges. The dark-haired woman smiled up at them over the top of one bare, shiny, tanned knee.
Becs made a sucking-in-air-between-teeth noise at the sight of the furious red pen marks.
‘I’m getting the message this woman isn’t very popular in some quarters.’
Wordlessly, Corinne turned the photograph over. The word BITCH was shocking in this cool coffee shop, with the weak March sun slanting in through the window.
‘Do you know who she is?’ But she could see from Becs’ face the answer was no.
‘Never seen her before. And I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.’
Corinne remembered now how Hannah used to complain that Becs used humour as a defence mechanism to deflect any intensity of emotion. Probably why she’s never had a relationship that lasted longer than a year. Wasn’t there something about a narcissistic, controlling mother lurking in Becs’ past?
But then, didn’t mothers always get the blame?
‘Ah, well. I knew it was a long shot.’ Corinne could hear her own voice leaden in her ears.
‘I might be able to take a guess, though, but it would only be a guess.’
Becs looked uncomfortable, like she was talking out of turn.
‘The thing is, I don’t like to comment on other people’s relationships. It’s not something I’m exactly qualified to do.’
‘But?’
Corinne could feel impatience bubbling up inside her, coming out through her pores. So it took a while for her brain to catch up with what Becs had just said. Relationships? So this was to do with Danny? The possibility had crossed her mind, of course, but she’d quashed it instantly, mindful of the rift that had sprung up between Hannah and her sister when Megan had gone down that route.
It had been two or three months after they got back from Crete. Hannah and Danny had a huge row – Corinne had never found out why – and Hannah had thrown him out for a couple of weeks. But then she’d let him back, and Megan had made no secret of what a bad idea she thought it was. And that had been that. After Corinne saw the damage that had been done to her daughters’ relationship, she’d never dared probe into what was going on with Hannah and Danny. And if she’d had doubts, she’d kept them tightly enough wrapped to be able to pretend they weren’t there.
‘Hannah thought Danny had someone else, in Edinburgh,’ Becs admitted now.
‘Why? Why did she think that?’
Becs was looking uncomfortable, playing with her necklace so that the heavy chain links clunked clumsily together. She unwrapped another piece of gum and stuffed it into her mouth. The scent of cinnamon wafted across the table.
‘Corinne, I’m just speculating. I don’t know who the woman in that photograph is. All I know is that Hannah went through a phase of suspecting Danny had someone else.’
Becs took off her glasses and wiped them on the hem of her tunic. When she looked up at Corinne without them, her pale eyes looked naked and exposed.
Corinne knew how irrational Hannah had been when they were trying the IVF. All those drugs. All those injections. It wouldn’t surprise her if her daughter had accused her husband of all sorts of things that weren’t real. But when they’d decided to stop trying for a baby, she’d seemed so much more relaxed. Could she really have been covering up something as big as this?
‘It was little things, like he always seemed to have his phone turned off; and he came back from Edinburgh one time with a new shirt. She said he never would have bought himself new clothes – she usually bought his clothes for him; otherwise, he’d wear the same thing until it literally fell apart. Anyway, I know they rowed about it. Remember how she kicked him out that one time? But then she got pregnant and everything seemed back to normal …’
Corinne picked up the photo and turned it over and then over again, as if she might see something different. But no. Same girl. Same dimple. Same gouged-out eyes. Could her son-in-law really have been having an affair? Could he have chosen this woman with her skinny, bare legs over Hannah? The bolt of anger took her by surprise.
‘But surely she’d have told you if he’d admitted it? She’d have shown you this photograph?’
Becs shrugged unhappily. ‘Hannah shut herself off from us all a bit after she got pregnant.’ Her face fell. ‘What I mean is …’
All of a sudden, Becs screwed up her features and brought her fist down on the table. ‘Do you know, I still can’t believe she did it. I’ve been over it a hundred times, and I just don’t understand. I mean, how could she have …?’
Corinne hurriedly snatched up the photograph and stuffed it back into her bag, then she got to her feet, pushing her chair back so violently it fell backwards into a young woman with dyed silver hair.
‘I really should be getting back. Hannah will be expecting me to visit her.’
Becs blinked at her.
‘I didn’t mean …’
‘I know.’
Now Becs nodded and stood up, then insisted on giving Corinne another hug.
‘Please tell her I miss her,’ she said. ‘I miss the old Hannah.’
A voice inside Corinne that she couldn’t quite control whispered, ‘I miss her too.’