Tom was not expecting her back until the Monday afternoon. This freed her up to have lunch with Madeleine, at last, before returning to the house. She was as excited and brimming with nerves as if it was a first date, also humming with anticipation for what she was about to do.
As she said goodbye to Ivan and Layla at the doorway to the hotel that morning, her heart beat so fast that she felt her chest might explode. At almost six months old, it was almost impossible to leave her daughter, her resistance to her going getting stronger each time she left. Gabriela’s arms tensed around her daughter and she drank in her smell before handing her back to her father with reluctant hands.
‘So we’ll talk when I’m back,’ he said and Gabriela nodded, focusing on her daughter, telling herself to let her go.
‘Gabriela, is something wrong?’ he asked and she shook her head, forcing herself to look at him, unprising her fingers. ‘No. Nothing’s wrong. I’ll call you …’
She got off the train at Great Portland Street, walking through Regent’s Park, the light reflecting off the top of the pale stone of the Nash buildings. Despite the bright sunshine, a shiver ran through her as she exited onto the Outer Circle and walked along Parkway. The feeling that followed her was fear tinged with an emboldening, a sense that at last she was going to do the right thing.
When she tried to transpose her memories of the people she had known and loved over the years as she walked back through the streets of her childhood, she found she could no longer imagine it as it was, but as she crossed onto Pratt Street, the familiarity of the signage soothed her. Inside Daphne’s, the white tablecloths and dark wood furnishings were of some small comfort.
Though she was early, Madeleine was already waiting, not in their usual table in the window but in one of the booths on the right. The sight of her risked triggering the emotions that were brimming near the surface.
Kissing Madeleine on each cheek before taking her seat, it took all Gabriela’s self-control not to lean in and break down on her shoulder. In all the years she’d known Madeleine, the lines in her skin deepening and taking new form, her friend had never fundamentally changed. And yet today, there was something different about her, something dancing just out of view.
Even as Gabriela had walked there, the thoughts of the weekend circling in her mind like sharks in an ever-shrinking tank, she hadn’t been sure whether she would tell her. But finally, as she sat in front of her now, she knew what she was going to do. There was no longer room for the lies that had permeated her life for so long that she no longer knew what the truth was; the lies had swollen so grotesquely that they were crushing her.
It wasn’t just Madeleine she was going to reveal herself to. She was going to tell Tom, as well. He would hate her for it, but he could hardly deny that their life together had fallen apart a long time ago – and he would never stop her seeing the children, that much she could count on. Sadie and Callum would be hurt, of course they would. But she was their mother and she loved them, and they would understand, eventually, that this was never about them.
Madeleine cut her off, mid-thought.
‘What will you drink? Wine?’
When she looked up, the waitress was standing next to them.
‘Actually, I think I’d like something stronger. A brandy?’
‘Two of those, please,’ Madeleine said before turning back to Gabriela, eyeing her in a manner that felt unsettling. Was she reading something in this already?
After a moment, her voice adopting a tone Gabriela didn’t recognise, Madeleine said, ‘Talking of something stronger, I’ve just been in your old neck of the woods. I drank so much vodka, I think I can still feel it in my liver.’
‘Moscow?’
Instinctively, Gabriela bristled, but then she realised that Madeleine was referring to her stint in Russia in the early days at the FCO, and she exhaled, enjoying the relief of this momentary distraction from the chaos in her brain as she spread the napkin over her lap, smoothing out the creases with her palms.
‘What were you doing in Russia?’ she asked and Madeleine raised her eyebrows.
‘What am I always doing? Work. Is there anything else in my life apart from work? God, sometimes I wonder if I’m getting this living thing all wrong. But no, I shouldn’t say that, not now when things are finally coming together.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
It was less than a minute since Gabriela had had her whole story on the tip of her tongue ready to fall into her friend’s lap, but the shift in tone meant the conversation was going somewhere else and she couldn’t say why, but she felt wrong-footed, like suddenly she didn’t know where to start.
‘Anyway, we always end up talking about my work. I’m such a narcissist. Tell me about you, what’s going on?’
‘Here we are, ladies.’ The waitress arrived and settled their drinks and their usual selection of starters on the table in front of them.
Taking a long sip of her brandy, Gabriela tried to gather her thoughts, but even thinking of an alternative narrative to explain away the past months – it had been months since they had last met, and yet, she thought, it could have been years, a lifetime – made the pain in her head worse.
‘No, tell me about Moscow. I’m interested, it’s been so long since I was there,’ she said, instinctively deflecting attention away from herself but also aware that this conversation was heading in a direction over which she had no control; she could feel the lies spilling out already.
‘Is it?’ Madeleine asked, and Gabriela paused, their eyes locking before she looked away.
‘Well, I shouldn’t tell you this, but we always share things with each other, don’t we? Besides, who are you going to tell, right? So you know how I told you we were closing in on some of the peripheral figures? Well, one of those is a Russian-owned company …’ Madeleine paused. ‘But there are a few things we need to tie up first.’
Gabriela felt the ice cube she had been swallowing stick in her throat. When she spoke, her voice was small.
‘Right.’
Madeleine looked up for a fraction of a second before returning to her mouthful of broad beans.
‘Aren’t you going to ask which company?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Oh, it’s one of those intentionally oblique ones – offers a breadth of legitimate services, specialising in energy supply. But like so many of these companies, they dabble in sidelines. After all, that’s where the money’s at, right? As well as bursts of philanthropy. In this case, a children’s orphanage no less.’
The fork dropped from Gabriela’s fingers, clattering against her plate, and Madeleine watched her, silence crackling dangerously between them, before she asked, ‘Gaby, is something wrong?’