Natasha sat at her dining table looking out onto the garden, a huge glass of wine and today’s newspapers in front of her, a cigarette to her lips: it seemed that once she’d started smoking again after Siobhan’s death she’d been unable to stop, especially since the inquest. As she flicked through the pages, she decided that she really did have to divorce Alistair now, there was no alternative course of action after all this – the past few weeks had been intolerable, really they had. Her whole carefully constructed world had come tumbling down, her sham marriage revealed, the hardness in her heart right there for all to see, in three glorious double-page spreads of a gutter tabloid. All their secrets had been paraded like trophies: the affairs, the feuds, the abandonment of their friend, the role of Stephen’s unsavoury half-brother, even something about Nigel’s death – how on earth had they dug that one up? The one thing that hadn’t leaked out, thank God, was that she and the others had changed their story – that they’d lied to the police at first, and only admitted later what they’d heard, what they’d said, when called back in for further questioning after Terry Kingston’s statement had directly contradicted theirs. Not that it had helped at the inquest, of course – it had still been clear they’d deserted their friend, they’d still come across as callous bitches (She can bloody drown for all I care), just not lying ones. Their lives would be forever blighted by it.
Natasha wondered for the millionth time what had actually happened that night, how Siobhan had really died. She supposed no-one would ever know for sure. They’d never charged Stephen’s brother with anything, and they hadn’t managed to turn up any other potential murderer – but neither had they ever been one hundred per cent certain what had caused the dent in her head. And of course no-one knew what Siobhan had been thinking at the time, and it was too late to ask her. Maybe she did it deliberately, Natasha thought, surely that was the best answer of all, if she’d had to end up dead, that she’d intended it. She’d seemed so miserable that night anyway – with her job, her boyfriend – and then she must have regretted some of the things she’d said, they’d been so horrendous; and besides she’d been completely paralytic, couldn’t possibly have been being rational. Yes, maybe that was it.
Natasha stood up. She was in her office attire: trademark suit, crisp blouse, high heels. Her dangly earrings looked incongruous, ridiculous, her pathetic attempt at cheering herself up, moving on, getting over Siobhan’s death – after all, she’d been fond of Siobhan once, wouldn’t wish what had happened to her on anyone. Natasha had been planning on going back into work this morning, but now it came to it she found she still couldn’t face it. No, she’d have to continue to lie low until all the stories had died down – but now Stephen had been suspended that didn’t seem very likely any time soon. His own newspaper’s coverage seemed to be even more vicious than the others’ – he could never go back there after what they’d written about him and his family, and she wondered briefly what would happen to him, not that she gave a shit of course, not after what he’d done.
So, thought Natasha, shaking off her maudlin mood, snapping into proactivity – if she wasn’t going back to work today she needed to do something productive, the kids wouldn’t be home for hours. She left the warmth of the dining room, with its plate-glass windows giving onto the huge slimy-looking pond Alistair had insisted on having dug in their garden, rammed full of monster carp that she vehemently hated but which he refused to get rid of.
Yes, that’s it. She’d go and sort things out with her husband, start the ball rolling, now was as good a time as any, now she’d made up her mind at last. As she climbed the stairs, she noticed the bare patches on the carpet, a single long loose thread. Maybe she could request some samples, the carpet needed replacing and she never usually had time to sort things like that out, not unless she had a project on. She might as well make an effort to get the house looking nice, she’d be staying in it with the children, obviously. Perhaps she could also order some towels from The White Company while she was at it, they could do with some new ones.
When Natasha reached the closed door to her husband’s office, she felt suddenly unsure of what she was doing. It was unlike her to hesitate once she’d made a decision, but she still wasn’t feeling quite right – which was hardly surprising, she tried to remind herself. As she stood there hesitating, her fingers on the door handle, she briefly remembered how much she’d loved Alistair once, been mad for him, couldn’t get enough of every single part of him. She’d believed in him then. In between climbing her own career ladder and shagging his brains out, she’d channelled her endless energy into helping him professionally, launching his book career with her normal invincibility, never taking no for an answer; she’d been so sure of his talent. He’d have been nothing without her.
So where had it all gone wrong? Natasha acknowledged now that Alistair had started to get fed up with her years ago, perhaps even before the wedding itself (maybe looking back she had been a bit dogmatic about it all), and she knew he’d definitely found it difficult once the babies had come. She’d gone back to work after two months each time, and it had been so hard juggling her job, securing her promotions, running the house, organising the children, she’d ended up exhausted. No wonder she’d gone off the whole sex thing, it was normal, it was just that no-one ever admitted it. She sighed as she remembered Alistair’s hurt at her rejections, felt a rare stab of sympathy for him. Maybe she shouldn’t have put so much effort and energy into her own self-improvement, become so obsessed with keeping up with everyone else; perhaps she should have concentrated more on her marriage … but she’d needed every ounce of resolve and drive to have made it to university in the first place, to escape the dismal future that surely would have been hers if she’d stayed in Glasgow, and it seemed her ambition just didn’t have an off switch. Poor Alistair, she’d been a lousy wife, Natasha saw that now.
And then she remembered that her husband had screwed one of her oldest friends – and not just Juliette, but that little strumpet author too. Possibly even worse, he’d passed off Lucinda Horne’s books as his own, was a loafer, a fraud. Any remaining nostalgia for her marriage vanished in that moment, was gone for ever.
Natasha shifted her weight onto her left side, easing the pain in her bunions, and wondered how to do it. Knock? Barge in? She listened, but it was quiet. She turned the handle. It was time to confront him.
It was only when the door failed to open that she realised it was locked. She didn’t know he had a lock on it. He’s probably wanking in there, she thought with disgust, and it was the most perceptive insight she’d had about her husband in years.
Natasha didn’t bother knocking, or waiting to see if Alistair had heard her and would come out anyway. She turned around and stomped back downstairs to the dining room, where she took a seat at the table facing the fish, opened her laptop, lit up yet another cigarette, and demanded the divorce by email instead.