By five the next morning Nick had gone. A trip to Calcutta had been on the cards for later that week, but he’d spent a good hour of that long, sleepless night ‒ after Anna had finally exacted her revenge for my stealing the love of her life ‒ on the phone and online, and managed to change his ticket. It had meant flying from Heathrow rather than Manchester, but he didn’t care.
‘I can’t think straight, Harriet. I’ve got to get out,’ he kept saying, after I’d pleaded with him to stay… to let me explain. To try and tell him all that had happened, about the madness that had had me in its grip.
‘Madness? Madness?’ Nick had looked me up and down with such coldness that I had, despite the still warm evening, begun to shake. ‘Don’t give me that, Harriet. Don’t try and tell me you were going through the same sort of thing that Grace has been through.’
‘I wasn’t,’ I sobbed. ‘I wasn’t trying to blame my having the twins for it. I don’t know why it happened, Nick.’
‘But you…?’ Nick stared at me as though I were a stranger. ‘You, after all you’ve ranted and raved and gone on and on about cheating. About people who cheat. About Dan cheating on Grace. And accusing me, last year, of sneaking off with Mandy. And, and… oh, I see it all now. It’s in your genes. You couldn’t help it. You’re no different from that fool of a brother of yours.’
*
So now it was Monday morning, and Nick had left. He’d gone in to see the children as they’d slept, waking them and telling them he’d suddenly got an important meeting to go to and had had to alter his plans. It was the start of the spring half term holiday and, after the full-on day they’d had the day before, they were happy to hug him goodbye and go back to sleep. They’d become so used to his travels abroad, to him not being at home, they simply accepted he was off again and that they wouldn’t see him for a week or ten days.
‘Do you know what the worst thing about all this is, Harriet?’ Nick had said coldly, shaking off my hand as I tried to take his arm as he went down the drive to his car. ‘That it was bloody Alex Hamilton. He works with me, for heaven’s sake. How do you think that makes me feel? God, you are unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable…’ Nick threw his valise into the back of his car, slammed the car door and without a backward glance at me drove off. Far too quickly. Oh, Jesus, what if he had an accident? What if he died?
‘Nick!’ I shouted after him. ‘Nick!’
But he was gone, gone into the early morning birdsong of a beautiful June day.
The house was silent, apart from the persistent ticking of the huge kitchen clock that continued its relentless, steady beat regardless of the fact that my husband knew I’d been fucking another man, his work colleague. And not just a one-off, drunken mistake. An affair. I looked at the clock. It was seven minutes past five. Neither of us had slept – in fact neither of us had actually been to bed.
Once those fatal words, ‘You’ve spent the last six months shagging Alex Hamilton senseless,’ were out, they’d hung in mid-air in the kitchen until, like playful kites, they dipped, soared and tumbled towards Nick. I’d wanted to gather them up, rewind them, shut them firmly back in Anna’s mouth ‒ but they were out, free to do their mischief, to wreak havoc.
Nick, still with the red plastic brush and pan in his hand, had been rooted to the spot, his face so drained of colour I was able to count the few freckles that had come to the fore as a result of the day’s sunshine. ‘Alex?’ Nick had finally said. ‘You’ve been having it off with Alex Hamilton? What, a one-off? Six months? I don’t understand…’
‘It’s quite simple, Nick,’ Anna said, speaking quickly in her excitement to get over to him what I’d been up to. ‘Your wife…’ she spat the word, ‘has been unable to keep her hands off the gorgeous Mr Hamilton. She’s been sneaking off to Manchester for months…’
‘Nick, it’s over. Long since over. Believe me…’
‘Ha, says she,’ Anna interrupted.
Nick had turned to Anna for the first time since coming into the kitchen. ‘But how do you know Alex? What’s he got to do with you…?’
I’d looked Anna in the face and, as calmly as I could, said, ‘I want you to leave my house, Anna. I want you to go and get yourself a taxi and go to your hotel.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ she sneered, ‘but I don’t think Nick will want me to go. Not now. Not now he finally realises what he married. The big mistake he made in marrying you, you bitch.’
‘What I’ve done is the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life,’ I said, trying to speak slowly. ‘I will live with this mistake for the rest of my life…’
‘You certainly will,’ Anna interrupted once more.
‘But this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with you. Now, I want you to get out of my house, and if you won’t ring for a taxi, I will.’
‘Nick?’ Anna had said, going over to him and taking his hand at the same time as Grace came into the kitchen.
‘Where’s that brush and pan, Nick? We can’t carry on dancing…’ Grace trailed off, as she immediately realised something was going on.
‘Grace, Anna has just explained to Nick that she encouraged Alex Hamilton to make a play for me. That she actually threw down a challenge to him about me. While that in no way excuses what I did with Alex, I need to talk to Nick and I cannot do that with her here.’ To this day, I still don’t know how I spoke so calmly, how I was able to enunciate each little word when my heart was pounding, my heart was breaking. ‘Do you think there’s any chance that you can get her out of my house, get her out now, please, Grace?’
‘Your house?’ Anna had sneered. ‘I think you’ll find it’s Nick’s house. And I’m not going anywhere. ‘If anyone is going anywhere, I suggest it’s you, back to your council estate where you were dragged up.’ And then, squeezing Nick’s hand, she said, ‘Nick needs me here.’
‘Anna,’ Nick had said, releasing his hand from her tight hold on it, ‘I really think it would be a good idea if you went. The party’s finishing and I don’t want my children to hear any of this. This is now between Harriet and me. I don’t understand any of what’s been going on, although…’ here it was his turn to glare, which he did for what seemed an eternity at both Grace and me, ‘everyone else seems to be fucking well in on it.’
Anna took Nick’s arm again, and once more he’d had to gently shake it off. ‘Please, Anna, if you wouldn’t mind…’ And then, as she’d persisted in standing her ground, added, ‘I’ll come over to the hotel tomorrow and see you. Grace, do you think you could ask Dan to get a taxi for her?’
‘Actually, we can drop her off. Because I can’t drive, Dan’s had very little, too. He wanted to drive Jonty and me home. Come on, Anna, come with me. Nick says he’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll explain to your father and Sylvia that we’re taking you to the hotel.’
With the promise that Nick would go round to see her in the morning, Anna had finally let go of his arm and followed Grace back into the garden. But not before giving me such a look of triumph it almost floored me.
Just the two of us now in the kitchen, Nick had stared at me. I went over to him and tried to put my arms around him but he was having none of it.
‘Get your hands off me,’ he’d hissed, pushing me away and then, realising he still had the red plastic brush and pan in his hand, had thrown it with such vehemence towards the Aga it crashed, knocking off a bowl of salad, before coming to rest on the floor. ‘I don’t want my children and my mother to know any of this – at any rate, not today, not now – so I’m going to go out there, start clearing up, and hope everyone will soon go home.’
And with one final look of utter disdain, he’d turned on his heel and gone back out to what remained of his fortieth birthday celebration.
*
‘Morning, Harriet,’ Lilian’s disembodied voice floated through the open kitchen door. ‘It’s such a beautiful morning, I’ve already walked the dog through Butterfield Woods. You really can’t beat Yorkshire on a morning like this. Thought I’d get here early and help you to tidy up. I’m surprised you’re up so early. I’ll just get my walking boots off and then I’ll be with you. Are the twins up?’
When I didn’t reply because the tears coursing down my face were rendering me incoherent, Lilian popped her head round the door.
‘Nick’s gone,’ I sobbed, tears rolling down my face.
Lilian laughed. ‘Ah, what it is to be in love. Where’s he gone this time? China again? He didn’t say yesterday he was off so soon. Typical man, leaving us with all this clearing up…’
When I put my head down on the kitchen table, not looking at her, she said, ‘Harriet…? What is it, dear? Nick’s gone off before…’
‘No, Lilian, he’s gone. Gone. Left…’
‘What do you mean? Gone? Gone where?’
‘He’s left,’ I sobbed. ‘Well, he’s gone to India. He shouldn’t have been going until later this week, but he’s had to go. Said he couldn’t stay here with me.’
‘But why on earth not?’ Lilian sat down beside me, handing me a tissue as she would to the children if they were sniffing or crying.
‘Because… because…’ I stopped sobbing and blew my nose. ‘Because Anna Fitzgerald told him I’m having an affair.’
There was silence. Lilian said nothing until I blew my nose again and looked at her. ‘And are you, Harriet? Are you having an affair with someone?’
‘No,’ I burst out. ‘Not any more. But I did. I did have one. And now Nick knows and he’s gone.’
Lilian didn’t say anything at all. She simply filled the kettle and put it on the Aga before sitting down next to me again. She glanced at the kitchen clock. It was still not six o’clock. Eventually she said, ‘Does Nick know who it is? Does he know where he lives?’
I sniffed again and looked at her. ‘Well, yes. Anna told him everything.’
Lilian had gone quite pale. She didn’t seem to be able to speak and then, very quietly, so that I could hardly hear what she was saying, whispered, ‘This is bringing back a lot of bad feelings, Harriet. I’m sorry…’
I looked at her in surprise and then suddenly remembered Rebecca saying she reckoned Lilian had been embroiled in some sort of Jelly Deal of her own. ‘Was it your husband, Lilian? Did he have an affair? Is that why you left him and came to England?’
Lilian didn’t seem capable of answering. Her hands were trembling around her mug.
‘Lilian?’
‘No, Harriet,’ she eventually said, her hand to her chest as she tried to slow her breathing. ‘No. Martin, my husband, didn’t have an affair. I… I… Harriet, I killed him.’
‘You killed him?’ I was horrified. ‘Why? Was he horrid to you? Did he beat you? Couldn’t you stand it any longer? What?’ I had an awful image of her husband’s dead body in her kitchen, her bedroom, her bathroom maybe, and Lilian fleeing Ireland in a panic.
‘Martin was the kindest, loveliest man you could ever meet. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, never mind me. He adored me.’
‘So, you killed him? What, for being nice?’ While that might sound horribly flippant, I didn’t know what else to say. I took her hand and held it, trying to stop the trembling.
Lilian took her hand from mine, wiping her brow where beads of sweat had gathered. ‘I’m sorry. Talking about this brings it all back – not that it ever goes away – and I have to remind myself to breathe, to try to calm down. I as good as killed him, Harriet.’
Oh, thank the Lord for that. She hadn’t actually physically killed him. Did she mean she drove him to suicide?
‘I fell in love, dear. With someone else. A silly old fool like me.’
‘Oh, Lilian, you could never be a silly old fool.’
She gave a little smile. The colour was returning to her face. ‘I was both, Harriet ‒ silly and a fool.’
‘And did the other man mess you around? Did he leave you?’
‘No. Like you, I realised what a good man I had at home. Martin never found out. No one ever told him like that spiteful girl told Nick. I did warn you to watch her.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Well, the other fellow wanted me to leave Martin. Wanted me to go away with him. But I realised what a fool I’d been, that I didn’t love him at all. I just wanted to be with Martin. I tried to let the other fellow down gently – he was very persistent ‒ told him that I loved him but couldn’t possibly leave my husband. I felt so sorry for him. He’d never been married himself, didn’t have any family.’
‘So what happened?’ I asked again, when Lilian didn’t seem able to go on.
‘Well,’ she took a deep breath before continuing, ‘he was a big churchgoer. Being a devout Catholic, I thought he’d understand that I could never divorce Martin. So, I just said that while Martin was alive, I had to stay with him. That God had put us together and all that…’
Lilian just looked at me.
‘And…?’ I had a horrible feeling I knew what she was going to say.
‘So he murdered Martin. Lay in wait for him one evening and finished him off. Thought that’s what I’d meant. Thought it was what I wanted him to do, so I could be with him…’
Shit.
‘So, while I didn’t actually, physically do the ‒ you know, the actual deed ‒ I as good as murdered my own lovely husband. And my two children have not spoken to me from that day to this. And I’m telling you all this, Harriet, now, because you have got to sort this all out with Nick.’
‘It’s OK, Lilian. Alex was never in love with me. I think he probably fancied me, but it was all part of a sick challenge set by Anna Fitzgerald. And I fell for it all. There’s no way he’s going to kill Nick so he can have me. He had me, won the challenge, and basically buggered off.’
‘And did you want him? Did you want to leave Nick?’ Lilian looked stricken.
‘No, I just wanted both of them. A sort of madness took hold of me for a couple of months. I loved the fact that some other man had the hots for me. Loved that I could get dressed up, leave the housework and kids and go off to Manchester.’ I smiled at her. ‘Yes, that’s why I was always over there – nothing to do with Christmas shopping, or the sales. Just me being very bad. I am so ashamed of what I’ve done…’ Lilian passed me another tissue as the tears started to fall again, ‘and so terrified that I have lost Nick for good.’
*
By ten o’clock that morning Lilian and I, with some help from India, had managed to clear up most of the remaining detritus from the party. The majority of the guests had, thank goodness, left before Anna had unleashed her revenge on me in the kitchen. By the time Nick had gone back out into the garden there were few left to see him clearing up like, according to Kit, a man possessed.
By midday, Lilian and I were by ourselves with the twins. Sylvia, most perplexed, had returned from trying to ring both Anna’s mobile ‒ and, when there was no response from that, the front desk at The King’s Head Hotel where Anna had been booked in.
‘It’s all very strange,’ she tutted. ‘Apparently she booked out: didn’t even stay the night. The receptionist said she’d asked for a taxi to take her to Leeds station; said something had come up unexpectedly and she had to get back to London as soon as possible. Oh, well, no doubt we’ll hear from her when we get back down south.’
Judge Colin, an important golf match to play the following day, had set off back down to Epsom with Sylvia, a packed lunch and a delighted India in tow. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get her back home at the end of the week, but would cross that bridge when I came to it. Kit, together with a more substantial packed lunch, tent and just enough money for emergencies, had been picked up by Tom Prescott’s mother and dropped off at school before setting off for the second of his D of E forays out in the wilds of Derbyshire somewhere. Liberty had decided that she would, after all, accept Bethany and her parents’ invitation to go with them to their cottage in Runswick Bay on the east coast – Seb apparently wasn’t going to be around for the week ‒ and, with bikini, physics and maths books and yet another packed lunch, had left an hour earlier.
I honestly don’t what I would have done without Lilian. She stayed with me for a couple of days, moving into the spare room, and very calmly took charge of me: letting me cry, letting me rant, trying to make me eat, and not letting me drink too much of the bottles of wine I kept opening. ‘Nick loves you,’ she kept reassuring me. ‘Just give him some space, some time to think. Everyone is allowed one mistake.’
And then, on the Tuesday evening, as Lilian and I were about to sit down outside in the garden to the food that she’d prepared, Grace arrived.
‘Harriet,’ she said, ‘there’s something you need to know. Alex Hamilton is dead.’