Oscar tells me his train is delayed and he’ll meet me at his parents’ house for dinner. Since Olivia’s return, I have deigned to miss four Sunday roasts with the Fairviews. This is our make-up dinner and I promised I’d be there. If I don’t go, Oscar will know something is wrong and then he’ll have time to concoct a story. Another, more well-woven lie. Catching him off-guard is the best way to get the truth.
I put a lot more effort into getting ready than usual. I step into the shower and wash my hair with volumising shampoo. I use my intense conditioning mask and sit on the shower floor while it sinks in. I shave my legs with Oscar’s razor because it is a fact that men’s razors are better and less expensive than the ones sold to women. I exfoliate and moisturise. Then I step into a new, expensive, sage-green summer dress. I take time doing my make-up even though it will mean I am late. As I buff light-reflecting concealer into my skin, I pretend all this effort is for me, an act of self-love, and not a desperate attempt to appear more attractive to my cheating fiancé than the woman he was secretly sharing chocolate cake with today. I curl my lashes and stroke bronzer across my cheeks. I do it all with a glass of wine in hand. It disappears quickly so I pour myself another. Once that’s gone, I book an Uber.
If he is having an affair, I’ll leave him. I’ll have to, but the thought of no Oscar makes the wine turn over in my empty stomach. Oscar is funny, ambitious. He pays attention to every small detail of who I am. But he is most definitely a liar and most probably a cheat. I try to imagine myself having an affair. Feeling the weight of another man on top of me. The rush of new hands across my body. When I look up into this other man’s face, it is one I know, jade-green eyes and dimples, coffee curls and stubble. An Irish burr in my ear as he thrusts into me.
In the hallway, outside Oscar’s study, I wait for the Uber. I’ve never riffled through his things before. I’ve never snuck his phone and scrolled through it, either. I’ve never needed to. But now … I think of the blonde woman he was with. Determined not to be taken for an idiot, I slip inside his office. I feel awkward and ridiculous and guilty as I start moving things around on his desk. His laptop isn’t here. So I pull open his drawers and shove my hands right to the back, fingers groping. I find only stationery and half-used notepads. No women’s underwear or pack of condoms or anything else that would suggest he’s been unfaithful. I’m about to close the drawer when I see a little silver tin. I pick it up. It’s round with little roses carved into the lid.
Inside is a blonde lock of hair tied with dark green ribbon.
My insides clench, thinking of the blonde woman he was with today.
I’m welcomed at the front door by Helen. She has the same sandy hair and dark eyes as her son. As always, she’s wearing a jumpsuit. I swear she has one in every colour known to man. I kiss her cheek and try not to think about the fact she has to get fully naked whenever she needs to pee.
Oscar is in the kitchen. I hover by the door for a moment, trying to get myself together before I follow Helen inside. I do not want Oscar to sense my mood. I don’t want to talk to him about what I know until we are home.
I breathe in and breathe out.
Then I go inside.
I smile.
There is fancy French wine I can’t pronounce and a cheeseboard of fancy French cheeses that will no doubt pair perfectly with the fancy French wine. Oscar turns to me and I’m swept into a memory of when we met, across a cheeseboard at the farm shop. He was tanned and lean and the smile he gave me sent shivers down my spine. Some people wait their whole lives to be smiled at like that. Does he smile at her like that, too?
He sweeps me into a kiss. I imagine him kissing that blonde woman the way he is kissing me now. I feel sick, but I give Helen and Oscar my dimples and my charm.
We eat. We talk. Or, they talk and I listen, providing head nods whenever is appropriate, but beneath it all, I am angry and getting angrier. I should be focusing on Olivia, not my relationship. Not this dinner. How could he be so selfish and dishonest? I try to give the man I love the benefit of the doubt, because maybe he isn’t having an affair, but then, why lie? All those late nights. All the times he’s swept his phone out of reach when I’ve entered a room or slapped his laptop shut. The new, mysterious project he’s constantly working on.
I pick up my wine glass and drain what’s left in it. I reach over for the new bottle and pour more in.
‘Any further along with the wedding plans?’ asks Helen, pulling me into the conversation. The engagement is the only thing she ever wants to discuss with me. Whenever I change the subject, she is disappointed, as though my betrothal to her son should be the single most defining characteristic of my personality.
I drag my heels. ‘Nope.’
‘Oh, well, that’s a shame.’ She sips her wine. ‘A terrible shame. The two of you really ought to get a move on,’ she’s saying as though we are misbehaving schoolchildren. ‘You don’t want to be one of those couples who goes through life only ever being engaged. You do want your children to have the same surname as you, don’t you, Caitie?’
I glare. ‘Why wouldn’t my children have my name?’
Silence. Helen shifts uncomfortably in her seat. She isn’t used to me challenging her. I’ve long suspected that in the Fairviews’ eyes, I am a cheap, spare part, an interchangeable accessory to Oscar’s life, and they’ve deemed me adequate only because I am easy. But I am tired of being easy. Easy for my parents, picking the path I know they want me to tread. Easy for his parents, organising my weekends around them and keeping my mouth closed whenever they make outdated, offensive comments. Easy for him, folding away my own ambitions and storing them under the stairs like a collapsible ironing board to make more room for him and what he wants. Being easy is exhausting. ‘Why wouldn’t my children have my name?’ I ask again.
I feel Oscar’s gaze burning into the side of my skull.
‘Well,’ says Helen. ‘Mothers give their children their father’s name.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s just the done thing.’
I open my mouth to tell her that if I’m the one battling morning sickness, sore tits and heartburn, going through the trauma of labour and having to be sewn back together afterwards, I would not crown my baby with the father’s name simply because it is the done thing. To tell her that other than sperm, a man contributes nothing to the growth and birth of a child. To tell her that if it comes out of my body, it’s getting my fucking name. But Oscar starts talking instead.
‘We’ve actually decided a date for the wedding,’ he says, with extra spoonfuls of enthusiasm. ‘We’ll be getting married next summer.’
Helen grabs this shiny distraction with both hands. ‘That’s marvellous!’ She beams at her son. ‘Oh, this is exciting. Maybe I won’t be the last of my friends to have grandchildren, after all. A year isn’t very far away though, Caitie, you really do need to organise yourself.’
I reach clumsily for my wine and see it is almost empty. ‘I’ve been a little distracted by the whole long-lost sister thing.’
Silence.
Oscar clears his throat and moves to take the wine bottle away, but my fingers curl around it first. He’s looking at me like I shouldn’t be being the way I’m being. I think I’m fine, personally. I’m not drunk. Or I am, a little, but that is a perfectly allowed thing to be.
Helen sets her own glass on the table and gives me a sympathetic head tilt. Still, I see the sliver of glee in her eyes, the excitement at sinking her teeth into a juicy piece of gossip. ‘And how is she?’
‘Mum …’ says Oscar, shaking his head.
‘You said I couldn’t bring Olivia up unless Caitie did. Well, Caitie brought her up.’
‘Olivia is struggling, actually. I had to help her fight off a panic attack today,’ I tell her. ‘But she doesn’t like to talk about what happened. To be honest, if you want any information about my sister, just ask Oscar. He knows more than I do.’
He stiffens.
She frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Rachel’s husband works for the police. He told Oscar things he shouldn’t have. Things my parents weren’t even aware of.’ Dropping him in it is petty and I’m not proud, especially since I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone what I know, and maybe I’ll regret it when I’m sober, but, for now, I enjoy seeing him squirm.
‘Your cousin Rachel?’ Helen asks him.
He stuffs garlic bread into his mouth and nods.
‘But I thought Tim worked at that estate agent’s in Midsomer Norton?’
My skin prickles. Slowly, I turn to Oscar. He avoids my eye. Was this another of his lies? If Rachel’s husband didn’t give Oscar that information, who did? And how does he know so much about my sister?
‘He changed jobs last year,’ he tells her.
‘I saw Tim last month and he never mentioned it,’ she says. ‘But I suppose he and Rachel have had their hands full recently. That reminds me, Caitie, sweetheart, did you send them a gift?’
I tear my attention away from my fiancé. ‘Who?’
‘Rachel and Tim.’
‘Why would I …’
‘Rachel’s had the baby.’
Why is it, as a woman, when you gain a partner, you also gain a pile of admin too? Remembering important dates and organising the corresponding gifts and cards for his family. Somehow, women become their partner’s unofficial, unpaid PAs.
‘Didn’t you tell Caitie that Rachel and Tim had the baby? I told you to let her know.’ Helen admonishes him in that half-hearted way mothers scold their sons because it’s almost impossible for them to ever be truly angry with their perfect baby boys.
‘I forgot. Work’s been really hectic.’
I round on him. ‘Yes, you’re working a lot on that exciting new project lately and you’ve been in London all day, snowed under with back-to-back meetings, haven’t you?’
His cheeks redden. ‘Yeah.’
‘All day,’ I say again. ‘In London?’
He frowns at me, trying to figure me out. I stare at him, seething, confused, desperate to know why he’s lying. Helen, oblivious to the tension, thrusts her phone at us. Oscar takes it. ‘Baby Violet,’ she says. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’
‘Oh, yeah, beautiful,’ he enthuses.
I scoff.
I feel their eyes on me. I shake my head at Oscar. ‘Why are you pretending to care? You hate babies.’
He splutters. ‘No I don’t.’
‘You said babies cry a lot for people who don’t pay rent or know what inflation is. You said all babies look like the wrinkly nut sacks they come from.’
‘Oscar!’ scolds his mother with more ferocity now. ‘You didn’t say that, did you?’
‘No. No. I didn’t.’ He glares at me and I glare right back. He lies so easily. So easily. He lowers his voice. ‘What’s gotten into you?’
‘You,’ I say. ‘Stop lying. Just stop it.’ I fling my arm out and the jug topples and cracks. Water spills across the table.
Oscar apologises to his mother and I make a clumsy attempt to clean up the mess. After all, it’s not the jug’s fault my fiancé is a deceitful tosser.
‘I’m going to take her home,’ says Oscar to his mother, as though I am a toddler overdue a nap. I stand in the hallway now as the walls sway around me. The two of them talk quietly in the kitchen, probably about me and the state I’m in.
Then Oscar and I are outside, his arm around me as he steers me down the street. If I look over my shoulder, I know I’ll see his mother standing on the driveway, watching fretfully on and telling herself she was right to have reservations about me. She’ll convince herself it’s because I haven’t donned a wedding dress already, and I was behaving erratically tonight, but really it’s because if mothers are honest with themselves, they don’t think anyone is good enough for their sons.
Dusk has almost fallen but the heat from the day lingers. Once we round the corner, out of sight, Oscar tugs me to a halt. ‘What the hell, Caitie?’
I shrug out of his grip. ‘What were you doing today? Really?’
‘Working.’
‘In London?’
I see it click into place. He knows I know. He backtracks. ‘Mostly. I came back to Somerset early afternoon.’
‘And went to Bradford-on-Avon.’
‘So what? You’re stalking me now?’ He gives me this incredulous little laugh that sets my teeth on edge.
‘No. I was there with my sister. I saw you sharing dessert with another woman.’
‘So you just happened to be in Bradford-on-Avon in the exact café where I was having lunch? You expect me to believe that?’ he says, irritation hacking out like a cough. ‘I can’t believe you’re following me. That isn’t normal, Caitie.’
‘How are you twisting this around? I saw you. With her.’
He steps close to me. Crowding me. He’s angry, really angry. ‘Stop playing games and just fucking ask me.’
I swallow thickly. This is new territory for us. Oscar and I don’t fight. We bicker. We bicker about how he never uses the many coasters littered around the house and how I always leave my wet towels on the bed, but we do not fight. I lift my chin and meet his dark eyes. ‘Are you having an affair?’
His mouth opens, as though he can’t believe I asked him the question he was pushing for me to ask. ‘You’re insane! I am not having an affair.’
And he is so sincere, so convincing, it would be easy to believe him. To apologise for how awful I’ve been this evening and to spend the next week making amends but still, he has lied and been evasive. If he isn’t having an affair, I am sure there is something he is hiding from me. ‘So who is she? And why did you lie about being in London?’
‘I DIDN’T LIE!’ he bellows. Then he spins away from me, a ball of frustration. I stare at his back, watching the frantic rise and fall of his shoulders as he tries to rein himself in. I glance up and down the street to see if anyone heard him and has come outside to investigate. They haven’t. Oscar turns and faces me again. ‘I didn’t lie. I just didn’t give you a play-by-play of every hour of my day. I was in London this morning. I was in back-to-back meetings all day.’
‘And who is she?’
‘Someone I’m working with.’
‘In your messages, you referred to her as “he”.’
He throws his hands up. ‘An honest mistake.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Samantha.’
Which makes sense since the name in Oscar’s calendar was Sam. I start to believe him, and regret creeps in. Still, I have to be sure. ‘What company does she work for?’
He pauses. Just a beat. Then, ‘Adaline Fray Interiors.’ I see the lie. Like some small animal scurrying past in the dark. ‘I’m designing their new website. Sam is their head of marketing. It was a business meeting.’
I’m nodding, even though I know I’m being deceived. ‘And this is the new project you’ve been so excited about?’
‘They were recently featured in Vogue. It’s a big deal. A big client.’ He shakes his head, disappointment coming off him in waves. ‘You really embarrassed me tonight. You embarrassed us both. How much have you had to drink?’
Shame colours my cheeks. I’ve had more than I should, more than I normally would. The wine sloshes through me along with the mortification. His version of events, his explanations, all make sense. Yet, I have this niggling feeling he’s not being totally transparent. ‘And what about the blonde lock of hair I found in your desk?’
He goes ridged. ‘You went into my study?’
I swallow thickly. ‘Whose hair is it?’
Fury comes off him like steam. ‘Mine.’
‘Yours,’ I repeat, disbelieving.
‘Yes. From my first haircut as a child. Mum gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday.’
I search his face for the lie. ‘I just … I thought …’
‘What? That me and my supposed mistress were exchanging locks of hair?’ He closes his eyes. Pinches the bridge of his nose as though staving off a headache. ‘Honestly, Caitie, it might do you some good to book in with your sister’s therapist.’ There’s a flash of pain, like he’s just tipped scalding tea onto my lap. ‘I take it you had a few glasses before you came to Mum’s?’
I nod solemnly.
‘So you left the car at home?’
Another solemn nod.
He sighs. ‘Fine. The train it is.’
Then he pivots and starts walking away. I watch him go. He doesn’t turn to see whether I’m following. He becomes smaller and smaller before disappearing around another corner. He’s gone. But I don’t feel I’m alone. There are eyes on me. I look back in the direction of Helen’s house and there, at the end of the street, a figure dressed in black watches. A figure with a nose too long to be natural. I feel a clench of something visceral and dark. I swing my gaze around in search of Oscar but he is out of sight. When I look back towards the end of the street, the masked man is gone.