London, the Nineties
It was one of those crisp mornings that London did so well, the sky beaming, the shoots in the trees signalling new possibility through every window in the house. But as Artemis stepped out of the front door she was stung by a bitter chill in the air.
Hearing the door click closed behind her, carried by a sudden gust of wind, she moved quickly down the steps. Without David, she felt naked. But now he was two and a half, he was potty-training and there was already plenty of opportunity for accidents without adding public toilets and a padded all-in-one to the mix. Besides, Clive could hardly complain about having his son there with him while she popped out to buy ingredients for a Rick Stein recipe the pair had selected for their monthly lunch with Jeff and May.
Still, he had complained. He was so snappy at the moment, so distracted with work, that even when he was in London it was like he was in another world. She scolded herself as she walked along Queen’s Crescent. She should be grateful that he was working so hard to provide for his family, and she was, but she was allowed to be annoyed, too. Wasn’t she?
The fishmonger looked up as she stepped into the shop, the smell instantly transporting her back to the island. Briefly, she faltered, picturing the drop from the mountain to the sea, the sky stretched out like a blanket.
The fishmonger’s voice interrupted her thoughts and she was grateful for the distraction.
There was no point longing for something she couldn’t have. Besides, she didn’t want to go back there. Hadn’t she been desperate to get away?
She walked home quickly, met by David’s voice as soon as she let herself in the front door, watching him for a moment from the doorway of the living room, before stepping inside. He was using a collection of old toilet rolls sticky-taped together as an aeroplane, swooping it over his head with an extended hand. When she moved towards him, she saw that his trousers were sodden. As she approached, he started to cry.
Careful not to scold him – she knew more than anyone how easily accidents could happen – she stripped off the wet clothes, cursing Clive silently for having left him untended.
After just a moment’s comforting, David calmed and returned his attention to his toys. Not wanting to disturb his game, Artemis left him there for a moment while she went to find clean trousers. As she reached the top step of the first flight of stairs, she heard Clive’s voice from the study. He was strict about interruptions when he was on a call and even though she would have loved to throw open the door and reprimand him for working up here whilst David was left alone downstairs, something told her to remain quiet.
Slowing her movements, Artemis stepped carefully across the carpet, Clive’s voice growing clearer with every pace.
‘May, I’m not doing it,’ she heard him say. ‘I’ve told you. I’m not comfortable with any of this. I have a family to think of. You and I are not—’
Artemis turned sharply, the colour rising in her cheeks.
May?
The word repeated in her mind as she moved back down the hall, reaching for the bannister to lighten her impression on the floorboards which creaked below the emerald-green carpet. Clive’s voice suddenly fell silent and Artemis picked up speed.
She was halfway back down the landing when she heard Clive coming out of the study.
‘Artemis?’
His voice stopped her in her tracks. She turned slowly towards him.
‘What are you doing?’ His tone was suspicious.
‘I was getting David some clothes. He wet himself.’ As if on cue, she heard their child call for her from downstairs.
‘Who were you talking to?’ she managed after a moment.
Clive didn’t miss a beat. ‘Jeff. Why, is everything OK?’
She remained still for a moment, letting his lie sink in, and then she looked up, meeting his eye. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘You look pale.’
‘I’m tired, I didn’t sleep much last night … David was upset just now,’ she said tightly. ‘He was soaking. I came upstairs to get him a clean outfit.’
Clive paused, not mentioning how she’d avoided answering his question. ‘Where are the clothes?’ he asked after a beat.
Artemis tensed, looking down at her empty hands, before lifting her eyes to meet his.
‘I just remembered there’s something for him outside on the line.’ She turned away, feeling his eyes following her as she moved back downstairs to their son.
She was standing over the chopping board, slowly lifting a kitchen knife and piercing it through the flesh of the onion, occasionally tuning into the voices on the radio discussing the election of a new leader of the Labour party, when the doorbell rang later that evening.
‘Will you get that?’ Clive called out to her over the sizzling of fat, as if addressing a member of staff who was neglecting their duty.
Artemis pushed the blade firmly until she felt it lodge in the chopping board. She was inclined to argue. Since overhearing his call to May a few hours earlier, her shock had turned to despair and finally to quiet anger, which came and went in nauseating waves. When she looked up, Clive was grappling with a hot pan, finally getting to grips with domestic chores once an audience was expected. She thought briefly of the foundation he and Jeff had mooted, which would no doubt dominate conversation this evening. How much, she wondered, was it about doing good, and how much about being seen to be doing good?
‘Artemis?’ Clive said as the doorbell rang again. Losing the will to retort, Artemis left what she was doing, wiping her hands on her apron as she walked towards the hall.
The hallway was silent and she took a moment to observe the outline of two figures through the stained glass, enjoying making them wait, the swaying branches of the trees above their heads like dangling tentacles reminding her of the squid that lay splayed out on the port floor amidst the dead fish.
‘Good evening,’ Artemis said as she opened the door, an air of impatience hovering above the couple on the step.
‘Gosh, I thought we were going to be left to die out here,’ May replied, with a strained tone of joviality, her perfume thick and sweet as she passed, leaning in to kiss Artemis on the cheek. ‘Something smells divine,’ she added loudly for Clive’s benefit, taking off her coat and moving past a gallery of framed photographs as though she owned the place. ‘Sorry we’re late, the babysitter is useless. Is Clive through here?’
‘Artemis, you look beautiful as always,’ Jeff beamed. Artemis smiled thinly back at him, his arm moving unnecessarily to her hip as he kissed her hello.
‘Don’t worry about her,’ Jeff said, perhaps reading the energy coming off Artemis. ‘She’s just grumpy because she hasn’t had a drink yet.’
‘Right,’ Artemis said, though Jeff wasn’t listening, following his wife along the hall.
In the kitchen, May was taking a glass of wine from Clive. Turning, her sharp heels made impressions in the carpet as she moved from the kitchen through to the adjoining living room.
‘Now where is David?’ Her words trailed behind her and Artemis had a fleeting urge to run after her and grab her by the hair. How dare she say his name so casually?
‘He’s in bed,’ she heard herself say, gripping the counter as she turned back towards the chopping board.
‘She loves that boy as if he were her own,’ Jeff said, to himself as much as to Artemis. As much as the children she loves so much we never see them, left as they always are with one of a fleet of staff to whom the duties of motherhood are delegated, Artemis let the thoughts form in her mind.
She heard the click of the glass Clive had been holding out in a private toast between the men.
‘Yes, well, David loves her, too,’ Clive said.
The thought dissolved into silence, the tears stinging her eyes nothing to do with the onions she was slicing into, her fingers gripped tight around the handle of the knife.
Artemis rang Athena the next day. Clive had offered to take David with him to have the car cleaned while Artemis tended to chores at the house. It was one of David’s favourite things, to sit in the front passenger seat while the vehicle moved through the rotating foamy cylinders. She tried to suppress the jealousy that clawed through her as she watched him and Clive leave, through the living room window. But it hurt, how willingly he reached for his father’s hand, how merrily he tried to move into step as they made their way towards the car. What little Clive did with David, he was always met with the sort of gratitude she couldn’t help but feel he didn’t deserve.
Shaking away her thoughts, she watched the Mercedes disappear at the end of the street before picking up the receiver and dialling Athena’s number. Artemis was already mentally immersed in the conversation she was preparing to have with her oldest friend, confiding in her about the phone call she had overheard between Clive and May, and what it meant. But the moment Athena answered, Artemis could hear the distraction in her voice, baby Maria crying out in the background.
‘Is everything OK?’ Artemis asked. ‘Shall I call another time?’
Athena shouted to Panos to close the door, muttering to herself irritably as she returned her attention to the phone.
‘It’s fine, she just won’t stop bloody crying – all the time! I feed her, she cries, I put her outside, she cries, I bring her inside, she cries … How are you?’
‘I’m OK,’ Artemis replied hesitantly, put off her stride by the chaos at the other end of the line. ‘Something strange happened, with Clive …’ she started cautiously.
‘Yes?’ She heard Athena’s interest pick up.
Artemis hesitated. ‘Yesterday he was on a call to May – you know, that awful wife of his business part—’
‘You do it!’ Athena suddenly cried out, muffling the mouthpiece with her hand. ‘Panos, I’m on the phone …’
‘Listen, I’ll call you back,’ Artemis said, suddenly unsure of her words, her reserve exacerbated by the tension in Athena’s voice, and the slight delay on the phone line. Besides, was Athena really the person to tell? Resentment lingered from the time she had tried to tell her about the rape. Artemis could ignore it most of the time, bury the hurt and the anger and the shame beneath the love she felt for her friend. But she felt its presence again now, crouched in the corner of the room, like a ghost. She had tried to tell her that afternoon, in the immediate aftermath, with the bruises at the tops of her legs newly-formed. The memory of his hands holding her down while she wrestled against him was still fresh – and yet after that conversation with Athena she came away asking herself if it had partly been her own fault, doubting herself rather than the boy who had been prepared to destroy her. She had agreed to go with him, hadn’t she? How hard had she tried to resist? How firmly had she said no?
Hard enough, she reminded herself – more than she should have needed to.
And yet, even with that lucidity, the same sense of doubt crept up on her again now as she hung up the phone, muttering to Athena that she would call again later.
What had she actually heard Clive say, that day in the office? Perhaps she had imagined the word May, or, more likely, heard it out of context. Besides, that woman, with her too-orange perma-tan and grating manner, was hardly a romantic threat, was she?
Of course she wasn’t, she told herself, silencing the voice that told her she wasn’t a fool. She was simply being paranoid. Besides, she and Clive had a child together. Whatever she had or hadn’t heard, they were a family and that was all that mattered. No one, certainly not May, would ruin that.