‘Clearly, our son is to be categorized as “Not to be opened”. Are you embarrassed of him?’
This isn’t fair. ‘You know that’s not true. Do you think you could work if Tom was here all the time? Do you think you could concentrate if he was in the studio demanding to know why paint is called paint? Or giving you every statistic imaginable on Monet or John Singer Sargent?’
Ed sits up and turns on the bedroom light. His eyes are sad. I know that my words sound selfish and I hate myself for it. But it is horrifyingly easy for the resentment to bubble up every now and then, to burst through the carefully painted veneer of outward sainthood. I know he thinks it too sometimes – it’s simply easier to put the blame on me.
‘I just can’t help feeling,’ says Ed slowly, mirroring the thoughts in my head, ‘that when you have a child like Tom, you have a duty to do the right thing. That’s all.’
Then he switches off the light, leaving me to thrash around all night. Wondering. Telling myself that separating our lives like strands of unruly silk is better than being with my son. And why? Because I practically followed Daniel round for years, trying to protect him from himself. But I cracked. I said things I shouldn’t have done. Did things I shouldn’t have. And that’s what finally tipped my brother over the edge.
If I’m not with Tom full time, he stands a chance of making it. My constant presence won’t help him.
It might kill him, instead.
Trying to work at home one night, so many thoughts colliding in my head that I am getting little done, I make a call.
‘Lily!’ Ross’s deep, rich voice immediately makes me feel calmer. Assured. As though everything is going to be all right, after all.
‘I thought you were out tonight.’ He sounds surprised.
‘No, why?’
‘Must have got it wrong. I thought Ed said you were going to that gallery opening with him.’
‘He asked me but I had too much to do. Besides, it’s Carla they want. You know. The painter and his subject. The Italian girl.’ I don’t even bother hiding my irritation.
Carla looked gorgeous tonight when she left with my husband. Her bob was sleek and her make-up immaculate. No one would have guessed that she’d been slaving away over her books until half an hour beforehand.
Ed looked good too. It wasn’t just because of his new blue-striped shirt. It was the way he now carries himself. The buoyancy in his face. Success suits him. It always did. My husband, I now realize, is one of those men who needs to do well. If only for the sake of everyone around him. The whisky level hasn’t gone down for a while. He’s even being particularly nice to me. My husband deserves this, I tell myself, as I say goodbye to Ross after arranging a dinner in a few weeks’ time. Let him enjoy it.
August 2014
Three weeks later, I am working late again in the office. Ed is at another cocktail party. Carla is still at home. This morning, she failed to come into the office with me. ‘I don’t feel well,’ she said, curled up like a kitten on her bed.
It’s nearly ten o’clock – everyone else has gone home – when the phone rings on my desk. I know it’s Joe before he says a word. I can sense it. Feel it down the line.
‘Lily. No. Don’t put the phone down. Just go.’
The hairs on my arm are standing up. ‘Go where?’
He names a hotel near the Strand.
Is this another tip-off for some case which I must ignore?
‘It’s to do with your husband. I’ve been watching him.’ His voice rises urgently. ‘Just trying to look after you. Like I always do. Just go. Now.’
I replace the receiver, trembling. Slipping on my coat, I tell myself, as I bid goodnight to the security guard, that I am going straight home. That I’m not visiting this hotel to see what I should or shouldn’t see.
Ed wouldn’t do this. Ed wouldn’t do this. The words pound over and over in my mind. But then I think of his ups and downs. The way he has blown hot and cold throughout our marriage. Our rushed marriage, all for the sake of an inheritance he’d never told me about. A marriage we have stayed in because of Tom. But we’ve made it work. Haven’t we?
As I get out of the taxi, I see a figure. No, it’s a couple. She has her head on his shoulder. The girl has short hair that gleams in the lamplight. The man is tall with a slight stoop to his shoulders. The kind that comes from bending over an easel for hours on end.
I run towards them. They stop in the street, under the lamp. He lowers his head to kiss the girl. And then he looks up.
‘Lily?’ says my husband, open-mouthed. Then, as though he can’t believe it, he says it again. ‘Lily?’
There’s a flash of light. As if a picture has been taken.
A press card is being waved in front of me. ‘Mrs Macdonald. Would you like to comment on the rumours that your husband is having an affair?’
The burning smell has died down now.
That’s something. But there’s a taste of unease in the air.
Have I missed my last chance?
What is she up to?
What is she planning next?
44
Carla
Of course, the publicity for the new painting had played its part in bringing them together. The ‘fairy-tale story’, as one paper put it, about the artist and his sitter. ‘The Italian Girl Grown Up’. The magazine articles. Ed’s arm around her shoulder for the camera. The brush against her cheek – so close to her mouth! – after a particularly glittery cocktail party. Carla didn’t even have to try.
But nothing more physical had happened until the night when Lily was working late in the office (again!), and she was posing for yet another picture in the sitting room, the window open to an unusually hot night. Carla had purposefully worn no make-up, knowing he preferred her like that. She could feel the warm air making tiny beads of sweat break out on her lip. ‘A little to the left … Now to the right.’
Suddenly Ed moved away from his easel and walked towards her. He got down on his knees and gently, very gently, moved a tendril of hair from her forehead. ‘You’re the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.’ Then he kissed her. And she let him.
For a minute, Carla had a glimpse of the man on the plane. The one she’d dismissed on the grounds of his wedding ring. Hadn’t she always told herself that she’d never get hurt like Mamma had been?
But as Carla allowed herself to be laid down on the soft sitting-room carpet, she couldn’t help thinking how much she’d love to have a famous artist for a boyfriend. A place of her own. Her own money. (She would of course share this with Mamma.) A standing which would impress even the neighbours at home, who would have to be kind to Mamma now, especially as Ed’s work was soon to be exhibited in Rome.
After that, they made love whenever and wherever they could. Hotels were best, Ed said. More private.
Yet he seemed to get more satisfaction than she. Ed was not the lover Carla had imagined he would be. Naturally, she’d had some experience. At university, finally free from Nonno’s rules, she would flirt with boys who were likely to take her to dinner. Sometimes she would let it go further. A new dress perhaps in return for a weekend in Sorrento. Always, she took precautions. Not just with her body but her mind. ‘I wish to concentrate on my studies – not fall in love,’ she had told them all. But the truth was that she didn’t want to get into trouble like Mamma had done. It was the financial stability of marriage she wanted. Not the role of a mistress.
And yet here she was, being just that.
‘I’m going to leave Lily,’ Ed always promised. ‘I simply need the right time to tell her. This is more for me than just sex.’
I can help with that, Carla told herself.
One day, a few weeks after they’d started to sleep together, Carla made a call from the hotel room to the twenty-four-hour hotline of a celebrity gossip magazine while Ed was in the shower. The woman at the other end was very interested in what she had to say. Carla spoke quickly. Then she put down the phone, without giving her name.