Published by AVON
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www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Kate Field 2019
Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2019
Cover illustrations © Shutterstock
Kate Field asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © February 2019; ISBN: 9780008317805
Version: 2018-11-29
To Stephen because it would be rude not to
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Spotlights swept over the hotel ballroom, illuminating a magical party scene. Christmas decorations twinkled with glittery brilliance; ladies in their finest gowns mingled with men in gorgeous black tie, cheeks flushed by wine and conviviality; and by the side of the stage, in a space unexpectedly lifted from the shadows, my husband held hands with another man.
Whos that with Leo? my friend Daisy whispered. Daisy had a figure friends would call petite, and enemies dumpy; she must have had a more limited view than I did. I quite like that sexy bald look. Hes divine.
But he wasnt. He was real horribly, unquestionably real. Those fingers entwined with Leos were made of skin and flesh, blood and bone, just like mine. And though their fingers dropped apart as the beam of light settled on the stage and pooled over the edges to where they stood, it was too late. I had seen. Most of the guests, expecting nothing more interesting than a display of luxury raffle prizes, would have seen. Friends, family, colleagues, and fellow school parents were all here tonight, attending this charity dinner at my instigation. Every corner of our lives cracked apart with this one swift blow.
Mary? Daisy said, as I became aware of a rustle of whispers, of curious gazes landing on me; humiliation scorched my skin. Whats going on?
I couldnt reply. I looked at Leo, and Leo looked at me, the rest of the room forgotten. This man had been my best friend for twenty-five years, ever since the glorious summer day when the Black family had moved in next door. He had joined thirteen-year-old me as I sat on our front wall watching the removal men, desperately hoping that tucked away amongst the chairs, tables and white goods, they might produce a girl to end my lonely days. There had been no girl; but as Leo had consoled me by emptying a new tube of Fruit Pastilles to find my favourite green one, I had known there would be no more loneliness.
He had become my boyfriend when I was fifteen; my husband when I was twenty; the father of my children when I was twenty-one and twenty-three. So what was he now, when I was thirty-eight? I had a split second to decide, but it was enough. I read the terror, the anxiety and the appeal on his face, and there could only be one answer. He was what he had always been my dearest friend and that could never change, whoevers hand he held.
I stepped forward on legs that felt like stiff pegs, and met Leo halfway. I drank in every detail of his face white and frozen above the deep black of his dinner jacket, but still a face I knew better than my own and then leaned past him and kissed the cheek of the stranger who had held Leos hand the hand that had belonged to me, and my children, for so long. Exclusively, I had thought.
How marvellous to see you, I said, borrowing my mother-in-laws favourite word, as if I could borrow her sangfroid too, and with it bury the overwhelming terror of being a public spectacle that I had inherited from my own mother. Youre just in time for the raffle! Daisy, do you have any tickets left for And here my brightness wobbled. Who was he? Leo and I shared everything, including our friends. How could he know someone well enough to link his flesh with theirs, without me even knowing their name?
Lovely to meet you, the man said. Im Clark. He held out a ten-pound note to Daisy. Ill take some tickets.
Leo? Daisy asked. He glanced at me, blinking rapidly in his best dotty professor way, as if the complexities of buying raffle tickets were beyond him. I had seen that expression a thousand times; how could he be so familiar and so unfamiliar all at once?
Dont we already have some, Mary? Did I see some pinned to the fridge?
Yes, I bought some last week. They had been stuck on the fridge next to photos of our children, photos of us, and invitations to things we were supposed to be doing together. My heart wept at this casual reminder that though his hand may have so recently been linked with Clarks, his whole life was linked with mine. But you can get some more.
He did, just in time: Daisy had barely crammed the corresponding tickets into the raffle drum when her boss, our local MP, took to the stage to start the draw. I won nothing, as usual, so Id wasted my time daydreaming about the star prize: a two-night romantic spa break in a boutique hotel near Windermere. I screwed up my useless tickets, while on stage the MP continued his appeal for green 246. Then Leo called out, sounding baffled but delighted.
Ive won. Im green 246. He held his ticket aloft, and smiled his charming smile the one that always looked as if it had been surprised out of him at first Clark, then me, then the room at large. He went up to collect his hotel vouchers, but as he made his way back to where I stood beside Clark, a drunken whisper rose from the crowd of acquaintances around us.
A romantic break! Which of them do you think hell take?
Leo froze, paralysed with shock. He wasnt used to this; people werent nasty in Leos world it was a gentle, courteous place. He looked at me me first, this time with a wordless appeal that he had no right to make but that I couldnt refuse. I linked my arm with his, and we walked out, gathering our mothers on our way. My family was everything. It was us against the world, even when that world was no longer what I had always assumed it to be.
I paid the babysitter on automatic pilot, hardly knowing what I said as she peppered me with questions about the food, the venue, the company That one made me pause. What did she know? Had news spread already?
As soon as she had gone, I dashed up the stairs and popped my head round Jonass door.
Hey, Mum. He spoke without taking his eyes off the TV screen, where a gruesome Xbox battle was underway. Have fun?
Yes, we did! We all had a great time!
What, even Granny Irene? What did you do, drug her sherry?
I kissed the top of his head, the thick black hair exactly like mine, and moved on to the next room to check on Ava. Her light was off, and in the sliver of brightness spilling in from the landing, she looked my innocent angel again as she slept, not the tempestuous teen who often took her place. I watched her sleeping for a minute, as I had done so many times before, but never with such a sore heart. What was she going to wake up to? What future would unfold when I returned downstairs? I was tempted to go to bed and avoid it I had spent a lifetime ignoring difficult truths; it was my stock-in-trade but Leos quiet Mary? drifted up the stairs and pulled me back down.
I made two large gin and tonics, sloshing an extra measure of Tanqueray into my glass. Leo had switched on the lamps in the living room, framing us in a romantic glow entirely inappropriate for the discussion we were about to have.
Whats going on? I asked, sitting down opposite him so I had a clear view of his face.
Im having a relationship with Clark, Leo said. There was no hesitation, no prevarication. He met my gaze unflinchingly as he spoke. I met him two years ago, but it only developed in February.
He said something else but I didnt catch it, too busy ignoring the implications of developed and scrolling back through the year, hunting for signs Id missed. I couldnt see any. Wed plodded on as normal: Easter with the family, summer in the house we always rented outside St Ives, school and university terms ending and beginning. Only Jonass GCSEs had broken the pattern this year or so Id thought.
And then Leos choice of word hit me. Relationship. Not sex, not affair, not fling. Leo valued words too highly for it to have been anything but a deliberate selection. A relationship was more than physical, and more than friendship: it was a deep, emotional connection. I scrolled back through the year again, this time looking for signs of my own deep connection with Leo, other than as colleagues, co-parents and housemates. I couldnt see any. How had I been so blind?
Are you leaving? A tremor rippled through the words.
His voice said, Mary His face said, yes. Not before Christmas, he added, granting a short reprieve but until when? Boxing Day? New Year? Spring?
I took a long slug of gin while I tried to fathom out what I should say next. Perhaps it would have been easier if it had been another woman. I could have ranted; I could have demanded to know what she had that I didnt. But the standard lines didnt apply in this case. It wasnt so much a rejection of me, but of my entire sex. That gave me no comfort.
Why didnt you tell me? Why let me find out like this? And in public You know how much I hate being gossiped about
Tonight was an accident. Weve discussed what to do many times, but this was never part of the plan. Im sorry, Mary. I didnt know how to tell you. I couldnt find the words.
From a professor of English Literature, thats quite some confession. You had centuries of words to choose from.
Leos words stung, right through my skin and deep into my bones. At some point, in secret, they had discussed me, and how to break the news of their relationship. How could I not have known? Leo wasnt made for deception; surely the guilt would have stained him somewhere, like nicotine marks on the fingers of a secret smoker? I studied him, but there was no change: the fluffy brown hair, the soft skin, the wise hazel eyes, the tortoiseshell glasses he was just the same. He still looked like my Leo, and sounded like my Leo.