Page 60 of A Midlife Marriage

And in return Helen raised hers, silent as she watched the champagne bubbles popping in a hundred harmless explosions. She could take a mouthful – she did – and they could go on exploding and it wouldn’t harm her one little bit. But the image of Libby did. The picture she held in her mind of her daughter, head on the table, crying and begging her not to go, was a knife that sliced to the marrow. It was not the image of a capable young woman. It wasn’t a picture of a daughter who didn’t need her parent.

‘I think this is a great opportunity,’ Lawrence said. ‘It’s time for all of us to move on. Like, Caro’s doing today. Time for all of us to spread our wings, don’t you think?’

Slowly, Helen turned to him. From the day she had met him, Lawrence had done nothing but spread his wings. Thirty years of flying he’d have the wingspan of an albatross by now, and still itwasn’t enough? Still, he wanted more? ‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?’ she said, her voice thick with resentment.

‘Easy?’ Lawrence smiled. ‘I’m not sure what you mean by that, Helly.’

‘No.’ She nodded. He couldn’t see the problem, because in his world there was no problem. He would, she knew, sell the house without a second thought, buy himself a one-way ticket to Tasmania and leave. It’s what men did. Women stayed; men left. And if he left, she couldn’t. She took off her fascinator and held it in her lap. The feather, so jaunty when she had set off, had folded in on itself as if it had accepted its fate, and given up. Which was, she was beginning to think, what she should do to.

41

Standing in front of a full-length mirror, Caro heard the sound of her intercom buzzer like a diver hears voices from the surface, it was soft and warped, and she was so deep in her dream, so lost in the spell, it simply didn’t register. She turned sideways, to look back over her shoulder. There were many words she might have used to describe herself, elegant, chic, sophisticated, but the rose-tinted glasses were off now and beautiful was not among them and she was at peace with that. The dress, however? Well, the dress remained gorgeous. Across her back she could feel the pull of the zipper, a tension that hadn’t been there on her last fitting. She bought her hands to her chin and turned back.Is that you?she whispered,Is that really you?And suddenly her hand was at her mouth and her eyes were full of tears and she was unsteady in the flow of a sudden and warm yearning. A desire strong enough to raise the dead, to haul her mother up and out of her grave, have her standing alongside, finally proud.

Dipping her head, Caro put her hands on her hips and took a short shuddery breath. Her mother had beenburied twenty months ago, in a cemetery less than a mile from the terracedhouse she had spent all her life in.A small funeral, for a small life and exactly why today, she had wanted as much family around her as possible. Her brother, of course, and Helen and Kay, naturally. But her godchildren as well, Alex and Libby. And Kay’s father, whom she’d known since she was eighteen years old. The constants in her life: these were the faces waiting for her. The thought made her smile. ‘I’m getting married,’ she whispered. ‘What would you say about that, mum?’

The answer came from the intercom, a louder, more urgent buzz than that of a moment ago. Frowning, Caro picked up her phone and checked the time. Her car wasn’t due for twenty minutes. She slipped off her shoes and padded to the front door. They would have to wait. She wasn’t ready, and they would just have to wait.

But it wasn’t the driver, it was Tomasz, and as she pressed the buzzer to let him in, the reality of the words they had just exchanged, versus the implications of them was such a juxtaposition, her brain couldn’t keep up.

‘It’s me, can you let me up?’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘We need to talk.’

So, the moment was long; the moment in which she stood with her hand on the door handle, looking at him. He was in his wedding suit, a fact that as she put her hand on her heart and exhaled, gave relief. Panic receding, she stepped aside to let him in.

‘What’s going on? We’re not supposed ––’

‘Let’s go and sit down,’ he said quietly.

‘Tomasz?’ She followed him along the hallway. Something must have happened. They were doing it traditionally, and he’d stayed with a friend last night. The same friend, who was going to be his best man, with whom he should be at the registry office right now. Maybe the friend had let him down?

‘Sit down, Caro.’

She did, watching as he took the chair opposite. Although he didn’t sit. He perched, half on, half off, elbows on his knees as he clasped his hands together and looked at the floor.

‘What’s going on?’

But he didn’t look up, and with every second that ticked past, a numbness spread. From her toes to her shins, to her gut, seeping upward like a stain, until it was at her fingertips and her hands lay, useless on her lap. It wasn’t the friend.

‘Caro.’ Now he lifted his head. ‘This is the hardest thing.’

Caro nodded, the stiff double-stitched edge of her sweetheart neckline cutting into her skin. It wasn’t a dress made for sitting. ‘What?’ she managed.

‘I don’t think you’re being honest with me. And until I’m sure …’ Tomasz paused. He looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath and finished, ‘Until I’m sure, I can’t do this.’

The words were physical, like hands around her neck. She squeezed her knees together, an instinctive response to a dreadful fear. He knew then. Somehow – and she was already somersaulting backward, trying to join the dots – he had found out about Spencer Cooper. Had discovered how easily she had climbed into another man’s bed, the thinness of flattery that had been needed. Her hands went clammy; her heart rolled into her throat.

‘If there’s something you want to tell me,’ he said, ‘then I need to hear it. Now.’

And because she couldn’t look him in the eye, because she wanted to rewind her life, go back to that moment at The Langmere, and re-write the scene, she kept her eyes fixed on her lap, on the beautiful pearls, of her beautiful dress.

‘It’s only fair, Caro.’ He slid off the chair onto his knees, taking her hands in his, as if it were the other way around, as if this were the beginning and he was asking her to marry him; nottelling her that he couldn’t. ‘I need to hear it now,’ he said. ‘Not a year later, when it’s too late.’

‘What do you want me to say?’ she whispered. Such a coward. Even now with her back against the wall.

‘That this is what you want. That you are completely sure, about what we’re doing. And this is really what you want.’

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