Page 46 of The Lie
Finch had tears in his eyes as he scanned the creased sheet of notepaper. ‘It’s exactly what she told me last night,’ he murmured.
They were both on the sofa now. But there was no togetherness. Romy held herself stiff and scared beside him, the distance between them vast.
Lifting his head from the page, he frowned at her. ‘So what did you do when you read it?’
‘I – I showed it to Michael, obviously.’
‘And what did he say?’
Romy twitched, feeling she was under interrogation. ‘He said he didn’t do it,’ she replied. Although, in fact, it hadn’t been his first reaction. ‘He couldn’t even remember who she was,’ she added. But her own words made her squirm. They sounded so pathetic, such a huge lie, and she hurried on, desperate to make him understand: ‘They have young people doing work experience in chambers all the time. There’ve been dozens of them.’
Finch stared at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious, Romy.Michael couldn’t remember?’ He gave a derisive snort. ‘Or did so many teenage girls accuse him of assault that he lost track?’ When she didn’t reply, he went on, ‘So you didn’t do a damn thing? You just put the letter – a letter that makes your hair stand on end – into a drawer and forgot about it, got on with your lives?’
It was damning. She tried again to explain. ‘Michael insisted it wasn’t true. And I believed him. He was my husband, the father of my children.’ She took a trembling breath. ‘There was no name, Finch. I had no idea who she was … and she said she didn’t want to get the police involved. Why would I believe a letter from someone whowouldn’t even give her name over the word of a man I’d been married to for nearly thirty years?’ She paused. ‘And the letter came thirteen years after it had supposedly happened –’
‘Supposedly?Are you seriously telling me you still don’t believe this? That you believe Michael over Grace, even after what she told me last night?’ Finch waved the single sheet angrily under Romy’s nose.
She pulled back, offended, feeling a spurt of anger at Finch’s aggression, at his unquestioning assumption that his beloved Grace was telling the truth.
‘Michael has always categorically denied it,’ she said flatly. ‘He was as horrified as you when he read the letter.’
‘I imagine he was.’ Finch snorted, breathing hard through his sarcasm, his face flushed with anger and confusion.
‘And of course I didn’t forget about it. It obsessed me. But what should I have done? He was my husband and I believed him. Would you really expect me to go to his chambers and ask around, find out if anyone knew who this girl might be, who was accusing Michael of sexual assault?’ She wrapped her arms tightly around her shaking body. ‘Michael is a barrister …’
Finch dropped his head into his hands. She wanted more than anything in the world to have him embrace her right now. But there was no way that would happen.
‘But you knew, didn’t you?’ His voice was heavy and cruel and he would not look at her. ‘You believed every word Grace wrote. That’s why you left him.’
He’s made up his mind, Romy thought,but he’s wrong. She always told herself she hadn’t left Michael becauseshe believed the letter, but because of the effect the letter had had on her marriage. And even now, knowing who had written it, hearing the same accusations from practically the horse’s mouth, she struggled to see Michael as the violent abuser Grace named in the letter. But, if she was being honest, she had to acknowledge that tiny sliver of doubt – born the day the letter came and Michael had reacted so strangely.
Her mind flashed back to the previous Friday, an image of him shuffling on his frame, like an old man, along the corridor towards the kitchen. ‘Michael has many faults, but I have never known him to use physical violence on anyone in his entire life,’ she said quietly.
Finch threw his arms into the air. ‘If he didn’t attack Grace, then why the fuck would she write this letter? Think about it, Romy.Thirteen yearslater? Why would she go white at the mention of the name “ Michael Claire ”? Why would she sob and shake with fear at the thought of anyone – even her mother, even dear, kind Sam – finding out what happened to her?’ He glared at her. ‘Tell me, does all that make sense if Michael didn’t do it?’
It didn’t. Romy accepted that. ‘None of it makes sense, Finch, but you didn’t know Grace back then,’ she said, clutching at straws. ‘You told me you only met when she was at college. So you’ve no idea what she was like when she was sixteen.’
Finch was frowning at her, apparently stupefied.
‘You ask why Grace would say such things if they’re not really true. But you must know people do, all the time.’ She turned her head, unable to look at him any more. ‘Listen, I’m not sayingsomethingdidn’t happen, butneither of us can be certain exactly what.’ She took a breath. ‘I just can’t envisage Michael being violent.’ It was as if the more Finch attacked her, the more stubborn she felt in her husband’s defence.How can Finch be so sure?
Then, suddenly, the fight went out of her. She slumped on the cushions and swallowed the tears – she was not going to cry in front of him. After a shaky breath, she said, her tone conciliatory, ‘Oh, Finch, I don’t know, I honestly don’t. Grace is obviously really traumatized about that night. But maybe it wasn’t as black and white as it seems. I mean, Grace claims she saw Michael as a “ bit of a god ”,’ – the words were imprinted on her brain – ‘and maybe she had a crush on him, maybe she sort of flirted with him, then things –’
‘Stop right there,’ Finch said, flicking his palm out to block her words, then sprang up from the sofa. ‘I’m not going to sit here listening to you blame Gracie, just to save your miserable husband’s miserable skin.’
Romy was shocked by the hostility in his voice. She had never seen this side to Finch. He’d always been so under control, so kind to everyone, not just to her. Although she understood why he was angry.
She watched him stalk towards the front door without another word. She wanted to call out to him, to pull him back, to find some common ground on which they might agree. But he was gone before she recovered her voice, and wouldn’t have heard the pleading ‘Finch!’ that she croaked in his wake.
As she sat shaking on the sofa, no longer in the firing line of Finch’s wrath, she tried to think clearly about whathe had told her. And she was forced, unwillingly, to concede that Michael must have donesomethingto that girl–she could not yet think of her as a real person, as Grace. But to what extent her account could be believed, Romy had no idea. Whatever the truth, her relationship with Finch looked to be well and truly over.
31
Finch strode through the village at top speed, his feet carrying him unconsciously towards his house, his brain spinning. He was devastated. He didn’t know what to think, his mind a jumble of accusation and doubt. But what shocked him the most was Romy’s intransigence in defence of Michael.
True, he hadn’t known Grace back then – as Romy had been so keen to point out – but he’d known her for most of the sixteen years since and he thought he had a pretty good take on who his stepdaughter was and of what she was capable.
And, yes, she could be highly strung, but she was searingly honest, like her mother. And a very straightforward person. If she really had been flirting with Michael, as Romy suggested, and things had got out of hand, wouldn’t she just have admitted it at the time? To her mother, at least – although Finch did remember Nell saying there was a lot of friction between her and Grace when she was in her teens, which Grace had alluded to last night.
