Page 70 of The Lie
‘A married man?’
Grace nodded. ‘James.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘Didn’t you know?’
Finch’s head was spinning.So that’s what Jenny’s sly comments implied, he thought.An affair with a married man?Nell had always been incredibly disapproving – as a woman who’d been on the receiving end of infidelity with Grace’s father – about people who did that.No wonder she didn’t tell me. The biggest shock for him, though, was that Nell had known about Michael’s attack. ‘I can’t believe your mum took James’s word over yours,’ he said, remembering the girl’s heart-wrenching narrative that night. He blinked hard, as if trying to clear away this new image that was emerging about the woman he had always idolized.
Grace let out a tired sigh.
‘So what exactly did she say?’
His stepdaughter hesitated. ‘She said Michael shouldn’t have kissed me. But then she asked if I was flirting with him. Said I got silly when I drank too much. Said Michael was a senior figure in the law and I should be very careful what I said because my accusations could ruin his life.’
‘And you said?’
‘I said I wasn’t making any “ accusations ”. I said I hadn’t breathed a word and had no intention of doing so. I was just telling her what had happened because she asked. But James had got to her. She wasn’t listening.’
She laid her head on his shoulder. ‘We screamed at each other for hours, Finch, it was horrendous. I vowed after that I’d never mention it to another living soul.’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘Imagine telling Sam, and he reacts the same as Mum?’ He felt her tremble. ‘I’d die.’
Finch was struggling. He wasn’t au fait with the metamorphosis of teenage years, when your beautiful communicative gem becomes a sullen two-headed monster overnight. He hadn’t been there; he shouldn’t judge. But still. Nell’s response to Grace’s account seemed so unsympathetic … her own daughter.
‘We’re going to get you some help,’ he said, squeezing her shoulder. ‘You can’t deal with this on your own any more.’
This time, Grace did not put forward her usual objections. She just nodded and loudly blew her nose.
When the weekend was over, and Finch had time to think, it was to Romy – not Grace or Nell – he felt he owed an apology. Even Grace’s own mother had not believed her: Nell, his perfect, gold-standard wife. James had brushedit under the carpet. No one, back then, had taken Michael’s actions seriously. Just a foolish moment, oh, best forgotten.Move away, everyone, nothing to see here.
Now he grabbed his keys from the hook beside the door and his phone from the worktop. He needed to get some air – shake these people and their conflicting, bewildering behaviour from his tired brain.
50
After Romy had said a subdued goodbye to James on the pavement outside the restaurant, she had wanted to run, to go home to Sussex immediately and put as much distance as possible between herself and Michael. The thought of confronting him made her go cold. But she knew she had to do it. She didn’t want another long drawn-out discussion with him about nuance – who had said what, done what, how or why or in which way things had happened – or to hear his smoothly calibrated excuses again. She just wanted to state what she’d found out. Let him know that she knew. Then leave him to stew in his lies. What she dreaded was his tears.
Michael did not respond to the bell, so she let herself in. He was in the sitting room, asleep, his shaved head lolling against the chair back, mouth yawning open. He looked so thin and frail that she had to remind herself of the conversation she’d just had with James. He opened his eyes as she approached and smiled.
‘Hi, Romy … What are you doing here?’ he asked, rubbing his hand over his face to wake himself up.
She sat down in the other armchair. ‘I’ve just had lunch with James.’
‘Oh?’ He looked surprised.
She hesitated. She needed to get this right, not leave any loophole through which her lying husband could slip. ‘I wanted to talk to him about Grace.’
The shutters instantly went up on Michael’s face.He knows what’s coming.
‘He told me everything, Michael.’ Romy spoke as firmly as she was able, her body like jelly, her breath catching as she waited for him to set off on his usual slippery, twisting mitigation for his behaviour.
But his expression hardened. ‘Everything?’ Michael gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Is he dying or something? Wanting to clear his conscience?’
‘It’s nothisconscience I’m concerned with.’
He looked defiant for a moment, then his features slumped and he raised his good hand in a gesture of defeat. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Romy. I have nothing more to say.’
She knew there was a massive well of anger deep inside that one day she would need to address, in order to stop it poisoning her soul. But she couldn’t access it now. All she felt, as she gazed at her damaged husband – on whose integrity she had so vehemently insisted – was an overwhelming pity.
She got up. ‘You’re a lucky man, Michael. That reputation of yours, which you value above all else, seems set to remain untarnished. It’s more than you deserve.’ Although Romy did not consider her husband lucky, not at all.
Michael clearly didn’t either, because he harrumphed, made no reply. He was struggling to get out of the chair now, his face taut with effort. ‘Need a pee.’
Her phone rang: Leo. She waited for Michael to leave the room before clicking on the call. Then found she couldn’t speak, her throat closed with tears.
