Page 82 of The Women

There’s a Virgin flight from Heathrow to Rome at 21.00 on Thursday 19 April. That will give them plenty of time to get married and make their way to the airport. They will even have time to go for a celebratory lunch, which will make the whole thing more authentic. Sidetracked, she googles the location of the register office and sees that it is over the bridge, towards Twickenham. They could go to The Crown on the roundabout near Marble Hill Park, but, no, Peter won’t like that idea. Ah. Luigi’s, his favourite Italian, is on that side of the bridge. Perfect. She can book a cab to take them straight there.

She calls the restaurant, speaks to Luigi and explains that they’ll be coming directly from their wedding, that it’s a private ceremony; would it be possible to book a romantic lunch for two? Luigi is charmed to be asked. Mr Peter is a special customer, he tells her. Leave it with him, don’t worry. He will do something special.

‘Thank you so much,’ she says. ‘That’s so kind of you. See you then!’

She puts the phone down, realises that her excitement is not, in fact, fake. She really is keyed up, actually. Purpose, maybe that’s what it is. She is full to the brim with purpose.

Back to the flights.

She needs their passports. That’s a point. She knows Peter organised one for Emily when she was born but she’s never seen his. She’s not seen her own since she moved in, come to that. There’s been much talk of travel, but actually they’ve barely left Richmond in their short time together. She was pregnant so quickly and Emily is still so little, they haven’t yet thought about going anywhere on a plane.

Peter’s passport is not in his desk. It is not on any of his shelves either, not even in the box file with the other official documents. She drums her fingertips against her lips.

Think.

There is a safe in the house. Peter has mentioned it. Everything in its place. The passports are bound to be in there. She knows the layout of every room – God knows, she’s spent enough time here on her own – but she’s never seen a safe. Although there is one room she never goes into. The cellar.

Emily on her hip, she walks out of the study and down the hall. She is about to open the door under the stairs when she stops. Small steps, yes, but be careful.

She runs upstairs and pops Emily in her cot, passes her a new set of toys and pulls the cord for her musical mobile. The one Peter cannot bear to hear when he’s in the house. An insult to music, he says.

She takes a pair of latex gloves from the box under the loose floorboard. On reflection, she takes a few more pairs and stashes them in her bag before putting one pair on and heading back to the cellar.

There is a pull cord for the light. It is still flickering as she heads slowly down the stone steps. The basement is cold, sparse and clean. To the right is a wine rack from which around a dozen dusty bottles protrude. She shivers. An idyllic past looked upon through the lens of betrayal is perhaps the most distorted sight there is. All that was beautiful is ugly; all that was meaningful is filled with a kind of empty horror. She looks closer, torturing herself now. Amarone, she reads. Amarone. Amarone. Amarone. She gasps.

I’ve been waiting to open this one for a long time, he said that night.

All the bottles are the same.

All that was meaningful …

‘Well,’ she mutters to no one at all. ‘It’s not meaningful anymore, is it?’

The urge to pull these bottles one by one from the rack is almost overwhelming. To pull them one by one and throw them hard onto the concrete floor.

But no. Careful, Samantha. Be careful. She straightens up and looks around her. The safe is on top of a beautiful old sideboard that on closer inspection turns out to be riddled with woodworm. One of the feet is missing, and inside the central cabinet, the heart-shaped glass window is cracked, the mint-green velvet lining blackened with mould. It looks like something from Dickens, she thinks. Straight from Miss Havisham’s sitting room. The safe on the other hand is a modern matt-grey strongbox with a brushed chrome door, combination lock. She was expecting a lock, of course she was, but even so her heart sinks.

‘Bugger.’

If she can’t get hold of the passports, the plan is dead on departure. Her advantage lies in a fait accompli. Peter won’t be able to tell her how to do it if she’s already done it, will he?

There must be some record of the combination somewhere in the house. She knows Peter keeps his bank card PINs in his phone under Caravag1 and Caravag2. It’s possible the safe combination is also in his phone under a similarly stupid name. Something imaginative like, say, Caravag3.

With heavy tread, she takes the steps back up to the ground floor, the carpeted staircase up to the first, where Emily is whining and holding up her arms.

‘Come on, baby,’ she says softly. ‘Let’s get you out for a walk.’

She is wrestling Emily into her padded suit when it occurs to her that Aisha might know the combination, so it is Aisha she calls as she walks down the hill towards the town, Aisha who answers after one ring.

‘Sam, are you all right?’

For a moment, Samantha flounders. ‘Yes. Why?’

‘Nothing. I just thought … after last night …’

‘I’m fine. I … It’s all fine. Listen, are you free now? Do you fancy meeting up?’ She can ask Aisha what she needs to over the phone but it would be nice to see someone, a friend, if only to reassure herself that she still has one.

‘I … I suppose.’

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