Page 17 of The Stranger in Her House

While I took the Village Hopper into town to buy food for tonight’s meal, I reluctantly left her alone to ogle Paul as he sanded and painted the banisters. I used her debit card to pay for a nice bottle of Italian red, a garlic baguette, a microwavable lasagne and three raspberry panna cottas. Paying for it myself would have usedup half my weekly food budget, and I’m not starving myself for Paul’s sake. I’ve banished them both from the kitchen as I now remove the cooked food from its packaging and place it into her serving dishes to pass off as my own.

My hackles rise when I find them in the lounge playing poker again. That’smygame to play with her, not his. The song ‘Let It Go’ from that Disney movie starts playing in my head, so I usher them into the dining room. They’re cosying up together sitting side by side when I bring in the food and arrange the dishes on table mats.

‘Mum,’ I begin, ‘you forgot to put the cutlery and serving spoons out.’

She looks around the room as if unsure of where to find them.

Without missing a beat, Paul takes them from the correct sideboard drawer. I hold back from asking him how he knew where they were.

‘Smells good,’ he says, inhaling the lasagne. ‘Which supermarket is it from?’

‘It’s homemade,’ I lie.

‘I assumed, from the empty boxes at the bottom of the recycling bin, that you got it from Waitrose.’

The hairs on my arms bristle. ‘That’s a different meal for later in the week.’ He knows I’m lying.

I’m about to plate up her food when she stops me. ‘Paul can do it,’ she says. ‘He’s closer and I don’t want you dripping sauce on the tablecloth.’ She turns to him. ‘Meredith can be very clumsy. It’s her big hands you see. They’re like snow shovels.’

She’s mentioned this Meredith woman before, but every time I ask who she is, the shutters drop. Either she can’t remember who she is, or she doesn’t want to elaborate. Paul’s sleeve rides up when he reaches for the silver serving spoons and I recognise a familiar object affixed to his wrist. It’s a watch with a blue face, silver hands and a thick, matching strap.

‘Is that Dad’s watch?’ I ask, pointing to it.

She smiles. ‘Yes.’

My toes curl but I can’t let my anger boil over in front of him. ‘And why is Paul wearing it?’

‘I’d forgotten I had it until Paul found it,’ she explains. ‘It was just sitting in a box in the wardrobe on the shelf.’

I swear she says ‘on the shelf’ pointedly.

‘What were you doing in the wardrobe, Paul?’ I ask, my voice deliberately singsong-like.

‘Gwenny asked me to help her empty it before I started decorating her room.’

‘Bill wouldn’t have wanted it to go to waste,’ she chips in.

I resist ripping it off Paul’s wrist and putting it back where it belongs. And the dark cloud that so frequently hovers above me when I think of him returns.

‘Where did you learn to cook?’ he asks.

‘Italy,’ I reply. He knows this, we already had this conversation when we went out for dinner.

‘Ah, yeah, that’s right. Where were you living?’

I take a mouthful of my lasagne. It’s too hot and it burns my mouth as I swallow. I don’t let on. ‘Costiera Amalfitana,’ I say and take two long, cooling gulps of wine.

‘That’s a big area. Where, exactly?’

‘I worked all over the region, depending on where my clients were getting married.’

‘So, Cetara, Minori, Vietri sul Mare, Mongibello? Places like that?’

I nod as I blow to cool my next forkful. Gwen is listening intently as if she’s hearing me talk about work for the first time.

‘Oh wait, Mongibello is that fictitious town inThe Talented Mr Ripley, isn’t it?’ Paul adds.

He is telling me two things here. First, that he doubts my working credentials, and second, he knows where I’ve hidden her bankcards, in the Ripley book on her shelf. He is using my invitation to dinner to do to me what I’m trying to do to him – wrongfoot him.

---