The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,23

my fault.

I drove home in a blissful daze, looking out at the dark, quietening streets as if I’d never quite seen them before. My body tingled. My lips still felt the pressure of his. My breath pulsed in shallow, excited bursts. I was alive. I was attractive. I was falling in love and, oh my, how madly.

My phone pinged just as I was putting my key in the front door of my flat. My hand fumbled with the lock. I didn’t let myself check my phone, not at first. I wanted to savour the moment, to tease myself. Maybe it was an overdraft alert from the bank. An automatic reminder of some routine appointment at the dentist or the optician.

Smiling, I closed the door and took off my coat, hung it on a peg. Went through to my bedroom, my head buzzing with wine and adrenalin, and then, only then, took out my phone.

Safely home?

My smile broadened in the darkness. I dropped back onto the bed, phone in hand. I texted back in a rush, before my more sensible self could intervene and stop this new, reckless woman bursting out from nowhere:

Come for dinner. Friday night?

I hit send. I lay on my back, ears buzzing in the silence and stared at my phone.

Nothing.

I sat up and carried it through to the kitchen, keeping it close while I filled a glass from the tap and drank water.

Nothing.

I started to panic. What if I’d misread him? I’d made a fool of myself. Oh, how embarrassing. What if he told people? How would I face them at school?

I carried the phone into the bathroom and set it on the edge of the bath while I washed and cleaned my teeth. Nothing.

Maybe I should text again: Only joking!

My face in the mirror was tight with tension. He probably befriended every new writer. Took them for a drink. It was just his style. Chatty. Gregarious.

I was getting into bed, distraught, when my phone finally pinged. I snatched it up.

Love to. Hold the Guinness.

I put the light off and imagined him here, in the flat. He’d bring it back to life. His energy. His zest. I’d cook properly from one of my old recipe books. Something I hadn’t done for years, not since Matthew left. And a decent dessert.

All I had to decide now was what to wear.

Eighteen

They played jazz again at the end of the memorial service. The melancholy sax tore my heart out. The man whose hair was flecked with grey helped Helen to her feet first and led her out. Once she was out of sight, the mood changed. People stretched and chatted in low voices and made for the exit.

Upstairs, in the balcony, voices hummed around me. I folded the order of service in half and stuffed it into my bag, then followed the crowd downstairs.

Everyone spilled out, blinking, into the sunshine. The chapel was surrounded by gently sloping lawns with wide, well-tended rose beds. In front, curling to the front steps, was a broad, tree-lined drive where cars could deposit and collect the chief mourners and, in other more normal circumstances, the hearse.

As I emerged, the crowd was starting to thin. Some people were striking out in small groups towards the main car park at the other end of the drive, funereal coats, redundant in the warm sunshine, hanging limp now over their arms. Stragglers greeted each other and stood gossiping, grateful for the sunshine.

I scanned the faces. The people coalesced around different periods of Ralph’s life. Family members, some who clearly met rarely, explained to each other in loud voices who was whom and exclaimed about the passage of time. Children, vaguely remembered in pinafores or short trousers, had transformed into unlikely adults. Adults, once vigorous, were now stooped and bald. There was no sign of her, at least. That would have been more than I could bear.

A car door slammed shut and an engine purred into life. I looked across. A shiny black car was sliding away. Helen gazed vacantly out from the back seat.

Elaine Abbott, always polite, waved me over to join the group of Lower School teachers.

‘They’re having drinks at a restaurant down the road. You coming? Hilary’s got room if you want a lift.’

I hesitated. ‘That’s okay. I drove here too, actually.’

I didn’t know whether to go on to the wake with them or not. Part of me wanted to see Helen; I didn’t quite know why or what I wanted to say, but it seemed