Dominic exhaled a long stream of air. ‘Honestly? I was embarrassed. I should never have dated someone so young. It’s such a middle-aged cliché and I should have known better. The whole thing . . . I just felt foolish. I wanted to put it all behind me, pretend it had never happened.’
‘And all this was just before we got together?’
‘Not right before. But a few weeks, yes.’
Livvy paused, thought back to the beginning of their relationship. ‘So you lied to me. When we met, you told me you’d been single for over a year. That was a lie.’ She sensed her words stiffen, as though they had been dipped in resin and left to dry.
‘You’re right, I did. And I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I felt ashamed that I’d got myself in that situation in the first place. It was a complete lapse of judgement on my part. And it was so short-lived – it really was just a couple of months. But I should have told you. I’m sorry.’
Livvy looked down to where Leo was trying to pull soft rings from a stacking toy, his fingers too uncoordinated for the task. ‘So all that stuff about her going to the police – this woman just fabricated the whole thing? Why would she do that?’
Dominic sighed, shrugged his shoulders. ‘I honestly don’t know. Maybe she’s embarrassed about the way she behaved. Maybe she’s still angry that I broke up with her and this is her way of getting back at me.’
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
‘So you never asked her to marry you?’
‘What?’ Dominic stared at her, mouth agape. ‘Of course not. Is that what she said?’ He shook his head. ‘I told you, we were only together for a couple of months and it was all pretty casual as far as I was concerned.’
Livvy tried to slot Dominic’s explanation into place with the other things Bea had told her. ‘Daisy told Bea you said you were adopted.’
For a moment, Dominic seemed speechless. ‘Jesus. I knew she was unhinged but that’s insane. She’s a complete fantasist. And your sister really believed her? I honestly thought Bea was smarter than that.’
Leo let out a frustrated cry as the fabric rings refused to be pulled off, and Livvy bent forward, removed them for him.
When she sat back up, Dominic took hold of her hand, looked down at her wrist. ‘How’s it feeling now?’
Livvy followed the direction of his gaze to the line of livid red welts. ‘Pretty sore.’
Dominic breathed slowly, his shoulder blades rising and falling. ‘I think I know why I got so angry. I know there’s no excuse for the way I behaved, but I was just really hurt that after all I’ve confided in you, you still believed a pack of lies. I’ve told you things I’ve never told anyone before and I was disappointed that there are still ways you doubt me, even after all that.’ He looked away, eyes narrowing as they grazed the room with its depleted bookshelves, boxes stacked against the wall, ready for the move.
Livvy allowed herself a moment’s pause. ‘I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. But you must be able to see it from my point of view? My sister tells me about a woman she’s met, who clearly did date you at some point and who you’ve never mentioned. What was I supposed to think?’
Dominic shifted position, turned to face her. ‘I know. I understand. If I could turn back the clock, I’d do it all differently. Especially today. It’s just been such a stressful time, with my dad and the job and the move.’ He pulled his mouth into a tight, sad smile. ‘Can you forgive me?’
The events of the afternoon spooled through Livvy’s mind in accelerated time. A part of her feared she might never be able to forgive him, not fully. But then she thought about all that had happened in recent weeks – Imogen’s appearance, John’s death, the unattended funeral – and found herself nodding.
‘Thank you. Really. I promise it will never happen again.’ Dominic’s fingers followed the contour of her wrist along the tender ridges of her skin. ‘What are we going to do about your sister?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s going to be hard, getting beyond this. It’s such a destructive thing for her to do. I don’t know how I’ll be able to pretend nothing’s happened.’
Livvy panicked at the prospect of her husband and sister at loggerheads, Livvy stuck between them, torn one way and then the other, like a character in an ancient proverb. ‘She’s my sister. If I can forgive you, then you need to forgive her. She was only looking out for me. That’s what sisters do.’
Dominic said nothing for a few moments, before lifting Livvy’s hand to his mouth, brushing his lips along her skin. ‘Fair enough. It just might take me a little time, that’s all.’
He pulled her into his arms, his breath hot against her scalp. And yet, in spite of the resolution to their conflict, somewhere beneath the wall of Livvy’s chest, a caged bird flapped its wings.
ANNA
LONDON
I stand in the small space at the top of the stairs, look up at the hatch above my head. I know what I need to do, even if a part of my brain is cautioning against it.
Since the call from the therapist yesterday lunchtime, I have scoured the house, searching for something – anything – that might tell me more about my life. Every box piled up in the spare room has been opened, rummaged through, discarded when it revealed nothing of interest. I have felt like a scavenger, hunting for scraps of information and repeatedly going hungry.
When Stephen telephoned yesterday evening from his hotel room in Southampton, I told him nothing of what I was doing, nothing about the call with the therapist that had revealed his lie to me. For most of last night I lay awake, thinking the same circular thoughts, wondering if I was a coward for not confronting him. Because whichever way I turn the facts over in my mind I cannot seem to fashion them into a viable explanation. They are like lumps of parched clay: too tough, unyielding, to mould beneath my fingers.
I look up at the small brass padlock, wrack my brain, try to think where Stephen might have hidden the key. I think about where he is often most furtive and head into our bedroom, pull open his bedside drawers. They are neatly arranged as though nothing dare leave its designated spot: cufflink boxes, a clip-on reading light, a pack of ear plugs, a small notebook which I flick through and find empty. No key.
I open the chest of drawers where Stephen keeps his underwear, rifle through it, scrunch each ball of socks inside my fist in search of anything sharp or metallic, run my fingers along the edges of the wooden drawers, but find nothing.
Lifting the edge of the duvet, I discover a collection of transparent plastic tote boxes under the bed. I pull out the first one, lift the lid, find it full of old audio cassettes. Taking them out, I pile them onto the bed, checking each one to see if a key may have been slipped inside. But there is just Mahler, Wagner, Strauss. I reach for the next tote, drag it across the floorboards, open it. Inside is a collection of plugs and cables: phone chargers, camera batteries, endless USB leads. I lift them out, one by one, careful not to entangle them so I can replace them later as though they were never disturbed. Placing them next to the cassettes, I wonder what they are all for, why we have so many when there is just a single laptop in the house. At the bottom, I find a small square ring box tucked in the corner, take it out, prise it open. Inside is a small silver key, the right size for a padlock, and I hold it in my palm, hope inflating in my chest.