Before We Met(37)

In the end, her message to Ro had been a few lines. I owe you a proper email – sorry – but in the interim I thought I’d better let you know that Mark’s on the loose in NYC this weekend. He’s lost his phone but he’s got your number and says he might give you a call. Consider yourselves warned . . . Roisin and her iPhone were inseparable, and her response came within a minute: Nice! Next time you talk to him, order him to call us.



The rain was keeping people inside and the pavements of Quarrendon Street were empty. Hannah parked outside the house, turned the engine off and leaned her head against the steering wheel. She was exhausted; she hadn’t slept at all last night. Instead, she’d lain awake next to the undisturbed sheets on Mark’s side and been tormented by the stream of spiteful images that her mind had served up one after another.

Please, she’d thought, let him be in Rome: New York was their place. Her mind, however, had offered her picture after picture of Mark taking someone else round all their old spots. She saw him huddled at one of the tiny tables at Westville, reaching over the waxed tablecloth to take a woman’s hand, his eyes never leaving her face; she imagined them having lunch at the Boathouse then walking through Central Park, bundled up in coats and hats and scarves, kicking up fallen leaves. No doubt she was beautiful, this woman, whoever she was, but in the images she stayed vague, faceless, a slim but curvaceous outline, with a soft laugh and long shiny hair.

Later, some time after three, Hannah had thought she was falling asleep – her thoughts started to wander, to leave her in peace – but at the last moment, just as she was about to tip gratefully over the edge into oblivion, she’d seen them in her bed, not here in London but in her old apartment on Waverly, Mark propped on one elbow talking, smiling, kissing this woman like he had kissed her there. At that instant the possibility of sleep disappeared completely, and she’d thrown the blankets off and stood up, heart pounding. Down in the kitchen, she’d drunk three cups of tea and surfed the net until she was glassy-eyed and the quiet hum of morning traffic started on the New King’s Road.

Into the near-silence now came a trundling sound. Looking in the rear-view mirror Hannah saw the little boy from the house across the road pedalling furiously down the pavement on a tricycle, his mother running to keep up. Time to move; she couldn’t sit outside in the car all day. She ran the ball of her thumb under her eyes and sniffed. As she reached for her bag on the passenger seat, however, her phone began to ring.

She pulled the bag on to her lap and scrabbled to find the phone before it stopped, almost dropping it in her hurry. On the screen was a Malvern number: her mother’s. For a second or two Hannah considered not answering – she could call her back later, when she was inside and feeling a bit stronger – but then she felt guilty. To Sandy, making a phone call, even to her own children, was a big deal. She’d have made a cup of tea and put it on the little table at the end of the sofa before sitting down carefully, adjusting her glasses on the end of her nose and peering at the short list of numbers that Tom had programmed into her handset last year as if it were some arcane form of symbology.

‘Hi, Mum.’

‘Hannah?’ Her mother sounded uncertain.

‘Of course it is, you daft one – you called me. How are you?’

‘Oh, fine, yes, I’m all right, darling. How are you? How’s Mark?’

‘Yes, we’re well, both of us. Just having a quiet weekend.’

‘That’s good.’ Her mother sounded relieved. ‘I’ve been busy here. I went to Waitrose this morning and bumped into Mrs Greene. She asked after you both.’

‘That was nice of her.’ Mrs Greene had taught Hannah and Tom in kindergarten; it amazed Hannah that she remembered who they were all these years later. She’d only just retired; how many hundreds of children had she had under her care in the interim?

‘And I’ve been making the Christmas pudding. The house smells like a distillery – the neighbours must be wondering what on earth I’m up to.’

‘I hope you’re trying some of it – the booze, I mean.’

‘I’m not much of a rum-drinker, it’s far too sickly, and I don’t know anyone who drinks barley wine, do you? Where’s Mark? Is he with you?’

‘He’s in New York, Mum. A business meeting.’

‘On a Sunday?’

‘No, tomorrow.’ Don’t get defensive; she’s not making a point; she doesn’t know. ‘He went over on Wednesday for a couple of others and then this one went in the diary at the last minute so he’s stayed. He’ll be back on Tuesday.’