‘Why not?’ Roz heard herself saying as if from a great distance.
‘She’s been divorced twice, she’s a career woman and I’ve personally heard her say she’s not interested in giving up her career to raise children. I expect this new arrangement they have now, suits them both very well.’
Roz licked her lips. ‘And what …’ She stopped and started again. ‘And what gave you the idea that our marriage was so different, Lucia? Apart from this . . ‘
Lucia smiled. ‘You did, Roz. I’ve seen enough young girls in love to know that you weren’t. Was I wrong?’ she asked indulgently.
‘No… But I am, now …’ Oh God, did I say that? Roz wondered frantically. Yes … She put a hand to her lips and stared at Lucia and thought, how could you … how could you do this to anyone? What business of yours is it anyway, whatever, even if you are right, were right … what have I ever done to you? And now,you’ve made me bare my soul to you…
‘Well,’ said Lucia, ‘that’s unfortunate.’
‘Lucia!.’ Roz gasped, at the wave of anger that overcame her, but without it she would never have been able to say what she did. ‘Don’t think I don’t know why you’ve chosen to tell me all this. For some reason you resent me having any influence in this family, yet it’s the last thing I want or seek.’
‘Oh? What about Nicky?’
‘What happened. with Nicky was entirely coincidental—how I came to be involved in it, at least!’
‘Tell me about it,’ Lucia said tauntingly.
‘No. it’s between me and Adam, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. But if you’re jealous that I might be somehow upstaging you in this family, you’re wasting time and petty emotion, and l can’t believe that anyone could be so … so pretentious and ridiculous?’
Lucia narrowed her green eyes. ‘And you don’t think it’s pretentious, Roz, to be queening it among us when you’re no better off than l am …’ She stopped and her face paled, then to Roz’s utter amazement, it crumpled and she put up a hand, then turned away abruptly, but beneath the elegant lines of her saffron suit, Roz could see that her shoulders were shaking.
‘Lucia…?’
No response.
Roz tried again, then went down on her knees beside her distraught sister-in-law’s chair. ‘Please—I don’t understand,’ she said huskily. ‘Don’t cry so … let me help. You said …’ She broke off and her eyes widened.
‘Do you mean you and Gareth———?’
Lucia huddled lower in her chair, looking boneless and pathetic in a way Roz would never have dreamt possible.
‘Does he… is he…?’
‘Yes,’ Lucia wept. He’s been unfaithful to me for years, and it’s killing me slowly, because I love him and hate him and I could never leave him …’
It all came out, a many of misery that for years, Roz guessed, Lucia had barricaded within her heart, and camouflaged beneath, her naturally somewhat, abrasive personality. ‘But the price she had paid had been to watch herself growing more waspish, even shrewish …
‘I just can’t seem to help myself—sometimes I hate myself even more than I hate Gareth, only of course I don’t hate him. I … I tremble like a foolish girl every time another affair is over and he wants me again. I fall in love all over again, I … why,’ she went on with bitter, tearful intensity, ‘can’t I either leave him or accept that that’s the kind of man he is and be content that he’s happy to stay married to me, even though he strays and probably always will. Why do I torment myself and tear myself apart like this every. time it happens, and … and torment anyone else who happens to be within reach?’
What can I say? Roz thought, and said nothing. But she put her hand over Lucia’s and held it.
They sat like that for a long time until Lucia had quietened at last. Then she said, ‘It seems we are in the same boat, so perhaps we could help each other.’
‘Oh, Roz,’ Lucia said miserably. ‘I’ll never forgive myself for this, especially if you didn’t know.’
‘There’s … there’s no chance of it being wrong—your friend, I mean?’
‘She’s never been wrong about Gareth,’ Lucia said with irony, then closed her eyes briefly and bit her lip.
‘But perhaps it was, just an interlude for Adam,’ she said then. ‘Just something that happened when they found themselves in Tokyo together, and alone. In fact there’s nothing to suggest otherwise,’ she said almost eagerly. ‘What I said about her being his mistress was only … sort of conjured up because … because …’ She took an unsteady breath. ‘Because of my paranoia. And that’s true, Roz.‘