‘Yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you. And thank you for your advice.’

It was a shame I saw him surreptitiously consult his watch as he walked me to the door. He smiled and we said goodbye.

Outside in the street, something made me glance back up at his building, my eyes finding his window on the second floor. But if I was expecting to see him standing there watching me go down the street, hands in pockets, a wistful expression on his face, I was disappointed.




14

‘I can’t believe it.’ Angie’s mouth, painted fuchsia pink, dropped open in disbelief. She left it there for dramatic emphasis.

‘I know. Neither can I. Well, no, I can, actually,’ I said miserably.

‘But what sort of man does that?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Ropes his entire family into his extramarital affair and asks them to conspire against his wife!’

‘Phil,’ I said quietly. ‘A Phil sort of man.’

‘And – and what sort of family,’ she blinked, ‘agrees! Colludes with their son? And his mistress? Gives the relationship their seal of approval!’

I squirmed. ‘Marjorie and Cecilia,’ I said mechanically, noticing Jennie wasn’t saying anything.

She had her back to us. Strapped into a long white pinny at her Aga, she was stirring a vast vat of boeuf bourguignon ready to be put into Tupperware dishes and thence local freezers. Angie and I were at her kitchen table. Angie had popped in to retrieve a pashmina she’d lent and wanted to wear to a charity luncheon. She’d found me, pale, hunched and in mid-flow to Jennie. Naturally the story had to be retold. And I would, of course, have told Angie eventually, but there was a definite hierarchy. I might have waited until I was more poised. No chance of that now. And Angie’s incredulity was hard to bear, reflecting, as I felt it did ineluctably, on me. Jennie too had been shocked, but she could believe it. She knew Phil, and she knew Marjorie and Cecilia.

‘Phil could do no wrong in their eyes,’ I explained wearily, wondering if I’d have to explain these Shillings for ever. Wondering if I was going to make a career of it.

‘They clearly don’t know the difference between right and wrong!’ Angie exploded. ‘And this – this Emma chit – I thought she came to see you? Said she didn’t want anything?’

‘She did. But now the will’s been published she’s realized Phil was probably on the verge of making provision for her, as he was for Marjorie and Cecilia.’ I shrugged. ‘I suppose she feels entitled.’

‘Entitled, my arse!’ Angie stormed. She’d got up from the table and strutted angrily to the window, arms folded. Her eyes were bright, her face suffused with indignation. A few months ago Angie’s beautiful face had been terribly drawn, terribly wretched. There was at least some light to it now. Was it a relief, I wondered, not to be quite so firmly in the eye of the storm? For the baton to have passed to me? Not to be the one everyone felt sorry for? Not that she’d relish my misfortune – Angie was a sweet girl – but nobody wanted to be the unlucky one for ever. The one who had the worst time of it.

‘Don’t give her a penny,’ she warned, turning on her four-inch heel to face me abruptly. ‘Not a penny.’

I nodded, mute.

‘And what sort of a man is that bloody organized?’ she asked. ‘Starts to tie up his estate like that, in his thirties?’

‘The sort of man who has already bagged his spot in the churchyard,’ said Jennie without turning, still stirring. Then she did glance back. ‘He would have made it his business, wouldn’t he, Poppy? Not to leave any loose ends.’

I nodded again. It was all so embarrassing. So … demeaning. ‘I can’t believe I made such a catastrophic mistake in marrying him,’ I said softly. I wanted to go on to say, ‘Such a lack of judgement,’ but knew my voice would wobble. Had I been all there, I wondered, six years ago?

Angie studied her nails, which were long and red, and Jennie kindly resumed her inspection of her casserole, which she’d done for some time.

‘I was thinking that today, at the solicitor’s,’ I said, half aloud and half to myself, when I was sure my voice wouldn’t falter. ‘Thinking: what must he think of me, marrying a man like that?’

‘Who cares what your bloody solicitor thinks!’ snorted Angie. ‘The important thing is not to give those grasping witches a penny. It’s all yours, Poppy, all of it.’

‘And if fighting for money goes against the grain,’ added Jennie, waving her wooden spoon at me, knowing I had a lot of Dad in me, ‘do it for Clemmie and Archie.’

Yes, that helped. For them. I’d already told myself that was the way forward. That might propel me. But sustaining the momentum would be nip and tuck. I wondered what I’d think if I was Emma. If the man I’d loved for four years had provided for me, would I want it? Feel entitled? Perhaps I would.

‘But she’s young, for heaven’s sake,’ pointed out Jennie, reading my thoughts. ‘She’s earning, she has no children. You don’t work.’

‘Don’t do anything,’ I said, feeling slightly panicky. Except, I thought, take my late husband’s money: the money of a man who didn’t love me.

‘None of us worked while the children were young,’ argued Angie. ‘God, I don’t work now!’

There was an uncomfortable pause. Then: ‘Exactly,’ Jennie said quickly.

If truth be told, we’d both quietly wondered why Angie hadn’t done something to contribute to the family coffers, now that she could. Jennie had once witnessed Tom coming in tired from work in his suit, standing opening bills in the kitchen and muttering about Angie’s spiralling Harvey Nichols account, to which Angie had airily said, ‘Have you thought about getting a Saturday job?’ Tom couldn’t speak for a moment. When he’d found his tongue he’d acidly asked whether she’d prefer him to have a paper round or be on the till at Tesco’s? Angie had angrily enjoined him to take a joke, for heaven’s sake, and Jennie had downed her wine and crept away.

‘Having two small children is hugely labour-intensive,’ Angie told me hotly. ‘Don’t you go feeling guilty about not working, Poppy. We’re the unsung flaming heroes.’

I sighed. I knew they were trying to make me feel better but, actually, I felt worse. Like a scrounger. Here I was, in the middle of the morning, having coffee yet again with my girlfriends, before going back to the house that Phil had paid for, and which, evidently, he’d have preferred to have lived in with Emma. Before I’d popped round here, a ridiculously simple riffle through the phone book had revealed that Emma Harding lived locally, up the road in Wessington. Meadow Bank Cottage. I can’t tell you how that had shaken me. How I’d almost got under the kitchen table in fright. Somehow I’d assumed that because she worked in London she must live in London, but she didn’t; she was moments away. Must have driven past my house countless times, thinking: that’s where I should be, with him, where we could be together. Perhaps she should have it now? Suddenly Dad’s life, held together with bits of binder twine, appealed. I wondered if he’d got a spare shed. And Clemmie and Archie could go to the local school, not the expensive village Montessori.

‘Well, we’ll see,’ I said wearily. ‘Sam said let’s wait and see. See if they follow it up. He said they may just be full of hot air.’

‘Sam’s the solicitor?’ asked Angie, and for some reason I bent my head to pull up my sock under my jeans.

‘Yup.’

‘Well, I hope he’s good. Who’s he with?’

‘A small firm in town. Private practice. But he was with a big outfit in London,’ I added, knowing Angie would be impressed by that.

‘Oh, OK. Well, listen, Poppy, April McLean at Freshfields may be expensive but she goes for the jugular. Let me know if you want to meet her. I came out of her office thinking I could rule the world.’

‘No, no, I’m very happy.’ I tried to imagine Sam going for the jugular. It was in the neck, wasn’t it? Baring his fangs across the Old Bailey at Marjorie. I wondered where he went after work. Where he lived now he was divorced. A rented flat in town? Or did he stay with friends, all guys together, meeting them for a pint after work? I couldn’t imagine that, somehow.

‘Anyway, thanks, you two. Good to share and all that. I’ve got to go and get Clemmie. She finishes at lunchtime today.’

When they’d murmured their goodbyes, with staunch messages of support, and kissed me, Angie nearly breaking my cheekbones, I took my leave. Went slowly up the hill. Archie, who’d just learned the words to Postman Pat, was kicking his legs in his buggy, singing his little heart out, but mine was heavy. How much was Angie asking for, I wondered. Half of Tom’s wealth? More? The house? Well, why not? She’d brought the children up there; it was their home. It just didn’t feel quite right. And not because Angie had never worked – oh, she pulled her weight in the community, sat on committees, chaired the council. It wasn’t that. It was just … I wasn’t sure I wanted to join that band of women who took their husbands for all they could. Because they’d been betrayed.

I’d overheard her talking to Tom the other day on her mobile in the street. I’d come up behind her, been about to greet her, when I realized she was on the phone: ‘Yes, Clarissa did meet some boy in London and she probably met him on an Internet site, probably didn’t even know him, but what d’you expect with the example you set? I’m surprised she’s not pregnant!’ There’d been a silence, then: ‘Oh, piss off, Tom!’