Happy Ever After Read online

  ‘Well, you’re here now.’ Marion could afford to be magnanimous, especially today. She couldn’t wait to be on the road, to arrive at her destination and show Richard how she was indeed the perfect wife in oh-so-many ways.

  ‘Do come in and make yourself at home, boys.’ Jenny showed them through to her lounge, which would be so much nicer if she just got rid of some of the clutter, invested in a new sofa and some darling little chairs and threw out that hideous table. Marion would help her with it after her road trip.

  Marion gave the boys her fiercest behave-yourself-or-I-will-rain-Armageddon-down-upon-your-heads look – it was one of her favourites – whilst Jenny’s back was turned as she quickly fussed with the magazines on the coffee table, looking to Marion for approval as she placed Tatler and The Lady on the very top. Marion nodded in acknowledgement, and cocked an eyebrow at the copy of Take A Break peeking out behind some god-awful cushion, revealed as the boys demurely took a seat.

  ‘Oh that was my mother-in-law.’ Jenny rushed out an excuse and Marion nodded, prepared to let her have this one. She was on such a high and wanted to get on her way. ‘You must be so excited about your trip away; did you say you were staying at Belmond Manor? I looked it up, it looks amazing,’ Jenny gushed in an attempt to make up for the faux pas.

  ‘Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.’ Marion corrected Jenny’s pronunciation with her own faultless French; she had always been proud of her language skills. ‘We’re so very excited, it has a fabulous reputation and the food is to die for.’

  ‘You’ll have to take photos,’ Jenny encouraged; Marion shut that down with a look. There was no way she was admitting that the booking had been cancelled – far better to imply that she and Richard were above selfies.

  ‘What a ghastly concept. Although you are very sweet. Now I’ll be back in Penmenna late Sunday as we agreed. You are quite sure on all their dietary requirements, aren’t you? No one wants to have to undergo a trip to Treliske in my absence.’ Marion named the hospital in Truro, just to make sure Jenny knew that any deviation wouldn’t be acceptable.

  ‘Absolutely, I have everything ready as per the menus you planned and gave me last week, Marion. I must say I’m very excited. My two have never had snails before so it’s going to be quite an adventure.’

  ‘Escargots, Jenny, escargots. There’s no need to make it sound as if you’re digging them out of the garden. I’m sure everything will go smoothly; I have no worries about my boys. I expect the weekend will fly by very quickly indeed. Now I must say goodbye or I’ll be late to meet Richard – we thought it would be romantic to drive to Oxford together, save him catching the train. You know how dreadful it can be getting into London.’ Jenny didn’t look like she did but then Marion understood she had never been much further north than Plymouth. She’d have to sort that out for her at some point in the future. After all, education was key; she was the living embodiment of that.

  Rufus, Rupert and Rafe all stood up in a neat line as she took her leave, kissing her on the cheek and asking her to send their love to Richard.

  Jenny clasped her hands together at the demonstration of affection. ‘How lovely. I can’t even get Sophie to talk to me most days.’

  Marion wasn’t surprised. Up until today, she had always thought Sophie a girl of exceptional good taste.

  Chapter Three

  The journey to London had been torturous, the traffic absolutely dire. It seemed the roads these days were filled with incompetents and lunatics. Marion had always thought driving in Cornwall at the height of tourist season was bad enough, but London these days was something else. They really should develop an IQ restriction for those allowed on the M25 or inside London itself.

  Things hadn’t been helped by this god-awful underwear she was wearing. She knew it looked utterly fantastic on but it was halfway up her bottom and not in a good way. Mind you, such was the price she was willing to pay for love. And she knew Richard would love it.

  She pulled up near his flat, the one he rented for when he was working, and decided to ignore the double yellows.

  One quick fix of Fuchsia Crush applied to the filthy grin already upon her face and she stepped out of the car, clicked the lock button on her keys and headed in to surprise her man.

  She tapped in the security code that powered the lift and guided it to the correct floor, its jolt marking its ascent, suddenly felt queasy. She was nervous for some reason when she shouldn’t be. But she was used to feeling this way and masked it exceptionally well, confident in the belief that if you lined up a hundred people that knew her and asked them to describe her in as many words as they could, nervous or anxious would not come up. Not even once.

  She gave her shoulders a little shake as the lift continued upwards. There was nothing to be worried about. Richard was her husband; she loved him very much. He loved her very much. He was also a creature of habit and she knew nothing would change his routines. If Richard was due out tonight with the Japanese then he would be having a wash and a change first. And around about now. She had always been very attracted to his cleanliness.

  There was nothing here for her tummy to be worried about. Richard would be in the shower now then would wander into his bedroom to pick out a fresh shirt and tie. The only difference was this time she would be waiting for him, splayed out and in scarlet on his large king-size bed wearing her best come-hither look and underwear that currently felt like it was extracting a kidney.

  The lift halted and there was a short pause as it settled into position before the door opened. Marion took a deep breath as she prepared to scamper out and across to the bedroom, to position herself in readiness.

  One, two, three and g…

  She stopped.

  No.

  This made no sense.

  There had to be a good reason.

  What the hell was Claudia doing walking down the hall and dressed in nothing but a robe, her hair wet and her face smug?

  No.

  Marion blinked. She was still there. Marion felt her shoulders sag, her spirit, her conviction drained. Richard had never been a man of surprises. Never. And this was one hell of a surprise. Maybe she didn’t know her husband as well as she thought. She couldn’t bear to be one of those women, the women that were clueless about the type of man they had married, yet the evidence in front of her was suggesting that may well be the case.

  Claudia turned, as if she sensed Marion’s eyes upon her. But she turned slowly, deliberately, a flash of satisfaction in her eyes. Of triumph. She knew the lift had arrived; it always made that little settling noise, impossible to hear from the shower, impossible not to notice when in the hallway.

  ‘Marion, darling.’ She headed towards the indubitable Queen of Penmenna, the real Duchess of Cornwall, her chin angled, ready for the faux air kiss.

  Marion tried to pull her shoulders up, to launch herself into her finest offensive mode, to watch this woman with her perfect skin, her lustrous cascade of damp jet hair turn into a quivering jelly whose only recourse was to slink out of Marion’s husband’s apartment, too scarred, too scared to ever show her face again. Marion could do this. It was her number one skill, her most refined talent.

  And yet her body wasn’t responding. Wasn’t drawing itself up to its full height, ready to spit venom and tear out eyes. Her legs were suddenly clay, stolid damp clay impossible to lift as they clung to the floor. Her heart slowed, opiated into slothfulness rather than hammering through her chest, raising her adrenaline and pushing her forward. Come on, she tried to shout at herself, what is happening here? Even the words in her head were slurred, lacking their usual incisive, acerbic wit; everything was in slow motion, as if it weren’t real and she was stuck in a bad dream, her body refusing to wake from slumber.

  ‘Oh dear, you don’t look very well. Come in and I’ll get you some water. Or some fizz, perhaps you’d like some fizz, we’ve got a bottle in the fridge. I hear you’re very fond of it and, well’ – she paused – ‘you do rather loo
k like you need it. Richard is still in the shower I’m afraid but I’m sure he’ll be out in a minute.’ She smirked that cat-like smirk favoured by all evilly seducing, immoral, husband-stealing jezebels since the dawn of time. ‘I can go and let him know you are here if you like; I know he’s been meaning to talk to you.’ She tied the tie on her robe a little tighter, a proprietary move, showing Marion exactly how comfortable she was in this flat, forcing Marion into position of guest, of supplicant. As she did so she also flicked her hair, a movement of unrepressed exultation, of victory.

  Marion stood, a droplet of water from Claudia’s hair landing on her face and instantly dissolving the sluggishness that had overpowered her up until now. She felt her spirit return, flood through her and finally give her the power she needed. The power she had always relied on to get herself out of any situation in which she felt in danger, challenged. That had saved her skin more times than she cared to admit.

  ‘You…’ She took a step forward; her lips moved, imbuing her with power as she looked at Claudia as if she were no more than a mere irritant. ‘You are going to go and tell my husband that I am here? I don’t know who, or what’ – she let out a little chuckle, mirthless and pitying – ‘you think you are, Claudia, but the only thing you’ll be telling my husband is that I was here, and that you are welcome to him.’

  Chapter Four

  Marion turned the key in her car, her fury keeping her body rigid, powering her through until she could get to somewhere safe, somewhere Richard couldn’t find her, chase after her and spill lies from his duplicitous, cheating mouth. She’d just get away from here and then she’d let go, let out the emotions clashing around her body, the feelings screaming in her mind. Somewhere no one could possibly know her, recognize her, watch her give in to the overwhelming sense of heartbreak that was coursing through her.

  How could she have been so stupid? So naive? She had been secretly pitying the foolishness of those women for years, the ones whose husbands worked away from home, installing mistresses in their little flats, their secret urban love nests. She had never dreamt her husband would do the same. Never dreamt that the man she had shared her bed with, her life with for the last twenty plus years, could be so stupid, so selfish.

  And now it seemed she had been fooled as well. The indignity.

  No, she would not get sucked into this now. She needed to drive the car, and she needed to be out of here before Richard appeared, all wet from the shower, muttering apologies and excuses, with that cute little look of devoted helplessness that he was oh-so-good at, trying to justify the truth of his double life now it had been revealed.

  Bastard.

  * * *

  She had surprised herself when, after two-and-a-bit hours of racing out of London and up the M1, she pulled the handbrake on and turned the engine off. She hadn’t thought she would ever come back here voluntarily, ever come back full stop. But it seemed shock did strange things to the body, for here she was. This was where her autopilot in a time of emergency had brought her.

  However, it was fair to say that no one here would recognize her. Here she looked out of place, bearing no resemblance to the girl who had lived here all those years before on the sixteenth floor of the tower closest to her. Here she could do – feel – anything and it would never bleed into her current Cornish life. If she wanted to suddenly turn into the Class Three teacher from Penmenna School, the hideous Harmony Rivers, and march up and down the streets engaging in primal screaming and waving a sage smudge stick about, she could, and no one would bat an eye. Unless they were impressed and approached her for the name of her dealer.

  She looked out of the car window disdainfully. It looked even worse now than it had on the last day she had been here, the day she had packed her bag, headed out of the estate and onto the main road where she had hitched a lift to Oxford, to her brand-new life and the future it held, at barely eighteen years old. Not once had she looked over her shoulder as she left, not once had she looked back, until now.

  The three tower blocks rose into the sky, grey and grim and dank. Behind her was the canal, a smell rising from it that Marion was grateful she had managed to erase from her memory.

  As she got out of her car someone shuffled towards her, hood up, jeans slung low. She held her breath as he approached. If she hadn’t escaped this, the chances that this could be her son in the near future would be so much higher. His acned face, gaunt and yellow, came close, muttering, ‘Brown, ket, spice.’ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, shaking her head decisively as he passed.

  What was she doing here?

  And did he really think she looked like a drug addict? Surely more like a magistrate or high-ranking detective than someone wanting to score drugs from a teen on a towpath?

  She took a step forward and headed down the canal path on autopilot. So why had she brought herself to this place? Was this her subconscious telling her that without Richard she could well still be here, trudging up a thousand wee-stained stairs with her shopping rather than prancing around her chi-chi Cornish village in tailored printed dresses and designer make-up, breathing the bracing sea air? Was her mind suggesting a course of action, reminding her that women since the dawn of time had turned a blind eye to their husbands’ affairs to maintain their lifestyle, to keep their homes together for the sake of the children?

  She approached the bench that she used to escape to as a child, when the noise of the flat became too much, when her mother was at her very worst. It was still there. Missing a slat and covered in graffiti, nettles beginning to spring up around it. She gingerly sat down, flattening her hands on the boards first and then perching on top of them before she realized she was being ridiculous. She was hardly going to die from siting on a blooming public bench. Her nostrils slowly adjusted to the stench of the canal, although not enough to be able to take the great big lungfuls of air her body was craving, as she recalled her past.

  She had been the smelly child in school, the one ostracized by the others but nothing, nothing, had ever actually killed her. And today was no different. You win some, you learn some, they say. Her childhood had certainly been a learning experience. She hadn’t expected her marriage to be one too.

  What other women did was not for her to worry about; what she needed to do was work out what she was going to do. What was right for her? She was interested by the fact that she had come here instead of heading straight back down the motorway to the safety of Penmenna. But if her subconscious was indeed telling her that she needed to stay with Richard then it could do one.

  For the first time this evening a glimmer of a smile crossed her face. That’s what she needed, some of her Marion spirit. That would help her decide how she was going to react. She had long believed that you couldn’t control the things that life threw at you but you could choose how you reacted once you had processed the inevitable emotion. Today was one of those times.

  And she didn’t choose settling, turning a blind eye; she didn’t choose pretending over time that she wasn’t feeling utterly hurt and betrayed, riven in two, by her husband. She had genuinely, for years, believed that they were different, that they would be inseparable, together until death.

  She felt the tears begin to stream down her cheeks and brushed them off angrily; she would deal with that later, for now she knew she had made her decision. She would not be standing by her man. The very idea that he had… that his… that they… She could barely formulate the thought, it was so repulsive. That he had slept with another woman… No, that was it, for her. What was right for others was not okay for her. She didn’t want to look at him over the breakfast table and see Claudia’s face in her head. See him coming out of the shower in the mornings, his towel draped around his waist and replay the scene with Claudia in his flat. No, that she would not do.

  She had tried her absolute hardest to be the perfect wife to him, fulfil every fraction of every conceivable role: to be his friend, his lover, his helpmeet. She was there for everything he coul
d possibly want or need, often before he was aware he had it as a want or a need. She made sure his life ran smoothly and as the boys came along the same applied.

  Actually, the more she thought about it the angrier she became. How dare he? How dare he? She had repeatedly put her needs on hold, her wishes, desires paused so she could be the perfect wife and mother, so she could ensure her boys got the very best start, be wrapped in security, in love, in a family that was aspirational and supportive, that could help them shape their futures in a positive way.

  And he had threatened that with one simple selfish act… maybe not simple and probably multiple, but with his actions her hard work and devotion over the last two decades had all been sullied. Now it all risked tumbling down. Just so he could get his end away with a younger model. Oh, Richard.

  She took a huge gulp of air despite the stench, her hurt once more overwhelming her before her anger kicked back in again. All risked, for what? And now she had to go home and tell the boys that their life was going to be very different from now on. That her life was going to be very different from now on.

  For a start she was going to have to earn a living. How could she possibly carry on her usual levels of activity and find work? She couldn’t run the boys to all their clubs, run the PTA, organize everyone else’s social events and take on Richard’s role as breadwinner. It wasn’t humanly possible, not even for the superhuman she had trained herself to be.

  And what would she do? She hadn’t worked since she was a student, and running a bar and a student newspaper umpteen years ago wasn’t going to help her cover the mortgage and her boys’ refined eating habits.

  What could she do? She knew one thing: she knew she wouldn’t be leaving Penmenna, that was for sure. She hadn’t found the country’s most perfect village for her boys to flourish in and then uproot them and bring them… well, anywhere else. She had a responsibility now to minimize the shock as much as she could. Divorce could do terrible things to children, and her boys were at such impressionable ages as well. No, she’d have to stay in Penmenna and try and get a job locally, keep them in their schools, within their friendship circles, in the same house. There was no way she was giving up the house.