The Lie of Love Page 16

  In the bedroom, Darcy dug in her handbag for her phone. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the text from Harry. She had been certain she would get one, though she wanted to be wrong. Why did he have to make it so hard?

  One more meeting. If that’s what it took to make him finally drop this mad idea he seemed to have been gripped by that they could have a real future, like ordinary couples, then she would have to indulge him.

  Darcy cursed herself as Harry slept next to her. He looked so young, so vulnerable, not like the boy she had met during the summer. Meeting him again had been a mistake. Declaring his love he had kissed her and undressed her and she had let him push her gently to the bed, the lie too beautiful to acknowledge for the black and dangerous thing it was. She should have known better; she should have been stronger. Guilt squeezed her heart. She had made him like this. And now she was leading him on again. She hadn’t meant to, but it was all her fault.

  She reached for her phone from the bedside cabinet and glanced at the clock. It was almost time to go and fetch the children, and Ged would be home not long after, expecting his dinner.

  Taking care not wake Harry, Darcy pushed herself up and collected her clothes from the floor, dressing quickly. Goodbyes were too hard and they were pointless anyway. They wouldn’t get another chance to see each other until Easter, and no matter what Darcy told herself, it would happen. She wondered whether to leave him a note. In the end, she softly closed the door behind her and left him sleeping.

  Darcy wheeled Sophie into their hotel room. Ged was sleeping on the bed, Jake next to him wrapped in his arms and also fast asleep. She smiled. There were times when Ged was infuriating, times when he fell back on the old insistence that he had never wanted kids and Darcy had the overwhelming urge to slap him. But underneath it all she had no doubts that he loved his children dearly, even if he sometimes struggled to show it.

  Two weeks had passed since Sophie’s surgery. It had gone well, the doctors had told them, and Sophie’s long and painful course of physiotherapy had begun. At first she had cried, she had screamed, she had refused to speak to them; she was determined not to cooperate. Darcy felt like crying and screaming herself, the distress of watching her daughter go through this was so great. But eventually, with cajoling, bribery and emotional blackmail, Sophie had grudgingly budged, performing a little here and there until she was going some way towards the exercises she needed. It wasn’t perfect, but her parents and carers took what they could get. Darcy and Ged had gone together at first, along with Jake, trying to get her working. The strain had been so great, not only on them but on Jake, that they had reluctantly agreed the best way forward was to take it in turns to go with Sophie whilst the other entertained Jake elsewhere. Everyone had been relieved at this and each of them secretly and guiltily looked forward to their days with Jake rather than the torture of Sophie’s sessions.

  Darcy held a finger to her lips and lifted Sophie from her chair onto the bed. ‘We won’t wake the trolls, eh?’

  Sophie giggled and shook her head. ‘No, we won’t wake the trolls.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  Sophie nodded.

  Darcy wandered over to a fridge that stood in a kitchenette just off the main room. ‘I bet there’s something nice in here to tide us over until we go for dinner.’ She stuck her head in the fridge and pulled out a tub of pasta salad.

  ‘I don’t want that,’ Sophie called, watching her through the adjoining double doors.

  ‘You liked it yesterday.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head.

  Darcy sighed. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Ice-cream.’

  As part of their continued physiotherapy bribery, and because at first the surgery had left Sophie feeling unwell, Darcy had been letting her more or less eat whatever she fancied. Meals had frequently been replaced by less nutritious alternatives and everyone had turned a blind eye to it, including, most surprisingly, Jake. Ordinarily he would have been the first one to demand similar treatment. But Darcy was beginning to think that this indulgence had to stop.

  ‘If you have pasta now I’ll let you have ice-cream at the diner later,’ Darcy said. ‘It’ll be much nicer there.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to the diner.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I want ice-cream now.’

  Ged’s groggy voice came from the bed. ‘You can’t have ice-cream now, madam.’ He sat up, taking care not to disturb Jake, who roused for a moment but then snuggled back into the pillow. ‘We’re going to the diner to eat like civilised people for once.’

  Sophie pouted, but although she had got away with a lot during the last couple of weeks, she knew better than to argue with his current tone of voice.

  Ged swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep. We’ve been here for ages and the jetlag is still getting to me.’

  Darcy pulled two bottles of water from the fridge and took one over to him. The other she gave to Sophie. ‘Sorry, sweetie, but it looks as though you’ll have to be good until we go for dinner.’

  ‘I didn’t say she couldn’t eat, just not ice-cream.’

  ‘If you don’t think we’ll eat late, perhaps we can all hang on.’

  Ged nodded. ‘I’ll go and get showered while you wake the boy.’

  ‘How’s little Sophie this evening?’ the waitress asked with a broad smile as the family crossed from blazing evening sunshine into the dim interior of the movie-themed diner. The place had been a favourite of Ged’s since the first night when he had tasted one of their ribeye steaks, and they had quickly become regulars. On that first evening, Tracy, the waitress who greeted them now, had listened to their story about Sophie’s impending surgery, and had watched their anxious faces. She had brought them all drinks and deserts on the house and had enquired after Sophie’s progress every time she saw them afterwards, until Sophie was out of hospital and had been well enough to go there again herself.

  ‘She’s been a very good girl today,’ Darcy said, stroking Sophie’s long hair. ‘The best so far I think.’

  ‘Hey, you’ll be racing across that baseball field in no time, then,’ Tracy replied, winking at her. ‘And how are the rest of y’all doing?’

  ‘Me and dad have been to the beach today,’ Jake said. ‘We saw jellyfish and Dad almost got stung.’

  Tracy laughed. ‘That was a lucky escape. They’re monsters here.’ She turned and gestured them to follow her, stopping at a table underneath a huge hanging replica of Godzilla. ‘This ok for you?’

  Ged nodded. ‘Brilliant.’

  Darcy got Sophie settled into a chair and then sat herself. The air of the diner was cool compared to the humidity outside. Darcy tried not to complain, knowing that back at home winter still had its icy grip firmly on the town of Lyme Regis and she ought to be grateful for a little sun. Layered over the synthetic air of the diner, the smell of roasting meat and fries clung to everything.

  ‘Can I get you drinks?’ Tracy asked.

  ‘I’ll have a beer,’ Ged replied. ‘Not fussed which one. The kids will have coke and Darcy…’

  ‘I’ll have a beer too.’

  Tracy nodded and left them to peruse the menus.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Darcy said. ‘I didn’t get time to eat much today at the hospital.’

  ‘We ate plenty but I’m still starving.’ Ged gave her a wide grin.

  ‘The beach seems to have agreed with you.’

  ‘It’s amazing how a brush with a deadly jellyfish can make you appreciate life.’

  Darcy laughed. ‘I can imagine.’ She looked down the menu. ‘You’re having steak, right?’ She raised an eyebrow as she peered around the menu at him.

  ‘It’s the only way to eat in America. After all, it’s what they do best.’

  ‘I would imagine they’d like to be known for more than just their steaks.’

  ‘Ok… they do pretty good chips too.’

  Darcy
’s gaze swept their table. Her world was seated around it and at that moment she didn’t need anything else. ‘We had a really good day today, didn’t we, Sophie?’

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘I think we might have hit a turning point.’

  ‘Just as well,’ Ged said, tossing his menu to the table, ‘we don’t have long left here and the NHS won’t support us like these private physios will.’

  ‘We’re getting the maximum sessions at home available to us.’

  ‘It’s not really enough, though, is it?’

  Darcy was silent for a moment. ‘I suppose not. What else can we do?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I’ll see what I can borrow and we’ll look into some private sessions at home, boost Sophie’s recovery a bit where we can.’

  Darcy beamed at him. ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Tracy returned with a tray of drinks. She distributed them with a smile. ‘You folks ready to order yet or do you need a while longer?’

  ‘Five minutes?’ Ged replied.

  She nodded and left them again.

  ‘I’m so glad you decided to come,’ Darcy said as she leaned into Ged and lowered her voice. ‘I couldn’t have done this without you.’

  ‘You could. You’re stronger than you think. But I realised that you shouldn’t have to.’

  ‘You mean that?’

  ‘Of course I do. You’re my wife and we’re partners in everything. I’m sorry I was such a pain during the fundraising –’

  Darcy pressed a finger to his lips and leaned over to give him a brief kiss. ‘Stop it. You’re here now and that’s all that matters.’

  Darcy couldn’t remember the last time they had enjoyed a meal together as much as they did that night. She couldn’t put her finger on what had changed, but something had. Perhaps Ged’s day out with Jake, coupled with the leap in progress that Sophie had seemed to make that day, had relaxed them both enough to communicate in a way they hadn’t done in months. It was like old times, like they used to be before the bottom had fallen from their marriage. She wasn’t sure that it would ever truly be like that again, but they had the kids to think about and if they could carry on like this – a steady and civil understanding that enabled them to weather life’s storms together – then perhaps the thorny problem of whether they actually loved one another didn’t really matter. And in the end, wasn’t it all about the children? Didn’t their needs have to come before anyone else’s? It would mean cutting Harry from her life, and all the crazy complications that came with him. As she lay in bed later that night, listening to the steady breathing of her children as they slept across in the other beds and the rumbling of Ged’s snoring next to her, Darcy mused on whether she could live like that. And the answer that came back from the darkness was yes.

  Winter turned into spring. Easter was approaching. Sophie’s strength improved in astonishing leaps with the extra physiotherapy that Ged had found the money for. Darcy didn’t know where he had found it and he didn’t seem forthcoming with the information. She had her ideas; that he had always been a little better off than he claimed and had, for years, been keeping a stash away from her knowledge. Once, that notion would have made her bitter and resentful, but not now. Now she was just glad that he had chosen to spend it on his daughter. They had known it would be a long and painful road, and Sophie couldn’t yet walk, but the new determination in her gave Darcy real hope that perhaps by the end of the year they would see those first truly independent steps. When she thought of that day, Darcy’s heart leapt. It was all she had ever wanted for her daughter, to put right some of the wrongs nature had done to her, and she was closer than ever now to making that dream come true.

  And now she knew what she had to do. In her loneliness, her own need to be loved, she had been blinded by Harry’s attention from what was really important in her life. She cared for him a great deal, maybe she even loved him, but she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of those feelings. Sophie and Jake had to come first.

  The silence they had agreed on when Harry went back to university had not been broken by either of them, and the pain of separation had dulled with time, as it had done before. Darcy set about her new life, determined that she would not lapse. But then the text came through, shortly before Easter.

  I’m home for the holidays next week. Can we meet?

  Her heart ached to say yes, but she ignored the message, not even trusting her fingers to do her brain’s bidding if she replied. Hours later a second message came through.

  Just once?

  Darcy read it over and over. A simple no didn’t seem enough, but everything else would sound cruel and callous at worst, shallow and empty at best. The words didn’t exist to make this right.

  But it had to be done.

  Sorry, I’m spending it with my family. We can’t do this again.

  It’s really over?

  Yes. It’s really over this time. You have to stop contacting me; it will only be more painful for us both if you don’t.

  Darcy waited for a reply, an argument, some kind of response. There was only silence.

  ‘Where are my brown boots?’ Ged’s voice echoed down from upstairs.

  Darcy sighed. ‘How am I supposed to know?’ she shouted back. Turning to Sophie’s hair, she caught the reflection of her daughter’s grin in the mirror.

  ‘Daddy never knows where his boots are.’

  ‘Don’t worry; he can borrow yours if he can’t find them.’

  Sophie wrinkled her nose and let out a giggle. ‘They won’t fit Daddy.’

  ‘And if they did you’d never be able to wear them again for the stink.’

  Sophie’s giggles became louder. It was a sound that Darcy could never get enough of, the most beautiful sound in the world.

  Jake stamped in, his hair gelled in uneven spikes. Darcy threw him a questioning glance.

  ‘I’d have done your hair if you waited ten minutes.’

  He pursed his lips into a scowl. ‘I’ve done it. My way is better than yours.’

  Darcy stifled a grin. ‘Of course it is. I just thought the help would make your morning a little easier.’

  ‘What time are we going?’ he asked, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the floor.

  ‘When we’re ready.’

  ‘We’re never going to be ready.’

  Darcy gave him an indulgent smile. This sulking impatience was Jake’s way of showing that he was excited about their day out. If the truth was told, so was she. It had been a long time since Ged had put aside a day that was especially for them to spend together as a family – no work, no domestic issues to think about, just fun.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll get to the safari park before the lions go to sleep,’ she said as she turned back to Sophie’s plait.

  Ged’s frustrated voice came down the stairs again. ‘Darcy, where are my keys?’

  ‘You left them in the outside lock yesterday, remember? I took them out and dropped them into my handbag.’

  He mumbled something in reply. Darcy didn’t bother to find out what it was. ‘It’s on the dressing table,’ she added, guessing that he was asking where her bag was.

  ‘Can we get ice-cream?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Of course we can,’ Darcy replied, tying the band around her plait and kissing her on top of the head. ‘The biggest we can find.’

  ‘Are we driving through the monkeys?’ Jake put in.

  ‘As quickly as we can,’ Darcy laughed, ‘I don’t want them pulling bits off the car.’

  ‘I’d laugh,’ Jake said.

  ‘Your dad wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’m going to take photos of everything,’ Jake said. ‘I’ll show Miss Pearson after the holidays.’

  ‘Me too,’ Sophie agreed.

  ‘Do you want to take your sticks out, try a little walking outside today?’ Darcy asked Sophie.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not even a few minutes? We can tell Elizabeth at the next physi
otherapy session all about it.’

  Sophie shook her head again, more vehemently this time. Darcy chewed her lip for a moment.

  ‘Maybe we’ll put them in the car in case you change your mind.’

  Sophie looked as though she might argue for a moment until her attention seemed to drift off to the next question. ‘Do they have horses?’

  ‘At the safari park?’

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe zebras.’

  As she said this, Darcy was suddenly struck by how quiet it was upstairs. No thudding footsteps on the ceiling as Ged thundered around the bedroom searching for everything he needed, no mumbling of what Darcy could guess were swearwords.

  Only silence.

  Darcy left Sophie stretched across the sofa and Jake busy sifting through the old photos on his digital camera and went to the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Did you find your keys?’ she called up.

  There was no reply. Darcy hesitated for a moment before she decided to go up. Perhaps his keys really were lost, although she was certain she had put them in her bag after she had found them hanging in the front door. They had messed around long enough getting ready that morning and if they were much later there would hardly be any point in making the two hour drive to Longleat House. It was probably easier and quicker to go and find the keys herself.

  Ged was sitting on the bed. The contents of Darcy’s handbag were strewn across the duvet next to him and he sat staring at something in his hand. As he sensed her presence, he looked up.

  ‘Can you explain why you would need one of these in your bag?’ he asked. His voice was quiet and calm but edged with a barely contained wrath that Darcy recognised well. It was a voice that filled her with a sudden dread, her legs turning weak as she looked closer at the small, square, cellophane packet he was holding.

  ‘I… I don’t know how that got there.’ She didn’t even know why she was lying; it was a stupid thing to do. But she did it anyway. ‘It must be an old one, from when we used them.’

  His face was almost white with rage, but still his voice was quiet and steady. ‘We haven’t needed a condom for two years. I know it’s been two years; the pain of that operation you made me have because you wouldn’t get sterilised is still engraved into my memory. You’re lying.’