Chapter 63
Lew went back to the hotel to make some calls before he set off to the marital home, including one to an estate agent. He wouldn’t be sorry to say goodbye to Woodlea, not in the way he had to The Beeches which had been full of his dreams and ambitions. The house he was about to sell was just four walls and a roof to him, full of stylish furniture and deep expensive carpets. It was both warm and cold, beautiful and ugly at the same time because it said to him that it was a house for a couple who would never have children running around it, recording their height against the doors. It was a house of failure – and now lies.
As Woodlea came into view, he wished he could fast forward one hour, when what he had to do was done. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing Charlotte at all. She would launch a full emotional offensive; she would cry and beg and scream and absorb the blame, then vomit it back out in his direction. She would make Regina look like Anne of Green Gables because she was desperate to hang on to her comfortable no-maintenance life. He felt drained after a night of rubbish sleep and then having to hear what Gemma had to say; thoughts had been whirring around in his head and the task of dismantling life as he knew it felt enormous. It would be so much easier to talk it through, accept there had been mighty mistakes made, draw a line and continue as normal, purred his brain. Splitting up was a massive task, physically, financially, emotionally. At least he had the money to move out and create distance between him and his spouse whilst the arduous task of extrication took place. No wonder it took Bonnie so long to leave her unhappy marriage.
As he turned up the drive, he noticed Astrid the cleaner’s battered Volvo parked there. He wondered if Charlotte had forgotten to cancel her, or was just carrying on as normal in the hope that the act would force all the jigsaw pieces back into the picture they were supposed to make. Well, I’ll find out in a moment, said Lew to himself, pulling on the handbrake and slipping the ignition key into his pocket.
He walked in through the front door to find Astrid on her knees cleaning the skirting boards. It was a change to look down on her as she was six foot four and used to be a loosehead prop for Frankfurt rugby union club.
‘Guten Morgen, Mr Harley,’ she smiled up at him. ‘Isn’t it a luvverly day? I vish you had more cleaning to do on der outside of your haus. I’d get a reight sun-tan.’
‘Yes, it’s very sunny, Astrid,’ he replied. He’d miss seeing Astrid, he realised. She was a lovely – if formidable – girl and incredibly hard-working. He’d never considered it before, but he wondered now what she really felt about the pampered wife who flittered around her house booking hair and beauty appointments whilst she dusted skirting boards and scrubbed toilets.
Charlotte appeared at the top of the stairs, coiffured and made up, wearing heels and looking more as if she were going out to Firenze than sitting on her backside reading Cosmopolitan. ‘Oh hello, Lewis,’ she said. ‘How was your conference last night?’ She flashed a warning at him in her baby blue eyes to play along with the charade. She was pretending that he’d been away on business so that he wouldn’t cause a scene in front of Astrid. Is she actually serious, said something sarcastic and scathing in his brain that had its arms crossed and was shaking its head in disbelief.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he replied, his tone measured and firm. ‘As you well know, I spent the first of many nights in a hotel because I’ve left you.’
Astrid’s eyes were screwed to the skirting board but her ears were as pricked and receptive as a twelve-foot satellite dish with radar attachment.
Charlotte was, as expected, horrified. Her eyes were firing missiles at her husband, though her mouth was set in a very stiff smile.
‘Oh Lew, you are funny. He’s only joking, Astrid.’
‘No he isn’t, Astrid,’ he rode over her silent command not to wash their dirty linen in front of the cleaner.
Clinging on to her composure, Charlotte descended the stairs in her heels with rushed steps. ‘Stop teasing and let’s go into the kitchen and you can tell me why you didn’t answer your phone over coffee. I was worried sick. I thought you’d had an accident.’
‘Well, as you can see I’m perfectly fine,’ said Lew, admiring the shine that Astrid had put on the parquet flooring. The new buyer would admire that floor because it cost a fortune. Say what you like about Charlotte but she had a flair for décor. ‘And no, I don’t want a coffee.’
They stood at either end of the hallway like two gunmen at the OK Corral.
‘Well let’s just get out of Astrid’s way then.’ Her teeth were starting to clench more now.
‘Don’t worry, I shall be getting right out of Astrid’s way and yours,’ said Lew. ‘Astrid, I’d like to thank you for working for us because my wife was too lazy sitting on her toned arse, filing her nails and arranging assignations with her lover to have cleaned it herself.’
Astrid’s eyes were now superglued onto the same part of the skirting that she’d been wiping for minutes now.
Charlotte squeaked. It was just audible but another semitone higher and it would have been firmly on the canine aural frequency spectrum.
‘So are you going to tell me why you did screw Jason?’ Lew addressed his wife, who was striding towards him now, trying to herd him into the kitchen but he wouldn’t budge before he had apologised to Astrid. It was unfair of him to make her feel uncomfortable.
Astrid nodded a confirmation that she’d heard the apology and then, and only then, did Lew walk into the kitchen and close the door behind him and his wife. He lost no time in repeating the question.
‘So?’ He stood arms folded, waiting.
With no one to keep up appearances in front of, Charlotte’s shoulders slumped as if she had been held up by strings which had suddenly lost their give. Lew prepared for her full Greek Tragedy onslaught.
‘I didn’t plan it,’ she returned, with her volume switched down. ‘I was lonely . . . Please, Lew . . .’
‘We’ve never spent as much time together as we have done these past couple of years so that argument doesn’t hold water does it, Charlotte? You wanted something less conservative and more racy if I remember rightly from what you said at Patrick and Regina’s party. I’m so sorry that life with me was so monotonous for you.’
‘I . . . you . . .’ Charlotte’s face flooded red. She couldn’t defend herself so she launched an attack. ‘I was bored. Your job has always been more important to you than I am.’
‘I’ve been working away all week in London since before we met,’ he replied, calm and collected, at least on the outside. Inside his emotions were raging currents, splashing against his ribcage, hammering on his chest wall to get out. ‘I have never heard you once tell me that the arrangement bothered you.’
‘I couldn’t, could I?’ spat Charlotte. ‘You loved your job. You’d have hated me if you’d had to leave it for me, wouldn’t you?’
‘You didn’t want me to leave it though, did you, Charlotte? You loved the big money I brought home. So much so that you got rid of our baby to keep on having it.’
She gasped and flapped her hand in front of her mouth as if it had the double purpose of fanning more oxygen her way and batting away the accusation. ‘That is not what happened.’
‘So tell me, what did happen?’ Lew was as controlled as she was now agitated. ‘Why did you abort our baby?’
‘I was terrified of childbirth. You weren’t around to talk to. You were always in London . . . I wasn’t sure I’d make a good mother . . . You pushed me into it, Lewis.’
Lew listened to her and had a sudden vision of her picking excuses written on little notes from a tree. He would never get the truth from her because she was too ashamed to admit it, even to herself.
They’d been a couple for sixteen years and yet he was looking at her now as if she were someone he recognised but didn’t know at all. The whole fabric of their relationship had been built on a foundation of lies. She had paid only lip service to their plans to have a family and had she ever loved him more than his money? He thought not. He had comforted her and worried about her so much since her supposed miscarriage. It had contributed to the stress that nearly killed him.
‘I’ll tell you what’s going to happen now, Charlotte,’ said Lew calmly. ‘I have an appointment with a divorce solicitor this afternoon.’ He half-wanted to laugh that he’d been so adamant he’d never be one of Adriana’s clients. ‘And I’ve already instructed an estate agent to deal with the sale of this house. I’ll be showing him round in exactly twenty minutes. Feel free to stay or get out of the way for an hour.’
‘Nooo . . . Lewwwisss.’ Charlotte dived on him, threw her arms around him, sobbed into his polo shirt. He carried on talking, arms by his sides, making himself heard, even above his wife’s wailing. She appeared to have forgotten that Astrid could hear every word.
‘It will happen, Charlotte, so make this as painless for yourself as possible. Sign the papers when they arrive and return them. I advise you to get your own solicitor, though you’ll be paying for it yourself. I’ve stopped the credit cards so don’t use them, oh and you won’t be able to draw any money from the joint bank account – that will remain open to pay household direct debit bills only. You can stay here until the house is sold and I’ll move out, or you can move out and I’ll stay here, your choice. Obstruct me at all, do a Regina and I’ll do my damnedest to make sure you’ll get the bare minimum of what I have to give you. Play ball and I’ll be more fair than you deserve because I want out of this marriage as soon as I can possibly extricate myself.’
Charlotte threw herself back from him angrily. ‘You heartless bastard,’ she said, and her hand came out to strike his face but he caught her wrist and held it firmly.
‘I have never struck a woman in my life,’ he said, rage stinging in his eyes, ‘but I am closer to it now than I ever thought it possible to be. Now I’m going upstairs to pack some more of my things.’ And he pushed her a little to the side yet she careered dramatically into the wall, yelping and holding her arm.
‘It wasn’t a baby yet. It was just a little blob. I’m not a monster,’ she screamed. He didn’t even grace that with a reply as he threw open the kitchen door and strode out to where Astrid was wringing her cloth in her bucket.
‘Just in case you’re wondering, Astrid, I didn’t lay a finger on her.’ He could guess that Charlotte might resort to an accusation of assault, especially if it might lead to more money and sympathy for her. The gloves were well and truly off now and their inner ferals would out. Sadly.
‘I nivver zort that you did, Mr Harley. I am very zorry to hear zat—’
‘Just get on with your bloody work and keep your fucking nose out,’ Charlotte shouted at her cleaner, tottering out of the kitchen and clutching her arm as if it had been broken in fourteen different places.
‘How dare—’ Lew began, but his gallantry wasn’t needed. Astrid had two inches and three stone on him. She straightened up, dropped her cloth in her bucket and put her hands on her hips.
‘Nobody speaks to me like zat,’ she said. ‘I am eine cleaner not eine slave.’
Lew reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He took out five of the twenty pound notes that were in there and pressed them into Astrid’s hand.
‘Astrid, you go home early. I won’t be needing your services any more in this house because it’s going up for sale. Please take this as a little thank you for all the folded toilet rolls and the towel animals, you’ve been a real lady.’
‘Oh Mr Harley, zank you. You ev been a gentleman.’ Astrid’s eyes filled up with tears and she threw her considerable arms around Lew and hugged him. ‘I shell miss you.’ Then she released him, picked up her bucket and strode past Charlotte with an obvious ‘humph’ to collect the rest of her cleaning kit from the kitchen.
‘I hate you, Lewis Harley,’ yelled Charlotte, picking up her handbag and scrabbling around in it for her car keys.
‘Anything else you want to say to me, do it through my solicitor,’ he said coldly, heading for the staircase.
‘I’ll tell you why I slept with Jason,’ she bawled at his back. ‘Because I could.’
Lew didn’t miss a beat. He’d heard so many lies from her that might be true or not. Either way, he was relieved and strangely fascinated to find that he really didn’t care.