The Forgetting(78)

Glancing at the satnav, she saw they were only forty minutes from their final destination, realised they must now be skirting the edge of London.

From the radio came the trill of a violin, the heavy bass of a piano, the deep resonance of a cello. The digital guide on the car’s dashboard told her it was a piece by Schubert, the Trout Quintet. Turning around, she looked into the back of the car, at the empty space where the baby seat should have been and felt a compression in her chest.

‘Stop worrying. He’ll be fine.’

‘I might just give Mum a quick ring, check he’s okay.’

Dominic exhaled sharply. ‘Will you please just relax? Come on – we’re alone for the first time in months. Can’t you just try to enjoy it?’ He lifted his hand from her thigh, placed it on the steering wheel, hands at twenty-to-four rather than ten-to-two.

‘I know. But it’s the first time we’ve left him—’

‘And it’s the first time we’ve moved to a new city together. It would be nice if you could feign just a little bit of excitement.’

His lips pursed into a thin, tight line and Livvy turned away, looked out of the passenger window.

From inside the handbag at her feet came the ringing of her mobile phone. Her mind raced immediately to thoughts of her mum, to the possibility that something had happened to Leo. She grabbed at her phone, but as her eyes grazed the screen, where the caller’s identity was displayed, her heart leapt into her throat.

A single letter lit up the screen. The letter ‘I’. The letter under which Livvy had stored Imogen’s number as a means of screening any calls. Except she had never imagined that her mother-in-law might phone while Dominic was sitting two feet away from her in a moving car.

With clumsy fingers, she tried to hit the reject button. But instead she somehow pressed the answer button, and before she could stop it, a voice was filling the car through the Bluetooth system.

‘Livvy, it’s Imogen, I just wanted—’

Her thumb found the cancel icon and she pressed down on it hard, cutting off Imogen’s voice, and switched off her phone.

Stealing a glance at Dominic, she saw immediately the icy expression.

‘Why is my mother phoning you?’ His voice was flat, arctic, the tension in the car thick and viscous.

‘I don’t know.’

There was a breath of silence. ‘How does she even have your number?’

Livvy stared straight ahead. ‘I honestly have no idea.’

‘Don’t take me for a bloody idiot. What’s she phoning for?’

‘I’ve said, I don’t know.’ Guilt blazed in her cheeks.

‘For god’s sake, Livvy, tell me the truth. Do me the courtesy of that, at least. Is this the first time she’s phoned you?’

Livvy felt as though she were standing on the edge of a precipice, blindfolded, with no idea how far the drop would be. ‘No.’

‘She’s been in touch before? When?’

The car suddenly felt icy cold, as if Dominic had turned the air con down to its lowest setting. ‘A few weeks ago. She texted, and then she phoned the house—’

‘A few weeks ago? My mother contacted you weeks ago and you’re only telling me about it now? What the fuck, Livvy?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you. You already had so much to deal with, with your dad’s death and all the issues around the funeral. I didn’t think she’d turn up again . . .’

For a split second, Dominic said nothing, and Livvy silently prayed that he hadn’t witnessed her slip.

‘Turn up again? What do you mean?’

Possible deceptions scrambled for prominence in Livvy’s head, but none made any sense. Her thoughts were muddled and she couldn’t think of a decent way out. ‘She came to the house again, about a month ago.’

‘What did she want?’

Panic scuttled across Livvy’s skin. ‘She wanted to give you your dad’s watch, she said he wanted you to have it—’

‘And what did you say? Did you invite her in? Have a cosy cup of tea and a chat?’

‘Of course not—’

‘So what happened?’

Livvy remembered Imogen stepping into the house uninvited, creeping up behind her, transfixed by Leo. She couldn’t tell Dominic that part of the story, not when he was already so angry. ‘Nothing. I told her you wouldn’t want it and she left.’

‘And that’s it?’

Livvy nodded.

‘And she hasn’t contacted you again until today?’

Livvy hesitated a fraction too long.

‘For fuck’s sake, just tell me. It’s written all over your face that there’s more.’ His hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles the colour of chalk.

‘I went to meet her. The day before yesterday. I wish I hadn’t but—’

‘You went to meet my mother?’ Dominic’s voice hardened. ‘In spite of everything I’ve told you, you still chose to go and meet her? To listen to whatever lies she had to tell?’

Livvy shook her head. ‘It wasn’t like that. I thought that if I met her, just once, she might stop turning up at the house.’

Dominic banged a fist down hard on the steering wheel. ‘This has got nothing to do with you. How dare you go behind my back.’