The Love of My Life(80)

Emma’s hair is shiny in the glow of Jill’s carefully placed lamps. I want to empty her wine all over it. She has shown no respect for me and Ruby, no consideration. She’s allowed me to uncover her double life and then just deserted us to carry on running secret missions, as if we’re no more than props.

‘Leo,’ she says, and I can see she’s speaking carefully, so as not to sound drunk. ‘I’m sorry. I was going to call after Ruby’s dinner. But I . . . To be honest, I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me. You said you needed a couple of days before you were ready to talk to me. I’m just respecting your wishes, darling, I . . .’

‘I said I needed what?’

Her face changes, just fractionally, and I see her rewinding something in her head.

Slowly, she turns to look at Jill.

‘Jill?’ she says.

Jill’s standing in the doorway to her kitchen, wine glass still in hand. Her knuckles, wrapped around its stem, are white. She’s not enjoying my first visit to her flat.

‘I had to help Emma with something today,’ she says. ‘I can’t really talk about it, I’m afraid. But it was vitally important.’

I swap my car keys from one hand to another. ‘Concerning the adult child she has? The one I knew nothing about? Concerning her relationship with Jeremy and Janice Rothschild? Her dismissal from the BBC when they learned she’d been convicted of harassment? I think you probably can afford to tell me.’

Silence.

There’s music playing in the kitchen, something folksy and not really suited either to Emma or Jill. A mournful voice sings about a train disappearing down the line, down the line, down the line, guitar picking miserably along in the background.

Emma’s hands have flown to her mouth. She stands up. ‘No,’ she whispers. ‘Leo, no . . . Oh please no . . .’

‘I’ve been at Jeremy Rothschild’s house this evening,’ I tell her. ‘I was there because I was terrified, Emma, terrified something awful had happened to you, so I went to find out what he knew, because he’d been messaging you about meeting up. He told me everything.’

Emma sits back down, abruptly.

‘No,’ she repeats. ‘No.’

‘Yes.’

The song finishes and Jill disappears to turn the music off.

My wife’s face is ashen. ‘Leo, this isn’t how you were meant to find out.’

I dig my key into my palm. ‘I wasn’t meant to find out that way, no. I was meant to find out through you. Ten years ago. Nine years ago. At quite literally any point in our relationship other than tonight, via Jeremy Rothschild.’

‘No,’ she whispers again.

‘But instead of telling me, you disappeared to hang out here and drink wine. With no explanation, no regard for my feelings. Emma, what the hell?’

Emma looks at Jill, who has reappeared in the kitchen doorway. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so uncomfortable. ‘I was doing something important,’ Jill says, but she sounds very uncertain. Then she looks at me. ‘I got her and Charlie together.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I got Emma and Charlie together,’ she repeats. ‘And . . . Look, I’m sorry I went about it in such an underhand way but I had one chance to make it happen, and I took the decision to go for it.’

I turn back to Emma. ‘You met Charlie?’

She nods.

I run a hand over my face. This is not my life. My regular, messy little life with my wife and child.

‘But Leo,’ Emma says. ‘Do you mean . . . Look, did you, or did you not, tell Jill you needed a couple of days to think? She said you weren’t ready yet. So I came here.’

I laugh, incredulously. ‘I did tell Jill that I needed a couple of days. You’re right. But I said that on Saturday morning. I said on Saturday morning that I needed more time. It’s Monday night now. The “couple of days” have passed. We were meant to meet this morning.’

We both turn to Jill, whose face is puce.

‘I’m sorry I fudged the details,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry to both of you – genuinely – but I think the really important thing is that we’ve got Emma and Charlie into a room together for the first time in nearly two decades.’

Exhausted, suddenly, I lean against the wall. ‘I’ve reported you as a missing person,’ I say to Emma. ‘I called all the hospitals. Olly and Tink are at our house looking after Ruby. Even Sheila’s got involved: that’s how I found out you were here.’

‘Oh God,’ Emma gasps. ‘Ruby doesn’t think I’m missing, does she?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. Although I’d probably have had to tell her tomorrow.’

Emma looks like she’s going to be sick. ‘Jill. How could you do that to a small child?’ She stands up, then sits down again, perhaps realising how much she’s had to drink. ‘What were you thinking?’

Emma has told me before that in all the years she’s known Jill, she has never – not once – seen her cry. So it’s a shock for us both to see tears bulge in Jill’s eyes.

‘I just wanted you to meet him,’ she says. Her voice is breaking. ‘I just wanted to make it happen, without Leo or anyone else involved. Nothing was more important than that.’