Girl Unknown(77)

I couldn’t picture them fighting. The way he fawned over her, Zo?’s sulkiness – it seemed an uneven match.

Holly, having picked out a few items of clothing, disappeared into the changing rooms while I went outside to wait. Zo? emerged with her purchase in an orange plastic bag and, for a few moments, we stood alongside one another on the cobbled street in the shade thrown by the awning overhead.

After all that had happened between us, small-talk seemed impossible. She had a way of standing still, her face impassive, as though she were waiting for me to say something, do something, an expectancy that I found troubling. I noticed she was twisting the ring on her finger and I glanced down at it – a trio of diamonds clustered on a white-gold band. It was an old ring, purchased in the Clignancourt markets outside Paris, they had told us, and both the size and the setting of the stones bore the veneer of age. It was not a very delicate ring – the diamonds looked heavy on her slender finger – more suited to a woman in her thirties or forties.

It was the first time we had been alone together since the announcement of their engagement. I suppose, with the incident at the pool that morning still troubling me, on top of what I already understood of her fickle nature, I couldn’t help but wonder whether she was serious about it or whether her acceptance of the marriage proposal was just another strand to her elaborate game.

‘Have you told your adoptive parents about your engagement yet?’ I asked, thinking about Celine Harte, imagining her hooded eyes growing fractionally heavier at the weight of this news.

‘No,’ she admitted, letting go of her ring and looking around distractedly. ‘They’ll go nuts when they find out.’

‘Oh?’

‘When they hear I’m marrying a divorced man they’ll hit the roof. Not that I care what they think.’

She leaned back against the window, her arms crossed, the plastic bag hanging from her wrist. I had the impression she was affecting nonchalance. Beneath the bravado there was uncertainty.

‘What about your friends?’ I asked. ‘Have you told any of them?’

‘Yeah, a few people. Mostly they didn’t believe it.’

‘I don’t suppose there are many married students in your class,’ I remarked.

‘Nope, apart from the mature students.’

‘It’ll be something of a talking point, I imagine. Your engagement.’

She shrugged. ‘For a little while, I guess. Until something else comes along.’

‘How do you think you’ll manage it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What about parties, nights out with your friends? Won’t it be strange for you, having a husband or a fiancé you must return home to instead of staying for all of that? Won’t you find it limiting?’

She looked at her ring, twisted it on her finger. ‘Not really. Chris is cool – he doesn’t believe that marriage needs to tie us to each other.’

‘Did he say that?’

‘Sure.’

I thought of how closely he shadowed her, the way his gaze followed her around the room, and scepticism inflated within me.

‘After all he’s been through with Susannah,’ she went on, ‘he wants things with me to be different – more free and relaxed. She was such a head-fuck, constantly making demands on him. I’m like the exact opposite.’

‘That’s a little unfair on Susannah.’

‘I know she’s your friend. But she really did give him a hard time.’

‘I’m not saying Susannah is a saint, but I wouldn’t say that of Chris either. Marriage is complicated. Things go wrong – unexpected things. We all start off full of hopes and ideals, armed with the notion that our relationship, our marriage, is going to be a success, but no one can see into the future. Things come along to test us. Are you ready for that?’

She pushed her hair over her shoulder. ‘Is that how it was for you?’ she asked then.

‘Yes,’ I admitted carefully. ‘When David and I got married, I believed we had faced our big trial. I was young and na?ve. We both were.’

‘And now?’

She had put on her sunglasses so that I could no longer see her eyes. I remembered her in my kitchen with my phone in her hand, having read Aidan’s text message. I remembered Holly at the quarry’s edge, the hand reaching out to push her. I remembered all those lies Zo? had told about me, the damage she had inflicted on her own face and then blamed on me, the corrosive way she had come between me and David, and with these memories came caution. I already knew she was dangerous to me.

‘Now things are good,’ I said.

A thin smile appeared on her face. Perhaps I imagined it, but it seemed to contain a grain of pity, which confused and angered me. Behind her through the window, I could see Holly returning the clothes she had tried on to their racks.

‘One thing, Zo?, before Holly comes out. And please don’t take offence.’

‘What?’ she asked.

‘I hope you’re being careful. That you’re taking precautions.’

She laughed and shook her head, making a deliberate show of her mortification.

It had been on my mind since my conversation with Chris that morning. ‘Seriously, though. Getting engaged is one thing. Having a baby is quite another.’