It seemed several years later that the man smiled, long enough, anyway, for sweat to break out in the small of Nicholas's back despite the air-conditioning.
'Hah!' Andreas said. 'It's good to see that ex-wife of yours didn't take your arhidia, as well . . . Okay, Nicholas. I like a good comeback story. You tell me a little more about this project. And then we will talk money.'
It took her several rings to answer. When she did, she sounded hurried, as if she had run to pick it up.
'It's me,' he said, grinning.
'I know.'
'You've put me into your phone?' He was surprised by her audacity.
'Not exactly. You're Sheila.'
He stood in the street, the London traffic roaring past, belching smoke, the aroma of dirt and fast food rising from the shopfronts around him. If he pressed the phone firmly enough to his ear and blocked the other, he could just make out birdsong in the background, could picture her standing in the field by the woods, could smell the honeyed scent of her hair against his skin.
'I had to tell you,' he said. 'I got the money.' He felt as if he had passed some kind of test, as if it had been the final step to his resurrection. He felt like a somebody again. All these things he wanted to tell her, knowing she would understand. He wanted to do it for her. She had given him a reason to prove himself.
'Oh.'
'I'll probably come up and meet the woman after the weekend. I was wondering if I could see you at the same time.'
'You're going to make her an offer?'
'Something like that.'
Her silence lasted long enough to make him uneasy. 'Are you okay?' A lorry's brakes let out a screech beside him and he strained to hear her.
'It's strange. The thought of that house being redeveloped.'
'Would you rather they lived there together?'
It was a mean shot, and he was ashamed as soon as he said it. 'I'm sorry,' he shouted, against the traffic. 'I shouldn't have said that.'
He detected a break in her voice as she said, 'No, you're quite right. It would be unbearable. Better it goes to someone else.'
'Listen,' he said, not caring about the curious glances of passers-by, 'we'll find somewhere better. Somewhere with no bad memories.'
He could not hear her response.
'Laura. I love you,' he said. It had been years since he had said those words. He said them again. 'I love you.'
There was a slight pause. 'I love you too,' she said.
Laura turned off her phone and took a few deep breaths before she went indoors to allow the glow in her cheeks to subside. She had found it hard, these last days, to believe that Matt couldn't see what was written on her face, was so visible in her walk. She had always been able to tell with him.
She carried Nicholas's touch on her skin. His words of endearment floated in her mind. They didn't stop the hurt, but they dulled it, reduced the effects of Matt's demolition job on her sense of self. This man loved her. This kind, cultured man loved her. She had not only slept with him, just hours after meeting him, but she had told him she loved him. Laura McCarthy was nearly forty, a boring pillar of the local community whose airing cupboard was organised with military efficiency and who always had enough food in the freezer to knock up a meal for twelve. Suddenly she wondered who she was becoming.
Matt was in his office. 'I'm going to the shops. Are you not working today?' she asked politely. She no longer offered him a mug of tea; even when he said yes these days, he would leave them to go cold. She would find them, untouched and congealing, on sideboards and tables. 'I thought you'd be working across the road.'
'Waiting on materials.'
'You couldn't go to the Dawson job instead?'
'They cancelled.'
'Why? I thought they were happy with the quote.'
'Don't know. They just cancelled.'
'Matt, is this anything to do with what happened at the pub?'
He kept his eyes on the desk, lifting pieces of paper and putting them down again.
'Anthony said a little, but I thought you might tell me what actually happened.' She kept her voice neutral. She didn't want to provoke an argument. She didn't tell him about the neighbours who had refused to meet her eye in the supermarket, or of how Mrs Linnet had muttered darkly that Matt should be ashamed of himself when she had passed her in the car park.
'Gossiping like all the rest,' he said dismissively.
'Asad's in hospital, Matt.'
'It's just asthma. He's fine.'
'It's never "just asthma". He's an old man, Matt, and you could have killed him. What's going on?'
He pushed past her towards the filing cabinet and began to pull out drawers, lifting and replacing files. 'He got on my nerves, okay? We had an argument. He got an asthma attack. No big deal.'
'No big deal? And why are we taking Byron off the payroll? It was only a few weeks ago you wanted him put on the books.'
He seemed to be looking for something. Suddenly she realised that the invoices were in a shambles. All the paperwork relating to the various jobs was muddled and lay in chaotic heaps where it had fallen on the desk. Matt was meticulous with his paperwork. He liked to know exactly where he stood, account for every last penny. She had never seen him before with his papers in such a mess. I don't care, she told herself firmly. Soon this will be someone else's problem. Soon I will be with someone who appreciates me. Would you rather they lived there together?
'Matt?' This distant, hostile man was her husband. She couldn't understand how they had fallen apart so comprehensively, so fast. Don't you know where this is headed? she asked him silently. Another man has just told me he loves me. A man who spent several hours last week in a London hotel room worshipping my naked body. A man who says his idea of heaven would be waking up next to me, only me, every morning of his life. A man who says I am everything to him. Everything.
But Matt didn't care. He loved Isabel Delancey. Laura cleared her face of emotion. 'Matt? I need to know where he is so that we can get the paperwork straight.'
'I don't want to talk about Byron,' he said, flicking through a ledger. He didn't even look up.
She stood there for a moment longer, then turned away and walked down the stairs.
Another long, hot day eased into evening. In the clearing in the woods, there were new layers of sound: the playing of a violin after the clattering accoutrements of supper were cleared away, the barking of an overexcited puppy, desperate to chase balls, the distant musings of a teenage girl on a telephone, filtering through the open windows of a tired old house, and the occasional piercing whine of a mosquito, followed by a determined slap.
Byron sat in his chair in the boiler room, his eyes trained on nothing. Those sounds had become familiar to him over the past two months, the backdrop to the end of his day. Now he tried to guess what sounds would filter through his future life, and none of them was welcome: the incessant low roar of traffic, the blaring television heard through paper-thin walls, the endless ringing of competing mobile telephones. The sounds of too many people in too little space.
When he had first come here he had been filled with shame. Now he felt oddly at home in what was essentially a dark, dirty outhouse. He was still haunted by the sounds of prison: the endless clang and slide of metal doors, the thumping music from other wings, a voice raised in argument or protest and, underneath it all, the buzz of threat, of fear, anger and regret. Compared with that, these Spartan surroundings spoke not of homelessness but of a strange freedom, something civilised and warm close at hand. A different way of living. It meant being close to Thierry, Isabel and Kitty, hearing Isabel's easy laugh as she strode through the trees at dawn, to hear her, lost in sound, to watch, while trying not to watch, the faint shadows of anxiety that were never far from her face. If his situation and his past were different, he might have offered more than edible weeds and firewood.
Byron forced himself to get up. Reflection was a route to misery. He moved around the room, gathering his few belo
ngings into neat piles, his muscular frame moving easily in the gloom. He heard the door open and Thierry edging in with the puppy at his heels. The boy held out a bowl filled with raspberries and wild strawberries, cream and a homemade biscuit.
'Tell your mum you were eating this outside, did you?'
Thierry grinned.
Byron gazed at him, this good-natured, silent child, and felt suddenly guilty at what he had to tell him. 'Come on,' he said, gesturing towards the door. 'Can't have you going without your pudding. We'll share it.'
She'd got lucky with the weather, this summer, Byron thought, as he and Thierry played cards afterwards, trying to stop the puppy stealing them off the crate he used as a table. The taste of the berries lingered in his mouth. Perhaps she was a natural at growing things. Some people were.
'Snap,' he announced. Thierry still wouldn't say it aloud. He gave a grunt and an emphatic slap. Byron took the cards, smiling at the boy's rueful grin. Thierry had grown taller since he had lived in the house, his sad pallor replaced with freckles, a quick smile and a healthy glow. But with his emergence from grief into the happiness he showed when he was adventuring outside or playing with his dog, why would he still not speak?
Byron coughed quietly and cleared his throat. Then he dealt new cards. He did not look at the boy as he spoke. 'I have to tell you something, Thierry. I'm, ah . . . I'm going to move on.'
The boy's head jerked up.
'There's no work for me here,' Byron explained gently, 'and nowhere proper for me to live, so I have to pack up and go somewhere else.'
Thierry was staring at him.
'I wouldn't go if I didn't have to. But that's the thing about being grown-up. You need a job and a roof over your head.'
Thierry pointed upwards.
'I can't hide out here for ever. I must have a proper home, especially before it starts to get cold.'
The boy was trying hard not to show it, but Byron could see his devastation and knew it mirrored his own. 'I'm sorry, T. I've enjoyed your company.' He had grown accustomed to Thierry, hanging from the branches of trees, racing the dogs, his brow knitting with concentration as he checked the honeycomb of a morel for insects. There was a lump in Byron's throat and he was glad that the little room was still fairly dark. 'Sorry,' he said again.
He reached behind him to stroke Meg's head for an excuse to turn away. Then Thierry moved round the table to sit next to him. He rested his head against Byron's arm. They remained like that for a few minutes. Isabel's music reached a crescendo, then stopped. He could hear the same note played again and again, as if in question.
'I'll let you know where I am,' Byron said quietly. 'Write you a letter if you like. You can come and visit.'
There was no movement.
'You haven't lost me, you know. You've got Pepper, and I've got his mum, so we'll be linked that way. And there's always the phone.'
The telephone. A useless device. Byron looked down at the mop of dark hair. He waited a few moments. 'Why won't you talk, Thierry? I know you can. What is it that's so hard to say?' Byron couldn't see his face, but something about the child's intent stillness made him wonder. His voice caught in his throat as he said, 'Thierry, did something bad happen?'
There was a faint but imperceptible nod. He felt it against his arm.
'Something other than what happened to your dad?'
Another nod.
'You don't want to say.'
The boy shook his head.
Byron waited. Then he spoke quietly. 'You know what I do when something bad happens? I tell Meg or Elsie.' He let this sink into the silence. 'Dogs are very useful things. You tell them something, and they always listen. But they never let on. How about you tell Pepper and I'll sit here and not listen?'
No movement. A bird, disturbed, flapped its wings noisily outside.
'Go on, T. It'll be a weight off. You'll see.'
Byron stared at the wall as he waited in silence, then finally, just as he was about to give up, he heard a faltering whisper. The scrape of the puppy's paws as it wriggled in the boy's arms. And as Thierry's voice tailed off, Byron closed his eyes.
The sun, a fiery red ball, sank behind the trees, sending out vivid streaks that showed only as the faintest glints through the canopy of leaves. Isabel walked beneath them, trying to keep the melody in her head, fingering invisible strings. Once, music had run like a continuum through her mind, barely interrupted by the demands of her children, her conversations with her husband. Now it was frequently interrupted, disjointed by the realities of everyday life.
Today, as with most days, it was money. Matt's latest bill had not come in, but according to her little book, thousands were owing on plant hire and new windows. She had thought the sale of her violin would provide a cushion for her and the children, see them through to the other side of the building work, but it was unfinished, and now Mr Cartwright was talking about capital gains tax. 'Why should I have to pay tax on the sale of something that belongs to me?' she had asked him, appalled, when he brought up the topic on the telephone. 'All I'm trying to do is survive.' He had no answer. She had sold her jewellery, everything but her wedding ring. And she was still watching her savings shrink with every passing week.
'Brahms,' she said aloud. 'Second movement. Come on, focus.'
It was a vain hope this evening, but she had found that walking through the woods helped. It wasn't just the constant low-level noise of her home: the television, Thierry and the puppy, Kitty's mobile. The real noise was silent, so much more invasive. The house no longer felt like a refuge: it was a series of problems, a reminder of jobs still undone, work still unpaid for.
She hesitated, glancing through the trees at the lake. It was at its most beautiful at this time of day, the sun's last rays a vivid pathway across the water, the birds almost silent as they settled to roost. She could ask to defer payment until she had sold the house. She could try to borrow. She could pay Matt with all the money she had left, and hope they could support themselves until more work came through for her. Isabel sat down heavily on a tree stump. She could curl up here and forget everything.
'Isabel?'
Byron was silhouetted against the sun, his large frame black against the trees. She jumped to her feet, trying not to appear as startled as she felt.
But he had seen it.
'I didn't hear you,' she said. She couldn't see his face.
'I did call.'
'It's fine,' she said, too brightly. He was so broad across the shoulders - his whole body spoke of strength, solidity. Now, though, she couldn't help but think of the damage such strength could inflict, the menace implicit within it. Since he had walked out of the house several days previously, Byron, her gentle, awkward accomplice, had become a stranger to her, the things she had thought she'd known smashed away by Matt's words.
'I was on my way back to the house,' she said, determinedly upbeat. 'Did you want something?' She found herself walking towards the lake, as if being in daylight, out of the shadowy confines of the woods, was safer.
When he turned, he seemed more nervous than she felt. It was then that she saw he was holding out letters. She took them, observing that there was something familiar about the handwriting. Both envelopes had been opened. 'I didn't read them,' Byron said, 'but Thierry did. I should tell you . . . He thinks . . . it's not safe to talk.'
'What?'
Isabel read the first fourteen lines of beautiful, looping handwriting. She stared at the words written by the unknown woman. The woman who had been unaware that Laurent had died, that he was not avoiding her. She reread the note, trying to make sense of it, forcing herself to recognise the truth. This had to be a joke, she told herself, half beginning to laugh. Then she read it again.
It was the letter Kitty had tried to make her read all those months ago when Mr Cartwright had shamed her into looking at the Pile. One of the first letters she had received, barely a week after he had died. She hadn't opened it - she hadn't opened anything for months. Why
had Thierry taken it?
It couldn't be right. The second had been forwarded from Laurent's office, and as she read the urgent words her heart, what she had believed remained of it, dropped into an abyss.
No, she said silently. And the music was gone. She was left with the deafening silence of her own wilful ignorance. No. No. No. No. Byron was still standing there, watching her. And she realised that he had known what the letters contained. What was it he had said? He thinks it's not safe to talk. Not her husband. Her son. And her sense of betrayal was overwhelmed by another emotion. 'He knew?' she demanded, holding up the letter, her voice quivering. 'Thierry knew about this? He's been carrying it all this time?'
Byron nodded. 'The woman delivered the first by hand. He recognised her. And later he saw the other in a pile of letters.'
'Recognised her? Oh, God.' And now it all made sense, and she was engulfed by her husband's betrayal, by her own ignorant betrayal of her son, who dared not speak because he knew too much. And now there was nothing left of the little family who had once lived in a warm house in Maida Vale. Because there were no memories, no innocence, nothing she could salvage from that car crash. Isabel sank back on to the tree-trunk. There was no one who could help, no one who could make this better. And she could no longer even mourn the love of the husband she had lost, because she knew now that she had lost him long before.
'Isabel? Are you okay?' The question sounded so stupid, hanging between them.
Thierry, she thought blindly. She had to go to Thierry.
She stood up a little shakily. 'Thank you,' she said politely, unsure how she had forced her voice into such a semblance of normality. 'Thank you for letting me know.'
She walked briskly towards the house, stumbling on the rough ground now that the light was ebbing. The woods rose and fell around her, blurred at the edges. Byron was beside her. 'I'm sorry,' he said.
She spun round. 'Why? Did you sleep with my husband? Did you drive the lorry that killed him? Did you traumatise my son into silence? No. So don't be ridiculous. It's nothing to do with you.' She was a little out of breath and the words sounded shrill and unforgiving.
'I'm sorry to have brought you bad news,' he said. 'I just thought you should know for Thierry's sake.'
'Well, good for you.' She stumbled over a fallen tree-trunk.