The Memory of Midnight (35 page)

Inside, beautifully rolled in neat lines, lay an array of lingerie. Lacy bras. Wispy thongs. Silky camisoles and French knickers. Suspenders and gossamer stockings. Everything that Martin had
insisted that she wore. Everything she had left behind in London.

Sick at heart, Tess stared down into the drawer. How was Martin doing this? Why was he doing it? Her blood felt thick and sluggish with fear until an unfamiliar sensation began to throb through
her veins. It was so long since she had felt it that it took her some time to recognize what it was.

Rage.

She was angry.

Angry with Martin; angry with herself for ever having loved him. Angry with Ralph, and with Tom for leaving her to endure alone. Fury surged through her. It filled her up, pouring into every
cell, shimmering to the ends of every nerve, making her bigger, taller, stronger, like a new leaf unfurling in the sun. It felt better than guilt, better than shame, better than fear.

Slamming the drawer shut, she fetched her phone.

‘How dare you come into my flat?’ Her voice shook with rage when Martin answered. ‘How
dare
you?’

‘Theresa?’ He drew a breath of satisfaction. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to call.’

‘You had no right to come in here!’

A tiny pause. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I know it’s you. I know you’ve been here.’

‘Darling, calm down and tell me what the problem is.’

‘
You’re
the problem! I don’t want you in here, Martin. This is my home.’

‘Theresa, Theresa,’ said Martin soothingly. ‘You’re overwrought, darling. And no wonder, trying to manage everything by yourself. Isn’t it time you stopped this
silliness and came home so that I can look after you?’

Too late, Tess realized her mistake. What a stupid thing to do! Now Martin would see her getting in touch as weakness on her part. Her solicitor would be cross with her. She had specifically
told Tess to avoid all contact with Martin, but Tess had been too angry to think clearly. Martin would be recording the call, she was sure. ‘Look,’ he would say, waving his phone
records at the judge, ‘she said she didn’t want to hear from me, but she was the one who rang
me
.’

Fool. Fool, fool,
fool
.

Should she end the call now, or try and retrieve something from the conversation? Tess swallowed her anger and strove to sound reasonable. If they could have a rational conversation, perhaps all
might not be lost.

‘I’m not going back to London, Martin,’ she said. ‘This is my home now.’

‘That poky little flat!’

Tess refused to rise to his contempt. ‘How do you know it’s poky?’ she asked, hoping that he might incriminate himself and wishing that she had thought to record the
conversation herself.

‘Your mother told me.’

‘Mum?’ Her fingers throbbed painfully as they tightened around the phone.

‘She’s very worried about you, Theresa, and so am I. She says you’re very tired and very tense, and that you’re not sleeping well. That’s not good when
someone’s as highly strung as you are.’

‘I am not highly strung!’ So much for her resolve to stay calm and reasonable.

‘It’s not
me
that says that – it’s your own mother. She knows what an overactive imagination you have. You’ve blown everything out of
proportion.’

‘Am I imagining the fact that you made Oscar sit in his room when you came home every night?’

‘Theresa, I’m very tired at the end of the day. I work really hard to keep you and Oscar in the lap of luxury, and I don’t think a little peace and quiet is too much to ask in
return, do you?’

‘Oscar’s
five
. He’s too young to be shut in his room.’

‘Five’s old enough to understand discipline. Oscar needs to learn to consider others.’ Martin’s voice thinned. ‘You overindulge him, Theresa. If you treat him like
a baby, he’ll act like one, and he’ll turn into a mummy’s boy. I’m not having anyone say that about my son. If you persist in this ridiculous charade of asking for a
divorce, I will sue for custody of Oscar and bring him up myself.’

Impotent rage and frustration dropped over Tess so heavily her legs almost buckled. ‘Do not you dare take him from me, Ralph,’ she said stonily.

There was a silence. ‘Ralph?’ said Martin.

Aghast at the slip of the tongue, Tess clapped her free hand over her mouth. What had she done?

‘Stay away from us, Martin,’ she said, hoping to recover, but of course Martin wasn’t going to let something like that go.

‘Ralph?’ he said again in a glacial voice. ‘Who is Ralph?’

‘No one,’ she said desperately.

‘
No one
? And how is this “no one” part of your life and the life of my son?’

‘He isn’t! He isn’t anyone.’

‘He’s an imaginary person?’ Martin’s words dripped with disbelief and Tess struck the heel of her hand against her temple in frustration. What had she been thinking?

‘It was just a mistake.’ She drew a breath, tried to move on. ‘Look, Martin, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Oscar and I are happy here. You don’t want to live with
a small boy. You said yourself that you need peace and quiet. Please, just sign the divorce papers and let me go.’

‘Let you go?’ Martin echoed blankly. ‘
Let you go?
’ A polite laugh, as if she had tried a feeble joke. ‘No, Theresa,’ he said pleasantly.
‘You’re my wife. The sooner you accept that you belong here with me, the better it’ll be for you – and for Oscar.’

‘What’s this about you having food poisoning?’

Vanessa had rung that morning, suggesting that they take the children to the Museum Gardens. ‘Let them run around somewhere different,’ she had said breezily, sounding so much her
old self that Tess almost wondered if she had imagined the tension between them the last time they had met.

‘I’ve got a hidden motive, I have to confess,’ Vanessa said.

‘Oh?’

‘I don’t get a chance to run when the kids are on holidays. I wondered if you’d mind watching Sam and Rosie for me while I get some exercise. I won’t go far, just along
to the Millennium Bridge and back.’

‘Of course,’ Tess had said, relieved to have restored her relationship with Vanessa. ‘It’s a brilliant idea.’

Getting out of the flat was just what she and Oscar had needed. Oscar had been whiny all morning, and Tess herself on edge all week. It had been raining on and off since the school holidays
started, and trapped inside the flat in Stonegate, she and Oscar had grown increasingly fretful. It was too gloomy to be inside all day. The air was dark, damp and disquietingly taut. Luke had
changed the locks, but Tess was still alert to the slightest sound, jumping at every noise from the street below in case it meant Martin was at the door, and whirling at shadows, terrified that
Nell would drag her back and make her forget Oscar again.

Luke had finished the shelves, and Richard’s books were stacked in order. Tess missed Luke’s fierce presence more than she wanted to admit. He was busy on other jobs now, and
although he had dropped round once or twice to see Oscar, who was always asking for him, Tess had been skittish, wanting him to stay, wanting him to go before she forgot how determined she was to
stand on her own two feet. She wanted to be friends, but she wanted to be more than friends too, and the arguments for and against circled endlessly in her head until she was worn out and ready to
decide that it was easier not to see him at all. She was still on edge, waiting for Martin, waiting for Nell, never knowing when either might appear. Casual friendship or passionate affair, it was
crazy to even think about embarking on a relationship of any kind until things were resolved.

When she’d tried to explain that to Luke, he hadn’t argued. He had just looked at her for an uncomfortably long moment before shrugging. ‘If that’s what you want,’
he’d said. ‘It’s up to you, Tess. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’ve got my number. Call me if you need me.’

So then, of course, she couldn’t call without sounding needy.

All in all, she had been glad when Vanessa had rung. After the last few dreary days, the sun had finally come out and the gardens were crowded with people sprawled on the grass or strolling
along the paths, feeding the squirrels or playing Frisbee, or dutifully admiring the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey. Surrounded, Tess let herself relax. There was safety in crowds, surely, from
both Martin and Nell.

Once Vanessa had jogged off, Tess was happy to sit with her book, keeping an eye on Oscar as he chased pigeons with Sam and Rosie. She refereed the occasional dispute, but they were absorbed in
some game, the rules of which she didn’t try to understand, and in the end she was too lazy even to read and she leant back on her hands to watch the city expanding in the sunshine around
her.

But now Vanessa was back, pink with exertion. She dropped onto the grass beside Tess and began doing a complicated series of stretches, bending low over each knee to hold first one ankle then
another.

‘Food poisoning?’ Tess was caught unawares by Vanessa’s question.

‘Your mother said you’d been sick when you were out with Luke the other day.’

‘I didn’t realize you talked to Mum.’

Vanessa lay back and stretched one leg above her. ‘Hard as it is to believe, Tess, we’re both worried about you. Or have you forgotten that you passed out in my kitchen?’

‘You didn’t tell Mum about that, did you?’

‘Of course I did. You’d want to know if Oscar had passed out, wouldn’t you?’

What else had Vanessa told her mother? If her mother knew about Nell . . . Tess felt sick. It would be just the incentive her mother needed to call Martin. But if Vanessa had carried through her
threat to contact him herself, surely she would have said something? And Martin would have been here already.

‘I just had a bad piece of fish or something. I was vilely sick.’

‘What were you doing with Luke anyway?’ Vanessa had her leg up by her ear now. Tess couldn’t imagine ever being that flexible. She hunched a shoulder, feeling clumsy and tense
and defensive, just as she had at fifteen.

‘We went to Lincoln,’ she half-lied.

‘
Lincoln
? What on earth for?’

‘It’s an interesting city. The cathedral’s lovely. It was nice,’ Tess added defiantly.

Up went the other leg. ‘Your mum thinks Luke’s a bad influence on you.’

‘I know.’

Her mother had been frigidly disapproving when Tess eventually turned up with Luke on their way back from Lincoln the previous weekend. ‘She never liked him.’

‘Mothers usually know what’s best for their children,’ said Vanessa, then she held up her hands in mock surrender at Tess’s glare. ‘Just saying. I think it’s
a very bad idea for you to get involved with him again.’

Her words flicked on the raw indecision festering inside Tess. She didn’t want Vanessa to tell her what to do about Luke.

She didn’t want Vanessa to be right.

‘I’m not
involved
with Luke, Vanessa,’ she said tightly. ‘As you pointed out the other day, I still haven’t been able to extricate myself from my marriage
and the last thing I want to think about right now is another relationship.’ All true, so why did she feel so leaden? ‘Luke and I are just friends.’ She got to her feet to end the
discussion. ‘I’m going to get an ice cream. Would Sam and Rosie like one?’

‘I don’t usually encourage them,’ Vanessa began, but the children had already seen Tess get up, and some sixth sense had them running over, clamouring for the treat. ‘You
can come and choose,’ Tess said to them, laughing. ‘Van, do you want one?’

‘Oh, go on then, since you all are. No extra chocolate, though. It’s unhealthy enough as it is.’

The children chattered as they queued at the van, and Tess smiled down at them, enjoying their delight in such a simple pleasure. She loved seeing Oscar animated like this. He would never have
jumped up and down and tugged at her hand impatiently in London. Whatever it took, she would make sure he never went back to the timid child he had been.

She handed down the ice creams once each of them had made their agonizing choice, and Oscar ran off with Rosie and Sam. Tess followed more slowly, licking her own cone and enjoying the warmth of
the sun on her back.

‘Here you go.’ She passed the ice cream down to Vanessa and then froze, still half stooped, as her eye snagged on the little boy standing in the shade of a tree behind. He had a cap
tied over his fair hair and was wearing a linen smock and as she stared at him, he lifted his arms towards her.

Tess’s heart stopped. ‘Hugh,’ she whispered.

‘What? Who’s Hugh?’ Vanessa looked up and her expression changed as she looked over her shoulder to where Tess was staring. ‘Tess, you’re creeping me out.
There’s no one there.’

Tess didn’t hear her. ‘Hugh.’ She sank to her knees, the ice cream falling unnoticed from her hand. ‘Sweeting.’

‘Hush now, sweeting,’ Nell crooned, trying to keep her voice steady. Gently, she wiped a cloth over Hugh’s face. He tossed restlessly in the bed as the fever
burned him up. Sweat slicked his skin and plastered his hair to his head.

Her sweet boy was dying.

The sickness had sliced viciously through the city without warning. At least it’s not the pestilence, folk told each other, but what difference did it make? Nell wondered bitterly. Hugh
was still going to die.

He was only three.

One of the maids fell sick first, but she recovered, so when Hugh turned pale and listless, Nell told herself he would get better too. But he was not getting better. His small body, once so
sturdy, was wasted and the fever shook him like a dog with a rat. He no longer even had the strength to cry, although he must have been hurting.

Nell cursed her own helplessness. All her skill in the still room counted for naught now. She had tried every remedy she could think of. Even prayer, though her heart surged with resentment
against a God who could visit such suffering on a small child.

Ralph had a horror of sickness and hadn’t been near his son, although he was impressing the neighbours by the amount of time he spent on his knees in church. When he did come home, he was
irritable. He took Hugh’s sickness as a personal affront. He did not love the boy; he loved the idea of a son. And he objected to the way the child was consuming Nell’s attention.