Forget Me Knot (23 page)

“In that case, a good meal is precisely what you need. It’ll give you some energy.”

“I know, but I’m not sure I’d be very good company today. Also, I’ll need to look the contract over before I sign it. So could we take a rain check?”

“Sure. No problem.” He paused. “If it would take off some of the pressure, we could delay the filming a week or so…”

“No. Honestly—next week will be fine. I’m just having a rough day, that’s all.” Suddenly she remembered the
It’s a Wonderful Life
DVD. She’d been keeping it under the counter to give him. She reached down.

“For you,” she said.

“Oh, wow. That’s great. Thanks. I’ll enjoy watching it.” He slipped the DVD into his jacket pocket.

“I’ll sign the contract and put it in the post,” she said.

“That’d be great.” He was looking awkward, as if he felt he had overstayed his welcome. “Well, I guess I ought to get going.”

“Sorry about lunch,” she said.

“No problem. Maybe another time.”

“Absolutely.”

OVER THE
next couple of days, she was aware that she wasn’t exactly fun to be around. She did nothing but obsess about what was going on between her and Toby. Hurt as she was at having been given a secondhand engagement ring, the issue paled alongside her ongoing doubts—which were rapidly becoming certainties—about Toby’s sexuality.

It was the knowing and at the same time not knowing that was causing her such torment. Until she knew for absolute certain whether or not Toby was gay, her future was on hold.

This was one conversation she couldn’t wait to be over with. There were times, particularly when the shop was quiet, when the waiting seemed endless and it felt like Friday would never come.

On Thursday night, Abby and Soph were due to have dinner at The Cricketers, a pub in Hampstead where Abby and Toby often ate. It had been ages since the two women had met up for a quiet girly dinner, and Abby was looking forward to it. An evening with Soph would be a break from her constant rumination and introspection.

They had planned to share a taxi to the pub, but in the end Soph called to say that she was caught up in a meeting
at work. She promised she would try to get away as soon as possible. Meanwhile, she suggested that Abby go on ahead and wait for her in the bar.

The pub section of The Cricketers was buzzing with thickets of young professionals winding down at the end of the day. She had to fight her way to the bar. Then she waited ages to get served. She ordered a glass of the house red and looked around for a table. Some hopes. In the end she stood at the bar, sipping her wine and people-watching.

When she first noticed Toby, it didn’t register that it was actually him. This was Thursday and he wasn’t due back until the following day. It had to be his double.

After a couple of seconds, she realized that the man with a male companion sitting at a table in a secluded alcove really was Toby. She was taken aback, but more than that, she was puzzled. Toby had been so anxious to speak to her the moment he got back from New York. Why hadn’t he called to say he was home?

Part of her wanted to go over to him and find out what was going on. Instead, the now-familiar gut feeling kept her rooted to the spot. She carried on watching the two men.

Toby was sitting opposite his companion. She couldn’t see the other man’s face, because he had his back to her. But even from behind, she knew who it was. There was no mistaking the closely cropped hair and mustard-colored turtle-neck. It was that vile creep Christian.

Toby appeared to be drinking Campari. She couldn’t see Christian’s glass. She watched Toby lean in toward him. There seemed to be a great deal of prolonged eye contact— at least on Toby’s part. Abby felt her pulse quicken. Then Christian reached out and took Toby’s hand and kissed it not once but twice.

There was no gasp from her, no “omigod!” She didn’t start to shake or weep. Of course she was shocked—her racing pulse was testament to that—but this came not from the confirmation that Toby was gay but from seeing it with her own eyes. If she’d had to describe her most powerful emotion at that moment, she would have said it was relief.

It was a while before the anger began to rear up inside her. How could Toby have continued to lie to her the way he did? She could hear him now: “I, Toby Kenwood, am not, never have been and never will be gay.” The memory of those words made her feel sick. How could he have been so unspeakably cruel, so callous? And on top of the lies, he was cheating on her with Christian. Toby knew how much she loathed him. Suddenly she felt doubly betrayed.

Christian was getting up to leave. Abby looked on as he took his green quilted jacket off the old-fashioned coat stand—which stood to one side of the table—and slipped it over the mustard sweater. Then he pulled Toby toward him and kissed him. On the lips.

She pushed her way through the crowd and headed for Toby’s table.

“Toby. Christian.” She nodded with faux cheer.

Toby leaped up as if he’d been bitten. Abby could see the color draining from his face. “Abby,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for Soph. We’re meant to be having dinner here. I won’t ask what you’ve been doing here, because I’ve had a pretty good view.… I take it your meeting in New York finished early.”

Toby gave a shamefaced nod. “I’m sorry… I should have let you know.”

An unmistakable expression of valedictory pleasure
passed over Christian’s face, but, to his credit, he said he had another appointment to get to.

Beyond a brief, petrified glance in his direction, Toby barely acknowledged Christian’s departure. “Abby, you’ve got this all wrong.”

“Er, I don’t think so,” Abby shot back. “So, maybe you’d like to explain why we are engaged to be married and at the same time you are having an affair with a man. And with Christian, of all people.”

Toby sat down and stared at his drink. When he looked up again, she could see that his eyes were full of remorse. “I’m sorry I lied.”

“That’s it? ‘I’m sorry I lied’? When I confronted you about being gay, you accused me of having—let me get this straight—a narrow-minded, knee-jerk reaction. Have I got that right? Bloody hell, Toby, you made me feel like I was the guilty party. And then I got really confused because I’d stopped trusting what my brain was telling me.”

“I know. It was wrong of me. I should have been honest with you.”

She burst out laughing at his understatement. “You think? Why, Toby? Why didn’t you have the guts to tell me? I cannot believe you were actually planning to marry me. Have you even the remotest idea of how cruel you were being?”

“I was confused.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right, then. The poor boy was confused. Ah. Did you think we would get married and that I would never find out you were gay? Did it not occur to you that your constant rejection would have become unbearable and that finally the shit would hit the fan?”

“Abby, please sit down. You’re shouting and people are looking at us.”

“I don’t give a damn who’s looking. Let them bloody look.”

“Come on, let me get you a drink.”

“I don’t want a drink. I’m too angry to drink.”

Finally he persuaded her to sit down.

“You are pathetic,” she hissed. “Do you know that? Totally bloody pathetic. Not because you’re gay, but because you didn’t have the balls to tell me.” She was staring at him, her eyes on fire, but he couldn’t look at her.

“I know,” he said. His voice was barely more than a whisper.

“Presumably you thought that by marrying me you’d convince your mother, your law firm and that racist, homophobic rabble you call friends that you were as straight as a ruler? Meanwhile you could carry on having affairs with men.”

“It wasn’t that callous. I was in denial. I thought that when we had children, the gay thing would somehow burn itself out. That was stupid and I’m sorry.”

She was shaking with fury. “Toby! It may have escaped you, but people need to have sex to make children. What’s more, I cannot believe you would have had children purely in order to pander to some absurd fantasy that they might make you straight. Have you any idea how wicked that is?”

“I love you, Abby,” was all he said. There appeared to be genuine sorrow in his voice. “I always have. Just not in the way that you want me to love you. Nevertheless, I thought we could muddle through somehow.”

“No, Toby. You thought
you
could muddle through. You didn’t give a second thought to me or how you were hurting me and any children we might have.” She paused. “So how long has this been going on?”

“It started after the retailers’ association dinner.”

“Well, at least there’s one chink of light in all this,” she said. “You and I haven’t slept together since then, so I can’t have caught anything…. Christ, Toby, if you had to cheat on me with a man, why did it have to be with Christian of all people? You know that the man has spent years terrorizing and bullying me. He refuses to let Scozza even see Debbie Harry. How could you, Toby? How could you?”

“I couldn’t help it. I know he’s not conventionally good-looking, but the attraction was instantaneous. It was pretty much love at first sight.”

“But you were always working. Even late at night, you never failed to pick up when I phoned the office. When did you find the time to have an affair?”

He looked at her, shamefaced. Clearly he had made time.

“I just don’t get what you see in him,” Abby went on. “The man is a first-class creep.”

Toby was having none of this. “OK, let’s get one thing straight. I may have done a terrible thing to you, but I won’t have you talking like that about Christian. With me he is kind and affectionate. I admit he has a few anger issues brought about by a miserable childhood, but I’m really helping him work on them.”

“Well, bully for you!”

She found herself reaching for Toby’s glass and taking a slug of his Campari. “I suppose you could have gotten away with it if I’d been some posh aristocratic girl. That’s the way they live, isn’t it? They devote themselves to horses and good works and accept that their husbands’ infidelities— straight or gay—are par for the course.”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Deep down—your sexuality aside—class was always an issue with us, wasn’t it? Even if you’d been straight, I would never have been good enough, would I? I would always have been the girl from Croydon who never quite fit in with your posh friends. At least Christian has the right pedigree.” A beat. “Toby, I need to know—was Christian the only one?”

“Absolutely. All my life I’ve had only three gay lovers, and the other two were ages before I met you. Abby, please don’t hate me.”

She pretended to think. “Let’s get this straight. You wanted to trap me in a marriage of convenience, but now that I’ve found out, I shouldn’t hate you. Seems reasonable.”

“I do love you,” he said again.

“Oh, spare me the bleeding heart.”

By now there were tears in his eyes. “Abby, I don’t want it to end like this. I can’t bear the thought of you hating me.”

She let out a sigh. Despite herself, she was starting to feel sorry for him. “I don’t hate you, Toby,” she said, injecting some kindness into her voice. “I’m wounded and outraged by your behavior, but I don’t hate you. I understand that you’ve been struggling with coming out, but by trying to protect yourself you hurt me. At work you’re this tough hotshot lawyer, but at the same time you’re scared of being judged. You’re scared of your colleagues, your friends. You’re even scared of your own mother. It’s time to grow up, Toby, and find some backbone. Of course people will judge you. Ask Scozza. Speak to anyone who’s gay. People find the strength to stand up and be counted. Now you have to do the same.”

“I know.”

She got up from her chair. “Good-bye, Toby.”

Just before she turned away, he managed a forlorn smile.

As she reached the door, she almost collided with Soph, who was coming in.

“What’s going on?” Soph said. “Why are you leaving? Hang on, are you crying?”

“Can we talk outside?”

“Sure.”

They stepped into the street.

“Abby, speak to me. What on earth has happened?”

“Oh, I just caught Toby snogging a man, that’s all.”

“What? You’re kidding.”

“Oh, come on. We both knew Toby was gay.”

“Yeah, but still—you don’t deserve to see him in action. Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.” Soph put her arms round her friend and hugged her.

Abby sobbed quietly into Soph’s shoulder. “Apparently I was to be part of some quaintly old-fashioned marriage of convenience.”

“Bastard,” Soph muttered, gently patting Abby’s back. “Where is he? I feel inclined to go over and punch his bloody fairy lights out.”

Abby found herself smiling. “Oh, I do love you.”

“Love you, too,” Soph said as they pulled away from their embrace.

“There’s no need to say anything to Toby. I left him marinating in remorse. Come on, let’s go. I vote we go back to my place, order in a curry and get pissed.

“By the way,” Abby said as they started down the street, “you’ll never guess who Toby was kissing.”

“What? You knew him? God, this gets worse.”

“It was Christian.”

“Christian? As in Scozza’s obnoxious ex?”

“The very same.”

Soph grimaced. “How could he? I mean, that man’s a malicious pain in the ass.”

Abby grinned. “You said it.”