One Night in Italy (33 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Coraggio
– Courage

The last time Catherine had felt so apprehensive was when Matthew and Emily were collecting their A-level results. But that was nothing on the dizzying, almost paralysing cold-sweat fear that gripped her as she walked into the Plough two days later to meet Mike. Here we go, round one, seconds out. Not literally, of course, although Penny
had
advised her to ‘twat him one, for God’s sake’. Still, she would say her piece if it was the last thing she did. She had to.

On the phone beforehand, she’d been deliberately vague, telling him that she wanted to meet up to discuss ‘the future’. ‘Fine, I’ll drop by after work,’ he’d said in that curt, too-busy-to-speak-to-you manner of his. No doubt he thought she was going to start weeping and begging to stay in the house again. Think again, Mike.

‘Let’s meet in the pub,’ she’d suggested, and he’d agreed, thank goodness. She figured he wouldn’t be able to go completely ape at her in a public place, although she wasn’t taking anything for granted.

He was already there when she arrived, halfway through a pint. ‘So what’s all this about?’ he asked as she slid into the chair opposite him, clutching a glass of wine.

Hello to you too, Mike. How are things, Mike?
Whatever. They didn’t have to bother with pleasantries, they could cut straight to the main event. She took a deep breath and dumped the pile of paperwork – bank statements and conference brochures – on the table. ‘It’s about this,’ she said, adding Rebecca’s business card on top with a final flourish.

He looked at the pile in front of him and then up at her, alarm in his eyes. Then, after a split-second of naked panic, a mask slipped back across his face. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘And why the hell have you been going through my private papers when you have no right?’

‘I mean, I know what you’ve been doing. All this money, the sweeteners from Schenkman,’ she said, trying to keep her cool. She had never been good at confrontation and her instinct was to bolt, to scurry away, apologizing for poking her nose in. Then she thought of the anguish on Sophie’s face and remembered how important this was. ‘And I think it’s
disgusting.
’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, making a grab for the bank statements. ‘I’ll have those back, thank you very much.’

‘I think you do know,’ she said. It was like playing chess, she thought, her heart thumping. Advance and block, advance and block. Mike had never been one to lose an argument willingly. ‘I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.’

‘Catherine . . . You’ve come out with some stupid things in the past, but this –
this
really takes the biscuit.’ He was rattled, she could tell. She could almost see his brain whirring behind his eyes, trying to compute a feasible excuse. Forget it, sunshine, she wanted to say. There’s no way you’re sliming out of this one.

‘Really? And how’s that, then?’

‘Because you’ve got it completely . . . You’ve jumped to the most insane conclusions,’ he snapped. Any pretence of civility had vanished now. ‘Thought you’d go snooping around, did you? The woman scorned and all that bollocks.’ He glared at her. ‘This is about the house, isn’t it? You getting your knickers in a twist because I want to sell it.’

‘It’s not about the house,’ she replied, trying to keep her tone even. She wished now she’d taken Sophie up on her offer to come along too and back her up. ‘It’s about you doing the wrong thing. Thinking of yourself before your patients. Nearly killing Jim Frost on Christmas Day.’

He jerked his head so fast he was in danger of giving himself whiplash. ‘What do you know about Jim Frost?’ he said, gripping her wrist.

‘Enough to know that it’s no thanks to you he’s still alive,’ Catherine said. ‘Let go of me.’

‘Is this some kind of blackmail?’ he hissed, his fingers tightening. ‘Is that what it is? Trying to play dirty, are you? Trying to get some of my money?’

‘I don’t want your stinking money,’ she said, struggling to get her wrist free. ‘Let go of me, I said.’

He shook his head, eyes narrowed. ‘My mum always reckoned you were a gold-digger,’ he said. ‘To think I used to stick up for you!’

‘I’m not a gold-digger,’ she said, but her voice was wavering. Damn Mike. Damn his rotten mother. He could always push her buttons in the worst kind of way.

‘Look at you, sitting there with your self-righteousness and your “evidence”,’ he said scornfully, flicking his other hand at the pile of papers. ‘You thought you were so clever, coming here tonight, didn’t you? So fucking clever! Well, I’ll tell you something for nothing, Catherine. You’re nothing but a—’

A white-hot rage suddenly burned through her as he ranted on. She had come here prepared to be reasonable but within five minutes he’d resorted to playground bully tactics. Let’s put Catherine down again. Let’s make Catherine feel stupid again. And she
had
felt stupid and worthless, the whole time she’d been married to him. But she wasn’t with him any more – and she wasn’t stupid either. The only stupid thing she’d done was not sticking up for herself sooner.

‘One of my friends is a journalist,’ she said, interrupting him. ‘She already knows about this whole story. I’ve photocopied everything for her.’

That threw him off his stride. For about two seconds, anyway. ‘Friends? You don’t have any friends,’ he sneered. ‘Only Penny. And nobody in their right mind would ever take
her
seriously.’

‘I do have friends,’ she said quietly. ‘And all I have to do is call the one who’s a journalist and ask her to run this story. Now
let go
of me or I’m going to start shouting.’

He dropped her wrist as if it was burning him and her hand banged down on the table. The skin was chafed and red where he’d held it. ‘I’m not going to let you hurt me again,’ she said quietly. ‘Not ever.’

‘What? For crying out loud, Catherine. There’s no need to be so dramatic about all of this.’

She raised her eyes to his and met his gaze full on. How she hated him. ‘Oh, I think there is,’ she replied. ‘Now. Why don’t you just admit you’ve done something wrong? Then we can talk about how you’re going to put it all right.’

Mike hadn’t exactly capitulated and admitted his guilt in the way she would have liked, but Catherine still felt the most enormous thrill of pride whenever she played the scene back to herself afterwards. She had done it. For once, she had actually stood up to Mike even though, surprise surprise, he’d tried his usual trick of knocking her straight back down. This time she hadn’t let him, though. This time she’d won the battle.

‘You’ve got to stop taking their money and speaking at these conferences,’ she’d told him baldly once he’d realized that she was deadly serious about blowing the whistle on him. ‘What’s more, you’ve got to stop prescribing those bloody drugs! What if Jim Frost had
died
? You’d have blood on your hands, Mike. Is that what you want?’

‘I did what I thought was best,’ he said in a low voice, but she wasn’t having any of that.

‘You didn’t, Mike. What’s got into you? A few years ago you wouldn’t have dreamed of prescribing drugs that you weren’t completely certain about. You were always a good man. What changed that?’

He put his head in his hands, seemingly penitent at last. ‘I don’t know what to do, Cath,’ he said in a muffled voice. ‘I’ll call off the estate agents, tell them I’ve changed my mind. Will that be enough?’

She stared at him, appalled that he still appeared to think this was all about her.
Enough?
she felt like saying. Enough for whom? Not for Jim Frost or any of the other poor buggers he’d fobbed off. ‘Oh, wise up!’ she snapped instead. ‘Who’s talking about estate agents? This is about
you
doing the right thing. I think you need to have a word with your own conscience before you make any decisions.’

He raised his head. ‘And what about the journalist? What are you going to tell her?’

This was so weird. Mike –
vulnerable
? It had never happened before. ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ she replied. ‘Let’s meet again in a few days and you can tell me your plans. In the meantime –’ she got to her feet and picked up the pile of brochures – ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

And out she’d walked, head in the air, knowing he was watching her go. Knowing, too, that he wasn’t feeling quite so cocky any more.

Since then, the buzz of self-respect and go-girl attitude had stayed with her, fizzling around her like some kind of power-shield. For the first time ever, she’d been brave, she hadn’t let him trample all over her. It felt amazing.

Fired up with her new confidence, when she went to the garden centre the next day and saw a sign on the door advertising vacancies in the nursery, she didn’t hesitate to pick up an application form. Why not? Nothing had come from the snooty suits in the temp agencies yet, and grubbing around with seed trays and plants was far more her style than high heels and make-up anyway. Growing things made her happy.

While she browsed around for the bits and bobs she needed, she remembered what George had said about his guerrilla gardening exploits. Before she knew it, she’d chucked some extra sunflower seeds into her basket and was wondering where she could secretly plant them. It was astonishing what beautiful flowers could grow from one tiny seed, she thought, as she queued up to pay. She hoped the tiny new seed of confidence inside her would flourish and bloom, too.

‘When did you get into this – gardening, I mean?’ It was Sunday, and Catherine had rearranged her other voluntary work to come along to the community allotment George had told her about. It was a vast space with an orchard, two fields of vegetables and an old Victorian glasshouse. There were loads of people there too, all working together while their children raced around playing tag. Catherine was helping George cover one of the vegetable patches with old tarpaulin to kill off the weeds, weighing down the corners with broken bricks. ‘Have you always had green fingers?’

‘Yeah, since I was a lad,’ he replied. ‘My dad had an allotment and I used to help him; it was our thing.’

‘That’s nice,’ Catherine replied, with a sudden memory of Mike spending hours with Matthew, making and painting Airfix models together.
That was our thing
, she imagined Matthew saying fondly to some woman in the future. ‘Does he live round here, your dad?’

‘Not far,’ George replied, heaving a log onto the edge of the tarpaulin with a thud. ‘Bakewell way.’

‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘And you’re close, are you? Do you get to see him much?’

‘Most weeks,’ he said. ‘He’s on his own now – my mum died a few years ago. I try to pop round when I can, help him out with little jobs, you know.’

‘I remember you saying the other night, he struggled when she was ill,’ Catherine said. ‘That must have been hard. I’m sorry.’

He straightened up and gave her a small, brief smile but there was a flash of pain in his eyes. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Well, this is done. How about we start cleaning out the glasshouse next? Could do with a scrub down before we get the planting underway in a few weeks.’

‘Sure,’ she said, hoping she hadn’t just put her foot in it somehow. Everyone had their fragilities.

The glasshouses certainly hadn’t seen a lot of TLC recently. Grimy and cobwebby, the panes thick with muck, there was a graveyard of dead plants at one end, a couple of small citrus trees overwintering in pots and a lot of empty space besides. George filled a bucket with warm soapy water, and he and Catherine began cleaning the grubby panes, flicking away curled-up woodlice and dead spiders as they went.

‘So when am I going to meet the rest of your family, Catherine?’ George asked conversationally after a while. ‘Do you think they’ll come down here to help out one day?’

‘The rest of my . . . Oh,’ she said.
Er, never?
‘Well, my kids have both gone away to uni now, and my husband . . . He’s left as well. Basically.’

‘Ahh.’ He looked mortified. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realize.’

‘Yeah. I kind of downplayed the whole abandoned wife thing in Italian class,’ she said, trying to sound breezy and upbeat about it. ‘Doesn’t tend to be a good conversation starter.’

‘I bet.’ They scrubbed in silence for a few moments and she felt awkward. The admission was a conversation ender too, clearly.

‘It’s fine though,’ she said bracingly before the silence could open up too wide. ‘I mean . . . you know. I’m getting on with it.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and all that.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. Time for a change of subject. ‘How about you, are you married? Any kids?’

‘Not any more,’ he replied. ‘No kids. My marriage broke up a couple of years ago, so I kind of know what you’re going through.’

She concentrated on a particularly grubby bit of glass so that she didn’t have to look at him. ‘What happened?’

‘We were living in London, both lawyers, can you believe,’ he said, and she tried not to look too surprised. Dressed as he was now in faded black jeans, a thick blue fisherman’s jumper and muddy wellies, with a day’s stubble around his chin, she couldn’t picture him in a sharp suit, addressing a courtroom. ‘Then Mum became ill and I took some time off so that I could come up here and help Dad. There’s only me, see. No brothers or sisters.’

‘Ahh,’ Catherine said.

‘After Mum died, I felt torn in half. Dad was so helpless, didn’t have a clue how to look after himself. Mum had always done everything for him,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile, there’s Jess back in London, fed up with me not being there and asking when I’m coming home.’

Catherine felt for him. ‘Impossible choice.’

‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘We talked for a while about us both moving up here, relocating. A lawyer can work in any city, after all. But she . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. She’s Home Counties, always was a bit patronizing about Yorkshire, reckons it’s all flat caps and whippets. I guess it didn’t fit in with the image she had of herself, of how she wanted us to be.’

‘So you moved back up and she didn’t?’