Out of My Depth (35 page)

Amanda felt nauseous. ‘Susie can’t come. I’ll get Patrick over.’

‘But we’ve got his car.’

‘He can take Susie’s. If she’s back from the hospital.’

Roman thought about this. ‘Not Susie’s. Mine. The insurance covers anybody. But he’s still going to have to tell whoever’s around where he’s going. And also he’s going to see you sitting here with me, and all our empties.’

Amanda waved that concern away. ‘Oh, Patrick doesn’t get steamed up about things like that. But how am I supposed to call him when we’ve got no money?’

She was wretched. Five minutes earlier, she had been having a fabulous, glamorous, irresponsible time with a sexy man and a bottle of fine champagne. Now it all looked sordid and unpleasant. It said nothing good about her, or about Roman, or about either of their relationships. They should both be dumped for this, she realised. She knew she wouldn’t be. Somehow, that fact was phenomenally depressing.

‘He’s got a pile of coins in the car,’ she remembered. ‘He keeps them for emergency phone calls, and road tolls.’

Roman raised his eyebrows and motioned with his head for her to fetch the money. He did not look happy.

I was too tired to force a smile. I poured a drink for everyone who was there, and felt furious about those who weren’t. They had all known that there were drinks on the terrace at seven, just the same as there had been last night. Amanda was missing, with her children. And Roman was missing. Roman could be anywhere. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care. Roman came and went as he pleased. We had a laid-back relationship because we trusted each other. We liked it that way. That was the party line. I imagined myself asking for more. I pictured Roman running a mile.

‘Here, Izzy,’ I said, handing my friend a large vodka and tonic. Izzy took it with a grateful smile, and I noticed that her hand was shaking slightly. ‘You’ve earned that,’ I added. ‘God knows.’

‘You’ve earned more than this,’ Izzy told me, and held her glass up. ‘Cheers to you, Susie,’ she said. ‘Cheers to your Formula One driving.’

I nodded, then brushed her appreciation away. It already felt as if the race to the hospital had been inevitable, as if its outcome had been inevitable.

‘Cheers to Sam,’ I said, and we clinked glasses. ‘Is he sleeping?’

‘Like a baby. Much better than a baby. It’s early for him, but he needs it.’

‘Of course he does. He’s got a lot of recovering to do.’

‘I’ll be checking on him all night, though. Susie, I know I said this already, but they said five more minutes could have been critical. The way you drove — it literally saved his life.’

‘We should probably have called an ambulance. But it’s so hard to direct anyone here, specially when you’ve got a foreign accent. I just didn’t want them not to find us because I couldn’t give the right directions.’

‘I know. You did it. You were the ambulance.’

‘Well, I’m unspeakably relieved he’s OK. And if I feel like this, I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.’

Izzy sipped her drink. ‘Mmm. A strong one. Better every second.’

Tamsin came over. I smiled at her. We had bonded, during the hospital dash and, particularly, during the euphoric relief afterwards.

‘No sign of Amanda?’ she asked. ‘I’d have thought she’d have the children back by now. What with their schedule and everything. Patrick says he has no idea where she’s gone. She’s not even insured for that car, apparently Not to mention the fact that she has to be drunk.’

I shrugged. I didn’t particularly care where Amanda was, and if she was drink driving, that was her responsibility. ‘What can you do? It’s their domestic situation, isn’t it? Sorry, Patrick.’ I realised suddenly that he was standing behind me. ‘Sorry. I didn’t see you. But really, what can we do? Do you want me to go out and look for them? Because I’d have no idea where to go. And what would I say if I found her?’

I looked curiously at Patrick. He was such a mild man. There had to be a kind of masochism on his part, in remaining married to Amanda. A part of him had to enjoy being sworn at and belittled. I wondered if he was embarrassed at having his eventful domestic life laid bare like this. He didn’t look it. In fact, he was smiling. He was probably enjoying having Amanda out of the way. It gave him more leeway to leer at Tamsin.

‘She’ll be back,’ he said. ‘In her own good time. I’m actually quite pleased that she’s taken the kids out. It’s not like her to want to do that.’

‘You mean, take them somewhere to play?’ said Tamsin, with a smile. ‘Maybe she’s found a university summer school and enrolled them for advanced calculus.’

He nodded. ‘It’s a possibility.’

Amanda had guessed that I was going to tell Tamsin about the night of the ball. I was certain that she had done a runner. Had scooped her children into the car and driven off to the airport on an impulse. I looked at the sky. Clouds were building. I sensed an August storm coming, and I hoped Amanda and the children weren’t going to get caught up in it, because the storms here could be vicious.

‘Here.’ I waved to the mosaic-topped table. ‘Patrick. Tamsin. Drinks for you. I made them all quite strong because I thought Izzy needed it.’

Nobody had commented, yet, on Roman’s absence. I felt that the gaping hole in my own life was exposed, yet none of them was noticing. Izzy knew about Natasha, and I was sure she was wondering about the superficial relationship we had. Izzy knew as well as I did that you couldn’t call someone your soulmate if they didn’t even know you’d had a baby.

‘I don’t know where Roman’s got to,’ I added, experimentally. ‘Did anyone see him this afternoon?’

‘Nope,’ said Patrick. ‘Definitely not here when I was looking for Amanda. I checked everywhere.’

‘Even the attic?*

Patrick frowned. ‘Attic? No. Didn’t know there was anything up there.’

‘It’s Roman’s little playhouse,’ I found myself saying, scathingly, and I swallowed half my drink in one gulp. ‘He’s probably hidden away up there.’

‘I don’t blame him,’ Tamsin said lightly. ‘I know I’ve never had a boyfriend who would have hung around a gathering like this for long.’

‘Mmm. True,’ I agreed, and my mood lightened. Perhaps it was normal for a man to keep out of the way when his girlfriend’s old schoolfriends were in the house. I remembered that I had left the phone off the hook impulsively, after I spoke to the police. I nipped into the study, and replaced it, then checked the time.

It was a quarter to eight, which was time to get the starters on the table. Luckily, it was a goat’s cheese salad which didn’t require any cooking. As I was dishing it onto plates for those who had bothered to turn up, I heard footsteps on the shingle path that bisected my front garden.

They were back. I stood in the door frame, and smiled at Jake and Freya. They looked shattered but at least they were smiling.

‘Hello, you two,’ I said. I was happy to see them. My evening was saved, after all: only Roman was missing, presumed upstairs. ‘How are you doing?’

Freya frowned. ‘Did you wonder where we were?’ she demanded.

‘Yes, of course. We’ve all been wondering where you were, but since your mum was with you, nobody worried.’ I looked past them, to the road. ‘Where is she?’

‘Mum?’ asked Jake. ‘Mum’s not with us.’

‘Oh.’ I thought about this. ‘But you’re OK?’

‘We are now.’ Freya looked upset. She looked as if she was about to cry. I put a hand on her shoulder, and ushered her into the house. ‘Come and find your dad. Oh, God, look at you! What on earth have you been doing? You’re filthy!’ Their faces were clean, but the legs that poked thinly out from their shorts were encrusted with dirt.

‘We had an adventure,’ Jake assured me solemnly. ‘Please may I have some water?’

‘Water? Yes, of course. Look, go to the terrace and I’ll bring it to you.’

‘Thanks,’ the children said in unison, and they were off. I saw them looking at each other, confused.

I poured two large glasses of water and put five ice cubes into each of them. I took the children’s pasta — animal shapes, with tomato and basil sauce — out of the fridge and tipped it into a pan to warm up. I had already cooked it for Sam, and there was lots left over. Jake and Freya had, I thought, looked starving, so I took two packets of crisps from my top cupboard and took them outside with me. I would normally put crisps into bowls, but I had a vague recollection that, if you were a child, crisps were better from the packet. That would stop the adults stealing them, too.

‘. . . I mean, really for hours,' Jake was saying, emphatically. Patrick’s jaw was slack and he looked guilty. Jake was pointing at the field next door. ‘I can see why, now. It’s because it joins on to the field above it, just right there, so we crossed over to the next field without realising it, so we were chugging all the way up that hill. We were so lost. We thought we’d never get out. It was really hot.’

‘I’m sure it was.’ Tamsin looked as if she wanted to laugh, but in a nice, incredulous way. ‘So, hours later, what happens? You emerge where?’

Freya had her hand in Izzy’s, but she let go to take her drink and crisps. ‘Thank you, Susie,’ she said politely. ‘We came out on a tractor path, somewhere up there, but we couldn’t see anything because of the maize. So we walked along it for ages, and I wanted to lie down and have a rest but Jake said better not, and then a man came in a tractor, and he was really, really surprised to see us. Jake talked to him because I was too scared. It was really hard to understand what he was saying.’

‘Did he have any hair?’ I interjected.

Freya smiled. ‘No, he didn’t have any hair at all.’

‘That’s Pierre. He has the farm over there. He’s a nice guy. Did he help you?’

Jake took over. ‘He knew you. As soon as he heard me trying to talk French he asked if we were staying with you. So I said yes, and he drove on a bit to where he could turn the tractor round, and we jumped up, which was pretty good fun, actually, and he took us back to his house. We aren’t meant to go with strangers, but we couldn’t do anything else because we were so tired and lost. His wife was surprised to see us too, and she rang you but it was engaged all the time. So she gave us water and she made us wash our hands and faces, and she gave us each a sandwich with ham in and we sat at her kitchen table for ages. It was quite hard to try to talk to her, but she was nice and she asked if we were on holiday and stuff like that.’

‘We could see that she didn’t know what to do with us,’ Freya interjected. ‘So in the end we said we’d come back here even though she wouldn’t get through on the phone. Because we knew everybody would be here.’

‘But she didn’t want to let us wander off,’ Jake said, ‘so she said when we get back we had to get Susie to ring to say we were safe.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll call her now.’

That should definitely have been a task for Roman. He would have charmed the hatchet-faced Bernadette. Instead, she was going to think I was irresponsible. I shook my head, wondering why everything that was going wrong was involving children.

The phone rang as I walked towards it. I snatched it up.

‘Susie, it’s Neil Barron,’ he said quickly. I did not try to judge his tone, but hung up, waited a few seconds, and picked it up again. I knew he was redialling, so I punched the number in quickly.

There was something bothering me, too. I listened to the phone ringing up the hill, and at the same moment that Bernadette answered, I realised what it was.

‘Oh, bonjour, Bernadette,' I said. ‘C’est Susanna. Oui, merci beaucoup pour votre aide avec les enfants.’ I reassured the woman that they were fine, and pretended that everyone at the house had been looking for them and that this had somehow involved lots of phone calls which was why the line was engaged. I knew Bernadette didn’t believe me. I knew that this very proper farmer’s wife saw me as a strange and exotic weirdo who had no idea about the correct way to conduct one’s life. I could hear her now, talking to her friends and tutting about what a good thing it was that Susie and Roman didn’t have any children, because they clearly had no idea how to look after them, and did you know, they’re not even married?

I thanked the woman again, and hung up. ‘If the children are here on their own,’ I asked the telephone, ‘then where the fuck is Amanda?’

Patrick was wondering the same thing, and I bumped into him on his way indoors.

‘Sorry,’ he said. He looked depressed. ‘Wondering where Amanda’s got to.’

‘Hang on a second,’ I said, and sprinted upstairs. When I came back down, Patrick looked at me with a vague puzzlement.

‘Oh, Patrick,’ I said, and suddenly I could keep it up no longer. I took him by the hairy forearm and sat him down at the dining table. He was at the end of one of the long sides, and I took the short side at right angles to him. ‘Patrick,’ I said, ‘I don’t know where Amanda is, but Roman’s gone too. I bet they’re together.’

Patrick seemed to cheer up a little. ‘Do you think? I’d like to think she was with a responsible adult.’ He looked at me. ‘You don’t agree?’ he added, uncertainly.

‘No,’ I said. ‘If they’re together, it’s bad, not good. Roman is a wonderful man, but he can be as irresponsible as Amanda, just differently. They’d spark each other off, I can see it. Encourage each other. They’re getting drunk somewhere together. I doubt they’re actually . . .’ I looked at the table and back into Patrick’s eyes. ‘I doubt they’re being unfaithful to us. I don’t think Roman would do that to me, and I’m sure it’s not a trick in Amanda’s repertoire.’ Because Roman and I had never seriously discussed a permanent commitment, I had no idea whether he planned to stay with me in the long term or whether he liked me because I paid the bills. I was deeply insecure about every aspect of our relationship, and at that moment I could only imagine that he was unfaithful to me at every opportunity. Perhaps even with Amanda.