Page 34 of A Brambleberry Manor Christmas
I did as I was told, and Mishti sat beside me until the taxiarrived. And all the time, all I could think was: Who was she? The woman in thedressing-gown, who phoned for an ambulance? Harvey must have been having anaffair. That explained why he’d been distant lately.
I remember nothing about the taxi ride home.
But as soon as I walked into the empty house, I thought ofTavie and that’s when it hit me. Harvey was dead. And I had to tell Tavie. Iwould have to go to the school and get her out of lessons and break the newsthat her darling dad was dead.
On autopilot, barely knowing what I was doing, I walkedalong to the school and in a daze asked one of the staff in the office if Icould speak to Tavie. I remember saying it was ‘an important family matter’ – Irepeated it a few times, in my agitation – and she looked at me a bit oddly,but told me to take a seat and she’d bring Tavie out of her lesson. The poorwoman must have wondered what was going on.
Telling Tavie was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, andthe funny thing was, I found myself telling her that her dad died behind thewheel. I must have known at some level that the real circumstances of his deathhad to be hidden from her.
It was only much, much later, after I’d cried with Tavie andsat with her until she fell asleep, that I finally crawled into our cold doublebed . I lay there, stunned, for much of the night, thinking about numberforty-five Hayden Park Avenue and the blonde woman who’d run out, looking soupset. It felt surreal. Had I dreamed it? Was Harvey going to walk into thehouse any moment now and call up to me that he was home and that he was sorryhe was late but work being extra-demanding right now…
All the time I’d known him, he’d left really early for workand returned late – often after eight. He’d call me when he was on his way homeand that was my cue to put the vegetables on for dinner. It was a routine I wascomfortable with and I’d never had any reason to question it – until now…
The next day, I went round to number forty-five Hayden Park Avenue,and I sat at the bus stop outside the house, waiting for her to appear – thewoman Mishti had mentioned, who called the emergency services. I hadn’t thoughtto ask for her name at the time, but I was going to speak to her and find outwhat Harvey had been doing there.
A woman came out of the next-door house and joined me at thebus stop, asking if the bus into town had been along yet. I told her it hadn’t,and she sighed with relief and said she needed to get some shopping for thewoman next door, who’d had a sudden bereavement the day before.
My heart actually stopped beating for a few seconds.
Then I asked her, quite casually, what had happened.
‘Heart attack, apparently,’ she said. ‘I’m Doreen, by theway.’
‘Jenny.’
‘Well, Jenny, I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,but I never much liked the man. Arrogant and very full of himself. I couldnever see what she saw in him. And they were together for – ooh, months. Maybeeven a year, now I come to think about it.’
‘But he didn’t live there?’
‘Oh, no. She was just his fancy woman. And if you ask me,she wasn’t the only one. I feel very sorry for her. It must be terrible havingsomeone drop down dead on you like that. But she still shouldn’t be thinking ofgoing to the man’s funeral.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I stared at her. ‘Your next-door neighbour is going toHarvey’s funeral?’
‘Oh, yes. She’s set her mind on it. I said to her, but whatabout his family? And she laughed and said it was her he loved and that she hadevery right to be there, at his send-off. And what’s more, she was going to sitright in the front pew.’ Doreen shook her head. ‘Imagine that.’ She frowned atme. ‘Hang on, how did you know he was called Harvey?’
‘Oh…I think you mentioned it?’
‘Well, I don’t think I did.’ She looked at me suspiciously,but luckily, I was saved any further scrutiny by the arrival of Doreen’s bus.
‘Aren’t you getting on?’ She looked back at me, puzzled.
‘No.’ I stood up. ‘I’ve…got things I need to do. I need toget home.’
As the bus pulled away, I got back into my car and drovehome, going through every detail of what Doreen had told me.
By the time I got home, I realised I’d been living in afool’s paradise. Harvey had clearly been in a relationship for some time withthe mysterious occupier of number forty-five Hayden Park Avenue. And accordingto Doreen, there had probably been others. How many? Had he been seeing otherwomen all the time we were together?
Anger was swirling around inside me, mixed in with thegrief, and the knowledge that I’d been deceived on such an enormous scale.
At home, I curled up on my bed – grateful now that Tavie hadinsisted on going to school today – and I sobbed for a long, long time, until Ihad no tears left.
Then I sat on the edge of the bed and I made a vow tomyself.
I would be fine. But Tavie?
My heart ached for her, and I knew I had to protect her fromthe truth of her dad’s death. She could never find out about Harvey’sdeception; his cheating and his lies. I wanted her to remember him as shethought he was – a lovely family man, who’d never do anything to hurt us. Butwhat about the funeral? What if that woman did what she’d threatened to do, andsat in the front pew, making it clear to everyone who she was?
