Page 122 of One in Three

The stairwell smells of urine and cigarettes, and the cheap, scarred orange linoleum clearly hasn’t been replaced since the property was built in the Sixties. What the hell is Caz doing, dumping her mother in a place like this? She and Andrew have enough resources for them to afford something better. There’s a story here; I cansmellit.

The door to 243 is wide open, like every other room I’ve passed. The residents are subjected to bed baths and catheter changes in full view of anyone happeningto walk past. I knock pointedly on Ruth Clarke’s door before entering, but the woman in the wheelchair by the window doesn’t even look up.

‘Mrs Clarke?’ I say. ‘Do you mind if I come in?’

For a moment, I think she hasn’t heard me. Then she looks over her bony shoulder, and I suddenly see how Caz will look in thirty years’ time. The woman has the same fine features and high cheekbones, which are scaffolding for crepey skin grown grey from lack of sunlight. She has the same deep-set blue eyes as her daughter, too, though her hair is stringy and pulled back into an unflattering knot at the nape of her neck. But she is still beautiful, in her way.

‘Who’re you?’ she snaps.

‘I was married to your daughter’s husband,’ I say baldly.

Her gaze sharpens suddenly. She nods to herself a couple of times, then abruptly swings her wheelchair away from the window. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘I’d like to talk to you, if you can spare a few minutes.’

‘It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to be,’ she says acidly.

I glance around the room as I sit down in the only chair available, opposite her. There are no personal photographs anywhere: no pictures of Ruth holding Caz as a baby, or Ruth herself on her wedding day. The room is as bland and sterile as if she’d just moved in this morning, though I know she washed up here more than seven years ago. It doesn’t take a trained psychologist to see that leaving your mother to rot ina loveless cell like this is not the sign of a healthy relationship.

‘So what d’you want to know?’ Ruth asks.

‘All of it,’ I say.

Chapter 27

Caz

Andy leans across the kitchen counter to kiss Kit, holding his tie to the side so it doesn’t dip into his cereal. I try not to notice that just a few weeks ago, he’d have come around the island and kissed me too. ‘Don’t forget, the kids will be here this weekend,’ he says, straightening up. ‘You need to clear all that shit out of Bella’s room. You can’t just use her bed as a dumping ground.’

I want to point out that until a week ago, that room was my study. But now that the kids are coming up to London for their weekends, Andy has decreed that Bella needs her own space, so that she can have friends stay over.

It’s not all bad. Giving up my office has earned me lots of Brownie points with Bella, which will drive Louise crazy.

‘By the way,’ Andy calls, as he opens the front door. ‘We’re going down to Devon next week on Friday morning, now, not Saturday, so you’ll need to take the day off work. Celia’s invited us to a family dinner atthe hotel on Friday night, and it makes sense to be there the day before the party, so we’re not in a rush.’

I chase him down the hall. ‘We’re not still going to the party?’ I demand incredulously. ‘After what Louise did?’

‘Of course we’re still going,’ he says shortly. ‘Nothing’s changed. I’m not ruining Celia’s big day because you and Louise had a bit of a tiff.’

‘A bit of atiff?’

‘Caz, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but you need to sort it out. This weekend will be a chance for you both to put it behind you and make peace.’ He glances in the hall mirror, and straightens his tie. ‘I have to go, or I’ll be late for the morning briefing. We can discuss this later.’

‘She turned up at our house with adead cat!’ I exclaim, catching his arm. ‘I’m not letting our son within a half-mile radius of her!’

He shakes me off. ‘I’m going to the party, and so is Kit. It’s up to you if you want to stay home and sulk.’ His expression hardens. ‘And he’s my son too, remember.’

‘Andy—’

He’s gone. I go back into the house, my entire body trembling. I feel sick and slightly dizzy. I don’t know what’s happening to us. Andy has never spoken to me the way he did just now, dismissing me as if I don’t matter. I’ve never seen him look at me like that, distant and unreachable. In all the years we’ve been together, there has always been fire and heat andfeelingbetween us, even when we’ve fought. But for the past week,ever since the police came round, he’s been clipped and cold and surgically angry, almost precise in his dislike. I wonder if this is what he was like with Louise, in the dying days of their marriage.

Four years ago, when Andy finally left her, I thought I’d beaten her. But my victory was Pyrrhic from the start. Andy didn’t leave Louiseforme. I won him by default. He turned up on my doorstep, incandescent with rage and misery, not because he’d finally realised he couldn’t live without me, but because he’d discovered Louise had cheated on him.

It’s been a cancer at the heart of our relationship, slow-growing but always there. He didn’t choose me.He never chooses me.

I sink onto the bottom stair, the same place I sat last week to protect our son from his ex-wife’s lunacy, and bury my face in my hands. Most couples start their relationships in a cocoon of intimacy, but for Andy and me, that precious, irrecoverable time was marred by constant running battles with Louise. Somehow, we survived and made it into clear waters. She’s never gone away, a permanent thorn in my side, and Andy and I have often rowed about her, but she’s never driven a wedge between us like this. A month ago, I wouldn’t have thought it possible we’d end up here, more bitterly divided than we’ve ever been. We’re teetering on the brink of something from which I’m not sure we’ll be able to return.

Somehow, I pull myself together, and finish getting ready for work. I drop Kit at his nursery, and headtowards the tube, grabbing a latte to go and trying to clear my head so I can concentrate on the day ahead of me. Patrick has stemmed the haemorrhage of clients after the Vine debacle, but I’m well aware I have a lot of ground to make up. I can’t afford another missed step now.

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