He swallowed his fear and met his wife’s gaze head on. ‘Well, Sorrel,’ he said, ‘whatdoyou want?’
‘I’d like you to put these bags in the garage ready for when we have a full car-load to take to the charity shop, and then …’ she paused as the expression on her face softened imperceptibly and the corners of her mouth lifted into the faintest of smiles, ‘… and then I want us to put our children and friends out of their misery. We’ve tortured them for long enough. Ourselves too.’
‘Does that mean you don’t want a divorce?’ blurted out Rachel, and again before Simon could speak.
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Sorrel replied. ‘Is that what you want, Simon? Can you forgive me for what I did?’
He went to her, fumbled awkwardly for a moment to remove the heavy bags from her hands, then took her in his arms, gently at first, almost scared that she might push him away, but she didn’t, so he crushed her to him. ‘Of course I forgive you,’ he said hoarsely, burying his face into her hair and breathing in the beautiful familiarity of her. When he finally released her, they looked about the room and realised they were alone. Rachel had gone.
‘That must be the first discreet thing our daughter has ever done, disappearing like that,’ remarked Sorrel. She then tipped her head back to look at Simon, and he knew she was going to say something serious, something that forced him to hold his relief in check.
‘I can’t unsay all those unkind things I said to you, Simon, but I want you to know, it wasn’t really about you; it was me I was trying to lash out at. I hated myself for being so weak, for loving Alastair the way I did, for being blinded by what now seems like an obsession. Can you really forgive me when you know that I’ve spent the greater part of our marriage living a lie?’
‘We’ve both lied, Sorrel; I told you that before.
‘Yes, I know, but often the greatest lies are those which aren’t actually said aloud, they’re hidden out of sight and cause the worst damage.’
‘That might be true, but we can’t keep saying sorry to each other forever. We have to let go of it all.’
Once more a flicker of a smile softened her expression. ‘It’s a shame we’re not Catholics and we could make a one-time confession and have done with it.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, we’ve made our confession, and forgiveness has been given. So let’s wipe the slate clean and start anew. I’ll even throw in the promise to pick up my socks, and to stop whatever else it is that I do that annoys you. Perhaps you could make a list?’
‘If only life could be that simple,’ she said with a small shake of her head.
‘Life is as complicated as we want to make it.’
‘That sounds like something Danny would say.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose it does. Now then, about these bin bags.’
It was when he was in the garage, putting the bags of Alastair’s things on the spotless floor – Alastair always did like his garage to be as neat as a pin – that all over again, he felt the loss of his friend. It hit him like this at least a dozen times a day. Alastair gone. Dead. No more.
He looked at the bags Sorrel had given him and opened one. On the top was a charcoal grey cashmere sweater. He pictured Sorrel carefully folding it and adding it to the pile destined for the charity shop. Was that the sum total of a man’s life, his possessions bagged up for the likes of Age Concern and Heart-to-Heart? He thought again of Sorrel folding the sweater. Had she done it lovingly? Had she pressed it to her face so that she could breathe in the smell of Alastair …her lover …?
No!
He had forgiven Sorrel. He was not to torment himself this way. It was over. Hadn’t he just said that to her?
What they both needed was time. Time to recover and to heal, and to learn to trust one another again. He’d be a fool to think it would be easy, but who said love would ever be easy?And what was the alternative? Whatever it was, he didn’t want it. He wanted Sorrel and his family. They were his world.
On her way back upstairs to rejoin Frankie, Sorrel paused when she reached the top step. She was thinking of the naked vulnerability in Simon’s face just now when he had asked her what she wanted. His eyes had been those of a frightened boy who feared he was about to be severely punished. And she was the one who was entirely responsible for reducing him to that. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe and she gripped the banister hard, acutely aware of a rising sense of panic at all that she had done. All that shehadn’t done, and all that shehadn’t been.
For years she had secretly blamed Simon for failing to be the man – the husband – she had wanted him to be, but the reality was, she had not been the wife he had wanted.
But had she left it too late to undo the harm she had caused? Was it too late for them to put things right and be the people they were supposed to be? And could she really somehow wipe the slate clean as Simon wanted and learn to love the whole of him in the way he deserved? Because he did deserve more than she had given him. So much more. He was a good man and a loyal one who was prepared to forgive her. Not many men would be capable of doing that. Or was it merely laziness on his part? Was he afraid to be on his own and so it was better to stay with the she-devil he knew? Was it fear and laziness on her part too, to remain with him?
She blinked hard and took a deep breath, letting the air fill her lungs to the point of bursting. She needed to stop questioning everything. She needed to learn how to … what precisely?
To be happy again. That was what she needed to learn, to appreciate what she had and not hunger for something that did not exist. Everything Alastair had been to her had been a figment of her imagination, an unattainable object of desire that had blinded her. Even their affair, in all its physical intimacy, had not brought her genuine happiness. It certainly hadn’t brought them closer. In the long run it had made her miserable and unable to appreciate what she had already.
She had to change. Change, or stay the same and be miserable. It was an easy choice. So she straightened her back, took the final step of the stairs and went to find Frankie.
Chapter Sixty-Four
In Moscow it was night time already and the weather had dropped to an unseasonably cold temperature.
Standing at the long case window of her mother’s apartment, Valentina could feel a draught whistling through a gap in the wooden frame. It felt like only yesterday when she had stood here being chastised by her mama for not rushing to marry Alastair. It had been a recurring theme in their conversations since Valentina had arrived two days ago, and it never varied from the script. They were running through it again now, as though her mama believed the more times she gave her opinion and advice, the more chance there was of Valentina heeding it.
