‘I told you, Dad. I wasn’t there. Not on Saturday night. I’m telling the truth. You have to believe me.’ Her voice cracks a fraction and she looks away, batting away a strand of the long red hair which appears to have incriminated her.
‘Right, that’s it. I gave you fair warning, young lady …’
‘Dad, please, don’t,’ wails Drew.
‘Yes, Tobias, stop it,’ pleads Olivia.
Finally, one other voice, cool and commanding, cuts across the cacophony at the table, silencing them all.
‘She was with me,’ says Marcus. ‘In my car. Briefly anyway.’
Olivia’s hands fly to her mouth and she gives a small strangled moan.
‘What?’ says Tobias.
‘She was with me,’ repeats Marcus with a casual roll of his shoulders as he slowly takes a sip of his mineral water and replaces the glass carefully on the table. ‘There’s your alibi,’ he says to Bella and she closes her eyes despondently.
‘What are you saying?’ asks Olivia.
‘She came to find me. Before you and I met up later on the cliff,’ says Marcus. ‘She wanted to watch the fireworks together. Suggested we sit up on the scaffolding. I told her that it wasn’t a good idea and sent her on her way, which is when she went to join Drew and his friends down by the beach, I expect.’
Tobias doesn’t seem to know what to say, who to speak to first, his head swinging wildly from each face and back again.
‘Is this true?’ he splutters.
‘No,’ says Olivia just as Bella answers, ‘Yes.’
‘So let me get this straight. You’ve been messing around with both my daughter and my wife? Behind my back?’
Marcus shrugs, sending a helpless look her way as Olivia senses the game is up.
‘I didn’t lay a finger on your daughter,’ he says matter-of-factly.
‘And my wife?’
Silence stretches out a beat. The remains of the pizza sits on plates around the table, cheese coagulating, as everyone’s appetites evaporate.
‘Yes, Marcus and I are in a relationship,’ confirms Olivia with as much dignity as she can muster.
‘Holy fuck!’ says Bella, a look of naked disgust on her face. ‘How could you?’
It is unclear who she is directing this last question to but she looks as though she might retch. Drew stands, shoves back his chair mutely, and this time no one stops him from leaving. Bella shakes her head miserably.
‘I thought you liked me,’ she says, turning to Marcus.
‘I do,’ he says softly. ‘You’re great, it’s just …’
‘God, I think I’m going to puke. You and her.’ Bella casts a furious look at Olivia. ‘Seriously? She’s old enough to be your mother.’
‘Yes, I suppose she could be,’ says Marcus after a brief pause. ‘If she’d been young enough at the time. Young and foolish and easily taken advantage of.’ He stares at the tablecloth but continues to address the rest of the table. ‘The type of shy, unworldly person who has come from a modest background. Who finds herself working in a male-dominated environment, peopled with upper-class bully boys. Alone one night, made to stay late in the office, with a man who should know better but assumes he has the right to do whatever he pleases.’
The mood around the table has shifted imperceptibly. A waitress approaches but instinctively senses this is a bad moment and veers away. The dull background hum of conversation inthe dining room continues but Olivia can’t help feeling that everyone is listening.
Bella looks around the table, confusion rippling across her features, clearly aware that she is out of her depth again, a child among adults. She gives another tut of revulsion, pushes back her chair and leaves, following in Drew’s wake.
Marcus and Tobias are now silently eyeing each other across the table. Marcus’s hands rest languidly in his lap but a muscle pulses in his cheekbone while Tobias sprawls back in his chair. But Olivia can see a slick of moisture across his forehead and on his upper lip. He holds his glass tightly in his fist, knuckles white, and drains it.
She looks between them and it is so obvious now, laughably so. As plain as day for anyone to see; anyone who had a care to look closely and notice such things. The hair is different, of course, and Marcus has a more swarthy look to his complexion as opposed to Tobias’s pale yet hectic skin colouring. But the strength in the jawline is the same, the same sharp directness in the eyes.
