Liz Fielding - The Three-Year Itch

When the pair reached an unoccupied bench on the far side of the park, Emma sat down and Grey joined her, his arm stretched protectively along the back of the seat. They chatted easily for a while, laughed at some shared joke. Then Grey, glancing at his watch, produced an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. Emma took it, stowed it carefully in her bag without opening it and then, when Grey stood up, got quickly to her feet and hugged him. He held her for a moment, then, disengaging himself, he looked once more at the sleeping child and touched the baby’s dark curls before turning to walk briskly back towards the gate.

There had been nothing in their behaviour to excite interest. No passionate kiss, no lingering glances. They had looked for all the world like any happily married couple with a new baby, meeting in the park at lunchtime.

Abbie instinctively took a step further back into the cover of the bushes as Grey approached the gate, but he looked neither to left nor right. Then he crossed the road and stopped at a flower stall to buy a bunch of creamy pink roses, laughing at something the flower-seller said as he paid for them. A moment later he had disappeared from sight, and Abbie finally stepped out into the dazzling sunlight.

For once in her life—her ordered, planned, tidy life—Abbie didn’t know what to do. And then quite suddenly she did. It was perfectly clear. She was a journalist. Not the foot-in-the-door investigative kind, but nevertheless a trained observer, with a mind cued to extract information as painlessly as possible from even the most reluctant of interviewees. If this were a story she would go across to where the girl was still sitting on the shady bench and find some way to strike up a conversation.

It shouldn’t be difficult, for heaven’s sake. Babies and dogs were a gift—guaranteed to make the most reserved people open up. She didn’t want to do it, but she had to. And on legs that felt as if they were made of watery jelly, Abbie forced herself to walk towards the girl her husband had put his arm around and called Emma.

She had nothing in her mind. No plan. No idea of what she was going to say. But it wasn’t necessary. As she approached the bench the girl looked up and smiled. No, not a girl. Close up, Abbie realised that she must be hearer thirty than twenty. A woman.

‘It’s really too hot for shopping, isn’t it?’ she said as she saw Abbie’s bags. Her voice was silvery, light and delicate, like the rest of her.

‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ Was it hot? She felt so terribly cold inside that she couldn’t have said. But it was an opening and she sat down.

‘Did you buy anything nice?’

A simple question. Difficult to answer, but she managed it. ‘A shirt and a sweater. For my husband,’ she added, unable to help herself. No! Put the woman at her ease—talk to her, her subconscious prodded her. Forget that this is personal. Treat it like any other story. ‘And socks,’ she continued. ‘Men never seem to have enough socks, do they?’ Smile. Make yourself smile. ‘I have this theory that there is a conspiracy between the washing machine manufacturers and the sock-makers …’

Apparently the grimace that locked her jaw had been somehow convincing, because Emma laughed. ‘You could be right. But I wouldn’t care if I could only just go out and buy a pair of socks for my man. Unfortunately he has the kind of wife who would notice.’

‘Oh?’ Would she? Would she query strange socks in the laundry? Yes, she rather thought she would.

‘I can’t even keep things for him at my place. It would be so easy to get them muddled up.’

‘I suppose so.’ Abbie felt herself blushing at such unexpected frankness, yet she was well aware of how easily some people would talk about even their most intimate lives to perfect strangers. Especially if there were constraints on talking to family or friends. But the last thing on earth she wanted to discuss with this woman was her ‘man’s’ wife.

She stared at the buggy. ‘A baby is rather more personal than a pair of socks,’ she said, forcing the words from her unwilling lips. But she had to be sure. ‘The greatest gift of all.’

The woman’s smile was full of secrets as she leaned forward and touched the child’s fingers. ‘That’s what he said. And, while he may leave me one day, I’ll always have his child.’

‘How old is he?’ Abbie asked hoarsely, as jealousy, like bile burning in her throat, swept over her.

‘Twelve weeks.’ The woman called Emma brushed back the mop of dark hair that decorated his tiny head. ‘He was born just after Easter.’

When Abbie had been steeping herself in the miseries of an African refugee camp. Had Grey been with this woman, holding her hand, encouraging her as she went through the pangs of giving birth to his son? No! Her heart rebelled. Surely it was impossible. And yet … She leaned over the buggy, letting her hair swing forward to cover her expression, and as she came face to face with the sleepy child she felt the blood drain from her face.

‘He’s beautiful,’ she said, her voice coming from somewhere miles distant. As beautiful as his father had been as a baby.

Abbie remembered her laughter as they had looked through a pile of old family photograph albums that they had found when they had cleared his father’s house last year. Grey had been a bonny, bright-eyed baby, with a mop of black curly hair. The child lying in front of her might have been his twin.

‘What’s his name?’ she asked, wondering that she could sit there and pretend that nothing was happening. Grateful for the numbness that somehow stopped her screaming with pain …

‘Matthew.’

‘Matthew?’ Not Grey. At least he hadn’t done that to her. But it was bad enough as with every painful scrap of hard-won fact she became more certain of just what he had done.

Matthew Lockwood. Founder of Lockwood, Gates and Meadows, solicitors. Grey’s father, her dear, kind father-in-law, who had been dead for just a year. The child had been named for him.

‘It’s a lovely name,’ she said quickly, as she saw that some response was expected. ‘Your …’ What? What could she call him? Friend? Lover? Her mouth refused to frame the word. ‘He must be very happy.’

The woman leaned forward and touched the child, and his little hand tightened trustingly about her finger. ‘Yes. He’s thrilled with the baby—sees him whenever he can. But it’s difficult for him.’ She gave an awkward little shrug. ‘His wife would never give him a divorce.’

And that finally broke through the pain and at last made her angry. ‘Wouldn’t she?’ Abbie asked, a little grimly.

Now she knew, was absolutely certain, that Grey had been having an affair, deceiving her for at least the better part of a year. And in a way he was deceiving this woman too, with his lies. What had he said about her? How had he described her? Did the mother of his child know that when he left her bed, when he came home, he made sweet love to her as if … as if she was the only woman in the world?

Except that she wasn’t. How could he do that? The man she loved, had thought she knew, was suddenly a stranger. A stranger who could, it seemed, smile as if his heart was all hers, tell her that he loved her, with the taste of this woman’s kisses still upon his lips. The very thought was like a knife driving through her heart. How could she not have suspected? Not have seen the deceit in his eyes?

Only anger made her strong enough to sit there and carry on as if her world wasn’t disintegrating about her, kept her head high as she turned to Emma, determined to discover just how far his lies extended. ‘Has he asked his wife for a divorce?’

The woman gave the tiniest little shrug, the bravest of smiles. ‘I wouldn’t let him. A messy divorce would cause problems. With his job.’ She gave a little shake of the baby’s hand, turning her head away to hide the sparkle of tears. ‘And we can’t let Daddy have that, can we, sweetheart?’ And the baby gave a broad, gummy smile.