A Rural Affair

one of the directors. I knew them. And OK I knew her name but, honestly, that was about it!’

‘Well, that’s … hardly surprising, really, is it? Under the circumstances.’ It was said kindly. And he was looking at me in a detached, speculative way, rather as a doctor would a patient. If he’d had half-moons he’d have been peering over them.

‘No. No, I suppose not.’

A silence ensued. He shuffled some papers awkwardly. ‘She was only on a basic salary because she’d been promised a share in the business when it was sold later this year. If that had happened, incidentally, it would have made millions. It won’t now. Not without your husband at the helm and his Midas touch. Investors have lost confidence, it seems. It won’t affect your inheritance but it’s not in such good shape. It’s still trading, but Miss Harding has been eased out.’

‘She’s lost her job?’

‘So it seems. And of course she’s lost your husband’s protection. The other directors were jealous of what they felt to be her elevated position. It appears she also sailed close to the wind trading-wise, which worried them. She was a bit of a chancer.’

‘Right. Good.’ I clenched my fists. That nice Robert Shaw, who Phil had also taken with him from Lehman’s. Ted Barker too, with whom we’d been to dinner. Classy men; old school tie. Too right she was a chancer.

He cleared his throat. ‘Her claim, however, has the backing of your late husband’s mother and sister. They both support it.’

I stared at him. Could feel my mouth opening and hanging. ‘Marjorie and Cecilia?’

‘Yes.’

‘They knew her?’

‘It appears so.’

‘How come?’ But I knew how come.

‘They met her. Originally, they’re keen to stress, in a business context. As a colleague of Phil’s, and in order to discuss their own personal finances. But later, under more friendly circumstances. They had lunch together after various meetings in London, apparently. And she was a visitor to their house in Kent.’

My heart began to hammer. Sam looked deeply uncomfortable.

‘But … why? Why would they do that, support her?’ The walls of my throat were closing in, but I got the words out.

‘The letters I have from both parties state that Mr Shilling was, ah, miserable at home, and only stayed for the sake of the children.’ He looked studiously down at the letter before him, avoiding eye contact with me. ‘Quoting this one from Mrs Shilling, she says, “My son had wanted to leave his wife for years.” ’

I was shocked. Profoundly shocked. Over the weeks I’d come to terms with the fact that a whole world had been continuing somewhere without me; a world of Phil and Emma, Emma and Phil, and these visits of Emma’s to Phil’s family home only sketched in additional appalling detail. More grotesque background. But before, it was just the two of them. More people somehow gave the picture a density that I knew I was going to struggle to push against. It would be like holding back the tide to suggest that all four of these people had been wrong, had judged me unfairly, and that I was a perfectly pleasant human being. A doddle to be married to. Why should they all be mistaken? And yet it wasn’t true. It wasn’t fair. My breathing became laboured. I was a nice girl, surely? Not the girl in this picture?

I did try, though. To push. ‘He wanted out!’ I said shrilly, knowing my nostrils were flaring and my knuckles white as I gripped my handbag on my lap. ‘He only stayed for the children? Oh no, that was me! I was only there because I thought they were so young, so vulnerable.’ My throat filled with tears. I gulped them down. ‘I was the one who wanted to go – always!’

Even as I was protesting, part of my mind was wondering how often he’d heard this sort of thing. Sam, the divorce lawyer. Two people slugging it out unattractively, over children, money. But once I’d started, I felt compelled to finish.

‘I was the one who felt trapped. How dare he say he stayed with me for form’s sake! Out of duty! Ask my friends, ask anyone; they’ll all tell you. God, those bitches,’ I seethed. ‘I can’t believe my own in-laws, my children’s grandmother, their aunt, Aunt Cecilia – Christ!’ I could hear hysteria rising in my voice as I tumbled over my words.

‘I can see that’s very hard to reconcile.’

‘Very hard? Very hard!’

I wanted a cigarette badly and I hadn’t smoked for years. Instead, I twisted a strand of hair rapidly around my finger, another ancient method of restoring composure. I wondered what Phil had said to his mother and sister. Phil, who could do no wrong. Wondered if he’d told them I was a cold fish who gave him no comfort. Oh, I could picture the whole thing. Could see Phil taking Emma to Kent in her smocky white top, looking very different to the girl his mother and sister had met