Reunited: Marriage in a Million

A marriage that had collapsed under the strain of the pressure of their careers? Very sad. Still good friends…

She’d seen it all a hundred times.

The light on the answering machine had been flashing when she’d got home. She had ignored it, just as she now ignored the doorbell.

Instead, she was glued to her laptop, anxiously checking through the messages to see if there was anything from the Adoption Register.

Nothing. Instead she clicked on the site she’d bookmarked, the one with personal adoption stories.

A second longer peal on the bell warned her that whoever was at the front door wasn’t about to go away and, knowing that she would have to face the music sooner rather than later, she picked up the entry phone.

‘Yes?’ she said, her voice neutral.

‘Belle…’

She caught her breath, almost doubling up with shock at the sound of Ivo’s voice…

No…

It was the middle of the afternoon. He should be in his office, all of London at his feet, both figuratively and metaphorically. He didn’t do ‘personal’, not in office hours. Not ever…

She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, just buzzed him up, taking the time it took for him to walk up to her flat-an old converted town house, there were no lifts-to recover. Taking those few moments to put herself back together before she opened the door.

For a moment he just looked at her.

Then he reached out, as if he needed to touch the short flicked up layers of her hair before he could bring himself to believe what she’d done. Curled his long fingers back into his palm before he made contact.

‘You look…’

Words apparently failed him. That was twice in three days. If she wasn’t struggling for words herself, she might have derived a certain amount of satisfaction from that.

‘Different?’ she managed, when it seemed that nothing would break the silence.

He shook his head, but offered no alternative, just lifted the thick wad of envelopes he was holding as if that was enough to explain his presence.

For a minute there her heart, not quite keeping up with her head, had hoped for something more. What, quite, she didn’t know, but something. Doing her best to ignore its dizzy spin-she’d had a lifetime of hiding her thoughts, her feelings; three years of marriage to practise hiding them from Ivo: it shouldn’t be this hard-she said, ‘I thought Miranda was going to forward my post.’

‘It’s piled up while you were away. Some of it might be important.’

So important that he’d left his office early to bring it to her, rather than send a messenger? Was there anything that important?

She held out her hand to take the bundle of envelopes, but he didn’t surrender it.

‘I called earlier.’

Twice? He’d come twice…

‘I have a letterbox,’ she said. ‘You could have left it.’

‘It wasn’t just the mail.’ No. As she’d suspected, his presence on her doorstep had nothing to do with her post. ‘You’re usually home long before this.’

‘Today wasn’t usual. I’ve been away and there was a lot to catch up with. And I had a couple of meetings that ran on.’ A bit of an understatement. Having done the hard one-telling Ivo that she was leaving him-her calm announcement that she wouldn’t be renewing her contract to anchor the breakfast television show had been a piece of cake.

And yet here she was making excuses like some kid justifying herself for being late home from school. Not that she ever had been. School had been a dangerous luxury, something she’d had to steal…

It was time to remind Ivo, as well as herself, that she had to make excuses to no one.

‘And then I bought a car,’ she added, as casually as if she was telling him she’d bought a new pair of shoes.

Which was when her very cool and detached husband became distinctly heated.

‘You did what?’

Not so much a question as a man displaying outrage that a woman-his wife, no less-had the audacity to believe herself capable of making that kind of decision for herself.

It had, actually, been quite a week for decisions:

Left her husband.

Had her hair cut.

Bought a car.

So far, it was the car that had got the biggest reaction so she stayed with that.

‘It’s a BMW convertible,’ she told him. ‘Silver. Only twenty-two thousand miles on the clock. It’s being delivered tomorrow.’

‘It’s not new?’ First outrage, now concern. ‘Has it been checked? Please tell me it’s not a private sale.’

Extraordinary. If she’d realised it would get this kind of response she’d have bought a car before. Several of them. Maybe gone into the used car business…

‘Would that be bad?’

‘I’ll need the registration number so that I can run a check. It could be stolen. Or a couple of stitched together wrecks. And the mileage is undoubtedly fake. Have you any idea-’

‘Oh, no,’ she assured him. If he was going to treat her like a dumb blonde, then-hair colour notwithstanding- she’d had plenty of practice playing the role. ‘I’m sure it’s fine. I bought it from the brother-in-law of a taxi driver I met yesterday.’

He didn’t actually groan, but he didn’t look impressed. He wasn’t meant to.

‘Give me his name and address.’

‘The taxi driver?’

‘His brother-in-law,’ Ivo said, not quite through gritted teeth, but she could see that it was a close call.

It served him right for acting as if she was too stupid to live, she thought. If he’d watched her show once in a while he would have known that they had, on more than one occasion, run features on all aspects of buying used cars.

‘Oh, Mike!’ she said, determined to rub it in. ‘Such a sweet man. Hold on, I’ve got his card somewhere.’ Her bag was lying on the hall table and she opened it, produced a business card, offered it to him.

Ivo took it, looked at it, then at her. ‘Mike Wade is the taxi driver’s brother-in-law?’

‘Yes.’ Then, ‘Is there something wrong?’ Beyond the fact that, too late, he’d realised she’d been winding him up since Mike Wade was a senior representative at one of London’s premier BMW dealerships rather than some dodgy character selling used cars off the street.

‘He asked to be remembered to you,’ she added. ‘Said you’d been in to talk about exchanging your car for one of the smaller models. Very green…’

Then, exhilarating as it should have been to discover that Ivo was not made of stone, that it was possible to wind him up, she found herself regretting it. He was just looking out for her. Making sure that she was okay.

Actually, she was doing fine and he had to understand that so, dropping the teasing, refusing to hope that the thought that she might be with someone else had been gnawing away at him all weekend, until he’d been driven to come and find out for himself, she said, ‘Why are you here, Ivo?’

‘I wondered what you wanted to do about your clothes,’ he said, returning the card, then running his fingers distractedly through a lick of hair that had the temerity to slide across his forehead. ‘There must be things you’ll need.’

‘Yes.’

The word came out on a sigh that she was unable to quite stifle.

Not uncontrollable jealousy, then, just the practicalities. And of course, infuriatingly, he was right. It took more than a day of self-indulgence to replace an entire wardrobe. A few jackets and shirts wouldn’t take her far. Apart from anything else, she had a television awards dinner coming up.

She’d already bought an antique Balenciaga gown for the occasion. It would be her first public appearance