She headed upstairs. Now was as good a time as any to take a tour of her old stomping ground – see how far Megan’s taste had extended.
The upstairs hallway had been decorated in a neutral off-white, and the floor had been sanded and revarnished. There was a new rug. Quite a nice one. Wool, by the look of it. A splashy Kandinsky-style pattern. There seemed to be vases of flowers on every available surface, the classic sympathy choice of white lilies and roses – the same flowers people chose for weddings. Eloise noticed that the water in the big vase on the chest on the landing was topped with an inch-thick layer of green slime. Whoever had arranged the flowers hadn’t trimmed the stems properly or removed the lower leaves. So, Megan wasn’t good at every domestic duty. The scent of perfume and scummy water was unpleasant. Eloise stood still and listened. All she could hear was the occasional shout from the dining-room. She opened the door to the ‘master bedroom’. What a pompous phrase!
Her composure wobbled.
Their old room.
The marital bed.
But of course it wasn’t. It was a new bed, for a new lover, a new life.
She told herself to get a grip. It was a room. Just a room. Everything in it was different from when she’d been its occupant. Every memory erased. She stepped inside and disliked, on principle, the oversized headboard, the understated bed linen and the contrasting voile, blind and curtain combination framing the window. It was all very feminine and tasteful, and totally lacking in personality. How apt! Eloise drew the line at opening the wardrobe, but not at stepping lightly across the carpet and nudging open the door to the en suite.
Here a male component was more in evidence. Toothbrush, razor, aftershave. But on closer inspection, Jonathan’s presence was more a shadow than an imprint. The bottle of aftershave was frosted with dust and the shaving stuff looked unused.
Another wobble.
Jonathan had always liked to be clean-shaven. The only time he ever went unshaven was when he was ill. Eloise wondered whether he’d ended life with a beard, his strong features obscured by stubble. She couldn’t imagine that. It would not have been Jonathan. There again, he hadn’t been her Jonathan for years. To escape the thought, she focused on Megan’s stuff. The makeup, perfume and toiletries. There was very little. In fact it was a paltry collection for a pretty woman in her thirties. It was all so banal – that’s what hurt. The classic tale of the older man, his age-appropriate wife usurped by a younger woman. The shock had not been lessened by the predictability of it all. Because Eloise had, foolishly but understandably, thought herself secure in Jonathan’s affections. She had simply never thought it could happen to her, or him. Infidelity. Unfaithfulness. Lies. So many lies. That was what had really shaken her: the lack of respect for the investment they had both put into their marriage.
Jonathan’s lust for another woman had cut deeply.
His love for Megan had nearly broken Eloise.
It suddenly struck her that what she was doing was pathetic, and more than a little creepy. It was beneath her to be sneaking around in Megan’s bedroom. She backed out of the en suite and hurried across the deep, yielding carpet. In order to rid herself of the slight sense of shame, she crossed over the landing and opened the door to Noah’s old bedroom. A shaft of moonlight spilled into the room through the gap in the curtains, illuminating Arthur’s bed. Freddie’s remained shrouded in darkness. The sight of her grandsons’ lumpy sleeping forms made Eloise feel better. At least they had good, unsullied memories of their grandfather. For that she was grateful.
‘Is everything all right?’
Eloise jumped. Megan had materialised on the landing, out of nowhere. ‘Yes. I was just heading for the bathroom. While I was up here, I thought I’d check on them.’ It was an unnecessarily long-winded explanation.
Disconcertingly, Megan came to stand by Eloise’s side. They both looked in through the door. Arthur was sprawled out in his bed, snoring loudly, while Freddie was curled up underneath his duvet, silent. Once again Eloise bumped into a thought that she would have preferred to avoid. Megan’s childlessness. Had that been her sacrifice for Jonathan, or a personal choice? With Eloise, Jonathan had been adamant that three kids were more than enough. Or was it she who had been adamant? Of course it was absolutely none of her business what Megan’s maternal aspirations were, or had been, and yet she wondered. As much as Eloise’s own children caused her endless irritation and anxiety, even at times – like tonight – embarrassment, she couldn’t imagine life without them. They were, and always would be, flesh-and-blood evidence of her relationship with Jonathan and their one-time faith in each other.
From downstairs came another volley of words. It shook them both alert and back on guard. They moved apart. Eloise remembered to make for the bathroom – the ostensible reason she was upstairs in the first place, and Megan headed to her room. At the doorway she stopped. ‘Will you tell them I’ve turned in for the night?’
Eloise said, ‘Of course’, though she was pretty sure none of her children would have noticed that Megan had gone.
Chapter 36
MEGAN CLOSED her bedroom door and listened until she heard Eloise’s footsteps heading downstairs.
Wherever she turned there was a member of Jonathan’s family taking up space, with their mess and their noise and their demands. They seemed to have infiltrated their way into every nook and cranny of the house. The volume and intensity of them was suffocating. As she stood with her back pressed against the door, she realised something truly shocking: in the past twenty-four hours she’d been so taken up with catering for them, avoiding them, clearing up after them, worrying about them that she’d barely thought about Jonathan.
They were even stealing her grief from her.
She went
