Before We Met: A Novel (26 page)

The silence poured in around them. Hannah looked over his head into the yard, where the wind was riffling the last brittle leaves of the creeper on the back wall, exposing their undersides and the bare brickwork underneath.

‘If he needs one point eight million,’ she said quietly, ‘what good’s my forty-seven thousand?’

Mark glanced at her then looked away. His face was full of shame. ‘I’ve got some money of my own,’ he said, ‘about seventy thousand, and I’ve borrowed some more against the house. I’m going to put it together and offer it to him if he’ll agree to redraw the paperwork before we have to open the books. An incentive. Otherwise, why would he do it? I wouldn’t – take my name off legal documents? No way.’

‘But if you explained to him about the deal, that you could pay him as soon as it all went through . . .’

‘Nick doesn’t care about the deal. I have to pay him one way or the other. He doesn’t give a toss about things working out for me – in fact, he’d be thrilled if he managed to derail it all. The only way I can do this is to make it advantageous to him to agree. If he does the paperwork now, I give him two hundred and fifty thousand, then afterwards I’ll give him two million, not one point eight.’

Two million
. ‘And he’s said yes to this?’

‘Not yet.’

‘But you’ve told him?’

There was the sound of footsteps on the front path then the snap of the letterbox, a fall of letters on to the doormat. Mark waited until the footsteps had receded, as if he was afraid the postman would overhear. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘You have to believe me. I can’t tell you how how shitty I feel. Because your account’s annual, I thought I could put the money back when we did the deal and you’d never even need to know. The idea of you checking your balance and seeing—’

‘Why didn’t you just ask me for it? I would have given it to you.’

He covered his face with his hands again and after a few seconds she realised he was crying. The hard knot of feeling inside her loosened and she left the counter and came to stand behind him. He sensed her there – she saw him stiffen, expecting what? – but she reached out and put her hand on his shoulder.

‘I would have had to tell you why I needed it,’ he said, still facing away. ‘The whole story – Patty, everything – and I couldn’t.’

Her fingers tightened their grip. ‘It’s okay,’ she said.

‘I’ve been such a dick, Han. Such a total dick. Now I just want things to be straight between us, out in the open – no more lies.’ He hesitated. ‘I wasn’t in New York this weekend.’

‘I know.’

He started to turn but the pressure of her fingers kept him facing away from her.

‘You weren’t at your usual hotel. I called to talk to you and they told me you weren’t there. Obviously something was going on. That’s why I assumed it was an affair.’

‘You really thought I would cheat on you?’

‘I didn’t want to believe it, part of me never did, but when you weren’t at the hotel and—’ She remembered her promise to Neesha and stopped herself.

Mark gave a strangled kind of laugh. ‘I was trying to track down this guy who I thought would lend me the money,’ he said. ‘We had a meeting set up for Friday at his place in the Berkshires but he cancelled and then he kept giving me the run-around. I spent most of the weekend waiting in a B&B with no bloody mobile reception. I was going to ask him for a loan, pay Nick off and be done with it.’

‘What guy?’ Hannah felt a new rush of alarm. Who could you go to for that sort of money?

‘It doesn’t matter – I didn’t even see him in the end. And now that you know, some of the pressure’s off. At least I don’t have to carry it around on my own any more, waiting for it all to blow up in my face.’ Tentatively, he leaned back and rested his head against her stomach. After a moment, she put her other hand on his shoulder. Bending, she touched her nose to his hair.

‘I’ve been to see Nick, too,’ he said. ‘More lies. I told you I was in Frankfurt but I drove up to Wakefield to talk to him.’

Suddenly Hannah felt laughter well up inside her. Wakefield – Nick was in Wakefield Prison.
Yorkshire
. She’d seen those service-station receipts from the M1 and imagined a boutique hotel, all log fires and antique roll-top baths, and really Mark had been visiting his brother in jail. It was hysterical, she thought,
hysterical
– the laughter exploded out of her, startlingly loud. Mark stood up and put his arms around her, holding her while she shook. When she stopped, as abruptly as she’d begun, Hannah looked up at him. His dark eyes were shining with tears. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ he said, ‘that you thought I was having an affair – that because of him I nearly fucked this up, you and me . . .’

She stood on tiptoe and pressed her cheek flat against his, feeling the scratch of his overnight stubble, smelling the sage note in his cologne. She wasn’t sure who moved first but all of a sudden they were kissing, slowly to start with, then furiously. Mark’s mouth was hot and tasted of Armagnac. ‘I love you, Han,’ he said, breaking away just long enough. ‘I really love you.’

Chapter Seventeen

When Hannah woke up, Mark was lying turned away from her, the shape of his shoulder outlined by the bar of daylight coming through the gap in the curtains. His breathing was deep and regular, his shoulder gently rising and falling in rhythm with it. In the distance, a church bell struck one o’clock. Gingerly, she turned on to her back. She waited a moment, making sure she hadn’t disturbed him, then reached over the side of the bed and fished her T-shirt off the floor. She sat up, pulled it over her head then slid gently back down into the body-warmth.

It was ridiculous, she thought, to be uncomfortable about Mark seeing her naked. He’d seen her naked hundreds of times, and just now – an hour or so ago – they’d made love like wild things, self-consciousness cast aside along with the clothes strewn across the carpet. It had come from relief, that rush of desire, the pure relief of him telling the truth, confirming what she’d discovered, not trying to hide anything or obfuscate. And he’d volunteered what he’d said about the B&B in the Berkshires and visiting Nick in jail, she hadn’t had to ask. Now she admitted it to herself: she’d been frightened that, confronted, Mark would try and bend the story, play down or deny his part in it. But no, he’d been frank about everything: his obnoxious Chelsea-boy behaviour; the drugs; even what happened with Patty that night. He hadn’t tried to varnish over it at all.

And yet now the hit of relief had passed, she was uneasy again. He was telling the truth now but the fact remained that he’d lied to her: there was no getting round it. Yes, his reasons made sense and she couldn’t be sure that in his position, meeting someone she liked, being saddled with something so horrifying, she wouldn’t have done the same but he’d still lied and
kept
lying so that he wouldn’t have to tell her. Before all this she’d trusted him completely, as much as she trusted her parents or Tom, but it would take time to rebuild that trust again – months, years, who knew how long? And though she understood why he hadn’t told her, it still hurt. She felt as if she’d been found lacking, like
she
was the one who wasn’t trustworthy.

The central heating was off and the room had gone cold. She burrowed deeper into the bed, closed her eyes and let the deep exhaustion sweep over her. It would be all right, she told herself. It would take time, no question, but in the end things would be all right.

When she woke the second time, Mark was awake and watching her, his face twelve or fifteen inches away on a pillow that he’d pulled into a tight concertina between his shoulder and ear. Even in the strange half-light, she could see his anxiety.

She shifted position, breaking eye contact for a moment, and reached out to touch his shoulder. His skin was cold. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

He exhaled and she felt his breath on her face. ‘I’m being melodramatic,’ he said, ‘I know I am, but . . . I’ve just got this really bad feeling. I’m scared I’ve put you in danger.’

She felt a single sharp throb in her stomach. ‘What do you mean?’

He hesitated. ‘The deal was I’d have Nick’s money ready the day he got out of jail – all of it, the exact day. Now I’m going to him with the offer of this incentive, but not the full amount.’

‘You haven’t told him yet? I thought—’

‘I haven’t told him.’

‘But when you went up there . . .’

‘I was still hoping I’d find another way – that I’d be able to borrow the money I needed from this guy Manso in the States. I didn’t want to tell Nick until I was absolutely sure I had to.’

Despite the warmth of the bed, Hannah was suddenly cold. ‘And if the incentive’s not enough – if he doesn’t go for it?’

Again he hesitated. ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

‘Mark – please. Just tell me what you mean.’

‘He’ll go crazy.’

‘Crazy?’

‘This is why I’ve been so desperate to get the money, Hannah.’ His voice was rising, the panic audible. ‘This is why I lied about last weekend and went to the Berkshires. It’s why I tried everything I could to see this guy even though I knew it might just be getting myself into a different sort of trouble.’

‘What do you mean by danger?’ she said slowly.

‘I don’t know. I—’

‘Mark, say what you mean. Are you trying to tell me Nick could be violent?’

He closed his eyes as if to shut the question out. ‘I think so. Yes.’

Hannah felt the word sink through the air and settle like poisonous dust around them. They lay without speaking for what felt like a long time, and she listened for sounds from outside, evidence that the real, normal world was still out there, still going on. It was early afternoon, however, and the streets were quiet.

Mark was the first to speak again. ‘Han, being in prison for so long’s changed him. He’s . . . harder. And even without knowing about the money, he’s angry with me.’

‘Why?’

‘For having been out living my life all these years while he’s been in there rotting. He blames me.’

‘But that doesn’t make sense – how can he? You didn’t do anything. He was the one who . . .’

‘But that’s it: Nick’s thinking
doesn’t
make sense. He can’t see straight because in his mind, everything’s distorted, pulled into concentric circles around
him
.’ Mark drew the pillow tighter under his neck. ‘It sounds mad but sometimes he doesn’t even seem to understand that I’m separate from him, a different person. He thinks I’m responsible – like I’m his super-ego or something  and I fucked up. He’s been sitting up there stewing, with all the time in the world on his hands, and he’s convinced himself it was my fault.’

‘I don’t even understand how that’s possible.’

‘I brought Patty into our group, didn’t I? If I hadn’t started seeing her . . .’

‘That’s nuts.’

‘But that’s it – that’s how he thinks. It’s not . . . normal.’

Hannah turned on to her back, away from him. ‘When is he getting out?’

‘Thursday.’

‘This Thursday?’ Her voice was loud in the stillness of the room.

‘Two days,’ said Mark.

‘It’s going to be intense – I’ll be doing horrible hours. David’s been hard at work getting stuff ready but I haven’t been able to focus at all, worrying so much about . . .’ he stopped.

Hannah sat on the old church pew and watched as Mark swung around the kitchen, consulting the recipe as if it was an alchemical text, pouring splashes of port and soy sauce into one of the copper pans, adding things to the mortar, a mad scientist at work in his laboratory. He opened the oven door, releasing a cloud of steam, and lifted the roasting pan on to the counter top to baste the pork again. He’d refused even to let her peel the vegetables, and instead handed her a glass of the incredible Barolo he’d picked up on his trip out to buy the rest of the ingredients. ‘You can talk to the chef,’ he’d said. ‘That’s your job tonight.’

When the pan was back in the oven he paused for a moment. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘Afterwards, when all this is . . . resolved, why don’t we have a holiday? Somewhere lovely, hot, with nothing to do but swim and read, snorkel. I was thinking about Mauritius, or maybe the Seychelles.’

She thought about their empty bank accounts, the terrifying mortgage. ‘Can we afford it?’

‘Not right this minute but if all goes according to plan . . .’

Of course. If it all went to plan and Systema agreed with the valuation, he’d be able to afford almost anything. Even with Nick’s twelve per cent and the twenty-five that David owned, a buy-out would make Mark very, very rich. Earlier, lying awake, she’d worked out that if DataPro was valued at fifteen million, his sixty-three per cent share was worth just less than nine and a half million pounds. Mark would be able to go on holiday for the rest of his life if he wanted.

‘A proper break,’ he said, tearing the plastic off a jar of star anise. ‘We need one. We’ve both been under too much pressure lately, you with the job-search, me with all this DataPro stuff and . . .’ Again, he stopped himself. Evidently he’d made a decision not to talk about Nick tonight. ‘I’ve been thinking we could go for three weeks, a month, really relax, perhaps somewhere for some culture first – I’d love to see more of Japan – and then on to an island in some ludicrously beautiful turquoise archipelago somewhere. What do you reckon?’ He looked at her, his face flushed from the heat of the oven.