Francesca's Party (5 page)

‘Now, ma’am, whereabouts in the city?’

‘Patrick Street, please. And thank you so much for waiting,’ she said as pleasantly as she could.

‘Not at all. I hope you didn’t rush.’

If only he knew, she thought drily.

He chatted away for the rest of the journey into Cork and she responded as best she could, ashamed of her earlier ungraciousness. His garrulity helped to keep her thoughts at bay and gave her a chance to regain her composure. Making the effort to respond to his conversation temporarily blanked out the memory of the scene that she knew would haunt her for a long time to come.

She tipped him a fiver, and endured a flow of effusive thanks that caused her to feel irritable again; she half wished that she hadn’t given it to him. It was a relief to watch his taxi disappear into the flow of traffic on Patrick Street and to feel the sharpness of the sleety wind against her cheeks. It was almost two-thirty and her return flight was at four-thirty-five. She’d have time for a cup of coffee before getting a taxi back to the airport.

A great weariness enveloped her. She hadn’t eaten all day, but the thought of food made her feel faintly nauseous. Every cloud had a silver lining – maybe she’d lose a stone. Didn’t all women lose weight when they found out they were being cheated on? she thought sourly as she trudged along the gaily decorated street, with signs of Christmas everywhere.

She wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas this year and Mark’s father could go and spend it with Mark and his tart, because she’d never cook a meal for that old buzzard again, she vowed as she opened the door into a small, crowded self-service café and took her place in the queue.

If that woman wanted Mark in her life so badly she
could
take his baggage too. And Gerald Kirwan was excess baggage that Francesca had carried for far too long. Goodbye and good riddance, she thought as she ordered a cup of coffee and a scone. She’d try and eat the scone. The last thing she needed was to faint from shock and hunger. She had a lot to do when she got home and first on her agenda was changing the locks!

Mark Kirwan had just forfeited the right to come and go as he pleased in
her
home.

‘GOD ALMIGHTY! HOW
the hell did she find out?’ Mark paced up and down the room, his jaw set, his forehead furrowed as the enormity of what had just happened hit him.

‘Well, she knows about us now, Mark. We have to go forward from here,’ Nikki said calmly. Now that Francesca was gone, she was trying hard to disguise the bubble of elation that was threatening to burst out of her. The wife knew and had kicked him out. Perfect! Mark was all hers now.

‘Did she have a private detective on me? What else is she going to do? Remember that guy whose wife split on him about his offshore accounts? It was all over the papers and TV. I have offshore accounts. I could be in deep shit if she knows about them,’ he blurted out, completely rattled. ‘We’d better get home. I have to talk to her. Calm her down.’ He raced into the bedroom and began to dress.

‘Mark, will you take it easy?’ Nikki soothed, following him into the room. She knew she had to
play
this very cool. ‘I don’t think you should see Francesca tonight. She’s obviously very upset right now and that’s understandable. She’ll be calmer tomorrow. She’ll have had time to adjust a bit. There’d only be a row if you went home straight away.’

‘This is a fucking catastrophe.’ Mark sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. ‘She’ll never forgive me for this. My life will be a fucking nightmare.’

This wasn’t what Nikki wanted to hear at all. She didn’t want to hear about Francesca’s forgiveness. That sounded as though he intended to remain with his wife. She allowed it to pass unchallenged. This wasn’t the time to put her spoke in.

‘She was so cold.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I’ve never seen Francesca like that.’

‘Well, how would you expect her to be?’ Nikki probed gently.

‘I know, but she usually loses her cool and rants and raves for a while. She’s never like she was just now. She made it sound so final.’

‘Well, Mark, we
have
been having a relationship for nearly a year. Didn’t you ever think that she might find out about us? And didn’t you ever wonder how she’d deal with it?’ Nikki’s tone had an edge to it.

‘I never thought that she’d find out about us actually,’ he muttered. ‘I suppose I didn’t want to face it.’

‘Well, you have to face it now, darling, and you have to deal with it. It’s happened and there’s nothing you can do about that.’ She wanted to say,
and you have to make a choice between her and me now. And I don’t like being made to feel that I was only your bit on the side
.

‘I know that, Nikki,’ he snapped. ‘You don’t seem to understand the implications here. I have a lot to lose. I have children, a certain lifestyle, my reputation at work.’

‘And me if you’re not careful,’ Nikki bristled. ‘Don’t lay the blame at my feet, Mark. It’s not
my
fault. You have to take responsibility for your own actions. I didn’t bulldoze you into this relationship.’ She marched into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

‘This is a bloody nightmare,’ Mark swore. He didn’t know what to do. Seeing Francesca standing in the doorway had been the most horrific moment of his life. He felt a cold sweat wash over him at the memory. God! The way she had looked at him, with such contempt. He cringed in humiliation. He’d always liked the way Francesca looked up to him. It had made him feel good. She was a very straight person. If she knew about his offshore accounts she’d be horrified. She’d always asked him to play by the rules and keep inside the law with his investments and he’d always assured her that he would, just to pacify her. Now she’d caught him having an affair and kicked him out. If she found out about his tax evasion there’d be hell to pay. His life was in ruins.

He didn’t want his marriage to end. He liked being married to Francesca, even if she got on his nerves a bit. She was a good wife. She entertained well, and looked after his father and the boys so that he could concentrate on providing for them. He’d been happy having the affair with Nikki, but he hadn’t planned to leave Francesca for her. And he’d
never
got the impression that Nikki wanted him to leave his wife. She was far too wrapped up in her career and social life to want to be domesticated. And that had suited him down to the ground. He’d had it every way. Now the ball game had changed, the goal posts had shifted and he didn’t know which way to turn. He glared at the bathroom door resentfully. A sulking woman was the last thing he needed right now. Couldn’t Nikki understand how traumatic all this was? He could hear running water. What the hell was she doing having a bath? She’d only had a shower an hour ago. She was being very selfish and unsupportive, he thought angrily. She had no commitments to anyone. No family unit to disrupt. She had nothing to lose. Unless he could make Francesca see sense and assure her that the affair meant nothing, he had
everything
to lose.

Nikki eased herself into the foaming water and lay back in the bath. She was furious with Mark. He was taking it out on her as if it was all her fault. She’d got such a shock when the wife walked into the room. It was like something out of a film. Nikki shivered in spite of herself. Francesca was more youthful than she remembered. But then she’d only seen her a couple of times at banking events, where she’d been dressed up to the nines.

She’d been damn insulting though, the sharp-tongued cow. And the way she’d turned on Mark. Bossy wagon. No wonder he’d gone elsewhere. Nikki knew she had to play her cards right. It was vital not to antagonize him. Otherwise he might dump her and beg his wife to take him back. She got out of the
bath,
wrapped a towel around her and went out to the bedroom.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said contritely. ‘I didn’t mean to snap. I guess I got as much of a shock as you did and the last thing I want is to be a source of unhappiness for you.’ She put her arms around him and drew him close.

‘What am I going to do, Nikki? What am I going to do?’ he groaned.

‘Look, let me ring Aer Lingus and change our flights to tomorrow morning. We’ll take your cases to my place for the time being. You hardly want to stay in a hotel, do you?’ She arched an eyebrow at him.

He shook his head.

‘OK. Then go home and talk to Francesca and see what she has to say and we’ll see how things pan out from there. All right?’

‘OK.’

‘Now, why don’t we get dressed and go for a walk in the grounds to clear our heads? Otherwise we’ll sit here moping and that won’t do us any good at all,’ she said tenderly, stroking his head gently.

He nodded despondently. ‘OK.’

‘And then, when we come back, why don’t I book us in for an aromatherapy massage? It would help de-stress you a little. It’s been a tough day on you.’

‘Yes, it has,’ Mark agreed sorrowfully. ‘It’s been the worst day of my life.’

Oh, for God’s sake stop being such a wimp. Things couldn’t have worked out better for us
. It was almost on the tip of her tongue to say it. She wanted to shake him. He was making her feel so unwanted and
unimportant.
She forced herself to ignore her anger and resentment.

‘I know, pet, I know. But it’s happened now and there’s no use in crying over spilt milk. Don’t worry. Things will sort themselves out. And I’ll be with you to help.’

‘You’re very kind, Nikki.’ Mark held her close and her heart lifted momentarily. This was more like it.

‘Sure I love you, darling,’ she whispered softly. ‘I love you very much.’

It worried her that he didn’t respond.

It took Francesca almost as long to get home from the airport in the rush-hour traffic as it did to fly to Dublin from Cork, and she was weary to her bones as she paid the taxi driver and let herself into the darkened house. She switched on the porch light and the lamp in the hall and picked up the
Golden Pages
. If Mark came home on a later flight she was damned if he was going to get into the house. She found a locksmith in the area, phoned him, told him that her bag had been stolen with her keys in it and that she needed her locks changed urgently. He promised to be there within the hour.

How easily she had lied, she thought in disgust as she put the phone down, but needs must. The sob story would get him here quicker. And she wanted those locks changed badly. She wanted to have
some
control over the situation.

She went into the kitchen and plugged in the kettle. Trixie kept looking at her with puzzled brown eyes, sensing that something was up. She gave a little whine every so often. Francesca switched on the
small
portable TV and saw the end of the news. She couldn’t concentrate. She was wound tight with nerves, half expecting to hear Mark’s key in the door. Still, if he got a flight back to Dublin, it would take him ages to find his car because she hadn’t told him the parking number, and the BMW could be anywhere in any of the three huge car parks, she thought with vicious satisfaction. Once the locksmith came and was finished, she could go to bed and cry her eyes out. It was a comfort of sorts, Francesca thought as she made a pot of tea and nibbled at a slice of tea brack.

The red light on the answering machine was flashing furiously but she ignored it. She didn’t want to have to deal with calls. She was too numb.

It was an hour before the locksmith finally came and by then she was up to ninety. She kept imagining that she heard Mark’s car in the drive and was up and down like a yo-yo, looking out of the sitting-room window. As the time passed she began to get angry that there was no sign of him. How dare he? she thought irrationally. How dare he not rush back up to Dublin to throw himself at her feet and apologize profusely and beg her forgiveness so that at least she would have the satisfaction of telling him to get out?

She forced herself to appear composed as she informed the locksmith that she needed him to change the locks on the front, back and garage door for her.

‘That’s a terrible thing to happen to you, missus,’ the middle-aged man said as he took his tools out of a grey satchel.

‘I still have a terrible headache after it. I’ll just go
in
and lie down if you don’t mind,’ she said apologetically, unable to summon up the energy to make polite conversation.

‘You do that. I’ll be as quiet as I can,’ he said kindly. She felt like bursting into tears.

She sat, tense and unhappy, listening to the sounds of him working, waiting for Mark to arrive, and furious when there was no sign of him, nor even a phone call from him.

She couldn’t believe how callous he was being. Was he dining with his fancy woman tête-à-tête without a thought for her? Had the scene earlier in the day had so little impact on him? Had he no feelings for her at all? Didn’t he know that she would be devastated? Didn’t that matter to him one little bit? Was she of so little consequence that hurting her didn’t bother him? Was this the real Mark? Did she know her husband at all?

The questions whirled around in her brain, tormenting her, grieving her until she couldn’t stand it and the tears welled up and spilt down her cheeks and she had to bury her face in a cushion to muffle her sobs.

I want to die
, she thought.
I want to die. I do not want to endure this pain
. She could take tablets, paracetamol mixed with brandy. Then he’d feel guilty for the rest of his life, she thought bitterly, and it seemed like such a satisfying solution. She wouldn’t have to endure the agony that was flaying her and he would spend the rest of his life in misery. Then again, perhaps he wouldn’t. If she committed suicide it would leave him free to marry that woman. Francesca took a deep breath and sat up straight. No
way.
Under no circumstances would she facilitate them so easily. And she’d refuse to get a divorce. He could go fuck himself. No, she’d get through this and she would give him as much grief in the process as possible. Mark Kirwan would be the sorriest man alive that he had betrayed her and taken her for a fool. And that woman would rue the day that she had ever crossed Francesca’s path!