Someone Like You (79 page)

Somehow the idea of hot milk appealed to her, probably because it was one of her mother’s favourite remedies. If you had a sick stomach, hot milk with ginger was a favourite.

For flu, hot milk with the strange addition of black pepper was the remedy. Whether it worked or not, Hannah didn’t know, but she still associated hot milk with comfort.

When Claudia finally drifted off to sleep in her cot, Hannah pulled off her clothes and lay back against the yellow pillows wearing just her knickers, sipping the dregs of her milk. They were the black lycra and net ones she’d never worn before and had chosen because of her planned seduction of Felix. How ironic that when she’d been thinking of how she could give her beloved husband a reminder of their once-amazing love life, he’d been thinking of what opportunity he’d have to screw their au pair. Hannah tried to banish the image of him and Mercedes lounging on the bed, with the graceful insouciance of models in a Calvin Klein perfume commercial.

She didn’t want to think about what had just happened, didn’t want to have to face the painful lessons it was teaching her. Instead, she wanted to be able to talk to Leonie or her mother or Emma and cry. She wanted more comfort than a mug of hot milk.

For some irrational reason, she thought of David James.

His strong face and those big shoulders came to her mind.

You could cry into those shoulders, bury your head in their solidity and lean against them while gentle, strong arms held you tightly, saying comforting things. Not like Felix’s arms. Terrified of bulking up like a Schwarzenegger, Felix stuck to smaller weights in the gym, wanting his physique to be lean and honed rather than strong and masculine. She couldn’t imagine herself sobbing into his shoulders. Felix was the sort of man that women sobbed over and not to.

David had tried to warn her and she hadn’t listened.

Who could she turn to now?

Morning came with painful slowness and, for once, Hannah had her eyes open before Claudia began mumbling and grumbling in her cot, cooing baby talk to Harvey the sheep. Hannah reckoned she’d managed about three fitful hours of sleep, punctuated by sweaty moments when she’d sat up in bed, dizzy from the memory of the night before.

Felix consumed her nightmares; his lean, naked body curled around a succession of female ones, sometimes Sigrid, sometimes Mercedes, sometimes other anonymous beauties who laughed scornfully at Hannah and waggled pert, un-stretchmarked bodies at her.

She got Claudia up, kissing the wriggling pink baby who squirmed as she was being dressed. Hannah merely pulled on her old jeans again and dragged a marl grey Tshirt over her head. She ran a brush through her hair and cleaned her teeth, but nothing else. What was the point of going for glamour when your husband didn’t give a shit?

She peeped into the sitting room and saw Felix asleep on the couch. Bastard.

In the kitchen she made Claudia a bottle. It had been so much easier when she’d breastfed but her milk had unaccountably dried up after a month and she’d been forced to bottle-feed Claudia.

‘I’ll be able to help more now that you’re not breastfeeding,’

Felix had volunteered. That was a laugh, Hannah thought grimly. Felix’s help involved changing Claudia’s nappy whenever there was a press photographer around.

Otherwise, he restricted his help to cuddles during bathtime and other occasions when the baby was clean. Laboriously feeding her a bottle was too boring for him because Claudia was a slow feeder.

Hannah managed to grab a cup of coffee and a piece of toast in between feeding Claudia and tidying up. She’d filled and emptied the dishwasher twice when Mercedes came tentatively into the kitchen.

Mercedes clearly hadn’t slept much either and her normally dewy complexion was grey with tiredness under the Dior foundation. Her big blue eyes were red-rimmed and she was obviously consumed with remorse. Even so, she still looked immaculate, a red polka-dot scarf tied jauntily round her neck to enliven the plain white fitted shirt and black trousers she wore.

“‘Annah, I am so sorry, please believe me,’ Mercedes said, twisting her hands anxiously.

She really was sorry. It was weird that her au pair appeared to care more about how hurt Hannah was than her own husband.

If Felix had really given a damn, he’d have been up by now, begging her not to leave him. As if she would, she thought hopelessly.

‘Mercedes, I think you better go home. I’ll phone your parents …’

‘No,’ shrieked the girl. ‘You can’t tell them!’

‘I wasn’t planning to tell them,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ll just say that we have to let you go and tell them what flight you’ll be on. Did Felix use a condom?’ she asked bluntly.

She didn’t want to send Mercedes home pregnant. She felt sure it would contravene the employer/au pair guidelines.

The girl blushed. ‘Yes.’

‘I hope you don’t get pregnant,’ Hannah sighed. ‘You really should see your doctor when you go home.’ How strange, it was as if she and Mercedes were discussing an ordinary sexual encounter, not one where her own husband was involved.

‘It was safe,’ Mercedes said, still red.

‘Good. This whole situation is complicated enough without adding any more complications.’ Hannah found the Yellow Pages and opened it on the airline section. She shoved it and the phone towards Mercedes. ‘Mr Andretti will pay for your flight home, I have no doubt. It’s the least he can do. We’re going out for a walk,’ she added and left the room with Claudia in her arms.

When she got back, Mercedes and her belongings were gone, along with a tearful note saying she was sorry, so sorry.

Hannah folded the note thoughtfully and put it in her pocket. She’d been fond of Mercedes.

Felix was in the sitting room, watching football and drinking a glass of red wine. She was amazed that there was anything left to drink in the house after the party. She was sure Bill would have unearthed all the hidden booze, with her uncanny ability to sniff out alcohol.

‘Hi, babe,’ Felix said unconcernedly as Hannah put Claudia on a mat on the carpet for a wriggle and set her baby gym beside her. Claudia loved the gym: she whacked the bells and kicked the fluffy balls with delight, gurgling all the time.

Felix was still glued to the football. Hannah felt the rage grow deep inside her. She’d been on automatic pilot since last night, determined to cope with Felix’s hideous betrayal as calmly as she could. But his laid-back attitude pierced her heart. How could he sit there as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t screwed their au pair with the baby alongside, as if he hadn’t practically admitted to screwing half the actresses in London?

‘Have you got nothing to say for yourself?’ she said bitterly.

Felix shrugged and flicked back a strand of silky blond hair as if to say, ‘About what?’

‘How could you?’ she yelled at him, losing her head.

‘How could you sleep with someone else? I loved you, Felix. Wasn’t that enough for you?’

‘Don’t be so fucking bourgeois,’ Felix snapped. ‘Everybody does it.’

‘Bourgeois!’ screeched Hannah. ‘Is that what you call it when you believe in fidelity? Because if it is, then I’m the most bloody bourgeois person I know!’

‘Don’t give me that crap!’ he said, curling his lip. ‘You can’t tell me you haven’t played around. Until we became serious, you had a thing going with David James, didn’t you, huh? Don’t lie to me, I know you did. You were two-timing me. He as near as dammit told me to leave you alone.’

‘He did what?’

Felix laughed at her. ‘Not so cocky, now, are you, Hannah dear? David told me that if I hurt you, he’d rip my throat out. I may not be a Mensa member but even I can figure out what he meant by that.’

Hannah was mute. ‘But, but…’ she stammered after a moment. ‘He didn’t, we didn’t…’

‘Oh yeah, right.’

‘We didn’t,’ she insisted. ‘I didn’t even know he liked me.

‘And why did he pluck you from the office manager’s job and make you a junior agent, then? Because you were the most gifted person he’d ever met in his life or because he wanted to get into your knickers?’

She recoiled at the crudity. How typically Felix: to hit her while she was down. ‘You’re saying that my talent had nothing to do with my promotion, that David was cynically using me and that he’d demote me back to my old position when he’d got his leg over,’ she said calmly, hating Felix for what he’d said. ‘How flattering, Felix. It’s nice to know that you appreciate my finer qualities and have respect for my abilities. To think I gave up that good job to marry a man who sees me as a useless bimbo.’ She favoured him with the lethal, stern look she’d used to great effect for so many years.

‘The only person who cynically uses anyone round here is you, Felix. You married me because you thought a pregnant wife would be useful, another string to your bow.’

She waited for him to deny it but he didn’t. He merely sat looking at her with cool disinterest.

Claudia began to wail at the shouting around her.

Hannah picked her up and cuddled her, murmuring soothing baby noises and holding her close.

‘If you couldn’t wait for our first anniversary before you started screwing around, I’ve got to ask why did you marry me, Felix?’ she asked quietly. ‘Mercedes wasn’t the first, was she? Why did you need someone else? I thought I was if enough for you.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Will you stop with all this psychoanalysis stuff, Hannah. We got married, we are married, end of story. People screw around in marriage, it’s not the end of the world. Life isn’t Gone with the Wind, you know. It doesn’t all end happily ever after.’

‘It didn’t end happily in Gone with the Wind,” Hannah said in a strange high voice.

‘Whatever. You married me and you’re stuck with me.

This is the way I am. I can’t change,’ he said.

‘But I thought you loved me,’ she repeated blindly.

‘I do love you, I just wanted to fuck somebody else,’

Felix explained. ‘Haven’t you ever wanted to do that?’

‘No,’ she whispered, ‘I haven’t. You are enough for me.’

‘Jesus, you women and your obsession with what’s enough! It’s like red wine,’ he said, holding up his glass.

‘Just because I like it, doesn’t mean I want to drink it all the time. Sometimes I like whiskey or champagne.’

‘What am I, then? The dregs? Cheap wine of the screw top bottle variety?’ she said, starting to cry.

Felix downed his wine in one gulp and headed for the door. ‘If you’re going to carry on like that, I’m leaving. I’ll stay with Bill for a few days, let you cool down.’

She wanted to beg him not to go but, miserable as she was, she knew she couldn’t completely degrade herself. She could hear him upstairs, throwing stuff into a bag. Within ten minutes, he was gone and Hannah allowed herself to cry properly. Claudia joined in.

When they’d both stopped, Hannah felt as worn out as if she’d swum fifty lengths. She made herself a cup of tea and considered her options.

She longed to phone Leonie, to hear her friend’s kind, comforting and sensible advice. Leonie would know what to do. She always did. But Hannah couldn’t phone her.

She was too raw and hurt. It would be painful and humiliating to admit what had happened. Instead, she cleaned the house, tidying up the worst excesses of the partygoers.

She scrubbed and polished, working until her arms ached with cleaning. Claudia watched and dozed. Eventually, Hannah stopped and sat down on the couch to watch Blind Date. The opening music had just ended when the phone rang and Hannah leapt to it, hoping it was Felix, phoning to declare his undying love and to apologize, both of which were highly unlikely. It was her mother. Anna Campbell always phoned on a Saturday night before she went to bingo with her friends. It was a comforting ritual they’d got into, discussing their week and sorting out the world’s problems.

‘Hello, Hannah,’ said her mother, who was not the sort of person given to saying ‘Hello, darling.’

Hannah burst into tears.

‘It’s Felix, isn’t it?’ Anna said matteroffactly.

Hannah sobbed more loudly. It was a few minutes before she could control her sobs enough to tell the whole sorry tale. She left nothing out. Her instinct to keep the most humiliating bits to herself had left her, like Felix.

‘Come home, Hannah,’ said Anna Campbell when she’d heard everything. ‘You’re banging your head against a brick wall. Do it. I should have done it years ago, but I never had the courage. You’re young, you’ve got the child to think of, leave him.’

Hannah leaned her head against the cool of the wall. ‘I can’t just leave,’ she said weakly.

‘Why not? Because he’s everything you ever wanted?’

Anna sounded sour. ‘What will you do the next time?

Because there will be a next time, you know.’

‘What would I do?’ Hannah said in desperation.

‘Your boss would give you back your job, wouldn’t he?’

Anna said. ‘You’ve always said he was one man you could trust in any situation.’

‘David James, you mean?’ Hannah fell silent. She could hardly ask David, of all people. She’d spurned his advances in every sense of the word. He’d obviously been crazy about her and she’d rubbed his face in it. He’d even given her a career when she had nothing else and she’d turned her back on that too. He’d done his best to protect her by warning Felix not to hurt her, dear David. He’d be the last person she could ring, even if she wanted to. And she wanted to.

‘Why don’t you phone him, Hannah? You can stay with me for a week or so to get you back on your feet and then go back to work. Leonie would have you, or that nice Donna you talked about. You could get a place for yourself and Claudia in no time, and a creche. I don’t know why you think you can’t.’

‘I can’t explain,’ Hannah said in exasperation. She felt too shattered to think straight, never mind make such a cataclysmic decision. ‘I can’t do it,’ she said tiredly. The Blind Date music played in the background. They’d been talking for an hour.

‘Your phone bill will be horrendous, Mum, and you’ll miss bingo,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone tomorrow.’

‘To hell with bingo,’ her mother said.

‘I’ll phone tomorrow,’ Hannah repeated. She didn’t want to be told what to do any more. She wanted to lick her wounds in peace. She wanted to have a bath and rinse away all the horrible things that had been happening.