The Men in her Life

school.’
    In London , Clare had imagined her life in Cornwall in a kind of sealed capsule. The two places had no connection except the train journey between. She had not thought of Holly as Ella and Tom’s aunt. She did not think she had talked much about her children to Holly, but she couldn’t remember everything they had said. They had spent the previous evening getting more and more drunk together until Clare had fallen asleep in the battered old armchair, and been woken by the fizz of an Alka Seltzer next to her face. Holly was dressed and made up for work. They had compared hangovers and then Holly had gone, leaving Clare to let herself out. After making herself a cup of black tea with a stale tea bag she found in an almost empty box, Clare had walked along the top of Trafalgar Square to Charing Cross tube station, her grip on reality returning a little as she breathed in fresh air after the smoke-soaked atmosphere of Holly’s bedroom.
    ‘Anyway, I’m glad you’re back,’ Ella said, leaning over the table to kiss Clare on the cheek.
    ‘I’m sorry I left you for so long, just before your exams.’
    ‘It was fine. Did you get what you wanted out of going?’ Ella asked with her usual directness.
    ‘I think maybe I did,’ Clare said smiling.

    Philippa could not stay in the house any longer. Every corner of every room was full of him. In his office, she twirled in his chair, pushing herself round with the toe of her shoe until his bookshelves spun around her head. She could still smell the scent of him there. It was as if he had just wandered out into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and she was waiting, mid-sentence, for him to return. Her nails dug into the padded leather arms, grasping at something physical to embody his continuing presence. He knew that she hated it when he walked out when they were in the middle of a discussion. He knew it. He had done it to punish her. Come back, you bastard, she screamed inside her head.
    There was a downpour outside. The weather had been hot and unusually summery up until the funeral, as if it had no respect for her feelings. Now, the rain fell on the roof of the conservatory like machine-gunfire, so loud she could not think. She called her secretary, Yvonne, who assured her that everything was fine without her, but she knew that already. Since she had sold her company she had become extremely rich and more or less redundant.
    During the years she had worked day and night to build up the management consultancy, she had, just occasionally, stopped to wonder whether there would ever be a time when she would be able to let go. The moment came without warning one day in a black cab on her way to see an interior designer when she suddenly realized that she had spent most of her waking hours the previous month vacillating between an ornate or minimalist style of decoration for her office. Philippa had turned the taxi back and by the end of the same afternoon had set in motion the sale of the company to her chief competitor for a ludicrous price. She had taken the honorary title of chairman of the newly-merged company only as a sop to her vanity and an irritation to the man who had been her rival for so many years. On the phone that evening, Jack had promised her that when he was done with editing, they would take time off together and travel the world before it was too late.
    ‘Too late for the world, or for us?’ she had asked him.
    And after the slightest pause from the satellite link, his laughter had gurgled down the line.
    ‘You’ve never lost your edge, have you?’ he said, ‘that’s what I love about you.’
    Why couldn’t those have been his last words to her? Why had he left her with anger still in the air that wouldn’t seem to go away however much she opened the windows?
    ‘Can I do anything for you?’ Yvonne asked, breaking the long, thought-filled silence.
    Philippa stared at the rivers of rain pouring down the windows.
    ‘Book me one of those holidays. Take the one that leaves soonest. I don’t care where.’

Chapter 14

    Simon’s boat was moored in the Marina at Brighton , along with dozens of other boats that looked just the same to Holly as she walked back along the boardwalk from the clubhouse, searching the white hulls for identifying marks. It was the first time she had been aboard, even though he had owned the boat for several years. He often asked her if she would like to spend the weekend sailing and she