About Last Night . . . by Catherine Alliott

Author:Catherine Alliott
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405924931
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2017-01-19T16:00:00+00:00

17

I stopped still in the street. We didn’t speak, just stood staring at one another. He was exactly the same. Never tall, but compact and wiry; a presence, despite his lack of stature. His hair was still very dark with just a few flecks of grey, his eyes brown and penetrating, his face unchanged. But then it had only been five years. Not a hundred. I gazed at his familiar, craggy features, that Roman nose and creased face, his slightly shabby yet expensive clothes. I felt as if a spear had dropped vertically from the sky and skewered me to the pavement. It was the elderly woman who moved first. She turned around at her companion’s evident distraction and, with her maturity, put a couple of things together. She gave me a small smile and with a discreet murmur to Henri, moved back into the hub of the party.

Henri walked towards me, never taking his eyes from mine. He stopped a few feet away.

‘Molly.’

‘Henri.’

There was a silence. After a moment, he spoke again, gentle and low. ‘How have you been?’

‘Oh, you know.’

‘David …’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I know.’

I felt a huge well of emotion threaten to surge up inside and overwhelm me. Something I’d kept a very firm lid on for a good many years was churning away deep down like molten lava, but I kept it low.

‘I wanted to come to the funeral, but I thought …’ He made a hopeless gesture with his hands.

‘No, definitely not,’ I said quickly. ‘We were … on the phone.’

‘Who were?’

‘We were.’

‘When?’

‘When … you know.’

I watched it dawn. Watched that terrible penny drop. He looked as if he’d been shot.

‘Oh mon dieu. I had no idea.’

‘I know, and I shouldn’t have told you that. I don’t know why I did.’

‘No, you must tell me. I was the other party. You can’t shoulder all that burden, all that guilt, on your own.’

I gulped, nodding. Knowing he’d understand. But at the time I’d felt any sort of contact with Henri, even to tell him what had happened, was diabolical: it made me feel sick. I loved him for understanding now – no, not loved, but … you know. I gave myself a moment: needed a thousand more. Instead I took some good, deep breaths. He waited for me.

‘And Caroline?’ I glanced around, blinking, expecting her to bear down on us at any minute, glass in hand, smiling broadly, blonde and glamorous as ever in something silky and wafting. Henri looked confused.

‘Caroline?’

‘Yes.’

‘Molly, don’t you know? She left me soon after.’

It was my turn to rock as if I’d taken a bullet.

‘Left you?’

‘Yes. For Giles.’

‘Giles.’ Now I really did gawp. ‘You’re kidding. Giles and Susie Giles?’

‘Yes. I can’t believe you didn’t know. They’d been having an affair. For nearly a year, according to Susie, who found all sorts of emails, texts, the usual. Then she dug and found even more.’

‘Good God.’

‘Right under our noses. Caroline, it seems, was not working quite as much as she made out and certainly not late into the evening.

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