Page 87 of The Way We Are Now

I stayed every night that week with Theo in the house in Holland Park. I’d go to work, go back home to shower and change and then drive myself back over to him. We’d cook together, eat together, enough just to be in each other’s company, learning more and more about each other’s lives in all the years we’d been apart. He made me laugh, spoke with love about his boys and his sister Mary, cried when he told me of the death of his sister, Georgina – the one who he’d told me I reminded him of – in a traffic accident in New York. He said very little about Vivienne and Araminta, except to say they had little to do, these days, with the running of the estate. I told him about the cases I’d dealt with over the years; the truly dreadful things some women had put up with because they were either too afraid to leave the relationship or because they’d found themselves held to account for offending against family and cultural mores and punished because of it.

‘So, do you think you took to this work because of what happened to Fliss all those years ago?’ Theo asked one evening as we shared a bottle of port and a delicious blue cheese.

‘I think it spurred me on, certainly,’ I said, considering the question. ‘Mind you, we don’t really know what actually did happen to her. What on earth she was doing wandering around at six in the morning; why she ended up in the canal.’

‘Two questions,’ Theo then said, draining his glass. ‘Do you still think I had anything to do with Fliss’s death? And does it not put you off men? You know, when you’re dealing with this stuff all day, every day?’

I took Theo’s hand – I always made sure I took his injured one – and smiled. ‘Of course not. I mean, I suppose Fliss implied she was with you when really she was selling her body – because at the end of the day that’s what she was doing, Theo – because she didn’t want me and the girls to know what she was really up to.’ I paused and smiled then. ‘And does it put me off men? Only the horrid ones. Men like you, Theo Mandeville, I could never get enough of.’

On the last evening before Theo was due to drive back north, he’d been particularly quiet all evening. He turned to me after we’d made love and kissed the top of my head, his fingers twirling a lock of hair around his good fingers. ‘We have to talk. How are we going to sort all this out?’

‘Theo,’ I said, ‘you have a wife and two little boys.’

‘They’re really not that little any more. Angus is sixteen, Miles just eighteen months younger. They’ll be off to university in a few years. And, you know,’ he went on when I didn’t respond, ‘half the kids in their class have parents who are no longer together. Anna, I can’t lose you again.’

‘I just needed to know,’ I said. ‘Needed to know if I still loved you.’

‘And?’

‘I love you more now than I ever did.’

Theo smiled and I saw relief cross his face.

‘We can sort this out.’

‘How?’ I shook my head and, although I was close to tears, I knew I had to be strong about this. Theo wasn’t mine. He belonged to someone else. ‘Your home and your work and your family – all you’ve ever known – are on the estate. Your wife isn’t going to uproot herself and your boys from there. And I wouldn’t want you to put them through that. It would be too cruel.’

‘I’ll tell her,’ Theo said calmly. ‘I’ll move down here and live in London permanently… It’s not as if the pair of us don’t have two homes down here between us. It will be a little unconventional, I grant you, but…’

‘And what would you do? For work? For money? All day when I’m out at work?’

‘I have investments that need looking after and I can still do the admin work of running the estate from here. That always takes at least a couple of days a week. I’ll be semi-retired.’

‘And I’d be your mistress?’

‘And I yours.’ Theo laughed and I tutted.

‘I don’t think it quite works like that.’

‘I’ll ask Honor for a divorce. She can stay on the estate. It’s a business as much as a home. I’ll go between the two.’

‘Oh, Theo, I can’t be the author of someone else’s unhappiness.’

‘Anna, I don’t know what else to suggest. I can’t lose you again. I need to tell Honor and the boys.’

‘The boys will hate you. They’ll turn against you. Please, just leave it a while. Promise me you won’t say anything just yet. And you do realise we’ve not said anything about Michael. He and I have been together almost a year. In fact…’ I turned to Theo, holding his eye, ‘…he asked me to marry him, on my birthday. Quite a night as it turns out.’

Theo stared. ‘Oh, Anna. I’m sorry. I just got the impression you two…’

‘We two what? We’re both in our forties and were just rubbing along together nicely until something better came along? Is that it?’

Theo shook his head miserably. ‘You need to sort out what you want, Anna. If you have a future with Michael Wrathmell then I promise I won’t try and come between you. But, the thing is, even if you hadn’t come back into my life, I truly believe I’d have left Honor. We have absolutely nothing in common. She’s a lady that lunches and, to be honest, is always glad when the boys go back to school so she can get on with her own life.’

‘You’re going to tell me you have separate rooms next.’

‘We have actually.’ Theo looked rueful. ‘Although we’ll have yet another row about absolutely nothing and then, to keep the peace, I’ll always try and make it up. I’m not very good with confrontation.’

‘I remember!’