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Something pinged in Shay’s head as if every blood vessel in it suddenly burst; she felt herself falling sideways from her chair and would have hit the floor had Morton not jumped up and righted her.
‘I’m sorry, love, I didn’t know how to tell you.’
Shay uttered things that weren’t words, awful sounds that a wounded animal might release. Inside her, an emergency system was triggered to deal with this enemy invasion of information as best as it could: adrenaline flooded her, blood vessels constricted to conserve energy for her vital organs. Her body turned into the SAS on a damage-limitation mission; one doomed to failure because it had no blueprint to follow.
‘I feel bloody crap now, love. I’m sorry, I thought you might have an inkling they were shagging.’ Morton had pulled his chair next to Shay’s so he could put his arm around her. ‘Mind you, I never guessed. I’d still be guessing now if I hadn’t paid for a private dick who came up with the goods this week. He can get where water can’t, that fella, best money I ever spent. I started to suspect she had someoneelse because Les needs rumpy on tap yet she’d gone right off it with me, but I never thought she’d nick her old mate’s fella. Have you any brandy for shock?’
Shay must have pointed next door to the lounge, not that she could remember, but Morton went there and returned with a bottle and two glasses. Why did everyone presume brandy worked wonders? She had no idea, but she let him pour her a stupid measure and press a handkerchief from his trouser pocket into her palm.
‘It’s clean,’ he said. It was snow-white and folded, corners lined up perfectly. Yet another example of world order being turned on its head: Morton’s hankie should be a balled-up piece of cheap, scratchy material with suspect stains.
Morton poured himself a large one. ‘Is it okay if I leave my car here and get a taxi? I’ll come for it early in the morning, but I think I need a stiff drink myself.’
‘Yes of course,’ said Shay, stunned that she’d managed to speak some intelligible words. Everything seemed so heightened, every word or breath carried a strange weight and left the tail of an echo in its wake.
‘I loved my wife, but I’ll never forgive her for this. Not that she’ll come looking for it anyway. Not now she’s got her fancy man,’ said Morton, wobbling his head a little as he alluded to Bruce. ‘Let’s see if he can keep up to her demands like I did. She never went short; I was always ready for duty in the bedroom department so it’s a good job I’ve the stamina of a teenager. I’m surprised I’ve got any tongue left the amount of use it’s had on her.’
Shay winced and reached for the brandy. If it could deaden anything, she hoped it would be the images he’d just put in her head.
‘She looked down on me, said I had no class,’ Mortonwent on, ‘but I have got a scrap of dignity left, whatever she might think. She makes a god of money, but it doesn’t keep you warm at night and I think I know a different Lesley to you, Shay. She’s not an easy woman to live with and if Bruce has any pride, that money will soon lose its attraction because she’s not one for sharing, she’ll use it to make him beg. He’ll turn up with his worn-out tail between his legs so get ready, lass. But if I were you, I’d sooner be covered in honey with my tits stapled to a beehive than take him back after what he’s done.’
Morton might not have graduated from a conservatoire of rhetorical excellence, but his words hit home and came from a site every bit as broken as the corresponding scene of devastation within herself.
‘I should have read the signs, they’ve been there for years,’ he said ruefully. ‘Looking back, she was always saying things like, “Why can’t you be more like Bruce with his nice clothes and knowledge of wines?”
‘Knowledge of wines,’ repeated Shay drolly. If she could have conjured up a laugh, she would have let it loose. Bruce didn’t know anything that wasn’t on the label. He couldn’t tell a blackberry note from a jammy finish. What he’d always had, though, was a hankering for the good life way beyond his means and if what Morton was saying was true, the bird of opportunity had flown right into his lap and laid a golden egg.Monte Carlo here we come.
‘I think Les was jealous of you. In fact I know so,’ Morton continued. ‘She was never happier than when she was having a bit of a bitch about Tanya or you, but especially you. Whenever you were summoned up to school because of Courtney, she’d go on about how you wouldn’t be able to be so Miss High and Mighty for a while.’
Shay was stunned. ‘High and Mighty? Me?’ Was that how she came across? To her own best friend?
‘Don’t be taking that as what you are,’ Morton was quick to jump in, sensing her thoughts. ‘I’m trying to tell you about her, not you. Tanya and you were stunners when you were young. You got all the boys and she’d say she wasn’t bothered but of course she was. Any chance to get one up on you and she’d take it. That’s why she had to have the best kitchen, the best fitted wardrobes, the hot tub, the steam room, the best this and that in the house.’
Shay was felled by this landslide of information. She thought of Les showing off her pergola and her wet room when Morton had built them for her, but she and Tan had never been resentful, nor jealous, just happy for her because it was lovely to see someone you liked have nice things.
‘Are you sure she and Bruce…?’
‘You don’t want to know how sure I am.’
‘But he can’t—’ She broke off what she was about to say, faithful to the last.
‘Can’t what?’
‘He’s…’just say it,said a voice inside her, a voice that sounded very much like Tanya’s.Why should you protect him?‘He’s… having problems. Down there.’
Morton hooted. ‘Guilt can do that to a man. Either that or he’s lied to you, Shay, but trust me when I tell you that he’s not impotent with my wife.’
Shay didn’t ask how he knew that, but she didn’t want to be presented with any photographic proof.
‘Anyway, she won’t get away with what she’s trying to get away with. She thinks she’d hidden all her brass so she doesn’t have to give me any. I don’t even want it, but I might take it and put it in a bank for our young Mort. The nerve ofher. She eventually sent me a text saying we were over and not to try and find her because she’d told no one where she was and if I played ball, she’d not force me to sell the farmhouse and pay her half, but I still thought she was having a huff about something and would turn up after she got bored. What did Bruce tell you? When did he bugger off?’
‘Last Wednesday.’
‘Only last Wednesday? I hate to tell you, but I think it’s been going on since she started having all that work done on herself.’
‘But that’s months…’ Shay’s voice lost its volume. Her brain was doing a horrible calculation. It was months ago when she had felt Bruce drifting away from her, getting short with her, coming home later fresh and showered from the gym, when he had started turning from her in bed. A new wave of disbelief and hurt washed over her, cold enough to take her breath away.
‘He left me the day after my mum’s funeral. I came home to find a note saying he needed some space but he still loved me.’
