I am glad I made the effort. He looks good. Great, actually. Bastard. He is wearing new jeans, very cool expensive-looking leather boots, a navy-blue roll-neck jumper, a trendy jacket. I can’t tell for certain whether the jumper is cashmere without touching it. It’s possibly something even more expensive, like vicuña wool. I am not allowed to touch him. Even if I was permitted, I wouldn’t. I think of what it must feel like to be him, snuggled up to that level of comfort and luxury. For one awful moment I think he’s going to tell me she’s taken him back. If she has, there is a danger that I’ll throw the table at him, except of course it’s bolted down. Everything is bolted down, because in this stuffy, sweaty little visitors’ room, news that might generate table-chucking is often delivered. Grandparents say they won’t be bringing the grandkids to visit their daughter any more, partners admit to gambling debts and hocking possessions, and lawyers announce there’s no case for appeal.
He doesn’t bother with small talk. I’m glad. It would be embarrassing if he muttered something about me looking well or him being pleased to see me. I have bags under my eyes, my cheeks are brushed with broken veins, my actions are listless, clumsy. Possibly I’m frightening to look at. I might appear pitiful or pitiless. He sits down. The quietness is obvious, even though there is a lot of noise around us; even more so because of that. People squabble, cry, sigh, laugh and gossip. We sit in silence. I hope he can sense the threat of violence in my voicelessness, my only weapon at this point. My scalp itches with annoyance.
He coughs. ‘She gave me a settlement.’
‘What?’
‘A ton of cash to fuck off.’
‘So you’re divorced?’
‘Yes. You’ve been inside a year and a half.’
‘Two and a half, actually,’ I correct.
‘I meant since the trial.’ It’s easy for him to minimise my incarceration, break it up into palpable bits. For me, it’s more of a stretch. ‘That’s plenty of time to divorce if it’s what both parties want.’
‘I thought you might try and make it work.’
‘No, I had no interest in that. Not at any point.’ He says this definitively and moves his hand in a theatrical slicing gesture, which makes me doubt him.
‘Right.’ I wonder, just for a fleeting second, if he’s going to tell me that he had no interest in making it work with Emma because he wants to be back with me, his first love, his real love. He doesn’t. Instead he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out an envelope. He starts to lay the glossy photos out on the table between us. At first, I don’t get what I’m looking at. Then I realise. The Old Schoolhouse. He’s printed out the photos because visitors are not allowed to bring their phones in here. I’m surprised by this level of organisation from him. He’s changed. Moved forward. At best I’m standing still; a more accurate appraisal would suggest I’ve moved backwards. It’s not fair. I can’t believe I ever imagined that life could be.
‘I used the money she gave me to make these renovations.’
I drink in the images, hardly able to believe my eyes. It’s every bit as beautiful as I always imagined it could be, always hoped it would be. I can’t believe it exists in this finished state, after all this time, after all the longing and hoping and imagining. And scheming.
Finally.
I’m surprised to note that he must have listened to me over the years when I described what I would do with the place if we ever had any money. He has had the roof retiled with slate, and the sash windows repaired, insulated, double-glazed. He tells me that all the paint-clogged and damaged cornicing, mouldings and ceiling roses have been repaired or remoulded, and he shows me before-and-after pictures. He has taken up the floorboards, installed underfloor heating, and then replaced them restored, sanded, waxed. He says that two of the four flats are complete. He shows me pictures of the bathrooms and kitchens. The vibe in the bathrooms is glamorous retro powder room with dusty pink hues, antique dressers and William Morris wallpaper. He must have had an interior designer source the vintage pieces; ornate mirrors, brass fixtures and classic cabinets create layers of visual interest that he simply doesn’t have the imagination to conjure. The kitchens boast a range of stunning, aesthetically pleasing features such as textured tiles and wooden and marble surfaces. They are dark and statement, softened by brushed champagne gold metallics. The beauty leaves me breathless.
‘I need to sell the smaller flat to raise money to complete the other two.’ He tells me this as though it might be news to me, rather than a plan I conceived years ago. ‘I have an offer.’
‘How much?’
He hesitates, then names an amount. It strikes me as the low end of what the flat must be worth. I suspect he’s lying to me. I don’t respond immediately, so he rushes on. ‘The thing is, I’ve stuck a shed load of cash into the place now, but I can’t sell without you signing, because the mortgage is in our joint names, right?’
‘Have you got a solicitor?’ I ask.
‘Not yet. I’ve been more involved with getting the place into a fit state to sell. I wanted to get you to agree to sign first, and then I’ll consult a solicitor, see how we go about it while you’re inside. I mean, I don’t know your rights. I’m not going to screw you over.’ He so obviously is. ‘I plan to settle an amount on you.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Like she did with me. I thought you could have half of whatever we get for the flat I sell.’ He means half of whatever he says he got for the flat. ‘After solicitor’s fees and estate agents and other costs have been taken off, naturally.’ I see my designated amount dwindling before it’s even come into existence. ‘When Emma settled with me, I thought it was a pretty fucking cold thing to do, but I see now it’s an effective way of, you know, closing things down between us and moving on.’
I pause, meet his eyes and then ask, ‘As cold as planting evidence?’
He glances about him, fidgets in his seat uncomfortably. ‘Are you still going on about that?’
‘I didn’t tamper with the wheels.’
He tries to look bored. In fact he looks sweaty. ‘Right, so you said in court.’
‘But the locking wheel nut key was found in my mum’s flat. My only question is, was it my mother who loosened the wheels, or was it you, Mattie? I’ve given it a lot of thought. That could have been either of you, but it was you who planted the nut key to incriminate me. Mum was dead by then. You must have deleted the footage of whichever one of you it was going into the garage, because it never turned up when the police checked. It was just unlucky for me that I decided to play that one last stupid trick, shrinking her jumper. I bet you were thrilled with that. I played right into your hands, didn’t I?’
‘What you’re accusing me of demands quite a lot of planning and cunning. You’ve always given the impression you think I’m pretty thick. How could I possibly have come up with all of that on my own?’ His sarcasm seems pathetic considering our respective positions.
‘Why did you do it, Matthew?’
I don’t think he’s going to answer, but then he says, ‘I was your trash, her treasure.’
‘I see.’
‘I was never enough for you.’ Maybe he’s right. I don’t know. I loved him. But I’m here now, so I guess maybe he wasn’t enough. He shrugs, seeming coolly confident, totally independent, something he hasn’t been for years. ‘Anyway, what’s done is done. The way I see it, we need to move on. Let’s sell the small flat, then I can finish the other two, and when you get out, you’ll have a nest egg. We can go our separate ways. Put all of this behind us. I’ll give you what you put down as a deposit.’
‘In real terms, with inflation and so on, that’s a loss after all these years.’ Years I slept in the leaky, draughty, rat-infested work-in-progress.
‘I’ll chuck in an extra five grand.’
I laugh. ‘Five grand? You’ll make millions.’
‘Well, it’s my money that has meant I could get it into a fit state to sell.’
‘And mine that bought it in the first place.’
‘But we were stuck. My money solved this.’
I’d wanted him to have a tempting taste of the good life so that he had a crystal-clear understanding of what he was playing for. Well, I guess I taught him well; he seems to have learnt that lesson thoroughly. ‘It’s not your money. It’s Emma’s money. I’m not signing anything.’
