‘Don’t kid yourself, Paul. How long have you been unfaithful for? Since the beginning?’
He stared at her, his lips pursed.
‘If you can’t even talk to me about it, how on earth do you think we can move forward?’ She held his gaze. ‘You know what, I don’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to hear the truth from you.’
Maybe she was too calm, too reserved, too much a shell of her former self. Teenage Fern would have laid into him. Somewhere over the years, she’d lost her drive, her passion, her gumption, while Paul remained as cocky as he’d been when they’d first met. He was a coward, hiding behind a wall of silence. The truth was out, but he showed zero evidence of remorse. Fern left him to his moody silence.
What was left of the day passed by in a blur. Jacob and the girls were content to swim in the pool. Paul and Rhod left the villa and went into Capri; Fern was sure Paul would tell his version of events, probably while they were holed up in a bar somewhere, drinking until late and steering clear of her. Rhod probably knew already. All of Paul’s friends probably did. She imagined she’d been a laughing stock for years. But not any more. Not any more.
* * *
The day of Stella’s fortieth birthday dawned, and, Fern thought bitterly, the day that was supposed to be a party and celebration for them both. Amber and Ruby had rallied around Fern the evening before, while Stella had spent the evening with Chloe and Jacob. Fern had no idea what time Paul and Rhod had returned to the villa and didn’t care.
Fern was in no mood for celebrating and she suspected it was the same for Stella, but they went through the motions with cocktails around the pool and a light lunch before the evening celebrations when caterers had been booked to serve a five-course meal. The bracelet she’d bought as a present for Stella to symbolise their friendship remained in her room, unopened.
It should have been the perfect end to two perfect weeks. Fern had been desperate for a break from the monotony back home, but in the relatively short time she’d been away, her life had been torn to shreds. Secrets had been revealed, heartache shared and new friendships forged. Fern had secrets of her own. Those feelings she’d tried to bury when she was around Matteo were fighting to be set free. She felt as tightly wound as a coil, ready to explode, and she didn’t think she was the only one feeling that way. Tension simmered throughout the day and into the evening.
The distraction of food as the waiters brought out each course was much-needed. The food was exquisite, but Fern hardly tasted it; she ate because everyone else was eating, but her head was elsewhere, fighting the barrage of thoughts and emotions that constantly battered her. Even the creamy tiramisu seemed tasteless.
The conversation around the table was stop-start and mainly centred on Ruby, Amber, Chloe and Jacob and how they were getting on at school and university. Safe subjects that focused the chatter on something positive.
Fern felt relief when the last course was cleared away and champagne was brought to the table. The evening would soon be over. And then Violetta appeared on the terrace, holding a cake blazing with forty candles.
They all stood and a painfully half-hearted rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ filled the air. Stella’s cheeks were red, Fern assumed from the embarrassment of them going through the motions of putting on a show to keep up appearances. Normally she’d have lapped up being the centre of attention.
Violetta placed the chocolate cake in front of Stella and, with help from Jacob, she blew out the candles. Smoke pirouetted into the night. The lanterns edging the pool flickered in a sudden breeze. Fern shivered.
‘To Mum,’ Chloe said, raising her glass. ‘And Fern.’
‘To Stella and Fern,’ everyone echoed.
The words tasted bitter to Fern.
They sat back down, but Stella remained standing, clutching her glass. A hush fell around the table.
‘I’m not going to make a speech, but I just wanted to say, to my friends and family, thank you. Thank you for everything.’ The emotion threading through her words was obvious, to Fern at least. Stella looked pointedly around the table, her focus falling on Chloe, Jacob and resting on Fern. ‘To friends.’
Fern looked away. A lump caught in her throat as she downed her glass of champagne. She scraped back her chair, dropped her napkin on the table and walked across the terrace to the villa doors. She felt everyone’s eyes on her, Paul’s and Stella’s in particular.
Locking herself in the downstairs bathroom, she leant on the sink, breathing hard, all the upset and anger she’d been battling to contain rising to the surface. Fern wanted to rage at Paul, but she felt detached whenever she looked at him. She should have told him where to go yesterday, demanded that he stay somewhere else so she didn’t have to see his smug, remorseless face. Yet she was conscious of how that would have impacted the girls. What upset her the most was how his lies had affected them, particularly Amber, that he’d upset them as much as he had her. Perhaps more so. There was no longer any love between them, but he was the girls’ dad and him disappointing them was a hard thing to deal with when they did love him. She loathed him for that.
Had there ever been love? Initially, it was just lust. But lust had turned to duty. Finding herself pregnant had forced her to grow up fast. Her whole future changed by two red lines. She’d wanted to stay with him because she’d been scared stupid of ending up alone, a pregnant teenager living with her parents, her life ruined. But if fate hadn’t intervened would they really have lasted? She was hard-pressed to think what would have kept them together. Not love. Their teenage lust had diminished pretty quickly, long before they were knee-deep in dirty nappies. The girls had kept them together. That and her fear of being on her own. She’d put up with stuff because she didn’t want to rock the boat, because their life was comfortable, because they muddled along and now this is where she had ended up.
Fern wiped away her tears and left the bathroom. She went back outside but slipped quietly into the shadows away from the pool. She needed fresh air to focus her thoughts before re-joining everyone.
There’d been plenty of times over the years when she’d wondered why Paul was with her. Fern’s easy-going, fun-loving side had been replaced by the stress and responsibility of young motherhood. His responsibility had been different. He’d worked hard to provide for them, but when she thought about it, his life hadn’t really changed. Yes, he’d become a dad at nineteen, but his building apprenticeship had continued, while her dream of graphic design at university had been short-lived. While she was bottle-feeding twins and doing the million other things that needed doing on a daily basis, he was making friends at work and socialising at the pub in the evening.
Fern gazed across the pool terrace to the faces of her friends and family lit by the glowing lanterns and candlelight. It should have been a joyous occasion, a celebration for her and Stella. Her best friend. She should be hearing laughter and chatter drifting across the pool, but instead the evening had been subdued and an awkwardness pulsated around the terrace.
Paul had his back to her, a beer clasped in his hand. His social life had continued while hers had stalled. Back then, after having given birth to twins, sex or any sort of intimacy had been the last thing on her mind. Had she really believed that he didn’t get up to anything on nights out with his mates? That he didn’t pull girls who were free and single, girls who weren’t bleary-eyed, greasy-haired and covered in baby sick? Had she been so naive to think that he’d remained faithful all this time? Or was it simply denial? Ignoring those worries had protected her sanity.
There had been moments of happiness in their marriage, and it wasn’t that her life was without affection, yet it often felt as if they were going through the motions of what was expected. More recently, she’d had mixed feelings about being intimate with him; part of her longed for him to desire her, yet despite his good looks, he also left her feeling cold. She often longed for sex, but not with him. Time away had opened her eyes, a combination of Amber’s harsh words during that first week and the physical and emotional reaction she had to Matteo. It wasn’t as if she was able to control the way she felt about him or the effect he had on her, but then, as Edith had pointed out, she’d shown restraint. There was nothing to feel guilty about. Something had changed though; something she wanted to hold on to with all her might.
Fern left the shadow of the pool house and wandered across the terrace past the soothing blue glow of the pool, her thoughts shuffling and taking shape, beginning to slot together like a puzzle. She knew what she needed to do. Since Paul’s unexpected arrival, the knot of anger and upset buried inside had intensified. A future without him was scary and unknown, but over the past day or so, whenever she thought about forging her own path, it felt as if the knot loosened – just a touch, but enough to make her realise that she might well be better off on her own.
She took one last look at the glittering hillside, a deep breath of orange-blossom filled air, and walked back across the terrace. If anyone paid her any attention, she didn’t notice. Her focus was on Paul and only Paul.
She stopped next to his chair. ‘I need to talk to you.’