Meaning, No way on earth will you, little ugly girl.
She would show them. She longed for the day — the day that would happen — when he ate his words.
On her iPad she entered her password and opened her diary.
Then she typed:
OK, so anyone want to tell me how long is a respectable time to spend with a partner? Husband? Whatever?
It’s a bit of a tired cliché these days, that old saying: ‘Live every day as if it’s your last because one day you’ll be right.’
But honestly?
People talk about managing your expectations. Everyone has different expectations from life.
They say money cannot buy happiness. So I’ll tell you what I’ve learned in my thirty-six years, to date. First, here is a list of things I hate:
1. Marmite
2. Gooey-eyed mummies
3. Holy Joes
4. People who tell you money doesn’t buy happiness.
Here’s a list of things I love:
1. My cat
2. Looking at my bank balances
3. Good quality Chablis
4. Oysters Rockefeller
5. Lobster
6. Jimmy Choo shoes
7. Mercedes-Benz sports cars
Here’s a list of things I want:
1. An apartment in New York. A villa on Lake Como.
2. Private jets, so I never have to take my fucking shoes off again in an airport.
3. Enough money never to have to work again.
4. To marry a man I truly love.
5. To start a family.
Is that so unreasonable? I’d like to think of myself as a woman of simple tastes. I want the best of everything. I want it now, all the time I’m alive. And I’m fully aware that one day will be my last.
When that day comes, I want to die with a big smile on my face. Not, as too many people do, in a hospital corridor with a hung-over medical student jumping up and down on my chest, or withering away from old age or disease in an old people’s home.
Is that really so unreasonable?
Life’s a game.
So sad most of us never realize that.
I feel so lucky I worked that out while I was still young enough to make it happen.
Can you imagine what it must feel like to be on your deathbed thinking of all the things you wish you’d done? We’re not just a long time dead, we are dead forever.
Don’t let anyone tell you any different.
The formalities at London’s Heathrow Airport were less arduous than Jodie had been expecting. She signed over care of her late husband’s body to the Brighton and Hove Coroner, and was on her way down to Sussex, in the back of a BMW limousine, in just over an hour and a half after touchdown.
She had been very fortunate, she knew. It was something of an urban myth that all of ships’ captains could perform legal marriages. To do this they needed to be an officially recognized wedding celebrant, and few were. Very conveniently for her, Rowley Carmichael had chosen to go cruising with a line that recognized, with its romantic destinations, there could be a call for such services, and a lucrative one, so all their captains were legally recognized celebrants.
And what kept that smile on her face broadening by the minute was the knowledge that the moment someone was married, any existing will they had made became instantly invalid.
The only thing bothering her was that Rowley had four children, and would probably have made trust provisions for them. But she had no doubt that at the end of the day she would end up with a decent chunk of change. As any wife would be entitled to. And it would be a substantial addition to her declining savings. But perhaps not the golden egg she craved.
As the black BMW turned off the M25, onto the M23 south towards Brighton, she was only too aware that the real jackpot she sought still lay, at this moment, elusively ahead of her. And she was already busy on her laptop, googling hard, searching for Mr Right across the websites where she had registered.
He was out there, somewhere. And she would find him.
Someone who would be grateful to meet her. Someone rich enough to make all her dreams come true.
Someone rich enough to make Cassie turn in her grave.
72
Tuesday 10 March
Always an anxious flyer, at 7 a.m. the following morning Roy Grace buckled himself into his seat next to Cleo, who was by the window, near the back of the packed British Airways flight to Munich. He felt even more nervous than usual. A swarm of butterflies was going berserk in his stomach. He had taken a day’s leave — which was fine, he was well in credit.
He reached out his left hand and gripped Cleo’s. The aisle seat to his right was, so far, empty.
Breaking the news to Cleo had been far from easy. She was furious that he hadn’t trusted her to be all right with it, and instead had lied to her. She initially questioned what this meant for them long term — what else had he lied to her about in the past, and would he lie to her again in the future? They’d talked it over and over, late into the night, and he admitted he’d made the wrong call, because he’d been scared of losing her.
The fact that he asked her to come with him to see Sandy helped eventually to bring them to an understanding. Cleo could see that Roy really wanted them to confront this whole issue together.
They didn’t talk much during the flight, each immersed in their own thoughts.
Normally Cleo did not wear much make-up, and Roy liked that, she didn’t need to. But today she had more on than normal. As if she might have been trying to compete with Sandy, he wondered. Not that she needed to have any fears.
As the plane touched down on the runway at Munich Airport, they held each other’s hands tightly.
‘I’m really nervous,’ she said.
‘Listen, I love you. There’s nothing Sandy might say that could change anything between us. I wanted you to come with me to show her — let her see for herself — that we’re a unit. You’re my wife, and nothing’s ever going to change that. You’re Cleo Grace. Right?’
She smiled, thinly.
Grace tried to consider all that was happening at work, but he couldn’t. He just kept coming back to just what was going to happen when he entered the Klinikum Schwabing with Cleo, and saw Sandy.
There could be no pretence that it was not her any more.
How the hell was he going to feel?
He again tried to switch his thoughts back to Crisp, and to the victims of the snake venom, but it was impossible. Just one thing occupied his mind right now.
Sandy.
Less than an hour later they were hurtling down the autobahn in Marcel Kullen’s white Volkswagen Scirocco sports car, Cleo, knees against her chin in the rear, Roy, his seat forward as far as it would go, inches from the glove compartment.
Kullen was good-looking, with wavy black hair and a voice perpetually filled with humour. Much of the journey into Munich was taken up with Cleo quizzing Kullen on how he knew Roy, and about his life, his wife and kids, and what had made him become a policeman.
Roy sat in silence, grateful for Cleo’s wonderfully inquisitive mind, listening to the conversation that was going on between them in the background. Meanwhile, his nerves were tightening the nearer they got.
Was he making a massive mistake?
The car slowed and halted. He looked out of his window and saw the building he recognized. It looked like a cross between a hospital and a monastery. A beige brick facade with a crimson-tiled roof punctuated with gabled windows and a portico of three arches.
Klinikum Schwabing, München.
Panic momentarily gripped him. He took several deep breaths. Was he making the worst mistake of his life? Should he tell Marcel to turn the car round and head back to the airport?