“You can have your life back,” I say firmly. “But first you have to not give any money to Bryce.”
Suze is silent for a while, twisting her hands round and round.
“But what if he tells Tarkie?” she whispers at last.
“You can’t wait for that.” I steel myself to say what I know is right. “Suze, you have to tell Tarkie yourself. As soon as possible.”
As she gazes back at me, she looks utterly ill. But after what feels like about half an hour, she nods.
—
I think I feel nearly as sick as Suze does. I’ve had to admit plenty of awkward things to Luke over the years, like when I sold his six Tiffany clocks on eBay without telling him. But selling Tiffany clocks and kissing another man aren’t even in the same category.
And when I say “kissing,” I’m being kind to Suze, because it was obviously far more than kissing. (Although exactly what? She still won’t tell me, and I’m obviously too mature to ask her to draw a stick diagram. I’ll just have to use my imagination.)
(Actually, no, don’t do that. Urgh. Bad imagination.)
We’ve agreed that I’ll make the call and then pass the phone over to her, and as I press the speed-dial button, my heart is pumping.
“Tarkie!” I say fiercely as soon as he answers. “Listen. You have to talk to Suze right now, and if you don’t, I’m never speaking to you again, and when I tell my dad, he won’t either. This is stupid. You can’t keep phoning me and avoiding Suze. She’s your wife. And she has some very important things to say.”
There’s silence on the other end, then Tarkie says, “OK, put her on.” He sounds a bit chastened, actually.
I pass the phone to Suze, then retreat. I was half-hoping Suze would ask me to stay with her, so I could press my ear to the back of the phone and hear Tarkie’s side of the conversation. But she said she had to talk in private.
Which…you know. It’s her marriage and everything. Although I would have been very helpful and given her Dutch courage and prompted her when she ran out of words. I’m just saying.
Anyway, it’s fine. She’s gone outside the tent and I’m sitting by the Mexican band, drinking a Diet Coke to dilute the tequila. A guy in a poncho handed me a tambourine a few moments ago, and he looked so eager I didn’t have the heart to say no. So I’m banging it and singing in what I think is pretty good Spanish (“Aheya-aheya-aheya-aheya”) and trying not to picture Suze and Tarquin standing on the steps of a divorce court, when suddenly there she is, back again.
My heart gives this almighty swoop and my tambourine falls limply to my side. She’s standing by the flap of the tent, her face flushed, breathing hard, looking totally freaked out.
“What happened?” I venture as she approaches. “Suze, are you OK?”
“Bex, the trees on our estate,” she mutters feverishly. “The trees. Do you remember anything about them? Anything at all?”
Trees? What is she going on about?
“Um, no,” I say cautiously. “I don’t know anything about trees. Suze, focus. What happened? How were things left?”
“I don’t know.” She’s looking bleak.
“You don’t know?” I stare at her. “How can you not know? What did he say?”
“We talked. I told him. I mean, he didn’t quite understand to begin with….” She rubs her nose.
OK, I can just imagine the conversation. Suze saying, I’ve had this dreadful thing happen, Tarkie, and Tarkie thinking she’s lost her mascara.
“Did you actually tell him?” I demand severely. “Does he actually know what’s happened?”
“Yes.” She swallows. “Yes, he…he got it in the end. I mean, the signal was pretty patchy.”
“And?”
“He was really shocked. I think I’d kidded myself he might have guessed…but he hadn’t.”
Honestly. Of course he hadn’t guessed. This is Tarkie. Only I don’t say this to Suze, because she’s in full flight.
“I kept saying I was sorry and it wasn’t as bad as he probably imagined”—Suze gulps—“and that I couldn’t, you know, bring myself to go the whole way with Bryce, and he said, Was he supposed to be grateful for that?”
Good point, Tarkie, I think silently. Although also: Good point, Suze. I mean, she wasn’t actually unfaithful, was she? In the legal sense.
(Is there a legal sense? I must ask Luke; he’ll know.)
(Actually, no, I won’t ask Luke or he’ll wonder why I want to know, and that could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings, which I really don’t need right now.)
“Anyway, in the end I said we need to meet up and talk, as soon as possible,” Suze continues, her voice quivering. “And he said no.”
“No?” I gape at her.
“He said he was doing something very important for your dad and he wasn’t going to interrupt it. And then the signal finally went. So.” Suze shrugs, as though she’s not bothered, but I can see her hands clenching and unclenching nervously.
“So that was the end of the conversation?” I say disbelievingly.
“Yes.”
“So you don’t know how things stand?”
“Not really.” She sinks onto a barstool next to me and I gaze at her, feeling slightly dumbstruck. This is all wrong. The whole point of ringing your husband for a full and frank confession is that you talk everything through, and by the end you’re either going to split up or you’ve made up.
I mean, isn’t it?
The trouble with Tarkie is, he doesn’t watch TV, so he has no idea how these things go.
“Suze, you need to buy some box sets,” I say fervently. “Tarkie has no point of reference.”
“I know. He didn’t say anything like I thought he would.”
“Did he say he needed some space?”
“No.”
“Did he say, How can I trust anything you say now?”
“No.”
“Well, what did he say?”
“He said he could understand me being tempted by Bryce and he’d fallen under Bryce’s spell too…”
“Very true.” I nod.
“…but we were Cleath-Stuarts, and Cleath-Stuarts don’t compromise; it’s all or nothing.”
“All or nothing?” I pull a face. “What did he mean by that?”
“I don’t know!” wails Suze. “He wasn’t clear. And then he started talking about this famous tree we have on the Letherby estate, Owl’s Tower.” The freaked-out look returns to her eyes. “You know how all our biggest trees have names?”
I do know. In Suze’s spare room, there’s a booklet about the trees, and I have tried to read it, except I fall asleep every time I reach Lord Henry Cleath-Stuart bringing back seeds from India in 1873.
“Talking about a tree is good!” I exclaim encouragingly. “It’s a very good sign. It says, I want our marriage to last. Suze, if he’s talking about trees, I think you’re OK.”
“You don’t understand!” wails Suze again. “I don’t know which tree Owl’s Tower is! We’ve got millions of trees called Owl’s Something. And there was one really famous one which was struck by lightning and died. He might be talking about that one.”
“Oh God.” I stare at her, my confidence slightly dented. “Really?”
“Maybe Tarkie’s saying that Bryce is the lightning bolt and now our marriage is a charred stump with smoke rising from it.” Suze’s voice quivers.
“But maybe he’s not,” I counter. “Maybe Owl’s Tower is some really healthy oak which is still standing after lots of trials and tribulations. Didn’t you ask him which tree it was?”