“And, as Mikey’s only brother, he felt a responsibility. Their parents died when they were children,” she explains, taking a drink. “Brought up by an elderly aunt.”
I take another scalding sip of coffee to mute a reaction. With subtle variations, same story. Same lie? I’m tempted to ask whether Tom took drugs, yet I can’t think of an easy way to slip it in. Maybe he only started when he was living with me. “The aunt?” I force the question, already suspecting the answer.
“She died before I met Adam.”
Pain seizes the muscles in my shoulders. My jaw grinds with anger. “How did you two meet?” When I talk I feel as if I’m speaking in tongues.
Beaming at the recollection, she says, “At a pub I was working in at the time. My mum had Zoe while I did evening shifts. Helped to keep the money flowing.
“We found each other really. Adam was such a gentle, private, enigmatic man.” She pronounces ‘enigmatic’ slowly as if she’s heard the word on television and thinks the description fits him best. Not a man who was edgy and unpredictable, then. Not a man who was miserable. Part of me wants to meet this paragon of a husband. It occurs to me that Stephanie had the best of him while I had the worst.
“Couldn’t stand having his photograph taken,” she recollects fondly. “I think in all the time we were together, I managed to get two shots of him.”
“The one you have on your desk,” I say.
“Anita showed you?” She frowns at the liberty taken.
“Sorry.”
She leans over and briefly touches my hand. “Not your fault. It’s my favourite because it summed him up. Little bit clueless about how the world worked, if you know what I mean, but he was such a smiler. Smiled all the time.”
Smiled? No, I don’t know what she means. I have no idea at all. “So brave,” Stephanie continues with admiration, “because, underneath it, I recognised he was a lost soul.”
I have no need to assume a troubled expression. This is for real. “In what way?” Perhaps living with Stephanie rescued him in a way that I could not. The Adam she talks of sounds like a new, improved version of Tom. After he faked his own death did his dual life screw him over?
“Wasn’t very worldly. Didn’t seem to know where he was heading. Innocent, really. And, oh my God,” she rolls her eyes and beams, “hopeless with money. As soon as he earned it, he’d blow it.” My mind seizes hotly upon the arguments I had with Tom about his propensity to spend. “Naïve about life, or maybe that’s because I’d had to grow up, what with having a child on my own.”
“Young for his age?” I chip in.
“Twenty-one going on fifteen,” she laughs. “We married two years after we met, on his twenty-third birthday. We only had four years together.” With a jolt, I factor this in with what Anita said and realise that it doesn’t compute. If I have this right, Tom is now thirty-one not thirty-five, as he led me to believe.
“And Zoe’s dad?”
Stephanie shakes her head. “Off the scene. Never should have happened, but I’m glad it did.” She flicks a shy smile. “Adam was lovely with Zoe. Very calm,” she says proudly. “Sorry, I’m droning on.”
“No, it’s fine.” And it was because every piece of information was going into my mental database.
“As you probably gather, I could talk for both of us.” Like me, I think numbly.
Her face relaxes. Happy. Sorted. She needs to talk about her man. It provides solace for her.
My coffee tastes bitter on my tongue. I allow Stephanie her memory of the husband she still clearly loves, while mine lingers ailing, sickly and not breathing terribly well.
“Did you consider travelling with Adam to Thailand?”
“What would I do with a small child in the middle of Phuket?”
I shoot a smile. “I can think of worse places.”
Stephanie shakes her head vehemently. “My family and friends are here. Mum, who isn’t very well now, lives over the border. My part of the world,” she says, looking around her, “not Adam’s.”
“Where was that?” I believe I know, but I could be mistaken; so very wrong about many things.
“Torquay, Devon.”
Seaside resort. Palm trees. Tourists wanting affordable low-end breaks. Not city. Not rattle and hum. Not South London.
“And the accident?” I shouldn’t press her emotional wound, but cannot help myself. Besides, after her initial response, she doesn’t appear to mind. It seems almost a relief.
“On the way from the airport. A cab collided with a tanker. Mikey was with him.”
“They both died?”
Her look is raw, bleeding at the edges. “First I knew was when I received a knock at the door from a couple of police officers.”
My eyes blink with confusion to prevent them from shooting wide. Coppers? How the hell did that work? “I’m so sorry,” I mumble, although my apology is for something else entirely. “And your poor little girl.”
She pushes a feeble smile. “Adam might not have been Zoe’s dad, but she loved him like he was.”
“I don’t know what to say.” True.
“I thought, with my family and friends, I’d be okay.” Her expression is one of great sadness and loss.
I tiptoe up to what I say next. “But you’re not?”
She lets out a breath. “It’s worse. Nobody tells you how much grief hurts. It’s almost physical.” She thumps her chest to emphasise the point. “Anti-depressants take the edge off it, but they don’t really help. There’s no medicine to mend a broken heart, is there?”
I can’t bear to meet her bleak expression. I stumble a platitude.
“And there’s only so much your family can take,” she continues. “It’s as if there is a set time of mourning, after which you’re supposed to pick yourself up and get on with life.”
Oh God, should I tell her the truth? How can I reveal that we’ve both been deceived and betrayed? How can I rip the ground from underneath her feet? “Rarely works like that.”
“No,” she agrees with a lonely smile. “You understand, don’t you?”
It isn’t said to trap me. She speaks simply like one woman reaching out to another. Crucified, I look away, fix on a stain on the wall, and listen to the kitchen clock pounding a beat. I should go and never ever return. “Grief is the price we pay for love,” I murmur. Placing my mug on the table and pulling my coat tight around my shoulders, I make a move to leave.
And then she floors me.
“I know this is really really stupid, but I keep imagining that he’s still here. That he hasn’t died at all. That there’s been a terrible mistake.”
Unseen hands with grimy fingers close around my throat. I grip the table, as if by steadying my body I will also compose my mind. “Unsurprising in the circumstances.”
“But I believe it, do you see?”
“Part