Jail Bird. Jessie Keane

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       2

      1996

       LILY

      Usually Lily King loved a little me-time, a little girly pampering, but on this particular Monday to Friday break she realized that she wasn’t in the mood to be relaxed and soothed at her favourite spa with her mates; she had too much on her mind.

      She hadn’t wanted to let the girls down, but by Wednesday she was pacing the grounds of the super-deluxe spa like a caged animal, and by Thursday she could see that it was hopeless. She couldn’t just lay about any longer, fulminating over what the hell Leo had been up to, without a thought for good old Lily; dependable, quiet, stupid Lily.

      Even a worm turns eventually, she thought, hurling her stuff back into her Louis Vuitton suitcase.

      You could only heap so much shit onto a person’s head before they finally came spluttering to the surface and said okay, enough. And – finally – here she was, a very domesticated and dull little worm, turning around at last. Going home.

      ‘Miserable mare,’ Becks had said with a cheery grin through a wad of chewing gum. Becks always chewed gum. Tall and lanky and sporting her usual blonde bouffant up-do, Becks had been swathed in a thick white towelling robe when she’d knocked on Lily’s room door and found her dressed and packing her things. She swept Lily into a hug. ‘You’ve had a cob on all week,’ she said, pushing Lily back a pace and staring into her eyes. ‘Anything you want to talk about?’

      Lily shook her head.

      She couldn’t talk about it. She was sure that her husband was shagging around and it was painful even to think about, much less discuss. This break had been a mistake. She wanted to go home and have it out with Leo. They had things to discuss. Important things. She’d tried before, but he’d just said she was crazy, she was imagining things.

      She knew she wasn’t imagining things.

      Sure, the marriage hadn’t been perfect. They both knew it. But they’d both tried to make a go of it, after the first flush of lust had worn off. Well, she’d tried. Obviously Leo had been trying out other things, playing other games. Like hide the sausage.

      ‘Well take care,’ said Becks, and hugged her again. ‘I’ll have to make do with Hairy Mary for company, won’t I? She’s always in that pool. She’s still in the bloody pool; she’ll look like a prune by the time she climbs out. Pity Adrienne couldn’t have come along. Or Maeve.’

      Lily forced a laugh. Hairy Mary was in fact their good friend Mary, who was married to one of the East End’s biggest drug dealers. She was a stunning little dark-haired hottie who went in for ultimate waxing; the only hair she had on her body was on her head. Maeve was Lily’s sister-in-law, married to the middle King brother, Si.

      Leo, Si and Freddy – they were a set; inseparable: brothers in arms.

      As for Adrienne…well, Lily thought that Adrienne was probably busy. And she knew what she was busy doing, too.

      ‘I think Mary does it to be streamlined,’ grinned Becks. ‘Less water resistance.’

      So, Lily went home.

      Home was a 1930s art deco mansion in deepest Essex, with both an indoor and an outside pool. Leo had fallen in love with the place when they had seen it up for sale. He liked the fact that Si’s place – equally palatial – was just up the road. Lily had been pregnant at the time with Oli, and Saz had been a bumptious two-year-old, whining with boredom as they house-hunted. This was the thirteenth house they’d viewed, and Leo had said ‘we’ll take it’ without hesitation, and promptly renamed it The Fort.

      ‘How about The White Elephant?’ Lily had joked with a tinge of acid in her voice, because it was huge, it was white, it was the thirteenth house they’d looked at, and wasn’t that meant to be unlucky?

      Besides, she was throwing up all day every day – morning sickness, what a laugh – and she was worried that she was going to heave all over the estate agent’s suit if they didn’t get a move on.

      After they moved in, Leo saw to the installation of a new security system to turn The Fort into a modern-day fortress. Leo owned, ran and understood the security biz and had installed a security system so watertight that if a mouse so much as farted in the grounds, he’d know about it. It was a double system: if you cut the phone lines, he proudly told her, it would still function. It had everything – sensors both inside the house and out, a secure entry system, and Leo added a high wall around the perimeter of the grounds. It was, truly, a fortress.

      Lily learned to love The Fort too. She furnished it lavishly. They had a cleaner in twice a week, the man came and attended to the pools, and the gardener called on Thursdays to keep the grounds in pristine condition. It was only later, way later, when the girls were in primary school and Lily had begun to suspect that Leo was indulging in a little extramarital lechery that she started to think that her ‘white elephant’ crack had been closer to the mark than either of them could have known at the time. Grandly appointed and heavily secured though The Fort was, Lily came to believe that they were not really owning the house, it was owning them. Or her, anyway. She felt trapped here – trapped, and unloved.

      Oh, Leo had been fair about it. He’d put the deeds to The Fort in both their names, and she appreciated that. But increasingly she felt like a bird in a gilded cage. Leo СКАЧАТЬ