it is a lie you’ll know when you see his face, and if it’s true he won’t be able to hide that, either.’
Sancha looked at her bleakly. ‘And then what do I do? If Mark tells me it’s true and he’s having an affair? How do I react to that? Do I say, Oh, well, carry on! I just wanted to know. Or do I give him some sort of ultimatum—me or her, choose now! And what if he chooses her? What if be walks out and leaves me and the children?’
‘If he’s likely to do that you’re better off knowing now. You can’t bury your head in the sand, pretend it isn’t happening or hope it will all go away. Where’s your pride, for heaven’s sake?’
Anguish made Sancha want to weep, but she fought it down, struggled to keep her voice calm. ‘There are more important things than pride!’
‘Is there anything more important than your marriage?’ Zoe demanded. ‘Come on, Sancha, you’ve got to face up to this. Do you know...what was her name? Jacqui something? What’s she like?’
‘I’ve no idea; I’ve never set eyes on her.’ Sancha’s voice broke, her whole body trembling as she tried to be calm. ‘Stop asking me questions. I need to think, but how can I think when there’s so much to do all the time? Just keeping up with Flora drains all my energy.’
Zoe contemplated the two-year-old jumping round her playpen. ‘I bet it does. Just watching her makes me feel drained.’ She shot Sancha a measuring glance. ‘Look, I have nothing much to do today. Why don’t I stay here and look after Flora while you go off by yourself and think things over?’
Sancha laughed shortly. ‘You’d be a nervous wreck in half an hour!’
‘I’ve babysat for you before!’
‘At night, when she was asleep—and not often, either. You have no idea what she’s like when she’s awake. You need eyes in the back of your head.’
Zoe shrugged. ‘I’ll manage; I’m not stupid. Off you go, forget about Flora for a few hours. Don’t just moon about—do something about the way you look. Have your hair done! You haven’t had a new hairstyle for years. That will make you feel a whole lot better. Don’t worry about the boys; I’ll pick them up from school. But can you be back by six because I’ve got a date at seven-thirty?’
Sancha hesitated a second or two more, then smiled at her sister. ‘OK, thanks, Zoe—if you’re sure...’
‘I’m sure!’
‘Well, thanks, you’re an angel. I will have my hair done. You’re right—I should. And if you have any real problems go to Martha—remember her? Lives across the street, only just five foot, with very short black hair? She’ll help out if something does go wrong.’
Zoe grinned and nodded. ‘OK, OK. Don’t fret so much. Now scoot, will you, while the monster isn’t looking.’
Flora was sitting with her back to them, struggling to force a small bear into one of her small plastic saucepans, far too absorbed to notice what was going on behind her.
Sancha gave her sister a grateful look, then grabbed up her purse and went out on tiptoe. Ten minutes later she was in her car, heading for the centre of town. First she went to the best hairstylist she knew, and managed to get an immediate appointment because someone had cancelled. The man who came to do her hair ran a comb through the thick curls with a grimace.
‘This is going to take me for ever!’ he groaned. ‘Any ideas about how you want it to look?’
‘Different,’ Sancha said, feeling reckless. What she really wanted to say was, Make me beautiful, make me glamorous, help me get my husband back! If only she could switch back six years, to the way she’d looked before she’d started having babies and ruined her figure!
While the stylist began thinning and cutting her hair she leaned back in the chair with closed eyes, thinking. But she was still going round in circles, deciding first to do this, then that, and afraid of doing anything at all in case it precipitated a crisis which could lead to the end of her marriage.
The letter might be a hoax, a wicked lie. She could be torturing herself over nothing. But if it was true? Her heart plummeted and she had to bite the inside of her lip to stop herself crying. What was she going to do? Was Zoe right? Should she confront Mark, show him the letter, ask him if it was true?
No, she couldn‘t—she was too scared of what might happen next. She felt as if she were standing in the middle of a minefield. Any step she took might blow everything up around her. The only safety lay in not moving at all. Not yet.
First she had to find out if there was any truth in the allegation. But how could she do that without asking Mark?
Tonight he was supposed to be having dinner with his boss, Frank Monroe, the man who had started the construction company and still owned the majority of the shares. Mark hadn’t said where they were having dinner, but it was either at Monroe’s house, a big detached place outside town, or at one of the more expensive restaurants.
She could ring Frank Monroe’s house tonight and ask for Mark, make up some excuse about why she needed to talk to him. If Mark wasn’t there she would know he had lied.
She sighed, and the stylist said at once, ‘Don’t you like it?’
Startled, she looked into the mirror and saw how much hair he had cut off.
Stammering, she hardly knew how to react. ‘Oh...well...I...’
‘It will look much better once I’ve blowdried it and brushed it into shape,’ he promised. ‘You can’t see the full picture yet.’
‘No,’ she said with a wry twist of the lips. She could not see the full picture yet; she must wait until she could. But Zoe was absolutely right—she had to know the truth. She could not rest, now that the poison had been injected; she could feel it now, working away inside her, like liquid fire running through her veins.
An hour later she left the salon looking so different that she almost failed to recognise herself in the mirror. Her hair was now worn in a light mop of bright curls which framed her face and made her look younger.
Before her hair had been blowdried one of the young assistants had given her a facial and full make-up, using colours she would never have picked out for herself: a wild scarlet for her mouth, a soft apricot on her eyelids, a faint wash of pink blusher over her cheekbones. Then, while her hair was being blowdried, she had had her nails manicured, but had refused to have them varnished the same colour as her mouth.
So the girl had painted them with clear, pearly varnish, and added a strip of white behind the top of each nail. That had given her fingers a new elegance, made them look longer, more stylish. Mind you, how long that would last, under the onslaught of Flora and the boys, the washing-up, the floor-polishing, the cleaning... who knew?
‘You look great!’ the assistants had told her as she’d paid her bill, and Sancha had smiled, knowing they weren’t lying.
‘Thank you,’ she’d said, tipping them generously.
Walking along the main street of Hampton, the little English town an hour’s drive from London, she saw the church clock striking the hour and realised it was now one o’clock. Only then did she remember that she hadn’t eaten.
She
