problem between us and if ever there was, I would deal with it.’ Tara knew Faith had good intentions, but she didn’t want anyone taking sides. There were no lines to be drawn, not on her behalf. To Faith she added, ‘So can we please leave her alone?’
‘Noted,’ Faith said as she and Tara locked eyes. The moment passed and they both relaxed as they turned their attention to April.
‘Can I tempt you with some cake?’ Tara asked.
‘I haven’t had much of an appetite lately,’ April replied, ‘but it looks beautiful.’
Ignoring the refusal, Tara cut a slice and left the plate within reach. ‘You can take some home for your mum and dad, if you like.’
‘You’re living with your parents?’ Faith asked. ‘Oh, sorry. I heard what happened to your husband. No wonder you moved out.’
‘I’m not sure I could have slept there again even if I’d tried,’ April agreed with a shudder. ‘And being looked after is probably what I need right now, but to be honest, I didn’t have a choice. Jason and I had been renting our flat, and I couldn’t afford it on my own. I had to rely on family to cover the cost of the funeral, and my first priority is to pay them back before looking for a place of my own. Jason didn’t have life insurance or a pension.’
‘It happens more often than you’d think,’ Faith said. ‘My Derek died in a car crash just over four years ago. He was twelve years older, so you’d think he’d be better prepared, but he’d cashed in his pension as part of the divorce settlement with his first wife. He left me his business, but I don’t know the first thing about imports and exports and most of his contracts were verbal. I was lucky to keep the house when the company folded and its assets were stripped. My parents died when I was a teenager, so there was no one to bail me out.’
Tara looked over the rim of her coffee cup. ‘Enough of the sob story. Tell her about the compensation.’
Faith’s expression was sheepish. ‘OK, so maybe my financial circumstances weren’t as dire as I’m making out. Derek’s accident was caused by a mechanical failure that was supposed to have been fixed. He’d taken his car back to the dealership several times, but my guess is they simply reset the warning light and charged us a small fortune for the privilege. I agreed an out-of-court settlement, but I’m starting to regret it. I could have taken them to the cleaners if I’d been in a better frame of mind, but I’d just lost my husband. Derek’s death was needless, that’s what hurts me most.’
‘That’s awful,’ said April. ‘And what a thing to go through while you were in mourning, although I can understand why you settled. It feels wrong moaning about the money side of things. It shouldn’t be important, should it?’
‘But it’s a reality we can’t ignore,’ Tara replied. ‘Life would be so much simpler if we could deal with the emotional and practical elements of grief separately, but when the worst happens, everything hits you at once. So yes, April, you are allowed to complain about the financial mess you’ve been landed with, to us and the group. And don’t feel guilty about being angry with Jason once in a while.’
April’s laugh was hollow as she pulled the slice of opera cake towards her. She teased a corner of the cake onto her fork and didn’t look up when she said, ‘I’ve been angry with him so much lately.’
Tara’s eyes narrowed. Her instinct had been right – there was more to her story than April had been able to share so far.
‘Do you want to talk about it? Was there something you needed to say at the group meeting but couldn’t?’
Above their heads, there was the roar of an aeroplane climbing to the skies and April finally lifted her gaze.
‘In the months before Jason died … he’d changed. He had been a constant in my life, and suddenly he wasn’t – it was like he was somewhere else, or maybe he just wanted to be. There were times when he wouldn’t look at me and other times when he couldn’t do enough.’
‘But you said at the meeting you thought his change in behaviour could have been linked to his brain haemorrhage,’ Tara said.
April shook her head. ‘It’s what I’ve tried to tell myself, but according to the doctors it would be unlikely. I think Jason was up to something.’
Faith was blunter, as always. ‘Was he having an affair?’
‘It crossed my mind at the time, but not enough for me to accuse him. There was nothing specific, and then shortly before he died everything seemed to right itself. Stupidly, I thought I’d got my old Jason back,’ April said, blinking away tears. ‘And I’m glad I didn’t say anything. He would have died believing I didn’t trust him.’
‘And if he was having an affair, chances are he would have denied it anyway,’ Faith replied.
‘Exactly, but now that he’s not around to challenge, my nagging doubt has become a full-blown obsession. Am I being paranoid? Is this some cruel side effect of grief?’ April asked. She continued to look at Faith: she would pull no punches.
‘We’re blessed with natural instincts for a reason,’ Faith said. ‘Only people with something to hide, or something to hide from, dismiss it as paranoia. Have you checked his messages? His emails?’
‘Yes, and I hated doing it, but I hated myself more when I couldn’t find anything more incriminating than Snapchat on his phone.’
‘Sorry for being a techno-phobe, but why would that mean anything?’ asked Tara.
‘Messages are time-limited. You don’t have to go to the trouble of deleting them and you don’t run the risk of leaving an audit trail behind if something unexpected happens to you,’ April said, mashing her cake with the fork. ‘As far as I was aware, Jason never used it, so why was it on his phone?’
‘And that’s one of the questions you’ve been left with that Jason can’t answer,’ Tara said, recalling April’s lament to the group.
‘It hasn’t stopped me looking,’ April said. ‘I was finally given online access to his bank accounts last month and I’ve been going through his statements line by line. I’m not sure, but I might have found what I was looking for. There were some biggish cash withdrawals before and after Christmas, and I know for a fact Jason hated using cash. I can only presume it was to avoid any record of his purchases.’
Faith leant over the table and took the fork and plate from April before she pebble-dashed them with ganache. ‘Was it enough to buy a hotel room?’
April shrugged, misery etched on her face.
‘I’m sure there are lots of other explanations,’ Tara suggested. She wondered if Jason might have been into drugs, although this theory was only marginally better than the possibility of an affair.
‘Do you have any idea who he might have been seeing?’ asked Faith, having already reached a judgement.
April didn’t answer immediately. ‘Not really, but what Steve said in the group about friends getting involved with other friends’ partners struck a chord. I look at my girlfriends and wonder if one of them is grieving more for Jason than she should. I’m tempted to come right out and ask each and every one of them, but I’m not sure that’s a particular rabbit hole I want to go down.’
‘I’d
