The Wife He Never Knew

Chapter 5: The First Question

Julian Vale arrived carrying a thin folder and an umbrella that refused to close.

For several seconds, he fought with it on the pavement while I watched through the glass.

Eventually he stopped, looked at the umbrella with evident disappointment, and left it open beside the door.

It was an unexpectedly reassuring entrance for a man my husband spoke of like a natural disaster.

I let him in.

“Clara Bennett?”

“Yes.”

“Julian Vale. Thank you for seeing me.”

He was tall, with dark hair damp at the temples and a small crease between his brows. His coat looked expensive. There was a loose thread at one cuff.

I noticed the thread before his eyes. Work had apparently survived the rest of me.

He held out his hand, waited while I decided, then shook mine briefly.

“The table's here,” I said.

He didn't look around as though assessing the rent.

I appreciated that more than I wanted to.

Leila answered when I called. I set my phone between us on speaker.

“Before we begin,” she said, “Clara isn't discussing any investment or sale terms today.”

“Understood.”

“And the documents?”

Julian opened the folder.

“Copies of the initial financing letter, the terms Evelyn asked us to review, and the review's opening summary. Clara can keep all three.”

“Is that the complete file?” I asked.

“No.”

I waited.

“Some correspondence is in the firm's older records. I've asked for it to be retrieved and checked for what can be released. I'll give your lawyer an inventory of what we locate.”

Leila asked a question about the scope of the review. He answered without treating her caution as an insult.

Then she asked whether he had any current interest in March Textiles.

“We considered it before Northline was given access,” he said. “We weren't invited to complete our assessment.”

“Would you consider it again?”

He glanced at me, then back toward the phone.

“Potentially. That doesn't make me an independent adviser to Clara.”

I wrote that down.

“What does today cost?” I asked.

“Nothing. It's a response to a records request concerning work we did.”

“And after today?”

“If you want work from us, you'd receive a scope and a price before it began.”

“I might not.”

“Then you won't receive either an invoice or a complaint.”

I studied him. It was possible to say sensible things and still be a person who would hurt someone. I had no intention of forgetting that simply because his voice was pleasant.

But I drew a small line beneath costs in my notebook. One uncertainty had an answer.

His mouth moved slightly.

“Good,” he said.

I looked up.

“Good that you're writing it down.”

“I might be writing that you're arrogant.”

“Then I'd prefer to reserve comment until you've seen more evidence.”

I almost smiled. The almost surprised me.

Leila said she had another appointment and reminded me to send her any new documents before making decisions. After she disconnected, the room seemed quieter.

I turned my notebook toward him.

“Who benefits if I sell?”

He read the question.

“That depends on the price and the obligations being transferred. You might. Staff might, if it protects their jobs. A buyer expects to. Anyone paid to arrange the transaction may.”

“Adrian?”

“Does his company have an advisory agreement?”

“I don't know.”

I hated admitting it again.

Julian took a pen from his pocket but didn't write on my page.

“May I?”

I nodded.

He wrote on a blank sheet from his folder: Who is being paid, by whom, and when?

“Ask for any fee letters. Not just the purchase price.”

“You think he's being paid.”

“I think it's a question worth answering. I haven't seen the proposed agreement.”

I sat back.

Adrian rarely admitted not knowing. If he lacked an answer, he usually explained why I had asked the wrong question.

“He told me not to speak to you.”

Julian capped the pen.

“I imagined he might.”

“Why?”

“We've competed for transactions. We disagree about what should be disclosed.”

“That's a very careful answer.”

“You're his wife. Until yesterday, I assumed you knew about his involvement in the sale. I'm not going to replace one set of assumptions with another.”

The words hurt despite their fairness.

“I didn't know.”

“Your lawyer told me.”

“And you believe her?”

“I have no reason not to.”

There was no dramatic assurance in his voice. I found myself grateful for that.

I drew Evelyn's old letter from its sleeve.

“Ruth says you came to the mill before Mum went into hospital.”

He looked at the paper, then at me.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“She was considering financing. I had concerns about information in the accounts and about the other lender's revised terms. We discussed them.”

My thumbnail caught beneath the edge of my ring.

“Was she frightened?”

Julian didn't answer immediately.

I watched the little crease return between his eyebrows.

“She was worried about paying people,” he said. “And angry with me for asking questions she thought I'd already asked.”

I could picture that. Mum rearranging papers sharply enough to make her point without admitting she was making one.

“She hated repeating herself.”

“I noticed.”

I looked down before he could see what the small recognition did to me.

Everyone had been so careful with my mother after her death. They remembered her generosity, her talent, her courage. I had begun to miss the woman who could be difficult about an incorrectly wound spool of thread.

“Did she say anything about me?”

The question escaped before I could decide whether to ask it.

Julian's hand rested on the closed folder.

“She said you were better with customers than she was.”

I laughed once.

“That wasn't difficult.”

“And that you were wasting time fixing other people's designs.”

That was so exactly her that my eyes filled.

I reached for the tissue box and found it empty.

Of course. Nina and I had finished it yesterday.

I stood too quickly.

“There's another box in the back.”

Julian moved his chair aside so I could pass. He didn't touch me or tell me not to cry.

In the little storeroom, I pressed my fingers beneath my eyes and breathed through my mouth.

For years, I had wanted one more conversation with Mum. I hadn't expected fragments of it to be waiting in a stranger's memory.

When I returned, he had turned his chair slightly away from mine. Enough to give me room to recover without feeling watched.

I sat.

“I don't need you to feel sorry for me.”

“All right.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I.”

I pulled a tissue free and folded it until the corners met.

“What do you need?” he asked.

It should have been an easy question. Instead, I thought of a roof, six wages, a marriage, and my mother's design books sitting in cartons.

“I need to know what I'm responsible for.”

He nodded toward the opening summary.

“Then start with this. It isn't current, but it explains what we were examining. Have your accountant compare it with the present records.”

I picked it up. The first page had numbers, dates, and terms I would need to look up.

It also had my mother's name.

I read the first paragraph slowly instead of handing it back.

Julian waited.

The heater clicked off. From the back room came the soft splash of another drop finding the bucket.

“Sorry,” I said, before I could stop myself.

He looked toward the sound.

“You didn't arrange the weather.”

“No. I just seem to keep apologizing for things.”

He didn't offer an interpretation. I was glad; I wasn't ready to become a problem he could explain.

I turned to the next page and found a figure labeled projected receipts.

“This means money expected, rather than money already paid?”

“Yes.”

I circled the word projected. Mum used to circle measurements before cutting fabric, even when she was certain. I had mistaken that for fussiness when I was young. Sitting there, I understood the comfort of checking before you made a cut you couldn't undo.

After a while, my phone lit up with Adrian's name. I turned it facedown.

“Do you need to take that?”

“No.”

He accepted the answer.

We went through the summary. He explained two terms when I asked and referred a third question back to the accountant rather than pretending certainty.

At five twenty, he stood.

“I'll send the records inventory through Leila.”

“Thank you.”

At the door, he looked at the uncooperative umbrella.

“You can leave it,” I said. “It'll be among its own kind.”

He followed my glance toward the bucket beneath the leak.

This time, he smiled properly.

Then he was gone, and I was alone with the documents.

Adrian had left a voicemail. I didn't play it yet.

I photographed Julian's three questions and emailed them to Leila, asking her to request any agreements concerning transaction fees.

Then I returned to the old summary.

Halfway down the second page, a note identified the person nominated to receive further findings on Evelyn's behalf.

Adrian Bennett.

I read the date beneath it.

Four years ago, someone had been asking questions about my mother's money.

My husband had been receiving the answers.