The Imposter, Anna Wharton [romantic story to read TXT] 📗

right colouring for it, didn’t I?’ She stands behind Chloe, pulling her dark hair back from her face so it hangs down her back, limp. Chloe stands silent, still, like a doll Maureen has dressed up. Patrick’s face is expressionless. Maureen chatters away, seemingly oblivious to anyone else’s discomfort.

‘Of course I didn’t have the same buttons – you can’t get the same now – so I borrowed some from the original—’

‘Maureen, what?’ Patrick says, looking up quickly. ‘What did you say?’

Chloe’s dinner turns over inside her stomach. Her skin under Maureen’s touch is suddenly covered with goosebumps. She looks down at the buttons.

‘The buttons . . . oh Pat, you don’t think you can still get the same ones, do you? I just borrowed them, that’s all.’

‘Maureen, this is too—’

‘Oh Patrick, don’t be so silly, it’s just a few butt—’

‘No it’s not,’ he shouts, his voice reverberating around the kitchen. In the silence that follows the glass lampshades on the ceiling lights ring faintly with the echo of his rage.

Patrick looks up at Chloe and then away again. ‘Take it off,’ he says, quietly at first. Then again, louder, pointing at the stairs: ‘Take it off!’

‘Patrick, I—’

‘Maureen, this is too much. You’ve gone too far this time.’

Chloe rushes back upstairs. Behind her she hears the back door slam, and then a moment later, Maureen rushing into the garden after Patrick. In her room she closes the door, then behind the curtains searches for them out of the window that overlooks the back garden. She can’t see anything, the blackness of the night swallowing them up, but she hears voices, a snatched conversation.

‘. . . got to stop . . .’

‘. . . the likeness . . . please.’

‘coincidence, Maureen . . .’

‘more than that . . . can’t deny . . .’

Chloe pushes herself up close to the glass, her hair suddenly wet with condensation, her ear quickly frozen, but she can’t hear anything else. All is quiet for a moment. She looks down at the blouse still hanging from her frame. She knows now what Maureen was trying to do. She had planned this. She wanted Patrick to see what she sees. She wanted him to see Angie.

Finally she senses something in the garden and looks down. Two figures move about in the shadows. She hears Maureen’s voice, softer, coaxing. There’s no sound from Patrick. She can’t tell if he is being persuaded. But persuaded of what? It’s not as if Chloe has made any claims. She’s confident that she hasn’t given Maureen the wrong idea. How could blame possibly be put at her door? All Maureen has done is put together the dots and drawn an entirely new picture.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Chloe is unsure how much time passes up in her room. She looks out on the garden occasionally but it is black, lit only by the moon that shines brightly tonight though casts no light on what might be going on beneath her. While she waits, Chloe changes out of the blouse, folding it carefully and putting it into the bottom of her wardrobe where it joins a space thick with bed linen and spare towels.

Eventually Chloe hears the back door open again, the tap tap of footsteps on the kitchen lino. The door closes, softly this time, and muffled voices float up the stairs. Chloe tries to establish the tone of them, but they’re too muted to gauge. What was said? She can still close her eyes and picture Patrick’s face as he stared at her in that blouse. How had Maureen managed to calm him so quickly?

‘Chloe?’

She stands stock-still in her room. The voice floats up the stairs again, calling her name. It’s Maureen.

‘Chloe, love, would you come down? We want to talk to you.’

She opens the door a little and peers out. Maureen’s face greets her at the bottom of the stairs. She’s smiling, her features soft, not anxious.

‘Come down,’ she says, beckoning with her hand. ‘Come on.’

Chloe leaves her room and takes the stairs. As she reaches the bottom, Maureen turns and she follows her into the living room. Patrick sits in his chair by the patio doors, but the TV is off; he sits upright, his feet on the floor, not the pouffe. He looks as if he has aged ten years.

‘Sit down, Chloe,’ he says, indicating the sofa. She sits by the door, in Maureen’s usual spot, and Maureen sits beside Patrick on the pouffe. For once Chloe is grateful for another pair of eyes on them, for Angie bearing witness from the sideboard.

Maureen looks at Patrick, who clears his throat.

‘What . . . what happened earlier, you’ll have to forgive me,’ he says.

Maureen pats his hand.

‘It . . . it was just a shock to see . . . well, it’s been a long time, I don’t have to tell you,’ he says.

Chloe nods. She cups her hands together in her lap. She is still, resenting even the requirement to breathe. She doesn’t want anything to interrupt this moment.

Maureen interjects. ‘Patrick’s sorry for the way he reacted,’ she says, ‘he didn’t mean to frighten you.’

Patrick coughs again. He looks at his wife, as if he’s unsure of what he’s going to say next, but she smiles at him, encouraging him on.

‘I think, what I found so shocking was . . . was the resemblance between you and’ – his eyes flicker up to Angie on the sideboard and he squeezes them shut – ‘. . . and to our Angie. Perhaps I haven’t wanted to . . . acknowledge it before, but I guess that . . . well, seeing you there in that blouse . . .’

Maureen looks at him, nodding. He goes on.

‘I know Maureen’s felt like this for a long time, and to me, well, I guess I’d given up hope a long time ago. But maybe . . . well, tonight, I’ve had to admit that . . . maybe there is something in it, I mean, maybe there’s a chance . . .’

Maureen rests her hand on his leg and he pauses.

Chloe’s heart races inside her chest on the other side of the living room. She stays still, silent. She may still be wrong.

‘What Patrick is trying to say is, we think . . . well, we know it sounds ridiculous’ – Maureen laughs a little – ‘but we think maybe there’s a chance that you could be