‘Someone?’ I say, embarrassed by his directness, and by my lies, my deceit.
They are exponential, my lies. They began with a single breath, the deep breath I took before I walked away. And with that puff, like a dandelion’s seeds, my lies scattered everywhere that December night, even though I thought it would be too cold for them to grow. But here we are, in the almost-spring, and they are popping up everywhere. I am lying to Ed. To Laura. And to Reuben.
Two policemen walk by the window, uniformed, wearing fluorescent jackets that shine eerily in the night like bioluminescence. I cannot help but flinch. As if they might be about to point at me, through the window. They have visited me twice. The third time will surely be soon. I am done for. I am wanted.
One of them pushes open the door, and my bowels turn to liquid. I dart a glance at Reuben, who hasn’t noticed them. At least he will know now. Why I am the way I am. Once again, I find myself thinking how amazing it is that he doesn’t know, that he doesn’t notice my gaze on the police officers, unable to look away. That he can’t tell that every thought is taken up with the crime; the memories of it, burying the evidence, breaking into the library’s offices. I feel as though I have been branded, right across my skin, like a farm animal, but nobody knows. Nobody in the world.
They walk to the bar. One meets my eyes momentarily. They speak to the man at the bar, then leave again. They are talking about me. I am sure of it.
‘You know what I mean,’ Reuben says quietly.
I don’t answer him. Can’t answer him. I’m staring at the police as they leave, thinking, I have been so foolish with those stupid clothes. It’s too late to go and get them. But of course my colleagues will recognize my coat and scarf. I should have been brave enough to hide them somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Buried. I wanted them close, but the sense of security it gave me was false. And of course they will see me, imminently, on the CCTV. I haven’t heard anything further from Ed, but surely it’s only a matter of time.
And then Wilf is back, and Reuben looks away, but under the lights, his eyes look glassy.
26
Reveal
Reuben is unbuttoning his shirt. He’s been in court. I don’t know why – he observes client confidentiality fastidiously, so I would never ask. I am wearing jeans and a jumper and wondering whether this will be the last time I wear this particular combination. I am forever doing things like this, these days.
I am counting down the weeks to my trial.
The light from the hallway illuminates a slice of the bedroom where he stands, as if he is an actor about to give a soliloquy on a stage. The rest is in darkness.
It’s been weeks since I have looked properly at his body, but something makes me look now, my eyes roving over him. I sometimes used to pretend Reuben and I were just friends, or new colleagues, or on our first date, and try to see him through fresh eyes. I do it now. Perhaps he’s somebody who I can see through an open window on a summer night, undressing. I feel a bloom in my chest, as though I’ve been struck by Cupid’s arrow, as I look.
He catches me staring; his green eyes are raised to me. ‘You alright?’ he says softly.
I nod, saying nothing. I close the bedroom door softly. The light from the hallway is shut off, extinguished, and we are in darkness. Reuben discards his shirt like it is a sheet blowing in a summer wind.
‘I’ve seen the stuff online,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ he says, his voice short. He continues to undo his trousers, sliding them off and standing in front of me in his boxers in the darkness. I can only make his legs out because they’re so pale. He says nothing more.
‘What do you think?’ I say.
‘About …’
‘About us advancing the defence of mistake. The feminism.’
‘It was a mistake,’ he says, his tone perfectly walking a tightrope between a question and a statement.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Of course it was.’
‘Well,’ he says, reaching behind me for a T-shirt.
I catch his scent. It’s changed, but my brain, my body, they remember how it used to be, as if I have been prescribed nostalgia. Tobacco, from when he used to smoke. His deodorant. Mints. He brushes past me, grabbing a pair of loose-fitting jeans, and pulls the flies up, his back to me. He smells of different deodorant now. No cigarettes.
I wait.
He speaks, eventually. ‘Isn’t that kind of worse?’ he says.
The long-sleeved T-shirt doesn’t sit well on his frame. It hangs, looking skewed. I have always loved that about Reuben – that he looks scruffy even when he’s dressed up; that he will often leave his shirt untucked; that as soon as he forgets to shave he looks like a hippy. But tonight he looks strange.
‘What?’
‘That it was a mistake.’
I frown, confused. ‘Worse than what?’
‘You mixed them up.’
‘Yes.’
‘You know what?’ Reuben says. ‘Actually, forget it.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No, what?’ I say.
Everything since that night is bubbling away, heating up to a high broil. That I was harassed, in a bar, by a man who felt like I was his property. That I wasn’t merely acting on one night’s vulnerability, but against the background of every walk home alone I’ve ever taken, every time a builder has yelled something profane at me, every time a man has stood too close to me on the tube.
‘Well,’ he says, and then, to my astonishment, he turns around and points at me. ‘Why did you think they were the same?’ he says.
‘I …’ I say.
What was it, exactly? The fear. The assumption. The assumption that came from a stupid pair of identical red trainers. Seeing a shadow leaving the bar, as I did, and panicking. That’s all. That’s all it was.
‘They were. I don’t know. Alike.’
‘I work for an Islamic charity,’ he says simply.
I have no idea what he means, until I do. I feel my body curl inwards, in shame, as though his words are things he’s throwing at me, and I can keep them out by shrinking. And then I feel it. The first real spark of anger at my husband. Not because of his accusation, but because of how he’s doing it. The indirectness. The passive aggression. I have no right of reply, because he hasn’t said what he means. He’s never usually like this. It is one of the many reasons I chose him: because I’d never have to guess how things were between us. Reuben has never not let me know where we stand.
‘No … no,’ I say, instead of saying all of the above. I can’t stand up for myself. I don’t deserve it.
If I were more like Reuben, I would be indignant. Don’t be ridiculous, he can say of people who hold negative opinions of him. He will shrug them off, like a rain-soaked coat, and get on with his day. And, likewise, he will blink mildly at praise, but not let it go to his ego. For me, it is as though he has taken my very sense of self and poked his pointing finger right through it.
‘Do you actually even know how it’s been for me?’ he says, wrenching open the door to our bedroom so hard that it swings wide and hits the wall.
I blink as the light floods in. We bought the copper lamp that’s dangling above him in IKEA, thinking ourselves very trendy. Only, it hangs too low, and swings dangerously. Shabby chic just looks shabby when you live in a shithole, Reuben said sadly the day we hung it up.
Yep, I had said, and I’d loved to walk past it, would smile at it looking huge and orange and tacky. Now, I want him to look at me, to look at it, the way we always do when we’re both in the hallway together. One of us would say, Does it seem bright in here to you? Or, Is it me or does it feel a bit industrial-chic in here? But he doesn’t; he avoids my eyes.
‘What?’ I say, my heart jolting just like it did when Sadiq grabbed my hand in the club.
‘It’s been a fucking nightmare. And I know, I know, I know that it’s worse for you …’ he says, as though reading my mind, ‘but it’s shit. It’s shit for me. And you’ve not asked.’