I pulled the cord a little too tightly around my middle; I could feel it digging painfully into the flesh, but not loosening it, I started to make my way downstairs. I padded into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and noticed instantly that Ben had laid the table for me – a cereal bowl, spoon and a packet of muesli, a toast plate, knife, butter in a dish and a small pot of jam. It was both such a kind and worriedly sad gesture all in one that I couldn’t bear it. I picked up the box and put it back in the larder, then replaced the cutlery into the drawer too, before feeling suddenly drained and collapsing onto a chair, putting my head in my hands. This was so wrong. I shouldn’t be the focus of Ben’s attention. He had every right to be as bereft as me; he needed looking after too. Why did I keep letting him down like this? Ben was a good man; he didn’t deserve this, any of it! He didn’t deserve me.
My deceit – locked down for so long – bobbed up again, from where it now sat, just below the surface where anyone might see it floating there, barely hidden. My not telling Ben the truth was making a mockery of his bereavement; I knew it – but no matter how many circles I turned in, I was equally certain there was no way at all I could now confess, not now Beth was gone. I felt another wave of rage, and I didn’t WANT to be distracted by this. I ought to be concentrating simply on Beth – but then whose fault was that, that I couldn’t?
Mine. All mine.
Louise was probably still out there thinking that too. I imagined her suddenly, stood in this kitchen, telling Ben everything; how they’d both been betrayed… and Ben’s face as he learnt the truth. I shivered. Ben would never, ever recover.
There was a loud knock at the front door, and I jumped, before feeling my heart sink. Laurel. I just wanted to go back to bed and sleep – to shut everything out. There was a second insistent rap, and I hesitated. She would have made a huge effort to walk from the other side of town to see me, and she’d be worried if I didn’t answer.
I got to my feet and made my way into the sitting room, before opening the front door, but the woman standing on the doorstep with her back to me – about to walk down the path – wasn’t my best friend. As she turned around at the sound of the door opening after all, I realised it was Louise Strallen.
‘You?’ I gasped in shock. Having just literally imagined her here, to suddenly be confronted by her in the flesh, was completely overwhelming.
‘There are some things we need to discuss,’ she said abruptly ‘Are you alone? It won’t take long, and don’t worry, I’m not here to make a scene.’
I hesitated, but stood to one side.
She stepped out of the snow, past me, and walked into my house.
Chapter Five
I closed the door, and turned to face Louise. She’d lost a lot of weight; her face looked gaunt. She sniffed, having stepped in from the cold, and stared openly at me. The only colour to her skin was the violet shadows under her eyes. ‘I want to start by saying I am sorry for your loss.’ She spoke clearly. ‘Since Simon confessed to me in his office, the only thing that’s kept me going has been Cara. You must be in hell right now without Beth.’
I simply wasn’t able to respond to that.
‘Obviously, I’m aware that Simon has told you I know everything, and just so we’re both clear, that is everything. He explained you both met after your mother’s suicide when you were 19. I can only assume he told me that detail to make me feel sorry for you, or in an attempt to justify why, two months after she died, you met my husband and fucked him.’
I stayed silent. I knew she wanted me to react, but I had nothing left to give.
‘I gather Simon fell very much in love with you, although you also had a boyfriend at the time – now your husband? It wasn’t about sex apparently; neither you nor he were drunk. Simon was planning to be honest about you, and leave me, but I told him I was pregnant with Cara before he had the chance and he decided to honour his responsibilities. He didn’t know you’d also fallen pregnant. Am I right so far?’
I just wanted her to leave. ‘He never knew I was pregnant, no. Just as I didn’t know he was married.’
‘So,’ she continued, ‘you then have no contact. You marry your boyfriend and have Beth. We have Cara. Five years pass. We now reach the part that Simon insists is pure coincidence. Somehow, Cara and Beth randomly wind up in the same tiny class, you supposedly having no idea that Simon is a new teacher at the school you’ve enrolled Beth at, and Simon equally as devastated by the discovery as you, allegedly. Fate, no doubt,’ her voice wobbled dangerously, ‘as you’re meant to be together. Around this time, Simon also begins to suspect Beth is his daughter. I don’t suppose you’ll answer this question honestly, but is he right? Was Beth his?’
‘No.’
‘You said that extremely quickly.’
‘I don’t want to talk with you about Beth. Would you mind leaving now, please?’
‘I don’t want to be here; and I meant it, I’m genuinely sorry for your loss, as any mother would be.’ She cleared her throat. ‘You say you didn’t know Simon was married when you met him. Let’s suppose for one moment I believe that. I’m having considerably more trouble with you being completely unaware this man you’d had a child with – and then abruptly ended it with you – was a teacher at your daughter’s first school? You didn’t, in fact, think it might be the perfect way to engineer a relationship with her real father and half-sister by sending her there?’
‘Please leave me alone.’
She ignored me. ‘Did you send Beth there deliberately?’
I shook my head, exhausted. ‘No. I didn’t.’
‘So why the tears in my husband’s office, Jessica, and the implausible reasons for needing to speak to him alone if you don’t have an agenda any more? That scene told me everything I needed to know.’ She paused, and shoved her hands deep in her pockets, starting to rock on her heels. ‘Since then, I’ve thought about everything a lot, and I suppose it shouldn’t hurt like this given it all happened so long ago. The thing is, to me, because I’ve just found out, it does feel like it’s only just happened. It’s been nearly three weeks since he told me and I still feel as if I discovered you and my husband had sex yesterday. I mean, I get it – you’re very beautiful. You’re young, slim, trendy. I can’t stop thinking about you – I can see why he couldn’t either. I cannot stop thinking about you,’ she repeated, closing her eyes tightly and clenching her jaw. ‘And then I think about the two of you. Him touching you, kissing you. You fucking him. You’re driving me mad.’ She paused. ‘And it does hurt. It really hurts.’ The last few words escaped from her in a weirdly high-pitched wail, and I thought for a moment she was about to start crying.
Instead she exhaled deeply, stopped moving, dropped her head down and muttered something under her breath that I couldn’t quite make out. The fire Ben had expertly lit had made the room claustrophobically warm, and Louise’s coat was thick, but I realised the pinpricks of colour starting to appear on her pale cheeks wasn’t the heat, but a rising excitement. She yanked one hand free from her pocket and began to drum her fingers lightly on her leg in agitation, the other staying buried. She seemed to be preparing for something. ‘I know you don’t know me very well, but I’m actually a nice person, Jessica. I’m certainly not in the habit of going around making threats. So this is probably going to sound ridiculous, but after I caught you both in Simon’s office and he confessed everything, I wanted to kill you.’ She looked up again, her eyes now so wide open she appeared to be sleepwalking. Even her voice had taken on a dreamy quality. ‘I went straight to the school records, got your address and started thinking about how I’d do it. I was going to come round here – bring a knife, hide it in my coat and – stab you.’
She snapped off the last two words so unexpectedly I jumped. She didn’t even notice.
‘It would be so easy. I don’t want you in my head any more.’
I caught my breath. She meant it. She wanted me dead. It could die with me. ‘Do it then,’ I begged. ‘It’ll all be over.’