I watched her tense, before she rushed right up to me – so close to my face I flinched again. We were practically touching. I shut my eyes and waited, sensing the movement of her arm slowly drawing up, the crinkle of her coat sleeve, before a press of cold metal on my neck. My heart began to thump, and I dropped my head back, further exposing my throat… but nothing happened – and the next moment, her lips were right next to my ear, hot breath on my skin.
‘Believe me, I’d watch you bleed out right here on the floor,’ she whispered, her voice quivering, ‘but I have a little girl to think about. Someone who depends on me.’ As tears began to slip down my face, the flat of the blade pushed a little harder onto my skin. ‘They’d lock me up, and then you’d have everything. You know, even though she saw it all happen – Beth falling – Simon still left Cara in the ambulance rather than stay with her. What have you done to him?’ She sounded almost incredulous. ‘He’s her father. She needs him. I need him. I know you came looking for my husband, I’m sure of it, but you ought to know, he’s not yours to take.’
‘That’s not true. I didn’t—’
‘You can insist otherwise until you’re blue in the face.’ She pushed harder still with the knife, and I coughed at the pressure; only, just as suddenly, she stepped back. ‘He can’t even look at us because of you.’
I gazed at her, stunned. Her hands were back in her coat. It was almost as if the last few moments hadn’t happened.
‘Cara’s at home today; all of the schools are closed because of the weather. She’s asked Simon several times to make a snowdog with her, or to have a snowball fight, and all he keeps saying again and again, is “maybe later”. I just want to scream at him: “SHE’S here. SHE’S alive. Just notice her! She’s five!” He should be doing whatever it takes to make sure he’s not going to lose her, or me. Only he’s not – because of YOU.’
She shouted so loudly I shrank back. ‘But Louise, I—’
‘Shut up.’ She didn’t miss a beat. ‘Just shut up! You are to leave us alone to rebuild our lives, and this is what you’re going to do.’ She started to draw her hand from her pocket again but between her fingers was nothing more than a small scrap of paper. ‘Our phone number at home, in case you don’t already have it.’ She flicked it at me. ‘Ring it this afternoon at 3 p.m. I’ll know it’s you so I’ll leave it for Simon to answer. Tell him to meet you at The Armoury tonight at 6 p.m. When you meet, you’re to tell him you want nothing more to do with him, ever again. You tell him you’ve never loved him – no matter what you may have said at the time – it was nothing more than a teenage crush. You reiterate Beth was not his daughter – whatever impression to the contrary you gave him at the hospital after she died. Then you tell him you’re moving away from the area.’ Her voice was much calmer now, as if she’d practised this bit.
‘But my husband’s family business is here… they’re all very close. He will never leave.’
‘Then you’ll have to go without him.’ She started walking back towards the door. ‘Because if you don’t move, I will tell your husband the daughter he is grieving for was never his, and that you lied. I’ll destroy everything he has left.’ She shrugged. ‘Or kill yourself if you like, and I won’t say anything.’
I sank to my knees, no strength left to stay standing, as she saw right inside my head. For the hundredth time, I thought of my poor father. A wife and daughter. I could never do that to him. I shook my head mutely.
‘Then call our house at 3 p.m. I want you to be the mistake my husband and I never, ever talk about.’
‘Louise – Ben is such a good man. He’s done nothing wrong.’
She walked over and crouched down alongside me. ‘Well, if he’s really such a nice person, he doesn’t deserve to have what’s left of his heart broken, does he? You’re clearly never going to tell him the truth yourself, or you would have done it already. So do the one decent thing you can for the poor bastard – leave him. He’d be better off without you. We all would. Now,’ she straightened up, ‘we have nothing more to say to each other beyond, again, my sympathies for your loss. Beth was a lovely little girl.’
I stood still as she opened the door and walked out into the snow, leaving it deliberately wide open behind her. She stopped briefly at the gate, and for a wild moment I pictured her changing her mind, spinning round, running back and lunging the knife into me after all – but she carried on resolutely putting one foot in front of the other. I waited for a moment or two more, as the heat leeched from the room and I began to shiver, but she was gone.
I thought about Ben – trying so hard to keep going – and Louise reappearing to tell him the truth. I saw Cara tugging at Simon’s sleeve, begging him to play with her, but being ignored… I heard Louise’s wail in my mind. How desperate did a woman have to be to do what she’d just done? And then, of course, I saw Beth holding up her arms to me, and my head began to swim.
He’d be better off without you, we all would.
Louise was right. I’d caused such suffering and pain.
There was nothing left to do but slowly get to my feet and close the door after her as the house returned to deathly silence.
Chapter Six
When Laurel actually did arrive, at half past one, she was delighted to find me up and dressed.
‘Well done, Jess,’ she said encouragingly, as she sat down on the sofa next to me. ‘Hey, shall we go out for a little walk? We could pop into town and get a hot chocolate, or something?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m fine thanks.’
‘No problem, and no rush. I understand completely.’
You really don’t. I have somewhere else I have to be soon. ‘Laurel—’ I blurted.
‘Yes?’ She looked at me, concerned. ‘What’s up? You seem a little… agitated.’
I hesitated. How could I even begin to explain? ‘Nothing. I might get a tea, or something. Do you want one?’
‘I’ll make it.’ She jumped up quickly and disappeared into the kitchen.
I leant my head back on the sofa, and closed my eyes, but I could almost feel the scrap of paper Louise had given me burning in the back pocket of my jeans.
‘Lau, you know how Ben and I were trying for another baby for ages before Beth died, and it just kept not happening?’ I called out desperately.
She reappeared instantly in the doorway holding a teaspoon, eyes wide. ‘Yes?’
‘Oh, no, no!’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not pregnant. Sorry, that wasn’t what I was going to tell you.’
She looked very relieved. ‘Go on then, what?’
I cleared my throat and said carefully: ‘Well, a few months ago, I told Ben that I’d been to the doctor, had a test, and it turns out to be my fault, but that given my age, they weren’t worried, and we just had to try a little bit longer before they intervened with any treatment.’
‘OK,’ Laurel said, confused. ‘And?’
‘I lied. I didn’t go anywhere or see anyone – there’s nothing wrong with me at all.’
‘Right…’ Laurel came over and sank down again. We sat in silence as I waited for her to think it through, my heart starting to thud at finally being on the brink of someone else knowing the truth after all this time; someone who might help me. Louise was almost certainly right. I owed it to them all to leave. But if I walked out and Ben met someone else, and they then tried to have children, they would eventually discover – as I had realised about a year ago – that it didn’t appear Ben could have children…
At which point he was going to wonder how on earth we’d had Beth.
And the house of cards would come tumbling down anyway.
I felt annihilated, suddenly. I just wanted to sleep. Forever.
‘Oh, Jess!’ Laurel said, and I jolted slightly, bracing myself. ‘You’ve been taking the pill all this time, and Ben doesn’t know?’
I stared at her, realising that, of course, that was a far more obvious conclusion for her to reach.
She took my silence for confirmation. ‘It’s OK.’ She moved closer and put an arm round my shoulder. ‘I don’t blame you for one second, and you shouldn’t blame yourself either. You’re only 24! Just because you’d already had… Beth,’ she said her name hesitantly, ‘wouldn’t have meant you’d have automatically been up for having more kids.’