‘Nick’s good with cars. I’ll get him to have a look when he comes home.’
‘It’s okay,’ Lisa says. ‘I’ve got AA membership. There’s something wrong with my mobile though. It’s saying, ‘no SIM’, but I’ve looked and it’s still there. I’ll need to pop it into Carphone Warehouse, I think. Can I use your landline?’
‘No!’ I blurt out. This wasn’t part of my plan. She was supposed to sit in the kitchen and wait for Nick, not knowing Aaron would arrive first. I wanted to confront them together. I can’t let her leave. I just can’t. What will I do if I’m alone when Aaron comes? What will he do? ‘The phone’s not working.’ My words come out garbled. ‘Remember those nuisance calls?’ She nods. I’d confided to Lisa, and she’d showered me with sympathy. Little had I known then it was likely her ringing me. Or Aaron. Perhaps both. ‘BT thinks it is a fault on the line. You’ll have to use my mobile.’
I head towards the kitchen, but the basement door catches my eye. I hesitate. Turn to Lisa and frown as though I’m thinking.
‘I haven’t seen it all morning. I think I left it down there last night.’ I nod towards the basement.
‘What were you doing down there?’
‘I’d been calling Nick for dinner and he didn’t hear. I had to go and fetch him. He started talking to me while he was finishing his run.’ She’s not the only one who can lie. I tilt my head to one side. ‘I remember putting my phone on the table as I sat on the sofa. Nip and check. I must rescue the lemon meringue from the oven before I burn the house down.’
I spin on my heel and hurry into the kitchen, where I stand with my back to the wall. My kneecaps feel as though they are made of rubber. There is laughter in my head but it is not mine and I fight against it. I can’t do this, can I? I can’t lock her in.
Her footsteps thud down the stairs. Slow. Even. No rushing for her with her fake bump, and her fake baby, and suddenly I am furious. My desire to know the truth is stronger than my desire to do the right thing. What has she been lying about since Jake died? I cross to the basement door and pull it closed. Lock it. Leaning my forehead against the door I imagine Lisa on the other side thudding her fists, screaming to be let out, and this image whirlwinds around my mind until it is me thudding on the door. Me crying for help.
I back away down the hallway but I can still feel my palms stinging, my throat raw from my screaming. I don’t know what is me and what is her any more. I clasp my hands tightly over my ears and screw up my eyes, slumping to the floor. I only wanted a family. It wasn’t too much to ask for, was it? Slicing through the pounding in my head, the screaming, is a baby’s cry, shrill and desperate, and I begin to rock back and forth as though I am soothing an infant. Soothing myself. Please, please make it stop. I don’t think I can take any more. But I have to move. Aaron will be here soon, and my plan has gone all wrong. I don’t know what I am going to do.
He’s not coming.
The clouds are heavy and swollen with the threat of rain. The sky battleship grey.
He’s not coming.
If he’d left Farncaster after the text, he’d have been here by now and it’s almost five. I can’t check Lisa’s phone to see if he has texted again to tell her he’s changed his mind because I have broken it. Nick will be home in an hour. I pace the lounge. Back and forth. A caged lion. I imagine Lisa doing the same downstairs.
The tea light under the oil burner flickers in the corner but the smell of lavender does little to calm me. I don’t think I’ll ever feel calm again.
I hold Jake’s gold cross between my fingers. What would he think if he could see me now? How would he feel? A rush of shame engulfs me. My belly a mass of writhing snakes. I’ve locked his sister up like an animal and no matter what she has lied about, the money she has conned from us, Jake wouldn’t condone this. I can almost see the disappointment in his eyes that once looked at me with passion. With lust. With love.
Revenge.
It was never purely about money; I know that. Lisa still blames me for Jake’s death. He shouldn’t have been with me that night. He should have been with her, and it must eat at her, as corrosive as acid, burning her sense of right and wrong. Aaron still blames me for losing his place at university, his longed-for career in medicine. How degraded he must feel being a cleaner at the hospital he’d once thought he’d be a surgeon at. I begin to cry. Was it not enough to let me think I was going to be a mum and snatch my dreams away? Did they also have to lead me to believe I was going mad? The phone calls, the wreath, the book. The smashed picture. Locking me in the toilet. Breaking into my car. The man who has been watching the house – was that someone they roped in with the promise of easy money from a desperate woman? Because desperate is what I was.
Love.
I have so much love to give a child. Such a yearning to feel a baby in my arms, hear the soft snuffling against my neck, smell talcum powder, but it’s finished.
I am finished.
There is such an inherent sadness inside of me. I am broken. The cross seems to warm between my fingers.
I have to let Lisa out. She is quiet now and I hope she is calm. I have to let her go. The answers I crave won’t fill the cot upstairs. They won’t miraculously make me a mum.
It’s over.
My legs are heavy with sadness as I turn to face the lounge door, taking a step towards the basement. One. Two. Three.
A noise from outside. I freeze. But it’s only the forecast storm. The rain has started lashing against the window, hammering to be let in as Lisa is likely hammering to be let out.
Four steps. Five.
The hallway is suddenly flooded with light. There’s the thrum of a car engine. A silence. A door slamming.
Aaron.
He is here.
41
Now
My feet are stuck to the carpet. I can’t seem to remember how to move. I don’t know if the banging I can hear is in my head, in the basement, or from the front door. A tidal wave of panic crashes over me, almost knocking me off my feet. I stumble backwards. Lean against the wall, not able to stand on my own. Footsteps thud-thud-thud along with my heart. My earlier courage, fuelled by anger, is slipping away, slithering down between the gaps in the wall and the skirting boards, never to return. What was I thinking asking Aaron here?
There’s the jangling of keys and once again I am back in that night. Jake slipping his key into the ignition. The engine roaring to life. I shake my head, and the sound is replaced with a crying baby, or is it me that is crying? I touch my cheeks with my fingertips and they come away wet. Laughter. Stop the laughter. How can I make it stop?
The front door swings open and Nick steps inside, handkerchief pressed to his face, crimson with blood that is still dripping.
‘I banged my nose on the car door…’ He tails off as he notices the state I am in.
I am shaking and sobbing and he dashes towards me, his mouth opening and closing, but his voice sounds muffled and echoey and I can’t make out his words. I stare past his shoulder at the basement door, wanting him to read my thoughts. Know what I have done. Make it all better, but instead, he slips his arm around my shoulders and leads me into the kitchen. The softness of his voice combats the scraping of the chair legs against the tiled floor. His tone soothes me, although I cannot understand what he is saying. He would have made such a good dad. The whooshing in my ears grows louder and louder and dizziness engulfs me every time I move my head.
I am back at Perry Evans’s party. Red and green flashing lights bright in my mind. His mum’s cat ornaments rattling on the shelf as the bass vibrates. Vodka relaxing my muscles as I sway to the music. Paul Weller sings, and Jake’s hand heats the small of my back. His voice murmurs. He pulls me towards him. My eyelids flutter and my head tilts. Lips part. I lean in for his kiss but over Jake’s shoulder I see Lisa’s expression. The hurt. The anger.