‘I know.’ Nick shuffles backwards until he is leaning against the cupboard under the sink. ‘I’ve lived with what I’ve done every day for the past ten years. But you moving here… It seemed like fate. Written in the stars, almost.’
‘Don’t you say that.’ I lunge at him, beating my fists against his chest. ‘Don’t you ever say that.’ I pummel out my rage until I am spent. Broken. Lying on my back, staring at the spotlights until my vision speckles.
‘Why tell me now?’ My tone is dull, as though I don’t care, but I do. I almost wish I didn’t know – knowing can’t be undone, can it? After tonight things will never be the same again.
‘Him.’ Nick nods, and I groan. I’d almost forgotten about him.
‘Aaron? How do you know?…’
‘That’s not Aaron,’ Nick says with certainty.
Confused, I roll over, scrambling onto my hands and knees, and turn the head of the figure on the floor. Nick is right. This man is older than us, possibly in his fifties. I take him in: his salt-and-pepper beard. It’s the man who has been watching the house.
‘Who is he?’ I ask.
‘My dad.’
I rest back on my heels and, for a moment, all that can be heard is the dripping tap in the silence that stretches under the weight of all my questions.
‘Your dad?’ I struggle to understand. ‘The dad you told me was dead?’ I can’t tear my eyes away from the figure on the floor. This is my father-in-law? The stench of cheap alcohol forces me to turn my head as I press two fingers to his neck. ‘He’s alive, at least. We need to call an ambulance, Nick. No matter what he’s done he’s still your dad. I can’t believe you told me he was dead.’
‘You didn’t tell me the truth about your dad,’ he bites back as he hefts his dad into the recovery position.
I moan softly and fold into myself as though I can hide away from what I have done.
‘I didn’t mean that, Kat. It was an accident. You can’t blame yourself.’
But I can. I should. I do.
‘Let’s wait a bit before we call for help,’ Nick says. ‘He stinks of booze. I’ve seen him in this state many, many times before. He’s bound to come around.’
‘My dad didn’t,’ I say softly.
As the years had passed it had been easy to pretend it wasn’t quite real somehow. That my parents were still living in the same house. That I chose not to see them. Sharing the truth with Nick has turned it into something else. Something worse. I am a murderer. I can’t repeat the same mistake now. I won’t. The questions I have for Nick that are multiplying in my mind at lightning speed will have to wait.
‘We have to call an ambulance. Nick. He may be drunk but he banged his head.’
‘He’s got a beanie on. That would have cushioned the blow.’
‘It didn’t sound like it—’
‘Shh. I need to think,’ Nick says but what he means is, he needs to think of an excuse.
‘There’s nothing to think about—’ I start to rise to my feet but then I remember there is a lot to think about.
Lisa is still trapped in the basement.
54
Now
‘So, is this it?’ I can’t tear my eyes away from Nick’s dad, watching the reassuring rise and fall of his ribcage. ‘Or is your mum likely to pop up too?’ There is a nastiness in my tone I don’t recognise. A blackness swelling beneath the surface.
‘Nick,’ I say sharply when he doesn’t answer. ‘Where is your mum?’
‘Mum’s dead.’ Nick drops his head into his hands and the sound of his voice cracking, the sight of him so broken, holds the darkness at bay. Despite him shattering everything I thought was real, and slicing me to the core with the splinters of the truth, I instinctively want to comfort him. But I don’t. ‘The car accident killed her.’
I am surprised. ‘The policeman who interviewed me said only Jake died?’
‘She didn’t die then. She had a stroke. It’s common after head injuries.’
‘Hence the charity?’ I try to focus on what Nick is saying. ‘Stroke Support was for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So Richard’s grandmother having a stroke? That was another lie?’ I’m hardly in a position to be judgemental but I can’t seem to help it.
‘Mum died two weeks ago.’
I feel as though I have been slapped. Out of all the things I have learned tonight it strikes me as odd that this is the one that hurts the most. All this time Nick had a mum who loved him. Who might have loved me. A family. Strangely, I don’t blame her. I feel a kinship with her. The other passenger in the crash. She must have felt the same cold, hard terror as me as our cars rushed towards each other. She wasn’t the one who lied to me.
‘She’s been alive all this time? Why didn’t you tell me about her? Why haven’t I met her?’
‘She had brain damage, hadn’t been able to speak. Didn’t even know who I was. There was little point introducing you.’
‘But still…’
‘If I had taken you to see her, you’d have wanted some sort of explanation. I didn’t want you to hate me.’ In his voice is regret and something else. Fear, perhaps.
But I can’t reassure him I don’t hate him. I don’t even know him. He is a stranger to me, this man who I promised to spend the rest of my life with. This man who snatched away my chance to have a child of my own. Bitterness stings my throat, hot and sour.
‘So who looked after your mum? Clearly, not you.’ I am consumed with the need to know everything about her: the woman who tried to protect her son.
‘She’s been in a nursing home for years. I’ve been paying for it every month.’
The bank statements. The regular payments. Not maintenance at all. ‘So, Ada’s not your daughter?’
‘Ada? Of course not. Why would you think that?’ Nick shakes his head as though nothing would surprise him.
‘But you sent Clare flowers? Your scarf was there. You’ve been seeing her?’
‘She’s been helping me arrange your surprise thirtieth party – that’s all. She’s been doing a great job. Speaking to Lisa, finding out what you’d like. It was going to have a Desperate Housewives theme; I’ve recommended her to clients as a party-planner. She’s raking it in, and it’s all cash in hand.’
‘You’ve been so distracted. I thought you were having an affair.’
‘Why would you think that? I’ve never given you any reason not to trust me…’ Nick covers his mouth with his fingertips and exhales deeply through his nostrils, as though he has realised the ridiculousness of his words.
I don’t let it drop. With the rain lashing against the window, the wind howling outside, it is the night for truth. ‘You stayed away overnight. Twice.’
‘Mum took a turn for the worse on Christmas Day. My Aunt Natasha texted me.’
‘Your aunt?’ Natasha who had plagued him with texts when we first met. She wasn’t his ex-girlfriend at all.
‘I went to see Mum. After Lisa had her miscarriage, and you took off, I took the opportunity to go to Farncaster, to the nursing home. I didn’t even recognise her. My own mother.’ Nick’s voice is thick with tears. ‘I had to go back to reception to check I had the right room.’ He starts to cry again, and my emotions fight inside me as the urge to soothe him is tempered by the knowledge of the irrecoverable damage he has done to me. To us.
‘The receipt in the laundry basket,’ I say, almost to myself. I knew there was something wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on what. The café I went to was called The Coffee House not The Farncaster Bean Café. The receipt was Nick’s.
‘So the business was never in trouble?’
‘No. Sorry. I didn’t know what else to say to explain going away.’
‘I thought you were having an affair, you know.’
‘I would never do that to you!’ Nick looks so outraged I almost want to laugh. Does he really think sleeping with someone else is the ultimate betrayal?
‘I wanted to tell you when Mum died. I needed you with me at the funeral but I didn’t know what to say without more lies. I’m so tired of keeping things hidden.’
‘The second time you went away? Was that the funeral?’
‘Yes. Natasha insisted on arranging it. She wouldn’t let me pay either, but it was my responsibility, wasn’t it? I left her an envelope of cash.’
‘You took the money from the safe?’
‘Yes.’
I think of what I found instead of the money I was looking for.