Evening
I’ve been thinking about what Kamal said, about returning to the scene of the crime, so instead of going home I’ve come to Witney, and instead of scurrying past the underpass, I walk slowly and deliberately right up to its mouth. I place my hands against the cold, rough brick at the entrance and close my eyes, running my fingers over it. Nothing comes. I open my eyes and look around. The road is very quiet: just one woman walking in my direction a few hundred yards off, no one else. No cars driving past, no children shouting, only a very faint siren in the distance. The sun slides behind a cloud and I feel cold, immobilized on the threshold of the tunnel, unable to go any further. I turn to leave.
The woman I saw walking towards me a moment ago is just turning the corner; she’s wearing a deep-blue trench wrapped around her. She glances up at me as she passes and it’s then that it comes to me. A woman … blue … the quality of the light. I remember: Anna. She was wearing a blue dress with a black belt, and was walking away from me, walking fast, almost like she did the other day, only this time she did look back, she looked over her shoulder and then she stopped. A car pulled up next to her on the pavement – a red car. Tom’s car. She leaned down to speak to him through the window and then opened the door and got in, and the car drove away.
I remember that. On that Saturday night I stood here, at the entrance to the underpass, and watched Anna getting into Tom’s car. Only I can’t be remembering right, because that doesn’t make sense. Tom came to look for me in the car. Anna wasn’t in the car with him – she was at home. That’s what the police told me. It doesn’t make sense, and I could scream with the frustration of it, the not knowing, the uselessness of my own brain.
I cross the street and walk along the left-hand side of Blenheim Road. I stand under the trees for a while, opposite number twenty-three. They’ve repainted the front door. It was dark green when I lived there; it’s black now. I don’t remember noticing that before. I preferred the green. I wonder what else is different inside? The baby’s room, obviously, but I wonder whether they still sleep in our bed, whether she puts on her lipstick in front of the mirror that I hung. I wonder if they’ve repainted the kitchen, or filled in that hole in the plasterwork in the corridor upstairs.
I want to cross over and thump the knocker against the black paint. I want to talk to Tom, to ask him about the night Megan went missing. I want to ask him about yesterday, when we were in the car and I kissed his hand, I want to ask him what he felt. Instead, I just stand there for a bit, looking up at my old bedroom window until I feel tears sting the back of my eyes, and I know it’s time to go.
ANNA
Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Morning
I WATCHED TOM getting ready for work this morning, putting on his shirt and tie. He seemed a little distracted, probably running through his schedule for the day – meetings, appointments, who, what, where. I felt jealous. For the first time ever, I actually envied him the luxury of getting dressed up and leaving the house and rushing around all day, with purpose, all in the service of a pay cheque.
It’s not the work I miss – I was an estate agent, not a neurosurgeon, it’s not exactly a job you dream about as a child – but I did like being able to wander around the really expensive houses when the owners weren’t there, running my fingers over the marble worktops, sneaking a peek into the walk-in wardrobes. I used to imagine what my life would be like if I lived like that, the kind of person I would be. I’m well aware there is no job more important than that of raising a child, but the problem is that it isn’t valued. Not in the sense that counts to me at the moment, which is financial. I want us to have more money so that we can leave this house, this road. It’s as simple as that.
Perhaps not quite as simple as that. After Tom left for work, I sat down at the kitchen table to do battle with Evie over breakfast. Two months ago, I swear she would eat anything. Now, if it’s not strawberry yoghurt, she’s not having it. I know this is normal. I keep telling myself this while I’m trying to get egg yolk out of my hair, while I’m crawling around on the floor picking up spoons and upturned bowls. I keep telling myself, this is normal.
Still, when we were finally done and she was playing happily by herself, I let myself cry for a minute. I allow myself these tears sparingly, only ever when Tom’s not here, just a few moments to let it all out. It was when I was washing my face afterwards, when I saw how tired I looked, how blotchy and bedraggled and bloody awful, that I felt it again – that need to put on a dress and high heels, to blow-dry my hair and do my make-up and walk down the street and have men turn and look at me.
I miss work, but I also miss what work meant to me, in my last year of gainful employment, when I met Tom. I miss being a mistress.
I enjoyed it. I loved it, in fact. I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to, with my married girlfriends, the ones who live in terror of the pert au pair or the pretty, funny girl in the office who can talk about football and spends half her life in the gym. I had to tell them that of course I felt terrible about it, of course I felt bad for his wife, I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do?
The truth is, I never felt bad for Rachel, even before I found out about her drinking and how difficult she was, how she was making his life a misery. She just wasn’t real to me, and anyway, I was enjoying myself too much. Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are.
I was selling a house. Number thirty-four, Cranham Street. It was proving difficult to shift, because the latest interested buyer hadn’t been granted a mortgage. Something about the lender’s survey. So we arranged to get an independent surveyor in, just to make sure everything was OK. The sellers had already moved on, the house was empty, so I had to be there to let him in.
It was obvious from the moment I opened the door to him that it was going to happen. I’d never done anything like that before, never even dreamed of it, but there was something in the way he looked at me, the way he smiled at me. We couldn’t help ourselves – we did it there in the kitchen, up against the counter. It was insane, but that’s how we were. That’s what he always used to say to me. Don’t expect me to be sane, Anna. Not with you.
I pick Evie up and we go out into the garden together. She’s pushing her little trolley up and down, giggling to herself as she does it, this morning’s tantrum forgotten. Every time she grins at me I feel like my heart’s going to explode. No matter how much I miss working, I would miss this more. And in any case, it’s never going to happen. There’s no way I’ll be leaving her with a childminder again, no matter how qualified or vouched for they are. I’m not leaving her with anyone else ever again, not after Megan.
Evening
Tom texted me to say he was going to be a bit late this evening, he had to take a client out for a drink. Evie and I were getting ready for our evening walk. We were in the bedroom, Tom’s and mine, and I was getting her changed. The light was just gorgeous, a rich orange glow filling the house, turning suddenly blue-grey when the sun went behind a cloud. I’d had the curtains pulled halfway across to stop the room getting too hot, so I went to open them and that’s when I saw Rachel, standing on the opposite side of the road, looking at our house. Then she just took off, walking back towards the station.
I’m sitting on the bed and I’m shaking with fury, digging my nails into my palms. Evie’s kicking her feet in the air and I’m so bloody angry I don’t want to pick her up for fear I would crush her.
He told me he’d sorted this out. He told me that he phoned her on Sunday, they talked, she admitted that she had struck up some sort of friendship with Scott Hipwell, but that she didn’t intend seeing him any longer, that she wouldn’t be hanging around any more. Tom said she promised him, and that he believed her. Tom said she was being reasonable, she didn’t seem drunk, she wasn’t hysterical, she didn’t make threats or beg him to go back to her. He told me he thought she was getting better.
I take a few deep breaths and pull Evie up on to my lap, I lie her back against my legs and hold her hands with mine.
‘I think I’ve had enough of this, don’t you, sweetie?’
It’s just so wearing: every time I think that things are getting better, that we’re finally over the Rachel Issue, there she is again. Sometimes I feel like she’s never, ever going to go away.
Deep inside me, a rotten seed has been planted. When Tom tells me it’s OK, everything’s all right, she’s not going to bother us any longer, and then she does, I can’t help wondering whether he’s trying as hard as he can to get rid of her, or whether there’s some part of him, deep down, that likes the fact that she can’t let go.
I go downstairs and scrabble around in the kitchen drawer for the card that Detective Sergeant Riley left. I dial her number quickly, before I have time to change my mind.
Wednesday, 14 August 2013
Morning
In bed, his hands on my hips, his breath hot against my neck, his skin slick with sweat against mine, he says, ‘We don’t do this enough any more.’
‘I know.’
‘We need to make more time for ourselves.’
‘We do.’
‘I miss you,’ he says. ‘I miss this. I want more of this.’
I roll over and kiss him on the lips, my eyes tight shut, trying to suppress the guilt I feel for going to the police behind his back.
‘I think we should go somewhere,’ he mumbles, ‘just the two of us. Get away for a bit.’
And leave Evie with who, I want to ask. Your parents, whom you don’t speak to? Or my mother, who is so frail she can barely care for herself?
I don’t say that, I don’t say anything, I just kiss him again, more deeply. His hand slips down to the back of my thigh and he grips it, hard.
‘What do you think? Where would you like to go? Mauritius? Bali?’
I laugh.
‘I’m serious,’ he says, pulling back from me, looking me in the eye. ‘We deserve it, Anna. You deserve it. It’s been a hard year, hasn’t it?’
‘But …’
‘But what?’ He flashes his perfect smile at me. ‘We’ll figure something out with Evie, don’t worry.’
‘Tom, the money.’
‘We’ll be OK.’
‘But …’ I don’t want to say this, but I have to. ‘We don’t have enough money to even consider moving house, but we do have enough money for a holiday in Mauritius or Bali?’
He puffs out his cheeks, then exhales slowly, rolling away from me. I shouldn’t have said it. The baby monitor crackles into life: Evie’s waking up.
‘I’ll get her,’ he says, and gets up and leaves the room.
At breakfast, Evie is doing her thing. It’s a game to her now, refusing food, shaking her head, chin up, lips firmly closed, her little fists pushing at the bowl in front of her. Tom’s patience wears thin quickly.
‘I don’t have time for this,’ he says to me. ‘You’ll have to do it.’ He gets to his feet, holding out the spoon for me to take, the expression on his face pained.
I take a deep breath.
It’s OK, he’s tired, he has a lot of work on, he’s pissed off because I didn’t enter into his holiday fantasy this morning.
But it isn’t OK, because I’m tired too, and I’d like to have a conversation about money and our situation here that doesn’t end with him just walking out of the room. Of course, I don’t say that. Instead, I break my promise to myself and I go ahead and mention Rachel.
‘She’s been hanging around again,’ I say, ‘so whatever you said to her the other day didn’t do the trick.’
He gives me a sharp look. ‘What do you mean, hanging around?’
‘She was here last night, standing in the street right opposite the house.’
‘Was she with someone?’
‘No. She was alone. Why d’you ask that?’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he says, and his face darkens the way it does when he’s really angry. ‘I told her to stay away. Why didn’t you say anything last night?’
‘I didn’t want to upset you,’ I say softly, already regretting bringing this up. ‘I didn’t want to worry you.’
‘Jesus!’ he says, and he dumps his coffee cup loudly in the sink. The noise gives Evie a fright and she starts to cry. This doesn’t help. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, I honestly don’t. When I spoke to her, she was fine. She listened to what I was saying and promised not to come around here any longer. She looked fine. She looked healthy, actually – back to normal …’
‘She looked fine?’ I ask him, and before he turns his back on me I can see in his face that he knows he’s been caught. ‘I thought you said you spoke to her on the phone?’
He takes a deep breath, sighs heavily, then turns back to me, his face a blank. ‘Yeah, well, that’s what I told you, darling, because I knew you’d get upset if I saw her. So I hold my hands up – I lied. Anything for an easy life.’
‘Are you kidding me?’
He smiles at me, shaking his head as he steps towards me, his hands still raised in supplication. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. She wanted to chat in person and I thought it might be best. I’m sorry, OK? We just talked. We met in a crappy coffee shop in Ashbury and talked for twenty minutes – half an hour, tops. OK?’
He puts his arms around me and pulls me towards his chest. I try to resist him, but he’s stronger than me and anyway he smells great and I don’t want a fight. I want us to be on the same side. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbles again, into my hair.
‘It’s all right,’ I say.
I let him get away with it, because I’m dealing with this now. I spoke to Detective Sergeant Riley yesterday evening, and I knew the moment we started talking that I’d done the right thing by calling her, because when I told her that I’d seen Rachel leaving Scott Hipwell’s house ‘on several occasions’ (a slight exaggeration), she seemed very interested. She wanted to know dates and times (I could furnish her with two; I was vague about the other incidents), if they’d had a relationship prior to Megan Hipwell’s disappearance, whether I thought they were in a sexual relationship now. I have to say the thought hadn’t really crossed my mind – I can’t imagine him going from Megan to Rachel. In any case, his wife’s barely cold in the ground.
I went over the stuff about Evie as well – the attempted abduction – just in case she’d forgotten.
‘She’s very unstable,’ I said. ‘You might think I’m overreacting, but I can’t take any risks where my family is concerned.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much for contacting me. If you see anything else that you consider suspicious, let me know.’
I’ve no idea what they’ll do about her – perhaps just warn her off? It’ll help, in any case, if we do start looking into things like restraining orders. Hopefully, for Tom’s sake, it won’t come to that.
After Tom leaves for work, I take Evie to the park, we play on the swings and the little wooden rocking horses, and when I put her back into her buggy she falls asleep almost immediately, which is my cue to go shopping. We cut through the back streets towards the big Sainsbury’s. It’s a bit of a roundabout way of getting there, but it’s quiet, with very little traffic, and in any case we get to pass number thirty-four, Cranham Street.
It gives me a little frisson even now, walking past that house – butterflies suddenly swarm in my stomach, and a smile comes to my lips and colour to my cheeks. I remember hurrying up the front steps, hoping none of the neighbours would see me letting myself in, getting myself ready in the bathroom, putting on perfume, the kind of underwear you put on just to be taken off. Then I’d get a text message and he’d be at the door, and we’d have an hour or two in the bedroom upstairs.
He’d tell Rachel he was with a client, or meeting friends for a beer. ‘Aren’t you worried she’ll check up on you?’ I’d ask him, and he’d shake his head, dismissing the idea. ‘I’m a good liar,’ he told me once with a grin. Once, he said, ‘Even if she did check, the thing with Rachel is, she won’t remember what happened tomorrow anyway.’ That’s when I started to realize just how bad things were for him.
It wipes the smile off my face, though, thinking about those conversations. Thinking about Tom laughing conspiratorially, while he traced his fingers lower over my belly, smiling up at me, saying, ‘I’m a good liar.’ He is a good liar, a natural. I’ve seen him doing it: convincing check-in staff that we were honeymooners, for example, or talking his way out of extra hours at work by claiming a family emergency. Everyone does it, of course they do, only when Tom does it, you believe him.
I think about breakfast this morning – but the point is that I caught him in the lie, and he admitted it straight away. I don’t have anything to worry about. He isn’t seeing Rachel behind my back! The idea is ridiculous. She might have been attractive once – she was quite striking when he met her, I’ve seen pictures: all huge dark eyes and generous curves – but now she’s just run to fat. And in any case, he would never go back to her, not after everything she did to him, to us – all the harassment, all those late-night phone calls, hang-ups, text messages.
I’m standing in the tinned goods aisle, Evie still mercifully sleeping in the buggy, and I start thinking about those phone calls, and about the time – or was it times? – when I woke up and the bathroom light was on. I could hear his voice, low and gentle, behind the closed door. He was calming her down, I know he was. He told me that sometimes she’d be so angry she’d threaten to come round to the house, go to his work, throw herself in front of a train. He might be a very good liar, but I know when he’s telling the truth. He doesn’t fool me.