I give Evie her mid-morning snack, which she eats without complaint for the first time in weeks. It’s almost as though she knows that I have other things to worry about, and I adore her for it. I feel immeasurably calmer when we go back outside, even if Rachel is still there, standing down at the bottom of the garden by the fence, watching one of the trains go past. After a while, when she realizes that I’m back outside, she walks towards me.
‘You like them, don’t you?’ I say. ‘The trains. I hate them. Absolutely bloody loathe them.’
She gives me a half-smile. I notice that she has a deep dimple on the left side of her face. I’ve never seen that before. I suppose I haven’t seen her smile very often. Ever.
‘Another thing he lied about,’ she says. ‘He told me you loved this house, loved everything about it, even the trains. He told me that you wouldn’t dream of finding a new place, that you wanted to move in here with him, even if I had been here first.’
I shake my head. ‘Why on earth would he tell you that?’ I ask her. ‘It’s utter bullshit. I’ve been trying to get him to sell this house for two years.’
She shrugs. ‘Because he lies, Anna. All the time.’
The darkness blossoms. I pull Evie on to my lap and she sits there quite contentedly, she’s getting sleepy in the sunshine. ‘So all those phone calls …’ I say. It’s only really starting to make sense now. ‘They weren’t from you? I mean, I know some of them were, but some—’
‘Were from Megan? Yes, I imagine so.’
It’s odd, because I know now that all this time I’ve been hating the wrong woman, and yet knowing this doesn’t make me dislike Rachel any less. If anything, seeing her like this, calm, concerned, sober, I’m starting to see what she once was, and I resent her more, because I’m starting to see what he must have seen in her. What he must have loved.
I glance down at my watch. It’s after eleven. He left around eight, I think. It might even have been earlier. He must know about the phone by now. He must have known for quite some time. Perhaps he thinks it fell out of the bag. Perhaps he imagines it’s under the bed upstairs.
‘How long have you known?’ I ask her. ‘About the affair.’
‘I didn’t,’ she says. ‘Until today. I mean I don’t know what was going on. I just know—’ Thankfully she falls silent, because I’m not sure I can stand hearing her talk about my husband’s infidelity. The thought that she and I – fat, sad Rachel and I – are now in the same boat is unbearable.
‘Do you think it was his?’ she asks me. ‘Do you think the baby was his?’
I’m looking at her, but I’m not really seeing her, not seeing anything but darkness, not hearing anything but a roaring in my ears, like the sea, or a plane right overhead.
‘What did you say?’
‘The … I’m sorry.’ She’s red in the face, flustered. ‘I shouldn’t have … She was pregnant when she died. Megan was pregnant. I’m so sorry.’
But she’s not sorry at all, I’m sure of it, and I don’t want to go to pieces in front of her. But I look down then, I look down at Evie, and I feel a sadness unlike anything I’ve ever felt before crashing over me like a wave, crushing the breath right out of me. Evie’s brother, Evie’s sister. Gone. Rachel sits at my side and puts her arm around my shoulders.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says again, and I want to hit her. The feeling of her skin against mine makes my flesh crawl. I want to push her away, I want to scream at her, but I can’t. She lets me cry for a while and then she says in a clear, determined voice, ‘Anna, I think we should go. I think you should pack some things, for you and Evie, and then we should go. You can come to my place for now. Until … until we sort all this out.’
I dry my eyes and pull away from her. ‘I’m not leaving him, Rachel. He had an affair, he … It’s not the first time, is it?’ I start to laugh, and Evie laughs too.
Rachel sighs and gets to her feet. ‘You know this isn’t just about an affair, Anna. I know that you know.’
‘We don’t know anything,’ I say, and it comes out in a whisper.
‘She got into the car with him. That night. I saw her. I didn’t remember it – I thought at first it was you,’ she says. ‘But I remember. I remember now.’
‘No.’ Evie’s sticky little hand presses against my mouth.
‘We have to speak to the police, Anna.’ She takes a step towards me. ‘Please. You can’t stay here with him.’
Despite the sun, I’m shivering. I’m trying to think of the last time Megan came to the house, the look on his face when she said that she couldn’t work for us any longer. I’m trying to remember whether he looked pleased, or disappointed. Unbidden, a different image comes into my head: one of the first times she came to look after Evie. I was supposed to be going out to meet the girls, but I was so tired, so I went upstairs to sleep. Tom must have come home while I was up there, because they were together when I came downstairs. She was leaning against the counter, and he was standing a bit too close to her. Evie was in the high chair, she was crying and neither of them were looking at her.
I feel very cold. Did I know then that he wanted her? Megan was blonde and beautiful – she was like me. So yes, I probably knew that he wanted her, just like I know when I walk down the street that there are married men with their wives at their sides and their children in their arms who look at me and think about it. So perhaps I did know. He wanted her, he took her. But not this. He couldn’t do this.
Not Tom. A lover, husband twice over. A father. A good father, an uncomplaining provider.
‘You loved him,’ I remind her. ‘You still love him, don’t you?’
She shakes her head, but there’s no conviction there.
‘You do. And you know … you know that this isn’t possible.’
I stand up, hauling Evie up with me, and move closer to her. ‘He couldn’t have, Rachel. You know he couldn’t have done this. You couldn’t love a man who would do that, could you?’
‘But I did,’ she says. ‘We both did.’ There are tears on her cheeks. She wipes them away and as she does so something in her expression changes and her face loses all colour. She’s not looking at me, but over my shoulder, and as I turn around to follow her gaze, I see him at the kitchen window, watching us.
MEGAN
Friday, 12 July 2013
Morning
SHE’S FORCED MY HAND. Or maybe he has. My gut tells me she. Or my heart tells me so, I don’t know. I can feel her, the way I could before, curled up, a seed within a pod, only this seed’s smiling. Biding her time. I can’t hate her. And I can’t get rid of her. I can’t. I thought I would be able to, I thought I would be desperate to scrape her out, but when I think about her, all I can see is Libby’s face, her dark eyes. I can smell her skin. I can feel how cold she was at the end. I can’t get rid of her. I don’t want to. I want to love her.
I can’t hate her, but she scares me. I’m afraid of what she’ll do to me, or what I’ll do to her. It’s that fear that woke me just after five this morning, soaked in sweat despite the open windows and the fact that I’m alone. Scott’s at a conference, somewhere in Hertfordshire or Essex or somewhere. He’s back tonight.
What is it with me, that I’m desperate to be alone when he’s here, and when he’s gone I can’t bear it? I can’t stand the silence. I have to talk out loud just to make it go away. In bed this morning, I kept thinking, what if it happens again? What’s going to happen when I’m alone with her? What’s going to happen if he won’t have me, won’t have us? What happens if he guesses that she isn’t his?
She might be, of course. I don’t know, but I just feel that she isn’t. Same way I feel that she’s a she. But even if she isn’t, how would he know? He won’t. He can’t. I’m being stupid. He’ll be so happy. He’ll be mental with joy when I tell him. The thought that she might not be his won’t even cross his mind. Telling him would be cruel, it would break his heart, and I don’t want to hurt him. I’ve never wanted to hurt him.
I can’t help the way I am.
‘You can help what you do, though.’ That’s what Kamal says.
I called Kamal just after six. The silence was right on top of me and I was starting to panic. I thought about ringing Tara – I knew she’d come running – but I didn’t think I could stand it, she’d be all clingy and over-protective. Kamal was the only person I could think of. I called him at home. I told him I was in trouble, I didn’t know what to do, I was freaking out. He came over right away. Not quite without question, but almost. Perhaps I made things sound worse than they are. Perhaps he was afraid I was going to Do Something Stupid.
We’re in the kitchen. It’s still early, just after seven thirty. He has to leave soon if he’s going to make his first appointment. I look at him, sitting there across from me at our kitchen table, his hands folded together neatly in front of him, his deep doe eyes on mine, and I feel love. I do. He’s been so good to me, despite the crap way I’ve behaved.
Everything that went before, he’s forgiven, just like I hoped he would. He wiped everything away, all my sins. He told me that unless I forgave myself this would go on and on and I would never be able to stop running. And I can’t run any more, can I? Not now she’s here.
‘I’m scared,’ I tell him. ‘What if I do it all wrong again? What if there’s something wrong with me? What if things go wrong with Scott? What if I end up on my own again? I don’t know if I can do it, I’m so afraid of being on my own again – I mean, on my own with a child …’
He leans forward and puts his hand over mine. ‘You won’t do anything wrong. You won’t. You’re not some grieving, lost child any longer. You’re a completely different person. You’re stronger. You’re an adult now. You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it?’
I don’t say anything, but I can’t help wondering whether it is, because if I close my eyes I can conjure up the feeling that comes to me when I’m on the edge of sleep, which jolts me back into wakefulness. It’s the feeling of being alone in a dark house, listening for her cries, waiting to hear Mac’s footfall on the wooden floors downstairs and knowing that they’re never going to come.
‘I can’t tell you what to do about Scott. Your relationship with him … Well, I’ve expressed my concerns, but you have to decide what to do for yourself. Decide whether you trust him, whether you want him to take care of you and your child. That must be your decision. But I think you can trust yourself, Megan. You can trust yourself to do the right thing.’
Outside, on the lawn, he brings me a cup of coffee. I put it down and put my arms around him, pulling him closer. Behind us a train is rumbling up to the signal. The noise is like a barrier, a wall surrounding us, and I feel as though we are truly alone. He puts his arms around me and kisses me.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thank you for coming, for being here.’
He smiles, drawing back from me, and rubs his thumb across my cheekbone. ‘You’ll be fine, Megan.’
‘Couldn’t I just run away with you? You and I … couldn’t we just run away together?’
He laughs. ‘You don’t need me. And you don’t need to keep running. You’ll be fine. You and your baby will be fine.’