Saturday, 13 July 2013
Morning
I know what I have to do. I thought about it all day yesterday, and all night, too. I hardly slept at all. Scott came home exhausted and in a shitty mood; all he wanted to do was eat, fuck and sleep, no time for anything else. It certainly wasn’t the right time to talk about this.
I lay awake most of the night, with him hot and restless at my side, and I made my decision. I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to do everything right. If I do everything right, then nothing can go wrong. Or if it does, it cannot be my fault. I will love this child and raise her knowing that I did the right thing from the start. All right, perhaps not from the very start, but from the moment when I knew she was coming. I owe it to this baby, and I owe it to Libby. I owe it to her to do everything differently this time.
I lay there and I thought of what that teacher said, and of all the things I’d been: child, rebellious teenager, runaway, whore, lover, bad mother, bad wife. I’m not sure if I can remake myself as a good wife, but a good mother – that I have to try.
It’s going to be hard. It might be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I’m going to tell the truth. No more lies, no more hiding, no more running, no more bullshit. I’m going to put everything out in the open, and then we’ll see. If he can’t love me then, so be it.
Evening
My hand is against his chest and I’m pushing as hard as I can, but I can’t breathe and he’s so much stronger than I am. His forearm presses against my windpipe, I can feel the blood pulsing at my temples, my eyes blurring. I try to cry out, my back to the wall. I snatch a handful of his T-shirt and he lets go. He turns away from me and I slide down the wall on to the kitchen floor.
I cough and spit, tears running down my face. He’s standing a few feet from me, and when he turns back to me my hand instinctively goes to my throat to protect it. I see the shame on his face and want to tell him that it’s OK. I’m OK. I open my mouth but the words won’t come, just more coughing. The pain is unbelievable. He’s saying something to me but I can’t hear, it’s as though we’re under water, the sound muffled, reaching me in blurry waves. I can’t make anything out.
I think he’s saying that he’s sorry.
I haul myself to my feet, push past him and run up the stairs, then slam the bedroom door behind me and lock it. I sit down on the bed and wait, listening for him, but he doesn’t come. I get to my feet and grab my overnight bag from under the bed, go over to the chest to grab some clothes and catch sight of myself in the mirror. I bring my hand up to my face: it looks startlingly white against my reddened skin, my purple lips, my bloodshot eyes.
Part of me is shocked, because he’s never laid a hand on me like that before. But there’s another part of me that expected this. Somewhere inside I always knew that this was a possibility, that this was where we were headed. Where I was leading him. Slowly, I start pulling things out of the drawers – underwear, a couple of T-shirts; I stuff them into the bag.
I haven’t even told him anything yet. I’d just started. I wanted to tell him about the bad stuff first, before we got to the good news. I couldn’t tell him about the baby and then say that there was a possibility it wasn’t his. That would be too cruel.
We were outside on the patio. He was talking about work and he caught me not-quite-listening.
‘Am I boring you?’ he asked.
‘No. Well, maybe a bit.’ He didn’t laugh. ‘No, I’m just distracted. Because there’s something I need to tell you. There are a few things I need to tell you, actually, some of which you’re not going to like, but some—’
‘What am I not going to like?’
I should have known then that it wasn’t the time, his mood was off. He was immediately suspicious, searching my face for clues. I should have known then that this was all a terrible idea. I suppose I did, but it was too late to go back then. And in any case, I had made my decision. To do the right thing.
I sat down next to him on the edge of the paving and slipped my hand into his.
‘What aren’t I going to like?’ he asked again, but he didn’t let go of my hand.
I told him I loved him and I felt every muscle in his body tense, as if he knew what was coming and was bracing himself for it. You do, don’t you, when someone tells you they love you like that. I love you, I do, but … But.
I told him that I’d made some mistakes and he let go of my hand. He got to his feet and walked a few yards in the direction of the track before turning to look at me. ‘What sort of mistakes?’ he asked. His voice was even, but I could hear that it was a strain to keep it so.
‘Come and sit with me,’ I said. ‘Please?’
He shook his head. ‘What sort of mistakes, Megan?’ Louder that time.
‘There was … it’s finished now, but there was … someone else.’ I kept my eyes lowered, I couldn’t look at him.
He spat something under his breath but I couldn’t hear it. I looked up then but he’d turned away and was facing the track again, his hands up at his temples. I got to my feet and went to him, stood behind him and placed my hands on his hips, but he leaped away from me. He turned to go into the house and without looking at me, spat, ‘Don’t touch me, you little whore.’
I should have let him go then, given him time to get his head around it, but I couldn’t. I wanted to get over the bad stuff so that I could get to the good, so I followed him into the house.
‘Scott, please, just listen, it’s not as awful as you think. It’s over now. It’s completely over, please listen, please—’
He grabbed the photograph of the two of us that he loves – the one I had framed as a gift for our second wedding anniversary – and threw it as hard as he could at my head. As it smashed against the wall behind me, he lunged, grabbing me by the tops of my arms and wrestling me across the room, throwing me against the opposite wall. My head rocked back, my skull hitting plaster. Then he leaned in, his forearm across my throat, he leaned harder, harder, saying nothing. He closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to watch me choke.
As soon as my bag is packed, I start unpacking again, stuffing everything back into the drawers. If I try to walk out of here with a bag, he won’t let me go. I have to leave empty handed, with nothing but a handbag and a phone. Then I change my mind again and start stuffing everything back into the bag. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I can’t be here. I close my eyes and can feel his hands around my throat.
I know what I decided – no more running, no more hiding – but I can’t stay here tonight. I hear footsteps on the stairs, slow, leaden. It takes forever for him to get to the top – usually he bounds, but today he’s a man ascending the scaffold. I just don’t know whether he’s the condemned man or the executioner.
‘Megan?’ He doesn’t try to open the door. ‘Megan, I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.’ I can hear tears in his voice. It makes me angry, it makes me want to fly out there and scratch his face. Don’t you bloody dare cry, not after what you just did. I’m furious with him, I want to scream at him, tell him to get the hell away from the door, away from me, but I bite my tongue, because I’m not stupid. He has reason to be angry. And I have to think rationally, I have to think clearly. I’m thinking for two now. This confrontation has given me strength, it’s made me more determined. I can hear him outside the door, begging for forgiveness, but I can’t think about that now. Right now, I have other things to do.
At the very back of the wardrobe, in the bottom of three rows of carefully labelled shoe boxes, there is a dark-grey box marked ‘red wedge boots’, and in that box there is an old mobile phone, a pay-as-you-go relic I bought years ago and hung on to just in case. I haven’t used it for a while, but today’s the day. I’m going to be honest. I’m going to put everything out in the open. No more lies, no more hiding. It’s time for Daddy to face up to his responsibilities.
I sit on the bed and switch the phone on, praying that it still has some charge. It lights up and I can feel the adrenaline in my blood, it’s making me dizzy, a little bit sick, and it’s making me buzz, as though I’m high. I’m starting to enjoy myself, enjoy the anticipation of putting everything out there, confronting him – all of them – with what we are and where we’re going. By the end of the day, everyone is going to know where they stand.
I call his number. Predictably, it goes straight to voicemail. I hang up and send a text: I need to talk to you. URGENT. Call me back. Then I sit there, and I wait.
I look at the call log. The last time I used this phone was April. A lot of calls, all of them unanswered, in early April and late March. I called and called and called, and he ignored me, he didn’t even respond to the threats I made – I’d come to the house, I’d talk to his wife. I think he’ll listen to me now, though. I’m going to make him listen to me now.
When we started all this, it was just a game. A distraction. I used to see him from time to time. He’d pop by the gallery and smile and flirt, and it was harmless – there were plenty of men who came by the gallery and smiled and flirted. But then the gallery closed and I was here at home all the time, bored and restless. I just needed something else, something different. Then one day, when Scott was away, I bumped into him in the street, we started talking and I invited him in for coffee. The way he looked at me, I could see exactly what was going through his mind and so it just happened. And then it happened again, and I never meant for it to go anywhere, I didn’t want it to go anywhere. I just enjoyed feeling wanted; I liked the feeling of control. It was as simple and stupid as that. I didn’t want him to leave his wife; I just wanted him to want to leave her. To want me that much.
I don’t remember when I started believing that it could be more, that we should be more, that we were right for each other. But the moment I did, I could feel him start to pull away. He stopped texting, stopped answering my calls, and I’ve never felt rejection like that before, never. I hated it. So then it became something else: an obsession. I can see that now. In the end I really thought I could just walk away from it, a little bruised, but no real harm done. But it’s not that simple any longer.
Scott is still outside the door. I can’t hear him, but I can feel him. I go into the bathroom and dial the number again. I get voicemail again, so I hang up and dial again, and again. I whisper a message. ‘Pick up the phone, or I’m coming round there. I mean it this time. I have to talk to you. You can’t just ignore me.’
I stand in the bathroom for a while, the phone on the edge of the sink. Willing it to ring. The screen stays stubbornly grey and blank. I brush my hair and my teeth, put on some make-up. My colour is returning to normal. My eyes are still red, my throat still hurts, but I look all right. I start counting. If the phone doesn’t ring before I get to fifty, I’m just going to go down there and knock on the door. The phone doesn’t ring.
I stuff the phone into my jeans pocket, walk quickly through the bedroom and open the door. Scott is sitting on the landing, his arms around his knees, his head down. He doesn’t look up at me, so I walk past him and start to run downstairs, my breath catching in my throat. I’m afraid that he’ll grab me from behind and push me. I can hear him getting to his feet and he calls, ‘Megan! Where are you going? Are you going to him?’
At the bottom of the stairs, I turn. ‘There is no him, OK? It’s over.’
‘Please wait, Megan. Please don’t go.’
I don’t want to hear him beg, don’t want to listen to the whine in his voice, the self-pity. Not when my throat still feels like someone’s poured acid down it.
‘Don’t follow me,’ I croak at him. ‘If you follow me, I’ll never come back. Do you understand? If I turn around and see you behind me, that’ll be the last time you ever see my face.’
I can hear him calling my name as I slam the door behind me.
I wait on the pavement outside for a few moments to make sure he isn’t following me, then I walk, quickly at first, then slower, and slower, along Blenheim Road. I get to number twenty-three and it’s then that I lose my nerve. I’m not ready for this scene yet. I need a minute to collect myself. A few minutes. I walk on, past the house, past the underpass, past the station. I keep going until I get to the park and then I dial his number one more time.
I tell him that I’m in the park, that I’ll wait for him there, but if he doesn’t come, that’s it, I’m coming round to the house. This is his last chance.
It’s a lovely evening, a little after seven but still warm and light. A bunch of kids are still playing on the swings and the slide, their parents standing off to one side, chatting animatedly. It looks nice, normal, and as I watch them I have a sickening feeling that Scott and I will not bring our daughter here to play. I just can’t see us, happy and relaxed like that. Not now. Not after what I’ve just done.
I was so convinced this morning that getting everything out in the open would be the best way – not just the best way, the only way. No more lying, no more hiding. And then when he hurt me, it only made me all the more sure. But now, sitting here on my own, with Scott not just furious but heartbroken, I don’t think it was the right thing at all. I wasn’t being strong, I was being reckless, and there’s no telling how much damage I’ve done.
Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. It’s not just restlessness – this is more than that. For her sake and mine, now is the time to go, to walk away from them both, from all of it. Maybe running and hiding is exactly what I need to do.
I get to my feet and walk round the park just once. I’m half willing the phone to ring and half dreading it ringing, but in the end I’m pleased when it stays silent. I’ll take it as a sign. I head back the way I came, towards home.
I’ve just passed the station when I see him. He’s walking quickly, striding out of the underpass, his shoulders hunched over and his fists clenched, and before I can stop myself, I call out.
He turns to face me. ‘Megan! What the hell …’ The expression on his face is pure rage, but he beckons me to go to him.
‘Come on,’ he says, when I get closer. ‘We can’t talk here. The car’s over there.’
‘I just need—’
‘We can’t talk here!’ he snaps. ‘Come on.’ He tugs at my arm. Then, more gently, ‘We’ll drive somewhere quiet, OK? Somewhere we can talk.’
As I get into the car, I glance over my shoulder, back the way he came. The underpass is dark, but I feel as though I can see someone in there, in the shadows – someone watching us go.
RACHEL
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Afternoon
ANNA TURNS ON HER heel and runs into the house the second she sees him. My heart hammering against my ribs, I follow cautiously, stopping just short of the sliding doors. Inside, they are embracing, his arms enveloping her, the child between them. Anna’s head is bent, her shoulders shaking. His mouth is pressed to the top of her scalp, but his eyes are on me.
‘What’s going on here then?’ he asks, the trace of a smile on his lips. ‘I have to say that finding you two ladies gossiping in the garden when I got home was not what I expected.’
His tone is light, but he’s not fooling me. He’s not fooling me any more. I open my mouth to speak, but I find that I don’t have the words. I have nowhere to start.
‘Rachel? Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ He relinquishes Anna from his grasp and takes a step towards me. I take a step back, and he starts to laugh.
‘What on earth’s wrong with you? Are you drunk?’ he asks, but I can see in his eyes that he knows I’m sober and I’m betting that for once he wishes I wasn’t. I slip my hand into the back pocket of my jeans – my phone is there, hard and compact and comforting, only I wish I’d had the sense to make the call already. No matter whether they believed me or not, if I’d told them I was with Anna and her child, the police would have come.
Tom is now just a couple of feet away from me – he’s just inside the door and I’m just outside it.
‘I saw you,’ I say at last, and I feel euphoria, fleeting but unmistakeable, when I say the words out loud. ‘You think I don’t remember anything, but I do. I saw you. After you hit me, you left me there, in the underpass …’
He starts to laugh, but I can see it now and I wonder how I never read him this easily before. There’s panic in his eyes. He shoots a glance at Anna, but she doesn’t meet his eye.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘In the underpass. On the day Megan Hipwell went missing …’
‘Oh, bullshit,’ he says, waving a hand at me. ‘I did not hit you. You fell.’ He reaches for Anna’s hand and pulls her closer to him. ‘Darling, is this why you’re so upset? Don’t listen to her, she’s talking absolute rubbish. I didn’t hit her. I’ve never laid a hand on her in my life. Not like that.’ He puts his arm around Anna’s shoulders and pulls her closer still. ‘Come on. I’ve told you how she is. She doesn’t know what happens when she drinks, she makes up the most—’
‘You got into the car with her. I watched you go.’ He’s still smiling, but there’s no longer any conviction there, and I don’t know whether I’m imagining it, but he looks a little paler to me now. He relaxes his grip on Anna, releasing her once again. She sits down at the table, her back to her husband, her daughter squirming on her lap.
Tom passes his hand over his mouth and leans back against the kitchen counter, folding his arms across his chest. ‘You saw me get into the car with who?’
‘With Megan.’
‘Oh, right!’ He starts laughing again, a loud, forced roar. ‘Last time we talked about this, you told me you saw me get into the car with Anna. Now it’s Megan, is it? Who’s it going to be next week? Princess Diana?’
Anna looks up at me. I can see the doubt, the hope, flash across her face. ‘You’re not sure?’ she asks.
Tom drops to his knees at her side. ‘Of course she isn’t sure. She’s making this up – she does it all the time. Sweetheart, please. Why don’t you go upstairs for a bit, OK? I’ll talk this through with Rachel. And this time—’ he glances up at me, ‘I promise I’ll make sure she won’t bother us any more.’
Anna’s wavering, I can see it – the way she’s looking at him, searching his face for the truth, his eyes intently on hers. ‘Anna!’ I call out, trying to bring her back to me. ‘You know. You know he’s lying. You know that he was sleeping with her.’
For a second, no one says a thing. Anna looks from Tom to me and back again. She opens her mouth to say something, but no words come.
‘Anna! What does she mean? There’s … there was nothing between me and Megan Hipwell.’
‘I found the phone, Tom,’ she says, her voice so small she’s almost inaudible. ‘So please, don’t. Don’t lie. Just don’t lie to me.’
The child starts to grizzle and moan. Very gently, Tom takes her from Anna’s arms. He walks across to the window, rocking his daughter from side to side, murmuring to her all the while. I can’t hear what he’s saying. Anna’s head is bowed, tears dripping from her chin on to the kitchen table.
‘Where is it?’ Tom says, turning to face us, the laughter gone from his face. ‘The phone, Anna. Did you give it to her?’ He jerks his head in my direction. ‘Do you have it?’
‘I don’t know anything about a phone,’ I tell him, wishing that Anna had mentioned this earlier.
Tom ignores me. ‘Anna? Did you give it to her?’
Anna shakes her head.
‘Where is it?’