“But I thought you said you had a cup of tea,” presses Leon.
My head spins as I try to unwind myself from this web of deceit I’ve spun. How can a tiny lie have spiraled so out of control? Been turned into something that could have devastating consequences, not just for me, but for everyone? Perhaps if I’d been honest with Leon in the first place, I would have felt better equipped to tell the police what I know, so that they have all the facts at their disposal.
“I brought her one out,” says Shelley, in a sudden rush. She says it so quickly that as I turn to look at her, it’s clear to see she has no idea how to follow it up.
“Yes,” I say. “They were still working in the house and she didn’t want me to see it until it was finished.”
Shelley laughs awkwardly. “So I made her stand in the porch,” she says, warming to the theme. “And brought the tea to her.”
We look at each other and I can see the cloud of confusion in her eyes; hurt, even, that I’d use her as an alibi for something that didn’t happen.
13
I barely sleep a wink again that night.
It’s preposterous, I know, but I can’t shake off the gut-wrenching possibility that my father is somehow involved. If I’m honest with myself, he’s always involved, because as much as I try to pretend that I’ve never given him a second’s thought, I live with what he did every day of my life. He’s why I veer between being helplessly needy and fiercely independent. He’s why I have no friends who know me well enough to know that I love dancing to old Britney Spears songs, too scared to get close enough to anyone for them to find out. He’s why I made the difficult decision not to have children, so terrified that someone would take them away from me, tearing my heart out. And he’s why I do the job I do; in the hope that I can save just one person from the same fate as my mother.
A notification pings on my phone and I wearily lift my head up to look at it; an email from Wendy at Gulliver’s Travels. If they’re trying to tempt me with a too-good-to-miss offer, they’ve picked the wrong day. I go to swipe it off the screen, but notice that the subject heading reads: Your upcoming flight to New York (JFK). I frown.
I click on it, waiting for the spam to reel me in, but it’s a personalized itinerary for a trip I don’t remember booking. I do a quick scan and see that the flight I’m supposedly taking is tomorrow. Something’s not right.
Slipping my robe off the hook on the back of the bedroom door, I pad downstairs, grateful that Leon has already gone to work, as I don’t need him asking me questions I don’t want to answer. That’s all he seems to do lately. That’s all everyone seems to do.
“Morning, can I speak to Wendy, please?” I say, nestling my mobile awkwardly between my ear and shoulder while I fill the kettle. Coffee’s going to be solely responsible for getting me through today.
“This is Wendy speaking,” says the cheery woman.
“I wonder if you can help me,” I say, careful to keep my cards close to my chest in case it’s a scam. “I’ve just received an email from you this morning, confirming a flight for tomorrow.”
“O-kay.”
I force a laugh. “It’s just that I haven’t actually booked anything with you. Or anyone else for that matter.”
“Oh,” says Wendy. “That’s odd.”
I imagine her sitting in a cubicle in an illicit call center looking for the “what to say when they tell you they haven’t booked anything,” section on a laminated card.
“Can you give me your name, please, and I’ll look into it?”
I give her my name and the flight booking reference, and hear her tapping away on a keyboard.
“OK, so you’re on a Virgin Atlantic flight tomorrow from Heathrow to JFK departing at 4:35 p.m.,” says Wendy.
“Yes, I know what it says, but it’s not something I’ve booked.”
“So, are you looking to cancel the booking?” she asks.
Ah, there it is. I silently count how long it’s going to take for her to ask for my bank details to process a refund.
“Well, yes,” I say, stating the obvious.
“OK, no problem, let me just organize that for you now,” she says, tapping away. “I can credit the original payment method, but there will be a cancelation fee.” I have to hand it to her; she’s very good.
“Thanks,” I say blithely.
“Will Mr. Michael Talbot be looking to cancel his seat as well?”
My breath catches in my throat, obstructing my airways.
“I-I’m s-sorry?” I stutter, sure that I’ve heard her wrong.
“Mr. Talbot is down to travel with you on the same booking,” she repeats with crystal clarity. “Will you be wanting to cancel his seat as well?”
I throw the phone down onto the kitchen counter and watch it spin, hanging on to the granite to stop myself from spinning with it.
What the…?
“Hello, Mrs. Chandler…?” calls out Wendy. “Are you still there?”
I numbly stab at the end call button, but she’s still talking. “Hello? Hello?”
What the hell is going on?
I can’t help but think of my father, my sister, Jacob’s wife; their faces warped caricatures of the people I imagine them to be as they goad me. Who knew I had so many enemies?
Boiling water splashes onto my hand as I carelessly tip the contents of the kettle into my mug. I cry out, more in panic than pain.
What if Jacob is a completely fictionalized character? A puppet created and controlled by a master manipulator? He could have been told what to say, how to behave, what to do to reel me in. Vanessa probably doesn’t even exist, a made-up cast member in this debauched pantomime designed to bring me down.
The rising sun streams through the kitchen window, its bright rays falling like daggers onto the tiled floor. A prism of seven colors dances on my bare foot as I step in and out of the shadows.
My mother used to say that we should always try to be a rainbow in someone else’s gray cloud, the brightness when their world is dark; the overarching bridge for them to get to the other side. It’s what she always strove to be, instilling in me that everyone deserves to have color in their lives.
I’d thought I was the color in Jacob’s life; selflessly laying myself down for him to cross. But perhaps I’m just a narcissist who feeds my own need for gratification with other people’s insecurities. Even as I’m thinking it, I know it’s not true, but I don’t know what to believe anymore.
There’s a movement down the end of the garden, and I freeze, mug in hand, my breathing shallow as I try to focus on what it is. The branches of an imposing oak tree overhang the front of my office, creating moving swathes of darkness and light as they sway in the breeze. And the low sun is blindingly bright, obscuring my vision, but there is definitely a figure there.
I rush to my laptop on the dining table and check my schedule for the day to see that my first client is Melanie Langley at nine.
I inwardly groan. The last thing I feel like doing right now is propping somebody else up when all around me it seems that my good intentions are being exploited. But my dread is immediately replaced with guilt. It’s not all around me; it’s one person and it’s not anyone else’s fault that my trust has been so poorly misplaced.
I check the time on the corner of the screen and again on my watch, wondering why Melanie is an hour early. Or, more likely, how my ravaged brain has got the time wrong.
I hate being late for my clients. I don’t want them to be knocking on a door that’s not going to be opened. Or spend even a minute waiting for someone who they think doesn’t value their time. It all erodes their fragile spirit; yet another person has let them down. And I don’t want that person to be me.
I gather up the files on the table and tuck my laptop under my arm.