Esther is watching me.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t want to upset you. I just thought maybe you ought to know. Even though I’m expecting it, it still shocks me, seeing her name in black and white on the label, every year. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you to get that Facebook request.’
The desire to open up to Esther is very strong – the need to loosen this knot inside me that is being pulled tighter and tighter. The pressure in my head that has been building since the day I got the Facebook request threatens to reach bursting point.
‘It’s not just the friend request, Esther.’
‘What do you mean?’ She drains the last of her G&T and glances at her watch.
‘I’ve had other messages, and the day I went to Sophie’s, I’m sure someone was following me, and then…’ I trail off, unwilling to admit how easily I was fooled into the internet date. ‘Do you want a drink?’ I say instead. Another glass of wine and I might just try to tell her the real story of what happened to Maria, start to let a little bit of light in.
‘No, I’d better not,’ she says, starting to gather up her things. ‘I need to head over to Liverpool Street, my husband hates me being too late. What do you mean, though; you thought someone was following you?’
‘Oh, nothing. It was probably just my imagination.’
She looks doubtful.
‘Honestly, it’s fine!’ I say, attempting to sound breezy. I need to change the subject. ‘I didn’t know you were married.’ Foolishly I’d imagined her to be as alone as I am.
‘This didn’t give you a clue?’ She grins, waving her left hand in front of me, where I now see on the fourth finger a platinum band topped by a diamond solitaire.
‘What does your husband do?’ I’m panicking at the thought of being left alone, trying to keep her here longer.
‘Lawyer, same as me.’ She smiles. ‘Boring!’ I can tell she thinks it’s anything but.
‘Great.’ I search my mind, but can think of no intelligent question to ask. She’s a partner, I remember. ‘Is he a partner too?’
There’s an infinitesimal pause, and a cloud that I can’t identify passes over her face. ‘No, not yet.’
‘Kids?’ If I can just keep asking her questions, maybe she’ll stay.
‘Yes, two. One of each. You?’ she asks, her eyes flicking to my ring-less finger so quickly that I almost don’t notice.
‘Yes. Just one.’ The usual pang at that. At least now I’m divorced people have stopped asking when I’m going to have another. ‘Henry. He’s four.’ I realise that Esther doesn’t know that I married Sam. For some reason I am embarrassed about telling her. She’s got her coat on now and there’s no stopping her. In a few moments I will be alone again, facing my solitary journey home to an empty flat. What if someone is following me?
‘Right, I’d better go and get my train, if you’re sure you’ll be OK. It was… good to see you, Louise.’ The words cost her, I can tell, and as she walks away, I’m overcome with an urge to run after her, ask her if we can’t be friends. But I know it’s hopeless. Esther seems willing to try and forgive me for how I treated Maria, and her. But she’d never forgive me if she knew the whole truth. Not in a million years.
Chapter 16
He’s always been… protective. He knows what she’s been through. Knows her childhood and teenage years weren’t exactly a bed of roses. He just wants the rest of her life to be happy, that’s all. Doesn’t want anyone else to hurt her. The closer he keeps her, the safer she will be.
When she was pregnant, she thinks he secretly hoped she would give up work altogether, although that was never really going to be viable. She tries to push away the thought that he resents her professional success, that he’d prefer some slipper-shod hausfrau with dinner on the table. But it worries away at her, this feeling that he can’t cope with her being more successful than him. He’s not having a great time at work, and she feels almost reluctant to shout about her successes. She plays it down.
Pregnancy had another impact on their relationship too. Giving birth and breastfeeding not only ravaged her physically, they placed her in a new relation to her body. She didn’t know what it was for any more. The things that had used to make her scream with pleasure left her totally unmoved.
She supposed she ought to have been pleased that he still wanted her. She had friends whose husbands didn’t want to touch them after what they had seen in the delivery room: the blood and gore and screaming, ripping agony of it; they were repulsed by wives with loose-skinned bellies and leaking breasts.
She finds she has to reassure herself quite often. It’s totally normal, what he wants to do. It falls within the range of normal. And what is normal, anyway? There’s really no such thing, as long as nobody gets hurt. Although sometimes it does hurt, but then that’s all part of the game, isn’t it?
The main thing to remember is that he gets her. He knows her – he’s the only one that does. She’ll never find that with anyone else. And if she ever starts to forget that, well… he’s there to remind her.
Chapter 17
1989
Sophie forgave me for bottling the tampon thing. In fact, she was really sweet about it, said she understood, I shouldn’t have to do anything I wasn’t happy with. She stuck close to me, walking with me in favour of Claire or Joanne, sitting with me at lunch every day. Maria stayed well away, thank God. I hardly saw her except in lessons. Everyone was talking about the leavers’ party, which was happening in a few weeks’ time, at the end of June, mostly about what they were going to take or how they were going to make sure the teachers didn’t twig beforehand and ruin it. Sophie had this mad idea about doing some elaborate practical joke to send us out in style. Something spectacular, something that would make us go down in school history. I went over to hers and we watched this film called Carrie; I’d never been so scared. There wasn’t going to be any pig’s blood involved in Sophie’s plan, but she said there would definitely be a big part in it for me. She didn’t even tell Claire and Joanne about it. The only ones who knew were her and me, Sam and Matt. We needed the boys to get us the stuff, and, anyway, I think Sophie was trying to impress one of them. I didn’t want to think about which of them it could be.