Beth opens the door to me, stepping backwards so that the photographers can’t see her. She’s wearing one of my old milk-stained maternity tops and a pair of shiny leggings. There is so much to say, but for now, ‘Well done,’ she says, drawing me into a deep hug. ‘You got through it.’
‘We got through it,’ I correct her.
Beth’s smile is watery; we’ll do this later, over a drink. She came to visit the babies when they were two weeks old. This time, I begged her to stay. ‘Why her?’ asked Ling, when I hired her as my nanny. ‘Doesn’t she just remind you of all the shit you’ve been through?’ To which I could only reply, ‘Who else?’ All I see now are the opportunities she didn’t take to hurt me. Who could I trust more?
And anyway, how would I explain it all to a stranger?
‘Fin’s just woken up,’ says Beth. ‘I’m getting his bottle ready.’
‘Perfect.’ I kick off my shoes. In the sitting room, my oldest boy lies on his back, bashing the toys dangling from his activity bar like a manic little percussionist. I kneel to breathe in his almond smell and laugh as he grabs for my earrings. He’s changed even since this morning; his saffron eyelashes are longer, or maybe he’s just got more hair. He’s got his dad’s nose, his granddad’s ears and an oval face that’s all mine. He’s a clown and a bruiser where Albie is soft and sensitive, watching intently for patterns and outcomes before committing to anything; Fin ploughs headlong into whatever’s on offer. I try very hard not to compare them to Kit and Mac, and I may yet succeed.
‘Have they been good?’ I ask, disentangling Fin’s fist from my hair.
‘Albie’s been an angel, Fin’s been a little sod,’ she says fondly.
‘Did you talk to Antonia?’
‘She’s hiding in a neighbour’s, watching the paps over the road,’ she says.
‘Oh, no,’ I say, although I ought not to be surprised by this by now. Maybe I should text Kit and tell him to come in the back way, through Ronni’s garden.
‘He’ll be here in about ninety minutes. I said he could help with bath time.’
Beth’s face pinches in on itself. ‘Want me to make myself scarce?’
Part of me wants to say no, stay, let’s make him squirm his way through this. I’m sure it would be more convenient for Kit if Beth suddenly disappeared for good now. That’s not going to happen; but neither can she be here when he comes home. The way I manage his homecoming sets up the template for the rest of our lives. Kit has lost my love but he is still my children’s father. ‘Just this first time,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
Once Kit is here, a new nightmare will slide into the place of the old. There will be more lawyers, I suppose; mediation to start with, issues of access, the house, custody – he’d be insane to contest me on this, but I can no more predict his actions now than I could those of a stranger in the street – and, when he eventually gets a job, possibly even child support. He might have something to say on the subject of his sons’ surname. If he challenges me on my choice of childcare, he’ll have a fight on his hands.
A soft grizzling noise comes down the stairs as Albie wakes up and realises his brother has gone.
‘Want me to get him?’ asks Beth, but it’s a rare treat for me to wake either boy from his afternoon nap. I hand her Fin and climb to the nursery. The boys sleep in the attic room that used to be our study. Our desks and clutter have been replaced by two cots and a changing table, all from eBay. By the time they’re old enough for real beds, I’ll probably have had to sell up. It will do for now.
I tiptoe in even though Albie’s awake, and pause for a moment on the threshold. I’ve had the huge plate window fitted with a blackout shutter and the only light comes from the illuminated globe that turns gently on its axis, painting the white walls with maps.
‘Hello, sleepyhead,’ I murmur into the satin of his neck. I throw back the shutters and the sky spills in, a wide expanse of blue above the rooftops. Together we look out over them. The sky over Alexandra Palace is bright blue, streaked with white, the baby-boy-nursery colours. Albie stares unfocused at scudding clouds until something catches his eyes and makes them widen in delight. A low-flying aeroplane booms its vapour trail slowly across the sky. Albie points, the first time he’s made the gesture. I follow my son’s gaze skywards, forwards. It’s going to be so hard, from now on, but I won’t look backwards any more, or over my shoulder. Albie knows this truth: we are meant to look up.
The new kitchen island is laid out with formula and sterilising equipment. Beth is preparing a bottle. Fin sits on the floor, more or less in the spot where she fell and bled out. It has never seemed to bother Beth, living and working in the place she nearly died. Perhaps because it no longer looks like the murder room. I had to change it. The house was a crime scene for three days. While the CSIs took photographs and dusted and measured, the blood was seeping into the porous tiles. Even the team of cleaners they sent could not bleach it out. I had the whole space refitted with end-of-range tiles, half-price Ikea units and catering equipment that Mac got on the cheap. It looks like an operating theatre now. Losing the kitchen’s character is a small price to pay for losing the bloodstains too.
I can enter it now without flashbacks, but the dimensions are the same, and it’s impossible for me not to superimpose the old layout on the new. There stood the old fridge where we kept all my fertility drugs. There remains the window where we stood in the sunlight, the sooner to read the positive pregnancy test. There was the worktop where he cooked me dinner every night. There in the window was the radio that soundtracked our kitchen discos.
There is a kitchen table and chairs in place of the old-fashioned banquette and counter where Jamie Balcombe held me and Beth hostage. There is the threshold where Kit stood and watched, paralysed by what he saw and what I knew. And here, just to the right of the dishwasher, is where I turned my husband into a killer.