‘Bea, please don’t try and make sense of this. Rational behaviour is not relevant here, so rational reasoning will get you nowhere. Like I said, I don’t know for sure he did. He may have only wanted to teach us a lesson, to hurt us, scar us. If we were dead, he wouldn’t get to see the results, we wouldn’t pay for our mistakes, so I’m not convinced he did intend to kill us, just that he meant for us to crash. Though, as the front airbag had been disabled and he abandoned us, if someone hadn’t called 999, we or at least I could have been in trouble from the amount of blood loss. And it was cold, so, so cold too.’
I also had his flash-drive, whipped last minute from his laptop in his study, but that’s remaining my secret. Our secret. It may once have been reason enough to keep me alive that night. But now? I’m not so sure. You know I have it, don’t you? But why now, why is it only now you’ve come looking for it? Or is it something else? Is this simply twisted revenge?
‘Lucky, he didn’t take Jack with him,’ adds Ruan.
‘No. It wasn’t luck, he didn’t want Jack. Jack was an asset for the future. He only wanted Jack because I needed Jack. Jack was his only real power over me. If I’d died, he’d have been stuck with him. Wherever he went, wherever he was going, he knew he couldn’t take Jack. Jack was nothing more than another one of his tools.’ This is what I hate you most for.
‘But why did you stay with such a lunatic, Evie? Why didn’t you leave him before then?’ Here we go. It’s a reasonable question but it can’t possibly be answered in a reductionist manner.
‘Exactly, why? I ask myself the same every day. Because hindsight makes me ask it. But context always wins the day, always. I didn’t leave because I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.’ I can feel myself becoming defensive.
Bea’s not being judgmental; this must seem so very far-fetched. The strange thing is, it does to me too, or it did until a few weeks ago, before it was brought abruptly back into my life. A horrible thought hits me: I may know who the articles in the envelope were sent by, but not who put them into my briefcase? I assumed nobody had been in the house because the back door was locked when I checked but what if I’m wrong? If someone else has been in our home, have you too? Technically, you could have come through an unlocked back door, locked it, then left through the front door – it has a dead lock. I feel sick. Have you been in our home?
I feel them both silently eyeballing me. ‘Sorry, Bea, I didn’t mean to snap at you.’
‘It’s fine,’ she graces me. ‘I just feel awful. I didn’t know any of this.’ She leans forward and touches my hand.
‘You have nothing to feel bad about, please. How could you have possibly guessed?’ Bea is still looking at me with a mixture of shock and sadness. ‘You know, I sometimes wonder if he intended for Jack to die; for me to survive and for Jack to die. He knew it would be my ultimate punishment; the only actual means of destroying me.’
They look at me with horror etched across their faces. ‘It’s so hard for any normal person to compute the workings of the mind of a psychopath. I mean, why would anyone kill their son to punish their ex-wife, how sick? I, on the other hand, identify; I’ve learned all too well we are all merely pawns on a chessboard to men like him. Used and sacrificed as needed to achieve an end. It’s easier for me. Over the years I’ve needed to learn, to think and dissect in his terms. Kind of mechanical. To be honest, the fact I can do it so successfully frightens me.’ Does this mean I can never be normal again? Can I ever truly unlearn the rules of chess?
‘Jesus Christ.’ Bea sighs out.
We sit in silence for a couple of minutes. ‘Ruan, would you chuck a log on the fire, please? I’m feeling a little chilly.’
‘Sure.’ He jumps up to poke around with the fire. It must be a man thing; I only asked him to put a log on it.
‘Eve?’ Bea pauses, and something tells me I’m not going to like what she’s about to ask. ‘Why did you get in the car that night, you and Jack? If you knew he was so horrible, why get into the car with him?’
I think about this for a while, not because I don’t know the answer, but because it’s difficult to answer without sounding like a complete idiot. Who willingly gets into a car with a psychopathic ex-husband looking for revenge on a dark stormy night? How could I have been so context blind? I witness these incidents on the news and think to myself, well, what did you expect? How did you not see it coming? What made you suddenly become so stupid? How do I answer without giving away anything I need to withhold? I trust them but, when the lives of Jack and me are the very things at stake, I can’t afford to trust anyone completely. Has this not always been the case with my story? It’s not what you see, it’s what you don’t see. It’s not what you know, it’s what you don’t know.
We think we know the truth; what we saw, what we believed. But the truth is, our perceptions have been so contaminated by our past, can we trust our original observations and decisions? I was desperate. I wanted a way to end the living hell. So I watched and learned and gathered the evidence. But there are gaps in my evidence. Not to mention cracks in my moral conscience. It all seemed to make sense back then.
I hate hindsight.
‘I didn’t have any choice, Bea. I had to get in the car because he had Jack.’ He had Jack because he was using him as a bargaining tool for the flash-drive I could never let him have; our freedom depended on it. Or did it? I’m not so sure any more.
As I swill the blackberry liquid around my glass, I’m startled out of my skin by a loud thud at the front door. Spilling the juices down my front. Bea follows suit, choking on her mouthful, spraying my legs with the remnants. None of us move. The letter box opens as a large brown envelope falls to the floor. I wipe the wine from my face, trying to ignore the quickening of my heartbeat. I tentatively find my feet, Bea looking to me for reassurance.
‘I’ll get it,’ says a confident Ruan.
‘No, it’s fine.’ I’m already making my way to the front door, sick with the awareness of these familiar feelings. I used to dread the sound of the letter box, the sight of the poor postman, wondering what nasty letter would be dropping to my floor. I veer off towards the front window. I need to check if anyone’s there. But no one. I’m aware of Ruan moving towards me as I open the front door.
‘What are you doing?’ shrieks Bea. ‘Shut the door, for God’s sake.’
‘Shhh, Bea.’ With my heart in my mouth, I step out. It’s pitch black, the wind has died down and a silence surrounds me, other than the hum of the Atlantic behind. Our front gate has been left open. Was this to help someone make a quick getaway? I tread to the end of the small path, expecting someone to jump out, then gaze down towards the low wall bordering the road.
I can feel you breathing; you are watching me, aren’t you?
I could have missed you by a few steps but I’m certain you’re still here. I freeze. My words jar as my entire body quivers. Something hanging in the air; a familiar scent smothers my nostrils. ‘Eve?’ Ruan’s voice echoes around me. I cannot speak. ‘Eve?’
I turn to face him as he takes my arm. ‘He’s been here. I’m not imagining it, Ruan – he’s been here tonight. I know he has.’
He turns me around, ushering me towards the door. ‘Come on, you don’t know this, do you? Not for sure. Let’s go in, open the envelope; it’s freezing out here.’
I step back over the threshold to pick up what has been dropped through my letter box. Scanning the envelope for signs, who the envelope is addressed to, a giveaway postmark, hoping it’s simply an innocent redirecting of some wandering post. A neighbour has dropped it off.
Nothing.
I sniff the envelope.
It was hand-delivered. I can smell you.
‘Eve, what is it?’ Bea asks.
‘Shush, please!’ I glance at her worried expression. ‘Sorry, Bea, give me a moment.’