‘You can’t say something like that and just walk away,’ he says, walking towards her in two quick steps. He tries to grab her arm but Cassie’s moved away from him, and he can’t reach her.
‘Jack, calm down,’ she says, turning towards the sink. ‘I’m just getting a glass of water.’
‘What do you know about my dad?’ He follows her around the kitchen island, vying for attention.
‘Jack, all I said is that you remind me of Mike, or photos I’ve seen of him, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, but why are you bringing him up now, when we’re talking about all this? It just seems weird.’
Cassie runs the tap for a moment, puts her finger in the water to check the temperature. What if she told Jack what Charlotte said, about Mike’s affairs, she wonders. He seems halfway there himself already; maybe it’s time for him to know the truth, maybe that would either save them or finally drop the guillotine that hangs over their marriage. But then she thinks of Charlotte; she’s spent the last twenty years lovingly preserving Mike’s memory for Jack’s sake. Cassie may know the truth about Mike, but she also knows it isn’t her story to tell. She puts the glass under the tap.
‘Stop fucking ignoring me!’
Jack pulls Cassie’s forearm towards him and the glass she’s holding hits the side of their enamel sink and a large shard snaps away from the edge and bites into her hand.
She drops the glass in the sink, the water still running. A tiny bloom of blood flowers by Cassie’s thumb.
Jack takes a step back.
‘Shit, Cas, are you OK?’ He hands her some kitchen roll, but she shakes her head and sucks the little cut instead. It fills her mouth, the metallic zing of blood.
‘Cas, sorry, it was an accident.’
Still keeping her lips to the small cut she nods at him before pulling away. He’s never grabbed her in anger before. The cut’s tiny, the bleeding already stopped. She holds her hand away from Jack so he can’t see and says, ‘I’m fine, Jack, I’m fine …’
‘Are you sure? Let me see.’ He tries to take her hand but she’s backing away from him.
‘Please don’t fuss about it, Jack. Just let me go back to my painting like you promised, OK?’
She doesn’t look at him again, leaving him to clean up the shattered glass, and she walks back out towards the garden.
The shed door bangs behind her and she catches a movement in the little mirror by the door, her own reflection startles her, weird as a stranger walking too close behind her. She stops to stare at herself, the light-grey jumper, her blonde hair already below her shoulders, unbrushed but still so straight. Like a light on its dimmest setting, the woman in the mirror looks ready to fade away completely. She looks like Charlotte. She flicks her head forward, rakes her fingers through her hair again and again. She pulls off Charlotte’s jumper, and slaps her face between her hands to bring some colour to her cheeks. She flicks herself back up. The woman who looks back at her now is scruffier, less composed, her eyes smeared with old mascara, her hair sticking up at angles like a distressed clown. She smiles at herself because she sees April again, her brave mum, and she realises how long she’s been away, and how much she’s missed her.
19
Alice
I pretend to still be asleep when I feel David get out of bed. I’m working a night shift tonight, so there’s no urgency to leave our warm bed. David starts running a bath; I can smell my posh bath oil, which I know he hates, so the bath must be for me. I winch open one eye and he smiles and kisses me.
‘Hop in,’ he says. ‘I’m going to make some breakfast.’
The bath is a little too hot. I’m still cautious enough to heed some old midwife stories, so I add some cold before sliding in, feeling the water encase me, holding me in amniotic warmth. My belly rises a little above the water; I’m almost nine weeks now. Being busy has had its advantages. I wonder if Cassie had to pretend she was off booze, and how she explained her early-pregnancy tiredness away.
I make a little wave of water and watch it glide over my belly. My pregnancy (it feels too dangerous to think of it as ‘a baby’) is always on my mind but in a subtler way than ever before, like a secret when the keeping of it is more satisfying than sharing. I listen to David whistling and chinking mugs and plates in the kitchen and I think, maybe now, this morning, is the time to let him know. I could reassure him that this is the best it’s ever felt, that this time it’s different, and try and make him believe it will be different.
But when I put my bathrobe on and join him in the kitchen and watch him make coffee, he seems so unencumbered – smiles and laughter come easily to him – and I know how that will change if I tell him. He’ll grow shadowy, a fear will settle around us like fine, thick dust, a fear neither of us can express because to talk about it out loud might jinx us.
The last time it happened, we hardly spoke to each other for a month. I imagined us like cartoon characters, sad stick people with a black cloud hanging over each of our heads, the words ‘what is the point?’ written inside.
So instead of saying anything, I kiss him on the lips. A news programme on Radio 4 runs through the headlines. At the end of a bulletin about the latest political scandal they play the clip I’ve heard countless times already. Jack’s rounded, deep voice asking for privacy during this ‘most difficult time’.
I played it to David for the first time last night; he said Jack sounded like a character from an afternoon radio play. I didn’t tell David I knew what he meant; instead I said it was the stress making Jack’s voice vibrato, stretching the pauses in his speech. I don’t know why I defended him. Maybe because I still want to be wrong, I want Cassie’s baby to have one healthy, free parent.
David changes the radio station, and Jack’s voice is replaced by the clear notes from a piece of piano music. David wants me here, fully here, with him this morning. I have to be fair; I have to try. He’s laid out croissant, prosciutto, melon cut into little pieces, along with freshly squeezed orange juice.
‘If we weren’t already married, I’d think you were about to propose,’ I say, pulling out a chair, and picking up a piece of melon with my fingers.
‘Shit.’ David smacks his hand to his forehead. ‘We’re already married, aren’t we?’
I make a ‘you’re an idiot’ face and pick up a croissant.
‘Sorry,’ I say, pouring us both some orange juice, ‘I know work has taken over recently.’
David sits opposite me, takes a sip of juice and says, ‘It’s fine, Ali. I get it, it’s important.’ Around a mouthful of ham he asks, ‘So what’s the latest then? Press still sniffing about?’
The buttery croissant melts in my mouth. ‘It’s easing off a bit now.’ I look at the radio. ‘They’re playing repeats.’ If they were playing the full interview, Jack would be talking now about how Cassie and he enjoyed living in such a close-knit community, how grateful he is for all the support.
‘And how’s Cassie?’
‘She’s … she’s just the same really.’