I want to scream. I want to phone him up and tell him he’s a bastard, and that the trust he’s broken may never be mended.
But I don’t. Partly because I am so angry that I’m not sure if I can trust myself not to say something unforgivable.
Partly, though, because I know, and a small part of me is ready to admit that fact, that he is not completely to blame.
Yes, he’s to blame, of course he is. We’ve been together for almost ten years, and in that time I’ve never so much as kissed another man. I’ve done nothing to deserve being treated like this.
But Owen knows I am lying to him. He’s not a fool. He knows it – and he’s right.
He just doesn’t know why.
I crush my phone in my fist until it makes a faint complaining buzzing sound to tell me I’m holding it too tight, and I force my grip on the plastic to relax, and flex my fingers.
Fuck. Fuck.
It’s the insult I can’t stand – the idea that I would reel straight from his bed to Luc’s – and if he wasn’t Freya’s father, that alone would be enough for me to end it. I’ve had jealous boyfriends in the past, and they’re poison – poison to the relationship, and poison to your self-esteem. You end up looking over your shoulder, second-guessing your own motives. Was I flirting with that man? I didn’t mean to. Did I look at his friend like I wanted some? Was my top too low, my skirt too short, my smile too bright?
You stop trusting yourself, self-doubt filling the place where love and confidence used to be.
I want to phone him up and tell him that’s it – if he can’t trust me, it’s over. I won’t live like this, suspected of something I haven’t done, forced to deny infidelities that exist only in his mind.
But … even aside from my own part in all this, can I do that to Freya? I know what it’s like, living without a parent. I know only too well, and I don’t want that for her.
There is a thick blanket of cloud covering the sky, and the Mill feels dark and chilly, the stove burning low behind its little door, and suddenly, as I hear Freya stirring from above, her wakening whimper drifting down the stairs, I know I have to get out. I will go to the pub for dinner. Maybe I can find something out, talk to Mary Wren about the police investigation. Whatever, it’s plain that Kate isn’t about to come down any time soon, and even if she did, I’m not sure if I could face her, if I could sit there over dinner, exchanging small talk, with the spectre hanging between us, and Owen’s email like poison in my phone.
I run upstairs to the bedroom and wrestle Freya into a coat. Then I make sure the rain guard is packed beneath the pram, and push her out onto the sandy shore, the wind in our faces as we turn to begin the walk to Salten.
I HAVE A long time to think on the cold, windswept walk to Salten village, my feet eating up the distance mile by slow, chilly mile. My mind see-saws between dwelling resentfully on Owen’s failings as a partner, and the guilty consciousness that I haven’t behaved perfectly to him. I tick off his faults in my head – his short-fused temper, his possessiveness, the way he ploughs ahead with plans without asking me what I think.
But other memories intrude. The curve of his spine as he bends over the bath, pouring warm water over our daughter’s head. His kindness, his resourcefulness. His love for me. And Freya.
And beneath it all, like a bass counterpoint, is my own compli-city in this. I have lied. I have lied and concealed and withheld from him. I’ve been keeping secrets since the day I met him, but these last few weeks have been on a different scale, and he knows something is wrong. Owen has always been possessive, but he was never jealous before – not like this. And that is down to me. I have made him like this. We have. Me, Fatima, Thea and Kate.
I hardly notice the distance, so wrapped am I in my thoughts, but I am no nearer making any decisions by the time the far-off smudges in the mist resolve into houses and buildings.
As I round the corner towards the Salten Arms, flexing my cold fingers on the pram handle and brushing away the puddle of rainwater that has gathered in the hood, I can hear music. Not piped music, but the old kind – wheezing accordions, the twang of banjos, the cheerful squawk of fiddles.
I push open the door to the saloon bar and the sound hits me like a wall, together with the smell of woodsmoke from the fire, beer, and packed, cheerful bodies. The average age is well over sixty, and almost all of them are men.
Heads turn, but the music doesn’t cease, and as I push my way into the overheated room, I see Mary Wren perched on the edge of a stool at the bar, watching the players and tapping her foot in time to the jig. She notices me as I stand uncertainly at the threshold, and nods and winks. I smile back, listen for a moment, and then head for the back bar, noticing, as if for the first time, the wooden panels that line the walls. My stomach shifts, thinking of Kate’s note, thinking how easy it would be for anyone here to casually pull up a stool near the loose panel, or slip a hand in as they walked to the loos … even easier if you owned the place.
I remember Mary’s casual comment about the brewery wanting to sell the place to make flats for second-home owners, and as I look around the walls, noticing the peeling paint and the fraying carpets and chairs, I think about what that would mean to Jerry. He’s worked here all his life – this pub is his livelihood, his social life, and his retirement plan. What else could he do? I’m not sure whether it’s the eyes upon me, the heat and noise, or the realisation that Kate’s blackmailer could be standing just the other side of the bar, but I feel a sudden wave of claustrophobia and paranoia. All these locals, the grinning old men with their knowing looks, and the tight-mouthed bar maid with her arms folded, they know who I am, I’m sure of it.
I shove through the crowds towards the toilets and drag Freya’s pram inside, and I let the door swing shut, my back against it, feeling the cool and silence wash over me. I shut my eyes and I tell myself you can do this. Don’t let them get to you.
It’s only when I open my eyes that I see the words written in faint, blurred Sharpie on the door, reflected in the dirty mirror.
Mark Wren is a sex offender!!!!
I feel the blood rush to my cheeks, a scalding wash of shame. The letters are old and hard to make out, but not illegible. And someone else, more recently, has scratched out the Mark and written over the top in biro the word Sergeant.
Why didn’t I realise? Why didn’t I realise that a lie can outlast any truth, and that in this place people remember. It is not like London, where the past is written over again and again until nothing is left. Here, nothing is forgotten, and the ghost of my mistake will haunt Mark Wren forever. And it will haunt me.