If that’s how he’s going to play it.
I go to his computer again, and I log in quickly, before I can change my mind. He’s not changed the password, so he can’t be that worried about me, I think, with relief. And there’s another bloody email from that bastard. It says:
You were warned. Why don’t you do something?
Feeling sick but braver now – or just with nothing left to lose – I skim the other emails to see if Kaye’s sent anything recently. Are they in cahoots? But there have been no emails from her for weeks. I feel inordinately relieved.
I get dressed, and I text Marlena.
Have you found out anything? He’s had another one.
No, she texts back, but I’m on it, I promise. Hang in there.
Then I’m overtaken by another huge wave of nausea, and I have to lie down.
I stare at the bedroom ceiling. I have to prove I’m not mad, that someone has it in for me, before I lose either my marriage or my sanity entirely.
And then I think, Do I even want this marriage? Do I want to be married to a man who has been lying to me?
Who might love someone else still?
Even if I’m not losing it, I know I’m on borrowed time now.
Forty-Six
Jeanie
9 April 2015
I can’t help myself. It is wrong, but I do it anyway.
Around five, I get up. I scrub the work surfaces and the kitchen floor. My compulsion to tidy is getting worse; the CBT last spring stopped it for a bit, but it’s definitely rearing its head again. I know now that it’s about creating order when I feel I’ve lost control, but even that knowledge is not helping.
Once the surfaces shine, I get dressed, make a thermos of coffee and two ham, lettuce and mustard sandwiches – one for Frank, one for Matthew’s tea when he gets home.
I wrap Matthew’s very carefully. Inside the wrapping, on which I write ‘M’, I slip a little note. It just says,
Forever.
Afterwards I’ll remember the word I chose.
I’ll remember the desperation with which I wrote it.
* * *
I drive south, back to where I came from, skirting London, out into the brown and green fields.
Somewhere along the way I get a text. I hope it is Matt, but it isn’t.
Hope you’re feeling better, Kaye xx
I am driving too fast to text her back.
Nearing the coast, I wind my window down, thinking I can smell the sea.
I miss the sea. For all its danger, it’s more benign than the scary old house I live in.
I loop my way up over the hills, through the lamb-filled pastures, and the sun comes out at one point, fingers of light dancing over the sea, and I think, Maybe it will be all right. Maybe.
* * *
I know where they live from before.
Their small terraced house is what they called ‘bohemian’, and what I’d just call a mess. Broken window boxes full of weeds; half a rusty bike, missing a wheel; and, plonked in the middle of the front garden, the pièce de résistance: a ridiculous pink and orange sculpture with a sagging middle, courtesy of the woman Frank called Mrs Twit or Ma Lundy. It is entitled, according to the hand-painted sign, ‘Birth’. Not like any birth I’ve ever witnessed. And it only costs ￡235, if you care to ask.
I take a deep breath and knock.
In the grand scheme of things, I’m glad it is Pa who is in and not Ma. He is definitely the more sympathetic of the two – which isn’t saying much.
‘What the hell do you want?’ He is bleak, though he seems unsurprised to see me. He really is the most unprepossessing man: dirty fingernails on the door catch, lank hair pulled into a ponytail, old food down his fleece. He looks like he smells; I try not to get too near.
‘You’re not meant to be anywhere near here.’
How such a man managed to father such a beautiful child I’ll never know.
‘Have you been telling people about me?’ I say quickly, before he shuts the door in my face.
Pa Lundy looks at me like I am quite mad, a running theme of my life recently. ‘What?’
‘Have you been emailing people? About – what happened?’ I feel dizzy. Have I eaten today?
‘No, we bloody haven’t.’ He is ferocious. ‘Why would we?’
‘For the same reason you thought I had an affair with your son?’
There’s a nick on his cheek where he’s cut himself shaving; dark blood has bobbled up there. ‘But you know exactly why we thought that.’
I feel so deflated I could just crumple up right there.
‘You should go, before Sue gets back. She’ll give you far shorter shrift than me.’
That I don’t doubt – and Sue weighs at least three stone more than he does. I realise, too late, that even if they had sent the emails, there’s no way on God’s earth they’ll ever admit it.
A mangy ginger cat winds its way round my ankles. Pa Lundy looks at it like it’s some kind of traitor. ‘Come here, puss.’