‘No.’ I wanted to take a step back, to widen the space between us and diffuse the tension but I couldn’t. James was calling me a liar and yet he’s been lying about the death of his father. ‘I don’t understand. Why would your mum say your dad killed himself if he died of a smoking-related illness?’
‘He killed himself alright – with too much booze and too many fags – but she was the one that drove him to it. Always going on and on, nagging and bitching and lying and manipulating.’
‘But …’ I didn’t finish my sentence. His mother said ‘the day he killed himself’ like it was suicide, not respiratory disease. Or had I heard that wrong? Now I was doubting myself.
‘So tell me,’ he prodded me in the chest, again. ‘Are you still smoking?’
‘No! I haven’t started again, James. I prom—’
‘LIAR!’
He was right. I was lying. I haven’t started smoking again, not regularly but I did have a quick cig with Hels two weeks ago. We met for lunch, had a couple of G and Ts and I just couldn’t resist when she offered me a fag. It was just one cigarette but James wouldn’t understand that. He’d think I didn’t love him enough to keep my promise to quit.
‘If you’ve lied about your dirty, little smoking habit,’ he took another step forward, jolting me with his chest so I was forced to take a step back, ‘what else have you lied about ‘eh, Suzy-Sue?’
I pressed my hands to my mouth. ‘Nothing.’
‘Really? Really nothing? You’re not,’ he yanked my hands away from my mouth and gathered them in his, ‘secretly shagging Rupert again?’
‘No.’ I tried to wriggle my fingers free. ‘Of course not.’
‘Going to our favourite hotels for a hot fuck?’
‘No!’ I wriggled harder and snatched my hands away. ‘Jesus, James you need to let this Rupert thing go. You’re obsessed.’
‘Obsessed? You’re the one that goes for coffee with him several times a week. And I’m supposed to believe that? That two people that used to fuck each other’s brains out can sit opposite each other, all alone, without their partners and have a lovely drinky-poo and not be tempted to get it on again? You must think I’m an idiot.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, James.’ I couldn’t believe we were back there again. ‘How many times do I have to spell it out? Rupert is a friend and nothing more. I’m as attracted to him as I am to Hels who, before you say anything about my so-called “sexual wild side”, I’m not attracted in the least.’
James shook his head. ‘You don’t get it do you, Suzy? I could be friends with my exes too but I’m not because I value our relationship too much. I value you too much. I value you more than anything else in my life. I love you Suzy, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ My heart softened at his tender tone of voice. No one had ever loved me so passionately or so desperately before. No one had ever become jealous or possessive before. They’d never cared enough. ‘And I love you too, James.’
‘No.’ He cupped my jaw with his right hand and tilted my head up so I had no choice but to look into his eyes. ‘I really fucking love you, Suzy. You are everything to me. Everything.’
His left hand snaked around my waist and he pulled me to him, roughly, brusquely as he pressed his lips against mine. He kissed me deeply and, despite the anger I felt at being branded a liar, I kissed him back.
Chapter 10
I snatch up Charlotte’s mobile phone and turn it over in my hands then peer into the mouth of the envelope. It’s empty. Not a card, not a note, not a post-it. Nothing. Just the phone.
I sprint out of the house and across the gravel with Charlotte’s phone in one hand, the padded envelope in the other. I pause when I reach the street. Which way would they have gone? I turn right, towards town, and continue to run. I pass a woman pushing a buggy, an elderly lady dragging a shopping trolley behind her and a teenage couple holding hands. I pass the number 19 bus, Bills the newsagents and three or four pubs. Still I keep running. I don’t know who I’m looking for or where I’m going but I only slow to a stop when I notice Milly trailing behind me with her tongue hanging out. I’m no spring chicken but she’s ten years old with a heart condition and fading eyesight. She shouldn’t be running anywhere, never mind down a traffic-fume filled street with dangers at every turn.
‘Come on girl.’ I reach down and pat her head. ‘Let’s go home.’
My first instinct, as I walk back in, is to find Brian and tell him what happened but I say nothing. Instead I pour Milly a bowl of fresh, clean water and shut her in the porch then go into the downstairs toilet, locking the door behind me, and sit down on the closed loo seat. I press the button on the top of Charlotte’s mobile.
An animation skips across the screen as the phone flashes to life. It takes me forever to work out how to access the text messages but, when I do, a list of names appear. I recognize several of them – Liam, Ella, Oli, Nancy and Misha, two girls from Charlotte’s class – and then a couple of names I don’t. I feel sick with nerves yet strangely exhilarated as I go through the messages, certain that I am about to reveal the reason why Charlotte tried to kill herself but, the more I read, the more disappointed I feel and my exhilaration is soon replaced by awkwardness as I stumble across a thread of messages between my daughter and her boyfriend. Some of them are sexual but the majority are fun and loving. The text that ends the relationship comes out of nowhere. In the text before Charlotte tells Liam that she had an amazing evening with him and then in her final text to him, the relationship’s over and she doesn’t want anything to do with him. No wonder he was so angry and confused. What follows are a string of texts from Liam – initially hurt and desperate for an explanation then increasingly agitated and angry. Charlotte doesn’t reply to any of them.