My heart is thudding as I redial the number. She picks up almost at once, and I launch straight in, with no time for preamble. ‘What happened?’
My mother sighs. ‘I don’t know how to describe it,’ she says. ‘This woman – we bumped into her by chance and she invited us to come and see Paddy. She seemed perfectly nice but, while we were there today, she just – broke down. She was crying, and I couldn’t make sense of anything she said. I have no idea what was going through her head. Maybe it’s silly, but I feel uneasy about her being in your place. I know you’re coming back tonight, anyway, but I just thought you should know, and—’
‘I’m coming back now,’ I say. ‘I’m packing up my things and we’re coming back as soon as we can. I should be there in three or four hours.’
‘Well, maybe that’s a good idea,’ my mother says, clearly relieved. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you on your holiday. Have you been having fun?’
My throat closes up and I find that I can’t speak, the tears that have dried up only minutes before rising up again to choke me. I grip on to the phone, listening to the low buzz of the line. Before I can make myself reply, I hear a scuffling sound and the sudden loud breathing of my son at the other end of the phone. ‘Mummy,’ he says, and with the word the tears shrink back and I find myself saying his name in return, clear and strong.
‘I miss you,’ he says.
‘I’m coming back,’ I tell him. ‘Me and Daddy. We’ll be back today.’
‘That’s good.’ His voice is oddly adult, reflective and thoughtful. ‘Because then you can put me to bed.’
‘That’s right,’ I say. I’m filled with the desire to say something to him that he won’t forget – to make him realize that I understand what matters, even if I’ve lost sight of it for so long. ‘I love you,’ I begin, but before I can say any more he’s pressed the wrong button and cut the call off.
I think about calling back, but I find that I’m shoving the phone back into my pocket and running, my footsteps thudding in my head. I can’t wait any longer. I run down the street to number 21 and fumble for the keys, wrenching at the front door. As soon as I come into the hallway, I see Francis in the living room. He’s bent over the suitcase, zipping it up. When he hears me, he straightens up, dusts off his hands. He looks me straight in the eyes and I look back, feeling a jolt of connection. We understand each other.
‘We need to get back,’ he says, and I nod silently, flooded by the strangeness of this shared purpose, the way we have both arrived at the same conclusion from poles apart.
I glance around the room, looking at the bareness of the walls, the flat, gleaming surfaces. I don’t need to try to imprint these things on my memory. Already, I know that they’ll be here with me for a long, long time. I wonder if I should leave some message or symbol for the woman whose house I have been living in, but I have no idea what it might be. So I just reach for my handbag and follow my husband out through the hallway and close the front door behind us, not looking back.
Francis crosses the driveway to the car, unlocking it and preparing to get into the driver’s seat. I haven’t planned it, but I find the words rising unstoppably inside me. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ll drive.’
He stands very still, his hand motionless on the door handle. ‘Are you sure?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
I move forward and take the keys from his fingertips. They feel cool and smooth against my skin. I slip into the driver’s seat and slide the key into the ignition. Place my hands on the wheel. Look through the windscreen at the road ahead.
And then I’m moving the car forward, and it’s easy. Strange, but easy.
I drive slowly at first, watching the road carefully, conscious of nothing else. It’s the first time I have driven, outside my dreams, for almost two years. In those nightmares, my hands have dripped with sweat and my head has pounded, and I have known even in my sleep that this will end badly. It isn’t that way now. I’m driving, and everything is clear and calm and it’s like I never stopped.
We’re on to the motorway before I speak again, and when I do I don’t move my head, not wanting to look away from the road or meet his gaze. ‘I need to start telling you something now.’ I have no idea how I will begin. ‘Something that happened when Carl and I ended things,’ I say. I draw in a breath, tighten my hands on the wheel. The skyline spilling out ahead is vast and blank, punctuated by grey, drifting clouds.
‘Caro,’ he says. ‘You don’t need to tell me.’
I do look at him then, a swift glance in the mirror before I snap my gaze back to the road. He’s staring at me with sadness and tenderness. ‘I already know,’ he says. ‘About the accident.’
I shake my head, unable to process the words. ‘No,’ I start. ‘How could you?’
‘I’ve known for a while,’ he says. ‘Look, the important thing is to get home. We can thrash this out later. But a few months ago, I had a visit from a new patient. The girl … it was—’
‘Her mother,’ I finish, because from the moment he started speaking I realized that there are only three people in the world besides myself who have known the truth of what happened, and that she is the only one who can have reached him, the only one who would have wanted to.
I tighten my hands on the wheel. ‘We have to talk about this,’ I say quietly. ‘We have to—’
‘I know,’ he interrupts, ‘and we will. Trust me.’
I bite down hard on my lip, struggling to know how to reply, and then there’s a rush of sudden peace and I realize that I don’t need to, not now. All I need to do is drive.
Trust me. The words echo in my head as I lean forward in my seat and steer the car forward. There’s no rhyme or reason to trust – it’s there or it’s not. And now it’s there – soaking through the silence between us, warming this small, private bubble. We’ve spent almost every day in each other’s company for the past two years and this is the first time I’ve really felt this intimacy.
The knowledge is fierce and sad. I’m thinking of the way another man’s arms were around me less than an hour before, and I know there’s no point in clinging to a dream if what I have right here in front of me is something I want to keep. I have no idea where we will be in five years, or even five weeks, but I want to live in the present, with my family. I’m tired of walking through my own life like a ghost, giving them my body when my head is elsewhere.
We don’t speak another word for the rest of the journey. The hours blur together, the miles whirring silently past. It’s almost three in the afternoon by the time we reach home. I pull carefully into the parking space and switch off the ignition. My hands are trembling. I’ve done it, but this isn’t over. I peer up at the third-floor windows of the building and I try to determine if she’s still there.
The thought fills me with nausea, but there’s no going back now. I turn to Francis, stretch my hand out to cover his. ‘I need to go in first,’ I say. ‘Just, please, wait here for me.’
He opens his mouth as if he might protest, then abruptly closes it and nods. He leans his head back against the seat, his eyes intent and reflective. He knows as well as I do that something is coming to its end here. That once it’s past we’ll be left with a life that is a different shape, and that we’ll start to discover if it’s worth having.
I climb out of the car and slam the door, folding my arms tightly around my chest as I walk up to the building. I climb the three flights of stairs to our flat, listening to the sound of my footsteps in the silent hallway. I’m half expecting to find her standing there waiting for me, but the door is closed. I reach into my pocket for my keys and unlock the door, letting it swing gently open.