The Other Woman, page 6
‘Like his father,’ he sneers.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘You’ve done loads of other things in your life, Pete, and you run the whole show at the store now. We both want what’s best for Harry, right? So all I’m saying—’
‘I know exactly what you are saying, Fran. It’s what you always say.’
‘I’ll have a word with him myself then.’
‘Well, there’s an idea.’
I turn for the door.
‘He’s gone out.’
‘Really?’ Harry’s social life, never lively, has been practically non-existent since he gave up on his degree. ‘With Dylan? Is he back then?’ Best of friends at school, the pair had set off for uni at the same time, Dylan to Nottingham, Harry to Warwick, the only difference being that Dylan was well into his second year and, by all accounts, having a great time.
‘Not Dylan.’ Pete, mercifully, is on his phone now, half-concentrating. ‘Looking after that horrible creature over the road. Again.’
‘Alfie’s not got long and Mrs D needs a break,’ I say, the reflex of defending Harry firing, despite the potential for further provocation it might cause. ‘And he says it’s good, easy money,’ I add quickly, grabbing at the one tack with a chance of eliciting Pete’s sympathies.
‘What’s for tea anyway,’ is all he says, tossing his phone aside. ‘I’m bloody starving.’
My stomach flips. I had not thought of food. I am supposed to be in Spain, sitting opposite Jack at a rickety table with a bottle of chilled wine and tapas, prawns in chilli perhaps, and patatas bravas, and crispy rings of calamari, and a basket of bread for dunking in the sauces. ‘Fish pie,’ I say, forcing my concentration to the contents of the freezer, steadily stocked over recent weeks. Leaving my husband and son hadn’t meant wanting them to starve.
I continue for the door, surreptitiously patting my back pocket where my mobile sits.
‘Leaving me, are you?’
It takes a long, heart-stopping moment to realise this is just Pete being Pete. ‘Yup,’ I quip, quite loudly, to disguise the tremor in my voice, ‘and I might not be coming back.’ My bravado astonishes me. I feel a rush of strength. I even think, madly, of Helena – not a doormat, like me – always the one to pick the fight. All is not lost. Not yet. I know Pete well enough to ride this out, to find a way through.
‘I suppose I’ll have that bath,’ he concedes with a sigh.
‘Good idea. I’ll get supper going.’
Once in the kitchen, I quickly put the fish pie in the microwave to defrost ready for browning in the oven, and check my phone. There is still nothing. I send Jack another message, a question mark, a single kiss, and the words Going mad, with no conviction it is even getting through. Then, when I hear the bath taps running upstairs, I quickly text Mel:
It’s all gone wrong. He never showed. Am back home. Total nightmare. Need to talk. Not now.
The microwave pings and I transfer the pie to the oven and start to lay the table. Exhaustion is seeping through me, weighing me down. I pour a glass of wine and drink it in three long swigs and, before I know it, I’m on my knees, sobbing Jack’s name, gripping the edge of the kitchen table. But I cannot do this. Not yet, not now. It is playing with fire, despite the upstairs gurgles of the hot-water tank as Pete runs his bath. I grope my way along the hall and into our box of a downstairs toilet. Sitting on the seat brings my knees to within a few inches of the door. The tiny basin is right next to me. I turn the taps on full and tug on the ceiling light rope to make the fan whirr. Then I allow my crying to start, keeping an eye on my watch to be sure there’s time to patch up my face before we eat.
‘Mum.’ Harry says the word uncertainly, clearly disconcerted at finding his least favourite parent sitting at the kitchen table in the middle of the night. He hovers in the frame of the kitchen door, a tall reedy silhouette against the blaze of the hall light.
‘Couldn’t you sleep either?’ My voice is a croak and I hope he thinks it’s from fatigue. ‘Don’t put the light on, there’s a love,’ I add quickly, fearful of him seeing my blotched and swollen face. I had managed supper, forcing lumps of fish and mash down my throat while watching telly next to Pete, and then, in bed, feigned sleep until I heard Harry’s late return, around ten, and Pete started his snoring, by which time the tight misery in my chest was again ready to explode. ‘There’s some tea if you want.’ I pat the pot next to my mug.
Harry shakes his head. It is perfectly clear to me that all he wants is to go back upstairs, but that some vestige of filial duty forbids it.
The size of him still throws me. As a boy, he was always so delicately built, a waif compared to his peers. Until, sometime around his seventeenth birthday, after all the on-off battles with playground bullies and his own teenage neuroses, this adult version of him burst into being – the soft downy hair on his cheeks morphing to stubble, the muscles on his arms and chest thickening, the length of his legs jutting out several inches below the hems of his trousers. He started refusing haircuts during the same period, allowing his mousy curls to grow into the straggly mane which he keeps now in a thick bushy ponytail off his shoulders. It isn’t tied back tonight and is on fire from the hall light, a wild halo round the narrow face that is so clearly mine, rather than his father’s. Though it is Pete’s brown eyes that gleam under his dark brows, still with the animal intensity that I found such a joy when he was little.
‘You okay?’ The question is lobbed out quickly, in a grudging tone that seems to communicate both resentment at having to ask and dread at what the answer might demand.
‘Oh fine. Just wanted a cuppa.’
He moves to the fridge, standing in the triangle of light it throws out, eating whatever is within reach; in the first instance, a rugged square of cheddar.
‘There’s some fish pie if you want.’
He makes a noise that means no, while continuing to feed on the cheese.
‘So Dad says you looked after poor Alfie again for Mrs Dawkins?’
His ponytail dances between his shoulder blades as he nods. I want to stroke it. I want to stroke him, press him against my chest and tell him that the one good thing – the only good thing – about the nightmare of this endless day is the chance to have him once again in the same room. I find myself wondering in the same instant when exactly the delicious privilege of mother-intimacy ended. Had Harry edged me out, or had it been a sudden decision? It seems absurd that I cannot ask even this simple question without the certainty of pushing him still further away, widening the distance that I can never, for one moment, stop wanting to close.
‘I heard you come back. Dad and I went up early. So, couldn’t you sleep either?’ I press, when still he says nothing, unable to resist pushing for something that might bind us, no matter how small.
Harry shrugs. ‘Wasn’t tired.’ He picks a Granny Smith from the bottom drawer and leans back against the fridge door to eat it, studying the fruit as he noisily chisels big holes in its sides. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. I can dimly make out a mark next to it, what looks like a faint red smudge of a bruise. ‘So, what’s wrong with Suki, anyway?’ he mutters.
‘Suki?’ I sit up, forgetting I am trying to hide my face. ‘Why?’
‘She’s got like, this limp, I mean, really bad. And when I tried to pick her up, she went all weird. She’s under my bed now. She never goes under my bed.’
‘Oh dear. I’d better take her to the vet.’ I clasp my empty mug more tightly. Suki may yet be mortally injured and it will be all my fault.
I try to imagine the following day. I had expected to be waking up in a Madrid guesthouse, sliding into the strong, warm circle of Jack’s arms, the purple bougainvillea we had so admired in the image gallery online, bobbing round the windows. I had expected to be gone, to be free. Instead, I have to go to the vet, and lug the suitcase back up to the loft, and wait and wait and wait, and hope and hope and hope that Jack will make contact to tell me what has gone so badly wrong. The thought of that, the effort it will take, is almost unbearable.
I dig my nails into my palms, remembering there is the letter to Camille to worry about too. By tomorrow, it will be sitting in the Chalfonts postbox. I have to decide whether to try to intercept it. Or to wait, in case Jack gets in touch. A pulse in my left eyelid starts to flutter.
‘She’s probably been in a fight,’ I offer feebly, rubbing my eye. Harry has reached the core of the apple and is nibbling down through it with his big strong front teeth. When he gets to the stalk, he will be gone. ‘You know I only ever want what is best for you, Harry.’
‘Yup.’ He tosses the stalk into the bin.
‘So, whatever happens, just remember that, because—’
‘Mum, I know, okay?’
He has his face in the sink and is drinking from the tap, not, I am certain, because he is thirsty, but because it is a way of drowning me out, keeping me at bay. For a moment, my throat is too tight to speak. There is no question of crying in front of Harry. He would be appalled and I would have no acceptable justifications to offer. I reach for Jack in my mind. One day he and Harry will be friends, I tell myself. One day everything will work its way through and come good. It’s just going to take a little more time than we planned.
Harry is swiping his mouth dry on the back of his hand, readying himself to go back upstairs. I am surprised he has stayed so long and get the sudden impression that he wants something from me but cannot put into words what it is.
‘Just don’t give up on your dreams, okay?’ I know it is corny and clumsy.
He nods, shooting me a look from under his eyebrows before taking himself up to bed.
I am rinsing the teapot, in a daze, when my phone vibrates. A moan escapes me as I grab it and crouch behind the fridge. But it’s a message from Mel.
Oh you poor love. I am here whenever you need me. Just call. Xxx
Chapter 2
I
The sun drills through our thin pale bedroom curtains, highlighting the wobbly lines of my stitching round their edges. Having to make do doesn’t mean you are always good at it. My eyes ache and there is a strange metallic taste in my mouth. The other half of the bed is empty, and the silence in the house suggests Pete and Harry have left for work. For an instant or two, I hang in a state of blissful emptiness before everything rushes back in. The airport. Being back home. Camille. The vet. The need not to fall apart.
I roll onto my side to reach for my phone, switched off as I crept back up from the kitchen, grateful as ever for Pete’s capacity to snore through thunderstorms. My entire body hurts, as if I have spent the night being punched instead of trying to sleep – a real possibility back in the day, before I got the hang of things; though I am not sure any blows from Pete ever left me feeling so bruised. Holding the mobile in my palm, I am aware of a tendril of hope, so welcome, so needed, that I delay the moment of switching it on. But then the screen lights up and the tears spill, because there is not the message I need, only the growing clutter of ones that I simply cannot face.
I crawl to the window and part the curtains, squinting at the glare of the morning. Down in the street, the spindly cherry trees, planted by the council a decade before, are popping their buds, pink candyfloss tufts clustering every branch like some crazy cartoon. I stare at them till my eyes blur, seeing not the flowers but Jack, me nestling in the crook of his arm on Mel’s sofa as he summons a favourite Van Gogh onto his laptop, one of pink blossom on a silver tree. ‘Geniuses see beauty and paint it,’ Jack says in the reverent tone he reserves for any discussion of art, absently brushing his lips across my hair; ‘Van Gogh only ever knew joy with a brush in his hand,’ he adds, and ‘Christ this is so joyous you just can’t stop looking; I mean, you could eat it, couldn’t you?’ He nibbles the tip of my ear.
A car shoots down the street, bouncing over the bumps designed to slow it down, shattering my trance. In the flash of its number plate, I spot the letters J and X and my heart leaps, deciding, wildly, that it is a message – a kiss – from Jack to me. And then the tears really start, because seeing communications in car registrations is proof I am truly losing my wits.
I drop the phone on the floor and flop onto my back, making a cave with the duvet over my head. I lie very still, my breath heavy and hot, wondering how long it would take to suffocate, whether I would have the willpower. It occurs to me in the same instant, something like relief as well as despair surging in equal measure, that Jack must have died. Our pact was so strong, so painstakingly planned – it is the only possible explanation for his silence.
I throw back the covers and retrieve my phone. My hands shake as I yet again break every rule we have ever had and dial Jack’s number; but there still isn’t even a ring, just a single, continuous flat tone. Feverishly, I google recent car accidents near Gatwick and then, when that produces no results, hospitals south of the M25. There are three big ones. Fresh energy is pumping through me. Jack may have experienced some terrible medical emergency but still be breathing. Most likely, he will be in no position to make or take phone calls; and everyone knows hospitals are funny about mobile usage anyway, because of how it interferes with their systems.
I prop myself against the pillows, swiping the sleep-grit from my eyes and clearing my throat as I dial the number of the first hospital. I am good at getting to grips with things, I remind myself; it is just a question of recognising what needs to be done. When Pete’s first business venture went under, it was me who sat down with our outgoings, working out where we could save, what we could sell, seeing what mattered while he sat hunched, cursing, imploding and ashamed. I was the one to phone the bank, to cancel standing orders, to call the credit card people, and then collect Harry from nursery, swinging him onto my hip and chatting with the other parents like I didn’t have a care in the world. When I got back, Pete was still in the chair, grey-faced, on his fifth beer. I told him I was returning to work and that we would survive. Which we did, financially anyway.
When the hospital switchboard answers, I explain that I am trying to ascertain the whereabouts of an injured relative. I am put through to someone else to whom I give more details of my predicament, only to be told that names of patients cannot be divulged without certainty as to the identity of the enquirer. I grow angry and tell them that I am Jack Aspen’s very dear friend, and that I am certain he has suffered an accident or been taken ill somewhere in the area of Gatwick, since he had been due to meet me for a flight out of the South Terminal the day before, but never arrived.
‘You need to phone missing persons, by the sound of it, love.’
I cut off the call, reality and hopelessness sweeping back in. I have lost something I cannot even own up to. I am Jack’s secret, as he is mine. Whether he is dead or alive, it is as if I am bereaved without a body. I have no rights, no power. I cannot even mourn. I picture Helena, seated at Jack’s hospital bedside like the gaoler she is, sinewy limbs crossed tightly, grilling and bossing the medical staff in the voice I heard in Hugh’s flat ten months before, as I lay staring up at the shifting mattress, my ears pooling with tears. It takes every scrap of my shredded strength to dig past the image and remind the small sane corner of my brain that something unforeseeable and less calamitous might have occurred, that Jack may yet be in touch. In the meantime, there is this moment, this hour, this day, that must be lived.
‘Oh dear, nothing serious, I hope?’ calls Mrs Dawkins, appearing just as I reach the car.
‘Hopefully not, Mrs D,’ I trill, carefully sliding the cat box into the passenger seat, aware of Suki’s yellow eyes fixed wretchedly on mine through the little barred door. The three deep neat scratches she engraved across the top of my hand are still glistening. She hadn’t wanted to be prised out from under Harry’s bed, and I didn’t blame her. Harry with his long arms and placid demeanour would have managed it easily. Whereas I had pondered and cajoled for too long, giving the cat time to register my anxiety, so that when I made my move, she was already braced to defend her ground. It didn’t help that, in the moment of lunging for her, I had the sudden image of yet again floundering hopelessly on a dusty carpet under a bed. The realisation made me feel idiotic, as well as hopeless, as if my life had got stuck on some peculiar loop that was making someone, somewhere – a malign deity sitting at a screen perhaps – laugh their heads off. It also reminded me that the suitcase was still in its lame hiding place under Pete’s and my bed; but the vet had said come at once and so there simply wasn’t time.
Mrs Dawkins is peering at Suki’s box through the car window, clucking compassionately. There had been a husband once, Donald, taken from her by pancreatic cancer when their son, Len, was little – diagnosed on a Friday and gone by the Monday, as she told it. It was one of her favourite stories and referred to often, along with pride at how Len had turned out, twenty-five years later working as a trader in the city. ‘Ah, bless,’ she says, clearly in the mood to chat, pulling her vaping stick from her pocket and pushing her thin bleached hair out of her eyes. She inhales deeply, tightening the little drawstring lines that sit along her upper lip, before blowing out a blue-grey cloud that floats up, dispersing among the blossom. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do when Alfie finally goes. He’s hanging on, the love, but I need a break sometimes. Harry is such a dear to help out. He’s got a gift, I’d say, that boy of yours.’
‘Really? Yes, I suppose he has.’ I have the driver’s door open, but she hasn’t finished.
‘I saw this film last night – ever so clever – the monsters only eat you if you make a sound. Never known a cinema so quiet.’ She laughs her husky laugh. ‘Home by eight, which was nice – plenty of time to fix myself a bite and give Alf a cuddle. Can’t do late nights any more.’
