Home Truths, page 17
Perhaps he could pull off a miracle. But I doubted it.
TWENTY-FOUR
Heidi
Everything had blown apart again. Dad had got himself suspended, the whole school was talking about us. I didn’t know how I was ever going to face them all.
Once Dad and I were home, I dropped into the Spar to buy a can of Coke and a box of porridge oats for the ducks. I came out with Coke and porridge oats in my hands, and a tube of Smarties in my back pocket. Just one last thing. Always one last thing. I hardly even bothered to be clever about it this time, though Mrs Ponder kept following me around. The Smarties were still in my pocket while Mum and I stood on the bridge. Later, they joined my under-wardrobe hoard of shame.
I lay in bed that night, listening to my parents talking downstairs. When I was small, I used to love hearing the peaceful rise and fall of their voices through the floorboards. It made me feel safe. I’d snuggle down and fall asleep to the soothing sound of them chatting, sometimes laughing. They were real friends.
But their voices weren’t peaceful tonight. I kept drifting off and waking again. I got up for a while and sat at my window, watching the snow settle in a mound on the sill. When I finally got back into bed it was still snowing, and Mum and Dad were still droning on. Sometimes there were long silences, sometimes their voices seemed higher and sharper and sadder. And in that whole night, not one laugh. Not one.
Later, I discovered that I’d fallen asleep to the sound of my parents splitting up.
•
They put on a good show in the morning. Getting dressed, putting out breakfast, talking about the snow and which roads would have been gritted. They were being weirdly nice to one another. Our home felt like a balloon that’s about to burst.
Dad looked very smart when he set off for his big meeting. Mum moved her appointments and took the day off work.
‘I’ve got a stomach-ache,’ I told her. ‘I think I might throw up.’
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Let’s both throw a sickie, shall we?’
‘Must be something going around.’
The sky was white, the air was white. A blue-white blanket glittered on the lawn, on Mum’s car, on every tiny twig of every tree in the garden. It looked magical. Back Lane was completely covered, just Dad’s wheel tracks squashed into the white. Next door, Pete was clearing his path with a spade.
When we set out to walk Noah to Gilderdale Primary, ours were the very first footsteps in the snow. Noah kept stopping to plunge his mittened hands deep into the drifts. He was having a bit of trouble with his asthma, probably because of the cold, so Mum dropped into the classroom to ask his teacher to keep an eye out.
All so beautiful. All so very not beautiful.
‘Have you heard anything from Dad?’ I asked, once it was just the two of us. ‘The meeting must have happened by now.’
She said she hadn’t, and we crunched on along the pavement. As we were turning into Back Lane, she stopped dead. She stood with her hands in her pockets, staring towards our house.
‘He’s decided to hand in his resignation,’ she said. ‘He made that decision during the night.’
My mouth fell open. ‘Why? They’ll have him back, won’t they? He’s the best teacher in the school.’
‘Because he knows they’ll insist he keep his beliefs out of his teaching. He says he can’t do that. He says that literature is all about truth, and he’s not going to teach lies.’
She sounded sarcastic. I didn’t blame her.
‘Are we going to be okay, though? What about money? Do you earn enough for us to live on?’
‘I’m worried about that too. He says he’ll do some online tutoring. It’s quite well paid.’
I was still gaping at her. I couldn’t believe my dad would just pack it in like that. He’d taught at Barmoors all my life. It was what he did. Who he was.
‘And, um …’ Mum swallowed. Her mouth was quivering, which frightened me. ‘He’s going to stay somewhere else, just for a little while. We’ve agreed that would be best.’
‘Stay somewhere else? Where? For how long?’
She shrugged, clamping her lips tight shut, though it didn’t stop them trembling. I was horrified to see a tear snaking its way out of the corner of her eye, followed by another.
‘Is he having an affair?’ I asked.
‘No!’ She almost laughed, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘No. God. That would be so much simpler. At least then I’d be able to see my enemy.’
Livia
So this was how our marriage ended: not with a bang, but in miserable incomprehension.
Scott waited until both children were in bed before dropping his bombshell. He’d talked everything through with Anthony but was still determined not to eat humble pie at tomorrow’s meeting. He was going to stick to his guns about the HPV vaccine, and all his beliefs. And he would resign.
‘I’ll jump before I’m pushed,’ he said.
I’d seen it coming but, still, I was aghast.
‘How do you expect us to manage on one income? How, exactly, d’you think we’ll be meeting our mortgage payments?’
He just kept walking from one end of the kitchen to the other and back again, punching his right fist into his left palm. It was both frightening and infuriating.
‘Scott,’ I said. ‘For Christ’s sake. Aren’t you even going to talk to me? Your decision will fundamentally change my life, our children’s lives—you’re driving a wrecking ball through everything we have—and you won’t even discuss it like a rational adult?’
He stopped, stood swaying in front of me. He looked haunted. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Anthony’s offered me his sofa, so I’ll start there.’
I felt the first tearing of my heart. ‘What do you mean, you’re leaving? When will you be coming back?’
He never did answer that last question.
‘Dr Jack thinks I need to get out fast,’ he said. ‘They know I’m a dissident. Car crash, house fire. Maybe I’ll be arrested and found hanging in my cell. As long as I’m still living here, you and the children could be targets too.’
‘I’m prepared to take that chance.’
‘Are you? I’m not.’
‘Don’t do this,’ I begged. ‘Please get professional help. You’re not in your right mind. This is about Nicky—’
‘This isn’t about Nicky.’
‘I think it is.’
‘No, Livia!’ He threw out his hands, eyes alight with missionary zeal. ‘You’re still not listening. You’re still brainwashed.’
He was right there. He’d had an awakening, a Road to Emmaus experience. He saw everything through a distorting lens. And me? Well, I was an unbeliever. I was part of the problem. Perhaps we weren’t compatible anymore. I had this horrible sense that he was being dragged beyond my reach by currents that were too strong for either of us. If I let go of him now, I’d lose him forever.
Snow spilled silently past the windows. We talked, talked, talked. Raged, wept, argued furiously in hushed voices, each blaming the other for not understanding, not listening. By three in the morning we were both hoarse, both out of tears. We crawled upstairs to bed and held each other for the rest of that short night, clinging sleeplessly to what we once had. I had never watched the passing of the hours with such dread.
I still hoped for a miracle. But in the morning, Scott drove the slushy roads to school and resigned with immediate effect.
•
Generous as ever, Anthony said his sofa was at Scott’s disposal for as long as he needed it. But he lived in a rented studio flat—a far cry from his palace back in California—and it was never a long-term solution.
On the fifth day, Scott stopped by The Forge to collect more of his things. I took yet another morning off work, desperate to see him.
He’d deteriorated in those five days. He looked unkempt, and his eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into their sockets.
‘I’m on my way to Whitby,’ he told me.
‘Whitby! How come?’
‘Pet-sitting for some friends of friends of the Espinozas. They’re off to Australia and their usual housesitter broke her leg. Rum Keg Cottage is all mine until April.’
It sounded like a neat solution. He couldn’t impose on Anthony forever, and sleeping on a two-seater sofa was giving him backache. Part of me was downright envious. I associated Whitby with fun days out: ancient pubs and cobbled streets, walks along the pier, fish and chips on the beach, a ruined abbey. It was less than an hour’s drive from Gilderdale but it felt like another world. Scott would be swanning about in a charming seaside town while I juggled work and parenthood.
‘But … when are you coming home?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
He and I sat at the kitchen table with mugs of tea, talking about practicalities like two buttoned-up idiots. We agreed to tell Noah that Scott had a new kind of job, so he was living in another house for a little while.
‘I don’t want this,’ I said. ‘I hate it.’
‘I don’t have any choice.’
‘Of course you’ve got a choice! Just come home, get some help.’
Moments later, he’d gone upstairs to pack. I didn’t offer to lend a hand. I took up position by his car, watching him walk backwards and forwards, lobbing bags into the boot, strapping his bike onto its carrier.
‘Was this written in the stars, Scott?’ I asked, as he got into the driver’s seat.
He stared past me, his grey eyes bloodshot. I knew he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t get the words out. I crouched down to put my arms around him. He smelled the same, felt the same as ever. We lingered for a last moment, our foreheads touching.
I didn’t wait to see him drive away.
The radio was on when I went back inside. The news. Donald Trump had been tweeting extraordinary things again. Meghan and Harry were stepping back from the royal family. Updates on the Ukrainian airline shot down by missiles in Iran, killing everyone aboard. Rumours, counter-rumours, speculation.
In China, a sixty-one-year-old man had died from a new virus related to SARS.
TWENTY-FIVE
Livia
Lots of red flags here, Isaac Katz replied, when I emailed to let him know what was happening. No job, social isolation. His online community is now his only community. Stay in constant touch, keep the open conversations going. Ask others to do the same.
I took his advice, phoning Scott daily and putting the children on to chat to him. Twice the three of us navigated the icy lanes to Whitby, bringing Chinese takeaway which we shared in the kitchen of Rum Keg Cottage, a narrow mid-terrace with chintz furniture and fussy wallpaper. Noah loved the pets: Camilla the chunky, silver-blue cat; Cully, an elderly spaniel with floppy ginger ears. He couldn’t begin to understand why his dad wasn’t at home, but he saw that these animals needed somebody to care for them.
I also tried to enlist the help of Scott’s friends and colleagues. Anthony and the Espinozas did their best to stay in touch with him. Everyone else was useless, half-heartedly promising to ‘give him a bell’ or ‘flick him a text’ or ‘drop him a line’. I knew they’d already written him off.
Isaac was all too right about the red flags. With each passing day the undertow strengthened, sucking Scott further and further into the whirlpool. He seemed to have given up eating and sleeping. He told me proudly that he spent eighteen hours a day online. Researching, he called it. I had other words for it. Better words.
I was loading the dishwasher in our kitchen at the time, my phone in one hand.
‘Change of subject,’ I said brightly. ‘Did Heidi tell you about her new friends at school, Suyin and Ruby? Heidi and Suyin are doing a joint science fair project about soundwaves. Heidi says they’re swots, and that suits her just fine.’
‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!’ Scott sounded delighted. ‘Suyin Liu has her head screwed on. I always thought the Maia–Keren combo was toxic.’
I closed the dishwasher, sat down at the table.
‘What about Flynn Thomas? She sees a lot of him; apparently they practise all kinds of music at lunchtimes. Flynn’s fifteen. Is that too big an age gap? She swears they’re just mates, they both love music, but …’ I wasn’t sure how to put this. ‘What’s he like? I mean … is she safe?’
I could hear the smile in Scott’s voice. He assured me that Flynn didn’t have a predatory bone in his body.
‘Probably one of the nicest young men I’ve ever taught. She’s more likely to break his heart than the other way around.’
It was a long, lovely, normal conversation. Then—just as we were saying goodbye—he had to go and ruin it all.
‘Keep Heidi and Noah close from now on.’
‘Why?’
‘Just keep them close. There’s a lot of talk on the forums about the coming storm.’
I blinked. ‘The what now?’
‘It’s coming, Livia. It’s coming, whether you can see it or not.’
Breathe. Breathe. I’d resolved to follow Isaac Katz’s advice: Listen without judging, keep those open conversations going. But a switch had been flicked. I knew Scott would be fidgeting and twitching as his brain tripped into fear mode. The warm, beloved cadences of his voice were replaced by the hectoring monotone I’d come to dread—speeding up, winding up. I hated the intensity. I hated my own panic, my sense of being smothered.
‘Could be today, could be next month, we know it will be soon. The signs are all there. The World Economic Forum …’
I held the phone away from my ear while he dipped and dived through Conspiracy World: The Inner Circle, the Elite, puppet governments, militaries … follow the breadcrumbs, Livia.
‘They’re gearing up for something global. Something world changing. Bigger than bushfires. Bigger than so-called terrorist attacks like the Manchester bombing or even 9/11.’
He’d crossed a line.
‘So-called? So-called? What the fuck, Scott?’ I was strident with indignation. ‘Those things happened, they’re not figments of anyone’s imagination. There are real victims, real atrocities, real tragedies—don’t you dare suggest all those dead and maimed people were crisis actors. Don’t you bloody dare.’
‘Maybe they happened. But on whose orders?’
‘For heaven’s sake—’
He was unstoppable. ‘The Elect have been engineering “tragedies” for over a century.’
‘Can we please apply a bit of basic history?’
He sounded triumphant. He thought he was winning the argument. ‘A bit of basic history proves the point. Two world wars, nuclear stand-offs, endless conflicts, genocides. Fake viruses like AIDS. Chemtrails spreading disease, seeding hurricanes and earthquakes—’
‘Chemtrails seeding earthquakes!’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘How the hell do they manage that? Seriously, you’ve not bought into that claptrap? You mean contrails. It’s condensation. Every plane leaves a vapour trail.’
‘I’m talking to people who see this stuff firsthand: pilots, air traffic controllers …’
I listened with my palm pressed to my forehead, scrabbling through the landslide of twisted half-facts, looking for a loose thread to pull. I remembered Isaac Katz had suggested I ask open questions, so I changed tack.
‘Why?’ I asked, once I could get a word in. ‘Why would anyone do all these things? It’s a genuine question.’
‘Because a panicking humanity is like a flock of sheep who hear wolves howling all around them on a dark night. Bunched together, bleating with terror, no idea which way to run. Those sheep are so desperate for leadership that they’ll welcome the all-powerful shepherds with their dogs. They’ll beg for control and surveillance on a scale we’ve never seen before. And they will never know that the baying wolves were a fiction.’
‘Can you give me some evidence that—’
‘How is easy too. The New World Order has infiltrated every power structure. I’ve just read a letter from someone’s son, a kid in the US Navy. He was crying while he wrote to his parents, because they’re doing top-secret training exercises on tactics to subdue civilians. It’s coming. They’re going to manufacture some crisis and use it to subdue us—to herd us—and we’re going to be grateful for it.’
I took a long breath.
‘Do you think there’s any chance,’ I began, making a superhuman effort to sound sincere, ‘that this letter from the US Navy bloke is a fake? Anyone could have written it.’
No chance, according to Scott. ‘His dad was on the forum. It’s handwritten, because email isn’t secure. Heartrending to read. It’s gone viral.’
‘I bet it has.’
•
Sunday morning. Scott was coming for lunch on his way back from visiting Geraldine. Noah had spent the night in my bed—kicking, squirming, asking what time Daddy would be here. At dawn I was standing at our bedroom window—my bedroom window—watching the stars go out. It was going to be a bluebird day. As the sun rose, frost gleamed on the tiled roof of the potting shed, in shadows along our fence, on miniature spiderwebs all over the lawn. How could everything be so terribly wrong in such a sparkling world?
Noah woke up grumpy. I was sure it was down to anxiety, to sadness. He laughed less and clung more since Scott left.
‘Daddy will be here soon,’ Heidi told him as he ate his cornflakes. She obviously meant to cheer her brother up, but instead he burst into noisy, messy tears.
Poor Heidi looked mortified. She rushed around to his side of the table, cuddling him while he sobbed. ‘Shall we play a game?’ she suggested. ‘D’you want to play Guess Who?’
‘You are the best sister ever,’ I told her.
‘I’m not.’
While they played by the fire I sat outside on the terrace, lifting my face to the winter sun, and phoned Bethany. I’d caught her at a good moment.
