The Replacement, page 21
The truth is I still believe good things will happen. I look at my children – oh, my children, my beautiful children – and I still know that goodness and innocence is around. It’s still around even though I have been consumed by bad at times, almost completely.
As always, even here in the dank darkness, I berate myself for what I should have done. How I have failed. I should have just walked away. Sold the house and gone to live far away. Took my time. It’s strange the things you remember when your life is on the line. When stress reaches its highest level ever. I remember watching a film with Sandra Bullock. She was an alcoholic and she was talking to someone about starting a relationship after a break-up. The other person told her that if she could keep a houseplant alive for a year, then get a pet. If you can care for a pet for a year, then maybe, just maybe, it’s time to start a new relationship.
I’d told myself I wasn’t an addict. I wasn’t addicted to alcohol or drugs. But now I know I was an addict. Not the old I’m addicted to love cliché. No. Worse than that. Because that wouldn’t be as harmful. No. I was addicted to Daniel. I had to know what he was doing and how that related to me. I simply had not admitted that our relationship was over.
I should have got a plant. A cactus. Something easy to look after. Dating Tim was just another way to place myself strategically in a position where I could show the world I was okay, while still torturing myself with my ex.
Jem sniffs. I still can’t look at her. But I need to tell her something.
‘Don’t give up on love. What you said earlier.’
She snorts and laughs. ‘Are you kidding me? Really? We’re trapped in a hole with no way out and you are telling me to not give up?’
‘Yep. The thing is, if this is it, we need to know that everyone we love is in good hands. That they will be fine.’
She sighs and sits down. ‘But they won’t, will they? My parents. They won’t be fine. And your–’
I finish it for her. ‘Ben and Angel. No, they won’t but they will have Daniel.’
She faux laughs. ‘Oh, what a prize. Sorry.’
I laugh too. It feels wrong, dangerous, but also a little hysterical. ‘Well, if we do get out of here, you’ve got him for life too.’
I sit down beside her. The drip, drip, drip has become heavier and the ground is wet. I realise what this place is. It’s an overflow. The tiny chink of light at the low end is where the water would come in if the canal overflows and floods the field. It’s damp from the last time it happened, which probably wasn’t so long ago in the storms. I try to see a water mark on the walls. A level. But there is no line. Presumably it would just fill up and then drain through the earth and through the gaps in the stone over time.
I’ve always wondered what it was like just before you die. How people who were terminally ill coped with the knowledge that they wouldn’t be here for much longer. My mum told me she had thought about it a lot, but she never shared her conclusion. Like I don’t want to talk to Jem about it because I don’t want to burden her, Mum just brushed it away as if it was something insignificant.
I suppose everyone has regrets. I certainly do. I wish I hadn’t done all those things to Daniel and Jem and simply moved on, but it goes deeper than that. Much deeper. I wish I had told the truth. Told people how I feel. I was acting out all my hurt, all the desperation, and all the lack of control. Because I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t even tell Lisa how bad I felt. So it came out another way.
I know a lot of people bargain with themselves and their god. In my training I worked with people who were undergoing chemotherapy. They would make all sorts of agreements to stay alive. All kinds of trade-offs to banish cancer from their lives. I know what my bargain is. If I get out of here, I will tell the truth in future. To myself and to everyone else. And I will avoid Daniel as much as possible. If I get out of here, I will never look back at the past again.
Jem finally says it. ‘Do you think she’s coming back?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think she is. Or maybe she’s just trying to scare us.’
Which I doubt very much. But I say it anyway. She is silent for a while and I feel her rocking backwards and forwards beside me. Then she speaks again.
‘I haven’t given up on love, you know. But it’s not the same kind of love you mean. It’s not love for some guy. It’s love for me.’ She laughs. ‘I know what you thought of me. Full of myself. Up myself. But it’s confidence. I’ve always been confident. But he’s started to destroy it. Like that was his aim in life, to make sure I wasn’t too sure of myself. To criticise and make me doubt myself. That’s not love.’
I smile. She’s younger than me. By about eight years. But much wiser than I thought. ‘Yes. I know you’re right. But I was made to believe that loving yourself is selfish. Conceited. I only just caught the end of the self-help brigade.’
She laughs loudly. ‘Yeah, whereas I’m knee deep in it. But we’re both in the same business, really. You fix people’s minds and I fix their perspective. I admired you, you know. I was a little bit jealous of your training. But it’s not selfish to like yourself. Or love yourself.’
I think about what Lisa said about her. How unkind we were. It feels so wrong now. A lot of things seem so wrong now.
‘I guess I’ve just been held under for too long. I was like you once. I took no shit.’
‘You’ve always seemed pretty tough to me. And a little bit scary. But what are you scared of? Why can’t you just be you? Are you scared of letting Mrs Wade go?’
Am I? I told myself I wasn’t, but was I just sitting in my marital home waiting for the marriage to resume. I am horrified.
‘Maybe. But I am sorry. Really sorry for what I did to you. And the cameras…’
She flinches. ‘I could have you done for that.’
I sharpen. ‘Like I would have Tracey done for this.’
She sighs. ‘You wouldn’t though, would you? Because I promised her we wouldn’t. If she let us out. I promised her.’
I don’t want to remind her that there is little chance of us getting out of here. But she has rankled me. ‘She would have to pay for what she has done. She should.’
I feel Jem move closer to me. I feel her warmth.
‘Well, if we do get out, either everyone pays, or no one pays. I will keep my word.’
I rise to it. ‘So you’d let her get away with this?’
She fake laughs. ‘It’s no worse than what you did. You made my life a living misery. That’s without knowing about the cameras. It was harassment.’
‘Why didn’t you report me then?’
‘I felt sorry for you. I thought you were unstable. But I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Ben and Angel.’ She hesitates and I marvel at how, even in this situation, she makes herself seem selfless. But then she continues. ‘But mostly I did it for me. If I had kicked off, Dan would have started going on about full custody and you know what that made me? Full-time step-mum. I didn’t sign up for that. So I just tolerated it. You.’
It hurts. Just as I knew it would. The lack of response, no acknowledgement of my actions that I knew full well she was aware of hurt at the time. But this. This is what I was afraid of. More than getting caught. The fear that no matter what I did, I was invisible to her. To them.
‘And you think, hypothetically, that if we get out of here, we shouldn’t tell the police Tracey did this?’
She nods. ‘Well, it’s going to be pretty hard to do that, because they’d have to have followed her or something. But I wouldn’t be pressing charges. On you or her.’
I blow. It’s been a long time coming but the pent-up tension erupts. ‘Really, Jem? Really? She’s left us to die and nailed the door shut and you’re saying she doesn’t mean it? She knows exactly what she’s done. And she doesn’t care.’
She is in my face.
‘Did you care? Did you? Did you care when you were stalking me around Sainsbury’s? Spreading lies about me to the other mums? Putting glue in my car door locks? Spying on me in my own home? Did you?’
I think. Not at the time. But afterwards.
‘I do now. At the time I was–’
‘Mad with passion. Crimes of passion. And who made you like that? Him. Like Tim or whoever he is. She’s not in her right mind. I’m not saying she should get away with it, but it needs to be taken into account.’
I am seething. I try to hold it in, but I can’t. ‘The thing is, you’ve painted me bad in all this. Just me and Daniel. But what about you? You barefaced took him without caring about me or the kids, and now you’re pregnant with my husband’s baby.’
She is silent and I wonder if I’ve gone too far. If she caught the echoes of Tracey’s accusations earlier. But she speaks calmly and gently.
‘Ex. Ex-husband’s, Lauren. Ex.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
She is right. I hate to admit it. This is possibly the end for us and it is becoming increasingly clear that I have been fooling myself. That I was still in some kind of messed up relationship with Daniel. No one could tell me. Not Lisa. Not Daniel. Not Tim. Not anyone.
I sift through everything that happened and try to ignore the impact it had on others. Somehow, I had blocked it out, but now it looms over every single action. There must be something in there. Something that saved me. Something that kept me sane. Something that protected me.
I let my consciousness wash over the events of the past year – easier in the dark as they play out before my eyes. But this time I am not inside my own head. No. I am watching. I am watching myself hide in rose bushes and creep behind supermarket shelves. I see myself crouched in my car, watching and waiting outside school. Creeping behind The Rosarium, telling myself that I am only here to check my children are safe, but carrying some garden shears with me to chop, chop, chop at Jem’s flowers.
All the while I am quiet and calm. These insane acts are happening mainly inside my head. It may look extreme from the outside, but I actually carried out very few of my plans on impulse. I watch myself execute the plan to plant the cameras with precision. Every step is measured. Even my worry afterwards is composed and invisible to the outside world.
And that is my strength. Staying calm while the storm rages. I almost laugh at the cliché of it and think Jem would be proud of me. I imagine her making an Instagram post. But it is true. I didn’t stay completely calm because I know that inside of me, a place just below the surface and between asleep and awake, was chaotic with grief. But I didn’t want to upset anyone. Even Jem and Daniel. Otherwise, I would have just rocked up and shouted my feelings.
Apart from that one time at the party I never, ever did that. I guess somehow I knew it would fade. I knew it was temporary, and I wish Tracey knew that too before she nailed that door shut. No. I was cool and calm. And I can be now.
The chink of light is gone. It must be night. I listen to the flow of the water and move my legs to keep warm. I alternate between what’s the point and keep going. Jem is silent and I wonder if she is going back over everything and telling herself how things will be different when we get out. I can’t see her but I can feel her against me. I sense her long legs stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles.
I don’t hate her anymore. She’s okay. I smile at myself. Just okay. I still can’t bring myself to say that I like her, even here. Tracey thought we were alike. Not just in looks but in nature. Both sleeping with married men. Both replacements. Both, it turns out, replaced. I wonder how Jem would have reacted if this had played out. If she would have lost her shit at Amber when Daniel finally came clean. Used her pregnancy as her ace card.
She was quick to judge me and Tracy for our reaction, but I have a feeling she has never been in love. Or betrayed. There was a hint of anger in her faux boredom when she mentioned Amber. No. Daniel was a distraction. She told me she was going away to think.
It all brings me back to the very place I don’t want to be. I don’t want to think about people searching for me anymore. Tracey’s words about Daniel’s rage and Tim’s blame stab at me. I wonder, if she had been checking my phone, where my car is? Had she driven it somewhere and hidden it? Surely when she switched the phone on they could trace the location? But I suspect Tracey is too clever for that.
My only hope is Bekah and DC Sharples. They are on the ball. I feel my eyelids drop but I must stay awake. I nudge Jem and she groans. Then I wonder if it’s best that I just fall asleep. I’ve heard about it. The slow slip from consciousness into a deep, deep sleep that ends in…
There is a sudden rush of water. It pushes underneath us and Jem screams and jumps up.
‘My God! What’s happening, Lauren? Lauren? What’s going to happen?’
She is hysterical. I grab her and hold her tight. The water washes around our ankles and swirls. I look around but I can’t see how fast it is coming in, only feel the slow creep. My feet are cold and wet and I know how this could end. Jem is shrieking and crying. I hold her shoulders.
‘Right, Jem, listen. Listen. If the water rises we have to float up with it. Keep treading water. Because if it rises it won’t go past that ledge.’ She looks up. And is quiet. ‘If we can get near we can grab on to the ledge and pull ourselves up. The water won’t rise above that.’
Her teeth are already chattering. ‘We’re going to drown, aren’t we?’
I shake her gently. ‘No. Listen, we’re not going to drown. We’re not.’ The water is round our knees now. I feel the weight of it dragging down my jeans. ‘Take your leggings off.’ I struggle out of my jeans and tie them around my neck. Jem does the same with her leggings. I take off my jacket and discard it. The water is rising and I feel my heart beating in my ears. Jem is sobbing gently. ‘Stay calm. We’ll be up there in no time.’
She wipes her nose on her arm. I hold her to me. ‘I’m going to have to let go of you while we do this. But I’m here. Do you remember when you were a little girl, at the swimming baths? When you first learned to swim?’
She is still crying. ‘Yes. Yes. My mum took me. I had lessons.’
‘Right. Do you remember the panic when you went under, but it was okay because as soon as you relaxed, you could float? This is the same. If you panic and flap you will sink. If you relax and tread water, you can float and keep your head above. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
The water is around our waists. I don’t know if this will work. I pray that this is not the end. I want to see my beautiful children again. I want to hold them. I want to see my dad. I want to tell Daniel how much I loved him but I know it is over now. I want to see Jem’s baby and to see her safe.
‘Okay, Jem, listen. When the water reaches our chins, we need to get ready. It will take a while to fill up high enough to lift us to the ledge.’
‘What about when we get up there? What then?’
‘I don’t know. But we’ll be at the door. We can hammer on it. Someone under the bridge will hear us.’
She is nodding. The water is rising slowly. It seems an age and at one point I think it has stopped. But it hasn’t. It’s silently creeping around my heart and I know that this is it. This is it.
I automatically lift my arm out of the water and, with my coat gone, I see a glow. My smart watch. I see the time. It’s three thirty-five in the morning. Everyone will be asleep. The battery indicator tells me it is nearly dead, but the heart is beat, beat, beating. It gives me the hope I need to kick my feet as the water laps my neck. I let go of Jem and she goes limp.
At first, I think she has sunk into the cold water, but then I hear a splash and feel a kick beside mine. My feet leave the safety of the ground – they have to. I am suspended in the water, my legs kicking in time with my arms. Jem is coughing and I touch her.
‘I’m okay. I’m okay. But I’m weak, Lauren. I’m weak.’
I know what she is saying. She is telling me she doesn’t know how long she can keep this up. And I too am unsure. The water is still rising, but I don’t know where the spill point is – or if there is one. All I know is as soon as the ledge is within arm’s length, I must grab it and let the water help me.
It strikes me suddenly that whatever should happen will happen. I am not religious but I feel a sudden calm and fear at the same time. I had always imagined people die either quietly and naturally surrounded by family, or in violent noisy accidents. This is neither. It’s a slow, silent slip into what seems inevitable.
I am keeping my head above the water. This is taking time and Jem is coughing. The water is freezing and I can hardly feel my hands. When I think about it, I am surprised neither of us was more badly hurt in the fall. I suspect I may have fractured my arm; it still hurts like hell but I can move it. Jem was badly bruised and I am increasingly worried about her baby. I look up into the darkness. There is still some way to go.
Suddenly, Jem slips under. I hear her splutter, then she is gone. I feel around for her and kick out. I make contact with her and lean to pull her. She is fighting to the top and she breaks the surface, spluttering. She can’t catch her breath. I manoeuvre her into a lifesaving position.
‘Jem, can you hear me?’
‘Yes. Sorry. I must have… it felt like I was falling asleep.’
She’s fading. I knew she would.
‘Right. Remember earlier when I said to relax and just float? Well, you have to do that now. You have to. I’ll be here, supporting you. We’re more than halfway now.’
She stops kicking and stretches her legs in front of her. She waves her arms gently to buoy herself. The water rises and I am struggling to feel my legs. But I keep going. I have to.
‘Perfect. You’re doing well.’
She whispers in the darkness. ‘I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.’
I want to tell her she still might be. But I stay calm. Somewhere inside is a small chink of hope that if we get onto that ledge we can get out of that door. Wood is weaker than stone and there are people on the other side. Then, in a second, I spot it. A huge rusty nail sticking out of the wall. Where the ladder would have been.
