So by the time Tom came home, I was spoiling for a fight. I issued an ultimatum: we have to leave, there’s no way I can stay in this house, on this road, knowing everything that has gone on here. Everywhere I look now, I have to see not only Rachel, but Megan too. I have to think about everything she touched. It’s too much. I said I didn’t care whether we got a good price for the house or not.
‘You will care when we’re forced to live in a much worse place, when we can’t make our mortgage payments,’ he said, perfectly reasonably. I asked whether he couldn’t ask his parents to help out – they have plenty of money – but he said he wouldn’t ask them, that he’d never ask them for anything again, and he got angry then, said he didn’t want to talk about it any more. It’s because of how his parents treated him when he left Rachel for me. I shouldn’t even have mentioned them, it always pisses him off.
But I can’t help it. I feel desperate, because now every time I close my eyes I see her, sitting there at the kitchen table with Evie on her lap. She’d be playing with her and smiling and chattering, but it never seemed real, it never seemed as if she really wanted to be there. She always seemed so happy to be handing Evie back to me when it was time for her to go. It was almost as though she didn’t like the feel of a child in her arms.
RACHEL
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Evening
The heat is insufferable, it builds and builds. With the apartment windows open, you can taste the carbon monoxide rising from the street below. My throat itches. I’m taking my second shower of the day when the phone rings. I let it go, and it rings again. And again. By the time I’m out, it’s ringing for a fourth time, and I answer.
He sounds panicky, his breath short. His voice comes to me in snatches. ‘I can’t go home,’ he says. ‘There are cameras everywhere.’
‘Scott?’
‘I know this is … this is really weird, but I just need to go somewhere, somewhere they won’t be waiting for me. I can’t go to my mother’s, my friends. I’m just … driving around. I’ve been driving around since I left the police station …’ There’s a catch in his voice. ‘I just need an hour or two. To sit, to think. Without them, without the police, without people asking me fucking questions. I’m sorry, but could I come to your house?’
I say yes, of course. Not just because he sounds panicked, desperate, but because I want to see him. I want to help him. I give him the address and he says he’ll be there in fifteen minutes.
The doorbell rings ten minutes later: short, sharp, urgent bursts.
‘I’m sorry to do this,’ he says as I open the front door. ‘I didn’t know where to go.’ He has a hunted look to him: he’s shaken, pale, his skin slick with sweat.
‘It’s all right,’ I say, stepping aside to allow him to pass me. I show him into the living room, tell him to sit down. I fetch him a glass of water from the kitchen. He drinks it, almost in one gulp, then sits, bent over, forearms on his knees, head hanging down.
I hover, unsure whether to speak or to hold my tongue. I fetch his glass and refill it, saying nothing. Eventually, he starts to speak.
‘You think the worst has happened,’ he says quietly. ‘I mean, you would think that, wouldn’t you?’ He looks up at me. ‘My wife is dead, and the police think that I killed her. What could be worse than that?’
He’s talking about the news, about the things they’re saying about her. This tabloid story, supposedly leaked by someone in the police, about Megan’s involvement in the death of a child. Murky, speculative stuff, a smear campaign on a dead woman. It’s despicable.
‘It isn’t true though,’ I say to him. ‘It can’t be.’
His expression is blank, uncomprehending. ‘Detective Sergeant Riley told me this morning,’ he says. He coughs, clears his throat. ‘The news I always wanted to hear. You can’t imagine,’ he goes on, his voice barely more than a whisper, ‘how I’ve longed for it. I used to daydream about it, imagine how she’d look, how she’d smile at me, shy and knowing, how she’d take my hand and press it to her lips …’ He’s lost, he’s dreaming, I have no idea what he’s talking about. ‘Today,’ he says, ‘today I got the news that Megan was pregnant.’
He starts to cry, and I am choking too, crying for an infant who never existed, the child of a woman I never knew. But the horror of it is almost too much to bear. I cannot understand how Scott is still breathing. It should have killed him, should have sucked the life right out of him. Somehow, though, he is still here.
I can’t speak, can’t move. The living room is hot, airless despite the open windows. I can hear noises from the street below: a police siren, young girls shouting and laughing, bass booming from a passing car. Normal life. But in here, the world is ending. For Scott, the world is ending, and I can’t speak. I stand there, mute, helpless, useless.
Until I hear footfalls on the steps outside, the familiar jangle of Cathy fishing around in her huge handbag for her house keys. It jolts me to life. I have to do something: I grab Scott’s hand and he looks up at me, alarmed.
‘Come with me,’ I say, pulling him to his feet. He lets me drag him into the hallway and up the stairs before Cathy unlocks the door. I close the bedroom door behind us.
‘My flatmate,’ I say by way of explanation. ‘She’d … she might ask questions. I know that’s not what you want at the moment.’
He nods. He looks around my tiny room, taking in the unmade bed, the clothes, both clean and dirty, piled on my desk chair, the blank walls, the cheap furniture. I am embarrassed. This is my life: messy, shabby, small. Unenviable. As I’m thinking this, I think how ridiculous I am, to imagine that Scott could possibly care about the state of my life at this moment.
I motion for him to sit down on the bed. He obeys, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He breathes out heavily.
‘Can I get you something?’ I ask him.
‘A beer?’
‘I don’t keep alcohol in the house,’ I say, and I can feel myself going red as I say it. Scott doesn’t notice though, he doesn’t even look up. ‘I can make you a cup of tea?’ He nods again. ‘Lie down,’ I say. ‘Rest.’ He does as he’s told, kicking off his shoes and lying back on the bed, docile as a sick child.