sunday, august 18, 2013

morning

for some reason, the whole thing seems very funnyall of a sudden. poor fat rachel standing in mygarden, all red and sweaty, telling me we need to go.

we need to go.

“where are we going?” i ask her when i stoplaughing, and she just looks at me, blank, lost forwords. “i’m not going anywhere with you.” eviesquirms and complains and i put her back down.

my skin still feels hot and tender from where iscrubbed myself in the shower this morning; theinside of my mouth, my cheeks, my tongue, they feelbitten.

“when will he be back?” she asks me.

“not for a while yet, i shouldn’t think.”

i’ve no idea when he’ll be back, in fact. sometimeshe can spend whole days at the climbing wall. or ithought he spent whole days at the climbing wall.

now i don’t know.

i do know that he’s taken the gym bag; it can’t belong before he discovers that the phone is gone.

i was thinking of taking evie and going to mysister’s for a while, but the phone is troubling me.

what if someone finds it? there are workers on thisstretch of track all the time; one of them might findit and hand it in to the police. it has my fingerprintson it.

then i was thinking that perhaps it wouldn’t be allthat difficult to get it back, but i’d have to wait untilnighttime so no one would see me.

i’m aware that rachel is still talking, she’s askingme questions. i haven’t been listening to her. i feelso tired.

“anna,” she says, coming closer to me, those intensedark eyes searching mine. “have you ever met anyof them?”

“met who?”

“his friends from the army. have you ever actuallybeen introduced to any of them?” i shake my head.

“do you not think that’s odd?” it strikes me thenthat what’s really odd is her showing up in mygarden first thing on a sunday morning.

“not really,” i say. “they’re part of another life.

another of his lives. like you are. like you weresupposed to be, anyway, but we can’t seem to getrid of you.” she flinches, wounded. “what are youdoing here, rachel?”

“you know why i’m here,” she says. “you knowthat something?.?.?. something has been going on.” shehas this earnest look on her face, as though she’sconcerned about me. under different circumstances, itmight be touching.

“would you like a cup of coffee?” i say, and shenods.

i make the coffee and we sit side by side on thepatio in silence that feels almost companionable.

“what were you suggesting?” i ask her. “that tom’sfriends from the army don’t really exist? that hemade them up? that he’s actually off with someother woman?”

“i don’t know,” she says.

“rachel?” she looks at me then and i can see inher eyes that she’s afraid. “is there something youwant to tell me?”

“have you ever met tom’s family?” she asks me.

“his parents?”

“no. they’re not talking. they stopped talking tohim when he ran off with me.”

she shakes her head. “that isn’t true,” she says.

“i’ve never met them, either. they don’t even knowme, so why would they care about his leaving me?”

there’s darkness in my head, right at the back ofmy skull. i’ve been trying to keep it at bay eversince i heard her voice on the phone, but now itstarts to swell, it blooms.

“i don’t believe you,” i say. “why would he lieabout that?”

“because he lies about everything.”

i get to my feet and walk away from her. i feelannoyed with her for telling me this. i feel annoyedwith myself, because i think i do believe her. i thinki’ve always known that tom lies. it’s just that in thepast, his lies tended to suit me.

“he is a good liar,” i say to her. “you were totallyclueless for ages, weren’t you? all those months wewere meeting up, fucking each other’s brains out inthat house on cranham road, and you neversuspected a thing.”

she swallows, bites her lip hard. “megan,” she says.

“what about megan?”

“i know. they had an affair.” the words soundstrange to me—this is the first time that i’ve saidthem out loud. he cheated on me. he cheated onme. “i’m sure that amuses you,” i say to her, “butshe’s gone now, so it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“anna?.?.?.”

the darkness gets bigger; it’s pushing at the edgesof my skull, clouding my vision. i grab evie by thehand and start to drag her inside. she protestsvociferously.

“anna?.?.?.”

“they had an affair. that’s it. nothing else. itdoesn’t necessarily mean—”

“that he killed her?”

“don’t say that!” i find myself yelling at her. “don’tsay that in front of my child.”

i give evie her midmorning snack, which she eatswithout complaint for the first time in weeks. it’salmost as though she knows that i have other thingsto worry about, and i adore her for it. i feelimmeasurably calmer when we go back outside, evenif rachel is still there, standing down at the bottomof the garden by the fence, watching one of thetrains go past. after a while, when she realizes thati’m back outside, she walks towards me.

“you like them, don’t you?” i say. “the trains. ihate them. absolutely bloody loathe them.”

she gives me a half smile. i notice that she has adeep dimple on the left side of her face. i’ve neverseen that before. i suppose i haven’t seen her smilevery often. ever.

“another thing he lied about,” she says. “he toldme you loved this house, loved everything about it,even the trains. he told me that you wouldn’t dreamof finding a new place, that you wanted to move inhere with him, even if i had been here first.”

i shake my head. “why on earth would he tell youthat?” i ask her. “it’s utter bullshit. i’ve been tryingto get him to sell this house for two years.”

she shrugs. “because he lies, anna. all the time.”

the darkness blossoms. i pull evie onto my lap andshe sits there quite contentedly, she’s getting sleepy inthe sunshine. “so all those phone calls?.?.?.” i say. it’sonly really starting to make sense now. “they weren’tfrom you? i mean, i know some of them were, butsome—”

“were from megan? yes, i imagine so.”

it’s odd, because i know now that all this time i’vebeen hating the wrong woman, and yet knowing thisdoesn’t make me dislike rachel any less. if anything,seeing her like this, calm, concerned, sober, i’mstarting to see what she once was and i resent hermore, because i’m starting to see what he must haveseen in her. what he must have loved.

i glance down at my watch. it’s after eleven. he leftaround eight, i think. it might even have beenearlier. he must know about the phone by now. hemust have known for quite some time. perhaps hethinks it fell out of the bag. perhaps he imagines it’sunder the bed upstairs.

“how long have you known?” i ask her. “about theaffair.”

“i didn’t,” she says. “until today. i mean i don’tknow what was going on. i just know?.?.?.” thankfullyshe falls silent, because i’m not sure i can standhearing her talk about my husband’s infidelity. thethought that she and i—fat, sad rachel and i—arenow in the same boat is unbearable.

“do you think it was his?” she asks me. “do youthink the baby was his?”

i’m looking at her, but i’m not really seeing her, notseeing anything but darkness, not hearing anythingbut a roaring in my ears, like the sea, or a planeright overhead.

“what did you say?”

“the?.?.?. i’m sorry.” she’s red in the face, flustered.

“i shouldn’t have?.?.?. she was pregnant when shedied. megan was pregnant. i’m so sorry.”

but she’s not sorry at all, i’m sure of it, and idon’t want to go to pieces in front of her. but i lookdown then, i look down at evie, and i feel a sadnessunlike anything i’ve ever felt before crashing over melike a wave, crushing the breath right out of me.

evie’s brother, evie’s sister. gone. rachel sits at myside and puts her arm around my shoulders.

“i’m sorry,” she says again, and i want to hit her.

the feeling of her skin against mine makes my fleshcrawl. i want to push her away, i want to scream ather, but i can’t. she lets me cry for a while andthen she says in a clear, determined voice, “anna, ithink we should go. i think you should pack somethings, for you and evie, and then we should go.

you can come to my place for now. until?.?.?. until wesort all this out.”

i dry my eyes and pull away from her. “i’m notleaving him, rachel. he had an affair, he?.?.?. it’s notthe first time, is it?” i start to laugh, and evie laughs,too.

rachel sighs and gets to her feet. “you know thisisn’t just about an affair, anna. i know that youknow.”

“we don’t know anything,” i say, and it comes outin a whisper.

“she got into the car with him. that night. i sawher. i didn’t remember it—i thought at first it wasyou,” she says. “but i remember. i remember now.”

“no.” evie’s sticky little hand presses against mymouth.

“we have to speak to the police, anna.” she takesa step towards me. “please. you can’t stay here withhim.”

despite the sun, i’m shivering. i’m trying to think ofthe last time megan came to the house, the look onhis face when she said that she couldn’t work for usany longer. i’m trying to remember whether helooked pleased or disappointed. unbidden, a differentimage comes into my head: one of the first timesshe came to look after evie. i was supposed to begoing out to meet the girls, but i was so tired, so iwent upstairs to sleep. tom must have come homewhile i was up there, because they were togetherwhen i came downstairs. she was leaning against thecounter, and he was standing a bit too close to her.

evie was in the high chair, she was crying andneither of them were looking at her.

i feel very cold. did i know then that he wantedher? megan was blond and beautiful—she was likeme. so yes, i probably knew that he wanted her,just like i know when i walk down the street thatthere are married men with their wives at their sidesand their children in their arms who look at me andthink about it. so perhaps i did know. he wantedher, he took her. but not this. he couldn’t do this.

not tom. a lover, husband twice over. a father. agood father, an uncomplaining provider.

“you loved him,” i remind her. “you still love him,don’t you?”

she shakes her head, but there’s no convictionthere.

“you do. and you know?.?.?. you know that this isn’tpossible.”

i stand up, hauling evie up with me, and movecloser to her. “he couldn’t have, rachel. you knowhe couldn’t have done this. you couldn’t love a manwho would do that, could you?”

“but i did,” she says. “we both did.” there aretears on her cheeks. she wipes them away, and asshe does so something in her expression changesand her face loses all colour. she’s not looking at me,but over my shoulder, and as i turn around tofollow her gaze, i see him at the kitchen window,watching us.