‘God!’
‘I know!’
‘Couldn’t you just… not go?’
‘Not go where?’
‘To this auction thingy…?’
‘Oh no, it’s not that. Everyone’s going. Anyway, I’ve pledged a pot for it which won’t do me any harm, career-wise, because this other couple we met have an art gallery in town and he’s interested in my new project, you know the conceptual thing?’
‘Well, that’s great, Karen! All these new friends, your career taking off again. Sounds like you’ve really turned a corner. Try and keep things in perspective; Nick can’t help but flirt, it’s in his DNA, but I think he’s learned his lesson, don’t you reckon?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He’s doing all the right things, but I don’t know how he really feels. It’s like we’re acting being married.’
‘How’s the sex? You are having…?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I snapped, ‘it’s fine. It’s good. Well, you know, good in a slightly fucked-up way, but that’s how I like it.’
I wondered as I said this if it were still the case, if indeed it had ever been the case. Perhaps I’d just accepted the way Nick treated me in bed as the price I had to pay for being with a god. But what if Nick wasn’t a god?
‘Well, take my advice, keep it up,’ Jude said, ruefully. ‘Turns out all that bullshit our mothers told us about keeping your man happy is true. I wish to God I’d shut my eyes and thought of England a bit more often.’
‘Oh, as if Dave left you because he wasn’t getting any,’ I said scornfully, and then raising my eyes to hers, regretted it.
‘Don’t take your marriage for granted is all I’m saying,’ Jude said. ‘Nick’s been a bad boy, but he’s learned his lesson. Look how keen he is to keep you. Gorgeous new home – no expense-spared ceramics studio…’
It was true, I supposed. I remembered the pride with which he had shown me around the cottage when I’d first arrived. The way he had tilted his head, like a dog wanting patting; his disappointment when I had found some tiny defect in the way he’d kitted out my studio. But had he done it because he loved me and couldn’t live without me? Or because this was what a perfect life should look like? When I thought of the two of us in our ‘home’, I didn’t picture us on the sofa, my feet in his lap, nor eating bacon sarnies at the kitchen table; I saw us in the bathroom, that first night – a blurred reflection in a tarnished mirror. Siamese twins conjoined at the head – unable to function together or apart.
I doubted any of this would make much sense to Jude, however, so I just said, ‘I wish he was a bit keener on keeping his son…’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s never been easy between them… but since Ethe turned up out of the blue, Nick’s seemed on edge. Like Ethan’s in the way. Like he’s waiting for him to leave.’
‘Karen, that’s normal. London’s full of boomerang kids, and anyway I thought you said Ethe was going to Australia.’
‘Yeah…’ I said doubtfully. ‘He’s supposed to be saving up for the flight.’
‘Has he got a job?’
‘Not that I know of… although…’ I felt suddenly hopeful. ‘I did see him walking someone’s dog this afternoon.’
It had never occurred to me that he might be dog-walking for money. I felt absurdly heartened by the thought.
‘It’s going to take a lot of dog-walking to get him to Queensland,’ Jude pointed out, ‘and in the meantime, it’s a small space. Nick’s working from home, Ethan’s hanging round like a spare part…’
‘Except he isn’t. He’s hardly ever in. Just comes home to raid the fridge and borrow mon—’
‘There you go,’ Jude said. ‘He’s taking the piss. No wonder Nick’s fed up.’
‘Yeah, there’s fed up and there’s downright abusive. You should have seen them this afternoon. Nick had a right go at him. Had him by the throat. In front of Imogen, too. Well, because of Imogen, actually…’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, I’d just sat down with them and Imogen’s being all sugar and spice and then Ethan walks in. He’s been out all night again, and he’s in a funny mood – sort of spaced-out and silly.’
‘High.’
‘Maybe,’ I conceded reluctantly. ‘Anyway, then Madam starts in on him. Like what a big strong boy he is – really queasy stuff…’
Jude mimed sticking a finger down her throat.
‘Exactly, and she’s trying to get him to help put up this marquee with Nick and Douglas and everyone, which he was perfectly fine with, but he just makes this one little crack like, haven’t you got servants to do that? And Nick goes fucking ballistic!’
‘Oh dear…’
‘I know. One minute we’re sat round having this bit of banter, and the next, Nick’s pinned him to the wall, reading him the riot act.’
‘Oh my God, what did you do?’
‘Tried to stop him, of course. Imogen’s made herself scarce by now, and I’m shouting at Nick and trying to drag him off but he doesn’t let go till Ethan’s turning white. And then when Ethan storms out – in his bare feet by the way, doesn’t even stop to put his shoes on – Nick’s not the least bit bothered. Just shrugs it off. Asks me what I want for dinner. I mean, what’s that about?’
‘I don’t know…’ Jude met my gaze and bit her lip ‘… tough love, maybe?’
I stared at her, uncomprehending.
‘Only… you did say Ethan was off his face…’
‘God, Jude!’ I said, my indignation concealing a stab of unease. I remembered what Cath had said about the man in the barn, recalled the odd chemical smell I’d detected on Ethan. ‘Are you saying my kid’s got a drug habit?’
‘Of course not,’ she backtracked hastily. ‘But they all dip in and out now, don’t they? It’s a big thing, drugs in the countryside. County lines they call it. Maybe Nick thought he was saving Ethan from himself. Look, I don’t know, Kaz, I wasn’t there. All I know is, Nick loves the bones of you. He’s no saint. He’s got a filthy temper and an ego the size of the planet. If he were my husband, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but you know what…?’
I shook my head, barely trusting myself to speak.
‘… If I had a marriage like yours that’s endured for twenty years, that’s produced a son like Ethan, that’s been tested to breaking point and survived; where you can still stand the sight of each other; still sleep in the same room, still get off on the sex…’
Jude looked at me, her expression grim with pragmatism and loneliness.
‘… I’d hang on to it, because from where I’m standing, it looks like paradise!’
19
I slept on the train. When I woke it was to the slamming of doors. I leaped up in a panic and without checking where we were, grabbed my bag and hurried to the door, only just managing to get off before the guard waved the train off again. Luckily it was the right station. It was only as I followed the eight or ten local passengers out onto the forecourt that I realized how drunk I still was. Not staggering, falling-down drunk, but the kind of drunk where imitating sobriety becomes the overwhelming challenge; where every little movement from unzipping one’s handbag to smoothing a fly-away strand of hair seems as exacting as brain surgery. Certainly I knew better than to get behind the wheel of the Renault, which, as the last couple of commuters reclaimed their vehicles, soon looked lost and lonely in the long-stay car park.
I found the taxi rank and tried to look like the respectable fare I would have been, had I not had the last couple of shots. I watched the flurry of activity as the few remaining passengers were met by relatives and swept away in hatchbacks and four-wheel drives. I waited a few minutes and then walked to the corner and looked up and down the high street. Apart from a flashing neon sign advertising payday loans, and the bluish glow of refrigeration coming from the organic butcher’s, the town was dark. There would be no taxi. I reached into my coat pocket for my phone, but despite Jude’s special ple
ading, I found I couldn’t bring myself to ring Nick. I was still too angry and hurt. I knew just how it would go – he would swoop down on me in the Range Rover and fling open the passenger door, hatchet-faced. Then he’d be aloof and condescending on the way home as if I were the one who had something to apologise for. It would get sorted in the bedroom, but I couldn’t face that either. Not this time, not tonight. I was a grown-up and I could get myself home. It was a distance of barely two miles, only the last little stretch without pavement. It would be a chance to walk off the booze.
It was the blue hour. Dusk had not yet quite turned to night, but in the Victorian terraces that lined the road out of town, the curtains were mostly drawn. I could hear canned laughter from a TV sitcom and the distant barking of a dog. On a steeply sloping drive, someone revved a motorbike, shrouding me in exhaust fumes and I crossed on a diagonal to the other side of the road. Soon house gave way to cottage, cottage to barn and barn, finally to open countryside. The land fell away to pasture on my right and climbed behind dense hedgerows on my left and except for the occasional swoosh of a passing car, I was alone.
A harvest moon was rising, silhouetting the trees on the opposite side of the valley and giving a strange radioactive glow to the cream-coloured cows that dotted the fields below me. ‘Beautiful,’ I murmured out loud in an effort, I suppose, to convince myself that the walk might be a pleasure rather than the ordeal it was beginning to seem. I stopped and reached for my phone, thinking to choose an appropriately jaunty soundtrack. I jammed the headphones in my ears and was soon striding out in time to the soft reggae of Jimmy Cliff, feeling if not quite cheery then empowered. I had, after all, drawn a line in the sand: let Nick know that despite my recent frailties, his behaviour had consequences and shown him I was no longer prepared to be a pushover. There had been no messages all afternoon, but that was classic Nick. Never show weakness, never capitulate. He would, I knew, be furious with me for walking out and have resolved to punish me with silence. By now, though, I reckoned he would be getting twitchy, might already be wondering if I were coming back at all. Let him sweat.
I had been walking for about five minutes, when instinct told me I was no longer alone on the path. This in itself was hardly sinister. Plenty of people – well, all right, a few – made the journey from the town to our village just to enjoy the charms of The Fleece. I picked up my pace a fraction – more to put a decorous distance between us than because I felt scared. Another hundred yards on and I’d decided that it was just the echo of my own footfall bouncing off the steep sides of the valley. Fifty more and he was definitely there, slowing when I slowed, speeding up when I did. Now I was rattled. I switched off the music, and surreptitiously tugged the headphones from my ears. Clack, clack, clack, clack. Whoever it was ought to know better. If he was there… was he there? Soon I was resenting the intrusion of my breathing, of my own heartbeat for getting in the way of all the listening I needed to do. All it took was the creak of a bush in the field below me for my pulse rate to soar and my pace to quicken. I stole a glance over my shoulder. Did someone shrink back into the hedgerow? A few yards ahead, the road curved into a canopy of trees, the branches arching overhead like the ribs of a whale. How had I forgotten this was here? This cave, this unlit catacomb? If I speeded up, could I be out the other side before my pursuer entered? Probably not. What had possessed me to think walking was a good idea? I turned on the torch app and its pale beam faltered. I cursed myself and Jimmy Cliff. I had a choice to make now – torch or phone call, phone call or torch. There was not enough battery for both.
Calling… calling… still calling… pick up, pick up…
‘Nick Mulvaney here, can’t get to the phone right now…’
My heart was going like a pile-driver. Decision time. I could follow the path through the tunnel of trees or I could peel off and go across country. I could see the lights of the hamlet down in the dip. It looked close, but it would be a good twenty-minute scramble, through bog and nettle patch. Still, glancing behind me, seeing a tell-tale movement in the darkness, a cross-country assault course seemed preferable to ploughing on into the cave of trees, pursued by this figment, this wraith, this crow-man. I had one leg slung over the wall and was poised to drop down into the field when the phone vibrated in my hand.
‘Nick!’ I almost sobbed. ‘Can you come and get me? I’m on the main road out of town, about half a mile from our turn-off. You know just before it goes into that…?’
The phone cut out.
I stared at it, stunned, trying to remember whether I had given him enough information to find me. Whether I had or not, I must stay put now; make myself a sitting duck. Well bollocks to that. I swivelled my legs back over the wall, strolled casually out into the middle of the road, arms folded, and cast a shrewd appraising glance down the road.
There was no one there. There never had been. What had looked, at a glance, like a sinister figure shrinking back into the darkness was now nothing more than a nest of brambles stirred by a brisk autumn breeze, the footsteps I’d heard after all just the echo of my own. I felt foolish and cowardly and annoyed with myself. I could already see the headlights of the Range Rover carving their way up the lane in the distance, its headlights vanishing and reappearing as if on a lifeboat navigating choppy water. I could hear the expensive purr of its three-litre engine; discern each brief hiatus as Nick moved up the gears, gathering speed until he reached the junction. Then a silence, so long I thought he had dropped clean off the planet, almost long enough to make me believe in my bogey man again, before his tyres squealed onto the main road and his xenon headlamps turned the arch of trees from a gloomy cavern into a green cathedral. I stepped out and waved my arms as if landing a jumbo jet.
‘What the fuck did you think you were doing?’
I turned to find the buckle of my seatbelt, telling myself to stay calm, to not let him rile me.
‘I was mad with you,’ my words tumbled out in a garbled stream, ‘rightly say I’d so… I mean rightly so, I’d say, after what you did to Ethan. You’ve got Jude to thunk that I came back at all. She sheems to be under the impression we’ve got something worth savaging.’
He leaned towards me and sniffed.
‘Have you been drinking?’
I gave a loud hiccup and laughed in surprise. Now the danger had passed I realized I was still quite squiffy.
‘Jesus, Karen! How much have you had?’
‘Not that mush,’ I said.
‘You walked from the station in that condition? You might as well have stuck a sign saying “rape me” on your back and have done with it.’
‘Oh, don’t be riduc – ulous!’
Nick turned up a rutted track, reversing back out straight into the path of an oncoming car.
‘Fuck off!’ he muttered under his breath as the driver flashed his lights, then accelerated homewards, the silence between us stretching out until it seemed impossible to breach.
‘Jude and Dave are getting divorced,’ I blurted, unable to bear it any longer.
Nick didn’t react. I stole a curious sideways glance at him.
‘I know,’ he said after a long moment and I gawped at him.
We had turned into our lane by now. Nick was hurtling recklessly over potholes and around bends, making me feel queasier than ever.
‘How come?’ I said, closing my eyes briefly and gripping the front of my seat.
‘Dave told me when they were down.’
‘But that was ages ago…’
Nick shrugged.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? Jesus. He hadn’t even said anything to Jude then…’
We were on the home stretch now.
‘Because you’d have kept it under your hat, wouldn’t you?’ Nick took his eyes off the road momentarily to give me a scornful glance and in that instant, something loomed out of the dark, pale and sudden as a hologram.
‘Nick! Stop!’ I shrieked and he stamped on the brake so that we were both flung back against our headr
ests.
‘What the fuck?’
‘It’s OK. It’s OK,’ I said, ‘You didn’t hit her. It’s Jean. What on earth is she—?’
Nick applied the hand brake and I scrambled out of the car and ran around to where the old woman stood like a rabbit in the headlights, white hair stuck out at all angles, clothing in disarray.
‘Jean!’ I said, taking her arm gently. ‘You gave us a terrible fright. What are you doing out here?’
She jerked her elbow away touchily and I realized she didn’t know me. I had fretted over her, empathized with her, watched her house for signs and portents, but for all my supposed concern, I realized, I had never bothered to befriend her.
‘Hello, Jean,’ Nick appearing suavely on her other flank, ‘bit late for a stroll, don’t you think?’ She cowered as he tried to take her arm, huddling towards me as if for protection.
‘Now then love,’ he said, more firmly this time, but she batted his arm away, whimpering.
‘Nick, you’re frightening her.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ Nick muttered grimly, ‘I’ll go and get Gordon.’
I stroked Jean’s arm to reassure her and she turned her face towards me so that the moonlight illuminated a fan-shaped purple stain on her cheekbone – the remnants, I realized, of the black eye she had sustained on the day I went to London. For a split-second I saw again the same subliminal tableau I had conjured that day – a man’s hand raised in violence, a woman’s body crumpled on the floor, only this time the man was Nick and the woman was me and I didn’t know whether I was looking at Jean and Gordon’s past or my own future; whether this was a warning or a curse. And then the image was gone and Jean’s claw-like hand was clutching at me in distress and Nick and Gordon were heading down the path towards us, chuckling grimly like a couple of poachers about to bag a deer.
The Move Page 17