What You Did

by Claire McGowan

  Karen lay down carefully on the borrowed bed, the sheets that bit more shabby and worn than you’d get in a hotel. Wondering about the other people who’d passed through here, the victims and witnesses, the scared and the fleeing. The act of lying down, of being horizontal, itself brought flashbacks, and she left the light on so it burned behind her eyes, and, realising it was inevitable, allowed the memories of the night before to return to her.

  In her head it was like a film, except one she was in, one she was reliving, but which she could do nothing to change or stop. It was that night – the night that had changed her. She was so drunk. Forty-three years old, a son almost off to college, and she was swaying like a student during freshers’ week, fuzzy round the edges, words sticking in her mouth. The grass was cool under her bare feet – she’d felt sexy earlier, bohemian, in her short dress with her smooth legs. At least she had that, even if she’d messed up her degree and career and never made anything of herself. At least she still looked young, alongside Jodi, like an inflated white pudding, and Ali so prim in her sack-like dress and her sunglasses like an Alice band on her hair. Ali had always been like this – lower-middle-class respectability to the core, a make-up-thin layer of college rebellion on top. Shots in night clubs. Blushing, her blouse undone, on bop night. And he loved her, he went back to her every time, but still he couldn’t leave Karen alone.

  Mike. Like her shadow, like an old illness she thought she’d recovered from that crept back into her bones, so that every time Karen thought she’d moved on there he was. Carl the electrician, a decent simple man; Jim the university lecturer with the ex-wife and two blonde daughters. OK, neither perfect, but both a chance for her to have a life, a husband of her own at these get-togethers instead of waiting for scraps from Ali’s table. Like a messed-up harem, but Ali didn’t even know she was in one. Rearranging the plates while under their feet roared a vast fault line. How could Karen do this, sleep with her best friend’s husband? It was like being two people at once. She loved Ali, she’d go after anyone who hurt her. But she’d also slept with Ali’s husband, over and over, time and time again as the years went by. She’d try to stop, get on with her life – she’d even moved to Birmingham to try and end it – and then Ali would say we really must all get together, and Karen would walk into a room and see him and it would all start again.

  She and Mike knew the dark core of each other. Even though he’d said that afternoon it was over – I can’t do this any more, it’s not fair to Ali – even though Karen felt the blow like a slow-leaking wound she’d been walking around on all night, covering her pain with bright, flirty laughter, even with all that, part of her knew it likely wasn’t over this time either. She had lied to Ali about that, she wasn’t sure why. Trying to salvage some pride, maybe. They’d been here before, after all – all the way through university on and off, sneaking to his room when she was meant to be in the library; surely the reason she’d failed her Finals. A tense drink in a Wetherspoons near London Bridge when he’d moved out here, a tearful alleyway shag before Karen went to Birmingham. The elastic lines between them pinging back each time. Then the guilty meetings in London, the afternoons in the pub when he was supposed to be working, the Megabus down, Mike putting his wedding ring on the bedside table of the hotel room you could rent for the afternoon. She hated the fact he planned ahead like that. She wanted it to always be overwhelming, something primal between them. Because how else could she justify sleeping with her best friend’s husband?

  She couldn’t. She’d always known that. But still, the thing that was between them, it did not go away, it did not die, it just kept getting hungrier and hungrier, and sometimes the sheer power of it, of knowing she would do anything for it, hit her like a wave. It was wrong. But sometimes that didn’t matter.

  She’d forgotten why she was in the garden. It was dark, the lights switched off in the kitchen. Out here in the virtual countryside, the sky got very black. She was alone. Callum and Mike had wandered off in search of the loo, another drink, who knew what. She sat down hard on the patio table, bruising her coccyx. A few tears gathered in her eyes, self-pitying. Turned down by Bill – stupid, throwing herself at him like that – and dumped by Mike, all in one day. Forty-three, and her son almost grown, and nothing left to show for twenty and more years of waiting for Mike. The way he’d waited till they’d slept together before saying it. Listen, Karen . . . Putting his arm around Ali only minutes later, like nothing had happened. He hadn’t even showered since her body had been all over him; Ali wouldn’t let him.

  She cried a little, in a loud animal way, through her mouth. The garden was so dark, full of rustles and sighs. She heard a noise then. Someone else stumbling on the lawn, and she was sure it must be him, and the relief made her sag and weep. He was back. It was OK. Her eyes were blurred and swollen, and it was so dark, and all she could see was the hand, the sleeve in the red jumper. She smelled his aftershave – she’d bought a bottle of it once just to remind her of him, though it was more than her budget for the week. She gave it to Carl but he didn’t wear aftershave, thought it was girly. And it wasn’t the same on his pale smooth skin. Not Mike. Not enough. Just . . . not him. But here he was now, and part of her might have thought, Thank God, I was right. Part of her might have been pleased he’d come back so soon, that he couldn’t do without her.

  Next thing she knew her head was twisted and she was down on the grass on her front. A rough game – not their thing really. And his breath was in her ear, heavy and wet, and she felt her skirt forced up and the world shift, like when you close one eye and open another. And since then, since Mike had forced himself into her, and she’d heard herself give out a noise of fear and pain like the ones she’d made having Jake, since she realised his hand was around her throat and he wasn’t stopping, he wasn’t going to stop, and that thing was happening to her, the thing all women are afraid of since the moment they first grow breasts, since then, nothing had shifted back again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Say something, darling.’

  Cassie was staring at her feet. They were dirty and dry, I noticed, the red nail polish chipped. I should take her for a pedicure. We were in the living room, and Bill had taken Benji to the kitchen. I could hear them discussing fractions, a surreal note of domesticity. It was all the same, except for it was the wrong man. Except for Mike would never be home this early. Seven o’clock being early in his world.

  ‘So Dad shagged her.’ Her voice was flat. I couldn’t bring myself to censor the swearing. In my own head I’d been swearing ever since I found out.

  ‘You see, sweetheart, we were all friends at university, and I think they were very close, and it just . . . I supposed it spilled over from time to time.’ That wild look in Karen’s eyes when she talked about it, as if she saw something I could only dream of. As if I’d always been left behind.

  ‘He shagged her for years. Jake’s eighteen nearly. I bet Dad shagged her at uni too. From then to now. It’s years, Mum.’

  ‘I don’t know if it was the whole time or . . .’ She silenced me with a glare. Why was I defending them? I didn’t know. ‘Obviously it’s a nasty shock, darling, but I don’t think Daddy knew that Jake . . .’

  ‘How could he not know? He shags her, she has a baby, there’s no other dad hanging around. Jesus Christ, Mum! How could any of you not know?’

  Because we hadn’t wanted to. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t you be sorry. You did nothing, Mum. He’s the one who shagged her then neglected his kid. Jake’s life’s been ruined. He never knew his dad, he had no one, they’re always broke and Karen’s off with different men . . . How do you think he feels?’

  ‘Jake is a troubled boy, darling. He always has been. You only have to look at what he did to Daddy . . .’

  ‘Of course he’s troubled! Christ, he’s my – what, he’s my brother, and I grew up here and he lives in that shithole with no money, and all his life he thinks his dad just didn’t want to know him
. Of course he’s messed up! And it’s all Dad’s fault.’

  ‘He didn’t know,’ I said weakly.

  ‘What, like he didn’t know he was raping her?’

  I didn’t know who she was, this angry, whip-smart girl in front of me, with chipped nail polish and freckles on tanned skin. I couldn’t recognise her as my flesh, though I knew I’d given birth to her. Could I blame Mike for not seeing what was under his nose all this time?

  ‘Cass, I know you’re upset. Everyone’s upset. What we have to do now is help Daddy.’

  ‘How?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘What Karen said – that it’s been going on for a long time, for years – it could help Daddy’s case. Show that maybe it wasn’t – what she says it was. So if you did realise that you remembered something about that night—’

  She stared at me for a long time. My own eyes looking back at me, accusing. ‘You’re crazy. You want me to lie?’

  ‘No! I just need to know what you saw. What you were doing that night.’ I took a deep breath, steeled myself for her anger. ‘Was someone else there, in the woods? Were you meeting Aaron?’ I’d always tried to give Cassie her privacy, remembering how it was when I was that age. I heard you were down the town with a boy. I won’t have my daughter acting like a slut. The slaps that would follow if I talked back, explained it was just a schoolmate, or someone I’d spoken to only once. But I had to make her tell me what she’d been doing.

  Cassie was quiet for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly calm. ‘Mum, I told you. I didn’t see anything. No one got into the garden. I was just . . . I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘You didn’t see Dad, or Karen, or . . .’

  ‘I didn’t see anything! I can’t lie, if that’s what you’re saying.’

  ‘Darling, no, not lie, it’s just that we do need to show that it isn’t true, that she’s making it up, and . . .’

  ‘Mum. Don’t you realise? I hate Dad. I hope he goes to prison. If I were Jake I’d have tried to stab him too. So how dare you ask me. How dare you.’

  ‘You have to open them sometime,’ said Bill, gently. I regarded the pile of envelopes on the table. Some had come in the last few days, and some I’d found in Mike’s briefcase, which was still in our room. I told myself it was OK to go through it, when he was still unconscious. Bills, letters, flyers from legal firms. I found the last particularly insulting. It meant everyone knew what we’d become, a family who needed a defence.

  It was the following morning. Benji had gone off to school, clean and neatly dressed and fed, thanks to Bill. Cassie was upstairs in her room still. I had to make her go back to school this week. I was trying to pretend things were normal, and that meant doing normal things. Like opening the post.

  I reminded myself the bills couldn’t be that bad. Mike had only been off work for a few days. That would be covered by sick leave, surely. I picked up a thick cream envelope with the crest of Cassie’s school on it. It was addressed to Mr and Mrs Michael Morris, because in their world it was 1937. I wondered why it was in Mike’s briefcase, why he hadn’t left it for me to open. The words swam in front of my eyes. Numbers, figures.

  ‘I can’t make head nor tail of this, can you? It’s a bill?’

  Bill took it from me. ‘It says the fees were last paid in January. Months ago.’

  I snatched it back. ‘What? That can’t be right. I’m calling them.’

  I seized the phone and punched in the number, my hands shaking with anger. All the money we’d poured into that school and this was what happened. A stupid mix-up. Maybe Mike’s account was suspended since he was in hospital. But how would the bank even know that? I thought of all the bills that were on autopay, everything down to the Netflix account. As if I needed that right now. ‘Yes, hello? It’s Ali Morris here. I’ve just had your letter.’

  The school secretary was twenty-five but efficient as a cog gear. ‘Good morning, Mrs Morris. It’s the bursar you’d need to speak to if it’s about fees.’

  ‘Have you any idea what we’re going through? My husband is in hospital, in a coma.’

  ‘Yes, I’m very sorry to hear that.’ Her voice was so cool. I was trying to think of her name. Alicia? Yes, that was it. ‘But unfortunately we can’t make special exceptions for . . .’

  ‘Cassie has her exams. Does she really need this extra pressure?’

  ‘It’s just, Mrs Morris, the fees have been overdue for some time. We did write to you several times.’

  What? It seemed to be happening over and over, that I would reach for a certainty I knew to be true, only to find it melted away. I’d seen nothing from the school, and Mike had never mentioned this. ‘I – we never got those letters.’ My mind was stumbling over it. Some mix-up at the bank? Or they had our old address still? But this one had come to the house. And Mike had, for some reason, picked it up and hidden it in his briefcase.

  ‘Perhaps your husband . . .’

  Rage swelled in me. She’d no idea what it meant to even have a husband, slog away side by side for twenty years, and then find out he’d been sleeping with your best friend on the side. ‘Look, this is ridiculous. We’ve been paying you a fortune for years now, and you’re causing an issue over a few missed bills?’ Surely just some mistake. We were never late. Why would we be, when we had such a comfortable safeguard?

  ‘You really need to speak to the bursar.’

  ‘Put me through then.’

  ‘He’s at a conference today, I’m afraid. But there is usually a policy of barring pupils from exams if the fees aren’t paid and . . .’

  I slammed the phone down on her. ‘Little bitch.’ Bill was watching me in his calm way, saying nothing. ‘Fine, fine, I know it’s not her fault, but really. You’d think they could have a little understanding.’

  Bill was sifting through the envelopes, which he’d been opening with his large hands. ‘There’s a lot of bills here. Too many for only a week. Do you think . . . ?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry to pry, Ali, but were you having money problems? Because a lot of these have been outstanding for a while. Look, is this Benji’s school? That’s overdue too.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ I looked down at the paper, spreading out and covering the table. ‘I don’t get it. There was plenty coming in. Thousands every month.’

  Bill had been going through our bank statements, I saw, and I blushed for a moment, thinking of all the stupid purchases that would show up. Ocado delivery. Vast amounts spent at Joules, and on my weekly facial, and our last holiday. ‘There seems to be a few big amounts going out,’ he said, screwing up his eyes. ‘Here, you see? And there. It’s every month.’

  I squinted at it, the columns of numbers swimming in front of my eyes. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Looks like an account number.’

  I got my phone and typed it into Google. Nothing. ‘No. I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘Did Mike have any investments, things like that?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’ And I realised, thinking about it, it was quite possible I wouldn’t know. I sorted the kids and the house, and he did this. Our money. The ground under our feet. I’d been stupid. I’d taken all that for granted, when in reality I had no idea whether it was solid or not, and here we were running about on top of it. ‘Is there a way to find out who the account belongs to?’

  ‘I’m sure there is. I can look into it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve got nothing to do at the moment. Let me help you. Please. I’d like to.’

  It was the same thing he’d told me all those years ago, and I hadn’t listened then, and look where it had got me. But sometimes it takes a long time to learn our lessons.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘What were you doing with the money?’ I bent over Mike’s face, still blank and slack. Around him the machines beeped and the leg compression socks pumped, trying to keep him from getting thrombosis. I counted the need
les going into him – five in total. That seemed a lot. And there I was with so many questions, faced with this wall of silence. He wasn’t awake. I knew he couldn’t hear me, despite what I let Benji believe. I knew he wasn’t there at all.

  So these were the facts. Mike and Karen had been having an affair for twenty-five years. As long as I’d known him – in fact, if what she said was true, she’d slept with him first. Jake was Mike’s son, or so she said. That meant they’d been having sex in 1999, for definite. I remembered a Millennium party, everyone very drunk, Karen and Mike disappearing. It sank into my stomach, another stone in the well. More facts: Jake’s bail hearing was currently underway, and soon I would hear if he was being let out, perhaps to come after Mike and finish him off. Mike and Karen had slept together on the Saturday of our party, and later that night, Karen had accused him of raping her in the garden. And our bank accounts told me another fact – we were broke. I was waiting on a call from Mike’s boss to tell me what was happening with his salary, but it was clear a lot of money had been going out somewhere, leaking like water from a dam. Where to? Did Mike in fact know Jake was his son, and was he paying for him all this time? Was the money going to Karen? Was I the only one who knew nothing?

  ‘Wake up,’ I hissed in his ear. He smelled different. Of antiseptic, and stale breath. His face didn’t even flutter. He wasn’t there. I didn’t know where he was.

  The phone in my bag buzzed and I snatched it up before the nurse could look disapproving. I took it to the corridor, trying to clear my throat. ‘Hello, Ali Morris.’ Was this the news about Jake?

  A man’s voice, measured and harried. ‘Hello, this is Arthur Ravenscroft speaking.’

  Mike’s boss, returning the call I’d made earlier. ‘Yes, hello. We met, at the Christmas do last year?’

  ‘Of course.’ He’d no idea who I was. ‘We’re terribly sorry to hear about Michael’s accident.’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident, sadly. He was attacked.’ By his own son. I wondered how much people knew. ‘Mr Ravenscroft, there are some . . . discrepancies in our accounts, and I wanted to check what the position was with Mike – with my husband’s salary.’