I fire up the laptop and connect to the server, downloading a few of the files from the cola campaign. A soft-drink brand looking for a bold new TV and print run, something that will divert from their crazily high sugar content and attract the young, trendy consumers they’re after. It’s the kind of project I normally love. I read over the latest version of the ads, look at some of the artwork. I can barely remember anything. My mind feels soft and woolly, my thoughts dripping slowly, like treacle. There are too many other paths to wander down: the state of our home, Natalie and everything she’s told me, the photograph still burning a hole in my coat pocket, my daughter in her hospital bed asking me if she’s safe.
Take a breather, I think, when it’s clear that I’m not taking the files in in the way that I should. I bring up the browser and log into my e-mail. I run my eye down the list, taking in the familiar generic messages from sites I’m subscribed to, and then I see something that pulls me up short. An e-mail from SRUK. You have a new message.
My first instinct is to delete it without looking. It belongs to a part of my life that’s over. But there’s something in the very strangeness of it—my account has been inactive for so long that I can’t imagine who would be messaging me—that reels me in. Slowly, I move the cursor to the message and open it, then click the link. I haven’t been on for over six months, but my fingers move swiftly in the shape of my password, as if it’s been less than a day. There’s a short, tight pause before the site loads, and as I wait I can’t help but remember the feelings the sight of this black, anonymous screen with its thin red lettering in the center—secretroom—used to stir in me. The impatient hunger, the addictive pull of its cheap thrill. The letters emerge, a dark curtain unfurling to reveal them one by one; their edges scarlet, fizzing with mystery. The in-box at the top of the screen is showing five new messages. I dimly recall having received a few notifications months ago, and having ignored them, but after all this time I can’t imagine who would be contacting me. Even if it hadn’t been so long, it would be surprising—on this site, there was never a lot of unsolicited contact from women. There was a kind of unspoken rule that the men were the predators here; it was up to us to make the first move.
I’ve never cheated on Natalie, not physically. I apply my own standards to myself, and I’ve always thought I’d find it harder to forgive a drunken kiss at a party than several months of loaded conversations. For me, the physical is where it becomes real. And yet part of me knows I was always bullshitting myself about secretroom. It wasn’t right. Why else would I have given it up before we got married? I wanted to mean my vows, and that meant emptying the dark pockets of my life and throwing out the trash.
The main reason I had done it in the first place was that keeping this piece of myself hidden was a way of keeping real intimacy at bay. I’d been through the mill once before, with Heather. I was afraid to let anyone get close, and in some small, stupid way these little forays of flirtation reassured me that I wasn’t completely obsessed with Natalie and that, albeit in the most meaningless way, I might still be keeping my options open. But in the end I got tired of being afraid, and that’s when I cut the chains.
I click on the in-box, knowing I shouldn’t. Instantly I see that all five of the messages are from the same person: Cali. Of all the women I used to talk to on secretroom, she’s the one with whom it lasted longest, and the last one I was in contact with before I logged off for what I thought was the last time. I don’t know why the connection stuck. With most of the women on this site, it was a one-off thing; a half hour or so of dirty talk that served a primal purpose and burned out almost as soon as it had begun. With her there was something that had kept me coming back. Nothing emotional, nothing that deep. But something. A chemistry.
The messages are all brief and intense.
I’m waiting for you.
Can’t get you off my mind . . . you want me to beg?
Tried a lot of others but there’s no one like you. No one who gets me like you do. Come on . . .
Still waiting.
And the last message, sent yesterday morning, months after we’d last been in contact.
Are you OK?
I stare at that last one, thrown off base. There’s something different in its tone. Maybe it’s just because I’m not OK right now that it feels so loaded. But this woman never really cared how I was, surely; we didn’t even know each other. I saw the darkest corners of the desires she kept locked up in her head, but I never saw her face. She was barely real. She could have been a computer, churning out automated obscenities.
I flick back through the message history, my eyes furtively scanning the lines of text. I’d forgotten how much we’d said, how fast any inhibitions had fallen away. I’d talked to this stranger in a way that I’d never talked to anyone, including my wife. It’s over, but it happened, and turning your back on something isn’t the same as erasing it. I’ll never be able to do that. I’m thinking of this, feeling sick with guilt and trying to make it into something more palatable, when I see that the little box in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen is flashing with a message. Cali is online.
I move the cursor swiftly to close the window down, exiting the site instantly. My heart is thumping again, this time with panic, and I can’t help thinking about the message that will have been flashing on Cali’s screen at that exact same moment, telling her that I was back. That for those few brief seconds we were there in the same virtual space, the invisible connectors between us bristling with electricity.
NATALIE
SEPTEMBER 2017
I spend the morning battling the panicky sense that everything is spiraling out of control, telling myself that this is all OK, everything can get back on track. But there’s too much evidence to the contrary. The fire; Jade’s hospitalization; and now this seismic shift between me and Alex, the split-second decision I’ve made to tear a hole in the fabric of the past and let it begin to spill through. In the cold light of day, I’m not sure I’ve done the right thing. I could have played off the photograph, explained away the documents somehow. I can think on my feet. Maybe I shouldn’t have given in to that impulse, powerful and seductive though it was, to let him in just a little bit more. It’s too late now, though, and I need to figure out where to go from here.
There’s only so much I can occupy myself with—my new card hasn’t arrived from the bank yet and I only have small change on me. It isn’t the sort of day to sit outside and soak up the atmosphere. The sky is bright but it’s the kind of brightness that almost hurts, light stabbing coldly down through the autumnal air. I take a walk along the seafront, but by lunchtime I’m bored and restless, and missing Alex. Leaning back against the iron railings flanking the road, I give him a call. He answers almost at once, his tone guarded and low, as if he’s trying not to be heard.
“Where are you?” I ask without preamble. “I’m sorry about this morning. I just needed a bit of space.” It’s a cliché and it isn’t even true. I thought I needed space, but all it’s done is unsettle me.
A brief pause. “I’m at the office. I came in to help the guys out with something.”
I almost laugh; it’s typical of Alex to get on with the job, even when his life is falling apart around him. “Can you take a lunch break? I’m not far from you, I could be there in ten minutes.”
He exhales before saying OK. I can tell he’s still aggrieved at my disappearance, and the knowledge makes me walk faster, head down, anxiety thudding through my body with every step I take. The last thing I want is for him to be angry with me. I’d never show it, but so much of what I do and say is geared to him—trying to make him happy, trying to make his life perfect—that when things go off track it scares me.
When I reach the office I pull out my phone to call him again, but then I see he’s already at the top of the stairs, jogging down toward me. As he opens the door, a middle-aged woman is ducking into the building, and
when she sees us she does a double take. “Alex,” she says, “are you OK? I heard about what happened. I didn’t think you’d be in so soon.”
“That’s all right,” Alex says briskly. “Thanks. I’ll be in and out for a few days.”
The woman waits with eyebrows raised, her face awash with concern; clearly she’s expecting or hoping for more, but Alex just nods tightly and moves on past, placing his hand on my back to guide me with him along the street. “Great,” he says under his breath as we go. “Now it’ll be all over the office. That’s my afternoon’s work screwed. I might as well not go back.”
“It doesn’t really matter right now, though, does it?” I say, struggling to keep up. “About work.”
He slows his steps for a moment, glances at me and sighs. “I suppose not.” We walk in silence for a little longer, lost in our own thoughts. “I probably wouldn’t have gone back anyway,” he says eventually. “I’ll need to go to the hospital. I was just enjoying it for a bit. You know, being normal.”
I nod, understanding. “I get it, though it did surprise me. You didn’t tell me you were thinking of going to the office.”
“Well, I didn’t get much chance, did I?” he points out. “You’d upped and left.”
“At least I left a note.” This is starting to sound like the beginning of an argument, and I quickly link my fingers through his. He squeezes them a little, letting me know that he, too, doesn’t want to go down that road. It’s a complex game we play, I think, this kind of cut and thrust; the balance of words and actions, everything open to interpretation and nothing entirely unambiguous. It’s a disturbing enough thought to keep me quiet on the way down to the seafront, and Alex seems content to walk in silence.
It’s only when we’ve settled ourselves on one of the wrought-iron benches that flank the pier, looking out to sea, that I turn to face him, placing my hands lightly on his knees. “I am sorry. I know this is a terrible time for me to have added to your stress, and I know you must feel like I’ve lied to you.”
“That’s because you have,” he says. His voice is mild, but there’s a confrontational bluntness to the words.
“I know,” I say slowly. “All I can say is that it does feel like another life. Genuinely. Part of the reason I never told you before was that it just didn’t feel relevant. It has nothing to do with who I am now. It’s dead and gone.” I’ve never really set it out like this before, even to myself, but what I’m saying is true. When I try to put myself back there, in those days, the memories have the quality of dreams.
“But is that really true?” Alex asks. “Look, I went to see Jade early this morning. She told me some more about the man she saw in the house, and I believe it happened. And from what she says to me, it isn’t the first time he’s been hanging around.”
“What?” I’m jolted. “She’s seen him before?”
“That’s right. Several times, apparently.”
I take a breath, absorbing this. It’s a shock, but almost immediately it starts to feel inevitable. Of course she’s seen this man before. It was naïve of me to think otherwise.
“We need to take what Jade is saying seriously,” Alex says. “I know this is frightening, but it’s obvious that there was someone in the house that night. You didn’t lock the back door, did you?”
Mutely, I shake my head. The reality is that I rarely do when Alex is out; he’s been known to forget his key on nights out and our street is quiet. “Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not. But we need to think about what this means.”
For a moment I glimpse something in the corner of my mind’s eye; the idea of a man’s silhouette, moving fast and quietly along the back wall, coming inside while I’m sleeping, intent on setting the house ablaze. I can see why the thought is terrifying, and why it might have drained the colors from my husband’s cheeks, but I can’t make it feel real.
Alex is watching me closely. “Natalie, I don’t think I have any enemies. I’ve been racking my brains for who might have a grudge against me, and there’s nothing, nothing that could be anywhere near big enough to justify this. But from what you told me last night, I get the sense that a lot has gone on in your past that I don’t know about. I have to ask, is there anyone who might resent you?”
I allow a little bark of laughter to escape, short and bitter. “Plenty. They were good at holding a grudge, my sister’s friends.”
“Well, you need to be aware of this, then,” Alex says. “Jade said this man was fairly short, cropped white-blond hair, broad shouldered. And that he had a kind of malleable face—that isn’t the word she used, I can’t remember exactly what she said, but that’s what I got from it. Does that sound like anyone you know?”
I’m not sure what I should reply, but I find that speaking is difficult in any case. It’s the precision of the picture he’s painted, I think, that has knocked the breath from my body. From that description, anyone who knew Dominic Westwood would recognize him. I can see his face in front of me as clear as day.
“Maybe,” I manage. “There was a guy . . . it sounds like him. He cared about loyalty, more than most of the others, I think. And he was probably infatuated with Sadie, too, which wouldn’t help.”
“Really?” Alex says. He looks surprised, as if readjusting a mental picture.
“Most people were,” I say, and then I can’t resist adding, “You probably would have been, too.”
Alex laughs. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He frowns in amusement, but I keep staring at him steadily, and he seems to realize that I want him to take this seriously. “Look, Natalie,” he says. “I love you. Nothing that’s happened here has changed that. I’m not interested in anyone else, and I wouldn’t be even if she was the most beautiful woman on earth. Although, of course, that’s you.” It’s a cheesy line, designed to make me smile along with him, and I do, but then his expression straightens again. “Look, you know we’re going to have to talk to the police about this. If you think you know who this guy is, we need to let them know.”
Even the thought of involving the police brings a sour, nauseous taste to my mouth, but I know I’ll never be able to make him understand. To Alex, the police are reliable and kindly, the obvious source of support in times of trouble, people who will help you and always do the right thing. I’ve learned the hard way that this isn’t always true.
“I know,” I say, “but I’d rather wait a bit longer at least, see if their investigation turns anything up. We don’t actually have any proof he’s involved. And it would be so much better if they found something beyond our say-so that was tied back to him that they could use as evidence, something concrete and unarguable.”
“What difference would that make?” Alex asks, clearly exasperated. “I mean, obviously it would be easier to convict him then, but why does that mean we shouldn’t say anything now?”
“Because if they find him and speak to him with no hard evidence, then he’ll know that I’ve tipped them off.” I’m aware my voice sounds harsh and unfriendly, and I make an effort to soften it. “Look, the bottom line is that we’re safe for now. We’re in the hotel, and Jade is in the hospital. Nothing’s going to happen while we’re all being looked after. Just give me a couple of days, please, to get my head round this, because if we do go to the police, I’m going to have to talk about a lot of stuff that I’ve spent the past God knows how many years not talking about. It isn’t easy for me, Alex.” Something inside me twists. I wish I could cry, but my eyes are achingly dry.
Alex must sense my distress, because he puts an arm round me and pulls me in to him, letting me press my face against his chest. I feel his breath rise and fall in a heavy sigh, as if he’s trying to weigh up what I’ve said, but before he has a chance to speak the shrill melody of his ringtone sounds. He moves away from me, looking at the screen, and I see that it’s the hospital.
“Yes?” he says sharply. “Is everything
all right with Jade?” There’s a pause, and I try to read his face, which isn’t crumpling in despair, but nor is it lifting with relief. “Well, of course,” he says after a short while. “I’ll come down straightaway. Yes. Thank you.”
“Has something happened?” I ask as soon as he’s hung up.
He half nods. “Physically, she’s OK. But the doctor tells me that emotionally she seems troubled. She won’t tell them what’s wrong. It could just be delayed shock, of course. In any case, I need to get down there.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” I ask, then wish I hadn’t.
He looks at me a little awkwardly, his eyes meeting mine for a beat before he glances away. “You could, of course, but maybe it’d be best if I go alone for now. I’ll call you, let you know what’s happened.” He gives me a quick kiss on the forehead, clearly already preoccupied elsewhere. It’s as if the conversation we’ve just had hasn’t happened; it’s been superseded, blown out of the water.
I watch him go, and I try not to let it sting. It makes sense that he’d want to see her alone first. He’s her father, after all. I think of all the times I’ve seen them together, the silent bond of intimacy that flows between them like a river, the automatic understanding of each other. From what I can tell, they don’t talk much about their feelings, but they’re synchronized somehow. They seem to know what the other needs at any given time, a knowledge that is faster than thought or reason. Little things. A cup of tea, a carefully chosen DVD. A spontaneous walk on the beach, a quiet night in. I’ve tried to second-guess these little rituals, but there’s no pattern to them.
My eyes are still on his departing back, but he’s walking fast up the promenade toward the taxi rank, reducing himself to a pinprick so I’m no longer sure if I’m still watching him at all. This just confirms what I already thought. He doesn’t trust me to do or say the right thing, not like he would have trusted her mother. The thought sends a wave of sadness sweeping over me. The past few days are digging everything up, uncovering the bones of our family and throwing them into stark relief. Now, more than ever before, it feels as if everything we’ve built together is more tenuous than I’d thought, and dangerously at risk of collapsing.
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