by Lucy Lawrie
It was like an arrow through me. He was ruthless in his directness, the way he shone it into all those places I wanted to hide. I wanted so much to just give in and say that I didn’t know, that I didn’t understand any of it. But I had a feeling that if I said that, he might reach for my hand, or lift my chin with his finger, the way he always used to, and then where would I be? I could accept that he might hanker after the past, after the young, glossy me he’d given up so long ago. But the idea that he might love what I’d become . . . well, it would simply unravel me.
‘She didn’t say anything like that.’
He gave me a look. ‘The doctor? I wasn’t asking what she thought. What do you think?’
I gazed through the windscreen at the sweep of the Georgian terrace: cold, hard, beautiful stone.
‘I feel like I’m disappearing.’
He was quiet for a minute or two. I realised, by the tension in my hands, in my jaw, that I’d been braced for the change of subject, or the humorous twist that I’d come to expect from Jonathan.
But Malkie just turned towards me, and looked me straight in the eye. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’
And suddenly it seemed a little easier to breathe.
*
Sophie grizzled all the way home, kicking her little feet against the inside of the cosytoe, and arching against the buggy straps. I had thought she might be pleased to be collected earlier than usual, but she seemed upset by the change in routine.
What had just happened there, with Malkie? The question drummed itself into my mind again and again, as relentless as my headache as I pushed the buggy up the hill in the rain.
Nothing – nothing had happened. He’d asked how I was feeling after my doctor’s appointment, and I’d told him. He’d asked if there was anything he could do, and I’d asked him to drive me to the nursery. That was it – one colleague helping another out, giving her a lift on his way home.
Colleagues? Would I have had that conversation with Annabel Masters, or Sandra the secretary?
Friends, then. Maybe enough time had passed now. Maybe it would actually be fine to have more of those conversations with him. We could walk to the sandwich shop together at lunchtimes, and I would feel him next to me like the sun on my skin, but it would all be okay. Made safe by the label of ‘friends’.
But then Helen’s voice cut through my thoughts. Friends? Come on, Cassie. He broke your heart, time and time again.
Yes he did. But he had my heart. He had my heart, in the first place, to be able to break it.
Whatever I’d felt, lying next to Malkie in his uncomfortable bed in his dingy flat, it had never been hollow.
It was a truth that my imaginary Helen didn’t seem to have any answer to.
As we turned on to Ravelston Dykes, Sophie stopped grizzling . . . and started bawling. I picked her up and carried her wedged on my hip, pushing the buggy with one hand. It didn’t make any difference, only that the wailing was closer to my ear.
‘Oh Sophie, Sophie. What’s Mummy going to do?’
Rather eerily, she stopped crying the moment that I opened the front door. I knew the house had been empty all day because Dita was visiting friends. But there was the sense that someone had been there. A feeling that the air in the house had just settled. I hesitated on the threshold and called out.
‘Hello? Dita? Are you there?’ No answer. I noticed one of Jonathan’s slippers lying in the middle of the otherwise tidy hall. I didn’t think it had been there when we’d left the house this morning. Then again, we had been in a rush.
‘Jonathan?’ I didn’t expect an answer – there was no way he’d be home at this time.
I stepped inside and it was then that I noticed a small slip of paper lying beside the mail. I leant down rather unsteadily, Sophie still balanced on my hip, and picked it up.
I’m watching you
I gasped, and spun around to look out onto the street, pulling Sophie against my chest. Nobody was there. I scanned the parked cars, but the few that were there all looked empty. A taxi drove past. Then a lady on a bicycle.
I went back into the house and locked the door.
I carried Sophie upstairs and looked round all the rooms, checking they were empty, checking nothing had been moved. I drew the blinds and curtains, thinking it might make me feel safe. It didn’t work though – it just gave the house a dim, closed-in feel.
I went back down the stairs slowly, looking straight ahead – trying to get out of my head the idea that we weren’t alone in the house. I went into the kitchen and rummaged around under the sink with one arm, crushing a protesting, backwardly horizontal Sophie against my chest with the other.
‘Hold on, hold on . . . here we are, Soph.’ I sat back on my heels and showed Sophie what I had found. ‘Nice wasp spray.’
Weapon in hand, I went back up to the bedroom and phoned Jonathan.
‘There’s some madman watching the house!’ I explained about the note, struggling to find enough breath to complete my sentences.
There was a long silence. At first I thought he was shocked, but then I heard a couple of faint clicking noises.
‘Jonathan. Are you typing?’
‘Hmm?’ Another long pause. ‘Nope.’
‘Listen, this could be serious. It could be a stalker.’
‘Don’t be silly, Cassie. It’s probably just a promotional thing. Maybe for that new pizza place that’s opened in Roseburn?’
‘Why would they send a slip of paper saying “I’m watching you”?’
‘We’ll probably get another one tomorrow with a twenty per cent off voucher.’ Jonathan was completely unflappable.
As I rang off a thought came to me. Bobby Spencer from the funeral home. It had to be him, getting back at me for his dismissal. Goodness knows how he’d got hold of my address.
A key turned in the front door. I rushed out to the landing and looked over the banisters just in time to see Dita coming in, laden down with shopping bags. By the time we’d got downstairs, she’d gone into the kitchen and was standing there looking bewildered. She was surveying the chaos all over the floor by the sink: bottles of bleach and laundry liquid, a carton of fabric softener lying on its side in a puddle of pearly fluid, an avalanche of freezer bags escaped from their box, a scattering of clothes pegs . . .
It was the sight of this – this crime scene of panic – that finally made my legs go weak, and my head go dizzy, forcing me to sit down on the nearest chair.
*
‘Bobby Spencer?’ said Jonathan later that evening while we were doing the dishes. ‘I thought you said he was a five-foot midget?’
‘So?’
‘Hmm. Doesn’t sound like the stalker type to me.’ Jonathan was still very sanguine about the whole thing, even after he had looked at the note and conceded that it was ‘a bit odd’.
‘That’s very illogical. A stalker could be any shape or size. The main thing is, we know that he hates me.’
‘Sweetheart, why would anyone hate you?’ His rubber-gloved hands were covered in soapy bubbles, but he twisted towards me and kissed my hair. ‘He might have issues with how you handled the business about his dismissal, but he doesn’t hate you.’
‘The way I handled it? You almost sound like you agree with him!’
‘Of course I don’t agree with him. Oh Cassie, let’s try and forget about it for tonight. Let’s talk about something else.’
He put a clean saucepan on the drainer and I picked it up, drying it slowly.
‘Well there is something else I need to tell you, actually. I had a bit of a strange turn at work today. I sort of went dizzy and fell over.’
‘Did you? Are you okay?’ He turned to face me.
‘I went to the doctor’s – they had a cancellation.’
‘And what did they say?’
‘Oh, nothing really.’
‘Oh, right. Maybe you’re just tired. I’ll cover Sophie’s wake-ups tonight.’
He went back to rinsing the soa
p bubbles out of one of Sophie’s bottles. There was no concern in his voice, but I thought I’d better pass on the doctor’s reassurances anyway.
‘She didn’t seem to think it was a brain tumour or anything.’
‘Cassieeeeee!’ his voice slid up, rich with affectionate mockery. ‘Have you been watching Holby City again?’
‘Jonathan, I don’t know why I even BOTHER talking to you.’ I shoved the tea towel into his chest and walked off.
10
Late one evening, not long afterwards, I initiated a heart-to-heart with Dita. Jonathan had been away on business for a few nights, and Dita and I had fallen into the pattern of having extended toast and tea sessions at bedtime. It was a delaying tactic, on my part – I didn’t want to go to bed. Since the arrival of the note, I’d started a complicated process of checking the doors and windows, sometimes twice or three times. After the completion of this exercise, I would go to bed and lie awake in the dark worrying – about my dizziness and other suspicious symptoms, about Jonathan and his nightmares, about Bobby Spencer and his complaint, about who could have left the note and what they might do next. A week had passed without further incident, prompting a self-satisfied, ‘See?’ from Jonathan. But I couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that settled over me whenever I was by myself in the house.
The late-night chats with Dita were a good way to keep all this at bay, however. Buttering our third round of toast, we got onto the subject of Dita’s family in Holland (Oma and Opa and all that) and it seemed natural, somehow, to say that I had asked Jonathan about his father. I wondered if she would flinch and stiffen, like Jonathan, at the mention of the subject, but she simply nodded and raised an enquiring eyebrow.
‘Did Jonathan have a falling out with his dad before he died?’ I asked. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking . . . it was just something he mentioned which made me wonder.’
Dita looked surprised for a moment, then shrugged and gave a half smile. ‘Oh, it was just one of those silly things,’ she said. ‘I kept telling him, afterwards, that it didn’t matter – that his dad would’ve been laughing about it. But I don’t know if Jonathan ever came to see it that way. You see, he’d asked his dad if he could go on a weekend to Newcastle with some of his rugby friends. He was only fifteen, the youngest of them, and Frank thought they were planning to be drinking most of the weekend, so he said no. I felt for Jonathan, in a way – he was always the one who came up against the boundaries, being the eldest, and so much more outgoing than Stephen. Frank used to come down harder on him.’
For a brief moment, he flashed into something real, this blank face on Sophie’s family tree. He was a parent trying to feel his way, just like Jonathan and I were now.
‘Jonathan was really angry about it, and just as Frank was leaving the house to go to work, he shouted something out – that he hated him, or something like that. Frank didn’t look round, he just got in his car and drove away.’
I wondered whether Dita remembered Jonathan’s actual words, whether it hurt her to remember them too.
‘It was later that day he collapsed. Someone phoned me from his office. It took us ages to get to the hospital, because it was raining heavily and the traffic was dreadful. Jonathan spent the day and half of that night by his dad’s bed, gripping his hand and saying, ‘I love you, I love you,’ over and over again. Frank couldn’t hear him – he was unconscious. When he finally passed away, Jonathan stopped speaking. He didn’t speak for three days afterwards.’
‘But any dad would have known . . .’ I began.
‘I know,’ agreed Dita. ‘It was just one of those things. Jonathan and his dad were so alike in some ways. I expect Frank would have been trying to hide a smile, even as he drove away that morning.’
‘Was Frank a good father?’ I asked.
‘Yes, he was a wonderful dad. He worked so hard, such long days, trying to give us all security. But he took every opportunity to spend time with the boys, too. When they were little he would come in from work and sit down on the floor, still wearing his suit, so he could build Lego with them. He took them camping, and taught them to light fires and tie knots and all that kind of thing. He’d sit and listen to Stephen’s violin practice every night, and drive him back and forward to orchestra rehearsals. And when Jonathan got into rugby, he drove him around to sports fixtures all over the country – every weekend without fail. He would stand on the sidelines and watch, whatever the weather. He wouldn’t shout out or anything, not like some of the other dads – he was a bit shy like that – but he knew he was there just the same.’
‘And was he a good husband, too?’ I spoke hesitantly, wondering if I was overstepping some invisible boundary. But I was keen to hear the answer; the question of what constituted a ‘good husband’ – or a ‘good wife’ for that matter – was very much on my mind.
Dita smiled, and patted my hand. ‘Yes, he was. I loved him very much. But I had my regrets too, when he died. I had an affair, you see.’ She glanced up, scanning my face for a reaction. ‘About a year before he died.’
I nodded, and she went on.
‘Frank and I were a good match on many levels. We had fun, and we were very fond of each other. We were a good team, good parents together. But I used to feel there was a whole other dimension to me that he just didn’t . . . get. The man who was my lover – well, he was very passionate, into poetry and music and all that kind of thing. He used to talk to me – really listen – as if I was a really fascinating person.’ She gave an ironic laugh. ‘I got addicted to it. But although I felt at the time that he knew me better than anybody had ever done before, when I look back I don’t recognise that woman. I don’t relate to her much.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, this man – Tony, his name was – was one of Frank’s old schoolfriends. So we all knew him quite well. He used to come round for dinner sometimes . . . but then we ended up on a museum committee together. We went out for a drink once, after a meeting, and got talking.’ She shrugged her shoulders and sighed heavily.
‘So you were thrown together by circumstance.’ Just like Malkie and me, both working at McKeith’s. The thought seemed to come from nowhere. I dismissed it. ‘Sorry, go on.’
‘I ended it as soon as I came to my senses. But I always wondered whether Frank knew, or suspected at least. I think perhaps the boys did too.’
‘But nothing was ever said?’
‘Nothing was ever said. And . . .’
‘No, don’t worry, I won’t say anything.’
We were quiet for a minute. She sat biting her lip, gazing down at her feet.
‘So why do you think Frank knew?’ I asked.
‘That last year, he seemed to withdraw from me somehow. Nothing you could put your finger on, but still . . . something. I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t certain whether he knew or not, didn’t want to make things worse. But secrets, things left unspoken . . . they can . . . I don’t know. I think I might have broken his heart, Cassie. I think I might have.’
I was shocked to see a tear trickle down her face.
‘After he died, of course, I fell in love with him again.’ She tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘Of course I did. So predictable.’
‘Why?’
Her voice when she spoke was low, measured. ‘All that love had become twisted into the fabric of everyday life. I couldn’t see it for what it was. When everyday life was finished, the love sprang up again, everywhere. Everywhere, uncontrollable, like a hillside on fire.’
I sat for a moment, trying to absorb what she’d said, wanting to think about it a little more. But Sophie’s baby monitor, which I’d placed on the table beside me, burst into life. Her cries were high-pitched, terrified, as though she’d woken from a bad dream.
‘I’ll go,’ said Dita, springing to her feet. I felt a pull towards Sophie – she’d need me if she was frightened. I wanted to go to her, but Dita was already halfway out of the room.
‘You just relax,’ she called
over her shoulder. ‘Let me do this. Nana Dita is on the case.’
11
The Babycraft crew was coming round to our house for a ‘get-together’, arranged in the wake of the country house weekend fiasco. This had seemed like a good idea at the time, but on the big day, having clocked up three half-hour blocks of sleep the previous night, I found it almost inconceivable that I could have agreed to this. Sophie had woken only twice, but Jonathan had woken at around four with one of his nightmares and I’d lain awake for the rest of the night.
Dita had a headache that morning and Jonathan was out playing golf with clients, so I took Sophie with me to Marks and Spencer to buy food for the guests. My usual indecisiveness about food shopping ballooned into total paralysis. I had been intending to make wholesome curried chickpea soup and home-made bread but I emerged, an hour later, with ten packets of sausage rolls and three Victoria sponges. It might have had something to do with Sophie having an explosive nappy incident whilst we were perusing the vegetables, and a long interlude when I had to change her nappy and clothes crouching on the floor of the customer toilet.
By the time I got home I was so exhausted I could barely stumble through to the kitchen to switch on the oven to heat up. I shook my head, wondering at my audacity in thinking I might have the time or energy to make curried chickpea soup . . . and home-made bread?
First to arrive were Molly and Dave – the hypno-birthers – and their baby son Cam.
‘Oh look,’ said Jonathan as we watched them park the car from the sitting room bay window. ‘It’s Camomile.’
‘Don’t!’ I said, whacking him on the arm with an empty sausage roll packet, scattering flakes of puff pastry over the carpet. ‘One of these days I’m going to actually call him that by mistake. It’s Cameron, as you well know.’
‘Oh, yes, sorry, Cameron,’ said Jonathan absently. Then, as we watched them approach the front door, he frowned deeply. ‘My God. How unfortunate. Is it normal for a seven-month-old to have such an enormous head!’