‘But I went to my house,’ I say, shaking my head in disbelief. ‘It was like you had tried to erase them. And the therapy sessions, they leave me so confused. I can’t remember anything properly.’ I’m losing some of my strength, I can feel it. My certainty is going up in smoke, the slow drift of embers from a fire.
He steps forwards, offers me his hand. I don’t take it, don’t want his skin against mine. ‘Come with me, Chloe.’
We leave the drawing room, me two paces behind him until we reach the door to the cellar. Without a word he turns the key, opens the door and reaches for the light switch. Halfway down the steps, he stops, turns to face me, my mouth dry, my hands shaking. ‘I thought you said you wanted their things. You don’t look very sure about it to me.’
From where I am standing my father is cast in shade, his eyes two black pits without emotion. I don’t want to be down here with him. But if he has their things, perhaps seeing them, holding them in my hands, will help me remember them better. Help me remember myself and explain the mess I have created. I watch every step I take as I follow him into the dark.
When we reach the bottom, he pulls another ceiling cord and a second hanging light above our heads sputters awake. I can just about make out the boundary walls as the light rocks back and forth, our shadows swelling and receding. Dust fills my throat and lungs with each breath. He turns and beckons me to follow, his pale face grey as a corpse.
Fear swells inside me, like a fever. I try to convince myself that it’s just the cellar that scares me, silly childhood demons about what lurks down here in the underbelly of our house. But it’s my father I’m frightened of, the rage I have seen spill from him, his expert manipulations and the fact that he knows so many things I do not. He has all the answers, but I don’t even know the questions to ask. He can tell me who I am, but after what I have learnt, I’m no longer sure I want to know.
In a small windowless chamber he crouches down, peels back a grey dust sheet. We cough and wheeze as a cloud of dirt encircles us like smog. Underneath there are four bulging black refuse sacks, each sealed at the top with a cross of brown packaging tape. I watch as he retrieves a Stanley knife from a cupboard and slices through the first cross, splitting it open with one silvery pass of the blade. Men’s clothes spill out like autumn leaves from a weathered garden sack.
He stands back, holds out a hand. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
I drop to my knees in front of the open bag and rifle through, lifting shirts and scarves and old T-shirts. A faint smell of mould drifts into the air, and I notice that some of the clothes have furry patches of green spreading across them. At one point I hear my mother arrive behind me, but my father shoos her away. Then, as I pull an old tartan shirt from the bag, a small white garment falls to the floor, closed at the bottom with three silvery buttons. A babygro. I hold it up to my nose, try to breathe in the scent. I get nothing. No memory comes back to me, no soft aroma of bathtime and cuddles, no tangible trace of an old life still lingering down here in the dark.
I feel my father’s hand on my shoulder. With a degree of effort he sits down on the cold, damp floor.
‘Leave me alone,’ I tell him.
‘I can’t do that,’ he says softly, shuffling closer. He’s a different person from moments ago, a complete shift in personality. Where is the anger, the irritation, the certainty that he knows best? He reaches for my hand but I move it away. I don’t want his comfort. I’m not even sure I deserve it.
‘Why, Dad? Why did you keep their things from me?’
When I look up, he is blinking anxiously. He isn’t sure of himself any more, and I realise he is about to cry. It all comes back in that moment. I remember the day I stood in the hallway and told my parents I was pregnant. How my father wept over Joshua’s conception, how he saw my life failing before it had even got started. He thought Andrew was a loser, and believed that the little thing growing in my womb, no bigger than my fingernail at the time, was going to tie me to him forever. How wrong he was; how fickle life is, I think as we sit here now, crying over my son’s death.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says finally. He reaches into his pocket and produces my wedding ring. He holds it out for me to take. I turn it over in my fingers, unsure what to do with it. ‘I found it under the footstool.’ Then he looks to the bags. ‘It wasn’t like I threw their things away, Chloe. I brought them here to be kept safe.’
But what does it even matter any more? These clothes are just things, belongings. The ring, despite the engraving of our names on the inside surface, is just a ring. There are no memories locked inside. I can never get Joshua back, and it sounds as though what I had with Andrew was ruined before the crash even happened. Regardless, I slip the ring back in place on my left hand.
‘I left him, Dad. I left him and took his son. Now Andrew’s in rehab, Joshua’s dead, and I can never undo what I’ve done.’
He moves towards me and holds me tight. ‘This isn’t your fault, Chloe. You could never have known what was going to happen. It was just a terrible accident.’
I draw back. ‘That’s not what you said in the beginning, though, is it? You told me I was to blame.’
‘I was wrong. It was just an—’
‘No, you were right. I understand now.’ I remember all the times I left Andrew crying; the times I ran away leaving him begging for my forgiveness. I used to scoop Joshua up, take him from the house. In Andrew’s darkest moments I took the precious thing we had created away from him. What kind of person must I have been to leave when he needed me most? Even though I had to protect Joshua, how could I have abandoned the man I loved, letting him sink further into the darkness of his addiction? ‘You knew I was having an affair, didn’t you?’ I say. ‘You tried to cover it up by not telling me what had happened.’
My father edges away, puts his hands in his pockets and then pulls them out again. It takes him a moment to answer. ‘No, Chloe, that can’t be true. You loved Andrew. I was wrong to tell you that you didn’t.’
‘Then why did I leave him?’
‘Because of his drinking, of course.’ He is using the voice he thinks will make me believe him. The voice that suggests he knows best. ‘You would never have done something like that, Chloe. How could you—’
‘Yes she would.’
We both look up to see Jess standing at the foot of the stairs.
‘She would, Dad, and you know it.’
He takes a step towards her. ‘Jessica, get back up those stairs,’ he says. There’s a hint of familiar anger in his voice, and a slither of fear returns to me. I see Jess gripping the handrail, desperately trying to be strong. ‘That’s quite enough from you.’
But she’s shaking her head. ‘No, Dad. She has to know. This isn’t working. She has to know the truth.’
‘Jessica, I’m warning—’
‘Chloe, you were having an affair,’ she blurts out. She comes forward, moving into the light. She looks older in that moment, as the light shines down on her face, shadows forming beneath her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. She has been drained by this too, just like the rest of us. ‘You came here two weeks before the accident, told us that you were leaving Andrew. That you’d met somebody else,’ she continues. ‘But then you talked to Andrew again and he promised you it would be different this time. You told me you weren’t sure, that you were having doubts about leaving with this other man. Dad was devastated, thought your second chance was slipping through your fingers.’
I glance over at my father, whose head is hanging in shame. He looks defeated. He knows it’s too late now, that there’s no turning back from the truth. I look back at Jess, see the tendons in her neck strained and tight.
‘On the night of the crash, you announced that you were going back to Andrew. You’d changed your mind, you said. You’d given up your job and the three of you were going to move away. Dad tried to stop you, and you argued. You left angry. Then you had the accident, and when you woke up, you couldn’t rem
ember anything about what had happened. Couldn’t remember them, or us. But you kept dreaming about that night. About the crash. Dad was only trying to help you, Chloe.’
I look over at him, leaning against the wall by the stairs. ‘Trying to help?’
He wipes his eyes on a handkerchief. He looks so small and broken, all his efforts in vain. ‘You felt so guilty about the affair, Chloe. Before you left here that night, you told me you were going to tell this other man once and for all that it was over.’ He shakes his head, unable to believe where we have found ourselves. ‘I didn’t agree, wanted you to leave Andrew. But you told me you wished you’d never started the relationship, wished that you could turn back the clock. I knew I could help you do that, if it was what you really wanted. I’ve been trying to help you forget about the accident because I believed it was the only way you might forget Damien.’
‘Damien? Don’t you mean Ben?’
He stands back, seems confused. ‘Ben? Where did you get that idea from?’
‘Jess said … and I remember…’ Dad looks to Jess for an answer, but she just shrugs her shoulders. Am I wrong?
‘Not Ben, Chloe. Damien,’ he says, looking away. ‘He was the man you were seeing.’
For a moment I remain silent. I try to place a memory of him, a memory of us. But I can’t. How is it that I can’t remember anything about what must have been such a significant part of my life? ‘Are you sure?’
‘Ask yourself this: why else would he have been there on that night?’
So there’s the truth. Is this why Damien is now trying to convince everyone that he wasn’t there at the crash? Is this why he has no verifiable alibi? Does it explain why I thought he seemed familiar? Because we were having an affair and I was going to tell him it was over between us?
I walk towards the stairs, dumbstruck at what my father has told me. Jessica speaks but I don’t hear what she says. When my father steps in my path I put up no resistance. I wait for him to relent. He does, let’s me pass.
‘Chloe?’ he asks. I stop, turn to face him. ‘What now?’
I say nothing and walk away.
I have to find Andrew, face up to what I did. Because through my actions alone, my decision to have an affair, I am responsible for everything that has happened. I know now that my father was right all along: I am to blame for the death of my son.
I don’t know what you thought would happen. What did you expect when we left together that night? It was you who started it, kissing me like that. It was you who led me away from the crowd, told me I had more important things to do. You, Chloe. You wanted me to do you.
Yeah, that’s what you told me. That’s what you whispered, letting your tongue brush against my ear. You wanted me to do you. To fuck you. Who would have turned that down? For God’s sake, just look at you. You are beautiful. So wonderful. Your skin, your eyes, the curve of your lips. Your fingers, and the way I learnt they could touch me. You became so much more to me than a one-night stand. I knew from the moment I touched you that that was it for me. No, that’s a lie. Nothing but the truth from here on in. I knew from the moment I saw you.
Andrew sounded like a waste of space, somebody who was dragging you down, making your life hell. You deserved so much more. Joshua deserved more. I knew I could give it to you. I tried to play it cool, but it was hard. So hard to smile, to watch you walk away like I didn’t care, as if we had all the time in the world to get it right. But which world, Chloe? It was as if we were living in two separate dimensions. You with him, then you with me. Which life did you want? I was sure I knew. I was so damn sure. I still am. I know you still want me.
So just be brave that little bit longer, Chloe. Try to hold it together. I’ve taken care of it all. I’ve made it so damn easy for you, just like you made it for me on that first night we were together. Just like I’m going to make the rest of your life. All you have to do is say yes.
THIRTY-FOUR
I let them call me a taxi, and when she offers, I take twenty pounds from my mother to pay for it. They ask me where I’m going, but I won’t tell them. I don’t want them to know where he is or what I’m doing. I want this for myself, a moment between a husband and a wife. I want to say sorry, to try to put things right, and to get back what I’ve lost from my memory. The things my father took. I want more than anything to protect Andrew when it seems that recently I might well have been doing anything but.
Light shines from the windows of New Hope rehab centre in the small village of Westmeston. I can smell woodsmoke, and as I step from the car, I see a man walking his dog, his hood pulled low, shoulders hunched against the cold.
‘You going to be all right?’ the taxi driver asks.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say as I peer through the window, hand over the money, the soft sounds of the radio jazz barely audible.
The car pulls away and I’m left standing all alone in an unfamiliar village. I told the driver I’d be fine, but I don’t know whether that’s true. I’m getting ready to face a man I have betrayed, a man I hardly even remember.
I stand there for a while, looking up at the building. New Hope is a sprawling place that looks as if it might once have been a farm. It reminds me of the old mill in that its function is no longer clear to see. To my left there is a new extension, while on the far side of the grounds I spot the ruinous remains of a barn, broken walls and holes in the roof that might on a clear night let moonlight shine through. Old machinery fills the space.
I take a deep breath and walk up the pockmarked driveway edged with overgrown winter roses. There’s a scent that takes me back to that night. Roses, I think. Something to do with the crash. But the memory leaves as quickly as it came to me, and I push on towards the building. Beyond it I can make out a distant outline of trees, picked out by the weak lunar light sneaking through a momentary break in the clouds. It’s just a chink in the armour of a deep night sky, a heavy expanse of black stretching endlessly ahead.
Apart from the presence of a small sign mounted on the external wall, the building resembles a slightly unloved house, a large but tired family home. The paintwork around the door is peeling and the grass is overgrown. There are patches of moss swamping the paving slabs and the lower segments of wall. But from inside I can hear noise and commotion, laughter and cheer. Music playing, an old George Michael song just ending. Another starting up in its place, perhaps the Pogues. Christmas music, I think, relieved to even have such a memory.
I knock on the door and wait. At the last minute I can feel the dressing on my head come loose, flapping about in the breeze. I don’t even need it any more, the wound long since healed. Up until now I just couldn’t bear to look at it so left it in place. I pull it off, slip it in my pocket, exposing the scar to the elements. After a moment I hear footsteps, soft on the other side, a voice in the tail end of conversation. I take a quick glance at my reflection in the glass and ponder what a mess I look, but it’s too late to worry now. It doesn’t matter. I hear the door handle, and seconds later heat hits me as a tall woman with long hair and a soft fringe opens the door.
She looks me up and down and I fiddle with my wedding ring, more uncertain of myself than ever before. She pulls the door shut behind her so the wind can’t get in. ‘Can I help you?’
‘My name’s Chloe. I was hoping to speak to Andrew. Andrew Jameson. I’m his wife.’ I swallow hard, aware of the pale skin and red scar cutting my left temple. It feels so cold and new.
‘Chloe,’ she says with understanding, her eyes kind. She moves aside, beckons me forward. ‘You had better come in.’
She opens the door wide and I step onto the plush red carpet of the hallway. A long table holds books, a floral arrangement, and a selection of mismatched knick-knacks. A large mirror hangs above, and I know if I see myself in this unforgiving light, I will look even worse than usual. I’m not ready to see the scar. The Christmas music continues, voices singing along, laughter in the background. The heat is almost unbearable.
‘
You’d better sign in first,’ she says, pointing to a book on the table. I notice a box alongside it full of Christmas raffle tickets. ‘Then have a seat. I’ll go and let Andrew know that you’re here.’
I pick up the pen, my hand poised above the page. I take a deep breath, press the nib down, and write my name. Chloe Jameson. The peculiarity of something so instinctive surprises me, a signature I haven’t tested in weeks. Chloe Jameson: am I still her? My handwriting is neater than a few days ago, forward-sloping and elegant in a modern way. I sit down in a chair and wait.
People pass by, women and men. They seem well put together, nice clothes and kind faces, a few who are wearing tabard uniforms. A stocky cleaner with sweaty hair and a red face wanders through carrying a mop and bucket, followed by a man in a black polo shirt with a foldaway ladder under his arm. They both smile at me, almost as if they have been expecting my arrival.
‘Is somebody seeing to you?’ the man with the ladder asks, breaking his stride when he gets close. He’s old, approaching retirement, his skin weathered and lined. When he smiles, his wrinkles deepen, forming a near-continuous crease across his cheeks, around his eyes and over his brow.
‘Yes, thanks,’ I say, and he gives me a satisfied nod, heading down a couple of steps where the light seems brighter and kinder. It’s as if he doesn’t even notice my injuries. I watch as he walks away, his casual and cheerful manner, and feel jealous of his easy life. His arrival in what I assume to be the kitchen is met with the clatter of pots and pans and laughter resonating through the corridor. It brings a smile to my face, reminds me of the cheery woman in Guy’s apartment building who was heading out for a run. Will I ever be able to find something simple like this again?
But then I realise that a man is standing in front of me, sense his presence like a shiver across skin. I look up, see the bright blonde hair and familiar grey eyes. Is it really him? For a moment I hesitate, until I hear him say my name.
Between the Lies Page 21