‘Get away from me,’ I tell him, my words slurred and incoherent. I have no energy to fight.
‘I can’t understand you.’ He lies me down, tucks his body close. He kisses me, his lips cold and wet against mine. ‘I never could understand you, Chloe. All I wanted was for you to be with me, for us to be a family. You should have stayed with me. I never wanted to hurt you. Not then. Not now.’ He squeezes me tight.’
I don’t know how long we stay there, lying in a nest of wet leaves, his arms wrapped around me. I can feel his weight, his breath, the warmth of his touch. I drift for a while, in and out like I did in the hospital, uncertain whether I am awake or asleep. Am I bleeding again? Is my brain swelling? I try to wriggle out of his grasp, but as soon as I move, he reaches for me again.
‘Get away from me,’ I say, pushing at him with limp arms.
‘We can forget all this, Chloe. Put it behind us. We have both made mistakes, right?’
‘You killed my son,’ I shout, edging away from him. ‘You took him from me.’
‘You think I killed him?’ He looks as if he might cry, one hand on his chest, his palm flat against his heart. ‘How could you say that after I told you what happened with my brother? It was an accident. You hit the car, forced me off the road.’
I shake my head. Pain tears through me, throbbing hot and cold all at once. ‘You took him. It’s your fault he’s dead.’
‘You wouldn’t listen, Chloe. You forgot how perfect we could be.’ He gets to his feet and looks down at me huddled in the dirt. ‘I think even now you can’t remember how good we were together. How many times will it take for you to fall for me before you understand what we have? Your father keeps telling me to be patient, to give him time, but how long am I supposed to wait?’
‘My father?’
‘He’s helping you, Chloe. He’s helping us. Soon you’ll have forgotten your old life, and we can build a new one together. It’ll be so good, I promise. Only yesterday you woke in my arms in my flat. How many nights did we dream of that? Don’t tell me it didn’t feel good. I know it did. That’s why I can’t understand why you’re wearing that.’ He snatches at my hand, pulls at my finger in a desperate attempt to remove my wedding ring.
I struggle against him, try to fight. Thoughts of my father’s lies overwhelm me. ‘Whatever we have between us now is not real, Guy. I didn’t know what you’d done.’
He stands like a jack-in-the-box, dropping my hand. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he shouts. He begins pacing back and forth, his feet heavy in the wet ground. Talking to himself. ‘It wasn’t my fault. You hit the car. You ran me off the road.’
‘You kidnapped my son.’ I haul myself backwards, desperate to get away. The effort feels monumental. I listen out for the sound of a car on the road above, but I hear nothing. Nobody will find me here. I feel around on the ground, searching for something to arm myself with. A rock, a branch. Anything.
‘It’s not too late. You can still tell the police that Damien Treadstone ran you off the road. That would be it, over. Finished. Your father told me that’s what you would do, and I don’t understand what’s changed.’ I shake my head. He takes two quick steps, one foot either side of my body. ‘But if you’re not going to do that, you leave me with little choice.’
I see him raise his fist, bring it down towards me. In a desperate burst of energy I kick up with my legs, one foot striking him in the groin. He buckles and I use the chance to crawl away, hauling myself across the ground. I can feel his hands grappling for my foot and I urge myself forward, my fingertips struggling to find a grip. I scream as he drags me back, pulls himself on top of me. It’s hard to breathe as he grips my throat.
‘Stop shouting, Chloe,’ he says. ‘Nobody can hear you.’
My hearing begins to fuzz over, his lips moving soundlessly. And in that moment, as my vision fades, I know that this is the place where I will die. I try to focus on his face, my eyes full of rain.
‘When will you understand that I won’t let you go?’ he says. ‘I can’t, Chloe. I love you so much.’ The pressure of his grip grows, his fingers locked around my neck. I try to breathe. I can’t. I can’t see. This is it. He’s going to kill me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, as loudly as I can, though it comes out as little more than a whisper. But my apology isn’t for him. It is for Joshua, for the fact that he was lost because of my mistake. It is for Andrew because I ruined our last chance to make things work. It is also for me, to beg for absolution in my last moments.
‘I’m sorry too, Chloe,’ he says.
At that moment I see blurred movement behind him, and the pressure of his touch eases as he senses something coming towards us. I watch as his eyes widen, as his body collapses away from mine. A deck of cards, down. And in his place I see Andrew standing there, a huge tree branch gripped in one hand. With the other, he reaches down and scoops me up, and I cling to him as we make for the embankment. We reach out for anything we can find to hold onto, hauling ourselves forward up the uncertain slope. But before we reach the road, we hear movement behind us, and I turn to see Guy back up on his feet.
‘Andrew, faster,’ I shout, but it is Guy who picks up his pace. He lunges forwards, grabs hold of my leg. Despite Andrew’s efforts to hold me tight, I slip back down the embankment. Guy grapples for my arms, but this time his movements are slower, less precise. I manage to slip from his grasp and pull myself forward on the strong root of a sturdy tree. I cling on tight with one hand, search for a weapon with the other. Still Guy’s hands grip my leg. And then finally my fingers brush against the sharp surface of a rock, and my hand slips around it. As Guy pulls me back towards him, I let go of the tree root.
I don’t give him a chance to take hold of me. I channel all my strength into the rock, striking him again and again, the spray of blood warm against my cheeks. He slips to the ground, lifeless, just as Andrew reaches my side.
He helps me up and we stand there for a moment, staring at Guy’s body, prone, face down. ‘I think I killed him,’ I say, dazed. Andrew doesn’t react; instead, he picks me up and carries me up the embankment, not stopping until we reach the edge of the road.
There he sets me down and cradles me close. His fingers move to check my head, oozing blood. I can barely see the trees on the other side of the road, but I can hear them, disturbed by rain and strong wind. I hear the wail of a police siren approaching. I keep my eyes on the embankment, waiting for movement through the leaves, waiting for Guy to appear. What will we do if he does? Andrew holds me tight as we both gasp for breath.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply. I look at my husband, here, now, saving me. ‘How did you know I’d be here?’
‘The police got the CCTV footage, found evidence of Guy taking your car on the night of the crash. They went to his house to look for him, but he’d already left. They called your parents and Jess told them you were with him, and where you were going. She called me because she knew I was closer than the police. She found the New Hope flyer in your coat pocket.’
Thank God he came. I gaze down the dark road towards the sound of the sirens getting closer. ‘They’ll be here soon.’ I look back to Andrew. ‘What if I’ve killed him?’ I ask, certain after that many strikes he must be dead.
He shakes his head. ‘Then it’s over,’ he says.
The first police car pulls up along the side of the road. I see DS Gray heading towards us. DC Barclay runs just behind. She pulls a torch from her belt and flicks it on, veers off towards the trees.
‘Is he down there?’ DS Gray asks, and I nod in reply. He calls to DC Barclay. ‘Cath, be careful.’
I watch the torch beam as it bleeds into the thickness of the woods, disappearing as DC Barclay descends the slope, and I think about everything I’ve lost. Precious things that can never be replaced. But that is also how I know that Andrew is still mine.
Because after everything that’s happened, he is still here, still holding on. Despi
te all those years, all those times I thought he was lost, I realise, as he holds me in his arms, that he must have been here all along.
FORTY-FOUR
My mother knocks on the door a little after eight, sets a steaming cup of tea on my bedside table alongside the picture of me with Andrew and Joshua.
‘We should be looking to leave at about nine,’ she says. I sit up, push the sheets away from me. The air is cool but comfortable. ‘Anything you want for breakfast?’
‘Just some toast,’ I say as I reach for my tea.
I tie my hair into a pigtail and slip on a pair of jeans, pulling a light cardigan over the top. I stare in the mirror at the scar across my head. All that’s visible is an inch-long scar that extends from underneath my hairline. The rest of it is covered by new growth, and can only be seen if you part my hair in the right place.
After breakfast, we climb into the car. I sit in the front seat next to my mother. In the boot is one small suitcase, the last of my possessions to be taken from my old room here. I look up at the house, almost unable to believe that I won’t be coming back.
‘It’ll be strange once you’ve gone,’ I hear my mother say, her voice quiet, apologetic.
‘I know,’ I say as I reach over and touch her hand. ‘But you’ll get used to it.’
She laughs a little, but there’s no humour in it. ‘I’m not so sure about that. It’s a big house to be in on your own.’ She sighs heavily. ‘Maybe I should sell it.’
‘Where would you go?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Brighton,’ she says, a small smile hovering on her lips. ‘A nice little house near the sea.’ I can appreciate that kind of dream. ‘I could move closer to you.’
I smile. ‘I would like that.’
I chose to come back here after that night in the woods. The doctors wouldn’t let me return to my house alone. Andrew wasn’t anywhere near ready to leave rehab or be responsible for me, and I had nowhere else. But I refused to return to the place where my father was living. So my mother told him to leave.
‘Are we all set?’ she asks as she starts the engine. ‘Ready to go?’ I look back at the house one last time, the winter sun bright in the windows. There is a light, almost transparent mist floating above the lawn. ‘Ready if you are,’ I say.
I still struggle to believe that my father was helping Guy resurrect the brief relationship we’d shared, that he lied about my husband and the death of my child. He’s been back to the house just once since I returned here, in order to collect some things. He lingered in his study until he caught me briefly in the hall. He wanted to apologise, he said, for everything he’d done. He told me he couldn’t bring himself to verbalise the lies one by one. But I think even now he is most upset by the fact that he got it wrong, that he trusted Guy when he told him he had nothing to do with the accident. That he believed Guy loved me and wanted us to create a life together.
My father had known about the two of us for weeks before the accident; he admitted that he had seen us together. He thought Guy was my second chance. I suppose we both got it wrong, misjudged the person Guy really was. Still, my father’s meaningless apology and feigned remorse failed to move me. He still calls the house sometimes, talks to my mother on the phone. But we are finished. I want nothing more to do with him, and I think my mother feels the same. I’ve heard her late at night talking on the phone with Peter. Once I even heard her laughing. I tell myself to keep believing that she too can move forward after this.
At the hospital, Dr Gleeson asks me a whole list of questions before he tells me I am doing just fine. After that, we drive along the coast road, the same journey we took on the day I was first discharged. But that is where the similarity with that journey ends. Now I see everything through different eyes. Back then I thought there was no hope of remembering who I was. Who I am. But now I know that hope resides in the darkest of places. You just have to be prepared to search in the shadows, because alongside them you will always find the light.
My mother stops the car in the lay-by outside the entrance to the Palace Pier, just as we agreed. The lights are bright and glaring, the hum of the music audible over the song of the rolling waves. She pulls on the handbrake, turns to face me.
‘Don’t forget this,’ she says, handing me a rolled-up towel. The gulls call out overhead, circling in excitement in the weak sunlight. I listen to the distant sounds coming from the amusement arcade halfway along the pier. ‘I’ll take your bag and drop it off like you asked me to, and then I’ll call in at Ben’s mother’s house, tell them you’ll be over later.’
‘Thanks. They need us to keep helping them.’
‘Of course.’ After I returned home I found the reason Ben had been in my room. We were never a couple, nothing more than friend besides that one time when we nearly kissed. We had both been so embarrassed by it after the event.
He had left a note under my pillow, explaining the things I couldn’t remember about our relationship. It turns out he is the sole carer for his mother, who is suffering with Alzheimer’s. I had been spending time with her whenever I could because I remain one of the few people she could remember. When I read that it made me feel as if I had roots in an older version of my life; even though I couldn’t remember myself, somebody who had forgotten nearly all other people, including her son, still knew the person I used to be. He was desperate for me to start seeing her again.
‘And I’ll put your house key back through the letter box,’ Mum says.
‘No,’ I tell her as I step from the car to the sound of breaking waves, the push of the wind strong against my skin. ‘Hang onto it. You never know when I might need a spare.’
For a moment she looks as if she might cry, that briefest moment of trust stirring something unexpected in her. ‘Chloe, please tell him again how sorry I am. For everything I was a part of.’ And then she drives away, and I wonder when I’m going to see her again.
Sunshine comes and goes as fluffy grey clouds pass above me. I follow the steps down until I reach the beach, where I see Andrew waiting next to the kiosk selling fish and chips in cones. He is exactly where he said he would be. I look at my watch. I am early.
For a moment I just stand there, staring. His cheeks are pink from the wind, his lips chapped from the cold. It’s Andrew who speaks first. ‘Are you sure you want to do this today?’
‘Dr Gleeson gave me the all-clear.’ I look around the beach. There are only a few people here, braving the elements, sipping on drinks in the nearby café. It’s a beautiful day, though, the sky bright. Eight weeks have passed since that night when I learnt the truth, and since then, I have grown stronger. I need this moment for myself. ‘And he did say that I am supposed to get back to normal life.’
We walk together in silence towards the water, the pebbles shifting and crunching under our feet. Today we have the whole stretch to ourselves. I hand Andrew the towel and pull my jumper over my head, exposing the plain black swimsuit underneath. I slip my feet from my trainers and step out of my trousers. I shiver as my bare feet touch the soft curves of the pebbles underfoot.
‘Joshua would have loved this,’ I tell him, and Andrew simply nods his head. This is our place, I think, the place we came to as a family. I reach down, arrange some of the stones into a little pile. ‘So I know where to swim back to.’ Then I notice a small dead flower that has been washed up on the beach. I pick it up and place it by the rock pile. It feels like he’s here with me. Will it ever hurt less than this?
Andrew steps forwards, kisses me on the cheek. ‘I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.’
I walk down to the water’s edge, let the cold bite my ankles. I gaze out to sea, take a step forward and the water swirls up around my knees. A few steps more and it’s up to my thighs. I stop, turn back. Andrew is still there, sitting on the beach, his cold hands tucked inside his armpits. He motions for me to get going. Whatever happens between us, I know things will be all right. I will make sure of that now.
Beca
use I knew what had happened on the night of the accident even before Guy attacked me in the clearing where Joshua died. It came back to me while I was sitting in the bus shelter, looking out to sea after leaving the meeting with Damien Treadstone. It was the sight of the hotel behind me that did it, the place where the Roberta awards were held. The couple walking arm in arm. I suddenly remembered leading Guy away, luring him under the pier. What a thrill he was that night. And it all flooded back then: the park, the abduction, the accident. The affair. The fact that he had killed my son. And in that moment I wanted to hurt him so much, make him pay for what he had done. What he was doing.
When I picked up that knife in the kitchen, I wanted to kill him. But just the sight of him and I lost my nerve. Those few moments made me realise I couldn’t use a weapon anyway, otherwise his death wouldn’t look like self-defence. But I felt sure that if I could get him to the site of the accident, I could find a way to hurt him. I considered trying to crash the car as we drove through the city, even taking hold of the wheel. But I wasn’t prepared to die for him. It was a risk that nearly backfired when he got the upper hand, overpowered me. But I got there in the end, drove that rock straight at him. He got what he deserved.
The police completed their investigation, but nobody questioned our version of events. He fell in the fight, banged his head when I pushed him away. I might have hit him once, but it was all just a blur. I’m sorry, I can’t remember. But they didn’t question it when I told them how Guy forced me into the car, threatened to kill me, especially once they saw the bruises he left on my skin in the struggle. They assumed he had decided to hurt me because I’d told him the police were involved and that we knew where the second car had been stolen from. They figured he was trying to cover up his mistakes, which I suppose wasn’t all that far from the truth anyway.
Even though he’s dead, there are still times I think I see him, following me, watching me. Just like he used to do while we were together, spying on me while I was down at the beach with Joshua. What a dangerous game I played. Even now, as I look up to the pier, the water chilling against my waist, I think for a second that I can see him there, hanging over the rails, watching me as I wade further and further from shore. But then I blink and he is gone. Will the memory of him trail me like a shadow for the rest of my life? Remind me of how much I used to want him? Need him? Hate him? Maybe. I just don’t know.
Between the Lies Page 26