The Closer You Get

by Mary Torjussen

  “Yes. I took it with me.” She flushed. “Actually I smashed it that night, down by the river, and threw the pieces away. Don’t worry, nobody will find anything now.”

  I was overwhelmed with relief. “Oh, thank God. I wish you’d told me.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have. I just didn’t think. I was waiting for the postmortem results.”

  I saw telltale shadows under her eyes and knew she’d spent her nights the same way I had. My mouth was dry. “Do you know the results now?”

  She nodded. “Accidental death.”

  I was careful not to meet her eyes. We both knew the truth about that.

  “The funeral will be on Monday,” she said. “We had to wait for the results to come in before they’d release the body.” I saw her swallow. “Tom died from the bang on his head, when he hit it on the tiles. There was a laceration at the back of his scalp where it had hit the floor and his skull was fractured.” She stopped suddenly and looked down at her drink. I kept quiet. “He’d broken some ribs in the fall, too, and a couple of vertebrae were shattered in his lower back.” She took out a tissue and rubbed her eyes. “There was a lot of alcohol in his bloodstream. Three times the drunk-driving limit. He must have been drinking all day.”

  I thought back to that afternoon when I’d kneeled next to him to see whether he was alive. I hadn’t consciously noticed it at that point but late that night Harry had slipped into bed beside me when he got back from London. He’d had a couple of drinks on the train with one of the guys from work, and when he leaned over to kiss me, his breath had smelled just the same as Tom’s had. I’d jumped out of bed and run to the bathroom. I shuddered at the memory. “Did he normally drink a lot?”

  “He did, yeah. He said it relaxed him. It didn’t relax me, though. I’d be on tenterhooks wondering what fresh argument he’d come up with.”

  I saw a look on her face then as she remembered. For a moment I forgot what she’d done to me and reached out to touch her arm. “Did he hurt you? Was he violent?”

  She was quiet for a long time. Her face was pale, her eyes lowered. “When I lived with Tom there was always a threat in the air that was horrible to live with. He never hit me, but he hurt me in every other way you can hurt someone.”

  I winced.

  “It left me not trusting people. Anyone. I became hypervigilant. And”—her voice faltered—“not quite whole. For a while I felt as though I didn’t exist.”

  I knew, I just knew what had rescued her. Who had rescued her. I had to change the subject fast. “Did you realize he’d drunk so much that day?”

  “I hadn’t even thought of it when I went to the house. He was supposed to be working from home and I don’t think he ever drank when he was working.” She frowned, as if that thought just explained something from the past. “When I first got there he was really friendly. I didn’t even think he might be drinking. But then I heard him in the kitchen when the viewers had gone and I thought he was pouring a drink. Two, actually. The police officer checked the glass, remember? And when I . . .” She faltered. “When he was shouting at me, his face was right up next to mine.” She moved her hand so that the palm was an inch away from her face. “I could smell alcohol then.”

  Involuntarily I winced. “That must have been so scary.”

  She shrugged but I could see her eyes had filled with tears. “I was used to it.” She was quiet for a moment, then she said, “I thought he was coping. I thought he was okay now.” She dabbed her eyes again. “You know, he’d been lovely to me since I left. Really lovely. Supportive. Helpful. He was just like he used to be, years ago. I thought he wanted me to come back to him. I even thought I might. I could feel myself relenting. I was so lonely on my own. But then I realized what he was doing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was pulling me in so that he could dump me. He wanted to be the one to end things. He told me that his girlfriend was pregnant.” She faltered. “I hadn’t realized he meant you.”

  “I wasn’t his girlfriend,” I said firmly.

  She ignored that, as though she didn’t care whether I was or not. “And when I left him, things started to happen to me. I thought someone was coming into my flat. I couldn’t see how that could happen and they didn’t do anything much, but I just had a feeling.” She swallowed. “One night when I was asleep, too. And I found he’d got hold of the spare key by pretending to be my boyfriend.”

  I drew in my breath. “That must have been terrifying.”

  “It was. It was part of the reason I thought of going back to him. For safety. Over the last few weeks, I’d thought he was my friend.” Her voice rose. “Why did I think that, when he hadn’t been my friend for years?”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Ruby, for weeks he was telling me that he wanted to be with me. As a family, with the baby. He was convinced it was his.”

  We sat in silence.

  Eventually, she said, “And the baby’s definitely Harry’s?”

  I nodded. “Thank God it is.”

  “I didn’t realize you were still sleeping with him.” She looked completely crushed. “Harry said you weren’t.”

  My eyes rolled nearly to the back of my head. “Of course we were. Weren’t you? With Tom?”

  She was quiet, then she said, “It hadn’t happened with Tom in a long time. I think the fact we were trying to have a baby didn’t help. He saw it as a sign of failure in the end. And I learned that if I wanted him, he’d turn me down. Every single time.” She shook her head as if she wanted to get rid of that thought. “And then one day, he said something. He was so cruel.”

  “What did he say?”

  She shook her head, her eyes glossy with tears. “Sorry, I can’t stand to think about it.”

  “Get it out into the open,” I said. “Don’t let it fester. He can’t hurt you now.”

  She took a deep breath. “We were having a row at Christmas, the year before last. He always found it stressful. And afterward, I wanted to make up with him. I didn’t want a horrible atmosphere, especially not at Christmas. So I approached him, you know . . .” She faltered. “In bed. And he flinched. Actually flinched. It was automatic, he didn’t think about it, he just looked disgusted. He told me that I simply didn’t do it for him anymore. That I had, when I was younger. And that it wasn’t my looks, so much, though it was that, obviously. It was my personality. He said he’d lost all respect for me, that if he’d known this is how I’d turn out, he wouldn’t have married me. Wouldn’t have dated me. Wouldn’t have even spoken to me on the night we met.”

  “Funnily enough,” I said, “that’s exactly how I felt about him.”

  She stared at me, openmouthed, and then she started to laugh but within a minute she was in tears. She picked up her bag and went over to the restroom. When she returned, her face was red and her makeup had been washed away. I thought she wouldn’t say anything more but she drank her coffee, then carried on.

  “I went on the pill after that. I knew I didn’t want to have a baby with him. I didn’t tell him. I was so unhappy, but I just couldn’t pluck up the courage to leave. I remember thinking I was disappearing. That one day I’d look in the mirror and all I’d see was a ghost.” She looked up at me and I swear in that moment she had forgotten I was Harry’s wife. “And when I got involved with Harry, well, he brought me back to life.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “Well, that’s great,” I said, “but it was at my expense.”

  Her face crumpled. I jumped up and went up to the counter to order us another drink. I had to get away from her. I was horrified at what she’d said about Tom, but didn’t want to weaken. She’s not your friend, I kept saying to myself. She was having an affair with Harry. Don’t go feeling sorry for her now. But when I turned at the counter and saw her looking so frail, destroyed, really, it wasn’t hard to unde
rstand how she’d fallen for Harry. He’s a nice guy. A sympathetic listener. Easy on the eyes. I think that’s when it dawned on me that she had a reason for the affair; Harry hadn’t.

  When I sat back down she wrapped her hands around the coffee mug, as though its warmth comforted her. “Does Harry know what happened to Tom?” she asked.

  “I haven’t told him.” I added sharply, “Have you?”

  She shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “He hasn’t said anything to me. I kept the newspapers away from him.” There had been only a short piece in the local press about Tom, not even a photo. It said he’d died by falling downstairs when he was drunk, and warned readers to be careful. My name wasn’t mentioned; it just said that a family friend had seen him fall. That wasn’t exactly how I would have described myself. “I wondered whether he might have heard about it from someone at work, but I don’t think so.”

  Ruby drew a breath and I could see she was trying to pluck up her courage. “I need to ask you something. Something personal.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “When did you sleep with Tom?”

  I wasn’t expecting that one. “Remember when you went to Paris with Harry?” I said eventually. “I saw you at the airport with him. Kissing him.” I was glad to see guilt suffuse her face. “I’d suspected for a while, but when I saw you together . . . well, it was pretty obvious what was going on. I went round to Tom’s to tell him you and Harry were having an affair.” I gave her my famous brazen look. “And we slept together.”

  There was a dead silence, then she said, “I left home a few weeks after that trip. So you knew all that time ago?”

  “I guessed before then,” I said. “I’m not stupid, Ruby.”

  “And Tom knew, too. I didn’t realize.”

  “He only knew because I told him.” I felt a surge of shame but quickly curbed it. “I don’t think he had a clue beforehand. I’m sorry, but if you were having an affair with my husband, was I meant to just take it?”

  “No, of course not.” She brushed her hand across her eyes. “Why should you?” I could see her trying to control herself. “And now you’re pregnant. Why did you have the DNA report with you?”

  “I’d come round to prove to Tom that Harry was the father. I didn’t want to talk to him; I printed out the e-mail and was just going to put it through his door. Tom wouldn’t leave me alone. He was convinced it was his baby. He wanted to tell Harry that he wasn’t the father and watch him suffer, but it was more than that. He wanted to share custody of the baby. He seemed determined not to lose another child, as he felt he’d lost Josh. I would have had to have contact with him all of my life and I was terrified of that. When the results came in, I came straight over with a note telling him to keep away from me.”

  I thought of those early days of my pregnancy, of having my blood taken and collecting Harry’s nail clippings from the bathroom bin, terrified that the result would show the baby was Tom’s. I still felt light with relief when I thought of the result. It dawned on me the night Tom died, when I couldn’t sleep, that he could have still paid Harry a visit and told him I’d slept with him. He could have given the copy of the DNA test as proof that I was worried about the baby’s parentage. But even if he had, and even if I’d had to admit to sleeping with Tom, then at least the child was Harry’s. Still, I’d had a lucky escape; I knew that.

  “How did you find out that Tom knew about you and Harry?” I asked.

  She didn’t speak for ages and I had to stare at her quite hard to make her notice. Then she said in a quiet voice, “The day before . . . Well, the day before I saw you, I bumped into Harry in a café in Nantwich. We hadn’t planned to meet; it was just chance. He’d had a meeting with a client and was buying cakes to take back to the office. We had a talk. A coffee. We cleared the air. We won’t be seeing each other again.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, remembering that night and how I’d felt the distance between us. So that was why Harry had seemed to have something on his mind. “I’m glad you told me.”

  “I was an idiot,” she said. “I think I wanted to get out of my marriage and saw him as my savior.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I know. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “I just don’t understand,” I said. “Okay, so you bumped into Harry, but why did that make you realize that Tom knew about your affair?” Suddenly Ruby looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights and my stomach dropped. I knew she was going to say something really bad. “It doesn’t matter,” I backtracked, but she interrupted me.

  “No. You need to know. Harry and I were going to live together.”

  “What?”

  Her voice was unsteady. “I’m so sorry. It was a fantasy, on my part, at least. I was crazy to think I knew him well enough to do that. I got completely carried away.” There was a long pause, then she said, “I am so sorry I did that to you. I’m ashamed of myself.”

  I forced my face to be impassive. I didn’t want her to see the hurt that I felt inside. I said, “When was this?” but I knew. I still made her answer.

  “It was June twenty-first,” she whispered.

  She didn’t need to say it was the day that I found out I was pregnant. The day Harry came home late, with a huge bouquet of peonies. I’d been such a fool, thinking he’d bought them especially for me. I hadn’t talked to Jane until five o’clock that afternoon and all the florists around here would be shut at that time of day. That bouquet wasn’t for me at all; he must have bought it earlier in the day, before he knew I was pregnant. I felt a surge of anger. He’d bought my favorite flowers for Ruby, to celebrate leaving me.

  I looked at Ruby. She was scarlet, wringing her hands, the lot.

  I had to ask, but I really didn’t want to know the answer. “How long were you and he together?” I asked. I remembered last Christmas when he was distant, remembered a holiday we’d had in the spring, when he seemed to spend a lot of time on the phone “to the office.” And I remembered myself doing the pick-me dance again and again throughout our marriage, thinking he was a prize. What I deserved. He really wasn’t.

  She swallowed hard and I gripped my hands together. “Eighteen months,” she said.

  My mind was frantic as I tried to calculate. “Wasn’t that when you started working for him?”

  She lowered her eyes, her face a picture of guilt. “Yes. It started almost the moment we met.”

  And, just like that, the light went out in my marriage.

  CHAPTER 73

  Emma

  I left Ruby pretty soon after that. I could hardly bear to look at her. My whole body was hurting as though I’d been punched in the gut.

  Eighteen months of lies and deceit. It had started the moment they met.

  And I’d known. I’d known he had a crush on her. I’d actually acknowledged that. And looking at her today and how vulnerable she still was—you could see her flinch if there was a sudden noise, see the desperation to be liked, as though we could ever be friends now—and I knew that Harry had needed that. He’d told me once in an argument that got out of hand, years ago, that I was too strong. I hadn’t understood, hadn’t thought a woman could be too strong. I’d built up my strength, thinking it was an asset, but now I knew he must have loved being needed by Ruby. He’d always known I could manage without him: I wouldn’t want to, but I could.

  He was right.

  In our bedroom I saw the tangled sheets from the hours we’d spent making love the night before and suddenly everything was clear. When I first saw Harry with Ruby at the airport, all I’d wanted was revenge on her. But why her? He was the one who’d betrayed me. That night with Tom, both of us wanting revenge against our partners, coming together in an ugly mix of solace and revenge, it was Ruby I’d fixated on.

  I was wrong.

  And since then I’d thought that it was obvi
ous Harry and I were destined to be together. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I’d rewarded him for his betrayal with love and affection and more sex than we’d had in years.

  On the dresser were my new yoga clothes, bright and soft and hopeful. I pulled them to me, held them to my belly. I could feel the difference there now. Almost see the difference. In a few weeks’ time I would feel the first stirrings. A flutter. Harry and I had been reading my books on pregnancy and just last night when we lay in bed and talked about the future, he pushed up my pajama top and brushed his eyelashes against my skin.

  “That’s what it’ll feel like,” he’d said. “I can’t wait.”

  And, like a fool, I’d rolled over and kissed him, and made love to him as though he was something special. Precious. I was so relieved to have him back that I hadn’t realized that when something precious breaks, no matter how much you want to, you just can’t put it together again without noticing the difference. It’ll never be the same. You will always see the tiny fine lines that shoot out from the damage; they will deepen and spread and can’t be repaired.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was sitting in the living room, waiting for him when he came home from work. I’d had a busy day. When I left Ruby I’d called my sister, Jane, from my car. She came straight to my house and I told her everything. Almost everything. She winced when I told her about Harry’s affair with Ruby. I was gratified by her response when I told her I’d slept with Tom. I didn’t tell her that I thought at the very last minute Ruby could have saved Tom. I still didn’t know what I thought about that. Now Jane was waiting at her home for me. I’d told her I wouldn’t be long.

  My car was full of suitcases. We’d crammed in everything we thought I’d need. My clothes, my shoes, my hair dryer. My new yoga clothes and my pregnancy books. My NutriBullet blender for those wheatgrass smoothies. One of my positive pregnancy tests. I’d shredded the DNA results I’d taken to show Tom; there was no need for them now.