The Closer You Get

by Mary Torjussen

  I’d opened a new bank account and transferred half of our savings to it. I wasn’t taking any risks. In a folder I had all the documents I’d need: My birth certificate. Our marriage certificate. Mortgage details. Insurance. Passport. All those things that you need when you’re leaving your husband.

  Harry’s car pulled onto the driveway. I couldn’t have moved then to save my life. I heard his key turn in the lock, heard him call my name. There was a pause and I knew he would be wondering why I hadn’t answered. He opened the living room door and saw me sitting there on the sofa by the window.

  “Emma?” He came into the room and knelt beside me. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  Despite everything, my eyes prickled. He sounded so concerned. As though he loved me. I looked at his face, at the man I’d thought I’d grow old with. The man I’d trusted with every cell in my body.

  “Is the baby all right?” he asked.

  And I knew that if there was no baby, he wouldn’t be here. He’d be with another woman, planning a baby with her. If there was no baby I’d be here alone right now, and he’d had no qualms about that. I knew my worth in his eyes then.

  “Harry,” I said. It was hard to speak, my mouth was so dry. I picked up the glass of water I’d known I’d need and took a sip. “Harry, this isn’t working out for me.”

  CHAPTER 74

  Ruby

  I didn’t go back to my house until the day of the funeral, after everyone had left the reception. I hadn’t been there since Tom died. I stayed at my flat and, oddly enough, nothing happened to scare me in all that time. At first nobody was allowed into our house and then I couldn’t face going there. I was too superstitious. It was only after the cremation that I could believe he was truly gone.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was the last to leave the hotel after the funeral reception. There’d been quite a crowd and I was exhausted and aching after talking to so many people, many of whom I didn’t know. Tom’s brother was there with his wife; they were kind to me but didn’t seem to know what to say, and I wondered what Tom had told them about me after I left. They hadn’t been in touch since I moved out, and I assumed I wouldn’t see them again. They talked to Josh and to a few distant cousins but didn’t stay long as they were traveling back to Scotland that afternoon. I heard them arrange for Josh to drive up there in early September and was glad they’d be there for him. There were a couple of neighbors and some of Tom’s colleagues, too, who were singing his praises as though he’d died a martyr for his cause.

  Perhaps he had.

  Tom’s ex-wife, Belinda, was there with her husband, Martin; her eyes were as dry as mine. And Josh. His weren’t, and my heart broke as I saw him go from table to table to talk to people about his father. He avoided me and I wondered whether he was frightened of breaking down or whether he’d guessed that I wasn’t actually mourning. I still hadn’t spoken to him about Tom’s death; I’d called Belinda the day it happened and she’d told him. She called a few days later to see how I was and told me that Josh had taken it badly. That was a very tough day.

  Tom’s funeral really hit home how few friends I had. Most of them had disappeared over the years. Tom would complain about them, especially if they wanted to see me alone. If they called me he’d be cold afterward and say it wouldn’t bother him if it was someone else, but that particular person should be off-limits. My best friend from my university days, Chris, had said when Tom and I first got together that he was isolating me. I couldn’t believe it and after a while I didn’t see her again. Perhaps now I could find the courage to write to her, to tell her that she was right.

  My dad was there. I called him when I got back to my flat that day. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d held it together through the drive home. I’d said hello to the lady who owned the florist’s shop and agreed with her that it was lovely to have a sunny day. She told me I looked a bit peaky and I smiled but couldn’t answer. I hurried upstairs and called my dad in Melbourne. It was three in the morning their time and I heard my mother’s outrage first, then my dad’s soft, familiar voice, asking if I was all right. Once I started to cry I couldn’t stop. The problem was that I had to stick to the story that Emma and I had agreed on. I couldn’t tell him about the fight I’d had with Tom, or about Harry, or how I knew Emma. I could never tell anyone the truth about what had happened.

  He talked to me for hours that night until it was dark here and light there. He stayed on the phone until I slept and when I woke the next morning there was a message waiting for me, telling me he was already on a flight home. My mum stayed in Australia as planned; my dad told me she’d be back in a month, as though this was a promise, not a threat. Apparently she needed my sister’s support to cope with Tom’s death. Fiona told me that if she didn’t leave soon there’d be another funeral in the cards.

  When he arrived home he invited me to stay with him at their house, but I wanted to be alone then and went back to my flat. I couldn’t trust myself not to tell him everything.

  He was a godsend at the funeral reception, talking to people about Tom, just as though he’d liked him. He took me to one side once everyone had arrived at the reception and had been greeted and offered drinks.

  “Just get through this,” he said, “then it’ll all be over.”

  I knew what he meant: He wasn’t just talking about the funeral, but my marriage, too. I knew what he thought of Tom. Unlike my mum, who still thought Tom was marvelous, my dad seemed to go off him after the first couple of years. We always visited them; my mum didn’t come to my house. I think she felt it reduced her status as matriarch if she had to visit me, though if we had a party she always wanted to be there. She hated to miss out on anything.

  At the start my dad seemed happy to spend time with Tom, but after a few years I noticed that he’d find an excuse to go out into the garden and do something out there. He’d come back in shortly before we left and say good-bye with a troubled look on his face. One day when I was there on my own, I’d tackled him about it.

  “Don’t you like Tom?”

  My dad’s eyes had shifted nervously. “Of course I do.”

  “You don’t seem to like talking to him nowadays.”

  “I do!”

  I stared him down. “You leave the room as soon as you can. He’s always friendly to you. Why can’t you talk to him?”

  “I do like him,” he said again. “It’s just . . .”

  I waited, knowing he would hate that silence between us.

  Eventually he said, “He seems a bit bossy. I don’t like that, love.” I know now that he was talking about his own marriage.

  “He is not!” I’d said, hot with injustice. “He’s very clever, yes, but he doesn’t boss anyone around!”

  “He likes things done his way,” my dad had said quietly.

  Red with embarrassment and wishing I’d never mentioned it in the first place, I said, “Well, don’t we all?”

  “You don’t have things your way, though, do you?” he said.

  My mum had come into the room and heard what my dad had said. “Are you kidding?” she’d said. “She has everything she could ever want. Look at the house they’ve got!” My mother had been furious about my house from the beginning because her sister had left me some money in her will, which I’d used to help pay for it. She’d left sentimental items for my mum, who couldn’t care less about anything like that. My mother was an early advocate of eBay and had had those trinkets on sale before her sister was in her grave. “And her car. I’d say she has everything her own way.” She gave me a hard look and, remembering that now, I realized she’d been jealous of the life I was leading. A life I became desperate to escape. “I’d say she’s not as daft as she looks. She’s the one in control there!”

  But I wasn’t. I never was. Even when he told me I was, I wasn’t.

  * * *

  •
• •

  All afternoon at the reception I had to keep up the pretense that Tom was a great guy. “We had our differences, but I’m so sorry to lose him,” I said again and again. I’d planned this well in advance, knowing I’d struggle with what to say. “Yes, it was a terrible shock” and “It’s such a tragedy when someone dies so young.” And then I’d move on with, “Will you excuse me? I should speak to his relations.” And off I’d go until someone else approached me.

  Oliver came to the funeral. He’d been away for a couple of weeks and didn’t know Tom had died until another neighbor told him on his return. He’d called me immediately and offered to help with the funeral arrangements. He’d clearly moved past our conversation on the riverfront and told me about a woman he’d met on holiday whom he’d be meeting up with soon. It sounded as though they’d gotten along really well and he was hopeful something would come of it. He was polite at first but soon relaxed into being the friend I’d had for so long.

  Sarah didn’t show up. When we had a quiet moment, Oliver told me that when he checked his work e-mails after his holiday, he found a message from her, telling him she’d walked out of Sheridan’s. She wanted to know whether there were any jobs going at his place. I asked him if they’d talked about Tom’s death, but he said he hadn’t had time to talk to her and that she hadn’t mentioned it in her message. It didn’t sound as though he’d be rushing to call her anytime soon, though that might have been wishful thinking on my part. I really didn’t want Sarah to cast a critical eye over what happened that day.

  He rescued me a few times at the reception. “I can’t believe someone you’ve never met has just asked you to tell them exactly what happened, as though your life’s some sort of soap opera and they’ve missed an episode,” he whispered as we left someone who’d worked with Tom for only a few months but who seemed desperate to know the gruesome details of his death. “How come you’re not angry?”

  “I just keep reminding myself I’ll never have to see them again.”

  “Is your friend here?”

  “Which one?”

  “Emma. The woman who was there when he fell downstairs.” Oliver put his arm around my shoulders and I turned to him just for a moment, for comfort. “It must have been horrible.”

  “It was.” I thought of seeing Emma at the front door and how I’d panicked, thinking she’d tracked me down. “I’ve never been more frightened. She wasn’t able to come today.” I hadn’t even thought of asking her; I knew she wouldn’t have wanted to come.

  “She sounds like a good friend.”

  “She was the best friend I could have had,” I said, thinking of what she’d done for me. And what I’d done to her.

  “I haven’t heard you mention her before. How do you know her?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation I gave him my practiced speech. “Oh, we met at a yoga class.” I thought of Emma’s face, pink and earnest as she’d told me what to say. She was so insistent that there was some part of me that thought that really was how we met. “We weren’t any good, though, so we stopped going.”

  Oliver looked skeptical. I’ve never exactly been the yoga type. “What will you do now?” he asked. “Now that it’s all over.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Suddenly all those dreams I’d had for my life seemed to crumple and die. I just couldn’t imagine what I would do. I felt I’d be traveling the world looking for salvation, or I’d live in another place and it would be just the same as this, in every significant way. I couldn’t envisage a happy time ahead, where I’d meet Josh again and talk to him about his dad without guilt overwhelming me. I couldn’t imagine I’d ever fall for anyone again. How could I trust them? And I knew that if I met someone nice, a decent guy, I should keep away from him, too. I wasn’t fit to be with anyone.

  Soon people started to drift away. I noticed they went to Josh before they left rather than to me, and I was glad for him, and grateful for the reprieve. His face was red and his eyes damp; he stood in the doorway, hugging and kissing everyone as they left. It seemed that he’d become a man overnight, and had had to learn how to do that without his father’s help.

  I couldn’t bear to look at him, at his grief. I went to find the manager to settle the bill, and when I returned, Josh had gone. I went out to the car park and saw Belinda driving off, Josh by her side. I wasn’t sure whether they’d seen me or not, but neither turned as I waved.

  My dad came up behind me and tapped my arm. “Everything okay?”

  I frowned. “It’s Josh. He’s gone off without saying good-bye.”

  He looked a bit awkward. “It’s hard for him, you know. He knows you were divorcing his dad. Maybe he thinks you weren’t bothered by his death.”

  I winced. If only he knew.

  “He’ll be okay,” he said. “Just give him time.”

  “Thank you so much for coming.” I hugged my dad hard. I meant it, too. He might be under my mum’s thumb but he was great in a crisis. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  He squeezed me tightly. “Do you want to come home with me? You’re very welcome to.”

  I shook my head. “I need to go back home.” For a moment I didn’t know whether I meant the house I’d shared with Tom or my flat, then made up my mind. “I’ll go back to my house.”

  “Shall I come with you?”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay, thanks. I need to do it on my own.”

  CHAPTER 75

  Ruby

  When I left I drove round aimlessly for an hour or so, deep in thought. Finally I stopped at the car park by the lighthouse and sat outside on a bench, looking at the river. The sun was high and the wind turbines were turning. It was a peaceful scene but I’d never felt so conflicted. Seeing Josh cry had brought home to me just what I’d done. And though I’d gone over it again and again, each time I thought of the way Tom had fallen, I knew that in that moment of fury I’d wanted him to fall. Not necessarily to die, but to learn his lesson. He couldn’t treat me like that. He just couldn’t. And to goad me about the baby. He’d always known what would hurt me the most.

  Enough. I had to stop this.

  I took a deep breath. Suddenly I had the courage to go back and reclaim my house. It was as much mine as his. I was glad now that we hadn’t filed for divorce. I hadn’t been able to afford it and Tom was playing a different game. It made things easier now; something he would have hated if he’d known.

  On the way back I had to buy petrol. Since I’d left home I’d worried every time I’d had to do that, panicking in case one day soon I’d be flat broke. Now the opposite had happened. Since Tom died I’d found he’d had substantial savings that he’d kept hidden from me, and because we were still married and hadn’t changed our wills, that money became mine. His boss at work had called to tell me that his life insurance would pay out a large lump sum and he put me in touch with their pensions officer, too. I thought how I’d struggled financially even when we were together, how he made me feel guilty if I spent anything, but made me contribute half of all bills, even though I earned a fraction of his income. Often I’d go overdrawn and he’d bail me out. I always had to pay him back.

  In Paris I’d tried to talk to Harry about it, when I had to explain why I’d be broke for a while. We’d been talking about putting a deposit down on a rental apartment and I wanted to pay my share.

  “I’ll have the money from the house,” I’d said, “but that’ll take a few months to come in. I just can’t afford to put much down for a deposit.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he’d said. “Honestly, honey. That’s the one thing that I’m not worried about.” He’d looked at me with concern. “But what do you mean, he has savings and you don’t? That’s not right. You’re married; everything should be shared.”

  I didn’t know where to start. I’d hinted at things that were wrong in my marriage but the problem was that
I’d thought Harry knew nothing about control and possessive behavior. In his personal life he didn’t mix with people who were manipulative and who told him something was true when he knew in his heart that it wasn’t. And he didn’t know how over time it was easy to get ground down, so that it was impossible to know what was right or wrong, what was real or fake. Or that’s what I’d thought.

  Of course the reality was that he was cheating on his wife. He told lies easily, without guilt. He’d lied to Emma every day of our affair. He’d lied to me about sleeping with her, about his longing for a child. He’d lied, too, when he said he couldn’t live without me.

  After I filled up with petrol I got back into my car, feeling brave and determined, and drove through the familiar streets, feeling free for the first time in years. Since university, in fact. Since the day before my twenty-third birthday, when I first met Tom in a bar. I’d immediately fallen in love with him. I’d learned to blame myself at my mother’s knee; Tom had merely taken over the baton. It had taken years before I realized what he was really like. I knew that journey of discovery wasn’t going to end just because he was dead.

  This time I parked on the driveway. Tom’s car was still there, so I had to park behind it, but still. I can’t begin to tell you how significant that was. The last time I’d parked up there had been the day I’d left Tom, but before then . . . well, I couldn’t remember a day when I’d been allowed to do it.

  When I got out of the car, it was as though a weight had lifted from me. I felt lighter. Hopeful. The sun was shining brightly and I lifted my face to the rays. It was the beginning of August and the day was hot and sunny. It was a perfect summer’s day. Perfect in all sorts of ways. I thought I might sit outside for an hour or two with a gin and tonic and a book, and enjoy my garden again. Count my blessings.