Nuala looked away.
Looked to the pub, its lights on, shadows moving inside.
Emma.
She stepped along the pavement, feet quiet, close to the pub and peered in through the window.
She could see her, behind the bar, staring into the mid-distance, her face blank, eyes glazed over.
Nuala carried on watching as Emma picked up a glass from the washer, dried it on a rag, put it on a shelf. Emma didn’t once change her stance, look up or to the side, as though she were working on pure automatic.
Oblivious.
Carrying on as normal, unaware of the pain she had caused.
Not knowing that the letters she sent, those goddamn letters, were delivered to another woman’s husband. That those letters had caused him anguish and upset, caused him to close himself away from his wife, become distant, unpredictable, mean.
It was time to make her understand.
Emma
Saturday, 18th November, 2017
She was standing at the bar, glass in one hand, rag in the other, eyes fixed on the empty mid-distance of the room.
She had nothing.
No money.
No one she could trust. Not even Maggie.
Her chin quivered but she stopped herself crying. She had never once cried in this room, punters or no punters to witness it. She wasn’t going to start now.
She sniffed hard until the air hurt her nose, smelled the dirt and the damp from the rag in her hand, realising too late the cloth she was using to dry the clean glasses was filthy.
What did it matter?
This was it now. This was her lot.
Was Nuala Greene the reason that James never came back? The reason he never returned and told Emma he was sorry, so sorry, that he would make up for everything that had happened to her?
Was Nuala the reason Emma never had the chance to make him pay for what he did to her, what he took?
She had loved him.
Given herself to him, her young body, her soul, her future.
Nuala had rocked up with her Burberry bag, her nice clothes, her miniatures of Molton Brown, not knowing who Emma was, or what James had done.
Emma abandoned the glasses, left the dirty rag in the bar. She walked to the kitchen, flicked on the old black kettle out of habit, the wire fixed in three places with tape.
She had nothing.
Eyes on the window to the side of the room, she saw Lois’s old burned-out house glaring back at her from outside and remembered how glad she had been, how happy, to know that that woman’s possessions were all gone. That she had nothing. And after all she had done to Emma, she knew that nothing was all Lois deserved.
Did Maggie tell Nuala that too, about Lois and what she did? How she sent James away from her, split them apart, the lies she made James believe? How, if she had just helped Emma instead of hindered her, that Elaine might still be alive? That Emma would still, possibly, have her stepmother to cling to?
The steam rose from the kettle, clouded the air and stuck to the window pane in a mist.
The house next door was replaced with a silver fog of condensation, the colour of the glass reminding her of the jars in her bedroom drawer, of the powder she’d made from the apples and lye.
She could hear them calling to her, their promise of release and blessed nothingness, an end to this painful existence made worse now that there was no way out.
But her thoughts were interrupted.
Someone was knocking on the locked pub door.
Nuala
Saturday, 18th November, 2017
‘I know,’ Emma said to her, not stepping aside to let Nuala in. ‘I know who you are, now.’
Emma’s face was pale, but her cheeks were tinged scarlet; she looked almost feverish, the colour adding to her otherwise insipid complexion.
‘And what is it,’ Nuala said, ‘that you think you know about me?’
‘You’re James’s wife. You’re the one who—’
‘Who kept him away?’
‘I suppose so, yes. The one who kept him away.’ Emma moved away from the door, and Nuala could feel her eyes on her as she stepped inside. Could feel the jealousy, in all its forms, seething beneath the surface.
She closed the door behind her and stood in the warmth from the fire, the cold wind, the threat of rain, left outside.
Emma turned the light on in the kitchen, the one, too, above the bar till. The room still looked dark, cramped with furniture that cast shadows on the floor and walls, the absence of customers making it feel smaller still.
‘You’re wearing my jumper,’ Nuala said, looking at Emma’s red hands, imagining them rifling through her things, surprised that she didn’t really care. What did it matter, if Emma touched her clothes, her bag, wore her jumper? Another time in her life she would have felt violated, spied on. But really, these were such trivial things.
She had far bigger complexities to work out.
‘I know,’ Emma said, and she crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I know he’s dead.’ Her voice cracked as she spoke, her eyes filled with tears.
Nuala felt no sympathy. Emma was thinking only of her own loss. No care for Nuala, how she was feeling, how she had coped. Just selfish, inward grief, claiming James’s death as her own source of pain, no one else’s.
How dare she.
The clock above the bar reminded her that she didn’t have long; only forty minutes or so until Maggie came back. But still, that should be more than enough.
‘Don’t apologise, about the jumper,’ Nuala said, switching the topic back, making sure she took the lead in the conversation. She watched as Emma peeled the cashmere from her body, stood before her in a black T-shirt, goosebumps on her bare arms, showing the nervousness of someone caught out. Wondered if this was how James had felt, when Nuala had stood, unsure, before him when he was in one of his moods.
‘Why are you here?’ Emma asked at last, holding out the jumper in her scaly, red hands, looking straight into Nuala’s eyes without blinking, only her flushed cheeks and slight tremble giving away her nerves.
‘You’re shaking, look,’ Nuala said, tucking the jumper under her arm and taking the other woman’s hands, feeling their trembling give her power. ‘It must be the shock.’ Nuala’s own hands were steady. Her wedding ring felt warm on her chest where it hung from the chain around her neck. The jumper in her hands had been a present, last year, from James. He had been hers, the truth of that fact giving her strength. ‘You weren’t expecting me to be his wife, were you? Weren’t expecting him to be married at all. Did you think he was waiting for you?’
Emma had no idea what was coming. She looked as if she wanted to take the upper hand, as if she was steeling herself for a fight. But she had no idea what she was really dealing with, what Nuala was preparing to do.
‘He never even mentioned you, never uttered your name in our house,’ Nuala said, stepping forward and closing the already small gap between her and Emma. ‘He told me all about Maggie, his mother, some about his father. But never you. And never your baby.’ Nuala paused, watching Emma’s reaction, horrified disbelief on the other girl’s face.
‘I’ll take this upstairs, sort out my things,’ Nuala said. ‘Then we can talk before I go.’
‘You’re leaving?’ Emma said, clearly still shocked by Nuala’s last comments, blindsided by her sudden change in direction, uncertain of what she should do. Nuala watched the woman’s gaze flitter from the bar to the kitchen door, then settle on the cashmere jumper under Nuala’s arm.
The beat of Nuala’s heart sped up as she enjoyed Emma’s uncertainty, the feeling of power from putting her on the back foot.
‘Why would I stay here?’ she said, emphasising the last word, watching Emma’s jaw tighten as she did so. ‘Why would anyone?’
Emma seemed to know what she meant. She sank down in the damask chair by the fire, and held her head in her hands, chewed her lip.
‘As I said, it’s the shock. It all must hav
e been such a shock.’ Nuala smiled sweetly at Emma, so sweetly, a plan forming in her head. ‘I’ll make you some tea, fix you something to eat. Yes, I know it’s not my place but don’t argue, I don’t mind.’ She patted the air in front of her as Emma tried to stand up, object, made it clear in both her tone and her stance that she meant every word she said, enjoying so much this feeling of dominance, how easily addictive it could become. ‘Then we can talk before I go.’
Upstairs, alone, the bravado wore thin.
She felt along the hallway towards the guest room, the image of Emma’s heartbroken face filling her vision in place of the worn-down carpet, the stained ceiling, damp walls. In the room she packed the jumper away, checked her bag to see if anything else was missing.
In a minute, she would go back downstairs, to the kitchen. She had said she would make them both tea, just as she had done with Lois earlier that day. Before she had found out what Lois was really like, and learned what lies Emma had been spewing all these years.
As if her husband would fuck a fourteen-year-old, get her pregnant.
Then her eyes alighted on the envelope by the bed, and she reached into her back pocket for the letter.
Come back to me, my darling.
If Emma had only left James alone. How different their lives could have been.
But she would make Emma see, make them all see, that it was she who’d loved James all along, who really knew him.
Nuala walked out of the room, down the stairs and into the kitchen.
The room was dingy, the grey walls were splattered with grease and tea stains. Through the hatch into the bar, Nuala could see Emma, her head still in her hands as she sat in front of the fireplace, thinking, no doubt, about James.
Her husband.
And suddenly she was calm.
‘My husband,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Mine.’ She closed her eyes and let the word fill her mouth.
Emma looked up, her gaze questioning, but Nuala didn’t falter. Instead, she met the other woman’s eye, held it, smiled.
As the water boiled, Nuala looked up, to the window above the kettle, the glass misty with steam. The reflection she saw in the window, the older woman staring back at her, made her stomach drop.
Thick, straight black hair pulled into a low ponytail. A clear oval face, high pink cheeks and round green eyes. Nuala could see that her right incisor was damaged, the enamel a whitish grey where the root had died.
Nuala froze, too scared to turn in case this vision of her mother vanished. She was desperate to put her arms around her, smell her perfume, feel her heartbeat. To have that sweet voice telling her she didn’t have to do this after all, because her mother was back and Nuala wasn’t alone any more.
Wasn’t that why she had come here? So that she wouldn’t be alone?
But not one person had offered her their condolences, as though oblivious to the fact her husband was dead.
Because here, she remembered again, James belonged to Emma.
The girl spreading lies, writing to Nuala’s husband, trying to tempt him away.
That’s what Nuala had found, coming here. Not comfort, not understanding.
All she had found was that girl and her lies.
And a final sense of purpose.
She kept her eyes closed, thinking of her mother, what her mother would say.
‘Go home,’ she’d advise, her voice warm as ginger biscuits. ‘Now you know why he left, why he didn’t want you coming back. Just go home, leave all this behind you.’
Only Nuala didn’t have anything to go back home for. A dead rose bush, dead husband, dead son.
She opened her eyes.
Her mother was gone. And she knew what she had to do.
Her own reflection stared back at her, her eyes wired with that new sense of determination, not tired-looking any more.
She finished making the tea and placed each cup on a saucer, added biscuits to Emma’s from the pack she found by the kettle, and walked back into the bar.
‘Here you go,’ she said, a saccharine smile directed at Emma. ‘I’ve added sugar, they say it helps with the shock. I’ve biscuits here, too.’
She passed a saucer to Emma, and, holding her own, settled into the opposite armchair by the fire.
‘You’ve been waiting for James to come back,’ she said. ‘But he was my husband!’ Her words were too loud for the small room, but she didn’t care. ‘You had no right trying to lure back my husband.’
‘I wasn’t trying to lure him,’ Emma said, her young face defiant, her cheeks still flushed.
‘But you wanted him back. You wanted him to come back here, to find you.’
‘I didn’t know he was married.’
‘Would that have made a difference?’
And Emma looked down, didn’t answer, and Nuala smiled.
‘No,’ Nuala said, ‘It wouldn’t have made a difference, not to you. You would have carried on regardless.’
Emma pulled her top lip into her mouth, chewed it to keep herself from speaking, talking back, and Nuala smiled wider, felt the stretch of her cheeks as her teeth were exposed. How well she knew that feeling, the feeling of holding back. How good it felt, now, to let it all go.
‘Spreading your lies. Your dirty lies about what my husband did to you, lies you made everyone believe.’
‘They’re not lies,’ Emma said, her lip springing free from her teeth, her free hand curled into a fist.
‘James never touched you. He wouldn’t have slept with a fourteen-year-old girl, a child.’
‘He did.’ Emma’s chin had dropped, but her eyes looked up at Nuala, dark and forbidding beneath her brow.
‘Stop lying to me!’ Nuala’s shout was high pitched, spittle spraying with her words, tea splashing over the edge of her cup and landing on the arm of the chair.
Emma gritted her teeth. ‘I’m not lying,’
‘How pathetic you are,’ Nuala said, ‘to cling on to the lie even now when you know that he’s gone, that my husband is dead.’ But the last word choked her and she looked away, to the wall of photographs.
‘He’s gone.’ She said it again, meaning the photos this time, her finger pointing out the gap where the Polaroid had been. ‘Where is he?’
‘I took it down,’ Emma said.
‘Give it to me.’
‘No.’
‘He’s my husband! Give it to me!’
Emma stood up, her half-drunk tea placed on the table beside her, the biscuits untouched, and took the crumpled photograph from her back pocket.
She walked towards the fire and Nuala could see her intention, the photograph inches from the flames.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said, rising.
‘I’m not lying,’ Emma said, ‘He did do all those things. He loved me, he left me, no matter what you say.’
‘Give me his photograph,’ Nuala said, arms outstretched, taking a step towards Emma and the fire. ‘He’s mine! Give him to me!’
Emma’s hand moved closer, the flames highlighting the bleached skin on her knuckles.
‘What do you care? It’s just a photograph. And what does it matter to you if I’m lying or not? Why do you care?’
‘He’s all I’ve got!’ Nuala screamed, lunging for Emma, grabbing her arm. ‘He was all I ever had, you can’t take him away!’
‘I can’t take him away if he’s already dead!’
‘You’re claiming him, saying he’s yours, that he loved you when the only woman he loved was me! He told me so! It’s what kept me hanging on through all the bad times, all the— if he was lying, then what am I left with? What does that make me?’
She yanked Emma towards her, grabbed the photo and held it, safe, to her chest, pressed it against the wedding rings hanging from the chain around her neck.
‘I’m not a pathetic fool who followed a man blindly. I’m not a sad, desperate orphan who clung to the first person to show her love. I stayed with him because we loved each other, and you’re trying to turn m
e into something else!’
‘No, I’m not. I never said anything like that!’
‘You think—’
‘I don’t think anything about you, I don’t know anything about you!’
‘Let me finish! You think I’m beaten, downtrodden, that I let a man walk all over me, take my money, my home, my body because I was desperate not to be alone, is that it? Is that what you think?’
‘I know nothing about you.’ Emma backed away, her arms held out in front of her, eyes wary and Nuala realised her outburst had frightened her.
‘Do you think I’m going to hurt you?’ Nuala asked, the words sounding insane, delicious. ‘Do you think I’m going to hurt you for the lies you’ve been spreading about James?’
‘James told me he loved me,’ Emma said, teeth gritted. ‘He promised he’d look after me. We were waiting until I was old enough so we could run away. He had nothing to keep him here, in this village, except his mother and you know what she’s like. And besides,’ she said, ‘it’s in the past, you can’t change it.’
And she laughed, her cheeks flushed. ‘At some point, Nuala, you have to let it go.’
‘Don’t take that tone with me.’ Nuala stepped forward, closer to Emma, closer to the fire. ‘Don’t talk as if you’re above me, wiser, more experienced, as if you have the upper hand. I know what you did. He had to leave here because of you, because he knew if he were to return he’d have to deal with all your stupid little lies, because you’re such an idiot, such a stupid fool, such a pathetic, useless creature, that you blamed him for your stupid mistakes. You’re just an idiot, you’re an idiot!’
‘My God,’ Emma said, stepping away from the fire. ‘You sound just like him. Idiot. He used to call me an idiot all the time, but sweetly, like it was a pet name even though I knew he really meant it. And he’d say it for the stupidest things, if I missed a button when doing up my school blouse, or caught my tights on the ladder up to the barn loft—’
‘Stop it!’ Nuala screamed, her throat vibrating, fists clenched. She hated that Emma could echo him so perfectly, that she had known him in this way. Hated that James had spoken to another girl in the way that he had spoken to Nuala, his wife. She took another step towards Emma. ‘Stop trying to turn it around now, it’s too late! I know that you were writing to him.’ Another step forward, her face only inches from Emma’s. ‘I know you wanted him back, my husband.’ She raised her hand, pushed Emma backwards with a jab to her chest.
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