The Bones of You

by Debbie Howells

  “You should go,” I tell him, my cheeks flushed, not meeting his eyes. “Please. I love Angus. I don’t want this.”

  But he doesn’t. He just stands there, saying nothing. I risk a sideways glance at his face, edging toward his eyes, feeling them riveted to me.

  “Kate?” How can one word, just four letters, hold so much?

  Is this how affairs start? Is this all it takes? One person overstepping the line, persuading, sweet-talking the other to take a chance, to give in to that rush you’ve all but forgotten about, because it stops when you’ve been married as long as we have?

  There’s a silence. Drawn-out minutes that feel much longer, after which, with an iron will, I turn my back on him. Wait for the latch to click as he closes the door behind him, listen for the crunch of male footsteps on gravel, count the number of seconds I know it takes to walk the length of our drive, before I turn, only to catch the back of him as he disappears out of sight.

  I slump to the floor. However he makes me feel, I’m relieved he’s gone.

  After he goes, and though I don’t want it to be, shame is like a black armband or a battle scar, drawing sympathy I don’t deserve.

  “I’m missing Angus,” I say if anyone comments on how pale I look, hearing, “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” in taunting tones behind my back. As well as almost cheating, I’m a fraud, too.

  As if he knows, the cloud of my guilt stretching all the way to York, he doesn’t come home that weekend.

  “I’m sorry, Kate. I completely forgot, but there’s this dinner on Saturday. If I’d remembered, you could have come, too. . . .”

  “You will be back the next weekend, though, won’t you?” Disappointment spiked with relief.

  That weekend, her course over, Jo comes home. And as my guilt intensifies, her words come back to me. He’s having an affair.... It’s not the first time. He does this, and I have to live with it. . . .

  Suddenly, I feel so stupid. I was such easy prey. So easily flattered that he just reeled me in—and I let him. It’s when I decide I can’t tell her that her husband came on to me, that I didn’t encourage him, but he did what he’s done many times before, playing it over and over in my head.

  Sitting across the table, our hands clasped.

  Or did I?

  His lips on mine.

  Does he see it like that?

  But I stopped him—nothing really happened. It meant nothing. My guilt peaking when I see her outside the village shop.

  “How was the course?” I ask her.

  “Really good,” she says. She looks tired. “I met some interesting people. And, God, so many nerds, you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Yes, well, that’s computers,” I say lightheartedly, as if I know.

  “They’ve given us the next part of the course to do from home,” she says. “But it was good to get away from here, even just for a few days.” She looks wistful for a moment, and I wonder what she’s going to say. “Kate? Don’t you ever need to escape?”

  “Me? Not really, but I am going to stay with Angus. In March. Swap my wellies for heels,” I joke.

  She looks quizzical, as if trying to imagine it and finding it faintly ridiculous.

  “There’s more to me than jodhpurs and riding boots,” I quip, but she doesn’t smile, just looks at me sympathetically.

  “Are you missing him?”

  “Actually . . . I am.” Surprised to hear my voice wobble.

  She smiles a little sadly. “Don’t be lonely, Kate. I’m always here if you need me.”

  Suddenly, I can’t speak, touched beyond words that in the midst of her problems, she can still find room for mine.

  But after that brief meeting, in the way she often does, Jo goes to ground. Normally, it would be my cue to go and check on her, but with Neal at home and always there in the shadows, this time I keep away.

  ROSIE

  In front of me is a day that, though I want to, I can never forget. My twelfth birthday was my puppy birthday. The day I lost Hope. And now it’s Della’s.

  The week before, my mother takes me shopping to choose clothes for Della. Expensive ones. Expensive skin-care products. Underwear. Holds things up against me, too, then shakes her head, says only a certain figure can wear this dress or those jeans, even though now I’m thinner, and if I eat a full meal, I’ve become practiced at sticking my fingers down my throat afterward. But this isn’t about me; it’s about Della.

  And just as much as I wanted a puppy, she wants a camera. I remind my mother.

  “She doesn’t really,” my mother says. “She only thinks she does. What does your sister want with a camera?”

  “But she does, Mummy.” Della’s shown me a digital SLR with a zoom lens. She wants to catch portraits, street scenes, people, reportage style, without their seeing.

  “I’ll talk to your father,” is all she says, gathering up another armful of shiny, shop-scented clothes.

  The morning of Della’s twelfth birthday isn’t like mine was, even though the sun shines and it stays dry. It’s worse.

  When she opens her presents and sees her camera, her face shines with so much happiness, the air sparkles around her. I sit there, pleased, but I’m mad, too. If she gets what she really wanted, why couldn’t I have had Hope?

  Then she opens the clothes presents, and I see what I didn’t see before. They’re the wrong size. Tiny doll sizes, far too small for Della’s frame. Her face is puzzled.

  “Thank you,” she says politely, then picks up her camera.

  “Try them on,” orders my father, seizing the camera from her. “Come on. Your mother’s spent all this money. I want to see how they look.”

  She catches my eye. She’s seen how small they are, knows that voice of his, and she’s afraid.

  “I’ll come with you.” I jump up, help her scoop up all the stupid, too-small clothes.

  “Sit down, Rosanna,” roars my father. “You’ll stay here.”

  My mother looks worried. And then I’m mad at her. For her part in this cruelty. For letting my father bully us. I almost get up, but I know if I do, he’ll lose his temper. I want to shout at him, tell him how fathers should love their daughters; or to walk out of here and never come back. But I can’t, because Della will be alone.

  She comes downstairs, head down, shoulders slumped, in one of the dresses she’s pulled on, the sleeves cutting into her arms, the hem riding up her legs.

  “There.” My father stands up. “Head up, Delphine. What’s the matter with you?”

  She whispers, “I can’t do it up.”

  He marches over and roughly spins her round, yanks at the zip, pulling it hard. I count two seconds as my father walks back and reaches for the camera.

  “Smile,” he booms. “Pose, Delphine. Come on. You’re not a little girl now. This is a woman’s dress. Be a woman.”

  I feel sick just watching him, seeing our fear, wondering where he’s going to draw the line, a line that seems to move almost daily.

  Della moves minutely, and as my father aims the camera and snaps, there’s a ripping sound. And that’s the memory. Della frozen, her face washed red with shame, the gaping seam exposing soft white flesh, to a soundtrack of my father’s cruel laughter.

  Later, he says he’ll take us out for dinner. At six o’clock. I help Della put away the hateful clothes. Wipe the images from her camera, wishing it was as easy to wipe them from her head. We get ready. Find one of the new tops that nearly fits her. Six o’clock comes, and we go downstairs. My father sits, watching TV. I can’t see my mother. At seven o’clock, he pours himself a whiskey.

  “Are we going out?” I ask.

  “Out?” he says, with fake surprise.

  “For Delphine’s birthday? You said you were taking us out.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he says calmly. “Your mother agrees. You saw what happened with that dress.”

  Della sobs, runs back upstairs. I watch myself face him. Is he enjoying this? What does he get out of beli
ttling his own daughter?

  “That’s not fair,” I say quietly. My voice shakes.

  “Fair?” he says, with that ice-calm way of his. “I’ll tell you what’s not fair, Rosanna. It’s fat, ugly children who don’t do as they’re told. Who don’t appreciate what they have. Who don’t make any effort and will never do anything with their lives, because they’re too lazy and too stupid.”

  I gasp as crucifying pain hits me. Then, just as quickly, it vanishes, and I feel myself rise above it, completely numb.

  “You can’t say those things,” I cry, not caring what he says. Can he be worse than he is? “Not to Delphine. She doesn’t deserve it.”

  He gets up. I wait for another onslaught of words, but I wasn’t watching when the line moved. He raises his hand and hits me.

  DELPHINE

  “Give it time,” everyone says.

  “It gets easier.”

  “You’ll miss her less.”

  “Feel less sad.”

  “Start to enjoy life again. There’s nothing wrong with that. Enjoying life.”

  That’s when I know they’ve never lost someone. If they had, they’d understand.

  That you always miss them.

  That the pain doesn’t go.

  That life stops.

  19

  February

  As the first daffodils push their heads aboveground, as I ask Rachael over for a gossipy catch-up, several things happen at once.

  Jo calls me, a call that leaves me mystified. It’s cryptic, to say the least.

  “I have that software you asked for. I can bring it over this morning, if it’s convenient?”

  “What are you talking about, Jo?” She sounds like she’s talking to a stranger. And it’s the first I’ve heard about any software.

  “Perfect,” she says brightly. “Would twelve work for you? I know you wanted it installed as soon as possible. . . .”

  “Are you okay, Jo?”

  She ignores me. “Don’t worry. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll see you later.”

  “That was peculiar,” I tell Rachael. “It was Jo—only she sounded very odd.”

  “Hardly surprising. If it were one of my own kids and the murderer was still on the loose . . .” She shakes her head. “It would do my head in. On the subject of murderers . . .” She looks at me expectantly.

  “You mean Alex? Unless they find more evidence, I guess he’s in the clear. And walking around like anyone else. It all takes so long, doesn’t it?”

  Rachael slurps her coffee thoughtfully. “I know. Sometimes I wonder whether life will ever get back to normal. Talking of normal, how’s Angus?”

  “He’s quite happy, I think. Too happy.” Happier than I am. Making me wonder if he’s putting down roots.

  “Oh well,” says Rachael. “I bet you don’t miss the extra washing and cooking. And if you do, I’ll give you some of mine.” She glances at the clock, then frowns. “Oh, fuck. I forgot.” Looking horrified, she leaps up. “I was supposed to be at school ten minutes ago. Milo’s teacher wants to see me. I am already so in the shit with that woman, you wouldn’t believe. . . .”

  She dashes for the door, blowing me a kiss. “So sorry to run like this. Give Jo my love.”

  But she’s barely gone when Jo arrives, early, in a fluster of cold air and confusion.

  “I’m sorry about earlier, Kate. . . . Neal was listening. He does that now—he listens. To everything.” She’s nervous, on edge, can’t keep still.

  “I’m not with you, Jo. Why shouldn’t he know you’re coming here?”

  “He knows I talk to you. And he’s been hiding something, Kate. Something he doesn’t want anyone, even me, to know about.”

  Oh God. My mouth is dry. Has she found out about what nearly happened between us?

  She runs her fingers through her hair, her face fraught, speaking in fragments, as she pulls out a chair. “Can I just have a minute? I will tell you. . . . God, Kate. It’s too much to take in. I can’t think straight. . . .”

  “I’ll make some coffee. Are you all right, Jo?”

  But she doesn’t answer, just sits, staring ahead. I fill the kettle, worried about her, but before long, she’s talking again.

  “You know I said how useless I was on computers? I hardly ever touched the things. But obviously now, since the course . . . Anyway, yesterday I was trying to find a document I’d saved, but . . .” She breaks off.

  I place the mugs on the table and sit down.

  “Go on.”

  She picks up a mug, and her hands are shaking, slopping the coffee over the sides. She puts it down again, then fixes her eyes on mine.

  “I’ve been using this laptop of Neal’s. An old one I didn’t even know he had. I found it buried in the bottom of his wardrobe, of all places. . . .” She pauses. “I was looking for something I saved on it. I found these files, Kate.” Her voice is deathly quiet.

  “Oh God!” She runs her hands through her hair. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “Jo . . . what is it? Tell me.”

  She stares past me, then takes a deep breath. “They’re awful, Kate. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  A sick feeling fills my stomach as I start to wonder where she’s going with this.

  “He’s into porn. The worst kind. Horrible, violent sex, rape . . . killing people.”

  The “killing people” comes in a whisper, a wild, terrified look in her eyes, like those of a rabbit frozen in headlights, before she continues.

  “There’s more. Links to all these Web sites. I can’t begin to tell you. . . .” She breaks off, and her hand goes to her mouth. “I couldn’t look at them. . . .”

  Jesus. My mind goes crazy with possibilities. Then I shake my head. For all his faults, I can’t imagine in a million years that Neal would be doing this.

  Then her eyes are dead as she says, as if in a trance, “You see, Neal’s always taken care of things.”

  My blood turns to ice. What does she mean?

  Jo’s face is white. “It’s all there, Kate. There are dates. Even an idiot like me can tell when it was last opened or looked at, or whatever. All the dates, Kate, they’re all before.”

  Her eyes are huge.

  “What if he killed her?”

  There’s silence as the words hang between us. As I stare at her, appalled, trying to work out what she’s telling me.

  Fleetingly, I think of the night he was here. Did I share supper with a murderer? Did the hand that touched mine kill Rosie? Then common sense kicks in.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I tell her. “No way could Neal have committed a murder. Certainly not his own daughter’s.”

  But Jo stares, a ghostly stare that makes my skin prickle.

  “You don’t know him,” she says. “You don’t want to, either. You probably won’t believe me when I tell you. Nobody does.... But there’s another side to him.” All the time her eyes glued on mine, imploring, begging me to believe her. “He’s damaged, Kate. He has a twisted, brutal, cruel side. Whatever he may have said to you, he enjoys hurting me, enjoys telling me how ugly I am. Oh, not just that once that you saw—so, so many times. How it would be better for all of them if I was dead . . . He’s said that, too.”

  A sob erupts from her.

  “I’ve tried so hard, Kate, to be the woman he wants me to be. To be his wife, a mother. To be beautiful, to make him proud. But nothing I do is ever enough.”

  Her eyes are spilling over with tears, with hurt and defeat, and she slumps, the fight visibly draining out of her.

  When she starts talking again, her voice is full of sadness.

  “He’s always been like this, all the time we’ve been together. In the beginning, he was just rough. Sexually. I thought it was normal, Kate. That he felt so passionately about me, he just got carried away . . . And then, other times, he could be so gentle and thoughtful, treating me, always buying me such beautiful things. . . .” She hesitates, and I see her looking back, dredging up more
painful memories.

  “Over the years he’s got worse. I’ve always known he can be violent. He hits me, Kate. . . . After, he hates himself, but he can’t help it.”

  I watch, sickened but unable to look away, as Jo slowly unwinds one of her huge, soft scarves to reveal fresh red bruising on her neck. My hand goes to my mouth.

  “He strangles me, Kate. Even when I beg him not to. During sex. Until I pass out. It excites him. That’s the kind of man he really is.”

  She speaks slowly, detached, as though she’s talking about someone else. I’m utterly shocked. I’ve heard about this going on between consenting partners, but against her will, that’s assault. It’s why she wears those scarves, no matter how warm it is. Because her husband gets his kicks by throttling her. How can the revered, exalted, saintly Neal Anderson be such a monster?

  “The last time he did it, when I came round, he said he’d been planning where to bury me,” she gabbles. “He laughed, but he wasn’t joking, Kate. It’s a big enough garden, isn’t it? He’d just tell people his crazy wife had left him, and they’d sympathize, wouldn’t they? Everyone always believes him. No one would ever know. . . .”

  She’s shaking, her hands clasped so tight that her knuckles are white, her eyes begging me to believe her.

  Then she continues in a low voice, “I saw him hit Rosanna. I don’t know what else he did to her. I know it’s wrong, and I’m weak and pathetic, but I couldn’t ask. He bullied her, Kate. Didn’t let her do anything, have friends, have a social life. And when he got angry . . . I know you don’t believe me, but truly, he’s evil.”

  As she speaks, though, there are other words echoing in my head. Words I’ve heard so many times. Amazing man . . . He’s an amazing man. . . .

  “And this has been going on how long, Jo?” I know she’s just told me, but it’s too much to take in, that she needed him so much, she’d forgive him anything, even this.

  She stares back. “Years.”

  I stare at her, horrified. “How could you put up with it? That long? What about the girls?” Doesn’t a mother’s every instinct scream at her to protect her precious children?