by R. A. Casey
I look down at the water.
I look down at the Stanley knife.
And then I grab it.
“You could learn to be a bit more careful with your tools,” I say.
“What—”
It all happens so fast.
I pop the blade out.
I spin around.
And then I bury the knife deep into his neck, right by his jugular.
He looks at me with wide eyes. With surprise. He tries to hold his throat, but blood spurts out, trickles right down his white T-shirt, some of it splashing onto me.
And as pathetic as it sounds, as much as I hate this man, as much as I despise him for terrorising me, for breaking my life so many times… I see a glimpse of Freddie in his eyes—the man I fell in love with. The man who betrayed me.
And then it’s gone in a flash as he falls to his knees.
I stand over him. Stanley knife in hand. Watch as he splutters. Watch as he crumbles.
And I stand defiant over him.
I feel a total sense of calm now.
A total sense of peace.
A total sense of ease.
I take a deep breath, knife in hand, and I smile.
For I am free now.
Part Four
Chapter Sixty
SIX MONTHS LATER
I sit on the Preston Docks and smile as I take a deep breath of the warm, spring air.
It’s the start of June, and it is scorching. Everyone is out today. Parents and children wandering along the edge of the docklands. The ice cream stall with the drunk-looking guy standing behind the counter, that creepy smile about him as always. The smell of fast food powering from the nearby McDonalds, the drive-thru absolutely ram-packed with cars.
It’s been a beautiful summer so far. Stunning. The best since that one in lockdown, where the sunny weather made the whole miserable endeavour a lot more palatable.
But somehow, this summer feels even nicer. The entire last few months have felt nice. Weird, but nice.
I raise a hand to my neck. Feel the slight roughness from the scar there. It hurts. Hurts bad. To this day.
But I am still here.
I am still alive.
And I have to be grateful for that.
I hear him before I see him. The footsteps, approaching the little wooden picnic bench I’m sitting on, tucked away from the main promenade of the docks. Away from the seagulls bothering people walking with their fries.
I look around and see him standing there.
He nods at me. It’s the first time I’ve seen him for months. Ever since I went to his house in the midst of what I am now calling my breakdown.
And four months before it happened.
The fire.
The tragic death of my beloved fiancé and innocent neighbour Moira next door, not to mention her poor, poor cat.
He stands there in that awkward way he always used to, and his eyes don’t quite meet mine, and he nods at me.
“Sarah,” he says.
“Gregg,” I say, smiling at him.
He sits down. We don’t hug. We don’t shake hands.
“How’ve you been getting on?” he asks.
It makes me laugh a little. How have I been getting on? That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Six months after my boyfriend tried to kill me. Six months after I killed him to save my own skin.
No, wait. That’s not how it played out, is it?
It’s six months after the fire that broke out afterwards, burning the entire block of semi-detached houses down and seeing me almost lose my life to burns and smoke damage.
All because of that dodgy hob in the kitchen. Freddie always worried about it, didn’t he? And he never got around to fixing it.
And there was Moira, too. Always smoking. Always falling asleep with her cigarette in her mouth. So, so dangerous. So, so careless…
Or was it the Christmas lights that did it?
So careless, Freddie. And all to cheer me up, too.
“Honestly, I’m doing good,” I say. “Really good.”
“And the little one?” Gregg asks.
I look at my belly, and I shiver for a second. I can still hardly believe it, seeing that baby bump. I know it is Freddie’s. And that does fill me with terror. Andy put Charlie inside me. I abandoned Charlie. Left him to die.
And then Freddie, the same man but under a different name, got me pregnant again, so many years later.
Only this time, I see it as an opportunity. I see it as a chance. A chance to do better. A chance to right the wrongs of the past.
A chance to try again.
“He’s good,” I say. “A real kicker. But I guess that’s a good sign. Maybe he’ll be really athletic. A top footballer. And he can look after his mum all his life.”
Gregg smiles. He still can’t quite make eye contact with me. “Maybe.”
I feel sad because I always wanted a child with Gregg. But he wasn’t on the same page about having kids. I can admit that now. As much as I fooled myself that we had a son called Charlie, I know that isn’t true now. And I’ve believed it for a long time.
Really, I’m doing well on that front. There are no gaps in my knowledge anymore. No parts of reality I am fooled by.
I was raped as a fifteen-year-old girl.
I found out it was a ploy to get my sister a child.
I killed her and fled.
Then I turned around and left my baby behind.
I struggled. I was traumatised by what happened. Suffered from dissociative amnesia. PTSD. False memory syndrome.
And Gregg was there to help me through all of it.
And things were good. Until I had a fling with Glynn in those maize fields—a fling I now know was orchestrated by the Family—and the memory of being raped brought it all back and sent me into a spiral of disbelief that I had a son, and he was missing…
Something that happened again when I moved house with Freddie.
Only this time, it turned out Freddie and Moira next door were contributing to my false memories and my dissociative amnesia, all for their own gain.
Because Freddie was Elana’s lover.
Freddie was Andy.
And he’d wanted revenge. All this time.
And he went to crazy lengths to secure it. Both of them did.
I think of Freddie lying there in a pool of blood, and then I push that image away.
Stick it back in a compartment in my mind.
It was a fire that killed them both.
A tragic accident.
Nothing else.
Honest.
“The place you’re living. It okay?”
I smile. “Little studio flat. Not exactly luxury. But it’ll do. It has all I need.”
Gregg nods. “Work okay?”
“It’s good,” I lie. I don’t want to tell him I haven’t worked for months. That I’ve been living off state support and savings. But I do have plans. Plans to set up a new business. A few online interviews with new tutoring prospects, things like that.
Truth be told, I’ve just needed some time.
Time to process everything.
Time to heal.
Time to recover.
But I’m not here to chat work and life with Gregg.
I am here because there are questions I still have.
Questions that need answering.
“You knew,” I say. “When I had… when I had my breakdown four years ago. You didn’t tell me the truth about what happened. All those years before. Did you?”
He opens his mouth and sighs. “I wanted to protect you. I didn’t want you to go through the hell you’d been through as a teenager. Not again. I thought it would be better to keep that hidden. For… for you to believe it was all in your head. I know it was wrong. I know it probably just added to the trauma. And I know that’s probably what… probably what made this fester, all these years. I felt bad about it. So, so guilty. That’s the main reason I left. I was ashamed. I’m sorry, Sarah.
I’m so, so sorry.”
I look at him, and a part of me hates him. I’ve suffered for four years because of him hiding the truth about the cult, about Charlie, about my sister, about everything from me.
But a part of me can’t help thinking his intentions were pure, too.
A part of me.
“That day,” I say, staring out at the docks, at the beautiful blue water, at the people cycling past. “The one where I… where I ran from the maize fields. When I met you.”
“Do you really want to talk about this?” Gregg asks.
I’m comfortable talking about it now. More at ease. “I remember… I remember leaving Charlie behind. And then… things are a little blurry. But I remember something. Your hand on my leg. Telling me everything was going to be okay. The water on your hand. Why was your hand wet, Gregg?”
He looks at me, and I swear I see his face turn a shade pale. “You—you didn’t want to ever talk about this.”
“Talk about what?”
He opens his mouth. Then he closes it. Looks away. “The video. The one you put on Facebook. I don’t… I still don’t see why you didn’t take that to the police. Why you took it down.”
It’s a fair point. A change of subject, sure, but a fair point. I have all I need to pin everything on Freddie and Moira. All the confessions I need.
“Although the more time passes,” Gregg says. “Maybe I do understand.”
I deleted the video after escaping the house fire. Took it down immediately.
Because the video complicates things.
As certain as I am of my innocence where Charlie is concerned, the video complicates things.
“What are you trying to say?” I ask.
Gregg closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath. “I made you a promise. A long, long time ago. I made you a promise never to talk about what happened.”
“What happened?”
“Sarah, all I know is you came out of those maize fields covered in blood. Drenched. Traumatised. You kept—you kept saying you’d done something. Something terrible. That Elana, your sister. That you’d done something to her. But there were other things, too. Things—things making me worry even more about what you’d done. I—I wanted to go back there. Because you were saying things about Charlie. So I did.”
It hits me like a ton of bricks.
A memory door I didn’t know I had.
“What…”
“I went back there, and I found him. He—he was drowned. Face down in the water. Dead.”
“No,” I say. Because this can’t be right. I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill my son. I didn’t…
“And I can remember something. You getting into my car. The water on your hands. Too much water to be rain. But I promised not to mention this. I promised not to bring it up. Because last time… last time, it sent you spiralling. Last time you remembered, it sent you spiralling. So I tried everything. Tried to—to create a new memory. One where we went away and where I never went back to check on him. And then other memories. Nicer memories. Memories of being on a school field with Charlie. Of watching music with him.”
I feel his sweaty hand in mine, and I realise it isn’t sweat anymore.
It’s water.
Water from the stream.
And I can barely say a word.
“I don’t… I don’t judge you for what you did, Sarah. And I can’t accuse you of anything. But I… I think we both know what happened. And I think that’s why we both know you deleted the video. And the fire. The accidental fire. We both know about that. Don’t we?”
I think back to stabbing Freddie in the throat.
Then going into the attic.
Stabbing Moira repeatedly, again, and again, and again.
I think about pouring gas everywhere.
Burning the two houses to the ground.
I think about waiting until it was just burned enough and just smoked out enough before clambering my way out.
Being sure to delete the videos first, of course.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. “It was an accident. A tragic accident. One I was lucky to survive.”
Gregg nods. But I see he isn’t convinced. “I didn’t want to tell you this. And… and trust me. It caused me a lot of soul searching over the years. It’s the reason we drifted. That knowledge. The elephant in the room. That knowledge of what you did. And what… and what it made you.”
I try to think of myself holding Charlie’s face down in the water, but I can’t.
There is nothing real about the memory.
I remember running through the fields.
I remember running away and leaving Charlie behind.
And then I remember landing in Gregg’s arms and his damp hand and—
“You’re lying,” I say.
Gregg narrows his eyes. Frowns. “What?”
“I know I left my son. And that’s… that’s almost as bad as consigning him to his death. But I know I did not go back into those fields. I know I wanted to… but you wouldn’t let me.”
Gregg shakes his head. Almost nonchalant about it. “We went through this last time. The accusations. It’s not true, Sarah. None of it is—”
“Then why did I receive this in the post with a strand of blonde hair and note saying I KNOW EVERYTHING last year?”
Gregg looks down. He opens his mouth. Then closes it. “What… I don’t… I don’t know what that is.”
“But you do, Gregg. You do. Because it’s exactly like the one you gave me. Remember?”
He looks down at it, and I look at it too. Okay. Maybe I wasn’t totally frank about everything I received in that parcel. But it’s all been for a good reason. Because I need to be careful what information I share. I need to be careful what I tell anyone these days. Nobody can be trusted. Not really.
“Sarah?” Gregg says. “What is this?”
“Do you remember these that we wore? These rings? The ones with the elephants on?”
“I… I remember something about them, yes.”
“Do you remember losing your ring that day? Not being able to find it?”
He narrows his eyes. Looks right at me. “No. No, I do not remember that.”
“I think… I think you went back. I think you killed my son because you didn’t want him finding his way back to us somehow. You never wanted children. You only ever wanted it to be the two of us. Only you left something behind. Something Freddie linked to me. Something that was yours.”
He’s quiet. Speechless. He doesn’t say a word.
“I think you made me believe neither of us went back that day. I think you used my mental breakdown to your advantage to make me forget. Or worst-case scenario, to make me believe I went back there. But I know what you did. We both know what you did.”
He looks across the table at me. He looks calm. Cool. Collected.
And then, unexpectedly, he shakes his head and smiles.
“I wish you the best with your new life, Sarah. Truly, I do. You. The baby. With everything. I am sorry for the things you’ve been through. I am sorry for the life we have led. But I don’t want to hear from you again. I don’t ever want to hear from you again. Enjoy your fresh start. And I will enjoy mine.”
He stands.
“You tell yourself whatever story you want to to make yourself feel better, Sarah. As long as you stay the fuck away from me.”
And then, without looking at me again, he turns around. Walks away.
And when he disappears, I feel free again.
I feel the warmth of the summer sun again.
I look around and face the docks, and I smile as the kids bike past. I think about my child and me. How I’m going to get it right this time. I’m older now. I’m more wisened now. I’m a better person now. Far, far better.
And the links to my past are gone.
I think about Moira. Freddie. And I don’t see myself stabbing them anymore. Killing them.
I see the terrible accident that led to
the house fire, which cost Freddie, Moira, and even Moira’s poor cat’s life.
I see these tragic truths and nothing else.
Because the truth is only the truth if you believe it.
And if you tell yourself enough lies over the top of it and really, really believe them, you can convince yourself anything is true.
Just like painting over old wallpaper.
And if any chips in the paint reveal the past… well, you just paint over it again.
And harder this time.
I put the ring in my pocket.
And just for a second, just for one momentary flash, I see myself in an antiques store just two weeks ago, buying it.
Just for a second, I see myself holding my son down in the water.
Bubbles spluttering from his mouth.
And I see the horror in Gregg’s eyes when he comes home that night.
I see all of this.
I see the old wallpaper peeking through the inches and inches of paint.
I feel horror.
I feel terror.
I feel shame.
And then I paint over it again. I put it away, all in a compartment in my mind.
It’s not real.
My version of events is real.
I didn’t buy the ring. I received it in the parcel.
And the reason I never mentioned it is simply because I thought it was irrelevant.
Or might be useful to keep to myself.
That’s the truth.
The God’s honest truth.
Do you believe me?
I really hope you…
Actually, no.
Fuck it.
Believe whatever the fuck you want to believe, because I don’t have to prove myself to anybody anymore.
Believe what is the paint, and what is the wallpaper underneath.
Believe my version of events or Gregg’s version of events.
I know the truth.
I know my truth.
I put my hand on my tummy, and I smile.
I have made mistakes.
I have done horrible things.
But I am going to get things right this time.
I get up from the picnic table, and I see a flyer for a summer fete at Ashworth’s school in Broughton.
I have a flashback.
A flash of his hand in mine.
A flash of the summer heat.