Picnics in Hyde Park

by Nikki Moore

  What was wrong with her? Images of them in bed together the night before flittered through her mind. It had been so amazing, so intense. Surely he couldn’t have looked at her that way, touched her like that if he didn’t feel anything for her?

  No. It had just been fantastic sex. That’s all it was. That’s all it could be.

  Shaking her head vehemently as she turned the shower off made her groan. She had such a headache. What had she been thinking of drinking so much last night? If anything she should have been trying to keep a clear head given Rayne and Frankie’s attendance at the party. It was because they’d been having so much fun she realised. Her and Matt, and the five couples who were all such lovely, good people. Wrapping a large bath towel around her and knotting it over her breasts, she brushed her teeth roughly while trying not to be sick and promised herself a couple of paracetamol ASAP. Striding into her bedroom, she dried off briskly even though it magnified the pain in her head by about a hundred and pulled on underwear, jeans and a loose, thin grey top. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she tilted her head forward and used a hand towel to dry the ends of her hair.

  ‘Oh,’ a deep, surprised voice said above her head. ‘Morning.’

  Freezing, Zoe fought back a crashing wave of mixed emotions and took a deep breath. Some demons were best faced straight away. Flipping her head upright, she met Matt’s eyes, desperate for the next few minutes to be over already. ‘Hi.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be awake yet. It’s only just gone nine and we had a late night.’ He extended a tray full of mugs and plates towards her, his face pale. ‘I went out to get us some pastries for breakfast. I needed some fresh air. I made us coffee too.’

  ‘Oh,’ now it was her turn to sound surprised. ‘I woke up half an hour ago. Eight thirty is a lie-in for me compared to when I get up in the week.’

  ‘Right.’ Setting the tray down on the bedside cabinet, he joined her on the edge of the bed. ‘But you got up straight away.’ His eyes went to the pillow he’d slept on, the indent of his head still there. Dull colour seeped into his face. ‘So you must have thought I’d left without saying anything. That I’d just left you.’

  ‘I um…yeah, I guess I did,’ she muttered, staring at the towel and twisting it between her hands. This was so awkward. Had she gotten it totally wrong?

  ‘I’m sorry if that’s what you thought, but that’s not my style,’ he pushed her thick damp hair behind her ear to see her face, then frowned and yanked his hand away as if the contact had burnt him. ‘I thought you knew me well enough by now to know that, Zoe.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, gathering her courage and turning to look at him. His eyes fluttered away from hers, avoiding eye contact. ‘But this wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?’ she pointed out. ‘So you can hardly blame me for thinking the worst when I woke up and you’d gone.’

  He sighed. ‘I don’t. I get it.’ His shoulders slumped and he shifted away, a divide of wrinkled duvet appearing between them. ‘Look, we need to talk.’

  ‘Oh, Matt. Can’t you come up with anything more original than that?’ A huge lump lodged in her throat and she had to swallow twice to carry on. She wasn’t sure she could bear this but at the same time knew that what he was about to say was probably the best for both of them under the circumstances. ‘What are you going to say? It’s not me, it’s you? Or—’

  ‘Hang on! Don’t start making assumptions—’

  ‘Of course I’m going to assume. You can’t even look me in the eye. It’s obvious you regret—’

  ‘Don’t tell me what’s obvious!’ Jumping up, he walked to the window, movements uncharacte‌ristically jerky. Staring fixedly out of the window, he lowered his voice, ‘You don’t know how I feel or what I think. I walked to the bakery so I could get my head together before talking to you. I needed to get it all straight, needed to understand how I was feeling before I spoke to you. It’s only fair.’

  ‘Okay, so you’ve done that. Now tell me how you feel. Make it fair. You’re saying you don’t regret us sleeping together, but your body language is screaming with tension.’ She breathed in, deep and slow, praying the answer to her next question would be no. ‘Do you want me to leave, Matt? Is that it? Do you think it would be better but you’re worried you’ll come across as a bastard if you ask me to go now?’

  ‘No. It’s not regret, okay?’ He span around to look at her, face flushed. ‘It’s guilt.’

  She frowned. ‘Guilt? Why on earth would you feel guilty? Okay, I was drunk but I knew what I was doing. It’s been there between us for a while, hasn’t it? So don’t feel guilty on my account.’

  He waved his hand to dismiss her words. ‘No. It’s not that.’

  ‘What then?’ she shot off the bed and marched over to him, grabbing his forearms, feeling the heat of his skin and the strength of his tense muscles beneath her fingers. ‘Tell me. What is it?’

  ‘Helen!’ he ground out, a nerve pulsing in his jaw. ‘It’s Helen.’

  ‘Oh, shit. I didn’t think. I’m sorry.’ Softening her voice, ‘I know it’s hard, but you shouldn’t feel bad. She died three years ago. At some point you need to move on. I’m not saying you’re doing that with me. I’m not asking you for anything, but its normal that…What I mean is that when you love someone, are married and lose them—’

  ‘Zoe.’ He met her eyes. ‘It’s not that. She was my wife, yes. But this isn’t me being afraid to move on because I’m still in mourning. I’ve tried to fight what’s between us for so long, but I couldn’t. Which is why I feel so bloody awful.’

  ‘What is it then? Matt, what are you not telling me?’

  ‘I don’t deserve to be happy!’ It burst out of him in a rush, his voice strangled.

  ‘What?’ She let out an astounded laugh. ‘Don’t be so stupid. Why on earth would you say that?’

  ‘Because it’s true,’ he shouted, his breath hot on her cheek. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘What?’ She stepped back and released his arms, mouth dropping open at the fury in his voice.

  ‘It’s true, Zoe,’ he repeated in an undertone. ‘I’m sorry for yelling at you, but that’s the way it is. I’m just being honest.’

  She studied the pain on his face, the milky complexion under the ruddy cheekbones, the eyes filled with remorse, the tight lips. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously,’ she answered. ‘I shouldn’t have laughed. I didn’t mean it in a ha-ha way, it was genuine disbelief. You’re a good person,’ pausing, she thought of what he’d done to Melody and how distant he’d been from the kids when she’d arrived, ‘even though you may have made mistakes. But everybody does. It’s what makes us human. We don’t live in a vacuum. We live among other people and we’re all messy, complex creatures.’ Thinking of herself and of the plan she’d once had. ‘So please tell me what you mean.’

  He hesitated, expression torn between confusion and despair.

  ‘Please, Matt,’ she begged, sliding her hands around his wrists again to anchor him. She stroked them soothingly, reassuring him without words that no matter what, she was there.

  Closing his eyes, he started talking. At first it was stilted and slow. ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead.’

  ‘So don’t. Just tell me the truth in your own words. I know it’s hard, but focus on the facts. Besides, I’m not here to judge you.’

  ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘I…I told you that things were difficult between me and Helen towards the end. That she seemed to resent being a mum, and lost her way a bit. I explained to you that things were bad and then getting better. Or so I thought. The truth is, we’d simply found a way to rub along for the kids’ sakes.’

  Zoe winced. She’d seen on more than one occasion what staying together for the kids did. It caused two unhappy parents and equally miserable children. It was laudable to want to keep the family unit intact, but not at the expense of everyone in it.

  ‘I thought I still loved her,’ he continued, opening his eyes. ‘I wanted things
to work between us. I thought we were going through a rough patch. Sometimes we had spats, sometimes we virtually ignored each other, and sometimes there were these shitty, hideous silences. It went on for months. And then one night I tried to talk to her about what was going on between us and the way it was affecting us all. The way she only really seemed excited about shopping or seeing friends. How she’d been drinking more and more. It was no way to live.’ Now that he’d started, it was like he couldn’t stop, the words flowing out of him. ‘She reacted badly. We had a massive argument and she was so unreasonable, almost hysterical. When I lost my temper and said maybe we should have a temporary separation, that I wanted her to take some time to go and figure out what she wanted, she freaked out. She was ranting and raving that I couldn’t take it all away from her. Then she,’ he gulped, eyes filling with horror, colour leeching from his skin so that it looked ash white, ‘she grabbed the kids from their beds and ran out while I was in the kitchen at the back of the house. She put them in the Land Rover I’d bought for her and roared away. It scared the hell out of me. She’d come home after a few wines over lunch with friends, or at the time that’s who I thought she was with, and had another few glasses over dinner.’ He stared at Zoe sightlessly and she could tell he was lost in another time and place, re-living that harrowing night. She tightened her grip on his arms, stepping closer to him. Contrary to his usual heat, he felt cold, tremors wracking his body. ‘When I realised what had happened I grabbed some shoes and looked for my car keys to follow her, but I couldn’t find them.’ His face paled further, lost in his own private agony. ‘I couldn’t find them and I didn’t know what to think. I was frantic, couldn’t breathe properly and didn’t know whether to call the police or keep searching for the keys. I didn’t think I’d ever see the kids again. I thought she was going to be one of those women who absconded with the children, or used them as weapons in some ugly war. But most of all I just kept thinking to myself, she’s drinking and driving and my babies are in that car with her.’

  ‘God, Matt.’ She drew in a sharp breath, aching for him. So that was why he’d reacted so badly the day she’d got into the Prius to go to Longleat with the kids and he’d thought she was angry. She’d guessed there was something at the time, had asked outright about Helen and the accident, but he hadn’t felt able to tell her. It must have brought it all back for him. That was also the first time they’d kissed, she realised. When he’d been vulnerable and hurting. So perhaps it wasn’t about her, but about the comfort he’d needed that day.

  She should let him go, break the physical contact between them but couldn’t convince herself to release his arms just yet. So she simply listened as his sentences got shorter and shorter, racing through remembered pain.

  ‘I eventually found the keys—she’d hidden them in one of Jasper’s shoes—then ran out of the house. I leapt in the car and drove up the road. I wound the windows down. It was pouring with rain, even though it was June. Bloody British weather, I remember thinking. It was so strange and surreal. I was gasping in the warm air, praying to a God I never really believed in to keep them all safe when I heard the crash. I found out later it was over a quarter of a mile away.’

  Her mouth fell open in dismay at the thought of the kids being hurt, and what it must have been like for him to hear the sound of the accident. It was so awful she could barely comprehend it.

  ‘I got to the car and it was crumpled, concertinaed into a tree at the side of a residential road. It was starting to spark and smoke. I thought I’d lost them all,’ his voice broke on the last word, ‘and I felt as if someone had punched a hole straight through my chest. I ran over to the car, afraid to look, afraid of what I was going to see, afraid not to look. I- I saw Helen. She was badly injured. Her head was crushed against the windscreen and bleeding, her neck was at a weird angle and the airbag hadn’t deployed. She’d talked about disabling it at some point but I didn’t think she’d actually done it. She was in a bad way, but do you want to know what my first thought was? It wasn’t that I should get her out, how I could help her, it was for the kids. I looked in the back seat and they weren’t there. The kids weren’t there.’ His eyes were anguished, hands curling into fists and sending quivering ripples into her hands. ‘I could smell petrol and the car was sparking. But still it was the kids that I was worried about. My brain knew they weren’t in there, but I still ran around the car wrenching the doors open. Searching for them. Leaving Helen in the front, unconscious and bleeding. And then I heard Aimee calling me.’ He ground his teeth, a vein pumping in his forehead. ‘I spun around and she was standing further down the road holding Jasper’s hand. There was a woman with them. I didn’t know who she was or what was happening, so I started running toward them and then there was a clunking sound and a whoosh behind me and I was thrown to the floor by an explosion, straight onto my face. The fall broke my nose.’ Freeing his arm from her hold, he rubbed the bridge of his nose with a trembling finger. It must be a constant reminder of the accident, Zoe thought, every time he looked in the mirror. ‘When I stood up,’ Matt continued, ‘blood pouring down my top, the car was a burning wreck and Helen was dead.’

  Zoe’s eyes filled with tears, a sharp tingling sensation shooting down her nose. It was truly horrific, what this family had gone through. She didn’t know what to say, or if she should say anything. All she knew was that she wanted to hold him and soothe him and take away his pain.

  ‘The emergency services arrived only a few minutes later. The woman standing with the kids had called them. She lived nearby. She’d heard the crash and come out to help. When she’d found the kids she moved them away and kept them safe for me. If she hadn’t…’

  ‘But she did,’ she whispered, picturing Aimee’s shiny red hair in a neat ponytail as she bent over a book and Jasper’s dark hair and green eyes full of excitement as he bopped up and down about something. Her heart swelled with affection and relief. She couldn’t assimilate how close they had come to being hurt, or worse. ‘They were fine, weren’t they? They weren’t injured?’

  ‘They were fine, physically. It turned out that Helen had stopped and let the kids out at the side of the road. What she was thinking of abandoning them like that I don’t know, and why she did it is a mystery too. Maybe she realised leaving me and having two children to look after wasn’t going to be much fun. Or maybe it was because she was having an affair and thought the kids would be an inconvenience.’

  ‘She had someone else?’ she asked, astounded.

  ‘Yes. A friend of a friend as it turned out. They’d run into each other at the gym. He came to see me after the funeral. I never forgave him for telling me. He should have kept quiet, said nothing. It was like a kick in the teeth on top of everything else. I haven’t seen him since.’

  So that’s why when she’d confided in him about Greg cheating he’d been so understanding. He knew what it was like from personal experience. It was also possibly why he’d been so adamant after the newspaper article that he would never start something with someone if he was already in a relationship. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to cheat on Matt. He was so warm, funny and caring. Not to mention gorgeous. Then again, if a person was unhappy, perhaps they could justify anything to themselves. So maybe it said more about the person who was being unfaithful, than the person they were cheating on. Maybe it wasn’t about being unworthy, but about no longer being right for each other.

  As for the other thing Matt had said…‘He may have thought you deserved to know the truth, Matt. So that you mourned the real person and not a wife you believed was loyal and faithful. Or maybe he was grieving too.’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible. I never thought of it like that. I was too angry.’

  ‘But if you can’t forgive other people, how can you get closure yourself and be happy? It’ll always be hanging over you. And what you said about Helen taking the kids out of the car, have you ever considered that her mother’s instinct kicked in? Perhaps she realised sh
e was drunk and that they shouldn’t be in the car with her. You told me before that even though she wasn’t that emotionally invested you never normally worried about their safety with her.’

  ‘It’s possible. I never considered it that way. I just thought she was being irresponsible, but maybe it was the opposite. She did love them in her own way, I never doubted that. But why wouldn’t she have simply pulled over and waited for me to catch up?’

  ‘Who knows? We never will, because we can’t ever know what was going through her head at the time, can we?’

  ‘Well, what I do know from the Road Traffic Collision investigation is that she pulled straight into oncoming traffic and hit the tree at more than forty miles per hour when she swerved to avoid a car. She was accelerating at the time. They said that she can’t have been paying attention. She was nearly double the legal drink driving limit.’ He dropped his chin, staring at the floor. ‘I saw tears on her face when I found her in the wreck, Zoe.’

  ‘And it’s your fault,’ she filled in softly, slowly putting it all together. The way he hardly ever talked about Helen to the kids, how uncomfortable he was around Helen’s mum, the way he’d distanced himself from Aimee and Jasper. It was the guilt he’d referred to.

  At her words, his head snapped up and back as if she’d slapped him. She could see the misery in his dark green eyes.

  ‘It’s your fault, that’s what you think,’ she expanded. ‘You feel guilty and responsible and that’s why you think you don’t deserve to be happy.’

  ‘I don’t. I was responsible,’ he gritted out. ‘If I hadn’t argued with her, she wouldn’t have taken the kids and got in the car. I shouldn’t have lost my temper!’

  ‘Did you hit her, or threaten to?’