Emily was perched along the bar when I walked in. I pulled up a stool and sat down next to her.
‘Hey,’ she smiled. She unclasped a clip and shook her hair loose. She was wearing a low-cut black dress. The bartender stared. ‘You look tired. Buy you a drink?’
As if she had ever paid for anything in her life. ‘No, thanks. I can’t stay long.’
‘What’s wrong?’ She leaned over and placed her hand on my leg. I brushed it off. I tried to come up with a way to phrase this right.
‘Is this about last night? I’m sorry. I was out and I’d had too much to drink. I was just missing you,’ she pouted.
‘Ems, I’ve been thinking,’ I started, picking my words carefully. ‘With everything else that’s happening, we’d be crazy to keep this going.’
She started. ‘What are you saying?’
‘We’re both good people. I think that’s what attracted us to each other in the first place. But this . . . this feels wrong. I’m married. And as much as I enjoy seeing you, I can’t keep this up. I feel like I’m living a double life. And the guilt . . . it’s crippling. You’re leaving in a few weeks anyway, so let’s just end it now.’
‘You’re dumping me?’
‘I just don’t want anyone to get hurt,’ I said, speaking quietly, willing her to do the same.
Needless to say, I didn’t succeed.
‘You mean you don’t want your wife to get hurt,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘What about me?’
A group of tourists on the other side of the room turned, peeling their eyes away from the giant TV screen to look at us. I smiled and shrugged, then put my hand on Emily’s to calm her down. What had happened to all her proclamations about keeping this casual?
‘You know how much I care about you. But this isn’t good for anyone involved.’ I paused and made a show of checking my watch.
Emily stood up and put her hands on my chest. She clutched my shirt. ‘Can we talk about this?’
I disentangled myself and moved away from her. ‘Don’t. Please.’
‘Are you telling me you feel nothing? That I’m imagining this?’
‘You have to understand, Emily. This was a mistake. I know I shouldn’t have let it get so far, but I just can’t walk around feeling like this anymore. It’s killing me,’ I said. ‘I could lose everything.’
If I could, I would take that last sentence back.
Emily started yelling at me then, screaming, cursing, telling me she didn’t care what happened to me. She was behaving like a spoilt little girl. I wanted to smack her into complying. Instead, I listened patiently, I spoke softly, I snapped, I shook her hard. I tried everything I could to calm her down but when she didn’t, I turned around and walked away. I had to.
I got on the 18.08 to Crystal Palace. Sat on the window seat, pulled out my phone, sent a text.
As the train chugged along, I felt calmer by the minute, the muscles in my back loosening and relaxing as Emily receded into my past. I leaned back in the seat, at first putting the lightness that I was sensing down to the warmth of the train, until it occurred to me that it was the relief that comes with closure.
Who knew guilt could weigh so much.
MIA
Thursday, 12th November
I stepped out of the bedroom and checked my watch again. It was only half six but I could already hear sounds coming from the kitchen. I had planned on cooking breakfast before everyone woke up but it looked like I was too late. Another strike against me, I thought, twisting my hair into a loose bun. I wasn’t sure if I cared anymore. My in-laws’ opinion of me seemed irrelevant when my own sister had pushed me aside.
I closed the door softly behind me. Roy was still asleep.
I was at the foot of the stairs when their voices became clear enough for me to decipher the words. I stopped. Another overheard argument, from years ago, sprang to mind. I cleared my head and focused on the present.
‘You promised you would try,’ I heard my mother-in-law say.
‘I can’t help it if he’s so touchy.’
As the voices grew louder, I felt my breathing hasten. I sank down, clutching the banister.
Panic claimed me. I was tingling all over. I looked down at my feet and the floor began to dance.
‘Accha, what did you expect? You pushed him . . .’
‘He’s come a long way. I was congratulating him!’
Shaking my head, I gripped the banister harder and closed my eyes. My in-laws’ words quickly morphed into something else and images from the past filled my head, circling my skull, pushing against it, each one more aggressive than the other.
Addi and me, playing hide and seek.
Me hiding under the staircase.
Daddy storming into the house.
I tried to shake them away but they wouldn’t budge.
The images were accompanied by sounds now. A man and a woman. Screaming. I strained to hear them over the thumping that seemed to be coming from inside me.
‘What the fuck is this? I didn’t think . . . not a child . . .’
‘David, calm down, please. The girls . . .’
‘. . . how dare you bring . . .’
‘. . . wasn’t like that . . .’
All the sounds and voices were scrambled up, blending into one. A hand was pulling me, dragging me out from under the stairs.
‘Mia. Mia, are you okay?’
I pushed the voices away. I opened my eyes. My father was crouching in front of me. I shook my head and blinked. I tried again. My mother-in-law was crouching in front of me. My father-in-law was hovering behind her.
‘Kya hua?’
I forced myself to slow down. I tried to speak.
‘Are you ill, beta?’
I nodded.
‘Go back to bed. Chalo, get up.’
Her fingernails dug into my arm.
Before I knew it my mother-in-law was pulling me up and walking me back to my bedroom.
She closed the door behind her. Roy was sitting up in bed, staring at me. I went to the dresser, fished around for my emergency stash of sleeping pills, gulped two down and crawled into bed.
Maybe it had something to do with the sleeping pills or perhaps it was a side effect of the panic itself, but when I woke up several hours later, it felt as though the world had shifted back into focus. I prodded the memory that had been evading me for years and everything about that day started coming back to me, the words clearer, sharper than ever before.
Ready or not, here I come . . .
I could see myself scrunched up in the triangular space under the stairs, knees drawn up to my chin, the door open just a crack so I could jump out and tag Addi as soon as she passed. I could hear the scratching sound coming from behind me and feel the goosebumps on my skin. I was scared of mice but it was only for a hundred seconds, I had reasoned. Time passed but Addi still didn’t appear so I decided to count to twenty, just to be safe, and then go and find her. The door slammed and I saw Daddy’s legs go into the kitchen. He’d been away for two whole days. I was about to run out and give him a hug, when I heard them shouting. I stayed inside.
‘What the fuck is this? I didn’t think you were capable of stooping to this level.’
‘David, calm down, please . . .’
‘Is this what you get up to while I’m out every day working my—’
‘Please, the girls . . .’
‘Don’t you dare bring the girls into this. Tell me, why did you do it? Were you bored? Is that it? Needed a little extra attention?’
‘Stop shouting at me! David, please . . . It wasn’t like that . . . I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry I lied to you. Just stop shouting, the girls will—’
‘Let them. Let them fucking hear what a manipulative . . .’
It was awful. I remember shrinking further back into the cupboard and knocking something over. Next thing I knew, my mother was pulling me out, screaming at me for hiding in the cupboard when I should have been upstairs doing my homework. Daddy was hovering behind
her, his face full of worry. I was crying. I had scraped my elbow. I wanted Daddy to kiss it better and tell me I’m unbreakable, but Mum wouldn’t let him.
Then Addi was there, dragging me upstairs and asking me to keep quiet; kissing my elbow and putting on a plaster; reading me a story, her voice getting louder and louder as the voices from downstairs drifted up.
Even as a kid, Addi had always sided with Mum. Look how much that cost us.
I thought back to the rest of the day. I had stared out of the window as Daddy got into his car and drove off. Addi kept asking me to come back to the bed and listen to her story.
I could hear Mum crying downstairs. I had heard what she had said to Daddy; how she had begged him, apologizing and telling him she’d stop.
The truth seared through me.
I wondered how long Addi had known.
I hadn’t understood then but it all fell into place now.
My mother had been having an affair. Daddy found out and that’s why he drove off that day. That’s why he was speeding to get back for my party the next day.
I had spent all these years blaming myself when really it was my mother’s fault.
She killed him with her lies.
PART TWO
Present Day
London
ROY
Sunday, 6th December
My heart flips in my chest. Emily’s face is staring up at me. I haven’t seen her like this before. She’s wearing a pink T-shirt and star-shaped earrings. Her light blonde hair is tied up in a ponytail. She has no make-up on. She looks young, innocent.
I think of the last time I saw her. I shudder involuntarily.
I feel Mia watching me and I tear my eyes away from Emily’s. I force myself to look at Mia.
‘Mia, I . . .’ I struggle. I don’t know how to do this. My eyes dart back to the flyer. MISSING, it says in bold red letters.
The police will be back. Soon. Telling Mia myself is my best shot at this. I have to manage this.
‘I – I’m sorry,’ I try again. ‘I’ve been so stupid. It was nothing. It meant nothing.’
Mia’s leaning forward in her chair, her arms wrapped around her stomach. She looks like she is in pain, but her eyes don’t leave mine for a second.
‘Emily and I, we . . . you have to understand, it was a mistake.’
The silence that follows seems to go on forever. Mia looks down, folding into herself.
When she finally speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper. ‘You’re having an affair.’
‘No, that’s not what it—’
‘Did you sleep with her?’
She looks up when I don’t respond. ‘How long?’
‘Not long.’
She sits up. Her words are slower this time. ‘How long?’
‘A few weeks.’
‘Since the wedding.’
It is more a statement than a question, but I nod anyway.
She stands up and storms into the kitchen. I follow her.
‘Why?’ she screams.
‘I don’t know. She was there and I – I messed up.’ I hesitate. ‘But I ended it. Last month. I’ve been feeling so guilty, Mia—’
‘Stop lying to me! You told the detectives you met her last week.’
‘Only because she wouldn’t let it go.’ I take a step towards her and she recoils, flattening against the fridge. For a moment I think she’s afraid of me. ‘Mia, please, you have to believe me,’ I say. I walk up to her and grip her by her arms. ‘I ended it.’
‘Get away from me,’ she says, pushing me away and striding to the other end of the room.
‘We’re married!’ she screams out all of a sudden, turning to face me.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
There are tears rolling down her cheeks. She brushes them away. Her voice wobbles. ‘I’ve been trying to hold us together, with your – with your parents and your project and all – all the travelling. And you . . .’
‘Mia . . .’
‘How could you?’
‘I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.’
‘Never meant to hurt me? If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have slept with that – that whore!’
‘I didn’t plan this, Mia. Things with Emily just, sort of, happened,’ I shrug.
‘Just happened? How is that even possible?’
I order myself to stay calm. I take a deep breath and let her carry on. Get it all out.
‘Where did you do it?’
The tears have dried up. There is an edge to her voice. I wonder if telling her was a mistake.
‘Is she good?’
Relentless.
‘Answer me! Is she good?’
‘I’m not going to do this,’ I say finally.
‘Why? You don’t kiss and tell?’ she spits out.
It’s difficult to believe I once loved this woman.
‘Did you do it here?’
‘No.’
‘Just tell me the truth.’
‘She never came here.’
‘Then where?’
‘Stop it, Mia. I told you it’s over. We need to focus on—’
‘Where did you fuck that bitch?’
‘Hotels,’ I give in.
‘Hotels,’ she repeats. I watch the realization creep across her face. My press trips, the welcome-back sex. She takes a step back.
My phone vibrates on the table and we both lunge at it. Mia gets there before I do. She fiddles with it then turns to me.
Thank God I changed the pin.
‘What’s the code?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Tell me your goddamn code, Roy.’
‘No.’
‘Why not? It’s her, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know who it is, Mia. You have my phone.’
‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Of course not,’ I say. I don’t want to lie, but I know she can’t take the truth, so I settle for something in between.
She goes back to punching things into my phone and it protests, emitting a long beeping noise.
‘Stop it,’ I yell and grab my phone off her. There’s only so much drama I can take.
‘Give it back!’
‘No,’ I shout back. I can’t hold it in anymore. I push her once, hard. She stumbles and falls.
I stoop down till my face is inches away from hers. ‘You can’t order me around. You want my phone?’
The broken expression from earlier is gone, and her face freezes into something between shock and fear.
‘Here,’ I say, straightening up and hurling the phone to the other side of the room. It bounces off the wall and across the floor, coming to rest finally in the middle of the room.
I walk over. My phone is still on. Mia’s still staring at me.
I pick it up and smash it into the wall, aiming for the same spot again. And again, and again, until it’s lying on the floor shattered into three pieces.
I turn around to look at Mia, but she’s already gone.
MIA
Sunday, 6th December
Everything blurs. The trees, the road, the cars, the sky. But I keep running anyway.
Why are you so fucking stupid, Mia? You invited her to the wedding. You knew he kissed her and you did nothing. It’s your own fucking fault. You should have seen this coming.
Terror tears through me. I keep running. My thoughts trip over themselves.
Roy was cheating on me. He lied to me. He broke us. It’s not my fault. He did this.
Happy people don’t cheat.
Who said that?
That fucking bitch. How dare she go after my husband? Slut. I hope she suffers. She deserves to be dead.
Stop it. It’s not her fault. You did this. You destroyed your own marriage.
This is fixable.
He was screwing both of you at the same time.
He said it didn’t go on for long.
Not long? It’s been three months since your sis
ter’s wedding.
It meant nothing, he said.
He’s lying. Nothing means nothing. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed her.
Little atom bombs go off in my brain and rain down my cheeks.
Why?
Was she good?
How many times?
Does he love her?
Was she good? Was she better?
Roy would never compare me to her.
Of course he would.
She must be better.
I think I’m crying.
You’re pathetic.
A sharp pain rips through my side, but I keep running. It’s getting hard to breathe but that doesn’t matter. Running is good. Sometimes, if I’m really focused, I can outrun the thoughts.
The wind is screaming.
Where did she come from?
I thought we were happy.
He doesn’t love you.
But I love him. I can fix this.
It’s too late.
He’s all I have left.
Coward.
The pain intensifies. I stop. I bend over and hug myself, panting. It’s all too much. My stomach lurches and even though I know it’s coming, the sheer force with which the nausea hits leaves me dizzy. My heart has been torn open yet I am still alive.
How?
I close my eyes and force myself to slow down. I count to ten. I try to tighten my grip on the here and now.
When I look up, somehow, I’m in the park.
There’s a bench. I sit on it and focus on the sound of my own breathing, waiting for the panic to loosen its grip. When it finally does, I am fenced by silence.
I can’t bear it.
Where is everyone?
I want to scream. I want to be heard, but I am alone.
I’m still here.
I ring Natalie. Voicemail. I remind myself she’s on holiday.
I’m the only one who hasn’t abandoned you, though God knows you deserve it.
I give up and let the voices fill my head, nudging, prodding, taunting.
Of course she’s better.
She’s younger, prettier.
You could never be as flexible.
He loves her.
You’re disgusting. Did you actually think you were good enough for him?
He’s going to leave you.
Night falls before the sun leaves.
Your Truth or Mine? Page 12