‘Carl’s back,’ she says, with her customary directness, as soon as I open the door. ‘I’ve told him you’re here.’
Even though I have expected it, something shudders through me at her words. ‘What did he say? How is he?’ I ask.
She spreads her hands out silently. ‘Shocked,’ she says, at last. ‘He’s trying to make sense of it – understand how it could have happened. As we all are,’ she adds, cool evaluation briefly flashing in her gaze. ‘Anyway. Can we go out?’
Wrong-footed, I hesitate. An image of the woman in my house flickers again at the corners of my mind. ‘I need to get home,’ I say. ‘You were right.’
‘That’s as may be,’ she counters swiftly, ‘but I need to talk to you first.’ There’s a kind of savage intensity to her tone, and somehow from her the word need feels stronger, overturning mine. I look at her, and there are still so many unanswered questions in my head, pulling me towards her. And there’s still you, just across the street, only metres away.
‘It won’t take long,’ she says swiftly, sensing my weakness. ‘We can just go to the park or something. Francis?’ Her voice is suddenly gaily raised. ‘It’s Amber. I’m just going to borrow Caroline for half an hour, if that’s OK? I want her advice on something.’
There is a pause. ‘Errrm – OK,’ he calls back at last, his tone tinged with confusion.
My eyes meet Amber’s, and she shrugs. There’s nothing to do but pull on my shoes and follow her as she turns and walks briskly down the road, weaving through the back streets towards the riverside park. She doesn’t speak as we walk, and I’m unable to help second-guessing what she wants to say. I know she still believes I came here deliberately. That I’ve followed you like a pathetic stalker, desperate to be close to you again.
‘I’m not what you think I am,’ I find myself saying. My voice is brittle and I have to stop and breathe for a second to quell the tremble that might signify weakness. ‘I’m not trying to come between you and Carl.’
Amber is twisting round, looking for a suitable place for us to sit. ‘Here,’ she says, walking swiftly over to a bench shaded beneath a canopy of willow branches close to the river’s edge. She curls up at one end, drawing her knees up to her chest, waiting for me to join her. ‘I have no idea if that’s true or not, Caroline,’ she says. ‘I’ve got no way of knowing. But that’s not really the reason I wanted to speak to you.’
Slowly, I sit. She’s not looking at me as if I’m an object of her hatred, or even her pity. Her expression is more one of cautious evaluation, as if she’s wondering whether I am the last piece of the puzzle that she’s trying to put together.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
She brushes her hair back from her forehead and runs her hand down its length, grasping it into a fist and tugging on it gently. The mannerism looks familiar and I find myself wondering if I do it myself. ‘I wasn’t really honest with you, that first day we went to the coffee shop,’ she says. ‘When I said that I didn’t know Sandra.’
‘Sandra?’ I ask, but as soon as I’ve said it I know who she means. The shape of the word lingers oddly in my mouth. I’m not sure I’ve ever said it before.
‘Yes,’ Amber says. ‘The woman at number 21, the woman whose house you’re staying in.’
‘OK,’ I say, and now my heart is thudding for a different reason. ‘So you …’ And I realize I don’t know what to say next.
Amber frowns minutely, knitting her fingers together and staring down at them. ‘I’ve always been aware of her,’ she says. ‘She moved in not long after us. You know, I see people around on this street all the time, but right from the start I saw her more than most people. She always seemed to be there, when I was out and about – just passing outside, or out in the front garden. We didn’t speak much, but she seemed friendly, and when you move somewhere new … I don’t have friends here, or family, and Carl was working away such a lot. I started to feel like I knew her.’ She shrugs, glancing at me for my reaction.
I look back at the regimented rows of houses stretching away from us. In this kind of place, familiarity feels like more than it is. The sight of the same people moving in and out of your eye-line from day to day seems to add up to more than the sum of its parts. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I see.’
‘It wasn’t easy between me and Carl, when we first moved here,’ she says. The flicker of unwillingness in her eyes tells me this must be important – that she wouldn’t say this to me unless she had to. ‘Our relationship had gone a long way in a short time. I hadn’t really got to grips with him yet. At times, I felt that I’d moved in with someone I barely knew, and he didn’t always help that. To be honest,’ she says, her voice rising now and her words coming faster, ‘I don’t think he was over you, or what happened. Not at all. He’d told me everything almost at once, when he barely even knew me. It was like he needed to pass it on to someone. I don’t think it really mattered who. I’m not saying he doesn’t love me,’ she adds warningly, flashing me a quick look. ‘But back then – I don’t know. It was a strange time.’
‘I can understand that,’ I say automatically, because she’s paused and she seems to be expecting something, but all I can think of is you – washed up in this place with a woman you fell for to save your sanity, spending your days and nights trying to deal with the fallout of everything that had happened. I don’t know why I never thought of you this way before. All along I’ve seen you as self-sufficient, impenetrable. I told myself that you would cope, that you had washed your hands of me and never wanted to see me again. In my darkest moments, I almost thought you had been glad of the chance to do it while playing the sacrificial lamb, in a way that so completely exonerated you of blame. I was the damaged one. There was no space to think of you as being the same.
‘Anyway,’ Amber continues, ‘one day, I invited her over for coffee. We hung out at my place for a while, just chatting. Nothing deep, you know … just small talk, but it broke up the day. It got to be a sort of routine, whenever Carl was away for a few days. She was a lot older than me, but I kind of liked that. It sounds stupid, but it was almost like she was looking after me. I was lonely, you see? I just wanted someone to talk to.’
She spreads out her hands unconsciously as she talks, opening up her isolation to me. ‘And one day – Carl and I had had a fight over the phone while he was away, and I’d said to him that I wasn’t sure why we were bothering, that I wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to let go of the past. He didn’t even answer me – he just hung up. I’d just got off the phone with him when Sandra turned up at the door. I’d forgotten I’d invited her, and I was in tears. She asked me what was wrong, and I—’
‘You told her,’ I finish, because suddenly I understand what this is about and the pieces are falling into place, and I can feel the hairs on my arms rising against my sleeves. ‘You told her everything.’
Amber nods. ‘You don’t understand what it was like,’ she says. ‘It used to go round and round in my head, everything he’d said. The way he told me about your affair, and about the accident, it was like reading his way through a script – all the words there right next to the surface. Like I said, he needed to pass it on. And I wanted to do the same.’
I try to put myself in this woman’s place. Imagine myself sitting in my home opposite Amber, listening to her tell me about how my daughter died. Understanding that the man I had thought was responsible was little more than a front for someone else. Someone who had walked away scot free. I can’t really do it – can’t get out of my own head for long enough to climb inside hers – but I think I glimpse the edge of it, a brief flash to the corner of my eye, and it’s enough to make me shudder.
‘What did she say?’ I force myself to ask. ‘How did she react?’
Amber shrugs minutely. ‘It was hard to tell,’ she says. ‘She’s very … controlled. She didn’t say much at all. But when I look back, that’s when she started behaving differently towards me.’
‘How do you mean?’ I ask.
My voice is trembling slightly, and I breathe in deeply, trying to ground myself.
‘It’s hard to explain,’ Amber says. ‘The best way I can describe it is that she just became a lot more – intense. We usually met up once a week or so while Carl was away, but she started turning up more and more, almost every day at one point. I started realizing that we didn’t actually have much in common. When we were together so often, we had nothing to say to each other, but she kept on coming. And – I know this sounds a bit crazy, but I started noticing a few things going missing. My favourite umbrella, a jumper I liked, a bottle of Carl’s aftershave. I mean, I had no proof that she’d taken them, but—’
‘I understand,’ I say quickly. I think of the shock of my fingers closing around that bottle, the first hint of its scent. This has been delicately planned. A subtly plotted treasure map of hints and clues and red herrings, designed to lure me in.
‘I didn’t like it.’ Amber cuts into my thoughts. ‘The past couple of months, I’ve tried to distance myself. Been out at the times she normally called, cut our meetings short. It’s worked, in as far as we don’t see each other very much any more. But she’s … still there.’ I see a quick shiver rack her body, her eyes lost as she stares somewhere into the middle distance. ‘And then,’ she says, pulling herself back, ‘of course, then you turned up.’
‘Is that why you spoke to me in the first place?’ I ask. ‘Because you thought I knew her?’
‘Well …’ Amber looks briefly awkward. ‘I don’t mean that was the only reason – I mean, under different circumstances, maybe we could have been friends—’
I think the absurdity of trying to cling to social niceties in this situation strikes her as much as it does me, because her lips curve momentarily into a half-smile before her face straightens again. ‘But yes,’ she continues, ‘I suppose I thought I might be able to find out more about her somehow, through you. But then you told me that you didn’t really know her, and I thought it was better to say that I didn’t either, because of course I didn’t know if you were being honest with me or not, you didn’t even know me, and at one point I even started thinking that Sandra had sent you as a kind of plant, just to find out what I was saying about her when she wasn’t there …’ She stops, takes a breath as she listens to the echo of all these hastily spilt-out words.
‘I was telling the truth,’ I say. ‘I’ve never—’ I am about to say that I have never even spoken to her, but then I remember the phone call, the soft, clear, even tone of her voice down the line. ‘I’ve never even seen her face,’ I finish.
Amber nods. ‘I’m not saying I don’t believe you. But there’s something here I don’t understand. I’m not imagining it, I know I’m not. There’s something odd about her. You know, when I came round to see you the other day, that was the first time I’d ever been into her house. We’d always met at mine. I had a quick look around and I couldn’t find most of the things that were missing, but I found the umbrella. She had it hanging up like it was some kind of talisman. Why the fuck would you do that? I don’t know, I just …’ She stops, collects her thoughts. ‘It’s not about the umbrella,’ she says. ‘It’s everything.’
Abruptly, she stops talking, hugging her knees to her chest again. Through the fine blonde strands of hair straying across her face, her green eyes are watchful. The line between her brows is creasing and deepening, her expression flickering with uncertainty. In this moment, I feel sorry for her. She’s walked into something she doesn’t understand and can’t change. She knows something is wrong, but she doesn’t know what, and I don’t want to tell her. That’s your job, if it’s anyone’s.
‘Have you told Carl about this?’ I ask. ‘Does he know Sandra, too?’
Amber shakes her head. ‘Like I said, I used to meet up with her when he was away. I might have mentioned her to him once or twice at the start, but not recently. I knew he’d think I was an idiot for letting her latch on to me. He always says I’m too soft.’ Abruptly, she stops, as if she’s realized that I don’t want or need to know these details. She’s right. Even the thought of you chastising her, telling her she’s too kind-hearted for her own good, is painful.
My silence is unsettling her; she looks at me head on, steeling herself. ‘She has something to do with all this, doesn’t she?’ she asks. ‘With why you’re here? With you and Carl?’ When I don’t answer, she shifts uneasily in her seat. ‘This is frightening me. I don’t want to feel like I’m being watched.’
The words unlock something and I realize that, of course, this is what this is all about. This woman has tracked you down here because she wanted to watch you. Some people turn away from tragedy and force it underground, and others stare it in the face. She wanted it close. Perhaps it’s the only way she can cope with it, to feel that she’s taken back some tiny amount of control, even if it means torturing herself every day with the reality of what has happened. But what she’s been doing with me goes beyond watching. It’s shifted up a gear.
Amber is still waiting, biting her lip. ‘No one’s watching you,’ I say. It’s as close to the truth as I can manage. Her eyes are shining with the threat of tears and, all at once, I just want her to fade away. ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘Honestly.’
She frowns, shaking her head. ‘It doesn’t feel like it.’
‘Really. This is all going to be over soon, Amber. I promise.’ Strangely, I believe what I’m saying. There’s a sense of gathering momentum, time sharpening to a point of decision, even if I don’t know yet exactly what it might be.
She opens her mouth as if to argue then slumps back. She wants this comfort – enough to accept it without further complaint or question. ‘I hope you’re right,’ she says quietly.
We sit there a few more moments in silence, drained. ‘Come on,’ I say finally. ‘Let’s go.’
‘OK.’ As she stands up and we begin to walk I can see a certain looseness in her shoulders that tells of relief, despite the lack of resolution in our conversation. She’s passed the burden on again. This is the way our lives are, I think – shifting pain back and forth between each other, expanding it, diluting it. Waiting for it to stretch and thin so much that it’s barely visible.
As we turn into Everdene Avenue, I sense Amber stiffen and hear her rapid intake of breath as she looks up the street. She’s seen it before me. You and Francis, standing on opposite sides of the pavement, staring at one another. The sunlight is falling across the two of you and it’s impossible to see the expressions on your faces. Neither of you is making a move towards the other, but you aren’t moving away either. It’s as if time has stopped.
And then Francis looks up and glances down the road, and he sees us standing there. In the next instant, you glance up, too, and you’re turning, walking fast up the pathway towards your house, and Francis is walking in the opposite direction, back towards number 21. In that split second, there’s a violent sense of wrenching. I want to tear myself in two. But my feet are already turning towards Francis and following him to the other side of the street and, as I look swiftly back over my shoulder I see Amber running towards you, your eyes meeting mine for an instant before you look away and your hand brushing her shoulder as you steer her inside.
Home
Francis, August 2014
A NEW DAY. Day one, every time I open my eyes. A clean slate. Sixteen waking hours that I can use however I want. I can work, go for walks, watch television, listen to music, spend time with my family or my friends, travel across the city, go to museums. I can do anything I want, as long as I don’t take the pills.
The sunshine is warm and soft on my face as I move back and forth in the bathroom, taking a shower, brushing my teeth, pulling on my clothes. In the mirror, I see the lines of my cheekbones newly revealed. My skin is smooth. My eyes are bright and clear. It’s happened slowly, but now, eleven months in, I can see myself again. I look well. The knowledge is sweet and simple.
I push open the bathroom window and the summer breeze curls gentl
y into the room, and I realize that, today, it’s going to be easy. The kind of day when I feel confident I can keep myself on this course and achieve whatever I want – carve out successes, fix the broken relationships. It isn’t always this way. Some days, it still feels as if I’m walking the most fragile of tightropes, that there’s no way the violent batterings of my mind can be contained by this thin shell I live in. There are days when it seems that I’m fighting a battle I can’t possibly win and even the effort of existing is a black cloud I can’t get out from under, the darkness of it pressing down on me so hard I can hardly speak. But not today.
‘Daddy, Daddy,’ I hear Eddie singing next door, and I push open the nursery door and see him lying in his bed, grinning and waving, his fair hair tousled and tangled on the pillow. When I first started to surface from the dream I’ve been in for years, his presence was a shock. He had been there all along, but I hadn’t. Suddenly, we were in this together, father and son, and to my surprise I found that the weight of his expectations on me was easy to carry. I’m patient with him. Firm but fair. I take him to the shops or the park and he trots along beside me, his small fingers curling their way around mine. When I tuck him in at night his breath is warm and sweet on my downturned face. Small things. Before, if I noticed them at all, they were daggers to the heart – just more reminders of a life that couldn’t be enjoyed and that was irretrievably out of reach. Now, I build my world around them. It’s a smaller world than most, but that suits me. For now.
‘Morning.’ Caroline appears behind me, slipping her way into the nursery and leaning against the wall, smiling. She’s wearing a dark green vest top that barely skims her thighs and a small pair of black knickers underneath. An image of the night before flashes into my head: her face turned to one side on the pillow in abandon, her legs hotly clasping mine. The thought gives me a surge of desire and I have to stamp it back down. These days, it sometimes seems I can barely think of anything else. It was one of the first things that came back, after I stopped the pills. The delirious realization that this was still something I could do – the bizarre novelty of fucking my own wife. She’s watching me, looking as if she’s reading my mind. ‘Are you off soon?’ she asks.
The House Swap Page 23