by Anita Waller
‘You’re starting to frighten me, Jenny. Tell me what’s wrong. Whatever it is, I’m sure we can sort it.’ Platitudes. And they both knew it was platitudes.
Jenny carefully lifted her mug to her mouth and then sat back in her chair.
‘Anna, I promise never to suggest you return to Ray and it goes without saying I’ll never disclose we’ve met, or divulge where you’re living.’
‘You don’t know where I’m living,’ she smiled. The tone of her voice was stilted and formal, and Anna’s smile was meant to ease the situation.
‘I will do,’ she said.
‘Jenny...’
She stood and muttered ‘toilet’ before moving quickly through the coffee bar. When she returned, she was clutching a bottle of water.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve been sick.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m not ill, just my stomach reacting to what I’m about to do, I think.’
She took a sip of the water and pushed her hot drink to one side.
‘Okay, Anna. I need you to listen and wait until the end before we speak. I want you to think back to before Mark and I married, to when we bought that little flat in Lincoln. It needed a fair bit of work doing to it, and Ray did all the plastering, joinery, and such like for us. I did most of the decorating, because Mark was working away, and it gave me something to focus on while I waited for him to come home each weekend.’
She paused momentarily, clearly gathering her thoughts. Anna said nothing, just nodded. They were good memories. Those were the days of carefree laughter, paint splashes, love. Mainly love.
‘A week before the wedding, I took a day off work to finish painting the bedroom walls, the last job needing to be done. I finished in the middle of the afternoon, and went to have a shower before heading home to Mum’s. I walked into the lounge with just a towel around me, and Ray was there.’
This time, the pause wasn’t momentary. It seemed to go on forever, and Anna reached across and touched her hand.
‘Jenny?’
‘He raped me, Anna. He fucking raped me.’
Anna felt a fog descend over her, and the hubbub of the coffee shop faded away. All sound stopped.
*****
‘Anna! Anna!’ Jenny’s voice, frantic and urgent, broke through everything. Anna was on the floor, with a small crowd looking down at her.
‘She’ll be fine now,’ Jenny said to the onlookers. ‘She just fainted from the heat. Can we give her some space?’
The people started to move away once they understood she really only had fainted, and not died. She looked at Jenny’s concerned expression and almost wished it had been death. What she had to face now was not going to be good.
‘Can we go to the car?’ Anna whispered, as she spotted a member of staff bustling over with a ‘first aider’ look on her face. Jenny nodded and helped her to stand. She felt woozy but tried to hide it as ‘Sue, first aider’ arrived.
They both reassured her Anna was okay, and they slowly left the building and headed for Anna’s car.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Questions. Did you tell Mark?’ She hesitated before throwing any other queries at her. ‘Forget the rest for the moment, because if you had told Mark, everyone’s world would have imploded.’
Jenny’s face was etched with misery. ‘I couldn’t tell Mark. How many lives would have been destroyed, if I had? I would have lost him for sure, because we would never have been the same people again. I love Mark with everything I have, and I knew I could never tell him. And Ray knew that as well. And then, there was you. I felt so close to you, Anna, and I would have lost you along with everything else I hold dear. Oh, I know I wouldn’t have been held responsible, but my life would have changed so much it really wouldn’t have been worth living.’
Anna reached out, and once again, took her hand. ‘So you married Mark and found some sort of happiness.’
‘Total happiness,’ she emphasised. ‘I steered him towards a job in Leicester so we very rarely saw Ray – it backfired, of course, because as a family, we hardly see you and my parents. But, Mark enjoys his job, I enjoy my work at the library, and the children are happy at school.’
Jenny opened her bag and took out a packet of tissues. She held one to her eyes for a while, and then turned to look at her mother-in-law. ‘It happened just that once, Anna, and if you had stayed with him, it would have remained dormant forever.’
Anna waited.
Jenny screwed up the tissue and stuffed it into her sleeve. ‘I thought you loved him. I couldn’t hurt you by telling you, but everything’s changed now. Now, I can tell you, but only you.’
‘I don’t understand. Why can you talk now and not then? Surely it will still spoil things between you two just as much as it would have then? And now there are the children...’
‘I’m not going to tell Mark. I love him, I love the kids, and I love my life. But, I have to tell you, because we can help each other.’
Anna stared at her. Her brain felt disconnected. She had no idea what Jenny was talking about. How on Earth could she help her, if she didn’t want Mark to know? Did she just want her as a confidante? Someone to talk it over with, because she had never been able to do that?
Jenny stared straight ahead, her mouth set in a straight line.
‘I’ll need you to alibi me, Anna, when I kill him.’
Chapter 5
Thursday Evening, 12 March 2015
Day Four
Anna stared at Jenny for what seemed like hours but was actually only seconds. Jenny’s grey eyes turned towards her, the beautiful face emotionless.
‘What did you just say?’ Anna asked slowly.
Jenny repeated the words, and Anna reached for the door handle without speaking. She left Jenny inside the car and stumbled across the car park towards a refuse bin. She leaned on it, taking in great gulps of air. How could her life be falling apart quite so spectacularly? She didn’t hear Jenny walking towards her, and was shocked to feel a hand touch her shoulder.
‘Anna,’ she said softly. ‘There’s more.’
‘More?’ Anna heard the pitch of her voice increase. How could there be more? This woman wanted to kill her husband! Just what did she consider to be ‘more’ than that?
‘Come back to the car.’ She gently led Anna across the car park. Anna’s car had always been her haven; the luxury of it usually engulfed and comforted her. All that had now changed.
She sat in the driving seat and leaned on the steering wheel, too afraid to say anything. Her head was pounding, and she knew it was as a result of the words Jenny had spoken, clearly actions Anna had thought about for a long time. No wonder communication with Jenny had been, at best, sporadic.
She lifted her head and looked at Jenny. ‘What do you mean? You said there’s more.’
She nodded. ‘Much more. Adam… Adam was born exactly nine months after our wedding.’
‘No.’ Anna heard the weakness in her own voice, felt the tremble in her limbs.
‘Yes.’
‘But…’
‘Anna, listen to me. Within two weeks of Adam’s birth, I had already sent off a DNA test. Clare, as you know, works at the laboratory. Sisters can be pretty useful in times of great stress. Although, to be fair, she didn’t know who she was testing; she thought it was a friend of mine from the antenatal group. She used a toothbrush from Ray, a glass Mark had drunk from, and a regular swab from Adam that I took. The results were almost as I had suspected. They showed, without any shadow of a doubt, Adam’s grandfather was really his father. However, what they also showed was absolutely no connection, no connection at all, between the DNA samples on the toothbrush, and on the glass.’
The silence in the car was deafening.
‘So, Anna,’ Jenny said. ‘Just who is the father of Mark and Tim? It sure as hell isn’t Ray Carbrook.’
‘Of course they’re Ray’s children.’
It was said with desperation, and she not only heard it in her voice,
she felt it in her heart. Her heart, which had broken many years ago when she and Michael took the decision to end their relationship. She stayed with Ray; Michael lived his life with his wife, newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
If Anna had suspected her twins really belonged to another man, she had chosen to quash the idea. It was the only way to stay sane. She was very good at burying her head in the sand, and that was exactly what she did when she discovered she was pregnant. Buried it into the sand twice, to be exact, as it had proved to be a twin pregnancy.
However, it now appeared sand dunes and ostriches were completely out of the equation. She stared at Jenny and hoped the turmoil in her brain didn’t reflect on her face. She knew it did.
Jenny smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret. However, it does beg the question who the real grandfather of Adam and Grace is, and it gave me some comfort to know the person I thought was Adam’s father, as well as grandfather, is merely relegated to father.’
Anna wanted to laugh, not in humour, but in terror. She didn’t know how to respond; she couldn’t share her secret with anyone.
Jenny put her arm around Anna and held her close. ‘I know you’ve had a shock. Look, it won’t be safe for either of us to drive home tonight. It’s a long way, and our minds will be on anything but the road. There’s a Travelodge over there. Let’s go book in, and we can have a meal and discuss what happens next.’
*****
The room was comfortable – they had opted to share one – and Anna curled up on her bed and let her thoughts roam. She had started something big, something already out of control, the day she walked out on Ray. And yet, deep down in her heart, she didn’t regret it. She was starting to live, to see what freedom could be like. And she had bought a kettle!
Jenny had a shower, and Anna thought how terrified she must have been that afternoon after her shower in the flat. Terrified of Ray, terrified of losing Mark, just terrified.
And she had paid for that. Her whole life was one long secret only Anna knew; no wonder she wanted to kill him. Or said she did.
Anna sat up with a jerk as the earlier conversation flowed over her. Alibi. Murder. She knew Jenny hadn’t really meant it, but even so, they were harsh words to say. One thing she did know, there was definitely no way she ever wanted to even be in the same room as that monster, let alone be married to him.
Anna fell back on to the bed and buried her head under the pillow. The tears came quickly, silently; she felt a hand touch her arm. ‘Crying doesn’t work. I’ve cried so many tears over that man. I hope you’re just crying for yourself, and not for him.’
Anna shook her head. ‘No, not for him. As a matter of fact, I think they’re tears of relief. Jenny, tomorrow I move into my new flat, start my new life. When do you have to be home?’
‘The children are away until Sunday. Mark is staying with his father for a few days while they look for you, and although he phones me, he’s no idea where I am. The beauty of mobile phones,’ she said with a laugh, and once again, for a fleeting moment, Anna saw the softness of the girl she had met all those years ago.
‘Then come back with me. I’ll tell you all you need to know, but not tonight. I feel drained, and I need my head straight. You’ll be able to see my new home and know where I am, but I will be trusting you completely. If Ray ever finds me, I won’t survive it.’ Her words felt stark, but Jenny recognised and acknowledged the truth in them.
‘He’ll never find out from me. I owe him nothing,’ she said simply.
They had a meal of sorts. Neither of them felt much like eating. They briefly put on the television, but by mutual consent, switched it off after the news and settled down for the night.
Anna didn’t sleep much. Jenny’s revelations had shaken her and things she had thought strange now became all too clear.
Anna had always known Ray was a violent man. She’d never suspected for one minute he was a rapist as well.
Chapter 6
Friday, 13 March 2015
Day Five
They got up at six, and were on the motorway back to Sheffield by 6.30, Jenny following her all the way. They drove straight to the Hilton, where they packed everything from Anna’s room into her car, and went down to check out.
She thanked the receptionist and turned to pick up her bag. She heard Jenny ask about the availability of a room for that night, and she stopped her. ‘You’ll stay with me,’ Anna said. ‘We will manage somehow.’
The receptionist smiled. ’Just so that you know,’ she said, ‘we’re always busy Friday and Saturday nights during the football season. Tomorrow is a home game for Sheffield Wednesday, so we will be extra busy, especially as they’re playing Fulham. We get fans staying who don’t want to drive back to London after the match. Let me know as early as possible if you do want a room.’
Anna felt sick. She hadn’t considered the possibility of bumping into Ray by accident. She couldn’t imagine him missing the match – he hadn’t missed one all season.
‘Jenny, let’s get out of here.’
Realisation had hit Jenny at the same time. Mark was also a big Wednesday fan, although now lived too far away to see many matches, but they might just take advantage of being so close and decide the match was a must. Ray had stayed over a couple of times after matches when he had been entertaining colleagues, and he might decide to do the same for Mark.
They got in the car and looked at each other. ‘He won’t come until tomorrow, I’m sure. But, he might stay over. We need to stay indoors tomorrow, except for between two and five,’ Anna said with a grin. She didn’t feel like grinning, and she knew Jenny knew that.
‘It’s all very well you saying, ‘stay with you,’ but have you actually got a bed, any furniture at all?’
‘I’ve got a kettle.’ Anna put the car in gear.
*****
They finally got into Anna’s new home just before one o’clock. They’d picked up emergency supplies such as tea, coffee, and milk (along with biscuits and other essentials), and Anna breathed a sigh of relief as she walked through her own front door.
She unpacked the kettle and gave it pride of place on her new kitchen work surface. ‘Beautiful,’ she said, and gave it a quick stroke.
Jenny was impressed. She wandered from room to room, and then eventually on to the balcony overlooking the river below.
‘I love it,’ she said. ‘And thank you for allowing me to see it. I’ll keep your secret, I promise. One day, you’ll move back into Lindum Lodge, but until that day comes, this is you. I just know you’re going to enjoy your stay here. And just ignore the fact it’s Friday the 13th.’ Jenny laughed as she came back into the lounge.
Jenny’s reference to the home she had shared with Ray for so many years made Anna shiver. She would never go back there. That was her old life; she had walked away from that.
They unpacked the inflatable camping beds and sleeping bags they had bought and set up their beds for the night. Anna would go out on Monday – when the Sheffield Wednesday match was a dim and distant memory of two days – and order two beds, a king size for her room and a double for the smaller room, because she had a feeling this wouldn’t be Jenny’s only visit. But, for now, they would manage on camping beds.
They had sandwiches in their makeshift camp site for lunch, and unpacked the various bits and bobs she had bought in Bakewell before her world changed completely. Not only had Jenny flattened that world, she had made her friendship with Charlie and Dan into something different, because she knew she could never pass such a huge secret on to Charlie. It was Jenny’s secret, not hers, and she could never betray that trust.
The flat already had carpets, curtains, and blinds, and by the time they had put everything away and set up their camping chairs, it almost looked cosy. They discussed what sort of lounge furniture Anna would buy, how to position it to get the maximum effect of the sun through the balcony doors, and then ordered a takeaway pizza for their evening meal.
It wa
s while they were eating, Jenny said, ‘Okay, now talk.’
Anna lost her appetite instantly.
She felt a shudder go through her, but she knew she had to tell Jenny something – her children had a different grandfather to the one she thought they had, up to that disastrous DNA result.
And Adam had a double whammy – he had a different father, as well as a different grandfather. Tangled webs...
Anna put down her pizza and turned to her. ‘I met Ray, as you already know, when we were in our mid-teens, and we fell in love. We got engaged and arranged our wedding for two years later. We didn’t have the money then that we have now, and it took a lot of hard saving. I took a second job as a cleaner to get a bit of extra money, and that was when I met Michael. He was about ten years older than me, married, with a child, who was about three at that time. His wife was a stay at home mother, but subject to bouts of illness, so they employed me to go in three times a week to do the cleaning. I actually enjoyed the job. It was a lovely house, and I saw a lot of Michael who worked from home. He was an accountant. One day, we started talking, and we never really stopped after that. We told each other everything, talking together was such a huge part of our relationship. And gradually, we fell in love.’
She paused for a moment and looked at Jenny. Her face didn’t change; she was waiting for Anna to continue.
‘The awful part of it was I still loved Ray as well. I was torn. Michael was so gentle with me, so loving, and Ray was exciting. And then, about a month before the wedding, Michael’s wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.’
Anna stopped speaking again while she remembered the awful day Michael had told her, and they made their decision to leave each other.
‘We made love one last time, and I never went back to his home. They had carers in to look after her, and a cleaning company took on the work I had been doing. A month after Ray and I got married, I realised I was pregnant. In those days, dates couldn’t be pinpointed with any degree of accuracy, not like today, and as I was carrying twins anyway, the date was pot luck, because twins tend to come early. I lived my life allocating those babies to Ray, not Michael. I never saw him again. I saw an obituary, when his wife eventually died, but I left well alone and didn’t contact him. Then, a couple of years later, I saw he had died, leaving an only daughter. I can only assume it was cancer that took him, because the death notice asked for donations to cancer research. He will always be very special to me, but we made our choices many years ago.’