by Katie Lowe
The doorbell rings. ‘Saved by the bell,’ the two of them say, in unison.
I say nothing. Just smile, blankly, as the memory fades away.
‘So …’ Sarah curls on the sofa beside me, her bare foot cold on mine. We’re in the same positions we’d taken on the half-collapsed sofa in our student house, cosily intertwined. We’ve formed habits now, playing out the same roles over and over. ‘Are you going to tell me why you decided to leave me one doctor short today?’
The wind rattles the windows, a hollow whisper. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, meaning it. ‘I just …’ I toy with the idea of telling her everything. About the house; about Darcy; about the fact I heard Graham’s voice in a way that seemed more tangible than memory alone.
It’d be a relief, I think, to tell her – to tell anyone, really – the absolute truth. To just start talking, and see where I ended up. After all these years of refusing help – professional help, of the kind on which I’ve built my career – it might finally be time to reach out. In the end, though, she speaks first. The thought curls back up, and slinks into hiding again.
‘I get it, Hannah. Really. I do. All this Conviction stuff …’ She reaches for another slice of pizza, pulling apart a string of cheese between finger and thumb. ‘Why didn’t you mention it? I only found out because the nurses were gossiping about it.’
‘Oh, God.’ I feel my cheeks flare, hot. ‘Really?’
‘No, not really. Of course I bloody knew before. I was just waiting for you to bring it up.’
Somehow, this feels worse. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, automatically, again.
She waves the apology away, and reaches for the wine. ‘I know you don’t, but …’ She refills her glass and hovers the bottle over mine. ‘I feel like it’d be rude not to offer, given the circumstances.’
It’s been so long since I last had a drink that, these days, I decline almost without thinking. And yet, the thought of it now – the cosy, soothing warmth of it, spreading through my chest – brings an itch of temptation I’d all but forgotten.
I scan her face. ‘Is this some sort of trap?’
‘Oh, no. No, no. You know I don’t like sharing booze. But you are my best friend, so … I’m happy to make an exception. If you’re desperate.’
I say nothing.
‘I’ll take silence as assent,’ she says, pouring a splash into my empty tumbler. ‘No pressure.’
‘Thanks.’ I look at the half-empty cup. For now, I leave it where it is.
‘Hannah,’ she says, gently. ‘Can I be honest with you? About this whole … thing?’
‘You always are.’
I wait for her to volley back some cutting remark. But she’s silent. My stomach turns over as she peers into her glass, steeling herself.
I know, I imagine her saying. I know everything. All of it. You evil bitch.
She draws breath, and looks up. ‘It’s just … Well, even I felt kind of traumatized by the stuff on the trailer. I had no idea it was like that. I mean … I always thought he’d put up a fight, at least. The fact he was just lying in bed, sleeping …’ She sighs through her teeth. ‘I just want you to know I feel like I kind of … understand, now. Or understand a little better, at least.’
I try to muster a reply. ‘Sarah …’
She reaches for a napkin and dabs it to her eyes, now ringed with red. ‘I’m really trying not to get all weird on you,’ she says. ‘Honestly, this is fucking mortifying.’
I offer a smile and reach for her hand. ‘It really is. And that’s a poor word choice, given the circumstances.’
‘Oh, shut it, you soulless …’ She bats me away. ‘This is me trying to have a feeling. To express an emotion.’
‘Yeah, well … I get enough of that at work.’
‘When you go to work, sure. You’ve got no excuse, today.’
‘Touché.’
A silence settles between us. In over twenty years of friendship, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her cry. It’s one of the things I like about her – one of the ways in which we’ve always been so similar.
I’m not sure I can bear it.
I reach for the wine and take a sip. Almost immediately, I feel something loosening inside me. ‘I really am sorry about that, you know.’
‘Forget it. It’s fine. I’m used to covering for you, you dippy cow. But …’ She glances at the doorway behind and lowers her voice. ‘Do you mind if I give you some completely unsolicited advice?’
She’s going to, whether I say yes or not. I take another sip, and smile.
‘You need to be honest with him.’ She points a finger to the ceiling; I imagine him listening above. ‘I’m not about to start analysing the pair of you, but I can’t imagine it’s easy for him hearing how talented and brilliant your ex-husband was, before he was “cut down in the prime of his life”, or what have you. If you start pushing him away, lying to him – even if you do just need some time to yourself, which is understandable, given the circumstances … he’s going to struggle with that.’
I know her well enough to catch her meaning.
He is struggling with that, she’s saying.
Whether he told her that outright, or she simply intuited it, is immaterial. She’s right.
‘I know. I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just …’ I close my eyes. Sip the wine again. ‘Something happened today.’
There’s a pause before she speaks. ‘What?’
It’s easier to say it, I realize, without looking at her; without meeting her eye. I reach for a slice of pizza, and stare at it, uselessly. ‘I heard his voice. Graham’s voice. Like he was there.’
She says nothing for a moment. Only reaches for her wine and takes a slow, thoughtful sip. ‘Is there any chance …’ I feel a sharp slice of fear in my chest. ‘God, I feel awful even bringing this up.’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s just … well, when you gave me your disclosure file – before. Obviously it had the details around you being signed off, and, God knows, with Darren having written it, I barely took any notice – not of that prick. But I’d be being a shitty friend to you, right now, if I didn’t ask.’
My mouth is dry; the words are sandpaper in my throat. It occurs to me that he could’ve written anything in my personnel files. I’d never know. They’re transferred from clinic to clinic, on request. ‘Ask what?’
‘It said something in there about … about delusions. But it also said you were seeking treatment, and I know you’ve got this thing about not talking to me about this stuff, so I didn’t want to ask – and I figured you must have it all … under control. Or maybe it’d never happened in the first place, and Darren was making it up, like the sneaky, sabotaging little shit that he is.’
There’s a hopefulness in her voice as she says this. I toy with the idea of telling her that she’s right: Darren lied. But the space in which I might have spoken closes, and I say nothing.
She goes on, the effort of hiding her disappointment rippling in her voice. ‘It was probably the wrong call, on my part, not to ask, but … you’d been through such a lot. I didn’t want to make things worse. And I figured – well, I know you. Better than anyone else, probably. So, if you ever did seem to … well, wobble a bit – I’d notice.
‘Which is why I kind of have to ask you, now, if everything’s OK. Up here.’ She taps her head with two fingers, gently. It’s a sweet, naive gesture. It’s all wrong, and yet, I appreciate it.
‘That was … different,’ I say, finally. ‘It was …’ I think about all that I’d have to explain, to make sense of that time. Lucie Wexworth’s death, her blood on my hands. The court case. My husband’s affair. The weight of it pins me in place; holds the words back inside my throat. ‘Really, Sarah. I’m fine. Honestly.’
‘Look, Hannah, I’m really not trying to grill you on any of this. I’ve got your back, either way. Even if you told me you were hallucinating Barney the fucking Dinosaur dressed as a cocktail waitress in the corner over there …
we’d work it out.’
‘What is it with you and giant Muppets at the moment? First Bear in the Big Blue House, now Barney … Should I read something into this?’
‘Whoa, whoa. Barney the Dinosaur is definitely not a Muppet.’
‘Oh, come on—’
‘No, really. I’m sure of it.’ She reaches for her phone and types something in, fingers hovering just above the glass.
‘You know that’s not my point, right? That this is about the Muppety features, rather than the—’
‘Ha! Listen to this. “Executives at PBS thought Barney had appeal because he was not as neurotic as Big Bird.” Maybe that’s why he’s springing to mind for me, now. Some kind of weird projection thing …’ She scrolls a little further, and clicks around for a moment, distracted by something on her phone.
‘I’m not under the illusion he’s really there,’ I say, returning – forcefully – to the point. I need her to believe me, now, when I say this. Even if I don’t quite believe it myself. I need her to trust me. To see that I’m still capable, still every inch the doctor she took on. ‘Graham, I mean. I just … It’s just a feeling, that’s all.’
She looks at me, squarely. ‘Your birthday’s December, right?’
‘Why?’
‘Just checking. Want to make sure I’ve got plenty of time to dig out my Righteous Brothers records to go with the pottery wheel I’m going to buy you.’
‘You are such a bitch. I’m trying to grieve, you know.’
I reach for the bottle. As I top up our drinks, she slides a palm over her glass. ‘No, no. I won’t be able to drive at this rate.’ She lays her phone on the coffee table and shuffles forward in her seat.
‘You could always stay,’ I say, knowing exactly how this sounds. It’s childish of me to ask, just so I don’t have to be alone with Dan. So I don’t have to talk to him, while he looks at me with sympathetic eyes. ‘I can make you up a bed.’
‘No, no. Nige will kill me. He doesn’t cope well in the mornings even with me around. If I’m not there, the kids will end up going to the wrong school, dressed in superhero costumes and glued together with jam. Which I know isn’t very feminist of me. I’d train him up better, but …’
But you love it, I don’t say. I know.
She’d told me about it on another night like this – admitting, then, that she’d known about Evie’s birth; had heard about it from a mutual friend, joking about our perfect lives. She’d bought a card. She’d dialled my number, over and over and again – but never made the call.
‘I was dying of envy,’ she’d said, that night. ‘It sounds nuts, but I’d just found out I’d probably never have kids myself. And so hearing about yours – especially yours, when I was always your bloody third wheel with Graham … I’m really sorry. I just couldn’t do it.’
The guilt I’d felt then – a sharp skewer of it, straight through me – returns, with full force.
It was my fault we hadn’t been speaking then. I’d left her behind, too absorbed in my marriage. My own problems. That she’d need me to call her hadn’t even crossed my mind.
‘Hannah,’ she says, now. ‘I love you to death. You know that, don’t you?’ It’s bracing, this level of outright affection from Sarah. I don’t quite know what to do with it. ‘Jesus, don’t look at me like that. I’m trying to be nice.’
‘Sorry. You just … You took me by surprise there. With that … whatever that was.’
‘I just … I need you to know you can always talk to me. About anything.’
I don’t quite know what to say. I try to break the mood with a joke. ‘Even the fact I stabbed my husband in the throat with a kitchen knife?’
I expect her to laugh. But she doesn’t. For a moment, there’s a silence between us. I feel swallowed up by it. Eaten alive.
‘I’m joking,’ I say, finally. ‘Obviously.’
She laughs. It’s barely convincing. ‘Duh. Of course.’ She pinches her forehead between finger and thumb. ‘I’m knackered. Sorry. Not quite keeping up. I’d better head out.’ She grabs her phone and glances at something. Pockets it, and smiles.
‘You know I was joking, there – right?’
‘Jesus, Hannah. As if you even have to ask.’
I’m not sure I believe her. But I can’t ask again.
She pulls her coat over her shoulders, and leans down to kiss me on the head. ‘I’ll see you Monday, right?’
‘Yeah. Sorry again about today.’
She bats the apology away. ‘Just go apologize to him,’ she says, the last two words mouthed, finger pointed at the ceiling. ‘OK?’
As the front door closes, I drag myself off the sofa. I realize, as I stand, that I’m drunk. Only a little, mind: just enough for the world around me to seem vaguely liquid, my movements slowed, slicing the air.
I remember this feeling, all too well.
Not again, I tell myself. Never again.
The dregs of the bottle cling, like blood, to the porcelain sink as I pour them away, and go to bed.
I press the steaming flannel to my skin, the sting electric. Two black smears on the damp white cloth; the smudge of foundation in a flesh tone not quite mine. I look into the mirror, and I don’t see myself at all.
I see the woman under the greenish blinking light, in a dank hotel. I’m the wife who, hours before, watched a swirl of blood – real blood, this time – wind down her own bathroom drain.
A shadow moves in the darkness behind, and I wonder, briefly, if it’s him. But it’s only Dan. He steps into the bathroom, eyes fixed on mine in the mirror. We flicker in the light of the ancient candle I’ve placed on the counter’s edge. The tap hisses; the flannel drips a steady beat. Tap. Tap. Tap.
‘Where’d you go today?’
I rinse my face again. He stands, waiting for an answer.
An answer, that is, to a question he has every right to ask.
But I can’t help it. Right now, I’m the woman I was before. I don’t want him to know.
‘I just needed some space,’ I say. ‘You know.’ A shrug; a smile. I wring the flannel, tight.
I reach for the toothbrush, and see the doubt in his eyes as he watches, reflected behind. The conversation we should’ve had plays out in front of me. He should’ve made some kind of joke – about my disappearing, again. About pizza for dinner, again. About how Sarah no doubt analysed him, in the way I know he can’t stand, before I finally arrived: his saviour.
I should’ve laughed. A little stiffly, perhaps, but still – enough to break the ice between us. He should’ve looked me in the eye, the way he does, sometimes, when he knows I’m telling a lie.
And I should’ve pulled him into me, my arms resting on his shoulders as he lifted me on to the countertop, and made it all OK.
The fog of the past that’s hung over me since I left Hawkwood House dissipates. I slip back into myself, the real me, and I realize: I want that. I want him. I spit a foamy glut of toothpaste into the sink and watch it disappear.
‘I’m sorry.’ I meet his eyes through the mirror. ‘Really, I am. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I just …’
I see something in him uncoiling. I know he hates confrontation; he’ll do anything to avoid it. His relief is visible in the way his lip falls slightly, his jaw no longer clenched.
‘I get it,’ he says. ‘I know.’
‘Do you?’
‘I mean, as much as I can.’ He shoulders the doorframe, heavily. ‘For what it’s worth, though, I’d understand it even better, if you’d let me.’
Trust me, I think. You wouldn’t.
I turn around and lean against the sink. It’s an invitation. A distraction. He smiles, and takes it. He turns the shower on with a gentle nudge of the tap. I love the sour end-of-day tang that lingers in his sweat; the sound of his stubble scratching the back of my neck. It’s so familiar, such a comfort, that for a moment we are all there is. I want to drown in him. I let myself slacken; let his fingers pluck apart buttons and creep undernea
th.
‘I love you,’ he whispers, with a tenderness that melts me.
I don’t get my chance to reply.
The crack echoes, and the darkness swallows us whole.
My skin turns to gooseflesh. I am frozen, all the way through.
‘What the hell?’ Dan peels away from me and crouches in the darkness. ‘The candle … It fell.’ He hisses, his fingertips caught in the wax. ‘It must’ve been a draught.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, automatically.
Dan thinks I’m talking to him.
‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘No harm done.’
But he doesn’t see it. Either because he can’t, or because he’s choosing not to: he’s missing the point. Neither of us were close enough to the candle to touch it. It was heavy, the size of a saucer, three wicks in a thick pool of wax. And no draught, even in our ancient cottage, would be enough to make something that heavy move.
Dan steps outside to fetch something to clear the mess. As my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, I reach for my thrown-off shirt. I misstep, and a shard of glass claws into the arch of my foot, an agony that comes in nauseating waves. I gasp and cling to the sink, bent double with pain.
When I catch my breath, I look in the mirror again. And I recognize, all too well, the face of the woman staring back.
EPISODE TWO
14
London, 2002
My feet are bare: ice cold on the black-and-white tiles.
Graham left me in bed this morning, his palm on the curve of my belly. ‘Make sure you rest up,’ he said. ‘Watch TV, if you have to do something. If not … just sleep. OK?’ He kissed me, his lips still tasting of toothpaste. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he told me, and left. And I tried. For an hour, I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, trying to sleep.
But between the heartburn, the insatiable thumps and kicks, the sense – I swear – of my baby curling her tiny thumbs around my ribs, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lie still. So I sat up. I threw on a dressing gown that smelled of him. I made a vain attempt at pulling on socks. After a monumental struggle, I gave up.