by Katie Lowe
‘It looks nasty. Did you get it looked at?’
The next lie comes easier than the last. ‘Yeah. It’s just a bruise.’
He lifts it, slowly, kissing the knuckles with a tenderness that astonishes me.
‘I’m …’ I pull myself out from under his arm. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a … such a bitch lately.’
‘Come on. You’re always kind of a bitch. It’s one of the many things I love about you.’
‘You’re asking for trouble, you know. According to the rest of the world, I’m a murderer.’
He tips his head a little. I feel his stubble snag against my hair. ‘A femme fatale. I’m into it.’
There’s a silence.
I look up and tell him I love him; I feel him stiffen, now, beside me.
I can’t remember a time I’ve said it unasked, without it being the answer to his question – a reassurance. Still, I mean it. The solidity of him, his warmth, the steady beating of his heart. While everything else seems slippery, intangible, he’s still there. He kisses my head, and says it back.
‘How is Will, anyway?’ I ask, wanting to hold him – hold us – there, in place. ‘I haven’t seen him in ages.’
I hear the syncopated thud of his heartbeat, rising, as I wait for his response. I close my eyes. ‘He’s good,’ he says, too lightly. ‘Becca is expecting, so he’s glowing about as much as she is.’
I give a murmur in response. I slip my hand up under his shirt, and weave a finger through a clutch of hairs on his chest.
‘You don’t need to worry, Hannah. I know what that big old brain of yours is doing.’ He pauses. ‘We did talk about the whole Conviction fuss, but … he thinks it’s all as daft as I do.’ He runs a finger down my arm, soothing. ‘Everyone who knows you thinks the same thing.’
I look up at him again. I wonder how I could possibly have been so lucky: to have this man beside me. The guilt, the shame of who I am, feels ice-like: like morning mist against my skin.
I pull my hand back and take his. ‘You know … what I said before. About … about the timing being wrong.’
A flicker of confusion crosses his face. I watch my meaning unfold in his mind as his expression changes from doubt to a cautious half-smile. ‘Yeah?’
I nudge his arm, a tenderness in the gesture. ‘You’re not going to make me do the asking, surely. You’re the one with the ring.’
He laughs and pulls me into him.
A hug becomes a kiss; becomes a question.
I smile, and I tell him yes.
And I’m happy. Really, truly happy, for a moment, until I sense it – sense him – there, beside me.
My little manipulator, Graham whispers, and I wilt. Looks like you’ve still got it, haven’t you?
I dress myself, and wait on the bed while he showers. The weight of the ring feels unfamiliar, comforting and yet wrong. I twist it around my finger, the stone scratching against the soft flesh between.
The whispering goes on, but I can’t make out the words. It’s rhythmic, almost: like a poem, or a chant.
I stand, and I follow the sound.
It’s only when I reach the top of the stairs that I realize: it isn’t Graham at all.
‘Evie?’
The whispering stops. She looks up over her laptop. ‘Yeah?’
‘What are you doing?’
She holds a scrawled-upon flash card in the air. ‘Well, I was revising. Now, I’m talking to you.’
I laugh. ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Evie. You’re too cute for it.’
She shuts her laptop with a click. ‘Shut up, Mum.’
‘It’s true. That little nose … Those cheeks …’ I reach a finger and thumb towards her, playfully. The coolness breaks, a little, as she bats me away. I can tell – or at least, I’m reasonably certain – that her mood, tonight at least, is only an ordinary teenage testiness. It’s a door I know will give, with a gentle nudge. ‘So what are you studying?’
‘Science. I hate it.’
‘Ah, come on, it’s not that bad.’
‘This bit is. It might as well be in another language.’
I feel a shudder of memory, then. I remember Graham, laughing, as I’d tried to explain something to him; the look in his eyes, the feigned helplessness as I walked him through a tricky scientific paper he’d been forced to read, background for an essay he was working on. I feel him reach for my hair, slip his thumb and finger behind my ear, and smile. ‘It might as well be hieroglyphics, for all I understand it.’
She narrows her eyes. ‘What?’
‘What?’
‘You’re looking at me funny.’
‘Sorry. It’s just your dad was exactly the same. You’re a lot like him sometimes.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Thanks a lot.’
It’s a response I don’t expect. She’s always seemed grateful for second-hand memories of Graham, things she can cling to, little fragments of connection.
‘What do you—’
‘I saw that woman in the news, saying she was fucking Dad behind your back.’
The words, from her, cut through me like a knife. ‘Evie …’
‘Sorry – sleeping with Dad. Whatever.’
I pause, trying to read her expression; to find the roots of her anger. I wonder if I ought to have told her before; if she’s grieving the imaginary version of her dad that I’ve created for her benefit.
‘I’m sorry, Evie,’ I say, gently. ‘I—’
‘Why are you sorry? He was cheating on you. With someone, like, two years older than I am now. You should be—’ She stops, mid-flow. In the silence, the bathroom door clicks open, the fan humming overhead. ‘Wait – what the hell?’
I’m caught off guard by the change in her tone. ‘What?’
‘Did you …’ She points to the ring. ‘Did you and Dan …?’
‘Oh.’ I feel a colour burn my cheeks. ‘We were going to tell you this together. But … yeah. We … Yeah.’
‘Oh my God.’ Her face is a mask for a moment; she’s processing. My breath is caught in my throat, held there, waiting for her response. And then, at last, she beams. ‘Finally.’
I laugh. It’s relief, all the way through. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’
‘Why would I mind?’ She laughs, too. It’s a cover; there’s a choke of a sob in it. ‘I love Dan. He’s … I mean, he’s basically as much my dad as he was, isn’t he?’
My heart splits open. She’s fallen out of love with Graham. And against all the odds, this hurts.
But before I can speak, I hear footsteps on the stairs. She stands, and leaves me behind.
She wraps her arms around Dan, her eyes shut tight. He looks up at me and smiles with a perfect joy, and I fix the image of them, together, in my mind. It’s a thing I’ll cling to, and hold close.
Because this happiness can only ever be temporary.
We’re only halfway through the season, and already, I’m holding my life together with slipping hands.
It’s inevitable. Things can only, now, get worse.
EPISODE FOUR
31
Worcestershire, 1999
I am dressed all in white, and I am beautiful.
It’s a privilege I’ve never known before, and today, it’s hard won.
My hair, tamed by tongs that steam and sting as they brush my scalp.
My skin, stiff with a mask of foundation, of shades rubbed into the hollows of my cheeks.
My lips drawn plump and pillow-soft, brows plucked in a smooth, feather’s arch.
I am alone, for a moment, with my new and better self: the one who, today, will be married to the man I love. I raise a finger to my new, smoothed-out curls, and find them brittle, stiff, barely like hair at all. I touch my bottom lip, and find it sticky. I taste ammonia on my freshly painted nail.
The rest of the day plays out in my mind, rehearsed and reviewed so often that it feels like a memory, already like something I can touch.
The ancient house,
closed to everyone but us; the landscaped lawns; the Lovers sculpture in the fountain, in front of which we’ll kiss in photos with our guests.
The string quartet, whose hollow ring I hear, rehearsing, somewhere far below: the song that’s ours, the one they’re playing just for us.
The infinite, meticulous details that no one will notice but his mother and me: the way the chairs’ velvet sashes chime with my bouquet and the flower girls’ nails; the poem he will read carved in keepsakes on the tables: compacts for the women and snuffboxes for the men.
It’s like something from a dream, though one I’m not entirely sure is mine: I’ve been swept along, throughout, on the kindness and enthusiasm of Graham’s parents, waving away impossible sums of money as though they’re nothing, always suggesting better, more luxurious, more ‘appropriate’ things.
I imagine what Sarah would’ve said, if she’d been here: jokes about Barbie dolls and mail-order brides. It would’ve been a relief to hear them – a reminder that it’s all for show. That this isn’t really me.
But she isn’t here. She couldn’t get the time off work.
And so, I’ll walk the aisle without family, or bridesmaids. His mother has quietly filled my side of the aisle with her friends, without a word, though I know she disapproves. For once, I’m grateful for the old-fashioned stiff upper lip.
‘It’ll be over before you know it,’ everyone tells me. ‘It’ll all go by so fast.’
I can only hope so. All I want is to be with him. Alone.
The door creaks, and I think I’ve got my wish. His cologne drifts into the room, and I think of jinxes; of things doomed from the start.
‘Don’t look!’ I say, hands covering the folds of my dress, as though I’m naked, exposed.
But the door opens a little more. For a split second, I think I’m meeting my future. The man looking back at me is my husband, thirty years from now. A man whose skin cracks at the curve of his smile; whose eyes scatter wrinkles like a cat-o’-nine-tails.
‘Only a proud father-in-law.’ He closes the door behind him. ‘I don’t think there’s any bad luck in that.’ He scans me up and down, as my own father might have done, if I’d known him. ‘You look beautiful, Hannah. Truly stunning.’
I feel my loneliness all at once, and I’m struck dumb with it. I think of my mum: the terrible weight of her love, the loss she left behind.
I blink away a tear I didn’t think I’d shed. ‘Whoa, whoa,’ he says, taking another step towards me. ‘Hey – you’re all right, sweetheart. Don’t ruin your make-up, now. I wouldn’t have come in if I’d thought I’d upset you.’
I laugh, trying to blink away the shame. ‘I never thought I’d be that kind of bride.’ Even the words I say, today, seem like something from a film. Something borrowed, something blue. ‘I always thought I was better than this. But … I keep bursting into tears at everything.’
‘You’re allowed, today. My Marianne started weeping at the top of the aisle, and by the time she reached the altar, her make-up was …’ He traces two fingers down the side of my cheek. The sudden brush of his touch is a shock. I feel the urge to buck, but contain it. ‘I think it’s the done thing.’
He’s being kind, I tell myself. You need to stop thinking the worst of people. He’s just a sweet old man.
‘Thank you,’ I say, at last. I want to step back, but the long train behind me prevents it.
Like a princess in a fairy tale, I’m pinned to the spot by my gown. It’s a penance for my vanity.
I can only wait for him to move.
I watch his eyes trace my expression, the false pieces of me, just as I had. Time slows, my heart counting the beats of his gaze. Four on the eyes, the gluey lashes that flutter, hooding my vision. Two for the cheeks, which flush all the more, now. Six for the mouth, through which I can’t seem to breathe, the glut of gloss pinning them shut.
I feel two soft palms around my upper arms, so tender that I can’t quite brush them off.
It’s just a kiss. A thing so soft and sweet that it almost feels right. It’s only the thick, wet presence of his tongue – in my mouth, briefly – that makes it horribly, achingly wrong.
And then, he steps back, and I wonder if it ever happened at all.
The smile he gives me is so sweet and full with love that when the door opens and his wife stands beside him, and looks at me, she takes the measure of things instantly. She reads the impropriety in my face, and she hates me. Her smile is something ferocious.
‘Well,’ she says, with the gentle charm of the lioness. ‘I suppose it’s time to make you part of the family. I’ll give you a moment to …’ She pats her own lips with two fingers. A brow arched, a judgement. All the doubts she’s ever had about me confirmed.
Hours later, when the champagne throws sparks above the crystal glass beside me, and my husband holds me in his arms, and smiles, his father will deliver his speech. He’ll say how grateful he is for our newfound family. How love, and faith, and joy have kept his marriage happy, all these years, and how he wishes us the same.
He’ll tell me how proud he is that his son has grown up to be just like him.
And in this moment, I will realize my mistake.
32
Derbyshire, 2018
I knock on Sarah’s door, ring glinting in the light. For a thing that had seemed so unimaginable, it’s become part of me impossibly quickly. I find myself sinking into the bright, cool blue of it whenever it catches my eye.
She raises a hand as I peer through the crack. ‘Can you give us five minutes?’
I take in the figure opposite, horror yawning through me. The bulky black uniform, the blue strip across the jacket, the badge pinned to the arm. He turns to smile at me, an easy blankness in his expression. ‘I can come back later, if it’s—’
‘No, no,’ she says. ‘I need to talk to you, anyway. If you can just wait outside …’
I smile, the strain of it stiff in my jaw. ‘No problem.’
I close the door and sit, heart fluttering, on the chair outside.
It’s nothing, I tell myself, though I don’t believe it. I can’t.
I reach for my phone and scan Twitter. Somehow, it’s there that all the news now seems to break, Byers’s self-styled Convictionistas constantly sharing titbits of gossip and lurid chatter. I look at the hashtag; then search for my name.
It’s there I find news, though it’s not what I’m looking for. Or at least, I don’t think so. Unless there’s something Byers knows that she’s yet to make public, but has told the police.
Next episode apparently called THE WIFE. Focus is going to be squarely on Hannah. Cannot fucking WAIT.
‘Sorry!’ Sarah’s tone – brittle, too bright – makes me jump. ‘Come on in.’
The police officer smiles as he passes, and gives a brief nod in greeting. I search his face for a sign of recognition; imagine him searching mine for signs of guilt. I look away.
‘Sorry about that,’ she says, closing the door. ‘You gave me a good excuse to wrap things up. You know what they’re like.’ She gives a too-loud laugh. ‘I did not mean that to sound like you’re an expert at being interrogated.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ I lower myself into the still-warm chair. ‘What was that about?’
‘Just a patient-security thing. The usual.’ I wait for her to go on. She’s usually so keen to discuss the quirks and hassles of patient care, the horror stories and ludicrous bureaucratic hoops she’s forced to jump through.
Today, though, she’s quiet.
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ I try to shake off the strange formality in my voice. I do this when I’m nervous: revert to a stiffness that comes across as stony and cold. It’s never made anyone exactly take a shine to me. But I can’t help it. It’s just the way I am.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I didn’t, really. I just said that to get rid.’
A silence falls. I reach to fill it, to set things back to normal. ‘Look.’ I rest my hand on t
he desk, though it seems wrong, there, now. It lies between us like a dead thing. ‘I finally followed your advice.’
‘At bloody last.’ She smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘I’m so pleased for you, Hannah. And Dan. I hope he realizes we come as a pair.’
Do we? I think. Really? The silence falls again. We’re alone, though it doesn’t feel that way. I imagine a crowd of people watching, all clasped hands and bated breath, waiting for one of us to break the tension.
She stares into her mug, and I realize it’s going to have to be me.
‘Sarah … is everything OK?’
She runs a hand through her hair, and looks up at the ceiling. Her answer is inevitable, when it comes. ‘No.’
She sips her tea and resettles in her seat, as though nervous. I feel a cool spill of fear slip down the back of my neck.
‘The thing is, I’ve been getting a world of shit from the board for not having this conversation sooner. I didn’t want to make things worse for you, with everything going on, but … I shouldn’t have let it get to a point where it’s impacting our ability to care for our patients. This whole situation is my fault. I want to be clear on that.’
‘So what’s the board’s position?’
She runs her hand through her hair again. It’s her tell, I realize: the lead-up to something she doesn’t want to say. ‘I’m really sorry, Hannah. They think it’s best for you to take a leave of absence for a little while. It’s by no means a reflection on your work, and it won’t appear in your HR records as anything other than compassionate leave. You’ll be on full pay for the duration. But they’ve requested that you stay off the hospital grounds, so that any press or … whatever … So they’re not a risk to our patients’ privacy. Or safety.’
She pauses, seeming to deflate a little, as though she’s reached the end of her rehearsed speech, and has no idea what to say next.
So I speak, instead. ‘This is because of Vicky Barker’s complaint, isn’t it?’
‘That didn’t help, but … there were concerns before. Obviously as soon as the podcast approached us, it became—’
‘Us?’ I feel my throat tighten in fury. I swallow it. ‘Sorry. Go on.’