Look What You Made Me Do

by Nikki Smith

  I’m about to give up when I open the A4 pad that he’s been leaning on. There’s nothing written on the first couple of sheets but as I lift it up, a folded piece of plain paper falls out of the back. Three words have been written on it in red felt-tip pen in large capital letters: YOU OWE ME. I drop it on the floor in shock before fumbling to stuff it back into the pad and rearrange the desk so it looks as if I’ve never been here. Did he write it? Or did someone send this to him? He must know why the same words were written on the side of my car.

  I’ve only been back in the house for five minutes, contemplating whether there is anything else I can search through whilst he’s not here, when the doorbell goes. I open it to find Anna standing outside.

  ‘I wondered if you had a minute.’ She fiddles with her bracelet. ‘I saw Paul take the girls out earlier and I thought it would be an ideal opportunity for us to talk.’

  ‘I’m actually right in the middle of something at the moment,’ I say.

  ‘Please?’ She stares at me, ignoring my feeble excuse. ‘It won’t take long.’

  I let her inside reluctantly, shutting the door behind her. Buddy looks up briefly as she walks into the kitchen and then lies back down in his basket, his hopes of a walk extinguished.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ I ask, hoping she’ll refuse.

  ‘No thanks. I can’t stay. I just wanted to talk to you about Grace.’

  My body stiffens as I refill Buddy’s water bowl that he seems to have finished for the second time today already.

  ‘Maddie told me why they’ve been arguing.’

  I pull out a chair, indicating that she should sit down, not wanting to admit that my daughter has refused to confide in me about it.

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘Grace thinks she’s seen a ghost,’ she says.

  ‘What?’ My reply comes out louder than I expected. Livvi’s comment about Grace seeing a man on her chair a couple of weeks ago echoes in my head. Anna looks at me, her cheeks flushed.

  ‘I don’t know how else to put it. She told Maddie and asked her to keep it a secret, but Maddie told Katie. Grace got upset as Katie was laughing about it and they ended up pushing each other and Grace fell over.’ I stare at her. ‘And yes, before you ask, I’ve had a chat with Maddie about the need for trust between friends and keeping things confidential. She’s going to apologise, but swears that Grace falling over was an accident.’

  ‘A ghost?’ I say the word again in the hope it will make more sense the second time. Anna nods. ‘Grace would have told me.’

  The flush on Anna’s cheeks deepens. ‘She thinks your dad is visiting her, Jo. That’s why she hasn’t said anything. She doesn’t want to upset you.’

  The memory of Grace’s face as Caroline and I shouted at each other across Dad’s bed flashes into my head. I know how upset she’d been to see us fighting. But that had been between Caroline and I; nothing to do with Dad. And she’d seemed fine with Caroline when she’d come over the other day.

  A shiver runs down my back. What if Grace had seen what I’d tried to do to Dad? I’ve refused to let myself think about it, locking it away in a box in my head that I’ve told myself I will never open. My mother’s confession hasn’t helped to ease my guilt – she only finished what I’d started. I repeat a mantra to myself on a daily basis that it was what he’d wanted. What he’d begged me to do until I’d finally relented, knowing he’d have done the same for me. And most of the time it helps. I no longer see the image of his face as I’d lowered the pillow every night before I go to sleep, his eyes black, sunk so far into his wrinkled skin they had almost disappeared.

  Anna puts her hand on top of mine and I jump. I hadn’t realised my breathing had speeded up and I can see her looking at me, concerned.

  ‘I just thought you should know, Jo.’

  The memories of that day are blurry, my brain keeping them behind a filter as if it knows I won’t be able to deal with the sharpened version, but Grace wasn’t there, I repeat to myself. She’d gone home with Paul earlier in the day. There is no way she could have seen what happened.

  ‘Grace is seeing the school counsellor,’ I blurt out, needing to change the subject, to shut the box and nail the lid on so tightly it never comes off.

  Anna nods, her hand still on top of mine. ‘That’s good. I hope it’ll help. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who isn’t so close to the issue, you know, to give a bit of perspective.’

  ‘Don’t say anything about it to Maddie, please,’ I add. ‘I’m not sure if Grace has told her.’

  ‘Course not.’ Anna moves her hand away and stands up. ‘I’d better get back.’ She leans forward to give me a hug, something that would have come naturally only a few weeks ago but now feels slightly awkward, both our bodies more tense than usual, unable to relax into the gesture.

  ‘Thanks for telling me,’ I say.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anything. But then I thought, if it was Maddie, I’d want to know. It’s better to get these things out in the open.’ She looks at me, hesitating, and I wonder if she’s still talking about the girls.

  ‘You do know Paul asked me to bring the girls home from school a couple of weeks ago, don’t you?’

  I nod, crossing my arms as protection against what she’s about to tell me.

  ‘I don’t mind doing it at all,’ she continues, ‘but when I dropped them off, he asked me not to say anything to you. Said he was supposed to collect them and that you’d be annoyed. I agreed, but I don’t feel very comfortable about it. I’m not sure what’s going on between you two, but I’d rather not get stuck in the middle of it.’

  I step forward and hug her back, embarrassed at my earlier suspicions. ‘I’m sorry he asked,’ I reply. ‘I’ll talk to him.’

  Paul gets back with the girls just before lunchtime and I unpack the multiple bags that he lifts onto the counter in silence. He’s bought so many things that I haven’t put on the list, clearly acquiescing to the girls’ requests, wanting an easy life. I watch him as he opens the fridge to put away the yoghurts, acknowledging I don’t know this man as well as I thought I did, even after twelve years together.

  We empty the last bag, the girls’ squeals of laughter from outside emphasising our muteness. Paul’s mobile bleeps in his pocket and he glances at it.

  ‘I need to go out for a bit,’ he says as he puts it back in his shorts.

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘One of my clients has got an issue with his router.’

  I stare at him. ‘It’s a Saturday. And I didn’t think you did routine support at the weekend.’

  ‘I don’t normally, but I get a lot of work off them and they’re desperate. I need to keep them happy as I can’t afford to lose them too. They’re not far away. I’ll only be half an hour. An hour at the most.’

  I contemplate saying something now; asking why he’s got a piece of paper in his office with the same words that were written on the side of my car, but Livvi appears in the doorway, dripping, asking for a towel. Paul picks up his car keys and has disappeared by the time I get back.

  I retrieve my phone from the table outside and open up the FindMyFriends app, clicking on Paul’s name, and watch as the small circle containing his face moves slowly down our road. It stops before it gets to the main junction, but I know the app isn’t totally accurate; sometimes it takes a few seconds to catch up. I wait, looking at the screen as I listen to Grace shouting at Livvi to stop spraying her on the trampoline. The circle hasn’t moved. It should turn left or right at the junction to the main road but it’s stationary. I refresh the app but the circle appears on the screen in the same place, no more than a couple of hundred metres away.

  I walk over to the patio door where I can see the girls’ figures bouncing inside the trampoline net.

  ‘Grace? Livvi?’ I shout. ‘I’m just nipping out. Dad’s forgotten something. I’ll be ten minutes. Don’t answer the door and be careful on that thing. OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ they reply in
chorus, not paying any attention. I walk out of the house and along the pavement, not able to stop myself peering into Anna’s driveway on the other side of the road. Her car is still parked where it was this morning.

  I look at the app I have open on my phone. His car still hasn’t moved. Our road is relatively straight once I’m past our next-door neighbour’s house, and I squint into the distance to where it joins the main road. I can see Paul’s car just before the junction. He’s stopped beside the kerb. I stand by the hedge, feeling like an idiot, tempted to just call him to ask him what he’s doing. Perhaps he’s broken down. Or run out of petrol. I clasp at straws and watch as another car pulls up behind him and a man steps out, walking round to the passenger side of Paul’s car where he opens the door before getting inside. He looks like the same man who walked into our house the other day; the same man who had stood next to Livvi and talked to her about the china figurines when we visited Parkstone Losey House.

  I’m about to walk over to confront him when Grace runs out of our driveway, shouting for me. She’s crying and I can’t understand what she’s saying as she pulls me back towards the house. I run into the kitchen to find Livvi squatting on the floor in front of Buddy’s basket, her hand on his fur.

  ‘There’s something wrong with him, Mummy.’ I kneel down beside her as Grace backs herself up against the door frame, wrapping her arms around herself. I put my hand on Buddy’s head but he doesn’t move. I try picking him up but he’s floppy in my arms and won’t open his eyes. Grace has crouched down on the floor, pulling herself into a ball. Livvi stares at me. There’s a trail of vomit that leads from the side of Buddy’s basket across the tiles. I stand there, helpless, holding him against my chest.

  ‘You’ve got to do something, Mummy,’ Livvi whispers, lifting up her hand to stroke his paw. ‘Has he got the bug Daddy’s got? He said he had a headache when we were at the shops.’ I can’t speak, the lump in my throat too big to swallow, an emptiness in my stomach that I haven’t felt since Dad’s funeral. I tell the girls to grab a blanket out of the snug and stick something on over their swimming costumes as I pick up my keys and we get into the car, lifting Buddy onto the back seat.

  As I pull out of the drive, I’m vaguely aware of Grace saying something over and over to herself, but I can’t hear her properly and Livvi is silent, one hand holding Grace’s, the other on Buddy, tears running down her face. The vet’s surgery is a couple of miles away and I wish Paul was here, despite everything, as I don’t know how to cope with this on my own.

  I drive into the car park and stop, ignoring the designated spaces, tucking the blanket around Buddy as I lift him off the seat, the girls running ahead of me to open the door. Livvi gabbles to the receptionist as the vet comes out of his treatment room and they both try to take Buddy off me, telling me I have to let go of him, but I don’t want to as I know that when I do, they’ll tell me what I can’t bear to hear. A lady sitting in reception stares at me sympathetically but I just want to keep holding him and I know my tears are making his fur wet but I can’t stop crying and Grace is pulling at his blanket telling me I need to let go.

  I try to tell the vet he was fine this morning and ask if I could have done something if I’d noticed earlier and he shakes his head, but there’s no reassurance in his gesture and I know he’s only doing it so he can separate us. My arms are so empty and light without him and I can’t breathe as Grace reaches for my hand and the receptionist puts her arm round Livvi as she takes her behind the reception desk.

  I can see the vet as he hasn’t pushed his treatment-room door shut properly and Buddy isn’t moving. I want to ask them to cover him up with his blanket as he might get cold and the vet must be able to read my thoughts as he does, and my heart leaps, until I see him let his stethoscope drop and he rubs his forehead. He catches my eye, his hopelessness evident even through the narrow gap.

  SUNDAY

  Caroline

  Ever since we visited my mother a couple of weeks ago, Rob has been dropping suggestions as to what Jo may have done with my dad’s belongings; where she might have taken the boxes. He mutters about me going back to visit Jo’s house when they’re out, telling me he’ll sit outside in the car in case they came back. I feel as if I’m teetering on the edge of a precipice every time he speaks, bracing myself for the inevitable fall that could come at any moment. I can’t avoid him forever. The tension has escalated into a humming noise in my head, shrieking like a metal detector whenever he comes near.

  Yesterday evening, he’d come through the front door with a Chinese from the small takeaway in the village, whistling, a noise he’s been making ever since he locked me in our bedroom. I’d divided up the portions from the plastic tubs between us, watching him swallow a forkful of lemon chicken before I’d dared to take a mouthful, keeping the conversation firmly on how the building work was going at the site to distract him from any thoughts of Jo or boxes.

  The same meal used to be a regular Friday-night treat when I’d been growing up. I’d been so excited to hear my dad’s key in the door before he’d appeared in our kitchen, handing me a paper bag of prawn crackers and I’d stuck my hand inside, licking the grease and spiky crumbs off my fingers. Mum had opened up the plastic boxes to dish up the food onto the plates we’d put in the oven half an hour earlier to warm up, pouring something orange and gelatinous out of a small polystyrene tub over the pieces of chicken. Jo’s portion had decreased in size as her weight had plummeted, until eventually Dad had stopped bringing home a takeaway at all.

  When Rob had come into my father’s estate agency about a vacant property for sale, I’d felt he was the first person to notice me in as long as I could remember. The weather had been hot then, too, I remember we’d propped the door open with a fire extinguisher in the hope of getting a breeze, but the air hadn’t moved, thick with expectation. Dad had sat me behind a desk at reception. My exam results had been a disappointment my mother had assured me we were putting behind us, but the reality had hit me every day I walked into the office – somewhere I’d never wanted to end up but the only place that would take me.

  For as long as I could remember, everything had been about Jo – whether she was eating, how much she was eating; star charts Blu-tacked on the wall to record the times she gained a pound, the squares printed on the pieces of paper horribly blank; a testimony that reflected all our failures.

  Rob had stared at me, filling the emptiness I’d felt inside in a way no one had done before. He’d smiled when he’d seen me blush, my father oblivious to our silent dialogue. I’d hovered by the office door as he’d walked back to his car, his keys jangling, his phone number scribbled on a piece of paper in my pocket.

  He’d begged me to move in with him when I’d found out I was pregnant eighteen months later and I’d jumped at the chance, flattered by the intensity of his passion, desperate to be in the limelight for once. I’d ignored what Jo had told me, refusing to believe her accusations, persuading myself I’d glimpsed a vulnerability that Rob had hidden behind his designer suit and his new car, something he’d chosen to reveal to me and me alone, despite the ten-year age gap. I thought I loved him enough to make it work.

  It had only taken until a few months after Adam was born before I first began to understand it was impossible to live up to Rob’s expectations. He’d elevated me onto a pedestal in the centre of his world and I’d teetered, then fallen, becoming a source of constant disappointment, my hopes and desires detracting from his idea of perfection. I used to think that if I tried hard enough, I could mould myself into what he wanted, but that person has always been a figment of his imagination. He’s never actually seen me at all. I no longer exist except as a mirror, reflecting as best I can what he wants to see, portraying emotions that I haven’t felt for so long that I’ve forgotten what they feel like. I have no idea who I actually am underneath this façade at all.

  I’d dreamt about Adam last night, running about at the edge of the waves on the beach. He’d been abou
t five, his feet leaving tiny imprints in the sand that had been swallowed up as soon as the water had washed over them. He’d put his hand in mine and told me it would be all right and I’d shut my eyes and believed him, the sun so bright it had burned white flashes on the inside of my eyelids that I could still see when I’d woken up.

  His postcard had arrived yesterday after Rob had left to visit the site. A photo of a set of dark wooden outdoor furniture on a patio overlooking a lawn with a small swimming pool, surrounded by Nipa Palm trees. I’d turned it over in my hands.

  Dear Mum & Dad,

  Had a very exciting afternoon fishing (lol!) at the famous Otan river. Unhooked several catches and still have water all inside trainers. It’s not great as they’re probably (obviously!) spoiled. Took outstanding freediving film in caves. Epic!

  Love, Adam

  My gorgeous boy. When I’d tried to imagine him jumping into a river it was difficult to hold him in my head all at once. I’d seen him as a little boy, white skinny arms and legs with armbands, but at the same time, he was nineteen, with a tanned physique, a leather bracelet round his wrist that he took off whenever Rob was around. Years that had stretched on for so long I’d thought they were never going to end had merged together in a fraction of a second that flashed by in an instant, a bittersweet blur. I’d gripped his card between my fingers, staring for several minutes at what he’d written before I’d taken it upstairs and put it under the spare-room mattress.

  I haven’t heard from Jo since I confronted her last Sunday. Seven days should have given her enough time to put things in motion. I’m not sure if she’s going to. Maybe she’s already told Paul she made a mistake, or that she lied, and if she has, my one piece of leverage has gone, I won’t be able to stop Rob doing whatever he’s contemplating.

  The shrill of the home phone interrupts my thoughts. I walk upstairs to where Rob has left it on top of a small melamine tray on his bedside table, along with his empty coffee cup. I glance at the screen. It’s my mother. One of Rob’s approved callers.