The Confession

by Jessie Burton

  The next day, they sat up in bed.

  ‘We could go to the National Palace?’ Matt said.

  ‘No. Let’s go to the anthropology museum. That’ll be much more interesting.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, and she felt the thrill again of being obeyed. ‘You’re probably right.’

  *

  They spent a long time before the gigantic Aztec stone disc that had been dug out of the city’s land during the repairs on the cathedral in the eighteenth century.

  ‘Imagine looking for God and finding that,’ said Matt, his eyes like saucers.

  It was a monumental artefact. In the middle of the disc was a sun god, Tonatiuh, holding two human hearts in each of his clawed hands, his tongue the shape of a knife. Around the four corners of the deity, carved representations showed different eras of Azteca time. Elise read the information plaque beside it:

  The bottom right square represents Nahui Atl,

  which ended when the world was flooded

  and all the humans turned to fish.

  It sounded like a poem. Elise imagined herself as someone who measured time in eras of Jaguar, Water, Rain and Wind. She imagined believing that a sun god was holding her and Matt’s hearts in his claws, his knife ready for the sacrifice. She was drawn to the warning inside this disc, about the sacrifices one must make, the smallness of a self alongside the enormous universe. She thought she could live in this country that held within its past these viscerally spiritual beliefs, where such treasures were still being pulled out of the ground, where it was a valid fate to be turned into a fish. Even if she couldn’t, she already liked it a lot more than Los Angeles.

  At night through the windows they heard the sounds of a woman orgasming, but they couldn’t locate where her noises were coming from, given the backyard amphitheatre of identical windows and washing lines and collective heat. They lay there, laughing at the sound of it, so detached from them yet so familiar. They couldn’t help but listen. It reminded them of their attraction, their bond, and Matt would hold Elise and go inside her from behind, pushing in deep, her face towards their open window. Elise let out her own pleasure with no restraint. The windows, whether they were open or closed, ceased to exist.

  *

  They didn’t stay long in the city, because it wasn’t cheap and Matt wanted to be by a beach. He bought another pair of flights, and Elise watched him hand over the dollars. They flew on to the Yucatán peninsula – and when she saw the emerald waters, she thought she could live here too. The sand was like sugar, and what bloomed between them in this new country eroded their sense of responsibility. Matt splashed, fully clothed, into the ocean. Elise thought about ripping up the return ticket, whether he would notice.

  She knew they needed to find a shape to their days otherwise he might go back.

  ‘Shall we rent a place?’ she said. ‘It’s cheaper than a hotel.’

  He agreed, so they rented an apartment, paying for a fortnight to start with. The floor tiles were beautiful, but they were slightly apprehensive at the lack of air-conditioning or any electric fan. And so it proved. The temperature in and out of the apartment was unbearable. There was no benefit of a cool mountain night or morning in which to steal a few hours’ sleep. It was on the top floor of a corner block and its back rooms looked onto three other walls of apartments forming a towering square. Other people’s windows before them were endless, open all the time too, with washing hanging and fallen socks splayed on the corrugated-iron roof of the garage that spanned the ground between the buildings. The sound of mopeds at the front and the shouts of children playing in the ground-floor backyards were the only daytime sound they heard. They never saw a face clearly, just bodies moving from room to room, eating at a table, watching TV, having a shower.

  They sat in their underwear, playing endless card games, eating strange-flavoured ice popsicles from the street vendor. Elise bought an old-fashioned flamenco fan to cool herself. The backs of their thighs stuck to the plastic furniture to the point of pain when it was time to peel themselves off and fetch another popsicle. It was hard to do anything.

  Elise sometimes thought of herself and Matt as felons, with a crime that was going to catch them up. At times, this all felt inevitable. It had all been so easy. You just got in a car and drove. Shara didn’t want him. Connie was sleeping with Barbara. They’d done well to remove themselves. This is the right thing.

  The heat made Elise sleep badly and at night she was visited by the same dream. There was a girl in a house and the roof above her was caving in. The girl climbed out the rafters towards a span of rock pools. In the morning Elise told Matt about it, how it felt perfectly logical that a beach should be on a level with a rooftop. She could still see the light playing in gold flecks on those rock pools, the sea so far out that the sand stretched and gleamed. Matt listened attentively as Elise nestled in the crook of his arm. She loved that he listened to her like this, that he thought it all mattered, but he offered no interpretation. She knew, with a pang in her stomach, that Connie would have spun the next chapter of the story.

  *

  Two weeks in to renting the apartment, Matt said he would extend the lease, but he thought he should call Shara.

  ‘OK,’ said Elise. ‘You should.’

  ‘It’s going to be awful.’

  ‘It might not be. Maybe she’ll understand.’

  They didn’t have a phone in the apartment, so he went to a public telephone booth with a pile of pesos in his fist. Elise waited outside, leaning against the wall. She was still wearing the necklace Connie had given her, and now she played with it, tugging it against the back of her neck so that the chain dug into her skin. She strained to listen to the conversation going on inside the booth, but couldn’t hear much. A stray dog wandered up to her and slumped at her feet. She didn’t pat it, worried about rabies. Matt didn’t shout: to a passer-by it might look like a perfectly normal scene, a man in a booth making a quick but urgent call, a woman outside, waiting patiently, a tourist resisting the local dogs.

  Matt put the receiver back on the hook and opened the door. ‘Did she ask you where you were?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And did you tell her?’

  ‘Approximately.’

  ‘Approximately?’

  ‘I said I was by the beach in Mexico. But she’ll know it’s the Yucatán.’

  ‘Why?’

  Matt looked awkward. ‘We’ve . . . been here before.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t tell me about Connie and Barbara.’

  Elise decided to ignore this. ‘How was she?’

  ‘Better than I thought she’d be,’ said Matt. ‘She was actually quite businesslike. I don’t think she wants me to come back.’

  Elise could see this had offended and surprised him. She wanted to hit him. ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said. ‘I think I’m pregnant.’

  Matt stared at her. ‘What?’

  ‘I think I’m pregnant. I’ve missed a period.’

  ‘How long?’

  Elise pushed herself off the wall and began to walk. Matt ran to join her and the stray dog pushed himself out of the dust and followed them both before giving up in search of shade. ‘Since yesterday,’ she said.

  ‘Only yesterday? That’s not—’

  ‘I’m regular.’

  Matt looked terrified. Suddenly, everything about him made sense to her. ‘Wait and see,’ he said. ‘The stress of leaving—’

  She stopped in the street. ‘Fine. You think what you want. But I am.’

  Matt looked at Elise as if seeing her for the first time.

  Back in their apartment, he took his swimming trunks off the sole dining chair and said he was going for a swim in the sea. Elise lay back on the bed, knowing her period would not come, knowing she was pregnant, and knowing that Matt wanted the water in his life more than he wanted a woman.

  34

  A month later, Elise was co
mbing the shore, stepping over the membranes of dead jellyfish. She found large pieces of seaweed in the shape of stiff fans, salt-scrubbed driftwood worn away in elegant shapes, crab shells which cracked between her fingers like blown eggs. She looked up, and Connie was coming towards her, as if she had walked ashore from the water, coming from her kingdom in the sea.

  Connie stopped. The two women stared at each other. The sky above their heads was dark purifying blue like a whale’s back; and deep green, fringed at the horizon with fat, low clouds of grey. Instinctively, as Connie approached, Elise put her arm across her stomach. A storm was on its way, and Elise knew there was no point running. The beach just went on and on, and she had bare feet, so she could not sensibly run into the semi-jungle that fringed the back of the shore.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Connie.

  She sounded almost plaintive, but the anger was clear in her face. Elise felt her heart close up again, where it had, without her realizing, opened a tiny crack.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said, looking down at a medusa by her foot, flattened on the sand. She considered picking it up and throwing it at Connie, wondering if she’d get a sting herself.

  ‘He’s married,’ said Connie.

  ‘No hello?’

  ‘Have you any idea how sick Shara is right now?’

  ‘Sick?’

  ‘Her depression’s back. She’s not getting out of bed—’

  ‘She’s not my responsibility,’ Elise said.

  ‘Oh, I could slap you. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

  ‘Connie, just go away.’

  But Connie stayed exactly where she was. ‘Why did you do this?’

  ‘I didn’t actively go out of my way to hurt Shara. What me and Matt have – it’s not easy to explain.’

  Connie hooted with vitriol and stumped her heel into the sand. ‘Right.’

  ‘You know what, Con? You’re the biggest hypocrite I’ve ever met. You track me down to lecture me on my behaviour, when you—’ Elise stopped herself. To say the words would make them true.

  ‘When I what?’

  ‘When you’ve been with Barbara. For months.’

  Connie stared at Elise. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Oh, don’t start. I saw you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘At my birthday party.’

  ‘Elise, you were off your head.’

  ‘I saw you by the pool. The two of you, after everyone had gone. I heard what you said.’

  Elise had never seen her look so furious. ‘Is that why you’re here?’ Connie said. ‘On this deserted beach? With Matt Simmons? All this stupidity because you think I’m sleeping with Barbara?’

  ‘I trusted you,’ said Elise, and to her fury, she began to sob.

  ‘I don’t know what you think you saw, but I am most certainly not sleeping with Barbara. Ever since you disappeared—’

  ‘I saw you, Connie. I saw you.’

  Connie whirled towards the sea in frustration, stomping down to the water’s edge to stare out at the water.

  ‘Just admit what you did,’ said Elise.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ shouted Connie.

  ‘I heard what she asked you. “Do you want her, Connie?” And you said no.’

  Connie blanched. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Don’t do this to me,’ said Elise, feeling the distress rising in her body. ‘It isn’t fair. Just admit it.’

  Connie still wouldn’t turn round. ‘It happened just the once. OK?’

  Connie burst into tears. Relief at being vindicated for her betrayal flooded Elise’s body. She slid to her knees, the sand soft and yielding. ‘It was more than once,’ she said. ‘You’ve lied to me again.’

  Connie turned round, wiping her face, and walked back to where Elise was still kneeling. ‘Once.’

  They stared at each other. Elise didn’t know what to say. ‘You’re still wearing the necklace,’ Connie said.

  Instinctively, Elise touched the E around her neck. ‘I forget it’s there.’

  ‘It looks beautiful,’ said Connie.

  ‘It’s just a necklace.’

  Connie hesitated. ‘What I did with Barbara. It was a foolish thing,’ she said. ‘It didn’t mean anything. It was a blip. These things . . . happen, El. A one-off. LA’s been mad. And Barbara needed someone.’

  ‘I needed someone. I needed you.’

  ‘I know. I’m so sorry. I’m just . . . telling you what happened. Her ex was a nightmare. I tried to comfort her and before I knew it . . . It’s been mad for me—’

  ‘And what about me, Con? What about me? Leaving London, following you around—’

  ‘You’re in Mexico with my best friend’s husband. You left us, Elise.’

  ‘You don’t love me. You don’t want me. And they don’t love each other any more either.’

  ‘What do you know about Shara’s feelings?’ Connie said. ‘You think because they’re not having sex it means everything’s over?’

  Elise stood up and brushed the sand off her kneecaps. ‘I understand her.’

  ‘Lucky Shara. Shame no one understands you, Elise.’

  ‘I think it’s quite clear what’s happened. I don’t have to have this conversation with you.’

  ‘Actually, you do,’ said Connie.

  Elise looked out to the horizon. ‘Don’t try and turn my life into some sordid, unimportant thing that you can just turn up and destroy. What you did with Barbara – why do you think I left in the first place?’

  Connie closed her eyes. ‘Please. It won’t happen again. Come back to LA.’

  ‘I’m never going back there. Never.’

  Now it was Connie’s turn to fall to her knees. She put her arms round Elise’s shins. Elise steadied herself and refused to give way. ‘I am so sorry,’ Connie said. ‘It was selfish. But I didn’t ever want to hurt you.’

  Connie’s embrace felt too confident, and Elise shrugged her off. ‘We can’t go back. You lied to me.’

  ‘Please—’

  ‘No. You don’t understand.’ Elise clutched her stomach instinctively. Connie was still kneeling in the sand, looking up at her. ‘I can’t go back.’

  Connie stared at Elise’s hands. ‘Are you – is he—’

  Elise nodded.

  Connie sat back on the sand, her body frozen with shock, a look of horror on her face. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You idiot,’ said Connie. ‘My god. You really love to fuck it up.’

  ‘Connie, it doesn’t have to—’

  ‘No, Elise. What’s happened here? I just don’t understand what’s happened. You’re not keeping it, are you?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You seriously think keeping this child is a good idea? How selfish are you?’

  ‘I’m not selfish.’

  ‘You are. And naive. You can barely look after yourself, let alone—’

  Elise did run, then. She couldn’t bear it any longer. The truth of what was growing inside her gave her the strength to run, and the promise – mad and strange, that she’d made to Shara – went round and round in her head. If you ever find that you’re pregnant, have the baby.

  If I ever get pregnant, I will.

  2018

  35

  Connie sat back in her armchair. ‘A baby,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I hope it’s a baby,’ I replied, aiming for humour.

  Connie leaned forward and poured herself a shot of champagne, and then kept pouring. Her hand was trembling with the weight of it but I knew she didn’t want my help. ‘Are you scared?’ she said.

  ‘Scared of keeping it, or scared of . . . getting rid of it?’ I replied.

  Shakily, she put the bottle down. ‘You’re going to get rid of it?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t say that. I don’t know, Con – I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve – just come back from seeing Joe, in fact. It’s over.’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell. Ar
e you all right?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I said. I didn’t feel too bad, was the truth. My greater feeling right now was surprise at the ease with which I’d walked out of that building after months of failing to find a single exit.

  Connie looked severe and far away. ‘Are you OK?’ I said. ‘I know it’s not ideal, and I never planned this—’

  ‘Have the baby here,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Live with it here.’

  ‘Connie, be sensible. I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not? Why’s it so unlikely? I’ve got the room. I don’t want you to feel you have stop working for me just because you no longer want the man who impregnated you.’

  ‘Nice way of putting it.’

  She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Does Joe know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Laura,’ said Connie gently. ‘Do you want to be a mother?’

  ‘I don’t think I’d be a very good one.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  I sighed. ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to be with Joe, so I’d be alone. But what if he wanted to be involved? The timing’s appalling. And I’ve just begun to—’

  ‘You wouldn’t be alone,’ said Connie. She hesitated. ‘You’d have me.’

  We looked at each other. I wanted to rush towards her and give her a hug, to thank her for being so kind, so understanding, so amazing. I thought she would turf me out, as if I was a fallen woman and she my puritanical landlady, a scene from a kitchen-sink drama. But instead Connie seemed almost keen – for what, exactly, I wasn’t sure. She was definitely determined to reassure me. It made my deceptions – my false name, my true purpose here, even the lies I’d told about Joe and his profession – feel even worse.

  ‘Do you – know anything about babies?’ I asked.

  Connie laughed. ‘Not much. I’ve only known one or two in my life, and that was some time ago.’ She looked serious. ‘But it isn’t just about babies, is it? That baby becomes a child, and then a teenager, a young person with their own agency. And then a fully fledged adult. I don’t know much about babies, but I do know something about adults, fully fledged or not.’