‘We’ve got to tell them, Jo. Hannah, your husband, the police – everyone.’
‘I . . . I can’t,’ I stammered. ‘We can’t, not now, not after all these years.’ I could hear and feel my voice rising, but I couldn’t seem to do anything about it. ‘You’re mad,’ I said, getting to my feet again. ‘Put things right? How can we possibly put things right? You’re crazy. Just. . . just leave me alone.’
He took my hand. ‘Stop. Listen to me for one more minute.’
I snatched my hand away just as the door swung open again and an elderly woman came in. She looked at us, caught in mid-confrontation in this holy place, but she didn’t seem to notice anything amiss because she nodded and smiled before sliding into one of the pews and bending her head. I sat down again and this time I spoke in a whisper. ‘One minute, then.’ Scott leant closer and spoke quietly. ‘I have nothing to lose now,’ he said wearily, looking down at his hands again. ‘The guilt is eating me away as much as the cancer. In fact, I’ve often wondered if they aren’t one and the same thing.’ He looked up at me. ‘What about you, Jo? Don’t you feel guilty?’
‘Of course I bloody do,’ I snapped, still whispering. ‘But I’ve had Hannah to bring up; I’ve had to be practical. It wasn’t easy, you know, stuck in that awful flat, living on next to nothing while you swanned off to the other side of the world to pick up where you left off .’
I waited for him to argue with me, to justify once more why he left us in that flat, why he’d convinced me that it would be better if we never saw, mentioned or spoke to each other ever again. But he didn’t. He looked at me calmly, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet and steady, but with a steely edge. ‘But you’re all right now, aren’t you? You’ve got a good job – good money and worthy at the same time.’
‘Yes, I’m all right now.’ I ran a hand through my hair for the third or fourth time and wondered if I was developing a nervous habit. ‘I was lucky enough to meet a good man, one with a sense of responsibility.’ The elderly woman looked up from her prayers. I made a conscious effort to lower my voice again. ‘But that was years after you left. Before then I had to do endless shitty jobs so I could pay the rent and feed and clothe us both; I didn’t have parents I could run back to; I barely had time to think.’ I sighed. ‘I’m sorry. But having Hannah to consider meant I had to get on with things, and it was years before I was able to earn any reasonable money, and even then it was only because Duncan was prepared to support me while I studied. He cares about us both, even though Hannah isn’t his.’
Scott nodded slowly. His eyes were closed and I could see the blueish-grey lines under the skin of his eyelids. There was so little skin stretched taught and shiny over his face that I wondered how there could be room underneath for veins and blood and flesh.
‘You’ve done well, Jo. But the thing is, I don’t have long left, and I’ve made up my mind. I wanted to give you the opportunity to tell your family first. Then, when you’ve told them, we’ll go to the police together. I doubt Hannah will want to meet me, but I’d like to see her, just once. If—’
‘No!’ I stood up and tried to move away so he couldn’t touch me again, but my scarf caught on the end of the pew. My hands trembled uncontrollably as I tried to untangle it.
‘Well, maybe we’ll worry about that later. I’m sorry, Jo, but if you won’t tell them, I will.’
‘Stop calling me that,’ I yelled as I ran down the aisle, past the old woman who looked up with a quizzical expression as I passed. She probably thought it was a lovers’ tiff . I wrenched the huge door open and stepped out into the sharp, cold sunlight. I ran blindly through the milling shoppers and didn’t stop running until I got back to the car. Breathless, I threw myself into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut quickly behind me as though I could shut out everything that had just been said. I could feel the tears building up; I rummaged in the glove compartment for tissues, and pulled out an unopened bag of dog treats, an A–Z, a thank-you card from a client, the mini umbrella that Hannah had left in here weeks ago, and a pocket-sized book of short stories that Duncan gave me a couple of years back after the car broke down and I had to wait forty minutes for the breakdown people. ‘Stick it in the glove compartment and leave it there,’ he’d said, ‘then if you break down again, at least you’ll have something to help pass the time.’ I found the tissues and blew my nose before piling all the stuff back in and starting the engine. I headed south up Ecclesall Road, past the restaurants and bars that were packed with students most nights, past the park and the tall Victorian houses that overlooked it, and out to where the houses became even grander before the buildings began to fall away and the countryside stretched out in front of me.
The things in the glove compartment had made me feel even worse, somehow; evidence that I had a normal life, a good job, a nice house, a husband and a daughter and a dog. I had a family that loved me and had no idea that I’d deceived them all these years. In the distance, the hills were still covered with snow. This was officially ‘high ground’, and conditions were different up here.
I drove another couple of miles and pulled in to the lay-by we usually parked in when we brought Monty out here on the moors. I felt a stab of guilt as I realised that Monty was still at home in his basket, probably bored and waiting for me to come and take him out. I should have gone home and picked him up, made things normal. I climbed out of the car anyway. A walk might clear my head, help me to think properly. There was still a fair bit of snow around up here, although it was in clumps where the deeper snow had thawed. The air was sharp and clean and the sky seemed wider as I walked through the woods and into a clearing which then gave out onto vast open moorland. In front of me was a large, flat rock where we sometimes sat in the summer, eating our sandwiches and marvelling at the view across the moors, over the rooftops of Sheffield and out towards the hills.
There was something poking out from behind the rock, and when I moved nearer I saw that it was a dead fox. Its soft, red-brown fur was mostly still covered with snow, but I could see the white tip of its bushy tail and its lovely serene face only partly revealed by the thaw. It wasn’t very big, but it didn’t look like a cub so it was probably a vixen. Her glazed eyes stared vacantly upwards and her mouth was open, revealing beautifully white, pointed teeth, so perfectly smooth; so elegant. I wondered how long the poor thing had been lying out here under her blanket of snow, and whether she’d died of natural causes or had been hit by a car and slunk here through the trees from the road. Did she have babies somewhere, slowly starving as they awaited her return? But no, it was probably too early in the year. She could have been pregnant, of course. I reached down and touched her cold face with my finger, feeling gently around her ears, stroking the white fur on the tender underside of her chin and noticing for the first time that it was stained with a single line of darkened blood. And that was when I couldn’t hold back tears any more. At first they fell silently, rolling down my face one after the other, but soon I found myself sobbing like a child, noisily and without restraint. I felt as though an icy hand was poised around my heart, reminding me that I had everything to lose, that if I wasn’t careful, the life I’d built so assiduously was about to come apart.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I stood under the shower for a long time but couldn’t seem to wash away the smell of the church, a mix of lavender-scented floor polish and musty old hymn books. After my shower, I lay down on the bed for a while; I was exhausted after the conversation with Scott, emotionally wrung out. But when I closed my eyes, all I could see was that poor dead fox.
The sound of Duncan’s key in the door, usually so welcome, tonight made my stomach shift. I felt exposed, as though he’d be able to know everything that had happened today just by looking at me.
‘Hey.’ He kissed me in that slightly distracted way that told me he’d had a bad day – an ill-treated dog, perhaps, or a distraught owner having a beloved cat put to sleep. His lips were cold and I could smell the chill o
f the outside on his coat. I should have poured him a glass of wine, asked if he wanted to talk about it. But I couldn’t look at him for fear of what he might see in my face. ‘Hey, yourself.’ I turned back to the hob where I was boiling water for spaghetti, and I opened a jar of pesto because I couldn’t think calmly enough to plan a proper meal. Duncan did a double take. We usually made Friday nights a bit of an occasion, and if we weren’t eating out, I’d cook something nice, something a bit more interesting than pasta and pesto, anyway. Duncan didn’t say anything. He swung his rucksack off his back and then crouched down to make a fuss of Monty, who was frantically wagging his tail and greeting him as if he’d been gone for weeks. ‘Hello, Monty matey. Yes, I’ve missed you, too. Good boy.’ He stood up. ‘What time are we eating?’
‘It’ll be about ten minutes.’
He nodded as he took his coat off . ‘You all right?’ he said. ‘You look a bit stressed.’
‘Just tired, that’s all.’
He smiled. ‘Was it hard-going?’
I snapped my head up. ‘What? What do you mean?’ My voice sounded sharper than I intended. Had he been in town today? Had he seen me with Scott?
His smile disappeared and he looked at me oddly. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? I meant the walk. Where did you go in the end? Did you make it up to the moors?’
As I reached for the spaghetti, I knocked the pesto jar and a wooden spoon off the worktop. It took another second or two for me to remember that, this morning, I’d told him I might take Monty for a proper walk. ‘Oh, sorry, I see what you mean.’ I bent down to pick up the jar, which wasn’t broken, thank goodness. ‘Yes, it was good. There’s still a fair bit of snow up there, you know.’ At least I actually had walked on the moors, so, technically, I wasn’t lying. I wanted to tell him about the fox, but somehow I couldn’t; it was too sad.
‘Bet he had a nice time.’ He nodded towards Monty who was in his basket, resting his head on his paws and watching me carefully, lest I should drop some food.
‘He certainly did. Didn’t you, Monty?’ So it had come to this; I’d stooped to making the dog complicit in my deception.
‘So, what else did you do?’
He knew I usually packed my days with activity. He expected me to say I’d had coffee with a friend, wandered around the Millennium Galleries or maybe even seen a film at the art deco cinema near the station. He was waiting for me to answer but for a moment I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Part of me wanted to collapse sobbing into his arms. I was tired; unbelievably, bone-achingly tired. I already knew I didn’t have the strength for this.
*
I was shattered. After we’d eaten, I told Duncan I was going to lie down and that I thought I had another migraine starting – one more lie, but it was the only way I could think of to shut myself away from his worried expression, the tender sympathy in his eyes. But despite my exhaustion, I couldn’t switch my thoughts off and I just lay there staring at the ceiling. I dropped off eventually though, because when I woke, my face was wet and I realised I’d been crying a split second before I remembered why. This was what used to happen in the early days after we’d left Hastings. I’d wake up sobbing in a way that I couldn’t allow myself to while I was awake. Scott would lean over and stroke my hair, trying to soothe me, but his attempts were clumsy and it never quite worked. Then I’d get up and walk across the cold lino to the other side of the room where Hannah slept in a second-hand carrycot, and I’d put my finger in front of her nose to make sure she was breathing. Sometimes, I’d pick her up just so I could feel the warmth of her solid little body in my arms, then I’d bury my face in that delectable hollow at the back of her neck and smell her sweet, talcum-powder scent.
The door opened slowly and Duncan hovered in the doorway, the light from the landing behind him. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m awake.’
He smiled, came across the room and leaned down to look at me. ‘How’re you feeling?’
I was touched by the way he automatically spoke softly when I had a migraine, but his being nice to me only made me feel more guilty. I wanted to go downstairs and drink a large glass of red wine, but then he’d have known for sure that something was wrong, and anyway, I wouldn’t have done that if I really did have a migraine. I needed time to think, but I also knew that I couldn’t keep this up for long. ‘I still feel pretty rough, but it’s going off a bit, I think. ’ I closed my eyes again. ‘I’m sure I’ll be all right in the morning.’
‘Okay. Anything I can get you?’
I could hear the disappointment in his voice. Friday evenings were special – the start of the weekend. Usually, Friday evenings meant good food and wine, a fire in the grate, a DVD perhaps, or some music and a chat and then an early night for some comfortable, reassuring sex. But instead, he’d had a crap dinner and now he’d end up watching Casualty with the dog before creeping into bed carefully so he didn’t disturb me. ‘No, thanks; I just need to sleep, so I’ll say goodnight now.’ And I turned over, lying bitch that I was, because I was finding it hard to keep the tears in.
But I couldn’t get back to sleep, and now it was two o’clock and I was sitting in the kitchen, composing a reply to Scott’s text, which I’d only noticed by chance because I’d left my phone on the table. When I checked, I saw that the text had come earlier, after I’d gone upstairs. Just a reminder, it read. Think about it, but not for too long. I should have taken my phone up with me. What if Duncan had seen it? But then I cursed myself – when had Duncan ever read my texts? I need to talk to you, I typed. Can we meet next week? Same place, 1-ish Mon or Tues? I pressed Send and was astonished when my phone pinged and there was an immediate reply. I changed the setting to Silent straight away. Tues 1 pm? it said. Fine, I replied. See you there. I didn’t know what I was going to say yet, or even if I’d turn up, but at least if we had a time fixed it’d stop him from calling or texting. For some reason, before I pressed Send, I added, Why you up so late? The silent reply came back: I don’t sleep much.
I drank a cup of hot chocolate in the hope that it would help me sleep, then crept back upstairs and into bed. I was still awake at four, still trying to think of a way out. Slowly, I began to turn over an idea in my mind. Scott was too ill to work, which probably meant he was on benefits. He must have hated that. But Duncan and I, we had savings. I started to calculate how much I could withdraw without him noticing, and before long, I drifted off to sleep.
I woke feeling slightly more positive, and when Duncan asked me sleepily how I was feeling this morning, I told him I was much better. He yawned and stretched expansively, lifting the covers as he did so and causing a blast of cold air to hit my bare shoulders. I pulled the duvet up around my neck and tried to recapture the cocoon-like warmth for a few more minutes. Duncan’s arm slipped around my waist and he moved nearer; I could feel his warm breath on the back of my neck and his penis nudging at my buttocks. This was my cue to turn over and wrap my arms and legs around him, but I couldn’t. Much as I craved the comfort of his body, the sex could sometimes be too real, too truthful, and I was scared of what I might reveal. ‘Sorry, darling. I’m still feeling a bit queasy.’ I felt his arm tense.
‘I thought you said you felt much better?’
‘I do. Much better, but still a bit, you know . . .’
He sighed, lifted his arm off me and moved away, and I wanted to cry out and pull him back, but instead I just said, ‘Sorry.’
*
I made coffee and fired up the laptop. Duncan had been quiet. He was still a bit put out, I think, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew something was up. He came into the kitchen wearing trainers, jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt. ‘Going for a quick run,’ he announced, and he left without kissing me.
Having lied to Duncan about feeling queasy I found I now did feel quite sick. My stomach was unsettled and I felt weak and shivery, as though I had a fever. I tipped the coffee down the sink and made myself some ginger tea instead. Eve always called it ‘tea’,
but really it was an infusion; you took an inch-long lump of ginger, peeled it, sliced it finely and steeped it in a mug of boiling water for five minutes, then you sipped until the nausea disappeared.
We had four bank accounts between us, a personal account each, a joint household account and another joint one for other expenses – holidays, Christmas etc. If I juggled things around, I reckoned I could scrape together about £4,000 without Duncan knowing. Fortunately, the finances had always been my job, so he hardly ever looked at the accounts. I’d have to think of some way of replacing it, but I could worry about that later. I felt a slight thrill at the thought that this was something I could try; it was a plan. If Scott really didn’t have long to live, then some money might make his last days more comfortable. His last days; briefly, sadness pierced my thoughts, despite the fact that he was threatening everything I loved.
While I moved the money around, I tried to ignore the little voice telling me this wouldn’t work, that it wouldn’t make any difference. I was about to shut the laptop down when Duncan came back from his run, breathless and looking a little sweat-dampened but healthy none the less. ‘I need to do this more often,’ he said. ‘I’ve only done a couple of miles and I’m knackered.’ He took his trainers off and flung them in the corner. ‘Just going for a shower.’ He nodded towards the laptop. ‘What are you up to?’
It was a casual, non-threatening question, but I snapped ‘Nothing’ too quickly and he flinched at the sharpness of my tone. ‘Only asking,’ he said.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I was wasting time, that’s all. Seeing what’s on telly tonight, looking at eBay.’ I was a despicable liar and I hated myself.
I saw his face relax. He nodded and headed off for his shower.
The Secrets We Left Behind Page 11