Try Not to Breathe: A Novel

by Holly Seddon

  “The two aren’t mutually exclusive, Jacob. It’s both of those things and more. And thank you for twisting this so it’s somehow my fault for snoring when I’m heavily pregnant. Jesus.”

  “Fiona, you’re wrong about so much of this. And you’re choosing to see the worst in me. After all this time, don’t I deserve some benefit of the doubt?”

  She said nothing, hands on hips, her eyes searching his face.

  Jacob’s voice got louder. “I’ve never hurt you, never cheated on you, never laid a finger on you. I know I’m not always easy to live with, but neither are you. How about a little mutual understanding?”

  “How can I understand you when you’re never honest with me? I don’t know what I’m supposed to understand! Who are you, Jacob? What’s going on in that fucking head of yours? You sneak off, you lie to me, you can’t look me in the bloody eye. If you’re not cheating, I dread to think what you are doing.”

  “You want me to be totally honest with you, Fiona?” He laughed and looked at the neighboring house, whose curtain suddenly snapped back into place.

  “You want me to be totally honest so you can twist everything and use what I say to beat me around the head? Some things are too precious for that,” he spat. “You don’t know me at all, you said it yourself. I thought you knew me better than anyone but that was just wishful thinking. Fuck it, I don’t even think you like me.”

  He pressed his hands against the wall as she glared at him. Her silence more deafening than her yell.

  “Fiona, I love you. But right now I don’t like you very much either. You’re like a coiled snake all the time. I can’t ever relax, I’m walking on eggshells and I can’t do it forever.”

  “You made me this way,” came the strangled reply.

  “I probably did, yeah,” he said, with a softer voice.

  “I hate you for that. I don’t want to be this person.”

  “We are who we are. If we can’t get past this, then maybe we should call it quits.”

  He hadn’t meant to say it. He hadn’t even thought it until it fell out of his mouth. And when Fiona said nothing, he swung away on his crutches before he could say anything else.

  Alex gave her eyes an almost cartoon rub as she barreled down the motorway, blinking into the morning light.

  The night before had been restless and the small servings of wine had slipped down too quickly. After her preliminary water, she’d drunk her first two glasses in quick succession. She had stood and stared into the sink, almost in disbelief, as if that’s where the wine had disappeared. It had taken every shred of her will to step away, sit on the couch and slow things down.

  With only a fitful few hours’ sleep, it wasn’t a good morning to be driving, but at least she was out of the kitchen and taking charge.

  The first and last time she’d visited Devon was in secondary school. A school trip aged twelve, riding ponies on Dartmoor and learning to do brass rubbings. She’d taken a bottle of cheap, thin vodka from the back of the cabinet—the emergency stash—and she and two friends had got so drunk on cartons of orange juice and slugs of vodka that the other girls had ended up half-naked. They weren’t used to alcohol. One girl, Anne, had to be sent home.

  Since hanging up on her, Bob hadn’t answered any of her calls so she’d decided to drive down at first light. To distract herself from how much she wanted to sink another big glass, Alex had spent the previous evening cross-legged on the floor, rifling through her CDs. With the nurse’s singing in mind, she’d decided to put together a playlist for Amy. She didn’t know where to start and eventually just spread them all around her like candy. She’d forgotten she had so many albums until she pulled them off the shelves and scattered them. Thousands and thousands of songs. Albums covered in dust, edges frayed, abandoned. Music was everything when she bought some of these. What else do you have to care about at fifteen?

  Blur had been Amy’s favorite band, Jacob said, so eventually she started there. And now, iPhone dangling from the MP3 slot of her car stereo, Alex’s heart pounded with the familiarity and sadness of so many long-forgotten favorites.

  By the time she reached Uffculme, Bob’s village, Alex was desperate for the toilet and a shot of caffeine. To stop and wander around was too risky, the four-hour journey was a total waste if Bob spotted her and got spooked. She turned the music off and followed the sat nav past the church, down a lane just wide enough for one vehicle. She bumped over a cattle grate, bladder close to bursting with every jolt.

  Bob’s van was outside, new name stenciled in dark blue on the side.

  The little cottage was more cardboard box than chocolate box. Meeting the road side-on, it was hemmed in on all sides by thick wedges of fields divided by jagged blackberry bushes. The cement-covered walls had turned green at the bottom, and only one small window faced the road. The low metal gate swung open toward her.

  “You promised you wouldn’t do this!”

  “You lied to me, Bob,” Alex said, climbing out of the car and standing carefully on the uneven ground. “You said you’d never met Amy’s birth dad.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Bob looked around, frantically.

  “I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t want to drive four hours to surprise you but this is serious.”

  Alex leaned against her car and Bob sagged.

  “Bob, you didn’t just meet Amy’s dad, you attacked him.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “No I haven’t.”

  “You’ve got it half right. Okay? He came looking. All right?” Bob puffed like he was reaching the end of an uphill run.

  “He came looking. Just—look, come in, Judy’s out on the school run. She’s not gonna be long so you need to promise me you’ll go afterward.”

  “After you tell me the truth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I promise. Again.”

  They walked in silence through broken pots and bright plastic trikes in the garden. Bob shoved the sticking porch door and took his shoes off carefully. Alex followed suit.

  Inside, Bob flicked on the kettle in a kitchen with patterned floral curtains instead of cupboard doors.

  “Judy did this all herself,” Bob said.

  The downstairs bathroom Alex had almost pleaded to use had little net curtains hanging in front of the frosted, scalloped window. A couple of lazy spiders rolled in the farthest corner of the ceiling and the small hand towel was slightly cold and damp. It was deathly quiet outside the door, and had Alex been any less bursting, she would have felt self-conscious at her own noise.

  After picking her way through a corridor of toys leading back from the bathroom, Alex sank into the tired velveteen sofa. She splashed a little of her tea and apologized profusely. The detritus of family life was dotted on shelves and in corners. Stacks of wicker baskets with toy limbs poking out, children’s shoes lined up by the door.

  “How old are they?”

  “I don’t want to…They’re young. Primary school. Judy’s…I’ve been lucky.”

  “Tell me what happened, Bob. When Amy’s dad came looking for her.”

  Bob took a rattly breath and cleared his throat.

  “Amy was only small. I’d not long moved into Jo’s and he turned up.”

  “When was this, during the day, middle of the night?”

  “It was evening time. Jo had just given Amy her bath and they were in our room with the hair dryer.”

  “So what happened, did you let him in?”

  “He didn’t knock. He was banging on the door with both hands, yelling, threatening…saying he’d get custody, that he’d come back and take her in the night, all sorts. Jo was terrified.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “No, he had his mum with him and she was a vicious old bat.”

  “So he didn’t try to talk sensibly to you? You didn’t try to talk to him?”

  “He was pissed as a fart. There was no talking to him. Jo was shaking like a leaf, sobb
ing. Amy was scared stiff, she was only little. I sent him away. I was protecting my family.”

  “And he never came back?”

  “We moved.”

  “He never found you again? You didn’t exactly move far, one bit of town to the other.”

  “No.”

  “I know that’s not true. He called Amy at your house when she was a teenager.”

  “How do you know about that?” Bob sat up and put his tea down fast.

  “She told her boyfriend.”

  “Shit,” Bob said under his breath. “Yeah, all right, he got the number. God knows how. He called and tried to confuse her. She didn’t really want to meet him.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Definitely. She could have told us if she wanted to see him.”

  “And you don’t think she just went ahead and met him anyway?”

  “She didn’t meet him. She wouldn’t have kept that a secret, she was a good girl.”

  “And the police knew he’d been in touch?”

  Bob shook his head.

  “Why not, Bob? Don’t you think he might have been involved?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure? Jo told you he was a thug. Surely you wanted to tell the police that Amy’s violent birth father had tracked her down? Surely Jo wanted to tell them that? A history of violence—”

  “Oh blimey. Look, he wasn’t exactly violent. Not to her, that wasn’t true. I told you that stuff so you wouldn’t start down this line. I didn’t want you writing about that, connecting me and him again. He was just a waster. He was a mouth-ache, a petty criminal, he smoked grass, he nicked things.

  “He treated Jo like muck on his shoe, had her shoplifting things, giving him her wages. He’d have done the same to Amy, dragged her in, pulled her down. She was going to be better than that. Better than us. And definitely better than him.”

  “What’s his name, Bob?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “What time’s Judy coming back?”

  “All right, all right,” Bob sighed. “Paul Wheeler.”

  “Do you know anything else about him?”

  “I’ve told you everything. Please, Alex, I just want to protect what I have now.”

  “I don’t want to cause problems for you and I’m sorry it came to this. Just please let me know if you think of anything else.”

  “St. Mary Cray,” Bob said with a sigh, and rose quickly to show her out.

  “St. Mary Cray near Orpington?”

  “That’s where he lives. Arsehole of a place. St. Mary Cray. I doubt he’s had enough about him to move.”

  “Thank you, Bob.”

  “Just please, love, don’t get sucked in by him. And Alex?”

  “Yes?”

  “Please don’t come back.”

  —

  The last hour of the drive was a blur of dry throat, inane radio chatter and slamming her brakes on through traffic cameras. Finally home, Alex threw the front door open and ran into the kitchen, holding the sideboard to steady her. She had to stay even-handed, the plan had to hold. Two days of gulping in a row would have been risky.

  She poured her first serving of Rioja into the jug and back out into her smallest glass. She bit the inside of her lip to slow herself down as she poured a tall glass of bottled water. She sank the water fast, out of sheer physical need. She sipped the wine, then lapped at the dregs with her tongue until even the sheen on the inside of the glass had been replaced with tiny drops of saliva.

  Placing the empty glasses carefully on the sideboard, she opened her laptop’s browser and typed the name and town that Bob had given her into a search engine.

  Paul Wheeler of St. Mary Cray. Amy’s birth dad. Fucking hell.

  Within seconds, a bunch of Google results belched up on the laptop screen. By the looks of things, Paul Wheeler was still in St. Mary Cray, Bob was right.

  Paul Wheeler of St. Mary Cray, giving his opinion on a local election in an old newspaper article. “They’re all on the take.”

  Paul Wheeler of 42 Eden Court, St. Mary Cray, representing himself in Crown Court on charges of benefit fraud. Suspended sentence.

  Her phone, still on, blinked with a text from Jacob.

  How did it go?

  Hi, it went well. Think I’m getting somewhere. Do you fancy a road trip tomorrow?

  Depends. Where are you going?

  —

  Paddock Grove, leading to Eden Court, looked much the same as the rest of St. Mary Cray in the rain. Tight little red bricks burrowed into dirty walls, white plastic balconies sagged under flat roofs.

  The combined hums of motorways and main roads underpinned the town’s soundtrack, cars rushing past the place in great voice. Just a few souls dotted the pavements. An overweight woman spilled from the sides of a motorized scooter, a crumpled man zigzagged toward the road, waving a short stub of rolled-up cigarette at no one in particular.

  “Thanks for coming with me, I really appreciate it,” Alex told Jacob, flicking her eyes briefly from the road to try to make eye contact. “You’re the only person who knows about Amy’s dad. Besides Bob, I mean.”

  “I still don’t think he’s connected, but it didn’t feel right you going on your own. Besides, I’m at a loose end right now.”

  “Turn left into Eden Court,” the sat nav barked.

  They parked a few doors down and sat in silence.

  “Come on, let’s get this done and then I’ll drop you straight back to your mum’s.”

  —

  There was absolutely nothing to distinguish number forty-two from the rest of Eden Court. As tired as the rest, it nudged up to number forty, with a dark alleyway tunneled out between the two. A “Beware of Dog” sign hung impotently on an open gate and the neighboring garden had a moped propped in it, casting a diagonal shadow across the patchy brown grass. Nothing moved.

  No sound came when they rang the bell. Alex rapped on the dull blue door with a prim fist. As the sound of the television stopped abruptly, she shot a look at Jacob, who was leaning on his crutches. He didn’t smile.

  The door swung open. A tall man of about fifty had a toddler perched on one hip as he held a boxer dog back with his leg. His sharp emerald eyes narrowed in the thin light.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you Paul Wheeler?” Alex asked.

  “Why?” came a low, rumbling voice.

  “I…we—”

  “We’ve come to talk to Paul Wheeler about his daughter, Amy. I’m pretty sure that’s you, ’cos you look just like her,” Jacob interrupted.

  “Fuck’s sake. And who are you two?”

  “I’m Alex and this is Jacob. I’m writing a story about Amy, and Jacob is—”

  “An old friend of your daughter’s.”

  —

  “Offer ’em a cup of tea, then,” Paul said to a boy of about eight, as he kicked the boy’s socked feet off the footstool and gestured for him to put his Nintendo gadget down.

  The boy flopped off the sofa, sighed, and asked the side of Alex’s head if she wanted a tea.

  “Oh, I’m fine, thanks. What’s your name?”

  The boy looked at Paul. “It’s all right, you can tell ’er.”

  “It’s Matty.”

  “My husband was called Matt.”

  “Okay,” said the boy. Alex blushed.

  “Do you want a tea?” he asked Jacob.

  “I’m good, thanks,” said Jacob.

  The boy flopped back down.

  “What about old dad?”

  “Wanna tea, Dad?” the boy asked.

  “Yeah, make it a good strong one. Don’t rush it.”

  Paul narrowed his eyes as the boy slumped out the living room door. “You two are a bit dense, aren’t you?”

  “Sorry?” Alex and Jacob said in unison.

  “I was trying to get rid of him. I don’t want him hearing this. He doesn’t even know he has a sister. Other than this one.” He gestured to the toddler sucki
ng on a pacifier in the elbow of the battered sofa.

  “Oh sorry, I didn’t think,” Alex said, feeling flustered. Paul Wheeler seemed entirely calm.

  “It’s all right. What do you want, then? Want me to sell my story?”

  “Well, do you have a story?” Alex asked.

  “You tell me.”

  The small living room was neat and tidy. One bar on the gas fire flickered blue, and the boxer dog lay contentedly on his belly in front of it, absorbing all the heat.

  “Let’s start again. I’m Alex Dale and I’m a journalist. I write about health issues and I’m writing about your daughter’s condition. Jacob was close to Amy in school and he’s been helping me build up some background to her story.”

  “I know who ’e is.”

  Jacob sat up a little on the gray sofa. “You do?”

  “I know all about you, Jake.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, don’t s’pose you do.”

  The dark curls of the small girl next to Paul started to tremble a little as she slipped into a snoring sleep. Brief bursts of unconscious suckling came from her mouth until, with a final halfhearted suck, the pacifier fell from her lips into the crook of the sofa. A spit trail followed it.

  “She told me all about you,” Paul continued, holding Jacob’s gaze without blinking.

  “Amy did?” Jacob frowned.

  “She told me about how you was her boyfriend, she told me about her little friends, she told me about the grammar school, what teachers she hated. All of it.”

  “I thought you only spoke once.”

  “Did you now?”

  The boy sloped back in and put his father’s mug on the arm of the sofa.

  “Good boy, Matty. Go to your room for a bit.”

  “All this happened in one conversation?” Alex asked, as the boy shut the door behind him.

  Nodding at Alex’s hands, Paul’s eyes narrowed again.

  “Notes, is it?”

  “I’d really like to interview you on the record, Mr. Wheeler, would that be okay? I don’t have to name you in the published article, but I’m sure it would be helpful to get your side across.”

  “Oh you can name me. You can say whatever you like so long as you pay me.”