‘Jo!’ she calls across to me. ‘I’m here! I made it!’
‘Anna, you have to go back,’ I tell her, running across the drive to meet her, then grabbing her arm when she refuses to stop. ‘This is all wrong. My kids are in there; they’ve brought their partners.’ I flick my wet hair from my face to see her better. She looks terrible, her eyes red, her hands trembling, her fine hair flattened with the torrential rain.
‘You asked me to come,’ she replies breathlessly. ‘We agreed. You wanted me here. And the kids. You said he’d change your mind, poison theirs. You can’t go back on this, Jo. I can’t—’
‘Anna, listen to me! I haven’t changed my mind, not about leaving him, of course not. But not like this, Anna. Not in front of my kids.’
‘He knows what to say, Jo.’ She tries to push past me, then speaks through the torrential downpour, our faces close to one another. ‘He’ll convince me if I don’t do this, and you. He’ll stop you, you said so. The kids will take his side. You said it had to be like this, for all our sakes. I have to do this, Jo. Even if you can’t.’
‘Let me handle this my way, please, Anna—’ But she’s shrugging me off, marching towards the front door. I implore her not to, pulling her back, but she’s much bigger than me and my grasp is slippery against the wet sleeve of her raincoat.
The front door is open, the wind sending it away from her into the empty hallway. She walks in and looks around her; first to her left, towards the deserted sitting room, then right to follow the voices in the kitchen.
‘Anna, please don’t’ I say, catching her up, but she has no time for me.
She’s told me she hates him for what he’s done to us, but love and hate are twin souls, both fuelled by passion, and Anna is an unstoppable force.
The conversation at the table is at once silenced by our entrance. Rob, his glass half-drained and held aloft to toast my return, looks up to see Anna, tearful and soaked through, me at her heels. At first he is slack-jawed, then he stands up, as if compelled to do so. Ryan and Fin have their backs to us, but their heads swivel to see who has arrived. Sash is smiling, eyes wide, as though I’m about to introduce my closest friend.
‘Anna!’ Rob rushes towards us. ‘Don’t do this!’
He’s between us now, trying to steer Anna from the room, but she refuses to move, shaking her head and releasing beads of water from her hair and clothes as she grabs on to the kitchen island for support. Rob looks at me, leaning in to whisper, ‘Please, Jo. Not like this. Let’s talk. I can explain.’
I glance across at Fin. His head is bowed but he’s watching his father, then he catches my eye and looks away. I was deeply hurt, betrayed by my son’s decision to keep what he knew from me, but I should never have been this cruel. What was I thinking? But I wasn’t, I was acting. Trying to save myself from Rob’s lies, his manipulation of the truth. I’d wanted Fin and Sash to see this for themselves, bear witness, but now I couldn’t want anything less.
‘Fin, darling.’ I move towards him. ‘I’m so sorry, I know you didn’t mean it, he told you it was over. You believed him. This is all our fault; you are not to blame.’
Fin turns away from me towards Ryan, speaking quietly so I can’t hear. I think Fin won’t say anything, that his head will remain down and he will simply stand up from the table and leave. He does stand, his chair scraping noisily on the hard floor, but then his eyes meet mine, an intensity behind them, and although his voice is measured, the words are not.
‘Couldn’t you see it, Mum? Everyone could, surely?’ He looks around him to his sister, then his father, then back to me. ‘Was it easier to pretend? Like you did with me? All those years I was struggling, begging you to notice that I needed help. That all the money in the world couldn’t make me happy. You ignored it all, told yourself I was fine, that sending me to university would make everything better somehow. I’m not like you, Mum, not like any of you. I can’t stick a plaster over everything and just imagine it’s better than it is.’
I reach out to him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were unhappy?’
‘You’re the parent! Why didn’t you ask?’
‘I did ask you. I asked you all the time. Are you trying to tell me that this is my punishment, that I deserve this?’
‘Mum? Dad?’ Sash asks. ‘What’s going on?’
Ryan speaks for Fin now; says they should leave, but Fin pauses next to me as Ryan walks out. ‘Dad did promise me it was over.’ He looks at his father who meets his eye then looks away. ‘I never took a penny of his money, so if he said I did then he was lying.’
I pull Fin to me. ‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ Fin says, pulling away. ‘You should have had more faith in me.’ Fin follows Ryan out and the door slams behind him.
‘You pleased with yourself?’ Rob asks, turning on me. ‘Is this what you wanted?’
‘This isn’t my doing! This is your mess, Rob!’ I scream in his face. ‘Your mess!’
Anna is backing away from both of us to lean over the sink, running the tap as she splashes water on to her bright red face.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask her, placing a palm on her back which she shrugs off.
‘Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?’ Sash demands, standing up from the table, her burgeoning bump proudly displayed beneath a tightly stretched floral dress.
Thomas turns to her, whispers something in her ear as he pulls her to sit back down. ‘What the . . .?’ she says, looking at her father. ‘You’re having sex with that?’ She points a darkly painted nail at Anna who is now leaning with her back to the sink, her face still crimson. ‘When you’re married to that.’ She points at me.
Sash’s incredulity at her father’s poor choice is fiercely loyal and I love her for it – at last someone on my side – but it is at Anna’s cost and she is a wretched creature. I look behind me to where Anna’s holding her ground against Rob’s renewed efforts to persuade her away from the unfolding carnage. He’s got her as far as the kitchen door, but no further. He lets go of her raincoat which falls open to reveal a very prominent stomach.
‘Oh my god,’ Sash says. ‘Is that your baby in there?’ she asks her father, pointing at Anna’s midriff. ‘Or is she just really fat and old?’ Sash walks towards me now, pulling me into a fierce hug, the mass of her baby bump squashed between us, pushing her father away as he tries to comfort her.
Rob returns to Anna, coaxing her out of the kitchen and into the hallway; she’s hysterical now, Sash’s punishing jibes pushing her over the edge. I remove myself from Sash’s protection to follow them, watching from the door as he drags Anna across the drive. Anna is resisting, turning away from him, then she walks off and he runs after her, both disappearing around the hedge into the lane, the storm taking them quickly away.
‘Mum?’ I look back at Sash, her hand to my arm, Thomas at her shoulder. ‘Did you know?’ She asks me.
‘I’m sorry, there’s so much I should have told you.’ I look up at Thomas. ‘I should have told you everything,’ I say. ‘Everything.’
Sash’s eyes blaze once more and she shakes herself free of Thomas and runs outside screaming for her father to come back. I move to follow her, but Thomas grabs my arm and pulls me back into the hall, slamming the front door.
‘Thomas, no! Let go of me!’ I try to shake him off, his grasp on my upper arm tight enough to be painful.
‘I need you to listen,’ he says, ‘Before Sash comes back.’ He releases me and steps back. ‘Nothing happened between you and I that night you came to the bar. Nothing! I should have told you at first, but . . .’ He glances towards the closed door. ‘I’m a shit, Jo. But I’m telling you the truth. You have to believe me: nothing happened.’
‘I don’t believe you. I remember being there. I know what happened, and Sash has a right to know.’ I push him away as I walk towards the door. I can see Sash coming back up the drive, framed in the glass panel, her floral dress inadequate
protection from the awful weather. I try to open the door, but Thomas’s hand covers mine as I reach for the latch, preventing me from unlocking it.
‘Wait!’ he says. ‘Think back to that night. Try to remember. Please. You know what happened, Jo. It’s in there somewhere. Just think!’
I try to focus, to trace my way back to what I already know, but it’s so muddled, so incomplete. I close my eyes, shutting everything else out: Thomas, the storm beyond the closed door, even Sash.
I was drunk, running from Nick, and from myself, from a drunken liaison, and from what had almost happened between us in that office, what I’d thought I wanted. I was looking for Sash. If I could just get to my daughter, sober up. Dazed, I wandered towards the darkened bar. The door was unlocked, no lights on inside, but there had been a light in the flat above. I just had to find my way up to it. There were so many doors, cupboards, a stock room, the stinking gents’ toilet, but then a flight of stairs, a sliver of light at the top from an open door. I stumbled as I climbed, cried out. I thought how careless it was, leaving the place unlocked. Anyone could have wandered in. I pushed on the open door at the top of the stairs, peering in, expecting to find a hallway, or a sitting room, and instead finding just one room, a bed at its centre.
Sash knocks loudly on the front door and peers in, calling out when she spots me and Thomas the other side. ‘Mum, let me in! I can’t find Dad, he’s gone! Mum! Thomas!’
Thomas calls back that the door is stuck, hang on. He pretends to wiggle the lock and turns back to me, his voice a low but insistent whisper. ‘You remember, don’t you? What really happened. You have to, Jo. Sash is pregnant, she needs us, both of us. Don’t make her choose.’
I close my eyes again, ignoring Sash’s pleas and Thomas’s attempts to convince her he’s trying to unlock the door.
I stepped back into the shadows, afraid they might have been in that bed together, my daughter, with him, but then I saw it was only one prone figure, Thomas, a naked back illuminated by the lamp at his side. A smooth curve of taut skin, muscles beneath, a thigh, a leg, a foot, a face as he turned towards me, his wide mouth drawing me in, his smile making me complicit in his treachery as he said my name, turning back the sheet to invite me in. I wanted him, to be next to him in that bed, to feel him within me; the same desire that has looped in my memory day and night. I wanted him more than anything, to make me feel alive, to desire me as I desired him.
‘Mum! Thomas! What’s going on in there?’
‘I wanted you,’ I say, opening my eyes to Thomas again. ‘I’m ashamed, but I did want you, Thomas,’ I tell him. I’m whispering, but I know he can hear me, even above Sash’s knocks and calls, our faces close together as I look up at him. ‘You asked me into your bed. You—’
‘I didn’t mean it, Jo. I wanted to see how far I could push you. I would have said no, but you ran out first. You know I wouldn’t have—’
I stare at him and he shakes his head again. ‘Nothing happened, I promise.’
Yes, I ran out. I ran away. I’d wanted him, desired him for that moment. To my shame. I’d wanted to feel something; passion, youth, desire. But I ran out. Nothing happened. Thank goodness. Nothing happened.
‘You bastard!’ I tell Thomas as he opens the door and Sash steps in, soaked through.
‘What’s going on?’ she asks, her voice pleading, her eyes filling with tears as she glances up at Thomas.
‘Everything’s fine. I promise,’ he says, smiling down at her. ‘Did you find him? Your dad.’
‘No, he must have already left with that woman.’ She looks across at me. ‘You two are hiding something. What is it?’
‘For fuck’s sake, Sash. The door slammed and the lock got stuck. That’s it!’ Thomas turns away from her.
‘I have to go, Sash,’ I tell her, unable to meet her eye.
‘Go? Where to?’ she says, grabbing my arm. ‘Dad’s gone. You can stay here. This is his fault, not yours. This is your home. Stay here!’
‘I don’t want to. I’m going to be staying with a friend, Rose, from the drop-in centre, but I’ll be in touch. Okay, my darling?’
‘I need you, Mum,’ she says, pulling away from Thomas who has taken her hand and is telling her to let me leave now. She rushes at me, her arms around my waist, her tears wet against my cheek, her body cold and damp pressed tight to me, their child between us as she sobs. ‘I need my mum.’
I tell her I love her; I’ll always be there for her. I promise. Then I hand her over to Thomas, the bastard who took pleasure in taunting me, letting me think the worst of myself and him, and I pick up my keys from the hall table and walk outside into the squall, lifting my tear-stained face to the elements, as if the rain can wash away the hurt, the pain, the guilt.
‘Jo, where are you going?’ Rob is coming towards me, his long strides pulling him up the drive, Anna already collateral damage I presume, on her way back to her pink sitting room. ‘You can’t leave!’ he shouts, running towards me. ‘I won’t let you!’
‘Get off me!’ I scream, shrugging off his grasp, his large hands pulling at me as I try to unlock my car. My hands are trembling and I drop the keys on to the wet gravel, Rob snatching them up before I do.
‘Give them to me!’ I shout.
‘Not until we’ve talked about this. There are things I know about you. This is not just my fault, is it?’
I make a grab for the keys, but Rob holds them above his head. ‘Come inside, Jo. We can sort this out.’
‘You can’t make me stay like you did last time,’ I tell him, spitting out my words. ‘You didn’t even try to save me, did you? Did you want me to fall?’
‘No!’ Rob screams.
We both stop shouting, staring at one another instead, and maybe it hasn’t, but it feels as though the storm has died down too.
‘I remember what happened, Rob,’ I tell him, my voice quiet and still. ‘I reached out to you as I slipped.’
‘You’re wrong,’ he says. ‘Come inside, Jo.’
I tell him there’s no point and I think he’s going to deny it again, try to convince me, to lie his way out of it, but his voice is steely when he replies, ‘I knew about Nick and I forgave you. But you won’t do the same for me?’ He laughs. ‘Bloody priceless.’
‘You know nothing of what happened between Nick and me; you have no idea.’ I step away from him, my car solid and cold behind me, the rainwater soaking into my clothes as I look up at my husband, towering above me. ‘The sad thing is you know less about the last year than I do,’ I say, my voice calm. ‘You’ve bent the past to fit your needs, lied to everyone, including yourself. This isn’t about blame, Rob. It isn’t about Nick or Anna. It’s about you and me; what we’ve done to one another. Go to her, Rob! She’s pregnant with your child and she’s not well. She needs you. Do the right thing!’
Rob’s face crumples and he sobs, ‘I want you, Jo. It’s all been because I love you. I can’t see a future without you, I’m begging you—’
‘Give up, Rob. There’s nothing to save any more. Just give up.’
He steps back, then he throws the keys on to the gravel between us and walks towards the barn, pushing past Sash and Thomas, who are emerging from the open door. I hear Sash shriek at her father that she hates him and they all go inside, the door slamming behind them.
I grab the keys from the wet stones and get into my car, distraught now, as my unsteady hand fumbles with the key. I open the window to allow the rain in, cool on my skin as I press down on the accelerator to drive away.
The hunched figure emerges slowly through the driving rain, a dark mass seeping into the edge of my consciousness as the wipers clear the windscreen. I’m aware of her before I act, the distance between us slipping away as I slam on the brakes, stopping just short of her, her arms raised in a silent surrender as I hear my voice scream, ‘Anna!’
I throw open the car door, running towards her as her hands fall to her sides. Cradling the mass of her stomach she stumbles backwards, her f
ace contorted with pain. She screams and drops down heavily on to the gravel, her legs landing in an ungainly manner, a shoe lost, reaching out for me to save her although I’m still yards away. I lunge forwards, losing my footing too, the stones skinning my knees as I desperately scrabble towards her. I see the blood now, her tights soaked with it as I try to comfort her. She’s moaning, writhing in pain.
‘I’m losing the baby, Jo. I’m losing it, aren’t I?’ She grabs my hand. ‘Don’t leave me, Jo. Stay close. Please stay close.’
‘Anna, I have to get help. I’ll be quick, I promise.’
I run towards the house, shouting ahead for someone to please open the door, banging my fist against the wood, the rain beating at my back as I scream my husband’s name, then my daughter’s, over and over.
24
Three Months After The Fall
The barn looks much the same as I pull into my usual spot on the drive, the wind greeting me as I open the car door; my hair lifted from my scalp then slapped back in my face. I look up at the darkened windows as I clear the wet strands from my view, the sky dirty white above bare-limbed trees, their branches silhouetted against the oppressive blanket of cloud, shivering in the gloom of a December day. I lock my car and then pause as I turn back to the house, a light now on in the kitchen. I worry if I should use my key or knock instead, but as I approach I see the front door is ajar, the wind rattling it back and forth. Three months since my fall and two months since I left the barn, and only now have I felt able to return, my belongings collected by Sash as I’d needed them, the thought of coming here before now always proving too much.
‘Hello!’ I call out, my heels echoing against the tiled floor of the hall. It feels colder inside, although it can’t be, the bite of winter always harsher up here at the top of the hill. I spot the head-shaped hole at the bottom of the stairs and it still surprises me, as though I’d expected it to have disappeared, or never have been there at all.
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