The Last Day

by Claire Dyer

  An accident, they’d said. No one to blame. Honey had been in the road, the driver had tried to avoid her, but she’d stepped out in front of him. He’d braked so hard that his load of metal poles had slipped their constraints and rattled onto the tarmac; he was still at the police station making a statement. ‘He’s in bits,’ the officer had said.

  I wanted to say, ‘I should fucking hope so,’ but in the end I hadn’t.

  How could it have happened? Where was Honey going? Why had she packed a bag? She had, they’d said, fallen as if she’d been walking towards Albert Terrace when she was hit. Was she leaving or coming back? So many questions and I didn’t have the answers to any of them.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ Trixie says as I push my bike in through the door, much like I’d done when I’d brought Boyd’s tie in for him all those months ago. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Is Boyd back yet?’

  ‘Yes. He’s just getting something from the car.’

  I notice that Trixie is looking paler than normal, and thinner. It’s as if one good push could snap her in two.

  And then Boyd walks in. He’s tall and square and slightly rumpled after his day’s work; his shirt has come untucked a bit at the front and is creased and he’s undone the top button. I know he’ll have planned to straighten himself out shortly and will run his fingers through his hair just in case a customer should call into the office, even at this hour.

  ‘Vita?’ he says when he sees me.

  I lean my bike up against the wall and go over to him. I’m holding both my hands out as if making ready to catch him when he falls.

  I tell myself that it’s always impossible to tell someone you love bad news about someone they love, especially when you love that someone too. And this is when it hits me; I loved them, both of them. I love Boyd. Christ, I think. I do still love you! I am allowed to love you! How could I not have known it? And Honey? Well, yes I loved her too. Why I should have done is a mystery: was it partly because I saw her as the child I should have had, or was it partly because she was a beautiful person who the man I love was in love with? Or was it a combination of both, or was it neither? What I do remember is how she touched my arm that first day, how it had felt right, possessive, careless, full of nameless love. The kind of touch I’d once believed would be mine for always.

  I should have kept her close to us, protected her. I believe I have let them both down in an unspeakable way.

  ‘Oh shit, Boyd. There’s something I have to tell you. It’s about Honey.’

  And when I’ve told him that Honey is dead and that her body has been taken away and that there’ll have to be a postmortem and that the police are involved and that the driver is being questioned, he has sunk to his knees. This mountain of a man has collapsed as though someone has taken all the air from him; he is kneeling on the floor with his head in his hands and I am crouching over him shielding him with my arms. We are in almost exactly the same position as the day William died.

  Trixie is crying quietly and unobtrusively, the tears are dripping off her chin. She looks a hundred years old. ‘I’ll make tea,’ she says.

  ‘Where was she going?’

  This is the question Boyd needs the answer to but neither Trixie nor I can answer it.

  ‘It’s not possible. There must be a mistake. She can’t be.’

  He keeps saying this over and over as if it’s a prayer. What have we done to deserve this?

  The rest happens in a daze. Boyd drives me to the hospital where he has to identify Honey’s body. I am by his side and there are no words I know to describe how dreadful it is: Honey’s face pale, totally flawless, the gentle curve of her skull, the jut of her shoulders over the top of the sheet. She looks so much like she is sleeping, as if one touch would wake her and she’d open those violet eyes and a long, slow smile would creep over her mouth and she’d whisper, ‘Hi there, Boyd.’

  I have no idea how Boyd will bear this loss when he has had so many losses in his life already.

  And there are questions. So many fucking questions.

  And in the long, excruciating hours that follow, the nightmare worsens. We are told that Honey was pregnant, that her real name wasn’t Honey Mayhew, but Tracy Jones; we are told that Tracy Jones had been implicated in a boat fire four years before, but had never been charged because there wasn’t enough evidence and the boat owner, even though he’d sustained life-changing injuries, had decided not to press charges.

  I know some of this, of course, but not all of it and the world I thought I knew has tipped off its axis and here is a new world order where nothing is how it seemed. It will take years to get my head around this. And that’s just me. What about Boyd? I have no way of knowing how to help him.

  ‘What can I do?’ I ask as, at last, around midnight, we emerge from the brightly-lit entrance of the hospital and get back into Boyd’s car.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Boyd says to me now, staring straight ahead, his eyes glazed, his skin grey with tiredness and grief. ‘I always thought it was too good to be true. I had the feeling she’d leave me one day.’

  ‘You don’t know she was leaving.’

  ‘Then where was her phone, why had she packed a bag? The police say she didn’t have a phone on her.’

  ‘Oh Boyd, I’m so sorry.’

  He turns his ravaged face to me and says, ‘I know you are. It’s good to have you here. I couldn’t do this without you.’

  And we drive home slowly through the lit streets, the blossom on the magnolia trees we pass en route are cupped and white and waxy.

  We drive to the house where, when I step out of the car, I will think back to the day Honey arrived and how it would have been easier if I’d hated her, if I had really been immune, if my barren-hard heart had stayed barren.

  We drive to the house where we will find Honey’s phone on the pillow of her and Boyd’s bed. We will find her iPad with her browsing history and email accounts deleted. We will find the empty hangers and clear dressing table. Her toothbrush will be gone from the glass on the shelf. Boyd’s toothbrush will stand alone in it and mine will be in its separate glass on the window sill. There will be no music anywhere, no heartbeats, no Honey. We will find the portrait I’ve done of her wrapped in brown paper under the bed.

  Trixie

  Until recently, the best time of Trixie’s day had been the moment she’d shut the door of her four-bed detached executive home on its estate of four-bed detached executive homes, got in her car and driven to work.

  She liked this moment because it was a liminal one. In it she belonged neither in one place nor another, she was free to be whoever she wanted to be.

  Behind her Richard would be sleeping, his face covered with untidy stubble, his lashes, long and sweeping as they’d always been, resting on his cheeks and reminding her of watching him sleep in their early days together when she had been in love with him.

  And before her would be Boyd: his left eyebrow’s strange kink, his wide smile, his ponderous walk, his goodness, his unattainability.

  Boyd’s goodness had been the one thing that had helped her forget Richard, forget the silence now Joel and Jonty weren’t living at home any more.

  His unattainability had broken her heart.

  Sometimes she would pause on the doorstep of her house and listen. She’d imagine she could hear the tumble of her sons’ footsteps down the stairs and her own voice shouting, ‘For the last time, boys, we HAVE to go or we’ll be late.’ More laughter from the kitchen, more tumbling of footsteps along the hallway and she’d rattle her keys and say, ‘I’ll leave without you,’ and Joel would stand before her, his head on one side, his freckles, his grin, and say, ‘Well, that’ll kind of defeat the object, Mum, as you’re only going ’cos you have to take us to school!’

  That was in the days when she worked for Boyd part-time as something nice to do while Richard was at work and the boys were at school. But, since Richard had lost his job and the boys had gone to university
and not come back again afterwards – for which she doesn’t blame them in the least – she has worked full-time to fill the empty hours and keep a roof over their heads.

  It has been an awful responsibility, and now her favourite moment of the day isn’t the one when she leaves for work because Honey’s there. And Boyd loves Honey, Honey loves Boyd and everything is spoilt and wrong. Her heart may still be broken but this time it’s all just so fucking wrong.

  She’d mistakenly thought Honey wouldn’t pose a threat: she was too young, too awkward, had no advantages, was Trixie’s inferior in every way and it pleased Trixie to play lady bountiful; it had been a while since she’d been able to. But what she hadn’t bargained for was the girl blossoming the way she had after she came to work at Harrison’s. Also, she’d stupidly said to the girl at her interview, ‘Come back tomorrow and meet Boyd, just in a belt and braces exercise. I know he’s going to love you too.’ It was a comment that was to prove uncomfortably prophetic.

  Trixie had picked up the shift in atmosphere as soon as Boyd and Honey walked in the door after the valuation at ‘Chimneys’. She tried not to notice, but their obvious discomfort was writ large on their faces. She’d gone from intrinsic member of the team to spare part in a matter of moments and it had made her blood boil. Thinking about it now still does.

  Then she’d heard Boyd book a table for two and, on the Monday morning when they’d arrived together she knew, she just bloody well knew that he’d had sex with the girl. She’d sworn then that Honey would have to go.

  Boyd owed her after all she’d done for him. And, after all, wasn’t it her life’s goal to protect him from harm? Honey was never going to be anything but bad news.

  So, on that morning at the height of summer, she left her four bedroom detached executive home where Richard was still sleeping. Around her were small signs of neglect: hanging baskets left unwatered, the paint on the eaves blistering in the summer sun, the Euonymus, which hadn’t been pruned back, swamping the other shrubs in the bed to the right of the driveway.

  She has worked hard to keep everything going: somehow she keeps the car running, praying each day it doesn’t break down on her, and their insurance premiums and bills are just about covered. It was a godsend that Richard’s severance money was enough to pay off the mortgage, but they still had to live, eat and sub the boys’ meagre incomes. Who’d have thought that a university education would prepare you for nothing better than working nights at a BP garage (Joel) or stacking shelves in ASDA (Jonty)? They have inherited none of her drive it would seem, just their father’s lack of it.

  And Richard? God. Some days she wishes he’d just not wake up at all. At least then she’d have his life policy payout and she could get rid of this god-awful house, her pretentious neighbours, and establish herself in a small townhouse, have a social life of sorts and a cat. Richard has always hated cats.

  It’s almost as though the same thoughts loop in her head every morning and it is no different on this day. By the time she’d parked up out back at the office, she had yet again reached the point of wanting to get a cat and was still ruminating on this when Boyd got back from the valuation at Morris Road, turned his chair to face her and said, ‘You going to say hello or what?’

  ‘Hello, Boyd,’ she replied and forced herself to smile at him.

  But then he did that strange kink thing with his eyebrow and her frosty heart melted. She could never stay angry with him for long. It wasn’t his fault. It was that girl. She’d bewitched him.

  She thought of Vita and Boyd as they had been, safely married to one another with her, Trixie, at the centre: needed, valued, admired. The next in line.

  She thought of Vita and Boyd torn apart as they had been, him lonely and grieving and her, Trixie, the only one who’d really understood. The next in line.

  She thought of herself and Boyd together: his body next to hers in bed, him smiling at her and saying ‘we’ and meaning him and her. Her, in her rightful place.

  Anything was preferable to the three of them – Vita, Boyd and Honey – living together in some strange hippy commune the way they were. Anything was better than Boyd actually being in love with Honey.

  Trixie had thought long and hard about whether to tell Vita about Boyd and Honey before Boyd did, but decided against it in the end. She wasn’t sure even now why this was – maybe it was to protect Boyd, maybe it was because it would be showing her hand too early, maybe it was because by doing so it would make their relationship official.

  Whatever the case, Honey’s ownership of Boyd, Boyd’s vulnerability, Vita’s obvious pain and Trixie’s powerlessness were the things that hurt most.

  ‘Honey out?’ he asked now.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she say what time she’d be back?’

  ‘No.’

  He jangled some change in the pocket of his trousers. ‘Any news from the Carrington’s solicitor?’

  ‘They emailed about an hour ago. Exchange should happen around two o’clock. I’ll wait and go for my lunch then if that’s OK?’

  ‘You’re a star, you know that, don’t you?’

  Boyd stood and moved over to her desk. He smelled of washing powder and soap and emitted a kind of heat she revelled in. He was the best thing in her life at that moment. For that tiny minute she ignored the goblin on her shoulder stamping his feet and saying, ‘But he’s with Honey now. He loves Honey.’

  Boyd took his hand from his pocket and pressed it down on her desk and leant his weight against it.

  ‘Everything OK?’ he said. ‘You seem a bit quiet. What’s news with Richard and the boys? Any luck on the job front? For Richard I mean? I feel I haven’t asked in a while.’

  She looked up at him, there was a ping as an email arrived but she ignored it. She sensed the phone would ring any moment. She only had a few seconds when it would just be him and her, even if they were talking about her husband. ‘He’s got a few applications out, or so he says,’ she replied. ‘But it’s slim pickings right now. Especially for a man of his age.’ She didn’t tell Boyd the other reason why it was so hard for Richard to get another job. The lack of a satisfactory reference didn’t help.

  It had all gone so well for a while. Richard had worked for a bank in the City; the hours were long, the company he kept was intense, the politics were bruising, but he’d seemed to relish it for a while until a new man took the helm and the atmosphere changed. Yesterday’s men were just that and Richard was one of them. Slowly but inexorably his job changed. His responsibilities reduced, his credibility was undercut and he’d come home each day fuming and sour. But he didn’t do anything to change it and that was his downfall. He just didn’t play the game.

  Then he called his new boss a fucker and that was that. No disciplinary hearing, no right of reply, just dismissal. They paid to make him go quietly, which he did but he hadn’t stopped complaining since, and Trixie had had to bear the brunt of it: Richard’s view on bankers, Richard’s view on the government, Richard’s view on Brexit. But what Richard didn’t do was get up and do anything. He stayed in bed until ten, watched daytime TV, gambled a bit, looked at porn on his computer and expected Trixie to make his dinner when she got home. He was barely recognisable as the man she’d married.

  It was no life. Not even half a life.

  ‘I’m sure something’ll turn up,’ Boyd said, moving his hand a fraction so that it touched hers. Her heart jolted in her chest as though someone had applied paddles to it.

  ‘Better get on,’ she said and snatched her hand away. She turned and stared resolutely at her screen.

  At that moment Honey walked back into the office.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ she said, totally and utterly unaware of even a fraction of the thoughts in Trixie’s head.

  Boyd’s smile was like sunshine and Trixie watched as his eyes followed Honey moving around the kitchen and putting a small carrier bag of what must have been food into the fridge.

  Honey called out, ‘Shall I put the kettl
e on? Tea anyone? Boyd? Trixie?’

  ‘You bet,’ Boyd said.

  All Trixie could do was nod, but Honey had obviously seen her because a few minutes later she put a mug down on her desk. ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘I’ll get on with the invoices this afternoon if that’s OK?’

  Again, all Trixie could do was nod and soon the three of them were settled to their work. The afternoon sun was beating against the windows. Now and again Trixie looked up and studied the shape of Honey’s head, marvelled at the perfect shape of her skull, her slender neck, her creamy skin. God, how she hated the girl. How she wished she’d never come in the first place. How she wished she would just go away and never come back.

  She hated Honey for being so loved; she knew in her heart she didn’t deserve to be.

  Sometimes Trixie tried to imagine what it was like in the house in Albert Terrace. How, she asked herself, could Vita stand knowing that just a wall away Boyd was sleeping next to someone else? Trixie imagined the small puffs of Honey’s breathing, the curve of her cheek on the pillow, Boyd’s hands on her.

  Trixie could have been making Richard’s dinner while she was thinking these thoughts, or changing the sheets on their bed, or standing in front of the TV doing the ironing. It was hard to make sense of it. It had been so long since Richard had touched her; she thought if he were to have done so now, her bones would have broken. The silence in her house was all-consuming.

  Occasionally she texted her sons. They’d send one word replies back or, sometimes, a smiley face and she’d close her eyes and try to remember how it had felt to hold them when they were babies: the total abandonment of their limbs in her arms, the faint beat of their butterfly hearts under their tender ribs.

  If only, Trixie thought, if only I had the power to change things. Surely there was something she could do to alter the trajectory of her life, of Vita’s, and of Boyd’s.

  It was painful to do so, but she did think back to when it had been the four of them: her and Richard, Vita and Boyd, and of the comfortable dinner parties they’d had, the shared jokes, looking across the table and watching Boyd’s dark eyes glimmer in the candlelight. Everything had been its in rightful place then. She had been in her rightful place. She had been the next in line.