by C. L. Taylor
The image of cars hurtling toward us flashes through my mind.
Why did he drive into oncoming traffic when I told him Charlotte had talked about killing herself in her diary? Why turn the argument on me when I asked him about the swimming pool and his early morning walks?
I need to find out what Charlotte’s text means. I fumble with the phone as I select the name “K-Dog” and then press Call.
There’s a click, then a dial tone, and I’m mentally rehearsing what I’m about to say, when a noise from upstairs makes me jump.
Brian.
He’s walking around his study.
“Answer the phone,” I urge as the dial tone continues to sound and footsteps cross the landing. “Please answer the phone.”
Come on. Come on. Come on.
There’s a click.
Someone’s picked up.
“Hello?” I breathe. “Hello, my name is Sue—”
This is the Vodaphone voice mail service for 07972 711271. Please leave your message after the tone.
The stairs creak.
“Hello?” I say after the beep. “You don’t know me but my name is—”
“Sue?” There’s a sharp knock on the toilet door. “Sue, who are you talking to?”
“No one!” I frantically stab at the End Call button and shove the phone down my bra. “I’ll be out in a sec.”
I brace my hands against the toilet walls, suddenly light-headed, and steady myself.
“Sue?” More knocking, louder, more frantic. “What are you doing in there?”
“Nothing. I’ll be out in a second.”
“Okay.” I hear him take a deep breath. “We need to have a chat, Sue. I’ll wait for you in the living room.”
I turn on the cold tap and splash my face, then look in the mirror. A tired fortysomething with dark circles under her eyes and a haunted expression pats her skin dry with a towel. I barely recognize myself. And what of Brian? Do I still know him or has he morphed into the very worst kind of man? Someone deceitful, someone predatory, someone dangerous. There’s only one way to find out.
I drape the towel back over the rail and unlock the toilet door.
Tuesday, October 23, 1990
“I’m sorry, Suzy.”
James reached an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his chest. I closed my eyes, still half asleep. He smelled musky and warm. He smelled like home.
“What for?”
He didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, then stroked my hair out of my eyes and tilted my face up toward him. I opened my eyes.
“For the way I’ve been recently. For the way I’ve treated you. I’ve been…unfair.”
I said nothing, but a huge wave of relief washed over me. His behavior over the last couple of days had really worried me. It had seemed so out of character, and when he’d screamed at me, calling me a liar, it was horrible.
“I’ve got a lot of anger in me, Suzy; anger about something that happened in the past that I fight to keep suppressed. Sometimes it explodes…” He traced a thumb over my cheekbone. “I took it out on the wrong person. I took it out on the person who would never hurt me, and for that I am truly sorry. I don’t want to be a monster. I don’t want to be like him.”
“Who was a monster?” I rested my hand on his chest. “What happened, James?”
He shook his head, and a single tear wound its way down his cheek.
“Tell me. Tell me what I can do to help, James.”
He passed a hand over his face, roughly rubbing the tear away, and looked down at me.
“See, that’s why I love you. You’re so incredibly caring.” He pressed his palm to my chest. “You’ve got such a huge heart.”
“What is it? Tell me so I can understand.”
He took a deep breath, and I readied myself for what was about to come. But nothing came. We lay together in uncomfortable silence for several minutes. Finally James spoke.
“Yesterday was the anniversary of my uncle’s death.”
I started to say that I was sorry, but he shook his head.
“He died when I was twelve, suddenly, of a heart attack. No one saw it coming. Men like Uncle Malcolm didn’t just drop dead in their fifties. My mother was distraught; she locked herself in her room and cried and cried and cried. I didn’t comfort her. I ran into the woods behind our house and I picked up the biggest branch I could find—so heavy I could barely lift it—and I smashed it against one of the trees until it was splintered and broken and my palms were bleeding, and then I screamed at God. I hated him for taking Uncle Malcolm away from me before I had the chance to grow up and I could kill him myself.”
A shiver ran through me. I didn’t need to ask him what Uncle Malcolm had done.
“He stole my childhood. He stole my trust. He stole my fucking innocence, Sue.” I yelped as he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. He was breathing rapidly, his nostrils splayed, his eyes fixed and staring.
“James.” I tried to pry his fingers off my skin, but he was holding on too hard, digging in deeply as though he was rooting himself to me. “James, it’s okay. It’s over. It’s over.”
“It’ll never be over.”
“It is. It’s over. James, it’s over. Please, please let go of me. You’re hurting me. James, stop. He’s dead.”
He continued to stare at me as though he hated me, as though he wished me dead, and then, as quickly as the anger had flared, it died. His eyes softened, his face crumpled, and he wrapped me in his arms, pulling me into him, and he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
Chapter
Eleven
Brian is sitting on the sofa, Milly stretched out beside him, her head on his lap. He nods as I lower myself into the armchair.
“Sue.” My name seems to echo off the walls. “I think you need to see a doctor. You’re not well. You need help.”
It takes a while for the words to sink, for me to understand what he’s implying.
“I’ve rung Dr. Turner. She said she can see you tomorrow morning.”
“I’m sorry?”
Brian leans forward, rests his chin on his hand, his brow furrowed. “I made you an appointment to—”
“I know what you did. What I don’t understand is why.”
“Because I’m worried about you!” He shouts so loudly Milly and I both jump. “You haven’t been yourself since Charlotte’s accident and you’re getting worse, Sue.”
“Of course I’m not myself. Our daughter is in a coma. She might die.”
“Yes. Yes, she might. And she might not. She might make a full recovery, and the doctors and nurses are doing everything they can, but you need help too, Sue. I’ve tried my best to support you, but I don’t know how to talk to you anymore.”
“I’m always here for you to talk to, Brian.”
“Physically maybe, but not emotionally. You’re so locked in your own head, I can’t reach you. Whenever I try, you give me this wild-eyed look like…like…I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “Like I’m going to hurt you or something. Sometimes you look at me like you don’t know who I am.”
My heart aches at the pained expression on his face, but I can’t say anything to reassure him. He’s right. I don’t know if I know him anymore.
“Sue?” Brian frowns at me from across the room. “Did you even hear what I just said?”
I look back at him. Is he trying to get me to see the doctor for nefarious reasons? If the world thinks I’m insane, they’ll lock me up, leaving him alone with Charlotte. And then he could…the thought hangs, ugly and odious, in the air around me.
“I heard what you said, Brian.”
“And?” His eyes search my face. “What do you think?”
“I’m not going mad. And I’m not going to see the doctor.” I speak slowly, calmly, and deliberately. If h
e really does think I’ve lost the plot, I need to prove to him that I haven’t.
“I never said you were mad, Sue. I just thought you might appreciate having someone to talk to who isn’t me. Someone…professionally qualified to help you.”
“I don’t need anyone’s help.” The sentence comes out louder than I intended. “I’m just worried about Charlotte.”
“So am I.”
I shrug. “Well, then, so you understand.”
“No, I don’t. How can I when you swing between secretiveness and bluntness at a moment’s notice? Why do you think I nearly crashed the car when you told me what she’d written in her diary? You can’t just throw something like that at me and expect me to just accept it. Show me the diary, Sue. Let me read it for myself. Maybe then I’ll understand.”
“I can’t…”
“Why not?”
“Because I have to protect Charlotte.”
“From what?” He looks at me, uncomprehending, then he pales. “Not from me. For the love of God, Sue, don’t tell me you think I had anything to do with her accident?”
“Didn’t you?”
“What?” He throws back his head and makes a noise I’ve never heard before—half shout, half roar—then springs off the sofa. He crosses the living room and looms above me. “Tell me this is your idea of a sick joke, Sue. Tell me!”
He rages at me, his confusion, frustration, and shock raining down like brimstone, and I cross my arms above my head, tuck in my chin, and curl into a ball.
“Whoa!” The sound makes me peer up through my arms. Brian is shaking his head, his eyes wide with horror. He takes a step backward, his arms outstretched, his fingers spread wide, his palms exposed. “I wasn’t going to touch you. I’d never touch you, Sue. You know that.” He sinks back onto the sofa and slumps forward, his head in his hands. “Dear God.”
We are both silent. The grandfather clock ticks in the corner of the room, and Milly scratch-scratch-scratches at a flea bite.
“Tell me you don’t believe that,” Brian says, his voice a distant mumble, his head still tucked into his arms. “Tell me you don’t really believe I’m the reason Charlotte tried to hurt herself.”
My heart feels like it’s being ripped in two. One part wants to go over to Brian, throw my arms around him, and tell him that I love him, that I trust him, and that I truly believe that he’d never do anything to harm our daughter. The other part tells me to distance myself, trust nothing, no one.
“Sue?” Hurt is written all over his face. “Why would you think that? How could you think that?”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Hurt Charlotte?”
“Jesus Fucking Christ!” He’s on his feet again, his arms spread wide. “How can you even ask me that question? I take it back, Sue. You’re not stressed—you’re insane. Can you hear yourself? Are you even aware of what you’re saying? Of what you’re accusing me of? You need help, Sue. Urgent psychiatric help.”
“Insane?” Now I’m on my feet too. “Right. Of course. Is that why Charlotte sent a text to one of her friends calling you a pervert?”
Brian’s jaw drops, his body locked in a palm-out pose. He licks his lips, swallows, then licks his lips again.
“What did you just say?”
“I said…” I’m shaking so much I have to take a deep breath to stop my voice from quivering. “There’s a text on Charlotte’s phone from her to a friend, calling you a sick pervert.”
“Charlotte called me a pervert?”
“Yes.”
He stares at me expressionlessly, then blinks as though he’s just woken up. “Show me the text.”
I throw the phone, underarm, at him, and he snatches it from the air.
“It’s under the name K-Dog,” I say.
Brian looks down at the phone and presses a few buttons. After an age, he looks up at me, a strange look on his face. “There’s nothing here.”
“What?” I move toward him, holding out a hand for the phone. “Of course there is. You need to select the envelope icon and then…” I scroll through the text messages, return to the home screen, then click on the envelope icon again. “It’s gone.”
“Really?” He raises his eyebrows. “Or perhaps there wasn’t a text to begin with?”
“Of course there was. I—” A cold chill runs through me and I step back.
“What?” Brian looks exasperated.
“You deleted it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Sue!”
“Brian, it was here five minutes ago. I found it when I was in the toilet. I can remember every word. It—” I stop short. An image of me stabbing at buttons as I frantically tried to end my call to K-Dog as Brian hammered on the door flashes into my mind. I must have accidentally deleted it. I must have obliterated the only piece of evidence I had that my husband was responsible for Charlotte’s accident.
“It was here. It was.” I frantically scroll back to the home screen, then open the text messages again, but the K-Dog message has disappeared. “I need to take the phone to Carphone Warehouse in town. They’ll know how to retrieve the text, and if they don’t, I bet there’s someone on the Internet who could.”
“Sue…” Brian’s tone is gentle, comforting. It reminds me of the way you speak to the bereaved. “Sue, I think you should sit down.”
I let him guide me back to my armchair and nod when he offers to make us both a cup of tea. He pauses as he reaches the door and looks back at me. The expression on his face takes my breath away. Not because it’s a look of reproach, resentment, or even anger. It’s none of those things. It’s pity. He thinks I made the text message up.
“Here you go.” Five minutes later, he slides back into the room and slips a cup of tea onto the coaster beside me. He puts a plate holding three chocolate HobNobs beside it and then crosses the room and sits down. He sips at his tea, then inhales sharply. It’s too hot.
“Sue.” His face is incredibly gray, his eyes impossibly sad. “There’s something I need to say to you and I need you to hear me out. Please don’t get angry or defensive; just let me say what I need to say.”
I nod for him to continue.
“I’m only saying this because I love you and I’m worried about you but”—he pauses to take a breath—“I really want you to see a doctor. Or that therapist you saw before. Your behavior is becoming increasingly erratic. You must realize that.”
I want to give him a hug and tell him that I’m fine and he’s got nothing to worry about, but then I remember the text message I read on Charlotte’s phone and I shake my head.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, Brian. Nothing that a few straight answers wouldn’t put right, anyway.”
His shoulders slump and he sighs. “Such as?”
“Why did you let me believe you went to work that morning then lie to me about going swimming?”
“I told you, I—”
“And why have you started taking Milly out at all times of the day and night?”
Brian pinches the skin between his eyebrows and closes his eyes. When he opens them, he sighs deeply. “I’ve been going to see Tessa.”
“Tessa, your dead wife?”
He glares at me from across the room. “Yes, Sue. My dead wife, Tessa.”
“You lied to me about going to the swimming pool to cover up the fact that you actually went to her grave?”
Brian nods.
“And when you’ve been taking Milly out for an impromptu walk…that’s where you’ve been going?”
He nods again.
“Why?”
He reaches across to ruffle Milly’s fur. “Talking to her helps me clear my head.”
I stare at him, trying to take it in. “Why couldn’t you talk to me?”
“Because you’re what I talk about.” He ru
bs a hand over his forehead and squeezes his temples. “I’m worried that you’re going to have another episode, Sue. All the signs are there: the paranoia, the delusions, the obsessions with Charlotte’s ‘accident.’ I want you to see the doctor as soon as possible.”
I turn Charlotte’s phone over in my hands and rub my thumb over the sparkly crystals. He almost had me there, with his furrowed brow, soft tone, and gentle eyes. He nearly convinced me that he really was worried about me.
“Did you sexually molest Charlotte?”
Brian inhales sharply. “You didn’t just say that.”
I shrug.
“You didn’t just accuse me of sexually molesting our daughter.”
I don’t move a muscle.
“No.” He shakes his head. “NO! No, no, no, no, no, no, NO! You’ve lost it. I will NOT sit in my own front room, in my own house, and listen to my wife accuse me of incest. Absolutely NO WAY. I don’t care how ill you are, Sue; you cannot say things like that. You just can’t.”
He springs to his feet but makes no move to approach me. “I want you to go to the doctor.”
I say nothing. I feel like I’m in a nightmare where you desperately need to scream and run away but your voice has disappeared and your feet are stuck to the floor.
“I’m serious, Sue. Agree to see the doctor or this marriage is over.”
I should react. I should tell Brian that I believe in him, that there must be some logical explanation for Charlotte writing what she did, that we can work through this together, but I feel dead inside.
“Just nod your head, Sue. Nod your head that you agree to see a doctor and…and…” He tails off as I slowly shake my head from side to side. “I’ll just go then, shall I?”
He’s speaking slower than normal, pausing between sentences and giving extra weight to his words. He’s waiting for me to say something. He’s giving me the opportunity to interrupt.
I close my eyes.
“Okay.” His voice is even softer. “Okay.”
The floorboards squeak under the carpet as he crosses the room, and the brass discs on Milly’s collar clank together as she stands up. A second later, I hear a click as the living room door is pulled shut.