by Lisa Jewell
As she let so many things pass in those first few months.
Caroline’s bed was unmade and strewn with her discarded nightwear. The curtains were still drawn, and in Caroline’s en-suite, the toilet remained unflushed. She would have no time for anything in the mornings, Maya supposed, not even to flush a toilet. Three children to prepare for the day ahead. A full-time, high-powered job to get to. And no husband to pick up the slack.
Maya stood in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom and stared at Caroline’s bed. That had been their bed. Caroline and Adrian’s. In that bed two children had been conceived, babies had been suckled, nightmares had been chased away, secrets shared, intimacies whispered, a future imagined. She remembered the morning after the children’s first sleepover at the flat. She remembered the bedroom door being nudged open by a clutch of small fingers, two scruffy heads appearing in the doorway and Adrian sitting up, smiling, bleary-eyed, patting the bed and saying, “Come in, little ones.” Then she remembered the two heads disappearing, the door being slowly pulled shut behind them, little footsteps receding into the distance.
They never came into Adrian and Maya’s room in the mornings. They knew it wasn’t their nest.
What had she done? Whatever Pearl might think about the likelihood of Adrian’s having left eventually anyway, he had left for her. For whatever false promises and hollow dreams she had inadvertently offered up to him in her desperation to be with the sort of man to have accumulated such high-quality baggage.
She approached the bed and sat down gently on the edge. She looked at the photos of the children in mismatched frames on the bedside table, the Space NK hand cream, the reading pile of book-group clichés, a cocktail ring, a strip of ibuprofen and a dead rose in a shallow silver bowl. On the opposing bedside table was a pile of children’s picture books, an iPad set to charge and a bowl full of Lego pieces.
She stood up and peered through the clothes hanging in the open wardrobe, at Caroline’s tailored jackets and Liberty-print blouses, soft knitted cardigans and washed-out chinos, scuffed Chelsea boots and lace-up brogues in untidy rows on the base.
Meeting Caroline for the first time had been a shock to the system too. Although every bit as statuesque, icy-blond and unsmiling as she’d been led to believe, what Maya hadn’t been expecting was the soft hands, the small child held tenderly against her bosom, the bitten-down nails, the fusty floral print, the moth holes in the cardigan and the air of vulnerable confusion. Adrian hadn’t told her about that. Adrian had implied a woman in killer heels and leather trousers, lips stained red, mobile phone nailed to her temple, children ignored in the periphery of her priorities.
She’d let that pass, too.
She’d let the never-replied-to texts he sent to his oldest son pass. (He’s fine with it, he really is. Luke is such a cool boy.) She’d let the shock of meeting poor, demoralized Susie pass. (I think I did her a favor leaving her. She’s blossomed since I set her free.) She’d let the expressions of numb disillusionment on the children’s faces pass. (They’re so young; children don’t really know what’s going on at that age. They’re very flexible.)
She’d ignored it all and questioned nothing. And she was as complicit in the scorched battlefield of disenchantment in which she now lived as him. Not a victim. But a perpetrator.
She pulled something towards her from the far end of Caroline’s wardrobe: a soft gray garment bag with a clear front. She turned it towards her and saw with a shock that it was Caroline’s wedding dress. A lovely lace thing, low-cut at the front, empire line, timeless. Slowly she unzipped the edges of the carrier and pulled a length of the dress towards her, to her nose, where she breathed it in. It smelled different to anything else in Caroline’s house. It didn’t smell of Caroline or of the fabric conditioner she used on her family’s clothes or the jasmine-scented candles that sat on surfaces throughout the house. It didn’t smell of warm, dusty floorboards or Space NK hand cream or dogs. It smelled, Maya realized with a jolt, of a time and a place before any of this. A time and a place that had been surgically excised from Caroline’s personal continuum. It smelled of Caroline’s happiness.
“What are you doing?”
Maya jumped and let the dress fall back into its bag. Her heart thumped about in her chest and she clutched it hard. “Oh God.”
“What are you doing?” Otis stood in the doorway and eyed her with hostility.
“I’m just . . . I’m . . . Nothing. Just nosing about.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
He frowned at her.
She stared at him.
“You probably shouldn’t.” He put his hands into his pockets and continued to stare at her.
“No,” she said. “I shouldn’t. I suppose,” she began, her emotions temporarily upended by the shock of Caroline’s wedding dress, “I’m just trying to understand things.”
“Things? ” said Otis, caustically. “What kind of things?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just all this.” She spread her arms about. “All this kind of . . .”
“Mess?” suggested Otis harshly.
“Yeah. I guess. Just trying to work it all out.”
“Bit late for that, isn’t it?”
Maya felt the hard pressure of tears behind her eyes, pushing at her temples. “Is it?”
He shrugged. And then he turned and walked away. She stood and listened to the soft padding of his feet up the floorboarded stairs to his room on the top floor. She heard his bedroom door closing and the springs of his bed as he lay down upon it. Now the house was truly still. She flicked a stray tear from the bridge of her nose and breathed herself back to a state of calmness.
She tucked Caroline’s wedding dress back into the wardrobe and headed downstairs to the basement. The dogs milled hungrily around their food bowls and she fed them on autopilot. She dropped the meaty fork into the dishwasher and then she jumped slightly at the sound of an electronic alert. Not her phone. Not any of the kitchen appliances. She knocked the mouse of the laptop with her hand and watched the screen light up. A Skype message from Cat.
What’s she doing now?
She stared at the message a moment longer, wondering with a sudden chill if it was about her.
Hello? Little bro? U still there?
K. I’m going now. Love ya.
Maya continued to stare at the screen. She was wondering if there was any way for her to look at the earlier section of this conversation without anyone noticing. And then suddenly another message fell onto the screen with a loud plop:
I’m back! In my room now. On phone. Just caught her going thru mums clothes.
No way!
Yeh. She said she was trying to understand things.
!!!! WTF does that even mean?!
Yeh. I know.
She’s a freak.
Yeh.
You gonna tell your mum?
Maybe.
You totally shuld.
Yeh. Maybe.
Anything else?
Oh, yeh, actually. Beau shouted at her before.
No way! What happened?!
She turned off the TV without asking him. He went mental.
OMG! What did she do?
Nuffing.
Stupid bitch.
Heh.
Then, after a moment’s silence, from Cat.
I fucking hate her.
Me too.
I wish she’d disappear. Like, forever.
Yeh.
Bitch.
Another moment’s silence and then, from Otis:
GTG.
Yeh. Me too. Skype me later?
K.
KK.
And then, the longest silence of all.
42
August 2012
“So, the e-mails,�
� said Adrian, “they were from Cat?”
The noise of the pub had been sucked away down a black hole. All that existed in Adrian’s head were Abby’s mismatched eyes staring at him across the table, and her words echoing inside his head.
Abby shook her head. “She didn’t know for sure. But she strongly suspected.”
“But, Cat—she loved Maya.”
“Well, I can’t comment on that,” said Abby. “Obviously I can’t. People can be complicated. Especially in a family like yours.”
“And Otis.”
“Yes. But it sounds like it was a kind of bonding thing. For the children. A coping mechanism. I don’t think it was truly personal. It sounds like whoever you’d brought into their world at that precise moment would have suffered the same fate.”
“But Maya didn’t know that.”
“I think she did,” said Abby gently. “I think the way she was feeling that night was about much more than those Skype messages. I think it was a combination of all sorts of things. Guilt mainly. Fear.”
“Fear of what?”
Abby sighed. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs, tugged down the skirt of her dress. “The reason she was drinking that night . . .” She paused. “The reason she got so drunk. It wasn’t because of the Skype messages. Or the e-mails. It was because she was planning on—urgh, I’m really sorry, Adrian. But she was planning on leaving you. That night.”
Adrian rocked back in his chair with the power of her words.
“That’s why she was crying. That’s why she kept putting it off and putting it off. She told me that’s where she was going. After our conversation. She was so filled with resolve. I was so sure she was going to do it.”
“So, she didn’t seem suicidal? She didn’t seem like she wanted to die?”
“No! She was emotional. She was scared. She was sad. She was nervous. She was very, very drunk. But not suicidal. Not at all.”
“So, then, why?” he said. “Why did she do it?”
Abby sighed. “I truly think it was an accident,” she said. “Honestly. A split-second thing. You know. Happens to everyone. One of those moments where if you’d stepped off the curb a second later you’d have been run over, if you’d changed lanes you’d have gone straight into that car in your blind spot, if you’d waited for the next train you’d have been blown up by a bomb. That kind of thing. I don’t think she wanted to die. I think she just wanted to make everything better. Give you back to your family.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Adrian rubbed and rubbed at the twenty-four-hour stubble on his chin until he became aware of the repetitiveness of the gesture and dropped his hand into his lap.
“What would you have done?” Abby asked. “If she’d made it home? If she’d told you she was leaving?”
Adrian didn’t answer for a few seconds. His thoughts were spinning. “I think she’d already tried to do it,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Before. She tried to leave me before. And I didn’t hear it. I didn’t let her say it.”
Abby stared at him, kindly.
“She told me she didn’t think it was working. Us. I told myself she’d only said it because she was drunk, because she’d been out with her single friend, because she was sad about not having a baby. Anything but accept what she was trying to say. I persuaded myself that if I just ignored it, it would go away. And it did. I thought it had worked . . .”
“She did love you, you know. But she was very cross with you.”
“She was?”
“Yes. She told me that you’d misled her. That you’d let her believe she could make everyone happy. She said you’d ‘mis-sold’ your life to her.”
Adrian was about to jump to his own defense but stopped. First of all he could not reasonably shoot the messenger, and secondly she was right. He had given Maya entirely the wrong impression of his home life. Possibly not deliberately. But certainly subconsciously.
“She also—” Abby stopped abruptly. She closed her mouth and shook her head. “No,” she said, “nothing.”
“No,” said Adrian, greedy for more insights, however unpalatable they might be. “Please say it.”
“She was, at least she told me she was, in love with somebody else. Someone you know.”
“She was having an affair! Oh my God. Who with? Was it a teacher? From the school?”
“No. No. Not that. No. It was your son.”
Adrian closed his eyes. His son. Of course.
“But nothing ever happened. No affair. Just feelings.”
“Feelings?”
“Yes. Mutual feelings. I wasn’t going to tell you, but now we’re here, it seems pointless not to get it all out there.”
“And what—my God! Was she planning on being with him? Once I was out of the picture?”
“No,” said Abby quietly. “No. Far from it. She just wanted to leave you all to heal. To be a family. She just wanted to be out of it all. As if it had never happened. She was going to get a flat with her friend.”
“Sara?”
“I can’t remember. Her friend who was going to do teacher training. She had it all planned.”
“Christ.” Adrian hit the wooden table with the heels of his hands. The glasses clattered together. Where had he been? Where on earth had he been? His son in love with his wife. His children sending poisonous e-mails. His wife desperate to leave him and talking to strangers in bars. Everyone so angry and unhappy. And where had he been? Sitting cross-legged in the middle of this toxic tornado of human emotions humming la la la with his hands over his ears?
“Look,” he said to Abby, “is there more? It’s just . . . I have to go. They’re all waiting for me.”
“No,” said Abby. “There’s no more. Just that. Except for something she told me. She said it was the thing that really made her mind up for her. Something your little skater girl said that day. About missing you in the mornings. In the kitchen. Asking her about her dreams.”
Adrian looked at Abby for a moment, searching for the memory. And then there it was. Suddenly, like a flashbulb in his head. The dark, unstirring basement, the drip and gurgle of the coffee machine, the footsteps down the wooden steps and his girl, standing there in her pajamas, dirty-blond hair in disarray, sometimes with a soft toy under her arm. Just the two of them in the morning gloom. The sound of Pearl’s spoon against the china bowl, the swing of her bare feet under the kitchen counter. His eyes upon her, asking her what she’d dreamed about, only half listening to her reply, but drowning sweetly in the seawaters of his daughter’s voice. Every morning, of every day. How could he have forgotten? And how could he have taken himself away from that?
“Thank you,” he said. “I really need to go now. I really need to be with my family. Right now. But thank you. So much.”
“I’m sorry,” said Abby, half rising to her feet. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. In March. I just . . . you were so raw. I couldn’t do it.”
“No,” said Adrian. “I understand. I needed to be ready to hear it. I wouldn’t have been ready then. I wasn’t ready then.” He stopped and looked at the door of the pub. “She was a lovely person, wasn’t she?”
“I only knew her for an hour,” she replied softly. “But yes. She seemed a lovely person. Not the sort of person to tear a family apart.”
“She wasn’t the sort of person to tear a family apart,” said Adrian sadly. “I was.”
43
He took the tube to the Islington house. He couldn’t face the thought of a cab journey, of being trapped in a vehicle with someone wanting to talk about the bloody Olympics for twenty minutes. The Piccadilly Line was August quiet and he found a seat without any trouble. He sat, his chin pressed into his chest, his feet planted solidly on the floor, his head filled with it all. Not a suicide, after all. Not an inexplicable act of inner turmoil unrelated to himself. Instead, if Abby’s theory
was to be believed, a terrible misstep entirely related to himself. To himself and to his family.
Lovely, soft, pliable Maya.
If only she’d been harder. She would have dealt with the issue of the e-mails before it had got under her skin; she would have come home from Caroline’s house that night filled with righteous anger about the behavior of his children and she would have thrown her few things into a bag and gone and made a life for herself, a nice flat-share with Sara, a nice boyfriend eventually, who would have married her and made a baby with her without anyone paying a price.
But instead she’d lost her nerve, walked the streets of late-night London with a belly full of vodka rather than come home to do what she needed to do. And then there, that blighted curbstone on Charing Cross Road where the bloodstains had long since faded away, she’d slipped from the pavement, either by accident or by design, but certainly without properly thinking about what she was doing.
He thought about Abby’s question earlier in the pub. What would he have done if Maya hadn’t fallen from the curb, if she had made it home, drunk and disordered, and told Adrian she was leaving? How would he have reacted? And he knew the answer, well and good. He would have talked her round. He would have pooh-poohed all of her objections; he would have convinced her to stay. And if she’d told him about the e-mails? About the Skype chat? About the disgraceful way she’d been treated by his own daughter? He would still have found a way to make her believe that it could all be OK. And what, he wondered, would he have said if she’d told him about Luke? About their platonic affair of the heart?
He sighed and tipped up his head. Even then, he knew, even then he’d have thrown platitudes at her, told her that everything was going to be fine.
And why? Why would he have thrown a smokescreen over everything? Why would he have ignored the alarm bells, the signs of impending doom? Why would he not have said, My God, Maya, what a terrible, terrible mess this all is, and how are we going to fix it?