The Dilemma

by B. A. Paris

  Suddenly, I can’t bear to be near Adam, knowing what I know. I let go of his hand.

  ‘I’m going to see Jess,’ I say, although it’s not going to be any easier being with Jess than it is with Adam. ‘I’ll catch you later.’

  I go over to where Jess is sitting, a faraway look in her eyes.

  ‘Jess, are you alright?’

  Her eyes come into focus. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Cleo suddenly seems a bit down, though.’ She looks around. ‘Have you seen Rob?’

  ‘Yes, he’s over there. Do you want me to take you to him?’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  And taking her arm, I lead her over to where Rob is charming the pants off my work colleagues.

  SUNDAY 9TH JUNE

  12 A.M. – 1 A.M.

  Adam

  I can’t even begin to describe the horror of the last hour. First the video of Marnie, then Livia giving me my present. When I pulled out the photo of the Millau Viaduct, it was so hard to look happy because all I could think was that the only place we’d be going was Cairo.

  It’s dark where I’m standing in the shadow of the marquee. The night sky is black but the garden is a glaring spotlight of colour and movement. I’ve been hiding here since I managed to escape the crowds after Livia’s speech. I don’t know who to be anymore, or where to go.

  I’m holding the blue wallet Liv gave me but I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s identical to the one I got in the travel agent’s this morning, and I thought, for one terrifying moment, that I was going to open it and find myself looking at the tickets to Cairo. My fear was so great that my mind began to shut down, so I couldn’t do what I was meant to do, react how everyone was expecting me to react and for once I was grateful to Rob for dragging me back to where I was supposed to be by telling me to get on with it. My relief when I saw the tickets were for Montpellier disappeared when I realised that they were for Tuesday. A sickness rolls through my stomach.

  ‘Mr Harman?’

  I curse silently.

  ‘Amy.’ I don’t know Amy well. Josh has brought her home for the weekend a couple of times but I haven’t seen her since Easter. I know she’s at Exeter, studying Psychology, I think. Or maybe Anthropology. She seems a nice girl and she’s obviously very important to Josh. Remembering how off I was with her, I manage a smile.

  ‘I’m sorry if I was rude when you arrived. I was miles away at the time and I wasn’t expecting to see you.’

  ‘It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have just turned up. But I wanted to surprise Josh.’ She hesitates. ‘I know he’s told you about New York and I want you to know that I’ve tried to persuade him to go because I don’t want him to miss out. But he won’t listen.’

  ‘It’s fine, Amy, really.’

  ‘You’re not disappointed?’

  ‘No, it’ll be lovely to have the two of you nearby.’

  She reaches up and gives me a kiss on the cheek. ‘Thank you for saying that.’

  ‘I’m going to find a glass of something to drink,’ I say. ‘Can I get you one too?’

  ‘No, thank you, Josh has one for me.’

  We walk around from the side of the tent and with a quick smile, go our separate ways. My head feels as if it’s going to explode from the effort of trying to say the right thing, to be who everybody needs me to be, whether it’s Livia, Josh, Amy, or anyone else here tonight. The only thing that’s keeping me going is that there are only a couple more hours of this party left. The caterers should be bringing out a cake soon; Livia will blow out her forty candles, everyone will sing and gradually – hopefully – people will start to leave. I can’t wait for them to go – but I know that once they have, once I’m on my own with Livia and Josh, I’ll want to call everyone back so that I don’t have to tell them about Marnie, about what I’ve done.

  ‘Adam!’

  This time it’s Nelson.

  ‘Sorry, not now.’ I force a smile and walk past him. I make it safely into the dining room and stand at the window, looking out to the street without seeing. And then, a noise begins to penetrate my brain, a noise so slight that at first, I think I’m imagining it.

  I listen again. It’s coming from somewhere above me, the sound of someone – not talking or moving around – but just being. And I feel a burst of rage, because above me is Marnie’s bedroom and nobody, nobody has the right to be in there.

  I run into the hall and charge up the stairs, so angry that when I get to the door, I wrench it open, not caring who’s inside.

  Cleo’s sitting on the bed. She springs up, and the only thing that stops me from howling at her for being in Marnie’s bedroom and not being Marnie is the way she’s looking at me.

  ‘Adam, where’s Marnie?’ she asks.

  I grab hold of the doorframe.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She hesitates, and with a creeping dread, I step into the room and close the door behind me.

  ‘I know I’m not meant to know,’ she says. ‘But Marnie told me she was coming to surprise Livia, because she wanted me to pick her up at the airport. She said it would be quicker than getting a taxi, and she wanted to get here as soon as possible. She made me swear not to tell anyone, not even Mum and Dad and I didn’t, I promise.’ Her hands are moving as she speaks, her fingers unable to be still. ‘But then I got a text from her this morning saying her flight was delayed and that she’d miss her connection in Cairo. She told me not to worry about picking her up because she had no idea what time she’d actually arrive in London, as it would depend if they could find her a seat on another flight. I was just to come to the party and she’d take a taxi from Heathrow. So I’ve been waiting all evening for her to turn up, and it’s now gone midnight. Have you had any news from her?’

  I clear my throat. ‘No, not yet.’ I know I should say something more, but the fact that Cleo knows that Marnie was meant to be coming home has thrown me completely.

  ‘The thing is,’ Cleo goes on, and then stops.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just that I heard about that awful plane crash and when I checked, I saw that it was the flight Marnie was meant to be on, and I was so happy that she missed it, I kept thinking how lucky she was that her first flight had been delayed. But now—’ She looks up at me, her eyes dark with fear. ‘There’s no way she could have made it, is there? I mean, wouldn’t she have contacted us by now to tell us what time she’d be arriving?’

  I can’t look at her. ‘Not necessarily. She told me she’d let me know when she arrived in London, and she might have had to go an even longer way around to get here.’

  She nods slowly. ‘So you’re not worried?’

  I don’t want to lie to her, but how can I tell her that I’m terrified?

  ‘A little,’ I say.

  ‘It’s just that – no offence – you look awful. Everyone’s saying you’ve got a migraine but I wondered, you know, if it was something to do with Marnie.’

  ‘I definitely have a migraine,’ I tell her, grimacing.

  She takes a shaky breath. ‘I did think of something.’

  ‘What?’

  She looks as if she doesn’t want to tell me. ‘There’s a number you can call if you think someone you know might have been on the flight. I don’t suppose – I mean – would it be an idea to call it?’

  I nod. ‘I can definitely do that if she hasn’t turned up by the time the party is over.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, deflated.

  ‘Only another hour or so.’

  She looks earnestly at me. ‘I suppose if she had been on it, they would have let you know. They probably wait for people to call and if they don’t, they phone them.’

  I feel a flicker of hope. Maybe Cleo is right. If Marnie had been on the flight, wouldn’t someone have let me know by now? ‘Yes, I would think so.’

  ‘So if they haven’t called you, it’s probably alright.’

  I give her a reassuring smile. ‘Try not to worry, Cleo. Wh
y don’t you go back to the party?’

  ‘Would it be alright if I stay here for a bit?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘If you hear from her, will you let me know?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say again.

  Livia

  ‘You OK?’

  I look up. Josh is looking down at me, his eyes almost black in the dark.

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘With Marnie, then,’ he says.

  I laugh. ‘No, not with Marnie. I was actually thinking about your dad.’

  ‘He’s alright, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but I think he’ll be glad when this party is over.’

  ‘That was really nice what you did for him, booking a trip to France.’

  ‘He deserves it. I would have booked for longer but I knew he’d be worried about taking time off.’ I look at him gratefully. ‘Thank you for the video of Marnie. It was lovely.’

  ‘I hope it went some way to make up for her not being here?’

  ‘It did, definitely.’

  He nods towards the terrace. ‘So, it seems I have a grandmother?’

  I look at him, stricken. ‘I’m sorry Josh, I should have told you myself that she turned up.’

  ‘Didn’t she want to see me?’ I can hear the hurt in his voice.

  ‘Yes, she did, but she couldn’t stay because someone was waiting for her, which was just as well because we were both a bit overwhelmed. But she’s coming back tomorrow afternoon, to see you before you leave.’

  ‘Cool.’ He bends his knees so that he can look me in the eyes. ‘I’m sorry about your father. Nelson said he died.’

  ‘Yes – but I’m kind of OK with it. He wasn’t a very nice person. And it’s only because he’s no longer around that Mum felt she could come tonight. So, you see, every cloud has a silver lining.’

  A flash of light catches my eye, followed by a collective gasp.

  ‘Beautiful!’ Kirin cries, clapping her hands together as two of the caterers carry an enormous cake, lit by what I guess are forty candles. In fact, it’s three cakes stacked one on top of the other in order of size.

  ‘Chocolate, vanilla and – your favourite – coffee,’ Josh explains. He takes my hand. ‘Come on, Mum, come blow out your candles.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask Josh over the noise of everyone cheering as he pulls me towards the table.

  ‘I think he must be inside somewhere. Do you want me to go and find him?’

  ‘No, it’s fine, leave him,’ I say, pushing away my disappointment that he isn’t beside me. Hopefully he’ll hear everyone singing ‘Happy Birthday’, because they’re making quite a noise, and come out from wherever he is. As I stand there listening, my heart swells with emotion. And then, just in time to make it even more perfect, Adam arrives, pushing his way through the crowd, joining in with the last line of the singing, and then standing next to me while I blow out my candles.

  When everyone has finished applauding, because I manage it with one breath, he takes me in his arms.

  ‘I love you,’ he says softly, to cheers and whistles. ‘I always have and I always will.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I can’t stop the tears from falling. ‘Thank you for making this the best day ever, for always being by my side, for doing everything in your power to make me happy. I’m so lucky to have you.’

  ‘Never stop loving me.’

  ‘I’ll always love you,’ I tell him. ‘Forever.’

  And behind his eyes, behind his smile, I see terrible doubt, and I want to ask him why he thinks I’ll ever stop loving him.

  ‘You need to cut your cake, Mum,’ Josh says, breaking the moment.

  Adam gives me a last kiss. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Nelson looks as if he needs rescuing from Rob.’

  So does our daughter, I think bitterly.

  Josh hands me a knife and, as I cut my cake, I realise that if I could rescue Marnie from Rob, I might be able to avoid a complete breakdown of the relationships within our group. If I could make her see sense, and she broke things off with Rob, nobody would ever need to know about their affair and we could carry on exactly as we were before. Well, not exactly as before, because it could never be the same. There would be this horrible secret between me, Marnie and Rob, and having to be polite to Rob so that no-one would guess how much I despise him would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. But even worse is that I’d never be able to look at Marnie in quite the same way. And that breaks my heart.

  Jess catches my eye and gives me a little wave. Rob is standing beside her, his arm around her waist, and I want to run over and beg her not to hate me, which she will when she finds out about him and Marnie. She’ll automatically blame Marnie because Rob will spin her a story to make him the innocent, and her the guilty party. He’ll carry on lying to her as he’s done all along. He’ll tell her that Marnie seduced him, that it was a moment of weakness on his part, that when she left for Hong Kong it was over as far as he was concerned – except that she wouldn’t let go and kept begging him to go and see her. And Jess, hoping to preserve her marriage, will choose to believe him. It’s why, whatever else she knows, I’ll never tell her about the baby. I’ll never tell her that Marnie was pregnant and that Rob asked her to have an abortion. That would be too much.

  My biggest fear – and one that I can barely voice to myself – is that, if Rob does intend to leave Jess, and Marnie is coming home to support him through it, they’ll do it openly, not secretly. That instead of being discreet, they’ll flaunt their relationship in public. If they do that, it will be the ultimate insult. And how will Adam and I feel about them being a couple? Would we be able to have them round, watch as Rob kisses and hugs our daughter? If it was the only way we could see Marnie, what choice would we have? But it would kill any chance of rescuing my friendship with Jess.

  The only way that any of us can escape what is to happen, I think bitterly, is if a massive thunderbolt were to come out of the sky and strike Rob dead. And that’s hardly going to happen.

  1 A.M. – 2 A.M.

  Adam

  I haven’t been back to the party since seeing Cleo. I can’t, not yet. I’m in the bedroom, sitting on our bed, my mobile in my hand. There aren’t any missed calls. My messages for Marnie still haven’t been delivered. The only emails I’ve received are junk mail. There’s nothing on Livia’s phone either. When I left Cleo, I went straight to the utility room, leaving the light off as I took Liv’s phone out of the laundry basket. She had lots of messages and a few missed calls – but nothing from Marnie, and nothing from an unknown or withheld number.

  Mimi is back in our bedroom, keeping her distance. Watching me from the corner of the room. I should call the emergency number, I’ve typed it into my phone. All I have to do is press ‘call’. But still I can’t.

  I think about what Cleo said, about being called by the authorities if nobody has contacted them about a passenger on a crashed flight. Do they wait a certain amount of time before contacting the family? Did Marnie even have me down as her next of kin on her passport application form? Had she filled that part in? Maybe it wasn’t obligatory, maybe she forgot. Maybe she put Josh down rather than me or Livia, so that we wouldn’t be the first to know if anything happened to her.

  The sound of people singing ‘Happy Birthday’ reminds me where I’m meant to be.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, I race into the garden and reach Livia just in time. It all seems so unreal. But I’m with her, present, and despite the crushing pain of what might have happened to Marnie, I’m able to kiss Liv, tell her that I love her, be who she needs me to be.

  ‘Adam!’

  I see Nelson waving and give Liv a last kiss. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Nelson looks as if he needs rescuing from Rob.’

  ‘Why are some people obsessed with bad news?’ Nelson grumbles, coming towards me, leaving Rob standing on his own. ‘He keeps going on about that plane crash this morning, the one in Cairo.’

  I walk over t
o the wall, where Livia and I sat earlier, the one opposite Marnie’s fence. Marnie’s fence. It will always be known as that, I realise. Even when the photos have been taken down, it will still be Marnie’s fence.

  Nelson sits down next to me, stretches his legs out.

  ‘You OK? You don’t seem to have drunk much.’

  ‘Migraine, that’s all.’

  He turns to me. ‘Has something happened?’

  I try to meet his eye but I can’t. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that you only get migraines when you’re stressed about something.’ He pauses. ‘You know you can tell me, don’t you?’

  I wish more than anything that I could tell him. I wish I could tell him that Marnie was probably on the plane that crashed. I can’t bear it. If it’s true, how am I going to tell Livia that her daughter has died? What will she say when she realises that I let the party go on? She’s never going to forgive me.

  I lean forward, my elbows on my knees, my head down, trying to hide my distress from Nelson.

  ‘For God’s sake, Adam, tell me!’ he says.

  ‘I can’t.’ My voice catches. ‘I need to tell Livia first.’

  I sense him become still. ‘Are you ill, is that it? Is that what you need to tell Livia?’ There’s worry in his voice and I remember that Jess told Nelson she had MS before she told Rob.

  ‘No, no, I’m not ill,’ I say. ‘It’s something I’ve done.’ I need to stop talking, my voice is cracking and I can’t cry here, not now, not with everyone so close to leaving.

  ‘It can’t be that bad,’ Nelson says.

  ‘It is. Livia is never going to forgive me.’

  ‘Sure she will,’ he says. ‘She loves you.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘If it was anyone else, I’d be really worried you were saying you’d had an affair,’ Nelson says, and for a moment I wish that was what it was; a horrible mistake and betrayal. ‘But I know you wouldn’t,’ he goes on. ‘That’s not you, that’s not who you are.’