The Dilemma

by B. A. Paris

  ‘I did it for you, Livia! I wanted you to have one last chance to be happy!’

  ‘Stop being so dramatic! I know it’s going to be difficult, but to say that we’re never going to be happy again—’ She moves closer to me. ‘Look, I know it’s hard for you to accept that Marnie isn’t the angel you think she is, but it’s not the end of the world.’

  I stare at her. ‘Wh – what did you say about Marnie?’

  ‘It’s not the end of the world if she isn’t the angel you think she is. If you’re going to be angry with anyone, be angry with Rob. He’s to blame for all of this.’

  I shake my head. I’m struggling to breathe, to think. ‘Liv, what has Rob got to do with it?’

  Her eyes go wide. ‘Oh God,’ she says, her hand halfway to her mouth. ‘I thought you knew, I thought you knew it was Rob.’ She searches my face. ‘Did you think it was Max, is that why you were off with him yesterday?’ She puts a hand on my arm. ‘I’m so sorry, Adam, it’s not Max, it’s Rob.’

  ‘What’s Rob?’ I ask, my voice thick with confusion.

  ‘It’s Rob who’s having an affair with Marnie. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Adam. Marnie and Rob are having an affair, not Marnie and Max – although that wouldn’t be an affair, because he isn’t married, not like that filthy, cheating, adulterer!’ she finishes angrily.

  I thought I’d reached the bottom, I thought that things couldn’t possibly get worse. But what Livia has just said – I can’t even begin to process it. I sink onto the bed. She has to be mistaken. Marnie would never, ever, have an affair with someone like Rob. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t do that to Jess, to us. Livia’s made a mistake, she must have.

  As if she knows what I’m thinking, she crouches on the floor and leans into me, so that our foreheads are touching.

  ‘I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true,’ she says quietly, taking my hands in hers. ‘They’ve been having an affair for over a year now. From what Max said, I think it must have started during her first year at Durham. They split up just before she left for Hong Kong. I knew she’d been seeing someone, but I didn’t know it was Rob, it wouldn’t have occurred to me in a million years that it might be. If it had, I would have – I would have…’ Her voice trails off. ‘It’s why she was so unhappy for the first few months there. But then he went to see her, last December, when he was meant to be on that business trip to Singapore, and everything must have started up again.’ She gives a harsh laugh. ‘Oh, and guess what? He didn’t go with Cleo to Hong Kong because Jess didn’t want her to go alone, that was just a story. He went so that he could be with Marnie. I saw him on FaceTime, coming out of the bathroom in the hotel naked. I thought it was a boyfriend, but it was Rob.’

  I know she’s speaking. I can feel her breath on my face as the words tumble out of her. But they barely register because all I can think is that she still doesn’t know, she still doesn’t know that Marnie is dead.

  I move my head back and find her eyes.

  ‘Livia, that’s not what I wanted to tell you.’

  She looks at me in bewilderment. ‘But you said it was about Marnie.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘What, then?’

  I pull her to her feet and make her sit on the bed next to me, keeping her hands in mine.

  ‘Livia,’ I say, turning to face her.

  ‘Is it about the baby?’

  The same feeling comes over me, as if I’m living in some kind of parallel world.

  ‘No, it’s not about the baby,’ I say, my mind unable to keep up, unable to understand why she’s started talking about Kirin’s pregnancy.

  ‘What, then?’ She sounds almost impatient.

  I open my mouth but nothing comes out except a shaky sigh.

  ‘You’re scaring me, Adam!’ Her voice is sharp with fear. ‘Just tell me.’

  I would if I could remember how. My thumb rubs the back of her hand.

  ‘Livia, I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident.’

  Blood drains from her face. ‘Oh God, is it Marnie? What’s happened? Is she hurt, is she in hospital?’

  ‘No, no, she’s not hurt. She – she didn’t make it, Livia. Marnie’s gone.’

  The world comes to a stop. We don’t even breathe.

  ‘Gone?’ Livia says, finding her voice. ‘What do you mean, gone? Gone where?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Livia.’ I thought the pain couldn’t get any worse. ‘Marnie – she died. She – she’s dead.’

  She snatches her hands from mine. ‘Stop it, Adam! How can you say such a thing? Don’t! Don’t, do you hear me? Don’t say such a stupid thing! She’s had an affair, that’s all!’

  I try to pull her towards me but she twists away.

  ‘Livia, it’s true. I wish it wasn’t, but it’s true. She was coming home as a surprise, she was going to turn up at your party to surprise you but her plane – well, it crashed. It crashed on take-off from Cairo.’

  ‘Cairo?’ She pounces on the word. ‘Marnie wouldn’t have been in Cairo, you’ve made a mistake. Marnie’s in Hong Kong, she went away for the weekend but not to Cairo, she wouldn’t have gone to Cairo, it’s too far. Someone mentioned a plane crash at the party, I think they said Cairo. It’s alright, Adam, you’ve got mixed up, you’ve been dreaming and you’ve got mixed up.’

  ‘No. That’s why we’re going there tomorrow, to see where Marnie—’

  ‘No!’ She slaps her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear it! I don’t understand what you’re saying, I don’t understand!’

  Of all the ways she could have reacted, I never expected this, that she wouldn’t want to understand what I’m telling her. I want to scream at her that she has to understand because there’s no other way to tell her that Marnie is dead. Instead, I remove her hands from her ears and fold her into my arms, holding her tight.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Livia, but Marnie was on the plane that crashed. She was coming home via Cairo and Amsterdam for your party. You know I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

  A wail starts from somewhere deep inside her, an echo of the one that tore out of her as she pushed Josh from her body, the same that she would have given when she brought Marnie into this world, except that I wasn’t there to hear it. I anchor her to me, letting my body take the force of her anguish. The stupid, useless platitudes that I’d been determined not to say stream from my lips.

  ‘It’s alright, Livia, it’s alright, everything’s going to be alright, I promise, everything’s going to be alright.’ But she’s beyond hearing, beyond listening, beyond anything but the raw pain of loss.

  The bedroom door bursts open and Josh stands there, fear etched on his face. Josh, I’d forgotten about Josh.

  ‘Mum!’ He stares at Livia, collapsed against me, and panic takes hold. ‘Dad, what’s happened? What’s happened? Is it Grandad? Gran?’

  It wasn’t meant to be like this. I was meant to tell Livia, then Josh, separately, one at a time, so that I could be there for both of them. I hold out a hand.

  ‘Josh. Come here.’

  He stays glued to the spot, paralysed by fear. ‘What’s happened? Dad, what’s happened?’

  It’s hard to make myself heard over Livia’s terrible weeping. ‘I need you to come here. Please.’

  He comes over and sits on the bed. ‘What is it, what’s going on?’

  I put my hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Josh, it’s Marnie.’ I can’t go on because the mention of her name adds to Livia’s grief.

  ‘What do you mean, it’s Marnie?’ Panic spirals in his eyes. ‘Has she had an accident?’

  ‘There’s been a plane crash. I’m sorry, Josh, but Marnie was on it.’

  ‘Plane crash? Where? How?’

  ‘In Cairo. Marnie was on her way home; she was going to turn up at the party as a surprise. The plane crashed, on take-off.’

  Josh stares at me. ‘You mean – you mean—’ He tries another tac
k. ‘She’s alright, isn’t she?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, no, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ He waits. ‘She’s gone. Marnie died in the crash.’

  He goes so white I’m afraid for him. I move my hand to the back of his head, draw him towards me and Livia. And hold them while they fall.

  Livia

  Everything has stopped. I can’t breathe, the room is crowding me.

  It can’t be true. This isn’t happening, it can’t be true. I don’t understand, I don’t understand how Marnie was in Cairo. She said she was going away so that she could revise in peace, so what was she doing in Cairo? Cairo is noisy, she wouldn’t get any peace there. Adam keeps telling me that she was on her way here, for the party, but that doesn’t make sense. Why would she be in Cairo if she was coming here? Adam has explained, over and over again, to me and to Josh, because Josh doesn’t understand it any more than I do. He keeps saying that she was on her way to Amsterdam but that doesn’t make sense either. Josh, poor Josh. I’m glad he’s quiet now, I couldn’t bear it when he was crying, his body juddering through Adam’s to mine. It cut though my pain and made me able to comfort him.

  ‘What are we going to do, Dad?’ he mumbles. He sounds so scared that my heart breaks for him. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to get through it, we’re going to be strong for each other,’ Adam says. ‘We need to think about the people who love Marnie as much as we do, about how we’re going to tell them. We need to be strong for them, for Gran, Grandad—’ He breaks off, unable to face the thought of telling his parents.

  ‘No.’ Josh shakes his head. ‘I meant – what are we going to do without Marnie.’

  ‘We’re going to get through it,’ Adam says again, and I wonder how he can be so strong. ‘I don’t know how, but we’re going to get through it. We have to.’ His voice breaks slightly. ‘It’s what Marnie would want.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.’

  ‘I know, Josh,’ Adam says gently. ‘I know.’

  ‘It can’t be true,’ he says for the hundredth time. ‘It just can’t be. Are you sure, Dad, are you sure?’

  ‘Josh, please—’

  Adam sounds as if he’s at breaking point, and that frightens me, because I need him to be strong. So instead of asking him if he’s really, really sure that Marnie was on the flight, because like Josh, I can’t believe that she was, I give his hand a little squeeze, telling him wordlessly that I understand how incredibly hard it is for him to have to answer our never-ending questions. But he must be wrong, he has to be. He just needs time to realise it.

  So I stay very quiet, giving him time to work it out, and Josh does the same. But the silence drags on and the air in the room becomes heavy with despair. I can feel it on my skin, taste it in my mouth, I can even smell it. And that’s when I know.

  Tears seep from my eyes. I can’t ever imagine them stopping.

  ‘How are we going to tell everyone?’ I ask, brokenly.

  A wave of relief – profound, soundless – spreads through Adam’s body, that I’ve finally accepted the unbearable truth. He clears his throat.

  ‘I thought I’d ask Nelson to let people know. Except Mum and Dad. I need to tell them myself.’

  ‘It’s good that Izzy is with them,’ I say, amazed at how calm I must sound.

  ‘Do you see now why I couldn’t let Amy stay the night?’ Adam says. ‘I didn’t think it was fair on her to be here when—’ He falters. ‘You know, when I told you.’

  ‘How did you find out, Dad?’ Josh mumbles. ‘Did you get a phone call or something?’

  ‘No. I knew what flights Marnie was taking, it was our secret. When I heard about the plane crash, I didn’t think it was her flight and when I realised that it was, I didn’t think she was on it because she’d messaged to tell me that her flight from Hong Kong was delayed, so she’d miss her connection in Cairo. But then, later, I realised that the flight from Cairo had also been delayed, so there was a chance she might have arrived in time for it. But there was still the chance that she might not have made it.’

  My head jerks up. ‘So maybe she didn’t,’ I say, grasping at this new thread of hope. ‘Adam, what if Marnie didn’t make the flight?’

  He swallows painfully. ‘She did. It’s been confirmed.’

  ‘When? How?’

  ‘I phoned the airline last night, after Amy left. There was a number I could call to find out.’

  ‘After Amy left? Is that why you went out to your shed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But—’ I draw away from him, running it through my mind. If he knew that Marnie – that Marnie was – when he came back into the house, why didn’t he tell me then? And didn’t we make love? No, we can’t have done, not then, not once Adam knew, we couldn’t have. It must have been before. I want to ask him. I need to know. But I can’t, not with Josh here.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us, Dad?’ Josh says angrily, although I know it’s not Adam he’s angry with. ‘You shouldn’t have had to go through that on your own. Why didn’t you wake us up when you knew?’

  ‘I thought I’d let you sleep. I thought a few hours wouldn’t make any difference.’

  ‘They would have made a difference to you. It must have been awful for you, having to keep it to yourself.’ He shakes his head. ‘You should have woken me up, Dad.’

  Even in my confusion about when exactly we made love, my heart goes out to Adam, for choosing to spare us by shouldering the burden himself. But it comes to a sudden halt, brought to a standstill by another thought, another puzzle.

  ‘So how did it happen?’ I ask.

  ‘They don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me anything. They said there’ll be an investigation. We’ll know more when we get there, I expect.’

  ‘Get where?’ Josh asks.

  ‘Cairo. Mum and I are going tomorrow. You too, if you want. They’ve booked us on a flight. But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Of course I’m coming!’ he says angrily.

  ‘No,’ I interrupt. ‘I meant – how did it happen? How did you find out about Marnie?’

  ‘I told you, there was a number to phone.’

  ‘But before then. How did you know you had to call it?’

  I sense a slight hesitation. ‘Because Marnie hadn’t phoned me to let me know she was safe. I kept expecting her to, but she didn’t.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ I close my eyes, trying to work it out. ‘You said the airline has booked us on a flight tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But the tickets for the flights this morning, the ones I found in the bin – you must have bought them, from the travel agency in town. I recognised the wallet.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When? When did you buy them?’

  ‘Yesterday, as soon as I heard about the crash. I thought Marnie was stranded at the airport in Cairo. I thought, if she’d missed the flight, she’d be there all alone and she’d be frightened because of what had happened – because the plane that crashed was the one she should have been on – and she wouldn’t know what to do. So I got tickets for us to go to her, to be with her.’

  ‘What? You knew about the crash yesterday?’ Josh stares at Adam. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Because – I told you – I didn’t think that Marnie was on the plane. I wasn’t going to worry you for nothing.’

  My heart retracts, coming back to nestle deep inside me.

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what was wrong with you, why you were acting so strangely. Wait – was that what you were trying to tell me, before the party?’ He doesn’t say anything. ‘It was, wasn’t it? You wanted to tell me that Marnie might have been on the plane that crashed.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says again.

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you just come out and tell me?’

  He can’t meet my eyes. ‘I tried to,’ he says, his face grey. ‘I tried to.
But you were so happy. If I’d told you, you would have wanted to cancel the party and I just wanted you to – I knew that once I told you, you’d feel sick with worry, like I did, and I didn’t want that for you until I knew definitely.’

  ‘But you only phoned at – what? – three in the morning. Why didn’t you phone earlier? They give you a number straightaway, don’t they, for people to phone if they think someone from their family might be on the plane?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to know,’ he says, his voice low. ‘I wanted to hang onto the chance that Marnie hadn’t made the flight.’

  I look at this man, who has suddenly become a stranger to me, and my heart shrivels to almost nothing.

  ‘How did you do it, Adam?’ I ask, my voice trembling with rage. ‘How did you manage to chat and laugh and eat and drink when there was a chance that our daughter was dead? And more to the point,’ my voice rises as the realisation sets in, ‘how could you have let me chat and laugh and eat and drink, and dance – dance! – when there was even the tiniest of chances that Marnie was dead!’

  ‘Livia, please!’ He reaches desperately for me but I twist away.

  ‘No!’ I look at him in horror. ‘What are you, some kind of monster?’

  ‘Mum, don’t!’

  I round on Josh. ‘He let me dance! My daughter was dead and he let me dance!’ Lunging at Adam, I begin hitting him, raining blows on his head, on his chest, anywhere I can reach.

  ‘Mum, stop!’

  But I’m too far gone. I carry on hitting Adam with my fists, screaming at him, calling him a coward, and other names, until Josh pulls me away and I collapse onto the floor.

  7 A.M. – 8 A.M.

  Adam

  Livia’s cries follow me all the way down the stairs and into the garden. I walk blindly up the steps to the lawn, still reeling from the violence of her reaction. I knew it would be like this. I knew she wouldn’t forgive me, not once she knew the truth of what I’d done. She might have accepted that I’d kept the news to myself for a couple of hours because she and Josh were sleeping. But to expect her to accept that I knew about the crash long before the party started, and chose to let it go on, was too much. When she asked how I could have let her dance, her words tore through me and as her hands slammed onto me, I asked myself the same question – how could I have let her dance? Because now, it seems abhorrent.