The Dilemma

by B. A. Paris

  ‘Was that Rob?’ he calls.

  I turn towards him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Didn’t he want to come in?’

  ‘No. He’s pretty cut up. But it was good of him to come by. I’m going to my shed for a while. Can you make sure nobody disturbs me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Was it only yesterday that the thing that caused me the most grief was having to squeeze behind the tent to get to my shed? There must have been something bigger, something more serious, more problematic. I rack my brains and come up with nothing. My life really was that good.

  Inside the shed, I make it as far as the nearest wall, slide down it to the floor. I lean my head back against the warm wood and close my eyes. The knuckles of my right hand are throbbing, my heartbeat echoing through the pulses of pain. There’s a peace to it and I flex my fingers, wanting to feel more pain. The movement opens the gash across my palm and I welcome the sharp twinges of discomfort.

  It seems impossible that anything could eclipse Marnie’s death. But somehow, her affair with Rob does. I can’t stop reliving the moment I looked deep inside him, the moment when everything Livia told me was reflected in his eyes with such clarity I knew it was true. It spins in my brain on a loop – Marnie and Rob, their affair, his visits to see her in Hong Kong. He didn’t accompany Cleo to Hong Kong because Jess didn’t want her to go alone, he went so that he could be with Marnie. Livia saw him on FaceTime, coming out of the hotel bathroom, naked. The word makes me feel physically sick.

  I hear someone brush against the marquee as they make their way to the shed and my rage boils over. I just want to be left alone.

  ‘Go away, just go away,’ I plead but whoever it is ignores me and guessing it’s Mum, or maybe Dad, I try to keep a hold on my anger. The door pushes, but doesn’t open. The familiar sound of claws scraping against wood tells me it’s Murphy so I pull myself up and let him in. He follows me back to where I was sitting and as I slide back to the floor, he leans his body into me.

  ‘How did this happen?’ I say, out loud. Murphy turns his head towards me and licks my face. I put my arms around him, bury my head in his fur, breathe in the earthy smell of him while I try to come to terms with the devastating truth of Marnie and Rob’s affair. All the signs were there, I realise. Marnie’s unhappiness in Hong Kong. Livia’s pulling back from our group of friends, unable to be near Rob, unable to face Jess. Questions crowd my brain, each of them bringing more confusion than the last. Why didn’t Livia tell me? Was she ever going to tell me? Did Marnie know that Livia knew? Or was Livia waiting until Marnie came home to talk to her about it? If that was her plan, how would Livia have felt about Marnie turning up at her party? Maybe it wouldn’t have been a wonderful surprise but a terrible shock. And most devastating of all – who was Marnie really coming home to surprise, Livia or Rob?

  I don’t know how much time has passed before Mum comes to tell me that she and Dad are leaving, taking Izzy and Ian with them.

  ‘They’ll be staying with us for a few days,’ she adds.

  I nod. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘We’ll be back tomorrow, to see you before you leave for the airport. Nelson is taking you.’

  ‘That’s good of him.’

  ‘You should come in now, Adam.’

  ‘I will, in a minute.’

  ‘Can I do anything for you?’

  ‘No thanks, Mum. Say goodbye to Dad for me.’

  ‘Come here.’

  I get to my feet and she puts her arms around me.

  ‘It’ll be alright,’ she whispers, holding me tight. ‘It’ll be alright.’

  I close my eyes. I don’t say anything, because I can’t. It’s a while before she lets me go.

  ‘Goodbye, Adam.’ Her eyes are bright with tears.

  I reach a hand to her cheek. ‘’Bye, Mum.’

  If Mum and Dad are leaving, it must be later than I think. I look through the window; it’s almost dark outside so it must be around 9 p.m.

  I sit back down next to Murphy, worrying that he hasn’t been fed. I’m trying to raise the energy to take him inside when Nelson comes in.

  ‘Adam, I’m going to leave now. Jess and Cleo will be leaving soon and Livia is in bed.’ He pauses. ‘Why don’t you come in? There’s only Josh and Amy and they’ll be going up soon.’

  ‘I will, in a minute.’

  ‘Do you want me to stay? I can, it’s no problem.’

  ‘No, it’s fine, you should get back to Kirin. Can I ask you to do something? Can you give Murphy something to eat?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He has to take Murphy by the collar to get him away from me.

  ‘Go on, Murphy,’ I encourage. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Try and get some sleep,’ Nelson says from the door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  What would he say if I told him about Rob, told him that his thirty-eight-year-old brother was cheating on Jess with my nineteen-year-old daughter? It would destroy him, it would destroy his relationship with Rob, it might even destroy ours. And even if it didn’t, things would never be the same.

  More time passes. A discreet knock and Josh comes in.

  ‘Dad?’ I sense him peering in the darkness. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Over here.’

  ‘Do you want the light on?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Are you coming in?’

  ‘Not just yet.’

  He waits until his eyes adjust to the dark, then comes over and sits down beside me, adopting the same position, his back against the wall, his knees drawn up, his forearms resting on his knees.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a chair?’ he asks, after we’ve sat in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘Probably. But I like it here on the floor.’

  ‘Mum’s gone to bed.’

  ‘Yes, Nelson said.’

  ‘You don’t mind if Amy stays over, do you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  We sit in silence for a while longer.

  ‘We will get through this, won’t we?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, of course we will.’

  ‘I mean, you and Mum—’

  ‘We’ll be fine.’

  ‘I get why you did it, Dad. I get why you didn’t tell her until the party was over. I didn’t at first but I do now. Anyway, it’s what Marnie would have wanted.’ He pauses. ‘I’ve been thinking – I might try and get my motorcycle licence. It would be great to have a bike for getting around London, and when I come down at weekends, we could go for a ride together.’

  My eyes blur, because I know what he’s doing, I know that my son, who has never shown the slightest interest in riding a bike, is already looking for a way to fill the void he knows Marnie will leave in my life.

  ‘That would be great,’ I say. ‘But get settled in London first.’

  ‘I don’t have to live in London, I could stay here for a while. I can travel in easily from Windsor.’

  ‘No, you do have to live in London, with Amy. Nobody is going to change their plans. It’s already enough that you’re not going to New York.’

  ‘I’m glad I decided not to go,’ he says.

  ‘Me too. You should go in, Josh, I’ll be along in a minute.’

  ‘It’s fine, I’ll wait.’

  Knowing that he’s not going to leave without me, I get to my feet. I’m so stiff that he has to help me up.

  ‘Thanks. I must be getting old.’

  He pulls me into a hug. ‘Never,’ he says fiercely.

  We squeeze behind the marquee, walk across the garden.

  ‘I think I’ll go for a shower,’ I say, when we get to the house. ‘Goodnight, Josh, I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Night, Dad. Try and get some sleep, won’t you?’

  I follow him slowly up the stairs and when I get to the landing, I stop, because our bedroom door is shut tight, a warning not to go in. I have my shower in the family bathroom but I need clean clothes and anyway, I’m des
perate to talk to Livia.

  Our bedroom is in darkness apart from the moonlight coming in through the window. Livia is lying under the quilt, only the top of her head visible. I know she’s awake, I can sense it. I dress as silently as I can, then sit down on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Liv,’ I say.

  I don’t know which is worse, her angry silence or the desperate tears of before. I ache for the touch of her hand, needing her like I’ve never needed her before, because she’s the only one who knows Marnie like I know Marnie. But it’s as if I don’t exist.

  Livia

  I lie in bed, not knowing how I managed to get through the day. After I’d seen Adam punch Rob, I went downstairs to tell everyone I was going to have a rest and found an envelope lying on the mat by the front door. I hadn’t realised I was tearing it into pieces until Nelson’s fingers prised it from me.

  ‘It’s alright, Livia. I’ll take that.’

  ‘I don’t want it, I don’t want to see it,’ I told him, choking back an angry sob, hating that someone had already pushed a condolence card through the letterbox.

  ‘I know,’ he said, taking my arm. ‘Why don’t you try and get some sleep, at least rest for a while?’

  ‘I want to say goodbye to everyone first.’

  ‘Would you like me to stay?’ Jess asked, once Adam’s family had left and we were in the bedroom. Cleo was in Josh’s bedroom with him and Amy, and Nelson had gone to see Adam, who was still hiding in his shed.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I told her. ‘You go home, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t understand why Rob didn’t come in, why he left. And now he’s not answering his phone. I’m worried about him.’

  I turned away, praying that Rob wouldn’t tell her about him and Marnie, not tonight. Not ever, I realised, because what did it matter now?

  She left to get Cleo and Nelson came in. ‘Will you go and see Adam?’ he asked. ‘He needs you.’

  ‘No. I can’t, I just can’t.’ More angry tears filled my eyes. ‘How could he do it, Nelson, how could he let the party go on when he was almost a hundred per cent sure that Marnie was on that plane? How could he have laughed and joked with everyone?’

  ‘To be fair, I don’t think he was laughing and joking with everyone.’

  ‘Even Cleo knew before me.’ I couldn’t keep the anguish from my voice. ‘Did you know too? I saw you talking to Adam at the party, he seemed distressed about something. Is that when he told you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know anything. I knew something was going on with Adam and when I asked him, he said he’d done something terrible and that you’d never forgive him.’

  ‘He was right about that! I thought all the fuss – you know, his migraine, the way he kept disappearing into the house – was to do with my present. I didn’t realise it was because he was too much of a coward to tell me about Marnie.’

  ‘Adam isn’t a coward, Livia. He’s the strongest person I know. Can you imagine what he must have gone through, from when he first suspected Marnie was on the plane, until he actually found out? What he had to go through alone?’

  All my resentment burst out of me. ‘If he’d told me, he wouldn’t have had to go through it by himself,’ I hissed. ‘I would have shared it with him. Stop defending him, Nelson. He was wrong and you know it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No.’ I slammed my hand down on the bed. ‘I don’t want to hear it! This isn’t about Adam; this is about Marnie!’

  He didn’t say anything, just gave me a kiss.

  ‘Get some rest, Livia,’ he said gently. ‘I’m going now but I’ll be back in the morning.’

  That was five minutes ago and I wished I could have asked him not to go. I don’t want to be left alone with Adam. I don’t want to think about Marnie either so I concentrate instead on the sounds around me: Nelson saying goodbye to Josh and Amy, then he and Cleo going downstairs, followed slowly by Jess. The sound of two cars pulling away from the house, Nelson’s, then Cleo’s. Then silence, which quickly becomes too loud, and I feel a mounting panic until Josh’s bedroom door opens, and he goes downstairs, giving me other sounds to focus on. The back door opening and closing, his footsteps as he crosses the terrace. I strain my ears; I can’t hear him pushing back the marquee as he squashes his way to Adam’s shed, I can only imagine it. But it’s not enough so I force my ears to pick up other sounds: Amy moving about in Josh’s room, the neighbours respectfully quiet in their gardens as they tidy up for the evening. And later – I don’t know how much later – a sound that makes my heart start racing, of Josh and Adam coming back to the house and as they come up the stairs, I hold my breath until my lungs hurt, because I don’t want Adam here, I don’t want to see him. He heads in the other direction, to the other bathroom, and I breathe a little easier while he takes a shower. But then he’s here, outside the door, and I huddle under the covers and shut my eyes tight.

  He moves quietly as he dresses. Please let him go away again, I pray.

  I feel him sit down on the bed.

  ‘Liv,’ he says and I flinch at the need in his voice. It makes me angry because why should I feel guilty for not being able to give him what he wants? All this is his fault anyway, I realise with mounting fury.

  ‘Why did you have to let Marnie come home for my party?’ I say, my anger muffled by the covers. ‘When she was already coming back at the end of the month?’

  ‘Because she wanted to surprise you,’ he says.

  ‘And you couldn’t resist indulging her.’

  He gives a harsh laugh. ‘If I’d indulged her, I’d have insisted on her taking a direct flight.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’

  ‘Because I hadn’t let Josh take a direct flight to the US.’

  ‘Right, so it’s Josh’s fault.’

  He gives a tired sigh. ‘Don’t, Livia.’

  Enraged, I throw the covers off. ‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t say!’ I cry. ‘Don’t sit there and preach at me when you’re the one who let Marnie take that flight! If you hadn’t been so stupid, she wouldn’t be dead! And to not tell anyone.’ I shake my head, spilling tears from my eyes. ‘I’ll never understand how you could act as if nothing had happened, never! When did you become so hard? You haven’t shed a single tear for Marnie. What’s happened to you, Adam? When did you become so damned unfeeling?’

  He gets slowly to his feet.

  ‘How long have you known about Marnie and Rob?’ he asks softly.

  In the dark, I can’t see his face.

  ‘What has that got to do with it?’ I say, suddenly afraid.

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve known about their affair since he and Cleo went to Hong Kong for Cleo’s birthday in April.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘That was six weeks ago. Marnie told me she wanted to come back for your party three weeks ago. If you’d told me about their affair when you first found out, do you think I’d have let her come home?’ He pauses. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Livia? Why didn’t you tell me about Marnie and Rob?’

  ‘Because I wanted to protect you! Because I wanted to preserve what we had!’

  ‘So when were you going to tell me? Never? Or once you’d had your party?’

  I reach behind me and grab one of my pillows. ‘GET OUT!’ I yell, hurling it at him. ‘GET OUT AND DON’T COME BACK! I HATE YOU, DO YOU HEAR? I HATE YOU!’

  Adam

  I stand outside the bedroom door, listening to Livia’s heartbreaking sobs. I don’t know where it came from, what I said to her. I hadn’t worked out that if I’d known about the affair, I wouldn’t have let Marnie come home, so why did I say it? Why have I made Livia think it’s her fault that Marnie is dead when it’s mine? How could I be so cruel?

  I run a hand through my hair, wondering what to do next, where to go. Before, I might have gone to Marnie’s room, tried to find some comfort there, but I can’t. I don’t know who she is any
more. I thought I knew her but I didn’t. I thought she would never lie to me, but she did. I thought she would never do anything that she knew I’d disapprove of, and yet she did the worst thing she could possibly do, the one thing that would hurt me more than anything in the world, because of who Rob is, because of what he stands for. She knew how I felt about him, yet that didn’t deter her from having an affair with him. I can’t understand it; I can’t understand how she could do it.

  I go downstairs, feeling more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life. I can feel the pull of my bike but after what happened – when was it – yesterday? – when Marnie was still the person I thought she was, I’m scared of what might happen now that she isn’t. The only place I know I’ll feel safe is my shed so I go outside and pick my way across the lawn, using the moon to guide me. As I go in, I reach automatically for the light switch; light floods the room, dazzling me. I’m about to turn it off again when my eyes fall on the block of black walnut. A dark rage consumes me and, grabbing an axe from the shelf, I begin smashing it to pieces.

  Livia

  The sound stops my sobs of guilt in their tracks – because deep down, no matter how much I try to dress them up as tears of hurt and indignation, that’s what they are, tears of guilt. Everything Adam said was true; no matter how much I try to blame him for what happened to Marnie, the fact is that if I’d been upfront with him, she wouldn’t have been on that plane. I told Adam that I hated him but it’s me that I hate, for not wanting Marnie to come home. Is that why she died, because I didn’t want her here, because I wanted to be able to carry on living the life I was living?

  The sound comes again, the thud of splintering wood, followed by a cry of such pain and anguish that I leap from the bed and run out of the bedroom towards the stairs. Josh’s door opens.

  ‘Mum!’ he says, looking scared.

  ‘It’s alright, I’m going,’ I tell him.

  ‘Shall I come?’

  But I’m already gone.

  Adam

  ‘Stop, Daddy, stop!’

  I hear Marnie’s voice but I don’t take any notice, I just keep swinging the axe.