You and Me

by Nicola Rayner

  He was kind, Gareth. In that moment I missed that about him: his constancy, how every time we went on a date he had a plan for the next one, how he’d always get the pudding menu in the restaurant because he knew I had a sweet tooth. And then I think of Charles, how his thumb touched the small of my back as if he were unlocking me, how I checked that spot in the mirror later to see if he’d left a mark in some way and my heart thumped so boldly as if it wanted to jump right out of my chest.

  For the rest of the day, everyone gives me a wide berth, exchanging looks behind my back but not addressing me directly. I focus on tasks that keep me away from people, putting stock on the shelves, finding returns. At one stage, Brenda tries to ask me about Caroline but I snap at her so nastily she flinches, and I’m immediately ashamed. Shame layering on shame.

  On the way home, I buy a cake, a huge dark chocolate gateau, freshly made and sticky with icing. It reminds me of a similar cake Juliet was given by one of her godparents at school.

  ‘Don’t go eating it all by yourself,’ Juliet’s mother instructed her when she dropped it off. ‘You’re looking a bit porky as it is, darling.’

  The cubicles in our dormitories didn’t offer us any privacy at all. The partition between each bedroom was only paper-thin and didn’t stretch to the ceiling. You could always hear everything, unless people whispered.

  Juliet had never looked porky in her life, but her mother, who was ramrod thin herself, didn’t strike me as someone who would have a balanced view on such things. The cake was too big for Juliet’s tuckbox, so she slid it under her bed in the crisp white cardboard box it came in.

  ‘I don’t really want it – I have to keep my figure trim,’ she said after her mother left, laying a hand on her washboard stomach. ‘You can have it.’ She waved at me and a couple of others who’d gathered outside her cubicle in the hyena way people did when something interesting was going on.

  She was true to her word and we were allowed a piece of her cake whenever we fancied it, but, each time, we had to go through the humiliation of asking. She’d cut you a huge slice – too big, really, certainly the sort of slice that would have daunted her – and then say: ‘You can eat it in here.’ And she’d gesture imperiously at the chair at her desk and watch closely as you ate, licking her lips occasionally as if she was gaining a vicarious pleasure from it.

  I think of this as I hurry back home, the cake in its posh box in my arms. I know there is an element of punishment as well as consolation in what I’m about to do and, if I dwell on that for too long, I won’t be able to see it through.

  At home, I open the cake box on the kitchen counter and cut my first slice. A large one of the sort Miss Trunchbull cut Bruce Bogtrotter in Matilda. Still standing, I take a first mouthful. It hits the spot – the dark chocolate, sugar and cream are like a comforting hug. I chew and swallow. Pushing away the thoughts of the afternoon: Caroline’s demeanour, pale and haggard; the way she said, You watched him die; the hurt in Meilin’s voice; the censure in Gareth’s. I cut myself a second piece and continue – even though the initial pleasure is already beginning to curdle.

  The project of the cake is a distraction from my thoughts: Ellie caring so little about what I’d given her that she’d dressed Rose in the wrong thing; Rose on her tricycle so far away, never knowing how much I longed to see her; Caroline’s face.

  I eat and eat and eat. The chocolate smears my fingers and my face as I push slice after slice into my mouth. The cake settles like cement in my belly, but still I eat. I do well. I’m proud of my progress, in fact; I get almost two-thirds of the way through the cake when my stomach starts to churn and I begin to hiccup in a sickening sort of way. I don’t like to admit defeat so close to the end so I try to push one more mouthful down but this proves to be the last straw and I know, with a dizzying rush, that I’m about to be sick.

  I make it to the bathroom in time. It’s an unseemly position to be in, kneeling on the floor like this – vomiting this expensive treat back up. I haven’t binged like this for years, not since my school days when some unkindness would drive me to bed with a packet of biscuits, where I’d eat them as swiftly and silently as I could. The idea is to forget – not so much death by chocolate as oblivion, I tell myself as a joke. But I don’t feel like laughing.

  The emptiness afterwards brings peace. A clarity. I lower the lavatory seat and rest my head against its cool surface.

  It’s only then that the thought settles, fluttering down like a feather. Meilin wasn’t the only person I’d told I was there the night Dickie died.

  Ellie knew, too.

  39

  When I wake my eyes are puffy and my throat feels scratched and sore. Worst of all is the creeping shame – how differently Caroline looked at me yesterday, as if she were regarding a stranger. You’d never know I was someone she had passed her baby to or invited over for Christmas. No need to check if that is still on the cards, or whether I’ll ever cuddle Daisy again. Self-pitying tears fill my eyes but I brush them away. I can’t start the day weeping.

  My feet are cold and I call out for Branwell. He jumps onto the bed and pads towards me sullenly as if he’s doing me an enormous favour. I look at the ceiling tiles for a long time. I’d hoped, as I fell asleep last night, that I might dream of Charles. But, in the end, it was Ellie who appeared. Ellie before she left, her face contorted with rage.

  I have to approach things carefully with her. She spooks so easily – and I don’t want to lose the little contact I have. But it is a difficult question to ask lightly: Did you tell Caroline I was there when Dickie died? And why would you?

  I test it out a few ways – delete and start again, but however I put it, it still sounds like an accusation.

  When I finally send it, the answer comes back more speedily than usual: No, of course not, sis. I don’t really know her – and I wouldn’t tell your secret.

  The word secret makes me blanch. It sounds so deceptive, but how else would I describe how I’ve behaved? I get out of bed and press my feverish forehead against the glass of my bedroom window, trying to decide what to do about Charles. I’ve been too much of a coward to get in touch but I have to face the fact there’s a good chance Caroline will have told him.

  I picture Fiona sitting next to Caroline on the sofa, her arm around her, saying, ‘I knew never to trust her.’ Or maybe, worse: something pitying. Something charitable. While Charles listens to them from his armchair, keeping his counsel, not agreeing or disagreeing but perhaps making the private decision not to see me again. The idea leaves me bereft, makes me want to claw at the window in misery. I know what it is to feel betrayed and I can’t bear that I’ve done that to Charles. I have to reach him first, to explain things in my own way – the folly of my old lonely habits before I was sure of his love.

  Mother used to say: Your sin will find you out – to teach us not to lie – but I’m not even certain of the worst of my sins: was it being there in the first place? Was it keeping it a secret? Or was it finding happiness with the people Dickie left behind?

  If I go to the police, perhaps that will assuage my guilt. After all, I’m the one with all of the information – the only one who is still convinced Dickie was pushed that night. If I could help the coroner get to the bottom of things, if I could make amends, then perhaps Caroline might forgive me. And I might be able to prove, once and for all, that Ellie had nothing to do with it. If only to myself.

  But first I need to see Charles. I have to talk it through with him. This could save me, solve all of my problems. We could go to the police together, side by side. United in our determination. Now I’ve made the decision, I act quickly, throwing on an old tweed suit I picked up from a charity shop, which I think makes me look respectable, credible, and dashing for the door. It’s a Saturday, our busiest day, but I text the shop with an excuse about feeling poorly. They won’t believe it after the scene yesterday, but I deserve one fake sick day in seventeen years of loyal service. I switch my phone off and hurr
y to Paddington, hoping to make the 10.50 train, which I do. I spend the journey looking out of the window at the bleached winter sky, longing for a miracle.

  When I reach Honeybourne, the house is quiet. I knock on the door a couple of times and then make my way around the side, peering into windows, keeping my ears open for any noise. We were so close, Charles and I, in the National Gallery. I can’t have Caroline destroy everything I’ve waited for for so long. I need him now more than I’ve ever needed him before. Standing alone and cold outside his empty house, my earlier mood of resolution plunges into one of despair.

  On the shore of the lake, I stop to look out over the water. It’s generous to call it a lake – it’s a large pond, really, stretching around the back of the house. I decide to head for my favourite bench, where I sit and watch Honeybourne on my secret visits. I started my trips after Ellie went. She wouldn’t have allowed it as long as she’d been around – she would have been furious. But I’ve always been careful not to be caught here. I come at dawn or at night-time when I know they’ll be inside. There’s no sinister intent – I just watch the house as it sleeps and learn details about Charles’s life, preparing for when he’ll want me to take Fiona’s place.

  Sometimes the twins see me. They’re big enough now to be able to climb up onto one of the beds and peek out of the window. I’ve glimpsed them once or twice – their small faces pressed up against the glass. I wonder if they ever mention me to their parents. If they do, perhaps Fiona and Charles think I’m no more than an imaginary friend. The lady in the garden. Something they’ll grow out of.

  Today my usual bench is dripping and untempting. I fold up my scarf and sit on it, watching the shadows the bare branches cast across the water. The dark thoughts of yesterday return. What is the point of any of it? Who do I have left? Caroline, Meilin, Gareth: I have let everyone down. I tell myself I’m a good person, but am I really? Creeping around. Always there uninvited. Weighed down by secrets.

  Even with Charles. Did he really want me? And if he did, where is he now when I need him most? Maybe it’s already too late to explain myself. Maybe he’s made up his mind. Maybe it would be better for everyone if I wasn’t here any more, I think as I watch the wind flutter over the surface of the water.

  ‘Willows whiten, aspens quiver / Little breezes dusk and shiver,’ I say aloud to a couple of cold-looking mallards. Mrs Fyson made us learn The Lady of Shalott at school and called on us at random to recite a verse. I never had the sort of recall that Mother did – you could set her off on Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson and she’d be away – but I found The Lady of Shalott easy to remember because of the rhyming scheme. I’ve never understood exactly what drove the heroine to the water, but I feel it now. I understand. She wanted Lancelot to look at her. She just wanted to be seen. And if she couldn’t be seen, she wanted to be obliterated. He was all she had left.

  There’s no boat here, so I can’t take to the water that way, like she did in the poem. No matter. I kick off my shoes and take a step into the lake. It’s so cold it burns. But what is there to lose? Almost all of it has gone now. Mother, Ellie, Caroline, Daisy. Maybe Charles. Maybe I never even had him in the first place.

  I don’t want to have thoughts like this any more. I don’t want to feel any of it. Any of the pain, any of the longing – I’ve had enough.

  As I make my way deeper in, the bite of the water almost stops my heart in my chest but, still, I push on. I’m committed to this course of action now: wherever it leads, it can’t be worse than where I’ve come from. The humiliation, the loneliness. The loss. I’m braver than I think. I can tolerate the pain, after all.

  The ducks shoot past me, looking alarmed. By the time I’m up to my shoulders, my stockinged feet start to get tangled in the weeds. I try to swim, but it’s hard in these conditions. The water’s thick as treacle and the tweed I’m wearing becomes as heavy as a constrictor clamped around my limbs. The small island in the centre of the lake, with its weeping willow, seems to stretch further away as I head towards it. There’s a spot there I’ve noticed before, where it never ices over, where the water must be warmer. I don’t know why I think of that now.

  I kick down but I’m out of my depth. The tweed clutches me more tightly. My arms are as slow and heavy as oars. I turn on my back to look at the angry sky. There is only one hope: that he’ll find me here. Like the first day we met, he’ll say, ‘Fran can share with me.’ But this time, he’ll mean his house. His everything.

  Not so bad, I think, to die here. Where he is. I kick out again but there’s no solid bed beneath me – and the island’s still out of reach. My limbs aren’t doing what I tell them to do and I experience a moment of genuine fear.

  ‘Fran?’ I hear Fiona’s voice cutting across the water. ‘What in God’s name …?’

  Not her. I don’t want her. I open my eyes. Four figures on the edge of the water – Charles, Fiona and the twins. The adults in the middle with a child either side. A neat, symmetrical unit in Barbours and wellies. Completing the picture, their large chocolate Labrador woofs happily and trots in to join me.

  ‘Fuck, Charles.’ Fiona actually sounds frightened. ‘I think she’s drowning.’

  40

  His arms around me, warm and strong. Just like I always imagined.

  ‘Come on, old girl. Steady as she goes.’

  I giggle, leaning into him as he swims me in. ‘The good ship Francesca,’ I want to say, but my teeth are chattering so badly I struggle to formulate the words.

  ‘Jesus, you gave us a shock,’ Charles says as we stagger out. ‘What were you doing?’

  I swallow. Though the water had a numbing quality, now I’m out of it I begin to shake violently. I notice Fiona and the children have slipped back into the warmth of the house, taking the dog with them.

  ‘I feel a bit strange,’ I say.

  ‘You’re all right.’ Charles puts his arms around me. ‘You just need to warm up slowly. Let’s get you inside and out of these wet things.’

  It’s like something from a dream. If all I needed to do was jump in the lake to get his attention, I would have done it a long time ago.

  Inside, Fiona is at the Aga, stirring soup in a saucepan.

  ‘We need towels,’ says Charles and he disappears, leaving Fiona and me alone.

  She hands me a cup of tea. ‘You’ll need this to warm up.’ She pauses and adds sharply, ‘Is this about your fight with Caroline?’

  ‘How did you know about that?’ Self-consciousness creeps over me, as I stand dripping in her kitchen.

  ‘I spoke to her earlier.’

  My hands burn with the heat of the mug. I put it down on the table. ‘How did she find out? Who told her?’

  I can’t leave it alone – I need to know.

  ‘She asked me not to say. But look, Fran, it’s better that it’s out in the open. The truth is always the best option.’

  She reminds me of Ellie when she says that.

  Fiona looks out of the kitchen window at the lake. ‘Why are you here?’

  My gaze falls to the slate floor, where a small pool is forming around me. I consider sharing my plan to go to the police, but I’d rather talk it through with Charles first. As far as Fiona knows, I’m just Ellie’s sister. An acquaintance from school. As far as she’s aware, I haven’t been here for years. She doesn’t know the half of it.

  ‘I wanted to speak to Charles,’ I say quietly. ‘I thought he might be able to help me patch things up with Caroline.’

  ‘And why did you get in the water?’ she persists. ‘You could have died if we hadn’t come home. If we hadn’t found you.’ She shakes her head in disbelief.

  I return my gaze to my feet, unable to put it into words. ‘I can’t explain.’

  ‘Fran, I realise we don’t know each other very well,’ she says, returning to the soup. ‘But I think you might need some help, some kind of support. Doing something like that at this time of year …’ She leaves the words hanging. ‘Look, anyway, I have
the number of a good therapist. Someone I went to see when we were trying for the twins.’ She leaves the saucepan for a moment and goes to her handbag, fishes out a business card, which she passes to me. ‘I’ll talk to Caroline and explain about today – it might help for her to know how upset you were.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say meekly.

  ‘In the meantime,’ she says, ‘I’ve got to go out with the kids in a bit, but I’ll ask Charles to run you a bath. You need to warm up – slowly, though. Have some soup first.’

  Charles appears then with towels and a dressing gown and in the downstairs cloakroom I dry off and wrap up in the robe. He takes my wet clothes from me, to hang in front of the Aga, and offers me a bowl of soup at the table. Fiona sits with me, nursing a cup of tea, while Charles tends to the children.

  ‘Don’t worry about Caroline.’ She pats my hand. ‘She’ll get over it eventually.’

  ‘I feel terrible about it – I should have said earlier.’

  ‘This too shall pass.’ She smiles. ‘A helpful mantra when you’re delivering babies.’

  ‘I’m sure you were very good at it.’

  I mean it as I say it. I’ve always seen her as my rival but I see now how she’s the kind of person who could handle anything you throw at her. The kind of person it would be good to have on your side.

  As I wallow in the bath, I hear the children’s voices, the sound of the television, then light footsteps pattering down the staircase, a car door slamming, the burr of an engine. I get out reluctantly, tying the bathrobe tight around me.

  The house is quieter now. Someone’s turned the television off. The kids have left the building, gone to their grandparents, perhaps. Fiona’s family live nearby on the stud farm where she grew up, learning a few of her practical skills, no doubt. Her toughness.

  I realise I’m not sure where my clothes are, where Charles is. I stand on the landing for a moment, listening. My heart thuds in my chest.