The light was almost gone and a soft, light rain had begun to fall as Bridget cycled out of town again for home, and she hurried, anxious: cars hissed past. Lights were coming on in the suburban houses, their curtains were being drawn. She had begun to believe their family – hers and Matt’s – was completely ordinary, she had worked hard to make it that way. There was Carrie – but even Carrie, eccentric and wild, turning up wearing jodhpurs or lederhosen, bringing burlesque girlfriends, was a family tradition; didn’t all families have one of those, a black sheep?
Finn had met his grandmother – their mother – they had their Christmas routines. Now Matt’s kind, anxious parents doting on him, their only grandchild, Matt their only child. This was what families were like.
As she turned into the close in the dark she hoped Matt wasn’t back yet because he hated her riding without lights. Not Carrie the black sheep, but her. Careful quiet Bridget, all alone, riding without lights, headlong into darkness. For another void, dangerous second she thought of riding off the road, or into the path of a truck, then it passed. Couldn’t afford too many of those.
But Matt wasn’t home yet: he got back just as she put the pasta on, and only nodded, weary, when she told him Finn was out with Phoebe. After dinner they sat side by side and watched TV, a programme about repairing cars, and she felt him relax, the day falling away from him. Matt had always been good at it, dropping into sleep like a stone, leaving the world on the doorstep.
When he caught her looking at her phone later, as they climbed into bed, he shook his head. ‘Leave him,’ he said, placing a soft kiss carefully on her lips, before turning on his side. ‘He’ll be fine,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘He’s out there being young.’ Bridget laid the phone down beside her, and turned out the light.
They worked hard, she and Matt, for what they had. For these relationships with colleagues and friends and family. A small circle but safe. Not any more, however she might have fooled herself, chatting as she paid for Finn’s jumper. Lying there still and listening to Matt’s steady breathing Bridget felt her heart rate rise, stay high. It pattered in the dark, round and round like an animal on a wheel.
Watching the light that filtered through the curtains, listening to the distant traffic grow quiet, it came to her that the memory was still there, intact: she remembered what it was like. Long, long ago, when the only way she could get to sleep was by resolving to kill herself.
When Finn came in it was almost one in the morning, but Bridget was still awake. She listened to him pad softly upstairs and then, at last, the light went out in her head, and she slept.
Chapter Eight
Tuesday
When Laura came through the door, groaning under her own weight, it seemed to Bridget that she’d doubled in size over the weekend. She paused halfway through the door to lean against the jamb, exhausted already. Then she was inside.
‘Laura,’ said Bridget in alarm, hurrying to reach her. ‘You – are you sure you should – look.’ Catching her own breath. ‘Just sit down.’
Laura smiled, tremulous, letting Bridget take her arm. ‘Nick says—’ and she paused, lowering herself gingerly to the sofa and letting her bag drop. Bridget made herself smile, patient: they heard a lot about what Nick said. Laura looked up at her, big swimming eyes.
‘What?’ said Bridget, helpless.
‘He said it was the same with his first wife,’ said Laura, sniffing. ‘The minute she stopped work she turned into an elephant.’
‘Nice,’ said Bridget. ‘Why did they get divorced, again?’
Laura blinked, wounded. ‘So it’s still all right if I move to mornings only?’ she said, with conscious dignity.
‘I – did we—’ Serve me right, thought Bridget, for getting impatient: she’d forgotten she’d said it. The thought of long afternoons on her own set up a little tic of anxiety. Get someone else. Some school leaver. Laura was smoothing the big round of her belly anxiously. ‘Yes. I mean, of course, it’s up to you, Laura.’
‘Nick says—’ and Laura paused, as if finally, dimly aware of how often he began her sentences, and changed direction. ‘Can we see how it goes? I’ve arranged to meet him this afternoon but—’
‘Sure,’ said Bridget hastily. ‘Sure. Play it by ear. Is he taking you out somewhere?’
‘Baby shopping,’ said Laura happily. Bridget and Matt had gone to just one baby shop, all that time ago, and he had stared, aghast, at all the bright plastic stuff, the mats and baby baths and nightlights and mobiles. They’d bought a cot and that had been it. Sometimes she wished that they’d gone the whole mad route of buying everything and anything. But the thought of Nick doing it with Laura, second time around, happy families – it made her uneasy.
‘Washing up,’ she said to escape and retreated to the kitchen.
Tuesdays could go either way in the shop: dead or busy. It looked like this one was going to be busy. A big, untidy woman in red lipstick breezed in at noon, on her lunch break, looking for a party dress, talking as she came in through the door. Pleading.
Some customers were like this, they needed you to know the whole backstory – her husband, her grown daughter, how great they were – and this woman was a talker. The daughter was getting married, there’d be dancing in the evening. ‘I need to be able to move in it,’ and the woman stretched her arms up and turned, in the middle of the shop. One of those who’d try anything on she was given and just shrug cheerfully when it didn’t fit, and keep going.
For twenty minutes, half an hour, looking for sizes and colours and in and out of the stockroom, Bridget stopped thinking: she even relaxed. Laura joined in, moving slowly to and from the rails and there was banter, about birth and children. The woman had a loud, infectious laugh. She kept them busy, but busy was good.
In the end she brought a green silk dress to the till, sighing over not being able to buy everything, but they had all admired the dress, or her in it, swaying and posing in front of the mirror, delighted. It was expensive but without comment Bridget had given her a discount, on impulse, for being a good, happy, willing customer, just when she needed one. And in return, holding the door open for her and saying goodbye, Bridget had been rewarded by a hug, quick and warm and highly perfumed, that seemed to have more in it than just gratitude for money off.
It’ll be all right. I can handle this.
But when the door closed on the big, happy woman the shop felt abruptly empty: she had seemed to fill the space up all on her own. At one thirty Bridget sent Laura home.
Lunch hour over, the lane was deserted and quiet except for the relentless jingle of the gallery’s Christmas soundtrack, just down the hill and out of sight. Bridget mopped the floor, did some paperwork, moving to and fro. She was conscious of not wanting to stop, and think, to keep moving so as not to be seen, not to turn and look out of the wide window, where someone might look back.
In the stockroom a delivery was waiting to be unpacked, and finally Bridget gave in and retreated there. Last-minute party dresses, drifts of red chiffon: she stripped them of their plastic, hung them up, steamed them, priced them, thinking, soon it would be December and the shop would be busy. Then they were all done, pristine and bright and Bridget stood there in the debris, hot suddenly. Hungry, suddenly.
A cup of tea and a sandwich: that was what she needed. Seizing on her appetite she waded through the litter of emptied boxes and garment bags and headed into the kitchen. Bridget took tomatoes and bread from the little fridge, filled the kettle and it began to hiss, she washed her hands and the big water heater on the wall gurgled. As she tried to extract a knife from the draining board a cup fell into the sink with a clatter and she was suddenly, acutely aware of the craziness of the tiny space, the shoe boxes stacked up the walls; a piece of twine trailed and following it she saw that it had come loose from the log she and Laura had stashed up there, what seemed like weeks ago.
For a second she was tempted just to walk out and leave it. All of it: no more painting the floor,
no more labelling boxes or filling out VAT returns. She could see Matt’s face aghast. No. So she fished the cup out of the sink, emptied the bowl, got the stepladder, rested it against the shelving. The kettle boiled, so tea was next because – who’d told her? Mum, it would have to have been, and years ago, how long ago? – the water had to be freshly boiled or the tea tasted of iron, and the stepladder could wait, the log could wait. So when the doorbell jangled, Bridget was standing in the kitchen doorway, with the kettle in her hand.
And when he came inside there she still stood like some kind of idiot skivvy with her hair limp with steam and her face red with working, her skirt creased from kneeling among boxes.
‘Well, look at you,’ said Carmichael, easily. He wasn’t wearing the leather jacket, she registered automatically, today it was a greenish wool coat to his knees, Germanic looking, horrible. For a second she wanted to rush at him with the boiling water in her hand.
‘What,’ she said, but it could have been anything, she didn’t know what she was saying. The door swung to behind him and there was the gentler ping as it closed, admitting no one else. Beyond the window the street was empty again. Where was everyone? Where was the world looking in, when she needed it?
He stood there. ‘I didn’t recognise you at first,’ he said, merry. Eyeing her. ‘None of us is getting any younger.’ Looking her up and down: the insult glanced off her, tiny, but she heard it. ‘Your own shop, too, quite the little businesswoman.’ Condescending.
‘If it’s about your purchase,’ she said for the benefit of the world outside, the quiet lane.
He laughed – but something had happened, the spell interrupted: he moved. Slowly, towards her, so close she could smell his sour breath. ‘Don’t think,’ he began, ‘don’t think you can—’
What would anyone see, if they did look in? A middle-aged man in a green coat, his sandy hair thinning, respectable, harmless. A woman with smudged mascara, brandishing a kettle.
‘Why did you come here?’
He smiled. ‘I was invited,’ he said. ‘By an old friend.’ Then, amused, feigning surprise: ‘Oh, no, no – you thought I came for you?’ Shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ and his eyes were cold, cold as flint. Carefully, carefully, holding her breath, feeling it rise like vomit in her throat, Bridget set the kettle down on the draining board just inside the door but turning back and seeing him still there she felt a great wave break over her, of panic, and fear – and rage.
‘I’m going to the police,’ she said rapidly, just to stop him taking another step, and before she could shut herself up. His face, his eyes were on her. ‘If you don’t leave me alone I will go to the police and I don’t care what happens.’ The words falling over themselves: this was it. She had to stop him. She had no choice.
But it didn’t stop him: he advanced towards her, across the painted floor, on to the pale rug, quite calm. He began to talk in a way she remembered, with horror. And although she tried to blot the words out the tone was so familiar, the memory bringing sickness up inside her, up from her gut: he was very reasoned, smiling all the time, although his eyes were different. She remembered that, too: his eyes dead and flat and cold while his voice was smooth and warm.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he said now, anyone listening would think him so reasonable, still walking across the floor. He had crossed the rug now, reaching to unbutton his long coat as he came – that too, Bridget knew that gesture too. ‘We’re old friends. There’s no reason why we can’t continue to be friends.’ Talking, talking, another button undone. And then he stopped, a foot from her standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘We have such a lot of history together.’ Persuasive, tender even.
Bridget felt so abruptly sick she put a hand to the doorframe to steady herself. She remembered him talking this way while doing things to her body. Images flashed into her head, blinding her. The shock, the horror of it, the first time it happened: the violence of a hand pushing her down, wool choking her. She backed away from him, into the kitchen, the room so small the stepladder clattered as she bumped into it.
He touched her. ‘We were lovers,’ he said.
‘Never,’ she managed to say. ‘Never,’ but she heard the weakness in her voice. ‘I’m going to the police.’ The words were indistinct behind the roaring in her ears: could he even hear her? His eyes were pale, he was so close she could see the sparse gingery stubble on his chin.
They were both in the kitchen now, the space was so small. There was the boiling kettle behind her, the knife she’d got out to cut tomatoes. He took another step, and now he was stroking her cheek, his hand on her hip, she could feel the heat of the kettle on her back. They were hidden here, concealed from the world outside. He could do anything.
She could.
‘You were a rather poor musician,’ he said gently, kindly. ‘But your little cunt.’ His face so close to hers. ‘You liked it, don’t you remember that?’ His head was tipping towards her, prying, looking, a hand on hers, holding it down. ‘You were heartbroken, don’t you remember that? Don’t you remember why? You begged me. You cried. You begged me to keep going. Not to leave you.’
Frozen under his hand, her whole body was consumed with shame, loathing – and something else. Liked it? Liked it? Had she liked it? She could smell his breath. He never had good breath, he was careless with hygiene. The smell made her want to vomit, it transported her back so vividly. Blindly she groped behind her on the work surface until the knife was in her hand. Only a small knife. He reached past her and removed it from her hand, looking at it, smiling.
Bridget did remember. She remembered pleading with him, her blouse undone on his green plush sofa, silver-framed photographs on his piano. The way he had made her feel, when he had turned cold, standing up from her, pushing her hand away – and she wanted so badly to please him. What had she said? Don’t. I’ll try. She would have said anything.
‘She’s coming back,’ said Bridget, making herself say it calmly. She didn’t want to use Laura’s name, didn’t want him knowing the name of any girl or woman – but he just shook his head slowly, sorrowfully.
‘I waited until she went,’ he said, resting his shoulder in the ugly green-brown wool coat against the doorframe, leisurely, examining Bridget. ‘She looked like she was going home. At that stage of pregnancy she shouldn’t really be working, should she?’ A little wrinkle of distaste. ‘Couldn’t you get anyone else?’
Bridget remembered him shifting to move away from Laura’s belly when he’d come in with Isabel.
‘I’ll tell Isabel’s parents,’ she said, brave suddenly. His eyes were stony and she pushed on, reckless. ‘I’ll tell your wife,’ she said, and he smiled with sudden pleasure.
‘She’s dead,’ he said, melodious. ‘Five years ago. A stroke.’ He put on a mock mournful expression. Bridget remembered a flush at the woman’s neck, his wife’s neck, the dislike she emanated as she reached for her coat to go out, while Anthony taught in the drawing room with the silver picture frames. Call me Tony.
‘I will go to the police.’ Bridget was stiff with holding herself away from him, she was rigid. Could he tell the idea terrified her? He smiled again, merry, teasing.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said, and for a second leaned back, away from her, checking the room and who could see them. Then he was back. ‘Don’t you remember those little photo sessions we had?’
Bridget’s hands rose in front of her, palms out: she didn’t feel as if she had control over them, she felt as if her body wasn’t hers, the hair that rose on her scalp symptom of something primitive, not her. His head tilted, examining her.
There had been a door beyond his kitchen that she had seen his wife glancing at once, in fear mixed with dislike. And then one day, drawing the curtains in the big room with the fireplace, in the music room, he had got out a camera. The photographs he took couldn’t have been sent away for developing: the door beyond the kitchen had led to his dark room. Telling her how to pose: Bridget uncomfortable, smiling at
his camera, fixed. She never saw the photographs.
There had been another man’s face in the dark behind her eyes, of course. The doorbell had rung and he’d said, Oh, yes. Someone I’d like you to meet, and left her there waiting, then led him in. How could she have forgotten. Something opened up inside her, bottomless.
‘All sorts of things I could do with those photographs,’ said Dr Anthony Carmichael, respectable in his Loden coat in her shop for anyone to see, but he was a monster, with rank teeth and hair, this close she saw his waxy ears, his nostrils. ‘People ask me all the time if I have anything to show them.’
People? Bridget didn’t know what he meant, she was stupid as mud. ‘There are places you can look, on the internet,’ he said easily, looking down to brush something invisible from his lapel and then the word hit her. The internet. How had she thought she could escape? It would always be on her, his touch, his fingers, always. Her hand at her mouth, to stop it coming out. ‘I always kept those pictures for myself,’ he said, ‘but it would be easy to share them.’ Fixing her with his cold bird’s eye. ‘I wouldn’t have to be the one to do it. I have to be careful. Of course I would never do it. Not unless I had to.’ He put his hand on her then, on her cheek, stroking and she felt it rise and break in her like a wave, unstoppable.
‘No,’ she said and clawed him off her, pushing back with violence and caught off balance, he fell heavily against the stepladder that knocked into the cupboard. Something shuddered, teetered. And in that small moment everything shifted, the crockery on the draining board clattering, the kettle tipping: the tiny room seemed to turn, spinning around them. She saw his face change and loosen, uncertain at last, looking up. And looking up too she saw it. She saw it move.
Suddenly so much bigger, in the small space, it tipped in a flash of green, she felt a flake of bark brush her cheek in the split second she had to think. How much had it weighed? The wood’s grain dense with wet and age. It had taken two of them to lift it up there.
What We Did_A gripping, compelling psychological thriller with a nail-biting twist Page 6