The Broken

by Tamar Cohen

  ‘Very well, Mrs Fisher. In that case you’re going to need to give me everything you have on your husband – every annoying thing he did, every argument, every grievance. Did he smack your daughter? Was he unreasonably possessive? Was he mean with money? Were you frightened of his moods?’

  Hannah couldn’t help exclaiming, ‘Dan’s not like that.’

  Instantly Sasha swung around, her face contorted with fury. ‘Shut up, Hannah. You know nothing about our life together. You don’t know what he was really like, when no one else was around. You don’t know how he treated me.’

  Hannah stared at her friend, her mouth still open to form the words she had been about to say. She knew Sasha was angry. She had the right to be angry. But surely she wasn’t going to start making stuff up about Dan? Anxiety prickled as another possibility occurred to her. Could there be a chance she wasn’t making it up? Might there be a side to Dan that she and Josh had never seen?

  ‘And will you be seeking the usual custody arrangement in cases like this? Every other weekend and one night during the week?’

  Caroline Briscoe had taken a black Moleskine notepad from the top drawer of her imposing desk and was jotting things down with an expensive-looking pen. Hannah noticed that her nails with their clear varnish were impeccably shaped, with perfect white crescents at the base, as if she’d come straight from a manicure. Her heart sank. How was it possible to be a top lawyer, with all the work pressures that entailed, and still have time to stay groomed? Hannah barely had time to shower these days – how did other women manage it?

  ‘I’d only allow that on the condition she won’t be there. That bitch is not coming anywhere near my child.’

  ‘Of course, that’s something you could agree privately with your husband, Mrs Fisher. It’s not something that would become part of any legal contract. Unless, of course, you have reason to believe this woman would present a threat to your daughter’s wellbeing in some way.’

  ‘She’s breaking up my daughter’s fucking family. Don’t you think that might present some threat to her wellbeing?’

  Hannah felt her face burning, although why she should be embarrassed by her friend’s behaviour, she couldn’t have said. It was always the same – guilt tugging like muscle cramp inside her. ‘It’s not your fault,’ Josh was always reminding her, if friends had a dud meal at a restaurant she’d recommended or the supermarket delivery van couldn’t find a parking space in their road.

  Hannah would never know if she’d have been this way anyway, regardless of what had happened when she was seventeen – taking responsibility for things that weren’t her fault, feeling bad for people she’d never met or about situations totally outside of her control. Like Sasha being rude to the lawyer she was overpaying to take her husband to the cleaner’s. That was the actual phrase she’d used, seemingly unaware that it was something said only in bad Hollywood films. ‘I’m going to take that bastard to the cleaner’s.’

  Afterwards, Sasha insisted on going out for lunch.

  ‘How often do we do this?’ she asked, when Hannah muttered about having work to do. ‘How often do we go to town and enjoy ourselves?’

  She had a new way of talking at the moment – high and bright, as if someone had Shellacked her real voice. Hannah swung between sympathy and exasperation. Sasha seemed so alone. She hardly spoke to any of her family – not surprising, in light of all the murky secrets that surrounded them – and for someone with hundreds of acquaintances she seemed to have very few real friends.

  ‘Funny, that,’ Josh said drily when she’d pointed it out over dinner the night before.

  They’d argued then, about Hannah accompanying Sasha to the lawyer.

  ‘It’s taking sides. We’re supposed to be neutral.’

  ‘I’m just going to support her. I won’t be taking part in any discussions. I’d do the same for Dan.’

  ‘Yeah, well Dan doesn’t seem to think he’ll need a lawyer. He thinks they can sort it all out like reasonable people.’

  Hannah made a snorting noise at that phrase reasonable people.

  Now she and Sasha sat in an upmarket noodle bar in a part of the East End that had been practically a no-go zone when Hannah first moved to London, but was now achingly trendy. How quickly things changed. The noodle bar was part of a converted warehouse building with soaring ceilings painted white and supported by giant steel beams. They sat on high chrome stools, from which Hannah’s legs dangled weightlessly, and ate at a white counter that ran the length of the huge plate-glass window.

  ‘He isn’t going to know what hit him,’ Sasha said with unconcealed relish.

  Hannah was alarmed by the slightly fanatical look in her friend’s feline eyes, but she tried to ignore it.

  ‘If he thinks I’m just going to roll over and accept whatever crumbs he deigns to throw me, he has got another thing coming.’

  Hannah nodded. They’d had this conversation so many times she was getting sick of it. Anyway, she’d long since realized that Sasha wasn’t actually expecting her to contribute anything to the discussion.

  ‘If you knew what Dan was really like, you’d run a mile.’

  Sasha was waving her chopsticks around in the air like castanets. Hannah noticed she had hardly touched her stir fry, for all the fuss she’d made sending it back because the first one contained coriander and if there was one food she couldn’t stand it was coriander, and if they were going to include coriander they ought to say so clearly on the menu. (Meanwhile, Hannah’s face burned, her eyes glued to the table, unable to look at the poor young waitress whose fault the menu wording was not.)

  ‘I’ve already told you, Sash, I don’t want to know. We’ve all done things we’re not particularly proud of.’

  ‘Not like this.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure.’

  ‘Really? So you’re a wife-beater, are you, Hannah?’

  Hannah looked up sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Domestic violence. What’s the matter? You don’t think Dan’s the type? Haven’t you seen all those campaigns? You can never tell what goes on behind closed doors.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. He wouldn’t.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he? Want to read my medical files?’

  Hannah felt sick. She knew, of course she did, that you could never judge a relationship from the outside. She’d done enough features over the years on people who had turned out to be hiding secrets – child abuse, bigamy, cross-dressing, you name it. People were rarely what they seemed. But this? Dan? She just couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it.

  ‘When? Why didn’t you do something about it, in that case? Why did you stay with him?’

  Sasha pushed her largely untouched bowl aside crossly. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just thought you ought to know, before you start defending him. Just remember, you don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘She’s making it up.’

  Josh swivelled round on the bench until he was facing Hannah straight on. She registered for the first time the lines around his soft greeny-brown eyes – puddle-coloured, she used to tease him. When had they appeared? Had they sprung up overnight, or was it just that she hadn’t noticed them before? She remembered a time when she would study his face for hours, as if trying to commit it to memory: every mole, every gentle hollow, the faint scars from a long ago bout of chickenpox. But lots of people in long-term relationships got out of the habit of seeing each other properly. There was nothing sinister about it. She just hadn’t imagined it would happen to them, that’s all.

  ‘Dan has many faults, but he’s not a wife-beater. That’s absurd.’

  ‘Shh!’

  Even though Lily was on the climbing frame several metres from the bench where they were sitting, Hannah still worried that she might hear something. And this was definitely one conversation she didn’t want her daughter to repeat. She’d asked Josh to meet them at the park on his way home from work so that they could chat privately while Lily was preoccupied, but
their daughter had a habit of picking up on things, even when you thought she wasn’t within earshot.

  ‘I know it’s absurd. That’s what I said to her. Then she said something about showing me her medical records. She says her GP measured her bruises and photographed them. Would she make that up?’

  ‘She’s hurt, that’s all. And so she’s getting back at Dan any way she can. What’s that phrase my mother uses? Hurt people hurt people.’

  ‘Mummy! Look at me!’

  Lily was standing near the top of the climbing frame, gripping tightly to the bars, her chubby legs stiffly rooted to the spot.

  ‘Wow, Liliput! You’re so high! Be careful up there!’

  Hannah turned back to Josh. ‘You have to talk to him.’

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Because you’re his friend. You have to let him know what’s being said about him.’

  ‘Oh what, I’m just supposed to sit down over a pint and say, “By the way, mate, your wife says you hit her. Mine’s a bitter!”’

  ‘Don’t be so facetious. But yes, you have to tell him straight.’

  ‘I can’t. No way. I couldn’t accuse him of that.’

  ‘You’re not accusing him, you’re just letting him know what Sasha said. You’re warning him, that’s all.’

  ‘Uh-uh. Not doing it. He’ll find out soon enough without me sticking my oar in. Ever hear the phrase shooting the messenger? No way am I getting mixed up in this.’

  Hannah glared at him. There were times when she could find Josh’s emotional awkwardness endearing, but this was not one of them. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said hotly. ‘What kind of friend are you?’

  ‘The kind that wants to stay friends.’

  Josh had turned around so he was resolutely facing away from her, watching the climbing frame where Lily was slowly inching her way down. Hannah’s chest tightened at the sight of her.

  ‘So you’d rather not find out the truth, and leave Dan completely in the dark just because it might be a bit awkward to bring it up? Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. That’s about the size of it. Now can we just drop it, please?’

  On the way home in the car, Hannah nursed her resentment. Conversation between her and Josh was minimal and to the point. Had she got anything in for dinner? Should they stop off at Tesco Express to pick up some dog food for Toby? Was there a cake sale at nursery the next day that they should be providing something for? Yes. No. Shrug.

  Back at the flat, Hannah keenly felt the lack of a separate living space. Josh and Lily positioned themselves on the sofa – Lily to watch some incomprehensible cartoon she’d recently fallen in love with, and Josh to start on a pile of marking. Sitting at the table with her back to them, Hannah couldn’t concentrate on the feature she was supposed to be writing. Josh kept pressing the top of his plastic biro in and out, click, click, click, while a cartoon character on the television burst into raucous song. She found herself flicking to Twitter, where she had an account she had set up to promote herself as a freelancer.

  Her fingers jabbed at the keyboard.

  My OH is being a wankerpricktosspot

  She stared at the words in the box for a few seconds as Josh clicked his pen maddeningly in and out behind her. Then she pressed Delete.

  9

  ‘I know it was her. It has to be.’

  Dan jumped up from the sofa to stand in front of the living-room window staring out at his car, hands on hips, as if it might somehow look different from the last time he had jumped up to check, just minutes before.

  ‘She knows how much that car means to me. It’s just the kind of thing she’d do.’

  Josh joined him at the window. As usual, Dan had parked his bright-red vintage Alfa Romeo Spider convertible across next door’s driveway, blocking them in. Josh had asked him not to do so on a couple of occasions, after the neighbour had arrived at the door, tight-lipped, baby in arms, muttering about the difference between communal and private rights of way. But the problem with Dan was that he’d be all affability and apologies at the time, and then do exactly the same thing the next time he couldn’t find anywhere immediate to park.

  ‘It doesn’t look too bad, not from a distance anyway.’

  Dan turned to face him, incredulous. ‘What the hell are you talking about? There’s a fucking great crater running around the whole car where she’s scratched it with her keys. How can you say it doesn’t look too bad?’

  ‘Come on, Dan. You can’t be sure it was Sasha. How could she have known where your car was in the first place?’

  ‘Didn’t she follow me the other night and practically assault me in a restaurant? How hard would it have been to find out where I’ve been staying? All she’d need to do is ring the agency and pretend to be biking something over to Sienna.’

  Josh’s eyes swung to face Dan. ‘I don’t believe it. You really have been staying at Sienna’s? Bloody hell, Dan. You’re supposed to be trying to make this transition as smooth as possible.’

  Dan looked shifty. ‘Where else was I supposed to stay? You and Hannah threw me out, and I can’t afford to go shelling out on a hotel now I’ve got two households to support. Anyway, it’s traumatic not seeing September. I hate it and obviously I feel guilty as fuck. Sienna’s been helping me through it. I don’t think I could have survived the last few days without her.’

  Josh shook his head slowly, as if trying to dislodge what he’d just heard. Couldn’t Dan see what an idiot he was being?

  For a few seconds, the two men stood side by side in silence, studying the mutilated car.

  ‘So where does she live then, Sienna? Don’t tell me, Notting Hill?’

  Dan looked surprised. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Because every aspiring model, creative type or newly separated man trying to run away from his mid-life crisis heads for Notting Hill.’

  Dan grimaced at the phrase ‘mid-life crisis’, as if Josh had said something offensive. ‘Yeah, well, don’t make too many assumptions. It’s only a stopgap. Anyway, Sienna’s flat is tiny. It’s not like we’re shacked up in some swanky Hugh Grant-style townhouse or anything. As soon as my house is sold I’ll get something around here, big enough for September to have her own room when she stays with me.’

  ‘Your house?’

  ‘OK, our house, although I did pay for the whole thing practically single-handed.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘I know, I know. Look, I’ve already said I’m going to be fair, haven’t I? Although after what she’s done to my car, I feel like taking the whole fucking lot.’

  They sat down again, Josh in the armchair and Dan on the sofa. Josh couldn’t help eyeing up the pile of exercise books on the coffee table that he’d been in the middle of marking when Dan turned up out of the blue. It was Sunday afternoon, and his Monday-morning GCSE class would be expecting their essays back the next day. He hoped Dan wasn’t planning on staying too long.

  ‘I went round to pick up September,’ Dan had explained when he arrived. ‘I left Sasha a long voicemail explaining exactly what time I’d be getting there, and she was fucking well out. Can you believe that? I didn’t even say anything about the car in the message – I was going to bring that up in person so I could see her reaction. I can read Sasha like a book. I can’t believe she’d just go out like that.’

  ‘She’s out with Hannah. They’ve taken Lily and September to one of those soft-play places.’

  ‘Brilliant. I spend forty minutes sitting in traffic in my banged-up car just to see our daughter, and Sasha is out having fun with her mates.’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it fun. Have you ever been to one of those places?’

  ‘That’s not the fucking point, Josh.’

  ‘No, I know, but I was very relieved to give it a miss. Especially as I’ve got so much marking to do.’

  If Dan had noticed Josh’s pointed tone, he hadn’t let on, and an hour later he still showed no sign of moving. Josh had sudden inspiration.r />
  ‘It might not be a bad idea if you kind of weren’t here when Hannah gets back,’ he said awkwardly. ‘She’s still pretty angry about you breaking your promise about seeing Sienna. And obviously she feels very loyal to Sasha.’

  This was the perfect opportunity to throw in a mention of Sasha’s wild allegation. Josh could feel the words on his tongue, sitting there like lumps of meat. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to say them. Josh was certainly no expert in communication, but even he knew that there are some things that, once said, cannot ever be unsaid. Dan was his friend. Josh knew there was no way he would ever have hit his wife, so why risk inflaming things by passing on what Sasha had said?

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s exactly why I’m going to stick around for a bit – so I can show Hannah the damage to my car. She needs to realize there are two sides to this story. I know I’m the one who walked out, but Sasha is not the innocent you think she is, believe me. Shit, do you know it’s only since I’ve been with Sienna that I’ve realized just how fucked up Sasha really is? You have no idea how good it feels to be with someone who isn’t testing me the whole time, and who actually treats me with a bit of respect and wants to hear how my day’s been and genuinely cares how I’m feeling.’

  Josh felt a twinge of resentment. When was the last time Hannah had asked him how he was in a way that made him feel she was really interested? These days she seemed so impatient with him, as if everything he said irritated her.

  He wondered again whether Hannah might be making unfavourable comparisons between him and Dan. Wasn’t he always hearing that women are attracted to bastards, not nice guys who take out the rubbish without being asked? And if anyone was acting like a bastard at the moment, it was Dan.

  At school and university, Josh had always been the quiet one who girls spoke to if they wanted to know why their boyfriends were acting like dickheads, or whether Nick or Jason or Finn was seeing anyone at the moment. The role of Friend to Someone More Dynamic was one he’d been playing all his life, it seemed to him. Why should things be any different now, just because he was older and the person he was playing that role to was his own wife?