I hang my head, for a moment, and he reaches out again, and this time his fingers land on my arm as softly as the breeze itself. I feel the elephant shift its weight, just for a second. I bring my hand down on to his, and we clasp our fingers. And then, without another look at him, I turn and walk away.
The decree absolute listed our old flat as Reuben’s current address, and so I go there. I don’t know how he affords the rent alone. It is a strange thought, one I would only ever have in London, and it promotes a rush of nostalgia for those times; those funny, happy times watching the top one hundred movies of all time and hearing the woman in the flat above us arrive home in her heels at three o’clock in the morning, and walking to the underground station in the rain together.
Hammersmith is dusty and hot. It’s late by the time I’m walking up our road. I train my brain not to think of all the places I was when I was panicking – that entrance to the tube station, the stretch of path outside our flat, the road where I fell – and instead look for the happy memories, too. There must be some. That Sunday when we got back from our honeymoon and I felt so pleased to be home again, with our English tea and our own bed and even our commutes: married. The first time Reuben took part in our local MP’s surgery and he kissed me goodbye, that Saturday morning, the kiss quick with his excitement. How I would feel when I watched him playing the piano in the back bedroom. I loved the theatre of it. His body language changed; his body changed. He bent low, towards the keys, paying attention to the high notes as though they were plants he was nurturing. Nothing like his usual, dour, stooped form. The one I loved equally. The one I loved just as well, for its differences.
I am standing on the street outside now, looking down at our front door. He’s probably out, on a Friday night, two years later, but I look in the window anyway.
There’s evidence of him everywhere. The plants on our steps that the postman always had to gingerly inch past are still well cared for. An Islamic Relief sticker in our kitchen window. He’s still here. I puff my breath out, into the hot, summer air, take a second, and ring the doorbell.
He opens the door, which surprises me. Not because he’s in, but because he always used to ignore the doorbell. He wouldn’t be at all intrigued by it.
And yet here he is, in front of me. In dark skinny jeans and a white top. He’s barefoot. I didn’t think he’d age badly, with his freckles and his ginger hair, but he has.
As he realizes it’s me, his expression darkens. That’s the only way I can describe it. His lips purse. His eyebrows come down. He tilts his head back in a reverse nod; how he conveys recognition. Even after two years, I recognize it all. The way his fingers linger on the door frame. The way he holds his weight on one foot, the other resting on his ankle. The way his green eyes are darting over my face, trying to glean something.
Eventually, he holds his hands up, palms to me. A gesture of defeat. And then he steps aside and lets me into the flat I lived in for years.
It’s almost the same, but it’s more sparse. That’s my first impression. All the stuff was mine. Painted peg magnets I stuck to the front of the fridge. Stacks of magazines I subscribed to and never got around to reading. They’re all gone. The surfaces are empty. It’s strange to see how he would choose to live, without me. That I was clutter in his life.
He leans against one of the white bar stools. I can’t sit on the one next to him – it’s far too close – so instead I stand awkwardly.
‘Long time no see,’ he says.
‘Yes.’ I put my handbag down on the floor, as I have done a thousand times before. I wonder if Reuben is thinking the same thing, because his eyes stray to it, then back to mine, and for a moment I think they look glassy. If only.
Everything else is the same. The sky outside. The wooden flooring underneath my feet. The man in front of me. Why can’t this be a few years ago? Before. Time stretches strangely in front of me, and for just a moment I let myself pretend.
I stop and pause. This is it. The moment. I will afford him the courtesy of telling him. And then …
‘How are you?’ he says, his gaze searching.
I remember the last time I saw him, in the hospital, where I reaffirmed that I didn’t want to be with him.
‘Fine, now,’ I say.
We talk briefly of my injuries. He knew what they were – and he tried to visit multiple times, after the first time, but I wouldn’t see him. But I tell him, fully, now. My pelvis. My hysterectomy. My rubbish breathing capacity. He doesn’t seem fazed.
‘Right,’ he says.
‘I had a reason. For leaving you,’ I blurt out.
It comes back to me, interacting with him, as if I’ve never really stopped. It’s like riding a bike or catching a ball. Our directness. The stuff I couldn’t say to anybody else. No wonder I left. It was too hard in those early days.
‘Did you?’ he says. ‘Other than not loving me any more?’
He says it so factually, it’s as if he has opened me up, right there in the kitchen. I draw my arms around myself. I was away from the damage I caused everybody, with my guilt, and I never saw it materialize like this.
‘I never stopped loving you,’ I say, then swallow.
Reuben’s eyes flicker, but he doesn’t say anything else. And then he speaks. ‘My dad died,’ he says. ‘Not long ago. I’ve been wondering … whether to say. I know you liked him. But it was …’
‘Oh,’ I say.
And then, of course, I can see it on him. The grief. He’s slimmer. More lined. Not through age, but through other things; through life and death.
‘Anyway,’ Reuben says.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say.
‘Heart attack. I was there.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What do you want to tell me?’
‘I don’t want to tell you now.’
‘Tell me.’
And here it is.
The moment.
We’re in our Before. In one sentence, it’ll be After.
‘Before I tell you,’ I say, taking a step towards him, ‘will you just …’
He stands, motionless, but doesn’t move away, so I step closer still. And then his arms are around my body and it is glorious, like all my summers have come at once. I haven’t hugged him for so long. The last time was, truly, Before; the night before it happened. But I can’t remember. I can’t find the distinct points in that otherwise ordinary day, no matter how hard I look for them. They’ve been buried, like bad news on a good news day, forever obscured by the cloud of what followed.
‘I don’t know why I’m doing this,’ he murmurs.
It’s a very un-Reuben sentence, and for just a second I hope something might’ve happened to open that closed mind I love so much.
I step back from him, and his fingertips stay on my waist just a fraction longer than they would usually. I see a blush creep slowly across his cheeks, stealing across like a rash. I’d forgotten that blush. How much I loved it. The barometer of his emotions.
I take two more deep breaths, and now it’s time. I’m ready to move to After.
‘I killed somebody,’ I say.
And then I tell him everything.
He sleeps on it. A very Reuben thing to do. I stayed at the Travelodge, near the Broadway. One last night of freedom, I bargained with myself.
He texts me the next morning, and there he is, waiting in the seventies-style foyer of the Travelodge, less than a mile from where we lived together.
‘Do you want to know what happened with Dad?’ he says.
He is standing in front of a bowl of apples. Anybody could overhear us, but he doesn’t seem to care.
‘He reached for me, while Mum was doing the CPR on him. The ambulance was coming. And I was so freaked out by that arm reaching for me – I think he knew he was going to die – that I … that I left him and went into the bathroom, and when I came out, he was gone.’
‘Oh shit,’ I say.
He nods, once. ‘I understand avoid
ance now. You,’ he says.
‘I don’t avoid things any more,’ I say.
‘Not even HSBC?’ he says, with a tiny, tiny smile.
‘Nope.’ We pause, looking at each other. ‘I wish it had never happened,’ I say simply. ‘I don’t know where I’d be if it hadn’t, but …’
Reuben raises his eyes to mine. ‘With me,’ he says simply. ‘You’d be with me.’
We stare at each other again. Of course. Of course I would. We would never have left each other: never.
He reaches for me wordlessly. Our hands curl around each other in that way they always did, and he enfolds me into him.
‘I have to …’ I say, trying to disentangle myself from him, but I can’t; I don’t want to. ‘I have to tell them. Confess. Go to prison. For life, probably, fifteen years,’ I gabble.
But maybe there is an alternative. I can no longer walk without being breathless. I can’t have children of my own. I have spent two years, alone, in exile. Perhaps there is an alternative, here, with this man who loves me. I could choose happiness. Accept it when it comes. Rejoin Reuben, and rejoin life.
Reuben places a long, warm finger over my lips. His smell. Oh, that smell. I had almost forgotten it.
He draws me to him again and the tears flow freely from both of us.
‘Do you know what I believe in more than anything else?’ he murmurs in my ear.
‘What?’
‘Second chances.’
And I don’t know whether he means me and my crime, or us and our life together, but suddenly he is kissing me and I don’t care.
‘I forgive you. I want to forgive you. So I do,’ he says simply.
Two Months Later
42
Reveal
As I approach the bookshop, I see he’s lit up, in the window, wearing a white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Oh, how I have missed those elbows, those freckly elbows, those forearms covered in auburn hair. He’s standing self-consciously now, and I can tell – only through the decade we spent together – that he’s reading something he doesn’t like. A Friday night in a bookshop, reading something he doesn’t agree with. It is so very Reuben.
We’ve been texting, couldn’t seem to help ourselves. It was one text in particular that did it. I had been in the shower when I heard it beep, the special tone I had assigned just for Reuben. I raced to get it, even though I dripped water everywhere.
I have been an utter shit, it said. I always think I know best but I don’t. I ruined your life for my principles. The second I did it, they seemed to disappear. They mean nothing compared to losing you. People matter. Not stances. I was so judgemental. So horribly judgemental. I’m sorry I seemed distant. I’m sorry I seemed embarrassed. I was ill equipped to deal with it. Unlike you. I bow down to you, Jo.
And then we decided to meet.
I pause, a hand on the round, cool metal door handle. Can I do this? Go in, sit down opposite my husband, shoot the breeze? My hand lingers on the doorknob momentarily.
43
Conceal
I’m expecting to see him, but I nevertheless stop suddenly, stock-still on the street. He’s in the café area of a bookshop, reading, and, only two months since our reconciliation, I still find the sight of him so arresting.
He’s waiting for me. We’re going to read books and drink coffee on this Friday night, together.
There is something about his body language that makes me linger. He’s smiling. A small, knowing smile. That smile he reserves only for me.
I hover, the doorknob cool and wet against my palm.
44
Reveal
I take a deep breath, my hand still on the doorknob. He hasn’t noticed me. I could walk away. We wouldn’t be ready. It’s not the right time. Nothing’s changed, I tell myself. He hates me. He handed me in, handed me over.
And yet.
It looks to me as though something has changed. I’m not sure what, but perhaps something has.
The reality of us. Would it work? Perhaps … perhaps it just takes time to come back to each other, after a two-year break. Because it was a break: no intimacy happens in prison. Physical. Emotional. None. Maybe it takes time. To come back to each other. Maybe Reuben needs to know I’m still the same Jo. The Jo who can’t concentrate on the top one hundred movies. The Jo who buys Swedish planters on whims and tries to grow Japanese blossoms on the steps of a basement flat in Hammersmith. The Jo who loves sudokus and her husband. Maybe I can tell him all that. That, even though I am changed, more confident, have become a Proper Person, I am still me. More so: I am more me, because I have permission to be. No guilt. I look back at Reuben.
And it’s not the portrait of him in the window that does it.
It’s not that he’s reading, though I love that.
It’s not his freckled forearms, though I love those, too.
It’s his smile. Nobody else would spot it. The very, very edges of his lips are just slightly lifted. He is smiling. And only I know it. That special smile. The one only I could tease out of him, like that night we met and sat on the stairs and I taught him to chat. Anyone else would think him dour, grumpy, stoic. But I know that smile. It is for me. He has seen me.
And it’s as simple as this, really. I prefer my life with him. No doubt he will keep me good. On the straight and narrow. But, more than that: I understand him. He let the Council know he thought the Council Tax was in too low a band. He does twenty-nine miles per hour in a thirty zone. My Reuben. Of course he would tell a barrister the truth. The problem wasn’t his truthfulness: it was my lies.
Perhaps another man, another husband, might’ve lied for me. But the truth is this. I forgive him. I want to forgive him. And so I do.
45
Conceal and Reveal
It’s time. I push open the door and go inside, where Reuben is waiting for me. Whatever happens.
‘Number three thousand. As good a place to start as any,’ he says with a smile as I approach. ‘How late you always are.’
‘Three thousand and one. How you’re so early you think others are late,’ I say back.
Epilogue
The Beginning
The street lights are too bright, refracted a hundred times in each drop of misty rain. I can see moisture on the concrete steps like thousands of beads of sweat. The only things I can focus on in the drizzle are the bright blue bridges of deserted Little Venice.
And him.
I look down at the man, twisted strangely at the bottom of the steps. He hasn’t moved at all.
I could go to help him. Call an ambulance. Confess. Reveal myself.
Or I could run away. Hide. Protect and conceal myself.
I am paralysed with indecision. What will happen if I leave? What will happen if I stay? I cannot picture where either path would take me.
A strange calm descends upon me as I stand and assess him.
The rain gets heavier, wetting my forehead and slicking my hair to the side of my face.
Stay or go. Fight or flight. Truth or dare.
Which is it to be?
Acknowledgements
My hair started to go grey while writing this novel. So first thanks are for anyone on the receiving end of a text message sent last summer, during which time I was (could it be true?) under contract with Penguin and had chosen to write two books in one for my second novel with them. Ambition might be good for you, but it also turns your hair grey.
Firstly, as always, thanks go to my agent, Clare, who has made all of this happen. She read this novel while on maternity leave, in two days, and gave me notes at 11.30 p.m. one night. She is one of the hardest-working women I know. Thanks, too, to Darley Anderson himself, who sent me a very special email one spring morning, and to the whole rights team who continue to sprinkle my inbox with amazing foreign rights news.
Secondly, to my brilliant editor, Max: you have done so very much for me. Thank you for adopting me and Everything but the Truth, and for making it a bestseller. Your n
otes on this novel made it so much clearer and much shinier, but you never once asked me to change the essence of it, its scale or its message.
To Jenny Platt, my publicist, and Katie Bowden, my marketer. You are tireless and fearless, and I’m astonished by all that you have done for me.
To the enthusiastic, absolutely lovely team at Michael Joseph: Sophie Elletson, and my brilliant copy editor, Shân Morley Jones. I can’t thank you enough.
This book was very research-heavy, and could not have been completed without the kind help of various people I knew and got to know during the course of writing it.
To my sister, Suzanne, who fielded multiple queries about hypoxic brain injuries over many takeaways. And to my father, without whom none of my books could be written: your imagination, characterization and natural flair for realistic plots are of huge value to me, but that you choose to spend your free time helping me is priceless.
To my mum, for helping me with your always perfect grammar, not to mention buying me a Penguin Classics mug with my own book on it.
To Alison Hardy, one of my favourite colleagues, who got me a tour of the Old Bailey for research, and to Charles Henty, who conducted that.
To Liz and Mark Powell, who fielded my queries from the moment I met them at a party and discovered they are police officers, culminating in a tour of police custody by Mark, which, as you’ll have read, was fundamental to this novel.
To Ameera from a mosque I visited: thank you for giving me a tour, explaining about Islamic graveyards, and answering my clumsy questions sensitively and accurately.
To Phil and Marie Evison, for reading an early draft and pointing out my many policing errors (‘They no longer wear huge boots, Gillian …’). To Sami Davies, again, for your medical input, for reading an early version and for introducing me to the mammalian diving reflex. Your answers are always immediate, and they never question my sanity.
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