Am I Guilty

by Jackie Kabler

  The futility of what I was doing suddenly struck me. Was there really any point? After all, what had I gained by talking to Flora, to Isla, to Greg? All I’d done was upset them all, offended them deeply. Made them think I was crazy, if they didn’t already.

  Should I even do this? Things between Rupert and me were tense enough already, and with Nell so fragile … I closed my eyes briefly, and it ran through my head again, like a scene from a movie. My arms, reaching into the back of the car. Zander, head heavy on my shoulder, sound asleep. My feet on the path, slightly unsteady with alcohol. My lips brushing his skin as I laid him in his pram. How then? HOW? How could he still be in the car hours later? How, when I remembered? My heart rate had speeded up, the dizzy feeling worse now, and I rubbed frantically at my face, then dropped my head down between my knees, willing myself not to faint, trying to breathe normally. No, it was no good. I had to do this. I had to see his reaction. I had to ask Rupert the questions that had gone round and round in my head for weeks, the questions I so desperately needed the answers to.

  BRRRRR.

  The doorbell rang. I stayed motionless, trying to get back in control of my body, knowing that Nell would probably answer it anyway, hearing her pounding feet on the stairs and her shriek of ‘Daddy!’ a moment later. By the time the dining room door opened and she and Rupert walked in, I was on my feet, making a show of tidying some papers on the table.

  ‘Rupert. How are you? Nell, go and make sure you have everything in your bag, will you? And maybe check Millie’s, too. If she’s forgotten anything we can lend her something of yours to bring. I just need a quick word with Daddy, OK?’

  ‘OK!’ Nell grinned at me, then turned and ran out of the room, thundering up the stairs as she shouted: ‘Mills! We have to check our bags and then we can go!’

  I waited until I heard her bedroom door close, then turned to Rupert, who had a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘What’s up? I don’t have a lot of time, I promised the girls a burger before the play and we have to drive to Bath first …’

  ‘This won’t take long. I just need to ask you something. I’m putting together my thoughts for the trial,’ I gestured at the piles of paperwork on the table, ‘and, well, my mind is clearer now, Rupert. The amnesia seems to be easing, and things are coming back to me. And these things … well, some of them don’t make sense.’

  He was frowning now, staring at the papers on the table.

  ‘What doesn’t make sense?’

  I said nothing for a few moments, then took a breath, the words coming quickly, practised so many times in my head.

  ‘Rupert, everyone said I left Zander in the car. Even I thought I left Zander in the car. But in the past few weeks, I’ve started to think that’s not how it happened. I remember, you see – the memories, they’ve started to come back. And now, I remember bringing him in and putting him in his pram, before I sat down with Isla to have another drink, and then fell asleep. And yet, a few hours later, Flora found him in the car. And the only way that could have happened, if I didn’t leave him there, is that somebody took him back out and put him there. And I have no idea why anybody would do something so horrendous, so sick, but Rupert, I—’ I stopped speaking, suddenly aware that my husband was staring at me openmouthed, his face flushing a dark, angry red.

  ‘You … hang on, let me get this right. You think somebody put him back out there? What the fuck, Thea? Are you fucking mental? Has all the drinking rotted your fucking brain cells? Tell me you’re not serious, please!’

  He took a step towards me, a wild look in his eyes, his fists clenched in front of him, and a little ripple of fear ran through me. Was he … was he going to hit me?

  ‘It’s what I remember, Rupert. I can’t help it.’

  My voice was small, feeble, even to my own ears. He took another step forward, his eyes narrowed, his breathing heavy, and I backed away, fear like an icy bubble running up my spine.

  ‘Rupert, please …’

  And then, quite suddenly, he turned away from me, walked to the window, and began to laugh. I was so shocked, so relieved, that I sat down heavily on the nearest chair again, watching him. It wasn’t his usual laugh – Rupert had an infectious, almost girlish giggle normally, the kind of giggle that set everyone else off too, even if they weren’t quite sure what the joke was. But today his laugh had a hysterical quality, and I suddenly realized that he was crying and laughing at the same time, tears running down his cheeks. I sat, perfectly still, not knowing what to do, desperate for him to stop, to talk to me. To say something. To say anything.

  ‘Rupert? Are you OK?’ I said eventually.

  I expected him to ignore me but he stopped laughing, crying, whatever it was, quite abruptly, and turned to look at me.

  ‘OK? You’re asking me if I’m OK? Christ, Thea. You’re the one who’s not OK. You think somebody else put Zander back into the car? And who is this somebody else, then? Can I assume that as it’s me you’re telling about this, that you think it was me? You think I … what? Sneaked in when nobody was looking, stole him out of the pram and put him back into a hot car to die? Are you fucking serious? I mean, I know you’re trying to stay out of prison, but surely even you can’t be that desperate?’ His voice was rising, his face reddening again, the anger back.

  ‘Rupert, please. I’m not accusing you. I’m not accusing anyone. I just remember what I remember, and it doesn’t make sense. So I’m trying to work out how …’

  I stopped, my throat suddenly tight, my own eyes filling with tears now. I shouldn’t have done this, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t. What was it going to achieve, except make Rupert hate me even more than he did already? All I’d done was alienate everyone, at a time when I needed them more than I’d ever done. When I was going to court, and most likely, I realized now, to prison too; for what jury would believe me when I said I remembered taking my child to safety, when I’d already taken responsibility for his death months ago? I’d ruined it, ruined it all, and for what?

  My head was spinning, and I gripped onto the seat of the chair for support, aware that Rupert was talking again.

  ‘What are you trying to work out, Thea?’ His voice was quieter now, calmer, but with a hint of menace. ‘Are you, by any chance, trying to work out how to tell me that Zander wasn’t actually my son?’

  I gasped, as if he’d thrown a bucket of cold water on me. Had Greg … had Greg called Rupert, as soon as he’d left here earlier? Surely not …

  Rupert was still talking, moving closer to me again.

  ‘Because he wasn’t, was he, Thea? Whose son was he? WHOSE SON WAS HE?’

  He screamed the final words, banging a fist on the table, his face so close to mine a fine mist of spittle sprayed my face as he spat the words out, and I shrank back in my chair, the tears streaming again. I had no choice now, did I?

  ‘He was … he was Greg’s. Greg Garrington’s. But it was only one night, I swear …’

  ‘FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!’

  He spun on his heels and stomped across the room, hands clawing at his scalp, and an anguished wail escaped him, the sound of a wounded animal in pain. And then suddenly there was another noise, another wailing sound, but this time more high-pitched, more frightened, and I turned to see Nell standing in the doorway, a look of terror on her face, her whole body visibly shaking.

  ‘STOP IT!! STOP IT!’ she screamed.

  35

  RUPERT

  ‘You two OK there for a bit? We’ll leave for Bath in about half an hour, OK?’

  Nell, calm again now, although her eyes were still red, nodded.

  ‘OK, Daddy.’

  She and Millie were in front of the TV in the small lounge of my rented flat, watching some old sitcom. It was Friends, actually, I realized as I left them to it and headed to the kitchen. I hadn’t known it was still running. I closed the door behind me and sat down at the narrow breakfast bar, exhaling heavily. What an afternoon. What a shitty, shitty afternoon. First Thea and her
revelations, and then my daughter, who was clearly still not right, not right at all, despite her visit to that bloody counsellor woman. Waste of money that was, then. When she’d appeared in such a state, Thea and I had both tried to comfort her, but she’d been inconsolable, her little face red and wet with tears.

  ‘I want to just go, now,’ she said, over and over again, pushing us both away, begging us to stop arguing. In the end, Thea, in tears by then herself, told me to take the girls and go, and that Nell would eventually calm down, and she was right. With a white-faced Millie, clearly traumatized by the whole thing, by her side in the back seat of my car, Nell’s sobbing gradually lessened during the short drive to my flat on the edge of town, and now she seemed more or less fine again, which was more than I could say for myself.

  The last, the very last thing I wanted to do this evening now was take two kids to eat burgers and sit in a theatre watching a dramatized version of some kids’ TV programme – I’d rather sit here and drink myself into oblivion – but there was nothing I could do to get out of it.

  I rubbed my eyes hard with the heels of my hands, then stopped rubbing and just sat there, resting my head in my hands, brain racing.

  Greg Garrington. GREG FUCKING GARRINGTON. I’d suspected it, of course I had, for so long, but somehow I’d managed to convince myself it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true, certainly at the beginning. Thea and I had had our issues, but she’d never be unfaithful, would she? It was one of the reasons why I hadn’t fought her for sole custody of Nell, when I’d finally left her after that horrific day last September.

  I couldn’t live with her anymore, I knew that. The love that had been fading, shrivelling, had finally died when Zander died. But despite all that, despite the nightmarish days and weeks that followed, I still felt that Thea was basically a good person. So many people tried to change my mind about that – friends, colleagues, even strangers. How can you ever trust her again? they’d ask. How can you leave your daughter with a monster like Thea? But I’d known Thea for years, and I knew they were wrong. She’d always been a good person, a good wife, a good mother. Not a perfect wife, not a perfect mother, clearly. But then what mother, what parent, what marriage, was perfect?

  She was a better mother than I was a father, that was beyond doubt. Work, to my shame, had always taken precedence for me, certainly during the early years of our marriage. And Nell adored her mother, and my little girl had suffered enough. To take her entirely away from her mum, her home, after what she’d gone through? No. I needed to make sure my daughter was safe, and happy, and at the time it had seemed to me that the best way to ensure that was to let Thea share in her care, even if it was for less than half the week.

  And even though I couldn’t stay with my wife, couldn’t bring myself to comfort her, could barely look at her in those early days, I couldn’t cause Thea anymore pain either. She’d lost her baby – how could I take her only other child away too?

  But now, for the first time, I was regretting that decision, the decision I’d made to spare her anymore suffering. More fucking fool me. Greg Garrington. My fists clenched under my forehead. OK, so we weren’t the closest of mates, but we’d always got on, always had a laugh when we bumped into each other. He was the father of my daughter’s best friend, a bloke I’d so often shared a beer with, talked footie with. Shared a fucking wife with too, it now seemed.

  I banged my fists hard on the table, suddenly filled with a red-hot anger. How often had it happened? When had it happened? Was it still going on? Did Annabelle know? And who else knew that Zander wasn’t mine? Isla must know, surely? Thea told her everything. But who else? Had they all been laughing at me behind my back, all this time? I stood up, pushing my stool back so violently it toppled over onto the floor.

  ‘FUCK!’ I shouted, then remembered the girls in the living room and groaned. I had to keep it together, for this evening at least. But tomorrow, when I dropped Millie off at home as agreed … I clenched my fists again, wanting nothing so badly right at that moment than to slam them into that bastard’s smug face. How fucking dare he drink my beer, sit chatting with me in my own back garden, knowing all the time that he’d been shagging my wife? Getting my wife pregnant, for fuck’s sake? And as for her …

  I walked to the kitchen window and looked out onto the tiny paved courtyard that now served as my back garden. I’d loved Cheltenham so much when we’d first arrived here, this classy town with its Regency terraces and ornamental parks, and we’d been so happy for a while in our Montpellier home, me and Thea and Nell. My rental was bleak, featureless, unloved, but I’d seen it as a stepping stone: somewhere to rest my head and put myself back together before I could move on again. But how easy was that going to be, really, after this?

  I bent to pick up the fallen stool, breathing heavily. The doubts had started from when Zander was born, and he looked so different to what I’d expected. Somehow, though, I’d buried the feelings, refusing to acknowledge what my gut was telling me. OK, so the kid didn’t look like me, didn’t look anything like Thea or Nell either, with all that white-blond hair and blue eyes. But these things happened, right? Nature, genetics, were quirky things. We’ve all seen the stories in the newspapers about the black parents producing white offspring, some throwback to a mixed-race ancestor, right?

  So I ignored how he looked, tried as hard as I could to bond with my son, tried to keep my relationship with Thea on track, even though somewhere deep inside the suspicions were growing, the questions bubbling to the surface. Was he mine? But if not, whose? Yes, Greg Garrington crossed my mind again from time to time, but apart from the hair and eye colour, well … I couldn’t see it, him and Thea. He was just one of Nell’s friends’ dads – fair enough, the one we saw the most of, but even so. Just a dad, someone we met at drop-offs and pickups at the school gates and the occasional social thing. I hadn’t even noticed Thea talking to him much, ever, even now as I thought about it hard, running some of the parties or events of the past couple of years through my mind. So how the fuck …?

  So Greg remained on the periphery of my mind, and somehow I carried on behaving completely normally around him. Christ, I even confided in him about Mia, back in the summer, when we got pissed at some festival thing across the road in the park. I never told him about Flora, though, hadn’t told anyone about that.

  I still didn’t really know why I did it, and did it so many times, with her. Yes, of course, she was attractive – fit body, cute smile, always there in the house, always a temptation. But when I looked back, I think being with Flora was a way of silently punishing Thea, punishing her for the doubts in my mind about Zander, for the problems in our marriage, for her tooregular nights out with bloody Isla. I was shagging Mia at work at the same time, for the same reasons, and when one day Flora suddenly told me it was over between us, it was almost a relief. My life was too complicated anyway, and for a while I thought maybe I could pull things back together, stop seeing Mia, too, concentrate on rebuilding my marriage, pretend all was well.

  I managed it until just before Zander died. A few weeks before my son – his son – breathed his last. It was as if it hit me all of a sudden – the truth that had been staring me hard in the eyes for so long, the truth I’d tried to ignore. Greg had come round to pick Millie up, passing the time of day with me and Thea in the lounge while the kid gathered her belongings, and he’d wandered over to look at Zander, asleep in his pram. I’d walked over to join him, and suddenly it was there, right in front of me. I looked at Zander, looked at Greg, looked at Zander again, and it was as if somebody had rammed a fist into my throat, making me gasp. They weren’t just a bit alike, they were … they were identical. The hair, the eyes, the shape of the fucking jawline, for fuck’s sake.

  I left the room, fast, saying I’d remembered an urgent work call I had to make, my heart beating so fast I thought I might keel over. And even then, I never confronted her. Never confronted either of them. I still hadn’t known for definite, of course, and my s
uspicions, strong as they were, could have been wrong.

  But inside me, the anger was growing. And although if what I feared was true, it was Greg I wanted to hurt – wanted to kill – the main force of my anger was directed at Thea. At my wife, my cheating whore of a wife. So while I maintained an amicable relationship with her, most of the time, and mainly for the sake of the kids – it wasn’t Zander’s fault, after all, and certainly not Nell’s – I started sleeping with Mia again, and this time I was deliberately careless. I would very obviously leave the room to take Mia’s calls, leave dinner and hotel receipts in my pockets, even on my bedside table once, hoping that Thea might get suspicious. Hoping to hurt her. To cause her pain, like the pain I now believed she’d inflicted on me. But, well – she didn’t even notice. She was too wrapped up in the kids, in Just Enfant, in Isla, as usual. And so I got angrier and angrier, and I knew I had to do something, something drastic. Something to confirm everything I was thinking, something to bring all this to a head, once and for all.

  And so came that last day. That’s how I thought of it now, the last day … the day life as my family knew it ended for ever. The day I finally found the guts to confront Greg Garrington in the garden, to ask him if there was anything, ever had been anything, between him and Thea. The day Zander died. A shudder ran through me, as the image of his face, his limp body, flashed through my mind. He didn’t deserve that. No child deserved that. But then I thought of Thea. Of Thea, who had slept with another man, brought his child into the world and tried to pass it off as mine. My wife, who had betrayed me in the worst possible way. I thought of Thea, and her face when she saw her dead child in Flora’s arms. Her screams of anguish. Her screams of guilt, finally. And I smiled.