From Something Old

by Alexander, Nick

  I needed to know, I realised. Whatever this was, I had to know. It was too late to walk away. So I rattled the handle again, and then with a croaky voice that surprised me, I called out, ‘Who’s in there, please?’

  There was no answer, so I called out again, more assertively, ‘Hello, who’s in there, please?’ The silence was absolute. Even the distant dog had stopped barking.

  After thirty seconds or so, I heard a rustling noise, and then a voice said, ‘Just open it.’ There was a pause and the sound of the bolt sliding back before the door opened to reveal Ant, fully clothed, looking flushed. Behind him, Amy was sitting in a dusty old armchair, but even by the orange light of the old torch they were using I could see that her cheeks were red.

  ‘Heather,’ Ant said. Amazingly, he managed to sound irritated and perhaps even bored by the interruption.

  ‘Christ,’ I said, breathing the word more than saying it. ‘It is you.’ A batch of bile rose, and I had to swallow it back down to avoid being sick.

  ‘It’s, um, not what you think,’ Ant said, sounding vague. He didn’t seem to be able to find the energy to try to sound convincing. ‘We were just . . .’ He glanced over his shoulder at Amy and shrugged at her.

  I laughed then, a sour, crazy, witchy sort of laugh that just erupted from nowhere. ‘You were just what?’ I asked, swiping at a couple of tears that were sliding down my cheeks. I couldn’t tell you if they were tears of laughter, or tears of anger. Perhaps it’s possible that they were both.

  ‘We were just—’ Anthony said again, but he still hadn’t come up with a suitable alibi.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Amy said. ‘She can see perfectly well what we were doing. She’s not stupid, Ant.’ And then she leaped from the seat, pushed past me quite brutally, and vanished into the house.

  I covered my mouth with one hand and stared at Ant. He glanced over my shoulder towards the house and said, ‘Fuck!’, before grabbing my arm and pulling me inside. He closed the door behind me and turned so that he was blocking my exit.

  ‘What the hell . . .’ I murmured. But there were too many thoughts – too many phrases – swirling around my head, competing for airtime, and I couldn’t seem to pin a specific one down.

  ‘Listen,’ Ant said, sounding serious, sounding businesslike. ‘This doesn’t have to be . . .’

  I blinked at him numbly. I suspect I was in shock.

  ‘What I mean is, you don’t have to make this into a huge drama,’ he said.

  I snorted. ‘No?’ Once again, I felt stuck halfway between sour laughter and tears.

  ‘No one has to know,’ he said.

  I frowned at him uncomprehendingly. His words made no sense to me.

  ‘Joe doesn’t need to know,’ he said.

  ‘Joe?’ I repeated. ‘But I know, Ant. I know!’

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t care, do you?’ he said. ‘You know I shag around. You’ve never cared.’

  ‘I . . . You . . .’ I tapped my forehead with two fingers as I tried to isolate a reasonable thought – any reasonable thought. I swallowed with difficulty. ‘Are you insane?’ I asked finally. ‘Actually, are you still drunk? Is that it?’

  ‘You know I am,’ Ant said. ‘That’s why this doesn’t mean—’

  He paused. There was a noise outside, and it took us both a second or so to identify it as the sound of suitcase wheels on concrete. Ant’s eyes opened wide, and then, telling me to wait, he spun, opened the door, and stepped outside.

  ‘Wait?’ I repeated, as I watched him leave.

  I heard him ask, ‘Where are you going?’

  I stepped to the doorway and looked out. Amy was holding the handle of her suitcase with one hand and dangling the car key with the other. She had her jacket draped over her arm. She was efficient – I’ll give her that.

  ‘I’m getting away from this shitshow,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, you’re getting away?’ Ant asked.

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ Amy said. ‘Not now. I just can’t.’

  ‘She won’t tell him,’ Ant said, glancing back at me. ‘We were just talking, and she won’t tell him. I promise.’

  Amy glanced at me questioningly. ‘You’re going to tell him,’ she said, nodding sadly, and once again I laughed, quite madly. ‘Aren’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘You two . . .’ I said. ‘Jesus!’ I was so angry that my anger had morphed into an almost amused state of disbelief.

  Ant looked back at me. ‘Just shut the fuck up, Heather,’ he said. My mouth fell open in shock.

  ‘No, I’m out of here,’ Amy said, moving across the courtyard once again.

  ‘Wait,’ Ant told her, attempting to grab the handle of her suitcase. ‘Wait for me,’ he said. ‘Just one minute.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Amy replied.

  ‘Ten seconds then,’ he said, turning and jogging towards the house.

  Amy paused and glared at me. ‘What?!’ she asked me aggressively.

  I stared at her in mute astonishment for a few seconds, until Ant reappeared from the house. He had his jacket on and was patting his chest pocket, checking for the presence of his wallet, just as he did every morning when he left for work. ‘Ant,’ I said, as he passed by. ‘You can’t just leave!’

  But Amy was on the move again, trundling her suitcase towards the track and then vanishing behind the wall to the left.

  ‘We can talk about this tomorrow, OK?’ Ant said, reaching out to touch my arm as he passed by, only to miss because I leaped instinctively away from his grasp. He froze for a second then, looking deep into my eyes, and I think he had an instant of regret or hesitation – a moment of lucidity, perhaps. But then the car beeped as Amy unlocked it and, patting his pocket once again, he lurched on after her, glancing back just once as he disappeared from view.

  Feeling paralysed, I listened to the doors slamming and then the engine start. Finally, the tyres crunched off along the gravel of the track.

  Once all was calm again, I sank to the ground so that I was sitting with my back against the warm wall of the outbuilding.

  It took a while, perhaps twenty minutes, before I managed to feel anything, and the first sensation I had was feeling cold. I shivered a few times and gasped a juddering breath, and it was then that I started to cry.

  The tears lasted for about half an hour, and by the time they ended I was numb and exhausted. I tried to think about what had just happened, but found myself unable to come up with any clear thoughts, unable to feel any emotion beyond anger.

  It seemed like a nightmare, really, that was the thing. It seemed like this series of events was too awful to possibly be true.

  Eventually, I stood and, driven by the cold, I went indoors. I sat, zombie-like, on the edge of my bed for a while, and then pulled my jumper back on and moved to the kitchen. After some hesitation, I gently pushed open the door to Joe’s bedroom and stepped inside, but he was snoring loudly and it seemed unreasonable to disturb him to give him such news. And how could I tell him, anyway? I couldn’t even imagine what words I might use.

  I returned to the kitchen, where I quietly made a cup of tea, and then I sat on the doorstep, and as I stared out at the moonlit courtyard, nursing the warm mug, I imagined Ant reappearing around the corner and saying he was sorry and wondered what I’d say if he did.

  I changed my mind twice about waking Joe, returning to his bedroom, even going as far as leaning over him and speaking his name on the final attempt. But he didn’t stir, and I couldn’t bring myself to shake him, so in the end I went back to my own room, where I lay staring at the ceiling, wishing for sleep that I knew would never come.

  In the morning, the kids were up first: Ben just after eight, followed in short succession by both girls. None of them enquired about Amy or Ant during breakfast, so I decided to wait and speak to Joe first before saying anything. Without knowing what time Ant and Amy would return, or what they might say when they did, it seemed impossible to think what to say anyway. What lie would best fit t
his situation?

  Joe didn’t surface until almost ten, and when he did he simply vanished into the bathroom.

  Leaving the kids playing with a bucket in the jacuzzi, I moved to the kitchen in order to ambush him on his return, but when he finally did reappear, he had nothing more than a towel wrapped around his waist, and this, for some reason, embarrassed me. Inexplicably, a towel seemed far more intimate than the trunks he’d been wearing around the pool, so I turned and looked out of the window.

  ‘Everything OK there, Heather?’ he asked as he passed by.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ I said without turning. ‘But maybe you could get some clothes on, first?’

  ‘Sure,’ Joe said. ‘I had that planned, as it happens, so . . .’

  He returned wearing a pair of turquoise shorts and a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt. ‘So, what’s up?’ he asked.

  I was sitting at the kitchen table, biting my nails. I still didn’t know how I was going to do this.

  ‘God, you look even worse than I feel,’ Joe said, leaning on the table and peering into my eyes. ‘Bad night?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I told him sarcastically. ‘It’s always good to know when you look like shit. Can you, um, sit down, do you think?’

  Joe made an amused but confused face, and after glancing at the kids, pulled out the chair and sat. ‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure really how to tell you this, Joe,’ I said.

  ‘Where’s Amy?’ he asked, suddenly noting her absence. ‘And Ant? Is he still sleeping?’

  I shook my head and swallowed with difficulty. I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘I caugh—’ I started, but I couldn’t get where I needed to go that way. It was too brutal. I coughed and then took a couple of gasps of air before starting again. ‘They’re not here,’ I finally managed, my voice weak and brittle. ‘That’s the thing.’

  ‘They’re not?’ Joe asked, looking pointlessly around the room as if perhaps they might be hiding in the corner. ‘Um, where are they then?’

  I lowered my face into my hands. ‘This is so hard,’ I murmured. ‘And it’s so unfair that I have to be the one to tell you.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Joe asked, fidgeting in his seat and straightening. ‘Are they OK? They haven’t had an accident or something, have they?’

  I shook my head and peeped out at him over my fingertips. ‘I . . .’ I said.

  Ben appeared in the doorway then, dripping water all over the floor tiles. ‘Dad!’ he said. ‘Can you come out? We want to go in the big pool.’

  ‘Just go outside,’ Joe said quietly. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  ‘But if you just came and sat outside, we could—’

  ‘Go!’ Joe said again. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  Ben tutted and said, ‘Dad,’ in a whiny voice, but he turned and vanished from view.

  ‘So what’s happened?’ Joe said. ‘Tell me. Because you’re scaring me now.’

  ‘I caught them,’ I said, momentarily standing and leaning over the table so that I could see out through the kitchen window. All three children were safely out of earshot, still playing in the jacuzzi. ‘I caught them together in the outhouse,’ I added, as I sat back down again.

  ‘You caught them,’ Joe repeated, frowning. ‘Oh . . . You don’t mean . . . you mean you caught them?’

  I nodded sharply, dislodging a tear, which rolled down my cheek.

  ‘Not . . . you know . . .’ Joe said.

  I nodded again.

  ‘Shagging? ’ Joe said, more mouthing the word than speaking it. ‘Or just . . .’

  I bit my lip and managed another nod. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.

  ‘Christ!’ Joe said, covering his mouth with one hand. ‘And . . . ?’ He shrugged and shook his head. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Um, there was a bit of an argument.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet,’ Joe said. ‘And then?’

  ‘And then they left.’

  ‘They left?’ Joe repeated.

  ‘I’m sorry, Joe,’ I said. ‘But yes, they left. Together.’

  Incongruously, Joe started to smile then. ‘Oh, I get it,’ he said. ‘This is a wind-up, isn’t it?’ That was when the floodgates opened once again, and as quietly as I could manage, I began to sob.

  Six

  Joe

  Until Heather started crying, I didn’t really believe what she was telling me. After all, the scenario she was describing was so unlikely that a joke or a tasteless wind-up seemed as logical an explanation as any.

  But when she began to cry, I believed her – or, at least, I understood that she believed what she was saying to be true. A different explanation came to mind then: that she was perhaps quite simply unhinged. We didn’t really know either of them, I reminded myself. Strangers can do and say the strangest things.

  ‘Heather,’ I said, glancing out of the window at the kids. ‘I’m sorry, but . . . well, they’ll hear you.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ she breathed, screwing up her features to stifle her sobs and then standing. ‘I’ll, um . . . Of course. I’ll be back. Just give me a minute.’ And then she stumbled off into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  I moved to the kitchen step and managed to fake a smile when Ben looked over my way. ‘Can we go in the big pool, Dad?’ he asked.

  ‘In a bit,’ I said. ‘Stay there for now. I’ll be back in a second to watch you.’

  I ducked indoors for my phone, and when I returned I sat at the garden table, where I had a better view of the pool. ‘OK,’ I told them. ‘Go for it. But only in the shallow end, mind.’

  I watched them climb over, one by one, into the pool. Both Ben and Lucy could swim reasonably well, but little Sarah could barely keep her chin above the waterline. ‘Are you OK, little one?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yes, I’m swimming!’ she said, moving her arms in a breaststroke action as she walked on tiptoes across the width of the pool.

  ‘You are!’ I said, turning my attention to my phone, which had finally started up. But of course it was useless here. I’d hoped that its ability to find a signal would be proportional to my need for it to do so, but no matter what fiddling around I did with the settings, choosing the network manually, or switching on or off 4G, it stubbornly refused to work.

  ‘Um, kids!’ I called out, standing. ‘You’ll have to go back in the little pool for a bit. I need to go down the track to use my phone.’

  Lucy and Ben protested, but then Heather’s voice rang out from the doorway. ‘I’ll swim with them,’ she said. ‘Go, phone.’

  I sat in the same spot as before, and it struck me as ironic to be feeling shaky and anxious where only yesterday I’d been centred and calm. I checked my voicemail first, but there were no messages, so, after a forced breath, I called Amy. Her phone rang for a while before switching to voicemail, which at least meant that wherever she was, she had coverage.

  ‘Amy,’ I said. ‘It’s me. Things are . . . a bit crazy here. I don’t know what’s going on. Just call me, OK?’

  I stared at the phone for a few seconds, chewing my lip, then called back again. The fact that this time the call went straight to voicemail reassured me. It meant that she was almost certainly listening to my voicemail.

  A text message appeared. ‘I’ll call you later,’ it said. ‘I can’t talk right now.’

  ‘And why might that be?’ I asked.

  ‘I need to think,’ she replied.

  ‘Think!’ I said out loud, outraged. ‘Think? Think about what?’

  ‘Call me now,’ I texted. Then, ‘Call me right NOW, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she replied.

  I tried her number again then, but she didn’t pick up, and I just about managed to refrain from leaving an incendiary voicemail.

  ‘Heather says . . .’ I started to type. But I couldn’t think how to complete the sentence. ‘Heather’s saying some pretty . . .’ I started over, only to delete what I’d written all over again. ‘I just
need to know if what Heather’s saying is true,’ I finally typed. My finger hesitated over the button for a moment before, with a shrug, I clicked send.

  I waited for her reply. I decided I would make myself wait. I would not send anything else until she’d replied. But then I saw my fingers type, ‘Did you do what she says you did? Are you with that wanker now?’

  I chewed my lip and wiggled the phone so that it tapped between the fingers of my left hand while I waited for her reply. It vibrated to announce the arrival of another message.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ it read, again.

  ‘Fuck it!’ I mumbled, tapping the phone gently against my forehead. A wave of anger rolled through me and I whacked my head harder with the phone, until it hurt. Why? I thought. The guy’s such a loser anyway. It was the first time I’d let any negative thoughts about Anthony crystallise, but now it had happened, I knew it to be true. The more I knew him, the less I liked him. I’d simply been trying not to acknowledge it.

  I looked at the screen again, at Amy’s minimalist messages. I’m sorry, I thought, repeating the words in my mind. Because what sort of reply was that? What did it even mean? I’m sorry, but it’s true? Or Yes, it’s true, but I’m sorry it happened?

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,’ I muttered. Then, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry too, baby.’

  I clicked the screen in order to reply, but what did I want to say? If she was sorry, properly sorry, then there was hope, wasn’t there? They’d been drunk. And now she’d woken with a hangover next to that dickhead, and she was sorry. I was sorry. We were all sorry. Couples get over that kind of stuff, don’t they?

  My phone buzzed again. ‘I’m really sorry, Joe,’ the new text message read.

  I started to type my reply. ‘Yes, I got that,’ I wrote. ‘Now come . . .’ But before I could finish, the phone vibrated again with a new message: ‘I won’t be home tonight, so don’t wait.’ For a moment, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

  My anger rising, I called her back immediately, but once again she didn’t pick up. ‘Amy,’ I told her voicemail. ‘You’re losing it. I’m here with Ben, our son. Remember him? And we’re waiting. So just . . . get it together. And get your arse back here.’