He holds the creepy-crawly an inch from my nose, and I try not to look repulsed.
‘Okay,’ I say, and Tom skips off towards the shrubbery at the other side of the road. Margaret steps forward.
‘Monica, we need to talk…’ Her voice trails off, as Tom reappears. ‘We need to talk without Tom.’
My son looks from Margaret to Monica, and then Zach puts his hand around Tom’s shoulder.
‘Come on. Let’s go and open the front gate, in case the postman needs to deliver some post. Then you can show me where you were fishing. Did you catch any big ones?’
As they walk away, I can hear Tom telling Zach all about a dead frog that he found washed up at the side of the lake. My heart breaks when I think about how that’s not the only loss of life he’ll have to contend with this weekend.
25
‘What’s going on?’
Monica’s voice comes at us on a wave of suspicion and aggravation. Having started the conversation, Margaret now stares at the ground, which leaves me to deal with the fallout. I lick my lips, and they’re dry and cracked against my tongue. How am I going to tell her that Simon is dead? Does she already know? How do I deal with this situation?
‘Somebody needs to tell me what’s going on,’ she snaps. ‘Or I swear…’
‘Simon’s dead!’ Margaret throws her arms in the air, and eyeballs her sister. ‘You wanted to know? There you go. Your husband is dead.’
Monica stumbles backwards, straight into one of the pillars that decorates the house. Her breathing is shallow, erratic, and she puts her hand to her throat, as though that will help her to get a breath.
‘That’s a lie! You know that’s a lie!’ Monica stumbles up the front stairs and rattles on the door, but it’s still locked fast. She turns back towards Margaret, her face screwed into a ball of rage. ‘How could you? How could you be so evil as to say that? Simon is upstairs, sleeping off a bout of food poisoning. He was fine when I saw him earlier. He was asleep!’
If Monica had anything to do with Simon’s death, she’s hiding it well. I step forward and reach for her arm, but she pushes me away, and then sprints off towards the back of the house.
‘Monica!’
Margaret and I follow her; together but apart. The woman who has made my working life a misery over the past weeks, is now on the same mission as myself, but I’d do anything to get away from her.
We reach Monica just as she pushes open the back door and rushes into the kitchen. I grab her arm, and she spins round, bouncing off the old wooden table as she does so. The cup and fruit bowl vibrate, and the table legs make a screeching sound against the tiles.
‘What?’
Monica’s face crumples, and she ages ten years before my eyes. Her long eyelashes are clotted with mascara, and there is a line of unblended concealer drawn across her left cheekbone. She grabs onto the side of the table, and her body deflates like a burst balloon. She knows what I’m going to say, but the words are still almost impossible to share.
‘Monica, I’m afraid Margaret is telling the truth. I saw Simon ten minutes ago. He’s gone. I’m so sorry.’
I expect her to burst into tears, or faint or have some kind of animated response, but instead, she slumps down into a chair, and says nothing at all. I lean towards her, but Margaret grabs me. I can feel her long fingernails digging in through my coat, and it takes all my energy not to push her off.
‘Leave her,’ Margaret says. ‘It’ll sink in soon enough. Where is he? I should go up and see him.’
‘He’s…’
My voice trails off, as Monica pounces out of the chair and points her finger into Margaret’s face.
‘You made this up, didn’t you? You’re doing it to spite me! Saying that Simon is dead, so that you can swing in and take him back. You’re pathetic!!’
Monica’s voice is so high-pitched, that my first reaction is to cringe and cover my ears, but then some of her words stick in my mind. ‘Take him back.’ What does she mean by that? I look over at Margaret, but her blank face reveals nothing at all.
‘I need to see him,’ Monica cries. ‘I need to see my husband.’
She half stumbles, half falls down the hall, but by the time she reaches the stairs, she’s out of breath and gasping for air.
‘Monica! You’ve got to stop. Sit down and get your breath back.’ She gawps at me, and then slides down onto the stairs, her hand clenched around the polished spindles. Her breathing is erratic, but I rub her back, and slowly she starts to calm down.
‘I need to see my husband,’ she says. Monica’s eyes are wide and they glisten with tears, while her knuckles turn white as she grips onto the banister. Margaret offers no help whatsoever, and is quite happy to stand back and watch as I try to diffuse the situation. A bit like at school, really. She is always able to hand over an ill child, without any thought for their well-being – or mine. God forbid she should ever get her hands dirty.
‘It’s better if you don’t go upstairs,’ I say. ‘The police won’t want anyone to go into the room until they’ve checked Simon over, and besides – I’m sure you’d rather not see him that way.’
‘What way?’
Margaret steps forward and slaps her hand against the banister.
‘Oh, for God’s sake! She means dead! You don’t want to see him dead!’
Monica ignores her sister’s words and before I can stop her, she heaves herself up, and stumbles her way up the stairs, calling Simon’s name as she goes. Margaret and I follow her up to the first floor and along the corridor, and as Monica flings open the bedroom door, the wind from the open window whips in, freezes my body and stings my eyes. Simon’s body stares at us from the bed, just as it did when I saw it before, only now the shock of finding him has been replaced with a flood of emotions that hit me right in the centre of my heart.
This man was a mystery to me, I cannot deny that. When I was nineteen years old, he made me feel beautiful, wanted, embarrassed, unloved, and discarded, all in the space of a couple of months. He spun a web of lies, and left me at my most vulnerable, but when he returned to my life, he did try to have a relationship with his son, which is something I suppose. Isn’t it? I didn’t want him in our lives, but he persisted, in spite of my wishes. Was that because he had Tom’s best interests at heart? Or did he want me to suffer? I have no idea, and I’ll never find the answers, standing here, in this doorway, with these two strange women.
We all stand statue-like. Nobody saying a word for what seems like hours, until out of nowhere, Monica howls, runs to the bed and throws herself at Simon’s body.
‘Don’t you leave me!’ she shouts, as she tries to lift him into her arms. He’s too heavy though, and flops back onto the bed, his head now stuffed between two pillows. Monica collapses onto the duvet and sobs, while Margaret steps forward. Slowly. Cautiously.
‘Monica,’ she whispers, and touches her sister’s shoulder. Monica doesn’t flinch. It’s as though all of her energy has drained from her body and sunk into the bed. Margaret tries again, and this time Monica lifts her head, her normally pristine hair stuck to her face with tears and snot.
‘Leave… Me… Alone…’ she snarls, and elbows Margaret in the ribs. She flinches, but it doesn’t faze her. She’s made of tougher stuff.
‘You can’t stay in here,’ Margaret says. ‘You don’t want to see your husband this way…’
Monica turns on her sister, her teeth clenched and her nostrils flared.
‘Unlike you!’ she snaps.
Margaret steps back, and her bottom hits off the dressing table. A long, thin ceramic vase tumbles onto the floor, and comes to a standstill at her foot. She looks down and kicks it under the table, where I’m sure it will be lost forever.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You’ve wanted him dead for years.’ Monica sniffs. ‘Well, here he is! Dead! You must be thrilled!’
‘Oh, yes of course!’ Margaret snaps. ‘Death always fills me with joy. Maybe you cou
ld drop dead too, and we’d all be happy!’
In the time we’ve been in this room, I haven’t said a word, and see no reason to get involved now, but how do I handle this? My ex-lover lies in the bed, while his wife and sister-in-law go for each other’s throats just inches away. This is all too weird; too horrifying. I came here to collect my son, and now I’m faced with death and a destructive sibling relationship.
I want to grab my son and take him home, but I have to wait for the police to come, so that I can tell them how we found Simon’s body, and why it has now been moved. Does it count if it’s been moved just a few feet? I have no idea, since I’ve never been in this situation, but the idea of talking to the police fills me with horror. How can I give a statement about such a terrible event? And afterwards, how am I supposed to tell Tom that the man he has just come to know after almost ten years, has now been taken from him? It’s all too much, but I have to say something. I can’t let this situation carry on.
‘Your arguing isn’t going to make things any better,’ I say. ‘I have a son who hasn’t been told that his father has passed, and I can’t have you two blurting it out in the middle of a fight. Tom deserves more. Simon deserved more!’
Monica purses her lips and scowls, while Margaret bursts out laughing.
‘Oh, here she goes! The mother of his child has spoken!’
‘What?’
‘You! Little Miss Perfect! The woman who had Simon’s child. Even if he didn’t want the little runt, but that meant nothing to you, did it?’
I can’t believe how full of vitriol Margaret is. I kind of understood her hating me on her sister’s behalf, but she seems to hate Monica just as much. Nothing makes sense, but I try to remain calm.
‘It was ten years ago,’ I say. ‘Time has moved on and it’s pointless going back over old ground. Simon’s dead, and I know you’re pissed off that I had an affair with him behind your sister’s back, but if she can forgive me, why can’t you?’
Margaret launches forward, and her face is so close to mine that I can smell her cigarette breath. As she speaks, spit splatters onto my cheeks, and I close my eyes and pray that she’ll disappear.
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she shouts. ‘You didn’t have an affair behind Monica’s back, you did it behind mine! I was Simon’s wife when he was with you! I was the woman he wanted to leave for you!’
26
Someone once said that there are three sides to a story – his, hers and the truth. The truth in the case of Simon, his wife and I, lies somewhere in the middle. As I stand in the same room as Monica and the first Mrs Travis, I realise that ten years ago I didn’t have any clue what Simon’s wife was called. Her name must have been Margaret, but he used to call her M or Her, or That Bitch, and that was good enough for me. Some may say I was stupid not to find out what her name was, but in my defence, I was just a teenager in love, with no interest whatsoever in my married lover’s wife. Why would I want to know anything about her? He was going to leave her for me anyway, wasn’t he? Besides, why should it be strange that he called her M? My Aunt Melanie was always known as M, so what was the difference? None that I could see.
Ten years later, when I saw Simon in Waterstones, I just presumed that Monica was the wife he had when he was with me. She was old enough, her personality seemed to match from what Simon had told me, her name began with M, so why would I think she wasn’t the old Mrs Travis?
Maybe because I was stupid.
Brain-dead.
And now I’m paying the price.
Margaret – the first Mrs Travis – grins at me, like the cat who got the cream, as my old granny would have said. Monica remains mute; sitting on the bed, staring into space and alone in her thoughts. Perhaps she is completely innocent in all this, but if so, why did she want to involve herself in my pregnancy? What was the point of that?
‘I can tell that your mind is whirring,’ Margaret says.
‘You could say that. Monica told me that she found out about me after hearing Simon on the phone to the clinic. She followed me there with the intention of asking me to give her the baby. How could that be the case, if you were married to him then? Was it all a lie?’
Monica’s face flashes back into consciousness, and she jumps up from the bed.
‘I wanted to keep him,’ she says. ‘Simon and I had been having an affair for years, but the bastard would never leave Margaret. What I told you was true – I thought that if you would give me the baby, it could force his hand into going further with our relationship… Then he would leave Margaret, and accept me and the child as his new family. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. Asking you to give up your baby was too bizarre even for me, so in the end I kept quiet.’
My legs turn to string. Simon was seeing me and Monica behind Margaret’s back? This is mental. It’s all too much.
‘You got him in the end though!’ Margaret shouts. ‘Child or no child, you wore him down and off he went. Goal achieved!’
‘Ha! I may have got him, but you still insisted on being his friend, though, didn’t you? You couldn’t keep away!’
My blood feels as though it’s pouring into my feet. Watching these two women argue over their relationship with Simon, when he lies dead right next to us, is freaky and disturbing. I don’t even know what to think about his passing. I stare at his cold body, but it gives away no clues. Could food poisoning cause him to die? And so soon? Why am I thinking about this? Where are the police? I just want to go home.
‘Oh, please!’ Margaret snaps. ‘I kept in touch with you because you’re my sister, and our neurotic, coercive mother wouldn’t let me break ties. “It’ll be bad for family dynamics”, blah, blah, blah. Besides, you were happy to be in touch with me when it suited you. If we had fallen out, you wouldn’t have had a home to come to, when you came back to Northamptonshire. You’d have had to stay in this creepy dive, in the middle of nowhere.’ She throws her arms in the air. ‘Ugh! I’m done with this. I’m going home.’
Margaret pushes past me and heads back into the hall, but Monica is quick to follow. I take one last look at the father of my child crumpled on the bed, head hidden between the pillows, and arms splayed out at his sides. I have so much to say, and yet I have nothing. Except maybe goodbye.
I leave the room and quietly close the door behind me, as though slamming it might cause Simon to be disturbed. The fighting siblings stand at the top of the stairs now, still throwing barbs at each other; still trying to prove that they were the loves of Simon’s life. I don’t know which one would wear that crown, but I do know that it’s not me. I have to get out of this house. I need to find my friend and my son, and run far away from this hellish place.
But first I have a question.
‘If you knew I was Simon’s ex-girlfriend, why did you even give me a job? And why has it taken this long for you to hate me?’
Margaret looks up and laughs, as I make my way towards them. It is a guttural snort that reaches the very centre of my brain.
‘Charlotte, I had no idea that you – or your son – were associated with Simon when we first met. It’s only been since Monica came back to town that I’ve known. Until then, I had no idea that Simon had a child with you or with anyone, but my sister was more than happy to give me that information. After that, it seemed sensible to bring Simon into school as a speaker. I wanted to see his reaction; throw some petrol onto the fire of his relationship with Monica.’
‘So, I was just a pawn in your game with your sister?’
She lights a cigarette, takes a long drag and then exhales it into my face, causing my throat to dry to dust, and my eyes to burn.
‘That was part of the plan, but as we have seen, Monica decided to reinvent herself as stepmother of the year, so that kind of backfired on me. But I also wanted to see the sickly smile wiped off your face, and that certainly worked. All those years of being this pretty little receptionist, ever smiling, ever helpful, ever friendly… And all that time you were yet another one w
ho had screwed my husband, and his bastard child was walking the halls of my school. Don’t you know how disgusting that is?’
I think back to the working relationship I had with Margaret over the years, and can’t believe that I never knew who she was. But how could I have known? I may be many things, but a mind reader is not one of them.
‘You wanted to take your revenge on me, by bringing Simon into our lives?’
‘I wanted revenge on you all,’ she snaps. ‘Why should I live a dejected life, because you, Monica and Simon took what you wanted, without a thought for my feelings at all? I wanted to cause as much disruption for you, as you did for me.’
Margaret takes another drag on her cigarette, stubs it out on the polished banister, and then throws it into a gigantic pot plant at the side of the stairs.
‘You’ve always been one for revenge, haven’t you, Margaret?’ Monica rubs her eyes, and leaves a stripe of mascara across her temples. ‘You act like you’re so damn innocent, but you made my life hell growing up. Always telling on me for some misdemeanour or another. You loved to see me upset. Well look at me now! Does this make you happy?’
Monica wipes her nose on the back of her hand, as more tears tumble down her cheeks. If Margaret feels any sympathy at all, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she flings her head back and laughs, like some kind of baddie from a cartoon.
‘Oh, I’m happy all right, but not in the way you think.’
‘What do you mean?’
Margaret points down the corridor.
‘You think that Simon died because he ate a bit of fish? Think again!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that when the police perform the post-mortem on him, they won’t find any killer fish in his system. No, they’ll find your sleeping pills. You left them on the counter while you were still in my house, so I dissolved them into Simon’s bottle of whisky. You’re so out of it most of the time that you didn’t even notice they were gone! I must say, I had hoped they’d knock him off before now, but I guess he was keeping his Scotch for a special occasion, like this weekend. You know how our fabulous husband loves a good celebration!’
Hell Hath No Fury Page 23