One year earlier
WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2012
MORNING
I can hear the train coming; I know its rhythm byheart. It picks up speed as it accelerates out ofNorthcote station and then, after rattling round thebend, it starts to slow down, from a rattle to arumble, and then sometimes a screech of brakes asit stops at the signal a couple hundred yards fromthe house. My coffee is cold on the table, but I’mtoo deliciously warm and lazy to bother getting up tomake myself another cup.
Sometimes I don’t even watch the trains go past, Ijust listen. Sitting here in the morning, eyes closedand the hot sun orange on my eyelids, I could beanywhere. I could be in the south of Spain, at thebeach; I could be in Italy, the Cinque Terre, all thosepretty coloured houses and the trains ferrying thetourists back and forth. I could be back in Holkham,with the screech of gulls in my ears and salt on mytongue and a ghost train passing on the rusted trackhalf a mile away.
The train isn’t stopping today, it trundles slowly past.
I can hear the wheels clacking over the points, canalmost feel it rocking. I can’t see the faces of thepassengers and I know they’re just commutersheading to Euston to sit behind desks, but I candream: of more exotic journeys, of adventures at theend of the line and beyond. In my head, I keeptravelling back to Holkham; it’s odd that I still thinkof it, on mornings like this, with such affection, suchlonging, but I do. The wind in the grass, the big slatesky over the dunes, the house infested with mice andfalling down, full of candles and dirt and music. It’slike a dream to me now.
I feel my heart beating just a little too fast.
I can hear his footfall on the stairs, he calls myname.
“You want another coffee, Megs?”
The spell is broken, I’m awake.
EVENING
I’m cool from the breeze and warm from the twofingers of vodka in my martini. I’m out on theterrace, waiting for Scott to come home. I’m going topersuade him to take me out to dinner at the Italianon Kingly Road. We haven’t been out for bloodyages.
I haven’t got much done today. I was supposed tosort out my application for the fabrics course at St.
Martins; I did start it, I was working downstairs inthe kitchen when I heard a woman screaming,making a horrible noise, I thought someone wasbeing murdered. I ran outside into the garden, but Icouldn’t see anything.
I could still hear her, though, it was nasty, it wentright through me, her voice really shrill anddesperate. “What are you doing? What are you doingwith her? Give her to me, give her to me.” Itseemed to go on and on, though it probably onlylasted a few seconds.
I ran upstairs and climbed out onto the terrace andI could see, through the trees, two women down bythe fence a few gardens over. One of them wascrying—maybe they both were—and there was a childbawling its head off, too.
I thought about calling the police, but it all seemedto calm down then. The woman who’d beenscreaming ran into the house, carrying the baby. Theother one stayed out there. She ran up towards thehouse, she stumbled and got to her feet and thenjust sort of wandered round the garden in circles.
Really weird. God knows what was going on. But it’sthe most excitement I’ve had in weeks.
My days feel empty now I don’t have the gallery togo to any longer. I really miss it. I miss talking tothe artists. I even miss dealing with all those tediousyummy mummies who used to drop by, Starbucks inhand, to gawk at the pictures, telling their friendsthat little Jessie did better pictures than that atnursery school.
Sometimes I feel like seeing if I can track downanybody from the old days, but then I think, whatwould I talk to them about now? They wouldn’t evenrecognize Megan the happily married suburbanite. Inany case, I can’t risk looking backwards, it’s always abad idea. I’ll wait until the summer is over, then I’lllook for work. It seems like a shame to waste theselong summer days. I’ll find something, here orelsewhere, I know I will.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2012
MORNING
I find myself standing in front of my wardrobe,staring for the hundredth time at a rack of prettyclothes, the perfect wardrobe for the manager of asmall but cutting-edge art gallery. Nothing in it says“nanny.” God, even the word makes me want to gag.
I put on jeans and a T-shirt, scrape my hair back. Idon’t even bother putting on any makeup. There’sno point, is there, prettying myself up to spend allday with a baby?
I flounce downstairs, half spoiling for a fight. Scott’smaking coffee in the kitchen. He turns to me with agrin, and my mood lifts instantly. I rearrange mypout to a smile. He hands me a coffee and kissesme.
There’s no sense blaming him for this, it was myidea. I volunteered to do it, to become a childminderfor the people down the road. At the time, I thoughtit might be fun. Completely insane, really, I musthave been mad. Bored, mad, curious. I wanted tosee. I think I got the idea after I heard her yellingout in the garden and I wanted to know what wasgoing on. Not that I’ve asked, of course. You can’treally, can you?
Scott encouraged me—he was over the moon whenI suggested it. He thinks spending time aroundbabies will make me broody. In fact, it’s doing exactlythe opposite; when I leave their house I run home,can’t wait to strip my clothes off and get into theshower and wash the baby smell off me.
I long for my days at the gallery, prettied up, hairdone, talking to adults about art or films or nothingat all. Nothing at all would be a step up from myconversations with Anna. God, she’s dull! You get thefeeling that she probably had something to say forherself once upon a time, but now everything isabout the child: Is she warm enough? Is she toowarm? How much milk did she take? And she’salways there, so most of the time I feel like a sparepart. My job is to watch the child while Anna rests,to give her a break. A break from what, exactly?
She’s weirdly nervous, too. I’m constantly aware ofher, hovering, twitching. She flinches every time atrain passes, jumps when the phone rings. “They’rejust so fragile, aren’t they?” she says, and I can’tdisagree with that.
I leave the house and walk, leaden-legged, the fiftyyards along Blenheim Road to their house. No skipin my step. Today, she doesn’t open the door, it’shim, the husband. Tom, suited and booted, off towork. He looks handsome in his suit—not Scotthandsome, he’s smaller and paler, and his eyes are alittle too close together when you see him up close,but he’s not bad. He flashes me his wide, TomCruise smile, and then he’s gone, and it’s just meand her and the baby.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2012
AFTERNOON
I quit!
I feel so much better, as if anything is possible. I’mfree!
I’m sitting on the terrace, waiting for the rain. Thesky is black above me, swallows looping and diving,the air thick with moisture. Scott will be home in anhour or so, and I’ll have to tell him. He’ll only bepissed off for a minute or two, I’ll make it up tohim. And I won’t just be sitting around the house allday: I’ve been making plans. I could do aphotography course, or set up a market stall, selljewellery. I could learn to cook.
I had a teacher at school who told me once that Iwas a mistress of self-reinvention. I didn’t know whathe was on about at the time, I thought he wasputting me on, but I’ve since come to like the idea.
Runaway, lover, wife, waitress, gallery manager,nanny, and a few more in between. So who do Iwant to be tomorrow?
I didn’t really mean to quit, the words just cameout. We were sitting there, around the kitchen table,Anna with the baby on her lap, and Tom hadpopped back to pick something up, so he was there,too, drinking a cup of coffee, and it just seemedridiculous, there was absolutely no point in my beingthere. Worse than that, I felt uncomfortable, as if Iwas intruding.
“I’ve found another job,” I said, without reallythinking about it. “So I’m not going to be able to dothis any longer.” Anna gave me a look—I don’t thinkshe believed me. She just said, “Oh, that’s a shame,”
and I could tell she didn’t mean it. She lookedrelieved. She didn’t even ask me what the job was,which was a relief, because I hadn’t thought up aconvincing lie.
Tom looked mildly surprised. He said, “We’ll missyou,” but that’s a lie, too.
The only person who’ll really be disappointed isScott, so I have to think of something to tell him.
Maybe I’ll tell him Tom was hitting on me. That’llput an end to it.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2012
MORNING
It’s just after seven, it’s chilly out here now, but it’sso beautiful like this, all these strips of garden side byside, green and cold and waiting for fingers ofsunshine to creep up from the tracks and makethem all come alive. I’ve been up for hours; I can’tsleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate this, hateinsomnia more than anything, just lying there, braingoing round, tick, tick, tick, tick. I itch all over. Iwant to shave my head.
I want to run. I want to take a road trip, in aconvertible, with the top down. I want to drive to thecoast—any coast. I want to walk on a beach. Me andmy big brother were going to be road trippers. Wehad such plans, Ben and I. Well, they were Ben’splans mostly—he was such a dreamer. We weregoing to ride motorbikes from Paris to the C?ted’Azur, or all the way down the Pacific coast of theUSA, from Seattle to Los Angeles; we were going tofollow in Che Guevara’s tracks from Buenos Aires toCaracas. Maybe if I’d done all that, I wouldn’t haveended up here, not knowing what to do next. Ormaybe, if I’d done all that, I’d have ended up exactlywhere I am and I would be perfectly contented. ButI didn’t do all that, of course, because Ben never gotas far as Paris, he never even made it as far asCambridge. He died on the A10, his skull crushedbeneath the wheels of an articulated lorry.
I miss him every day. More than anyone, I think.
He’s the big hole in my life, in the middle of mysoul. Or maybe he was just the beginning of it. Idon’t know. I don’t even know whether all this isreally about Ben, or whether it’s about everythingthat happened after that, and everything that’shappened since. All I know is, one minute I’m tickingalong fine and life is sweet and I want for nothing,and the next I can’t wait to get away, I’m all overthe place, slipping and sliding again.
So, I’m going to see a therapist! Which could beweird, but it could be a laugh, too. I’ve alwaysthought that it might be fun to be Catholic, to beable to go to the confessional and unburden yourselfand have someone tell you that they forgive you, totake all the sin away, wipe the slate clean.
This is not quite the same thing, of course. I’m abit nervous, but I haven’t been able to get to sleeplately, and Scott’s been on my case to go. I told himI find it difficult enough talking to people I knowabout this stuff—I can barely even talk to him aboutit. He said that’s the point, you can say anything tostrangers. But that isn’t completely true. You can’tjust say anything. Poor Scott. He doesn’t know thehalf of it. He loves me so much, it makes me ache. Idon’t know how he does it. I would drive me mad.
But I have to do something, and at least this feelslike action. All those plans I had—photographycourses and cookery classes—when it comes down toit, they feel a bit pointless, as if I’m playing at reallife instead of actually living it. I need to findsomething that I must do, something undeniable. Ican’t do this, I can’t just be a wife. I don’tunderstand how anyone does it—there is literallynothing to do but wait. Wait for a man to comehome and love you. Either that or look around forsomething to distract you.
EVENINGI’ve been kept waiting. The appointment was for halfan hour ago, and I’m still here, sitting in thereception room flicking through Vogue, thinkingabout getting up and walking out. I know doctors’
appointments run over, but therapists? Films havealways led me to believe that they kick you out themoment your thirty minutes are up. I supposeHollywood isn’t really talking about the kind oftherapist you get referred to on the National HealthService.
I’m just about to go up to the receptionist to tellher that I’ve waited long enough, I’m leaving, whenthe doctor’s office door swings open and this verytall, lanky man emerges, looking apologetic andholding out his hand to me.
“Mrs. Hipwell, I am so sorry to have kept youwaiting,” he says, and I just smile at him and tellhim it’s all right, and I feel, in this moment, that itwill be all right, because I’ve only been in hiscompany for a moment or two and already I feelsoothed.
I think it’s the voice. Soft and low. Slightly accented,which I was expecting, because his name is Dr.
Kamal Abdic. I guess he must be midthirties,although he looks very young with his incredible darkhoney skin. He has hands I could imagine on me,long and delicate fingers, I can almost feel them onmy skin.
We don’t talk about anything substantial, it’s just theintroductory session, the getting-to-know-you stuff; heasks me what the trouble is and I tell him about thepanic attacks, the insomnia, the fact that I lie awakeat night too frightened to fall asleep. He wants me totalk a bit more about that, but I’m not ready yet. Heasks me whether I take drugs, drink alcohol. I tellhim I have other vices these days, and I catch hiseye and I think he knows what I mean. Then I feelas if I ought to be taking this a bit more seriously,so I tell him about the gallery closing and that I feelat a loose end all the time, my lack of direction, thefact that I spend too much time in my head. Hedoesn’t talk much, just the occasional prompt, but Iwant to hear him speak, so as I’m leaving I ask himwhere he’s from.
“Maidstone,” he says, “in Kent. But I moved toCorly a few years back.” He knows that wasn’t whatI was asking; he gives me a wolfish smile.
Scott is waiting for me when I get home, he thrustsa drink into my hand, he wants to know all about it.
I say it was OK. He asks me about the therapist: didI like him, did he seem nice? OK, I say again,because I don’t want to sound too enthusiastic. Heasks me whether we talked about Ben. Scott thinkseverything is about Ben. He may be right. He mayknow me better than I think he does.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012
MORNING
I woke early this morning, but I did sleep for a fewhours, which is an improvement on last week. I feltalmost refreshed when I got out of bed, so instead ofsitting on the terrace I decided to go for a walk.
I’ve been shutting myself away, almost withoutrealizing it. The only places I seem to go these daysare to the shops, my Pilates classes and the therapist.
Occasionally to Tara’s. The rest of the time, I’m athome. It’s no wonder I get restless.
I walk out of the house, turn right and then leftonto Kingly Road. Past the pub, the Rose. We usedto go there all the time; I can’t remember why westopped. I never liked it all that much, too manycouples just the right side of forty drinking too muchand casting around for something better, wondering ifthey’d have the courage. Perhaps that’s why westopped going, because I didn’t like it. Past the pub,past the shops. I don’t want to go far, just a littlecircuit to stretch my legs.
It’s nice being out early, before the school run,before the commute gets going; the streets are emptyand clean, the day full of possibility. I turn left again,walk down to the little playground, the only ratherpoor excuse for green space we have. It’s emptynow, but in a few hours it will be swarming withtoddlers, mothers and au pairs. Half the Pilates girlswill be here, head to toe in Sweaty Betty,competitively stretching, manicured hands wrappedaround their Starbucks.
I carry on past the park and down towardsRoseberry Avenue. If I turned right here I’d go uppast my gallery—what was my gallery, now a vacantshop window—but I don’t want to, because that stillhurts a little. I tried so hard to make a success of it.
Wrong place, wrong time—no call for art in suburbia,not in this economy. Instead, I turn right, past theTesco Express, past the other pub, the one wherepeople from the estate go, and back towards home. Ican feel butterflies now, I’m starting to get nervous.
I’m afraid of bumping into the Watsons, because it’salways awkward when I see them; it’s patentlyobvious that I don’t have a new job, that I liedbecause I didn’t want to carry on working for them.
Or rather, it’s awkward when I see her. Tom justignores me. But Anna seems to take thingspersonally. She obviously thinks that my short-livedcareer as a nanny came to an end because of heror because of her child. It actually wasn’t about herchild at all, although the fact that the child neverstops whinging did make her hard to love. It’s all somuch more complicated, but of course I can’t explainthat to her. Anyway. That’s one of the reasons I’vebeen shutting myself away, I suppose, because Idon’t want to see the Watsons. Part of me hopesthey’ll just move. I know she doesn’t like being here:
she hates that house, hates living among his ex-wife’sthings, hates the trains.
I stop at the corner and peer into the underpass.
That smell of cold and damp always sends a littleshiver down my spine, it’s like turning over a rock tosee what’s underneath: moss and worms and earth.
It reminds me of playing in the garden as a child,looking for frogs by the pond with Ben. I walk on.
The street is clear—no sign of Tom or Anna—andthe part of me that can’t resist a bit of drama isactually quite disappointed.
EVENING
Scott’s just called to say he has to work late, whichis not the news I wanted to hear. I’m feeling edgy,have been all day. Can’t keep still. I need him tocome home and calm me down, and now it’s goingto be hours before he gets here and my brain isgoing to keep racing round and round and roundand I know I’ve got a sleepless night coming.
I can’t just sit here, watching the trains, I’m toojittery, my heartbeat feels like a flutter in my chest,like a bird trying to get out of a cage. I slip myflip-flops on and go downstairs, out of the front doorand on to Blenheim Road. It’s around seven thirty—afew stragglers on their way home from work. There’sno one else around, though you can hear the criesof kids playing in their back gardens, takingadvantage of the last of the summer sunshine beforethey get called in for dinner.
I walk down the road, towards the station. I stopfor a moment outside number twenty-three and thinkabout ringing the doorbell. What would I say? Ranout of sugar? Just fancied a chat? Their blinds arehalf open, but I can’t see anyone inside.
I carry on towards the corner and, without reallythinking about it, I continue down into the underpass.
I’m about halfway through when the train runsoverhead, and it’s glorious: it’s like an earthquake,you can feel it right in the centre of your body,stirring up the blood. I look down and notice thatthere’s something on the floor, a hair band, purple,stretched, well used. Dropped by a runner, probably,but something about it gives me the creeps and Iwant to get out of there quickly, back into thesunshine.
On the way back down the road, he passes me inhis car, our eyes meet for just a second and hesmiles at me.