SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
MORNING
For some reason, the whole thing seems very funnyall of a sudden. Poor fat Rachel standing in mygarden, all red and sweaty, telling me we need to go.
We need to go.
“Where are we going?” I ask her when I stoplaughing, and she just looks at me, blank, lost forwords. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Eviesquirms and complains and I put her back down.
My skin still feels hot and tender from where Iscrubbed myself in the shower this morning; theinside of my mouth, my cheeks, my tongue, they feelbitten.
“When will he be back?” she asks me.
“Not for a while yet, I shouldn’t think.”
I’ve no idea when he’ll be back, in fact. Sometimeshe can spend whole days at the climbing wall. Or Ithought he spent whole days at the climbing wall.
Now I don’t know.
I do know that he’s taken the gym bag; it can’t belong before he discovers that the phone is gone.
I was thinking of taking Evie and going to mysister’s for a while, but the phone is troubling me.
What if someone finds it? There are workers on thisstretch of track all the time; one of them might findit and hand it in to the police. It has my fingerprintson it.
Then I was thinking that perhaps it wouldn’t be allthat difficult to get it back, but I’d have to wait untilnighttime so no one would see me.
I’m aware that Rachel is still talking, she’s askingme questions. I haven’t been listening to her. I feelso tired.
“Anna,” she says, coming closer to me, those intensedark eyes searching mine. “Have you ever met anyof them?”
“Met who?”
“His friends from the army. Have you ever actuallybeen introduced to any of them?” I shake my head.
“Do you not think that’s odd?” It strikes me thenthat what’s really odd is her showing up in mygarden first thing on a Sunday morning.
“Not really,” I say. “They’re part of another life.
Another of his lives. Like you are. Like you weresupposed to be, anyway, but we can’t seem to getrid of you.” She flinches, wounded. “What are youdoing here, Rachel?”
“You know why I’m here,” she says. “You knowthat something?.?.?. something has been going on.” Shehas this earnest look on her face, as though she’sconcerned about me. Under different circumstances, itmight be touching.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” I say, and shenods.
I make the coffee and we sit side by side on thepatio in silence that feels almost companionable.
“What were you suggesting?” I ask her. “That Tom’sfriends from the army don’t really exist? That hemade them up? That he’s actually off with someother woman?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“Rachel?” She looks at me then and I can see inher eyes that she’s afraid. “Is there something youwant to tell me?”
“Have you ever met Tom’s family?” she asks me.
“His parents?”
“No. They’re not talking. They stopped talking tohim when he ran off with me.”
She shakes her head. “That isn’t true,” she says.
“I’ve never met them, either. They don’t even knowme, so why would they care about his leaving me?”
There’s darkness in my head, right at the back ofmy skull. I’ve been trying to keep it at bay eversince I heard her voice on the phone, but now itstarts to swell, it blooms.
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “Why would he lieabout that?”
“Because he lies about everything.”
I get to my feet and walk away from her. I feelannoyed with her for telling me this. I feel annoyedwith myself, because I think I do believe her. I thinkI’ve always known that Tom lies. It’s just that in thepast, his lies tended to suit me.
“He is a good liar,” I say to her. “You were totallyclueless for ages, weren’t you? All those months wewere meeting up, fucking each other’s brains out inthat house on Cranham Road, and you neversuspected a thing.”
She swallows, bites her lip hard. “Megan,” she says.
“What about Megan?”
“I know. They had an affair.” The words soundstrange to me—this is the first time that I’ve saidthem out loud. He cheated on me. He cheated onme. “I’m sure that amuses you,” I say to her, “butshe’s gone now, so it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Anna?.?.?.”
The darkness gets bigger; it’s pushing at the edgesof my skull, clouding my vision. I grab Evie by thehand and start to drag her inside. She protestsvociferously.
“Anna?.?.?.”
“They had an affair. That’s it. Nothing else. Itdoesn’t necessarily mean—”
“That he killed her?”
“Don’t say that!” I find myself yelling at her. “Don’tsay that in front of my child.”
I give Evie her midmorning snack, which she eatswithout complaint for the first time in weeks. It’salmost as though she knows that I have other thingsto worry about, and I adore her for it. I feelimmeasurably calmer when we go back outside, evenif Rachel is still there, standing down at the bottomof the garden by the fence, watching one of thetrains go past. After a while, when she realizes thatI’m back outside, she walks towards me.
“You like them, don’t you?” I say. “The trains. Ihate them. Absolutely bloody loathe them.”
She gives me a half smile. I notice that she has adeep dimple on the left side of her face. I’ve neverseen that before. I suppose I haven’t seen her smilevery often. Ever.
“Another thing he lied about,” she says. “He toldme y............