SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
EVENING
I can hear something, a hissing sound. There’s aflash of light and I realize it’s the rain, pouring down.
It’s dark outside, there’s a storm. Lightning. I don’tremember when it got dark. The pain in my headbrings me back to myself, my heart crawls into mythroat. I’m on the floor. In the kitchen. With difficulty,I manage to lift my head and raise myself onto oneelbow. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, looking out atthe storm, a beer bottle between his hands.
“What am I going to do, Rach?” he asks when hesees me raise my head. “I’ve been sitting here for?.?.?.
almost half an hour now, just asking myself thatquestion. What am I supposed to do with you? Whatchoice are you giving me?” He takes a long draughtof beer and regards me thoughtfully. I pull myself upto a sitting position, my back to the kitchencupboards. My head swims, my mouth floods withsaliva. I feel as though I’m going to throw up. I bitemy lip and dig my fingernails into my palms. I needto bring myself out of this stupor, I can’t afford tobe weak. I can’t rely on anyone else. I know that.
Anna isn’t going to call the police. She isn’t going torisk her daughter’s safety for me.
“You have to admit it,” Tom is saying. “You’vebrought this upon yourself. Think about it: if you’djust left us alone, you’d never be in this situation. Iwouldn’t be in this situation. None of us would. Ifyou hadn’t been there that night, if Anna hadn’tcome running back here after she saw you at thestation, then I’d probably have just been able to sortthings out with Megan. I wouldn’t have been so?.?.?.
riled up. I wouldn’t have lost my temper. I wouldn’thave hurt her. None of this would have happened.”
I can feel a sob building in the back of my throat,but I swallow it down. This is what he does—this iswhat he always does. He’s a master at it, making mefeel as though everything is my fault, making me feelworthless.
He finishes his beer and rolls the empty bottleacross the table. With a sad shake of his head, hegets to his feet, comes over to me and holds out hishands. “Come on,” he says. “Grab hold. Come on,Rach, up you come.”
I let him pull me to my feet. My back is to thekitchen counter, he is standing in front of me, againstme, his hips pressing against mine. He reaches up tomy face, wipes the tears off my cheekbones with histhumb. “What am I supposed to do with you, Rach?
What do you think I should do?”
“You don’t have to do anything,” I say to him, andI try to smile. “You know that I love you. I still do.
You know that I wouldn’t tell anyone?.?.?. I couldn’tdo that to you.”
He smiles—that wide, beautiful smile that used tomake me melt—and I start to sob. I can’t believe it,can’t believe we are brought to this, that the greatesthappiness I have ever known—my life with him—wasan illusion.
He lets me cry for a while, but it must bore him,because the dazzling smile disappears and now his lipis twisted into a sneer.
“Come on, Rach, that’s enough,” he says. “Stopsnivelling.” He steps away and grabs a handful ofKleenex from a box on the kitchen table. “Blow yournose,” he says, and I do what I’m told.
He watches me, his face a study in contempt. “Thatday when we went to the lake,” he says. “Youthought you had a chance, didn’t you?” He starts tolaugh. “You did, didn’t you? Looking up at me, alldoe-eyed and pleading?.?.?. I could have had you,couldn’t I? You’re so easy.” I bite down hard on mylip. He steps closer to me again. “You’re like one ofthose dogs, the unwanted ones that have beenmistreated all their lives. You can kick them and kickthem, but they’ll still come back to you, cringing andwagging their tails. Begging. Hoping that this time it’llbe different, that this time they’ll do something rightand you’ll love them. You’re just like that, aren’t you,Rach? You’re a dog.” He slips his hand around mywaist and puts his mouth on mine. I let his tongueslip between my lips and press my hips against his. Ican feel him getting hard.
I don’t know if everything’s in the same place that itwas when I lived here. I don’t know whether Annarearranged the cupboards, put the spaghetti in adifferent jar, moved the weighing scales from bottomleft to bottom right. I don’t know. I just hope, as Islip my hand into the drawer behind me, that shedidn’t.
“You could be right, you know,” I say when thekiss breaks. I tilt my face up to his. “Maybe if Ihadn’t come to Blenheim Road that night, Meganwould still be alive.”
He nods and my right hand closes around afamiliar object. I smile and lean in to him, closer,closer, snaking my left hand around his waist. Iwhisper into his ear, “But do you honestly think,given you’re the one who smashed her skull, thatI’m responsible?”
He jerks his head away from me and it’s then thatI lunge forward, pressing all my weight against him,throwing him off balance so that he stumbles backagainst the kitchen table. I raise my foot and stampdown on his as hard as I can, and as he pitchesforward in pain, I grab a fistful of hair at the backof his head and pull him towards me, while at thesame time driving my knee up into his face. I feel acrunch of cartilage as he cries out. I push him to thefloor, grab the keys from the kitchen table and amout of the French doors before he’s able to get tohis knees.
I head for the fence, but I slip in the mud and losemy footing, and he’s on top of me before I getthere, dragging me backwards, pulling my hair,clawing at my face, spitting curses throughblood—“You stupid, stupid bitch, why can’t you stayaway from us? Why can’t you leave me alone?” I getaway from him again, but there’s nowhere to go. Iwon’t make it back through the house and I won’tmake it over the fence. I cry out, but no one’s goingto hear me, not over the rain and the thunder andthe sound of the approaching train. I run to thebottom of the garden, down towards the tracks.
Dead end. I stand on the spot where, a year ormore ago, I stood with his child in my arms. I turn,my back to the fence, and watch him stridingpurposefully towards me. He wipes his mouth withhis forearm, spitting blood to the ground. I can feelthe vibrations from the tracks in the fence behindme—the train is almost upon us, its sound like ascream. Tom’s lips are moving, he’s saying somethingto me, but I can’t hear him. I watch him come, Iwatch him, and I don’t move until he’s almost uponme, and then I swing. I jam the vicious twist of thecorkscrew into his neck.
His eyes widen as he falls without a sound. Heraises his hands to his throat, his eyes on mine. Helooks as though he’s crying. I watch until I can’t lookany longer, then I turn my back on him. As thetrain goes past I can see faces in brightly lit windows,heads bent over books and phones, travellers warmand safe on their way home.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2013
MORNING
You can feel it: it’s like the hum of electric lights, thechange in atmosphere as the train pulls up to thered signal. I’m not the only one who looks now. Idon’t suppose I ever was. I suppose that everyonedoes it—looks out at the houses they pass—only weall see them differently. All saw them differently. Now,everyone else is seeing the same thing. Sometimesyou can hear people talk about it.
“There, it’s that one. No, no, that one, on theleft—there. With the roses by the fence. That’s whereit happened.”
The houses themselves are empty, number fifteenand number twenty-three. They don’t look it—theblinds are up and the doors open, but I know that’sbecause they’re being shown. They’re both on themarket now, though it may be a while before eithergets a serious buyer. I imagine the estate agentsmostly escorting ghouls around those rooms,rubberneckers desperate to see it up close, the placewhere he fell and his blood soaked the earth.
It hurts to think of them walking through thehouse—my house, where I once had hope. I try notto think about what came after. I try not to thinkabout that night. I try and I fail.
Side by side, drenched in his blood, we sat on thesofa, Anna and I. The wives, waiting for theambulance. Anna called them—she called the police,she did everything. She took care of everything. Theparamedics arrived, too late fo............