MEGAN

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013
MORNING
I can’t sleep in this heat. Invisible bugs crawl overmy skin, I have a rash on my chest, I can’t getcomfortable. And Scott seems to radiate warmth;lying next to him is like lying next to a fire. I can’tget far enough away from him and find myselfclinging to the edge of the bed, sheets thrown back.
It’s intolerable. I thought about going to lie down onthe futon in the spare room, but he hates to wakeand find me gone, it always leads to a row aboutsomething. Alternative uses for the spare room,usually, or who I was thinking about while I waslying there alone. Sometimes I want to scream athim, Just let me go. Let me go. Let me breathe.
So I can’t sleep, and I’m angry. I feel as thoughwe’re having a fight already, even though the fight’sonly in my imagination.
And in my head, thoughts go round and round andround.
I feel like I’m suffocating.
When did this house become so bloody small?
When did my life become so boring? Is this reallywhat I wanted? I can’t remember. All I know is thata few months ago I was feeling better, and now Ican’t think and I can’t sleep and I can’t draw andthe urge to run is becoming overwhelming. At nightwhen I lie awake I can hear it, quiet but unrelenting,undeniable: a whisper in my head, Slip away. WhenI close my eyes, my head is filled with images of pastand future lives, the things I dreamed I wanted, thethings I had and threw away. I can’t get comfortable,because every way I turn I run into dead ends: theclosed gallery, the houses on this road, the stiflingattentions of the tedious Pilates women, the track atthe end of the garden with its trains, always takingsomeone else to somewhere else, reminding me overand over and over, a dozen times a day, that I’mstaying put.
I feel as though I’m going mad.
And yet just a few months ago, I was feeling better,I was getting better. I was fine. I was sleeping. Ididn’t live in fear of the nightmares. I could breathe.
Yes, I still wanted to run away. Sometimes. But notevery day.
Talking to Kamal helped me, there’s no denyingthat. I liked it. I liked him. He made me happier.
And now all that feels so unfinished—I never got tothe crux of it. That’s my fault, of course, because Ibehaved stupidly, like a child, because I didn’t likefeeling rejected. I need to learn to lose a little better.
I’m embarrassed now, ashamed. My face goes hot atthe thought of it. I don’t want that to be his finalimpression of me. I want him to see me again, tosee me better. And I do feel that if I went to him,he would help. He’s like that.
I need to get to the end of the story. I need to tellsomeone, just once. Say the words out loud. If itdoesn’t come out of me, it’ll eat me up. The holeinside me, the one they left, it’ll just get bigger andbigger until it consumes me.
I’m going to have to swallow my pride and myshame and go to him. He’s going to have to listen.
I’ll make him.
EVENING
Scott thinks I’m at the cinema with Tara. I’ve beenoutside Kamal’s flat for fifteen minutes, psychingmyself up to knock on the door. I’m so afraid of theway he’s going to look at me, after last time. I haveto show him that I’m sorry, so I’ve dressed the part:
plain and simple, jeans and T-shirt, hardly anymakeup. This is not about seduction, he has to seethat.
I can feel my heart starting to race as I step up tohis front door and press the bell. No one comes.
The lights are on, but no one comes. Perhaps hehas seen me outside, lurking; perhaps he’s upstairs,just hoping that if he ignores me I’ll go away. Iwon’t. He doesn’t know how determined I can be.
Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to bereckoned with.
I ring again, and then a third time, and finally Ihear footsteps on the stairs and the door opens.
He’s wearing tracksuit bottoms and a white T-shirt.
He’s barefoot, wet-haired, his face flushed.
“Megan.” Surprised, but not angry, which is a goodstart. “Are you all right? Is everything all right?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and he steps back to let me in. Ifeel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost likelove.
He shows me into the kitchen. It’s a mess: washingup piled on the counter and in the sink, emptytakeaway cartons spilling out of the bin. I wonder ifhe’s depressed. I stand in the doorway; he leansagainst the counter opposite me, his arms foldedacross his chest.
“What can I do for you?” he asks. His face isarranged into a perfectly neutral expression, histherapist face. It makes me want to pinch him, justto make him smile.
“I have to tell you?.?.?.” I start, and then I stopbecause I can’t just plunge straight into it, I need apreamble. So I change tack. “I wanted to apologize,”
I say, “for what happened. Last time.”
“That’s OK,” he says. “Don’t worry about that. Ifyou need to talk to someone, I can refer you tosomeone else, but I can’t—”
“Please, Kamal.”
“Megan, I can’t counsel you any longer.”
“I know. I know that. But I can’t start over withsomeone else. I can’t. We got so far. We were soclose. I just have to tell you. Just once. And then I’llbe gone, I promise. I won’t ever bother you again.”
He cocks his head to one side. He doesn’t believeme, I can tell. He thinks that if he lets me back innow, he’ll never be rid of me.
“Hear me out, please. This isn’t going to go onforever, I just need someone to listen.”
“Your husband?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“I can’t—I can’t tell him. Not after all this time. Hewouldn’t?.?.?. He wouldn’t be able to see me as meany longer. I’d be someone else to him. He wouldn’tknow how to forgive me. Please, Kamal. If I don’tspit out the poison, I feel like I’ll never sleep. As afriend, not a therapist, please listen.”
His shoulders drop a little as he turns away, and Ithink it’s over. My heart sinks. Then he opens acupboard and pulls out two tumblers.
“As a friend, then. Would you like some wine?”
He shows me into the living room. Dimly lit bystanding lamps, it has the same air of domesticneglect as the kitchen. We sit down on opposite sidesof a glass table piled high with papers, magazinesand takeaway menus. My hands are locked aroundmy glass. I take a sip. It’s red but cold, dusty. Iswallow, take another sip. He’s waiting for me tostart, but it’s hard, harder than I thought it wasgoing to be. I’ve kept this secret for so long—adecade, more than a third of my life. It’s not thateasy, letting go of it. I just know that I have to starttalking. If I don’t do it now, I might never have thecourage to say the words out loud, I might lose themaltogether, they might stick in my throat and chokeme in my sleep.
“After I left Ipswich, I moved in with Mac, into hiscottage outside Holkham at the end of the lane. Itold you that, didn’t I? It was very isolated, a coupleof miles to the nearest neighbour, a couple more tothe nearest shops. At the beginning, we had lots ofparties, there were always a few people crashed outin the living room or sleeping in the hammockoutside in the summer. But we got tired of that, andMac fell out with everyone eventually, so peoplestopped coming, and it was the two of us. Days usedto go by and we wouldn’t see anyone. We’d do ourgrocery shopping at the petrol station. It’s odd,thinking back on it, but I needed it then, aftereverything—after Ipswich and all those men, all thethings I did. I liked it, just Mac and me and the oldrailway tracks and the grass and the dunes and therestless grey sea.”
Kamal tilts his head to one side, gives me half asmile. I feel my insides flip. “It sounds nice. But doyou think you are romanticizing? ‘The restless greysea’?”
“Never mind that,” I say, waving him away. “Andno, in any case. Have you been to north Norfolk?
It’s not the Adriatic. It is restless and relentlesslygrey.”
He holds his hands up, smiling. “OK.”
I feel instantly better, the tension leaching out of myneck and shoulders. I take another sip of the wine; ittastes less bitter now.
“I was happy with Mac. I know it doesn’t soundlike the sort of place I’d like, the sort of life I’d like,but then, after Ben’s death and everything that cameafter, it was. Mac saved me. He took me in, heloved me, he kept me safe. And he wasn’t boring.
And to be perfectly honest, we were taking a lot ofdrugs, and it’s difficult to get bored when you’re offyour face all the time. I was happy. I was reallyhappy.”
Kamal nods. “I understand, although I’m not surethat sounds like a very real kind of happiness,” hesays. “Not the sort of happiness that can endure,that can sustain you.”
I laugh. “I was seventeen. I was with a man whoexcited me, who adored me. I’d got away from myparents, away from the house where everything,everything, reminded me of my dead brother. Ididn’t need it to endure or sustain. I just needed itfor right then.”
“So what happened?”
It seems as though the room gets darker then.
Here we are, at the thing I never say.
“I got pregnant.”
He nods, waiting for me to go on. Part of mewants him to stop me, to ask more questions, but hedoesn’t, he just waits. It gets darker still.
“It was too late when I realized to?.?.?. to get rid ofit. Of her. It’s what I would have done, had I notbeen so stupid, so oblivious. The truth is that shewasn’t wanted, by either of us.”
Kamal gets to his feet, goes to the kitchen andcomes back with a sheet of kitchen roll for me towipe my eyes. He hands it to me and sits down. It’sa while before I go on. Kamal sits, just as he usedto in our sessions, his eyes on mine, his handsfolded in his lap, patient, immobile. It must take themost incredible self-control, that stillness, thatpassivity; it must be exhausting.
My legs are trembling, my knee jerking as thoughon a puppeteer’s string. I get to my feet to stop it. Iwalk to the kitchen door and back again, scratchingthe palms of my hands.
“We were both so stupid,” I tell him. “We didn’treally even acknowledge what was happening, we justcarried on. I didn’t go to see a doctor, I didn’t eatthe right things or take supplements, I didn’t do anyof the things you’re supposed to. We just carried onliving our lives. We didn’t even acknowledge thatanything had changed. I got fatter and slower andmore tired, we both got irritable and fought all thetime, but nothing really changed until she came.”
He lets me cry. While I do so, he moves to thechair nearest mine and sits down at my side so thathis knees are almost touching my thigh. He leansforward. He doesn’t touch me, but our bodies areclose, I can smell his scent, clean in this dirty room,sharp and astringent.
My voice is a whisper, it doesn’t feel right to saythese words out loud. “I had her at home,” I say. “Itwas stupid, but I had this thing about hospitals atthe time, because the last time I’d been in one waswhen Ben was killed. Plus I hadn’t been for any ofthe scans. I’d been smoking, drinking a bit, I couldn’tface the lectures. I couldn’t face any of it. I think?.?.?.
right up until the end, it just didn’t seem like it wasreal, like it was actually going to happen.
“Mac had this friend who was a nurse, or who’ddone some nursing training or something. She cameround, and it was OK. It wasn’t so bad. I mean, itwas horrible, of course, painful and frightening,but?.?.?. then there she was. She was very small. Idon’t remember exactly what her weight was. That’sterrible, isn’t it?” Kamal doesn’t say anything, hedoesn’t move. “She was lovely. She had dark eyesand blond hair. She didn’t cry a lot, she slept well,right from the very beginning. She was good. Shewas a good girl.” I have to stop there for a moment.
“I expected everything to be so hard, but it wasn’t.”
It’s darker still, I’m sure of it, but I look up andKamal is there, his eyes on mine, his expression soft.
He’s listening. He wants me to tell him. My mouth isdry, so I take another sip of wine. It hurts toswallow. “We called her Elizabeth. Libby.” It feels sostrange, saying her name out loud after such a longtime. “Libby,” I say again, enjoying the feel of hername in my mouth. I want to say it over and over.
Kamal reaches out at last and takes my hand in his,his thumb against my wrist, on my pulse.
“One day we had a fight, Mac and I. I don’tremember what it was about. We did that every nowand again—little arguments that blew up into bigones, nothing physical, nothing bad like that, but we’dscream at each other and I’d threaten to leave, orhe’d just walk out and I wouldn’t see him for acouple of days.
“It was the first time it had happened since she wasborn—the first time he’d just gone off and left me.
She was just a few months old. The roof wasleaking. I remember that: the sound of waterdripping into buckets in the kitchen. It was freezingcold, the wind driving off the sea; it had been rainingfor days. I lit a fire in the living room, but it keptgoing out. I was so tired. I was drinking just towarm up, but it wasn’t working, so I decided to getinto the bath. I took Libby in with me, put her onmy chest, her head just under my chin.”
The room gets darker and darker until I’m thereagain, lying in the water, her body pressing againstmine, a candle flickering just behind my head. I canhear it guttering, smell the wax, feel the chill of theair around my neck and shoulders. I’m heavy, mybody sinking into the warmth. I’m exhausted. Andthen suddenly the candle is out and I’m cold. Reallycold, my teeth chattering in my head, my whole bodyshaking. The house feels like it’s shaking, too, thewind screaming, tearing at the slates on the roof.
“I fell asleep,” I say, and then I can’t say any more,because I can feel her again, no longer on my chest,her body wedged between my arm and the edge ofthe tub, her face in the water. We were both socold.
For a moment, neither of us move. I can hardlybear to look at him, but when I do, he doesn’t recoilfrom me. He doesn’t say a word. He puts his armaround my shoulder and pulls me to him, my faceagainst his chest. I breathe him in and I wait to feeldifferent, to feel lighter, to feel better or worse nowthat there is another living soul who knows. I feelrelieved, I think, because I know from his reactionthat I have done the right thing. He isn’t angry withme, he doesn’t think I’m a monster. I am safe here,completely safe with him.
I don’t know how long I stay there in his arms, butwhen I come back to myself, my phone is ringing. Idon’t answer it, but a moment later it beeps to alertme that there’s a text. It’s from Scott. Where areyou? And seconds after that, the phone starts ringingagain. This time it’s Tara. Disentangling myself fromKamal’s embrace, I answer.
“Megan, I don’t know what you’re up to, but youneed to call Scott. He’s rung here four times. I toldhim you’d nipped out to the offie to get some wine,but I don’t think he believed me. He says you’re notpicking up your phone.” She sounds pissed off, and Iknow I should appease her, but I don’t have theenergy.
“OK,” I say. “Thanks. I’ll ring him now.”
“Megan—” she says, but I end the call before I canhear another word.
It’s after ten. I’ve been here for more than twohours. I turn off my phone and turn to face Kamal.
“I don’t want to go home,” I say.
He nods, but he doesn’t invite me to stay. Insteadhe says, “You can come back, if you like. Anothertime.”
I step forward, closing the gap between our bodies,stand on tiptoe and kiss his lips. He doesn’t pullaway from me.