RACHEL

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 for Tom, and on theirheels came uniformed police, then the detectives,Gaskill and Riley. Their mouths literally fell openwhen they saw us. They asked questions, but Icouldn’t make out their words. I could barely move,barely breathe. Anna spoke, calm and assured.
“It was self-defence,” she told them. “I saw thewhole thing. From the window. He went for her withthe corkscrew. He would have killed her. She had nochoice. I tried?.?.?.” It was the only time she faltered,the only time I saw her cry. “I tried to stop thebleeding, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”
One of the uniformed police fetched Evie, whomiraculously had slept soundly through the wholething, and they took us all to the police station. Theysat Anna and me in separate rooms and asked yetmore questions that I don’t remember. I struggled toanswer, to concentrate. I struggled to form words atall. I told them he attacked me, hit me with a bottle.
I said that he came at me with the corkscrew. I saidthat I managed to take the weapon from him, that Iused it to defend myself. They examined me: theylooked at the wound on my head, at my hands, atmy fingernails.
“Not much in the way of defensive wounds,” Rileysaid doubtfully. They went away and left me there,with a uniformed officer—the one with the neck acnewho came to Cathy’s flat in Ashbury a lifetimeago—standing at the door, avoiding my eye. Later,Riley came back. “Mrs. Watson confirms your story,Rachel,” she said. “You can go now.” She couldn’tmeet my gaze, either. A uniformed policeman tookme to the hospital, where they stitched up thewound on my scalp.
There’s been a lot of stuff about Tom in the papers.
I found out that he was never in the army. He triedto get in, but he was rejected twice. The story abouthis father was a lie, too—he’d twisted it all round. Hetook his parents’ savings and lost it all. They forgavehim, but he cut all ties with them when his fatherdeclined to remortgage their house in order to lendhim more money. He lied all the time, abouteverything. Even when he didn’t need to, even whenthere was no point.
I have the clearest memory of Scott talking aboutMegan, saying I don’t even know who she was,and I feel exactly the same way. Tom’s whole lifewas constructed on lies—falsehoods and half-truthstold to make him look better, stronger, moreinteresting than he was. And I bought them, I fell forthem all. Anna, too. We loved him. I wonder whetherwe would have loved the weaker, flawed,unembellished version. I think that I would. I wouldhave forgiven his mistakes and his failures. I havecommitted enough of my own.
EVENING
I’m at a hotel in a little town on the Norfolk coast.
Tomorrow, I go farther north. Edinburgh, maybe,perhaps farther still. I haven’t made my mind up yet.
I just want to make sure I put plenty of distancebehind me. I have some money. Mum was quitegenerous when she discovered everything I’d beenthrough, so I don’t have to worry. Not for a while.
I hired a car and drove to Holkham this afternoon.
There’s a church just outside the village whereMegan’s ashes are buried, next to the bones of herdaughter, Libby. I read about it in the papers. Therewas some controversy over the burial, because ofMegan’s supposed role in the child’s death. But itwas allowed, in the end, and it seems right that itwas. Whatever she did, she’s been punished enough.
It was just starting to rain when I got there, withnot a soul in sight, but I parked the car and walkedaround the graveyard anyway. I found her graveright in the furthermost corner, almost hidden undera line of firs. You would never know that she wasthere, unless you knew to go looking. The headstonemarker bears her name and the dates of her life—no“loving memory,” no “beloved wife,” or “daughter,” or“mother.” Her child’s stone just says Libby. At leastnow her grave is properly marked; she’s not allalone by the train tracks.
The rain started to fall harder, and when I walkedback through the churchyard I saw a man standingin the doorway of the chapel, and for just a secondI imagined that he was Scott. My heart in mymouth, I wiped the rain from my eyes and lookedagain and saw that it was a priest. He raised a handto me in greeting.
I half ran back to the car, feeling needlessly afraid. Iwas thinking of the violence of my last meeting withScott, of the way he was at the end—wild andparanoiac, on the edge of madness. There’ll be nopeace for him now. How can there be? I think aboutthat, and the way he used to be—the way they usedto be, the way I imagined them to be—and I feelbereft. I feel their loss, too.
I sent an email to Scott, apologizing for all the lies Itold him. I wanted to say sorry about Tom, too,because I should have known. If I’d been sober allthose years, would I have known? Maybe there willbe no peace for me, either.
He didn’t reply to my message. I didn’t expect himto.
I drive to the hotel and check in, and to stopmyself thinking about how nice it would be to sit ina leather armchair in their cosy, low-lit bar with aglass of wine in my hand, I go for a walk out to theharbour instead.
I can imagine exactly how good I would feel halfwaythrough my first drink. To push away the feeling, Icount the days since I last had a drink: twenty.
Twenty-one, if you include today. Three weeksexactly: my longest dry spell in years.
It was Cathy, oddly enough, who served me my lastdrink. When the police brought me home, grimly paleand bloody, and told her what happened, she fetcheda bottle of Jack Daniel’s from her room and pouredus each a large measure. She couldn’t stop crying,saying how sorry she was, as though it was in someway her fault. I drank the whisky and then Ivomited it straight back up; I haven’t touched a dropsince. Doesn’t stop me wanting to.
When I reach the harbour, I turn left and walkaround its edge towards the stretch of beach alongwhich I could walk, if I wanted to, all the way backto Holkham. It’s almost dark now, and cold down bythe water, but I keep going. I want to walk until I’mexhausted, until I’m so tired I can’t think, and maybethen I will be able to sleep.
The beach is deserted, and it’s so cold, I have toclench my jaw to stop my teeth chattering. I walkquickly along the shingle, past the beach huts, sopretty in daylight but now sinister, each one of thema hiding place. When the wind picks up they comealive, their wooden boards creaking against oneanother, and under the sound of the sea there aremurmurs of movement: someone or something,coming closer.
I turn back, I start to run.
I know there’s nothing out here, there’s nothing tobe afraid of, but it doesn’t stop the fear rising frommy stomach to my chest and into my throat. I runas fast as I can. I don’t stop until I’m back on theharbour, in bright street light.
Back in my room I sit on my bed, sitting on myhands until they stop shaking. I open the minibarand take out the bottled water and the macadamianuts. I leave the wine and the little bottles of gin,even though they would help me sleep, even thoughthey would let me slide, warm and loose, intooblivion. Even though they would let me forget, for awhile, the look on his face when I turned back towatch him die.
The train had passed. I heard a noise behind meand saw Anna coming out of the house. She walkedquickly towards us and, reaching his side, she fell toher knees and put her hands on his throat.
He had this look on his face of shock, of hurt. Iwanted to say to her, It’s no good, you won’t beable to help him now, but then I realized shewasn’t trying to stop the bleeding. She was makingsure. Twisting the corkscrew in, farther and farther,ripping into his throat, and all the time she wastalking to him softly, softly. I couldn’t hear what shewas saying.
The last time I saw her was in the police station,when they took us to give our statements. She wasled to one room and I to another, but just beforeshe parted, she touched my arm. “You take care ofyourself, Rachel,” she said, and there was somethingabout the way she said it that made it feel like awarning. We are tied together, forever bound by thestories we told: that I had no choice but to stab himin the neck; that Anna tried her best to save him.
I get into bed and turn the lights out. I won’t beable to sleep, but I have to try. Eventually, I suppose,the nightmares will stop and I’ll stop replaying it overand over and over in my head, but right now Iknow that there’s a long night ahead. And I have toget up early tomorrow morning to catch the train.