Except, of course, this wasn’t a day-to-day conversation.
He kept talking. It was endless. Cecilia thought of that urban myth about an exotic worm that lived in your body, and the only cure was to starve yourself and then place a hot dinner in front of your mouth, and wait for the worm to smell the food and slowly uncoil itself, sliding its way up your throat. John-Paul’s voice was like that worm: an endless length of horror slipping from his mouth.
He told her that as the girls grew older his guilt and regret were becoming almost unendurable. The nightmares, the migraines, the bouts of depression that he tried so hard to hide from her were all because of what he’d done.
‘Earlier this year Isabel started to remind me of Janie,’ said John-Paul. ‘Something about the way she was wearing her hair. I kept staring at her. It was terrible. I kept imagining someone hurting Isabel, the way I . . . the way I hurt Janie. An innocent little girl. I felt like I had to put myself through the grief that I put her parents through. I had to imagine her dead. I’ve been crying. In the shower. In the car. Sobbing.’
‘Esther saw you crying before you went to Chicago,’ said Cecilia. ‘In the shower.’
‘Did she?’ John-Paul blinked.
For a moment there was beautiful silence as he digested this.
Okay, thought Cecilia, we’re done. He’s stopped talking. Thank God. She felt a physical and mental exhaustion she hadn’t experienced since she’d been through labour.
‘I gave up sex,’ said John-Paul.
For God’s sake.
He wanted her to know that last November he was trying to think of new ways to punish himself and he decided to give up sex for six months. He was ashamed that he’d never thought of it before. It was one of the great pleasures of his life. It had nearly killed him. He’d been worried she might think he was having an affair, because obviously he couldn’t tell her the real reason.
‘Oh, John-Paul,’ Cecilia sighed into the darkness.
This perpetual quest for redemption he’d been undertaking for all these years seemed so silly, so childish, so utterly pointless and so typically unsystematic.
‘I invited Rachel Crowley to Polly’s pirate party,’ said Cecilia remembering, marvelling at the idiotically innocent person she’d been just a few hours earlier. ‘I drove her home tonight. I talked to her about Janie. I thought I was so great –’
Her voice broke.
She heard John-Paul take a deep shuddery breath.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I know I keep saying it. I know it’s useless.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, and nearly laughed, because it was such a lie.
That was the last thing she remembered before the two of them must have suddenly fallen into a deep, drugged-like sleep.
‘Are you okay?’ said John-Paul now. ‘Do you feel all right?’
She smelled his stale morning breath. Her own mouth felt dry. Her head ached. She felt hungover, seedy and ashamed, as if the two of them had engaged in some disgusting debauchery the previous night.
She pressed two fingertips to her forehead and closed her eyes, unable to look at him any longer. Her neck ached. She must have slept at a funny angle.
‘Do you think you still –’ He stopped himself and cleared his throat convulsively. He finally spoke in a whisper. ‘Can you still be with me?’
She looked into his eyes and saw pure, primal terror.
Did one act define who you were forever? Did one evil act as a teenager counteract twenty years of marriage, of good marriage, twenty years of being a good husband and a good father? Murder and you are a murderer. That was how it worked for other people. For strangers. For people you read about in the newspaper. Cecilia was sure about that, but did different rules apply to John-Paul? And if so, why?
There was a rapid pitter-patter of footsteps down the hallway and suddenly a small warm body catapulted itself onto their bed.
‘G’morning Mum,’ said Polly as she breezily wriggled herself between them. She shoved her head onto Cecilia’s pillow. Strands of her blue-black hair tickled Cecilia’s nose. ‘Hello Daddy.’
Cecilia looked at her youngest daughter as if she’d never seen her before: her flawless skin, the long sweep of her eyelashes and the brilliant blue of her eyes. Everything about her was exquisite and pure.
Cecilia’s eyes met John-Paul’s with perfect, bloodshot understanding. This was why.
‘Hello, Polly,’ they said together.
Chapter twenty-one
Liam said something Tess couldn’t hear, dropped her hand and stopped right at the entrance to St Angela’s. The flood of parents and children changed course to cope with the sudden obstacle in their path, streaming around them. Tess bent down next to him and someone’s elbow banged against the back of her head.
‘What is it?’ she said, rubbing her head. She felt twitchy, nervy and overstimulated. School drop-off was just as bad here as in Melbourne: a very particular version of hell for someone like her. People, people everywhere.
‘I want to go back home,’ Liam spoke to the ground. ‘I want Daddy.’
‘What’s that?’ said Tess, although she’d heard. She tried to take him by the hand. ‘Let’s get out of everybody’s way first.’
She knew this had been coming. It had all been suspiciously, oddly easy. Liam had seemed strangely sanguine about this abrupt, unplanned change of schools. ‘He’s so adaptable,’ Tess’s mother had marvelled, but Tess had thought it had more to do with the problems he’d been experiencing at his old school than actual enthusiasm about starting a new one.