I stand in the bathroom for a while, the phone on the edge of the sink. Willing it to ring. The screen stays stubbornly grey and blank. I brush my hair and my teeth, put on some make-up. My colour is returning to normal. My eyes are still red, my throat still hurts, but I look all right. I start counting. If the phone doesn’t ring before I get to fifty, I’m just going to go down there and knock on the door. The phone doesn’t ring.
I stuff the phone into my jeans pocket, walk quickly through the bedroom and open the door. Scott is sitting on the landing, his arms around his knees, his head down. He doesn’t look up at me, so I walk past him and start to run downstairs, my breath catching in my throat. I’m afraid that he’ll grab me from behind and push me. I can hear him getting to his feet and he calls, ‘Megan! Where are you going? Are you going to him?’
At the bottom of the stairs, I turn. ‘There is no him, OK? It’s over.’
‘Please wait, Megan. Please don’t go.’
I don’t want to hear him beg, don’t want to listen to the whine in his voice, the self-pity. Not when my throat still feels like someone’s poured acid down it.
‘Don’t follow me,’ I croak at him. ‘If you follow me, I’ll never come back. Do you understand? If I turn around and see you behind me, that’ll be the last time you ever see my face.’
I can hear him calling my name as I slam the door behind me.
I wait on the pavement outside for a few moments to make sure he isn’t following me, then I walk, quickly at first, then slower, and slower, along Blenheim Road. I get to number twenty-three and it’s then that I lose my nerve. I’m not ready for this scene yet. I need a minute to collect myself. A few minutes. I walk on, past the house, past the underpass, past the station. I keep going until I get to the park and then I dial his number one more time.
I tell him that I’m in the park, that I’ll wait for him there, but if he doesn’t come, that’s it, I’m coming round to the house. This is his last chance.
It’s a lovely evening, a little after seven but still warm and light. A bunch of kids are still playing on the swings and the slide, their parents standing off to one side, chatting animatedly. It looks nice, normal, and as I watch them I have a sickening feeling that Scott and I will not bring our daughter here to play. I just can’t see us, happy and relaxed like that. Not now. Not after what I’ve just done.
I was so convinced this morning that getting everything out in the open would be the best way – not just the best way, the only way. No more lying, no more hiding. And then when he hurt me, it only made me all the more sure. But now, sitting here on my own, with Scott not just furious but heartbroken, I don’t think it was the right thing at all. I wasn’t being strong, I was being reckless, and there’s no telling how much damage I’ve done.
Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. It’s not just restlessness – this is more than that. For her sake and mine, now is the time to go, to walk away from them both, from all of it. Maybe running and hiding is exactly what I need to do.
I get to my feet and walk round the park just once. I’m half willing the phone to ring and half dreading it ringing, but in the end I’m pleased when it stays silent. I’ll take it as a sign. I head back the way I came, towards home.
I’ve just passed the station when I see him. He’s walking quickly, striding out of the underpass, his shoulders hunched over and his fists clenched, and before I can stop myself, I call out.
He turns to face me. ‘Megan! What the hell …’ The expression on his face is pure rage, but he beckons me to go to him.
‘Come on,’ he says, when I get closer. ‘We can’t talk here. The car’s over there.’
‘I just need—’
‘We can’t talk here!’ he snaps. ‘Come on.’ He tugs at my arm. Then, more gently, ‘We’ll drive somewhere quiet, OK? Somewhere we can talk.’
As I get into the car, I glance over my shoulder, back the way he came. The underpass is dark, but I feel as though I can see someone in there, in the shadows – someone watching us go.
RACHEL
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Afternoon
ANNA TURNS ON HER heel and runs into the house the second she sees him. My heart hammering against my ribs, I follow cautiously, stopping just short of the sliding doors. Inside, they are embracing, his arms enveloping her, the child between them. Anna’s head is bent, her shoulders shaking. His mouth is pressed to the top of her scalp, but his eyes are on me.
‘What’s going on here then?’ he asks, the trace of a smile on his lips. ‘I have to say that finding you two ladies gossiping in the garden when I got home was not what I expected.’
His tone is light, but he’s not fooling me. He’s not fooling me any more. I open my mouth to speak, but I find that I don’t have the words. I have nowhere to start.
‘Rachel? Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ He relinquishes Anna from his grasp and takes a step towards me. I take a step back, and he starts to laugh.
‘What on earth’s wrong with you? Are you drunk?’ he asks, but I can see in his eyes that he knows I’m sober and I’m betting that for once he wishes I wasn’t. I slip my hand into the back pocket of my jeans – my phone is there, hard and compact and comforting, only I wish I’d had the sense to make the call already. No matter whether they believed me or not, if I’d told them I was with Anna and her child, the police would have come.
Tom is now just a couple of feet away from me – he’s just inside the door and I’m just outside it.
‘I saw you,’ I say at last, and I feel euphoria, fleeting but unmistakeable, when I say the words out loud. ‘You think I don’t remember anything, but I do. I saw you. After you hit me, you left me there, in the underpass …’
He starts to laugh, but I can see it now and I wonder how I never read him this easily before. There’s panic in his eyes. He shoots a glance at Anna, but she doesn’t meet his eye.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘In the underpass. On the day Megan Hipwell went missing …’
‘Oh, bullshit,’ he says, waving a hand at me. ‘I did not hit you. You fell.’ He reaches for Anna’s hand and pulls her closer to him. ‘Darling, is this why you’re so upset? Don’t listen to her, she’s talking absolute rubbish. I didn’t hit her. I’ve never laid a hand on her in my life. Not like that.’ He puts his arm around Anna’s shoulders and pulls her closer still. ‘Come on. I’ve told you how she is. She doesn’t know what happens when she drinks, she makes up the most—’