Sunday, 18 August 2013
Evening
SHE’S ON THE FLOOR in the kitchen. She’s bleeding, but I don’t think it’s serious. He hasn’t finished it. I’m not really sure what he’s waiting for. I suppose it’s not easy for him. He did love her, once.
I was upstairs, putting Evie down, and I was thinking that this is what I wanted, isn’t it? Rachel will be gone at last, once and for all, never to return. This is what I dreamed about happening. Well, not exactly this, obviously. But I did want her gone. I dreamed of a life without Rachel, and now I could have one. It would be just the three of us, me and Tom and Evie, like it should be.
For just a moment, I let myself enjoy the fantasy, but then I looked down at my sleeping daughter and I knew that was all it was. A fantasy. I kissed my finger and touched it to her perfect lips and I knew that we would never be safe. I would never be safe, because I know, and he won’t be able to trust me. And who’s to say another Megan won’t come along? Or – worse – another Anna, another me?
I went back downstairs and he was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a beer. I couldn’t see her at first, but then I noticed her feet, and I thought at first that it was done, but he said she was all right.
‘Just a little knock,’ he said. He won’t be able to call this one an accident.
So we waited. I got myself a beer too, and we drank them together. He told me he was really sorry about Megan, about the affair. He kissed me, he told me he’d make it up to me, that we’d be OK, that everything would be all right.
‘We’ll move away from here, just like you’ve always wanted. We’ll go anywhere you want. Anywhere.’ He asked me if I could forgive him, and I said that I could, given time, and he believed me. I think he believed me.
The storm has started, just like they said it would. The rumble of thunder wakes her, brings her to. She starts to make a noise, to move around on the floor.
‘You should go,’ he says to me. ‘Go back upstairs.’
I kiss him on the lips and I leave him, but I don’t go back upstairs. Instead I pick up the phone in the hallway, sit on the bottom stair and listen, the handset in my hand, waiting for the right moment.
I can hear him talking to her, soft and low, and then I hear her. I think she’s crying.
RACHEL
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Evening
I CAN HEAR SOMETHING, a hissing sound. There’s a flash of light and I realize it’s the rain, pouring down. It’s dark outside, there’s a storm. Lightning. I don’t remember when it got dark. The pain in my head brings me back to myself, my heart crawls into my throat. I’m on the floor. In the kitchen. With difficulty, I manage to lift my head and raise myself on to one elbow. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, looking out at the storm, a beer bottle between his hands.
‘What am I going to do, Rach?’ he asks when he sees me raise my head. ‘I’ve been sitting here for … almost half an hour now, just asking myself that question. What am I supposed to do with you? What choice are you giving me?’ He takes a long draught of beer and regards me thoughtfully. I pull myself up to a sitting position, my back to the kitchen cupboards. My head swims, my mouth floods with saliva. I feel as though I’m going to throw up. I bite my lip and dig my fingernails into my palms. I need to bring myself out of this stupor, I can’t afford to be weak. I can’t rely on anyone else. I know that. Anna isn’t going to call the police. She isn’t going to risk her daughter’s safety for me.
‘You have to admit it,’ Tom is saying. ‘You’ve brought this upon yourself. Think about it: if you’d just left us alone, you’d never be in this situation. I wouldn’t be in this situation. None of us would. If you hadn’t been there that night, if Anna hadn’t come running back here after she saw you at the station, then I’d probably have just been able to sort things out with Megan. I wouldn’t have been so … riled up. I wouldn’t have lost my temper. I wouldn’t have 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 is what he always does. He’s a master at it, making me feel as though everything is my fault, making me feel worthless.
He finishes his beer and rolls the empty bottle across the table. With a sad shake of his head, he gets to his feet, comes over to me and holds out his hands. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Grab hold. Come on, Rach, up you come.’
I let him pull me to my feet. My back is to the kitchen counter, he is standing in front of me, against me, his hips pressing against mine. He reaches up to my face, wipes the tears off my cheekbones with his thumb. ‘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, and I try to smile. ‘You know that I love you. I still do. You know that I wouldn’t tell anyone … I couldn’t do that to you.’
He smiles – that wide, beautiful smile that used to make me melt – and I start to sob. I can’t believe it, can’t believe we are brought to this, that the greatest happiness I have ever known – my life with him – was an illusion.
He lets me cry for a while, but it must bore him, because the dazzling smile disappears and now his lip is twisted into a sneer.
‘Come on, Rach, that’s enough,’ he says. ‘Stop snivelling.’ He steps away and grabs a handful of Kleenex from a box on the kitchen table. ‘Blow your nose,’ he says, and I do what I’m told.
He watches me, his face a study in contempt. ‘That day when we went to the lake,’ he says. ‘You thought you had a chance, didn’t you?’ He starts to laugh. ‘You did, didn’t you? Looking up at me, all doe-eyed and pleading … I could have had you, couldn’t I? You’re so easy.’ I bite down hard on my lip. He steps closer to me again. ‘You’re like one of those dogs, the unwanted ones that have been mistreated all their lives. You can kick them and kick them, but they’ll still come back to you, cringing and wagging their tails. Begging. Hoping that this time it’ll be different, that this time they’ll do something right and you’ll love them. You’re just like that, aren’t you, Rach? You’re a dog.’ He slips his hand around my waist and puts his mouth on mine. I let his tongue slip between my lips and press my hips against his. I can feel him getting hard.