‘You sure I can’t give you a lift?’
‘No. I’m not leaving her again. Not this time.’
I hear the door open.
‘Claire?’
‘Yes?’
‘This isn’t your fault.’
He’s being kind to her, but he’s wrong. This is Claire’s fault. Everything that is wrong with my life is Claire’s fault. I hear her leave and I’m glad.
Paul’s hand holds mine, it feels strong and warm and safe.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispers. ‘I just keep letting you down. I should have been here.’
I imagine Paul watching what Edward did to me in this room. I picture him sitting at home, so far away and seeing a stranger slip his hand beneath my sheet. I’ve been imprisoned inside a nightmare but Paul has been trapped outside, forced to watch me live it. He has been wanting to get in just as much as I wanted to get out.
‘I love you so much,’ he says and kisses me on the forehead.
He’s been through his own personal hell while I’ve been sleeping in my own. I wish that I could tell him how sorry I am for putting him through all of this and that I love him too. I say the words over and over in my head until they sound fat and real.
‘I love you.’
‘Oh, my God,’ says Paul and lets go of my hand. I instinctively want to see what the matter is so I try to open my eyes. The bright light overwhelms me at first and the pain of it shoots through to the back of my skull.
‘Paul.’ I hear a voice and realise it is my own.
‘I’m right here,’ he says and I can see him. He’s crying and now I’m crying. He’s kissing me and I can see him. This is real. My eyes really are open. I’m awake.
Then
Christmas Day 2016 – Evening
I pull into Claire’s driveway and can see her standing in the porch. She’s been expecting me. I get out and march through the rain towards her, without even closing the car door. My dress is soaking wet and clings to my legs. It’s as though the material is trying to hold me back, trying to stop me from going in there.
‘Hello, Amber,’ she says. Arms folded. Features relaxed. Body perfectly still.
‘We need to talk.’
‘I think you need to calm down.’
‘He hasn’t seen anything; he doesn’t know anything.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘If you hurt him, if anything happens to him . . .’
She steps forward. ‘What? What will you do?’
I want to hit her. I want to hurt her so badly but I can’t. I still love her more than I hate her. We can’t have this conversation out here. You never know who might be listening.
‘Can I come in, please?’
She stares at me for a while, as though assessing the risk. Her arms unfold themselves before her eyes decide. She nods and steps inside the hall, leaving just enough room for me to follow.
‘You’re wet, take your shoes off.’
I quietly close the door behind us and do as I’m told. I stand barefoot on her new cream carpet and worry about what happens next. We’re somewhere we’ve never been before. I wonder where David is, whether he can hear us.
‘David is upstairs. He passed out not long after you and your husband left,’ she says, reading my mind. My husband, not Paul any more. She’s already disassociating herself from the person she has identified as a problem. Her eyes are dark, cold. I can see that she’s already gone to that place inside herself that scares me so much.
‘I want them back,’ she says. I don’t need to ask what.
‘I’ve burned them.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘He didn’t read them.’
‘Why do you even have them?’
‘They were here. In the attic. I found them after Mum and Dad died. They’d kept everything of yours. There was nothing of mine.’
‘So you stole them?’
‘No. I just wanted something. They left you everything. It was as though I didn’t even exist any more.’
‘You shouldn’t have taken them and you shouldn’t have let Paul read them. Or did you want something to happen to him?’
‘No! He didn’t read them. Stay away from him!’
‘You need to calm down.’
‘You need to back the fuck off.’ I push her. I didn’t mean to. She stumbles backwards, that flash of something I remember in her eyes. She steps forward again, her face in mine. I feel her breath.
‘He read them and now the situation needs to be dealt with,’ she says calmly.
‘He doesn’t know.’
‘He read them.’
‘No, he didn’t.’ I plead with her, already knowing her ears are closed to the sound of truth.
‘Two. Peas. In. A. Pod. That’s what he said to me. He read them.’ She spits the words at me and, with each one, the pain in my stomach increases, so much so, that I think she must have stabbed me. That’s when I see the blood. I look at both of her hands, but they’re empty, there’s no knife. She’s looking down too now at the single line of red running down the inside of my right leg. My hands reach down to my belly and the pain bends me in half.
‘Oh, God,’ I manage to whisper. And then my knees are folding and I’m sinking lower and lower into the pain.
‘What’s happening?’ Claire asks.
‘Oh, God, no.’
‘Are you pregnant?’ She looks down at me, a mix of awe and disgust on her face. She doesn’t wait for my answer. ‘How could you not tell me something like that? We used to tell each other everything.’ I can see her mind working, overwhelmed with this new piece of information. Plotting a new course.
‘I’m sorry,’ I manage to say, because she thinks I should be. Her face doesn’t change.
‘It’s just a tiny bleed. You’ll be OK. Give me the car keys.’
I shake my head. ‘Call Paul.’
‘Just give me the keys. The hospital is fifteen minutes from here, it’s quicker than calling for an ambulance. We’ll call him on the way.’
I do what she says, like I always have.
Now
Tuesday, 3rd January 2017
‘Are you hungry?’ asks Paul. I’ve been sleeping, the kind of sleep you can wake up from. I sit up in the hospital bed and let him adjust the pillows behind me. The door is open and I can see a trolley just outside.
‘She needs to take it slow, just a little at a time,’ Northern Nurse says to Paul, giving him a tray of food. I recognise her voice. She doesn’t look the same in real life as she did in my head. She’s younger, slimmer, less tired-looking. I never pictured her smiling, but she does, all the time. Some people appear happy on the outside and you only know they’re broken inside if you listen as well as look.
Paul takes the tray and puts it down in front of me. There’s chicken, with mash and green beans. A carton of juice and what looks like strawberry jelly. I’m so hungry but now that I can see what’s on offer, I’m less eager to eat it. Paul picks up the cutlery and loads some mashed potato onto a fork.
‘I can do it,’ I say.
‘Sorry.’
I take the fork from him.