That Night

by Gillian McAllister

  ‘Joe,’ Cathy says. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘He’s a bully,’ Frannie shouts.

  ‘She said I’ve been reading about Will,’ Joe roars. ‘She knows, doesn’t she?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Frannie bleats, her eyes finding Cathy’s over Joe’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘How could you?’ he says. ‘We have just finished dealing with the fucking fall-out of one person, and now a second? What. The. Fuck?’ His face has turned red, the whites of his eyes shining unnaturally in the light. He looks so different. He looks like a thug.

  ‘What – I’m supposed to just forget it? Not need my friends to confide in?’ Frannie says.

  ‘It didn’t happen,’ screams Joe. ‘That’s what we have to do. Live it. Live the lie. There are no bribes. There are no threats.’ He meets her eyes. ‘There is no body.’

  ‘But I can’t. I can’t,’ Frannie says. She is trembling and crying. Cathy can’t stop looking at her. If only. If fucking only. ‘They’re going to come for us, when they find him, aren’t they?’

  ‘No!’ Joe roars. ‘They didn’t take our DNA.’ He yells it right into her face. ‘They’ll see it was a hit-and-run. There’s no CCTV out there. Nobody will know. Except, for some reason, you keep telling people.’

  ‘Joe,’ she shouts. ‘Stop – just – stop.’

  Joe turns away from both of them and rests his palms on the plate-glass windows, looking out to the street. After a second, he drops his head, his forehead touching the glass. The only light comes from a lone street-lamp outside, her brother a crucifix in the night – white-palmed and self-sacrificial. ‘Do you know what?’ he says.

  ‘What?’ Cathy whispers.

  ‘I’d have to commit mass murder if I were to kill everybody who knows now,’ he says.

  Cathy blinks.

  ‘I’d have to kill two extra people.’ He rolls his forehead on the glass, turning to look right at her. His eyes land on Frannie. ‘Five if you count family,’ he adds softly.

  ‘Please come and get me,’ Cathy says into the phone.

  ‘Where are you?’ Tom says.

  Cathy looks around the empty foyer, the misted-up mark where Joe’s forehead rested still apparent. ‘At work. I was supposed to come back with Joe and Frannie but … we’ve had the worst row –’

  ‘On my way.’

  She pulls the sleeves of her cardigan down over her hands and wraps her arms around her body. She lets herself into her consultation room. She doesn’t lock the door. She can’t quite go there, can’t quite think that Joe might be … what? Dangerous?

  Cathy can hear them still arguing, somewhere in the back. All around her are enemies, it seems to her.

  She stands in the empty consultation room, holding the hot phone in her cold hands, not doing anything except thinking. She turns off her computer, and the light, and stands there in the dark, hoping to become invisible, blinking back tears.

  Tom must have sped over, because he arrives six minutes later. She leaves out of the front, locking the doors behind her, and walks over to his car, her trainers squeaking on the damp grass. His cheeks are red. His skin has a slight sheen to it. He smells of showers. The synthetic lime musk of male shower gel.

  He kills the engine and looks at her as she gets in. ‘I’m here,’ he says simply. His eyes are serious again. No jokes.

  A car with blacked-out windows cruises by, doing five, ten miles an hour, evidently looking for somebody. A rap song blares out. Big beats dropping in the night. Is this how it happens? One crime begets another and – suddenly. They’re … they’ve become a family who will do anything, absolutely anything, to keep a secret, to cover up a crime, to keep people quiet. Money. Violence. Mobs. Mafia. They’re doing what hundreds of families have done before them.

  Cathy’s skin breaks out in goosebumps.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Tom says.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ she says.

  ‘Try me.’ There’s something about his tone that she wonders about. A kind of eagerness. The kind of tone of somebody who might know what’s coming, but she pushes the thought away.

  Cathy watches the car cruise past, thinking. ‘I …’ she says. She looks back at him, this man who was supposed to be a bit of fun, and wonders if she could do it. I hope they’re as loyal to you as you are to them. She thinks of that astute comment, of Joe and Frannie’s united front, of his actions earlier, and pauses.

  Could she?

  ‘You really can tell me anything,’ Tom says. He scoots back his seat, like he doesn’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. ‘I’m a total idiot. I’ll probably forget.’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ Cathy says, unable to resist a smile. ‘It’s unforgettable.’

  Tom spreads his hands wide. ‘I mean – whatever,’ he says nicely. ‘Whether you want to, or not. I’m here.’

  ‘It’s selfish to tell you.’ Her voice is thick with unshed tears. Snot is building in her nose. God, she must look a mess. Tom wordlessly hands her a tissue from a packet in his glove-box.

  ‘It isn’t,’ he says. ‘It isn’t selfish to need help.’

  Her eyes feel starry with tears. She can’t believe Joe acted like that. Has she been foolish to protect Frannie? To be involved with Joe and his temper? To align herself with them? She thinks of the looks that pass between them, and suddenly she feels completely alone in the world.

  Except for Tom. She turns her head to the right and looks directly at him. ‘If I tell you, we can never go back,’ she says, thinking how easy it has become not to be shy. It’s so easy, like a flower that knows to open up at exactly the right moment in spring.

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Okay. Let’s do it.’ His hand lands on hers, soft as a butterfly. ‘Let’s go.’

  If Cathy was worried that Tom already knew about the crime, those doubts are completely extinguished by his reaction.

  ‘Cathy, that is … that’s fucked up,’ Tom says. The impact of the word feels like g-force to Cathy.

  ‘No – I …’ She didn’t expect this. She thought he’d be easy-going, understanding. ‘It is,’ she says. ‘But it’s not my fault.’

  He swivels his gaze to her in the car. He’s pale. They’re in a lay-by. The road around them is as dark as the track road was in Verona, lit up only by occasional cars that pass in stripes of white and red.

  ‘I mean – I thought this would be … like, a small crisis.’ He gives a sad half-smile, the kind people give in disbelief.

  ‘Well, it isn’t,’ she says. ‘And it’s not – I mean. Needless to say, it isn’t the kind of thing that happens to me too often.’

  ‘Me neither,’ he says quietly. ‘I mean – it’s murder.’

  ‘She didn’t mean it,’ Cathy says quickly, no longer knowing if that’s true.

  Tom doesn’t say anything for several minutes, his hand rubbing thoughtfully over his chin. What was she thinking, bringing her baggage to him in this way? He’s right. It isn’t a small crisis. It isn’t normal. They must be toxic, the lot of them. Delusional fools. Troublemakers.

  ‘You know,’ she says, a hand on the door. She can get a taxi. She can walk. Anything but this. ‘I wish I hadn’t said.’

  ‘No, no,’ Tom says. He reaches for her hand, enclosing it in his. ‘I didn’t say that. I didn’t say leave. I didn’t say deal-breaker.’

  ‘You said it’s fucked up.’

  He looks at her, his eyes the only thing she can see clearly in the dark. ‘Isn’t it?’

  She drops her head, unable to argue with that. She’s tired. So tired of covering for her sister. Of taking on her crime as though Cathy killed Will herself. Tom releases her hand, but replaces it along the back of her seat.

  ‘Can I ask you one thing?’ she says.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘If it was you – your sister calls you in the night. What would you do?’

  Tom understands it isn’t a rhetorical question and stares straight ahead, thinking. ‘For someone I loved,’ he says
.

  ‘Yes.’

  His eyes slide to her and something implicit passes between them. ‘Yeah, I’d do it,’ he says. ‘I would do it.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Cathy says, spreading her hands in front of her and letting them fall into her lap. ‘That’s where I am.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom says sadly. ‘It’s just –’

  ‘What?’

  Another car passes. The white noise of its engine, its headlights like a soundwave, reaching a crescendo as it arrives and leaves. ‘It’s just that I wish you hadn’t,’ Tom says simply.

  ‘Me too,’ Cathy says. And, for the first time, she realizes that that is true.

  60.

  Joe

  Joe arrives home in a fury, mad at himself for snapping, for being scary, for losing control. Lydia is waiting for him in the hallway, looking more engaged than she has in weeks. Eyes bright, looking up at him. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says.

  ‘Have you now?’ he says. He isn’t in the mood for this. For more problems, for more things falling apart.

  ‘What?’ she says, the word more of a movement of her mouth than a sound.

  ‘I said, Have you now?’

  ‘I was going to talk to you properly,’ Lydia says, turning away from him. ‘About the … about Verona.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Not while you’re like this.’

  ‘Like what?’ Joe says. He spreads his arms wide, then lets them fall to his sides.

  She starts crying, make-up streaked underneath her eyes like a watercolour painting.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Joe says.

  ‘Don’t do this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t be – don’t be nasty to me. Don’t be so … don’t be so confrontational.’

  ‘Ask me what you wanted to.’

  ‘Joe.’ She meets his eyes, and that’s when his head catches up with his heart.

  ‘What?’ he says. He’s half aware that his hand has flown to his chest, where it flits and trembles like a bird.

  ‘Did you pay him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lydia nods. Joe has confirmed something more to her than the bribe. He has confirmed who he is. ‘I need to go for a bit,’ she says.

  ‘Go?’

  ‘I need to – this isn’t …’ She spreads her hands in a helpless gesture as she looks up at him. He thinks, suddenly, of how many days he’s spent in her company. Thousands. He knows those hands he’s staring at as well as his own. ‘It’s not –’

  ‘What?’ Joe barks.

  Lydia stands then, trainers on the wooden floor in front of him. She is going. She is leaving now. She is leaving him.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he says softly. Lydia is standing right in front of him now. There’s a bag in the hall. He’s staring right at her, but he can see it in the corner of his vision. ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I asked you to stop this, and you haven’t. You’re kicking tables and being so – so unpredictable. So angry. I just – this isn’t what I signed up for.’ She holds up her palms, like somebody pushing something away from them.

  ‘Look. Evan is all paid now. It’s done. It’s over,’ Joe says, trying to grab for her hands.

  ‘You paid Evan’s blackmail, even though I asked you not to.’

  ‘He was going to call the police.’

  ‘You did it anyway. You’ve been very clear about where I fit in in all this,’ Lydia says. She places a warm hand on his arm. It’s so easy to be magnanimous when you’re the one leaving, Joe thinks nastily, though he knows that isn’t right – that it isn’t fair.

  ‘Lyds,’ he says. ‘What was I supposed to do? Hand my sister in?’

  ‘Consider your wife,’ she says. ‘That’s all I asked for. And you just – you just didn’t. You don’t. I can’t compete with this.’ She gestures towards Frannie’s house.

  ‘She needs me,’ Joe says.

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘So what is this?’

  ‘I just need to be away for a while,’ she says. ‘I’ll call you.’

  ‘Oh, right – great. A phone call,’ Joe says, rage bubbling underneath his skin. ‘You promised to love me forever, and now I’ll get a phone call.’

  Lydia shoots him a look, a wounded look, her cheeks red, and he wishes immediately he could take it back. To fall on to his knees and beg her. To hold on to her hands and plead. ‘Lyds,’ he says thickly.

  She shakes her head, her mouth tight. ‘Let me take it back,’ he says. ‘I’ll do anything.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Okay, then – end it. Truly end it.’

  ‘Hand Frannie over?’

  Lydia puts her hands on her hips. She looks tired. ‘It won’t end until you do,’ she says. ‘Not really.’

  Joe hesitates. He imagines doing it. But he can’t hand Frannie over. He can’t, he can’t.

  ‘I could stop helping her.’

  ‘So if the police reinterviewed you tomorrow –’

  ‘What? I should hand her in?’ Joe says emphatically.

  ‘So you would lie for her again?’

  Joe stares at his feet. They lost Rosie and they never got over it … he can’t lose Frannie too. He tries to find a solution that isn’t that, that isn’t full of absolutes, as tears clog his throat.

  ‘Lyds, I –’

  ‘I thought as much,’ she says.

  She removes her hand from his arm, his little kestrel. Tears blur their living room as he watches her get ready to go.

  As she’s leaving, he can’t help but ask her.

  ‘Are you going to tell the police?’ he says.

  Joe will remember the look she gives him for the rest of his life.

  Joe storms into their small, square kitchen and starts opening the cupboards, feeling angry at Lydia and angry at Frannie. Most of all, he is angry at himself. Grisly, broken Joe, lashing out at the people he loves. Prioritizing people in the wrong way, losing his lovely wife.

  Who does he think he is? He reaches up for a glass. It’s still warm from the dishwasher that Lydia must have put on. He brushes a hand across the buttons.

  She’s left him. She’s left him. She’s left him.

  He goes into their pantry, where they keep the stuff they hardly ever drink. It smells musty and damp. He leans his back against the wall, breathing, trying to talk himself down. He finds a whisky and pours it, even though it’s only ten o’clock. Whisky is for after-parties. For midnights. For early-on-New-Year’s-Days. And for … whatever this situation is.

  Next door, he hears Cathy’s front door close, then two voices. He stands in the quiet of the kitchen, just listening, but can’t hear any more. He must be mistaken.

  He sits at the kitchen table. On it are a couple of Lydia’s Yankee Candles, a clutch of sunflowers in a vase and a notebook. The washing machine has been set, ready to start in eleven hours’ time. She is so organized. She’d be a great mum. The greatest. He watches the green blinking light of the washing-machine timer. 11h 22m. 11h 21m. He stares and he sips.

  When the washing machine flicks to 10h 59m, he pours another measure just as he hears a rustle at his front door, a soft knock perhaps. After a few seconds, somebody lets themselves in. It’ll be a member of his family, he thinks moodily, staring at the watermark his glass has left on the kitchen table.

  Cathy appears, framed in the doorway. She’s in pyjamas. He gestures to her, and she pulls one of the wooden chairs across the floor tiles and sits down beside him, next to the radiator, laying an arm along it. She looks tired, he thinks, peering closely at her for once. He almost never does it: Frannie usually steals the limelight in every way.

  Cathy’s face is scrubbed clean of make-up, still glowing with whatever moisturizer she’s used. Perhaps she didn’t intend to come here, maybe she decided on the spur of the moment. Something about it reminds him of their childhood. The intimacy of this, of seeing her in pyjamas, bare-faced, smelling of toothpaste.

  �
��This can’t go on,’ Cathy says simply. The baby hairs around her forehead are wet. ‘You know?’

  ‘I know. I know,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry – I lost … I lost my temper. I’ve been, I don’t know.’ He thinks of his father, and how far back they’d have to go to put this stuff right.

  ‘You’ve been what?’

  Joe shrugs uncomfortably. ‘Struggling, I guess,’ he says in a low voice. Cathy stands and gets a glass out of the cupboard for herself. ‘Lydia left me,’ he says.

  ‘What?’ Cathy turns around in shock.

  ‘I told her,’ he says, his voice low and mournful. ‘She doesn’t feel – prioritized.’

  ‘She’ll come back,’ Cathy says firmly, but she doesn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘Maybe it’s the whisky talking, but I’m feeling pretty pessimistic here,’ Joe says.

  ‘What do you mean?’ She has her back to him. She stops and looks at him. ‘About Lydia?’

  ‘Were you with someone? Just now?’ Joe asks, thinking too of the other night, when he’d heard a voice in the background of the call.

  ‘No,’ Cathy says, and her expression is totally neutral when she turns to him, glass in hand. ‘What do you mean, pessimistic?’ She sits back down. He can only hear her soft breathing and the hum of the fridge. They are so comfortable with each other but not with the situation. They could sit here in silence or they could fill it with their darkest thoughts. And both would be okay.

  He looks at his sister across the dimness of his kitchen. Their family business paraphernalia is everywhere. Vet-related notebooks, pens from drug reps, a pamphlet on microbiomes from some CPD they all attended together. Their sister is just next door. Their lives are so entwined.

  ‘We dodged one bullet. But – now what?’ He takes another sip of whisky. It tastes like a cough forming in his throat. He doesn’t like it, but it isn’t about the taste. It’s about what it represents. Masculinity, sure. The amber in the glass. How neat it is, how hard he is.

  ‘Look, we are where we are,’ Cathy says, her hands stretching eagerly over the table to him. ‘I know how bad it feels. I even wanted to take the blame for her.’

  ‘What?’ Joe says. The burn of the whisky has made his voice hoarse. He sounds just like his father.