What You Did

by Claire McGowan

  ‘Not bad? It’s awful. The refuge firing me? It makes Mike look guilty as sin. And me, too, for standing by him. That’s what all these people think. But Bill, what else can I do?’ I honestly didn’t see. An allegation had been made, not proven yet. Mike was my husband, father to my kids, the same person I’d lived with all these years. Except. He wasn’t. He was the man who’d slept with Karen, in our house. A cold shiver ran through me, as if my body was rejecting what he’d told me. If he’d told me that, he must have told me the truth about everything. Right? Why else would he?

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ Bill said again. But he couldn’t know that.

  I unlocked my phone and held it up to him. It was open on a Twitter search for my name. Disloyal bitch. If my wife left me in the shit like that I’d be on to a divorce lawyer. That was the men’s side, wondering why I wasn’t publicly supporting Mike. It wasn’t only men, in fact. But worse, much more hurtful, was the feminist response. I’d thought that was my side, but now they were turning on me. Why hadn’t I spoken out yet? Why so silent, Ali? ‘They hate me. Both sides hate me.’

  ‘Who cares what people think? You don’t know them. I hate all this, this social media mob. We aren’t meant to know what other people think in this level of detail.’ Bill set down my phone at a slight distance and pushed the glass towards me. ‘Drink. It’ll help.’

  I gulped down the burn of heather and smoke. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Well, there’s the hearing tomorrow. He’ll get bail, most likely. Then he can come home.’

  ‘But can he work? Will they fire him?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not proven until the trial, so I don’t see that they can fire him, no. They might suspend him, but they’d have to keep paying him at least.’

  Bill was so comforting. I remembered bashing on his door late one night, in a panic over a Chaucer essay I hadn’t finished. He told me to say I’d been ill, hand it in the following week, and then we’d sat up drinking and talking. I’d felt so grown-up. Bill was the only student I knew who had a bottle of whisky in his room, and even when I mixed it with Diet Coke he’d looked devastated, but said nothing.

  ‘I’ve still been fired from the refuge.’

  ‘Well, it’s only voluntary, isn’t it? Why not pull in your horns a bit – look after the kids, lay low? Wait till the trial.’

  I set down my glass. ‘Bill . . . you were in the garden last night. Did you see anything? Did anyone come in the gate?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘I went to bed before . . . anything. But the police checked the tape from next door, didn’t they?’ Anna had already told me as much. Nothing had shown up.

  ‘But . . . did you see anything else? From the upstairs windows, maybe?’

  He paused. ‘I looked out the landing window when I went to the loo. I guess it was . . . not long before it happened. I’d got back into bed and was half-asleep when . . . the shouting.’ I understood. The landing window overlooked the garden.

  ‘You’re saying, what, you saw them in the garden? Last night?’ My hands started to shake; I set the glass down. No, it couldn’t be. I wanted to shout, please don’t say it.

  His face was screwed up. Bill hated this, other people’s messy lives. ‘I didn’t know for sure, not at the time. But I think I . . . I saw him on top of her, Ali. It was dark, but I could see his clothes. But I thought . . . well, obviously I didn’t think it wasn’t consensual, or I’d have rushed out there. I keep thinking about it. I saw it happen and I just left her there.’

  ‘You thought they were . . . together?’ Having sex, right there in the middle of our lawn. It seemed unbelievable. I thought of myself, asleep in bed, oblivious, and I wanted to shake the clueless woman that I’d been just the day before.

  He looked uncomfortable. ‘I – they seemed quite flirty earlier on. I didn’t want to interfere in whatever was going on. I’ve not seen you all in years, I couldn’t just rock up and start – you know.’

  Same thing Jodi had said. Did everyone know except me? I couldn’t think about Karen, couldn’t let myself feel sorry for her. It was horrible, as if she was clinging to a rope, begging for help, and I was sawing through it. ‘You definitely saw him?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Did you tell the police?’

  He nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I had to.’

  ‘Mike told me they had sex earlier that day. While I was out.’

  Bill looked like he’d rather be undergoing dental extraction than having this conversation. ‘Maybe they did that too.’

  The proof was there. Bill had seen them, and the semen was there, and no one else could have got into the garden. All that remained was Karen’s word it had been against her will.

  Suddenly, it was all too much, and the burn of the whisky rose in my throat and I got up, knocking the glass to the floor where it shattered, and I ran to the downstairs loo – the stupid candle I’d made Cassie buy still sitting there, with its reek of orange and spice – and then I was on my knees and throwing up, shaking and retching. Some distant part of me registered, That’s interesting, I always thought that was a cliché. Turns out that extreme shock really does make you puke. I cried, and retched, and cried some more. Pathetic.

  When I’d cleaned myself up and gone back to the kitchen on shaky legs, Bill was sweeping up the broken glass. The kitchen stank of booze, not like my house at all. A frightening smell, one that took me back to places I didn’t want to be. The smell of lives going wrong. My father stumbling in from the pub, the creeping dread of knowing it was going to be a bad night.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  I sat down heavily. ‘I just don’t know what to do. How can I . . . who am I meant to help? Which one?’

  ‘I . . . Ali, I don’t know if you can help either of them.’ He looked wretched.

  ‘You went with her. Was it bad?’

  He said nothing for a moment. ‘They were very kind. But . . . yes. It was bad. Ali, she’s in bits.’

  ‘Shit. Oh God, this is such a mess.’

  Bill tipped the glass into the recycling bin. I almost said not to, you weren’t supposed to put in broken pieces, but I stopped myself. So stupid, the things I worried about. As if any of it mattered now.

  ‘I should go. I only came back to make sure you were OK.’

  ‘You can’t go!’ The thought of him leaving too sent slimy trails of panic down my back. ‘I mean, God, of course you can, but do you need to?’

  ‘Not really. I was planning to just pootle about a bit. But Ali, are you sure you want . . .’ He didn’t finish that sentence. I think he was afraid to, and so was I. I thought of our strange moment in the kitchen the night before. Would it be too much to ask him to stay? I needed help. Not just with the kids but to stay sane, to talk it over, rake up the broken pieces.

  I looked down at the table. ‘I’d really appreciate it if you could stay the night. I might need someone to watch Benji or something, when we’re at court or . . . would that be OK? I mean, as long as it’s not inconvenient?’ I heard the hitch of tears in my voice. ‘Please, Bill. I just . . . need help.’

  His eyes were fixed on his own whisky, the amber glow of it. ‘Of course. Whatever you need, Ali.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘But why do I have to?’

  My last nerve was snapping. ‘Because, Benji, you’re too young to be at court, and I’m not having you miss school. Get your uniform on.’

  It was Monday morning and he was standing in front of me in his Star Wars pyjamas, hair sticking up, furious. ‘But Cassie’s going! It’s not fair.’

  I didn’t know how to explain to him that I didn’t think I could stop Cassie if I tried. She was starting to scare me, the way I felt the connection between us strain with every day. ‘Cassie’s older. Plus, her school’s almost stopped for exams already.’ I couldn’t have him there. I didn’t know what was going to be said about his dad. Or about me.

  Cassie had insisted on going. She had been texting Jake, as I susp
ected, but he still wouldn’t answer any of her messages, and she was frantic trying to contact him. ‘He’s never done this, Mum. He’s not like other boys. He always answers.’

  Cassie and Jake. I’d always wondered, of course, over the years. They were so close, those two. Would that spill over into kissing, touching? Karen and I had never said it, but it was something neither of us wanted. It was possible to be too close for love.

  ‘Cass, did . . . when you were out in the garden that night, was that anything to do with Jake?’

  He’d been in the garage, waiting for Karen to stop drinking and go to bed. Maybe Cassie was on her way to see him.

  She just gave me a look. ‘Mum. Jake and I are friends. Why can’t you understand that?’

  I’d thought Karen and Mike were just friends. And now look. ‘But what were you doing out there? Please, darling. I need to know. Did you tell the police?’

  She turned her back to me, brushing her long hair in the mirror. Her eyes met mine in the glass, hostile. ‘You really want to get into this now?’

  She had me there – we had to leave for court in a few minutes, and I still needed to get Benji ready. Bill was going to drop him off at school, using Mike’s car. Already he was making things easier. ‘I don’t think you should be texting Jake, with everything that’s going on. And you’ll have to tell me sometime, Cassie.’

  Her silence said: Oh, will I? And did I really want to know? We always think we want to know secrets, but what we forget is that they come with their own weights, heavy as millstones, and if you aren’t careful this weight can crush you.

  I’d been to Bishopsdean Magistrates’ Court before several times, as an advocate for women who were finally prosecuting their abusive husbands. Today I hadn’t known what to wear, in the end going for my funeral dress, black and sober but with a tailored waist that made me look slim. Cassie threw me a contemptuous glance as she hurled herself into the car, fastening her seatbelt. ‘Why are you all dressed up? No one’s going to be looking at you.’

  I didn’t answer that. I didn’t even know why I was going. To support my husband – meaning I believed him, I stood by him? Or to bear witness for an abused woman, my best friend? My lying best friend. My cheating husband. It was crazy to think I hadn’t spoken to Karen since it happened. The police had said not to contact her, that it could be construed as harassment even. My fingers itched to message her. I didn’t know what I’d say, though. God Kar are you alright or Fucking hell Karen how could you. Or both. Cassie herself was wearing jeans and a jacket. I was glad it was cooler now. I’d been on the verge of saying something to her about the skimpiness of her outfits, and then it really would all blow up.

  Bill had stayed the night, moving to the spare room so Benji could have his back. He didn’t come to court and I didn’t ask him to. Two friends, facing each other across a courtroom. It was hard. I wished I didn’t have to go myself, but I got into the car too and started following the morning traffic down into town.

  We’d moved to Bishopsdean when Benji was on his way, after five years of raising Cassie in a flat in Stoke Newington. On rainy days she’d press her face to the window, woebegone, and when she finally got out it took all my strength to stop her darting into the road, twitching with excess energy. Mike was always at work then, coming home at midnight, one, two, three in the morning, or sometimes not at all. Karen asked me once – and that was yet another memory that now stuck in me like a barb – did I ever worry about him. You know. All those women at the office. But honestly, I never had. I knew he was too exhausted to even think about doing anything.

  That was our life then. Desperately holding on to our work, the flat, Cassie. I’d been a journalist to start out with, subbing at an interiors magazine, but then it folded, and the one I went to afterwards, a cookery title, folded too after six months. The magazine industry was imploding. At least law was booming. But in order to fuel that, it took so much of Mike. Not just his time, but his mind and body and spirit, until he was worn to a nub of a person. One night he came home around eleven. Early for him. He sat at the table in his suit, his tie crooked, and put his head in his hands. ‘I can’t do this,’ he said. ‘We can’t do this.’ I looked around at the kitchen table, where I’d been trying to send out freelance pitches in the middle of piles of laundry and dishes and Cassie’s school projects. The wall to her bedroom was so thin we could hear her breathing in her sleep. And the rent on the flat kept going up and up, despite its size and shabbiness.

  ‘Do you ever think we should move?’ Mike said, and I remember the strange feeling of relief that had burst inside me.

  When I told Karen, something went over her face. At that time she lived fifteen minutes away, in a houseshare in Stamford Hill, where she somehow kept Jake fed with her job in a health-food shop. I didn’t understand why she had never tried to retake her degree – too proud, maybe. ‘You’re leaving? Then we won’t be nearby.’

  Then, I thought she’d just miss me, and maybe she was annoyed we couldn’t share babysitting any more. Now I wondered was it something more – was she used to Mike being so close? Did she have feelings for him – had she wanted him all these years? I’d felt guilty, leaving her and Jake, a little boy I saw almost every day. But when we’d gone, and settled into our first house in Bishopsdean, a three-bed terrace near the station for Mike’s commute, didn’t I feel the relief again? Didn’t I feel I could somehow breathe? I’d thought it was London. But maybe it was her.

  ‘Mum.’ Cassie was staring at me like I was stupid. ‘You’ve missed the turn. You’ll have to go round again.’

  We were late in the end, running for the courtroom after it took ten minutes to find a parking space. Bishopsdean was crammed with four-by-fours, yummy mummies off to coffee and baby yoga and the gym. I used to be one of those. Once we moved here I gave up trying to find any work in my ailing industry, and then I was busy with Benji, and when I emerged two years later I was a non-working mother with two children, just like the rest of Bishopsdean.

  Cassie and I were walking to the courthouse at a swift pace, a sudden anxiety strung between us. ‘What’s going to happen?’ She was breathless.

  ‘He’ll come home with us. They won’t keep him in, not for this.’ I’d been assured this was likely. So why did a gnawing in my stomach tell me it wouldn’t be that easy?

  ‘But what will happen then? Like, how do you talk to him? What do I say?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling. Just as normal. I—’

  I felt Cassie strain beside me. ‘Jake! Jake!’

  Too late, I saw him too. He was skulking near the shrubs that surrounded the courthouse, stooping down. This young man I’d seen born, close as a cousin to my kids, and he was staring at us with naked hate. He was still wearing his black hoody and jeans. And my Cassie, my golden girl, was running towards him. ‘Jake! Please!’

  He was turning away from her. ‘We shouldn’t talk.’

  ‘But we can still . . .’

  ‘No. We can’t.’ He actually pushed her, his rough hand on her slender arm, and in that moment I wanted to hurt him. My godson, practically a nephew, and yet a spurt of rage boiled up in me.

  Cassie stood watching him go, rubbing her arm in a kind of wonder, as he scuttled through the glass court door.

  ‘Are you OK, darling? Did he hurt you?’

  ‘He didn’t want to talk to me.’

  ‘He’s just upset. This is very upsetting for everyone.’

  ‘But me and him . . . I don’t understand, Mum! I don’t understand what’s going on!’

  I put my arm around her, and for once she let me. ‘It’s going to be OK. This will all get sorted out very soon.’

  I wished I believed it.

  The court dazzled me. There was a glass panel in the roof and fractals of light fell on us as we took our seats. Karen and Jake were across from us. He held her hand tight in his, and both of them looked straight over our heads. I could feel Cassie quiver beside me, and I took her hand too. She hel
d it for a moment, then dropped it. Anna McCrum was on the lawyers’ bench. There too was DC Adam Devine, looking about twelve in his suit. Movement in the dock. It was Mike. It was my husband, but in that moment he looked like a stranger, pale-faced and old. He caught my eye, pleading, and I couldn’t bear it. He looked terrified. Cassie stifled a sob.

  ‘All rise!’

  Everyone got to their feet, and so did I, stumbling.

  It was time.

  It was all over so quickly. It was confirmed that the case would be sent to the Crown Court. Anna made the application for bail and though I held my breath, it was granted. There was no horror or shock in the court. It seemed this was an everyday occurrence, and I supposed it was. Lives being shattered were par for the course in this place. Cassie turned to me, whispering shakily as we stood. ‘He’s coming home?’

  ‘Yes. He’ll meet us out front.’ Though what I would say to him, I had no idea.

  When we walked out, I saw the reporters. Not many of them, but a small cluster. At first I didn’t understand why they were there – was someone famous on trial? – and then I got it. It was me. I was suddenly the news.

  ‘Ali!’ shouted one. ‘Ali, can we have a statement?’

  ‘Just keep walking.’ I directed Cassie to the door. My heart was hammering. It goes against every instinct to ignore people calling your name, refuse to look them in the face. Mike was standing in the lobby, under the swirl of light. I couldn’t see his face. The moment I’d worried about, confronting him, was swallowed up in fear. I had to get Cassie out of here.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I heard him say.

  ‘The press are on it. Because of – because of my profile. Come on. We’re parked round the corner.’