What You Did

by Claire McGowan

I didn’t like the idea that there was an ‘it’ I was going to do. ‘I mean – I’ll just say we were hanging out, I guess.’ I’d already spoken to Karen, telling her what I was going to say so she didn’t contradict it. So we’re on the same page, I’d said. Mike’s words. She hadn’t protested. I didn’t know where she’d been most of the night either.

  Bill looked down at the green carpet. Muffled sounds of college life came in from the quad, and the window cast diamonds of sunlight at our feet. ‘We were away for hours, Al.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t that long.’

  ‘We left at four. I heard the bells go.’

  ‘That can’t be right. I looked at the clock in the lodge when we passed.’

  ‘Sure you did, Ali.’ His voice was bitter. I actually stepped back.

  ‘What should I do? They’re our friends. I don’t want to get them in trouble. Not when it’s some stranger, some townie who’s got in and . . .’

  ‘She’s dead, Al. Don’t you think she deserves us telling the truth?’

  ‘It is the truth. I don’t know what time it was when we left, but I know it was late.’

  He stared at me. ‘You don’t have to do this. I’ll help you. I know you’re scared about what’s next, about him, but – you don’t need to be.’

  A long moment ticked by. I stared down at the carpet. It did occur to me to wonder why I was doing this for Mike, when all he did was mess me about. But I’d tried for so many years to make him want me, never having any leverage, never any influence over my own relationship. Now that I had some, it was impossible to let it go. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Bill sighed. ‘OK, Ali. You do what you have to.’

  ‘Wait! What did you tell them? The police?’

  Bill was already moving away down the stairs, his face in shadow. ‘Don’t worry, Ali. I didn’t say anything you can’t contradict.’ I hated the way his voice sounded.

  He walked down the stairs again before I could say anything else, and I heard later on he’d left, catching the coach to Harwich and then a ferry out of the country, and I didn’t see Bill again until Jodi and Callum’s wedding. It was the last time until the night Karen was attacked.

  ‘Do come in.’ The police seemed kind. There was a younger woman with chestnut hair pulled back, and an older man who was grey-haired and paternal. Deliberate, maybe. A lot of us would be wishing our dads were on hand to sort things. Not me, of course.

  I sat down, tucking my feet nervously under the wooden chair, feeling like it was a tutorial I hadn’t done the reading for. They consulted their notes. ‘Alison, I understand you left college at some point before the breakfast, when we discovered Martha.’

  It wasn’t Martha any more, I told myself. She was gone, and nothing would bring her back. ‘Just for a walk. With Bill. My friend. The one who was . . .’

  ‘With Bilal Anwar.’

  ‘We all call him Bill.’ And it had never occurred to me to ask why, why he felt he couldn’t use his real name with us, his closest friends.

  ‘Alison. We’ve had you in because I understand you’re close friends with one of the boys we’re looking at, Michael Morris.’

  ‘That’s right. We’re all friends.’ I rubbed my hands together; they felt clammy.

  ‘And you and Michael are . . . together? Dating?’

  It seemed very important I play this down; I didn’t know why. ‘Oh, not really. Now and again. Friends really.’

  ‘So he wouldn’t have minded you being off with Bilal.’ This was the woman who spoke. It had never occurred to me that Mike would mind anything I did, but I suddenly wondered. Had he been angry, when he saw I was gone? Had he drunk more than usual?

  ‘We’re all friends,’ I repeated.

  ‘When did you last see Michael, before you left?’

  I screwed up my eyes. ‘I think he was on the lawn. Getting a drink. A whole bunch of people were there but I just wanted to see the sun come up.’

  ‘You’re sure you saw him?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ And I was sure. We’d had a row, even. I just wasn’t sure what time it was.

  ‘When was this, Alison?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe an hour before we got back and the college was shut down.’

  They exchanged glances. ‘Bilal seemed to think it was longer.’

  ‘I don’t think it was that long. It was almost light already.’ Was that right? I told myself it was, probably. That I wasn’t even lying.

  They exchanged a look. My stomach sank. But really, how could they prove me wrong? I’d just said I thought it. Anyone was allowed to think something. I pushed down the thought of Martha, how beautiful she’d been in her white silk. Her hand, bruised and limp. ‘Did you know Martha well?’

  Safer ground. I felt it like when your feet catch the bottom again in the sea. ‘Not really. She was nice. But we weren’t friends.’ I bit my lip. ‘It’s so awful. She was so lovely.’

  ‘Ali, did you ever see any of your friends take drugs?’

  ‘God no, we don’t do that. I’ve never touched them.’ That at least was true. Were drugs involved? Had Martha been given something, the thing we were warned about? Don’t leave your drink unattended. Don’t accept drinks from strangers. But there were no strangers at the ball.

  Except the one who had somehow scaled the ten-foot wall and killed her. ‘Did she – is that what—’ A drug overdose was sad, but no one’s fault. A chink of light opened up to me. Maybe no one did this after all. Maybe I wasn’t doing a terrible thing.

  The man detective looked at me. ‘Martha was strangled, Alison.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bile rose up in my mouth. ‘I – God, that’s awful.’

  The police seemed so tired, like they’d already given up. They asked me where I’d be over the summer – in bloody Hull, where else – and I got up to go. As I walked downstairs, into the sunlight, I could see Mike hovering anxiously. Waiting for me. I took my time coming down the stairs, slowly, like a queen. I had the feeling that the next few moments were going to be very important. That maybe they’d even determine the rest of my life.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’ll be fine. I don’t think they know what happened.’

  ‘They knew I was with her. That I . . . that we were together.’ I knew there was more he wasn’t telling me, but what did it matter now?

  ‘It’s fine. I told them I saw you afterwards, not with her.’

  He breathed out hard. ‘Shit, thank you, Al. I just can’t have this on my record if I’m going into law. You’ve no idea what you . . . thank you.’

  I looked out to the lawn, my friends blurs against the sunlight. This was my last day here, my last time walking down these steps or crossing the grass. It was all ending. ‘Can I share the house with you and Cal?’ I said suddenly. ‘I need a place. I can’t stay at home. My dad . . .’

  He paused. ‘There’s only two bedrooms, Al.’

  ‘I know.’

  That was it, the moment everything was decided between us. Almost twenty years of marriage, two kids, a ridiculous house. My whole life. His whole life. Turning on a small lie. Barely even a lie. Mike said nothing. I was asking so much that I should have felt sick and shaky, but I didn’t at all. I felt strong. ‘I’ll talk to Cal,’ he said. ‘I guess it would be good to split the rent.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Jodi was crying when I went into her hospital room. Lying on the bed, red-faced, her legs splayed out like a rag doll’s. Crying in a low moan, like a baby left howling for so long it gives up. ‘You’re here,’ she wept. ‘I was all by myself.’ There was blood on her clothes.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, though it was about as far from that as it could be. ‘Where’s Callum?’ He couldn’t still be at work, could he, when his wife was in labour?

  Jodi was groaning, her face grey and bloated. ‘We had – row. Can’t – reach him. Jesus.’

  ‘You’re OK.’ I began to rub her back, in a way that seemed to be handed on in female DNA. Cavewomen
had rubbed each other’s backs in just this way, even though Jodi and I were never that close, even though we rarely hugged or touched each other’s arms or kissed cheeks. Her back was in spasm, the muscles roiling in some disturbing way that made me think of a snake swallowing an egg. She was wearing a shirt, blue and white striped, and it was easy to see it was Callum’s. Why? A self-conscious gesture, to show how much she loved him? To be close to him now she was in labour and he was gone? Or because she really did love him and always had? I thought about how long Jodi had waited for this moment, which Karen and I had experienced sixteen and eighteen years ago. We never knew why it had taken them so long – mutters about fertility problems, references to ‘trying’, followed by a small wry grimace, Callum’s occasional little jokes about Mike being ‘all man, mate’. Jodi’s careful questions about acupuncture or diets, a group trip to Cornwall – 2007 maybe, or 2010? – stopping off at a Co-op and Jodi palming a small box, her face tight. A jumper tied tight around her waist. Refusing to swim although it was so hot, 27 degrees, and the sea blue and purple and green. The things we don’t know about our friends. The things we don’t ask.

  ‘Where are the nurses?’ I said, glancing about for a phone or call bell. ‘They should give you something for the pain.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Don’t want anything. Christ! Does it always hurt this bad? Will it stop?’ I could hardly remember, the exuberance of my children bursting from me, my own cleverness at producing them. Mike so proud. Proud of me, of what I’d done. Had I always known I needed to hold on to him? Had I seen his gaze tugged by Jake, ruffling his hair? Then I thought of Karen, only twenty-five, having him alone. How young and stupid we’d all been, gathering at the hospital like it was another party or holiday. Callum with a hip flask of whisky, passing it as we waited. Hadn’t we jobs, responsibilities? How had we all been able to wait for Karen like that, as the sticky summer day turned violet and evening came? And I knew, when we were shown in, Karen scrubbed and raw in her hospital gown, the baby worrying into her with his crown of dark hair, I knew I had to have some of that too. The glare of success on her face, like she’d been in a different light to the rest of us. A journey she could send no postcards from. The ultimate ‘you had to be there’ moment. I tugged on Mike’s arm, as he rushed over to her. Jodi already there exclaiming over the baby, probably thinking she’d have one herself in four or five or six years, no hurry. Callum soppy and tender, quite drunk already. ‘Bloody well done, Kar, you trooper.’ Bill not even there, far away in Sweden already.

  I pulled on Mike as he strained towards the new life in the room. ‘I want this,’ I said. He looked back, confused – did he suspect this baby was his? On some level do we recognise our own blood? But no, I had to believe he’d have done so much more for Jake if he’d known. ‘I want a baby,’ I said again. We’d been married four months, the ring still shining on my finger, and I’d been cross with Karen for spoiling the wedding by puking into a centrepiece, her belly pushing out the bridesmaid’s dress I’d chosen. Not drinking on my hen do. Upstaging me, with all the whispers about who her baby’s father was. She wouldn’t say, hinted at some one-night stand. Maybe I’d been too preoccupied to really think about it. You aren’t allowed to say it but your wedding is perilously close to a licence to let out the selfish little diva inside all of us. It says to girls – you won’t matter any more, not after this, so for today you get to matter the most.

  Now, out of nowhere I was blind-sided by pity for Karen. Giving birth alone, bringing home her baby alone. His father visiting but married to her friend. His eyes skipping over her like they’d never slept together. Like Jake couldn’t be his, not even possible.

  He must have known it was possible.

  ‘We have to get Callum,’ I insisted, as Jodi bellowed again. ‘He has to be here. Where is he, for God’s sake?’ Was I really going to end up being Jodi’s birth partner? ‘Can you not reach him, is that it? He must be somewhere, I can call . . .’

  She was shaking her head again, her knuckles white. ‘He went off. Says – baby’s not his.’

  ‘What?’ Jodi would never cheat. She just wasn’t the type – far too much of a deviation from acceptable, Instagram-worthy behaviour.

  ‘Donor . . .’ she panted out, and it all made sense. Callum’s comments on the night it all happened, about turkey basters and sperm machines. The sudden pregnancy after years of trying. They’d used a sperm donor.

  ‘He’s got a problem?’ I shouldn’t have asked, it was rude, but I felt so far past manners now. In a whole other country.

  ‘Nothing . . . comes out. Nothing in it.’ I was getting the picture but she felt the need to say more. Like she really wanted me to understand. ‘Started . . . in his twenties. He can do it but there’s nothing to come out.’

  I thought about that for a minute, and then put it aside. Too much to unpack in there, Callum’s hurt feelings, Jodi’s happiness.

  Jodi let out another cry, and I forced myself to focus. If I’d learned anything from these last weeks, it was that it wasn’t possible to save everyone. You just had to pick someone, and save them, and let the rest drown. In the middle of it all, everyone I loved most going under, I had chosen Mike. I just had to hope that, with everything I’d sacrificed, it had been worth it. I just had to hope I had saved my husband after all. There was no room now for doubts and fears.

  I made my voice firm and confident. ‘I’ll find him, Jodi. Where do you think he could be?’

  She panted, ‘Maybe . . . at home now. Don’t know.’

  ‘Then I’ll go there. It isn’t far. Will you be alright for an hour? I’ll make sure they take care of you.’

  ‘I already – called – Karen,’ she panted. ‘Sorry. I just – was panicking.’

  So Karen might be on her way, and I would have to face her again. ‘Never mind,’ I soothed. ‘We’ll sort that out later.’

  Jodi looked up at me, and I could see the relief on her face. All this time I’d been waiting for someone to take charge, and it seemed now that someone was me.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I knew Karen’s mobile number by heart. After all, she had been my best friend. Was my best friend. I didn’t know the right words to say it. All I knew was that she felt like a part of me. I knew she felt like my sister, if I’d had a sister. Closer than blood. All I knew was I had always turned to her when I didn’t know what to do, and this was no exception.

  In the lobby of the hospital, I dialled her number. It felt like a good place to wait while your life moved into positions you’d never imagined, the continental drift of your future. It was full of other people doing the same, waiting with twisted plastic cups between their hands, standing up and pacing, thumbing at mobile phones, staring blankly at the rolling news screens. The bright lights against the dark. I rested my head against the cool metal of the phone as it rang. I wondered if I’d ever feel happy again. Peaceful, and well, and hopeful. I wondered if I’d ever like myself again.

  I thought she might not answer. I’d called from a payphone so she wouldn’t recognise my mobile number. I was sure she wouldn’t want to talk to me. But she answered, her voice low and wary. ‘Hello?’ Her voice that I’d once heard every day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. We’d called each other ‘wifey’ back then, a little joke, but really it wasn’t a joke and she’d been closer than that to me. Closer than anyone had ever been. I could hear a train announcement in the background; she must be on her way.

  ‘Kar?’ She’d know my voice. No need to say who I was. She said nothing, but I could hear her breathing on the line. ‘It’s me. I’m so . . . I’m so sorry to call. But something’s happened. Callum’s – well. He’s gone AWOL. And – I’ve found out some things.’ I didn’t know how to explain it. Jodi’s baby wasn’t Callum’s, and he was having some kind of breakdown over it. I had already tried his phone, and the house phone, but there was no answer. He wasn’t picking up. Karen said nothing, but I could hear she was listening,
so I went on, trying to explain as delicately as I could the startling thing Jodi had just told me. ‘I think – I don’t know what I think. It’s sent him off the rails or something. Will you come straight here and be with Jodi? I’m going to run to theirs and see if Callum’s there – I’ll meet you back here.’

  A long silence. Then she said: ‘I’ll be there in an hour.’ And I knew that between us we would find a way to fix this. Then I went outside and hailed a taxi, thankful they took cards now, and directed it to Pimlico.

  The white stucco house glowed in the moonlight, and I couldn’t see a single light on. I leaned hard on the doorbell. Nothing. Then I remembered the side return.

  It was open, the gate unlatched. As I crept around to the back door, over their neat patio, I realised how easy it would be to just walk into most people’s lives. We are too trusting. We think everything is locked up and safe and we take it for granted, until something goes wrong. The kitchen blinds weren’t pulled and I could see into their home, their lives. The glow from the kitchen light showed me a bottle of whisky with the seal pulled off, standing on the counter. I turned the door handle and it opened.

  ‘Hello?’

  The kitchen looked neat as always, a rinsed mug sitting on the draining rack. I wondered if Jodi had gone into labour, then calmly cleaned up before taking herself to hospital. It was the kind of thing she would do.

  I moved into the hallway; the place was silent. A dim light was on in Callum’s ‘den’, a room he’d done up in leather chairs and books, like a drinking club.

  ‘Cal?’

  He was there, slumped in a chair, wearing a crumpled suit. He was drinking, of course. A large whisky. It seemed clichéd – as if even at that moment, Callum was concerned that someone would see him and know him for a man drinking the correct drink for a moment of emotional breakdown. I stood and let him see me, which he did slowly, blearily. ‘Al.’

  ‘Jodi’s in labour. She’s at St Thomas’s.’

  He nodded into the whisky, swirling it. I wondered if he even liked whisky or just pretended to. ‘She’ll be OK.’