Sing me to Sleep

by Helen Moorhouse

  I didn’t love him.

  I didn’t even really love having an affair with him. I just convinced myself that it made me come alive. I changed myself – how I looked, how I acted, how I felt about my husband – when it suited me. Because I was bored with myself, because I hadn’t figured out that I deserved what I had all along.

  He didn’t love me. He loved the chase, the clandestine nature of what we were doing. He loved that I was besotted with him. He loved to see himself reflected in my adoration.

  Stupid, stupid woman. And stupid, selfish, self-centred, vain man. A man who deserted everyone who cared about him, who shirked his responsibilities and has since convinced himself that everyone was better off without him.

  Well, they were, I suppose. But the damage was done by then. I paid too high a price for my stupidity, but at least I know who I am and what I should have had. Guillaume will never know – that much is clear from those words, from what he thinks is a sincere love letter to me but is instead just a love letter to himself on his deathbed. I hope it came peacefully for him.

  But now, there is more damage to be cleared up. Now Bee knows that I wasn’t the faithful, virtuous mother that she had built me in her mind to be.

  And maybe that, too, is a good thing. For starters it is the truth. And now maybe she can carry on with her life free from the idea that I was some sort of saintly figure. Maybe now she can carry on and live in the present, instead of always leaving a bit of her heart in an unknown past.

  Maybe that selfish man has done us a favour and set us both free from something. Set my daughter free from the burden of an untrue history. Set me free from carrying such heavy guilt around with me. Yes, it was my fault. But now I know why. I understand what I did and why I did it and that it meant little. It makes me know that I have punished myself for long enough – and yes, it’s true that my death and the ripples it set in motion were disproportionate to my crime but that somehow, I can finally stop punishing myself for it.

  Knowing that deep down what happened with Guillaume meant so little makes my heart purer again. Fills me with the knowledge that my love for Ed and for Bee was absolute and that he was never a real challenge to that, despite the niggling doubt I have carried with me all this time.

  Now that the truth is known, that Bee is set free from me and me from the shackles of my guilt over Guillaume, I just hope that some day she will realise that my love for her would always endure. And that I am truly sorry.

  But with all of this, I feel that finally I have served my time. No more of this punishment.

  Chapter 53

  September 2020

  Bee and Rowan

  It was almost half past eight the following morning when Rowan heard footsteps descend the stairs and Bee enter the kitchen behind her. She stood at the window, mirroring the position that she had stood in only the previous morning in Cambridge. At the sounds of shuffling footsteps she turned and saw her stepdaughter: pale, dishevelled, her hair matted together where it hadn’t been properly dried, despite Rowan’s best attempts before she got her to bed the previous day.

  Bee moved slowly from the hallway door down onto the stone tiles of the kitchen. Her gait was that of someone who had been physically injured. She was stooped a little, as if she had been punched in the stomach, and she held herself just below the ribs. Rowan knew that the violent vomiting she had sustained yesterday would leave her in discomfort for a couple of days yet.

  Rowan cleared her throat nervously, unsure what would happen next. Bee remained silent, one hand leaning on the back of a kitchen chair to support her, staring at the floor, her hair hiding her face. The silence in the kitchen was electric.

  It was Bee who broke it. But gently. “You up long?” she said in a low, rasping voice. She looked up as she spoke and Rowan saw her swallow and wince. She turned quickly and filled a glass with water before handing it to her. Bee accepted with what Rowan thought might be a look of gratitude. She couldn’t be sure.

  “Since about seven,” she answered. “I didn’t sleep very well on the divan in the study. Forgot how hard that thing was after all these years.” She laughed nervously, allowing the laugh to die on her lips as she watched Bee pull out the chair she leaned on and gently lower herself down on to it.

  Bee looked up at Rowan’s silhouette, her eyes narrowing to slits against the glare of sunlight from the kitchen window. “Why didn’t you sleep in your old bed?” she asked. “Sasha’s gone away to a wedding fayre – with a ‘y’. . .”

  Rowan smiled. Typical Bee.

  “And Matilda’s at Vicky’s. She’ll be back later, though.”

  Rowan shook her head. “I wasn’t sure if they were coming back or not. And besides, I didn’t want to sleep in someone else’s bed.”

  “Not like my mother, then,” said Bee suddenly, her voice gaining strength, her tone bitter.

  Rowan’s stomach sank. Good God but she wasn’t ready to get into this. She sighed nervously and then took a deep breath, reaching out to switch on the kettle as she did.

  She paused a moment to compose herself.

  “I read the letter, Bee,” she admitted softly, waiting for the accusation of invasion of privacy. None came.

  Bee shrugged and examined some chipped nail polish on her left hand.

  “I tidied a little . . . it was on the table and I . . . I knew it might have upset you . . .”

  Bee glared at her stepmother. “I don’t care that you read it,” she said flatly. “God knows, it probably meant more to you than it did to me. I mean, who is that man anyway?”

  Rowan focused her attention on a jar near her on the countertop. She pulled it towards her, extracted two teabags and placed them in two mugs that she took from the draining board just behind her. It was as far as she got, before sighing again and leaning back against the kitchen sink, folding her arms.

  “I don’t know much about him either, for what that’s worth,” she began. “Your dad, rather pointedly, never talks about him. I understand that he was his best friend for years. Then Guillaume had a fling with Vicky and did a bunk when she got pregnant. It turned out, of course, that Matilda wasn’t his but he was long gone by then – so he still thinks, or thought rather, that there was a child of his running around London. Your dad’s theory on his disappearance was that Guillaume did a bunk because he wasn’t a particularly paternal type and valued his freedom too much.”

  “But how did they know for sure that Matilda wasn’t his?” asked Bee. “Did they do a DNA test or something? Surely he had to be around for that one?”

  “Matilda’s white,” Rowan shrugged. “Guillaume wasn’t.”

  Bee nodded faintly and formed her lips into a pout as she digested the information. “Nice guy,” she observed, drily. “Does a runner on his pregnant girlfriend, turns his back on his best friend, and then writes love letters to said friend’s wife on his deathbed. Does he really not know that Mum’s dead?”

  It was Rowan’s turn to shrug. “It appears not,” she said, nodding toward the letter which had been returned to its envelope. She had left it out on the table, unsure exactly what Bee intended to do with it.

  There was silence for a moment.

  Rowan looked awkwardly at the ground, before remembering suddenly that she had been about to make tea. She busied herself with the task, glad of something to occupy her hands. She had just poured water into the two cups when she heard a loud sniff and turned again to look at Bee who was holding her head in her hands, crying at the kitchen table. Her shoulders heaved silently and a whine escaped, before she sniffed and then began to cry properly. Huge sobs escaped her as Rowan watched from across the room, unsure what to do.

  In the long run, she did the only thing that she could think of. Something, oddly, that she had never done before, that she had always left to Ed because she didn’t feel she had the right. She crossed to the kitchen table and placed her arms around the heaving figure of her stepdaughter and hugged her. It surprised her that Bee didn’t imme
diately pull away. Surprised her even more when Bee leaned into her, pressed her head against Rowan’s chest and allowed herself to be enveloped completely while she cried herself out. Rowan rocked her softly from side to side, making the comforting shushing sound that one might make to soothe a child. It felt strange, yet at the same time completely natural.

  After a time, Bee stopped crying and pulled away, to rummage in her dressing-gown pocket for a tissue. She blew her nose loudly and Rowan took the chance to pull the chair opposite out from the table and sit down, leaning across, her face sympathetic.

  “What’s happened with Adam, Bee?” she asked softly, knowing that she took a chance by asking but if they were to sort out the events of yesterday then she felt sure that she had to start from the beginning.

  Bee gave a little groan and rubbed her eyes hard with the base of her palms before joining her hands as if in prayer and resting them on the table before her, thinking hard.

  “I know that you think I’ve been stupid,” she said quietly. “I thought you were just being a bitch. That my . . . situation, with changing college courses and that, was interfering with your plans.”

  Rowan frowned, puzzled, but kept silent.

  Bee looked down at the table and Rowan heard her voice tremble as the tears began afresh. “It’s all fallen apart, Rowan. I didn’t get into Darvill’s. In fact I was so off the mark, so not suited that I’m sure they were laughing at me at the interview.” She paused to compose herself. “It was awful. So humiliating. They were so mean to me. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. At least I have Adam, I thought. At least he’s not gone – not all the good bits of my life are gone. But it seems that he’s more like that Guillaume man than I thought. Because he’s done a bunk. Well, he’s dumped me.”

  “But why?” urged Rowan. “Because you didn’t get into Darvill’s? That’s ridiculous.”

  Bee sniffed and took a deep breath before looking toward the window. “That’s part of it,” she replied, her eyes wet. “You see it would have looked good for him professionally if he’d placed a student on that bloody course. It would have boosted his reputation to spot a talent big enough to get into Darvill’s. But that talent clearly wasn’t me, even though he swore to me that I was good enough. And because I was so gloriously awful, in fact, well, it’s reflected rather badly on him, as it turns out. And needless to say, that’s my fault. Along with . . . everything else.”

  “Oh Bee, you poor thing,” said Rowan, her lip curling in disgust at the shallowness of the man. She’d felt in her gut all along that there was something about him and she was right. Something in Bee’s expression, however, put her on high alert. She felt alarmed suddenly. What did ‘everything else’ mean? Wasn’t it enough that he had used Bee as a pawn to service his own professional vanity? Had strung her along and then blamed her when his plans hadn’t come together?

  “What do you mean ‘everything else’, though? What other stuff has he done? Did he hurt you?”

  Her heart stopped when she saw Bee’s tear-streaked face look back at her with an expression of pure sorrow.

  “Bee . . .”

  “Turns out that the situation is rather similar to the one which that Guillaume man found himself in,” she whispered. “Except in Adam’s case, there won’t be any doubt over skin colouring, or DNA or anything . . .” Her voice trailed off as she was overwhelmed with more tears, silent this time.

  It took a moment for the information to sink in but as it did Rowan’s eyes widened. “How far gone, Bee?” she asked softly, reaching a hand out across the table for her stepdaughter to take.

  Bee kept her fingers firmly laced together.

  “About six weeks, I think,” she whispered. “I thought he’d be happy – I didn’t think that it would matter because it was his and I thought we were going to be together, that he was going to stay with me.”

  Rowan stared at her, her lips set in a firm line. She had to take a deep breath to control herself, to keep her temper way down inside her. That bastard, she thought. That shallow, selfish, irresponsible bastard. She forced the rage back down inside her, forced herself to change tack.

  “We need to get you to a doctor,” she managed. “After yesterday. All that alcohol. We have to get a scan done and make sure that everything’s as it should be. Did you take any of those pills, Bee? Answer me properly this time.”

  Bee’s face filled with sudden horror and she clamped a hand over her mouth as she gasped. “The pills,” she mumbled. “I completely forgot . . . oh God, Rowan, I was a mess – I’m so sorry!”

  “But did you take any?” urged Rowan, a trace of temper escaping.

  Bee shook her head vigorously. “God no,” she said. “I had a ton of booze and then completely passed out on the couch for a while and then just carried on when I woke up. But none of the pills. Anyway, most of them were harmless. Vitamins and stuff, weren’t they?”

  Rowan’s body slumped against the back of the chair with relief. “Good,” she said. “That’s one thing at least. Thank God you’re the worst student house in London and didn’t have anything more sinister in stock than paracetamol.”

  Bee smiled faintly. “And Viagra. Wasn’t there Viagra or did I hallucinate that?”

  Rowan smiled back: “There was, actually. Why the hell was there Viagra in your medicine cupboard?”

  “Mike, I reckon,” replied Bee. “I think he’s been having it away with the lady in Number Eleven the last few weeks. That’s pretty disgusting now I think of it.”

  Both Rowan and Bee suddenly dissolved into unexpected laughter. It felt good, even if there was a touch of the hysterical to it.

  “Mike!” repeated Rowan in disbelief through the mirth. “Of all people. My God, if Betty finds out! Everyone’s got their secrets, haven’t they?”

  The smile faded suddenly from Bee’s lips. “Like my mother,” she said suddenly, the previous tone of bitterness creeping back into her voice. “My sainted dead mother. That I thought the world of. My lovely, dedicated mum who gave up everything to look after me. Who broke my dad’s heart when she died. She had a pretty big secret, Rowan, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Rowan sat upright.

  A growing tone of anger was building in Bee’s voice and her eyes flashed. “For years Dad’s told me how I was her heart and soul, how I was what mattered to her most in the whole wide world. And now – that letter – telling me the opposite in black and white. That she was not only cheating on my dad but that she was going to leave me. To run off to South Africa with that man . . . her sister-in-law’s boyfriend . . . her husband’s best friend . . . my godfather? That’s some secret.”

  Bee was panting slightly as the passion and hurt rose within her. Rowan tried to diffuse it: “But she didn’t go, Bee. All the way through the letter – he’s regretful, says that she did the right thing by staying . . .”

  “The date, Rowan.” Bee cut her short, her eyes cold as she fixed her in a steady glare. “He mentions the date in the letter that she was supposed to go. That she was supposed to meet him.”

  Rowan was blank. She stared back at Bee, confused.

  “December 23rd, 1997,” stated Bee.

  It still meant nothing to Rowan.

  “The day she died,” Bee finished. “The day of the car crash – that’s where she was going. To meet him. To run away with her lover and leave me and Dad in the lurch. The only reason she didn’t go with him was because she was killed on the way.”

  Rowan paled. She shook her head in disbelief. “She could have been going anywhere, Bee – I mean if she’d been running away then surely they’d have found a case in her car? Plane tickets maybe? Some evidence of where she was headed?”

  “The car went up in flames,” said Bee, exasperated. “Dad told me. A passer-by managed to pull her body out before it all went on fire. There was barely anything left. So no. It’s not like we’d have found evidence that she was running away.”

  Rowan was silent for a moment. She knew none of this
– Ed always preferred to mark the anniversary privately despite her insistence that he didn’t have to. The date of Jenny’s death wasn’t something that she could have rolled off the top of her head. These were details of something that had happened well before her time, something that she did her best not to think about.

  “Bee, come on,” she pleaded again. “She could have been going anywhere. To the shops for some last-minute stuff – it was Christmas, after all.”

  “Or just as easily to run away with her boyfriend. Who never bothered checking out why she didn’t come. Who was so concerned for her that he went anyway and lived blissfully on the other side of the world for twenty-three years without knowing that she was dead, while her husband – while my father broke under the strain of it all. What am I supposed to tell him, Rowan? That after all these years the woman he loved was a liar and a cheat? With his best friend? What was that man thinking writing that letter? Selfishly dragging it all up to cleanse his soul or whatever before he shuffled off? What am I supposed to do with that information, Rowan? I mean, that letter was addressed to Jenny Mycroft – I was going to bring it down to Dad for him to open, but curiosity got the better of me after, oh, about the third glass of wine. What would have happened then? If Dad had read that letter and found out for himself about this . . . deceit? These horrible, horrible lies!”

  There was silence between them for a few moments as Rowan tried to think of something to say but couldn’t.