by Adele Parks
I might very well die.
36
Fiona
Fiona rings the bell. Mark almost instantly flings open the door, he must have been waiting for her. She imagines him crouched in the hall, ready to pounce. Not on her exactly, but on the information she brings. He has a near-empty wine glass in his hand and a sharp, shrill energy about him.
Not standing on ceremony, she steps inside, slips off her jacket, slings it over the banister. She doesn’t want to be the first to speak because, despite grappling with the problem all the way over here, she still isn’t sure what she’s going to tell him, so she gets her question in first. ‘Any news?’
‘No.’
‘You haven’t heard anything from the police?’
Mark shakes his head impatiently, not bothering to conceal his need to know what she has discovered. ‘So? Did you go to see him?’
‘I did.’
‘What’s he like?’
She doubts she can tell him. But then, can she afford to lie to him? It’s likely to come out at some point anyway, now she’s spoken to that officer. It is best he hears it from her.
‘He’s everything you might imagine him to be,’ she admits with a sigh.
‘How do I know we imagine the same thing of him? I imagine him to be arrogant, slick, supercilious.’
Fiona nods. ‘Yes, he’s those things. To an extent.’ She glances about her, buying time. ‘Where are the boys?’
Mark looks a little surprised to be asked, as though he hasn’t thought about them for a while. ‘They’re staying overnight at their aunt’s house. She’s going to drive them home tomorrow. She didn’t give a time.’
‘You’ve been on your own all afternoon?’
Mark shrugs. ‘Where am I going to go?’ Suddenly, he seems to remember that they are hovering awkwardly in the hallway and that he is holding a wine glass. ‘I’ve a bottle open, join me?’
‘Yes, please.’
Fiona follows Mark into the kitchen. She takes advantage of the fact he is busy finding her a glass and filling it, therefore not staring at her intently as he was when he first opened the door. She garbles, ‘Look, Mark, there’s something I need to talk to you about.’
‘About Daan Janssen?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you suspect him of hurting her?’ He immediately sets down the bottle, glares at her. The brief liberation from his intense need to know what she is struggling to tell sputters and dies.
Fiona reaches for the wine bottle, fills up both glasses, takes a sip and a deep breath. ‘I don’t know.’
Mark looks something approaching excited. ‘But maybe and you’ve only just met him, yet you have your suspicions of him. That’s something. That’s huge.’
‘Well, that’s just it. I haven’t only just met him. I’ve actually dated him. I knew him before.’
‘What?’ Confusion floods Mark’s face.
Fiona rushes on. ‘Obviously, I didn’t know he was married and even if I suspected he was, I certainly did not think it was to Leigh. How would I know that?’
Mark, normally so tanned and robust-looking, turns pale, she thinks she can see through him to the wall behind where the kitchen knives are displayed on a magnetic block. ‘I don’t understand. When did you date him? I don’t remember you ever talking about dating a Dutch millionaire.’
‘Well, I don’t tell you all about everyone I date. I do have a private life.’ Fiona knows she sounds defensive and more importantly she is not being honest with him or herself. She sighs and gestures towards the sitting room. ‘It’s a long story, can we sit somewhere comfortable?’ She feels she might collapse.
They sit at either end of the couch and she tells him about the dates she had with Daan Janssen. It’s humiliating, far from her finest hour, so she is vague. So vague Mark is eventually compelled to ask, ‘So did you have sex with him? Look, I don’t want to be indelicate here, Fiona, but I need to know what sort of bloke Leigh was mixed up with.’
Fiona blushes, it feels very close to the conversation she had with the police officer. Why is everyone so obsessed with whether they had sex? She knows she is being disingenuous. Sex is nothing. Sex is everything. Sex disrupts.
Detonates.
‘Yeah, we are adults, we had adult dates. For God’s sake, Mark, what do you want me to say?’
‘So, this man was betraying her? He’s not to be trusted.’
Even though she has just called the police, pointing out the same, she wants to appear composed, reasonable in front of Mark. ‘Well, he wasn’t faithful, but that doesn’t mean he’s responsible for her disappearance. It’s dangerous to jump to conclusions.’
Fiona can’t quite read Mark’s face. He seems to be calculating something. Piecing things together. He swallows back the rest of the wine in his glass, bounces out of his seat, goes into the kitchen. Returns with the bottle. Fiona senses he’d like to swill the lot down from the neck, but he shows restraint, shares what’s left between their glasses. ‘And you knew this straight away, the moment the police mentioned his name? You knew who he was? You knew it all the time we were looking at his profile and social media accounts?’
Fiona nods, embarrassed. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’ She pulls her eyes to meet his. ‘You needed me. You’ve been hurt so badly by Leigh. I thought I would be twisting a knife.’
‘By admitting that not only my wife, but my friend too had been seduced by this Daan Janssen?’
Fiona nods again, contrite. ‘I am so sorry.’
Mark’s face softens. He realises that she was simply trying to protect him, trying to be a friend to him. He’s grateful to have someone on his team. ‘You have to go to the police with this. It will help them understand what sort of man they are dealing with.’
‘I’ve already spoken to them.’
This at least pleases him. He nods, allows a smile to slide to parts of his mouth, not a full commitment but some level of grim satisfaction. ‘Good. Good.’
Fiona can’t see any good in this.
It is an unreasonable hope – because Mark is naturally focused on Leigh and on his own trauma – but she is disheartened that he hasn’t noticed or recognised her disappointment, her disillusionment. She was in a relationship with Daan, OK not a decade-long marriage admittedly, but there had been something. Even if it was only on her side. Even if it was illusory. She’d like her loss to be acknowledged. She knows Mark has been reeling since Leigh’s disappearance, but she too has lost Leigh. Her longest, most meaningful relationship.
Fiona gives him the information he craves. She talks about the penthouse apartment, the jacuzzi and swimming pool. She imagines hearing details about the other man’s extreme wealth is concurrently irritating and a relief. If Mark can square this away by reasoning Leigh was attracted to Daan’s wealth – a wealth Mark could never attain – then maybe that is easier than admitting to any nuance about why else she might have needed both men. However, as Fiona describes the expansive rooms, the hardwood floors, she notes Mark hasn’t asked any questions, he’s barely nodding along. He doesn’t seem interested.
He cuts her description short and asks, ‘How could I have lived with her for all that time and not known what was going on behind her eyes, behind her smile? I thought we were an exceptionally close couple. We used to laugh and mock couples who were not as close as we were. Or as close as I thought we were. I was the one she was laughing at really.’
Fiona is out of her depth. She knows Mark feels humiliated, idiotic. She wants to comfort him, she’d like to be the one to do that, but she doesn’t know what to say because in all honesty how can she defend her friend? She treads carefully. ‘I guess it’s possible to be close, you know, to see each other all the time, and yet not be aware. I mean, she was taking pains to hide stuff from you. You’re not a mind reader. It’s not your fault.’
‘I thought what we had was not only meaningful, but everything.’ The confession hangs raw and exposing in the air. ‘It turns out we wer
e just a couple of strangers exchanging views of school timetables, what we should eat for dinner,’ he adds bitterly. He grips his wine glass so tightly his knuckles turn white. Fiona clocks his angry hands and is just about to ease the glass out of his grip when the stem snaps. ‘Fuck.’ He is cut. Scarlet blood bubbles on his hand, and red wine spills on the carpet. Mark stares at his wound and the mess but doesn’t react. Fiona jumps up, dashes to the kitchen, comes back with salt, kitchen roll and a tea towel.
‘Let me look at your hand.’ Mark remains inert as she checks there is no glass embedded in the gash. ‘Press tightly,’ she instructs. She clears away the broken glass, mops up as much of the mess as she can and then pours salt on the stain. She roots out a bandage from the first aid tin and binds his injury. The cut isn’t big, but it must be quite deep as his blood quickly blooms through the dressing. Finally, she doesn’t ask but just goes into the kitchen, opens another bottle, brings it back to the living room with a fresh glass for Mark.
They fall silent, each deep in their own thoughts of how they have been fooled, deceived, betrayed. They drink in a morose fog. There’s music coming from somewhere, a neighbour’s house. It’s a poppy, non-descript tune. It should cheer but it doesn’t, it jars. It seems meaningless, taunting. It seems peculiar that ordinary things like music playing from a radio station can be happening, considering everything. The windows are open because it’s been an unseasonably hot day but it’s still March and the night air hasn’t held any warmth. Fiona shivers, stands and pulls the window closed. As she sits back down on the couch, she reaches for a throw. She recognises it as one that Leigh bought when they were on an IKEA shopping trip together, about two years ago. Fiona had picked it out. Leigh always wanted her interior design advice but would cheerfully say, ‘Just remember I don’t have your clients’ budgets.’ But she did have, didn’t she? She had access to enormous wealth, just not in this life. Leigh lied about everything, even which throw she could afford.
The throw is grubby, a bit frayed but it is warm, comforting. Fiona stretches it over her legs and reaches to pull some of it over Mark’s too. He doesn’t seem to notice. She wonders what he is thinking about exactly. If not a shopping trip to IKEA, then what other small domestic detail – that formed the bricks and mortar of their relationship – might he be looking at from a different perspective? Fiona finds she does that a lot, on dates and things: wonders what men are thinking. She is never sure; they always seem so inaccessible. So far away. She breaks the hush when she comments, ‘You know, I always thought she was the most honest person I’d ever known.’
‘Clearly not,’ mutters Mark, dryly.
‘No. You’re right. Turns out she was the most honest person I’ve ever known up until the point she stopped deceiving me. Hilarious.’
‘I miss her,’ Mark says. It’s hardly a confession. It’s to be expected yet he seems ashamed, distraught admitting as much. ‘The boys miss her.’
‘I know. I do too.’
‘I thought we were a team. A two-person, handle-everything-that-might-ever-come-along team. Not just the big stuff. Not just house moves, the kids’ friendship groups, illness.’ His voice catches. Fiona thinks of Frances. This man has lost two wives. ‘But the little stuff too. You know, like taking the cat to the vet, doing the shopping, and repainting the hallway, all that boring, essential stuff was just not so bad because we did it together. It was actually sometimes fun.’
It’s been a long time since Fiona has had someone to share life’s mundane tasks with. Though she remembers clearly her ex Samar calling her his cheerleader, and before him Dirk called her his partner in crime. She used to be feisty and roll her eyes when people referred to their partners as their ‘other half’ or worse yet, their ‘better half’, but over the last few years her cynicism has become tired, exhausted. Exhausted in the true sense of the word: sapped, wearied, depleted. Now Fiona thinks the idea of having a better half is edifying. People need support. There are worse things than to be propped up. You could be left alone to collapse.
Being married is about legal rights and shared financial goals and responsibilities, yes, but really it is about the other stuff. The nebulous, nuanced stuff like secret in-jokes and pet names – ‘you had to be there’, ‘Oh, it’s just something we say to each other’ – having a private, non-verbal language whereby a single look might say ‘let’s get out of here’ or ‘he’s a wanker’ or ‘I love you’. Different looks, obviously. Creating family traditions – ‘We always go to Salcombe for the May Bank holiday. The crowds are a nightmare but it’s our thing.’ Fiona has heard them all.
She takes another slug of her wine, to swallow down the bile in her throat. Those are the things she yearns for. She absolutely understands Mark’s dependence on being married. She respects it, craves it.
Mark’s eyes are glassy, he’s a bit drunk. He’s been a bit drunk, or very drunk, every night since Leigh disappeared. No one can blame him. Maybe she should talk to him about abstaining for a while, but honestly, she hasn’t got it in her.
‘I miss her laugh. She had a weird laugh. Fast and loud,’ he muses, mushily. The drink means he bounces about emotionally. One minute furious, the next wistful. No one could expect him to be stable, though, considering the circumstances. ‘Leigh made the house warmer and happier. Her absence was always felt, you know, when she went to work. What we thought was work,’ he adds. Fiona bites her tongue. She hasn’t really heard Mark talk about Leigh this way before she vanished, or at least not for a very long time. He sounds sentimental, syrupy. It is the sort of tone reserved men use when they are forced to make public declarations – at their wedding speeches, for instance. No less sincere for that but slightly awkward to listen to. Mark’s usual tone with and about Leigh is more pedestrian as a rule. He is sometimes teasingly affectionate, but never mawkish. Fiona has heard him use the syrupy voice often enough though, about Frances. His ex-wife. His dead wife. Does he think Leigh is an ex-wife?
A dead wife?
He carries on, ‘The boys should be used to her not being here, since she was always gone half the week but they’re not doing well,’ Mark continues. ‘It’s different now, obviously. No one is expecting her to walk through the door at any moment.’
‘Aren’t they?’ Fiona asks.
Mark shrugs. ‘No, not really.’ He takes another swig of alcohol. ‘You can feel their anger in the air.’
Fiona thinks this is true. You can almost taste it, but it is not just the boys’ anger. It is Mark’s too. Without her, the house is drenched in an ominous vibe. ‘God, she was manipulative. Right? I mean, she had us all fooled. What a bitch, hey, Fiona?’
‘Yeah,’ Fiona admits. ‘She’s my best friend but she’s a bitch. I can’t really deny that.’
‘She’s my wife but I was the first to say it.’ He looks around as though surprised by her absence, all over again. Then he buries his head into the throw. Fiona thinks he’s crying at first, but he’s not. He is taking a long, deep breath in. Perhaps trying to soothe himself. Perhaps trying to catch Leigh’s smell on the fabric. A theory that is confirmed when he sits up. Slick-eyed, but not vacant, he is alert; twitching like a dog that listens for footsteps on the street, a squeak of the gate that indicates his mistress is home. But there are no footsteps on the street, Leigh is not home. Mark mumbles, ‘I can still smell her in the rooms. That’s something.’ He sighs, admitting that it’s not much really.
‘I do understand,’ says Fiona. Mark flinches, looks sceptical. ‘Well, not completely, obviously, but I feel betrayed too. I can’t believe this is happening, that something has gone so horribly wrong in our worlds, when we were all just going about our business, you know? How has she kept me out of her life like that, so absolutely?’
‘Half her life,’ says Mark with a sardonic smirk.
‘Her life,’ Fiona insists. ‘She’s a bigamist, so I’d argue she’s defined by that. That is her life. I didn’t know I was out of her life. That I didn’t exist for her. She’s le
ft me feeling, I don’t know, sort of less. Do you know what I mean? I feel cheated.’ Mark nods ruefully. ‘Oh crap, sorry. I’m going on about my feelings. I can only imagine how diminished you must feel.’ Mark shrugs and holds Fiona’s gaze, and something flitters between them. Not just comfort or empathy. Something more stirring. The air is tight, brittle. Fiona feels one wrong move or word, and it would all shatter. Quietly, carefully, she asks, ‘Would you take her back? You know … if she came back. If she walked through that door right now, would you take her back?’
‘She’s not coming back, Fiona,’ says Mark and then he leans forward. The tight, brittle air explodes as he kisses her. It takes a moment and then she kisses him back.
37
Kylie
Daan is stood in the room demanding I make a list for him too. ‘Keep things fair!’ he is shouting which is out of character. He’s normally supremely confident and would not demand, or even acknowledge, the need for an even playing field, happy to play all odds, even if the odds are stacked against him, which in all honestly, they rarely are. Tall, handsome, rich, male – normally all the odds are in his favour.
But of course, that was him before he knew about Mark. Now he has discovered he doesn’t know me, it’s fair to assume I don’t know him. That he is other.
‘Get on with the fucking list!’ His mass and blondness swell and fill the room, he’s pulsing with vitality and irritation. I am reminded of how it is to be with him when people are late, and he feels they undervalue his time. Normally generous and charming he becomes irate and struggles to hide his annoyance. Except, he is not in the room. He has gone again, and I can’t be sure he was ever here. Was it just my imagination?
Am I hallucinating? Lack of food, dehydration?
The room sways, puckers as though it is being folded away like a concertina fan. One moment voluminous, the next cramped. Have I been drugged again? Something in the chicken sandwich or the water. What can I trust? What do I know? My head is pounding, pulsing with pain. But then so are my hands, my ribs, my shoulder.
