She nodded, barely daring to speak. Jack pulled something out of his pocket and put it in front of her. The letter sat neatly centred on the place setting, the silver cutlery and delicate crockery at odds with the small, tatty white envelope. Worn to nothing in places, the sides held together with yellowing sticky tape.
On the front, she could see the squiggle of a word, but couldn’t make sense of the writing. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand, then gently pulled the letter from the envelope and opened it out. She looked at the smudged, worn black handwriting. It was shaky and messy. But the loops and whirls were unmistakably hers.
‘What does it say?’ she asked quietly, and closed her eyes as Jack began to read.
Dear Johnny,
By now, I guess you are about four. Your little face I remember so well has probably changed – I imagine you are taller, your hands and feet bigger, talking properly, but still with the same bright blue eyes, your same smile, your same laugh. I had a photo of you a while ago, and somehow it got lost, but I can still see you as clear as day when I close my eyes. I can hear your giggle, and sometimes, in my dreams, I smell your unmistakable baby smell.
I don’t imagine you remember me. In a way, I hope you don’t, because it will mean you don’t remember the bad times and the sadness when you missed your mummy. I hope you have a new mummy and daddy, much, much better than the ones you were born with.
I hope you grow up to be the sort of man I want you to be. Someone who cares and looks after the people around him. Who puts himself last, who is gentle and kind. Who can love unreservedly without worry about pain or loss. Let me tell you now: material things don’t matter, nor money or power. I hope you are humble but strong, and fight for what you know is right in our complicated world.
Most of all, I hope you are happy, and cared for, and loved. I miss you every day, Johnny. I miss you with an ache in my throat and my chest that never goes away. All I care about is that you are warm and joyful and safe. Please know that I loved you above all else, and I never wanted for this to happen, for us to be apart. My only wish is that one day we can see each other again.
Until that day, all my love,
Mummy xx
Jack stopped, his voice catching, and put the letter back into the envelope. Annie opened her eyes and took a deep breath, wiping away the tears rolling down her cheeks with a soft linen napkin from the table, her hands shaking.
‘I still don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Why would I write that? Why were you adopted?’
She looked at Jack, and he was crying, his hands covering his mouth. ‘Why don’t you remember?’ he said, but Annie wasn’t listening. She had gone. She had gone home.
37
When I wake, my body feels heavy. I’m shattered, and every part of me aches. I open my eyes and take in the room, the same bedroom I’ve slept in for the last few years, the same house, the same me. Now that I’m home and awake, I feel calmer. The dreams have gone.
I think back to everything I have seen. It makes my head hurt trying to make sense of it all, imagining Jack is my son all grown up, and that we could create a dream world that would impact real life. It feels ridiculous to believe the dreams are real, yet my husband has gone. Maggie has gone. That much is true. We have the chance to have a second life, Johnny and I – without David, without fear, without someone telling me what to do and how to live every day. A second chance to get it right.
In the pitch black I move out from under my warm duvet into the cold of the house, knowing my way around without ever needing to turn on a light. I gently open the door into Johnny’s room, slowly stepping inside, being careful not to wake him.
I can see just enough to make out the contours of his face, the gentle swell of his plump cheeks, his eyes flickering behind his delicate eyelids. His breathing is regular and steady, Rabbit clutched in his arms. My beautiful, perfect little boy. I reach down and smooth his hair, fluffy and delicate, his cheeks warm and soft.
He opens his eyes sleepily and looks at me. He smiles, still half in dream world.
‘Night night, Mummy,’ he mutters, falling instantly back to sleep.
‘Night night, Jack,’ I say, and laugh at myself, shaking my head.
I go back to my bedroom, and pull the duvet over me. It feels late, and I can’t hear any noise from outside, no cars moving in the street. I glance at the clock. The digits shine in the darkness, but I can’t make out the time. I rub my eyes, and lean over and pick up the clock, hitting it harder than I intend when I still can’t understand what it says. I turn a light on and blink. With fumbling fingers I pull out the batteries, then push them in again, turning the clock over to see the same thing: lines and shapes, just lines and shapes.
My hands are shaking and I am breathing heavily as I open my bedside drawer and pull out a paperback, untouched and neglected since David’s death. I open it to a page, then frantically flick to another, staring at the black-and-white type, over and over again. Letters blurry, words unintelligible. Another page. I can’t read. I can’t make it out.
In my panic, I pull the pages out one by one and hurl them across the room. I lie in my bed face down and howl, beating my pillow powerlessly with my fists.
The paper flutters to the floor. Lines and shapes, just lines and shapes.
Epilogue
Wake up.
Annie lay back on her pillow and stared at the ceiling, her heart racing. The white cube, the featureless walls, the same smell of disinfectant. The same bars on the windows.
She could hear the march down the corridor as the lights were switched off one by one. She could hear their progress towards her as they plunged the place into darkness and the screaming started, some people scared of the dark, others just scared.
She was back here again, this endless nightmare, this dream she couldn’t control. She screwed up her eyes and dug her nails into the palms of her hands. Anything to stop the whirring in her head and the jittering in her stomach. Something had gone horribly wrong, but she just couldn’t remember. Nothing made sense.
She rolled over on the hard mattress and heard a rustle of paper. Something in the pocket of her tracksuit trousers. She pulled it out: it was the front page of the newspaper, scrunched up and shoved out of view when she ran from Becca. She sat up on the bed and smoothed it out in front of her, squinting in the low light to make out the letters.
She saw the garish red banner at the top, then a screaming headline. The moon shone through the window, lighting up random phrases as she moved the piece of paper, her mouth open. ‘… husband stabbed in frenzied attack … well-respected CEO … claims of self-defence dismissed … mother-in-law, pillar of the community, mowed down in street …’ Then the flashes started. The memories. The knife, the blood.
‘I’m sorry—’ she started, then stopped as the back of David’s hand smacked across her face. It made her head spin round, her teeth clatter together. She gripped the counter top to stop herself falling, her legs wobbly and unstable, heart racing.
In seconds he was next to her, grabbing the top of her arm, pulling her round roughly so she was facing away from him. Pushing her head with one hand, he pinned her down, bent over the kitchen counter, holding her tight on the back of her neck.
‘You’re all out to fuck with me,’ he shouted, all his strength on her neck, her face pressed roughly into the chopping board, her arms trapped behind her. ‘I am in control, me! Only me!’
Ignoring his screaming son, he grappled one-handed with his belt, pulling his trousers and boxers down, then doing the same with Annie’s skirt and knickers. He didn’t care how rough he was; he didn’t care what got broken or who he hurt.
Annie tried to get away, but she was trapped, and he pushed into her, holding her tight, her face next to the chopped carrots, the peeler, the knife. Her hands flapped uselessly behind her as he thrust again, blind with anger, blind with power and his need to punish.
She was making a gagging noise, struggling to breathe, her hair over her face
, but he didn’t care, just pushed her down harder, his son’s crying escalating to a scream.
He was so occupied with his attack, so led by fury, that he didn’t notice her hand moving, bit by bit, each time he withdrew and bashed again inside her. Closer and closer until the handle of the newly sharpened blade was just inches away from her fingers. She could touch it, and then, in one move, she gripped it in her right hand and flayed round, determined to make contact with something, anything, to make it stop, so she could breathe, so she could live.
The blade hit the fleshy part of David’s upper arm, cutting through his shirt and nicking his skin. In his surprise, he moved back, enough for Annie to come round again, this time slashing the edge of his neck. The blood was sudden and bright, arcing across the kitchen cabinets. She reached again and again; she felt the resistance of bone, the softness of flesh, the sticky splash of his blood.
David’s hands went to his neck, his mouth open, his eyes wide. He tried to move away from her, but the trousers round his ankles caught him, and he fell, hitting his head heavily on the cabinets behind.
Annie stood above him, the knife still in her hand, breathing heavily, poised, ready to attack again if he moved. But he was still, completely motionless, his eyes open and looking at the ceiling, a bright red pool widening across his shirt and the kitchen tiles. A wet gurgle came from his lips, and a line of blood ran from his mouth down the side of his chin.
Annie looked to her son. He had stopped crying, and sat in his high chair in silence. A line of blood splatter ran across the tray, and he reached out with a pudgy digit, putting a perfect tiny fingerprint in the droplet.
With shaking hands, Annie reached for her mobile, leaving three concentric blurry thumbprints on the nine of the keypad.
‘Please send an ambulance,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve killed my husband.’
She looked across at Johnny, his blue eyes watching her, and her mobile slipped out of her grasp. What the hell had she done? Nobody would believe her; nobody would take her word over the reputation of a successful CEO. Annie hadn’t told a soul about David; she had no photos, no evidence of his abuse. She grabbed her car keys, pulled Johnny from his high chair, and ran.
She remembered pulling out of their driveway, her foot to the floor. She remembered seeing Maggie’s white BMW waiting to turn into their road. She felt the anger, the blind rage and the tension in her body as she gripped the steering wheel. In that moment she knew she was going to get caught, she knew she was going to be arrested. She saw Johnny being brought up by that woman, his life no better than when David was alive. She had to protect him; she had to stop that happening.
Instinct took over. She saw Maggie’s face in the driver’s seat, looking at her in a brief moment of recognition, before her car slammed into the BMW’s driver’s-side door. She remembered the grind of metal, a pain in her leg, Johnny crying. Blue flashing lights, people shouting, men talking, rough hands pulling. She remembered. She remembered.
The newspaper fluttered to the floor, the words clear and precise. The full force of the wave of loss, of despair, screwed her up into a ball, her knees tucked into her chest as the grief, the pain, the sorrow hit her like an avalanche. She felt his absence with every cell in her body; he was a part of her, and now he was gone.
Everything was gone. Her life, where she was free and where calm breakfasts with Johnny could be followed by trips to the park with Adam. There was no future for her with Adam, not now. No prospect of a first date or an exciting kiss under the stars. Just nothing. Her reconciliation with Becca hadn’t happened, not that way anyway. Nothing was real, nothing was true any more.
She stayed curled up in despair for hours, until her body was empty and there was nothing left. Until she was clear and knew what she had to do.
She sat up on the bed and opened the drawer of the bedside table, pulling out a sheet of paper and a pen. The letter was quick to write; she knew what it needed to say. Becca had said Johnny was gone, but Jack would get this and know she missed him. He would know that all she ever wanted was for him to be warm and joyful and safe, and loved above all else.
She put the lid back on the pen, then folded the letter into four and sealed it in a matching white envelope. She knew where she had to be. At home, their home, with the trains and cars and lunches of beans on toast. She wanted to be with Johnny.
On the wall outside, the clock ticked. The long hand pointing up, the short hand to the right. Four a.m., it read, crystal clear. The hour of souls.
Annie lay back on the bed, on the white pillow and the white sheets, and fell asleep.
Acknowledgements
This book would never have seen the light of day without Ed Wilson, agent extraordinaire, and legend in his own time. Thank you so much; I couldn’t have wished for a better guide in the world of publishing.
To Harriet Bourton and Bethan Jones at Orion, it is a privilege and an honour to work with you both. Without a doubt, your vision, honesty and feedback has made the significantly better book we see today.
Thank you to Divinia Hayes, Debbie Mitchell, Ryan Mortimer, Lindsey Wallis and especially Teresa Andrews, who had the misfortune of reading one of the first versions of this book and made encouraging noises anyway.
Everyone needs their own personal squad of cheerleaders, and I am fortunate to have many people in my life who tolerated my book talk and celebrated every step of the journey. In particular, Jo Lawrence, Eloise Ponting, Tom and Mel de Lange, Karen Barker, Gemma Coleman, Rachel Derby, Marie Bennett, Tor Riley, Jonts and Susan Scarr, Mhairi Crawford, Sue and James Burford, Anne Roberts, Seetal Gandhi, Meenal Gandhi and Nikki Wallace – thank you.
To my parents, Janet and Richard de Lange, for your unwavering belief in me, even when I quit my nice steady career to go and type in a library.
And finally, to Chris Scarr, who is thankfully nothing like David, and Benjamin, who may be a little bit like Johnny. None of this would have been possible without you.
To you all, thank you.
Reading Group Questions
• How did you feel after finishing the novel? How would you describe it if you were recommending it to others?
• What impact has Annie’s own childhood had on the sort of life she wants to create for Johnny?
• Do you think Annie deliberately chose a cake that would kill her mother?
• Explore the similarities between Annie’s relationship with her mother, and her later marriage with David.
• Why does Annie discover the dream world at that particular point and what does she gain from the dream world that she doesn’t get from her real life?
• How important is the role of Becca in Annie’s life? How does she influence her as a child, and what difference does she make to her as an adult?
• Once Annie knows the truth about David, why does she stay with him? Why doesn’t she leave?
• Annie describes David’s betrayals as a ‘sociopathic playbook’. What’s the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath? Would you describe David as one or the other and why?
• How has Jack’s adoption influenced his later life?
• Why doesn’t Jack tell Annie the truth, once he realises who she is? What is he afraid of?
Author Biography
Louisa de Lange is a freelance copywriter, mum of a little boy and a keen runner, blogger and photographer. Turns out the combination of motherhood and her degree in psychology is a potent one. The Dream Wife is her first novel.
To find out more, you can follow her on Twitter @paperclipgirl.
Don’t miss the next gripping, twisty
suspense novel from the brilliant
Louisa de Lange
DOUBLE TAKE
Identical twins Gabriella and Thea couldn’t be more different – where Gabi is reckless and passionate, Thea is quiet and reserved. But they share one trait beyond comprehension – an innate power to sense the emotions of those around them, and use it for their own gains.
But this bond was not enough to keep them together. As teenagers their parents were brutally murdered and Gabi abandoned her sister, desperate to leave Thea and her old life behind.
Years later, Gabi finds herself drawn back home and falls victim to a violent attack, bringing the twins unexpectedly back together. With devastating consequences they look again at their parent’s murder. And as the police start digging into their past, the lines between right and wrong, and who is who, begin to blur …
A thriller not to be missed.
Coming 2019
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Orion Books
Ebook first published in 2018 by Orion Books
Copyright © Louisa de Lange 2018
The right of Louisa de Lange to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 8020 3
Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd
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The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
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