‘Screw you, Roy. You couldn’t even stand by me the one time I needed you! Daddy’s house – you could have—’
‘Enough about that fucking house! Open your eyes, Mia. Don’t you get it? Think about how frail your mother looked at the wedding. She’s ill. She needs the money. That’s why—’
‘Shut up.’
‘—Aditi’s in India. That’s why they’re selling—’
‘Shut up!’
‘—the place. She needs you and you’re too stubborn to even see it. It’s a good thing your father isn’t here to see how selfish his angel turned—’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ Mia screams. She gets up and opens the wardrobe. She pulls out a duffel bag and starts throwing things in it.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
She walks around the room, picking things up and shoving them in the bag.
‘Will you stop for one second!’ I grab her elbow but she shrugs me off.
‘Mia!’
‘No, I’m done. I’m done believing you and I’m done lying for you.’
She stops when the bag is full. ‘I’m done.’
‘I’m your husband.’
‘Yes,’ she says. She thrusts the bag at me. ‘But this is my house. Get out.’
MIA
Tuesday, 8th December
I wait for the sound of angry footsteps, for Roy to storm back in and demand I open the door, but the house is silent.
Do you know what you’ve done?
He isn’t coming back.
Ever.
Good.
I reach for my phone and ring the only person I know who will still be on my side.
‘Georgie,’ I whisper.
I peer at the mirror in the bathroom. The face that stares back at me isn’t my own. I splash some water on it and grip the sink.
I told you this would happen. Tighter. You may have asked him to leave the house today, but he left you long ago. Tighter. Because you’re disgusting. Weak. I watch my knuckles go white and then I let go. I step back. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Ringing George made it official. My marriage is over.
The bed feels bigger. I’ve been tossing and turning all night, trying to find the truth that must lie somewhere between Roy’s side and mine. It’s still dark outside but I get up and go to the wardrobe. I kneel down and reach for the Chloe handbag, plunging my hand into the soft leather, fishing around till my fingers graze the cold metal. I close my fist around it and sit like that for a minute, relishing its weight and arrogance. I’m not prepared to pull it out yet.
Roy may not believe in consequences, but I do.
I know it will destroy me. It did destroy me. But its heady power is seductive. It offers oblivion.
I don’t want to be weak anymore. I pull it out.
I get up and change into a pair of jeans. I put on a sweatshirt.
I can’t escape the darkness. I might as well own it.
ROY
Wednesday, 9th December
I wake up in a seedy hotel room around the corner from my perfectly lovely house. It’s still early and my head is still spinning, a nasty hangover pressing down on my skull.
I know the police will be back – maybe not today, but soon. Why bother looking elsewhere when everyone knows it’s always the boyfriend? First port of call, Robins had said.
I check my brand new iPhone: dead. I plug it in and consider ringing Mia but decide against it. I had already left her a message last night letting her know where I was, so she could be the one to apologize for once.
I switch on the light and survey my surroundings. The patterned wallpaper – this hotel is ancient enough for wallpaper – is faded and peeling off in patches. The carpet that looked merely ill-advised last night now reveals itself as filthy. The TV is an old box, much akin to what I had in my room as a kid. There’s a draught coming in from the window and the door looks like a child could kick it open. This room is nothing like the ones I review. It isn’t just basic; it’s as if the hotel is trying to give its guests the opposite of a luxury experience.
It’s like being in prison.
I spot the mini-bar under the luggage rack and open it. It’s empty save for a half-drunk bottle of water. So this is what I paid the overweight man at the reception eighty quid for. Peak season, he said when I objected. Yeah, right. The hotel is empty. No one would know if I died in here.
I was in the middle of an argument with him when my phone rang. It was George. My relief was entirely unwarranted.
‘Hi, George. Sorry, dude, I haven’t been able to get back to you on the schedule. Things have been manic around here.’
I noticed the whisky in my words and paused, waiting for George’s heavy voice to fill my ear, but he didn’t say anything.
‘George?’
‘Did you hurt her?’
His words, when they came, were quiet. He knew.
‘No! I didn’t touch Emily. How can you even ask me such—’
‘Mia.’
‘Of course I didn’t.’
His voice got closer. The receptionist was staring at me. I threw the money at him and picked up the keys.
‘Stay away from her, Roy. I mean it. I won’t let you hurt her.’
‘She’s my w—’
‘And as for the documentary, don’t bother getting back to me.’
Even as I recall the conversation for the umpteenth time, I am filled with rage. I want to strangle my wife. It’s typical of her to look for a sly route to get back at me. What better way than to use her old boyfriend to do the job.
I find the plastic-covered remote in the bedside drawer and press on the red button a few times till the TV crackles to life. I flick through the channels till I come to Sky News. Emily’s face fills the screen. Thanks to her brother, she is now the leading news story. It seems she’s finally getting the attention she was hungry for; too bad she isn’t here to enjoy it.
The reporter is saying the police have several new lines of enquiry. I feel my breathing quicken. They’ve found her scarf. I’m still staring at the screen when I notice the door to my room is rattling.
I get up and make my way over to the other side of the room, the loud banging on the door a mere whisper compared to the beat my heart is drumming.
MIA
Wednesday, 9th December
I am waiting.
Waiting for the high to kick in.
Waiting for the guilt to surface.
Waiting for the police to return.
Waiting for the tears to come.
When Daddy died, almost instantly the house was full of people. First came the police, bearing the news, then Daddy’s family, bearing sorrow, and then the constant stream of friends, neighbours and acquaintances, bearing food. All unwanted but essential all the same, each of them going out of their way to help us. Where are they now? Where are the casseroles and lasagnes they threw at us?
I look around me; I’m sitting in chaos of my own making.
What have you done?
What are you doing?
I am sitting down but it feels like I’ve stood up too quickly. My legs are tingling. I have no grip on time anymore. The numbness is my only comfort.
I am waiting, waiting, waiting.
There’s no one here.
I can wait forever.
I am a connoisseur of being left behind.
ROY
Wednesday, 9th December
My first thought when I’m brought in is that the lights are too bright. The second is that the room is too cold. I look around as best as I can while keeping my head still, trying to determine the source of the draught but there are no windows. I glance at the blindingly white walls, blending into the ceiling. The room is meant to be anonymous, I conclude. It will take on whatever mood the table at its centre dictates.
I hear the door open behind me and I resist the urge to steal a look. Hushed voices, the dull thud of the door closing and then the screech of the chairs on the
tiled floor as Robins and Wilson sit down across from me.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ Robins begins. Her voice is unusually sharp.
‘Of course,’ I reply. An invitation from the police is not one you can decline.
‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence,’ she drones on. She reminds me that I am not under arrest and asks me again if I’d like a solicitor. I say no and then it begins.
‘Roy, don’t you think it’s about time you started being honest with us?’ Robins asks half an hour later.
‘I have been honest.’
‘Right, well, maybe we’ve got it wrong then,’ she says, holding up her hands, smiling.
I caution myself. That smile has fooled me before.
‘Let’s run through your last meeting with Emily once more, shall we?’ she says, tapping her notebook. She flicks it open and leans back in her chair.
I glance at her and then at Wilson as if to say we’ve had this conversation before, but she carries on.
‘How was Emily’s demeanour when you met her?’
‘Fine. Normal.’
‘Did you speak to her after that?’
‘No.’
‘So you had no contact with her after Wednesday, December the second at all?’
‘No,’ I say without batting an eyelid.
‘Why did she ask to meet you on Wednesday?’
‘I don’t know. To chat, I suppose, clear the air. She was – is leaving for Australia soon. She said she didn’t want us to end things badly.’
Robins leans forward and looks me in the eye. Wilson still hasn’t said a word. ‘See, here’s what’s bothering me, Roy. A few people have mentioned that Emily was very stressed in the days before she disappeared. They said she seemed distressed, manic almost. Yet here you are, saying she was perfectly fine just two days before she was last seen. Seems . . . odd.’
I weigh my words, reminding myself that they have nothing concrete to go on. ‘Well, she seemed fine when she met me. I can’t comment on her behaviour with others.’
‘She told a friend she was scared. She said she had done something that the man she was seeing wouldn’t like. What did she do, Roy?’
‘I have no idea. I can’t imagine why Emily would say something like that.’
‘Did she get too attached? Threaten to tell your wife, perhaps?’
‘No! I told you, I ended things because I was afraid someone would get hurt.’
‘Well, clearly someone did,’ Wilson mutters.
Robins shoots him a look and he slumps back. She carries on. ‘Emily said her boyfriend had an unpredictable temper. She was worried what he – you might do. Why would she say that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she meant someone else.’
‘Are you saying Emily had another boyfriend?’
‘She was popular.’
Robins takes in a breath and leans back. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell us?’
I look at the scratched surface of the desk. I wonder how many people have been interviewed in this room. I wonder how many of them were guilty.
I wonder how many of them were stupid.
When I look up both Robins and Wilson are staring at me. I breathe in the stale air and brace myself.
‘No, that’s everything. I’ve been as helpful as I could and now I’d like to leave.’
I step out of the station five minutes later and make the call I should have made to begin with.
MIA
Wednesday, 9th December
I push myself off the floor. It takes me a second to find my balance and then I go into the kitchen. I fill up a glass with tap water and gulp it down, wiping away the meandering trail it traces around my mouth and chin with the back of my hand. I leave the glass on the counter and go back into the living room. I slump on the sofa and survey the room. It’s devastated: dirty dishes and wine bottles nestled amongst the cushions on the floor, a cover-less duvet on the sofa, takeaway boxes littered across the room. My gaze settles on the metal case on the coffee table.
Your mother wouldn’t approve of this.
She lost her right to judge me when she broke up our family.
Haven’t you just done the exact same thing?
I inhale.
I am choked with guilt.
Marriage is meant to be forever.
I exhale.
I am bursting with relief.
It doesn’t hurt anymore.
It will.
I know I should take a shower, eat, ring Natalie. Do something. But I am frozen.
Tomorrow, I tell myself.
Tomorrow.
Today I will wallow.
Today it is allowed.
I’ll be better tomorrow.
You’ll never get better.
I crawl over to the coffee table and roll another joint.
A dense fog is rising up through me. It spirals upwards, then jerks to a stop. I close my eyes. I risk a breath and it starts again. Down. Up. Down. Stop. Again. It whirls around, pulsing, climbing through me, till it reaches my head, and then the spirals get tighter; they coil around my brain, each loop tenser, pushing against my skull, tighter, tighter, tighter.
Daddy.
And then there is blackness.
Time folds into itself. Seconds become days. Years become hours. Flashes of memories layer over one another, merging with fragments of my present and imagined snippets from my future until I can no longer tell them apart.
Marry me. Roy in the lavender fields, holding two glasses of Prosecco.
You’re beautiful. Mum pleating my sari and folding it into my waistband.
I’m pregnant. Me crouching over the toilet.
I win. Addi running past me to the swings.
Be brave, like the princess. Daddy tucking me in at bedtime.
You disgust me. Roy’s hand, curled up into a fist.
You have to stop doing this to yourself. Addi kneeling by my bed.
Some things can’t be fixed. Chris weeping.
It’s all destined. James drunk, slurring.
You fuck everything up. Mike screaming.
You’re nothing compared to her. Roy sniggering.
My head spins.
I still myself. I focus. I try to pry the truth away from my stories. Mum. Emily. Daddy. Dead. Roy. Celia. Addi. Real?
I look down. The floor dances.
I look up. The ceiling dives.
Nothing makes sense.
I am broken and I must be fixed. I pop another pill.
You’re unbreakable. Daddy.
Daddy would have fixed this. He should have been here. He could have been here. My fury oscillates between Roy and my mother.
Her infidelity stripped me of my childhood.
His infidelity robbed me of my future.
I cannot rebuild either.
Natalie leans back in her chair when I finish speaking.
‘It sounds like a lot has happened since we last met. How are you feeling?’
I look down at my hands. ‘Angry. Scared. Guilty,’ I say. I’ve told her everything: the police, Emily, Celia, my mother’s affair, Roy’s parents visiting, Addi leaving, Mike, work, the Eastside order, everything.
Except the drugs, that is. That I keep to myself. I wonder if she can tell my head is still swimming.
She nods. ‘I can imagine how difficult these last few weeks have been for you. But you’ve made a big leap, Mia. Standing up to your family and your husband, that took immense courage. You must congratulate yourself on that.’
I nod my agreement even though it doesn’t make sense. She wants me to congratulate myself on throwing my marriage away?
‘All the same, I want to make sure you’ve thought this through,’ she continues.
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, these are some big life choices that you’ve made. Have you consid
ered what happens next? Are you thinking about divorce?’
‘No! That’s not what – I – I’m not a quitter.’
‘I know.’
‘This is my marriage we’re talking about.’
She nods.
‘Maybe I can still fix this.’
She doesn’t say anything.
‘He’s just lost. Maybe this time apart will remind him he loves me. You said yourself we could fix this.’
‘I did, but—’
‘But you weren’t here. You said we’d work on things together, but you weren’t even here.’ I close my eyes. Fear snaps them open again. ‘What if they arrest him?’
‘I’m sorry you had to go through this alone and, in the future, I’d be happy to put you in touch with a colleague who can help. But for now, I’d like us to focus—’
‘Are you going on holiday again?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘What do you mean in the future?’
‘Well, I was hoping we could spend the last few minutes of our session discussing this, but we may as well talk about it now,’ she says. A quick pause, her eyes dart to the clock and then, ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to carry on seeing you anymore.’
I stare at her, stunned.
‘There was a personal situation that came up while I was away and I’m having to move abroad temporarily.’
‘When?’
‘In a few days. Before Christmas. I’m wrapping up all my sessions this week. Now I know this feels sudden and I want you to know this has absolutely nothing to do with you. I’ve put together a list of some excellent therapists that I can refer you to. We can discuss some options now . . .’
This is a waste of time. Another person I was relying on, gone. I don’t want another therapist; I want another joint. ‘That’s okay. I don’t need a therapist right now.’
‘I understand you’re upset but I think you should consider—’
‘No, it’s fine,’ I say, reaching into my bag and pulling out my wallet. I leave her fee on the table and stand up.
I’m already at the door by the time she gets up. ‘Mia, we need to phase out therapy in a responsible—’
I step out and close the door behind me. I don’t need anyone. They all leave anyway.
Your Truth or Mine? Page 15
