by Jess Ryder
‘That’s awful,’ he carries on after a pause. ‘I mean, that’s tough. How come?’
‘A car accident.’ Even uttering that simple phrase starts to make me feel panicky.
‘Where?’
‘On the M25, just before the M4 junction.’
He lets out a whistle. ‘Jesus. So what you’re saying is, Nick’s a vegetable or something?’
‘The doctors don’t think he’ll ever wake up, but the family are refusing to have the machines switched off.’ I could say more, but I don’t.
Sam leans forward, clasping his hands. ‘I promise on my life, Jen, I didn’t know. I’ve not been around, see? I’ve been in some dark places in my head, some dark, shitty places since … well … since I lost my job and it all went tits up. The last I knew, Natasha was living with her mum and the marriage was over. I tried to talk to her, to say sorry, but she didn’t want to know. She thought I’d tipped the boss off about her plans to leave him, wouldn’t listen to my side of the story. Nick thought I was having an affair with Natasha – he went apeshit, told me he’d make sure I never worked again. That must be why he left her. I can’t forgive myself for that.’
‘It was nothing to do with you,’ I say. ‘He left her to come back to me.’
But he doesn’t seem to be listening. ‘I got carried away, thought something was happening between us that wasn’t.’ He grunts disgustedly. ‘As if she’d be interested in me, when she already had a successful guy like that, worth millions.’
‘Well, the money’s not much use to him now.’
‘No, guess not. Ironic, eh?’ He heaves a long sigh. ‘So, how’s little Emily? Such a sweet kid. We had a great time together playing Fireman Sam.’ He laughs fondly. ‘Natasha got her back, I hope?’
I take a sharp intake of breath. He doesn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to talk about her like that, wouldn’t be able to pretend.
‘I’m sorry, Sam … Emily died in the crash.’
‘Oh fuck,’ he moans, holding his head in his hands. ‘That’s … that’s terrible. Poor kid … I’m so sorry. Poor Natasha.’ He starts to cry. ‘It was my fault, my fault.’
I stand up and go over to him, shaking him by the shoulders. ‘No, listen! It was my fault, not yours. Mine and Nicky’s. I put you there as bait. Nicky had promised to leave Natasha, but he was dragging his feet. I wanted her to have an affair with you, don’t you understand?’ My voice is rising shrilly. ‘You were part of the plan, but you were a sideshow, not the main event. It was all about Emily. Nicky and I wanted Emily and we needed Natasha out of the way. If there’s anyone here who can’t live with themselves, it’s me, okay? Not you. Me.’
Instantly, I’m taken back to the row I had with Nicky after I let myself into the house and got pissed. ‘She’s shagging the chauffeur,’ I said after he’d threatened to take the keys off me. ‘And he’s giving her driving lessons. Are you going to stand by and let her make a fool of you?’
Sam peels his fingers slowly off his face. ‘You’re a fucking monster,’ he says. ‘A fucking monster.’
‘Yes, if you like … I’ve called myself worse over these past months.’
He narrows his eyes at me. ‘I get it now, Anna. You’re not hiding from Nick – you’re hiding from Natasha.’
‘I’m hiding from everything, Sam,’ I say, my voice free of self-pity. ‘Everything and everyone. But most of all, from myself.’
He gets to his feet, swaying slightly, drunk on his new, imagined power. ‘I’m going to find Natasha and I’m going to tell her where you are.’ He snatches up the sleeping bag. ‘If she wants me to kill you, that’s what I’ll do. And I don’t care if I go to prison for it for the rest of my life.’
40
Now
Anna
* * *
I lift myself off the sofa cushion and blink, foggy-eyed, at my surroundings. It’s dark but for a shaft of light from the street lamp outside poking through the gap in the curtains. Now I remember … Sam taking his stuff and storming out, curses flying off him like drops of sweat. Me collapsing in a pathetic heap of self-pity, crying until my stomach hurt and my nose was so blocked I could hardly breathe.
How long have I been lying here? A glance at my phone tells me it’s nearly eight o’clock. Chris is coming to pick me up at half-ten, but I need to be out of here well before that. I roll off the sofa and stagger into the bedroom, pulling a suitcase out from under the bed. It’s thick with dust and makes me sneeze. I undo the clasps and fling the lid open. Then I take everything out of the wardrobe and lay it on the bed.
My reflection in the mirrored doors stares back at me, shaking her head in disapproval. I see a pathetic, defeated woman in her forties with a cheap haircut, smudged make-up and eyes red with tears. A woman who is exhausted from lying and pretending, who is sick of running away. But run away again I must.
I pack some tops and jumpers, a few dresses, a couple of pairs of trousers and my winter boots, then fasten the case shut. Carrying it into the hallway, I take out my phone and call a taxi to take me to Chris’s flat.
It arrives a few minutes later. I close the front door behind me and push the keys through the letter box. The cab crosses the river and winds its way through Morton town centre. I gaze out of the window, fixing the shops and buildings in my memory, and as we pass the council offices, a sharp pang of regret stabs my side. For all its dullness, I was surprisingly happy working there. My colleagues didn’t know quite what to make of me, but they were a friendly bunch. I will have to send an apology to Margaret before I shut down Anna’s email account.
The taxi pulls up on the road next to Chris’s housing complex. ‘Would you mind waiting?’ I ask. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’
As soon as I’m inside the flat, I get to work, running from room to room, picking up things to take, then putting most of them back. I need to travel light. Hastily filling the suitcase with clothes, shoes, toiletries and personal documents, I drag it to the front door. I go to the window to see if the taxi is still waiting. It is, but I need to hurry.
I rush to the computer workstation and swipe a piece of paper out of the printer tray. Poor Chris. He’ll be confused when he turns up at my old flat and I’m not there. Worried when I don’t answer my phone. But then he’ll get home and see my note. It’s the coward’s way, I know that, but there’s no choice. I need to get out of Morton tonight.
Sorry I had to do it this way, Chris. It’s nothing to do with you, you’re a lovely man. It’s my fault – only mine. Try to forget me and find someone new. You deserve to be happy. Peace and love, Anna.
I add a few kisses, then lay down the pen. The taxi hoots impatiently. I fold the paper in half and write Chris’s name on the front in large letters, then put it next to the kettle. That way he won’t miss it. Dear, kind Chris, who thought that most of life’s problems could be solved with a cup of strong tea.
* * *
The yeast from the breweries is strong tonight – it smells sweet and decaying, like an old person on the brink of death. I stand on the station platform and draw it into my lungs for the last time, knowing that a small residue of Morton will always stay inside me. I never thought I would say it, but I’ll miss this place, its people most of all. I’ll miss my counsellor, Lindsay, who tried to put me back together with only a few of the pieces; and Margaret, who wanted to bring me out of my shell, not realising I was hiding. But above all, I’ll miss the tender, old-fashioned way Chris made love to me. Under the duvet. In the dark, with the lights off. They all gave me so much more than I deserved.
My phone is ringing in my bag. I know it’s Chris and part of me wants to pick up, but I don’t have the strength. I let it go to voicemail, confident that he’ll leave a message. I’ll turn the handset off once I’ve listened to it. I just want to hear the gentle curve of his voice one more time.
The train to Birmingham chugs in. It’ll take about forty minutes to get to New Street station. The connection is tight, but with luck,
I should just about make it. I climb on board and heave my case onto the luggage rack. The train is virtually empty, so I have a four-seater to myself. As I rest my handbag on the table and squeeze into the seat, my phone rings out again. I hold my breath and count the seconds until it stops. This is going to be difficult.
We pull out, and as the town soon gives way to a dark landscape of fields and trees, I sit back in the seat and close my eyes. Goodbye, Morton.
Car travel is the most painful, but any kind of transport takes me back to the accident. I call it an accident, because everyone else does, but to me, it was a deliberate act of violence, poetic justice for the evil we’d done. Nicky has his punishment. As far as I know, he still hasn’t come out of his coma. I wish I could climb inside his head to see what’s going on there. Does he remember those final moments before we crashed? Does he know his daughter is dead? I imagine him reaching out to her from his halfway existence, begging the doctors to switch off the machines.
It was a major incident, one of the worst motorway pile-ups for twenty years. There were over thirty casualties, dispersed to several hospitals in the area. Nicky was helicoptered from the scene and taken to a specialist unit; I was put in an ambulance and taken somewhere else. I had a head injury that the doctors were monitoring, broken ribs, various cuts and bruises and a wrist fracture that was going to require an operation. Physically, I’d got off lightly. Mentally, I wasn’t so good. The police had been to visit me and taken a statement. I will never forget the look on the constable’s face when I told her there’d been a little girl in our car.
On the third day, Hayley came to visit me. It was years since I’d seen her without tons of make-up on. Oddly, she looked like the eleven-year-old girl I’d once larked around with – she still had that band of light freckles across her nose, small eyes and straggly eyebrows.
‘Any news?’ I said as soon as she approached the bed. She studied me, her top lip curling in disgust as she realised I’d escaped with relatively minor injuries.
‘Nothing’s changed. He could wake up any moment, or he could never wake up, ever.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she sniffed them up her nose. ‘We’re not giving up hope. We’re talking to him non-stop, reading to him from the paper, playing him his favourite music. There’s been no reaction so far, but I’m sure he’s still in there somewhere.’
I reached out my good arm and clasped her hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Hayley.’
‘Not that he’ll want to be alive when he hears about Emily,’ she continued, her voice breaking up. ‘He’ll wish he’d gone up in flames with her. Poor mite. There’s another angel in heaven …’
‘I know. It’s unbearable.’
She took out a tissue and blew her nose. ‘It’s not fair. How come you got out and she didn’t?’
I winced inwardly. So this was the nub of it. Hayley was angry because her own flesh and blood had suffered, but I, the outsider, had been spared.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied evenly. ‘I was unconscious. Somebody dragged me out. Maybe they couldn’t get to her. Everything’s still very confused; the police are trying to gather statements. The crash investigators are sifting through—’
‘It’s just too much, you know?’ she interrupted. ‘The family’s broken. It’s all Natasha’s fault – if she hadn’t come along and wrecked everything …’ Hayley stuffed the damp tissue up her sleeve. ‘Well, I hope she’s satisfied now.’
‘Hayley! That’s a wicked thing to say,’ I said. ‘She’s just lost her daughter, for God’s sake. I know you’re upset, I get that. We all are, but come on …’
There was a long, difficult pause.
‘Nicky told me you’d made plans for the future,’ Hayley sniffed. ‘He said you were all going to Canada. I was really happy for you. You deserved it, after all that waiting.’
‘I didn’t deserve anything,’ I muttered, but she wasn’t listening, her attention concentrated on the contents of her capacious leather bag. She brought out a small envelope and handed it to me, but I couldn’t open it with only one hand and she had to do it for me.
‘I took it at Ethan’s christening, remember?’ she said, holding up a photograph. ‘You, Nicky and little Emily. Aww, look at the three of you. So perfect together, like a ready-made family.’ I tried to produce a smile of thanks, but inside I was feeling sick. She put it on my bedside cabinet. ‘I thought you might not have many photos of the three of you, so I printed it out specially’.
I swallowed hard as I remembered that day. Hayley had deliberately snapped the shot to piss Natasha off. In fact, the whole christening had been an exercise in making her feel as uncomfortable as possible, and it had worked a treat.
Nicky and I were in the thick of our affair by then, although it never felt like an affair, more like a resumption of normality. Hayley knew that we were back together, and she was thrilled. But she wanted Nicky to leave Natasha straight away, and couldn’t understand why he was dragging his feet. I was enjoying the excitement of our secret sex sessions, justifying it on the grounds that I was only doing to Natasha what she had done to me, but I hated him going home to her at night. Sometimes the desperation got the better of me and I behaved badly. Nicky was furious when I let myself into the house and Natasha found me drunk. I think he realised then that I couldn’t – and wouldn’t – play the role of the poor, rejected ex for ever.
Hayley kept nagging him to leave Natasha, but he told us to be patient. He had a plan, he said, but it would take time and care to execute. We had to trust him. He was never explicit about murdering Natasha, never actually uttered the word aloud. We talked around the subject, using vague language like ‘get rid of’ and ‘permanent solution’, and I pretended to myself that he meant something else – that, Mafia-style, he would make Natasha an offer she couldn’t refuse. Try to pay her off with a whacking great sum, threaten to destroy her in the courts, something like that. The reality of it didn’t dawn until he absconded with Emily, and by then it was too late to try to dissuade him.
But I’m kidding myself here. The truth is, I was so wrapped up in the dream of a future together, I didn’t want to dissuade him – I just didn’t want to see him do it. Hayley never knew what he was planning, but if he had told her, she probably would have offered to strike the killer blow.
‘When are they going to let you out?’ she said, breaking into my troubled thoughts. ‘I mean, you seem okay …’
‘Within the next couple of days. They want to set up some counselling first.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, come and see him as soon as you can. We’re trying to keep the shifts going round the clock. You should be at his bedside, Jen. We need you. Nicky needs you. Hearing your voice might be all it takes to wake him up.’
‘Of course,’ I said, lying. ‘I’ll be there.’
For almost as long as I could remember, the Warrington family had kept me safe and warm, but now I could feel the relationship unravelling like a long, knitted scarf. I could never tell Hayley that I’d betrayed her brother; that I’d been on my way to hand Emily over to Natasha. I knew her too well. She was a loyal friend, but do her wrong and she would come down on you with a terrible vengeance. Violence was in the blood.
She stayed for a few more minutes, then said she had to get back to Nicky. As soon as she’d gone, I picked up the photograph and tore off Nicky’s image with my teeth. I would keep this photo for ever, I decided, to remind me of what I had done.
41
Now
Natasha
* * *
The sea is unusually calm this morning, the beach empty except for a few dog walkers and a jogger skimming the shoreline. I’m walking along the promenade, filling my lungs with sweet air, my eyes fixed on the distant horizon and the jutting headland at the turn of the bay. It’s a purposeful walk, not a stroll. I’ve got a job at Lorenzo’s, an Italian-style café wedged between two rows of beach huts. I’m only on a zero-hours contract, but they give me as many or as few hours as I want and a
re flexible if I need some time out, so I’m not complaining.
I never thought I’d need my barista skills again, but they impressed at the interview. When we’re quiet, I’m allowed to practise my coffee-painting. Lorenzo wanted to enter me for the Bournemouth Barista Championships and was pissed off when I refused. I suppose it would have been good for the café’s profile, but I didn’t dare risk anyone seeing my image on social media, even though I look very different these days.
I’ve cut my hair and dyed it a rich chestnut brown. And since working in the café I’ve put on a couple of kilos, which has filled out my face. But the best disguise, these days, is a change of name. I’ve gone back to my maiden name, which fortunately is Smith. You can’t get more anonymous and untraceable than that. I checked online to find the most popular first names given to girls born in the same year as me and chose Sarah. I don’t love it, but then I was never that keen on Natasha either, so it’s fine. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure they can’t find me.
I’m the first one to arrive for work. Lorenzo doesn’t trust me with keys yet, so I sit on the concrete steps leading down to the beach and breathe in the view. A memory swims up to the shore. Taking Emily onto the sand for the first time, watching her little face light up with wonder as she sank into its soft folds. It wasn’t a beach like this – coarse yellow sand, cold and damp beneath the surface – it was paradise.
We were in northern Sardinia. Late September, the weather was deliciously warm, not too hot for a baby, and Nick had rented a gorgeous villa a hundred metres or so from the beach. The white sand stretched for miles, broken up with rocky outcrops, glistening in the sunshine like crushed mother-of-pearl. The sea was very shallow – you had to wade out a long way to get a proper swim. Its colour was a breathtaking turquoise. I’d never seen anything so beautiful before; it looked unreal. Emily was just over a year old, not quite walking. We paddled her feet in the water, but she wasn’t too keen. She preferred to sit down and watch her toes disappear in the dry granules of sand. Nick tried to make castles for her, but the shapes wouldn’t hold together.
