Before I Knew You

by Amanda Brookfield

  The boy intruder … Sophie shuddered. Something had indeed been broken that day, something beyond fences and wallets. A loss of equilibrium, of belief. They had failed each other and never recovered. And yet the boy himself could not be blamed, since the ingredients for implosion, she could see now, had been there all along, just waiting for the right spark. Sophie had seen their criminal a couple of times now – once talking and smoking with friends, once scrubbing graffiti off a wall. Community service. She had walked past slowly, daring a smile that had been ignored.

  Downstairs, Sophie shook the contents of the wastepaper basket into the kitchen bin, then tied the bag and carried it outside, pressing it as deep as she could into the wheelie-bin. As she tried to close the lid a gust of wind blew it back out of her hands. A sob escaped her, the shock rippling out at last. Her hair blew across her mouth, sticking to her teeth.

  Meredith: the skinny soprano with a remarkable voice; at least, they had all said it was remarkable – all Andrew’s fawning friends, clustering round after the charity concert, jostling to congratulate, to shake his hand. Not being musical, Sophie had recognized she was in no position to disagree. But there had been a tremor to the girl’s voice that she hadn’t liked, an affected warble, which, for all its supposed tunefulness, had made Sophie think of a sound in search of itself rather than one certain of its destination.

  In the kitchen the girls were subdued, talking in hushed voices, unpacking the bags with exaggerated care. When they saw Sophie they exchanged a nervous glance.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sophie said softly. ‘I’m okay. The truth can hurt but it’s always best. Thank you so much for telling me, Milly. It was brave and right.’

  ‘Will you still be going to your party?’

  Sophie nodded, smiling. ‘Oh, I think so. A glass of champagne is just what I need. I’m going to have a bath first, though.’

  She ran the water to within a few inches of the rim and lay under it, her eyes closed. There was no rejoicing. But there was definitely relief – at the pieces fitting, at the lifting of all the self-blame. That Andrew had been prepared for her to bear that alone – to hide the truth of his own back-sliding – hurt more than anything. And the accusation about Tamsin … and her own lack of musical talent … The bastard, the bastard, the bastard. Sophie surfaced, gasping, crying, snorting water and steam. Meredith, New York, the choir school could have him. They were welcome.

  In anticipation of her daughter’s arrival that evening, Diane had retired early and slept late. After phoning in a grocery order at the mall, she instructed the Mexican girl who cleaned to do a special job. The girl was neither smart nor educated and, with Diane’s woeful Spanish, anything out of the ordinary always took time.

  ‘Mucha limpia!’ Diane cried several times, jabbing a finger between a photo of Beth on graduation day and the apartment in general, while the girl, who was called Bienvenida, looked on impassively. ‘Mi hija – she come,’ Diane added, desperate to prompt a spark of comprehension. ‘Muy especial – por favor.’

  Exhausted, she fell into her TV chair for the afternoon, watching a courtroom drama followed by a series tracking the fidelity of married celebrities. The girl was a noisy worker – thumping, scraping, squirting – and Diane was glad when she was gone. After the celebrities she dozed and then woke to find the TV screen filled with grieving relatives of slaughtered soldiers. The more prescient of those killed had left farewell letters to their loved ones. Snippets of these moving documents were read out by the narrator of the programme over slow-motion footage of exploding bombs and processing coffins draped in the American flag.

  If you are reading this then I am long gone …

  If you are reading this the only thing that matters is for you to know how much I love you …

  Soon Diane was reaching for the box of anti-viral tissues on the table next to her. They had a smell she didn’t like but were supposed to be the new best thing for fighting disease. On screen, by way of a finale, one brave mother read the valedictory endearments her dead nineteen-year-old son had composed for her, straight to camera. Her voice was strong but her eyes were hollow, and her mouth flexed every time she paused, as if it knew an altogether different script that it would have howled from the rooftops if it could.

  Diane hung on until the credits rolled, then paid a visit to the bathroom, using toilet roll this time to blow her nose. Passing her computer en route to the kitchen, she made a mental note to check her emails, but then forgot about it until she had fixed herself a soda and sunk back into her chair. By then her eyes were heavy and her legs ached. And she should enjoy her peace while she could, Diane reminded herself, with Beth’s arrival just a few hours away. She shifted sideways, releasing a small, stinging belch of flatulence. Soda always played instant havoc with her innards but she loved it so.

  Bethan, between men again. Diane closed her eyes. Her daughter would be hard work. She always was when she had messed up. Aged thirty-eight and still running to Mom. And from dear William too this time – such a prize. Diane had had to fight down envy on many an occasion. Not a man to dick around with, as she had warned, and yet her dear daughter had done just that – letting the poor guy believe she could have kids, of all the unnecessary things – and then starving herself back to a stick with her disgusting vomiting tricks. She had even had the cheek to try and cast some blame Diane’s way this time, citing the unpleasant scene in the upstairs bathroom after Thanksgiving as evidence that she – her own mother – had wanted the relationship to fail …

  As if. Diane snorted softly, almost asleep now. She had borne a head-case of a child and that was the sore truth of it. Fat or starved, getting herself pregnant by some kid of a class-mate, the illness after the termination, screwing up every decent adult relationship that came her way – there had never been a time when Beth hadn’t made life difficult. Her punishment was picking up the pieces.

  A few feet from her elbow, the screen-saver of palm trees and blue sky that had come with the computer shimmered like a reflection in a pool. Beth’s email (the last she had managed, huddled on her bed in William’s coat in the smoky house) lay beneath it, a shouted angry note of a thing, and yet as silent as a letter under a doormat.

  On the way, in spite of her bottle of champagne, rolling itself into an unhealthy frenzy on the passenger seat, Sophie stopped at a sell-everything corner shop to buy flowers. They could be for Beth, she decided, leaving the queue to snatch a greetings card (lavender fields rolling down to a monastery) from the meagre dog-eared selection on offer and, at the last minute, a biro as well, since she wasn’t sure there was one in her handbag and didn’t want to keep the queue waiting while she rummaged to check. She wrote birthday greetings to William pressing on the steering-wheel inside the car, signing the card, after some thought, Sophie and the girls, and scrawling one large cross underneath, to show friendliness but not too much. The etiquette of kisses – such things mattered, she suspected, to a woman like Beth Stapleton.

  The rented Sheen house was grey brick, terraced, with a small slatted wooden porch over the front door. Having slowed to locate the number, straining her eyes in the dark, Sophie sped on past, her courage failing. It had been quite a day after all. Quite a day. She could simply go home, drink wine alone, compose stunning putdowns for her next conversation with Andrew, then take one of the pills that Dr Murray had given her to ease the passage into sleep.

  But life went on and here was a chance to prove it, she scolded herself, pulling into a parking slot in a parallel street and retracing her route on foot, keeping the champagne under her coat to deter muggers (her mind flitting to such possibilities, these days, without a second thought). When she arrived outside the house, it looked so quiet – one upstairs light on – that yet again, Sophie had to fight the urge to flee. It was a surprise party for a forty-five-year-old man, she reminded herself, hardly an occasion for blaring music and balloons pinned to gateposts. There wasn’t a gatepost anyway, just a gap between a straggly hedge n
o higher than her hips. Sophie strode through it, rehearsing greetings for the American woman and flexing her face in preparation for what she hoped would be an impregnable smile.

  She was halfway down the path when an outside light flicked on. A moment later the front door opened and a bicycle appeared, pushed by a dishevelled boy in a padded anorak and wire-framed spectacles. Behind him another boy – clearly older, much taller, darker-haired and full-bodied – pushed a second, larger bike, which had two helmets looped over its handlebars.

  ‘Dad,’ shouted the younger one at once, twisting back towards the door, ‘there’s someone here.’

  ‘I think you must have the wrong house,’ muttered the elder one, glancing with evident doubt at the flowers and bottle, which Sophie had taken out from the protection of her coat.

  From somewhere a man who had to be William, although it didn’t sound like him, shouted back, ‘Tell whoever it is to go away.’

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ Sophie explained to the two boys, lowering her voice and grinning conspiratorially. ‘Organized by your stepmother. I’m obviously the first to arrive. You must be George, right? And you’re Alfie? I’m Sophie Chapman – it was my house you guys borrowed last summer. I teach at the crammer where your brother is –’ She broke off as the two continued to exchange glances, clearly less rather than more reassured with every word. ‘I teach Harry?’ she prompted.

  ‘I’d better get Dad,’ growled George. ‘Here, Alf, hold this.’ He thrust his bike at his younger brother and disappeared back inside the house. Alfie dropped his gaze to the ground, clearly miserable at having been left in charge.

  ‘Surprise parties are often a bad idea,’ Sophie ventured, trying to cheer him up. ‘I mean, you have to be in the mood to party, don’t you? You can’t just do it because someone else wants you to, can you?’

  Alfie raised his eyes, nodding slowly. His brother’s bike chose that moment to teeter from the balanced position in which he had been keeping it upright, slipping from his grasp. Sophie dived to catch it, dropping the flowers and the champagne on the scrubby grass and then managing to trip herself so that both she and the bike ended up in a tangled mess on the ground.

  Alfie watched, appalled and then relieved when Sophie burst out laughing.

  ‘Your wine’s all right anyway,’ he offered solemnly.

  ‘Phew – that’s the main thing.’ Sophie held his gaze as she struggled to her feet, teasing out a dimpled smile. She had the bike upright and was dusting the dirt off her coat when George re-emerged.

  ‘Thanks.’ He seized the handlebars, glowering at his brother and thrusting one of the helmets onto his tousled head, so roughly that Alfie yelped. ‘Dad’s coming. We better be off back to Mum’s.’

  ‘You’re not staying for the party?’

  George shook his head. Alfie, the helmet now pinned at a roguish angle, pointed at her leg. ‘You’re bleeding, look.’

  Sophie glanced down to see a rip in her tights and a bloody gash. ‘So I am. Only a bit, though.’ She picked up the bottle and the flowers. Two of the most spectacular members of the bunch had lost their heads in the tumble. She tried to conceal them behind a sprig of greenery and watched with something like envy as the two boys pedalled off into the dark. The evening had barely started and already it felt doomed. The front door was wide open now, but the hall was so dim that it seemed wrong to do anything but wait. She stayed in the square of yellow cast by the outside light, self-consciously twirling her bouquet, picking at the price sticker, which appeared to be one of the annoying variety designed never to come off properly. William was probably in the bath, she decided, as the minutes ticked by, and Beth must have popped out to buy provisions – secret parties invariably demanded such last-minute manoeuvres.

  When William appeared at last, a shadow in the darkness of the hall, she darted forwards and then stopped, flooded with fresh doubts.

  ‘Sophie, it is you. Thank God.’ His voice was gritty, tortured. ‘I couldn’t take anyone else.’

  Sophie approached cautiously, some instinct prompting a feeble effort to hide her gifts behind the bulk of her handbag. ‘Is Beth out?’

  ‘Beth?’ He looked horrified.

  ‘She invited me,’ Sophie stammered, ‘an email – a surprise drinks party for your birthday, she said … William, you don’t look well. Look, I’ll go – I’m so sorry, obviously something’s gone wrong, some misunderstanding –’

  ‘No, don’t … Jesus, this is unreal. Totally unreal.’ He tugged at his hair with both hands. It had been cut very closely and stuck where his fingers left it, pointing skywards.

  ‘Not a good birthday?’ Sophie prompted, in a lame attempt to lighten the mood. ‘I was just saying to Alfie – at least I assume that was Alfie – how rarely surprise parties end up pleasing their targets –’

  ‘This email, when did it arrive?’ he blurted, looking stranger than ever.

  ‘Today – this morning. At least, that’s when I read it.’

  ‘So she sent it yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose –’

  ‘And it asked you to come here now – tonight – for my –’ He clamped his hand to his mouth, stifling whatever might have remained of the sentence.

  ‘Yes, for your birthday.’ Sophie felt weary suddenly – caught in something she had neither the energy nor the desire to understand. The shock of the Meredith news swung back at her. There were too many crossed wires in her own life to start negotiating anyone else’s. ‘Look, I’m going to take off now. Here. These are for you and Beth with my best wishes.’ She held out the bouquet and bottle. ‘There’s a card too here somewhere … shit – unless I left it in the car.’ She managed, with some difficulty, to frisk her handbag, but found only her car keys, which she seized and jangled by way of underlining her intention to depart. ‘I’ll put the card in the post, okay? William?’ Her arms ached from holding out her ridiculous gifts.

  ‘Beth has died, Sophie. She has died. There was a fire.’

  Sophie dropped her arms. ‘What do you mean, a fire? What sort of fire? Where?’

  ‘Darien.’ He gestured with his hand, as if America lay round a bend in the street.

  ‘God, how unspeakable … how utterly unspeakable. William, I am so, so sorry.’

  He hadn’t moved from the doorstep and she was still on the patchy grass, caught in the big square of light. The cut in her leg had started to throb, like a faint pulse, reminding her she was alive. A few houses away a dog started barking – high-pitched and frantic.

  ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘No, for Christ’s sake, no.’ He lunged for her, seizing her elbow and then dropping it quickly as if ashamed. ‘Come in, please, if you can bear it. I want to hear exactly what Beth said – this email … I had no idea …’ His voice had shrunk to a monotone, all the emotion fenced in. Checking she was following, he led the way down the narrow hall into a large back living room that had clearly involved the demolition of several original walls. ‘Last I heard she was going to her mother’s for a few months – Florida – until the house sold. We’d had it on the market since the split.’ He opened a cupboard and took out two smeared, thick-glass tumblers. ‘I’m going to drink whisky. What I’d really like is a cigarette, but I’ve given up.’ He spun the lid off a bottle of Johnnie Walker. ‘Will you join me? Or I could open that, if you like.’

  Sophie glanced down at her bottle of champagne, visibly frothing from its adventures and beaded with condensation. ‘Hardly … I’ll have whisky too, please.’ She rid herself of the bottle and flowers, dumping them next to a double sink that bulged with dirty crockery. The kitchen area was small, an L-shape, with nowhere to sit or perch. She backed out of it and lowered herself into one corner of a stained dark green sofa parked next to a vast television. She could see their reflections in it: a sombre fair-haired woman sitting a little stiffly, a dark-haired man at the kitchen counter behind her, pouring drinks. They could have been any old couple, sharing a companionable evening in a messy back ro
om. ‘What did you mean, “split”?’

  William poured a half-inch of whisky and downed it in one, silently, grimacing as he swallowed. Bringing the bottle and both glasses, he threw himself into the other end of the sofa in the manner of one beyond caring for his own physical comfort. ‘We separated. The beginning of December. Or, rather, I left.’ He poured more whisky, into both glasses this time, and handed her one. ‘Which makes her death … Christ, this is such a mess, Sophie, I’m so sorry, drawing you in like this …’ He stared at her over the rim of his glass as he drank deeply again, reminding her of the first time she had looked properly at his face during his visit to WFC, the blaze of suffering in the handsome brown eyes. It was there again now, but so much worse. Having emptied the glass, he slammed it down on the small weathered coffee-table next to them. ‘So now I feel about as bad as it’s possible to feel …’ He dropped his face into his hands.

  ‘This fire,’ said Sophie softly, ‘what happened?’ She could feel the weight of her own problems receding, no match for such calamity. ‘If you feel able to talk …’

  ‘They’re not sure yet.’ William sniffed and coughed, his Adam’s apple wild as he fought to compose himself. ‘It appears …’ He blew out, a low, slow whistle of air. ‘It appears that she was burning stuff in the garden and somehow it got out of control. Our neighbours, Nancy and Carter – but you know them, of course – were away, so it was a while before anyone alerted the emergency services. And now the insurers say they need to do a thorough investigation in case –’ He broke off again, pressing the side of his glass against his mouth to calm the tremble in his lips. ‘In case it was deliberate.’