by Nikki Smith
‘Caroline?’ Her voice is frailer than I expect.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘I’m looking for a present for Livvi’s birthday. Have you any idea what she might like? I can’t get hold of Jo to ask her.’
‘I’m not sure. We got her a Sylvanian family set.’ I catch a glimpse of myself in my full-length mirror as I’m speaking, the bruise under my eye now a murky yellow colour, faded enough to hopefully disguise with foundation. I don’t tell her I haven’t spoken to Jo all week.
‘I might pop into town on Wednesday for something. I could come and see you both in the office. Check if there’s anything in particular Livvi wants. Are you and Rob going to go over to Jo’s on Friday? Give her your presents? You know Livvi would love to see you both. She idolises your husband.’
I mumble something non-committal.
‘And it’ll give me a chance to talk to Jo about the business,’ my mother adds. ‘I think she’s coming around to the idea of selling it. Rob will be relieved, won’t he?’ I trace my fingers along the edge of my cheekbone where a sprinkling of tiny red bloodspots have blossomed under my skin. If I didn’t know better, they could almost be mistaken for freckles.
‘He will. We can talk about it when I see you, then,’ I say, wanting to end the conversation, realising I don’t have an excuse to put off what I need to do any longer. I hesitate after she hangs up, not sure whether I’m ready.
I pick up the tray and walk into Adam’s old room, the carpet thick beneath my feet. It absorbs the sound so it feels as if I’m walking silently, my presence invisible. I don’t belong in this house; it’s his territory. I’ve tried to do what I promised I would. I’ve kept my son safe. I repeat the words over and over as I go into his room. I’m conscious I’ve failed him, and others, in so many ways, and the guilt sits heavy in my stomach. At least I know he’s happy now, somewhere on the other side of the world, and the relief is so intense that I lose my concentration and stumble over the leg of the bed, letting go of the tray that falls onto the duvet, catching hold of the edge of the mattress to break my fall.
As I pull myself up, I hear footsteps on the stairs and freeze at the thought of what Rob will do if he finds me in here. I can’t believe I didn’t hear his car on the drive, or the door opening. Perhaps he came in round the back. His footsteps reach the landing. I hold my breath, looking around the room, desperate to find a reason to be in here. I pray he’ll go into our bedroom but I hear him start to walk in the opposite direction; straight towards me. My fingers tingle with adrenaline, readying myself for the confrontation.
‘Caroline?’ he says, his body blocking the light as he stands in the doorway. ‘What are you doing in here?’ I pull shut the window that I’d opened a couple of seconds earlier, my hand shaking as I grip the handle for support.
‘Letting out a wasp,’ I say as I turn towards him. ‘I could hear it buzzing from the hallway. They’re so aggressive at this time of year.’ His eyes flicker over the duvet cover, trying to find a reason to doubt me. ‘You’re home early?’ I say, picking up the tray and upended mug to keep my hands occupied. ‘I thought you said you were meeting Simon to run over expenditure on the site?’
He walks towards me, hesitating as he reaches the bed and I force myself to keep my eyes on his face as he sits down, the duvet that gathers around him revealing the sheet underneath. My breath catches in my throat as he adjusts his weight, exposing a narrow gap at the edge of the mattress. Acid rises up my throat from my stomach and I swallow, praying I’ve pushed everything in far enough underneath so as not to be visible. He leans back, picking a couple of pieces of fluff off the duvet cover.
‘I thought you’d want to know I’ve been round to Jo’s house and done what was needed,’ he says, pausing briefly to let his words sink in as I look at him, not wanting to believe what I think he’s done. ‘One of us had to.’ The tray suddenly feels so much heavier in my hands, as if the weight of a small animal has been placed on it and handed to me to carry.
Smell is the most evocative of senses. I learned that in A-level biology. Just one sniff and millions of olfactory neurons that sit in an area the size of a postage stamp tell your brain which one out of a trillion different fragrances you are breathing in, transporting you to places that you visited years before. I read that male lunar moths can track females from five miles away just by their scent and I wonder if the same thing is possible with humans, whether you can follow me from place to place, recognising my presence from the molecules I leave behind, invisible to everyone else. I know whether you are in a room before I look up to see if you are there. And it’s not because of the particular deodorant you wear. I can feel you watching me. I wonder if you can smell the acrid bitterness that lingers on my clothes after you’ve been near me; I think it attracts you more than my conversation ever did. The odour of fear. I wash it off each night but it comes back the next day, more pungent than ever.
MONDAY
Jo
I tiptoe downstairs, unable to sleep, leaving the girls curled up in my bed where they’ve ended up for the past two nights, needing them to hold the reality of death at a distance. I try to avoid looking at the empty hook on the wall in the hallway where Buddy’s lead used to hang as I walk into the kitchen.
The house echoes with an unfamiliar silence; the only discernible noise the quiet humming of the dishwasher finishing a cycle. It seems to have been more reliable since the plumber came out to fix it, although I’m not sure what he actually did for a hundred and fifty pounds. I know Buddy’s gone, but as I make myself a cup of tea, I imagine I can hear his paws scrabbling on the travertine tiles and whip around, a bubble of expectation in my chest which bursts when I see there is nothing there.
The vet had told us afterwards he was sure antifreeze had been responsible. Lethal to dogs, even in very small quantities, and Buddy was the second labradoodle this year he’d seen poisoned by it. He’d said the first dog had got hold of a bottle that had been left in a cupboard by his owners and had chewed through the plastic cap. He’d sowed the seeds of implication gently, seeing how distressed the girls were, and I think he’d been trying to absolve my guilt. I’d told him it was impossible for Buddy to have done that. We didn’t have any antifreeze. The vet had nodded sympathetically, hearing the defiance in my voice, and had suggested perhaps he had come into contact with it on one of our walks. Or on our driveway. The poison must have been in his system for a while and would explain why he’d been so thirsty before he collapsed; his kidneys had already been starting to fail.
I’d stared at Paul who’d met us at the surgery, the question of whether something could have been slowly leaking from our car since the garage had returned it hung in the air between us, unspoken. Neither of us had voiced what we’d both been thinking as he’d lifted Livvi up into his arms, muffling her sobs. Grace had refused to leave, staring at the door of the room where we’d left Buddy which the vet had finally closed. I’d sat with her until the receptionist had come over and whispered that she needed to lock up for the night, promising we could come and collect his body the next day so we could bury him. Grace had finally let me put my arm around her and I ushered her out to the car, her limbs unnaturally stiff as we’d walked across the asphalt.
‘We need to talk.’ I’d mouthed the words silently at Paul as soon as we’d got home and he’d frowned, a look of confusion on his face as he’d opened his mouth to say something. ‘Not now,’ I’d added quietly. The repercussions of his deception from a few hours earlier had continued to smoulder, flames lighting other flames, consuming me, my body a burnt-out shell walking around the kitchen on autopilot.
We hadn’t had a chance to speak before he’d finally gone to sleep downstairs on the sofa in the snug, unable to fit into our bed when the girls had crawled in beside me, refusing to leave my side. I’d been relieved, whispering the lie that I hadn’t wanted to wake them up when they’d finally fallen asleep. I’d wondered if this was how it would be going forward – me with them
in one place and him somewhere else. Physical walls between us rather than just the ones we’d created in our heads. I’d barely slept, pulling back the curtains to look outside when I’d heard him go downstairs and open the front door, watching as he’d got on his hands and knees on the driveway with a torch, searching under my car for any signs of a leak. He’d glanced up and had shaken his head when he’d seen me, but I’d let the curtain drop, ignoring him.
Grace hadn’t left my side for the whole of the next day; reaching for my hand when I’d tried to slide quietly out of bed in the morning, getting up and following me if I left the room. She’d insisted on coming with me to the vets to pick up Buddy’s body, bringing it back with us to bury in the garden. Paul had dug the hole, an excuse to pretend he wasn’t avoiding me, both of us unwilling to step onto that first rung of the conversation that would lead us somewhere from which there was no way back, our relationship too fragile to survive the fall.
The kitchen door creaks as Grace walks in, her hair matted on one side where she’s been lying on it. She looks so tired that for a moment I wonder if I should keep her off school but I hope the normality of routine might help to keep her mind off what has happened. She sits down beside me and I look at where she’s bitten the skin around her cuticles, tiny scabs marking the edges of her nails.
‘Are you OK?’
She shrugs and I recognise her need not to speak for fear of crying.
‘I’m worried about you, sweetheart. And not just because of what’s happened with Buddy. Ever since Grandpa died, you’ve been . . .’ I notice a tear run down her cheek. ‘It’s OK to miss him, you know. I miss him too.’ She shakes her head, wiping her face on her hand. ‘What is it, then?’ I ask. ‘Why have you and Maddie not been getting on? I can’t help unless you talk to me.’
She stares at me, her eyes wide. ‘Have you ever done something you wish you hadn’t, Mum?’
I frown. The image of a pillow floats into my head and I push it away. ‘Like what?’
‘Like something you didn’t realise you weren’t supposed to do, but you got into trouble for?’ She fiddles with the tablecloth, picking at the edge so the threads come loose.
I hesitate. ‘Everyone makes mistakes, Grace. That’s just life. You just have to apologise and try and move on.’
‘But what if you can’t?’ she asks.
‘What if you can’t what?’
‘Apologise.’ She lowers her voice to a whisper, not looking at me.
I swallow. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘I did something bad and I think Grandpa is still angry with me.’
I stare at her, understanding her words as they settle in my head but finding they make no sense. ‘What did you do?’
She doesn’t answer and I wonder if I’ve asked the question too quickly, an accusation that has backed her into a corner. I force myself to wait for her to speak but she stays silent, pulling at the tiny pieces of cotton. ‘Is this what you and Maddie have been fighting about?’ I ask, finally.
She hesitates, then nods. ‘I told her about it and then she told Katie. She promised me she wouldn’t say anything to anyone.’
‘What did you tell her about?’
‘That sometimes I feel like Grandpa is here . . . in my room. He moves things. I put them down and when I come back, they aren’t where I’ve left them. I wake up in the night and – and it feels like he’s there, sitting on my chair, watching me.’ She stutters as she struggles to get the words out and I can see how much she’s suffering but a small part of me is relieved. She hadn’t seen me with him at the end. Or what I’d tried to do. At least I’m spared that.
‘Sweetheart, Grandpa isn’t here. And you don’t have to tell me what you did if you don’t want to, but I know whatever it was, Grandpa wouldn’t be angry with you.’ I reach across for her hand. ‘He loved you very much, Grace. You know how close you were. Do you think he’d want you to feel scared like this? Of him?’
She shakes her head. ‘You don’t understand. You think I’m imagining things. Just like Maddie and my counsellor.’
I try not to think of Dad when I last saw him, focusing instead on memories of him with Grace and how he used to smile when she walked into the room. ‘Grandpa wouldn’t hold a grudge. He wasn’t that kind of a person,’ I say.
‘I can prove it,’ she replies.
I frown. ‘How?’
‘He sent a message to me on Dad’s phone. When I came downstairs the other night, it flashed up on his mobile just as I walked past. It was lying on the counter and I picked it up and saw it.’
I swallow. ‘What did it say?’
She looks at me. ‘It said I’m watching you. And so I know he is.’ Something slips in my chest as there’s a loud click from the latch on the kitchen door as Paul walks in. Grace stands up, our conversation over. Livvi appears behind him and starts to make breakfast, none of us commenting on the half-empty packet of dog biscuits beside the cereal boxes in the cupboard.
I hand Grace the car keys and tell both girls to go outside and get into the car, Livvi refusing to leave without Buddy’s blanket – rolling it up and squashing it into her school bag. I listen for the bleep to tell me they’ve unlocked the doors before walking back into the kitchen where Paul is standing by the toaster.
‘We need to talk,’ I say to him and the tone of my voice makes him look up. ‘I wanted to say something before but I thought I should wait until the girls weren’t around. I know you didn’t go to see a client on Saturday. I saw you parked at the end of the road.’
His face drops and something tears inside me – the last few threads holding us together; my hope that somehow I’d been wrong, that there had been a simple explanation for his behaviour.
‘Who was that man who got into your car?’
He doesn’t reply, holding out an empty plate in front of him as if he thinks the answer is going to magically appear on top of it.
‘Was he here the other day, too?’ I can almost see his thoughts as they pass by in front of his eyes, his brain desperately trying to sort them into some kind of order that will explain all of this. There’s a sudden tap on the kitchen window and he spins round to see Livvi pointing at me.
‘Are you coming, Mummy? We’re going to be late.’
I nod. ‘I’ll drop the girls at school,’ I say to him, ‘but then I’m coming straight back and you can tell me what the hell is going on.’ I walk out, wishing I hadn’t seen the look on his face that confirmed his guilt without him needing to open his mouth.
Both girls sit in the back of the car and don’t speak a word for the entire journey. I switch on the car radio, but every upbeat note of the pop song grates painfully against the tense atmosphere and I turn it off again. I keep checking on them in the rear-view mirror; Grace motionless, staring out of the side window and I have to swallow hard when I see her reach across and link her hand with Livvi’s, their fingers entwined tightly in a small ball.
I walk into the kitchen when I get back and see Buddy’s water bowl lying on the floor as I call out Paul’s name, but he doesn’t answer. I frown as I pick up the metal container, tipping out the last few drops of liquid over the sink before bending down and stuffing it into the cupboard underneath as far as I can reach.
As I stand up, I hear a loud thud.
‘Paul?’ I shout into the silence, my voice echoing off the kitchen tiles. There’s no reply. I press the handle down on the back door but it’s locked. I reach up to get the key down off the wall and walk out across the grass to his office, but that door is shut too, the padlock fastened over the bolt, and when I peer through the window, I can see it’s empty.
Something slippery slides around at the bottom of my stomach as I come back into the kitchen and hear the noise again. Louder this time. A thump. Like something falling on the floor. I stand quite still, listening closely. I’m sure it came from upstairs. I slip off my shoes and put one foot on the stairs, trying to be as quiet as I can, and climb them slowly, one at a tim
e, holding onto the bannister. The landing looks exactly as I’d expect as I tread softly across it and into Livvi’s room. Her bed’s unmade and I smooth out her pink duvet over the bed whilst I’m in here, a delaying tactic to avoid going into Grace’s room. He moves things. Her words hover, unwanted, in my head.
I brace myself, forcing myself to take the few steps needed to get through her doorway. She hasn’t bothered to draw her curtains this morning which is unlike her, and the room is full of shadows in the half-light. I pull them open, needing to feel the sunshine. Her chair is pushed neatly under her desk, her dressing gown lying on the bottom of her bed. There’s nothing out of place. Maybe the noise came from the loft. One of the many things we’ve stored up there falling over. I could get Paul to look if I knew where he was. I walk back across the landing into our bedroom. It’s empty, and there’s nothing on the floor in here or in our en suite when I poke my head round the door.
I sit down on our bed, my legs shaky, and call Paul’s number but it goes straight to voicemail. Where is he? I hang up without leaving a message, staring at the duvet cover where a few dog hairs are stuck to the duck-egg-blue throw. My eyes fill unexpectedly with tears and I don’t bother to try to stop them as they fall. I want to stay here, to bury myself under the covers and not come out. Memories of Buddy lying on the bed run through my head and I press my face into my pillow as there’s a loud crash from the other end of the corridor. I sit up in shock.
Grabbing my phone, I try to ignore the panic that flutters in my chest. ‘Paul?’ I call out his name again, hoping that he just didn’t hear me the first time, but my instinct tells me he’s not in the house. Perhaps Grace left her window open and it’s slammed shut. I drew her curtains. I would have noticed. I stand up, keeping my phone in one hand and walk slowly across the landing until I’m hovering in her doorway.
