The Perfect Couple

by Lisa Hall

  ‘Aren’t you pleased?’ Caro is perched on the edge of the expensive sofa, the only comfortable seat in the house, the pregnancy test in her hand. The other hand lays protectively against her still flat stomach.

  ‘Pleased?’ Are you mad? he nearly says, but doesn’t, because no one ever mentions the word mad in front of Caro. ‘God, Caro, it’s not that I’m not pleased, but it’s a hell of a shock, and let’s be honest, is it really the right time?’ He scrubs his hands tiredly over his face, and lets his words sink in for a moment. Rupert had come home just a month before to Caro locked in the bathroom, threatening to slash her wrists. He’s not sure he could cope with her mood swings and a baby.

  ‘Darling, it’s never the right time.’ Caro gets to her feet and comes to him, laying her hand flat on his chest. She fiddles with the buttons on his shirt, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘Everyone agrees on that. But just think, a little me or a little you. How lovely would it be?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be lovely, Caro,’ he pushes her hand away, panic overwhelming him, ‘it would be hard, and I don’t know that your… that your mental health could take it. You’ve been ill, Caro, a baby might just be too much for you.’

  ‘Oh, just fuck off, Rupert.’ Caro pulls her hand back, snatching up the pregnancy test. ‘Who says you’ll get to make the decision anyway? It’s my body.’ And she flounces from the room, leaving Rupert feeling like the bad guy, even though he’s just worried about her. It’s what she does. Manipulates the situation so he is the one in the wrong.

  Now, he pulls up at the house, nudging Emily awake and carrying their things indoors. Emily will understand that he wants to wait a while, he thinks, as he fills the kettle, pulls out the bag of fancy tea that Emily insists on buying. But he won’t talk to her about Caro. He can’t.

  ‘Rupert!’ Emily’s cry from upstairs is a piercing shriek, and Rupert drops the mug he is holding, shattering it into a million pieces over the tiled floor. He eyes it for a moment, before stepping to the bottom of the staircase as Emily calls him again, a panicky edge to her voice. Rupert steps on the bottom stair with leaden feet, his heart sinking in his chest. Emily was back to her old self at the cottage, but from the sound of her tone now, the relaxed, funny, laughing Emily of the past three days is gone.

  ‘What is it? Em, are you all right?’ Heading upstairs, Rupert peers into their bedroom but it is empty.

  ‘In here.’ Tears make her voice sound thick and clumsy. ‘Look.’

  Rupert pushes open the door to the spare bedroom, the room he found Emily in just a little while ago, surrounded by his dead wife’s clothes. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I came in here to see about redesigning it into a nursery…’ Rupert says nothing as Emily swipes at her eyes. He didn’t think they’d agreed to start a family yet. ‘And look.’ She gestures towards the wardrobes, the closets that should be standing empty. The hangers are full, crammed with silks, satin, dresses, coats and other clothes. Caro’s clothes.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  So much for a fresh start. The door to the spare room is firmly shut, and I hurry past it, the urge to go in and check the wardrobe, to see Caro’s things hanging there neatly after I dropped them at the charity shop – and I did, I remember doing it – almost a compulsion.

  In the kitchen, I make myself a cup of Earl Grey and pull my mobile from my pocket, scrolling down until I reach Mags’s name. I need to talk to someone, a person I can trust. A friend. Rupert won’t talk about it. I picture his face as he looked into the wardrobe last night, the way he had gone a grey, waxy colour before he made an excuse, just like he had before.

  ‘Are you sure you dropped these things off at the charity shop?’ he says, stumbling slightly over the words. That’s how I know that he’s shaken too.

  ‘Yes,’ I snap, my sharp tone belying the fact that my hands are shaking, ‘I’m not an idiot, Rupert. I dropped them off at The Children’s Trust. I thought that was the best place for them, given Caro’s connection to them.’

  ‘Well, that explains it then.’ Rupert visibly brightens, and my heart sinks as I realize that he’s still not going to see this the way I do. ‘If you took them there, that explains everything.’

  ‘How? How does it explain the way your dead wife’s clothes got back into our house?’

  ‘Obviously, Angus visited the shop and saw them and thought that they had been donated in error. I…’ he looks at me sheepishly, ‘I did once say that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get rid of Caro’s things.’

  ‘Right.’ A pulse flickers at my temple and I have to hold in a deep breath in order to keep my temper. ‘So, say that Angus did return the clothes to the house – which, to be honest, just sounds like a complete fantasy to me – then how did the clothes end up hanging neatly back in the closet?’

  ‘Anya hung them up, of course. While we were away.’ Rupert looks completely satisfied with this answer. ‘She didn’t know Caro, she didn’t start working for us until after we were married, so she probably assumed they were yours and hung them all back up. She probably thought she was doing you a favour. I don’t see what part of this is a fantasy,’ he snaps.

  ‘Jesus, Rupert…’

  ‘No, tell me. What makes more sense? That Angus returned the clothes and Anya hung them up, or your latest paranoid idea? Presumably you think that some mysterious someone broke into our house and put all the clothes back. It’s ridiculous, Emily, and you know it.’ He storms from the room leaving me standing there, open-mouthed, because he’s right. I do think that someone got those things back from the charity shop and put them back in our house. And now I know that they never found Caro’s body, the whole thing doesn’t feel as imagined as Rupert is making out.

  I click on Mags’s name, praying that the call will connect. I imagine myself sitting on the threadbare, overstuffed, leaking sofa, eating custard creams and letting Mags make cup after cup of hot, sweet tea with two sugars, as I pour my heart out to her. She’ll know the right thing to say to make things better, she always does. It’s only now I’ve been away from her overbearing, suffocating brand of caring that I realize how much I miss it.

  The phone beeps in my ear and cuts off without connecting. I’m debating whether to just head over to the flat – I don’t know if Mags still has my number blocked or if she hasn’t paid her bill again – when the doorbell rings and I see Sadie’s outline through the glass in the front door.

  ‘Darling!’ Sadie barges her way into the house, much the same as she did that first time I opened the door to her, what feels like a hundred years ago. ‘Rupert called me.’

  ‘He did?’ I follow her into the sitting room, where she is already sitting in the corner of the sofa that is my usual spot. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He’s worried about you…’ She pauses, cocking her head to one side. ‘He’s worried about your health. Physical and mental. You do look dreadful, Emily.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I mutter, unable to rein in the irritation that fizzes in my veins, ‘there is nothing wrong with my health, mental or physical.’ I pause. This is my chance to get Sadie to tell me everything she knows about what happened the night Caro died, before Rupert has a chance to tell her that he thinks I’m probably going mad. I realize she’s talking at me again.

  ‘… And Rupert can’t cope with more… mental instability. After everything he went through with Caro, he needs someone to be there for him…’

  ‘Yes,’ I interrupt, ‘Caro. Let’s talk about Caro. Sadie, I want you to tell me everything you remember about that night.’

  ‘What?’ Sadie looks taken aback. ‘Are you even listening to me?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am. But I need you to go over things one more time. Tell me everything that you can remember from that night.’

  ‘OK,’ Sadie says slowly, and she starts to repeat the story of how there was a storm brewing, both weather-wise and at the party, that Caro was wearing a red, ruffled dress with exquisite diamond stud earri
ngs, that she and Rupert had rowed.

  ‘What about?’ I say, leaning forward and resting my chin on my hand. ‘What was the row about?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ Sadie blinks. ‘No one could actually hear them arguing, it was all hisses and whispers.’

  ‘Didn’t you ask Rupert?’

  ‘Well, I might have mentioned it to him afterwards, before we realized what she had done. He couldn’t really remember, he said it was just about nothing really. It’s what Caro was like – part of her liked the drama.’

  I sit back, piecing together what Sadie has told me so far. ‘So, Rupert and Caro rowed about something – something insignificant, according to Rupert – and Caro stormed out of the house. Then… what? No one saw her alive again?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sadie looks away, rummaging in her handbag for a tissue that she holds to the corner of her eye. ‘Rupert called me the next morning to say she hadn’t come home, that her car was still gone from the garage. We were all worried, of course we were, but she’d done it before, flounced off and then come home days later as if nothing had happened. She’d tried to commit suicide before too, but only ever at home.’ She raises her eyes to mine and grief is etched deep into her features. ‘None of us realized that she would… that she had done it for real this time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sadie,’ I say, reaching forward to squeeze her hand, ‘I’m just trying to get things straight in my head. So, after a few days Rupert called you to tell you what the police had found?’

  ‘Yes.’ She blows her nose delicately and sits up straighter, shaking her fringe out of her eyes. ‘Rupert called and said that the police had found her car close to the Severn Bridge. There was a note on the passenger seat that just said “Sorry”. It was clear that she’d gone through with it this time. It was utterly devastating, but I’m afraid to say it wasn’t really a shock to those of us who knew her well.’

  ‘But they never found her body?’

  Sadie stiffens slightly. ‘No. They never found her. The police told us she would never have survived the fall, and that the currents can be so strong that she might never wash up. We held a memorial in her honour a little while before Rupert met you. She’d been gone for a year by then.’

  I nod slowly, trying to match the puzzle pieces in my mind. A flicker of excitement burns in my belly and I have to think through what I am about to say, conscious that I might make things worse.

  ‘Sadie?’ I take a deep breath. ‘I’ve been thinking, and I have an idea, only I think it might be upsetting, so I’ll apologize now before I say it, OK?’

  Sadie frowns but doesn’t say no.

  ‘What if… what if the reason they never found Caro’s body is because Caro never died? What if she’s still alive?’

  ‘What?’ Sadie goes white, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Nothing – not really,’ I say. ‘Please, Sadie, don’t say anything to anyone. You know everything that has been happening to me – the letter calling me a bitch, Rupert and Caro’s wedding photo appearing on the mantelpiece… it’s been getting worse. I found Lola on the driveway. She was dead.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘And I gave all Caro’s clothes away to the charity shop, but when Rupert and I came home from our weekend away they were all hanging back in the wardrobe.’ Now I have started talking I can’t stop, the relief at being able to potentially have an explanation for all that has happened making my words tumble out. ‘At first, in the very beginning I thought maybe it was my ex – we had a really nasty break-up and he’s not the kind to let things go – but everything that has happened has been related to Caro. As if someone is trying to scare me off Rupert, to get me to leave him. What if it’s Caro? What if she isn’t really dead?’

  ‘Oh my God, Emily.’ Sadie stares at me, her face pale. ‘I don’t know… I mean, it could. I suppose. It’s not impossible.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I smile at her, relieved that her first reaction isn’t to call me bonkers. ‘You don’t think I’m crazy?’

  ‘No,’ she says quietly, ‘but what are you going to do? Are you going to leave Rupert?’

  ‘What? No, of course not. I’m going to find out as much about Caro as I possibly can. If there’s even the slightest chance that she is still alive then I’m going to find her.’

  Sadie leaves, and I make her promise not to tell Rupert what I’ve said to her. I want to tell him myself, knowing that he might be devastated to think that Caro is still alive – that she chose to live a life without him. Fear beats in my chest too, at the knowledge that once this is out there, Rupert might try to find her himself, and that if he does, there’s every chance that he’ll pick her over me, and our time together will be up. But at the moment, he thinks I’m mentally fragile, just like Caro was, and if there’s the slightest chance that this can prove to him that I’m not, that there is a reason for these things happening to me, then maybe he’ll realize that I haven’t imagined it all. When he comes home, I am waiting for him.

  ‘Rupert, I need to talk to you.’ I pass him a glass of the good red that he keeps in the basement, hoping to soften him up a little.

  ‘About your hare-brained theory?’ He snatches the glass out of my hand. ‘Sadie called me at work. She told me what you said. She’s worried about you.’

  ‘What? I told her not to say anything!’ The bitter sting of deception makes my eyes smart. ‘I wanted to talk to you about it myself.’

  ‘About the way you think Caro is still alive?’ Throwing back the wine, seemingly without even tasting it, Rupert pours himself another leaving my glass empty. ‘Jesus, Em, I don’t know what to say to you.’

  ‘But it’s a possibility,’ I cry, tugging at his sleeve as he turns to leave the room. ‘Don’t you agree? They never found Caro’s body… what’s to say that she isn’t still alive? She could be doing all of this to scare me off, to get rid of me.’ Desperation claws at my throat and I swallow, trying to get rid of the lump there.

  ‘She’s dead, Emily,’ Rupert roars, spittle flying in my face, and I jump back in fright, my heart hammering in my chest. I think for a moment he’s going to hit me – the image of Harry flying at me, the way he pulled me naked and crying from his bed, throwing me to the floor, as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday – and I raise my hand to ward him off. Rupert slumps against the wall, rubbing his hand over his face. ‘She’s dead, Em. I know she’s dead. She walked out of that party and she drove to the bridge and she threw herself into the water. And I let her go. Please. Can you just stop now? I can’t take any more of this.’

  I watch him walk slowly up the stairs, his feet dragging, and his shoulders hunched and rounded and feel a hot spurt of shame. I did this to him. I reach for my scarf and coat, and tug open the front door, stepping out onto a mess of blood and guts. Another dead bird. Only this one has a note attached to it. It reads,

  BITCH

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  In the morning, in a rare twist, Emily is up before him and Rupert comes downstairs to hot coffee and a bacon roll, even though it is barely seven o’clock. He kisses her on the cheek and smiles his thanks, even though he’s not sure his stomach can take bacon at such an early hour.

  ‘Will you be home for dinner?’ Emily asks, her hands knotted together in front of her. Her knuckles are white, and Rupert can see the way her wedding ring digs into her finger.

  ‘I’ll try.’ Rupert stoops to pick up his briefcase, as Emily lays a hand on his arm.

  ‘It would be nice,’ she says hesitantly. ‘I’m sorry for what I said last night. I know I hurt you, but I really didn’t mean to. Rupert, I’d be devastated if things went wrong between us.’

  Rupert stops fiddling with his tie for a moment, not sure how to respond. ‘I know. I probably overreacted, but honestly, Em, you need to stop this, OK?’ His eyes search her face, but she looks down, scrubbing at something stuck onto the table. ‘Em, I mean it. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with y
ou, but I can’t deal with all this stuff you keep raking up. Caro is dead. Please, can we just focus on us?’

  Emily finally looks at him, her face pale and her eyes ringed with dark circles where she hasn’t slept. Rupert feels an unshakeable sense of déjà vu, as he manages to lean down and peck Emily on her pale, cold cheek.

  ‘I’ll call you later, let you know about dinner.’ He picks up his briefcase and dashes for the front door, as if trying to outrun the claustrophobic feeling that he has been here before. That, despite his best efforts, things with Emily are going much the way they went with Caro. That this second chance to get things right, to get things exactly as he wanted them to be, is all going horribly wrong.

  There is a knock at Rupert’s office door a little before lunchtime, and his heart sinks as Sadie is shown in by his secretary. Much as he loves Sadie, he knows that she is only here today to talk about the events of yesterday, about Emily’s revelation, and if he’s honest, he just wants to get on with his work and forget about it all for a few hours.

  ‘Darling, how are things?’ Sadie looks concerned, but Rupert notices how she arranges herself artfully in the chair across from him so that her legs are on full display, in typical Sadie fashion.

  ‘Fine,’ he says, shortly. ‘I’m quite busy, though, Sadie, so if that was all you wanted…’

  ‘Oh Rupert,’ she sighs, ‘can’t you even spare me five minutes? I just wanted to check in on you, that’s all. I’ll probably go and see Emily later as well, just to make sure she’s OK. She was terribly worked up yesterday when I left her.’