That sounds heavenly. A quiet pint somewhere with whatever sport’s on in the background. He can tell me about a week in the life of his brothers and sisters. There’s always something crazy going on.
I wake Charley briefly, whispering to ask whether she minds me nipping out with Raj. Her eyes barely open as she mumbles that it’s fine.
Fifteen minutes later and I’m outside Raj’s house in the car.
This is the first time since she returned that I’ve been away from Charley. It feels both strange and a relief at the same time. I spent so many hours wanting her to come back and, now she has, I have no idea how I feel about it. I thought she was one person and, now, I’m not so sure.
That makes me a particular type of scumbag, doesn’t it?
Raj bustles out from his house and climbs into the passenger seat.
‘Where do you want to go?’ I ask.
‘Somewhere quiet. Do you remember that pub out by the river we went to last summer? The one with the big garden that floods every winter. Let’s head out there.’
I expect him to launch into an endless babble of information. He talks a lot at the best of times and we’ve not seen each other in a week. But he’s the exact opposite, sitting quietly with his head against the rest, watching the road.
‘You all right?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. You?’
‘As you’d expect.’
I risk a glance sideways, but he doesn’t say anything. I would’ve expected him to mention Charley in some way, if only to ask if she’s okay.
‘How’s Rafi?’ I ask.
‘All right.’
That’s it. No elaboration. No tales of the girl he’s been rejected by this week. After that, I give up, wondering if it’s me. That’s the most likely explanation, isn’t it? Charley’s not really talking to me and now Raj. It’s only the madman who thinks everyone else is mad.
I follow the country roads out past the Astley farm and there’s a moment where I think about turning in. I can see a flicker of police tape off in the distance, but the gates are closed and there is no sign of anyone being home.
Raj says nothing and I continue driving.
The pub is roughly halfway between our town and another. It’s an old brick building with a thatched roof that sits by itself. In the winter, there’s a raging fire and cosy home-cooked meals. In the summer, everyone spreads out across the beer garden and lounges in the sunshine.
When we arrive, the garden is bustling with people. There is a bouncy castle in the furthest corner close to the river, with children racing around as their parents enjoy an evening out of the house. It’s Saturday evening, probably the busiest time of the week – and the mass of people provides some degree of anonymity. As I find a spot on one of the picnic tables in the opposite corner to the bouncy castle, Raj heads inside. He returns ten minutes later with two pints and a lemonade.
‘I’m driving,’ I remind him, nodding to the two pints.
‘These are mine,’ he says. I think he might be joking, but he isn’t. He necks the first in one go while still standing; then he wipes his chin and slides in opposite me.
‘You look like you needed that,’ I say.
‘Yeah…’
He takes a mouthful of his second pint and swallows.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ I ask.
‘First time I’ve drunk since the wedding,’ he says.
‘I’m not entirely surprised.’
Raj doesn’t say much at first. He has another mouthful and then wipes his face with his sleeve. ‘I swore last Sunday morning I was never going to drink again,’ he says with a sigh. ‘Why’d you let me have so much?’
I snort with laughter at him. ‘I figured it was up to you. If things had been different, I might have been as drunk as you at the end of the night.’
He shudders at the moment but has another drink anyway.
‘I don’t remember much after the ceremony,’ he says. ‘Rafi says I was popping in and out for air.’
‘He told me that, too.’
Raj shudders at the half-memory. ‘Never again, man.’
I nod at his pint and he rolls his eyes.
‘Yeah, I know…’ He has another mouthful and then adds: ‘I should’ve got three.’
‘You on an all-nighter, or something?’
A shake of the head. ‘I remember being in a bush.’
‘When?’
‘At the wedding – that little courtyard bit out by the back doors. When I was out there, I must’ve fallen into a bush or something. I keep getting flashes of all these twigs and leaves in my face. I asked Rafi about it and he said that’s where he found me when he came out to check on me. He said I was sleeping.’
He stops and has another – larger – mouthful. He’s had a pint and a half of lager and I’ve had one sip of lemonade.
‘I told you I got a new phone for the wedding, didn’t I?’ Raj adds.
‘Right.’
‘I thought I could take some photos but my old one had a rubbish camera. Only problem was I didn’t have a clue how to use the new one.’
He takes out his phone – new and unscratched – and puts it on the wooden slat of the table between us.
‘I still don’t really know what I’m doing,’ he adds.
Raj has another mouthful of his pint and stares up at me. From nowhere, there are tears in the corners of his eyes. I ask what’s wrong – and it’s hard to believe this is all about understanding how to use a phone.
He glances away again as a young lad roars past. He’s had his face painted as a lion and is being chased by his father. They loop around our table and then race back towards the bouncy castle.
‘There are hundreds of photos on the phone,’ Raj says. ‘I didn’t look until this morning. There are literally hundreds of photos of bushes and tress.’
‘From where you fell into the bush?’
‘Yeah.’
I laugh, thinking this is a joke, but he does nothing but stare into nothingness.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
‘I think I was trying to take a selfie.’ He adds, ‘I was so bloody drunk, I don’t even know. I vaguely remember trying to switch it from the back camera to the front… or the other way around. Whichever way it is to take a picture of yourself. I was in the bush and that’s all I really remember.’
‘That’s all right… we’ve done way worse than that when we were lashed. Remember that bloke Frank at the football Christmas party last year? Imagine explaining that to your missus…’
Raj doesn’t laugh. He shakes his head. ‘I’m really sorry, mate. I swear I didn’t know. I swear. I only found them this morning. It took me ages to grow a set of balls and text you. I wimped out twice.’
‘Wimped out of what?’
Raj swipes a couple of things on his phone and then passes it across. ‘There are more,’ he says.
There’s a photo on the screen, slightly out of focus but clear enough. Leaves dot the edges of the picture but the framing is otherwise perfect.
Charley is standing outside the back doors of the hotel in her wedding dress.
‘Keep going,’ Raj says.
I swipe to the next photo, which is a total contrast to the first. Charley is still there, but she’s at a 45-degree angle. There’s a man at her side wearing a cap. He’s in the next photo, too. And the one after that.
‘I know it’s only the back of his head, but do you know who he is?’ Raj asks.
The photos are a mix of clear and fuzzy; angled and well framed. Some are upside down, others completely obscured by leaves and twigs. I have no idea what Raj thought he was doing when he took them.
The final picture is the most damning. Charley and the man walking away from the wedding, heading through the gap in the plants towards the car park. This is the exact spot where I spent hours of Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday hunting. When I press the screen for information, there is a time attached to each photo.
‘D
o you know him?’ Raj repeats.
I don’t reply. The mask, the knife… it was all a lie. Charley simply walked away.
Raj sighs and downs the rest of his pint. ‘It’s worse than that, mate.’
I scroll back through the photos, taking them all in and then starting all over. ‘How could it be worse?’
‘Raf had been messing with my phone. He’d set everything to auto-upload to the cloud. You know what I’m talking about? Where you can back all your photos up.’
‘So there are copies?’
A shake of the head. ‘It’s not that. It’s a public photo-sharing site. You know what it’s like. People take pictures of things and then dump them online for their friends to see. You can either do it manually, or there’s a setting so it happens by itself. Raf says it can be public or private – but all of mine are public.’
Raj sighs. ‘Cats. Bloody cats – you get hundreds of pictures of someone’s mangy cat.’ He picks up his glass but it’s already empty. ‘These photos have been online all week but nobody bothered to look. All they had to do was search for my name but no one noticed.’
There’s more. I can see it in his face.
‘What are you saying?’ I ask.
‘I got an email at lunchtime. All the info is there. Timestamps, my name. You can see Charley’s face!’
‘Who was the email from?’
He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, mate. I wish I’d known. I’m so sorry – but it’s out there now. The bloke was a reporter.’
Forty-One
15 Years Ago
Charley Willis, 13 years old
At first I can’t figure out why I’m awake. There is no light seeping through the top of the curtains, which means it must still be dark outside. Mama says people only wake up at ‘ungodly hours’ if they’ve been lazy during the day. There was a time a couple of years ago where I kept waking up at five in the morning, but if I ever mentioned it, she would find me more jobs to do the next day. In the end, I decided to lie in bed quietly instead. Sometimes I’d remember to bring books up from the reading room and I’d put the light on. They were good mornings.
I started sleeping better eventually, but I’m not really sure why. Perhaps Mama was right and I was working harder during the day?
But now I’m awake again, even though it’s not the morning. Mama won’t let me have a clock in the room because she says timeliness should breed itself. I don’t even know what that means. I do have a watch, though. Martha gave it to me. It’s on my side table and I scrabble for it in the dark, bumping and banging on the wooden surface. I wait for a few seconds, listening in case the noise has woken either Mama or Father. I make lots of racket, they say. When I press the light button on the side of my watch, I can see it’s 3:24.
It’s really early. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been awake at this time before. Mama would say I must have been very lazy yesterday.
I roll back onto the bed, but it’s then I realise my thighs are warm and sticky. In fact, the backs of my knees are as well. It’s like when I’m getting dressed after being in the bath but I’ve not quite dried myself properly. I push the covers away and I suppose my eyes have become used to the dark because I can to see what I’m lying in. There’s a thick dark smear all across my sheet. It has drenched the lower half of my pyjamas.
There’s a horrifying moment where I think I’ve wet myself. I’ve not done this in such a long time and I can’t think of any way I’m going to be able to hide it all. Mama will be so angry.
I reach across to my nightstand once more and flick on the light. It flashes bright and white, leaving me blinking and seeing stars. It takes a while for the twinkling pinks and greens to dissolve until I can see what has really soaked the covers.
It’s blood.
My blood.
At first I can only stare at everything. The sheets are cream and bobbly, or they were. The blood has covered a wide circular pool. We talked about this at school, but it was all very embarrassing. I remember some of the other girls giggling. I didn’t listen to it all, I’m not sure anyone did. I wanted to ask Mama about it but then forgot.
What do I do?
I push back the rest of the covers, but the top sheet is speckled with blood as well. When I take off my pyjama bottoms, I feel the tackiness of my skin, which has changed colour to a greasy red.
It’s coating my hands and, as I swing my legs out of bed, I realise blood has dripped from the bottom of my knees onto the floor.
Oh, no.
I hug my knees to my chest and sit on the bed staring at the horror scene I’ve created.
‘Mama…’
My voice is a whimper at first, but then I’m crying out for her.
‘Mama!’
I’m not sure how long it takes, but I start to hear footsteps on the landing. They get louder and then my door swings open and a hand switches the main light on. I’m blinking again, seeing stars from the sudden switch. Mama is in the doorway wearing a long pink nightdress that hangs to her ankles. Her hair is frizzy and wild, her eyes mostly closed.
Everything is going to be all right.
It takes her a few seconds to open her eyes properly, almost as if she’s sleepwalked here. I used to sleepwalk when I was younger. Showing off, Mama said. Looking for attention, even though I don’t remember it.
Mama says a bad word.
‘Look at the state of you,’ she adds. ‘Just look at what you’ve done.’
She steps into the room, looking at me and the mess I’ve made. When she gets close to the bed, she jumps back.
‘It’s on the carpet, that’s going to take ages to get out.’
She rubs her eyes hard and scratches the side of her face.
‘You’re absolutely filthy,’ she says.
‘I’m sorry, Mama.’
‘Those are perfectly good sheets you’ve ruined. That’s money down the drain. You know how hard your father and I work – but do you have any consideration for others…?’
It sounds like she’s asked me a question, but I’m not sure she has. All I can do is apologise again. She is shaking her head, not listening.
‘Disgusting,’ she says before turning to me. ‘This is disgusting, you know that? Don’t you know about towels and tampons? Didn’t you think? Do you need to be told everything?’
‘I’ll clean it up, Mama. Honest. Can you get me some new sheets, though? I’ll clean everything in the morning.’
Mama turns back to the mess at the bottom of the bed. I’ve made myself small enough that I’m sitting on the clean part of the bed, except that my thighs and knee are tacky and horrible.
She yawns but doesn’t cover her mouth with her hand, even though I get told off if I do the same. She switches off the lamp on my nightstand, leaving only the main light on.
‘You made this mess,’ she says. ‘And now you can lie in it.’
She steps away towards the door, her back to me.
‘Please, Mama. Please. I’ll clean it in the morning. Please.’
She doesn’t turn. ‘You can lie in your own filth and think about what you’ve done. Think about the money you’ve wasted. Do you know how much nice sheets cost? Bedding? Nightclothes? You can lie there and think about how selfish you are.’
Mama switches the light off and stands in the door frame, her shape creating a shadow against the gloom beyond. I can see only her back.
‘And don’t you dare move until morning.’
Then she closes the door.
Forty-Two
Now
Seth
It’s half past nine when I get back to the house. The downstairs is silent, as if Charley is still missing. There is an upturned glass on the draining board – the only sign that she’s moved from our bed since I left.
The laptop is still on the floor close to the window in the living room, the charger not plugged in. The battery is down to twenty per cent when I flip the lid and wait for the Wi-Fi to kick in. When it does, I type in the web address th
at Raj gave me.
He’s right. All the photos are there. The leaves and twigs, the weird angles. Charley in her dress, the back of the man’s head. No knife. I suppose he could be wearing a mask… but he’s in front of her. Charley’s following. There’s no threat, no force. She’s choosing to leave.
I close the lid and quietly climb the stairs, heading into our bedroom. The curtains are pulled but late-evening sunlight is oozing around the edges, leaving a browny frost across the room. Charley is on the furthest side of the bed, facing away. She’s on her side and the covers are rising and falling slowly as she breathes.
Should I wake her? Perhaps I should just go? There’s a massive part of me that wants to know what really happened, but then there’s another that simply wants to be by myself. A storm is on its way and Charley is peacefully dozing through the beginning.
Is she the person I thought I knew? The person I married?
I’ve always thought that whatever was in a person’s past is irrelevant to a relationship. When you meet someone, that’s a new starting point… and yet now I think I was probably wrong. That past is what makes a person who he or she is.
The phone Alice gave Charley is on the nightstand close to her head. I wonder if she’s used it to call or text the man from the photos since she got back. Perhaps she has her old one hidden away somewhere?
I round the bed and lean against the window frame watching my wife sleep. Long, deep breaths in; slow full breaths out. I rest there for a few minutes, sometimes opening my mouth as if I’m going to speak and then closing it again.
In the end, it’s not me that wakes her. The phone screen blazes bright white, the ringtone generic and annoying blaring through the dim light. Charley blinks awake and grabs the device, eyeing the screen and then putting it down again as it rings off. She plops her head back on the pillow and then notices me in front of her.
‘Oh,’ she says softly, her lips creasing into a smile.
I don’t say anything and she pushes herself up slightly, not really sitting but not on her back either.
The Wife’s Secret: A gripping psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist Page 23
