All Your Fault

by NJ Moss

  “I wouldn’t expect any different. Not after today. Not after everything I’ve done.”

  I found myself laughing, ironic and sharp at first, but then the vodka and the bizarreness of this moment warped it into something else, a choking yelp. I turned away and caught myself in the reflection of the window. I noticed the lines around my eyes and the sagging of my cheeks. Hope should be here. Not me.

  “You’re the only one who can ever know the truth. The man who tortured me. For the rest of my life, you’ll know more than my husband, my children, my best friend. My parents.”

  “You won’t tell anybody?”

  “Of course not.” I imagined their faces flooding with pain and resentment. We loved you before you told us. “I think I’ve made that clear.”

  “I thought you might, not all of it. But what happened with you and Hope. I’m sorry.”

  “I find it hard to believe you’re capable of being sorry. Considering everything you did, all the effort you went through… why would you be sorry now when you weren’t before?” I was sitting up, clutching the vodka bottle so hard the glass was digging into my palm. “Did telling me your story miraculously make you human again?”

  His eyes widened and tragic pain touched his features, and then he hid it all with a smirk. “You’re one poetic lady, Grace, I’ll give you that. Miraculously make me human again. You know what, you might be right. I guess you don’t know how crazy something is until you say it out loud.”

  “No.” I swigged the vodka, let it singe the inside of my throat. “I guess you don’t.”

  He took the bottle and swigged, and then his lips twisted and he coughed. “That’s fucking horrible.”

  A smile shaped my lips without my say-so, a drunken manoeuvre, or perhaps that was another excuse; perhaps I needed to stop making excuses. Perhaps Benny had made me smile and that was the end of it, this man I should hate – did hate – and who knew me better than Troy ever could. Because he understood I was evil as well as good, if I was good at all.

  “Don’t use the video. Please.”

  “I won’t,” he said. “It’s—”

  “Insurance.”

  “Exactly.”

  The headlights from my taxi cut across the night and, on the dashboard, my phone vibrated. The screen lit up. Again. Troy and Mother and Father had been ringing ever since Benny returned my phone.

  I’ll have to get a new phone, I thought disjointedly.

  “I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure,” I said. “But, really, it’s been the exact opposite. I assume you’re done with the book club now?”

  “Would you like me to be?”

  I don’t know.

  “Of course I would. It would be rather awkward now, wouldn’t it? In fact, if I don’t see you until we’re both burning and rotting in hell, it will be far, far too soon. Do we understand each other?”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  I was about to climb from the car when a thought occurred to me.

  “What is it, Grace?” Benny said, reading me. He’d had enough bloody practice.

  “It’s silly, but my car’s at your house.”

  “Give me the keys. It’ll be waiting for you tomorrow morning.” He looked closely at me, sensing my natural aversion to the idea. “I’m not going to steal your car, Grace.”

  “No, you’d never do such an evil thing,” I said, voice tinged with irony.

  He shrugged, waited. I took my keys from my handbag – which he’d returned to me with my phone – and placed them on the dashboard. “You’re going to have a busy night.”

  “It’s okay.” He smiled, seeming once again like cocky book-club Mike. “I don’t sleep much.”

  I laughed, an unnatural sound, hating myself for it, hating him. I killed the noise. “Fuck you, Benny.”

  “Fair enough. One more thing, and then I’ll let you go.”

  A deathly tingle crept up my spine. This was the moment his face would warp, the monster would emerge, all teeth and sarcasm. Did you really think I’d let you go, you stupid fucking whore? He’d flick a knife from his sleeve and slice at my face, or maybe… yes, maybe the taxi wasn’t a taxi, but one of his friends coming to cause me more harm. Maybe this was all a big joke. I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid, but that was difficult when the paranoia of these past couple of months had been proven right.

  I turned.

  He was holding a small black rectangle. I looked closer, aided by the light of my rioting phone, and saw it was a USB memory stick.

  “What is it?”

  “Insurance.”

  My hand closed around it and, briefly, our fingertips touched.

  I broke the contact and climbed from the car, leaving the vodka, walking in my work clothes toward the taxi, heels clicking, just another drunk woman on her way home.

  58

  “Mum? What’s wrong? Mum?”

  Mia had never sounded younger as she stood at the door, still in her school uniform. I leapt forward, forgetting the pain in my arms as I wrapped them around her and pulled her close, crying into her hair. Mia’s hands slowly rose and she held on to my back. “It’s okay, Mum.”

  “Where’s Russ?” I sobbed.

  “He’s in bed,” Troy said, peering at me from the dimly-lit hallway, the light coming from the living room where I could hear voices raised.

  Mother. Father.

  What were they doing here? They couldn’t possibly be concerned about the woman who’d killed their favourite daughter.

  Troy was wearing a faded comic-book T-shirt and baggy jogging bottoms, but as he stepped forward he looked official, like he should be in a policeman’s uniform. “Where have you been, Grace? We’ve all been worried sick. Jesus, you can’t just disappear. What happened?”

  “Yeah, Mum,” Mia said, a tremble in her voice. “Why are you crying?”

  “I love you.” I kissed her forehead.

  “I love you too. But what’s wrong? Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I lost my job,” I croaked, and then Mother appeared behind Troy, wearing a stiff off-white blazer and chinos, her heeled boots matching the dull silver of her earrings, her hair piled artfully atop her head and her sharp judgemental nose aimed at me.

  I thought of her as an unseen girl in a giant crumbling house, peering through an old door as her mother dangled there, throat slit, and I thought of her muffling her sobs in a pillow for years after Hope died, and how she’d never looked at me – never seen me – since then, because she’d chosen not to. I thought about what would happen if I told her the truth: told all of them the truth. I knew I never would.

  “Mum.” I walked toward her on shaky legs. “I’m so sorry. I lost my job, Mum.”

  My voice sounded pathetic even to my own ears, a fully-grown woman begging for her mother, but unbelievably Isabella Addington came forward and looped her arm around me.

  “Come on. I do believe you’ve had too much to drink.”

  She sat me down in the living room. Father placed his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. Troy sat opposite and frowned at me, his eyes already calculating. What did my job loss mean for us? What did it mean for his writing career?

  You know exactly what it means for his writing career.

  “What happened, sweetheart?” Father asked.

  “I failed you.” Another wave of tears crushed into me, as though the full magnitude of what I’d done could only be real with the reflected pity in my family’s eyes.

  Mother kept stroking my back and whispering in my ear, telling me I’d failed nobody. I couldn’t stop crying. Her kindness was killing me. My ice-queen mother had my hand in hers and she was telling me she’d protect me. For the first time in almost two decades she was telling me it was all going to be okay.

  “Where are the children?” I asked when I could finally speak again. I had no clue how long I’d sat there, sobbing, but Mia was gone.

  “In bed,” Troy said. “I told you I was taking her up so we could talk.
”

  “I know,” I lied. “I remember.”

  I remember, ha-ha-ha.

  I reached for the coffee somebody had brought me. It was in my World’s Greatest Mum mug, the one Mia and Russ had gifted me last Mother’s Day. The sight of it almost made me choke on sobs again. I pushed them down and sipped. And then, finding it was lukewarm, I downed the entire mug. “Are the children okay?”

  “They’re fine,” Troy said. “A little shaken up. A little worried. I’m worried too. We all are.”

  “Of course. You have every right to be. What I did, it was wrong. It was unacceptable. Unforgivable.” They thought I was talking about staying out late and getting drunk, about causing them a few hours of concern. They didn’t know I was talking about Hope and rain and death. “I’m not a good person.”

  “Grace, you’re the best person I know.” Troy strode across the room and knelt down, like when he’d proposed, kneeling down in our flat when I was four months pregnant, saying some nice words, no rigmarole, and yet it was still achingly romantic. “You’re an incredible mother. I’ve been so proud of you these past few months. Losing your job doesn’t change that. Tell us what happened.”

  I told them about Clive firing me. I was still within my probation period so he didn’t need to give me notice. I told them how I’d gone over to Olivia’s and we’d gotten absolutely sozzled because that’s what people did when they lost their jobs. I told them about the shame I felt, and how I’d kept my phone off out of humiliation.

  Lies, lies, but part of me believed them, because I was practiced at tricking myself. I’d spent years purposefully ignoring a truth that would’ve cracked me in half had I looked at it.

  “I’m sorry. I know it was wrong.”

  Mother, to my utter disbelief, tutted and said, “Wrong? Grace, you’ve been under an awful lot of pressure and of course this is a difficult time for you. Now, yes, you’re correct. It was silly of you not to contact any of us. But punishing yourself isn’t going to help.”

  I looked into her eyes. I imagined the way she must’ve smiled when she first cradled Hope in her arms, gazing down at her in wonder. They’d thought she couldn’t have any more children. Hope was a miracle. And I’d taken her.

  “I love you so much, Mum. You know that, don’t you?”

  She flinched. Her eyes flitted as though looking for an escape. Something in me dropped. But then she said, “Of course I know, dear. I love you too.”

  I could only marvel at the way she was behaving, but this was the most emotional I’d been with her after Hope’s death. I’d never cried in front of her, asked for her help, shared my feelings, and here it was, spilling out. Pathetically, yes, but it was there all the same. Maybe it meant something to her. Maybe she really did care.

  Soon Troy was helping me to bed. He laid me down like I was a child and then left to say goodbye to my parents. I turned on the lamp and reached across to the bedside table, rooting around for the photo of Hope, the one of her sitting on her brand-new bike, taken a few days before her death.

  She was gleaming and very much alive, one foot on the pedal like she was ready to speed off and make her mark on the world.

  I held it to my chest and closed my eyes.

  59

  I woke to the smell of coffee and a throbbing that went all through my body, from the tips of my toes up to my scalp. I blinked and felt the stickiness of my eyes and the hung-over dryness of my tongue. With some effort, I sat up.

  Troy sat on the edge of the bed, his hair ruffled and his eyes pensive. “Morning. Well, afternoon.”

  “What time is it? Where are the children?”

  “They’re at school. I thought I’d let you sleep.”

  “Thanks.” I brought the coffee to my mouth and sipped, craving the caffeine, my body a mutiny of impulses after so many weeks hooked on Benny’s shit. “What time is it?”

  “Half one.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Grace. I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I knew you were having a tough time at work. Not how bad, obviously. But I knew you were stressed out. I was selfish. I ignored it because I wanted to live my stupid fucking dream of being this big-time writer. I need to face reality. That’s never going to happen.”

  “It is,” I told him, placing the coffee down and moving closer, reaching out and clasping his sweaty hand. I was stunned when he didn’t pull away in disgust. Killer. “You’re talented, Troy. I believe in you.”

  “I lost the writing contract.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?” He tilted his head. “Is that all you’ve got to say? It’s a pretty big blow, especially after you lost your job.”

  “I know. But we’ll get through it together.”

  “They emailed me out of the blue and said they were no longer interested,” he said as dusty sunlight settled on his grim-set face. “They loved my stuff. I’m a talented writer. But they’re not interested. How does any of that make sense?”

  “It doesn’t. It seems like these things rarely do.”

  “So what the hell are we going to do now? We’ve got bills. We’ve got the mortgage. My car isn’t even paid off.”

  “Troy, look at me.”

  He dragged his gaze to mine. Time flitted and we were at the student’s union again. He was a passion-filled young man with sharp eyes and sharp ambitions and we made a silent promise to take each other as high as we could possibly go, together, always together. And then I saw my husband, this mature man, this realistic man even if he sometimes lived in make-believe worlds. A tsunami of love crashed down on me.

  “Do you love me?”

  He laughed, as if the question was absurd. “Of course I do.”

  “And I love you. And I love Russ and Mia and I think you might too.”

  “Yes, Grace,” he said ironically. “I love my children.”

  “Don’t you see, then?” I leapt at him, landing in his lap in a tangle of limbs. “Everything’s going to be okay. Love will…”

  “Set us free?” he teased.

  “Maybe. As silly as it sounds, yes, maybe it will.”

  “I hope love can pay the bloody mortgage too.”

  “We’ll be okay. I know we will.”

  “In the meantime I need to get down to the library. Our printer’s decided to pack it in and I’ve got to print some CVs.”

  “Print some CVs? What on earth for?”

  “Some people prefer hard copies, believe it or not. Maybe I’ll get a job for that mysterious client of yours. Did you ever find out who he was?”

  “No,” I said; I lied.

  “Ah, well. None of those bastards deserve you anyway. Do you want anything while I’m out?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Just maybe a kiss?”

  He smirked, looking fifteen years younger, and then leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. “Good enough?”

  I grabbed him and ran my hands through his hair, and kissed him hard. He made an animal noise and we sank deeper into the kissing. When we fell apart he gave me a look that said, Later? I puckered my lips, feeling suddenly and inexplicably sexy, despite the vodka breath and the soreness and the pain whirring through me.

  He left the room and I returned to my coffee. When I heard the front door close, I grabbed the USB stick Benny had given me. It was still in my pocket. I’d slept in my clothes.

  I grabbed Troy’s laptop and logged on and inserted the memory stick.

  There it was: a video file.

  I double-clicked and immediately the room filled with piggish grunting, Clive’s voice, and there were the two women, completely naked and young-looking. Clive was snorting coke off this one’s arched back while he toyed idly with the other one’s privates.

  “Whore,” he growled hatefully, rubbing the powder from his nose. “Dirty bitch. You’re both a couple of fucking sluts, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Say it.”

  I shut the laptop and took out the USB stick, and then got out of bed and walke
d into the en suite.

  It was time to go to work.

  60

  The pulsating in my arm was becoming quite persistent, a pain I’d soon have to address. Perhaps I could feign an accident or discreetly take a visit to the doctor’s, but for now I was content to let it niggle at me, an ignored repressed thing, which I was good at: ignoring, repressing. My face had only reddened slightly and the mark was easily concealed with make-up.

  Benny had delivered my car, as promised. It was unlocked and the keys were inside. I tried not to think of him gliding silently through the night, past our house. It made me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

  I drove into the city, to the waterfront, stopping outside the office and staring up at the redbrick façade. How excited and hopeful I’d been a couple of months ago, gazing at this building like it was a desert oasis. The thought of stepping inside sickened me.

  My mobile rang. I pulled it out – the screen was cracked from last night – and Mother’s name blinked jaggedly on the display. I thought about not answering, knowing Benny could be listening. But it didn’t matter. He’d heard enough already. Soon I’d stamp this phone into tiny fragments.

  I swiped over crumbly glass.

  “Good morning, Grace. I wanted to check everything was all right.”

  Not even close. “Yes, thank you. I feel much better this morning.”

  “That’s good. You were in such a dreadful state last night and, well, I was wondering if you mightn’t like to pop round for a piece of cake this afternoon? You can bring the children, of course.”

  “I’d love to.” And then, before my nerve could fail me, I blurted, “Mum.”

  I felt her flinch at the use of the word Mum, but she didn’t correct me. “Very well, then. I’ll see you soon.”

  “I love you.” I hung up quickly, not waiting to hear if she’d say it back.

  I climbed from the car and gripped the USB stick firmly.

  Olivia’s face turned ghost-white when she saw me striding across the Pen, approaching her desk.