The Things We Need to Say

by Rachel Burton

  He’d looked up when Jamie had followed him into his study. He’d made the calls he’d needed to make and was sitting watching the rain against the windows, wondering what the future would look like, thinking about everything he and Fran had lost.

  There are only eighteen months between the two brothers. They had always known what the other was thinking. And Will had realised – as soon as he saw the look on his brother’s face – that he knew the secret Will had been carrying for the last nine months, the secret he hoped nobody would ever find out. Just before Jamie confronted him, Will had realised that there was a sense of relief in being found out.

  ‘What the fuck were you thinking, Will?’ Jamie had spat at him, his hands on the desk as he leaned towards his brother. Will hadn’t moved; he had just carried on sitting there, staring out of the window.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ he’d replied softly.

  In the quiet moment that followed he heard the scrape of a chair being pulled up, the gentle sound of Jamie sitting down, a long exhalation.

  ‘Talk to me, Will,’ Jamie had said after a while and Will told him everything, their heads together like they used to be when they shared secrets as boys. The words fell out of him, jumbled together in their eagerness to be released. Will had been glad to finally share the burden of the secret, even though he had known that this was only the beginning and that sharing it would change everything for ever.

  When he’d finished speaking he’d looked at his brother. ‘I’ve been a complete fucking idiot,’ he said. ‘But I thought I’d lost everything. Fran wouldn’t talk to me, as though it was all my fault.’ He paused, blinking back tears. ‘As though it wasn’t tearing me apart too.’

  ‘So you thought you’d fuck a single mum from the village instead?’ Jamie asked, his face white. He’d always had a soft spot for Fran.

  Will had leaned his elbows on the desk, covering his eyes with his hands. If I don’t open my eyes, he thinks, maybe all of this will go away.

  ‘Is it over?’ Jamie asked.

  Will nods, dropping his hands onto the desk in front of him. ‘It’s been over since Christmas Eve.’

  Jamie had sighed. ‘Fran must never find out,’ he’d said. ‘After everything she’s been through, this would destroy her.’

  Will had run his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he’d said.

  ‘Not enough to make sure it didn’t happen,’ Jamie had replied.

  He hadn’t banked on Jamie working out that he had cheated on Fran, but Jamie knew him too well. On Saturday night, while Fran had been getting the dinner ready, he and Jamie had gone to the pub. He’d bumped into Karen there – it had been months since he had last seen her, since he’d broken off their brief affair. As far as he was concerned it was over, in the past. But Karen had flirted with him and there must have been something about his reaction that had made Jamie suspicious. When he’d come out of the toilet half an hour later to see Jamie and Karen chatting, it hadn’t occurred to him what it might have been about.

  But now Jamie knows, Will doesn’t feel as though it is something he can keep to himself any more. He isn’t sure if he can keep lying to her. He isn’t sure if he can keep lying to himself. And, now he’s had time to think about it, he’s sure that Jamie is wrong; finding out isn’t going to destroy Fran. Fran is stronger than most people realise and he owes her the truth.

  He starts to slow his pace down as he circles back into the village, rubbing his temples where one of the tension headaches that have plagued him since law school is throbbing behind his eyes. Some days he can run them off, but today isn’t one of those days.

  He thinks about what Fran had said before he left the house, about wanting to start again. He has wanted their marriage to work all along – even when he was sleeping with someone else it had never been with the intention of leaving Fran. He thought he’d lost everything. He never thought he’d hear Fran say she wanted to try again.

  Initially he’d thought she was talking about something else, and he said he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t, and he was certain Fran wasn’t either. But it doesn’t mean they can’t talk about it. They’re not too old to try again. Not quite. Not yet.

  But if they are going to try again, they have to build it on honesty and it has to start with him. He has to tell her the truth as soon as she gets back from Spain. He has to let her have Spain first; he has to let her see how strong he already knows she is. He knows that leading this retreat is going to help her so much and the strength she gains from it will help her make whatever decision she needs to make.

  Because, whether he likes it or not, that decision has to come from her.

  Will slows to a walking pace as he passes the row of cottages at the station end of the village. The station itself has been closed for years but the trains between Cambridge and Newmarket rattle past the back gardens of the cottages once an hour, making these houses less sought after, cheaper, mostly let to tenants who come and go. He comes to a stop outside the house at the end of the terrace. There is something he has to do.

  *

  He stands outside the door of Karen’s cottage remembering the first time he came here on that cold, wet October evening, soaked to the bone and distraught. He remembers how the candles in the jack-o’-lanterns had all gone out in the rain, how there were only a few straggling teenagers still out trick or treating. He remembers how nobody came to their house that night for treats, knowing better of it, knowing that Fran still needed to be left alone.

  He remembers how he’d walked out on Fran, shouting at her when she was at her most vulnerable, slamming the door so hard as he left that he thought the glass panels would shatter.

  If he could live through that night again, would he do things differently? Do we ever have a choice?

  He knocks on the door remembering the last time he was here on Christmas Eve. He remembers how cold it was and how he thought his heart was never going to mend. After Karen had let him in he sat on the bottom of her stairs and wept like a child. And when he’d cried every last tear out of his body, he had told her it was over, that he had to try to make his marriage work, that the thought of being without Fran was more than he could bear. Karen had nodded and he’d walked up to her, stroking her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

  ‘I never meant to hurt you,’ he’d said. As though anybody could ever have come out of any of this without being hurt.

  And here he is again, knocking on Karen’s door one last time.

  ‘Will,’ she says, surprise in her eyes, and something else. Hope, maybe?

  ‘Karen,’ he replies. He tries to remain as distant as he can.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she says, the hope in her eyes flickering for a moment before disappearing. ‘Sometimes I just get so lonely, especially when the kids aren’t here.’

  Will sighs. He knows all about loneliness and the crazy things it can make you do. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘But you know I’m not the person who can help you. I should never have let you believe I was. I’m—’

  ‘You’re sorry,’ she interrupts. ‘I know. We’re all sorry.’ She looks away from him. ‘I sent a text,’ she goes on. ‘I know I shouldn’t have. It’s the last one – I promise.’

  ‘I’m going to tell Fran,’ he says.

  ‘About us?’

  Will nods. ‘She’s away next week, teaching in Spain. But as soon as she’s back I’m going to tell her.’

  ‘I thought you never wanted her to know.’

  ‘She deserves to know. And you deserve to know that I’m going to tell her.’

  ‘Is that really the reason?’ Karen asks. ‘Or is this some sort of big act of contrition. Do you think telling her is going to appease your guilt or something?’

  ‘I don’t think anything will ever appease this guilt,’ he replies quietly. ‘But I have to do it for our marriage.’ He pauses for a moment. ‘For everything we’ve been through.’

  Karen looks at him th
en, a flash of understanding crossing her face.

  ‘I can’t imagine how it feels,’ she says. ‘What it must be like to go through that.’

  ‘I hope you never have to.’

  ‘What if she leaves?’

  ‘I don’t know what will happen,’ Will says. ‘But I do know that I have to be honest with her. She’s my wife.’

  He feels as though Karen wants to say more, as though she wants to reach out and touch him one last time, but he is already backing away down the path. He raises a hand as he shuts the gate behind him and starts running back up the hill towards his house, his wife, his life.

  He wonders how much longer this will be his life.

  Fran

  She is still sitting at the bottom of the bed as he comes into the bedroom.

  ‘There you are,’ he says, his running shoes in one hand, wiping the sweat from his brow with the other. ‘What are you doing up here?’

  ‘Just finishing packing,’ Fran replies, trying to smile. She doesn’t know how she is going to do this.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks. She sees the tension in his jaw and knows instinctively that he has a headache and is pretending he doesn’t.

  She nods. ‘Just a bit nervous about tomorrow.’ Why is she doing this? Why doesn’t she just come out and ask him?

  He walks over to her, bends down, kisses her forehead.

  ‘You’re going to be just fine,’ he says. ‘I promise.’

  Am I, Will? Am I? she thinks.

  ‘I’m just going to grab a quick shower and then I’ll start dinner – OK?’

  She nods again, watching as he lifts her suitcase off the bed and puts it in the corner of the room. She watches as he picks his phone up off the nightstand, unlocks it, and frowns as he checks his messages. He strips off his sweaty clothes and leaves them in a pile on the floor, disappearing into the en-suite. Usually she’d pick them up, put them in the laundry basket. Today she leaves them where they are.

  She waits, listening to the water running, the sound of her husband singing softly to himself. She feels a wave of nausea wash through her. She tries to stand up, but she feels as though she is going to faint.

  She waits.

  Eventually Will comes out of the shower, still humming to himself, his hair damp, the towel wrapped loosely around his waist. He looks so beautiful: her incredible, handsome husband. The man who saved her from her own loneliness all those years ago and taught her how to live again.

  But suddenly he isn’t hers any more. Someone else has touched his skin, run their fingers through his hair, felt him against them, inside them. Fran has to blink back tears to stop him seeing how upset she is. He sees her looking at him and comes over to her, sitting on the bed next to her.

  ‘I love you,’ he says. The smell of his aftershave sends another wave of sadness through her. She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t know what to say.

  ‘It’s OK to start getting on with our lives, you know,’ he says gently. ‘You don’t have to feel guilty because you’re trying to move on.’

  When she doesn’t reply he stands up again and walks over to his closet to get dressed. She watches as he drops his towel, leaving it in a puddle on the floor next to his running things, and slides on his clothes. She wonders what he’s thinking.

  ‘Are you having an affair with Karen Barden?’ She hears the words as though somebody else has spoken them.

  He turns around and she sees a shadow cross his face, and for a second she thinks he’s going to deny it. Then she watches him crumple, leaning back against the wall.

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘So you are having an affair?’ She realises she’d been hoping he would deny it, or that it had been a misunderstanding – a crush or obsession on Karen’s part. She realises that she wasn’t prepared for it to be true. Her world, the one that had already tipped on its axis, flips over completely.

  ‘Was,’ Will replies. ‘Past tense.’ As though that makes a difference. He makes it sound so matter-of-fact. She searches his face for some indication of what he’s feeling but he isn’t giving her anything.

  ‘She sent you a text this afternoon though. I don’t know why I read it, I just …’ Fran stops, biting her lip. Will has the decency not to question why she was going through his phone. She couldn’t have answered him even if he had asked.

  He moves towards her then, wiping his hand down his face. She hears the sound of the palm of his hand against the stubble on his jaw.

  ‘God, Fran, I’m so sorry. It’s been over for months, since before Christmas. I promise you that.’

  ‘When did it start?’

  He sighs. ‘Halloween,’ he says. ‘The night I walked out.’

  ‘The night you …’ She doesn’t finish the sentence, can’t bring herself to remember what he did before he walked out on her. She turns away from him, remembering the argument they’d had that night, how Will had told her he couldn’t take it any more, remembering the sound of the door slamming behind him as he left.

  ‘I didn’t plan to go there,’ he says. ‘I just ended up there.’

  ‘I didn’t even know you knew her.’

  ‘I didn’t really. We bumped into each other a few times when you were still really ill. She was just someone to talk to …’ He trails off, realising the hole he’s digging himself into. Realising there is no way out of this.

  ‘Jesus, Will,’ she says quietly.

  ‘It only lasted a few weeks,’ he says, as though that makes a difference. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing …’

  ‘So why is she texting you now?’ Fran interrupts.

  He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. I saw her in the pub last night. I hadn’t seen her for months.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to get defensive,’ Fran replies. It seems almost impossible to think how she and Will had been together only that morning, the tenderness, the love.

  Her husband had cheated on her. After everything they’d been through. She feels numb, as though her body is shutting down on her again just as it did after her mother died, just as it did last summer.

  She lies down on the bed, rolling onto her side, her back towards him.

  He walks around the bed and kneels down next to her. He takes her hand in his and says her name softly, gently. She doesn’t resist him; she has never known how to resist him.

  Seeing Will kneeling by the bed like that reminds her of when she was pregnant. He would squat down next to her as she settled down to sleep each night and he would talk to her bump. He’d recite nursery rhymes, sing songs, tell him stories about his family, teach him the rules of cricket. He was so delighted that he was finally going to be a father, so delighted that it was a boy. He pretended that it would have been the same if it had been a girl, but Fran had never really believed that.

  Those moments were some of the happiest of Fran’s life. When Will was there with her, when it was just the three of them shut up together in the bedroom each evening, she could forget about the pain in her back, the strange sensation of her stomach stretching taut across her like a drum skin, the weight of her breasts. She could forget about how being pregnant didn’t seem to suit her, how she felt as though her organs were being pushed up and out of her throat, how she didn’t feel big enough, substantial enough, to be carrying Will’s son. When Will pressed his lips to her stomach she could forget about how scared she was to be pregnant.

  She looks at Will kneeling there in that same spot now, after this bombshell. He seems to be expecting some sort of response from her.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ she asks. ‘Was it because I let you down? Because I couldn’t be the wife you wanted?’

  ‘God, Fran, no. You’ve never let me down.’

  ‘I’ve never been able to give you what you want.’

  ‘That’s not true. You’re all I want – you know that.’

  She laughs then, a dry humourless sound. ‘If that’s true, how did you let this happen? How could you do this to me, Will
? How could you do this to us after everything?’

  Will doesn’t say anything. Fran closes her eyes and listens to his breathing, which is almost perfectly in time with hers, just as it always has been.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says eventually. ‘I wanted you to talk to me …’

  ‘There was nothing to say,’ she interrupts, her eyes blinking open. She looks away from him. She knows she should have tried to talk to him more, but she had never been able to find the words.

  ‘I thought I’d lost you, Fran,’ he says. His face might not have been giving much away earlier but now the pain is clear. But it is too late. She doesn’t think she can care about his pain any more. ‘I know I should have tried harder. I know I should never have walked away from you that night. I needed you, but you weren’t there …’ He stops, hesitating, dropping his gaze from hers. ‘Christ, none of this is an excuse. There is no excuse for what I’ve done and it didn’t help if that’s any consolation.’

  ‘None.’

  She closes her eyes again, unable to look at him. He is still holding her hand, his fingers wrapped around hers. She finds herself transported back to the hospital, nearly a year ago, when she thought if she held on to his hand and never let go, everything would be all right. She wiggles her fingers free from him. It doesn’t feel as though anything will ever be all right again.

  ‘Talk to me, Fran,’ he says.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asks. ‘If I hadn’t found out today would you ever have said anything?’

  ‘I was going to tell you when you got back from Spain,’ he said. ‘Although that doesn’t sound very believable now.’

  Fran doesn’t respond, doesn’t open her eyes.

  ‘I thought if we were going to try again then we had to do it honestly. I—’

  ‘I think you’d better sleep in the spare room tonight,’ she interrupts. ‘I’m going to go to bed now. I’ve got an early start in the morning.’