‘You knew I’d forget?’
Washing under one arm, Eleanor picked up a pile of Adam’s papers from the dining room table. She cast an eye over them, then, deciding she had no idea what they were or where to put them, put them back down again. How the hell was she supposed to keep this place tidy when the mess was so important to everyone else? Maybe she should try getting her husband a reward chart. It had worked when Toby was acting like a four-year-old. Then again, Toby had actually been four.
‘I … well, I suspected.’
‘You could have just told me and saved me the trouble of forgetting to do it myself,’ Bea grumbled.
‘Where’s the fun in that? Do we have many RSVPs?’
‘I’ll have to check my spreadsheet,’ Bea replied.
‘You mean the napkins you’ve been writing the plans on?’ She felt her friend cringe.
‘You saw that then?’
‘Seriously, Bea, you spend all day organising other people’s lives and yet one party and you’re a bundle of napkins and Post-its. I sent the invites out last Monday; we should have some replies by now.’
Eleanor glanced at the clock guiltily. If she didn’t start Noah’s shape time soon, they’d get behind on lunch and the whole of the rest of the day would be out of whack.
‘I’ll get you a list, okay?’ Before Eleanor could answer, Bea asked, ‘So what have you been up to today?’
She said it like an afterthought, a token question knowing the answer would be short and sweet.
‘Oh, same old,’ Eleanor replied, hating herself for not even being bothered to make something up. ‘This morning we went food shopping and this afternoon we get to have story time and make cupcakes.’
‘Sounds like fun. Save me a cake?’
‘If you fancy risking a bout of food poisoning, there’ll be one here with your name on it.’
Bea laughed. ‘Did you think any more about what we talked about at lunch the other day?’
‘Not really.’ In truth she’d thought of little else; the idea of getting her teeth into something again had set off a spark inside her that she hadn’t felt since before Noah was born. Excitement at doing something that was just for her. But she’d mentioned it to Adam and he’d been his usual uninspiring self. ‘Don’t you have enough to think about with this place and the kids?’ he’d asked, casting a disparaging eye at the plates still stacked in the sink from their dinner. And that had been that.
‘You should, you know. It’d do you good to do something that wasn’t for everyone else for a change.’
‘I will,’ she promised. ‘I will definitely think about it.’
She hung up, taking a look around at all the things she needed to get done before Toby came home from his nan’s and she lost any chance. Plus there was story time and tummy time and every other kind of time being a Good Mother required. Just the thought of spending another six hours with no adult to talk to made her want to scream. She took Noah from his bouncer and laid him on his mat, propped up with the special tummy-time contraption that Adam still shook his head at, surrounding him with brightly coloured and suitably stimulating toys. He kicked his legs happily, and feeling like a complete shit, she flicked on the kettle again, pulled out her laptop and googled ‘starting your own business from home’ in one window, and ‘cleaners in the SY area’ in another.
10
Karen
Karen stepped up her pace, moving through the crowds with an expert fluidity. So much for the failing high street. She should be in a hurry more often; her bad luck might save some of these shops from administration.
In a moment of uncharacteristic disorganisation Karen had walked out of the house that morning without her lunch, only remembering it was still in the fridge when lunchtime had been marked by the sound of her stomach groaning in protest. Not that she’d minded having to go into town to buy something – it gave her a chance to get out of the office and check out the calf-length leather boots she’d had her eye on for weeks.
Cutting through the shopping centre was the obvious choice, and as she passed the Pandora store near the entrance, she glanced at the window instinctively, a gesture that could have been described as either vanity or self-consciousness, to check her hair.
She almost didn’t see them. Maybe had the centre been less busy, had the throng of shoppers not steered her closer to the doorway than usual, or had the shop itself not been almost empty she might have missed them altogether. As it was, in the exact second that she was passing the doorway, he turned, the movement drawing attention to that trademark teenage haircut that was beginning to look out of place on a man in his thirties. He placed a hand on the arm of the younger girl at his side, and as Karen turned back, the shop almost completely behind her now, she saw her smile, the same smile she’d seen just a few days before when that same girl had sat opposite her and talked about her married lover.
Jessica and Adam. Her patient and her best friend’s husband.
The foyer was quiet when she arrived back at work, just the tapping of Molly’s fingers on her keyboard. She looked up and smiled when she saw it was Karen.
‘Nice lunch?’ she asked. Then, registering Karen’s grey pallor, ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Fine, thanks, Molly. I had a sandwich.’ Karen realised too late that that wasn’t what the receptionist had asked, and just how distracted she’d managed to make herself sound with the lie. She’d gone straight back to the office after seeing Jessica and Adam together and completely forgotten to eat, questions slamming through her mind like gunfire.
Is Adam her married lover? Did she know we were best friends? Is that why she chose me? What the hell do I do now?
‘Can you hold my calls for an hour, please?’
‘Sure.’
She fumbled to get her key into the office lock, cringing at how all over the place she must look. Once inside, she could feel herself relaxing – no one watching her in here, no one for whom to maintain the professional demeanour.
Sinking down on to the plush beige carpet and leaning her back against the base of the sofa, she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose to the count of eight. Letting the breath out through her mouth as slowly as she could manage, she felt the panic inside her flow outward, pictured it as a physical entity that she could expel and watch float away. Repeating the exercise twice more, she felt herself relaxing, her thoughts ordering themselves into a list in her mind. She enjoyed lists; they were manageable, organised. They helped her keep control. How anyone got through their lives without a set of bullet-pointed tasks to guide them, she would never understand.
The first item on her list – was it definitely Jessica Hamilton she’d seen in that store? There was no question of whether it was Adam; she’d known him longer than she’d known Michael, had even been with Eleanor when she’d bought him the jacket he’d been wearing that afternoon. The question of Jessica was trickier. She’d only met her once before, and in a different environment. Could she say for certain it was her? She visualised the coat the girl had been wearing, a camel-coloured mac with a tie belt at the waist. She didn’t remember it from their session – in fact the only colours she could associate with her patient were grey and black. Of course that didn’t mean anything; not everyone wore the same coat all the time. Bea had hundreds.
She tried to picture Jessica’s face but could see only features: those murky blue eyes, the helmet of frizzy hair. The girl with Adam definitely hadn’t had that. Her hair had been sleek, styled, her face made up. Granted, Karen had only seen her for a second or two, but she’d got the impression of someone infinitely more confident than the girl who had come to her for therapy. And yet her first instinct had been that it was Jessica – why else would her name spring to mind? There must have been something about Adam’s companion that had made her instantly recognise her as the girl who had been in her office just a few days ago. But try as she might, she couldn’t picture what it was.
Assuming she was wrong and the
girl in the shop wasn’t her patient, had she also been mistaken about them being together? Adam had certainly laid a hand on the girl’s arm, but could there have been an innocent reason? Had he been pushing past her?
No, her first instinct had been right. Whether it was Jessica Hamilton or not, that lying bastard was cheating on her best friend, and now she had to decide what to do about it.
11
Bea
‘Mum! It’s everywhere!’
Fran threw her son a damp dishcloth.
‘Get the worst up and I’ll take care of the rest when you’ve all gone to bed.’
She crossed the kitchen to join her sister at the table, pushing aside a pile of half-term homework to put their coffee down.
‘I don’t know how you cope,’ Bea told her with a shake of her head. ‘Just watching all this is exhausting.’
‘What, the kids?’ Fran grinned. ‘The secret is to stop caring about the things that aren’t really important. Are my surfaces always fingerprint-free? No. Is there an empty milk carton back in the fridge? Probably. Did we have fish finger sandwiches for tea twice this week? Absolutely. But the kids had clean clothes on every day and they were fed and watered. I’ve learned not to worry too much about the stuff in between. I’ll have a perfect home when they’ve moved out.’ She snorted. ‘If they move out.’
‘I reckon Eleanor could learn something from you.’ Bea had always envied Fran’s simple approach to life. Her sister had never worried about whether her clothes were bang on trend, or cared about being at the top of the career ladder. All she ever wanted was to enjoy her family and be happy, and as a result it seemed as though she was. Bea didn’t necessarily want her sister’s life, but it would be nice to feel as content with the one she had.
Fran snorted. ‘Don’t say that in front of Karen, will you?’
Bea raised her eyebrows. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing, just that she’s hardly my biggest fan, is she? I mean, she’s always seen herself as more of a sister to you than I am.’
‘That’s not true!’ Bea’s response was a little too fast. ‘Karen loves you, she’s just a bit intense sometimes. It’s probably the psychiatrist thing.’ She wondered if her words sounded as forced to Fran as they did to her. If Fran noticed, she didn’t pass comment.
‘Yeah, well I guess she’s got issues of her own.’
‘What issues?’ asked Bea, surprised.
There was a huge crash from the living room, followed by two voices shouting, ‘Mum!’ in unison.
‘Oh shit. Look, wait there, I’d better go and see what’s going on.’
Fran disappeared, leaving Bea staring into her coffee cup and wondering what kind of issues her sister thought Karen was dealing with. After a minute, her sister returned and began rummaging around in the cupboard under the sink.
‘Sorry, Bea, they’ve made a right mess in there, knocked over the bloody side table. I’m going to be scrubbing milk out of the sofa all night or it’ll stink like a drain.’
‘No problem.’ Bea swilled down the dregs of her drink and put her mug in the sink. ‘I’ll bail out. I’d rather watch my nails dry than watch you clean.’
‘You’re too kind.’ Fran screwed up her nose.
‘What are sisters for?’
12
Karen
Michael had arrived home that evening brandishing a bunch of flowers like a fencing sword. They’d chatted about work, and Karen had filled him in on as much as she could about her caseload without breaking her monk-like vow of silence. Three times she’d almost told him about seeing Adam with the mystery woman and three times she’d thought better of it. He’d looked exhausted; his complexion was sallow and he downed the glass of wine she had poured for his meal before she’d even dished up. The last people he’d want to talk about were her friends and their marriage problems.
‘Tough weekend?’ she asked, snaking her fingers over his shoulders, kneading out the knots in his muscles through his shirt. He nodded but said nothing, just leaned his head back so his forehead nearly touched her chin. She bent forward and kissed it gently.
Michael turned to her and buried his face in her stomach. She kissed the top of his head, then knelt down so they were face to face and kissed him harder on the lips. This was how it was between them: they let passion wash away the pain rather than talking through it. She would have laughed had it not been so pitiful – a psychiatrist who couldn’t get her own boyfriend to talk about his problems. She recognised the irony, but to push him would be to push him away, and she’d missed him too much to risk an argument tonight.
They took their troubles to the bedroom and cast them away along with their clothes. The sex was rougher, more urgent than usual. It must have been a bad weekend.
By the time they got round to eating, the chicken was tough and dry, so Michael called for takeaway and got dressed to go and pick it up from their favourite place a few miles out of town.
While he was gone, Karen made herself a coffee and sank herself down on the sofa to read a magazine – one of those real-life ‘my mother stole my husband’ types that she swore she only bought for the quizzes.
The downstairs of Karen’s home was modern – sleek lines and chrome kitchen appliances – but it could hardly be called cosy. Everything she owned was a fingerprint hazard, and the off-spec glass patio doors had been a nightmare to find blinds for – even more so considering she never closed them.
The darkness beyond the doors gave the impression that there was nothing there, as though the world began and ended with her house. Silly really, as she was surrounded by other houses; they just weren’t packed together like soldiers in a row. When the darkness was this thick, she felt completely cut off from everyone else. It was one of the reasons she’d chosen the house in the first place: you could be surrounded by people and yet still be on your own.
A thump against the back kitchen door pulled Karen’s attention from her magazine, but only briefly. That was quick; he’d obviously forgotten something. She wondered why he’d been so uptight when he’d arrived home. Had they fought? Did she know about Karen, or suspect? She assumed he wouldn’t be back if his wife knew about her, unless she’d kicked him out.
Lost in thoughts of Michael’s marriage ending, it took her a minute to realise he hadn’t come in. He couldn’t have forgotten his keys; he’d locked the door behind him and she’d heard his car leave. She reached over and cracked the front room curtain open. The car wasn’t on the drive.
‘Hurry up, Michael, I’m bloody starving,’ she muttered to herself, picking up her magazine again.
A second noise, like a short blast of hail against the door, pulled Karen to her feet. She dropped her magazine on the sofa, moved towards the kitchen and peered through the window, greeted by nothing but blackness. Fumbling with her keys, she pulled open the kitchen door and stared out into the night. There was not a movement or sound anywhere. As she went to close the door again, she glanced down. A jumble of items lay beneath the step: a pair of boots she hadn’t worn for years, a jumper, a necklace. Her heart pounded as she picked them up, noticing a card that Michael had sent her for her birthday a year ago, and one of her lipsticks. How had these things got out here? The last time she’d seen any of them they had been in her bedroom, the boots in the wardrobe, the card in a box under her bed.
She scooped up the items and locked the door behind her, throwing one last look into the darkness. The garden was silent; no telltale sniggering or thud of footsteps to indicate that this was the work of bored teenagers.
Shaking slightly, she deposited the items on the sofa and crossed the room to check that Michael really had locked the front door behind him. He had, but she opened it now, staring down the empty street, dimly lit by the eco lamps the council had replaced the once harsh street lights with. Who had thrown those things?
She was about to lock the front door again when she noticed the piece of paper sellotaped to the stained glass. She pull
ed it off and slammed the door shut, turning her key in the lock, then switched on the hallway light. Her hands trembled slightly as she unfolded the plain white notepaper and looked down at the words written in neat cursive handwriting.
I know what you’re doing. I know what you’ve done.
‘You’re sure these things were inside the house? You hadn’t thrown them away? It’s probably kids going through the bins to try and scare you.’
When Michael had returned, he’d found Karen sitting on the sofa staring at the collection of belongings she’d found at the back door, the letter laid out on the cushions next to her.
‘I hadn’t thrown any of them away. They were in the house, in my bedroom. Someone’s been here, someone’s been through my things!’
‘We should call the police.’ Michael picked up the phone. ‘If you’re sure someone’s been in here, then it should be reported.’
‘No,’ Karen replied quickly. If the police came, they would have too many questions. They would want to know who Michael was; they would blame this on his wife, probably even pay her a visit. Everything would be ruined. Besides, she knew who was responsible for this, and it had nothing to do with her lover and everything to do with her. She could hear those very same words on a loop in her mind – ‘I kept waiting for a phone call or for her to turn up, to say “I know what you’re doing. I know what you’ve done.”’ This was about someone else’s lover. This was Jessica.
13
Eleanor
‘Wow, this place looks great! I mean, not that it doesn’t usually, but …’ Bea let her sentence trail off and Eleanor smiled and waved a hand.
‘It’s okay. I know that the redistribution of toys and general crap hasn’t been my strong point lately, but – drumroll, please …’ She paused for maximum effect, and Bea drummed her hands on the glass coffee table. ‘I got a cleaner! And please stop that now, you’re getting fingerprints on my nice clean glass.’
Before I Let You In Page 5
