by Dawn Goodwin
Tom just stared at me, like I had something unspeakable on my face.
Suddenly, he stood up, then moved around to where Scarlet had been sitting. ‘Ron,’ he said slowly, ‘There’s no one here.’
The room tilted beneath my feet. I looked past him to where Scarlet had been moments before, but the space was empty. I could feel his thigh pressing against mine, smell his aftershave in my nostrils. I looked around, searching for her, but there was just the two of us in the room. That feeling of slipping sand in an hourglass returned, but this time it was my sanity filtering away.
‘But… she was… did she…?’
She couldn’t have moved that quickly without me seeing her. It was physically impossible. My mind whirled from one side to the other, reasoning, doubting. Tom was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him through the traffic in my head. Images were coming to me – of people watching Scarlet and me with polite disbelief, her food growing cold on her plate, never getting to see her house. I had assumed observers were eavesdropping on our colourful conversations, that she was always on a diet, that perhaps her house wasn’t as grand as mine. Now the synapses were connecting. I felt sick, bile rising in my throat. Tom had taken hold of my hand at some point and was still talking, but I pushed him away and ran to the kitchen. I reached the sink as the bile rose, the acidic malodour creeping into my nostrils and helping to purge my head and my stomach. I was panting for breath. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
Tom came up behind me, reached out and lightly pulled my hair back from my sweaty face.
After a moment, he said, ‘Don’t shut me out. Talk to me, explain it so that I can understand.’
‘I don’t understand myself,’ I choked.
I couldn’t still my thoughts. Out of the cacophony in my brain, one lyric kept repeating on a loop: She has to be real. She has to be real.
‘Where’s my phone?’ I choked out.
‘Why?’
‘Please, find my phone.’
He left the room and returned moments later with it. He passed it to me gingerly and I checked my messages with shaking fingers. There were the texts from Scarlet, but the number they were sent from was my own.
More images fired through my mind: the lipstick case; Felicity’s face as we jumped on the trampoline; the polite sideways glances as we chatted in coffee shops. It all started to click into place and the chorus changed to She’s not real. She’s not real.
I turned and stared, not seeing, out of the kitchen window, my hands clutching the countertop for stability. Life was carrying on regardless out there: a fly batting against the window pane in a vain attempt to escape; a bird rooting in the grass; a red blouse flapping in the breeze on Felicity’s washing line.
Quietly, but with a sting like salt in a wound, I said once more, ‘Help me.’
I felt his arms wrap around me and the energy dissolve from my legs as I collapsed into him. His assured presence broke through the last of my defences and I turned into him, sobbing, gasping for breath, my mind still a hurricane of images as I tried to figure out what had been real and what had been concocted by the peacekeepers in my head. We sank to the floor and sat like that for what felt like an eternity, him gently rocking me as I shuddered and wailed.
*
Eventually, as my breathing began to even out, he pulled me to my feet and we returned to the lounge to sit close together on the couch, closer than we had been in a year, my chest still involuntarily spasming, his hand stroking my hair with the lightest of touch.
Finally I found a voice. ‘She was there one morning, in the rain. It was the end of the school run and I had been watching the stressed mums dragging their kids to school, everyone miserable and shouting, and I kept thinking how lucky they were that they could do that. I wanted to shout out of the window at them, tell them to be grateful. And then she was there, in front of me, and she was… happy… carefree… vivid.’
I looked down at my fingers as they resumed their fidgety dance, picking and pulling. ‘It was shortly after I’d had that meltdown in the shoe shop. Felicity was there and I just… Anyway, after that, we bumped into each other a few times – come to think of it, mostly when I was struggling to cope. She would ring the doorbell, we would open a bottle of wine and talk – about anything and everything, sometimes deep stuff, but mostly not. Mostly it was a way of not thinking about Grace.
‘She made me feel like I could carry on, could laugh again, try and do normal things. It was like a huge weight that had been pressing down on me was suddenly more manageable – not gone, but that bit lighter because she was helping to carry it.’ The words were coming faster and tumbling into each other, but I had to get it all out.
‘It got to the point where I found I needed her so much that I couldn’t get through the day if she wasn’t by my side. She would tell me what to do, what to say, because I couldn’t rely on my own brain any more. She kept the horrible thoughts away too – and there have been some.’ I looked up at him then, open and honest.
I flicked stray tears from my cheeks. Tom rested one hand on my knee; the other reached over to still my fingers and remained there. I looked down at this familiar hand, so different to the hand that had touched me the night before. I shuddered.
‘I never thought… it never occurred to me…’ I shook my head, closed my eyes. ‘Then things just spiralled. We started going to bars, drinking too much. But if I was drinking, I wasn’t thinking, you know?’ I looked back at Tom’s face, wanted to see if he was getting it. He nodded almost imperceptibly and I carried on. ‘Like you said, when it all happened we didn’t talk much, you and I, because I couldn’t. If I put it into words, then it had actually happened and I thought I would go mad.’ I laughed at the irony. ‘And look at me now.’
‘You’re not mad,’ he said with conviction.
‘I’ve managed to create and spend time with an imaginary friend for the last few months. A therapist would have a field day with this. Maybe all the rest – the gifts, the flowers, all of it – maybe it was me after all.’
I wanted him to understand what she had meant to me, how she had helped me to cope and live with the overriding remorse at what happened, but I didn’t think words would do her justice. Instead, I sat quietly, numb.
‘Where do we go from here?’ I asked, scared to hear the answer.
‘We get help – for you, for us. It’ll take time.’
‘Is there an “us” still?’
He didn’t reply immediately and I was surprised at how much I wanted him to say we still had a chance. But it was a lot to ask. We had both done some damage.
‘I know I’ve hurt you, done unforgiveable things, but I need you. I can’t do this alone – apparently, if I have to conjure up an imaginary friend just to make it to the supermarket.’
He laughed a little at that. ‘Yes, there’s still an “us”. We owe it to Grace to try and fix this.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Let me be your Scarlet.’
The agony in my chest had now been replaced with emptiness, the same feeling that was there after Grace died, but this time Scarlet had been added to the pyre and I was grieving for her too.
‘I’m scared, Tom,’ I admitted.
‘Me too,’ he said and pulled me towards him again. ‘I know you don’t want to hear it, but Felicity has been really worried about you. Let her help you too.’
I shook my head against his chest and buried it a little deeper, but he pushed me away gently.
‘Look, her and Ian have been our oldest friends for as long as we’ve known each other. We need to talk about where we go from here. Ian doesn’t know – and I don’t know if I want him to. His company is in a bad way again. I know you don’t owe her anything, but… what about Ian? She really was worried though – she phoned me to tell me about the message in the shower and really wanted to help.’
Something niggled at me, a realisation that was just out of reach.
‘What?’
‘She said you were acting str
ange, talking about something you had written on the shower door or something? She said she’d calmed you down, so I wasn’t to say anything as it would set you off again.’
I went cold. I pushed away from him sharply, my mind whirling.
‘What? What have I said?’
I rushed into the hallway, threw a pair of shoes onto my bare feet and pulled open the door, ignoring the questions Tom was firing at my back.
He grabbed my arm and I turned to him with frantic eyes.
‘Ron!’
‘Get Ian out of the house – I need to talk to Felicity.’
*
My hands were shaking as I knocked hard on Felicity’s door. Tom hovered in the street, shifting nervously from foot to foot.
‘V! This is a nice surprise, how are you?’ Ian pulled me into a gentle hug, but I stiffened and he released me quickly. ‘Come in, both of you.’
‘Oh, that reminds me, Ian. I still have your leafblower – it’s at home. Come with me and we’ll grab it. V wants to chat to Felicity anyway,’ Tom improvised in a thin voice.
‘Oh, sure, go on in V. She’s upstairs, but I’ll tell her you’re here. She’s getting Tabby ready for yet another party…’ His voice trailed off as he noted the look on my face.
I stalked past him and perched on the edge of Felicity’s couch, knees and jaw clenched, trying to steady my breathing. Confronting her outright wouldn’t help – she’d just deny everything. I needed to somehow get her to admit it herself. My knee-jerk reaction to march straight over here meant I hadn’t given much thought to what I would say to her.
Ian flitted around me, offering cups of tea and making polite small talk before heading out the door after Tom.
I heard muffled footsteps, then Felicity strode in, exuding authority in her own home.
‘Veronica, this is a… nice… surprise.’
‘Felicity, how are you?’ I kept my tone as low and neutral as possible.
She began to shuffle around me, straightening magazine spines and flicking imaginary balls of fluff from the coffee table. Once so welcome in her home, I now felt like I was cluttering the otherwise immaculate room. I coughed subtly as a whiff of cloying jasmine tickled my throat from the pointy sticks in the reed diffuser on the side table next to me.
A clock ticked. I cleared my throat.
Before I could speak, a pint-sized girl burst in, eyes blazing.
‘Momma, I thought you washed my pink skirt. I can’t find it anywhere and I need it for Jessica’s party later.’
With practised patience, Felicity turned to her. ‘I did, darling. I laid it out on your bed ready.’
‘No, you did not. You have to find it, Momma. I need to get ready.’ She stamped her tiny feet in time to her demands, her fists clenched.
‘You have plenty of time, Tabitha – and look, Mummy is busy chatting to Veronica right now.’
‘Hi, Tabitha. You’ve grown so big since the last time I saw you,’ I said.
The girl didn’t acknowledge my presence in any way. Instead, she folded her arms defiantly and glared at her mother. ‘I simply cannot be late.’
Felicity turned back to me and said, ‘Bear with,’ then rushed out of the room. The air was instantly more breathable.
Tabitha remained behind to hold court. I was aware of her watching me and I mentally scrabbled around to find something to say. She flounced onto the couch with a melodramatic sigh and an Oscar-winning eye roll.
‘How’s school, Tabitha?’ I asked carefully.
‘Boring.’ Her eyes roamed over the room, then settled on the Hello! magazine on the coffee table.
‘Why are you at home today?’
‘Inset day.’
‘Still doing well with your ballet?’
She grunted in what I assumed was affirmation while retrieving the magazine. Sitting cross-legged on the couch, she looked more like she was waiting for a Botox consultation, with her leopard-print dress pulled primly over her knee and her pink, expertly painted toenails.
Another pre-adolescent sigh as she tediously flicked the pages.
I desperately wanted to say something to her about Grace, that day, make her aware of the damage she had caused. But she was just a child following the example of her designated grown-up, so I couldn’t blame her.
Instead, I focused on the dust-free coffee table in front of me as I tried to order my thoughts. Sitting beside the pile of interior design and gossip magazines was a cast of Tabitha’s feet as a baby, immortalised in shining bronze. Bile rose in my throat again and I took a deep breath.
Then Felicity was back, pink skirt in hand, apologies at the ready.
‘So sorry, darling, I had left it on your chair, not the bed.’
I could hear the muttering under Tabitha’s breath as she stomped from the room.
Silence descended again. Felicity lowered herself regally into the armchair, her ballerina pumps sinking into the plush pale grey pile of the carpet.
I shifted uncomfortably against a stiff cushion. Looking at my feet, I noticed a dark clump of mud lying next to my scruffy Converses like an accusation. I shifted my foot over it, then ground the mud deep into the carpet.
The sun pierced the bay window, its glare narrowing the pavilion grey walls.
‘So?’ She straightened her skirt over her knees, a mirror image of her daughter. ‘You wanted to talk to me about something?’ A quiet smugness settled over her sharp features.
God, I hated her. Her dust-free house, her uncomplicated life, the injustice of it – that she could end up with everything still in place while I was grasping at mere fragments of my former life. How did that happen? I had a sudden, overwhelming urge to grab hold of one of her scented diffuser sticks and plunge it into her self-righteous eye. I sat on my hands instead, reminding myself that it wouldn’t help, even if it made me feel better for a minute.
‘Um, yeah, I… er… First off, my behaviour has been inexcusable. I … I’ve been struggling to come to terms with Grace’s accident and with her birthday coming up… I’ve been acting out of character and I realise that my actions towards you in particular have been immature and… I’m sorry.’ It galled me having to say all of this, but if she thought she had won, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from gloating. I was counting on it.
With an exaggerated sigh, she got to her feet and stood, looking down at me, her hands on her hips. ‘You know, when Grace first died…’ I flinched, ‘I was sympathetic. I mean, I wouldn’t wish that on any parent and it proves how life is so short and we should make each moment count. That’s why I indulge Tabitha so much – she deserves to relish every minute she is alive. But seeing you hanging around the school gates every day, slowly losing the plot, locking yourself away, I started to pity you instead.’ Each word was a poison dart. You could see in every crease line on her face that she was enjoying being in control. ‘You do need to get your head sorted, Veronica, before you lose more than just your daughter.’
Just my daughter?
I got to my feet, tired of looking up at her – or rather of her looking down on me. ‘I’ve said what I have to say, accept it or not.’ I turned to leave, knowing she would want the last word.
‘You know who I feel sorry for? Poor Tom. He has to deal with your breakdown on top of his own grief. No wonder he spends so much time at that hospital. You want to be careful there, Veronica, or someone may well come along and whisk him away from you.’ Her eyes glinted like steel ball bearings.
I turned back to her slowly, fire in my blood. ‘And I suppose you think that woman is you?’ All I could picture was her and Tom, like a black and white movie replaying in my imagination, all jumpy and stuttery.
‘What on earth do you mean?’ She held a hand to her chest theatrically.
I laughed derisively. ‘Oh, come on, since we’re being so brutally honest here. I know about you and Tom. He’s told me. He’s also told me that it’s over between you. You may pity me, but I’m a survivor and we are going to get through thi
s. For you, Grace has nothing to do with it. You hardly had two words to say to her when she was alive unless it was to try and belittle her or use her weaknesses to boost Tabitha’s confidence, even though you should’ve been taking notes on what a daughter should be like so that you could figure out how you are getting it so wrong.’
‘How dare you!’
We circled each other like hissing cats. I hadn’t heard the admission I had come for yet, so I wasn’t about to back down.
‘I came here to clear the air, but you still find me threatening, don’t you? God knows why – I’m the first to admit I’m a mess – but all you see is the one thing you can’t have: Tom. You may have distracted him when I wasn’t there and he was feeling left out, but that makes you a parasite feeding on a man’s weaknesses.’ She paled. ‘He’s knocked you wide now, hasn’t he? He’s come back to me and you just can’t stand it.’ Talk about goading the wild animal.
The hatred on Felicity’s face was raw and ugly. ‘You know, I just don’t get it. Even when you’re going mad, Tom still stands by you. There is nothing you can do wrong. Yet look at you – I don’t understand what he sees.’ She waved a hand in front of me incredulously. ‘He was supposed to be mine, not yours. I’ve had to stand by and watch you living what should’ve been my perfect life with the perfect family. Instead, I got boring Ian and his fucking spreadsheets. Even then, Mr Reliability was meant to have one job: to keep us financially secure and he failed, needed you two to bail us out, to even put a roof over our heads. I’m not actually sure what Ian has been good for, short of fathering Tabitha.’
She was pacing in front of me, jabbing her finger and wearing a mask of repugnance.
‘It was a stroke of genius convincing Ian to buy this house. I needed to be able to see Tom every day, to be within reaching distance of him, because I knew he would realise sooner or later.’
