The Honeymoon
Page 26
‘Jemma, it’s Dan.’
‘I know.’ I walk over to Gabriel’s carry-cot, by the window behind the ever-closed curtains.
‘Look, I’m so sorry,’ he says.
‘Thanks.’
‘D’you think that’s what happened to Jamie too?’
I pause, gently wipe Gabriel’s nose. He is so tiny, and perfect. Dan’s line of questioning is brutal, in front of my son, but how can it be anything but? Brutal is probably best. I blanch, suddenly, at the thought of it all over again, and lean heavily against the window.
‘Have the police contacted you?’ says Dan now.
‘Yes.’
‘Are they going to drop the charges against you?’
‘I don’t know.’ They have, but I don’t feel like telling him. It’s none of his business.
‘Jemma?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh.’ I can’t even bear to ask what he’s specifically referring to. There are so many options. ‘And?’ I say now to Dan, who is silent, and I know I sound rude, but, really, what does he expect?
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. No. I’m coping, but this is …’ I can’t think of a word that even begins to reflect how bad it is, and I’m relieved when Kay pokes her head around the door to see if I need rescuing. Again, I wonder how I would have coped without my step-mother these past months. She’s a world away from Veronica, who barely even acknowledged me when she and Peter came to see me after the birth, and instead just cooed over Gabriel. I have given up on my mother-in-law ever doing anything other than hating me, even though she’s Gabriel’s grandmother and we are bound to each other forever.
‘That’s good to hear,’ says Dan.
‘Hmm,’ I say. I wish he’d just go away.
‘Jemma,’ says Dan. He tries again. ‘I’m sorry about what happened between us.’
His statement makes me draw in my breath, and I’m dimly surprised my mind finds the energy to respond. But as the words settle in the air somewhere between us – me in London, him in Gloucestershire, I presume – it occurs to me all over again that, if Dan had forgiven me all those years ago, maybe I would have ended up married to him, instead of to Jamie. Which would have meant that I would never have married Jamie at all, of course, never gone on honeymoon with him, never flown to that particular island, never met Chati …
But it gets worse than that. I had married Jamie. And I’d adored him – until Dan had rung me up out of the blue and told me that he still loved me. Still I wonder at that phone call, at Dan’s motivations – the night before my wedding. What had he really hoped to achieve? Did he do it just to destabilize me, fuck up Jamie’s and my chances of happiness? That’s certainly how it looks to me now. And maybe Chati would never have picked Jamie if we hadn’t been so miserable together. I hadn’t thought of it like that before, that it might be Dan’s fault, whichever way you look at it.
‘Dan, it’s not OK,’ I say. ‘It will never be OK. Jamie’s dead.’ My throat tightens around the last word in that sentence.
The silence is painful, but I don’t care.
‘I just … I just wanted you to know how sorry I am,’ he says, again.
‘OK. You’ve told me.’ I can’t bring myself to forgive him. My heart doesn’t stretch that far.
‘All right,’ says Dan. ‘Look … keep me posted, will you?’
‘OK,’ I say, although I know that I won’t. He sounds close to tears but I don’t care. My voice is so quiet. ‘Bye, Dan.’ When he has gone, I stare at the phone and decide I won’t talk to him ever again. His guilt is not my problem. I need to survive.
The cooing is dulcet. I turn and gaze at my miraculous son, give him a little smile, before dropping my head in despair and grief for Dan’s brother, Gabriel’s father, my husband. I say a prayer for Jamie, who I feel so devastated for now, and who I’d loved so much once. I find myself wondering whether we’d have got through it, recovered from our disastrous honeymoon, and it kills me that I’ll never know. And then I stand up and pick up Gabriel, who gurgles with contentment, and I take him out into the garden, and I stand on the cold winter grass and look up into the wide, wondrous sky, to see if we can see his daddy out there, somewhere in the stars.
THE BEGINNING
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First published in Penguin Books 2017
Text copyright © Tina Seskis, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover images © Getty Images
ISBN: 978-1-405-91798-8