‘So now you can go home and hug your dad – your real dad – and know that there’s absolutely no doubt about your relationship with him. You’re still a freak though, for the record.’
‘Very funny,’ I reply, putting down my glass. ‘Right, I think I’ll have a browse in the Duty Free. Why don’t you wait here and finish your drink?’
I grab my bag and walk away, feeling the slow release in my chest the moment I’m away from him. This pretence that everything is okay between us is proving impossible. Tension is suspended between every cheerful note in our voices and every forced laugh.
Yet, it’s still easier to pretend that everything is just as it’s always been, when, in fact, I unfriended him on Facebook less than an hour ago; the first step towards us landing in Manchester and slipping out of each other’s lives forever.
*
‘What’s that meant to be?’ I ask, peering at his in-flight meal as we’re somewhere over Switzerland. ‘I can’t tell if it’s animal, mineral or vegetable.’
‘You mean these unidentifiable beige pellets haven’t given you a clue?’ he says.
‘Rabbit poo?’ I offer.
He chuckles. ‘Okay, two words, three syllables in each.’
‘So now we’re playing airline food charades?’ I ask.
‘I haven’t got my Travel Scrabble with me.’
I peer at the dish again and narrow my eyes. ‘Spaghetti bolognese.’
‘Wow, well done.’
I’m genuinely shocked. ‘Really? Is that really what it is? Does it taste like spaghetti bolognese?’
‘No, it tastes like rat droppings basted in wallpaper paste but that’s not the point.’
I laugh but it fades away almost before it’s released from my mouth. ‘You’re going to be a great dad, Ed.’
I detect the trace of a smile on his lips. ‘I’m going to do my best.’
Having agreed to take separate taxis home, we collect our baggage from the carousel in Manchester Airport in ominous silence.
Then we head through the security doors and follow the tide of passengers out into Arrivals. There’s a shriek of joy behind us, as two little girls run past and into the arms of their grandparents. Families reunite. Lovers embrace. And in the midst of them all are Ed and I, slowing to a halt.
‘I wish things could’ve been different,’ I say under my breath, focusing hard on a newspaper stand.
His shoulders rise. ‘Me too.’
Then I feel his hand fold into mine and the warm pressure of his fingers compels me to look up at him one last time.
‘Allie! Ed!’
Our hands release, we look up and there is Julia, striding towards us.
Chapter 69
Julia’s arms are around Ed’s neck and an intense bolt of shame cracks in my chest. I hover helplessly, unable to look at them, unable to do anything except rustle in my bag, pretending to search for a lip balm, the exact location of which I already know. I eventually pull it out and smear it on my mouth redundantly. My eyes dart to the exit and I consider acting on an urge to slip outside and climb into the first taxi I can find. But I know I can’t without Julia immediately questioning why.
Ed’s hands find their way to her waist and sit above each hip bone, his arms tense and inflexible, like the limbs of a shop dummy that have been twisted into position. Eventually, she slides her arms down from his neck and steps back to look at him. ‘You look wonderful,’ she says.
My eyes drift to her belly and I try to locate a bulge, one that I hadn’t registered when she came to my flat two weeks ago. Her frame is still so slender that you’d never guess she was pregnant if you didn’t know, even with the unquestionably rosy glow to her cheeks.
‘I can’t wait to hear all about your trip. Oh, Allie, it’s so good to have you back too!’ Then she launches herself at me and I return her hug, hardly able to hate myself more.
‘Congratulations, Julia,’ I say, then remember I’m not meant to know.
She narrows her eyes: ‘Are you talking about the baby?’
I nod stiffly. ‘It’s wonderful news.’
Her face is entirely immobile for a moment, before a tiny twitch appears on the lid of her right eye. ‘I made Ed promise not to reveal it to a soul until he was back, so we could do it together,’ she says, turning to him for some kind of explanation.
But Ed doesn’t say a thing, so I find myself mumbling, ‘Sorry, Julia. It just . . . I won’t tell anyone, obviously.’
She glares at Ed again, then smiles. ‘Well, thank you, Allie. We’re over the moon. Right, let’s get you both home.’
But there is simply no way I can sit in a car with the two of them. ‘Oh, I’m going to go straight to my dad’s actually, so it’s probably easier if I just get a taxi.’
She looks at me as if I’m demented. ‘Don’t be silly, Allie. I’ll drop you off.’
‘No, honestly it’s fine. It really is. I couldn’t let you go out of your way and I don’t want to intrude when you’ve got so much to catch up on.’
‘But your house is on the way!’
‘Honestly, I think it’d be best—’
‘Allie, what’s the matter?’ she says, fixing her gaze on me.
‘Nothing!’
‘Ed, tell her not to be silly.’
Ed hesitates. ‘If . . . she wants to get a taxi, then she should.’
Julia runs her eyes coldly over my expression, before doing the same to Ed. ‘Have you two had a row?’
I think about saying yes, that that lie would be the lesser of two evils. But Ed leaps in first. ‘No, everything’s fine.’
But she’s not convinced. ‘What’s going on?’
I panic. So all I can do is say, ‘Nothing at all. I just didn’t want you to go out of your way, but if you’re sure you don’t mind, a lift would be great.’
The moment that follows is suffocating.
‘Let’s go and pay for the parking then,’ she smiles.
*
As Julia drives out of the multistorey car park into the darkness of the street, I realise Ed and I need to pull off the performance of a lifetime. To act not only as though nothing happened between us, but also as if things are just as they should be. That we are fresh from our trip, ready to face the world, and not that we were about to part for the very last time.
Because, although Ed will have to come up with an explanation for that at some point in the future, now is most definitely not the time. The problem is, having been babbling for most of the journey since Italy, I suddenly seem to have lost the ability to speak. I sit in the back of the car, willing him to say something. But he is mute too.
‘When is the baby due, Julia?’ I sound so false I can barely stand to hear my own voice. I already know the answer to this question, but it’s the only thing I can think of to say.
She glances at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘At the moment they’re saying ninth of November. My first scan is next week though so they might change that date. Either way, it’ll be a lovely winter baby, just in time for Christmas.’ She reaches over and clutches Ed’s fingers. I watch his hand deliberately relax into hers. She looks over at him briefly, then returns it to the steering wheel.
‘I’ve been really lucky so far. No sickness, just a little nausea and tiredness, nothing I can’t cope with.’
‘You’re looking really well,’ I say, glancing through the window and realising we’ve only gone past one junction on the motorway.
‘Thanks. I’m not looking forward to getting so fat, though, I must admit.’ Julia glances at Ed. ‘You’re very quiet, darling.’
‘Just tired after the flight.’
She looks at him sideways. ‘It was only three hours, Ed. Hardly gruelling.’
Nobody says anything to that. There’s another unbearable silence as I slump in the back, watching the signs flick past. They are almost mesmeric, the streaming red lights, the smooth hum of the engine, the rhythm of my heart. I look up and see that Julia is looking at me throug
h the mirror, studying my features.
I lower my eyes, pretending I hadn’t noticed, but when I check back again she’s still looking. I shift to the side of the car, pretending to make myself comfortable but really to get out of sight. I wish Ed would say something.
‘Where did you go in Portofino? That’s where you were when we spoke on the phone, wasn’t it? Were you having dinner at a hotel?’
‘Yes. The Splendido,’ Ed replies.
She looks through the mirror again and holds my gaze. ‘Nice. Very romantic. I’m surprised you could keep your hands off each other.’
Chapter 70
As we speed along the motorway, all I can hear in the oppressive vacuum is my thrashing heart against the thrum of the engine.
‘How’s work been?’ Ed asks, all of a sudden.
But the energy in the car has shifted. She refuses to look at him, her eyes glowering on the road, her knuckles white as she clutches the steering wheel. Seconds tick by before she finally answers: ‘Fine.’
He reaches over and turns on the radio.
I don’t recognise the song but it is slow and melodic, dreamy almost. It lulls me into a false sense of security, a temporary distraction. Julia reaches over and snaps it off, leaving the silence beating into the car like the heat from a furnace.
Suddenly, she switches lanes, overtaking a saloon. She slams her hand on the horn violently and shouts, ‘Fucking idiot,’ even though it’s not clear what he’s supposed to have done wrong. Then she yanks the steering wheel and we are thundering along the fast lane, passing car after car as if on rails. Drops of rain begin to softly pelt the windscreen.
‘Julia, you need to slow down,’ Ed says, sounding far calmer than I am.
She responds by slamming her foot down on the accelerator.
‘You’re going to get pulled over.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a baby,’ she snaps, switching lanes again, pushing my back against the hard leather of the back seat. The rain starts to fall harder and faster, white droplets of light that thud on the glass before they’re swept away by wipers that are now on full speed but still not entirely clearing the view. They’re the kind of conditions that require total concentration and yet it’s very clear Julia is not concentrating on her driving.
‘Everybody thought I was mad for letting my husband go on holiday with another woman,’ she says, her voice slow and controlled. ‘They said it didn’t matter how strong our relationship was, or that we’ve been married for almost two years. They said that Ed is a man and all men give in to temptation.’ She glances at me in the mirror. ‘That’s what they said.’
Neither of us reply.
‘Were they right?’
The back of my neck is slick with adrenalin, my palms greased with cold sweat.
‘I asked you both a question,’ she says, anger radiating from her. ‘Did anything happen between the two of you while you were away?’
Ed swallows. ‘Why are you asking this, Julia?’ This makes him sound completely guilty. And he is.
‘Why aren’t you answering my question?’ she presses. ‘Because it’s perfectly reasonable to want to know if my husband has been fucking someone else, isn’t it? Particularly while I’m pregnant with his child.’
Guilt drips from his silence like candlewax.
‘You fucking bastard,’ she says grimly.
‘Julia, the turn-off’s there,’ Ed says, as she’s about to sail past the junction. But, at the last minute, she hurtles across three lanes, as the screech of tyres and roar of horns rings through the air.
‘Julia. You really need to slow down.’ His voice is steady and deliberate and that only seems to exacerbate the situation.
‘I don’t think you’re in much of a position to tell me what to do, you piece of shit,’ she hisses, violently diverting us onto a narrow country road, where we hurtle into slicing rain and darkness.
With each treacherous bend, the grip of the car’s wheels feels more fragile. I grasp for the headrest in front of me, having given up trying to breathe and telling myself this will be okay.
‘You’re very quiet back there, Allie.’
‘Sorry,’ I mutter.
‘Sorry for being quiet or sorry for screwing my husband?’
The glare of headlights from an oncoming car flashes through the windscreen. She tightens her grasp of the steering wheel and accelerates, until the other driver is forced to slam on her brakes and screech out of the way.
‘Julia, that’s enough. You need to stop the car or you’re going to kill us all.’
She turns and looks at Ed. ‘I’ll tell you what, both of you – I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll slow down if one of you tells me the truth. Did anything happen between you that wasn’t supposed to?’
We are in an impossible place, with an impossible question. If I thought we could carry off the lie, I’d say no, for no other reason than I’m in fear for my life. But she’s not stupid and everyone in the car understands that she already knows something has happened.
Ed tries one last time to reason with her. ‘Julia, pull in and we can talk about this. Please.’
‘I’m not going to do that, Ed, until you tell me that you fucked Allie. I already know it happened.’
‘I didn’t . . . we didn’t . . .’ he starts saying, but how can he finish his explanation?
‘Didn’t what? Just tell me the truth, Ed. You only need to admit it. To say one little word: yes. Then I’ll stop the car and we can all talk about this like adults.’
She swings round the corner and we begin climbing up a hill, racing to the summit as the car is filled with the smell of fear and sweat. I am terrified. Ed is terrified. The only person who isn’t terrified is Julia, who is pumped from the drama of it all.
We turn another corner and the car begins hurtling down a hill, gathering speed as it slides across the road. And it’s then that Ed says it, in one last-ditch attempt to do something. ‘Okay, you win.’
She glances at him. ‘Something happened between the two of you?’
He hesitates for a moment, before saying: ‘Yes.’
Julia gently applies the brakes and the car begins to slow. I experience a heady and incomparable kind of relief as we finally come to a stop at the foot of the hill, which dissolves entirely when I realise that we are right in the middle of the road.
‘Julia, you need to move,’ Ed says. ‘This is a blind bend.’
She draws air into her chest and pushes it out again before turning to look at Ed, glowering, his betrayal burning her up. For a moment there is nothing but silence and rain coming down in sheets on the windscreen.
Then she reaches over and punches him. She throws every bit of her weight behind it, smack in his eye socket. My hands shoot to my mouth as Ed attempts to unfurl himself from the seat and I become aware of headlights reflecting on the sign on the bend.
‘Julia!’ I shriek.
She tries to scramble back into her seat, to fumble for the gear. But she’s not fast enough. And in the next three seconds all I am aware of is the screech of brakes, my own scream and the explosion of light in the back of my head, before the world crashes to black.
Chapter 71
Peggy has been up and dressed since 5.30 a.m., having failed to sleep. She’s exhausted, but can’t keep still nor concentrate on yesterday’s newspaper, which she stares at as she sits at the kitchen table. Her head is elsewhere, her thoughts rolling back to the subject that once dominated her every waking hour.
Peggy can’t blame Christopher – Stefano – for feeling as he does. What sort of mother gives away her baby? He has every right to be angry, to want nothing to do with her. And although she wonders what version of events Vittoria told him, that is the undeniable crux of the matter. He was not cruel when he spoke to her. He was as polite as you’d expect any good Italian boy to be. But the distance in his voice will haunt her to her dying day.
She has allowed herself to dream of some kind of grand reconciliation over the y
ears. She’d hoped he might soften his view, change his mind. But it’s never been clearer that this would not be forthcoming. There wouldn’t even be Christmas cards, or the odd email, the smallest slivers of connection.
It’s only now that she realises how much she’d clung onto hope in all those years. She knew he was elsewhere in the world, but she put all her dreams into one hopeless idea – that one day he would walk back into her life. At times, it had been the single thing that kept her functioning, a vague and formless longing that, even though she wasn’t allowed to reach out to him, he’d come looking for her. Only when he did, it was not the reconciliation she’d dreamt of.
So she is left again with the feeling that this is her punishment for letting Christine die. For failing to see that she looked tired and making her go to the doctor before it was too late. Peggy keeps thinking about how she probably ate all the wrong things when she was pregnant with her daughter; nobody bothered with all that in those days. There’s every chance that something she did caused Christine to end up as she did, dead far too young.
So she has had to live without Christine and Christopher. For most of her life, she has been half a person, an empty version of herself. A daughter without parents. A mother without children.
She picks up the cup of tea she’s microwaved three times and winces when she takes a sip, realising it’s stone cold again. So she throws the liquid in the sink and opens the cupboard underneath, rummaging for a duster. Dusting is the only thing that takes her mind off things right now. She knows it’s not a fashionable thing to admit to these days. She goes into the living room and sprays Mr Sheen on the mantelpiece. The old-fashioned scent, half chemicals, half almonds, fills her head and hits the back of her eyes.
She rubs the cloth harder, until it squeaks against the wood and her forearm aches. But she can’t polish away the twist in her stomach. Suddenly, she is unable to carry on. She drops the cloth and falls to her knees, rolling onto her back as she lies on her living-room floor, letting her eyes soften on the light shade, a cobweb dancing like a handkerchief in the breeze. She wants to sink into the ground and just keep going, tumbling below the earth.
Messy, Wonderful Us Page 27
