This is Me

by Shari Low

  Time passed – she had no idea how long – before she could finally control the crying. Her wet hair was clapped to her head, and the robe so big it fell from her shoulders, secured only by the tight knot on the belt around her waist.

  Out in the dressing room, she went to open one of her wardrobe doors and then froze for a second and turned to face Ray’s wall of storage instead. Once again, the aroma of his aftershave, his skin, his breath assailed her, but she had no tears left to cry.

  She had no idea what she was looking for, but she had to start somewhere to find answers. Perhaps he had cash stashed in the house somewhere? If he did, then it would be in this room, she was sure of it. His wardrobes and drawers were the only places she didn’t clean or use, so if there was something to be hidden, this was where it would be. Cash. Cheques. Gold fucking bars. She didn’t care what it was, she just wanted something to explain everything she’d seen today.

  She started with the drawers that were in the centre of the space, between his wardrobes and hers, pulling everything out, not caring that within minutes the room began to look like it had been ransacked. His underwear, his socks, his T-shirts… all of them perfectly ordered, grouped together by size and colour, now in one tangled mess on the floor. But there was nothing unusual to be found.

  On a roll of adrenaline now, she turned to the three double wardrobes that stood side by side. Each wardrobe had the same layout. In the bottom were two shelves of shoes, then midway up was a pull-out rack that had individual hangers for a dozen pairs of trousers, then above that, a row of jackets in one, shirts in the next, and polo shirts and jumpers in the one that was furthest to the left. In the very top of each was a shelf with miscellaneous stuff. Ski wear. His gym bags. A weekend travel holdall. Sweatshirts. His painting clothes. His gardening clothes. An old briefcase she’d bought him in the eighties when he first started up his own business. Starting at the bottom, she pulled out every pair of shoes, searching in the crevices at the back for anything that would give her a clue as to what was going on.

  Nothing. Damn it.

  Frustrated, she pulled over the library style stepladders that were tucked in at the end of the row of wardrobes, then used them to reach the top shelf. All restraint pushed aside, she simply pulled everything towards her, then let it fall to the floor. Shelves cleared, she climbed back down and started sorting through the mess, checking inside bags, in the compartments of the briefcase, between the layers of the clothes.

  Nothing.

  Weary, exhausted, defeated, she slumped to her knees in the middle of the pile of chaos. Ray would be furious if he could see this. He liked order, efficiency, he prided himself on taking impeccable care of his possessions, and in the space of an hour she’d managed to turn his prized room into something resembling a landfill site.

  The three wardrobes stood wide open in front of her, top and bottom shelves completely empty. It was no use. There was nothing there. She should concede defeat, give up, speak to the lawyer as soon as she could face it and then spend the rest of the week clearing up this mess.

  Climbing to her feet, she stepped forward to close the doors of the middle wardrobe, when one of his favourite suits caught her eye. A deep charcoal Zegna single breasted jacket with straight leg trousers, they’d bought it in Macy’s in New York, and the store had tailored it to fit him perfectly. He looked amazing in it. So much so, he planned to buy another on their next trip to the Big Apple. That wouldn’t happen now.

  A sense of longing made her reach out and touch it, stroke the faintly textured surface of the exquisitely cut jacket. Her hand slipped inside, against the cool silk of the silver lining. Ironic. There was no silver lining to any of this. Her fingers grazed the labels, the inside pockets, moving upwards…

  She stopped. Retraced the path her hand had just taken. The inside pocket. There was something hard tucked inside.

  Reaching in, she pulled out a mobile phone. Not Ray’s iPhone – she knew that was in the other room where she’d left it. This was an older one, maybe the model he’d used before he upgraded last time. She tried to compute.

  That must be it. He got his new phone and must have left the old one in his pocket.

  The screen was black and it wouldn’t switch on. Battery must be dead. Curiosity suddenly consumed her. There would be texts on this phone, old conversations between them, photos of years gone by. The thought of them made her smile as she felt a need to step back in time, to connect with the man he was back then.

  Taking the handset into the other room, she plugged it into the charger by his bedside table, and left it there to power up.

  She looked at the clock. Just after five. Daytime drinking had never appealed to her, but today, for the third or fourth time this week (but who was counting?), she made an exception. There was a bottle of red wine on the counter over at the minibar and she uncorked it, poured a glass and downed half of it in one go, desperate to feel the numbing effects of the alcohol. They didn’t come. She took a second slug, then lay down on the bed again, ready to make another attempt to sleep.

  Her eyes had been closed for a few moments when the phone sprang into life beside her, making her sit bolt upright and lurch for it. Notification after notification flickered on the screen. That was strange. She was sure this would have been superseded by his new phone, so it wouldn’t be active. Ray must have put a different SIM card in it. Why would he do that?

  The phone finally stopped beeping, leaving just one message on the screen.

  You have 23 missed calls from…

  She let that sink in. Twenty-three missed calls. How? From who? And when?

  Pressing her thumb against the home button proved futile – it wouldn’t open. She entered the same code as his current handset. Incorrect. Now her heart was beginning to pound again. How many tries did she have before the phone locked her out?

  She had to think about this. Really think about it. That’s when she noticed all the missed calls were from the same number. There was no contact name, just a row of digits. She stared at it for the longest time.

  The number wasn’t one she was familiar with.

  A supplier? A contractor? Maybe. It could even be a wrong number.

  She was about to give up, to consign it to the long list of things that she didn’t understand today, when a devastating thought struck her.

  It couldn’t be.

  Yet…

  She picked up Ray’s other handset from where she’d tossed it on the bed that morning, searched for the initial she’d seen earlier. Y. There it was. Just one letter. She pressed on it and revealed the contact info behind it, then held the two handsets side by side to compare the entry. The two numbers were the same.

  Her stomach lurched, sending her racing to the bathroom, where she vomited every drop of the red wine back up into the sink.

  Noooooo. How could this be happening? This was amputation of the heart, without an anaesthetic.

  When she was sure her legs could carry her, she staggered back into the bedroom and over to the bed. She picked up the old handset again, and with a thumb that was shaking uncontrollably, she pressed the home button, then watched as the passcode box appeared.

  Terror and utter fear that she was right almost stopped her, but she had to know.

  She pressed the first letter, then the next, then the next…

  Y V O N N E

  Then she pressed the blue box in the bottom right hand corner.

  Please don’t work. Please, please don’t work, she begged silently.

  The Gods weren’t listening. The phone kicked into action, the lock screen changing to a home screen picture of her husband, next to woman she’d met only once, but whom she felt she knew inside out.

  Devastated beyond pain, she opened the call history. There was only one telephone number there, the same one the missed calls came from. And it was repeated hundreds of times, going back years. The history showed there were both incoming and outgoing calls, and the most recent one was a week ag
o, the morning of the day he died. Outgoing. He’d called her.

  Numb now, almost robotic, she pressed the text message symbol and the screen filled with messages. She started to read them and the first few were pretty innocuous.

  How are you today?

  What time will you be back?

  Her chest almost unclenched enough for her to breathe, and then wham – a whole conversation that left her doubled over, retching her empty guts up.

  I miss you so much. Not long now. See you tomorrow baby.

  Wear the outfit I bought you last weekend. Nothing underneath.

  My cock is hard just thinking about you.

  Oh baby I’m so wet.

  Find a way to get out – come to me right now.

  I’m thinking about you and my fingers are slipping inside…

  Denise screamed like someone had pierced her skin with a knife and was plunging it in and out, time after time after time. She screamed until she had no voice left, until she collapsed on the bed, her legs kicking everything within reach. The bedside lamps. The tables they were sitting on. The glass of wine went flying across the room.

  When she finally felt spent, she lay back gasping for breath. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Just couldn’t be. It was done. She’d made sure it ended last time. Ray had been unfailingly devoted to her for all these years so there was no way he was still messing around.

  Or had she been kidding herself on all along, a deluded fool, unwilling to see what was really happening?

  Rage now. Uncontrollable, blind fury.

  And in the haze of frenzied temper, she picked up the concealed phone, opened it again, then typed in a message to the only number in the memory.

  My husband is dead. You fucking bitch.

  Send.

  Thirty-One

  Denise – 1993

  Sometimes it really did feel like her daughter hated her. Denise knew Claire would never say that, of course. Claire preferred to do that sullen teenage thing and just avoid coming home. But then, Ray always said that all teenagers avoided their parents. Just a fact of life.

  Every single night Claire had something on after school, then she’d usually go to a friend’s house or to her Grandad Fred’s home for dinner, or maybe just pick up something from the chip shop, then she’d wander in, bang on her 9 p.m. curfew.

  Claire wasn’t the type of girl to argue or look for confrontation. Thank God she didn’t seem to have inherited any of Agnes’s genes. But this staying out all the time was no use, especially when she had chores to do.

  Denise took a deep breath. Ray was always reminding her that too much stressing about things would give her wrinkles and she wasn’t having that. She’d turned thirty last month and she was determined that she was going to hang on to her looks and not let herself go like some women did. That’s why she got her hair done every week and tried every new beauty product on the market. Ray told her all the time that she’d barely changed since the moment he clapped eyes on her back at that youth club disco. She’d once asked him why he’d asked her to dance. ‘Because you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen and I knew we’d look great together. All the guys in the football team fancied you, too.’ This had surprised her – she’d genuinely had no idea that anyone had even noticed her back then, much less found her attractive. That same lack of confidence had made her wonder sometimes if they’d have stayed together if she hadn’t fallen pregnant. During a drunken argument shortly after their wedding, Ray said he’d never have stuck around if she hadn’t trapped him, but Denise knew he hadn’t meant it. How many times over the years had he said she was the best thing that ever happened to him? And if it took a baby to get them together in the first place, well, it was worth it for the bliss they’d found together.

  The clock in the hall chimed 9 p.m. and, right on cue, she heard the door slam shut, and in Claire came. It was like looking in a mirror sometimes. Or a throwback to when she too, was fourteen. Claire was taller than her, and her hair was a darker blonde, but there was no doubt they were related. Although, Denise liked to think they looked more like sisters than mother and daughter.

  ‘Where have you been?’ were the first words out of Denise’s mouth.

  ‘Netball practice, then Grampa Fred’s house for tea, then I went to Jeanna’s to do my homework,’ Claire replied, still standing in the doorway.

  ‘I told you I don’t like that girl,’ Denise replied. ‘Your dad says she doesn’t come from a nice area and I’m not having you turn into some kid that’s wandering the streets at night with a rough crowd. I’ve worked far too hard to bring you up better than that.’

  Claire rolled her eyes and adopted that defiant look that Denise had seen one too many times lately. ‘You’ve worked far too hard?’ she said, her voice dripping with audacity.

  Denise put her hands on her hips, furious at the implied challenge. ‘Yes, I have. How many times has your dad told you how I’ve given up my life to bring up you and your brother? And your dad too, out working all hours of the day and night to support us.’ Denise could feel her temper and her volume rising. They’d had far too many of these fights recently and they escalated so quickly. It was that girl’s attitude. She had no gratitude at all for everything she and Ray had done for her and that pressed Denise’s buttons every time.

  She knew what would happen now. Claire would turn around, walk away, slam the door and stay in her room for the rest of the night. And that’s exactly what would have happened if Doug hadn’t walked in.

  At thirteen, he was already taller than them both. Just as there was no mistaking that Claire was related to her, there was no doubt that this was Ray Harrow’s son. The same black hair, same cheeky grin, same ability to charm his way into, or out of, anything. He had a lovely, caring side too, though, especially where his sister was concerned. To Denise’s surprise, and she’d never admit it, she’d had the odd tug of jealousy over how close Doug was to Claire. They’d been thick as thieves since they were little, and nothing had changed now that they were older.

  ‘Don’t shout at her, Mum,’ he said to Denise, his voice quiet but firm.

  How bloody dare he?

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, young man,’ she spat, refusing to take any of his nonsense.

  ‘Leave it, Doug,’ Claire said tensely. ‘I don’t need you to fight my battles. Won’t make any difference anyway.’

  Denise was getting seriously sick of this girl’s cheek now. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  She should have noticed that Claire’s face was more flushed than normal. Her voice a little higher.

  ‘I said, what’s that supposed to mean?’ Denise pushed, knowing that Claire would back down, walk away, avoid the challenge.

  She was wrong.

  For the first time ever, Claire didn’t turn her back on confrontation.

  ‘It means you’re absolutely deluded, Mum. You believe every single thing he tells you, even when it’s a pile of crap.’

  ‘Don’t you dare…!’

  ‘Why? What are you going to do? Tell him? Good luck with that, because… Oh, that’s right, as usual he’s not here.’

  Denise thought her head would explode with fury. ‘Your dad is out working to—’

  ‘Don’t say “support us”. Or “give us a good life”. We don’t want to hear it. He’s a prick, Mum. That’s the truth. A self-centred prick, who doesn’t give a toss about us and who fills your head with complete crap so that you’ll worship at his feet. And you fall for it every time!’

  The sound of the slap was as loud as it was violent. Consumed with rage, Denise hadn’t even realised that she’d stepped forward and struck Claire across the face until she saw her daughter’s blazing expression.

  The girl stood there, chin jutted high, absolutely defiant.

  ‘Mum!’ Doug stepped forward, aiming to get between them, but Claire put her arm out to stop him.

  ‘It’s fine, I’m OK,’ she said, her voice an ice-cold ca
lm that Denise had never heard before. ‘But let me do you a favour and be the one person who tells you the truth for a change. He isn’t out working to support us. He’s out shagging that woman whose house he’s working on. She lives round the corner from Jeanna and it’s the talk of the scheme. So next time you’re worried about my pals being the wrong kind of people, maybe you should think about the fact that the real scumbag here is your lying bastard of a husband.’

  With that, she turned, walked back down the hall, opened the door and walked out of the house.

  Doug stared at his mother for a few minutes, disgust all over his face, then stepped back, and followed his sister, running to catch up with her.

  Denise gasped as she slid against the wall. Not because she’d hit her daughter for the first time since she was a young kid who needed the occasional smack for naughty behaviour, but because of the words that had come out of Claire’s mouth.

  How dare she? How dare she speak to her like that? How dare she have no gratitude at all for the lives they’d given those kids?

  But it was the lies… the lies about Ray. How dare she say those horrible, awful things about her father? Denise’s throat closed as she re-ran the words in her head. ‘He’s out shagging that woman whose house he’s working on.’ It was ridiculous. He worked long hours because he wanted to squeeze in more jobs, to get the project finished quicker so he could get paid and move on to the next one. And yes, it was after 9 p.m. now, and dark outside, but he’d told her before that he organised his day so that he was doing external work in the daytime, and then internal work at night when daylight had faded. Made perfect sense. He was dedicated. He sacrificed so much, and he did it for them. She would know if he was up to no good. She chided herself for even thinking that could be a possibility.

  But yet… she wanted to see him. Right now. She wanted to tell him what Claire was saying, prove to her that she was wrong.