Chapter Twenty-Seven
I have no choice. I go home.
It’s late; the house is quiet, in darkness. It ought to feel safe, a place of refuge, but it doesn’t. Hugh and Connor are upstairs, asleep. Completely unaware of what’s happening, of where I’ve been. I’m separate from my family. Separate and alone.
I go into the lounge and turn on a table lamp, then sit in its warm glow. I turn the memory stick over and over in my hands. It’s so small, fragile. I could destroy it easily, crush it under foot, melt it over the flame from my lighter. For a moment I think I will, but I know it’s futile. I put it down, pick it up again.
I fetch my computer, switch it on, slide the stick into the port. I know I shouldn’t look, but somehow I can’t help it. Once, maybe even just a few weeks ago, I’d have still been hoping it might all turn out to be a joke, that he’ll have loaded the device with one of those tacky e-cards I used to hate but now send routinely when I’ve forgotten someone’s birthday. I’d have half expected the file to be an animated cartoon. Dancing monkeys, my face superimposed, singing a song. Fooled you!
But not any more. I can’t even pretend to myself now.
There are a dozen or so files, some pictures, some videos. I make sure my machine is muted then choose one at random.
It’s a video. The two of us. On the bed, naked. I’m underneath him, but my face is in the frame. I’m recognizable.
My eyes are closed, my mouth open. I look faintly ridiculous. I can bear it only for a second or two. I feel a sort of detached horror; detached because I could easily believe the woman on the screen has nothing to do with me, horror because this most intimate of acts is here, recorded without my knowledge, preserved for ever.
Exhaustion wipes me. How did he film this? Did he set up his laptop, angle the inbuilt camera towards the bed? I would’ve noticed, surely?
Maybe it was something more sophisticated, then. A hidden camera, disguised as a drinks can, built into the cap of a ballpoint pen. I know they’re available, I’ve even seen them in the department stores – John Lewis, Selfridges – when I’ve been looking at cameras. At the time I wondered why anyone would want one. They were for professionals, surely, private investigators. They belonged in the realm of James Bond. I guess now I know.
I shiver. These videos and pictures go right back to the beginning of our affair; he must have been planning this, all along. A wave of nausea breaks. I breathe as deeply as I can, long, slow breaths that don’t help at all, then slam my machine closed before ripping the memory stick out of the port and throwing it across the room. It bounces off the wall and clatters to the floor at my feet.
I stand up. I can’t leave it here. I imagine Connor picking it up, taking a look. What would he say? What would he think? I find it and go upstairs. I put it in my drawer; tomorrow I’ll take it out, throw it in the canal or under the wheels of a bus. I want a drink, yet am aware it’s the last thing I ought to do. Once I start I might not be able to stop. I run a shower instead, as hot as I can bear it. Still my skin has never felt less alive. It’s only when the water is so hot it nearly scalds that I feel anything at all.
For the next two days I don’t sleep. I call Anna, over and over, but she doesn’t answer. I’m on edge. I startle at every noise, wondering if it’s Lukas. I dread every call or message, every package in the post. I’m not sure what to do. I call Adrienne, but I can’t tell her what’s wrong. I just say I’m not well, I have a virus, I’ll talk to her next week. She’s going to be away for a few days anyway, she says. Bob’s taking her to Florence.
I decide I’ll turn up for lunch with Anna, at her hotel as we arranged. He might be there, of course, or she might not want to speak to me, but I have no other option. In any case, I decide a severance might actually be better; I could go back to my own life, then, concentrate on Connor and Hugh.
Still I can’t settle. I want to leave the house but can think of nowhere to go. I want to switch my phone off, but daren’t in case I miss a call from Anna. By Thursday Hugh has noticed; he tells me I need to get out, to do something to take my mind off Kate. ‘You’ve just taken a step backwards,’ he says. He thinks the grief has returned, and in a way he’s right. There’s the grief he knows about, and also the grief he doesn’t.
I take Connor out for supper. I choose a bun-free burger and a salad, though when I look over at Connor’s meal, all melting cheese and twice-fried chips, I wonder why I’m bothered. My life is falling apart, my affair about to be exposed in the worst possible way. Why do I care what I look like, what I eat?
Perhaps Kate had the right idea. Eat, drink, fuck who you like and never mind the consequences.
And then die.
I reach over and grab a couple of Connor’s fries. He looks up from his phone, his brow furrowed, his face a picture of mock-indignation. ‘Mum!’ he says, but he’s laughing. It’s a tiny moment of pleasure, seeing him happy. I wonder if it’s the first time since we told him they’d caught Kate’s killer.
I nod at his phone. ‘What’re you up to?’ I say.
He puts his phone back on the table. Within reach, face down. It buzzes almost straight away.
‘It’s just Facebook. And I’ve got a chess game going.’
‘With Dad?’
‘No. Hugh only likes to play in real life.’
‘Hugh?’ I’m shocked, momentarily.
‘He said I could call him that, if I wanted. He said he didn’t mind.’
It bothers me. He’s growing up, but also pushing away from us. The first is inevitable, but like every parent I’d hoped to avoid the second, for a little while longer at least.
But in a way it’s good to be upset by this. After the horrors of the last few days, the worry about Anna and the pictures Lukas has on his computer, this is something mundane and easily sorted. It feels normal. Family stuff.
‘Just don’t ask to call me Julia.’ I’m Mum, I want to add.
‘Okay.’
I smile. I want him to know I understand, that I remember being a teenager; that desperate hunger for adulthood and responsibility. I want him to know I’m part of his world, that I love him. He takes a huge bite of his burger; juice runs down his chin. He wipes it with the back of his hand and I pass him a napkin. I can’t help myself. He takes it from me but doesn’t use it. I pick at my salad, casting around for something to talk about.
‘How’s football?’
‘I was picked for the team again. I’m playing next Saturday.’
He pauses, then says, ‘Oh! Did I tell you?’
I put down my fork. The noise in the restaurant seems suddenly to increase. He’s looking at me, expectantly, his eyebrows raised, and I shake my head.
He takes another bite of his burger, a few fries.
‘Well…’ he begins. I’m about to tell him to please finish chewing before beginning to speak but something, some kind of premonition, stops me. ‘You remember when we went to see Planet of the Apes?’
I feel myself tense. ‘Uh-huh?’
He reaches for the mayonnaise. ‘Well, you remember the creepy guy? The guy who came in and sat right by us and then just left?’
I try to sound as though I’m struggling to recall. ‘Oh, yes,’ I hear myself say. I don’t recognize my own voice; it sounds filtered, distorted, as if it’s coming from some distance away. ‘I’d completely forgotten about him,’ I add. There’s a catch in my voice and it sounds false, even to me. Yet he doesn’t seem to notice. I watch, silently, bile rising to my throat, waiting for him to continue as he squirts mayonnaise on to his plate, then goes for the ketchup. As he speaks he mixes the two to a marbled pink mush. I want him to hurry up with whatever he’s got to tell me.