Chapter Two
Hannah
‘Please. God. Tell me you’re joking.’
Vicky and I are sitting opposite each other at one of the six tables in the café we meet at every week. It’s on a back street in Penzance. The walls are light blue, in need of a touch-up, and there are paintings of birds and huge Cornish skies done by local artists. When it’s warm enough, the door is wedged open and the small space floods with natural light, sea air and the cry of gulls. It’s cheap and basic, the type of place Nathan wouldn’t be seen dead in. Which is, of course, why we meet here.
Vicky shakes her head in disbelief. ‘But why?’
Her blonde hair is tied back in a scruffy bun, and even without a scrap of make-up and four-year-old twins who never sleep, she is as pretty as she always was. Her skin is smooth, religiously moisturised, and the lines around her hazel eyes so delicate it’s as if they’ve been painted on with the finest of brushes.
The waitress places our pot of tea on the table, with a slice of coffee cake for Vicky, and toast and jam for me.
‘Guess that means you won’t be coming along to cheer for him?’ I lift the lid of the teapot to see if it’s brewed enough then pour two cups.
‘No, I bloody won’t. I mean… really? An award? Why would the council give a lawyer an award?’
‘I told you. Citizen of the Year.’
She groans and mutters something under her breath.
Vicky makes no effort to hide her dislike of my husband. When I told her Cam and I were finished and I was with Nathan she was having none of it. We’d known each other since nursery. Our mums were friends and we played together for happy hours while they gossiped and drank tea. From primary school through secondary school we were inseparable. We went to our first gig together, got drunk together, smoked our first cigarette together – stealthily swiped from her mother’s pack of Benson & Hedges – and went to as many parties as we could, invited and uninvited. Vicky knows me better than anybody else and there was no way she would ever believe I’d fallen head over heels for Nathan Cardew in only a matter of days. All she did was shake her head.
‘No,’ she’d said, refusing to believe it. ‘No. There’s something you’re not telling me.’
She also wouldn’t accept Cam had just upped and gone in the night without even a goodbye. Her interrogations were exhausting. I’d struggled to keep strong, because all I really wanted to do was curl myself into her arms and tell her the truth. All of it. Every last, filthy detail.
Would things have turned out better if I had? Could she have helped me? Sitting in front of her now, I have yet another overwhelming urge to confide in her. But I can’t risk it. The fallout would be devastating. I’ve kept the truth buried for long enough. I’m not going to unearth it now.
When I found out I was pregnant things got even harder.
‘You have to tell Cam. He’ll come back. Of course he will!’
This was when the real lies began.
‘Don’t you see?’ I said, sobbing into my hands. ‘I did tell him. That’s why he left. He wants nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with the baby. He’s moved on and says he’s never coming back to Cornwall. He told me he never loved me. I didn’t tell you because I was scared. Of the baby. Being pregnant. I hoped it would… go away. But… it didn’t.’
Lies, lies, lies.
Lying to Vicky made me feel sick. But though the idea of the baby was terrifying, it finally gave me the perfect excuse for Cam’s sudden disappearance. I dropped my head, unable to meet her eyes.
‘Bastard,’ she breathed. ‘The fucking bastard.’
I didn’t correct her.
‘Does Nathan know?’
I nodded. ‘He wants to get married.’
‘And he’ll accept Cam’s baby? Just like that?’
I glanced at her but didn’t reply.
‘No. Surely no?’ Judgement and shock in her whispered words. ‘Hannah, you can’t…’
Then I straightened my shoulders and took a bolstering breath. ‘Women have done it since forever.’
‘But it’s not—’
‘I don’t want to have a baby on my own,’ I said resolutely, stumbling unwittingly into the truth. ‘What kind of life is that for either of us? I owe my child more than a bedsit and benefits. Nathan can give us a decent life.’
Her disapproval physically hurt.
I took her hand in mine as tears spilled down my cheeks. ‘Please don’t tell anybody. Please, Vicky. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want my baby to grow up without a father.’
She went with it reluctantly, but when Nathan started to push my friends and family away, when he began to isolate me, her dislike of him grew into hatred, almost as strong as the hatred she has for Cam, the man who, as far as she is aware, abandoned her pregnant friend without a backward glance.
I unwrap one of the small packets of butter and spread some thinly on one of the triangles of toast.
‘What does Citizen of the Year even mean?’
‘He does a lot for the community. You know that. Apparently it was the first time in eighteen years that a nominee was universally voted through.’
She scoffs. ‘And, what? You have to go and stand at his side and play the dutiful wife?’ She breaks off a piece of cake and puts it in her mouth.
‘Of course. I want to be there.’ My attention is caught by a group of girls on the street outside, fourteen or so, dressed in school uniform, skirts rolled up to mid-thigh, giggling and pointing at something on one of their phones, the case decorated in pink diamante which catches the sunlight, fingernails painted in colours I’m certain their head teacher would disapprove of, eye make-up heavy, lips shiny with cheap pink gloss. Bunking off. These are the kids for whom school is a dull inconvenience and life outside its gates so much more enticing. Nostalgia prods at me like an annoying child. I tear my eyes off them and look back at Vicky. ‘Apparently, some VIP from the council is going to do a speech.’
Another groan. ‘Don’t tell me they’re giving him a bloody trophy.’
‘A brass plaque in the town hall.’ We exchange wry smiles and she laughs with another shake of her head.
The waitress clears our empty plates and asks if we’d like anything else. She’s a striking girl with dreadlocks tied back in a floral scarf, a nose ring, and a puffy-eyed tiredness from partying. She reminds me of myself at the same age, smiling through a hangover whilst dropping pasties into bags for sunburnt tourists and beer money.
‘How’s your mum?’ Vicky asks then.
I smile. ‘She’s OK. Sleeps a lot but seems fine.’
‘And Alex?’
I press my finger on to some toast crumbs on the wipe-clean tablecloth and brush them on to my plate.
‘He’s fine. He’s—’ I stop myself.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me.’
I take a breath. ‘He’s growing up, that’s all. Getting argumentative.’ I hesitate. ‘With Nathan.’
‘Good for him.’ She lowers her eyes, perhaps aware that her comment could be taken as a criticism of me for not standing up for myself.
‘It’s nothing serious.’ I continue picking up the scattered crumbs with my finger. ‘Teenage stuff. He won’t be the first boy in the world to have a tricky relationship with his dad. It’s normal, isn’t it?’
It surprises me how much the deterioration of Nathan and Alex’s relationship still upsets me. It wasn’t always the same. When Alex was younger Nathan was a good father, engaged and interested most of the time, albeit uptight and unaffectionate. But when Alex was around seven or eight he seemed to draw away from us. He became colder, more distant, as if somebody had flicked a switch off inside him. His temper was short. He was impatient and moody, too quick with caustic asides. It was around this time he had his first affair. Maybe he just got bored of us.
Vicky notices my anxiety and takes my hand. ‘Yes, of course it’s normal. God, do you remember the fights I had with my parents? I was convinced I was adopted.’
I smile.
‘He’s a good boy,’ she says then. ‘He reminds me of you when you were that age.’
Her words unleash snippets of memory from back then. The biting cold and crashing waves. The fear that grabbed hold of me. The dawning realisation that everything was altered.
‘Change of subject.’ Vicky’s voice wrenches me back. ‘Did you talk to him about our night away?’
Her face splits with sudden excitement and my insides cave a little as I recall Nathan’s stony face and the definitive way he said no. There was no question mark, no room for debate, no way he’d let me go. Vicky was a bad influence. A flirt. Common. She’d poison me against him. The more I begged, the more rigid he became. What about Alex? he’d asked, his voice edged with glass. And the dog? You can’t just walk out on them. You have responsibilities, Hannah. Responsibilities.
I give Vicky what I hope is a sheepish smile. ‘Not yet.’ Another lie. ‘But I will. Promise. We’ll get the award ceremony out of the way, then I’ll ask him.’
‘You’ll ask him?’ Her eyes close in an indignant blink. ‘Hannah. He can’t stop you, you know? You’re not a kid. Don’t ask him. Tell him. I mean, for God’s sake, what’s his problem?’
‘He worries I won’t come back. After last time—’
She rolls her eyes. ‘That was years ago. And you’re not the first woman to get postnatal depression and flip out. He’s punished you enough, for God’s sake.’ She shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling. ‘Jesus,’ she whispers. ‘He’s such a bloody child.’
I have a vivid recollection of the stillness of the dark, deserted platform. The way I stood there, staring up at the train timetable. No trains. Too late. My head all over the place. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing there and no idea where I was going. All I could think about was getting away. Then the next thing I knew he was in front of me, eyes burning with seething anger, hands reaching to rip my baby away from me. Words coming in a torrent. Terrifying words. Telling me if I did anything like that again he’d sue for custody. I’d lose my son forever.
Later, when Alex was asleep in his Moses basket, Nathan came into the bedroom, laid his head on my stomach, and sobbed.
‘You have no idea how much you scared me,’ he whispered. ‘You endangered our son. I can’t trust you with him while you’re so unstable.’
The next day he took my bank card and passport.
‘He’s over protective,’ I say to Vicky.
‘Over protective? You mean nuts. Honestly, Han, I don’t know how you put up with him.’
My cheeks flush with warmth as I stare fixedly down at my knotting fingers.
She sighs and when she next speaks her tone has softened. ‘It’s just one night.’
I nod and force a feeble smile. ‘I’ll talk to him.’ I look out of the window and see two seagulls. One is young – new feathers pushing through his brown down – and holds a crust of bread in his beak. The other is older and is intent on stealing the crust. The two birds hop about on the pavement, fluttering and spinning around each other as if dancing and, for a few moments, I’m mesmerised.
‘I just want you there with me, that’s all.’
One night away, the two of us, to celebrate her fortieth birthday. It’s a present from Phil. When he phoned to tell me, I protested. Told him I couldn’t possibly accept such a gift. He insisted. I was part of the present. There was no way Nathan would allow me to have a night away and he certainly wouldn’t let another man pay for me, so I told Phil he should take Vicky and the two of them could have a relaxing night away from the twins. But he said it was already decided. Vicky missed me, he said. This would be the best birthday present she could wish for. And before I could stop the words coming out of my mouth I’d said yes. The thought of it was thrilling. Eventually I’ll have to make my excuses. Phil will end up taking my place. But I can’t face telling her yet.
‘I can’t wait,’ I say with a smile.
‘Booze, fags, no kids, no husbands. It’ll be like the old days.’
The old days.
Before that night. Before the horror of it all. Back to a time so far removed from now I wonder if it was ever even real. Who was that young woman? I remember her vaguely, like one might remember a character in a childhood book, carefree, surrounded by lightness and laughter. Popular and confident. Filled up with joy like an over-inflated balloon, shifting from party to party, pub to beach, living in the moment, working the week with the weekend in sight. Then in the blink of an eye she was gone. The lightness turned dark. The laughter became no more than a distant echo. That young woman, a version of me, trapped in the past like a stranded time traveller.
A new version of me was born that night but not completed. Then, as I followed Nathan numbly into St John’s Hall registry, the transformation continued. My husband took over my deconstruction. One by one he took aim at my friends – unworthy, boring, ill-educated, uncultured – until gradually they were weeded out. I should have fought it but I didn’t. What was the point? It was only a matter of time before they tired of the anaesthetised husk of the girl they once knew. What kind of friend could I be? I was broken. So I let him tell me I needed a fresh start. That it was better to cut ties with my old life. That I deserved more. He spoke with such authority as he pointed out their flaws and failings, I’d find myself agreeing with him. Why was I so dreadful at choosing friends? How had I gravitated to such people? Was it any wonder everything had gone so horribly wrong? It would be convenient to blame my isolation on Nathan but I am complicit. I let this happen. I walked into this life, into this version of me, willingly, and have nobody to blame but myself.
Thank God Vicky was too strong for us. Nathan detested her from the first moment he met her in the pub that night. She was everything he loathed: dressed wrong, loud, uncouth. In the early years of our marriage, we used to meet up as a four, Nathan and I with Vicky and Phil. After an evening out, he would spend hours criticising her, pointing out how crass she was, how opinionated, how her voice cut through him like nails down a blackboard. It was exhausting listening to him go on and on and on. I couldn’t bear it so Vicky and I began to meet in secret. Once a week, on a Tuesday, at this tiny café in Penzance. It’s clandestine and rebellious and for an hour each week I feel free. Like those girls bunking off school. Like I felt in the old days.
I check the clock on the wall.
‘I should get to the shops.’
‘Yes. And I,’ she says with purpose, ‘must get back to make two World Book Day costumes for tomorrow morning. Any idea what I can make with some bin bags, a newspaper and about half an hour?’
She takes her bag off the back of the chair and reaches in for her purse and a packet of Marlboro Lights. She tucks a ten-pound note under the salt cellar and puts the cigarettes on the table in front of me. Visiting time is over.
‘See you next week and, in the meantime, enjoy being the proud wife of the award-winning citizen.’
I drop the cigarettes into my bag and we give each other a hug. ‘Thank you,’ I say.’
Outside I notice the young gull has lost his crust of bread and is huddling, rather sorrowfully, in the doorway of the shop next door.
Chapter Three
Hannah
Even after all these years, the effort of keeping the bad stuff at bay can overwhelm me, and when it gets too much I’ll retreat for a short while to the built-in cupboard in our bedroom. It’s a habit, and I should stop it, but the small dark space feels safe, as if I could hide there forever and nobody would find me. Vicky mentioning the old days brought it all crashing down around me. I’m taken by a sudden panic. I leave the shopping bags and run upstairs. My breath is coming in shorts gasps. I wrench open the cupboard door, slide the clothes along the rail and crawl in, careful not to catch myself on the exposed carpet gripper, left when we removed the old carpet to reveal the floorboards. I pull the door closed until only a blade of light slices the darkness. There’s a vague scent of long-since removed mothballs. The washing powder I use. A hint of dampness in the floorboards.
The recollections come at me in toxic flashes like fragments of a hateful photograph torn into pieces.
The burn of vodka on the back of my throat.
Cam’s simmering anger. The incomprehension in Nathan’s eyes. Vicky’s laugh.
A shot of sambuca lit with a green plastic lighter. The heat on my hand as I extinguish the flame. Swill the glass. Breathe in hot fumes. Drink. Drink.
Drink.
Don’t blister your mouth!
Who said that?
Another shot. A new song on the jukebox. Blur. ‘Girls and Boys’. Vicky dancing, eyes closed, hands above her head.
Where are you?
So many people. Faces blurred. Names forgotten. Pushing through their sweating bodies. The sting of freezing drizzle. Empty streets.
Where are you?
Footsteps.
Muffled voices. Distant music from the pub. Disembodied laughter.
Then come his eyes. Staring. Their shocked glassiness burrowing through the softest parts of me. The unspoken words.
Everything is changed now.
I see him in the water. His hair sways in the quiet like seaweed. Skin ashen. Mouth stretched wide in a frozen cry…
Nausea spirals through me and I shake my head to dislodge the image, but it holds firm. I hit my hand against the floor and a sharp pain shoots up my arm. The nails on the gripper have torn into my skin. I stifle a cry and lift my hand to my mouth. The taste of blood creeps over my tongue.
In the bathroom I hold my finger beneath the tap until the blood stops streaking the water. I turn the tap off then dry the cut and take a plaster from the cabinet. I apply it too tightly and my finger throbs angrily beneath. Back in the bedroom, I close the cupboard door, straighten the bedcovers and plump the pillows, and scour the room for anything out of place. The air is hot and stuffy up here. I’d love to throw up the sash windows but they are sealed shut with decades of repainting.
Downstairs I set about making our supper. Our kitchen is straight from the pages of a farmhouse-style feature in an interiors magazine, with worn flagstones, a leather armchair with a tartan wool blanket draped over it. A collection of copper pans in different sizes hang over the oak baker’s table. They get a polish every other week. On a Wednesday. Nathan likes things to look beautiful. He likes me to look beautiful. He tells me I’m beautiful often.
‘You,’ he says, fixing his gaze on me, ‘are a beautiful thing.’
He enjoys it when other men notice me. If he catches sight of a man giving me a second look, his chest puffs out, and he takes hold of my hand. I own her, his body language says. She is mine. He particularly likes it if the man looking is someone he views as beneath him. Like the Spanish beach attendant on holiday who appeared like an obedient dog to the click of my husband’s fingers. When his gaze lingered on my breasts, a scornful smile grazed Nathan’s face.
‘An umbrella for my wife.’
‘Of course. This will be ten euro, señor.’
‘For an umbrella? Ha! You lot are bold as brass.’
The man gave a curt nod and smiled as he slipped Nathan’s money into the pocket of his snow-white shorts. I watched him twisting the stake of the parasol into the sand and imagined – for one moment – he was driving it into my husband’s head, straight through his eye, rotating it one way then the next until Nathan stopped moving and his blood ran in rivulets into the sand.
When the man finished putting up the parasol, I thanked him.
He smiled. ‘De nada, bella señora.’
The kitchen is the type of quiet that hums. I listen hard for footsteps or the sound of the study door creaking open. The unrest which seeps out of Nathan’s study taints everything. Sometimes I wish his father would get on with appearing. I’m sick of him threatening to. Though if he did I’d be screwed. I could scream as loud as my lungs would let me in this house and nobody would hear. I miss neighbours. My mother used to chat to ours over the wall in the back yard. A pot of wooden pegs on the brick wall, a basket of washing waiting to go out on the retractable line which spanned the sunlit concrete space. I fondly remember the peals of laughter and exclamations and snippets of gossip which would drift in through the open doors and windows. I think it’s the deadened silence in this house that gets to me the most.
Cass raises her head as I retrieve a copper pan from the hook. I heat some olive oil and soften chopped onions, carrots, a stick of celery, before turning up the heat and browning some lamb mince. I add tomato puree, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, and some beef stock. While it’s simmering, I make the mashed potatoes. I take my time. It needs to be free from even the tiniest lump. I transfer the mince into the Le Creuset dish Nathan gave me for our first anniversary and spoon on an even layer of mash. I bend down so I’m at eye level with the dish and then methodically run a fork over the surface to etch perfect parallel lines into the fluffy potato. My eyes water with concentration.
I place the pie on the side, ready to go into the oven, then I set the table
Three places.
I imagine they are for me, Alex and you, Cam. I know, it’s a silly, girlish fantasy, but I don’t care. It warms me from the inside. I imagine you will come in through the back door, tall and rugged, and smelling of fish and engine oil and cigarettes. I’ll raise my fingers to the back of your head and weave them into your gypsy black curls that brush your collar. Your lips are rough against mine when we kiss. Your hands chilled from the winter air.
It’s always cold when I remember you.
I put out three glasses and three plates, the bottle of Worcestershire sauce in front of the plate at the head of the table, then I consult the clock. This is a game I play. I like to set the final item – the salt cellar – as the clock strikes five. Today I’m a little early so I hover above the table, hand poised, eyes fixed on the face of the clock. When the minute hand hits the twelve, I set the salt cellar down and step away. I cast a triumphant smile at Cass, but she remains unimpressed and sighs heavily, whilst making herself more comfortable in her basket.
Alex plays football on a Tuesday night and won’t be home until half past seven, and Nathan arrives home at six. I have one hour until he walks in. I climb the stairs slowly, my limbs feel heavy and stiff. In our bathroom, I close the door and run a bath. There’s a twinge in my lower back when I bend to put the plug in. Age has crept up on me, inched its way into my bones and fibres, thinned my hair, and stolen the rosy hue from my skin. I turn the taps on: the hot on full and a trickle from the cold. I undress and climb in whilst it’s still running. The heat stings, but I force myself to lie back, inhaling against the burn as I submerge my body to the chin. I take the flannel and rub soap vigorously on to it then scrub every inch of my body, face, back of my neck, between my legs, around my breasts and throat. I rinse and scrub again. Soon my skin is tingling and pink. I rub soap on to my legs and shave from ankle to knee, under my arms and along my bikini line. When I’m done I place the razor back in the pot on the side of the bath and climb out and dry myself thoroughly.
At my dressing table, which is antique and ugly, with dark wood, carved detailing, and an array of tiny drawers with faceted glass knobs, I slowly remove my hairpins and drop them one by one into a shallow china dish. I unwind my bun and brush from root to tip in long sweeping strokes. My hair hangs to the middle of my back. It’s been this way since forever. I often fantasise about hacking it off, cutting away chunks of it until it’s short and boyish. Nathan would be devastated and the thought of his reaction gives me a thrill.
