He knew they’d lied. Saskia to her parents, him to his. It had been easier for Ethan – they’d gone to his dad’s. Mum hadn’t known his dad was away. And Dad hadn’t exactly known he was there. But he’d given him a key, hadn’t he, to his new place? Given him a brief, manly hug and told him he was welcome anytime. Ethan hadn’t believed him – he knew Dad didn’t really want him hanging around at his new place, not when he was there, but his conscience had been pretty clear about letting himself in when he knew Dad was away, shagging Genevieve in a swanky country hotel.
He didn’t even have his own room at his dad’s. He’d been glad, as he led Sas up the wide staircase to the guest room. It was like a hotel, with a wide, smart bed, and a bathroom of its own. Nothing like his room at home. No posters of Cheryl Cole or class photos from primary school. No worn Man United duvet cover and toast crumbs, definitely no sticky tissues – and God knew there’d been a lot, with all the resisting. She’d loved it – exclaimed over the white orchid on the bedside table, and the grey silky bedspread. Some of the chat had been nerves, he knew. He felt them too. They’d gone quite far – as far as they dared – at parties and in their living rooms, quick fumbles between parental interruptions. This was entirely, completely different.
And he’d taken a bottle of wine from the rack in Dad’s kitchen, screw top, so he didn’t have to mess about with a corkscrew, and, yes, they’d both had a glass, quite a big one, but she hadn’t been drunk, and neither had he. It took more than that. Much more for him. Rupert said he’d ‘plied her with alcohol’. Made him sound like some creepy bloke in a club. He’d hated that. Anger had given him a rush of courage, and he’d tried to sound cool. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he’d said, ‘it was Rioja, not Rohypnol.’ That was when he’d thought Rupert Reed was most likely to hit him.
He knew it had been smart. He was trying to save face. As wretched as Mum and Dad splitting up had been, this, her parents showing up and accusing him like that, was the single worst thing that had ever happened. Since Saskia, the anger had receded. But here it was, flooding back, bringing with it the self-loathing. They were determined he’d done something wrong. Something very wrong.
They thought he’d committed rape. The horrifying thought that Saskia might have accused him of it exploded in his brain, white bright. It wasn’t true. He knew that. How frightened of this awful man would she have had to be to lie about it? He couldn’t believe she’d do that. It was her father, her shitty father. He’d twisted it. He’d warped it.
But it hadn’t been. How could it have been? They loved each other, didn’t they? They’d done everything right. He’d been gentle and careful and thoughtful. And it had been beautiful. Wasn’t that what they were supposed to want for her?
Downstairs, he heard more angry, hissing voices. Heard the front door slam. ‘You haven’t heard the end of this,’ Saskia’s dad was saying. He couldn’t hear what his mother said in response. Outside, a car pulled out and seemed to speed away. Even the car sounded angry. He waited for his mum to come up, but she didn’t.
Long, long minutes later, he crept out of his room to the landing. He could see his mum sitting on the stairs. She’d retreated from the closed front door, backed up a few yards, and was sitting, her head in her hands. She looked … defeated.
‘Mum?’ His voice sounded choked. He took the first few steps down towards her. ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’
She turned her head, and he could see that she had been crying. ‘Oh. My love.’ She stood up, and opened her arms wide. He flew down the last stairs into her embrace. She put her arms around him so tightly it was almost painful.
‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’
And then they both just cried, and held each other, in the quiet hallway. Neither of them quite knew which one was holding up the other.
18
The day Carrie died had started like any other. That was the way all of the day-they-died stories started, wasn’t it? Because, of course, they did, and, of course, it had. Because if you knew how that particular day ended, you’d do almost every tiny thing differently. You’d hold her in the middle of the bed, where the two of you always woke, back to back, but still touching. You’d forgo the familiar comforting bum-bump routine you’d developed to make sure you’d both heard the alarm or the baby, whichever was first. A lazy hand swung backwards to pat whichever part of the other person was nearest before you threw off the covers and forced yourself to sit up and rub your eyes, the better to greet an ordinary day.
You wouldn’t shout semi-crossly when she asked a question you couldn’t possibly be expected to hear because the shower was running and the radio was set five clicks higher than you’d ever set it. You’d eat at the table, not standing at the island, spooning Cheerios in with the urgency of a man with places to be and the manners of a Neanderthal. You’d tell her things. Say things. Important things. No one ever said important things at a weekday breakfast unless they were domestically important – did you put the bins out? Is the Sky guy coming today? Have you remembered it’s parents’ evening tonight? Did you pick up my dry cleaning, honey? That was his important thing that morning. She was his wife, the mother of his children. A clever, funny, fiercely bright, amazing woman. And that was his important thing that day.
She had, of course, collected his dry cleaning. It was hanging on the back of the coat-cupboard door. Had he registered irritation that it hadn’t made its way upstairs, where he’d wasted a few seconds looking for it? Would he have dared to be irritated about that? He might have been, because he didn’t know what day it was.
How would you say goodbye to someone if you knew it really was goodbye? How would you ever let go? You’d do every tiny thing differently. And you’d never give her the bloody car keys.
At first he’d thought he’d lost them all. When he took the call, he’d thought his whole family was gone. No one would tell him. No one knew. So he’d felt the strangest sense of relief, even in the first dreadful moments of knowing he’d lost her, that he hadn’t lost them all. The relief was a chink of light in the crushing darkness of that knowledge, and it was brief, and then it was gone.
It was 6 August. Arthur had turned one a month or so earlier. Bea was four, and Delilah was two and a half. They’d just been away for the first time as a family of five. He’d only been back at work for a day or two. It had been a great week in a hotel in Newquay. Nothing too ambitious. The weather had been unusually good, and they had filled their time with sandcastles, rockpools and ice creams. The hotel had been one of those clever places totally geared up for young families, with waffle machines in the dining room and baby listeners in the bedrooms.
Several times he’d taken the three children to breakfast on his own, and left Carrie to sleep. He’d known he’d be all right – it was a safe-space dining room, with patient, non-judgemental staff happy to help. He was supposed to be an equal parent, confident and competent, but in truth the three of them and just him still scared him a bit. The noise, the potential for mess and the infinite possibilities of domestic disaster. It was okay here – lots of new-men dads all in the same boat. And the lie-ins had paid off. Arthur was the worst sleeper of the three children, and Nick’s work meant Carrie had borne the brunt of it while she was on maternity leave. She was due back at work in September and was tired in her bones: he’d wanted to let her sleep until she was woken by her own body clock, not someone else’s. She relaxed, and was revived. She laughed a lot, and looked at him in the way he loved most.