I hope that she’ll come back.
‘So tell me again, Leah. Why did you go to Norwood?’
‘It all got too much. The letters. The journalists. I thought that if I revisited the place that has never really left me I could begin to put it behind me somehow. I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘So…’ he consults his notes, ‘you threw yourself down the contamination chute?’
‘Yes. It’s where it ended before. It was unfortunate there was broken glass. It was such a shock to land on it. I don’t know what I’d have done if Carly hadn’t come and found me.’
‘And you think she guessed where you were?’
‘Yes. We’re sisters. We have a special bond.’
‘And you say she brought Archie along because she was babysitting?’
‘Yes. She’d never have left him alone. She loves him.’ That much, at least, is true.
Thankfully, Archie doesn’t remember anything that happened. Once I’d been taken to the hospital George had called Tash. She’d picked up Archie and had taken him home while I was operated on. The glass had missed my liver by millimetres. I am lucky, I was told.
‘Right.’ PC Godley puts away his pen. ‘I suppose we’ll leave it at that then. The owners of the land could prosecute you for trespassing but it’s not something we’ll encourage them to do. Hopefully now the anniversary has been and gone we’ll hear no more from you.’
I think he’s glad to see the back of me.
It is the first day I have been out of bed. The pain in my side is sharp and slicing but, with George’s help, I make it to the bathroom and a nurse helps me wash my hair while I tremble and try not to cry at the thought of all those who have used the shower before me. The skin they would have shed. Traces of bacteria. We don’t have to be able to see something to fear it. The invisible is always the worst. Afterwards, my hair is wrapped in a stiff and yellowing towel. The nurse supports my elbow as I shuffle back into the corridor.
‘Turn the light off,’ she asks.
Hesitantly I stretch out my fingers and flick the switch, fighting the urge to repeat it twice more.
Small steps.
I am settled in the day room with George. A dark brown tea sits on the table before me. It’s in my own mug, which George has brought in. He looks tired. His jeans hang loose on his hips. Stubble shadows his chin.
I have something to tell him.
‘The doctor has suggested that I don’t come home when I’m discharged. That I admit myself to Mulberry.’ I like that they give it a one-word name. It doesn’t sound like the psychiatric unit it is. ‘The staff are experienced in compulsive OCD and panic disorder and can help me deal with… with the root cause. I think I need… I want to get better. Be better. I don’t know if I should go. I’ll miss Archie… and you. I’ll miss you.’ My words tumble out. ‘I know it hasn’t been easy for you, George, and you deserve a wife who’s… who’s…’ Tears well and before I can swallow them down and speak again, George has reached for my hand.
‘Never doubt that I love you.’ He doesn’t smile as he says this; dread curdles as I wait for the but. And when it comes it is hard and painful. A double betrayal. I had pushed Carly’s revelation about George’s affair to the back of my mind. Not wanting to believe it, but George says:
‘I’ve been having an affair… with Francesca.’
It’s true. I’ve been betrayed by two of the people I trusted most in the world. Betrayed by two of the people I trust most in the world again. Perhaps it’s not as shocking as the deceit of my parents, but all the same I feel an overwhelming sadness. This isn’t only George’s fault though. What have we done to each other? Simon – I never call him Dad – has shaped our lives, is still shaping our lives. It has to stop.
‘Is it over?’ I ask.
‘Yes.’ This time he looks me directly in the eye.
‘Why?’ I wonder if he’s giving her up for Archie’s sake.
‘Because… You.’ He tries to take my hand but I bend my fingers so he can’t hold them. ‘You are everything to me and when… when you started slipping backwards again all I could remember was the rituals, the panic, the OCD, and I forgot,’ he says simply. ‘I forgot how good we can be together and how much I love you.’
‘Do you love her?’ It’s the only other thing I need to know right now.
‘I thought I did.’ He looks stricken as he says this but I am glad he has. If he had just taken comfort in another body without caring I think it would hurt more. The fact I wasn’t enough for him – that anyone else could have done. Knowing he had real feelings makes it at least understandable if not forgivable.
‘And now?’
‘What I feel for Francesca is… something. But it’s not even close to love. Leah, when I saw you carried out of the tunnel, barely conscious and bleeding…’ He takes a moment to compose himself. ‘During the hours I sat in the waiting room while you were in surgery, I had so much time to contemplate life without you. The future looked so bleak but the future I kept imagining – if the worst did happen and you didn’t make it – was always me and Archie. Never with her.’ He reaches for my hand again and this time I let him take it, although when he squeezes I don’t squeeze back.
‘I don’t know what to say to you. It’s such a lot to process.’
‘I know, but I can promise you, Leah, that I know I’ve been an idiot and nothing like this will ever happen again. You and Archie—’
‘I’m going to go to Mulberry and we can sort the rest out when I’m back.’ I don’t say home. I can’t. Home suddenly feels house-of-cards precarious. On the brink of collapse.
He nods. There is nothing more to say yet. The difficult conversations will come later. He presses his lips against mine. They are dry and his breath smells of coffee. He walks away and my heart is breaking.
It feels like the end and the beginning of something all at once.
Chapter Eighty
Leah
Now
My clothes are as dark as my mood as I reluctantly dress for Marie’s funeral. Today I am burying my twin; the other half of me who I had always thought, despite her drinking, to be lighter, happier. I hadn’t known then her endless what happened made us into the people we are today and it wasn’t as bad as we thought, was it? wasn’t the outlook of a more optimistic person than me, but a desperate need to be absolved of blame, freed from the terrible guilt she carried.
‘Let me help you with that.’ My caseworker at Mulberry fastens the buttons on my dress that my shaking fingers can’t quite manage. ‘Your husband is waiting for you in reception. He’s bringing you back afterwards?’
‘Yes.’ My voice is hoarse with the tears I have already shed this morning.
‘Are you sure you’re up to it, Leah?’
This I don’t answer. I’m not up to it. Is anyone ever ready to let go of someone they love?
George doesn’t ask if I’m okay. He knows I’m not. We don’t talk on the way to the church, my head is too full of worries for words. Should I have let Archie come even though he’s only four and barely knew his aunt? Should I have travelled in the procession behind the hearse? Endlessly I think of Carly. Where is she? Is she okay?