This can’t go on.
My kids are never going to win if their mum is losing.
Chapter Sixty
Ed
I’ve been sitting outside Nessa’s house like a frigging stalker for the best part of an hour. Raindrops are falling slowly against the windshield as I sit here. No doubt the neighbours will be thinking of calling the police if I don’t get my arse into gear and do something.
Come on, you idiot. Get a grip.
Across the road I watch a couple walking hand in hand, their steps quickening as the rain gathers momentum, their walk turning into a skip, a run, laughter following them. I think about the journey back from the science fair as we all sat in silence; even Oscar was quiet. How I guided my wife from the car and into her mother’s arms, briefly explaining to Brian in hurried and hushed tones what had happened at the school. How I sat on Hailey’s bed reading to her until she finally fell asleep, her eyes puffy from crying behind a locked bathroom door.
I jump as Nessa’s hand thumps the passenger window. I reach for the window control, sliding it downwards, letting the sounds and smells of rain on tarmac into the car.
‘Do you want to come in?’ she shouts above the din. Her hair is covered in one of those plastic covers that my nan used to wear; it looks oddly cool on her head.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply honestly, leaning over the hand brake.
‘She’s not here.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m putting the kettle on,’ she answers and hurries back into her house, her feet zigzagging along the path and hopping over puddles. I slide the window back up and drum my fingers on the steering wheel. I turn the ignition back on and then off again. If I go in there, if I find out the truth, will I still be able to be the husband my wife needs right now? Does she deserve me to be? I toss the keys between my hands, pull up the collar on my coat and walk into her house.
I sit down at Nessa’s kitchen table, and she places a cup of coffee in front of me. I thank her, blowing over the rim, and try to stop myself from shaking. I’ve never really shaken before a conversation, not even when I asked Jen to marry me, because, I suppose, I already knew she would say yes. I notice the school letter about a trip to a local farm. The return slip is missing; Erica must have taken it back today. I make an exhausted mental note to make sure I fill in Oscar’s.
Nessa sits down opposite me. In contrast to Jen, Nessa looks well, made-up, ironed, fresh.
‘Do you love her?’ I ask. I have no control over these words, and I find my face has arranged itself into something that resembles astonishment or shock. Probably both.
‘Ye-es.’ The word rolls forward, lilting at the end like a question. Nessa squints at me like I’m mad.
‘Because if you love her, you will see that this isn’t what she needs right now, she needs stability not, not—’
‘Ed, what is this about? Has something happened?’
I take a sip of my coffee, which goes down the wrong way so I spend the next minute coughing and spluttering and waving my hands. Control regained, I continue. ‘I saw you both . . . together . . . in the pool. The day you made the cardboard house.’
She tilts her head, her eyes looking upwards as if trying to recollect something. Then realisation dawns and her hand flies to her mouth.
I expected a reaction, but I didn’t expect her to try and hide laughter.
‘Oh, God.’ Both hands fly in front of her eyes now, like the beginnings of a game of peek-a-boo. She’s laughing loudly, and I honestly don’t know what to do with myself. ‘I bet you got a shock!’
‘Well . . . yes, I—’
‘We’d had a few drinks.’
‘I know, but—’
‘Naked Macarena, now there’s one to tell your grandkids.’
Naked. Macarena. Two words I wasn’t expecting to hear today. Nessa stops laughing and looks at me.
‘You’re not angry, are you? Jen said she had never played naked in a paddling pool and, oh I don’t know, it was a good idea at the time. I’m mortified you saw it though! What must you have thought?’ She shakes her head in a, I suppose, good-natured way.
‘I, um, I didn’t see the Macarena.’
‘Thank the Lord!’
‘I saw you both, you were . . . entwined.’
She seems to register my tone, my face. ‘Entwined? Oh, Ed . . . tell me you didn’t think? That Jen and I were—’
My face must conclude that ‘that’ was indeed what I thought.
‘But Jen’s not gay, Ed!’
‘I know, but I thought, I thought, she’s not herself, she’s—’
‘That doesn’t mean you suddenly turn gay! Oh, Ed.’ She reaches over and holds my hand. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been thinking that Jen and I have been having an affair?’
‘No, yes, I don’t know. I don’t know what to think any more.’
She holds my face in her hands and kisses my cheek. ‘You stupid, beautiful man. Jen has been in love with you ever since you met. Do you know that she spent two hours walking around with a hair repair kit the day before you were coming? That she was pruning and pampering like a teenage girl just because you were coming over?’ She kisses my head and gets up. Then she tells me about what happened when Jen couldn’t see Kerry, when she thought she had lost her.
‘Jen needs you now more than she ever has, Ed. She wants to choose you, but in order to do that . . . she has to choose to kill her sister.’
Chapter Sixty-One
Jennifer
Ed is the type of man who can make it feel like the sun is shining when outside the rain and wind are throwing things around, desperately shouting for your attention. He is the type of man who will step into an argument and calm it . . . pouring oil over troubled waters. He is the type of man who can make you feel loved, safe, worthy even though you know you are acting irrationally because you’ve only had an hour’s sleep, or you have just had one of those days that tarnishes your routine with bad decisions.
My husband is not the type of man to abandon his wife. But he is the type of man who will protect his family. No matter what. That is why, when he is explaining why he never told me about the science fair, I know he is telling the truth.
We are sitting in our lounge. The wallpaper is made of stripes: beige, grey, silver, beige, grey, silver. I stare at the repeating lines: so straight and neat, so tidy and organised. Just like my life was when we chose them. The list of wallpapers that had been narrowed down into a shortlist, my handwriting clear and precise. Lists used to give me pleasure – even my day to day routine was written down in a list – but I don’t think I would be capable of even finding a notepad right now.
‘Do you understand, Jen? It’s just until you get better . . . the kids are seeing too much. We’re going to fight this, you and I, but the kids need to be protected.’
He reaches into the backpack that he seems to carry around with him wherever he goes and opens a packet of tissues, handing me one. I will my fingers to reach for them, but they don’t move. He leans forward and starts to wipe my face like I’m a child. The texture of the tissue feels rough on my face, like sandpaper. I wish for a moment that it was, that he could rub away this broken layer and reveal smooth new skin, skin that’s not warped and brittle.