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She jumps up and gives me a hug. ‘There was such a queue that I decided to go ahead and order,’ she says. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be long.’
‘Sorry, the traffic was bad. Thanks for coming, I really appreciate it.’
Her eyes dance. ‘You know I’ll do anything for lunch at Costello’s.’
I sit down opposite her and take a welcome sip of coffee.
‘Did you have a wild time last night?’
I smile and a tiny bit of pressure lifts. ‘Not wild, but it was good fun.’
‘Was gorgeous John there?’
‘Of course he was. All the teachers were.’
She grins. ‘I should have dropped in.’
‘He’s far too young for you,’ I say, laughing. ‘Anyway, he has a girlfriend.’
‘And to think that you could have had him.’ She sighs, and I shake my head in mock despair, because she’s never quite got over the fact that I chose Matthew over John.
After Mum died, Rachel had been brilliant. Determined to get me out of the house, she began taking me out with her. Most of her friends were people she worked with, or knew from her yoga class, and when I first met them, they would ask me where I worked. After a couple of months of telling them that I’d given up my job as a teacher to look after Mum, someone asked why I wasn’t going back to work now that I could. And suddenly, I wanted to, more than anything. I was no longer content to sit at home day after day, enjoying a freedom I hadn’t experienced in years. I wanted a life, the life of a 33-year-old woman.
I was lucky. A shortage of teachers in our area meant I was sent on a refresher course before being offered a job at a school in Castle Wells, teaching History to Year 9 students. I enjoyed being back in work and when John, the resident heart-throb of both teachers and students, asked me out, it was ridiculously flattering. If he hadn’t been a colleague, I would probably have accepted. But I refused, which made him ask me out even more. He was so persistent that I was glad when I eventually met Matthew.
I take another sip of coffee. ‘How was America?’
‘Exhausting. Too many meetings, too much food.’ She takes a flat package from her bag and pushes it across the table.
‘My tea towel!’ I say, taking it out and unfolding it. This time, there’s a map of New York on the front. Last time, it was the Statue of Liberty. It’s a joke between us – whenever Rachel goes away, on a business trip or on holiday, she always brings back two identical tea towels, one for me and one for her. ‘Thank you, you have the same one, I hope?’
‘Of course.’ Her face suddenly becomes serious. ‘Did you hear about the woman who was found dead in her car last night, on that road that goes through the woods between here and Castle Wells?’
I swallow quickly, fold the tea towel in half, then in quarters and bend to put it in my bag. ‘Yes, Matthew told me, it was on the news,’ I say, my head beneath the table.
She waits until I’m sitting straight again, then gives a shudder. ‘It’s horrible, isn’t it? The police think she broke down.’
‘Do they?’
‘Yeah.’ She pulls a face. ‘How awful – imagine breaking down in the middle of a storm, in the middle of nowhere. I don’t even want to think about it.’
It takes everything I’ve got not to blurt out that I was there, that I saw the woman in the car. But something stops me. This place is too crowded and Rachel is already emotionally invested in the story. I’m afraid she’ll judge me, be horrified that I did nothing to help. ‘Me neither,’ I say.
‘You sometimes use that road, don’t you? You didn’t take it last night, did you?’
‘No, I’d never take that road, not when I’m by myself.’ I feel my skin reddening and I’m sure she’ll know that I’ve just lied.
But she carries on, unaware: ‘Just as well. It could have been you.’
‘Except that I wouldn’t have broken down,’ I say.
She laughs, breaking the tension. ‘You don’t know that! She might not have broken down. It’s only supposition. Maybe somebody flagged her down, pretending they were in trouble. Anybody would stop if they saw someone in trouble, wouldn’t they?’
‘Would they, though? On a lonely road and in a storm?’ I desperately want the answer to be ‘No’.
‘Well, not unless they didn’t have a conscience. Nobody would just drive on. They’d at least do something.’
Her words slam through me and tears prick my eyes. The guilt I feel is almost unbearable. I don’t want Rachel to see how much her words have affected me so I lower my head and fix my eyes on the vase of orange flowers sitting between us on the table. To my embarrassment, the petals begin to blur and I reach down hastily, groping in my bag for a tissue.
‘Cass? Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘You don’t seem it.’
I hear the concern in her voice and blow my nose, giving myself time. The need to tell someone is overwhelming. ‘I don’t know why, but I didn’t…’ I stop.
‘Didn’t what?’ Rachel looks puzzled.
I open my mouth to tell her but then I realise that if I do, not only will she be appalled that I drove on without checking that the woman was all right, she’ll also catch me out in a lie, because I’ve already said that I didn’t go home that way last night.
I shake my head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It obviously does. Tell me, Cass.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
I scrunch the tissue with my fingers. ‘Because I’m ashamed.’
‘Ashamed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ashamed of what?’ When I don’t say anything, she gives a sigh of exasperation. ‘Come on, Cass, just tell me! It can’t be that bad!’ Her impatience makes me even more nervous so I look for something to tell her, something she’ll believe.
‘I forgot about Susie,’ I blurt out, hating myself for using what is just a mundane issue compared to the woman’s death. ‘I forgot that I was meant to have bought her something.’
A frown appears on her face. ‘What do you mean, forgot?’
‘I can’t remember, that’s all. I can’t remember what we decided to buy her.’
She looks at me in astonishment. ‘But it was your idea. You said that as Stephen is taking her to Venice for her birthday, we should buy her some lightweight luggage. We were in the bar near my office at the time,’ she adds helpfully.
I let relief show on my face, although the words mean nothing to me. ‘Of course! I remember now – God, I’m so stupid! I thought it must be perfume or something.’
‘Not when there’s so much money. We all put in twenty pounds, remember, so you should have a hundred and sixty altogether. Have you got it with you?’
A hundred and sixty pounds? How could I forget being given that much money? I want to admit everything but instead I carry on the pretence, no longer sure of myself. ‘I thought I’d pay by card.’
She smiles reassuringly at me. ‘Well, now that that little drama’s over, drink your coffee before it gets cold.’
‘It probably already is – shall I get us a fresh cup?’
‘I’ll go, you sit here and relax.’
I watch her as she joins the queue at the counter, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. Although I managed not to tell her about seeing the woman in the car, I wish I hadn’t had to admit that I’d forgotten about the luggage. Rachel isn’t stupid. She’d witnessed Mum’s deterioration on a weekly basis and I don’t want her to worry, or to start thinking that I’m heading down the same road. The worst thing is, I have no memory of suggesting that we buy luggage, or of where I put the hundred and sixty pounds, unless it’s in the little drawer in my old writing desk. I’m not worried about the money itself; if I can’t find it, it doesn’t really matter. But it’s frightening to think I’ve forgotten everything to do with Susie’s present.
Rachel comes back with the coffees.
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ she says, sitting down.
‘Go on.’
‘It’s just that it’s not like you to get so upset over something as mundane as forgetting what present you’re meant to have bought. Is there something else troubling you? Is everything all right with Matthew?’
For the hundredth time, I find myself wishing that Rachel and Matthew liked each other more. They try not to show it but there’s always an undercurrent of mistrust between them. To be fair to Matthew, he doesn’t like Rachel simply because he knows she disapproves of him. With Rachel, it’s more complicated. She has no reason to dislike Matthew so sometimes a little voice in my head wonders if she’s jealous that I now have someone in my life. But then I hate myself for the thought, because I know she’s happy for me.
‘Yes, everything’s fine,’ I reassure her, trying to push last night from my mind. ‘It really was just the present.’ Even those words seem like a betrayal of the woman in the car.
‘Well, you were a little worse for wear that night,’ she says, smiling at the memory. ‘You didn’t have to worry about driving home as Matthew was picking you up, so you had quite a few glasses of wine. Maybe that’s why you forgot.’
‘You’re probably right.’
‘Well, drink up and we’ll go and choose something.’
We finish our coffees and go down to the fourth floor. It doesn’t take us long to choose a couple of powder-blue suitcases, and as we make our way out of the shop, I sense Rachel’s eyes on me.
‘Are you sure you want to go for lunch? If you don’t, it doesn’t matter.’
The thought of lunch, of having to talk about anything and everything to avoid speaking about the woman in the car, suddenly seems too much. ‘Actually, I’ve got a splitting headache – a bit too much celebrating last night, I think. Can I take you to lunch next week instead? I can come into town any day now that I’m not working.’
‘Sure. You’ll be all right to come to Susie’s party tonight, won’t you?’
‘Of course. But could you take the cases, just in case?’
‘No problem. Where are you parked?’
‘At the bottom of the High Street.’
She nods. ‘I’m in the multi-storey, so I’ll say goodbye to you here.’
I point to the two suitcases. ‘Can you manage?’
‘They’re lightweight, remember? And if I can’t, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a nice young man to help me!’
I give her a quick hug and make my way to the car. As I turn on the ignition, the time comes up and I see that it’s a minute past one. A part of me – quite a large part – doesn’t want to listen to the local news, but I find myself turning on the radio anyway.
‘Last night, the body of a woman was found in a car in Blackwater Lane, between Browbury and Castle Wells. Shehad been brutally murdered. If you travelled that road between eleven-twenty last night and one-fifteen this morning, or know anyone who did, please contact us as soon as possible.’
I reach out and turn the radio off, my hand shaking with stress. Brutally murdered. The words hang in the air, and I feel so sick, so hot, that I have to open the window, just to be able to breathe. Why couldn’t they just have said ‘murdered’? Wasn’t ‘murdered’ already bad enough? A car pulls up alongside me and the driver makes signs, wanting to know if I’m leaving. I shake my head and he drives off, then a minute or so later another car comes along, wanting to know the same thing, and then another. But I don’t want to leave, all I want is to stay where I am until the murder is no longer news, until everybody has moved on and forgotten about the woman who was brutally murdered.
I know it’s stupid but I feel as if it’s my fault she’s dead. Tears prick my eyes. I can’t imagine the guilt ever going away and the thought of carrying it around with me for the rest of my life seems too high a price to pay for a moment’s selfishness. But the truth is, if I’d bothered to get out of my car, she might still be alive.
I drive home slowly, prolonging the moment when I have to leave the protective bubble of my car. Once I get home, the murder will be everywhere, on the television, in the newspapers, on everyone’s lips, a constant reminder of my failure to help the woman in the woods.
As I get out of the car, the smell of a bonfire burning in the garden transports me instantly back to my childhood. I close my eyes and, for a few blissful seconds, it’s no longer a hot, sunny day in July, it’s a crisp, cold November evening and Mum and I are eating sausages speared onto forks, while Dad sets off fireworks at the bottom of the garden. I open my eyes to find that the sun has disappeared behind a cloud, mirroring my mood. Normally, I would go and find Matthew but, instead, I head straight for the house, glad to have a little more time to myself.
‘I thought I heard the car,’ he says, coming into the kitchen a few minutes later. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. Weren’t you meant to be having lunch out?’
‘We were, but we decided to leave it for today.’
He comes over and drops a kiss on my head. ‘Good. Now you can have lunch with me.’
‘You smell of bonfire,’ I say, breathing it in from his T-shirt.
‘I thought I’d get rid of all those branches I cut down the other week. Luckily, they were under the tarpaulin so the rain didn’t get to them but they would have smoked the house out if we’d used them on the fire.’ He wraps his arms around me. ‘You do know that you’re the one for me, don’t you?’ he says softly echoing what he used to say when we first met.
I’d been working at the school for about six months when a group of us went to a wine bar to celebrate my birthday. Connie noticed Matthew the moment we arrived. He was sitting at a table by himself, clearly waiting for someone, and she’d joked that if his date didn’t turn up she would offer to replace her. When it became obvious that his date wasn’t going to materialise, she went over, already a little drunk, and asked him if he wanted to join us.
‘I was hoping nobody would notice I’d been stood up,’ he said ruefully as Connie sat him down between her and John. It meant that I was opposite him and I couldn’t help noticing the way his hair fell over his forehead, or the blue of his eyes whenever he looked over at me, which he did, quite a lot. I tried not to make too much of it, which was just as well, as by the time we stood up to leave, several bottles of wine later, he had Connie’s number firmly in his phone.
A few days later she came up to me in the staff room, a huge grin on her face, to tell me that Matthew had called her – to ask for my number. So I let her give it to him and when he phoned, he nervously admitted, as he so sweetly put it, ‘As soon as I saw you I knew you were the one for me.’
Once we began seeing each other regularly, he confessed that he couldn’t father children. He told me he’d understand if I didn’t want to see him again but, by then, I was already in love and although it was a major blow, I didn’t feel it was the end of the world. By the time he asked me to marry him, we’d already talked about other ways to have a child and had decided that we would look into it seriously once we’d been married a year. Which is about now. Usually, it’s a constant thought in my mind but now it seems so far away I can’t reach it.
Matthew’s arms are still around me. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’ he asks.
‘Yes, we bought Susie some luggage.’
‘Are you all right? You seem a bit down.’
Suddenly, the need to be on my own is overwhelming. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache,’ I say, pulling away from him. ‘I think I’ll get an aspirin.’
I go upstairs, get a couple of aspirins from the bathroom and swallow them down with water from the tap. As I lift my head I catch sight of my face in the mirror and search it anxiously, looking for something that could give me away; something which would tell people that everything isn’t as it should be. But there’s nothing to show I’m any different to the person I was when I married Matthew a year ago, just the same chestnut hair and the same blue eyes staring back at me.
I turn my back on my reflection and go into the bedroom. My pile of clothes has been moved from the chair to the now-made bed, a gentle hint from Matthew to tidy them away. On a normal day I would be amused but today I feel irritated. My eyes fall on my great-grandmother’s writing desk and I remember the money Rachel spoke about, the hundred and sixty pounds that everybody gave me for Susie’s gift. If I took the money, it would be in there, it’s where I always put things I want to keep safe. Taking a deep breath, I unlock the little drawer on the left-hand side of the writing desk and pull it out. Lying inside is a scruffy pile of notes. I count them; there’s a hundred and sixty pounds exactly.
In the warm peace of my bedroom the hard facts of what I forgot suddenly loom over me. To forget a name or a face is normal but to forget suggesting a gift and taking money for it isn’t.
‘Did you take some aspirin?’ Matthew says from the doorway, making me jump.
‘I quickly push the drawer shut. ‘Yes, and I feel much better.’
‘Good.’ He smiles. ‘I’m going to have a sandwich. Do you want one? I thought I’d have mine with a beer.’
The thought of food still makes my stomach churn. ‘No, go ahead. I’ll get something later. I’ll just have a cup of tea.’
