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I stare at my face in the mirror. The lines around my mouth and my eyes, on my forehead. For nineteen years, I believed it had been someone I didn’t know, a stranger who’d made the most of their opportunity and had been long gone before I was found.
But no stranger would have rung the doorbell like that. Everybody in the village knew that that was my code. Our code.
It was someone I knew.
Even in the mirror, I can see that my shoulders are shaking, my chest, my hands. With fear, and with fury. That is why I am going back to Yorkshire. Back to the one place where I swore to myself I would never return. Back to where it all happened.
I am going to find out who did this to me.
Turning away from the mirror, I let my eyes sweep through the bedroom once more. There is nothing else I need to pack. My suitcase is already downstairs in the boot of the car. I am ready. All I need is for Oliver to leave.
I can hear him puttering around in the kitchen, just beyond the bedroom door. He is setting the table for our farewell dinner. He is leaving for a conference tonight.
Taking a deep breath, I look into the mirror once more. I put on a smile, watching the corners of my mouth lift. Then I leave the bedroom.
Oliver smiles at me when I emerge, as kind as absent-minded. He whistles as he sets the table. If it can be called that. My husband pushes out air through his lips while he hums and calls it whistling. It would be infuriating if it weren’t so utterly, thoroughly him – sweet and funny and a little bit awkward. His woollen sweater is orange and blue. I gave it to him.
I try and pretend that everything’s normal. Water my begonias on the windowsill, however hopeless a case it might be, making sure they have enough to drink. I try not to look at Oliver, because the truth is, while he’s here and doing that silly whistle, I will never bring myself to leave. Suddenly, I feel the need to tell him. Tell him everything. It’s like a pull, or more like a push, like he’s pushing me against the wall. I will tell and then stay here and keep living this life that we have got used to, but which can’t give him what he wants.
Determined, I walk into the kitchen and turn off the stove where the mash has been simmering. Dinner’s ready, nothing fancy, just mashed potatoes and pork pies from the supermarket down the street. Oliver doesn’t mind that I’m not a world-class cook, and I like to think my baking makes up for it. I love baking. Made our wedding cake myself. That was also because money was a little tight – when isn’t it, really, with the rent you have to pay these days? – but still. It was a feast of chocolate, almonds, vanilla and marzipan, decorated with edible flowers.
While I serve the mashed potatoes in small bowls on our plates with the pies next to them, Oliver reaches for the remote. ‘You want me to turn off the TV, Linnsweet?’ he asks.
‘Thanks, Sweet-O.’ The name jolts through me as I say it out loud. That’s what I call him, Sweet-O. Have always called him that. It was a joke at first, because of what his mum used to call him. My sweet Oliver. Sweet-O, I used to tease him. He came up with Linnsweet in return. They stuck.
He’s set the table nicely, I realise as I sit, with a candle and the cloth napkins his mother gave us for Christmas five years ago. After we had just moved here. It is our third flat. We’ve been together ever since we were seventeen. Went to school together. People sigh wistfully when they find out. Those are the most romantic stories, aren’t they, they say, where you marry your childhood sweethearts.
Except the story that’s told about me isn’t one of romance. Except that I’m not good for him. I have always known this, known that he could have done so much better for himself than a traumatised high-school girlfriend who did not even manage to feed the fish regularly. That he deserves so much better. A real family, a proper partner. But I was never brave enough. Never brave enough to go, not even for his sake. When you love someone, you let them go, they say. But how could I let him go?
Until I received the doctor’s letter, three months ago. The results were clear. Oliver is not going to have any children if he stays with me. He will never have a family.
Oliver digs in; he could never wait for anyone when it came to food. Nor can I, actually; for such a mediocre pair of cooks, we sure love good food. But not tonight. Tonight, I sit across from Oliver, clutching the fork in my hand, incapable of taking a single bite. My knuckles feel like they are about to burst through my clammy skin. In sickness and in health, to love and to cherish. I know he won’t leave me. Not after he’s stuck with me for nineteen years. He is too loyal. Too kind. But I cannot take that away from him, too. He has always wanted a family. He was so excited, that morning three months ago when we thought I might finally be pregnant. I had woken up to his hands on my body, to his lips on mine, the scent of a fresh bouquet of flowers and warm croissants on the dresser. The fit of nausea had been so sudden, I didn’t even make it to the bathroom before I threw up. He thought it meant we were going to be a family. I thought so, too, so I went to the doctor’s.
Turns out that’s not what it meant. If there’s one thing I can’t get, it’s pregnant.
I look at Oliver, watch him eat, talk, his soft face, his shaved head hiding that he’s going bald and grey, that deep line on his forehead and his bright blue eyes, bright even after all these years. Till death do us part. It is so hard sitting here and saying nothing. Funny, because I thought I was good at lying.
I hope he won’t look into the car on the way out, when he leaves for his conference. I hid the suitcase under a woollen blanket and bags of groceries. In case he looks into the boot, out of curiosity. I hope he won’t realise. It would break his heart. My husband. For better, for worse.
But how much worse?
Finally, I also make myself take a bite. The mash turned out fine, actually. Then I ask him about the conference. It calms me down just to hear his voice. The corners of my mouth twitch into a half-smile. The conference will last for a week. He has been on the road more and more this past year to go to conferences, to workshops, but this is the first time he will be delivering a keynote. He has been so excited, so nervous, so busy, he’s hardly had the time to think about anything else. To realise that I had become quieter. To think about what I might have been thinking about. To wonder about the fact that I never told him what came of the visit to the doctor’s except to say we’d been wrong.
‘Linnsweet?’
I look up at him. Maybe he made a joke. Maybe I missed it. There is a crease on his forehead – he’s worried about me. Poor Oliver, always having to worry about me. Nineteen years of little else.
Again, I make myself smile. ‘Sorry. You like the pies? They turned out quite nicely, didn’t they?’
A grin flits across his face. ‘Always so modest,’ he teases.
‘It was intended as a compliment to Tesco,’ I insist, corners of my mouth twitching again.
This time, he laughs for real. I would love to laugh with him, but my throat constricts. He has sacrificed enough, I remind myself as I force another bite down my throat. Let him go.
*
Oliver smiles at me when dinner is over. Blows out the candle. This one’s blue. They’re always blue. Then he takes me into his arms, his strong arms, maybe not as strong as they used to be, but still a place where I can’t move once I find myself in them. To have and to hold. ‘Will you be okay while I’m gone?’ Oliver asks. ‘Doing anything nice? Go see a show, maybe? Bake something for me?’
Tell him. Just tell him.
I open my mouth.
‘Sweet-O,’ I say. He looks at me. His blue eyes and large pupils, blown wide from how we have been pressed against each other.
I swallow. He wants me so much. Even after all these years. All these years that he has taken care of me.
Now it is my turn to take care of him.
‘Maybe I’ll just stay in and wait for you to come home,’ I say, every word painful, my mouth twitching. ‘Keep the couch warm.’
‘Do some laundry, maybe?’ He laughs.
‘That sounds crazy,’ I manage.
‘I know, right? Lock him up now, he’s a nutter.’
‘I’ll iron your shirts,’ I say, feeling that non-smile on my face again. He needs his shirts, now that he’s in management, and frankly, he’s rubbish at ironing. When they offered him the promotion, from nursing to public health manager, he said, Hell, yes. That is why he’s been going to all these staff training courses, all these conferences. I always knew he would be great at it. Oliver has always wanted to help people, told me so on our very first date. No matter how hopeless a case, he doesn’t give up on anyone. Sometimes I think that’s why he’s stuck with me so long.
He laughs again, lets me go and grabs his travel bag. I breathe in, then out. Press my arms to my body, my legs together so that I won’t pull him back towards me. He deserves to be happy.
When his cab has arrived, we go downstairs together. He is taking the late-night train to Cornwall. He likes trains. I put on my coat, my gloves and scarf and the hat I made for myself when I took up knitting for a bit. The front door needs a heavy push to open, then we step outside. It’s a cold autumn night.
‘I miss you already, Linnsweet,’ he says and kisses me.
I kiss him back and try to tell myself to do the right thing, not to cave now. Not to be selfish. To let him go. He looks at me, so much want in his eyes and desire and regret. ‘I’m sorry I’ve got to go,’ he says, and I cannot speak.
Don’t speak.
So all I do is nod.
Then I watch him walk to the kerb.
I watch him greet the driver, a friendly ‘How’re you, mate?’ I watch him put his bag in and wave at me.
Then I watch him glance at our car.
He hesitates.
My pulse quickens. Slowly, he turns back to me. My throat goes dry. He looks at me, in my coat, with the gloves and the hat and the scarf, too. I feel perspiration in my armpits and my thighs and the palms of my hands, like sweaty fingers stroking my skin. Let me do the right thing.
He turns to the driver. Tells him something. Then he walks back towards me. ‘Did you forget something?’ I ask, my voice sounding normal even as my tongue feels like it is stuck to the roof of my mouth.
He takes my hand and kisses its back, making my insides twist. ‘Don’t you need help with the groceries?’
I shake my head, glad I’m wearing gloves. Otherwise, he might notice the sweat on my palms. The fluttering of my pulse, the shaking of my fingers. ‘No, that’s all right, Oliver.’
‘No, come on, you don’t have to carry them up on your own. He said he could wait. You should have told me, I’d have helped you when you got in.’
‘No, really, you’ll miss your train,’ I say, laughing even, playfully pushing him towards the cab. ‘Go, Mister Manager.’
Oliver doesn’t budge. He does not like being pushed. ‘You should’ve told me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, rubbing my hand across my lips. There are so many things I should have told him. ‘The only thing that’d make me even sorrier is if it made you miss your train.’
As he gets into the cab, I let out a relieved breath. I watch him until the cab has turned around the corner, towards the city centre, waving till I can no longer see him.
I wait five more minutes. Ten.
He does not come back.
I stare at the corner my husband disappeared around. The red-brick house, the bare tree on the corner, the blue light of a TV set flickering through the curtains. It takes me a moment to notice that there is something wet on my cheek.
Confused, I take off my glove and lift my hand. There are wet tracks on both sides of my face. Wiping the liquid away, I realise they are tears.
I don’t know if they include this in their story. When they tell their cautionary tale about me, up in Yorkshire once night has fallen. Do they add, And after it all happened, she decided it was safer to just stop feeling things? That’s what trauma is, girls, not being able to feel anything, not even sad when you let the person go that you love. Don’t open the door to strangers. Don’t walk home alone at night. Don’t wear that skirt.
I hope they do. I hope they tell the true story.
Well. If we knew what the true story was.
I hesitate, car keys already in my pocket. I’m ready. If I only knew how to do this. I haven’t gone anywhere without Oliver, except to the shops, in years.
Just take one step at a time.
Slowly, I start walking towards the car, hands buried in the pockets of my jeans.
Already in the driver’s seat, I glance up at our flat one last time. It’s then that I realise I’ve forgotten something. Two things, actually.
I rush back upstairs and unlock the flat once more. I’m leaving Sweet-O everything, of course, everything except what I need and he can’t use, my clothes and my makeup and the last picture of my parents, taken two months before their deaths. It was one year ago that they left us.
I hesitate as I look at the CD rack; all my hand-signed records of The Dresden Dolls are already in the car, but there are still The Police’s Best Of, Blondie’s Greatest Hits. I take a deep breath, then I leave them. Oliver loves our music. And it may be selfish, but I want something for him to remember me by.
What I came back for aren’t CDs. It’s my bag with the parcel, and my begonias. The bag in one hand, I leave the bedroom and walk across the living room to the windowsill facing the busy street below. ‘Left behind just because you droop your heads?’ I whisper to my begonias, running a finger along the green stems. They are hardy begonias, Begonia grandis. I got them on a whim in the summer, when they were looking so sad and thirsty inside Tesco.
Wrapping them in a plastic bag, I look around the flat one last time. I reach into my pocket and take out the note I wrote for Oliver. That’s all I am brave enough for. It says that I am fine, and that this is the best way, and that I don’t want him to come looking for me. That he has spent too many years of his life taking care of me already. That I truly wish him all the very best and a real family with someone who can give him what he needs. Someone who will be good for him.
My hands are trembling as I put it on the table. Look at it, the innocent piece of paper, the blue candle on the table, blue like my husband’s eyes. Feel him push me against the wall.
Stay.
The doorbell rings. I flinch. Then I remember it is past ten, and the drunks are starting to stumble out of the pub across the street. Some of them think it’s funny to play a round of knock, knock, ginger with the pub’s neighbours before going home. First time it happened to me, when we’d just moved here, it was the middle of the night. I woke up in panic, the cold sweat of fear leaving traces all over my body, like insistent fingers. With time, I got used to it, though. At least they usually don’t piss in your doorway when they’ve rung all the bells.
Then it rings again.
They never ring again.
That’s Oliver. It must be Oliver.
I rush to the door. Press the button. Nothing happens. I press again. Someone pushes against the front door, downstairs, I hear it echo through the hallway. It won’t open. Jammed.
I dash downstairs to open it, carrying my bag and the begonias. If it’s him, I’ll stay.
When I open the door, it is not Oliver, not his soft, bald face. Instead, there is a delivery woman, red hair tucked under her cap. ‘Bloke named Oliver sends you these,’ she says unceremoniously. ‘Hope he’s not a creep.’
‘We’re married,’ I say, shuffling my bag and the begonias around so that I can take the large bouquet she hands me – autumn flowers, red and orange and yellow, so tasteful.
If only there weren’t also stems of lavender tucked deeply into the bouquet.
‘Doesn’t answer my question,’ she says and puts out her hand.
I stare at the bouquet; it is the same he bought a week ago, before I went to the doctor’s. Then my eyes drop to her fingers. Her nails are polished blue. Behind her, two drunks are falling out of the pub doors.
Then I realise she wants a tip. I fumble with my wallet and press a few coins into her hands and watch her leave. I put the bouquet down as soon as she is out of sight. Now all I’ve got to do is walk out, unlock the car and drive.
I hesitate. Breathe in the scent of the flowers at my feet.
Then I push out. Out into the cold and the dark. I haven’t wanted anything in a long time. But I want this.
I want to find out who did this to me.
THE NEIGHBOUR
It is early morning when I hear the engine roar, lying awake as I often do. It is barely dawn, the light outside white and grey. Must be an old car, the way it sounds. I saw lots of cars like that before I moved here. Now, not so much.
A country road leads past my drive, single lane, old stones piled up into low walls on both sides, grey during the day and black at night. It is absurd. Even after all this time, I still start when I hear a car. They come down this road so rarely.
Surrounded by starch-white pillows and sheets, I listen to the sound of the engine, trying not to be nervous. You can hear them coming a mile off, cars like that. Do not be nervous. And do not get up. It is an obsession, my therapist told me. You are obsessed.
The sound of the engine turns louder. I turn onto my back, fiddling with the bed sheets. They are clean and stiff. There are no other houses down this road, bar one.
Is that why you bought the Kenzies’ home? my therapist asked me. No, I lied, I needed more space.
The windows are frail things. I feel the draft wafting in. When I heard the Kenzies were moving, when I saw the price they had put the house up for, I did not hesitate. I phoned up Mrs Kenzie and went round and signed the lease the following week.
The car is up on the crest of the hill now.
I do not have an obsession.
