I take my time. The lights are on in the front room of Edie’s house but upstairs the windows are dark. Edie’s bedroom faces the front. I laid in her bed, once, just for a few moments.
Rob had asked me round to help him build a playhouse for Imogen. I went upstairs to use the bathroom and couldn’t resist sneaking into their room.
I burrowed my head into her pillow, felt the indent she’d left in the mattress and inhaled deeply, trying to rediscover the smell of that night we spent together beside the beach in Wales all those years ago.
Imogen is in the house but so far as I can tell, she’s not looking out of any of the windows, which is good. I’d hate for her to witness violence.
I don’t intend to kill Toby. It would be very hard to explainaway the loss of all three of my remaining close friends and exhausting to feign the appropriate level of grief for the appropriate length of time. But he deserves to suffer for what he did to Emily.
And for being here, close to my daughter.
He deserves to suffer mightily.
Ruth wakes up in her own bed. She feels hardly better than she did earlier, but she doesn’t know if she’s been out for a few seconds, or longer. She thinks it isn’t long.
She has the sense that something woke her but she’s not sure what. There’s often noise on her street, so maybe it was something happening out there.
Her phone isn’t on the bedside table. She doesn’t know where she’s left it.
She thinks about Toby. Maybe, if he agrees to move out and leave her and Alfie alone, if he leaves nicely, she won’t report him to the police. It would be a dark deal, she knows that, but a mother must do what she can to protect her child. It would be a terrible burden for Alfie to bear if Toby has done those things.
She hears a noise from downstairs. A door slamming. She tenses up.
“Hello? Ruth?” It’s her mother, Flora.
Ruth gets out of bed and looks down the stairs.
Her mother is in the hallway, coat on, Alfie in her arms. He’s snuggled against Flora but when he sees Ruth it’s as if he comes alive. He stretches out his arms and his whole body strains to reach her. She runs down the stairs and grabs him, showers him with kisses which he reciprocates by nuzzling her. She’s never been so pleased to see him. She’s not sure she can ever leave him again while he’s so little.
“What are you doing home?” Flora asks.
“I wasn’t well, so I came back early. I was going to call you, but I fell asleep. What are you doing here?”
Her mother studies her. Her nose twitches and Ruth keeps her mouth closed. Flora has accused her of drinking too much before. Ruth can’t stand it if she starts now.
“You don’t look well, darling. I’m here to collect Alfie’s hat. You forgot to pack it.”
Alfie is looking shyly at Ruth. His eyes are wide and bright. There is so much love in them. All the love in the world. Her heart melts. She squeezes him and feels her heart grow.
“There are books all over the pavement outside,” her mother says. “They look like Toby’s.”
Ruth shakes her head and blinks back tears. From Flora’s tone of voice, she knows her mother is remembering when Ruth did the same to Flora’s books, the psychiatry texts that she’d spent a lifetime acquiring, causing both heartache and hundreds of pounds’ worth of damage.
“Is Toby here?” Flora asks.
Ruth doesn’t know how to reply. Her mother has caught her at rock bottom. Again.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” is all she can think to say, hating herself.
“I think we should pick up the books, first, don’t you?”
Ruth shakes her head.
“Darling,” Flora says, “you don’t need to have them back in the house. I’ll put them in my car if you like. But they’re too precious to leave outside. They’ll be stolen or destroyed.”
Ruth feels judged, and it’s horrible, but she understands that in this moment, she deserves it. She is suddenly aware of her own appearance, again, her dishevelment, her unbrushed hair, her foul breath.
She holds Alfie as if he were a life buoy and watches from the window as Flora rescues the books. Alfie plays with her hair, andshe thinks, how bad a person must I be if I can drink and get into this kind of state when I have this child? It’s a question she’s asked herself repeatedly over the past six months, and sometimes, the only answer to it is to drink more. Drinking is the only thing that makes her feel in control, even though she knows how irrational that is.
