Glaring at him, she backs away. ‘I don’t want to bloody well calm down,’ she yells. ‘Nan’s not well physically, and you’retrying to make out that she’s bloody insane. Why are youdoingthat?’
‘I’m not doing anything,’ he tries. ‘You said yourself she was confused. I’m concerned, that’s all. Not just for Lina, but—’ He stops, glancing towards the door as Lina appears like a genie at the mention of her name.
‘I take it it’s me you’re referring to?’ she asks derisively.
‘You left the gas rings alight, Lina,’ I say, keeping my tone kind rather than accusatory. ‘We were concerned.’
Her eyes grow wide with surprise. ‘I did no such thing.’
‘Right.’ Jack sighs agitatedly. ‘So who did then?’
‘Youlit them, obviously,’ she replies.
‘Oh, for fuck’s…’ Jack throws his hands up in despair and turns away.
‘I think you’ll find it’s a not very original twist on gaslighting, my dear.’ Lina looks at me. ‘Did you ever see the Hitchcock movie?’ she asks, sounding so compos mentis it startles me.
TWENTY-SEVEN
With everything Jack had told me about Natalia playing through my mind, sleep is impossible. It’s all so incomprehensible. So too is Lina leaving the gas rings on and then making a reference to gaslighting, which had actually been bone-chillingly frightening, almost as if it had been staged. A shudder runs through me as I imagine she might be fully rational and working to manipulate me. Also Evie. But to what end? She has nothing to gain by doing that. As I think back to her stricken face when she’d looked at me convinced I was Natalia, I can’t make myself believe it.
She had sounded mentally sharp in her recollection of the film, but then didn’t dementia steal short-term memory first, bringing long-term memory vividly to the fore? Might that be why she’s so obsessed with her daughter’s death, because her mind is dwelling on the past? But why would she believe that Jack had been responsible? The impact on Evie if she thought her father had been involved would be devastating. It goes round and round until I feel I’m in danger of driving myself out of my mind. Even as I begin to drift off, I’m jarred awake by images of gas lights being dimmed in the night.
As I lie still, trying to resist rolling over yet again for fear of disturbing Jack, I feel his arm slide around me. ‘Are you okay?’ he whispers.
‘Fidgety. Can’t sleep,’ I answer. ‘Sorry.’
‘You and me both.’ He holds me closer. ‘Do you think Evie hates me?’ he asks quietly after a moment.
I can practically feel his hurt and despair, and I wriggle around to face him. ‘No,’ I tell him firmly, placing a hand against his chest. ‘She’s confused, acting out, as teenagers do. In a way, you should be proud that she’s so protective of her gran. She cares about her. She cares aboutyou. She’s had a lot to deal with, much of which she’ll still be trying to process. She’s lashing out at you because she knows you will still be there for her. That says a lot about how she really feels about you.’
‘Do you reckon?’ He responds half-heartedly.
‘I do,’ I assure him. ‘Evie’s smart, spirited and strong. She has her own opinions. The choices she makes won’t always be the choices you would have made for her, but you have to allow her space to make them. She’s determined to try and look after Lina. There’s nothing we can do about that but help her, which we are. And with Lina being here, I think Evie will come to realise that we don’t really have a choice but to seek advice, possibly practical help for her.’
Something I now realise is imperative if this is all not going to affect Evie’s emotional and mental state. ‘All you can do is be patient with her and try not to judge her too harshly,’ I add, and pray I’m saying all the right things.
I do think the fact that Evie is looking out for Lina is commendable. That she’s doing it so fiercely, though, is also worrying me, as is what Lina is telling her that’s making her turn on Jack.
‘Sorry about my over-the-top reaction,’ he says. ‘It was just too stark a reminder. I should apologise to Evie, try to explain.’
‘That’s probably a good idea.’ I snuggle closer, wrapping my arms around him because I feel he needs to be held.
As he strokes the nape of my neck gently with his thumb, I rest my head on his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat. It reminds me of our baby’s heartbeat, the soothing rhythmic gallop I’d heard at the ultrasound, assuring me our baby was thriving. My mind shoots to Kai, and Mark’s delight when he’d first seen his tiny heartbeat on the scan, and my throat constricts. I’d wondered how I’d survived, how I’d been allowed to. I hadn’t wanted to. Now, as I press a hand gently over my tummy and the new life growing inside me, I feel I have a reason to.It will be all right, little one,I whisper silently. It will be. This is going to test us, but Jack and I have a strong relationship. We will get through it.
Eventually, his breathing begins to slow and, feeling warm and safe in his embrace, at least for the moment, I feel my eyelids grow heavy, the gas light that still burns in the periphery of my mind getting dimmer and dimmer.
An almighty crack jolts me awake and, imagining it’s the sound of wooden beams charred so black they snap, I pull myself to sitting and blink panic-stricken into the darkness. Jack stirs, rolling over onto his back, but he doesn’t wake.
Was I dreaming? Sweat wets my forehead. My chest lurches as I hear another bang, more a thud, like patio doors closing. Or banging open? I debate whether to wake Jack. I can’t believe he hasn’t heard it.AmI imagining it? It comes again and, heart racing, I slide from the bed, prevaricate for a second and then go quietly to the door and out onto the landing.
Evie’s door is closed, no light escaping from beneath it, meaning she’s probably sleeping. I move towards the balustrade, hold on to it and peer into the semi-dark below. There’s no movement in the lounge. No sound other than the dull thud of my own heartbeat. Is it Lina? I wonder. The spare room door isobscured from view underneath the landing. I have to check. If it is her, she shouldn’t be wandering around in the dark on her own.
Holding tightly to the banister and guided only by the light of the moon shining through the window high in the apex, I make my way carefully down.
Bathed in soft moonlight, the lounge looks ominous, the furniture dark and bulky. A shiver of icy apprehension prickling through me as I imagine an intruder lurking behind one of the armchairs, I hurry across to click on a lamp and glance quickly around. There’s no one here. My gaze swivels to the spare room. The door is closed. No light escapes it. Fuelled by tonight’s events, my imagination is clearly running riot. The noise could have been any number of things: a bird landing heavily on the roof, a cat possibly, a fox at the wheelie bins.
Relieved, but still jittery, I turn around to check the kitchen. Then stop, my eyes snagging on something that doesn’t belong here. A piece of jewellery, I realise, moving curiously towards it. A gold pendant, suspended by its chain from one of the diagonal support beams.
