Kara said nothing. The look in her eyes, though, one of bewildered disbelief, spoke volumes.
‘Maybe she fell, I don’t know,’ he added, with an exasperated sigh. ‘What I do know is that it’s all theatricals andnothingto do with me. I’d already left, for Christ’s sake. She knocked on the door, walked straight in as I opened it, and I walked out before I…’
‘…lost your temper?’ Kara finished, as he trailed off. ‘So are you sayingshesmashed the whisky bottle?’ she asked, her tone now cynical at best.
Jack answered with a defeated shrug. There seemed little point in defending himself since he appeared to have been tried in his absence and judged guilty.
‘As in threw it across the room?’ she went on more stridently. ‘Which presumably she must have done, judging by the whisky dripping down the wall and the splintered glass all over the floor?’
‘I wasn’there, Kara,’ he repeated forcefully. ‘I have no idea?—’
‘Why are you drinking so much?’ she demanded, taking him completely aback.
‘You have to be kidding?’ He eyed her incredulously. ‘You think I did this because I wasdrunk?’
She didn’t answer, appraising him carefully instead.
Jack squinted hard at her. She did, didn’t she?Jesus. ‘I hadonedrink,’ he said, growing scared. He was going to lose her, lose everything because of a meddling woman who, whether demented or just plain bloody evil, was determined to make damn sure he did. ‘Just one,’ he reiterated, fury tightening inside him. ‘And I had that because, quite frankly, I needed it.’
‘To take the edge off your anger?’ Kara suggested.
‘Yes!’ he answered sharply and immediately regretted it when he saw her flinch. ‘Look, Kara, can we just please stop this? It’s what she wants, don’t you see? For us to be at each other’s throats. For you not to trust me.’ He moved towards her, but she only took a step away from him.
‘How long before one drink leads to two?’ she asked. ‘And then another, and another?’
‘Kara, please don’t do this,’ he begged. ‘I don’t drink to excess, you know I don’t.’ He tried again to move towards her, wanting to hold her, to somehow reconnect with her and makethis madness stop. She only backed further away, just as his daughter had – and Jack felt sick to his soul.
‘How long have you had a drink problem?’ she asked. ‘Because you clearly do, and you’ve been keeping it hidden from me.What about the affair you didn’t have?’ she went on before he could speak. ‘You said Natalia was the one who cheated, that her injuries were a result of unsavoury relationships. Were they?’
‘Yes. I told you, she?—’
‘Are you telling me the truth, Jack?’ She spoke over him. ‘Aboutanything?’
And there it was, the life he’d tried to make disintegrating before him. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t trust himself to. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose hard, took stock for a moment, and then walked quietly past her.
‘Where are you going?’ Kara asked, spinning around as he collected his jacket and car keys from the table by the front door.
‘The office,’ he said, swiping a hand across his cheeks. ‘I have paperwork to catch up on. I think we might both need some space, don’t you?’
THIRTY-NINE
KARA
Jack had left without saying another word. I waited downstairs for a while, thinking he would come home. Eventually, I came to bed on my own. Now, as I lie awake watching the hours on the digital clock click over, part of me wants to call him. After all I said, though, I’m not sure he would even answer his phone. He hadn’t seemed drunk, but then functioning alcoholics often don’t, I’m well aware of that. I wonder whether I should drive over there and check on him – the industrial estate is only ten minutes or so away. The Portakabin office he’s renting is not that well insulated and will be freezing at this time of night. Truthfully, though, I’m too scared to. My stomach churns with the same sick dread I’d experienced as a child, when I would hide under my duvet, waiting for the pop music playing downstairs to stop and my father’s mood to switch from hyper-happy to maudlin or aggressive. There would be no reasoning with him. If Jack was in his office drinking, there would be no reasoning with him either.
Rolling onto my back, I place my hand protectively over my tummy. As I listen to the sound of pipes clunking and wood creaking, familiar sounds, the old timber-framed building settling, I stare into the darkness, feeling lonelier than I’ve feltsince losing Mark and my precious little boy. My mind turns to Lina. Should I have got her head wound checked out at the hospital? It’s possible she might have a concussion. But she seemed fine when I left her, and Evie said she would keep a careful eye on her. Evie wouldn’t look at me though. Her gaze was studiously averted the whole time I was in the annexe. She was clearly worrying herself sick about both Lina and her father.
With no hope of sleeping, I reach for my phone to read on my Kindle app, only to realise the phone isn’t on my bedside table. With my mind distracted and feeling so nauseous and lethargic, I must have left it downstairs. Sighing, I pick up a book I was halfway through but couldn’t get into. Attempting to read it does nothing to relax me. I’m skimming the pages, barely digesting the words. As I hear the first sounds of the dawn chorus, the flutey twitters of song thrushes and the melodious call of the blackbird, I find myself drifting, sleep mercifully beckoning, and I float on the cusp of it until a sudden petrifying feeling of plummeting jolts me awake.
After taking several calming deep breaths, my heart settles back into its mooring and I close my eyes again, desperate for even an hour’s sleep after feeling so utterly exhausted. The pleasant floating feeling envelops me once more and I sink into it, dreaming of soft summer days, strolling down the lane pushing my baby before me. I twitch as the mellow breeze turns frigid and the skies darken. Salty spray lashes my face and suddenly I’m lost, tossed and disorientated in the pitch-black sea, my body buffeted by crashing waves, my screams cut dead, choked in my throat by foul-tasting water. My heart bangs, my blood pumps, whooshing so fast past my ears I can hear it.No!Desperation gripping me, I’m flailing hopelessly when a dull thud from somewhere outside my nightmare snatches me to the surface.
Gasping, I bolt upright. Sweat wetting my body, saturating the sheet beneath me, I strain my ears as another sound reaches me, one that doesn’t belong here, but to another life. A child’s laughter, drifting from downstairs. I’m sure of it. My eyes shoot to the bedroom door and I blink hard, trying to focus in the thin light of dawn that filters through the curtains.
It comes again, a shy giggle, turning to a breathless chortle and then a delighted ‘Mummy!’
‘Kai!’ My chest booms and I throw back the duvet, scramble out of bed and race to the landing. Then stop dead as nothing but silence greets me. ‘Kai?’ I whisper. Staying where I am, I listen. Still there’s nothing. No sound at all but the frenetic beating of my heart. Swallowing back the hard lump of emotion clogging my throat, I walk quietly to the top of the stairs, grip the rail hard and venture down, my eyes sweeping the lounge below as I go. There’s no one there. I didn’t expect there to be, prayed with my whole broken heart and soul that there might be, that my beautiful little boy would run to greet me. He can’t. I squeeze my eyes closed, try to vanquish the image of his small body lost on a hospital trolley made for an adult, monitors beeping and pinging around him, a flurry of medical staff attending him, trying desperately to resuscitate him. He looked so small, so fragile against the vast expanse of white sheet. His little face wasn’t damaged. He still looked perfect. My perfect, innocent little boy.
Folding my arms tightly across my midriff, I feel the pain, as unbearable as it was then, rip right through my heart, feel the tug in my womb where I’d carried him, kept him safe and warm until he was grown enough to come into the world. I hadn’t kept him safe. I was his mother, and I’d failed him. Hewasn’tgrown. He wastiny.He was hurting, dying, and I couldn’t make his pain go away. I’d blamed Mark. I’d blamed it on his drinking. Guilt rises inside me, my mind screaming what I already know. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine. All of it,myfault!
