‘Are you serious?’ She emits an astonished laugh. ‘You’recheatingon me.’
‘Jesus.’ My dad bangs the heel of his hand against his forehead. ‘I amnotcheating on you. I told you, nothing happened.’
‘Liar!’ she hisses. ‘I saw you going into her house. I saw you trying to leave, pretty difficult with her draped around your neck. After that, I saw her damnmessageinviting you over.Andyour reply. For God’s sake, stop lying!’
Dad draws in a terse breath. ‘It was perfectly innocent. She was upset, I’ve explained all this. I’ve also explained that I felt it was too risky to leaveyouon your own because you were having one of your depressive episodes.’
‘Bullshit,’ she snarls. ‘It was just another attempt to make mefeel guilty. I suppose it’s my fault you fucked her as well. Did you sell her a sob story, tell her you were feeling lonely? Sobewildered by your poor bonkers wife’s behaviour, you needed someone to comfort you? Was that it?’
Dad stares icily at her. ‘It’s not me who’s been cheating in this relationship, Natalia,’ he says, his voice tight with suppressed anger. ‘And you know it.’
‘You’re aliar, Jack Conley!’ she cries. ‘You pretend to be a paragon of virtue and you’re not! You twist things. You make everything my fault. And it’snot. You make me feel I’m not worthy of love becauseyoucan’t love me. I need you togo. As soon as we get back, I want you to?—’
‘Okay!’ Dad shouts over her. ‘I’ve got the message. I’ll go, if that’s what you want.’ He pauses, studying her carefully. ‘But Evie comes with me.’
‘You are joking?’ She scans his face. ‘You would do it, wouldn’t you? Take my daughter away from me to punish me? You absolutebastard. Don’t youdare. I’ll kill you, Jack. I swear I will if you eventryto take her. You don’t love her. You’re incapable of lovinganyone.’
‘So you say,’ Dad replies, his jaw tense. ‘And do you think anyone will believe that, Natalia? Do you imagine for one minute that the authorities will allow her to stay with someone with your history?’
She’s stunned into silence. Then, ‘You’ll get custody of her over my dead body!’ she screams. ‘Do you hear?’
‘Loud and clear.’ Dad moves towards her. ‘We’ll talk about it when you’re less irate, shall we?’
‘Do not fucking patronise me,’ she hisses, pushing him away.
My heart flips over as Dad almost loses his footing, but still she goes after him, shoving him again and again. ‘Will you just stop!’ he yells, grabbing hold of her. ‘For fuck’s sake,stop, will you? You’re completely…Jesus Christ,Evie, stay back!’
SIXTY-SIX
NATALIA
Piercing pain shoots through the small of my back as I attempt to raise myself from the floor. I try to move my legs. There’s nothing. No feeling at all. Panic rips through me as I see the stark crimson stain blooming beneath me.Evie.I glance up to see my daughter standing over me, her face tight with rage as she glares down at me.
The words she hurls at me are like icicles straight through my heart. ‘Dad thought you were sick! He tried tohelpyou!’ she screams. ‘But you’renotsick. You’re fuckingevil. You druggedyour own mother! How could youdothat? You’re the liar! It’syouwho’s incapable of loving anyone. You ruineverything!’
‘Evie, please… don’t,’ I beg weakly.
She doesn’t respond. There’s nothing in her eyes but hostility. Does she know what she’s done?Didshe push me that day in Antigua? I recall her visceral anger as she’d caught up with me. She’d called me a cow, as if I were to blame for everything. How could she know, with Jack playing the wounded soldier, that I’d encouraged the guy who was coming onto me out of desperation. The same desperation that possessed me to have sex with a man who I learned, too late, despised women. He bruised me, but it was Jack who broke me, making me questioneverything about myself, proving how muchhedespised me by having an affair with a woman who was supposed to be my friend as well as my counsellor. A woman who’d clearly been conveying everything I confided, which he then used as ammunition against me. I’d wanted to make him jealous. I wanted to goad him. I wanted Evie toseehim, who he really was, his cruelty and his manipulation. On that day, he’d been at his cruellest, threatening to take her away from me. I’d known as he stepped towards me, grabbing hold of my wrists, that I was in danger. I could see the anger bordering on hatred in his eyes.
Even as I lost one of my sandals struggling helplessly to gain purchase, he wouldn’t let go of me. I could feel the ground giving way, soil and loose rocks crumbling beneath me. I remember him yelling at me, calling to Evie to stay back. After that, nothing, until I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into the water. That was when my will to survive kicked in and I determined I wouldn’tdie, not there, not on that day, not in the way he wanted. I wouldnotgive him the opportunity to play the grief-stricken husband after the ‘tragic accident’ that took away the mother of his child, which would attract gullible women like a magnet.Swim!I told myself, thrashing in the direction I felt was upwards. As the compression at the centre of my chest grew so heavy I felt my ribs would crack, I thought it was over. That was when I saw it, light penetrating the water. And I swam. With every last vestige of strength I possessed, I swam.
I’d expected the emergency services to come as I lay in the cove I’d crawled to like a sad stranded mermaid washed in from the sea. No one came. Jack clearly hadn’t called them. I realised that later when I read about the woman who’d committed suicide by jumping from a cruise liner. I commented to Travis, the accommodating yacht owner, how sad it was that her shoe had been found washed up on a beach. A beach some way away from the trail we’d walked. The bag being found on top of thelifeboat made me laugh out loud. How many women would leap to their death with their handbag over their shoulder?
He’d been thorough, I have to give him that, stuffing bits and bobs of make-up from the cabin inside it. The antipsychotics I’d been prescribed were a master stroke.
No, it wasn’t Evie.It can’t have been. ‘Evie…’ Needing to reassure her, I try again to reach out, but my body rebels, jerking violently, causing her to back away from me.
‘Mum?’ she says tearfully, as another spasm jolts through me, and I see the hostility in her eyes give way to bewilderment. Suddenly, she looks like a ten-year-old child, uncertain and utterly terrified.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ I whisper, my heart fracturing for her.
‘Mum!’ Flying towards me, she drops to her knees. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobs, shuffling closer, her jeans quickly soaked in my blood, her hands covered in it. ‘I didn’t mean to…’
Jack is by her side, his eyes wary as they meet mine. Is he wondering whether I will die this time? Hoping I will? I can’t tell. He turns his attention to Evie, easing her up and holding her close as she sobs into his shoulder.
He loves his daughter. I try to hold on to that. I know he does, despite my accusing him of being incapable of loving. ‘Help her, Jack,’ I plead. ‘Promise me you will.’
He answers with a small but determined nod and squeezes her closer, and I feel a huge weight lift from me as I think that finally he might get her the help she’s needed for a very long time.
