I bite my lip, adopt that confessional tone once again. “I’ve been trying to move any alcohol I find out of the house. But there always seems to be more. There’s a chest in the sitting room. Do you know it?”
“The old antique? In the corner?”
I nod, heart skipping. “Yes. I think he’s hiding his booze in there, and I’ve looked, but I can’t seem to find the key. I don’t suppose you have any idea where it might be?”
She looks at me blankly. “God, I didn’t even realize we had a key to that. Did you check the drawer in here?” She nods to an old drawer that contains an assortment of odds and ends, and I do my very best not to roll my eyes. It was—obviously—the first place I looked.
“I have, yes,” I say, regretful. “Not there.”
“Well, I’ll have a think and let you know. And perhaps you can have a think about ways to get him back to rehab.”
“Of course.” I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. “Oh,” I say lightly. As though the thought has only just occurred to me. “I don’t suppose I could borrow your key to the house? Just for the next couple of days. I think I’ve misplaced mine.”
“Misplaced it?” Again, there’s that slightly sharp edge to her tone. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was almost panicked.
“Yes,” I say. “Frustrating, but I’ve always been a bit of a scatterbrain, and I’m sure I just put it down somewhere and forgot where it was.” Silly, ditsy me.
“Of course,” she says, and she rummages in her bag. “I’ve got a spare at home anyway.”
“Thank you, Catherine. I really appreciate it.”
She checks her watch. “I’d better be getting off. Jack will be home soon, and I doubt he’d be pleased if he knew we were talking.” She’s right. He’ll be home in half an hour.
When she gets to the door, she pauses, gives me a long, searching look. “Don’t think too badly of him, please. He’s had a very difficult year. And I know he can be tricky, but his heart’s in the right place. When Alice was ill, he spent every moment he could with her. Between him and Alice’s friend Serena, she was barely ever alone.”
The mention of that name very nearly blows my cover, but I wrestle with my face, keep it neutral. “I know that,” I say. “He’s a kind soul underneath it all.”
I truly believe it. Jack showed me that kindness all those weeks ago, when he recognized that I was someone worth talking to. “Do let me know about the key to the chest,” I call after her. “I want to give Jack every possible chance of fighting this.”
She turns in the road. “Of course I will.”
Jack gets home twenty minutes later. Not everything I said to Catherine was a lie. When he kisses me, in that hungry, possessive way of his, I can taste whisky on his breath.
It is later that night—when Jack is still downstairs, drinking himself into a stupor—that the email from Fiona comes in.
Hi all, as I mentioned briefly last time, please do bring photos with you to the next session. It will be a fun experiment! F x
Forty
A small bunch ofcarnations has been placed on top of the blue chair right across the circle from me. Wrapped in clear plastic, so I can only assume Fiona stopped at her local petrol station in a last-ditch attempt at compassion. I suppose it’s the thought that counts, but ifmyentire life was reduced to a bunch of half-dead flowers that still had the price tag attached, I wouldn’t be best pleased.
“I know losing Matt might give rise to some complicated emotions in all of you,” Fiona is saying, and, while she is doing her best to sound sincere, there is a definite note of glee to her tone. For a bereavement group leader, presumably a death among your attendees is like Christmas come early. “He was a big part of this group, and I know that he appreciated the support you gave to him. Each and every one of you. Hopefully, he can find some peace now.”
A ridiculous statement. Matt went to the grave furious, and—if such a thing as the afterlife does exist—I have no doubt he is currently in the process of killing his brother all over again.
The rest of the group are still in silent shock. I don’t know why. It’snot like we didn’t expect it, and I liked Matt, but you’d think we’d be better equipped to deal with news like this.
I shift my weight and feel Freddie’s photo crinkle in my pocket. I’d have liked to have spent longer choosing the perfect one—considered, in fine detail, how best to present him to the rest of the group—but Jack was hovering around, and the last time he caught me looking at photos of Freddie, retribution had been swift. I had to pick one at random, slamming the laptop closed with my heart hammering when I heard Jack’s footsteps in the corridor.
The one I’ve chosen is fine but doesn’t show him at his very best. Gregarious, funny, charming. It’s a pretty bog-standard image of a middle-class white male drinking a pint, but I’m just pleased I was able to get one printed at all.
Jack seems to have sensed a shift in me since his mother came over, like the urge that is building in my chest—that drive to find out everything I can about him—is a living, pulsating thing in the room between us. He’s clung ever closer as a result. I never mentioned that I suspect he took my key. So far as he knows, I’m still confined to the house when he leaves each morning. I slipped out yesterday to get this photo printed and drew the fresh air into my lungs with a renewed sense of vigor. I’m getting closer to the truth, I can sense it.
When I do discover what he’s been hiding, Jack and I will finally have an open, honest relationship. Essential for any healthy union, according to Google. There are things I will never be able to tell him, of course. Things about Freddie, Marcie. But if one half of us lays all their cards on the table, then perhaps it negates the need for the other to do the same.
He’ll be furious when he discovers me gone, and while I don’t like to make him angry, it seems he’s always hovering on the brink these days. Perhaps all those lies are catching up with him.
We spend some time reminiscing about Matt before it becomes painfully clear that we knew very little about his personal life. That’s the problem with these things—we tend to define someone by their loss, and everything else falls to the wayside. Once that’s gone, you realize you never really knew them at all.
