‘How’re you feeling?’ he asked.
She was stumped as to how to answer without breaking into a long, long soliloquy. ‘I’m okay. I can’t stop thinking about Annalee and what she must be going through. I wonder if they’ve found his body yet?’
‘I haven’t heard. Maybe they won’t.’ He added the unsavoury possibility and again her heart flexed for the Gunn family.
‘God, I hope they do. It’ll bring closure.’
‘Yes.’ He took a beat. ‘So what happens now, Harriet? What happens to us?’ He looked awful, like a man who hadn’t slept, aman who awaited his fate. It brought her no pleasure, knowing her face held similar clues.
‘What happens now?’ She stared out of the French windows with the view over Fore Street. ‘I guess the first thing we need to figure out is the road of least discomfort for the kids. I expect they’ll have questions. They will, of course, have questions,’ she qualified, ‘and it’s best we have our answers lined up. We don’t want them to worry that no one’s steering the ship.’
This was, as ever, her priority and she knew it would be his too. He gave a stiff nod, his mouth tightly closed. His silence encouraged her to fill the quiet, to keep talking.
‘And then I suppose we need to be practical and think about where we’re all going to live, where the kids are best in school.’
‘Jesus Christ, another school? Another house? Another move?’ He shook his head and bit his bottom lip and it bothered her. Just like that, his manner was sharp.
‘Maybe not,’ she said as an idea came into focus. ‘Maybe just go home, go back to the house the kids love and tell Mr and Mrs Latteridge that there’s been a change of plan, that we’re no longer renting, let the kids go back to what they know – school, everything.’
‘Back to whatweknow,’ he corrected.
There was nothing pleasant about knowing she was going to dash his look of hope, but she had little choice in that.
‘Back to whatyouknow.’ Her words were weighted with intent, but of one thing she was certain, even though the idea itself was a dagger in her breast: she would not, could not go back to that bed, that room, that house in that street where Wendy Peterson, who lived a few doors down, had pissed on everything she held dear. ‘And just a reminder that I was happiest when I didn’t know I had all of this to worry about and so were the kids. This is of your own making, Hugo. You did all of this, so please don’t get angry withme.’ Her words were strong, her back straight and yet inside she quaked with fear.
‘So what are you suggesting? I live there with the kids and you go where exactly?’ He looked and sounded startled.
Her thoughts raced and settled on the obvious solution. ‘I guess I could stay with Ellis, have the kids there half the time.’
‘Seems like you’ve given it quite a lot of thought.’
She pushed her thumbs into her closed eyes, as if this might relieve the pressure she could feel building.
‘I really haven’t. I’m flying blind, like I have been for the last few months.’
‘So are you suggesting that you would rather have not known? Would it have been better to let it run its course while you jogged on as normal?’
‘No. I would rather you hadn’t done it and I could have “jogged on” with my life, which felt pretty perfect!’ She rubbed her forehead. Was this what it was going to be like now? Verbally running round in circles that were as exhausting as they were futile? ‘I’m tired, Hugo, too tired to do this with you, in this way.’ She spat out the verbal olive branch and hoped he might grasp it.
‘I guess it was always going to be like this, wasn’t it? You were always going to have that ace up your sleeve.’
‘It doesn’t feel like an ace. Nothing about this feels like winning.’
She kept her voice low, aware that the kids were upstairs. It was a surprise to realise that he was crying again. His tears came suddenly and he swiped angrily at them as they gathered on the stubble of his cheeks. Ordinarily she’d have reached out, taken his hand, held him close, grabbed some kitchen roll, but there was nothing ordinary about this.
‘You’re right, Harriet, no winning, only loss. I’ve lost so much. The house, the village, our friends, my reputation, the way my kidswill feel about me when they inevitably find out.’ She couldn’t deny this truth. ‘And you—’ He gulped back a sob that sounded wet, heartfelt and spoke of sorrow. ‘You’ve been my very best friend for over half my life and I’ve lost you, haven’t I?’
‘I think so. Yes,’ she whispered. Her mouth trembled and it took all of her strength not to sink to the floor.
‘Fuck!’ He wiped his eyes and rubbed his hands on his jeans. ‘Fuck!’
‘What did you think would happen?’ Her comment was made calmly and without any intended facetiousness.
He took a moment, drew breath, and shifted in the chair, running his fingers through his hair, and doing his best to remain in control.
‘I didn’t. I didn’t think you would ever find out and I got caught up in the ... the ...’ He looked into the middle distance as if struggling to find the right word. ‘... the secrecy. It was quite intoxicating. The sex was okay, no more. It was more about the adventure, the illicitness.’
‘The lying,’ she clarified, uneasy with the palatable coating he wrapped the words in as if to make them easier for them both to swallow.
