Close to Me Page 9

  ‘Honestly, I’m much better today,’ I insist, following him into the hallway, the wind rushing in through the front door as he opens it. It’s already taken several attempts to persuade him back to work after yesterday’s abortive attempt; I don’t want him to change his mind now he’s finally agreed to leave. I need some time alone, to order my thoughts, maybe even search for some tangible evidence of the past.

  ‘My headache’s almost completely gone,’ I lie, adding a smile to convince him further, squinting into the early morning light.

  ‘Almost?’ he asks, turning back. ‘What does that mean?’

  I shield my eyes from the sun with my left hand, although my sprained wrist has improved enough for me to remove the bandage permanently this morning. ‘My headache is much better, and my wrist,’ I say, holding up my unfettered arm to prove my point. He seems unsure, but I tell him I’m positive I’m well enough to be left alone, trying to keep my voice light, no trace of the annoyance I feel at his reluctance to leave me unsupervised.

  He looks down at his feet, the gravel beneath them dusting the toes of his polished shoes. ‘Doesn’t feel right,’ he says, straightening up and taking a step towards me.

  ‘No!’ I say, standing in the door to bar the way. ‘Don’t come back in!’

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ He steps back and throws his laptop case on to the gravel drive. ‘All I’m trying to do is look after you; why won’t you let me do that?’

  ‘Losing your temper doesn’t help,’ I say, looking at the laptop case.

  He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. I expect him to lose control again, but instead he picks up the case and pulls open the Velcro flap to inspect the laptop inside. I ask him if it’s okay and he tells me of course it is, but he’s calmer when he says, ‘Promise you’ll keep in touch today; I worry about you.’

  ‘Go!’ I say, leaning away from his goodbye kiss. ‘You’ll get caught in the school traffic.’

  He backs away, raising his hand in surrender. ‘I mean it, Jo. I want an hourly text. Or an email – no excuses. Okay?’

  ‘Okay – unless I’m asleep,’ I reply, closing the door.

  I watch from the kitchen window as he manoeuvres his car; the gravel carved into deep grooves where our tyres have worn paths in and out. My Mini is parked on the far side of the drive and I wonder when I last drove it and where I’d been. It’s as I turn from the window that the image returns. A naked back, the face featureless, in shadow, except now it turns to me and I can make out a generous mouth, a wide smile. The smile draws me in, sucks the breath from my lungs so I’m forced to lean against the sink for support. Who is he? What had he meant to me that even the thought of him leaves me breathless? Maybe I’d been with him the last time I drove my car; a liaison, reaching out to touch him as I do in my memory, to pull him to me, the smile closing in. I can feel that same pull, the desire to be with him, my breaths shortened as I struggle against the feeling, so strong, until I say aloud, ‘No!’ The word echoing around the empty house.

  I run the kitchen tap and splash my burning face with cold water, again and again, until the image retreats and I’m able to look up at the view of the drive and my car. I’d probably been out shopping, or to visit one of the kids, something normal, routine. Maybe I’d seen Sash, although she’s apparently besotted with her new love Thomas, and I have no recollection of him at all. I imagine instead that I’d driven to Fin’s new home, in a rough part of town, in a street whose name I don’t recall, fallen out of my memory like everything else. If only I could remember, perhaps I could save myself the shame, the doubt, the fear. Maybe all this angst is needless.

  The coffee machine grinds and pops, then a slow trickle of dark froth emerges. I take my cup through to the den and look across at the squashy sofa, recalling Sash sitting there with her friends not long after she’d finished university. It must be over a year ago now, although it feels much more recent to me. Sash had moved out a month after her graduation, the job and the bedsit secured as easily as everything else in her life, arriving as soon as she’d decided it was what she wanted. I look around me at the den; another dead space now, except that beneath the window there’s a glass desk, new to me, but appealing; especially as my laptop graces its surface.

  Rob told me this morning the desk was meant for his new study upstairs, but it was too big. He’d noticed me looking from the breakfast table towards the den and began to ask me if I’d remembered the new desk when he stopped himself, setting his bowl and glass down in the place opposite me and apologising instead.

  ‘So that was when exactly?’ I asked, ignoring his ridiculous question and curious to mark the lost months with memorable landmarks. ‘The redecorating upstairs, I mean.’

  ‘After our holiday. I told you that last night. You’d wanted it all sorted for your birthday; the study and Sash’s room,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘But the trades were still here when we got home from holiday. It must have been mid-November before it was all done.’

  I imagined my concern, anxious the disruption was over so Sash and Fin could sleep in their old rooms on the night of my birthday, but apparently Fin hadn’t come home from university for my birthday. ‘It must have been lovely having Sash here again,’ I said to Rob, but he shook his head, swallowed his mouthful of cereal and told me Sash hadn’t been well.

  ‘Neither of them came to my birthday meal?’ I asked.

  Rob chewed on his daily vitamin tablet, an interminable wait, then explained how it was a difficult time for all of us, but we’d had a nice evening anyway, gone out for dinner, just the two of us.

  ‘What’s happened to this family?’ I asked. ‘I don’t recall any birthday when we haven’t been together; all four of us.’

  ‘Well, they weren’t there for mine either,’ he said, staring at me. ‘And anyway, just because you don’t remember the last year doesn’t mean you weren’t involved.’

  I asked him what that was supposed to mean, but he seemed confrontational, daring me to say that yes, I knew I was also to blame, and the shame burned deeply into my cheeks then too, although I didn’t know why; not really.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just that this isn’t easy for me either.’

  Rob continued to talk, something about carrying the burden, feeling as though he had to justify every bump in the road to me, but I stared at the desk and the laptop resting on its glass surface, wondering why it felt like the great hope.

  ‘Do we use it much?’ I asked. ‘The desk in the den, I mean.’

  ‘You do,’ Rob said, grabbing his spoon again, drops of milk on his chin as he finished his muesli. ‘You said the laptop keeps you company; window on the world.’

  I found his comment unsettling in so many ways, as if I’d been remarking on the lamentable life of a stranger; when the object of pity was actually me; and this is still my reality, a lonely woman on her computer, tapping her way into the outside world.

  I sip my coffee, and I open the lid of the laptop, watching as the screen lights up, although what I hope to find I’m uncertain. Think, Jo! What are you looking for? I need to be methodical if I’m to recover the past, forensic like a detective. There’s no hurry, I have all day, but at the same time Rob could change his mind and come back at any moment, as he did yesterday. I’m not doing anything wrong, but when he’s with me I seem to have less clarity of purpose, as though he’s in control of what I do and think, and although I’m not sure what I hope to find, surely something of the last year must be lying amongst the hundreds of saved emails; clues to the minutiae of all those lost days? Maybe even a hint about the naked man, his face in shadow, just a smile visible as he turns to me. The thought causes me to hesitate, fearful now of remembering, but also desperate to know the truth. Yes, there was a smile. A dangerous, secretive smile. Just for me.

  Scrolling back through the emails on my computer I’m able to quickly dismiss the more recent ones I’ve already read on my phone, but I take more time as I go further back, se
arching for anything unusual, something that catches my eye. Every now and then Rob’s email address crops up, standard exchanges of a shared life: meal times, errands run, a leaving party we’d both been invited to by someone I knew over twenty years ago who still worked with Rob, but the sight of Rob’s name always raises my hopes there will be something of more significance buried amongst the banality of a married couple’s messages to one another. There’s the odd comment about Fin or Sash, but even they disappoint, pointers to facts I already know; Sash had moved in with Thomas above the bar, and we’d both clearly disapproved, united on that front, then references to the much nicer flat overlooking the park, which we’d visited. I read one email in which I tell Rob I’m pleased about the new flat, despite Thomas’s continuing presence, but it would seem there was some resentment on my part at Rob’s decision as I refer more than once to the ‘huge expense’ of it and the fact it hadn’t worked out ‘at all as intended’. The email ends with an oblique sign-off by me, ‘Sash needs us both, you’re right; we’ll get through this together. Jo xxx’

  I sit back and consider those words. I’d written them, but they mean nothing to me. I assume the problem I was referring to was Thomas, but perhaps there’s more to it than that.

  After that the pattern of our correspondence doesn’t make sense, as if some of our emails are missing. I imagine the interim conversations were conducted in person or by phone, maybe a rushed text here and there, but without my old phone I’m unable to check. The obvious, but unbelievable, thought is that the missing emails were deliberately removed by Rob.

  I lean back in my chair as I allow myself, just for a moment, to follow this train of thought. It would have been easy enough for Rob to access my email account on the web; he knows my password, it’s the same one I always use, a combination of the kids’ birthdays. And I’d slept a lot when I first came home from the hospital so he’d have had ample opportunity.

  I sit up and take a deep breath, lifting my chin as I suck in air through my nostrils, then exhaling as I dismiss the idea as complete paranoia. He’s still Rob; the man I’ve been married to for twenty-four years. Even if I can’t recall the last of those years I can’t discount the previous twenty-three. I know him better than anyone else in the world. He’s my husband, he loves me, of that I’m certain. He wouldn’t be so calculating as to deliberately tamper with my correspondence, and to what end? What could possibly be lurking there that he doesn’t want me to see? I have no proof he’s hiding anything at all, let alone going to such extreme lengths to curate what I see of the past. I wonder again if the paranoia is a symptom of my brain injury and begin researching head traumas on the internet, typing in ‘Head injuries, memory loss’ and finding my way to forums and chat rooms. It’s scary stuff and I have to force myself to close down the horror stories and pretend I haven’t read them; I’m finally distracted from my searches when my phone emits a single tone, a message from Rob. I tap in the beginnings of a reply, preoccupied still by the troubling research and the vexing issue of our sporadic emails.

  The last email from Rob was three weeks ago; something about another late night at work, and no response from me in my Sent mail. Why didn’t I reply? Was I deliberately ignoring him? Maybe, as I previously hypothesised, I’d sent a text-message reply instead, but it seems unlikely. Why would I have swapped to a different means of correspondence when I’d clearly read Rob’s email? Was I angry because he was going to be late, a dinner ruined? Or more fundamentally aggrieved that the kids had both left home and blaming him? Although why delay my reaction until months after the event? I’d sounded supportive in July, as though we’d worked our way through those issues together, so what happened after that? Was it his fault or, as I fear, something I had done? We’d gone on holiday in October, celebrated my birthday in November; Rob said we were happy back then. I mark August in my head as a question mark then return to my partially composed text message to reassure Rob and keep him at work. But then I’m distracted once more, this time by the arrival of a new email, the tone of it immediately troubling.

  Jo, Please, please, please reply to this! I wouldn’t normally email you, but I’m at my wits’ end. I must have called you a thousand times and sent you a dozen texts in the last week. What’s going on? Are you okay? Where are you, Jo? Please get in touch!!!! You know I’m here for you, whatever you need. No judgements, just help, okay? Rose xxx

  November – Last Year

  ‘Had a nice birthday?’ Rob asks as he drives us towards home.

  The town centre lights are blurred by the heavy rain, the wipers hypnotic as they sweep arcs of clarity across the windscreen, revealing the way ahead a moment at a time, now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t. I tell him it was lovely, although we both know it was a compromise; Fin ‘swamped with coursework’, and Sash due to join us until the last moment when she’d made her excuses. Our tradition, a family meal for the four of us, either at home or at our favourite Italian restaurant, replaced by a meal for two at the bistro we normally reserve for wedding anniversary celebrations.

  ‘I think that place is going downhill,’ Rob is saying. ‘My steak was okay, but nothing amazing. How was your fish?’

  ‘Very good,’ I reply, my focus remaining on the blurred view. I turn to look at him; the profile familiar, although it has changed over the years. He hasn’t gained weight, or grown or lost a beard, nothing that dramatic, but the chin is less defined, the nose a little longer. ‘Just a shame the kids couldn’t be with us,’ I say.

  Rob glances across at me and frowns.

  ‘Sorry,’ I tell him, not really meaning the apology. ‘But you know I wanted them there; it is my birthday and fifty-five is kind of a big deal.’

  ‘So you can refer to your age, but if I do . . .’ He smiles. ‘Just remember I’m almost at the end of that decade.’

  ‘You take it all in your stride,’ I say, smiling back. ‘Yesterday, I could say “I’m closer to fifty than sixty,” and now I can’t.’

  ‘We’re all one day older, Jo,’ he observes, throwing his car around the bends of the one-way system, the speedometer creeping above the thirty-limit. ‘Better than the alternative.’

  I stare out of the rain-soaked window at the bars and clubs; the girls with their arms around one another as they stagger along the pavements in heels and skimpy dresses, bags held above their heads to protect them from the rain; groups of boys, some even younger than Fin, cat-calling after them. We stop at a red light, the only car at a pedestrian crossing packed with revellers. They drift in front of us, their eyes meeting ours for a moment, unfocused and disinterested. We must look so old to them; on our way home before their night has begun. The lights change and Rob presses hard on the accelerator. Then I spot her, running in front of us, a lone figure emerging from the shadows. ‘Rob!’

  He slams on the brakes, the car skidding on the slick surface, unable to find enough traction on the wet road. The girl appears oblivious to her fate, her face half turned away from us, a smile to her friends on the other side, as though there were a bubble of sound-proofed invincibility around her. She’s impervious to everything except her aim to cross the road, but the distance between us is being devoured by Rob’s monstrously heavy car. My mouth opens to release a scream, my hands reaching up to cover my eyes as the car finally stops, a spray of water from a huge puddle breaking across the windscreen.

  ‘Oh my god!’ I say, my palm clasped to my chest. ‘We almost—’

  ‘I saw her, Jo,’ Rob says, hanging on the horn and shouting at the girl, ‘Bloody hell, watch where you’re going!’ But she’s not looking at him, running to catch up with her friends on the other side of the road; her high heels spindly, her legs bare gooseflesh.

  ‘You could have hit her,’ I say, my words almost swallowed as I recover my breath, pulling the locked seatbelt from my chest, its tightness claustrophobic against the rapid beat of my heart.

  ‘Well I didn’t,’ Rob replies as he restarts the stalled engine. ‘Like I said, I saw her
.’

  He appears much less shaken than me, commenting on the fact that we have German engineering on our side and his reflexes are still sharp, although I note a defensiveness to his tone. I think of the bottle of wine we’d shared, at least two large glasses each, and I thank god it didn’t end in a different way; an image of the girl hitting the bonnet, then the windscreen, vivid before me as the wipers execute their smooth paths. It could have been our daughter. It wasn’t of course, but that girl is someone else’s precious child, and she seemed familiar. I wipe the condensation from the glass beside me and watch as she runs to her friends. She must have been frightened by such a near-miss, however drunk she may be.

  I’m still drawn to her as we pull away, fascinated by the developing scene, her friends holding out their arms in a group hug, enfolding her and laughing as if they’re all untouchable. Then I spot something at the centre of the group, a flash of white-blonde hair, almost waist-length. ‘Stop the car, Rob! Stop the car!’

  ‘What now?’ He frowns across at me.

  ‘It’s Sash, she’s at the crossing. It was her friend who ran across. I knew I recognised her.’

  Rob indicates left and pulls in, waiting for Sash and her friends to draw level. He watches in his driver mirror, me in the door mirror, both of us identifying Sash at the centre of the group as they walk along the pavement towards us.

  ‘Looks like there’s a boy with her,’ Rob says.

  I look closer, sliding on my glasses, studying the lone boy amongst the group of giggling girls, a tall, handsome boy, a man in fact; a man who is holding our daughter’s hand.