My Sister's Bones(43)

‘Married,’ says Shaw, interrupting my thoughts. ‘And how long had you been seeing him?’

I bristle at the term she uses. ‘Seeing him’ makes it sound like a casual fling when it was so much more.

‘Ten years,’ I reply. ‘Though we’d known each other much longer.’

I want Shaw to know that it was serious. I want her to know that I am capable of loving and being loved; that I am not some messed-up crazy woman. So I tell her about him, my Chris, my love, the man I can’t live without. The man I must live without.

‘We met in New York just after 9/11,’ I begin. ‘He was a forensic anthropologist. He and his team were exhuming body parts from Ground Zero. I was reporting on the work they were doing.’

My thoughts drift and I see myself standing looking at this beautiful man, his black hair covered in dirt, his large hands clasping a shovel. He was very tall, around six three; and, though strong, his body was lean and wiry. With his sharp cheekbones and thick beard he looked like a pioneer from the Midwest. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was only twenty-six and it was one of my first big assignments. I was nervous but when he introduced himself in his gruff Yorkshire accent I immediately felt at ease. It was as though we had known each other before. We spoke for about an hour. He answered my questions as best he could; he was polite, professional, but I knew, we both knew, right then, that something had happened between us, something unspoken.

I look beyond Shaw’s head and stare at the pockmarked wall. I see us sitting outside a wine bar in Victoria. It was three years after our first meeting that we finally got together. He’d come down to London from his home in the north to attend a conference and we’d bumped into each other in the street. He asked me out for a drink and that was it. I can see his pale blue eyes twinkle as he tells me what he wants to do when we get back to my flat later. I hear him whisper every little bit of you; his low voice caressing each word as he takes my hand in his and rubs the dry surface of my skin.

‘Did you know he was married when you started seeing him?’

Shaw’s voice brings me back to the room. I look at her, noticing a glint of gold on her wedding finger, and suddenly the pen in her hand is a weapon.

‘Yes, I knew.’

‘And did that bother you?’

Her voice has hardened. I have to keep her onside. I can’t tell her my thoughts on marriage; how I never wanted to end up like my parents; that I didn’t want anything from Chris, just the knowledge that he would always come back to me; that knowing he loved me more than he would ever love his wife was enough. Though I know now that’s a lie. So I tell her what she wants to hear.

‘Yes, of course it bothered me.’

‘How did you feel about it? The pregnancy?’

‘Shocked at first,’ I tell her. ‘Unprepared. But then I started to get used to the idea. Although that might have been the happy hormones kicking in.’

Shaw nods her head and looks down at her notepad. She hates me, I can tell. I am the ‘other woman’, the kind women like her have nightmares about. But right now I would give anything to be in her place, to live a safe, cosy existence with a husband and family. As I sit waiting for her to continue, I feel so alone it physically hurts.

‘You say you’d planned this lunch to tell Chris about the baby?’

‘Yes.’

The memory of his lips on my skin as he stood up from the table and greeted me burns through my body as I sit waiting for Shaw to go on.

‘But he chose to end the relationship before you got the chance to tell him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he give you a reason?’

‘His wife had found a message,’ I say. ‘And she made him tell her everything, so he did.’

My voice comes out like a croak. Chris is all around me. I can smell his cedarwood cologne, see his eyes narrow as he leans towards me, takes my hand and says: It’s Helen. She knows.

And with those words I knew it was over. Given a choice between his dependable wife and his flighty mistress, I was always going to come away the loser.

‘He agreed to break it off. Give their marriage another chance.’

‘That must have been a shock,’ says Shaw, looking at me intently.

‘To be honest, I just felt numb,’ I say.

And it’s true. I did. They say emotional shock doesn’t strike until long after the event and as I sat there listening to him I found myself smiling. Jesus, I even agreed with him. I didn’t storm out of the restaurant or throw a glass of wine in his face or tell him that he was a bastard, I just sat there and ate my risotto and told him that, yes, this was all for the best.

‘Why didn’t you tell him about the baby?’ asks Shaw.

‘I couldn’t.’

Looking back now I guess I was paralysed with grief. Yes, I could have told him about the baby, but it all felt so wrong, so tainted. He didn’t want me. He wouldn’t want our baby either.

‘And what did you do then?’

Something tells me she knows the answer.

‘I went to my club on Greek Street.’

‘And is that where you drank the wine?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much did you drink?’

‘A couple of glasses. But before then I hadn’t drunk for . . . some time.’