The Breakdown(10)

with stress. Brutally murdered. The words hang in the air, and I feel so sick, so hot, that I have to open the window, just to be able to breathe. Why couldn’t they just have said ‘murdered’? Wasn’t ‘murdered’ already

bad enough? A car pulls up alongside me and the driver

makes signs, wanting to know if I’m leaving. I shake my

head and he drives off, then a minute or so later another car comes along, wanting to know the same thing, and then another. But I don’t want to leave, all I want is to stay where I am until the murder is no longer news, until everybody has moved on and forgotten about the woman who was brutally murdered.

I know it’s stupid but I feel as if it’s my fault she’s dead.

Tears prick my eyes. I can’t imagine the guilt ever going away and the thought of carrying it around with me for the rest of my life seems too high a price to pay for a moment’s selfishness. But the truth is, if I’d bothered to get out of my car she might still be alive.

There’s a nasty taste in my mouth, a physical mani—

festation of the disgust inside me. I drive home slowly,

prolonging the moment when I have to leave the protective bubble of my car. Once I get home, the murder will be everywhere, on the television, in the newspapers, on

everyone’s lips, a constant reminder of my failure to help the woman in the woods.

The Breakdown





37


As I get out of the car, the smell of a bonfire burning


in the garden transports me instantly back to my childhood. I close my eyes and, for a few blissful seconds, it’s no longer a hot, sunny day in July, it’s a crisp, cold November evening and Mum and I are eating sausages speared onto forks while Dad sets off fireworks at the bottom of the garden. I open my eyes to find that the sun has disappeared behind a cloud, mirroring my mood.

Normally I would go and find Matthew but instead I

head straight for the house, glad to have a little more

time to myself.

‘I thought I heard the car,’ he says, coming into the

kitchen a few minutes later. ‘I didn’t expect you back

already. Weren’t you meant to be having lunch out?’

‘We were, but we decided to leave it for today.’

He comes over and drops a kiss on my head. ‘Good.

Now you can have lunch with me.’

‘You smell of bonfire,’ I say, breathing it in from his

t-shirt.

‘I thought I’d get rid of all those branches I cut down

the other week. Luckily they were under the tarpaulin so

the rain didn’t get to them but they would have smoked

the house out if we’d used them on the fire.’ He wraps

his arms around me. ‘You do know that you’re the one

for me, don’t you?’ he says softly, echoing what he used

to say when we first met.

I’d been working at the school for about six months

when a group of us went to a wine bar to celebrate

my birthday. Connie noticed Matthew the moment





38


b a paris


we arrived. He was sitting at a table by himself, clearly waiting for someone, and she’d joked that if his date didn’t turn up she would offer to replace her. When it became obvious that his date wasn’t going to materialise, she went over, already a little drunk, and asked him if he wanted to join us.

‘I was hoping nobody would notice I’d been stood up,’

he’d said ruefully as Connie sat him down between her

and John. It meant that I was opposite him and I couldn’t help noticing the way his hair fell over his forehead, or the blue of his eyes whenever he looked over at me, which he did, quite a lot. I tried not to make too much of it, which was just as well, as by the time we stood up to leave several bottles of wine later, he had Connie’s number firmly in his phone.

A few days later she came up to me in the staff room,

a huge grin on her face, to tell me that Matthew had

called her – to ask for my number. So I let her give it

to him and when he phoned, he nervously admitted, as

he so sweetly put it, ‘As soon as I saw you I knew you

were the one for me.’

Once we began seeing each other regularly, he

confessed that he couldn’t father children. He told me

he’d understand if I didn’t want to see him again but, by then, I was already in love and, although it was a major blow, I didn’t feel it was the end of the world. By the time he asked me to marry him, we’d already talked

about other ways to have a child and had decided that we

would look into it seriously once we’d been married a

The Breakdown

39

year. Which is about now. Usually it’s a constant thought in my mind but now it seems so far away I can’t reach it.

Matthew’s arms are still around me. ‘Did you get what

you wanted?’ he asks.

‘Yes, we bought Susie some luggage.’

‘Are you all right? You seem a bit down.’

Suddenly the need to be on my own is overwhelming.

‘I’ve got a bit of a headache,’ I say, pulling away from

him. ‘I think I’ll get an aspirin.’