The Girl Before(47)

Sometimes I have a sense that this house—our relationship in it, with it, with each other—is like a palimpsest or a pentimento, that however much we try to overpaint Emma Matthews, she keeps tiptoeing back: a faint image, an enigmatic smile, stealing its way into the corner of the frame.





THEN: EMMA

Oh my God.

Smashed glass litters the stone floor. My clothes are ripped. The sheets have come loose from the bed and been kicked into a corner. There’s blood smeared across my thigh, I don’t know where from. In the corner of the room is a broken bottle and some trodden food.

Bits of me hurt that I don’t even want to think about.

We stare at each other like the two survivors of an earthquake or an explosion. Like we’ve been unconscious and we’re just coming around.

His eyes search my face. He looks appalled. He says, Emma, I…His voice trails off. I lost control, he says quietly.

It’s all right, I say. It’s all right. I say it over and over, the way you’d soothe a runaway horse.

We clutch at each other, exhausted, as if the bed is a raft and we’ve found each other in a shipwreck.

It wasn’t only you, I add.

It was such a small thing that prompted this. Since Edward moved in I’ve been trying to keep things tidy, but sometimes that’s meant chucking things in cupboards just a few minutes before he gets back. He opened a drawer and found it full of, I don’t know, dirty plates or something. I told him it didn’t matter, tried to make him come to bed instead of dealing with them.



And then…Bam.

He got angry.

And I got the best sex I’ve ever had.

I crawl into the warm bit between his arm and his chest and repeat the words I screamed at him not so long before.

Yes Daddy. Yes.





8. I try to do things well even when others are not around to notice.

Agree ? ? ? ? ? Disagree





NOW: JANE

“I have to go away.”

“So soon?” It’s only been a few weeks since Edward moved in. We’ve been happy together. I know it in my heart, but I also know it from the metrics, which Edward has been doing along with me. His aggregate is fifty-eight; mine a little higher at sixty-five, but still a big improvement over where I started.

“I’m needed onsite. The planners are being difficult. They don’t seem to understand we’re not going to complete the buildings and just hand them over for people to do what they like with. This was never about bricks and mortar. This is about building a new kind of community. One where people have responsibilities as well as rights.”

This is the eco-town the Partnership is building in Cornwall. Edward rarely talks about his work, but from what little he’s said I’ve gathered New Austell has been a titanic struggle—not just because of the vast size of the commission, but because of all the fudges and shortcuts the developers have tried to force on him along the way. He suspects they only appointed him because of the luster his name brought to a controversial planning application; suspects, too, that it’s exactly the same people who are now orchestrating a PR campaign against him, trying to put pressure on him to cram in more units, water down the rules, and thus make the whole thing more profitable. In the press, the idea of “Monktowns,” austere communities of monastic simplicity, has become a standing joke.



“Do you remember what you said when you interviewed me? That I should talk to your clients about what it’s like to live this way? I’d be happy to, if it would help.”

“Thank you. But I already have your data.” He holds up a sheaf of papers. “Incidentally, Jane. Housekeeper is showing that you’ve been looking for information about Emma Matthews.”

“Oh. Perhaps once or twice, yes.” In fact, most of my nosying has been done at work, or using the neighbors’ Wi-Fi, but sometimes, late at night, I’ve been careless and used One Folgate Street’s own Internet. “Is that a problem?”

“It’s just that I don’t think any good can come of it. The past is over; that’s why it’s the past. Let it go, will you?”

“If you like.”

“I need you to promise.” His tone is mild but his eyes are steely.

“I promise.”

“Thank you.” He kisses my forehead. “I’ll be gone for a few weeks, maybe a little more. But I’ll make it up to you when I’m back.”





THEN: EMMA

At work I look up “Elizabeth Monkford” and save the images to my desktop. I’m not surprised to discover his wife looked a bit like me. Men often go for the same type. Women do too, of course. It’s just that in our case it isn’t usually physical resemblance so much as personality.

Simon was an aberration, I now realize. The kind of men I’m really drawn to are men like Edward. Alpha men.

I study the photographs carefully. Elizabeth Monkford had shorter hair than me. It gives her a slightly French, boyish look.

I go into the ladies’ room and stand in front of the mirror, pulling my bangs up with one hand and holding the rest of my hair around the back of my neck with the other so it’s out of sight. I like it, I decide. A touch of Audrey Hepburn. And it will show off the necklace.