Her Perfect Family(14)

Then he started crying – properly sobbing. And I didn’t know what to feel. I tried to leave but he said we needed to talk it through some more and work it out. He was still crying and he sort of grabbed my arm, not to hurt me, I know that, but just to stop me leaving. Anyway. I had to wrench it away.

Oh. My. Word. The look in his eyes. It was scary.

So that’s why I’m babbling here. Because he’s supposed to be coming with me next weekend to visit Mum and Dad again. We’ve got an expensive fancy afternoon tea booked as an early celebration for my birthday. And I don’t know what to do.

He’s been bombarding me with texts today, apologising. Sending me pictures of us all loved up etc. He keeps saying that all couples argue, which I suppose is true (though I told him before that my parents aren’t like that). And that getting past this will make us stronger . . .

I keep thinking about films and soaps, and rerunning TV dramas in my head. Is it normal to fight as badly as this? Can you get past stuff this bad? Do I expect too much? Is he right that I over-think everything?

And the thing is I am always boring everyone about how great he is. The perfect boyfriend. And yet suddenly I don’t know what I think of him at all – and what does that say about me? About my judgement?

So do I cancel the visit home? Do I confide in Mum after all?

The problem is, she really hates any kind of argument. I don’t exactly know why. Gran said some difficult stuff happened when she was a kid but I don’t know the details. So if I tell her about this, she’ll probably worry herself sick. She was the one in the early days telling me I was way too young to be thinking about a serious relationship. I was the one trying to convince her how fab and special Alex is and how ‘serious’ we are. Argh.

It’s all unravelling so quickly that I haven’t even told Maddy yet.

I don’t even know what to think.

I just . . . don’t . . . know.





CHAPTER 8


THE FATHER – NOW

Ed closes the front door behind him and hangs his waterproof jacket on one of the hooks on the wall. He throws his keys into the little wooden bowl on the narrow side table and listens to the familiar jangle as they settle.

Next, he stands perfectly still in the hallway, taking in the silence. Not so long ago, he would have rejoiced to come home to this. An empty house. The rare treat of the place to himself. He would have made a large pot of coffee and taken it into the conservatory with Radio 4 on his phone, piped through the speaker on the shelf. He would have luxuriated in doing precisely what he wanted with no jobs allocated by Rachel and no pleas from Gemma to help with her new CV, which in recent weeks she has been changing almost daily.

He’s walked through this front door a million times and thrown his keys into that same carved wooden bowl a million times and yet it is as if he doesn’t recognise the place. The bowl. The hall.

It’s still Friday but late. His second trip home to pick up things they need. He stares at his coat, dripping water on to the parquet floor. He hadn’t even noticed it was raining. He checks his hands. Wet. Feels his hair. Wet too. He wonders how long this daze-like existence will continue. When he might start to feel human again.

The problem, since the cathedral, is working out how he’s supposed to fit into the world around him. It’s not so bad at the hospital. There his purpose is clear. There Ed Hartley is the parent of a very poorly child. In Gemma’s small and oh-so-clinical cubicle, it’s all bleeping machines and nurses with tests and updates and his job is to listen, to watch the numbers on the machines, to press the doctors for information and above all to stay strong. His job is also to care for his wife who’s always been so much tougher on the outside than the inside. He runs errands for coffee and sandwiches and watches Rachel with all her hands-on care of their daughter, so tender and so patient that it’s almost unbearable to him.

But back here in the house, collecting things for Rachel and checking the post, Ed has absolutely no idea how to be. The house is just the same but their life is completely dismantled. It’s as if there are two worlds and he has no idea how to transport himself between one and the other.

He hears himself take in a long, slow breath and finds that he cannot bear the silence. You need to do something. The voice in his head sounds afraid. You need to get a grip and you need to phone Canada again. He glances at the landline and wonders if it’s safer to use his mobile this time. Will the police really check their phone records? He has no idea.

All he wants is confirmation that everything in Canada’s OK. He’s already tried emailing her parents but the email bounced, the address no longer valid. His first frantic call to the unit – late that first night – was a complete waste of time. They couldn’t help him and told him to phone back in the morning. He couldn’t; he was back at the hospital.

He watches more drips fall from his coat, pooling into a tiny puddle on the floor. If Rachel were here, she would appear with a cloth, worried about a watermark on the wood. He thinks of her earlier, before the scene with Alex, brushing Gemma’s hair – turning their daughter’s head from side to side ever so carefully.

He realises that he should have said something to the police about Canada from the off but leaving it this long has somehow made it more and more impossible to find the right explanation.

At last Ed takes his mobile from his trouser pocket and moves into the kitchen. A plate with toast crumbs is still on the side from his last dash home for toiletries and clothes. Rachel wants to stay at the hospital full time, using the little room provided for the family of seriously ill patients for rest. But the bed’s a single. They’ve tried taking turns but neither of them sleeps properly so Rachel says he should be the one to collect more things, check the post and grab some rest at home too.