I Know Who You Are(14)

I asked him to put the picture in his study so I wouldn’t have to look at it, and I remember him laughing at the time. Not because he thought I was being ridiculous, but as though the photo were part of a joke that I wasn’t in on. I haven’t seen or thought about it since, but staring down at the black-and-white image now stirs such a peculiar feeling inside me, something that is equal in dread and disgust. My husband and I don’t have any family left on either side, we are both adult orphans. We used to say that it was just me and him against the world, before it changed to me and him against each other. We never said the latter, we just felt it.

Wandering around the house tonight, I notice how horribly big it is for just two people; there’s not enough life to fill up the empty spaces. Ben made it very clear—after we got married—that he never wanted us to have children together. I felt tricked and cheated. He should have told me before that, he knew what I wanted. Even then, I thought I could change his mind, but I couldn’t. Ben said he felt too old to become a dad in his mid-forties. Whenever I tried to revisit the conversation, he’d say the same thing, every time:

“We have each other. We don’t need anything or anyone else.”

It’s as though we had formed an exclusive club with just two members, and he liked it that way. But I didn’t. I wanted to have a child with him so badly, it was all I wanted, and he wouldn’t give it to me: a chance to clone ourselves and start again. Isn’t that what everybody wants? I knew that his reluctance had something to do with his past and his family, but he never spoke about them, he always said that some pasts deserved to be left behind, and I can understand that. It isn’t as though I ever shared the truth with him about my own. We exchange the currency of our dreams for a reality funded by acceptance as we get older.

I remind myself that it cannot be this hard to find a single recent photo of Ben. At one time we had albums full of them, but then I stopped making them. Not because the memories didn’t mean anything, but because I always thought we’d create more. I know other people like to share every moment of their private lives by posting pictures on social media, but I’ve never liked that sort of thing, and neither did he; it was something else we had in common. I’ve fought too hard to protect my privacy to just casually give it away.

I pull down the attic ladder and climb up the steps, telling myself I’m still looking for photos. There is nowhere else I haven’t already looked. Ben was supposed to take care of the move and all the unpacking. I’m guessing there must be a box full of old photo albums up here, along with all our other belongings that I can’t see downstairs: books, ornaments, and the general shared detritus and dust of lives that have been lived together.

I turn on the attic light and I’m baffled by what I see.

There is nothing here.

Literally nothing. It’s as though most of the life I remember has disappeared, and there is very little left of us. I don’t understand. It’s as though we didn’t really live here.

My eyes continue to scan the dusty floorboards and cobwebs, illuminated by a single, flickering bulb. Then I see it: an old shoebox in the far corner.

The ceiling is low, and I crawl on my hands and knees, trying to protect my face from the dirt and spiders lurking in the gloom. It’s cold up here, and my hands are shaking when I remove the lid from the box. When I see what is inside, I feel physically sick.

I climb back down the attic steps, with the shoebox tucked under my arm, then turn off the light. A cocktail of fear and relief stirs inside me; I’m afraid of what this could mean, but also relieved that the police didn’t find it. I put the box in the bottom of the wardrobe, sliding it next to others that contain things they should, instead of things they shouldn’t. Then I practically fall into bed without getting undressed. I just need to lie down for a little while, or I’ll never get through a day of filming tomorrow. I close my eyes and I see Ben’s face; I don’t need a photo for that. It feels as if the us I thought we were is being demolished, lie by lie, leaving little more than the rubble of a marriage behind.

I’m starting to think I didn’t know my husband at all.





Twelve


Essex, 1987

“Time to wake up now,” says Maggie.

I wasn’t sleeping.

The sky outside the car window has turned from blue to black.

“Come on, don’t dawdle, out you get.” She folds down the front seat so that I can climb out. Her hand scrunches itself into a cross shape, just like my daddy’s hands do.

I stand on the side of the street, blinking into the darkness, looking up at the strange-looking line of shops I’ve never seen before. Then Maggie takes my hand and pulls me towards a large black door. I have to run to keep up. She walks just as fast at night as she did during the day.

“Where are—”

“Shh!” She flattens out the hand that was scrunched up and covers my mouth with it. Her fingers smell of bubble bath. “It’s late and we don’t want to be waking the neighbors. No more talking until we’re inside.” Her hand is covering my nose as well as my mouth and it is hard to breathe, but she doesn’t take it away until I nod to show that I understand. “Fingers on lips,” she whispers, and so I do what she says, copying the way she holds her finger to her own lips, doing my best to look just like her.