What Lies Between Us(74)

CHAPTER 63





MAGGIE


TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER


I know how much of a mess I look. I’ve not eaten a proper meal in five weeks, I can only sleep when I’ve trebled my dose of tablets and when I look into the mirror I barely recognise the drawn, exhausted shell staring back at me.

The girls at work have started to notice. To their credit, they’ve rallied around me since I told them Alistair had walked out on me and Nina. Lizzy, the practice manager, suggested I took a week off to gather myself. I thanked her but declined; I’d feel worse if I were at home alone day in, day out, knowing my husband’s dead body is less than a hundred feet away from me.

I’ve put the little energy I have left into being hypervigilant around Nina. I have been walking on eggshells and anticipating the moment when everything about that night comes flooding back to her. But to date, there’s been no indication she has the first clue about what she did. Even when I capitalised on her blank memory and told her that her dad had moved out, there wasn’t a flicker of recognition in her eyes about what actually happened.

However, she’s struggling to make sense of Alistair’s sudden departure. She cannot understand why, when they were so close, there has been no contact between them. So I am the only person she can direct her anger at. She has been flying off the handle at the slightest provocation, she slams doors, listens to her music at an unbearable level and does nothing to help around the house. These aren’t just ordinary teenage tantrums; they’re indicative of something running much deeper. She has made it clear in no uncertain terms that I am to blame for driving her dad away. And I have no choice but to take it on the chin. Because I’d rather face the brunt of her tears and mood swings than have her remember any of that awful, awful night.

Meanwhile I have been trying to continue with life and my job as best I can. I keep making excuses to leave the reception desk, then I lock myself in the bathroom and cry my eyes out. It’s where I am now, sitting on the closed lid of a toilet, my arms wrapped around my body, as if giving me the hug I so badly need that nobody else can offer.

When I am alone, I keep replaying my final confrontation with Alistair moments before his death. Nina’s reaction was absolute proof that something traumatic had happened to her in there. I think of our last conversation and the fear in his expression; his was the face of a man who had been caught red-handed doing the worst possible thing he could do to a child.

Over and over, I keep asking myself if that was the first time or if it had been going on for years. Had there been red flags staring me in the face all along and I was too trusting or too ignorant to have noticed them? I rack my brains, but I swear I never saw Alistair behave inappropriately around Nina. He didn’t look like a child abuser; he was just an attentive, loving husband and a father.

When Nina was born, he was besotted with her and that never changed as she grew up. She’d sit on his lap and watch football matches on TV with him, they’d sing along to ABBA records, bake together and he’d take her to the cinema to watch Disney films. Sometimes when I felt excluded from their club, I’d remind myself that Nina was lucky to have had the love of two parents while I barely had the attention of one. How could she have continued to adore him after what he did to her? Had she started splitting herself into two as a way of dealing with the two versions of her dad? And when she heard me confronting him that night outside her room – had that forged those two Ninas into the furious shadow I watched execute her father?

I didn’t think it was possible to fall out of love with someone so quickly, but now all I feel is hatred towards the man I once adored. I refuse to think about the good times or the love and the intimacy we shared. I’m not going to search for him in the identity of my daughter. As far as I am concerned, he never happened. I won’t miss him or grieve for him or imagine how our life might have been. I am rewriting our history. It has always been and always will be just Nina and me. I am not sorry that he’s dead, only that it wasn’t me who killed him.





CHAPTER 64





MAGGIE


TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER


I find what I am looking for in Dr King’s office. He has an extensive library of medical journals and books. Some are old and bound in leather covers; others are modern textbooks lined up beside folders of papers and back issues of The Lancet.

I volunteered to work late tonight and as soon as the last GP left the building, I locked the doors behind her and drew the blinds shut. Then I made my way inside Dr King’s room and began my search. I need to know what I am dealing with.

I haven’t said a word to Nina about what happened the night she killed her father three months ago. And she finally appears to have bought into my lie that he’s simply abandoned us. However, protecting her from the truth has come at the expense of our relationship. And I suspect the part of her brain that’s burying what Alistair did to her isn’t able to hide it completely. It’s starting to reveal itself in the way she’s punishing me by engaging in sexual activity. One of the school mums told me she saw Nina and Saffron with a group of older-looking boys drinking cans of alcohol at the Racecourse last week. I’m convinced I saw love bites around her neck. But I was too afraid to confront her about them and risk upsetting the apple cart.

I get to work immediately, sifting through then replacing each book and journal on the shelves in exactly the same position as I found them. Hours later and when I’m two-thirds of the way through, I stumble across a possible answer. The book dates back to the early 1980s and lists every recognised mental health condition. It describes symptoms and potential causes, alongside case studies and suggested methods of treatment. My eyes scan up and down each page as I pore over each one. Finally, I locate something resembling Nina’s behaviour.