Friend Request(93)

Oh God. Poor Sophie.

‘We walked down the path to the woods, and I was still hoping that she would leave it alone, still trying to think of something I could tell her that would satisfy her curiosity. But then she started saying we should tell the police, and… that was when I panicked, Louise. Why did she have to drag the police into it? I couldn’t have her telling the police about seeing me with Maria that night, could I? I couldn’t let this one mistake ruin the rest of my life, my children’s lives.’

‘So you…’ I whisper, not able to finish the sentence.

He puts his face in his hands.

‘I didn’t mean to. Didn’t want to. You have to believe that, Louise.’ His voice is muffled, the sound only just escaping between his fingers.

‘But all those years… you let me believe that I was responsible for Maria’s death… you encouraged me to keep it a secret too.’

I can see now with frightening clarity how much it suited Sam, encouraging me to feel guilty, not to tell, all the time subtly reinforcing the idea that what I had done meant that no one else could ever understand me, or love me. He didn’t want anyone poking around in the circumstances of Maria’s disappearance any more than I did. He needed to keep me close, and to keep me quiet.

I look now at this man who I loved for so long, who I still love, the father of my child. It’s as if someone has twitched away the veil I have kept so carefully suspended between me and the reality of what he was becoming after Henry was born. I worked so hard to pretend to myself that things were OK, but now I force myself to face the truth. Motherhood didn’t turn me into a prude. It was Sam who changed, not me. He resented the time and love that Henry took from me, and the energy that I poured into making my business a success, and so he pushed harder, needed more. He pulled me ever further down the road that led away from the fantasies we had played out together, games that I can’t pretend I hadn’t enjoyed, towards something darker, more sinister. Something real. Is that what happened with Maria? Did she do what I never did? Did she say no? I have to know, I owe it to her. I can feel the chain that binds me to Maria stretched taut between us. She deserves to have somebody know the truth about what happened to her.

‘What happened, Sam? At the leavers’ party?’ I try to sound matter of fact, concentrating on steadying my breathing, keeping my voice low.

‘I wanted to tell you so many times, Louise. You have to believe that. But I couldn’t risk losing you and Henry.’

But you threw us away, I want to say to him. If you were so scared of losing us, why did you leave us?

‘I saw her fall, so I ran down the path and took her hand to help her up. Told her we’d walk a bit to clear her head. She was panicking, clutching onto me, didn’t know what was happening to her. We took the path through the woods. It was darker in there, the moonlight couldn’t reach us and she held me even closer in the darkness.’ The words are rushing out of him now, as if they’ve been waiting inside his mouth for years, locked up, squirming to get out.

‘I talked to her about other things,’ Sam goes on. ‘Tried to take her mind off how she was feeling. We came out of the trees and walked down to the cliff edge, the sound of the sea crashing against the bottom of the cliffs. We sat down. I started to stroke her hair, just gently. She was enjoying it, all her senses were heightened anyway because of what you had given her. She tipped her head back, and I stroked the side of her neck, like I had done to yours earlier.’

I can see Maria, her throat white and exposed in the starlight. Moonlight dancing on the water, the taste of salt in the air.

‘She turned to me then, her pupils huge, asking me why she felt like this, saying she hadn’t had all that much to drink. I knew why, of course, but I couldn’t tell her.’

Oh, Maria, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

‘And then I leaned in and kissed her. She kissed me back at first, she really did, Louise. She wanted it. You have to believe that.’

I want to believe it, to believe him.

‘And then… we were lying on the ground, me on top of her, and she… she was wriggling, trying to get out from under me, but I thought… I thought she was enjoying it. I thought it was a game. Like with you, later, you know? Just pretending.’ Yes, like me. But I had lost track of where the pretending began and ended.

‘So I carried on.’ Sam’s words bring me back to the room, back to myself. ‘She wanted it, I’m sure she did. The things she’d done – you heard about it, didn’t you? We all did. She was trying to push my hands away, but it was a game, it must have been because in the end she stopped and let me do it.’

I think of Maria, so small and slight, surely no more than eight stone in weight, pinned beneath Sam who was nearly six foot by the time he was sixteen. No wonder she stopped fighting, all alone on the cliff, the roar of the waves drowning out her screams.

‘And then afterwards, I thought she would lie there for a minute like I needed to, to compose myself. But as soon as I rolled off her she scrambled to her feet, pulling her dress down and staggered off in the direction of the school. She was all over the place. I ran after her, asked her where she was going. She said she was going to tell everyone what I’d done to her.’

Even though I know with a creeping sense of dread how this story must end, a small part of me rejoices at this tiny act of defiance.