Girl Unknown(19)

A bristle of anger went through me. Of course he told me, I wanted to say. I’m his bloody wife. ‘Do you mind if I sit?’

‘Sure.’

The bench felt cold against the backs of my legs. My gaze followed the curling path of a moorhen, gliding through the reeds. That pond hadn’t been there when I was a student. I could feel Zo? looking at me with that little smirk.

‘You thought you’d come here and give me the once-over for yourself,’ she said.

A statement, not a question, and I could see how it was going to be between us. She had no notion of treading softly with me. Whatever charm she had reserved for David, it was clearly not going to be employed here.

‘You can’t blame me for being curious,’ I replied.

‘True.’

She turned her face to the sun, her shoulders thrown back, and closed her eyes again. I examined the planes of her face, looking for some trace of David, but there was nothing. She was completely unfamiliar to me. David’s words ran through my head: A little slip of a thing. Shy. Was that really how he saw her? Some vulnerable waif? The unfazed stillness of her pose made her seem so sure of herself, so self-contained, nerveless, where I was rigid and tense.

‘What made you decide to seek him out now?’

‘I don’t know. I was always going to get in touch, wasn’t I?’

‘Why now, though? Why not before?’

‘Now, before, later – what difference does it make?’ She shrugged, then added: ‘I’m here in the college, after all. It seemed stupid to avoid it any longer.’

‘It’s come as a shock,’ I said, ‘for David and for me.’

‘Hmm.’

She said this in a ruminative, matter-of-fact way that infuriated me. There was no hint of her taking this seriously – it was all a game to her.

‘I suppose I wanted to meet you so I could find out what your position is.’

‘My position!’ She laughed thinly, sounding insubstantial, lacking in conviction, although when she spoke, the words were sharp and precise.

‘Yes, your position. I wanted to see where you stood on this.’

‘You make me sound like a politician.’

‘Well …’ My voice faded. The truth was I didn’t know what I wanted from her. Except, perhaps, for her to turn around and say it had all been a stupid joke: none of it was true. When I had made the decision to sit down next to her, I still thought if I just spoke to her – confronted her, I suppose – she would crumble, break down. There would be tears and an admission to a foolish spoof, some desperate grab for attention. But looking at this cat preening herself under the sun, I was the one close to breakdown.

‘Does David know you’re here with me?’

I looked at her sharply. ‘Yes,’ I said, the lie coming quickly to my mouth.

It was instinctive, the need to align myself with my husband in the girl’s eyes. Something told me that if she knew the truth she could use it as ammunition.

‘I see.’

‘He’s my husband,’ I said. ‘I don’t want him to get hurt.’

She flicked back her hair, opened her eyes, leaned forward to pick up her bag and got to her feet. Standing in front of me, she blocked the lowlying sun, her face in shadow, but I could see her gazing down on me with those cold eyes. Without a word, she swung her bag over her shoulder, and turned away.

‘My position,’ I heard her say again, amusement in her voice.

Her laughter rang out as she walked back towards the Arts building, and it stayed with me – the mocking ring of it. Sitting on the bench, I felt a shiver of nerves cross my shoulders. All those years I’d spent thinking about Linda, wondering what she might have been like, trying to imagine her, now I felt as if I had finally met her. And I didn’t like her. She unnerved me.

I told myself I was being ridiculous. Zo? was just a girl. A teenager. There had been no ghostly visitation. And yet I felt shaken by the meeting – unsettled.

Within my line of vision there was a bronze statue of two people reaching, leaping upwards with arms outstretched, limbs entwined – a man and a woman – lean, youthful, athletic, their fingers splayed as if trying to catch the sun. I looked across at that piece of art in the wake of Zo?’s departure, and read within it energy, vitality, joy. It reverberated with optimism and boundless possibility which made me feel a little sad because I couldn’t feel any of those things, not then. That day, staring at the bronzed figures in the coolness of the October sunshine, I felt hollowed out, as if something had just been taken from me. She was a thief, come to steal from me all that I loved. I knew it then: I would have to guard myself against her.

I wished I hadn’t met her. I had taken the measure of her and didn’t like what I’d found. I wanted it undone.

When David got home from work that evening and I heard him in the hall, I stirred the spaghetti in the pot and felt a tightening beneath my ribs. From upstairs came the sounds of Robbie practising his cello, a long drawn-out note, like a plea. David found me in the kitchen and asked: ‘Any news?’

I could have told him then. Instead I lifted my face to receive his kiss, smiling right back at him. ‘No. Not a thing.’





8. David


By my calculations, the results were due to arrive any day, and so it was that I found myself hurrying to campus the next mid-semester morning, my lungs filling with the heavy autumn air, a mixture of dread and excitement running through me.