Girl Unknown(85)

‘What did you call her?’

He slumped briefly against the counter, before pushing himself upright. He was still gazing at her in that sluggish way.

I said, louder this time: ‘David, what did you say?’

My words seemed to hit the middle of his forehead, the way he winced, put his hand to his brow, briefly pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose. When he took his hand away he looked at her again. It was extraordinary the change that came over his face. Confusion cleared, replaced by an expression of naked disappointment. A hurt that went deep. He shook his head to rid himself of it and said: ‘Nothing.’

He was coming back to himself, whatever delirium he had experienced trickling away, but the shock of it remained.

‘You thought she was Linda.’

He looked around for something, then finding the towel, he picked ice cubes up off the counter-top and began filling it with them.

‘Didn’t you?’ I insisted.

‘I should go,’ Zo? said, and started to move past me.

‘No,’ I told her firmly. ‘You’ll stay right here until someone tells me what’s going on.’

Something had happened. The air moved differently between them.

‘Mum?’ I heard Holly say.

‘Go to your room,’ I told her, my tone brusque, my heart beating quickly now with the feeling that I was on the cusp of something – a hard truth.

She turned away, leaving the three of us alone. I had no idea where Robbie was – it wasn’t important. Nothing was important right then except getting to the nub of the rot in our home. This weed that had taken root, growing and strangling all about her.

‘What happened just now?’ I said again, looking from one to the other.

‘Caroline, my face is bleeding, for crying out loud.’ He was recovering but he still sounded groggy.

‘The way you were looking at her just now. You were thinking of Linda, weren’t you?’

He took the towel from his nose, examined the blood on it.

‘You told Zo? about the baby, about the termination, didn’t you?’ I said, changing tack.

That caught his attention. He put aside the towel, buying some time to think.

‘Didn’t you?’ I pressed, my voice trembling with anger.

‘I didn’t think you’d react like this.’

‘You stupid, heartless –’ I stepped forward and he caught my wrists before I could reach him. I wanted to lash out, but his grip was strong and all I could do was pluck ineffectually at his shirt.

‘Caroline, for God’s sake.’

I was crying now, tears of rage and grief and helplessness. Tears over a decision made many years before. He held on to my wrists until the fight in me died and he let me twist from his grasp. Leaning against the table, I could feel her eyes on me, but I had no idea what she was thinking or how she might use this situation later against me. I was so tired of her, exhausted by her constant presence, trying to second-guess her motivation, bracing myself against her manipulation, feeling the waters closing over my head. One thought rose to the surface, a single piece of flotsam: She must go.

I told him then. Told him I’d had enough. Enough of her and the trouble she brewed up, enough of him and his wavering loyalty, his lack of trust. Enough of Linda. He blinked as I said her name, a raw nerve touched. I had read it in his inward stares, his lost thoughts – I had felt him summoning her memory, like the medium at a séance calling back the dead.

‘It’s her or me, David. One of us must go.’

My hands on the table, its hardness beneath my fingertips, the heavy warmth of the night air coming in through the open windows.

‘You’ve never liked me, Caroline.’ Her voice came almost as a surprise. For the last few moments, what was passing between David and me had felt so intensely personal it was as if no one else was in the room. ‘I don’t know why, but you’ve never liked me.’

Holly was at my elbow again. ‘Please, love,’ I told her. ‘Not now.’

She was handing me something, and David said, ‘No,’ with an urgency that made me look.

A scrunched-up piece of paper put in my hand.

‘Holly!’ he said.

I opened it and read quickly, David saying, ‘Look, I can explain.’

I looked at him, and it was dreadful the way he stood there in front of me, his nose bloodied but his face blank of all expression. He was simply waiting to see what I would do next. In my hands, the lie he had told. The thing he had tried to cover up.

‘You told me it was positive.’

He swallowed, the noise of it audible in the silence of the room.

‘How could you do that?’

‘Because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t prove anything.’

But it did prove something. It proved the measure of his want. I couldn’t put it into words – it was more a feeling, an intuition about the need that lay within him, something untouchable and remote, a hole in his life that had to be filled. All those years I’d believed that our marriage, our children, his career were bringing him fulfilment. But it was still there inside him – that wanting, that emptiness.

‘You had my DNA tested?’ Zo? asked quietly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he told her.

‘You didn’t believe me,’ she stated, hurt cracking the corners of her voice.