The Girl I Used to Be(85)

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“Oh, I was coming through Liverpool and thought I’d see what you were up to. Find My Phone showed you were here, so I thought I’d turn up and surprise you.” He spoke as though this were completely normal behavior. I didn’t know anyone else whose partner tracked them like that, but he always said he liked to know where I was. It was hard to believe I’d thought it was romantic when he first did it.

“I had nothing to do so I thought I’d come up and check that everything was okay here,” I said.

He walked around the hallway, pushing the doors to the kitchen and living room open and looking inside. “Everything seems all right, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s fine. I was just about to leave, actually,” I said. “I’m starving. Fancy a takeaway? Chinese?”

I was really struggling to sound normal. David could pick up anything different about me from a mile away; my heart raced at the thought of him noticing anything now.

“Are you okay, darling?” he asked. “Are you tired?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just hate being here. It makes me feel really weird.” I put my hand in his and he kissed my knuckles. “I want to be back home.”

“Come on, then,” he said. “Pity we’re in different cars. Fancy going for a meal somewhere near here instead?”

“If you like.” It was always important that I gave him the choice, let him make the decisions. “Though I’d like to get into a hot bath and have a glass of wine.”

He gave a soft laugh and said, “I’ll join you.” My skin prickled with disgust. “Got your keys?”

In a flash I remembered that my handbag was in my mother’s room. I cursed the fact that I hadn’t just let him take me home in his car.

“My bag’s upstairs,” I said. “I won’t be a second. You go and get the car started.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

He took the stairs two at a time and I hurried after him.

“It’s in my mum’s room,” I said.

“Is there anything you want me to bring back now? Have you decided what you’ll keep?”

I thought of the boxes of papers under the bed and hoped he wouldn’t notice them. He would never believe that I knew nothing about them. “Honestly?” I said. “I never want to see any of it again.”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

We went into my mum’s room. I wanted to shut the door, to give Gemma the chance to escape, but I didn’t have the nerve. He’d know something was up immediately if I did that. And then he’d see her from the window. I nearly collapsed at the thought of him chasing her.

I picked up my handbag. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go. I’ll call around some charities tomorrow and ask them to take the whole lot. They can sell whatever they want and chuck the rest.”

“But there’ll be things you want, surely?” He stood in the doorway of my mum’s room. “What about the television? It’s fairly new, isn’t it? We could have it in our bedroom.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want it. They can take it all.”

I was just about to say that I could afford a new television if I wanted one. I could afford a new house to put the new television in, if it came to that, and then I realized that in his mind, the money belonged to him. Not that it belonged to both of us, even, but that it was his. I knew if I wanted to buy something, whether it was a television or a house, he’d have to approve, and if he said no, it wouldn’t happen. The rage I’d felt since I realized what he’d done nearly overwhelmed me: He’d caused my brother to commit suicide and my mother to die young and yet he thought her money was his.

And it was then that the courage to say something struck me. I knew Gemma was in Alex’s room and she’d hear everything I said. I hoped she had her phone out, ready to call the police if he turned nasty. So quick as anything, before I could think about the sheer lunacy of saying something, I stopped dead in the hallway, just outside Alex’s room.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “I wanted to have a chat with you about Alex’s party.”





SIXTY-SIX


    RACHEL


I FELT AS though my lungs were only half full of air; my voice sounded completely different. Higher-pitched. Breathless.

He stared at me for a couple of seconds. I could feel my chest heaving. He glanced down, then at my face. He sounded bewildered. “What? What about it?”

“I didn’t realize you were there,” I said. I tried to sound matter-of-fact, but my heart was racing. “You weren’t on Alex’s guest list. I saw it, after he died. My mum used to go through everything. She phoned everyone on it several times, checking again and again. Well, you know that. I’ve told you often enough. But she didn’t phone you, did she?”

“Why would she?” he said slowly. “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t invited. It was just for his friends from school.”

Now that I had started I had to go on, even though I felt like a lemming running toward a cliff. “Well, yes, that was the idea. My mum and dad made him promise that. But you were there anyway. And Alex didn’t know.” I stepped back a couple of feet. “Why was that?”