The Half Sister(64)

She wishes Kate could just be her sister for once, instead of forever being in reporter mode – constantly chasing the story that she thinks everyone is hiding. Maybe she should have put her investigative skills to the test when their father was alive, because quite clearly there’s a truth there that she missed.

But no matter what Kate thinks she’s found out, Lauren is sure of one thing; Jess did go to university. That’s what she’d told her and she had no reason to lie.

‘What are you doing?’ asks Simon, walking into the bathroom. The illuminated screen on Lauren’s phone casts a white light that is impossible to disguise.

‘I was just . . . just . . .’ she stutters, hunched over on the lid of the toilet seat in darkness.

‘Are you texting?’ he asks.

Even in Lauren’s head, everything about the scene makes it look clandestine; as if she’s doing something she shouldn’t be.

‘It’s nothing,’ she says, in a clumsy attempt to over-emphasize her innocence. She immediately chastises herself – it’s the worst thing she could say. Nothing about what she’s doing makes it look like she’s doing nothing.

‘Who are you talking to?’

‘It’s . . . it’s just Jess,’ she says.

‘What does she want at this time in the morning?’ he barks.

‘She just wanted some advice,’ offers Lauren, hating him for making her justify herself when she’s not doing anything wrong. But you are, her inner voice says, referring to Justin. She can’t help but acknowledge how much worse this would be if it had been him she was talking to.

Simon snatches the phone out of her hand and she instinctively wants to snatch it back, but she forces herself to play the tactical game. Is that what their marriage has become? A tactical game?

She watches powerlessly as Simon thumbs over the screen to read the messages that have gone back and forth between her and Jess.

‘You’re encouraging her to sleep with somebody?’ he asks incredulously.

‘No . . . no of course not.’

‘Well, that’s exactly what it sounds like you’re doing.’

Lauren can’t believe that he’s going to make an argument out of this.

‘Is that what you’d do? If you were in her position?’

Lauren looks at him, dumbfounded. Less than a minute ago he was asleep and now he’s looking for a row. It’s almost as if it’s become his default setting, whenever he’s conscious. What is it? Lauren wonders, that’s dented his male pride to such a degree that he so often feels he has to exert his masculinity in other ways? Maybe it’s his inability to hold down a permanent job. Maybe it’s a whole host of things, she muses.

‘Please don’t start.’

‘Don’t start?’ he hisses, his face close to hers. ‘I wake up in the middle of the night to find my wife hiding in the bathroom, secretly texting, and you’re telling me not to start.’

I wasn’t hiding and I’m not secretly texting.

She pulls herself up from the toilet in an effort to feel more in control, but Simon’s looming bulk, silhouetted against the window blind, doesn’t feel any less intimidating.

‘Go back to bed,’ she says wearily.

He laughs falsely and goes to walk away, but then, as if he thinks better of it, he turns back around and grabs her arms, digging his nails into her bare skin. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ he bellows.

Lauren freezes, momentarily lost for words, but the pressure of his fingers, tightly holding her, gradually seeps into her consciousness and something inside her snaps.

‘Get your hands off of me,’ she says calmly, surprising herself with the control in her voice.

Simon laughs that manic laugh again. ‘Or what?’

‘Does this make you feel like more of a man?’ she asks.

‘You need to shut up,’ says Simon, tightening his grip.

‘Is this what you have to do now? To feel like a real man.’ She sounds braver than she feels.

Even in the darkness, she can see the glassiness of his eyes as he glares at her – the sliver of moonlight emphasizing his disbelief as his wife, fuelled by months of animosity and isolation, dares to fight back.

‘I’m warning you,’ says Simon. ‘Shut up.’

He pushes her and she stumbles backwards, catching her foot on the base of the toilet. She tries to right herself but it’s too late – she’s in freefall and it takes a second or two for her to react, throwing her hands out. She lands awkwardly, half in, half out of the bathtub, and in her effort to break her fall, she’s jarred her wrist. It throbs – like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Lauren looks up at the shadow looming over her, sure that, even if the lights were on, she’d still not recognize the man she’s been married to for six years.

‘If you ever touch me again,’ she says breathlessly, ‘I swear to God I’ll take the kids and leave.’

It feels strangely euphoric to have finally found her voice after months of fearing she’d lost it.

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he sneers.

She lifts herself up, grimacing as she puts weight on her pulsing wrist, and reaches for the light pull.

‘Try me,’ she says, locking eyes with him as the tiny room is illuminated. ‘Just try me.’