The House Swap(68)
‘Do you believe in justice, Caroline?’ she asks.
‘I …’ The question feels like a trap. Whatever I say, she’ll be able to twist it. ‘I believe in a lot of things,’ I say. ‘Justice, redemption, repentance.’ Forgiveness, I almost say, but I bite it back. ‘But beliefs aren’t always the same as reality.’ It’s the best I can do.
She pauses again, seeming to mull this over. ‘Tomorrow, this will all be over,’ she says eventually. ‘I don’t intend to talk about this to anyone. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to speak to you again. This is the last time our lives will cross.’
It should be reassuring, but with every word she speaks I feel unease growing; something not right, some subtext I can’t catch. And before I have a chance even to open my mouth to reply, she hangs up.
Slowly, I lay the phone to one side, rake my fingers through my dampened hair. The heat from the bathwater is curling up into the room, misting the mirror and the window with condensation. My skin is lightly covered with a film of sweat. I wipe the back of my arm across my eyes and, when I look at it, it’s smeared with streaks of mascara and tears. The conversation replays itself: the sparseness of her words and the meaning glittering in between them, threaded finely through the silence. She knows exactly what happened that night. I have no idea how, but she knows.
My head swims and all at once I know that, if I don’t get some fresh air, then I’m going to faint. I stand up unsteadily and push the bathroom window halfway open, kneel in front of it with my arms folded on the ledge and my face upturned to the bright sky.
After a few moments, I feel more stable, but I don’t move. Instead, I look down at the length of the street, its symmetry and stillness. Sun is slanting off the red-washed roofs, giving them the air of having been recently polished. Below, the gardens unroll in neat little lawned rectangles. I see the shadow first, cutting across the grass, passing swiftly and surely down the road. There’s something in the way it moves that catches me before I even realize I’ve been caught; my heart pounds with recognition and a fresh wave of heat pours across my naked body. The figure is walking with purpose, not wavering or looking back, heading straight to the doorway of number 14.
The sun dips behind a cloud and I press forward, my fingers clenching on the windowsill – and I should have been prepared for this but, now that it’s here in front of me, I realize there’s no amount of groundwork that could have stopped my pulse thumping through me or the tears of an emotion I can’t even name rising afresh to my eyes. It’s you. You’re home.
Home
Caroline, July 2013
CARL IS DOING up his tie in the mirror, watching my reflection on the bed behind him. He’s already late leaving. It was only ten minutes ago that he started getting dressed, and even now he’s suited only from the waist up: white shirt and dark jacket, and nothing else but a pair of black boxer shorts. I know that, if I tried, I could make him stay – a little longer, at least. But my limbs are aching with sexual exhaustion already and, besides, I know this isn’t the goodbye he thinks it is.
‘What time will you go?’ he asks. ‘Fucking hell.’ He fumbles with the knot, letting the tie fall apart again impatiently. ‘Can’t get this right.’
‘Can’t concentrate?’ I ask, stretching luxuriously on the sheets, and he smiles. ‘I’ll probably go in an hour or two,’ I say idly, hugging my secret to myself. Right from the start, I’d decided that I’d be here waiting for him, an unexpected surprise when he returns from the party. I’m not due to pick up Eddie until tomorrow lunchtime, and I’ve got nothing else to go home for.
He pulls his trousers and shoes on and runs his fingers through his dark hair, angling this way and that in the mirror. ‘Better go, then,’ he says flatly. There’s sadness in his eyes as he comes to sit next to me, and I think about telling him we’ll have another night together, but I bite my tongue. I want to see the pleasure on his face when he returns.
‘Bye,’ I say, pulling him down for a kiss and running my fingers lightly over his jacket. ‘Very nice,’ I murmur. ‘You know, I like you in this kind of stuff.’
‘I know, Caro. Believe me, I know,’ he says, wrenching himself reluctantly away. ‘Maybe I’ll send you a little picture later when I get back.’
‘You do that.’ The urge to confess rises up again, but I squash it back down, and he’s backing away towards the door, turning around for a last look, then pushing his way out into the corridor and letting it close gently behind him.
When he’s gone, the room feels emptier than it should, as if by leaving he’s taken all the energy out of it. These walls are thick and soundproofed and, even if I listen hard, all I can hear is a faint hum of static, a tiny suggestion of water moving through pipes. The storm from last night has cleared and the sun is out again, shining through the thin red curtains and warming my naked body as I lie in a shaft of light. I haven’t thought about this part – about what I’m going to do for the next ten or eleven hours until he returns. No car, no shops for miles around. I haven’t even brought a book.
I switch on the television and spend a few minutes looking through the channels, but nothing catches my attention and I can’t focus. Although it’s the last thing I want to think about, I keep coming back to the idea of Francis sitting alone at home, without his wife and son nearby; taking stock of things, thinking about the fact that this is how it would be if we weren’t together and that, on his own, he doesn’t have a damn thing to occupy his time. For a crazy moment, I think about calling him. But I have no idea what I would say, and I dismiss the thought. My mobile is on silent – I’ve deliberately cut myself off from him, not wanting anything to intrude on this time away. Unwillingly, I glance at it, half expecting a barrage of incoherent texts, but there’s nothing. I’m not sure if the feeling that twists through me is relief, surprise, hurt or something in between the cracks of all these things.