The House Swap(82)

You frown, jolted. ‘Well, no, not really,’ you say almost instantly. ‘I don’t know anyone on the road well. Why?’

I take a deep breath, and I realize that there’s no point in prevaricating, and that the truth is all there is now, with no reason to hide it away. ‘I’ll tell you,’ I say, and almost at once there’s a sense of release.

I tell you about the message I received, inviting me to exchange houses; the series of prompts and memories that began almost the instant I arrived; the emails exchanged and the dawning realization that what I had thought was one thing was quite another. I tell you about the woman in my house, and why she is there. I tell you that we have both been wrong in thinking that we could close the door on the past and lock it away, because it isn’t only our past we have been dealing with, and it isn’t only ours to turn our backs on.

You listen in silence, letting me talk. A couple of times, you look sharply at me, your eyes widening in fear or surprise, but you don’t speak until I have finished, and even then you let the silence stretch for a good half a minute.

‘This is a lot to process,’ you say blankly at last. Absently, you scratch the stubble on your chin, and I know exactly how it feels under your hand, the physical memory leaping to life with unbidden clarity. ‘I realize that’s an understatement. But it is.’

I try to imagine myself in your position – how it would feel to have the information that has been drip-fed to me in agonizing stages dumped into my lap in the space of a few sentences. ‘I know,’ I say.

‘I have no idea what to do,’ you say, as if to yourself. ‘I can’t—’ You exhale, almost impatiently. ‘I can’t think about this now. I haven’t thought about any of this for months. Years.’

‘I can’t believe that,’ I say, although as soon as I’ve said it I realize I can. You know how to switch things off: pack them away in their box and throw away the key. It’s a gift.

‘I don’t mean that I didn’t care about what happened,’ you say sharply. ‘I was in prison for three months, you know. I had time to think about it then. And believe me, I did. It focuses the mind, being somewhere like that. It was …’ You trail off briefly, frowning. ‘It was like the worst kind of groundhog day, the same soul-destroying routine over and over again. So there wasn’t much to do but think. I even used to dream about it, you know – the impact, the blood. The sight of her on the ground. But when I finally came out, I thought to myself, I’m damned if I’m going to ruin my life over something I can’t change. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t care about it,’ you say again, and there’s a brief, sharp pause before you meet my eyes, and the next words come out as if you’re not aware you even meant to say them. ‘Or about you,’ you say.

‘You never replied to my messages.’ I can’t help saying it. I think of that last long love letter I wrote to you, and all the emails I sent for weeks afterwards when I realized I had no way of knowing if you had read the letter or not. I put tracking receipts on those emails, and I know you read them. You read every single one. Sometimes, over and over again. But you never replied.

‘That’s because I meant what I said,’ you say carefully. ‘It had to end there. You know that. I know you thought I’d change my mind, but I couldn’t help that. I knew I wouldn’t. And I didn’t.’

Your tone is defensive but tinged with pride. You’ve always considered it one of your most admirable qualities – this single-mindedness, this ability to stick to your guns. No one has ever told you that, just because you can stick to something, it doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Or if they have, you haven’t wanted to listen.

My eyes are stinging and I force them open wide, knowing that the tears will fall if I blink. I’m trembling, thinking of myself hunched over the table in the middle of the night, scribbling the story of our affair out on to those yellow lined pages, desperately trying to find the words that would force a response, that would make you miss me so much you couldn’t help but want me. Something stirs in the back of my mind, some nebulous suspicion. ‘Have you kept the letter I sent you?’ I whisper.

Your face shadows, and you look briefly uneasy. ‘I did keep it,’ you say. ‘Even when I moved here, although I don’t really know why. But I don’t know where it is now. I haven’t looked at it in months. I guess it’s in my things somewhere.’

I can’t say for sure that you’re wrong, but I feel it in my bones. All the little details, the ones that no one but us would have known. The pale pink roses in the bathroom, the song playing on the radio, the picture of the park where we lay together. When Amber told me about the things that had gone missing from their home, she could only tell me about the things she knew existed. There’s a kind of mental click, an internal calibration as the last piece of the puzzle slots smoothly into place. I try to imagine those yellow pages in Sandra’s hands, and I can’t feel anything but pity.

‘I’ve never forgiven myself,’ I say, ‘for being so stupid and thoughtless in the first place, for deciding to drive when I’d been drinking, and most of all for walking away from what I’d done. I should have faced up to it. I owed it to that girl. I walked away – I walked away like she didn’t matter.’ It’s the first time I’ve said these words out loud.