The Things You Didn't See(28)
I have to be clear on this: Daniel never gave me any reason to doubt him. The doubts were all seeded in my head. Seeing I was ill, he tried to heal me, but this time it wasn’t enough. I was admitted to the Bartlet. I really wasn’t well and needed to be somewhere safe. I wasn’t home, so Mum suggested we send Victoria to my old boarding school, up in Norfolk. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, with Mum paying for the school to help us out. But then Victoria settled so well, and everyone said it would be cruel to remove her. Mum said what a wonderful gift it was, a private education, and who doesn’t want the best for their child? No one cared what I thought, or considered what it does to a child to be sent away from home at such a young age. No one ever listened to me.
‘Cassandra?’
I’ve drifted off, back into the past, but Holly returns me to myself.
‘I’m listening.’
In ten minutes, the library opens to the public and already a few regulars are milling around outside in the drizzly rain, peering in through the glass door. Clive notices too.
‘We need to draw today’s meeting to a close. Thank you, Trish, for sharing with us.’ A half-hearted round of applause, a ritual of appreciation. ‘I’d like to set some homework for next week. Could you each be mindful when a situation affects you? Maybe something frightening, or angry, or something that challenges you.’
‘Easy,’ drawls Kirsty. ‘Try a baby who won’t sleep, little sod. If I’m here next week, it means I didn’t kill him.’
Clive gives a game chuckle. ‘Well, yes, that would be one example. I’m under pressure from Ellen to book a winter cruise, just over Christmas when I get most busy.’ He pauses, and we all acknowledge what he means: the festivities are a bad time for the depressed. Most suicides happen in December. ‘Plus,’ he says, trying to sound more cheerful, ‘I hate boats. Please come prepared to share with the group next Friday.’
‘Not Friday,’ I remind him. ‘I won’t be here.’
‘Ah, yes, Victoria is home for half-term, isn’t she? What day are you back at work?’
‘She returns to Oakfield on Sunday, but Daniel always drives her. So what about then?’
‘Sunday it is, same time. Okay, everyone?’
Roger is pulling on his jacket, Alex has gone to unlock the door. One regular has his nose almost touching the glass, clutching books, desperate to be let in out of the cold. The last Friday in October and already it’s winter.
Kirsty helps put the chairs back into the reference section, but Trish remains seated. I take the lolly stick from her lap and pick the wrapper up off the floor.
Clive stands. ‘I’ll be off then.’ He secures his bag, looks again at the clock. ‘I appreciated your input today, Cass. As always.’
By mid-afternoon, when I finally leave work, I’m exhausted and I still need to go shopping. I decide to splash out and go to Waitrose. I pass the rows of chickens, their plucked corpses wrapped tight in cellophane, and wonder if any were raised on Innocence Farm.
At Oakfield, fizzy drinks are forbidden, breakfast is nutritious, the food is dull but wholesome. We both approve of this, of course; Daniel spends his life lecturing people on the benefits of porridge and pulses. But I weaken and buy a large pink cake, intended for a birthday. Victoria’s homecoming is something to celebrate.
I arrive home around three thirty and Daniel’s car is in the drive. He must have finished early. I’m excited about tomorrow, about seeing Victoria, and that makes tonight special. I have ingredients for a delicious tea – a roasted vegetable and garlic timbale with quinoa. I’ll ask Daniel to open one of his excellent bottles of red wine, mostly gifts from grateful clients. I’ll listen attentively when he tells me the wine’s merits, I’ll have a bath with that expensive plant oil he bought me, I’ll wear that linen dress he likes.
I’m still smiling, the key still in the door, when I hear a woman laughing, upstairs in our home. I freeze, listen.
‘Oh, Daniel!’
I’m imagining things. I do that sometimes. Clive says it’s my brain’s default valve in times of stress. I climb the stairs slowly, uncertainly, and it takes a lifetime, but I have to find out: either I’m having another episode or Daniel is fucking another woman.
I’m at the top of the stairs when I hear her voice again.
‘Oh, Daniel, please – just do it!’
He says something, I imagine him directing her to a new position, a new pleasure.
I’m frozen to the spot, poised ready to fight or flee. Heart speeding, muscles tight, ears pricked. I can’t see the bedroom, but in a flash my brain pictures a shapely calf wrapped over Daniel’s thigh, painted fingernails digging in his buttocks to take him deeper.
‘Daniel! That’s too much, I really can’t . . .’
It’s the script of a porn film. Then Daniel’s voice booms, as blood pumps in my ears.
‘Please . . .’
He’s giving in to orgasm, as he does with me. I see in my mind’s eye the tangle of limbs. My pounding heart prods me on. Fury rises like a tide in my ears. I push open the bedroom door.
The room is silent, our bed is empty. Confused, shaking, my hands turn clammy as my grip on sanity loosens. It was all in my head. This was how it was two years ago, jealousy playing tricks with my mind. My brain was knitted together with therapy and drugs and time, but now the sutures are coming loose.