The Things You Didn't See(84)

It’s tricky to remain unnoticed after we hit the B-road, inland from the coast that leads to Reydon, where I remember Dawn and her mother live. It’s just his car and mine on the road now, so I hang well back and see we have arrived at the town. I almost miss him when he takes a sudden turn left into a side road. I pull over, the risk of him seeing me is just too great now we’re driving in a 30 m.p.h. zone. I wait two minutes before I drive on again, scanning the tops of cars along the street for the blue fin. Then I see it, parked directly outside a red-brick end terrace.

I pull over sharply, breathless, pulling on the handbrake just as he gets out. My heart hurts. He looks so very much like my Daniel, but if my suspicions are true, he isn’t. He doesn’t even look down the road as he locks the car. He has no idea I’m watching as he walks up the path, stands on the doorstep and reaches forward to rap on the door. At least she hasn’t given him a key.

He collects the single bottle of milk from the step: it looks like she lives alone then. The front lawn’s uncut and the curtains hang uneven at the windows, as if she pulled them back in a hurry. This isn’t how I’d expect his lover to live – I’d imagined manicured perfection.

Finally, the door opens. I can’t see her face, she’s standing too far back in the porch. He walks in, hands her the milk. I can see her better now: yes, that’s the woman who was in my home that day, Monica. Dark bobbed hair, dark skin, an elegant profile like that of Cleopatra. The door closes and whatever is going on inside remains a mystery. What did I expect, full sex on the front porch?

I’m disappointed, it’s not enough. I can’t have come all this way for nothing.

I wait. Time passes.

The postman arrives, whistling as he walks up Monica’s path. He leaves an envelope sticking out from the letterbox; it hangs there, like a taunt. It’s a large envelope, white and official-looking. A gift, too golden to resist, despite the risk. I try to look casual as I walk up the paved path, trampling weeds and grass that have forced their way through the cracks.

I lift the letterbox slowly, silently, pulling the cream-vellum franked envelope free. As I’m easing the flap back, I hear a voice inside, Daniel’s voice. I want to scream through the letterbox. Then, through the glass, I see someone coming down the stairs: Dawn. I let go of the flap – slap – shove the envelope deep into my pocket, jump away and move briskly, purposefully, down the path. I run, not turning, until I’m safe. Even when I reach my car, I don’t slow down. I pull away with such force, the wheels skid under me. I make my hands loosen their iron grip on the steering wheel and wait for my heart to return to normal.

I drive fast out of the street and a hundred yards further on I pull into a cul-de-sac, circling around until I reach a dead end. No one followed me, I’m safe. After I’ve parked, I take the crumpled envelope in my shaking hands and read it:

Miss Monica Ray





4 Runnels Way


Reydon


Monica Ray, are you my husband’s lover?

I thought my relationship was okay. I believed that my jealousy was baseless, a sign of my suspect mental state. Two years ago, I believed Daniel when he said there was a good explanation for the missing money from our account, for all those calls that came at odd hours, for his many unexplained absences.

You persuaded me too, Mum, that I was paranoid, that Daniel wasn’t doing anything wrong. A stay at the Bartlet and I’d be fixed.

I want to be well, I want Victoria to stay home. Nothing can stop me now; I tear open the envelope. I need to know everything.

Inside is a letter on paper as thick as card, creamy coloured with black type, and on the top is the Oakfield logo. It’s a bill for an outstanding payment of ￡3,000, a final reminder. I read the typed message, feeling the thick paper between my fingertips and imagining the scent of Oakwood’s oak panelling in my nostrils.

We have liaised with Mr Daniel Salmon regarding the fees, but if no payment is forthcoming by the end of term we will have no alternative but to ask that Dawn is removed from the school.

The tone, the signature, is all Mrs H. My skin turns cold on my bones as I try to decipher the lines on the page. These are the hieroglyphics that slowly become clear to me.

Daniel is paying for Dawn to attend Oakfield. When I collected Victoria, Mrs H referred to two lots of school fees and though she said she’d made an error, I don’t think a woman like her makes errors with money. I see it all now, the secret that he has kept from me.

Daniel and Monica are having a relationship and this is the only logical reason for him to pay for her education: Oh God, Dawn is his child.

I can’t go home, not now. I need to keep going, to know the whole truth. Arriving back at Monica’s house, I see that the blue Mazda has gone, and I park in its place. Hands on the steering wheel, I realise this is a moment of choice, just like when I thought I heard them having sex in my house that Friday. That day I chose to flee, but I’m not going to do that any more.

My finger shakes as I press the doorbell. No answer, no movement, so I rap my fist on the glass. Monica Ray opens up then, irritated, fixing an earring in her lobe.

‘All right, where’s the fire?’

Her expression is closed, her eyes are hard; she thinks I’m here to convert her or to sign her up to save children, either way she wants me gone. Despite her face being nipped with irritation, she’s striking to look at: café au lait skin with shaped, angular cheekbones and dark eyes. She’d turn heads anywhere and, with those fierce eyes, she’s not a woman to be messed with.