I am aware of Nathan behind us and I feel Alex tense. I turn and push my son behind me as if to protect him.
‘Well? Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?’
‘No. I’m going to take Alex and we’re going to find our dog.’ I take my son’s hand and pause in front of Nathan so he can step aside.
‘Horrible, isn’t it?’ he says as we pass him. ‘To lose something you love.’
‘You’re an arsehole!’ Alex cries. ‘You did it. If she’s dead it’s because of you. Why? Why would you do that?’
Nathan sucks on his teeth, mouth set hard, one corner of his upper lip is lifted in a cartoon snarl. ‘I did nothing of the sort. The dog got into the bin where your mother put a bag of poisoned voles. Not me. Blame her. If she’d kept them where I put them the dog would be safe.’
‘You pulled the bin over. You poisoned her. She wouldn’t go through the bins.’
‘It’s a dog. It’s a scavenging beast.’
‘I hate you.’
Nathan snorts. ‘Oh, please. It’s not me you should hate, it’s your lying cheating mother who ran off and—’
A shout from downstairs interrupts him.
A man’s voice.
‘Hannah?’
It’s Cam.
Nathan laughs a short bitter noise like a gunshot. ‘Oh my god. Are you serious? He’s here? In my home?’
‘Please, don’t—’
‘Shut up, Hannah. You have no right to tell me what to do, and you know what? I’m done with you. The murdering bastard can have you.’
My heart skips. I glance at Alex but he’s panting hard, staring daggers at Nathan, and doesn’t seem to have registered what Nathan said.
‘Hannah? Alex? Are you up there?’
I swear. Why is he here? Why didn’t he listen? He ignored me. I told him to stay away. A surge of anger swells inside me. Fuel on the fire is the last thing we need and I told him to stay away. Why did he ignore me?
‘Go away, Cam! We’re fine. Please.’ I choke back my tears. ‘Go.’
But still he doesn’t listen. Footsteps on the stairs. Alex swipes at his tears and straightens his shoulders like a soldier standing to attention.
Cam appears beside me. I roll my eyes and glare. He shouldn’t have come. I can handle this, but not if he’s here.
‘Is everything all right?’ He looks at me and then at Alex.
‘Excuse me?’
Cam ignores Nathan. ‘Hannah? Alex?’
‘Get out of my house. I’m calling the police. You hear me? I’m calling the police and I’m telling them everything.’
‘Do it,’ I say then, my voice calm and flat. ‘I don’t care anymore.’ I pause. Stare at him. ‘But if you do, you’ll be arrested, too. They’ll charge you with concealing a crime.’
His face doesn’t flicker. He’s ready for me. His face folds into a smug smile of victory. ‘No, they won’t, because I’ll tell them how you blackmailed me. And how he,’ Nathan points aggressively at Cam, ‘threatened to kill me. I’ll tell them I was terrified and I’ve lived in fear all these years.’
‘Then we’ll tell them you’re lying. There’s no body. You can’t prove anything. It’s your word against ours.’
‘Mum?’ Alex’s voice cuts through me. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘It’s OK, Alex,’ Cam says.
‘Jesus Christ, would you just get the hell out of my house!’ Nathan’s screech rips through the air. ‘Get out of my house, you murderous bastard, and take the two of them with you,’ he says through clenched teeth. ‘Take your slut. And take your son and get the hell out of my house.’
Cam stares at him for a moment, then glances at Alex, and with his face full of regret says, ‘He’s not my son.’
The past is snapping at my heels like a rabid dog.
Nathan smiles nastily. ‘Well he certainly isn’t mine.’
Alex is looking between the three of us, bewildered and small, amid all this chaos and shouting. All I wanted was to protect him.
I’m so sorry.
I look back at Nathan and swallow, dredging up the strength I need to do this. ‘Alex isn’t Cam’s son.’
Nathan’s eyes narrow with unbridled contempt. ‘Oh Hannah, didn’t you work it out? He has to be. I can’t have children.’
His words punch the air from me. A flash of that night rips through me. The smell of him. The sound of waves lapping in the darkness. I want to push it all away, but I can’t.
My poor son. My poor boy.
‘I got myself tested ten years ago. When we couldn’t get pregnant. I knew it couldn’t be you, because of Alex, so I went secretly. Had tests. It came back conclusive. I am not able to have children. Never was. So, we know, don’t we, that Alex isn’t mine.’
As I stare at him, my brain floods with questions. ‘You didn’t tell me.’
He looks at me with indignant bafflement. ‘Why should I have to tell you anything? I owe you nothing. Nothing.’
‘Hannah. I’m… I don’t know what to say.’ It’s Cam, stuttering, struggling to get his own head around things. Stupid, really. It wasn’t hard to work out. But here I am, with two men who convinced themselves of what they wanted to believe. Slowly, realisation dawns on Cam’s face. His own understanding of the past shifts into position.
Not Nathan’s child.
Not his child.
There was only one other person.
My knees buckle and all I can do is steady myself with a hand on the wall. I’m melting and it hurts so much. Ignoring Nathan’s blustering and Alex’s questions, Cam walks to me and wraps me tightly in his arms as he whispers into my hair.