Andrew is alive. Andrew is alive and he is a suspect. I sit on the wall outside the station. I’m shaking, can’t catch my breath. I blink as I try to work out what I think has happened. But for a while I can’t get past my first thought: how can he be alive when my family told me he was dead? And more to the point, where the hell is he? Why isn’t he looking for me? Rain beats down, and at one point a woman under a large umbrella stops in front of me.
‘Excuse me, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ I tell her, and she moves away looking doubtful. I look around; more people are close. I have to move, leave this place.
I stand up, pace the pavement in tight circles, try to piece together what I know about the day of the crash. Realising I need to find some sort of shelter from the persistent rain, I find a bus stop next to the station, perch on the edge of a wet bench. Suddenly a vague memory comes to me of being in a park, sitting on a bench. Was it the night of the crash? I feel as if I was waiting for somebody, but who? Could it have been Andrew? Could it have been Ben? Then the memory shifts and I see myself driving in the rain. Running through the woods. Searching for my son. The trees, the dark. Joshua, lying on the ground. But what the hell happened next? How did I end up back in my car?
At no point can I picture Andrew, Ben, or Damien, or arrange the individual pieces of that night into any logical order that explains things. I can’t tell the story of how I lost my child. But I am becoming ever more certain about one thing: I had no intention of crashing with Joshua in the car. All along I have felt it, the doubt that I could do such a thing. Now I know that at some point on that night I held him close to my chest, tried to make everything right. I know with certainty that I didn’t mean to kill either of us. Otherwise there is no way that his loss would hurt as much as it does.
I know something else too. My father is still lying to me. Andrew, my husband, is alive. It is impossible to believe that my father doesn’t know that. He even told me he had arranged Andrew’s funeral, thrown flowers from the pier. My mother and Jess must also know. My whole family, for crying out loud. How could they lie about something so important? Is that what my mother wanted my father to tell me that night in the dining room? Did she want him to tell me the truth?
I leave the bus shelter and walk aimlessly despite the pain in my leg, passing shops and people and places I don’t know. I wish I had the letter from the lawyer with my address on it so I could go to my house. If I could find it, I would never leave it again. I want to lock myself in and stay there forever; hide away, pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. But I can’t remember where it is. Close to the beach, my father said when he saw that picture on Facebook, but no matter how many roads I walk down, none seem familiar.
The rain is beating down, my clothes getting wet through. I stand on the seafront in the shelter of an awning, a little shop selling Brighton rock. The ruined pier sits to my right, the other one further to the left. But the shop owner is watching me and I can’t stay here forever. I need somewhere to go, somebody to go to. But I have nowhere and nobody. Not a single friend I remember who I can call on. I can’t go back to my parents’ house after learning of their deceit and lies. And I can’t go home, because I don’t know where home is. Does such a place even exist for me any more?
I find myself at the Palace Pier, standing next to a kiosk that sells vinegary chips in cones with wooden forks. Garish lights flash above me, the pier illuminated and blurry in the thick wet air. I listen as the waves crash against the shore, echoing underneath the wooden slats as I walk. I pass a sign that promises all the fun of the fair, ancient shelters, peeling paint. The smell of rotting wood. The obnoxious buzz of amusements rounds on me, loud and caustic, songs playing on top of songs, mixed with the din of games and cheer. A lone man feeds coins into a twopenny slot. Another shoots baskets. Gulls swoop. I stumble on, and suddenly the sight before me raises a memory of my past, hitting me like the rain, heavy and consuming.
Shall we get our fortune read?
It is Andrew’s voice I hear, and although it’s only in my head, I can picture him as he was then, all those years ago. His hair bleached by the sun, the scent of his old sweater as I leant in. A teenager. I see the kiosk at which we once sat, the old gypsy with her crystal ball and headscarf, bracelets that jangled as she moved. He was a sucker for things like that. He loved the machine you put a penny in too, which spat it back out with the image of Brighton pressed onto the surface. We did it every time we came to the pier, I think. I remember that now, just like it was yesterday. Where are all those old coins now? Lost, no doubt, along with the memories we once took the time to make. I wish I could remember something more solid, rather than these snapshot postcards of the past.
I walk further, past Horatio’s Bar, down to the helter-skelter and the colourful horses of the merry-go-round. I go as far as I can, brace myself against the railings at the end of the pier. The waves grow louder. I look out to sea, the place where my father told me Joshua’s ashes were scattered. Is that even the truth? I can’t believe anything they’ve told me any more.
Because he didn’t stop there, did he? Oh no. He told me it was my fault. He implied that Andrew killed himself because of me, and that Joshua was dead because of my mistakes. How could he do that? To his own daughter. A father is supposed to protect his child, not lie and manipulate them. He wanted me to believe that I could have chosen to kill my child. It’s unimaginable, and yet the truth. I gaze over the railing at the white swell of the waves, feel the spray on my face. And as I stand there, the wind buffeting my body, I can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier if I ended this now.
But instead I sink to the floor, my body flat against the wet boards of the pier. I let one hand slip through the railings, reaching down towards the water, towards the place where I can only assume Joshua’s ashes are. They should have waited, I think to myself, before they held the funeral. They should have waited for me to say to goodbye.
They should have told me the truth.
By the time I leave the pier, the light is fading, another weather front moving in, clouds swollen and grey out at sea. I know I have to confront my father, tell him what I know. He won’t be able to lie to me then. I walk through the streets, asking for directions from strangers, until I find the clinic where he works. It’s a large place, an old Victorian mansion, which even has some patients who stay overnight. I move through the unmanned reception, following the signs to my father’s office. I climb the stairs, the pain in my leg eased; I can’t feel anything any more. I am going to demand the truth. I am going to make him tell me the truth. But before I reach his office I see Guy standing in the corridor, talking to a nurse.
‘Chloe?’ He smiles at first, a set of notes in his hand. ‘What are you doing here?’ Then he notices my pale face and red eyes. I am shaking from the cold. Maybe anger. His smile disappears. ‘Chloe, what’s wrong?’
‘Where’s my father?’ I demand. He hands the nurse the set of notes and pulls me aside.
‘He’s already left.’ His voice is low. ‘And in a hurry, too. Something about a problem at home.’ I’m close to tears again. I need the truth and now my father is gone. ‘Chloe, tell me what’s wrong? What are you doing here alone?’
‘He’s lying to me.’ I feel Guy edging me towards a seat. ‘No!’ I shout, the eyes of the nearby nurses suddenly upon us. They think I’m a patient. I must look crazed. ‘I have to find him. He has to tell me the truth.’
I’m close to breaking, so I don’t stop him when he takes hold of my arm, firm but not in a way that hurts, and leads me towards the door. ‘Not like this you don’t,’ he whispers as we walk away from the crowd of onlookers. ‘Let’s talk in private.’
We walk until we find a quiet corner with a deep windowsill. We wait for a small crowd of people to pass. They’re laughing, cheerful. The sight of them makes me feel sick; the thought of everything I’ve lost, all the untruths I’ve been told. After the last of the group disappears around a corner, Guy turns to look at me.
‘It’s all lies,’ I tell him. ‘Everything he has told me is a lie.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘My husband’s alive, Guy. My father told me that he killed himself because of me, but he didn’t.’
He stands back, runs his fingers through his chestnut hair. I notice a few white strands creeping through at the temples. Then he reaches for my hand and gently pulls me to my feet. He starts walking, taking me with him. ‘We can’t talk about this here. Not when it concerns your father. Tell me everything in the car.’
He guides me down a rear staircase, quiet and away from the crowds. We exit into a gale, the rain eased, and cross the car park. In the car, before I can stop him, he calls my father to explain that I am with him. That we are on our way back. To that house, to that place where they have blinded me to the reality of my life. Reality, I think, laughing to myself. What even is that? It means nothing any more.