Jane
Tuesday 5th February
We sit at my friend Sandra’s kitchen table, all of us on our third glass of wine, red for them, white for me. Easier to clean. I’m considerate like that. She texted Tricia and I this evening, wanting an emergency wine night. I think we’re all in shock, her message said, come to mine for seven?
‘You’ll be good for Daddy, won’t you?’ I said to the children before leaving the house, hugging their little bodies tight to my chest. I didn’t want to leave them, but Jack told me to go, and something in his eyes made me put on my coat, grab my handbag, close the front door tightly behind me. My rib twinged a bit as I walked the ten minutes to Sandra’s house, a semi-detached place with lavender borders leading up to the front door. In the summer, the smell of them is lovely; now, they are sorrowful-looking husks, scentless and dead.
My hand is underneath Sandra’s; she grabbed it as she was talking, wanting the comfort even though I know part of her loves this gossip, despite the morbidity of what’s happened. Our wedding rings chink against each other. Tricia tops up our glasses, although we’ve had too much already. Everyone drinks more these days, even the PTA. It takes the edge off.
‘This used to be a safe place,’ Sandra is saying drunkenly, her lips blackened from the drink. Another reason I chose white. Moving her hand from mine, she clutches at her skinny chest, her palm smacking the centre, where people think their heart must be. They’re wrong, obviously, usually by a good few inches. That’s what Jack says, anyway.
‘My heart,’ she says, ‘it feels like it’s breaking for that little girl. Is that silly? But it really does.’
‘I know,’ I say. I thought this was a safe town, a nice place, a community of do-gooders. It’s how my husband sold it to me. A home for us, for our little family. You will love it here, he said, his lips curving into mine. A memory comes to me, of just before we moved: the steep drop of the staircase in our old house, the spirals in the ceiling above my head as I lay on my back, my rib broken and bruised. The way they looked at me in the hospital, before I smoothed it all away.
‘Tell us again how it happened, Mrs Goodwin,’ they’d said to me, and I watched as the nurses looked at my husband, their eyes slightly narrowed, their pens poised above my notes.
‘Perhaps you’d feel more comfortable without Mr Goodwin in the room?’ one of them had suggested to me, but Jack was standing by her side and so I shook my head no, told them I was fine.
‘I slipped,’ I said, ‘I slipped and fell as I was carrying the children’s washing upstairs. Roll on the day they can do their own laundry!’ The youngest nurse had laughed at that, smiled at me kindly, adjusted my pillows. I could almost sense the goodness radiating out from her, the purity. I wanted to be like that too. For just a brief moment when Jack went to the bathroom, I wanted to reach out to grab her arm, tell her the truth. But I thought of the children, their little eyes blinking up at me, and I didn’t.
A fresh start, he said on the drive home from the hospital, for both of us. Shortly after, we moved here.
Sandra takes another sip of wine, shoves a handful of Kettle Chips into her mouth. The gesture smudges her lipstick a bit, but no one says anything.
‘I can’t imagine how you’re feeling, Jane,’ she says, ‘her being next door to you guys.’ She gives a little shiver. ‘You can’t believe it, can you?’ She lowers her voice, looks at me and Tricia, her eyes darkening just a little. ‘You don’t think – well, you don’t think the obvious, do you?’ She’s almost whispering now, and I know what she’s going to say even before she opens her mouth, her white teeth flashing in the kitchen light. She uses strips to whiten them; I’ve seen them in her bathroom. £19.99 for a pack, bright white teeth for a lifetime. ‘You don’t think she was raped?’
The word changes the atmosphere in the room, as though the walls are tightening slightly, hemming us in. I put a hand to my throat, thinking of Clare’s long legs, of my son’s eyes on her golden blonde hair.
‘I think we ought to let the police be the judge of that,’ I say, ‘but I hope to God she wasn’t.’
‘It would be a motive though, wouldn’t it?’ Sandra presses on, oblivious to my discomfort. Rather than reply, I take another sip of wine, press my hand to my stomach, feel it rumble with hunger. We haven’t eaten dinner. Liquid calories.
‘I know what you mean,’ Tricia chips in, eyes gleaming with the promise of more gossip. ‘It does seem odd, doesn’t it, for someone to target her like that, without a reason?’ She shivers. ‘And Nathan Warren being the one to find her – well, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it? Poor, poor Rachel. And after losing Mark, too.’ She pauses. ‘I hope she isn’t thinking anything stupid.’
‘I took her a lasagne round this afternoon, after the police left,’ I say, and the women nod appreciatively. I did think about taking her one, which is almost the same thing. The curtains on Rachel and Ian’s bedroom window were pulled tight when I left to come to Sandra’s; I couldn’t see inside. Their bedroom faces into our bathroom; when I’m in the shower, I can see the full sweep of their bed, their his and hers wardrobe, the suit Ian hangs up before a big meeting in the city. They can’t see me, I don’t think. Anyway, a lasagne might have disturbed them. Overstepped the mark.
‘You’re such a good neighbour, Jane,’ Sandra says, hiccupping as she takes another sip of wine, and I smile, look away. Her house is a mess; kids’ toys clutter the floor.
‘We’ll get through this,’ Tricia says, nodding decisively, the effect ruined only slightly when a spill of wine slops from her glass, splashing onto her expensive cream blouse. ‘We all will. This town needs to stick together. We’re a team.’
The clock on the mantelpiece chimes – it’s an old-fashioned one, like my grandmother would own. Sandra never did have much style.
‘I’d better get going,’ I say, ‘Jack will be waiting.’ I glance at my watch, feel a rush of anxiety as I picture him looking at his phone for messages, annoyed now that I’m later than I said. Opening a beer, the soft click of the bottle cap releasing. Jack’s lucky to have you, an old friend said to me once. How true those words are now.
‘Oh, send our love,’ the women say, almost in a chorus, and I nod, start gathering my bag.
‘Ooh!’ Tricia says as I’m nearly at the front door, ‘I almost forgot to say, because of Clare. But did you hear about Lindsay Stevens, from the Close?’ She lowers her voice, even though we’re the only ones in the house apart from Sandra’s kids upstairs. ‘Apparently, her divorce papers came through. Supposedly she’s devastated.’
‘Goodness,’ I say, trying to look shocked, arranging my face into an expression somewhere between sympathy and sadness. ‘That’s awful.’
Tricia nods. ‘I thought I’d bake something for her, drop it round next week.’ She looks at me expectantly.
‘I’ll help,’ I say, just in time, and she beams at me, gives my arm a little squeeze.
‘Thanks, Jane, you’re a star. See you tomorrow for pick-up time! And get home safe, won’t you? Text us when you get in. God, I won’t sleep properly until we know who did that to Clare.’ She looks worried, and I feel a sudden chill which I push away. It’s a ten-minute walk home, and besides, I’ve been through worse.
I shut the door quietly behind me, thinking about Lindsay. I can’t tell them how I really feel about her divorce. I can’t tell them that deep down, part of me is jealous. It’s too soon for them to know the truth.
I walk home, down the quiet road, using the light on my new iPhone to check the ground in front of me, even though I know the small pavements like the back of my hand. I pass the schools on the right, the primary and secondary next to each other, encouraging all our children to stay just five feet from home for the entirety of their young lives, and my torch-light catches the whips of yellow ribbon tied to the row of saplings outside, hastily erected today after the news about Clare came out. Sadness spreads fast. Quickly, I move the beam away and stumble slightly. I’m drunker than I thought.
The Edwards’ house is lit up, lights blazing. As I get closer, my heart starts to jump in my chest. There are cars outside: two police, one black. Can’t really pass all this off to Harry as a security breach again. It won’t be long before the journalists descend. I shudder at the thought, thinking of the horror of last night. I think of my daughter Sophie, the sweet pink pout of her lips, the way her little white socks slip down her ankles. If anything happened to her, I’d die. She’s our only girl, though I always wanted more. I don’t have a sister, and Jack never speaks to his older sister Katherine – but we ended up with two boys. Not that I’d change Harry and Finn now, not for the world. Well. I might make Harry a touch more communicative. A touch less interested in blondes.
I walk quickly past the Edwards’ house, keeping my head down, not checking to see if there’s anyone sitting inside the parked cars. My keys are cold in my hand. I press the metal into my palm, harder and harder until it hurts. Our front door is heavy, a wooden slab framed by a thatched roof. If there was a fire, we’d all be up in smoke. Maybe that would be a good thing. He’s suggested it more than once. Shouted it, in fact. Luckily the children had Harry Potter on, the audiobook blasting into their little ears. Drowning out Daddy. I suppose Harry might have heard.
Inside our house, I press my back against the door, force myself to take deep breaths. Harry is home tonight; his huge black trainers are discarded inside the front hallway. I bend to pick them up, stack them neatly on the shoe rack, wanting to create a sense of order to ease my jumbled mind. I hope he’s feeling better. It’s horribly unsettling, having this happen so close to home. I know it’s awful, I know I should be focused on our neighbours and their grief, but selfishly, I don’t want the police sniffing around my family, prising apart the cracks in my marriage. Things can still change, any day now. He is usually sorry. So, so sorry. And the bruises fade fast, after all. There’s never been any point getting anyone else involved. Not at this stage.
Jack is sitting up in our living room, just as I pictured him, his legs stretched out on the large grey sofa that cost us over three grand. Three grand, I wanted to say to him, three grand would’ve sent Sophie to the private school in Saffron Walden. The 52-inch television screen is flickering in front of him, the volume down low. He puts a finger to his lips as he sees me. My stomach clenches.
‘The kids are asleep. Well, Harry’s on the Xbox, I think, in his room. But Sophie and Finn went down over an hour ago.’ He’s staring at me. Unblinking.
‘Thank you,’ I say robotically, moving through the room to the kitchen, the spaces joined together by the dark beamed archway. I stand at the sink, run a glass of cold water. The basin is deep, the gold tap high above it. Modern. Trendy. The kitchen faces the Edwards’ house. I wonder if Jack has been watching too.
‘Were the children alright?’ I ask.
‘Fine,’ he says, ‘Sophie wanted a story, Finn wanted more juice. Harry grunted at me. Nothing too strenuous.’
I can’t work out what mood he’s in. Words hang between us, all the things we’re not saying.
He gestures to me and I wobble towards him, fingers clamped around the water glass. He smiles up at me, puckers his mouth into the kissy shape that used to mean he wanted sex, and I grip the glass even tighter and purse my lips back at him, trying for a moment to recreate the old magic.
Later. I’ve swept up the broken glass, keeping a sliver wrapped in kitchen paper, up where the matches are kept so the kids don’t get hold of it. Just in case. I have these little weapons hidden around the house – break in case of emergency. The knife slipped between the top row of paperbacks in our room, third from the left, next to Wolf Hall. The envelope of twenties nestled in with the cookbooks. My escape routes, such as they are. He doesn’t know, I don’t think.
In bed, we turn towards each other; I’ve brushed my teeth, he hasn’t. I can still taste the slight fug of alcohol on my tongue, feel the beat of my heart in my ears. I picture Rachel and Ian lying in bed next door; I can’t imagine they’re asleep either. Maybe they’re not even in, maybe they’re down at the police station already. Perhaps the police are searching the house. I think of them thumbing through Clare’s things, their eyes taking in every little detail. I’ve watched too much CSI.
‘How were the PTA girls?’ Jack asks, and I half smile in spite of myself. Girls. We’re forty-five.
‘Lindsay’s divorce papers came through,’ I tell him, ‘Tricia spilled her wine. Sandra says her heart hurts.’
‘That’s impossible,’ he says, and I roll my eyes in the darkness. Always the doctor. ‘Why’s she getting a divorce?’
I shift onto my back. The white curtain brushes my arm, ghostly in the darkness. We’re trying so hard to be normal that it hurts. ‘I didn’t get to find out.’
I can almost feel the twist of his smirk, although his lips are barely an outline.
‘Lucky her.’
There’s a pause.
‘Jane,’ he says then, ‘about last night…’
I wait. I suppose I’m waiting for an apology, but this time, one doesn’t come.
I wish I could barricade the downy pillows between us, protect myself in my sleep. I want to talk more about Clare but I can’t; instead I stare at the wall and think of my children, of their sweet, chubby little faces, their sweeping dark eyelashes, the soft inhale and exhale of their breath in the next room. I think of Harry, his teenage body sprawled out underneath the duvet, the smattering of newly acquired stubble on his jawline. My babies.
I don’t fall asleep until Jack does. I’m too frightened.