Men keep disappearing from my life and I don’t understand it.
I run around Jack’s home in just a towel, calling his name repeatedly, as though I’ve developed some unique form of anxiety-induced Tourette’s. I search each of the unfamiliar rooms, stopping inside a child’s bedroom on the first floor. The carpet is pink, and the furniture is white, with a colorful bookshelf in the corner and toys on the bed. The little girl’s bedroom drags me back in time and holds me there for a moment; it looks so much like my bedroom above the betting shop, it’s uncanny. I stand and stare, completely mesmerized. Distraught. Disturbed.
Am I losing my mind?
I lean against the wall, my breathing uneven and rushed, until the stress of my current predicament breaks the spell. I force myself to stand up straight and close the door, as though the memories the room invokes need to be locked away. I search the rest of the house before returning to the lounge, but Jack is not here. I stare at his keys and mobile, left redundant on the coffee table, and feel as if I’m going completely mad. How can this be happening to me again?
I find my own phone and for a moment consider calling Detective Croft, but then I remember where that got me last time: prison. I cannot call the police. I cannot trust the police. I can’t trust anyone. I notice that I’ve missed five calls, then see that they are all from my agent. I could tell Tony that Jack has gone missing, but what would that achieve? I decide against it. I’m quite certain my agent already thinks I am crazy. I see that he’s left two messages; I’ve obviously lost the Fincher film, so it seems pointless to listen. Before I get the chance to hear whatever he has to say, there is a knock at the door and I freeze. I don’t know what to do. I’m convinced it’s the police, that maybe I’m being set up all over again for something I did not do.
The knocking at the door resumes almost as soon as it stops, louder this time, more insistent, as though whoever is out there has no intention of going away. I walk into the hall and see the shape of someone bigger than me behind the frosted glass, but that’s all. What if it is him? The man I was married to for nearly two years, who didn’t even tell me his real name.
It could be him.
I walk to the kitchen, take a knife from the stainless-steel block on the counter, then return to the hallway holding the blade behind me. I open the door, just a fraction, enough to see who is standing on the other side.
“I forgot my keys, can I come in, s’il vous plaît?” says Jack.
I let out the breath I hadn’t known I was holding and step back from the door, watching as he passes by with a collection of shopping bags in each hand. I follow him into the kitchen, replacing the knife without being seen, and pulling my towel a little tighter around my body. Jack puts a carton of milk in the fridge, then turns around, his eyes lingering on my legs beneath the towel before making contact.
“I thought we might need a few supplies, and I also thought you might need something to wear. Apologies in advance if I’ve got your size wrong. It’s all from Portobello market, just some bits to keep you going for now.” He hands me one of the bags, and I can see a couple of dresses, some loungewear, and some new underwear inside. “And I got you these, I know how much you like to run.” He opens a shoebox, revealing an expensive-looking pair of trainers.
“Thank you.” I feel overwhelmed by his kindness, so I don’t know why I can’t stop myself from saying something I shouldn’t. “I didn’t know you had a little girl.” The words come out of my mouth like an accusation, and I can see I’ve caught him off guard.
“Yes, I have a daughter, she’s called Lilly. I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like, with the job, you know how it is.”
Not really. I would have given it all up if I’d had a child.
“Does she live with your ex-wife?”
“No, my daughter was a result of my first marriage. She was born in France and lived there until she was five, that’s why I’ve been trying to teach myself the language. She moved here last year and lives with my sister when I’m working, or here with me when I’m not. It isn’t a secret, it’s just that the whole single-dad thing tends to put people off. I’d love for you to meet her one day.”
He cared what I thought enough to hide the truth from me.
I don’t blame him for not telling me before now. We learn to future-proof our hearts, building a maze around them until they are almost impossible for others to find. I imagine myself becoming a mother to someone else’s little girl. I could do that, but deep down I still want a child of my own, my flesh and blood. I can tell Jack wants to change the subject, but I’m not ready to yet.
“Why doesn’t she still live with your first wife?”
He looks away briefly. “Because she died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be, you weren’t to know. Cancer took her. She fought a good fight. Sometimes I wish she hadn’t, she was ill for a long time and it was hard. For all of us. It broke my heart, broke my everything actually, but I had to carry on for Lilly. We’re okay now.” His face changes, as though a filter has been applied to my view of him. “By the way, your agent called. He said you need to call him back, urgently.”
“My agent called you?”
“Yes, he said you weren’t answering your phone.”
“But how did he know I was with you?”
Jack frowns. “Darling, do you ever check Twitter? Facebook? The news?”
“Not if I can help it, no…”
He walks back into the lounge and picks his phone up from the coffee table, tapping it a few times before holding it in my face. He’s opened the TBN app, and there I am, headline news, again, along with a photo of me embracing Jack on his doorstep less than an hour ago.
“Did you tell her I was here?” I ask.
“Not guilty this time.” He looks a little hurt. “I am sorry about that. I made a terrible mistake a few years ago, did something I shouldn’t have when my first wife was ill. It was such a dreadful business, watching her fade away. I was dealing with it all on my own, and I’m not making excuses, but I was scared and so … lonely. Jennifer Jones knew about what I did and threatened to spill the beans; she’s been blackmailing me ever since. If I’d felt like I had any choice, I would never have done what she asked, and you have my word that nothing like that will ever happen again. If I hadn’t let her into your dressing room that day, and then sent her the pictures of us, she would have destroyed me. Not just my career, my relationship with my daughter too; I can’t have Lilly read about what I did online one day, she’d never forgive me.”
“You slept with someone else when your wife was ill?” I guess, hoping that I’m wrong.
He stares at the floor. “Yes. There’s really no need to look at me like that, we all make mistakes when we are under enormous stress and strain. I was drunk, emotionally exhausted, it meant nothing.”
“Who did you sleep with?” I whisper, not sure I want to know the answer.
“She had a tiny part in the film I was in, it was so stupid, but life at home was so hard and—”
“Who?”
“Jennifer Jones. That’s how she knew I’d cheated on my sick wife, because it was with her. Maybe she thought I could help her nonstarter of an acting career, I don’t know, but I couldn’t do that, and I couldn’t see her again either. I knew it was a mistake at the time, but I didn’t know it would haunt me for this long. She gave up on acting shortly afterwards and became a showbiz journalist, but she never gave up on getting revenge for our one-night stand.”
The revelation makes me feel a little sick. I don’t like the idea of Jack sleeping with anyone, not that I have any right to think that way, but Beak Face, of all the people. No wonder she hates us both so much. Something else occurs to me, interrupting my revulsion.
“If you didn’t tell her that I was here, then how did she know?”
He shrugs, and we both stare down at the latest Jennifer Jones headline:
AIMEE SINCLAIR BACK IN THE ARMS OF HER LOVER AFTER BEING CLEARED OF HUSBAND’S MURDER