Someone has been in my flat. I can sense it. It smells different, a scent that doesn’t belong to me and has no place in here.
It’s other things too – subtle, barely perceptible. The TV remote control too close to the DVD player, the kettle too far from the wall. And in the bathroom, the hand soap is right next to the tap when I always leave it nearer the edge of the sink.
The email first, now this. What will be next?
Grabbing a knife from the kitchen drawer, I search the flat, and even though fear is coursing through me, I will not let it win.
But when the doorbell rings, I jump.
It will be Sophie, nobody else. I’ve invited her here and now she’s come. I just need to focus on that. I quickly return the knife to the drawer then head to let her in.
The last thing I expect to see when I fling open the door is Jamie standing there, his hands in his pockets. I know disappointment must be carved into my face, but I’m powerless to suppress it. Jamie doesn’t deserve this, but it’s Sophie I need here. Everything depends on me getting through to her.
‘Can we talk?’ Jamie says, looking past me. If only this scrutiny was because he wants to make sure I’m not in the middle of a session, that there’s no student here I need to get back to, but I know it’s not that. Jamie might say he trusts me but he knows something is off; he just can’t piece together what that is. He probably assumes I’m cheating on him.
I want to ask him if he’s been in my flat today, but I know it won’t have been him. ‘It’s really not a good time,’ I say, scanning the street for any sign of Sophie. How would I explain to either of them who the other person is? This is complicated enough already. ‘What if I come over later?’ I tell Jamie. ‘We can talk properly then. I can cook dinner or treat you to a takeaway?’ I try to sound casual, as if I’m not desperate to hurry him off.
He hesitates, and these ticking seconds make me believe I might just get away with this.
‘No. We need to talk now, Eve. I’m sick of being brushed off.’ He folds his arms. ‘Are you going to let me in, then?’
I’ve never seen Jamie like this before and it doesn’t feel right. Again, I stare out at the street, where Sophie still hasn’t made an appearance. Perhaps she won’t come at all; she didn’t actually agree to be here at eight and it’s now twenty past. My hope dwindles and I reluctantly stand aside to let Jamie in.
As soon as we’re in the kitchen he wrinkles his nose. ‘It smells funny in here. Different.’
‘Probably one of my students,’ I say. So he’s noticed it, too. Confirmation that it’s not all in my mind – someone has been in my flat without me knowing. I turn my focus back to Jamie. ‘So how come you’re here? I thought we’d talked about everything the other night?’
Jamie’s eyes widen. ‘Really? That was talking? And I thought women were the ones who were supposed to overanalyse everything.’ He raises his hand. ‘No offence.’ When he sits down at my table he runs his fingers over the grooves in the wood, staring at them as if he finds them fascinating. He is nervous, his usual confidence missing in action.
‘You’re right, we do need to talk, Jamie, I just can’t do it now. Later, though. I’ll come over to you, I promise. We’ll sit down and talk about everything, for as long as we need to.’
‘Like I said—’
The doorbell rings, and we both freeze.
‘Oh, you’re expecting a student.’ Jamie stands. ‘Sorry, I’ll go.’
‘It’s not a student, it’s a friend.’
Before I can say another word he’s striding to the door, and just as I’m about to grab his arm to keep him back he stops himself. ‘Go on. Answer it, then. Don’t let me stop you.’
Again, this aggression is out of character for Jamie, but I don’t dwell on it because I’m too relieved that Sophie has come. I barely even care that I will now have to give both her and Jamie an explanation, because I am now one step closer to Kayla and ending this before it ends me.
Jamie’s shoulders drop when I open the door and he sees Sophie standing there instead of the man he no doubt expected.
‘Thank you so much for coming,’ I say, leaning forward to hug her. It’s an instinctual act, one I do without any thought, despite how things are between us now. Sophie’s body tenses and she barely moves her arms to respond to my embrace. Turning back to Jamie, I notice he is frowning.
I introduce them both, and they tentatively shake hands. Perhaps they both sense that this is an unusual situation, that none of us is comfortable.
‘Jamie was just leaving,’ I say.
He hesitates before finally moving towards the door. ‘See you this evening then, Eve?’ It feels like more of a demand than a question.
I nod and usher him out. As soon as I close the door behind him and am alone with Sophie, I notice how different she looks to when I saw her earlier in the park. Her hair is fluffier, as if it’s just been washed, and hangs in loose waves around her shoulders. She’s wearing what look like the same jeans, only this time she has on heels and a silky vest top with a deep V-neck. She still looked good in the park, but there is something different about her now, standing here alone without the twins hanging off her, more like the woman she was when I first met her.
‘So, you did meet someone else then?’ she says. ‘Jamie.’
‘No, it’s not like that. I’ve only known him for a few months. I didn’t lie to you.’
She scans my hallway, and it’s hard to read her expression; all I’m certain of is that she’ll be trying to work out this new version of me. This is a small flat – definitely not suitable for more than one person – but it’s in fairly decent condition and I try to make the best of the space.
‘Do you own this place?’ Sophie asks.
‘No. It’s rented. I left the house with Aiden, so there’s no way I can buy my own place.’
‘Well, leaving him the house is the least you could have done when you left him as the sole carer of your daughter.’ She shakes her head. ‘Sorry. On the way over here, I swore to myself I wouldn’t give you a hard time like I did in the park. I came to hear your side of things.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘That means everything to me, Soph.’
In the kitchen, Sophie declines my offer of a drink, and I get myself a glass of water and sit with her at the table. Although she’s promised she will hear me out, she leans forward, her shoulders hunched, and I know it’s only a matter of time before she is on the attack again.
‘You know I wanted Kayla more than anything, don’t you? You remember everything Aiden and I went through before she came along?’
‘Of course, and I was there with you every step of the way, wasn’t I?’
‘Please just let me finish. You have to understand that this has nothing to do with our friendship. I valued that more than anything.’
She looks at me, opening her mouth but quickly closing it again. She’s ready to let me talk.
‘When Kayla was finally here, I… I just couldn’t handle everything.’
Her mouth opens again and she stares at me. ‘What do you mean? What exactly couldn’t you handle?’
The events that led me here flash through my head, and I shut them down. I can’t speak the words, relive them, make it all real. ‘I just couldn’t deal with my life any more, Sophie. I’m sorry I can’t explain it any better than that.’ There is no way I can tell her any more than this.
She shakes her head. ‘This is unbelievable. Are you trying to say you just didn’t want Kayla any more? That you had some kind of postnatal depression?’
Her words send me cold, but I have to confront this. ‘I don’t know what it was, Sophie. Maybe it was that.’
Again, she shakes her head. ‘Do you realise you’re not making this any better? If you want people to understand you then you have to explain more than that. Surely you can see that?’
‘Of course I can. It’s just… this is all I can give right now.’
‘Was it Aiden? You didn’t love him any more?’
‘No. It was nothing like that. I loved them both with every fibre of my being.’ That’s exactly why I had to go. I wish I could help Sophie see this.
‘Well, if you’re not able to explain it, people will just think you couldn’t be bothered with the hard work that comes with having a baby.’
Nobody matters except Kayla, Aiden, Mum and Sophie, though, so let people think what they will.
‘I realise that. Look, I know how terrible it was walking out and now I need to put things right. That’s all I care about.’
Sophie crosses her legs, and in this moment she looks just like she does when she’s about to give a student a lecture. ‘If you were struggling then why didn’t you talk to me? Or Aiden? You could have got help. You didn’t have to walk out. You were never a quitter before.’
The truth swims around my head, and I focus on that split second before it all could have been different. That’s all it took for everything to change. A second. And then there was no going back.
‘There is no excuse for what I did. None at all. I just need help to put it right.’
Sophie sighs. ‘The time for me to have helped would have been back then. Anyway, what is it you think I can do?’
Here goes nothing. ‘My plan is to talk to Aiden. On his own, just the two of us, but before I do I need you to tell me how things were after I left. I know this won’t be easy – for either of us – but I need to approach him in the right way, and, well, the truth is he’s a stranger to me now. I know nothing about his life, and I doubt he’s even the same person. Anything you could tell me would help.’
She frowns. ‘If you’re looking for some insight into how he might react then nothing I say will give you that. It’s impossible to know what Aiden will think or do. Only he knows that.’
‘I do understand that. I just want to be a mother to my little girl. And in order to do that I need to know how they’ve both been over the last two years.’ I move closer to Sophie and reach for her arm. She flinches but doesn’t pull away. ‘I’m so sorry to ask this of you, but there’s no one else who can help me.’
There is a long pause before she responds. ‘Aiden called me on the morning you disappeared. He thought that because you and I were so close I must know where you were, and it took a lot to convince him that I had no idea. He even accused me of lying, of covering up for you. Got quite confrontational and I’ve never known him to be like that.’ She shakes her head. ‘I understood, though. He was distraught and needed to lash out at someone I suppose. He was a complete mess when you walked out. Not only was he coping with a tiny baby, but his marriage had fallen apart and he had no idea why. Damien and I both had to go round there on that first morning to help him as he was in such a state.’
It crushes me to hear of Aiden’s suffering. I’ve been fully aware of the pain I would have caused him but hearing about it makes it more real. ‘I should have talked to him first. I know that now. But I wasn’t thinking clearly.’ How could I have been when my mind was clouded with fog? When nothing was right.
‘So where did you go?’ Sophie asks.
My body gives an involuntary shudder as I’m forced to recall those early days. I had no purpose, no goal, I was just existing. It was as if I didn’t belong in this world. ‘I drove down to Cornwall and stayed in a B & B. I just needed to be away from everyone and everything. Believe me, I know how dreadful that sounds when I had a three-month-old baby at home, but I think I just blocked it all out.’
‘Erased your life, you mean. Pretended your daughter didn’t exist.’
‘I know that’s what it looks like,’ I say, staring at the floor.
‘Do you know how appalling that is?’
I nod. It’s impossible to make Sophie see that I didn’t have a choice, that I was protecting my family as best I could by leaving. There is no way she will understand that. ‘There wasn’t a single day that I didn’t think about Kayla, though. I never forgot about her.’ I stare at Sophie, and she’s shaking her head, glaring at me as if I’m pure evil. I need to keep her talking about Aiden, rather than have her focus on me. I’m not ready for that. ‘Did you stay in touch with Aiden after that?’ I ask.
‘Yes, a bit. His parents came down from Scotland for a few weeks. They couldn’t stay much longer because of work commitments. It broke their hearts to have to leave him and Kayla, and they tried their best to convince him to move in with them for a while, but you know Aiden. He wanted to try to deal with it himself. There was no way he would leave London.’
I remember Aiden’s parents’ reaction when I had all the miscarriages. How his mum hugged me tighter than even my own mum, and that when we pulled away from each other her tears had soaked through my top, and I could feel them on my skin; she was feeling my pain as acutely as I was. ‘Yes, they’re lovely people,’ I tell Sophie. Another bond I’ve managed to destroy. ‘So what did Aiden do after that?’
‘He coped, Eve. He sucked it up and dealt with the gaping hole you’d left. He might have fallen apart to begin with but he got used to it, and he’s a great dad, despite what was thrown at him.’
‘And you’re still in contact now?’
‘A little.’
‘So you must know about Nicole Richardson then?’
Sophie stares at me. It’s not often I ever witnessed her lost for words. ‘How do you—’
‘It doesn’t matter. Do you know how long they’ve been together?’
Her forehead furrows. ‘Around a year. Something like that. Look, sorry, Eve, but I’m getting a bit fed up of answering all these questions when you’ve barely said anything about why you left.’
It’s only right that I should answer her questions, but I need to know one thing. ‘Do they live together?’
Sophie rolls her eyes. ‘What did you expect? You left him, Eve; he was bound to move on eventually.’
I haven’t expected this. Finding out Aiden was with someone else, someone who would be in Kayla’s life, was one thing; this feels like my insides are being torn apart because it might mean something worse. ‘Does Kayla know about me? Does she know who I am, Sophie?’
Sophie takes so long to answer, and that in itself tells me all I need to know.
‘I don’t know. That’s the truth, Eve. She was three months old. She wouldn’t remember you, would she? You’d have to ask Aiden what he’s told her.’
I believe Sophie. She’s too much of a straight-talker to lie to me about this. Besides, it’s not as if she’ll be trying to protect my feelings.
She stands up and walks to my fridge. There’s nothing stuck to it with magnets; no photos or pictures, or signs that anyone lives here. ‘How about you actually answer some of my questions now?’ she says. ‘Where did you go after Cornwall? Did you get a teaching job?’
‘I lived in Dorking in Surrey for a while, once I got my head together a bit. And I couldn’t teach because I didn’t want Aiden tracking me down.’ I wait for her admonishment but it doesn’t come. ‘I did private tuition instead. Used my maiden name. Then I moved here over a year ago.’
‘Why did you come back to London? It obviously wasn’t to get Kayla back or you wouldn’t have left it so long.’
‘I couldn’t get enough tutoring work, so I thought I’d have more students in London. I really had no choice, but it wasn’t easy to do.’
‘And you picked all the way on the other side of London. Nowhere near Kayla. What changed?’
So many things changed. I changed. ‘I just couldn’t be away from her any longer,’ I tell Sophie.
She comes back to the table, slides into her chair. ‘Aiden tried to find you. For months. You did a good job of disappearing. Your mum didn’t even know where you were. Why would you do that to her?’
Mum. It was a few months before I went to see her, even though I’d been texting her to assure her I was okay. Explaining to her that I’d left my family was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. Then her illness got worse and everything with me faded into the background.
‘I’m not proud of that, Sophie.’
‘None of this makes sense. A lot of people struggle with having a baby but they don’t run away.’
‘I know. Look, I really can’t talk about this now, please understand that. I need to talk to Aiden first.’
Sophie reluctantly agrees and drops her questioning. She glances around my flat again. It’s not in a bad state, but she’d probably consider it soulless and uninviting. There’s barely any colour in here and nothing about it feels permanent. ‘So, you think you can bring Kayla up here?’ she asks. ‘Is that your plan? To take her away from Aiden, after he’s done everything for the last two years, and pull her away from all she knows?’
This is all I’ve thought about for months, but I can’t let Sophie know that. ‘No, of course not. I know that can’t happen and I’d never want to cause her any more pain, but I need to be in her life, Sophie. In whatever way that’s possible.’
‘Good. Because she’s nearly two and a half, and she’ll be aware of so much. And Aiden won’t let you just come in and say, “Hey Kayla, I’m your mum, come and live with me”.’
‘I know all this, Sophie, which is why I came to you for help.’
She ignores me. ‘The three of them seem to have a good life together, and you can’t just come and disrupt it. Aiden won’t let that happen. He’s been through too much already.’
Her words, although true, slice into my flesh. ‘I just want to see Kayla. To be in her life in any way I can.’
‘There’s Nicole to think about too. I’m sorry, but it’s true. She’s a decent woman and she’s an integral part of Aiden’s and Kayla’s life now, so you need to get your head around that.’
There is nothing I can say to this, because once again everything Sophie says is the truth. I know she’s not saying it to be unkind, that’s not who she is. Or who she was at least. I don’t know her any more; I’ve just been assuming she’s the same person, but everyone around me has been changed by my betrayal.
‘I assume Nicole looks after Kayla when Aiden’s at work?’
‘Yes,’ Sophie replies. ‘And why does this feel like a police interrogation? Aiden’s not the one who did anything wrong.’
‘I’m sorry. I just need information before I can speak to him. I need to know exactly what will be involved.’
‘Like I said before, it’s not something that can be planned like that, is it? There are people’s lives and feelings involved, and there’s no way to predict anything.’ She shakes her head. ‘I get it, Eve, you’re like me and need to be in control, to organise things and assess every possible outcome. It comes with being a teacher, but I just don’t think that will work in this case. If you’re going to do this, you need to do it carefully, and see what happens. I don’t think there’s anything more I can tell you, and to be honest, I don’t have a clue how Aiden will react. I really don’t.’
I stand up and walk to the window. Outside, the pavement is lit up by the street lights and it hardly looks like night time. When I first rented this place, I couldn’t get used to the kitchen overlooking the front of the building, when I’d been able to see the back garden from our family kitchen, but now I find it comforting. It eases my claustrophobia when I’m sitting at the table tutoring for hour after hour. It’s nice to glance up and see that the world outside still exists. Even if it’s a world in which nothing is right.
‘Don’t go to Aiden,’ Sophie is saying.
‘I have to. I need—’
‘Wait, just hear me out. Let me talk to him first. I think the news of you being back will be better coming from me. Less of a shock.’
I’m surprised by her offer and need a moment for it to sink in. I hadn’t considered this as an option and try now to visualise it. Half of me thinks that perhaps Sophie is right; the two of them have been in touch for these two years, so she might have a better chance of easing Aiden into this new situation than I would myself. But the other part of me believes this is my mess to clear up, so I am the one who needs to face Aiden. I try to explain this to Sophie.
‘Yes, all that’s true, but I think if you just turn up on his doorstep it might cause him even more pain. At least I can warn him, give him a chance to talk it through and get his head around it. Then the two of you can meet up and discuss everything.’ She sighs. ‘I’m just trying to look out for him, Eve. And you, actually. I can’t condone what you did, but I suppose you must have had your reasons, even if I don’t know what they are and none of it makes any sense.’
‘Thank you, Sophie.’ In the past I would have hugged her at a moment like this, but she seemed ill at ease with my earlier embrace so I don’t repeat that now.
‘You’d better give me your phone number so I can let you know what happens with Aiden.’
We exchange numbers, and Sophie stands up to leave. She’s been here such a short time that I want to ask her to stay, to promise her we can talk about anything, just like old times, but the words won’t leave my mouth. No matter how much I long for her company, for that window to the past to be opened permanently, I just have to be grateful she’s helping me at all. That will have to be enough for now. But something is telling me that Sophie’s not the person I used to know.
When I’m alone, I remember that someone has been in my flat.
Next time, I will be ready for them.