‘Have you started the second season yet, Julianne?’
I barely hear the voice to my side. I can barely hear or think about anything. Except one thing. The slight pressure on my thigh of something digging in. Something small. The case of a USB drive.
‘Julianne? Are you still with us?’
I plunge back into reality with a jolt. Not for the first time this evening, everyone is staring at me looking slightly worried.
‘Er … Sorry …’ I look around, trying to work out who’s spoken. ‘Miles away. Very rude of me.’ I laugh awkwardly.
‘What were you thinking about?’ Ernest asked. ‘You looked, well, haunted.’
Everyone gives a polite laugh and stares at their chicken fillets and sweet potato.
‘Oh, just, you know … Christmas.’ I laugh again, waving a hand as if to say it’s nothing, please stop looking at me. They don’t seem convinced. ‘Still so much to organise. It’s like, as soon as I’ve done one task another just arrives out of nowhere.’
‘Oh goodness, I know what that’s like,’ says Louise. ‘It’s like trying to beat the Hydra. And I still do all the stockings for the boys, even though they’re probably too old now.’
‘You still get a Christmas stocking, don’t you, Stephen?’ James says, smiling at his son, probably trying to coax him into the conversation. Like me, he’s been staring into space for most of the meal, looking like he’s just been diagnosed with something terminal. He just nods.
‘What type of thing do you put in a stocking for a seventeen-year-old boy?’ asks Ally. ‘Condoms and vodka?’
More awkward laughter, though Stephen doesn’t react. He just looks at his plate and starts moving a lump of potato around the edges.
‘I should hope not!’ I laugh. ‘No, no. It’s mostly boxsets and books and things like that. All probably totally useless in the age of Netflix and e-readers, but I enjoy getting them.’
‘Stephen doesn’t even have an e-reader,’ James chips in. ‘He likes collecting hardbacks, don’t you, son? Signed copies. First editions, some of them.’
Stephen nods.
‘I do rather love all the Christmas wrapping,’ Louise says brightly. ‘Especially with a roaring fire and a big box of those praline shells open in front of me while watching a good TV drama or festive film. I’ve got quite addicted to some shows – I watch episode after episode, even during the day. I keep recommending them to Ernest but he rarely manages to …’
Ernest cuts off his wife. ‘Well, we can’t all be housewives. Some of us have to manage our time with a lot of discipline. When so much stuff is competing for one’s attention, one has to be quite brutal in one’s choices.’
Louise looks hurt and starts spooning food into her mouth a little too quickly.
‘Which brings me,’ Ally says, cutting in, probably pre-empting a barbed retort from me to counteract Ernest’s dig at stay-at-home moms, ‘to my previous question, Julianne, which you never answered: have you started watching the second season of The Man in the High Castle?’
I shake my head. ‘No, sadly I haven’t found the time.’
Ernest sniffs a little, which in itself feels like a comment, and I feel my eyes flaring. This really isn’t a good time for him to test my patience.
‘Well, it is so good. You really must catch up. Now that’s something my oh-so-busy brother does manage to watch, don’t you?’
‘I put it on my iPad and watch it in the car sometimes on the way to the Commons. I should probably be reading over my notes for the day but it’s hard to resist. Once you’ve clicked play, you’re in. Best not tell the PM.’ He laughs loudly.
‘Probably explains the state the country’s in,’ says James with a smirk.
‘Cut it mild, dear chap,’ Ernest says, winking at him. ‘You’re the one who left the party floundering so you could go and spy on people’s Facebook pages and harvest their innermost secrets for profit.’
‘You were a fan of the book, weren’t you?’ I turn to James, hoping to steer the conversation away from James’s job and the kind of content he might encounter as a result of it. ‘The Man in the High Castle. Philip K. Dick, isn’t it?’
He smiles. ‘Yes, it’s brilliant. I’m a big fan of all his work.’
‘Love a bit of Dick, don’t you, James?’ Ernest says while his wife chokes on her wine. ‘Philip K., of course.’ Another wink from him, this time at me. I stare back at him blankly and he gives up and looks away. ‘Remember that Christmas when we read through his entire oeuvre when we were at school?’
‘Very well,’ James nods. ‘I loved our Christmas read-athons. Binge-reading, they’d probably call it now.’
‘Oh God, I remember those,’ says Ally, rolling her eyes. ‘We used to go to Hatchards at the start of every Christmas and you’d spend a few grand on a load of books and devour them through the whole of December while everyone else was busy organising Christmas around you.’
‘It wasn’t a few grand,’ he says. ‘But yes, quite a bit. And then we had to do it at Blackwells, when we were at Oxford. That’s when you started joining in, wasn’t it, Julianne?’
‘Mmm,’ I murmur, ‘I wouldn’t call it joining in. I met you there a couple of times while you piled up books on tables and people kept mistaking you for booksellers. I don’t think I was much help.’
‘Probably shagging James in the sci-fi section,’ Ernest said.
‘Ernest!’ Louise gasps, but Ally guffaws with laughter.
The thought of James and I being intimate sends a flash of alarm through me and reminds me again of the sex we had two nights ago. I was just a body to him. Just something to push into, to pound away at, to fuck like he didn’t care. Was it like that back then? Back when we were still just about teenagers and everything felt new?
‘Probably right,’ James says. His slightly wicked grin – the one I usually find quietly alluring – now looks smug and self-satisfied. ‘Though I don’t think it was sci-fi’.
Their voices are steadily growing fainter, as if I’m sinking slowly under water. I can’t do this. I can’t sit here and be the happy host, giving her guests a merry Christmas dinner party. I lay down my cutlery and put my hands on my knees, trying to stop my racing heart, forcing myself to calm down. Slow breaths. I pull my hands up towards me along my legs and my fingers feel the small, solid mass in my right pocket. I snatch them away as if it’s burnt me.
‘I need to go upstairs,’ I say, standing suddenly. ‘I have a migraine.’
James stares at me. ‘But … you don’t get migraines.’
‘There’s a first time for everything. I’m sorry, everyone, do please carry on. I’ll be all right. I just need twenty minutes in a darkened room.’
‘We can turn out the lights here!’ Ally says, as if excited by the prospect. ‘I’m sure we can still finish our food in the dark.’ Everyone’s looking around, clearly aware something is wrong and I’m not telling the full truth. Everyone apart from Stephen. His eyes are on his plate, is if he’s not really there at all.
I attempt a sound I hope resembles a laugh, not bothering to counteract Ally’s semi-joke with anything worth saying, and leave the room, a pang of guilt reverberating through me at leaving Stephen with them. They’ll want to talk about me, about how my behaviour is becoming stranger and stranger as the evening goes on, but I think they’ll resist with him and James there. Louise and Ernest will politely refocus the conversation onto something completely different and James will do his best to stay merry and play the good host, wondering all the while why I’m acting as if I’ve lost my marbles.
In the bedroom, I lie down immediately, burying my face in the sheets, and smell the same scent of washing powder and air freshener as when James and I had sex the other night. What used to be a nice, homely scent now seems sickly and fake. I pull myself away and sit up properly, my hand going to my pocket again. In that moment, part of me wishes Stephen had never told me. Never come to me and said the word ‘Mum’ in that terrible way that had made my heart start to disintegrate. Never showed me what he’d found on his iPad. Never sent me spiralling into the vacuum of panic that’s steadily suffocating me. It’s a horrible thought – that my son shouldn’t have told his mother what was worrying him. But I can’t lie to myself: ignorance really can be bliss. Again, I feel my conscience stab at me through my thoughts. Calling it ignorance is a cop-out. Denial is the right word. Denial is bliss. And this gives me the kick I need.
I stand up, take the USB stick out of my pocket and walk over to the wardrobe to find an old Windows tablet I rarely use any more, preferring the interface of my newer, flashier iPad. I plug it into its charger and the home screen comes into view, bringing with it an image of my husband, smiling before my eyes. He’s standing topless on a beach, one hand raised, waving at the camera. In the other he’s holding Stephen’s hand, stooping to hold on to the little boy. He must have been about five or six. I stare at the image for a few seconds, then insert the USB.
The files that greet me show that heart-sinkingly familiar set of long numbers. I check the first one. It is indeed Ashley Brooks, the file identical to the one I read before. I skip a few and tap on one of the later ones. I’m taken aback to see a young man’s face come into view. In fact, it’s not a young man. It’s a teenager. I read the details:
Name: Dave Bolton
Date of Birth: 20 December 2000
Occupation: Officially unemployed, previously earnt money from stolen goods
Area: Grays, Essex
Aside from his gender and much younger age, it’s similar to the other records. The same lifestyle, the same sorts of problems, the same sense of desperation. He’s been in and out of care homes all his life. Absconding from a lot of them. A life ruined or wasted. A person in need of help or support.
I don’t spend too much time on Dave Bolton. I scroll all the way down to the end and see there’s a subfolder with the title HIGH COST INVESTMENTS. And another document. A different file type to the other PDFs. And the name spells it out simply. CALENDAR 2020. I tap it and the month of January 2020 appears in front of me. It’s completely bare, apart from one word, on the twenty-third of the month. Daffodil.
My pulse quickens at the sight of it. Then I flick to February. Again, there’s one day, the twenty-first, with one word. Daisy.
I stare at the word for what feels like a long, long time. Then exit the calendar and go back to the previous run of documents. And that subfolder. HIGH COST INVESTMENTS. I touch its name. Another list of files unfurls, looking the same as the last. The top one has a different title to the others – words instead of seemingly random numbers: BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES. I tap on it and immediately start to read the document that comes up.
BEST PRACTICE – REVISED GUIDELINES AS OF NOVEMBER 2019
I am stunned. Sickened. Appalled. All my worst suspicions are coming true. I now know what this is. And I can hardly bear it. Jabbing hard at the screen, I come out of the BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES quickly and look back at the rest of the files. I’m pretty sure of what I’m going to find in there. A number of references in the previous document have given me a rather clear idea. My hand hovers over the first of the long-numbered PDF documents, as if there’s a small voice screaming at me, telling me to stop. That as soon as I find out for sure what’s in here, I won’t be able to continue, to go on pretending, to stay sane. I think about putting everything away, flushing the USB down the toilet and spending my life trying not to think about what else might have been on it. But I know this isn’t possible. I tap on the first file.
Minutes later, I’m in tears. It’s as if I’ve pushed my face down on broken glass and rubbed it until my eyes are bleeding. I hold tight to the pillows and pull them up to me so I can cry into them; screaming, sobbing. I don’t care if they hear me down in the dining room. I don’t care about anything. I only know I will never be able to rid my mind of what I have just seen or look at my husband the same way again. I want to go down there and drag him up to the room right now and push the device in his face. Beg him for an explanation. Make him tell me why he would own something so vile. I reach for the wastepaper basket under the bedside table and vomit into it, bringing up my undigested dinner in a poisonous rush. I hold on to the sides of the bed, steadying myself as if I’m on a ship in a storm. I can feel the mattress moving, as if it’s swaying beneath me, and details, sick little details, float into my mind: Amelia Cousins. Date of birth: 6 July 2011. Fleet Ward Care Home, Surrey. Jimmy North. Date of Birth: 10 January 2013. Fleet Ward Care Home, Surrey. Alisha Jindal. Date of Birth: 2 August 2017. Fleet Ward Care Home, Surrey.
These details go round and round in my head. I can’t stop them. I make a small humming noise in my throat. Not an actual tune, just a low hum. It’s a mechanism I learnt when I was young, when my parents used to have blazing rows. I’d hide myself in the smallest place I could find in the house and focus on making that quiet but uninterrupted noise. It calmed me, gave me something to do, some place to fix my attention while the torment outside gradually ebbed away. With relief, I find that it’s working now in the same way it did back then. It takes some effort, but eventually I am able to pull myself back up onto the bed in a sitting position. If I sit still, the nausea isn’t too strong.
I stay in this position for what may be an hour, or may be just five minutes. I can’t tell. Time seemed to stop the moment I arrived in this room and opened my tablet. I can’t even begin to assemble my memories of the past few minutes – I don’t really want to. I’d prefer to forget everything.
‘Julianne.’ The voice at the door almost stops my heart. And then the handle turns.
Thank God I locked it, I think to myself.
I hear James shuffle closer. He must be trying to hear if I’m awake. A gentle knock follows seconds later. The thought of letting him in makes me think I’m going to be sick again, so I just sit as still as I can, looking at the door. The strip of light on the cream carpet at its base shifts and dances subtly as his shape moves across it. Then there’s a soft, rubbing noise. He must have leant against the door.
‘Julianne, I’m here. Please talk to me. I’m here and listening. There’s obviously something wrong. You don’t have a migraine, do you?’
I don’t move, even though my neck is now starting to ache. I just want him to go away.
‘Please. We’ve never been like this. We’re always able to talk. I know I maybe didn’t express myself the best I could have … the other day … when we were … that thing about the sex. I didn’t know you didn’t like what I was doing. That was my fault. I really should have allowed there to be … a more open dialogue.’
I wince at his phrasing. A more open dialogue.
‘Well, I just wanted to come and say that.’ I hear him shift his weight a bit and wonder if he’s going.
I feel like I am now dealing with two different people: the version of my husband I have known for twenty-nine years and the version I am getting to know now. The version that talks through locked doors at me while I refuse to let him in.
‘Julianne … can you hear me?’
Slowly, I get up off the bed. I have no real plan, but I let my feet carry me to the door. I don’t open it – I’m not even sure I could if I wanted to. I just slump against it and talk, softly.
‘James, I’ve got a migraine. I’m going to go to sleep.’
I hear his intake of breath. Slow, deep, clearly trying to decide if I’m lying or if I really am unwell. Then the door handle moves again.
‘Why have you locked the door?’ He doesn’t sound confrontational. In fact, he sounds genuinely concerned and ever so slightly hurt.
‘I … I don’t know. I did it automatically.’
A beat’s silence. ‘But you never lock the door.’
He’s right, but trying to come up with a reasonable excuse right now is beyond me so I don’t even try. ‘I’m going to sleep for a bit. Please tell Ally, Ernest, Louise, all of them, that I’m sorry. I’ll be down in a little while if I feel up to it. If not, I’ll see you in the morning.’
With that I walk away from the door and back to the bed. I get in properly, the duvet engulfing me amidst its soft folds. I don’t bother taking any of my clothes off. I just burrow down and let my mind close up, hoping the man outside my door will eventually walk away.
I don’t sleep properly. It’s like I start to souse in my own thoughts, with every bad thing in my head infecting the rest of me, seeping into my blood so I’m coated in a nauseating layer of dread and despair. I drift in and out of full lucidity and a strange, dreamlike hinterland. One moment I’m determined to pull myself together, go back downstairs, apologise to our guests and try to pretend none of this has happened. The next, I’m convinced James is in the room with me, telling me I’m stupid, that I’m sick, that I’m terrible for even thinking he would be involved in the procuring of children for sex and the very thought of it repulses him; that I’m an embarrassment to him, myself and all our guests. Eventually, I force myself to rise, slowly at first and then all at once. It’s a monumental effort, with so much of my body crying out in the process. It’s like I’ve run a marathon, both physically and mentally. After what feels like years, I’m standing in front of the large mirror opposite the bed. I’m alarmed at what I see. The thin layer of make-up I’d put on earlier in the afternoon seems to have vanished. Instead of a forty-seven-year-old woman ready to host a Christmas dinner party, the reflection that greets me bears a closer resemblance to that of a much older, troubled woman, perhaps on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Maybe I am. Maybe this is what it feels like before you tip over the edge and surrender to the ravages of one’s own mind.
I pull the arms of my sweater down to cover my elbows and flatten out the creases in my grey pants. James would prefer me to wear a dress, but I’ve never liked them. When I was young, I used to pretend I did, that I was one of those girls who would turn heads when they arrived at a party. When I reached thirty, I faced up to the fact that I was a lot more conservative at heart. And now I do as I please – never too scruffy or casual to cause James to openly protest, but occasionally I see him raise an eyebrow.
I take a couple of minutes to get myself together. Employing a hairbrush to calm the red-brown waves that would add to my on-the-edge appearance, I manage to make myself look a little closer to normal. I glance at my watch. I’ve already been away for over an hour. As I put myself back together, I find myself getting stronger and realise I have chosen a path from the crossroads that has faced me ever since I opened that first document. I am going to go back downstairs, smile at the guests, be a dutiful host. Then, once everyone’s gone home, I’ll bring James upstairs and lay out everything before him. Including my plan of action. It has occurred to me to flee the house without speaking to anyone, but with a certain degree of shame I have to admit to myself that I don’t really have anywhere to go. There is always my mother, of course, but she’s never exactly been a great comfort in even minor crises. And I’m not sure I can face trying to articulate my current concerns to her. Then there is the question of Stephen. I can’t just leave him here, faced with the situation. As I think of him, the memory of his haunted face floats to the surface of my mind. And he’s down there now, trying to pretend everything is fine; something I’m going to attempt to do for the next few hours.
It’s on the landing, just before the stairwell, that I have my first wobble. I reach forward and grab on to the banister, letting myself fall to my knees on the soft cream carpet. I think I may have made a thud, but nobody comes. James must be back downstairs with the others. Swivelling slightly, I look back to my bedroom, the door slightly ajar. I haven’t bothered to close it. Thinking about going back there makes me feel nauseous again. But I can’t go back downstairs. Try as I might, I can’t pretend everything is fine and just carry on with dinner. I look down the hallway, towards Stephen’s room and James’s study. Neither of them appeals to me as a place of shelter. I just need somewhere to go. To hide. To bide my time, away from the bin full of vomit in my bedroom and that terrible sliver of plastic and metal I’m still carrying in my pocket. I’m about to pull myself up, hoping a standing position will make the decision as to where to go a bit easier, when I hear a voice.
‘Julianne? Are you okay?’
Louise is standing there, halfway up the stairs, on the little semi-landing in the middle. I pray she hasn’t been there for ages, watching me, and attempt a smile.
‘Louise. Hi. I’m … I’m just looking for an earring.’
I cringe inwardly at the lie and realise with a pang of embarrassment that both my earrings are still intact and hanging from my ears. Louise smiles and walks slowly up the last half of the stairs, the warm light from the landing giving a flattering glow to her brown, short-cut hair and kind face.
‘Julianne. Are you … are you unhappy?’
This takes me completely by surprise. I’d expected Louise to gloss over my weird behaviour, pretend she was on her way to the bathroom. At most, I thought she might ask how my migraine was. But this is probing. And I’m not sure I can take probing right now.
‘I’m … I’m very happy. It’s Christmas.’ I attempt a bright and cheerful grin but feel my face contort awkwardly, my muscles refusing to do what I ask of them.
Louise sits on the top step in front of me. ‘I’ve had problems. You’d be surprised how many people do. It was when both the boys left home. One off gadding around the world, the other now boarding and only coming back for the holidays. I’m not trying to downplay your anxiety, Julianne, but please know you’re not alone. There was one year I couldn’t stomach even the most calm gathering with a bunch of old school chums. I walked out of the Starbucks in tears and I didn’t even know why. That was when I realised I needed some help. I went to a doctor on Harley Street – a Dr Rhodes – and he really did help me see things a bit better. Gave me some perspective. It’s just an adjustment period all women go through – all parents, really, in their own way. My mistake was that I didn’t trust my husband. I couldn’t look at the bigger picture, only a small part of it. Dr Rhodes made it possible for me to step back and see the whole canvas and, when one does that, some things just pale into insignificance. They fall away.’
I’m not quite sure what she’s going on about and am about to excuse myself, but she presses on, speaking earnestly, with a quiver in her voice. ‘I think it comes from this myth that everything needs to be so out in the open. When really, the best course of action is just to let sleeping dogs lie. Don’t feel you have to examine every feeling, every action, Julianne. Changes of all kinds can be a challenge to us, big or small, scary or seemingly trivial. And I know it will feel strange when Stephen goes off to university and you and James have different things to concern yourselves with, but you’ll find another rhythm. That’s all I’m saying. But if you feel you need help, I could put you in touch with Dr Rhodes, if you like. He’s got a waiting list, but I’m sure I could do something about that.’
Her misreading of the situation irritates me slightly and I straighten up.
‘No. Thank you, but no. I have a migraine, Louise. Not depression.’
Her eyes widen in alarm. ‘Oh no, sorry, I didn’t mean to presume … And I’m aware it’s not as simple as depression. I wouldn’t say I was depressed. Just stretched too thinly, if you know what I mean. It’s just important to know that nobody has to feel like that these days. Nobody is obliged to feel lost or hopeless or upset. There are drugs that can make it all so much easier. Honestly, I was a sceptic myself at first, but then I tried these SSRIs Dr Rhodes prescribed, fluoxetine and then Seroxat, and they worked wonders.’
I don’t say anything. I can’t be bothered to tell her again.
‘I just wanted you to know you’re not the only one. James need never know.’
The mention of James’s name makes me start. ‘What do you mean?’
Louise glances down at the stairs as if worried about being overheard and lowers her already quiet voice. ‘I mean that all marriages have difficult patches. If you’re in one now, just hold on tight and sail through it. It will pass. You just need to know that you don’t have to be holding on tight alone. There is help, you know. Ernest and I … well, we had a bad patch. A very bad patch a couple of years ago. I really thought it was all over. I think you learn a lot about yourself during times like that. What sort of person you are. How strong you can be. That sort of thing. I was naïve – I see that now. Naïve to think marriage is all just chocolates and roses. But with time I’ve found it’s important to remember that whatever dark clouds crowd your horizon, you still have your horizon, Julianne. The horizon will still be there.’
On other days, I would have found it hard not to roll my eyes. I have a pretty low tolerance level for corny mantras and inspirational quotes at the best of times – something Stephen has always said is very ‘un-American’ of me. I consider telling Louise that whatever dark clouds she’s had to deal with – probably something about Ernest leaving his coffee mugs out or spending too much money on his extensive collection of Savile Row suits – they are nothing compared to mine. Her face, however, makes that impossible. Sweet, good-natured concern stares back at me, mingled with a little too much understanding. She enjoys being the caregiver, the mother hen, the one to provide help and comfort. She is good at it. I can’t criticise her for that. I take a tissue out of my pocket and blow my nose, giving me a few seconds’ thinking time.
‘I think … I think we should go downstairs,’ I say slowly. ‘I should probably get back … the food …’
‘You don’t have to. Honestly, Julianne, nobody minds at all. The food is delicious as always and Cassie has it all under control. Do you want me to help you back to your bedroom?’ She puts out her hand to touch my arm, but I pull it away.
‘No. No, thank you. I just think we should go back downstairs. I don’t want to go back in there. Hate being cooped up. I’m probably just hungry.’
Louise nods. ‘Okay then. Shall we go down now? Or do you want to sit for a bit?’
I hold on to the banister and rise to my feet. ‘I’m fine. Let’s just go down. Honestly, you don’t need to worry.’
We walk down the stairs in silence, Louise a couple of steps behind me. The hum of voices, and Ally’s raucous laugh, get me as I arrive in the hallway.
‘Once more into the fray,’ says Louise, giving my shoulder a squeeze of encouragement. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t stay late. And if you need to go back upstairs at any time, just do it, Julianne. You don’t owe us a thing.’
I give a small murmur as a response and then slowly walk through the doorway into the dining room.