I’m outside Beechcroft Home, tossing last week’s flowers over the wall onto the compost heap, when Priyanka rings. It’s a windy day, the sort that won’t leave your hair and clothes alone, and I’m miserable as sin. Mum was asleep, so I just sat there stewing about Max. I’ve been in a state of turmoil since reading the diary and am close to the edge, but I don’t know what of.
“Slow down. I can’t hear you. You’re gabbling.” I get into my car, gazing at the stone wall, picturing the flowers rotting on the other side.
“Sorry... It’s about the diary. I got it back from Stephanie.”
“When?”
“Just now. I went to her house...”
They got together, without me? I’m not insecure—at least, I didn’t use to be. But I don’t trust anyone now, not even Mary. On Friday afternoon in the office, I was looking up rape online—convictions, false allegations—and she kept hovering. Was she spying on me?
“...And she’s rich, by the way.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.” The woman’s fighting for something, and it doesn’t look much like love to me. But then what do I know?
“Anyway, I just found something in the diary. You wouldn’t believe it—contact details for Lucy and Kim, her friends, the ones who were there on the night.”
“Okay...”
Do I sound flat? I mean, those details are thirty years old.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she continues. “But guess what? It’s not Nicky’s handwriting. I think it’s Holly’s—the same as in the letter. Phone numbers and addresses in Bath. Which means we could talk to real living people, instead of relying on dead ones.” She catches her breath, the line crackling. “What if these women know something? What if they saw what happened?”
“What does Stephanie say?”
Her voice drops. “What do you mean?”
“Well, what did she say about the phone numbers?”
“Oh. She doesn’t know. I only just found them, after I left her.”
There’s more to this than she’s saying. I can feel it.
“So, what did she say about the diary in general—about what Nicky wrote?” I ask. “Has she read it?”
“Yes, she has.”
“And?”
She pauses. “She seemed even more determined to bury it... I’m sorry, Jess. I wasn’t going to say anything...”
I sit forward, placing the key in the ignition. “We need to get her on board before we do anything else.”
“What? Why?”
I stare at the stone wall again, looking at the ivy growing in the cracks. I don’t know why I feel like this. If it were the other way around, she probably wouldn’t spare me the same consideration. Yet there’s something very vulnerable about her, something she’s keeping from us.
Regardless of that, she deserves a say. We may be opposites, yet maybe that’s why it’s even more important that I listen to her. She’s yin to my yang, but what she doesn’t appreciate is that if you take a proper look at that Chinese symbol, you’ll see that the opposite forces are actually interconnected, interdependent—complementary, even.
“Jess?”
I sigh. “Oh, I dunno. It just feels like the right thing to do.”
“So we, what, let her have her own way?”
“No. I think she needs more time, that’s all.”
I tap my teeth together, wondering whether that’s true. Would time change anything? We could give her the rest of her life and she could take her viewpoint to the grave with her, the way some people are buried with their pearls.
Something occurs to me then, and I feel a stab of mistrust. “Why are you being so proactive all of a sudden? I thought you wanted to forget all about it too?”
“I don’t think I ever actually said that, did I...? It’s just that I thought this might give us something concrete instead of all this guesswork and worrying. It’s so draining.”
“I agree. So, if we could prove it, you’d go to the police?”
It’s a horrible question. I can feel her squirming.
“God, I don’t know, Jess. I’d just like to know either way for sure so we can make an informed choice, instead of shooting in the dark.”
“Yeah, me too,” I say, but this isn’t true.
I have no problem with shooting in the dark. In fact, I’d welcome it.
“Can you send me a photo of the contact details?” I start the car engine. “And in the meantime, I’ll speak to Stephanie.”
“What about?”
“Whether to contact those women. I’m hoping the three of us can sit down and work something out.”
“Well, good luck with that,” she says.
I don’t think it sounds very realistic either. But one thing to be positive about: Stephanie didn’t destroy Nicky’s journal when she had the chance. “Pree?”
“Yes?”
“Look after the diary.”
“Will do.”
As I kiss Poppy good-night, she frowns. “You okay, Mummy?”
No, not really. My world’s falling apart, and I’m trying to stop yours from doing that too.
“Course, munchkin. Why’d you ask?”
“Dunno. You seem sad.”
“Do I?” May as well stick to the same excuse I’m giving everyone. “It’s just Grandma.”
“Thought so... Do you think I should go with you more often, keep you company?”
“No, my love, although I appreciate the offer. But I think you should remember her how she was. She’s not the same anymore.”
She thinks about this, lifts her sharp little chin. “Want me to have a word?”
This makes me laugh. I tap her nose lightly, smoothing her hair. “If only it were that simple.”
“Sometimes it is.” She twists beneath the sheets, closing her eyes.
“Night, Pops.” I turn out the light. “Sweet dreams.”
Downstairs, Max is flicking through the calendar with a look on his face I’ve been dreading: the niggling feeling he’s being shortchanged in some way. Wearing a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, he scratches his belly button absently.
On the counter, there are two glasses of wine. My stomach churning, I open the dishwasher, even though there’s nothing to go in or out.
“When did we last...you know?” he asks.
What is it about sex? You can be married for years and still there’s a delicacy around it. He doesn’t want to appear vulgar, and would hate it if I was. Yet why act like the perfect gentlemen in front of us, while secretly sending each other pictures of genitalia? I’ve been thinking about that WhatsApp photo almost incessantly. I can’t help but think it wasn’t the first or the last—that he didn’t stick to his promise not to look at them in future.
It’s the insincerity that gets me. Leading two lives. Is that Max? Is he two-faced? And if so, which one’s the real him?
How would I know a thing like that? They don’t even give you a fighting chance.
“Hmm?” Max closes the diary, picks up his wine. “When was it, do you think?”
“It?” I ask innocently.
“You know...rumpy-pumpy.”
I absolutely loathe that expression. He means it as a joke, but it’s lost on me.
“I dunno,” I say, trying to control the snap in my voice. “It’s difficult at the moment...what with Mum...”
“I know. But she could be like that for a long time, and besides, I miss you.” He tries to touch me, but I’m too quick for him, contorting away and into the living room.
He pads after me, bare feet slapping the tiles. It feels mean doing this to someone in their own home—picking them apart, reducing them to a question mark. But that’s the way it has to be.
Settling in a slim armchair where there’s no danger of him joining me, I toss him the remote control and he picks it up happily. “Are we still watching that show with the woman with the hair?”
“Yes. Two more episodes to go.”
“Perfect.” He drinks his wine, eyes on screen.
The credits are still appearing, in that drawn-out way they sometimes do, surprising you ten minutes into the program, when he presses pause. “Jess...”
The way he says this makes me go colder than I already was.
He gets up, approaches, crouching before me. “Don’t you miss me, baby?” Tenderly, he starts to kiss me.
Yes, I miss you. More than you could possibly know.
I kiss him back.
Then I think of him with Nicky in the storeroom at the club. He may not have masterminded it or even premeditated it, but he kissed her first, made the first move. And my sorrow on learning that firsthand in her diary was palpable.
There were parts of him that I recognized from her description: attentiveness, bonhomie. And parts that were alien: denial, manipulation.
Two sides to Max, good and bad. It’s just that I only ever saw the good.
And I know then that I’m never going to be able to kiss him again—the same lips that kissed Nicky Waite.
He did it. I’m certain of it. He raped her, married me.
I stiffen, clamping my mouth shut, nearly biting his tongue, the whites of his eyes enlarging in alarm. Jumping out of the chair, I scramble to the bathroom down the hall.
Moments later, he knocks on the door. “Jess? Unlock the door.”
“It’s open.”
The handle turns and as he appears I start to cry, sitting on the closed toilet seat, rocking back and forth.
“What’s going on?” he says, squatting, knees clicking. His arms seem gigantic at this angle, and I wonder why I haven’t considered before how vain this is. He’s fifty. Who’s he kidding? We’re old. Our bodies are falling apart. Everything’s falling apart.
But I can see now that the arms were part of an act that I wasn’t granted access to because it was male-only. There I was, thinking I was lucky enough to have a husband who made an effort for me. And all along, it was to fit in to somewhere I couldn’t go.
“Max, is there anything you’ve ever kept from me?” I blurt.
He stares at me. “Like what?”
“Like anything—anything whatsoever?” It’s vague, but I’m building up to saying it.
“No! Of course not! Where’s this coming from?”
He seems so genuine. It’s confusing.
I have to ask him outright. I swore I’d never be like my parents—playing games. Of all the things he could have done to me, turning out to be full of fake has to be the worst.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
“What is it...? Jess?” His eyes widen—beautiful green eyes. I hate that he looks so vulnerable. “You’re scaring me.”
I know what to say. I’ve practiced it dozens of times. Two words: her name, and watch his reaction.
I open my mouth. He holds his breath. And in that second, I fold.
I can’t do it. The moment I say her name, everything will change. He won’t be able to hide it in time. And I’m not ready to see that look yet, the one signaling the end of our marriage.
“It’s Mum,” I say.
I’m pathetic.
“Oh, baby. I’m sorry. Why didn’t you say something earlier? What happened?”
“She fell, really badly.” I’m howling now, huge tears, partly in despair, partly in shame.
“I’m so sorry.” He rubs my back. “I know how hard this must be. What can I do to help?”
Where do I start? I’m going to lose him and the girls are going to lose their dad and no one’s going to win, least of all Nicky and Holly Waite.
This isn’t about protecting him. It’s about protecting me. This is my unhappy ending. So, I get to choose how and when it happens. And if I say I’m not ready, I’m not ready.
“Come on.” He strokes my hair. “Let’s watch telly and finish the wine. We don’t have to do it tonight.”
We’re back to that again? Even though I’m crying, exhausted, telling him my mum’s fallen, he gets to tell me whether or not we have sex, like it’s his decision, not mine.
And that’s the real problem, isn’t it, underneath everything that’s going on. After all these years—over fifty years since the introduction of the pill and the abortion act—and they still think it’s their choice, not ours.