It wasn’t Adam being back home that had given me this excruciating headache. It was the pressure of going to see Pammie that was stressing me out. I could literally feel the tightness working its way across my shoulders and creeping up into my neck.
I opened the fridge to get a bottle of wine, but stopped short. Alcohol had gone a long way toward numbing my nerve endings, but I couldn’t rely on it as a crutch forever. I needed to stand on my own and be in tune with my brain and body, to really feel what it was feeling, rather than exist in the misty cloud of depression and detachment that had enveloped me for a fortnight.
I looked longingly at the bottle of sauvignon blanc, chilled to perfection. Pippa must have brought it with her when she came round for dinner on Sunday night, though to think that it had lived long enough to tell the tale was a miracle. I hadn’t intended to drink then, either, but when I told her I’d seen Adam, she demanded to come over to get all the details.
She’d sat openmouthed on the sofa as I paced up and down in front of her, no doubt boring her with every minutia of mine and Adam’s conversation. Aside from the obvious stress I’d been under, it had been great having Pippa around again. I’d missed us living together, and the chats we used to have. She was the closest entity I had to a second brain; when mine was spouting drivel, hers was the voice of sanity that I so often needed.
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” she’d asked. “Letting him come back?”
I nodded painfully slowly, while wringing my hands, unsure even of my own decisions anymore.
“But you’re still going to have her to deal with,” Pippa had said. She hadn’t even been able to bring herself to say the name “Pammie.” “She’s always going to be there. Is Adam really worth it?”
“I love him, Pip. What am I supposed to do? And let’s just give her the benefit of the doubt for a moment. She may well be telling the truth.”
“Nah, I’m not buying it,” she said, shaking her head. “Remember when I joked about there not being too many psychotic sexagenarians in the world?”
I nodded.
“I was wrong.” We both laughed.
My mobile rang, and made us jump.
“Hello?” I’d still been laughing as I answered the phone.
“How are you, stranger? Nice to hear you sounding happy,” said Seb.
I instantly felt guilty, that I should put myself back in my sad box, but then I realized that it was the first time I’d laughed in two weeks, and I’d done nothing wrong, though I reasoned that Seb was about to tell me differently.
“I’m sorry,” I’d said. “I’ve been in a really weird place.”
“One that you couldn’t trust your friend to help you out of?”
I’d sighed. I was painfully aware that I’d not returned a few of his calls, promising myself each time that tomorrow would be the day, but I’d still not got around to it and it had been nagging at me. Our relationship never used to be hard work. I could only think of one reason why it had become such, but I only had myself to blame for allowing outside influences to infiltrate the special bond that we shared.
“I really am sorry,” I offered.
“Are you at home? Can I come over?” he asked.
I hesitated. “Er…”
“Don’t worry, you’re obviously busy,” he said dejectedly.
What the hell was I doing? “Of course you can. Pippa’s here. It’d be great to see you.”
He gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek as he came through the door, nothing like the hug I would have expected, given the circumstances. We chatted awkwardly through the first bottle of wine, skirting around the issue that seemed to be wedged between us, though what it was, I didn’t know. He was reticent and unusually unanimated, which put me on guard as I constantly waited for him to drop the bomb. I knew I’d avoided him ever since the wedding had been called off, but then I’d avoided everyone aside from Pippa and my mum. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that Seb would normally have been my stalwart in times of need, and he knew it too.
He was just opening the second bottle of pinot grigio when he said, “So what was the real reason you didn’t want me to come to your dress fitting?”
Of all the possible scenarios that had been bouncing around in my head over the past hour, that wasn’t one of them. I instantly felt my cheeks redden.
“As I said to you,” I said in a clipped tone, “I wanted to save it for the big day.” Wasn’t that the truth? I’d certainly gone some way to convincing myself that it was.
“So, it was nothing to do with what Pammie said to you, then?” He looked up from the bottle resting between his knees.
“What? When?” I said, though I was already being hit with a sickening realization.
“When you were by the pool in Portugal.”
I turned to Pippa for validation of what I thought he was saying, but she just shrugged.
“I’m sorry, I’m not quite with you,” I said, hoping to call his bluff.
“I was sitting on the bench on the other side of the hedge,” he said. My heart lurched as I frantically tried to recall every word I’d said to Pammie.
“I was rather hoping, banking on it actually, that when you said you’d choose me over her, you meant it.”
I stared at him openmouthed. “But … I did. I mean, I have.”
He raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Yet, as soon as we got home, you told me you didn’t want me at your dress fitting, and I haven’t heard a peep from you since the wedding was canceled. I don’t want to be a burden to you, Em, so if having me in your life makes things difficult, then I’d rather you just say–”
I shook my head vehemently as his words struck a chord, as if I were trying to shake the very truth of them out of my brain. “That’s not how it is,” I said.
“So, does Adam have a problem with me?” he asked.
I thought back to how he’d jumped down my throat at the cinema, before he’d even met Seb, and his cutting remarks when he found out Seb was going to see my dress. I pushed the doubt to the back of my mind.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Adam would never feel threatened by you. It’s just Pammie being Pammie … you know what she’s like.” I went over to him and put my arm around him. “I’m sorry if you thought I was being offhand for any other reason than, I suppose, embarrassment and shame about the wedding.”
He pulled me into a warm embrace, the one I’d expected and wanted when I first saw him. “But it’s me,” he said. “Since when have we let anything like embarrassment and shame come between us?”
I smiled.
“I’m always here for you,” he said. “For better or worse.”
“Bloody hell,” interrupted Pippa. “Maybe you two ought to get married.”
We had all laughed then, which, just a few days previously, had seemed impossible.
But now, as I sat in Adam’s car, heading to Sevenoaks, life didn’t seem quite so carefree, and I wished that I’d had that drink after all, just to take the edge off. My brain was so fuddled that I was having trouble seeing the forest for the trees.
“You okay?” Adam smiled, sensing my trepidation.
I smiled back, and he reached over to take my hand. “It’ll be okay,” he said reassuringly. I doubted that, but then I remembered that, actually, this wasn’t about me anymore. This was about Pammie, who might or might not have cancer. (My mind had swung this way and that, but it was tending to settle on the latter nine times out of ten.) Still, until I was absolutely sure that was the case, I promised myself that I would assume the worst. Ironically, I felt the load lighten a little when I allowed myself to believe that she was telling the truth. At least then we had something tangible to work with, and we could all get on with helping her beat it. But what if she wasn’t?
“Oh, Emily, darling, it’s so good to see you,” she said, embracing me at the front door. “I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am. Really. I am so, so sorry. I would never have said anything if I thought for just one moment that…”
I smiled tightly. Regardless of whether she was ill or not, I still didn’t have to like her.
“Darling,” she exclaimed as Adam reached her. “Goodness, how I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve only been gone for two days.” He laughed, rolling his eyes.
“Yes, yes, I know. You should be home with Emily, that’s where you belong.” I didn’t know if she was trying to convince us or herself.
“How are you?” I asked, as sincerely as I could. “How are you feeling?”
She looked down. “Oh, you know, I’ve been better, but I can’t complain. I’ve not been sick too much and I’ve still got all my hair.” She patted the top of her head.
“Ladies, shall we go inside, before the whole street hears?” said Adam, ushering us through to the low-ceilinged hall.
“Oh, of course, it’s just that I’m so pleased you’re here. The both of you.” She took my hand and led me through to the back sitting room.
“How have you been?” she asked me, almost genuinely. “I’ve been thinking about you so much.”
I looked to Adam, and he smiled warmly back, like a proud dad. He bought every word she said. She had him wrapped around her little finger. I felt a very real pang of disappointment. Nothing had changed.
“I’m fine, actually,” I lied.
There was an awkward silence, but Adam seemed oblivious as we stood there sizing each other up. “We’ve not got much time,” he said. “And the traffic’s pretty lousy.”
“Oh, we should get going, then,” said Pammie, gathering up her cardigan and handbag from a chair. “Let’s save the chat for later.”
I forced a grin.
“Now, I’ve made a few little sandwiches, just in case you get peckish. Just take the cling film off whenever you’re ready, and there’s cake in the tin in the pantry. Lemon drizzle, I made it myself,” she said proudly.
“That’s lovely,” I said, aware of the falseness of our conversation. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d exchanged such pleasantries. “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”
“Don’t be silly, it’s the least I can do for you coming down all this way. And we shouldn’t be too long, anyway, they just need to get me attached and then we’re off and away.” She pulled up the sleeve of her blouse to reveal a padded gauze stuck to the inside of her arm. “Perhaps we can have a proper chat when I get back?”
I nodded, but looked to Adam.
“Do you not want Emily to come with us?” he asked, sensing my confusion. I’d not even contemplated them going without me.
“Goodness, no,” she said. “There’s no point in that. We’ll have a cup of tea and some cake when I get back, okay?” She looked to me, then at Adam, and we both nodded mutely.
“Sorry, I didn’t know she was expecting you to stay here,” whispered Adam, as he leaned in to kiss me goodbye. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“No worries,” I said tightly. “See you when you get back.”
“Make yourself at home,” called Pammie as they headed out the door.
I watched her shuffle up the path and then tell Adam what she wanted him to do with her bag, before he helped her in, placing a protective hand over her head as she slowly lowered herself into the passenger seat.
I made myself a cup of tea and sat on the sofa, wondering what I was going to do with the hours that stretched out ahead of me. I’d always felt uncomfortable being in someone else’s home when they’re not there. There’s something rather unnerving about being surrounded by someone else’s possessions. I picked up the Lady magazine on the coffee table and had a flick through, but it was full of features and ads aimed at a life other than mine. Alas, I had no need for a butler, bodyguard, or yacht staff at the moment.
I thought about putting the TV on, just for a bit of background noise to break through the silence, but then I eyed the hi-fi in the corner, an old-fashioned stacking system, with a three-disc CD changer. I’d had one of those in my bedroom when I was a teenager, and I remembered the long afternoon it had taken me and Dad to read through the high-tech instructions. As much as times had changed and moved forward, it still took me longer than it should have to find the on button and press eject. Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits, one of my mum’s favorites, was already lying in the groove, so I clicked it closed again and pressed play. The opening guitar strum to “Mrs. Robinson” filled the room, taking me back to those Saturday mornings when Mum hoovered around our feet as Stuart and I sat on the sofa. “Up!” she’d say as we both giggled.
The photo albums that Pammie had proudly flicked through on my very first visit here were lined up on the shelf above, sandwiched between two MIDI speakers. I looked along the spines, at the years written boldly in black pen. I could only remember that the album she’d shown me was maroon leather, but now, as I touched them, I saw that they were a cheap plastic, trying their best to imitate leather. I pulled the first of three maroon books from its place, its tacky cover sticking to its neighbors. The pages were overflowing with a young Pammie and Jim, clearly in the first throes of love, gazing adoringly at each other, while others around them could only look on. Adam was the spitting image of Jim, as a twenty-something young man—and James bore even more of a resemblance. Jim had his arm proudly around Pammie’s shoulders, his presence a warning sign to any aspiring suitors. Another photo showed Pammie draped over the hood of a classic car, in a geometric shift dress, while her girlfriends, with their pinched faces, were duly ensconced inside. I could just imagine the envy-induced conversation going on, as the gorgeous Jim stood behind the camera, admiring his girlfriend. Another page on and Pammie, Jim, and friends are lying on a picnic blanket, which, despite being sheltered between sand dunes, was still being lifted off the ground by a blustering wind. England in summer, no doubt—perhaps Camber Sands or Leysdown on the south coast. I imagined the freedom that being a young person living in the late sixties must have brought, and felt a pang of jealousy. To live with such abandon, with nothing to tie them down, must have been empowering. I wondered if we would feel the same about today, when in the future we looked back at how we’d lived.
The four couples, the men with their sideburns, and the girls with Coke-can curls in their hair, were all smiling, but it still felt like the Pammie and Jim Show. They were clearly the Elvis and Priscilla of their gang, always holding court and playing for laughs.
So, it seemed Pammie had been getting attention all her life. It was where she was comfortable, naively believing that it validated her somehow, that without the drama she’d be insignificant. I thought how exhausting that must be, to be constantly looking for the spotlight.
Toward the end of the album, the black-and-white photos were intermittently interspersed with a flash of color, as the monochrome was gradually replaced by the real-life glow of a Polaroid. You could see the genuine astonishment on the faces of its subjects as they marveled at the craziness of this modern-day invention. Would my grandchildren, or even children, look back through an antiquated iPhone and see the same look of wonderment on our faces?
I remembered seeing the first picture on the opening page of the next album, a photo of Jim and Adam standing at the side of a pond feeding ducks. Adam with half a slice of bread in his hand, looking up at his dad in awe. I wondered then whether, had they known they had so little time together, they’d have done anything differently. They say we wouldn’t want to know when we are going to die, even if we could, but when I look at pictures like this, I wonder if it wouldn’t be better. So we could use our time more wisely, spend it with people we loved.
I settled back down on the sofa with the album on my lap, and flicked to the back, where I remembered seeing the picture of Adam and Rebecca, so helpfully left open by Pammie. When I thought about it, every little thing that Pammie had done, from the very beginning, had been contrived, meticulously planned to create upset and turmoil for me. No one else would notice, of course—that’s where she’s clever. “What a sweetie,” they all cried, after she so considerately cooked a huge Christmas dinner, when she knew I’d already had one, and when she secretly arranged for a long-lost friend to turn up at my hen party, fully aware that she’d slept with my last boyfriend. Yep, “good old Pammie.”
I thumbed backward and forward, then backward again, looking for the photo of Rebecca. This was definitely the right album; I recollected all the pictures in here. I went through it again, page by page, but there was no photo and no caption that read, Darling Rebecca—miss you every day.
Where the hell was it? And why had she taken it out? I looked around the room and saw the drawers that sat under the hi-fi. Looking at the photo albums seemed intrusive enough, but I felt compelled to go further, despite the nervous butterflies in my stomach. I inched a drawer open, and could see piles of checkbooks, all used and held together with a rubber band. Statements and invoices were askew, slipping out of plastic folders. I lifted them up, careful not to disturb them too much, and eased the top checkbook out from its tight restraint. I thumb-flicked through the stubs, all neatly written with the date, payee, and amount payable. My eyes scanned at speed: British Gas, Southern Electric, Adam, Homebase, Virgin Media, Adam, Waterstones, Thames Water, Adam. I looked closer to see that Pammie had been paying Adam £200 a month for years, but when I tried to find a similar payment to James—after all, that would only be fair—there was no record of one. Confused, I carefully put the folder back in the drawer and tried to convince myself to stop there, but it felt like I’d picked at a scab and wouldn’t be satisfied until I’d scratched it off. I justified it by telling myself I was on the hunt for the missing photograph, but this woman had so much to hide that I felt a frisson of excitement at what else I might find.
The other drawer of the dresser was awkward to slide, and I had to jimmy it this way and that to get it open. There were two stacks of garish cards, each bundled together with a ribbon. I slid the top card out, a birthday greeting to her from Adam. The one farthest back was a sympathy card, with a note inside, written in Adam’s writing,
Dearest Mum,
Only you can understand how it feels to lose someone so suddenly, so needlessly. I keep asking myself, “What if…?” as I’m sure you must have done a million times. What if I’d been there? Would it have been different? Could I have saved her? Do these questions ever stop, Mum? Can you ever sleep soundly at night knowing that if things had been different …
My heart broke for him as I read his poignant words, and a tiny part felt for Pammie too. I couldn’t begin to imagine how it must feel to lose somebody so close. The other pile, much bigger in comparison, was to her with love from James, for every possible occasion: birthdays, Christmas, Mother’s Day, and even those that I didn’t know there were cards for—Easter, Saint David’s Day. She was lucky to have two sons who thought of her as often as Adam and James did. What a shame she didn’t want to share that side of them, choosing instead to see every advancing female as a threat to the amount of time and love they had for her. By now she could probably have had two equally doting daughters-in-law as well, both happy and willing to see her through what might or might not be her toughest battle yet.
There were no other nooks or crannies that held any mysteries in the sitting room, so I did a quick sweep of the kitchen, but aside from the obligatory “man drawer,” which housed old batteries, takeaway menus and keys that no longer had locks for them, there was nothing but cutlery and utensils.
I’d pictured myself going back into the sitting room, picking up my tea, and listening to “Homeward Bound,” the track now playing on the CD. So how come my foot was now on the bottom step of the staircase? I looked up at the narrow treads, the carpet wearing thin, and I wondered what happened once the staircase turned right and disappeared. The chintzy lemon wallpaper, with its flamboyant trails of rhododendron, was beginning to fade where the sun ate away at it at various times of the day. But at the top of the staircase, where there was a constant shadow, the green of the leaves was still vibrant and bright.
I convinced myself that I was going up to have a closer look, to really appreciate the depth of color, but I didn’t even stop. My feet just seemed to lift themselves up onto those last three steps, the ones you couldn’t see from the hall, and into the room with the open door.
The double bed and small wardrobe were enough to fill the room, but opposite them, in the alcoves on either side of the chimney breast, were tall chests of drawers. I swear I could still smell the pine scent emanating from the furniture, each piece its own shade of orange-brown.
The sunlight filtered through a gap in the thin curtains, casting a sliver of light across the room. I walked around the bed, the floorboards creaking as I went, and sat on the floor in front of the chest farthest from the window.
The bottom drawer felt heavy, so I lifted the weight up and off its support as I slid it out. It was full of ornamental boxes and decorated trinkets. The nerve fibers in my hands tingled as my clumsy fingers struggled with the clasp on the wooden jewelry box that was just begging to be opened. There were little milk teeth laid carefully on a red velvet cushion, the white enamel having yellowed over the years, and two name-tag bracelets bearing Adam and James’s names. Guilt washed over me as I caught sight of a pair of tarnished silver men’s cuff links, presumably Jim’s, and I slammed the top shut. I leaned my head back on the mattress, my folded limbs trapped between the chest and the bed. What the hell was I doing? This wasn’t me. This wasn’t what I did. I’d allowed this woman to turn me into someone no better than her. Of all the terrible things she’d done, I would not allow her to change the very foundation of me: to distort the values and morals my parents had worked so hard to instill. I placed the box back inside the drawer, tilting it to make it fit. I jumped as it dropped heavily onto its back, its underside staring outward, revealing a hidden compartment underneath.
I looked at it for a while, remembering the mantra I’d just recited, and willed myself to ignore it. “Close the drawer,” I repeated out loud, in the hope that hearing myself actually say it would stop me from doing what I already knew I was going to do. I carefully lifted it out again and slid the bottom section backward. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, some old bones or something, so it was an anticlimax to find nothing more than an old inhaler, the type I’d seen a girl at school with. Molly, I think her name was. I would never forget watching her collapse in PE, just after we’d been told to run around the field twice to warm up for netball. We thought it was a joke at first, but then she’d started wheezing and clutching at her chest. I hardly knew the girl, but I couldn’t sleep that night, and almost cried when they told us in assembly the next morning that she was going to be okay.
I didn’t know Pammie suffered from asthma, but perhaps it was Jim’s, I reasoned. People find the oddest mementos comforting. There was something beneath it, a cutting or a picture, and I carefully lifted the inhaler out to get a clearer view. My eyes snapped shut, as if desperately trying to stop themselves from sending the message they’d already received to my brain. I tried to retract it, battling furiously with myself to eradicate the image before it reached the part of me that recognized it. But I’d seen it and there was no way it could be undone. Rebecca. Smiling out at me, with the man she loved by her side. The missing photo from the album.
“Hey, I’m back,” Adam called out from downstairs.
What the hell was he doing here? He’d only been gone half an hour. I dropped the box, the inhaler falling out into the drawer, and I scrambled furiously to pick it up and put it all back. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, pumping extra energy through my hands, making it almost impossible to do even the simplest thing without shaking.
“You here?” he said. I could hear the creak of the floorboards as he walked through the hall to the kitchen. “Em?”
If I could just stop my hands from trembling I could get it all back in position. I could make out his footsteps coming into the hall, and there was only one place for him to go from there. A burning acid tore through my chest and my throat constricted violently as it struggled to hold it down.
“Hey, what you doing up here?” he asked, reaching me just as I sat on the edge of the bed, my foot slowly closing the open drawer he couldn’t yet see.
“I … I just…” I faltered.
“Jesus, Em, you’re deathly pale. What’s up?”
“I … I came over a bit funny downstairs, a migraine or something, so I brought myself up here to lie down.” I patted the pillows under the embroidered bedspread, still untouched and perfect.
“Oh,” he said, not noticing. “How do you feel now?”
“A little better, but I think I just sat up too quickly when I heard you calling. You were quick. Is Pammie okay? I hope she’s not going to mind me being up here.”
“She’s not back yet, I need to go and get her in a couple of hours. Do you feel up to a sandwich or a cup of tea?”
“Sorry, you’ve left Pammie there?” I asked tersely.
“Yeah, she doesn’t like me going in with her.”
“But you went in with her last time.”
“No, I did the same then as well,” he said. “She doesn’t want me to see her like that, all wired up and whatever else they do. Silly, really, because I’m sure that’s when she needs me most, but she’s adamant she doesn’t want me in there.”
“But … last time … you told me about the other ladies, how they were all chatting to one another?”
“That’s what she told me,” he said, not understanding for a second the implication of what he was saying. “No doubt to make me feel better about not going in. Apparently they’re all on their own, they don’t encourage accompanying visitors because it’s only a small room and there’s just not enough space.”
“So where does she go when you drop her off?” I asked, my mouth moving too quickly for my brain to keep up. “Where does she go?”
“To ward three-oh-six, or whatever it is.” He laughed. “I don’t know. I just do what she says and take her to the main entrance.”
“So, you don’t go with her past that point?”
“What is this, Em?” he asked, still half laughing, but a tension was beginning to seep in.
I needed to sit, be quiet, and think. My brain felt like it was going to explode with all this new information bombarding it from every angle. The inhaler, Rebecca’s picture, and the image of Pammie walking straight through the hospital and out the other side, clogged up any sense.
“You really don’t look well,” said Adam. “Why don’t you lie back down and I’ll go and make a cup of tea?”
“I can’t,” I said, feeling suddenly compelled to get out of there. “I need to go. I need some fresh air.”
“Whoa, hold up,” he said. “Just take it slowly. Here, take my arm, I’ll help you back down the stairs.”
“No, I mean—I can’t stay here.”
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he said, his voice a little louder. “I’ve got to go back and get Mum in a bit, so just have a cup of tea and calm down.”
“Drop me back to the station when you go. I’ll get the train home.”
“That’s crazy,” he said. “You’ll have to go all the way into London and back out again to Blackheath. That doesn’t make sense.”
I knew it didn’t, but nothing made sense anymore. After everything she’d done, I’d given Pammie the benefit of the doubt, and was fully prepared to put everything behind us and get through her treatment together, as a family. But this? This was something entirely different, something that I couldn’t even begin to contemplate.
“Come on,” said Adam, beckoning me toward him. “It’s been a tough few weeks and we’re all feeling the strain.”
He rubbed my back while he held me, blissfully unaware of the knowledge that was slowly poisoning my brain. The realization that not only was Pammie a lying, deceitful schemer who had set out to ruin my life, but a truly abhorrent murderer who had deprived Rebecca of hers.