1983
I didn’t realise it was an actual dead body.
At first, I thought he was just standing there, his feet hovering off the ground. His torso was round-shouldered and sagging, with his head limp and bent to one side.
Not much different to when I’d seen him drunk and lolling about. For a moment, I even thought he was hunched over his workbench, pondering a woodwork project or poring over some sketches for a new bookcase. He was always making things; always tinkering, as Mum said.
But he’d never done it naked before.
He’d been on a shoot several days before and was surrounded by pheasants and ducks, perhaps a partridge or two, their plucked bodies all skinny and pale like his, as they hung on wires from the ceiling of the workshop. One or two still had iridescent greeny-blue feathers on their wings. But while the birds were meant to be dead, suspended by their claws, making them look as though they were nosediving mid-flight, Dad wasn’t. He was hanging by his neck.
I screamed.
I cupped my hands over my mouth, my body shuddering. I couldn’t take it in: a smashed-up jigsaw puzzle with a thousand muddled pieces. The radio was on – he always had music playing when he was out in his shed – and I jiggled about, but not to the music. I was trying to stop the pee trickling down my legs. But I couldn’t. It dribbled hot down to my ankles, soaking into my slippers.
I blinked hard, unable to take my eyes off him.
My father was hanging by an electrical cable from a crossbeam in his shed wearing only his watch. I’d only ever seen his thing down there once before when I’d gone into his room late one night a few weeks ago. Mum was away for a long weekend with her sister, and Dad had sent me to bed early because I wasn’t feeling very well. He’d insisted I stay there. But I’d been sick in my bed, and my body was sweating and cramping, so I’d got up and crept across the landing. There were noises coming from his bedroom. Noises that made me wonder if he was poorly too – all those grunts and moans.
But when I’d gone in, it turned out Dad wasn’t sick at all. Paula, the woman who rented a room from us, was in there with him, both of them naked. Her face was pressed sideways against the wall, and he was standing right up close behind her, ramming his hips against her and smacking her bum like she’d been naughty. But then I realised it was because Dad liked her. I’d seen people doing it on the telly enough times to know what was going on. Mum always told me to close my eyes and look away, but sometimes I’d peek between my fingers.
I knew Mum wouldn’t like it; knew that Paula shouldn’t be in there, that they shouldn’t be naked together. I was just about to creep back to bed, pretend I’d never seen them, but then Dad made this really big roaring sound, the tendons standing out on his neck, his face all screwed-up. And that’s when he saw me standing in the doorway in my sicky pyjamas.
Fuck… fucking hell… but his words were all mixed up with groans.
I covered my face, but the next thing I knew his hand was tight around my arm, grabbing me, pulling me into the room.
‘What the hell are you doing, spying on us?’ Sweat was running down his bare chest.
He shoved me down on the bed, and I buried my face in the sheets. They smelt funny, maybe of Paula. I was scared.
‘I wasn’t spying, honest,’ I said, daring to look up, stifling a sob. Then my eyes flicked down to his thing, all big and angry. ‘I don’t feel well.’ Then I sobbed again, but it turned into a retch and sick came up into my mouth, spilling down my front.
Dad pulled on his shirt and hopped into his jeans, cursing the whole time. Paula grabbed Mum’s gown from the back of the door and wrapped herself in it. Her breasts were huge, and her body was slim, nothing like Mum’s spongy middle. The gown swallowed her up.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Dad said, pacing about, red-faced and seething. ‘You should be asleep, not snooping, you little wretch.’ Then he punched the door, his fist lashing out over and over until his knuckles bled and there was a hole in the wood. Dad liked punching things.
Tears and snot were streaming down my face.
‘Leave it, Jeff,’ Paula said, touching Dad’s shoulder. ‘She didn’t know.’ She was kind, even though I hated her now – hated that she lived in our house because my parents needed the money. Hated what she was doing with my dad. I bet Mum didn’t even know.
Dad came right up close to me then, breathing heavily. ‘OK. You were in bed, weren’t you? You didn’t see anything at all, did you? Did you?’
I shook my head again, snivelling.
‘Did you?’ he yelled.
‘No,’ I whispered.
‘Pardon?’
‘No, I didn’t see anything, Dad.’
He hauled me up and marched me through to my bedroom, swearing when he saw the pool of sick on my sheets. He shoved me into bed.
‘Clean this up in the morning,’ he said, crouching down next to me as I huddled under the duvet. ‘You don’t tell anyone about what you saw tonight, right? Nothing. You understand?’
I nodded.
‘You never woke up, you never came into my bedroom, and you never saw Paula in there.’ His voice was quiet now but intense, driving into me. Veins stood out on his temples. When Dad was this angry, he meant it. He prodded my shoulder.
That was when I knew he loved Paula way more than me. I loathed her as much as I now loathed him.
I nodded until I thought my head would fall off. He stared at me, scrutinising my face, deciding if he believed me or not. After what seemed like ages, he stood up and left. Then I heard voices, footsteps on the stairs, and the front door eventually opening and closing.
Afterwards, I lay awake all night, shaking, crying, forcing myself to forget. But I couldn’t. I’d been so very, very bad.
Another scream tore out of me as I stood in the workshop, my father’s body only feet away, hanging from the beam, the bright yellow cable digging into his neck. His face was ghostly pale, his eyes bulging open while his tongue was purple and poking out. The skin on his body was mottled with red patches, getting darker and darker right down to his feet, which were blown up like angry balloons.
But it was his thing – standing upright again, just like it was when he’d been with Paula – that I couldn’t take my eyes off. It was as though it was the only part of him left alive.
Then I was thinking about it all again. I couldn’t help it. Her smarting bottom, Dad’s moaning, the straps of muscle across his back, her huge bobbing breasts, even the taste of sick in my mouth and the smell of his breath as he yelled up close in my face. It wouldn’t go away.
Then a few days afterwards, Mum and Dad had had their biggest fight ever. That’s when everything got worse.
I swear I didn’t mean to tell her, but she forced it out of me like a madwoman – said I must have been in the house when it happened, that she could see it written all over my face, that I was nothing more than a dirty whore like Paula for keeping secrets. She made me tell her everything. She drank gin as she listened, smashing the empty bottle against the wall when I’d finished.
‘This was all your fault!’ she yelled at me. Her hysteria doubled her up, making her stagger as the tears and rage poured out. She went upstairs, yanked her towelling gown off the back of her bedroom door and chucked it in the incinerator outside, dousing it in lighter fuel. When she threw in a match, it lit up the entire garden. The next day, my mother was gone. Packed up and left without a word. After everything, I ended up staying with my aunt and didn’t see Mum for months.
And then I vomited again, spewing mess all over the feather-strewn workshop floor at the sight of my naked father hanging, swaying gently as Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’ played on the radio. I’d always loved that song, imagining it was me at my dance class on a Wednesday. I began to sway and move to the music, my feet slipping in all the stinky wood oil spilling from an overturned can on the floor, whispering the words as best I could – anything to take away the sight of my father. Anything to make things normal.
Even though they weren’t.
As sure as the hot piss running down my legs, I knew that my father had done this to himself because of what had happened.
Because of me.
And then I spotted the note on the workbench, surrounded by his tools and sitting in a sea of sawdust. It had my name on it.
This is what happens when you watch people, when you tell secrets. It’s your shame now…
A neighbour burst through the shed door. He’d heard my screams and come running. He stood frozen for a moment before swearing and grabbing a Stanley knife from the workbench. He stood on a wooden box and hacked at the electrical cable, jumping back as my father’s body dropped to the floor. Then, frantically, he sliced the cable away from his neck as I watched in horror.
My nine-year-old body then did what bodies do best – it protected me. Or so I thought. I don’t remember who found me passed out on the floor, my face slick from lying in the oil when I woke, or anything about what happened right afterwards. It was missing time. Everything locked away. Where it belonged.
Guess Dad was right in the end. Watching people is what I do. But telling secrets?
Never.
March 2018
I’m awake. I glance at the clock. It’s 4.02 a.m. and won’t be light for a couple of hours yet. I take a long, slow breath in, counting to seven. Then I let it out, counting to eleven. I repeat this ten times, relaxing my body at the same time.
I’m still awake.
Still tense.
Mark lies beside me, the soft purr of sleep escaping his lips. I envy his oblivion, but then I remind myself that it’s my fault I can’t sleep, that I haven’t been able to for months.
I slide from between the sheets – changed yesterday because I always do the beds on a Friday – and tiptoe across the room. There’s only one creaky floorboard between here and the bathroom, and I know how to avoid it. I don’t want to wake Mark, don’t want him asking why I can’t sleep yet again. He wouldn’t understand.
Afterwards, I don’t flush. Instead, I stare at the basin, desperately wanting to wash my hands but knowing the tap will make too much noise. I catch sight of the unexpected smile on my unmade-up face in the mirror – a smile that has very little right to be there. Perhaps it’s more a grimace.
I slip back into bed, my fingers still itching to be washed. It doesn’t feel right, things not being done a certain way. Leaves too much room for catastrophe. Mark stirs, turning over and draping his arm across my middle, weighing down on my ribs, making it hard to breathe. I try to shift it, but he grumbles so I leave it where it is. I daren’t disturb him.
For the next two hours I lie awake, watching it get light. When my thoughts go places they shouldn’t – the forbidden landscape of last year – I force myself to think about the mundane, the everyday, the little things that keep me sane. I consider going for my run early, to get it out of the way, but I couldn’t do it on an empty stomach and the juicer would wake the whole street, let alone Mark. Besides, it’s way too early yet. My Saturday run is always at 8 a.m.
‘Do you have to do that, Jack?’ My stepson scrapes burnt toast over the sink, specks of black showering the white porcelain. I don’t like nagging him, but sometimes it’s necessary. And I know Mark won’t like the mess. ‘Just chuck it out and make some more, love,’ I say less sternly.
Jack turns, staring at me over his shoulder for a moment before starting to scrape again. He doesn’t say a word.
I open the window and back door, flicking on the extractor fan before checking my phone to see if there are any texts from Annie, Lilly’s mum. I tell myself that’s what I’m checking for, anyway, but old habits die hard. The screen is blank. Freya’s not been keen on sleepovers lately but agreed to stay with her best friend after school yesterday. I’m worried that she’s become so clingy, that something’s troubling her.
Jack shoves the blackened knife into the peanut butter jar, watching my expression as he slathers it on the toast. He’s blank-faced, waiting for me to say something, expecting the criticism that he knows is stinging the back of my throat. I turn back to the juicer, jiggling the components, trying to make it fit together properly. It won’t turn on.
‘People are starving, you know,’ Jack says, perfectly timed for Mark to hear as he comes in the kitchen. ‘Waste not, want not.’ He chokes out a laugh – his not-so-long-ago little boy voice now a manly growl.
‘Not sure anyone would want that,’ I say, my cheeks flushing as I tussle further with the juicer. I flick the switch back and forth, feeling tears welling as the stupid machine remains lifeless. It was already in the kitchen when I moved in, and we could really do with a new one, but Mark insists that this one, the one that Maria bought years ago, works fine. Anyway, right now I need the noise of it to drown out my thoughts way more than I need the juice. He’d said that once, the comment Jack just made, as he’d grinned and forked up the chips I’d left on my plate. People are starving, you know…
‘Mark, what’s wrong with it?’ I give the juicer a shove, making it wobble, hoping he can’t read my face. He knows every nuance, every line and blemish, every shade of blue my eyes take on depending what’s on my mind. I glance at the clock. Nearly eight. I’ll be late leaving for my run at this rate, then the whole day will be thrown out of kilter.
‘You need a mechanic?’ he says, coming over and grinning as he fiddles with the machine. He knocks a carrot onto the floor, inspecting every inch of the juicer carefully as if it’s a patient in for a check-up. I lunge for the carrot.
‘That should do it,’ he says, squeezing me around the waist. I love him. For always mending things. For always keeping things going. For keeping me going even though he doesn’t know he is.
‘Genius,’ I say above the noise, shoving a load of carrots into the chute, adding in an apple, a stick of celery and a knuckle of turmeric. I pour it out, sitting down to join Mark and Jack at the table. ‘What?’ I say, giving a little smile, noticing their conspiratorial looks. Though Jack’s is more scornful than anything. I wipe the bottom of the glass, so it doesn’t drip on my white robe. Mark’s trying not to grin, while Jack shoves a fistful of burnt toast into his mouth, his usual doleful stare boring out from beneath his too-long fringe.
‘What?’
‘Helps if it’s switched on at the wall, love.’ Mark puts a hand on my arm.
Jack sprays out toast through a laugh, though I can’t tell if it’s mocking or not. I manage a little laugh myself amidst this normal, happy family scene, closing my eyes as I sip my juice. But I quickly open them again when, inside my mind, all I can see is him.
It’s twenty past eight when I tie back my hair, then fiddle with my trainer laces because they don’t feel right. I set my Fitbit, making a note of calories burned over the week. I’ve lost weight these last few months – not that I needed to. I watched it fall away without even trying. Stress will do that. But then he’s on my mind again as I wonder what he’d say if he saw me now, if he’d like me like this, still find me attractive. I try not to think about him but can’t help it.
I set off, closing the front gate, breathing in the chilly morning air. Spring is here, but that’s not good to think about either – the bulbs in the park, the cold but sunny afternoons, the handmade chocolates he gave me last Easter. Switch the channel, I tell myself as my feet pound the pavement. Change your thoughts!
Then work is on my mind – which isn’t much better because everything leads back to him in some way. I try not to think about the clinic at weekends, but I’ll take anything as a distraction right now. Besides, it’s not the kind of job that stays put in the office. Cases are always on my mind. I suck on my water bottle, turning up the volume of my very carefully selected playlist, tripping on a raised paving slab. I stumble for a few paces, getting myself back in time with the beat, turning my thoughts back to yesterday.
Our weekly team meeting was cancelled, what with one partner being sick and another needed as part of a crisis intervention team. Then I had two no-shows after lunch, which was when Sandy, our receptionist, told me about a potential client who’d been calling all day, wanting an appointment with me and only me. She explained to him about my waiting list.
Why only me?
The insistence unsettled me, of course, made me on edge and out of sorts for the rest of Friday. Perhaps that’s the reason for my lack of sleep last night, the uncertainty, what it represented. It was exactly the sort of thing he would have done – the urgency, the demands. I felt rattled by it. Still do.
But at least we have dinner with Ed and Annie to look forward to this evening, I think, leaping over a puddle. Running is a good way to work things through, to process feral thoughts. And feral has no place in my life any more.
My breathing kicks up, burning my throat as I press on, speeding up the pace, heading downhill. It’s the route I always take on a Saturday – predictable, safe, a known path. My thigh muscles are aching and heavy already, even though I’ve only run half a mile.
But it’s back on my mind again.
‘Unrelenting is the word I’d use,’ Sandy had told me, her voice slow and cautious as if she didn’t want to worry me. ‘When I told him you had a waiting list, well that’s when…’ She’d looked perplexed for a moment, which was unlike her. Sandy pretty much held the clinic together. Nothing harried or fazed her. ‘Well, there was silence on the line for a while. Then I just kept hearing the same thing over and over again. “I want an appointment with Lorna Wright, please. As soon as possible.”’
I’d nodded, listening, allowing her to finish. She was sitting at her desk in the waiting area, fresh flowers and pleasant lighting doing nothing to allay the look of concern on her face, even though she was quite used to dealing with difficult or emotional clients. ‘I told him he could have an appointment in a month’s time and that I’d put him on your cancellation list. But…’
‘Go on.’
‘… but it fell on deaf ears.’ She shook her head, her neat bob haircut swaying at her neck. She looked embarrassed. ‘So I said I’d have a word with you and I’d call him back.’ She tapped her message pad where she’d written his number. ‘Sorry, Lorna. I know your list is full, but it was the only way to get rid of him. I didn’t want to be rude.’
‘It’s fine,’ I’d said, smiling and tearing the number off the pad. Even as I did it, I could hear myself screaming out to myself not to, that I’d knowingly set the ball of boundary-breaking in motion. Mistake number one. ‘I’ll sort it.’
Sandy’s mouth opened and closed several times and, even though she didn’t say anything, she didn’t need to. In our practice, and most others, therapists never contact clients outside of the therapy room. It’s a violation of our professional code of ethics. That’s why we have people like Sandy – to act as a buffer.
I glanced at the name on the paper – David Carter – though Sandy’s writing wasn’t the most legible. The name didn’t mean anything to me. ‘No problem,’ I said, giving her a cheery smile. She didn’t reciprocate. Rather she looked concerned, as if she’d failed at her job. As if I’d failed at mine.
At my desk, I stared at the number. I didn’t recognise that either. I also stared at the stack of notes that needed writing up from earlier clients. I’d only been working at the Grove Clinic for ten months, though I’d fitted in so well it was like I’d been here forever. The practice was efficient and friendly, with four full-time therapists – each of us adhering to a strict code of professional ethics, yet maintaining a camaraderie between colleagues that kept us going.
I looked at the name and number again, doodling on the corner of the note, trying to work out what was bothering me about it. Did it make me feel wanted and in demand because I’d been personally requested? At least I had enough self-awareness to see that – to see that my ego was inflated just a little bit bigger than the stack of papers on my desk. But what worried me more was what I was trying to recreate. What feelings I was trying to… well, feel again. It was dangerous ground.
I opened a file to get on with some work, but old addictions die hard, so I dialled the number. Just to see what happened, to prove to myself that it was nothing. That I was still in control.
After six rings a generic voicemail kicked in. I left a message. ‘Hi, it’s Lorna Wright here from the Grove Clinic. If you call me back, I’ll see what I can do to fit you in.’ I hung up, staring at my phone. Mistake number two – a complete violation of client–counsellor boundaries, not to mention preferential treatment. Well, mistake number three really, given that I’d called the number in the first place. I really hadn’t thought this through, acting impulsively for selfish reasons. And whoever David Carter was, he now had my personal mobile number.
I smiled at the background picture of Mark on my phone – the boys’ sailing holiday that he and Jack went on ages ago. It’s years old now, and I should probably have updated it with a more recent one, but it was very soon after that things got serious between us. It had taken him ages to fully commit. But after everything he’d been through, I understood he needed to take things slowly. So each new phone I have, the picture’s come too; my lucky charm. I tucked it back in my bag and set to writing up my clinical notes before the end of the day.
I keep running, my feet slipping into time with my heartbeat at last. What I did yesterday sits at the back of my mind like a dormant seed that’s just been given the tiniest amount of soil, water and light. Which is why I’m pounding it out on the pavement now, each footfall hammering home my stupidity.
The tarmac changes to grass as I enter the common, bracing myself for the incline. If I’m called out on it, if anyone – especially Joe, my supervisor – finds out, I’ll just say I was helping Sandy, that the client had been giving her a hard time, that she was rushed off her feet.
I put my head down, flicking the music volume up to max, running faster and faster, needing to punish myself. Then, without having any idea why, I break with routine and veer left at the fork, missing the point where I usually stop for thirty squats, some water, a dozen push-ups. I run on, completely off course now, heading down a path I’ve never taken before.
It was just a trigger, I tell myself over and over. A silly, inconsequential trigger. Thing is, I know better than most that when the trigger’s pulled, the emotional gunshot is never far behind.
‘You’re kidding?’ I say as Mark hangs up. ‘Tonsillitis? Poor Emma.’
He nods, rolling his eyes. Our babysitter is sick, and we’re all dressed up with nowhere to go.
‘Ed and Annie will be in the taxi on their way to the restaurant by now,’ I say, pulling a face and taking off my coat again.
‘Shall I ask them over here instead?’ he suggests, nosediving into the fridge to see what we have. ‘You could whip something up perhaps?’
I glance at my phone. Nothing on the screen apart from a reminder to give Annie back the book I borrowed. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed.
‘Lorn?’
‘Sorry, love…’ I smile, grabbing his hand. ‘Sure, let’s ask them over here. We can just chill, listen to that new band you like.’ He gives me a peck on the lips. ‘And let’s send out for a Thai instead.’ I squeeze him. ‘Will you call Ed to let them know? I’m just going upstairs.’
Mark hesitates – a brief frown – but then smiles, those warm eyes of his creasing at the corners. His smile was one of the things that attracted me to him most – the way his whole face lights up with kindness. ‘Will do,’ he says, tapping my bum as I go. ‘Can’t waste you looking so good. I love seeing you in that dress.’
And I can’t stand to break from routine, I think, heading up the stairs. Tonight was all planned out, everything in my life designed to fill large gaps of time. The danger zones. Breaking the habit. Twice a month, on a Friday night, it’s just Mark and me. We don’t like to call it ‘date night’, but I suppose that’s what it is. We’ll try a new restaurant or go to the cinema, maybe a gallery preview, or a concert depending what’s on. Monday is Mark’s sports night – usually squash, followed by a curry with the lads, while I catch up with things around the house or, if I can’t be bothered with boring jobs, I’ll do my nails or write in my journal. It’s more important than ever for me to keep up with that. I’ll be honest, Mondays are tricky.
Tuesday evenings are filled with an online food shop and anything else we need ordering, then Mark and I will hit Netflix if we’re not too tired. Wednesday evening is book club – always a laugh – while Thursday is Pilates, and Saturday is all about friends. Letting our hair down with some drinks, decent food, a good catch-up. Other than that, I’m either at work, ferrying kids around to various activities, or cooking and cleaning.
Halfway up the stairs I stop, feeling a pang as I realise my life has become nothing more than a timetable. Spontaneity, surprises and spur-of-the-moment decisions are a thing of the past. Holding on tight is the only way I know how to cope, to get through the months, to avoid slipping through the cracks.
Damn him to hell!
After I’ve checked on Freya – she was fine, happily doing a jigsaw in her room – and, of course, checked my phone again, I come back down. ‘All cleared with Annie and Ed,’ Mark says, giving me a thumbs up. ‘Smudge in bed?’
‘About to brush her teeth,’ I say with a smile. He’s always called her that, because of the little birthmark that looks smudged on the back of her neck. I take a bottle of Pinot from the fridge. ‘Though when I told her Annie and Ed were maybe coming here, she assumed Lilly was coming too and got all excited.’
‘But their babysitter didn’t cancel.’ Mark takes the wine I pour for him. ‘So they can have a kid-free evening.’
I admit that, at seven, Freya’s my little baby. My only baby. Jack is Mark’s son from his first marriage and never got to know his real mum, Maria. Mark was widowed before we met, and Jack was only three. He has no memories of her.
Even now, it’s hard not to think of Maria as the ‘competition’. Mark loves me dearly, of course, and we’re a family now, but it’s tough to know that, given the choice, he’d rather she was still alive, that they were all together. I can’t help feeling like the consolation prize. He once told me that they’d had plans for a big family, perhaps a move to the countryside, maybe even a holiday home abroad. It was hard to hear. I know Mark would love us to have more children, but I often wonder if it seems the same for him second time round with me. If I live up.
If I’m as good a wife as Maria.
As good a lover.
Truth is, since him, these feelings have got worse. My fears have been confirmed. Guilt will do that.
The doorbell rings and I hear a squeal as Freya comes running .
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