Her stillness is disconcerting for him. It’s distracting him from this – this thing he’s been planning to do for weeks. Jason isn’t able to meet her eyes – too cowardly to see the bewilderment there, the pain. Two or three times, she sees his worried gaze stray to where she stands silently in the doorway, watching this final chapter in her marriage play out like a scene in a soap opera. This would be the calm before the storm, the prequel to tragedy, where the avid viewer, who knows this wronged woman’s humiliation, her indescribable hurt, waits for her to plunge the long knife deep between his shoulder blades, as he stuffs his shirts into his suitcase.
They’re not ironed, the shirts. She stopped doing that some while ago.
She will snarl contemptuously down at him, a combination of disgust and deep satisfaction in her eyes, as he crumples, a pool of his own blood flowering beneath him, disbelief flickering briefly in his deceitful, dark eyes, before the light fades.
This woman who stands here silently does none of that. She is detached, unreactive. This woman is me. I don’t know her any more. The tablets supplied by my doctor – mild sedatives, that’s all – for the endless nights when my mind can’t find solace in sleep, they numb me, allow me, through the wooziness, to view things with clarity. I can’t stop him leaving. My silence, this time, is not tactical, a ploy to manipulate him into backing down after an argument. There’s nothing to say. No words left. No words that can keep him. No more accusations to scream, no tears I can cry that won’t fall on barren ground. Jason has made up his mind. Even as I see his determined stride falter under the weight of his guilt, as he walks away from the dressing table with random handfuls of clothes, I know he won’t be dissuaded. He will go to her: Jessie. Jezebel. The woman who is apparently everything I am not.
Jason hesitates, glancing around the room for anything he might have forgotten – small things, obviously. No doubt he will come back for ‘the rest’, whatever the rest may be. Material evidence of our time spent together. He will take what he perceives to be his, leaving me with the physical evidence, the scars on my heart, my mind. On my body from bearing his children, the children he will abandon. For her.
He walks across to the bedside table. His watch lies there, marking time – tick, tock – twelve years of my life, flushed down the toilet. It’s the last thing he takes off at night, always placing it next to the framed photo. A framed photo of me. I’m certain he won’t take that. Will he place the watch next to a similar photograph, I wonder? Will he compare us? If he lays his head down next to her, I’m sure he will.
‘Will you stay with her tonight?’ I ask him, eschewing silence for knowledge. ‘Your perfect woman?’ Jessie. I silently repeat it, recalling how the name rolled off my tongue the first time I mouthed it out loud. Meaning: Gift from God. This much I know. I smile insipidly. I won’t give vent to the emotion bubbling up inside me; fuel the argument that would allow him to slam out of our house without saying goodbye to his children. His choice will be to do that despicable thing all on his own. I won’t allow him to pretend he’s doing it to avoid confrontation with me.
‘Yes,’ he answers uncomfortably, meeting my eyes, finally. The look in his own is anguished, full of remorse, as if seeking forgiveness, as if he should perhaps receive a plaudit for that one single scrap of truth. ‘I’m sorry, Karla. I didn’t want things to end like this.’
‘Yes, you did.’ I laugh – a short, bitter laugh of contempt. How am I supposed not to? He’s not sorry. He’s excited, anticipating his new life, with her. He will already be imagining what he will do to her. What she will do with him. What positions he will take her in. I know this. I know him. All of him. His every aspiration. His every fantasy. Can he truly be so oblivious?
‘And you love her.’ It’s a statement, not a question. This much I know is true, too. His love for her is stronger than the love that should bind him to his children, to his wife, the woman he swore to love and cherish forever.
‘I don’t want to argue, Karla – not again. I should go.’ He avoids the question. Does he imagine his answer will hurt me? That, with my mother disappeared, hiding away from the press who have relentlessly hounded my father, and with my husband about to desert me too, I can possibly hurt any more than I do?
His eyes are downcast as he collects his case and walks towards me.
I stand aside to let him pass. The knife behind my back feels solid in my hand. The only solid in the shifting sand. I’m tired – too tired to play this game any more. But a rational part of me clings on through the fog and the rage. The mother who, if she does this, will feel her children’s pain as surely as her own, holds on to my waning sanity. I need to let him go. This is not the last chapter, I am sure of it.
‘Will you still love her when you know all of her, as you imagine you know me?’ My voice is strained, bordering on hysteria. I’m fighting hard to keep it at bay.
Pausing at the top of the stairs, Jason glances at me – a sorrowful glance, which pierces my heart like a sharp stab of the blade I am mentally wrestling with. ‘I do know her, Karla,’ he says sadly.
I doubt that, I think, as he descends. I doubt that very much indeed.
I follow him as I hear the front door open. Will myself not to lose control, to fall, as I dread that I eventually will. My name is Karla. Meaning: womanly; strength. I’ve googled it. I will stay strong.
My mother’s tipsy, I notice, as she leaps up with her ‘girlfriends’, gyrating excitedly and belting out the lyrics to ‘There Goes My First Love’ as she weaves through the tables towards the dance floor. The sharp-suited tribute band is good, emulating the smart moves and honeyed harmonies of The Drifters perfectly. My father’s excelled himself, money being no object when it comes to celebrating his own first love’s sixtieth birthday. Idly, I wonder whether he’s been straying again. He usually splashes money around like it’s going out of fashion when he has. I have no idea why Mum puts up with him. Largely, she ignores him. I imagine the only reason she’s here is because he sent out the invitations to her sixtieth birthday party before actually telling her she was having one.
Glancing towards the bar, I see he’s making a beeline for Jason, who’s being served and therefore has no chance of avoiding being cornered. Seeing my father reach to shake his hand, regardless of Jason holding a glass in each of his, I shove my chair back and head across the room to rescue my husband from what’s bound to be a work-related grilling, meaning he will be agitated for the rest of the evening. And who could blame him? It’s a birthday party, for goodness’ sake. Does my father have to be so formal with him?
Oh no. Approaching them, I rein in my own agitation. ‘So, how are things in the ecommerce industry? Thriving, I hope?’ I hear Dad ask, inevitably, his smile fixed in place as he appraises Jason, as if measuring him up. Why does he do that? Make it so obvious he doesn’t rate him?
Jason takes a breath, visibly quashing his annoyance. ‘Not exactly thriving, no,’ he says, with a tight smile, ‘but we’re ticking along.’
That won’t impress my father. I can’t help but feel angry for Jason. He mentioned only this morning that the new software interface he’s designed, and as good as sold to a major overseas client, has hit a major glitch. Having just two employees, and only one as skilled as he is, he said he’ll need to get someone else on board if he’s to have any hope of staying ahead of the game. With a major cashflow problem, though, that isn’t going to be possible any time soon.
‘I wish you’d reconsider approaching my father for a business loan, Jason,’ I ventured, busying myself with the kids’ sandwiches rather than meet his gaze, which I knew would be incredulous. Our last discussion on the subject had ended badly. Jason had flatly refused to entertain the idea. ‘I mean, he wouldn’t be doing you any favours, would he? It’s not as if it’s a personal loan. He’d be investing in the company, so…’ I hurried on, hoping he would relent.
‘Investing? Jesus…’ Jason almost spat out his coffee. ‘Have you any idea what you’re asking? He’d be breathing down my neck 24/7, trying to control everything. Then there’s Rachel and Mark to consider. They’re not going to want to work for someone like him. No, I’m sorry; I can’t do it, Karla. You know I can’t. There’s no way I’m going to be indebted further to him. I’d rather go bust than let Robert ruthless fucking Fenton anywhere near my company.’
‘That’ll help,’ I sighed, as he dumped his mug in the dishwasher and headed for the door. Friday’s being his busiest days, he’d already been stressed. I probably should have chosen my moment more wisely. I didn’t dare mention that I’d already broached the idea with my father. I shouldn’t have done that either – Jason’s bound to see it as going behind his back – but what other choice do we have? Him burying his head in the sand isn’t going to pay the mortgage. A mortgage my father has no knowledge of. When we got married, I’d been pregnant and Jason hadn’t been earning much, so my father had paid outright for our house. He’s so loaded, he would never miss the money, but the situation does little to alleviate Jason’s frustration. There’s no way on God’s green earth he’s ever going to go cap in hand to his father-in-law again, and my job as a personal assistant and officer manager doesn’t pay enough to cover much more than the domestic bills. I never did manage to pick up my acting career. It’s a horribly ageist industry, and I realised it was an unrealistic aspiration, particularly when, soon after having Holly, I fell pregnant with Josh.
I watch Jason now, noting the tense set of his jaw. He’s definitely irked.
My father, seemingly oblivious and still standing in front of him like an immovable mountain, takes a leisurely swig of his whisky, and then, ‘You should overhaul your finances, take a look at income versus expenditure.’ He takes another swig and points his glass at him.
I’m only grateful smoking’s banned. In times past, he would have been taking a puff of his cigar and blowing smoke all over Jason, infuriatingly.
‘You could use my accountant,’ my father goes on, regardless of Jason’s now stony expression. ‘This guy’s on the ball. You’d be amazed at what he can chalk up to expenses. Why don’t I give him a—’
‘No.’ Jason cuts him short. ‘Thanks, Robert’ – he forces a smile – ‘but I’m happy with the accountant I have.’
My father arches an eyebrow dubiously, but doesn’t comment, thank God. ‘Well, if you change your mind…’ Shaking his head in that despairing way he does, he reaches into his inside jacket pocket. ‘Here, let me give you his card.’
Time to interrupt, I suspect. ‘Dad, it’s supposed to be a birthday party, for goodness’ sake, not a business meeting.’ Relieving Jason of my wine glass, I shoot my father a warning glance. I’ve made him promise not to mention that I’ve spoken to him about a loan. I’ll never forgive him if he does. ‘Stop talking shop,’ I urge him, ‘and get over there and keep Mum company – or she’ll be leaving tonight with her toy boy.’
Pushing the card back into his pocket, my father twizzles his neck, a scowl creasing his forehead as he glances to where Mum’s improvising a slow jive to ‘Under the Boardwalk’ with the son of one of the band members, who’s apparently their roadie. Wearing her black off-the-shoulder Bardot dress, Mum’s a knockout. He’s in ripped jeans and a T-shirt, but I have to admit, he looks pretty hot too.
Narrowing his eyes, my father looks Mum over, looks the young man up and down, and then… ‘She should be so lucky,’ he says, raising both eyebrows in wry amusement as he turns back to the bar, where he immediately homes in on the daughter of one of my mother’s friends. He’s leering at her, invading her space. I see the girl’s discomfort, and feeling a rush of heat to my cheeks, I look away.
Jason has obviously noticed it too. ‘Are you sure you’re related to him?’ he asks, his expression contemptuous as his gaze travels over my embarrassing father.
Unfortunately, yes. I sigh inwardly, so wishing my father wouldn’t act this way. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that he’s doing it in front of me, his daughter. But then I’ve turned a blind eye to his deplorable behaviour before. Kept quiet about things I shouldn’t have. One of which I will regret for the rest of my life. My sister would still be here to celebrate our mother’s birthday with us, if I’d handled things differently.
Glancing again at my father, who’s now draped an arm over the shoulders of the girl at the bar, I wonder if he thinks about Sarah with each passing milestone. About what he did, the lies he told. Does he see her when he looks at me? We weren’t identical, physically or in nature. Sarah, with her freckles and rich auburn hair, was much prettier than me, I think. More extrovert, too – boisterous and confident where I was quiet and shy. He must be reminded of her though, surely, when he sees me? A sister robbed of her twin. If he does, he never shows it.
Shaking off the memory of the dark shadow that hangs over our family, I paint my smile in place and turn back to my husband. Sometimes, when the air needs to be lightened, I find the skills I learned at acting school come in quite handy. I’m not sure playing the role of peacekeeper helps my own frustrations, but it might keep my husband and father civil tonight.
‘Ignore him,’ I tell Jason. ‘We’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves.’ Hooking an arm through his, I lead him away from the bar. I certainly don’t want to be sitting miserably at the table, watching everyone else having fun, while my mind wanders sadly down memory lane – which it’s bound to, now feelings of my rudely isolated childhood have surfaced.
We reach our table and I plonk my glass down, revving myself up to join the throng on the dance floor. Mum and the girls from the golf club are still ‘getting their groove on’. The band member’s son ought to be a little less keen, I can’t help thinking. Mum might well take up his invitation to ‘Come on Over to My Place’, which is the current song the partygoers are throwing themselves into with gusto. The man has some moves.
‘I think I’ll sit this one out,’ Jason says, with a half-hearted smile.
‘Oh, Jase…’ Disappointed, I sigh as he wearily sits down and parks his coke in front of him. I don’t normally act like a teenager. With two children to look after, as well as working close to full-time, I’m too exhausted to walk up the stairs to bed half the time, but the music is contagious.
‘Maybe later,’ Jason says, reaching to ease the crick in the back of his neck. ‘Sorry, I’m just a bit tired, I guess.’
He’s bound to be. I feel a surge of sympathy. He’d slept badly, which is why he was in a mad rush and more stressed than usual this morning. I’m not surprised, with his business worries and bills we can’t meet piling up. Nor am I surprised he’s not in the mood for partying, but things haven’t exactly been easy lately for either of us. It would do us both good to loosen up. Jason, though, his brow furrowed pensively as he runs a finger around the rim of his glass, doesn’t look as if he’s going to be moved.
‘Right, well, I hope you don’t mind if I do. A girl’s gotta have a little fun, you know.’ Wiggling my hips, which causes him to raise his eyebrows in amusement, I head off to join Mum and her toy boy on the dance floor.
Allowing the music to wash through me, I soon lose myself completely. For a short, blissful time, I am carefree, detached from the me who frets constantly, transported to a place where I don’t have to worry about our financial problems, about my children, my father belittling their father. I concentrate everything on the dance.
It must be a good twenty minutes later when I feel Jason’s arm slide around my waist, pulling me away from my slow dance with the toy boy and forcefully to him. I’d glanced across to him once or twice, but my father had joined him the last time I looked and the two were deep in conversation, so I’d decided to stay where I was. I’m sure my father won’t break his promise not to say anything to Jason about our conversation, but still, seeing them together, I’d felt nervous butterflies take off in my stomach.
‘I hope this is my dance?’ Jason says, close to my ear, as he moves around in front of me. With the band now crooning ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’, and my husband looking classically tall, dark and extremely handsome in his blue linen-mix jacket and cream chinos, it might have been terribly romantic, but for the thunderous expression I see in Jason’s eyes.
Driving away from the golf club, finally, Jason blew out a sigh of relief.
‘Everything okay?’ Karla asked, her tone slightly wary.
Jason nodded, though he supposed it was obvious he wasn’t ‘okay’, since he’d more or less insisted they leave. He hadn’t been able to help himself. After being cornered by her father, again, and then watching the guy his wife was dancing with appreciating the view – his eyes had been all over her – Jason had fervently wished he’d made a work-related excuse not to go to Diana’s party. But it wouldn’t have gone down well with Karla. Her old man, though, might possibly have mustered up a smidgeon of respect for him, putting business before pleasure – as he himself always had, he was fond of saying, which was bullshit. Robert Fenton might bang on about business acumen and work ethic, but when it came right down to it, the man had no ethics. Jason had learned that as soon as he’d met him. The man had made it clear he didn’t consider him suitable husband material for his daughter from the outset. He’d wanted her to finish her acting degree at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art – validated by King’s College, London, no less – not throw her future away.
He’d wanted her to abort their child.
Jason still felt it now, the anger that had boiled up inside him twelve long years ago, when he’d overheard her ‘caring’ father trying to make her see sense. Fenton’s study window had been open. Arriving at the front door, Jason had heard every word.
‘I understand you want to be with him, princess. I know love isn’t choosy,’ he’d said, oozing understanding while backhandedly insulting him. ‘I won’t try to influence your decision, sweetheart, I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he’d continued, doing just that, ‘but you can postpone motherhood for a while, surely? You’re young. You have plenty of time to have children. Finish your degree before tying yourself down, hey? It’s what you’ve always wanted. Meanwhile, you’ll be giving Jason time to prove himself. He’s hardly in a position to support—’
‘He doesn’t need to prove himself!’ Karla had jumped aggressively to his defence. ‘I love him, Dad. I’d marry him if he were penniless.’
‘But love doesn’t pay the bills, Karla.’ Robert had sighed expansively. ‘Does it?’
‘We’ll work it out! Jason has plans,’ Karla had countered.
‘To do what, exactly?’ Robert’s tone had been scornful, even then.
‘Ecommerce,’ Karla had announced, which had been news to Jason. His degree had been in computer science, and he had been toying with the idea of designing packages and websites for sports equipment manufacturers. Even then, though, he hadn’t relished the idea of being stuck behind a desk. Being inclined to extreme sports, enjoying everything from scuba diving to paragliding, he had wondered whether there might be an opportunity in corporate events – preferably hands on, leading team-building exercises.
‘I see. He’d have to be very savvy to make his mark in that industry.’ Sounding unconvinced, Fenton had offered his invaluable opinion, he himself being an entrepreneurial genius who had grown his hugely successful plumbing and bespoke bathroom business from the basement of a dry cleaner’s. After hitting £1m revenue six years after start-up, Robert Fenton, self-made man, was now worth an estimated £50m. Clearly, he thought his fortune afforded him dubious privileges – Jason still couldn’t believe the man would make overtly sexual advances to a young woman at his own wife’s birthday party.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Karla observed, after several miles spent driving in silence.
‘Yeah, sorry.’ Jason ran a hand over the back of his neck. ‘Just thinking.’ He hadn’t meant to give her the silent treatment, but the truth was, he was tired. Tired of her father preaching at him. Tired of Karla not seeming to want to listen whenever he tried to talk to her about how it made him feel: Useless, basically. Tired full stop.
‘So what were you and Dad talking about?’ Karla enquired, as they neared the house.
‘Nothing much.’ Jason tugged in a terse breath. ‘He told me there was no shame in failure.’ Turning into the drive, Jason killed the engine. ‘I cut the conversation short at that point, for obvious reasons.’ He’d been sorely tempted to tell the guy, once and for all, what he thought of him, and then suggest he piss off out of their lives.
‘Oh God.’ Karla winced. ‘Did you argue with him again?’
Jason didn’t much like the implication of that, as if he were somehow partly to blame for the fact that he and her father didn’t get on. As far as Jason was concerned, he deserved a medal for being remotely civil to someone like Robert Fenton. ‘Nope. I held my temper, you’ll be pleased to know, excused myself to reclaim my wife from the arms of another man and then suggested we leave, which my wife was severely pissed off about. All in all, not a great night.’
Karla spilled out the passenger side as he shoved his door open and climbed out. ‘Is that what that was all about?’
‘What what was all about?’ Jason headed for the front door.
‘Your moodiness.’ Karla followed him. ‘You barely spoke to me on the dance floor, and you’ve hardly spoken a word since.’
‘I couldn’t hear myself speaking on the dance floor,’ Jason pointed out, going in first and heading towards the lounge, where the TV was on way too loud. ‘And I’m not “moody”. I just have a lot on my mind.’
Correction: now he was feeling a definite mood coming on. ‘Holly?’ He swung his gaze in his daughter’s direction. ‘What are you doing up? It’s way past your bedtime. And what in God’s name are you watching?’ He turned his attention to the TV, which the babysitter had paused, unfortunately freezing an opaque-eyed corpse rising from a post-mortem table.
Jesus. It would give Holly nightmares for weeks. Storming in, Jason shot the babysitter an unimpressed look as he relieved her of the TV remote.
‘Dad!’ Her expression indignant, Holly unfurled herself from the armchair as he hit the off button. ‘I was watching that.’
‘Bed,’ Jason said, pointing the way.
Holly splayed her hands. ‘But you and Mum let me watch Netflix.’
‘Age-appropriate stuff, Holly. Which this is not.’ Jason folded his arms and waited.
Clearly seeing there was no wiggle room, Holly folded her arms in turn and then, her face set in a petulant scowl, she flounced past him to the hall. ‘This is so unfair,’ she muttered, as she went. ‘You’re treating me like a child.’
Watching her disappear, wearing a fluffy leopard skin onesie and her feet adorned with furry white unicorn slippers, Jason shook his head in bemusement, and then turned angrily to their babysitter, who was looking sheepish. And so she should be.
‘What the hell were you thinking, Megan?’ he asked her, trying very hard not to lose his temper.
‘She couldn’t sleep,’ Megan offered by way of explanation, as she scrambled up to stuff her feet into the pumps she’d kicked off and retrieve her phone from the coffee table.
Jason laughed, disbelieving. ‘Excuse me?’
‘It was just The Haunting of Hill House,’ Megan said, with a discernible sigh, as if he was making a fuss about nothing. ‘My little brother watches it.’
‘I don’t care what it was!’ Jason lost it. ‘She’ll be haunted. She probably won’t sleep for weeks. There is no way you should have…’ He stopped and took a breath. ‘Look, forget . . .
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