The Secrets She Keeps, page 32
I hate him. I hate him so much that I never want to see or speak to him again. That’s what I tell myself and that’s what I believe. I am not hysterical. I am completely calm. I am rehearsing what I’m going to say when I tell him our marriage is over and I want a divorce. Jack will be numb. He will be distraught. He will beg for one more chance.
At the same time, I’m torn between anger and relief, loving and hating—a perilous dichotomy—because I am not innocent. I slept with Simon. A one-night stand that will always stand. Five minutes of drunken passion, a moment of weakness, my act of infidelity. Jack has been seeing Rhea Bowden for months. Surely his betrayal is bigger than mine. Worse.
The newspapers say the affair ended after someone shoved a note beneath the wiper blades on Jack’s car, warning him to stop fooling around. Clearly one person knew that he was married. It could have been one of my girlfriends. I cringe at that thought. My friends are notorious gossips, incapable of keeping a confidence, particularly a scandalous piece of news like this one. One would have told the others, who would have passed it on, until everyone in Barnes knew except me.
How they must have whispered behind my back, pointing me out and smiling conspiratorially. Real friends tell each other. Real friends help you bury bodies. Real friends bring their own shovel and don’t ask questions.
Maybe I deserve this, but I didn’t mean to sleep with Simon or get pregnant again. Jack made a conscious choice to cheat on me. The stupid, weak, pathetic bastard deserves to be lonely. These are the thoughts that keep bouncing around my head as though I’m forewoman of a jury, considering the evidence, trying to reach a verdict.
I’m alone in my childhood bedroom, which has been redecorated since those days, but I remember which posters once covered the walls and where I positioned my bed so I could lie awake at night looking at the rooftops on the far side of the road. I had a desk in the corner, which had a secret shelf behind the second drawer where I used to hide my cigarettes and my first joint, which I was too scared to smoke.
My mind drifts forward. I remember falling pregnant with Lucy, how excited Jack and I were. How we spent long hours talking about all the things we were going to do. On the night before she was born (she was ten days overdue) we shared a curry and made love to see if we could bring on my labor.
After the birth, I slept for hours. I remember waking up and seeing Jack holding Lucy in his arms, staring at this perfect little model of a person we had just made. He had taken her to the window of my private room and was pointing things out. “That’s a double-decker bus,” he said. “I’ll take you on a bus one day. You’ll love London.”
Next I remember when Jack’s father died. We went to the hospice and sat beside his bed and watched the end approach with each breath. That was the day I realized that life is a series of good-byes and I had to make sure that I didn’t waste my days or use them up too soon.
Two nights ago, Jack delivered a speech in the church that had me in tears. He said he loved me and that I made him stronger. I must believe that’s still true. I’m angry with him. I want to punish him. I want to pinch his skin until he yells. I want him to know what he’s done, but I don’t want to say good-bye, I don’t want to lose him.
The doorbell chimes. My father answers and I hear his footsteps on the stairs. A gentle knock.
“The police are here,” he says, his voice full of concern. “They’ve been trying to call you.”
DCS MacAteer is standing in the hallway alongside Cyrus Haven. They haven’t bothered taking off their overcoats. My heart skips. MacAteer suggests I sit down.
“No, tell me.”
“There’s been a development,” he says. “We may know the identity of the kidnapper.”
“Is it Rhea Bowden?”
Has she been arrested? I hope they marched her into the station in front of the cameras. Where’s Ben?
MacAteer asks, “Do you know a woman by the name of Agatha Fyfle?”
“What? Yes.”
He begins explaining, but I interrupt. “It can’t be Agatha. She had her baby before me.”
Neither man responds.
“How did you meet her?” asks the detective.
“She worked at a local supermarket—the one opposite the Green. We did yoga classes.”
“She was pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever come to your house?”
“Once. I gave her some baby clothes.”
“Could she have been faking her pregnancy?” asks Cyrus.
“No. She had her baby before me. I saw the photographs.”
“Do you still have them?” asks MacAteer.
“They’re on my phone.”
I scroll through my emails and show them the images of Agatha holding her baby. Cyrus studies them closely.
“These could have been taken anywhere.”
“She had a home birth,” I say.
“These could have been staged,” says MacAteer.
“How? She’s holding a baby.”
“Her upstairs neighbor gave birth a month ago. She had a baby girl.”
I shake my head, trying to think clearly. Agatha came to my house. Both of us got drenched in the rain. She used my bathroom, borrowed my clothes. I didn’t see her get undressed.
MacAteer continues. “Agatha Fyfle visited a doctor in North London this morning. She didn’t have any of the relevant paperwork for her baby and couldn’t give the doctor the details of her health visitor, or her midwife.”
“She said her mother was with her.”
“Agatha’s mother has been in Spain since early October,” says Cyrus. “I spoke to her an hour ago. The first she knew of Agatha’s baby was when she spoke to her daughter’s fiancé, Hayden Cole, a week ago.”
How could her mother not know?
I go back over the details. Agatha came to the candlelight vigil. She had a baby with her. I touched his head. Surely I would have known if it was Ben. I would have recognized him. In the same breath I hear myself saying, “You have to arrest her.”
“We have to be certain,” says MacAteer.
“But if you arrest her, she’ll have to bring the baby. You can do a DNA test.”
“Not without a warrant. We need proof.”
My voice rises in fear. “You said she took him to a doctor. Is he sick?”
“He was running a temperature,” says Cyrus. “The GP put him on antibiotics and recommended further tests. Agatha fled before he could raise the alarm.”
“How sick? What’s wrong with him?”
“There is a small chance that he has meningitis.”
I raise my fist to my mouth and bite down hard on the knuckles, wanting to draw blood.
“We’re watching Agatha’s flat,” says MacAteer. “If she comes home, we’ll interview her.”
“What if she doesn’t go home?”
“We are watching the train stations, airports, and ferry terminals, as well as contacting friends or acquaintances who might put her up.”
“What about her mother’s house in Leeds?” Cyrus asks.
“That too,” says MacAteer.
“Ben won’t survive outside on a night like tonight,” I say.
“I’m aware of that, but if we broadcast Agatha’s name and photograph, we risk putting Ben in even greater danger. Remember our strategy. We have to keep her calm.”
Fuck the strategy! I want to yell. My baby is sick.
Cyrus has more questions for me, wanting details of how much Agatha revealed about herself. I know what he’s doing—trying to determine her state of mind. He wants to know if Agatha is the sort of person who would panic under pressure. I don’t know if I’m the best person to ask. I thought Agatha was a friend. I invited her into my house. I gave her baby clothes. We sat in my kitchen and talked about pregnancy and babies and the future.
What sort of monster steals another woman’s child?
AGATHA
* * *
They will be coming for us now. They will surround the flat and break down the front door, splintering wood and bending hinges. They will storm up the stairs and go from room to room, searching for us.
I should have known it would come to this. I should have taken Rory overseas when I had the chance. Packed my things and smuggled him out past Customs and Immigration. I could have taken him to . . . to . . . Where? I have no money or contacts or experience of being on the run.
The creature is blaming me—listing my mistakes, my stupidity. I’m useless. Pathetic. I have failed again. What did I expect? I am going to lose it all—my baby, my fiancé, my freedom . . . I have no right to happiness. Like wealth, or beauty, it is given to others, not to someone like me.
Foolish! Foolish! Stupid girl!
I glance down at Rory, asleep in my arms, and my chest heaves with suppressed sobs. These past few weeks have been the happiest of my life. I have lived my dream. It was my turn . . . my time. I have been loved. I have been whole.
I should have known it wouldn’t last, but I will not cry. Not here. Not now.
The cab ride from Brent Cross is slowed by traffic on the North Circular. I’m almost at Chiswick when I discover I only have twenty quid in my purse. The meter is gone past that already.
“Can you pull over just here?” I ask the driver.
“What about Fulham?”
“No. Here will be fine.”
I take out all my notes and coins, counting them while the driver waits impatiently.
“I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t have enough. I’m five pounds short.” I look at him, hopefully.
“Have you been crying?” he asks.
The words get stuck in my throat.
He looks at my baby. “Give me twenty. I don’t want the shrapnel. We’ll call it even.”
The cab pulls away. I risk looking at my phone. Hayden has been calling, leaving voice and text messages. Maybe I should call him back. I could tell him the truth and ask for help. He loves Rory as much as I do. Together we could come up with a plan. Escape. Start again somewhere new.
In the same instant I remember that the police can trace mobile phones. I turn mine off and take out the SIM card, throwing it into the gutter. I’m standing at the side of Chiswick Roundabout smelling exhaust fumes and watching the blur of traffic. Kew Bridge station is just down the road. I can catch a train. Where? I can’t go back to the flat. I have no credit or debit cards. I left them in Rory’s changing bag, which was hanging on the back of his pram. I didn’t think. I had no time.
I hold my hand against Rory’s forehead. His fever has broken and he has more color in his cheeks. I still have the antibiotics the doctor gave me. I can give him another dose in a few hours. How will I feed him? Change him?
At the railway station, I find a public phone box and call Hayden’s number. He answers on the first ring.
“Agatha! Where are you? I’ve been worried sick.”
“Are you at the flat?”
“Yeah.”
“Are the police there?”
“Who? No.”
“Look out of the window.”
“What’s going on? Where are you?”
More urgently. “Look out of the window.”
“OK, OK. What am I looking for?”
“Can you see anyone?”
“No.”
In the background I hear the intercom buzzing. “Hold on,” says Hayden.
“Is it them?”
He doesn’t answer, but I hear him talking to someone on the intercom. “She’s not here. Who wants to know?”
I don’t hear the answer. By then I’ve hung up.
* * *
I glance around me, certain that I’m being watched. Trying not to make eye contact with anyone, I walk down the station steps to the platform. A uniformed transport officer is at the bottom of the stairs, reading a free newspaper, waiting for the train. A sports bag is nestled between his feet. He looks up from the paper and notices Rory in my arms.
I keep walking to the far end of the platform and hide behind a painted concrete pillar. Opposite me, on the westbound platform, a workman is picking up rubbish with a clawed stick. He’s listening to music from earbuds that dangle from beneath his dreadlocks. He could be part of a surveillance team. I glance farther along the platform. Two Asian women are chatting. Neither of them looks my way. They wouldn’t, would they? They’d deliberately avoid me.
Rory whimpers. He’s hungry. I have nothing for him except boiled water. Why couldn’t they leave us alone? Why did they have to keep searching for Baby Ben? They portrayed him as some sort of fairy-tale infant stolen by wolves or left to perish in the wilderness. He was always safe, always loved. If they had just let him go, we would have been fine. Happy.
I have tried not to think of a moment like this. Failure has shadowed me, but I refuse to look over my shoulder. I have been here before. It feels like I’m leaning out of a burning building, fearing the fall as much as the flames, knowing I cannot survive either, yet I must choose one.
The creature whispers to me, telling me I’ve lost. He is a brutal beast, determined to undermine and demoralize, to never forgive or forget. What did I expect? I kill babies. I only have to touch them and they die. Chloe. Lizzie. Emily. Elijah. All dead because of me. Now I’ll lose Rory.
The next train is coming. How easy it would be to step out now. What is there to live for if they take Rory from me? I will not see color, or taste sweetness, or feel warmth. I will be nobody. I will be worse.
My toes are on the edge of the platform. I rock forward and back on my heels, hearing the rails vibrate. Feeling the rushing air.
You’re a coward.
I’m not a coward.
Do it, then!
Images flash through my mind. My funeral. Who would be there? Nobody—not after what I’ve done, unless my mother shows up, dressed like a Spanish widow and wailing over the casket, beating at the polished lid with her bony fists.
My life has been forgettable, but my death could make amends. It could shock and horrify. It will be written about. It will make the news. The train driver will never forget. Meghan and Jack, they will have nightmares, waking in a cold sweat with my name on their lips, my face in their heads.
I rock back and forth, leaning out farther each time. Look how easily Nicky died. He had no time to regret. Nothing flashed before his eyes except the train that crushed his body. My life could be over just as quickly. My pain. My doubts.
Do it! Go now!
What about Rory?
Take him with you.
He doesn’t deserve that.
You’ll have him forever.
How? He deserves more.
Suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness, but surely it becomes more so if we take another life. It’s like saying, “I cannot handle this world so I choose to die, but I cannot handle death so I choose to take someone with me.” How cowardly. How self-obsessed. A cry for help becomes a wicked act. Unforgivable. The grounds for eternal damnation.
The platform trembles. A train horn blasts. I reel away, as though blown backwards by the noise, clutching Rory to my chest. The train brakes. Slows. Stops. The doors open.
The transport officer is beside me. “Are you all right?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
“Did you fall?”
“No. Thank you. It’s nothing.”
“Your baby is crying.”
He points at Rory, whose little face is a picture of misery, his features bunched up and reddened.
I carry him onto the train. The transport officer takes a seat, watching me. I stay beside the doors, waiting for the beeping sound that signals they’re going to close. At the last possible moment, I step back onto the platform and the doors shut behind me. The officer gets to his feet. He walks down the moving carriage, trying to keep me in view, but the train carries him away.
Rory has gone quiet. He’s watching me expectantly. It will be dark soon. We need shelter. Food. The supermarket! I know where Mr. Patel leaves the spare keys. I know the code for the alarm—unless he changed it after I left. The place closes at nine o’clock. I’ll be able to get nappies and formula. We can sleep there tonight, as long as we’re gone by six in the morning.
I sit on the metal bench and hold Rory on my lap. “We’re going to be all right,” I whisper, kissing his cheek. “Today was not ours, but there’s always tomorrow.”
MEGHAN
* * *
A dark-skinned Hawaiian girl in a coconut bikini and hula skirt jiggles back and forth on the dashboard. Jack stuck the doll there, thinking her funny in a retro-sexist way, and now she reminds me of Rhea Bowden, shimmying her hips and acting slutty. I hit the girl with the back of my hand. She bends and bounces back, shimmying even harder.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?” asks Cyrus, who insisted that he drive.
I don’t answer.
“I saw the newspapers.”
“Everybody saw the newspapers. The whole world is laughing at me.”
“They feel sorry for you.”
“Even worse.”
“Can I just say—”
“No! I don’t want to talk about it.”
We drive in silence, crossing Putney Bridge and turning onto Lower Richmond Road.
“I’ll say one thing,” says Cyrus. “Then I’ll shut up.”
He pauses, as though expecting me to argue. I don’t.
“I have cheated on someone—a one-night stand that meant nothing, but it cost me a relationship with a woman I cared deeply about.”
“She wouldn’t forgive you?”
“I couldn’t make it up to her.”
Pain is etched around his eyes. His voice drops. “I tried to make her understand that resentment towards me was punishing both of us. It may not be fair that you forgive Jack, but forgiveness by its very nature isn’t fair. Someone must make a greater sacrifice. Someone has to start.”
