The Soulmate, page 19
It was a Friday afternoon. Kat had offered to host the party at her place because her walls were painted in shades of blue and green that went perfectly with the Under the Sea theme, and Mum had decorated the house with sea creatures and sparkles and made the girls the most adorable matching squid costumes the world has ever seen. I’d attempted a mermaid cake but changed it to a sea urchin once I’d realised the level of difficulty.
I’d invited the eight little three-year-olds from my mothers’ group, together with their parents – though it was mostly the mothers who could make it. Gabe had promised he’d try to be there by three, but he was nowhere to be seen. At three thirty-one I tried calling and texting, but his phone was switched off. When I called his office, the receptionist acted strange. She put me on hold for quite some time, and when she returned she just said, ‘No, he’s not here. Sorry.’
I’d told everyone he was on his way, just stopping for ice, which wasn’t the wisest cover because it meant that Dad didn’t bother to get ice and we spent the afternoon sipping warm drinks and glancing at the door.
‘Do you think he’s got into an accident?’ Mum said eventually.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sure everything’s fine.’
But I wasn’t sure. I imagined him at a bar. Perhaps with a barmaid. The truth was, Gabe could have been anywhere. With anyone.
Why hadn’t I forced him to go to the follow-up appointment with Dr Ravi?
An hour and a half later, we ended up cutting the cake without him. I remember the hot flush of irritation, combined with an icy undercurrent of dread. Where was he? Had he got into an accident?
‘Is everything all right with Gabe, darling?’
Mum and I were in the kitchen, cutting slabs of urchin cake and placing them in turquoise napkins. I could see how difficult it was for her to ask. Mum, who’d had her own interfering mother-in-law, prided herself on never interfering in her children’s marriages. The fact that she was asking made me suspect I hadn’t hidden our troubles as well as I’d thought.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Good,’ Mum said. ‘Good. Because I did wonder if . . .’ She trailed off, but then she frowned as if deciding that she was just going to go ahead and say it. ‘It’s just that he can be a little up and down, can’t he?’
She didn’t look at me as she said it, which was how I knew she was really worried.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
She looked at me then, placed a hand over mine, and said, ‘I think you do.’
It’s hard to describe the humiliation of realising that, after pretending harder than you’ve ever pretended, no one believed you. It was like dressing up in high heels and lipstick to get into a nightclub only to be told, in front of a long line of other club-goers, that your ID is clearly fake. I felt so exposed. If Mum knew, who else did? Did Dad? Kat? What about our guests, standing around awkwardly waiting for their cake? Did they know what was going on too?
Eventually I pretended to take a call from him, and then said loudly how sorry I was that I didn’t get his message, and did he need me to come home? When I ended the fake call, I told people he’d come down with a terrible stomach bug and was at home in bed. I said that he’d texted, but I hadn’t seen it. It was clear Mum didn’t buy it, and I presumed that Dad didn’t either. As for the guests, I had no idea. But what else could I say?
Later, when we’d cleaned up, I packed up the car and took the girls home. Gabe still wasn’t there. I put the leftover sausage rolls and cake in the fridge, fed and bathed Asha and Freya, and then put them to bed. Still no Gabe. I found homes for the new toys Asha had received. Then, when there was nothing left to do, I went to the garage for a couple of suitcases and began to pack.
I’d go to my parents’ house to begin with, I decided. I’d been working part-time for the past year, but I’d be able to increase my hours and put the girls in child care for another day. Even if Gabe didn’t pay child support, we would survive – financially, at least. I just wasn’t sure I’d be able to survive emotionally without him.
I had filled one suitcase when he walked in the door. He was missing his suit jacket and his shirt was untucked. His knuckles were raw, and his sleeve was covered in blood.
‘Oh my God. What happened to you?’
He looked around, as if surprised to find someone home. But his surprise quickly turned to annoyance.
‘Work,’ he said. ‘It’s bullshit. I’m practically running that place. No one else can do what I do, no one else spearheads the campaigns. I’m sick of working for someone else.’
He was speaking fast. Almost too fast for me to understand what he was saying. It could have been alcohol or drugs, or it could have been the voices in his head.
‘What happened to your hand?’ I asked.
‘I’m done. I’m starting my own company and I’m taking the clients with me.’
‘Did you hit someone, Gabe? Is that what happened?’
He nodded. He kept nodding. I didn’t know if he was nodding at my question or something else, something inside his head.
‘I need to go back to the office,’ he said suddenly.
‘I think you need to go to the doctor,’ I said. ‘Why don’t I call –’
‘I have to go, Pippa!’ he yelled, suddenly right up close to me. His face was red, his eyes bulged. He looked like an entirely different man – a stranger. I let him go. I just wanted him out of the house.
I waited a few minutes then I got out his boss’s business card. I’d thought many times about calling him. I’d had the card for years now. Sometimes I got it out and just looked at it. In the past I’d worried that by calling I might get Gabe into trouble. But his behaviour at home had been so erratic, it felt likely that he’d been the same at work. I reasoned that if his boss knew he was unwell, he might be more forgiving of Gabe’s behaviour. More than that, I hoped that his boss might be able to convince him to seek help when I couldn’t.
‘Max? It’s Pippa Gerard. Gabriel Gerard’s wife.’
I was worried he wouldn’t remember me, but he did.
‘Where is he now?’ Max asked when I told him briefly what was going on.
‘He said he was going to the office. Who knows if he is?’
‘Why don’t we start there?’
There was something about the word ‘we’ that undid me. I agreed to meet Max at the office and called Mum to come and look after the girls.
She came straight over. I didn’t give her much by way of explanation, and she didn’t ask, which proved that she had a much better understanding of our situation than I’d realised. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. Mum was a nurse. She’d been there for the ADHD diagnosis, the surprise grandchild. Of course, she’d notice the erratic behaviour!
And so I drove to the NewZ headquarters.
But Gabe never showed up.
65
PIPPA
NOW
‘Gabe? Can you give me a hand with the shopping bags in the car?’
We’re in the kitchen, and I’ve just set two bags on the counter. The girls are in the living room, playing with Lego, but they’re being unusually quiet, and after Asha’s recent comments we can’t be too careful of little ears.
‘Sure.’
Gabe follows me back to the car. I wait until we’re in the garage, standing in front of the open boot, before I say, ‘A man approached me in the supermarket car park.’
The colour drains from Gabe’s face. ‘What?’
‘I was putting the bags in the car, and he came up and insisted on helping. He was enormous. Clearly some kind of thug. He had a tattoo on his neck.’
Gabe frowned. ‘What kind of tattoo?’
‘A snake. Why? What difference does that make?’
He shakes his head. ‘What did he say?’
I stare at him for a second. ‘When he’d put all the grocery bags in the boot, he gave me my handbag and told me he needed to return it because it’s important to return things to their rightful owner.’
Gabe closes his eyes.
‘Then’ – I clear my throat, which is suddenly dry – ‘he said something about strawberries being Asha’s favourite.’
‘Fuck,’ Gabe says.
‘I’m worried that he’ll send that man to our house. What if the girls are here? You need to call Max, Gabe. Tell him we don’t have the USB.’
He hesitates. ‘I’m not sure that’s the right move.’
‘The right move,’ I say, my voice rising, ‘is whatever protects our children from danger, Gabe!’
‘All right,’ he says. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘How?’ I ask.
The look on his face says he doesn’t really know.
66
AMANDA
BEFORE
‘We will never know the number of lives we have saved.’
Max was standing on the podium in his dinner suit, sombre-faced and commanding. All eyes were on him, and not just because he was giving the speech. All eyes had been on him since the moment he arrived. They always were.
We were at a black-tie dinner. We didn’t go to many of these anymore; Max generally delegated them to younger executives. The only ones we did attend were the fundraisers for mental health and suicide prevention – and even then, he’d just pop in, do his part and duck out again.
Tonight, Max had been complaining of a sore neck before we’d got here, and he’d taken a muscle relaxant. We joked that he would slur his way through his speech, but he sounded as impressive as ever.
‘We do know that because of your generous donations, we have been able to provide counselling for thousands of men and women. People who might not be here today if it wasn’t for your generosity.’
I was seated to the side of the stage, having joined Max for the early part of the evening – the handshaking and photographs. After his speech, though, his obligations were fulfilled, and we were free to leave.
‘What now?’ I asked him.
He draped his jacket over my shoulders. ‘Lovely night for a walk.’
Indeed it was. We strolled out into the mild night air, waving away the waiting car. Baz followed a short distance behind us. Since Arthur Spriggs’s murder, we’d upped our security again. Now we had a guard at the front gate as well as at the door. We even moved into our penthouse apartment in the city for a while – it had a private elevator and only one entry point, which made it easier for Baz to see who was coming and going – but when a few weeks passed without incident, we felt safe enough to move back home. Still, I knew the whole matter weighed on Max. He might have been ruthless when it came to business, but he had never meant for anyone to die. If Gabe hadn’t jumped in, I doubted he’d even have hurt Arthur very badly.
‘But what’s done is done,’ he’d said. And so it was. We all just needed to move on.
We walked to a boutique restaurant where we ate mussels and drank pinot grigio. Over dinner, Max told me he’d had a difficult day. Gabe Gerard had showed up at the office in a state, unaware or refusing to acknowledge that he’d been let go. Apparently, he’d had some sort of episode, yelling and screaming and throwing furniture around.
‘What did you do?’
‘I wasn’t there.’ Max sighed. ‘Someone called security. When I heard about it, I drove around and tried to find him, but he was long gone.’
‘You drove around looking for him?’ My tone gave away my surprise.
Max shrugged. ‘He’s clearly unwell.’
‘Clearly,’ I said. ‘But you don’t drive around looking for every person who has an emotional breakdown, do you?’
Max looked at me for a long moment, as if contemplating something. Then he reached out and took my hand. ‘I need to tell you something. But first, there’s something I want to show you.’
I had to admit, I was intrigued as he led me along the river. It was a beautiful clear night, and the stars were out. We walked in silence as Baz maintained a respectful distance. After several minutes we came to a bridge running over the river, and here Max stopped.
‘You see that bridge?’ he said. ‘That’s the bridge my brother jumped from when he was seventeen.’
I knew Max’s brother had taken his own life, of course. I’d heard Max tell the story countless times during fundraising events. But Max had always said that Harry overdosed on pills and their father found him.
‘I know,’ Max said. ‘It’s not the story I tell. But when I started the foundation, I knew I’d have to retell the story of Harry’s death over and over, and I didn’t think I could do that to myself. So I made one up. That way, it feels like I’m talking about another person. I don’t know if I’d get through it otherwise.’
I nodded, reluctant to speak in case I broke the spell. Max so rarely spoke about his brother, and he never did so unprompted. There was something so fragile about it. I was almost afraid to breathe.
‘Harry was a golden boy,’ Max continued. ‘You know the type? The kind of kid that actually glows. He was so good-looking. Whip-smart. Creative. And charming!’ This part, like the information about the bridge, was new and pure – not the broad strokes he normally painted Harry with: ‘a straight-A student’, ‘full of potential’. I knew without asking this was the real story, the real Harry. ‘Everyone loved him. Teachers. Girls. No one had a bad word to say about Harry. I adored him too, of course.’ Max’s eyes were misty now. ‘I must have been around eleven or twelve when I started noticing that something was different about him. I don’t even know how to explain it. It was little things. He’d talk a bit too fast. Or he’d jump from one topic to the next without any discernible connection. It was like his brain worked faster than everyone else’s. He knew what was going on in his head but no one else did.’
Max was gazing out across the water. I squeezed his hand.
‘He felt everything more than other people, you know? Some days he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and he didn’t understand how others weren’t carrying it too. One night I got home and found a letter on the kitchen counter. He said he couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much. He’d decided to jump off this bridge. There was more in the letter, but I didn’t read it until later. Mum and Dad weren’t home, and we didn’t have mobile phones back then. I jumped on my bike and pedalled here as fast as I could. I was at this very spot when I saw him jump.’ He pointed to the ground where we stood. ‘I screamed out to him as he fell.’
‘Max.’ I held him tightly around his waist. ‘Oh, Max. I’m so sorry.’
He wiped at a rogue tear that trickled down his cheek. ‘Gabe reminds me of him. He’s similarly troubled. And similarly gifted. I guess I just got it in my head that if I took him under my wing and gave him . . . I don’t know, a chance to channel his gifts . . . he might be all right. He might not go the way Harry did. But I was wrong.’
Another tear fell. He tried to laugh it off. ‘Shouldn’t have had that muscle relaxant or the second glass of wine.’
‘You’re allowed to be emotional,’ I told him. ‘Muscle relaxant, wine, or not.’
We found a bench and sat there for nearly an hour. And Max told me things he’d planned never to tell anyone. Things that shocked me, things that made me want to weep. Things that made me understand.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I think Harry would have been pleased that his brother married someone so perfect for him.’
The beauty of the moment was not diminished by the fact that he didn’t say the words I love you.
‘Should we go home?’ I suggested, and he nodded.
Then his phone began to ring.
67
PIPPA
NOW
I am putting away the last of the groceries when Kat throws open the back door.
‘Aunty Kat!’ the girls cry in unison.
‘Hello, poppets!’ She smiles at them, but as soon as her eyes find mine, I know something is wrong.
‘I just need to speak to Mummy for a second,’ she says to the girls. She avoids Gabe’s gaze entirely. To me she says: ‘In private.’
I haven’t seen Kat like this in a long time. Her mouth is tight and tense, as if she can’t move it properly.
‘All right,’ I say nervously. ‘The bedroom?’
Kat nods. She follows me there in silence and closes the door behind us. I feel like I’ve just been summoned to the principal’s office. Tension radiates off her.
‘What is it?’
‘I was just at The Pantry. Everyone was talking about the fact that it was the NewZ owner’s wife who jumped at The Drop.’
My heart sinks. I sit on the bed, cross my legs. Then I uncross them again.
‘Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?’ Kat asks. ‘Do Mum and Dad know?’ When I don’t respond, she adds, ‘Do the police know?’
‘It’s complicated, Kat.’
Kat comes closer, squatting so her eyes are level with mine. Her bump is starting to show now and it looks uncomfortable. ‘What’s complicated?’
‘It . . . it was a coincidence,’ I stammer.
‘Pretty big coincidence.’
‘Gabe didn’t recognise her. He didn’t find out until afterwards.’
Kat frowns at me. ‘So, the police know then – that Gabe used to work for Max?’
I hesitate.
Kat throws up her hands. ‘For God’s sake, Pip!’
I could explain. I could give her the excuse that Gabe and I have been reciting to each other and to ourselves for days. It wouldn’t look good. The police wouldn’t understand. But now, in front of Kat, it feels weak.
‘It would have looked bad!’ I say. ‘You know it would.’
‘Because it is bad! If Gabe didn’t tell the police, it means he has something to hide.’
‘No. That’s not true.’
‘Is he taking his medication?’ Kat asks.
