The Soulmate, page 22
But in death, you see everything. All perspectives, all motives, all backstories. It’s overwhelming at first, wading through it all. Not to mention horribly unsatisfying. With perspective, you lose glorious things like self-righteousness, self-pity. You still feel deceived and hurt, but they swim among other, more compelling emotions, like understanding, and empathy, and concern. Emotions you don’t necessarily want to feel for those who have caused you pain.
Of course, of particular interest to me is Max’s infidelity with Pippa Gerard. In death, I can see the moment it happened, as well as everything that led up to it. The context is unsettling and, frankly, irritating. It takes away my white-hot rage and replaces it with a whole spectrum of feelings, ranging from betrayal to compassion.
I see that, like me, Pippa is a woman who loves her husband deeply. A woman who has put up with more than she should have for the sake of her marriage. A woman who, among other things, took in her husband’s love child and never once resented that baby for her father’s wrongdoing. A woman who made a bad choice on a desperate evening when she attempted to seduce Max, but who isn’t overall bad. If anything, in the context of her own marriage, I can almost understand it. There’s only so many times you can be hit before you decide to hit back.
In death I discover that Max’s intention, on meeting Pippa that night, was pure. I discover that, on top of the emotion he was feeling, the wine and pain medication created a perfect storm for Max. But the most interesting thing I discover in death is that I misunderstood what happened after the video stopped. In death, I see the whole scene unfurl. And instead of breaking my heart, it brings me such immense joy, I feel like my feet might lift off the ground and take me all the way to heaven.
80
PIPPA
NOW
The girls protest as I pull them from their beanbags.
‘We were watching In the Night Garden!’ Asha cries. She wriggles out of my grip and plonks back on the beanbag. ‘The Pinky Ponk has just arrived!’
‘And the Pontipines!’ Freya adds.
I grab a tote and throw in some snacks, spare clothes for the girls, and their teddies.
‘But we’re going to Nana and Papa’s,’ I say with forced cheerfulness.
The girls are torn. I watch their little faces as they weigh up the premature ending of In the Night Garden against the likelihood that their grandparents will shower them with treats. It’s a significant dilemma. I can almost see their little minds whirling.
My mind is whirling too. Max is coming here. Gabe has promised him the USB. When Max finds out he doesn’t have it . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen.
Or do I?
‘You need to go, Pip,’ Gabe says. ‘It’s been fifteen minutes.’
He’s strangely calm. It’s almost enough to calm me. Almost. We each strap a girl into their car seat and close the door, and then I meet Gabe in front of the car. ‘Gabe, are you sure . . .?’
‘Don’t worry, Pip. Leave everything to me.’
He kisses me and pushes me gently into the car. The girls are arguing before we even get out of the driveway, and I’m glad because it drowns out my thoughts.
It’s okay, I tell myself. Gabe’s got this.
‘Asha!’ Freya whines. ‘It’s my turn.’
‘But it’s my special treasure!’
‘Mummy,’ Freya cries. ‘Asha’s not sharing.’
I turn out of our street. ‘Share, Asha.’
‘But it’s mine!’ Asha says.
I glance in the rear-view mirror to see what they’re arguing over this time. And that’s when I see what Asha is holding. It’s tiny and silver.
I slam on the brakes and pull over to the side of the road.
‘Where did you get that?’ I say, leaning between the front seats to snatch it from Asha’s hand. I examine it closely, seeing the name engraved on the side. Amanda Cameron. I look back at my daughter. ‘Asha?’
‘At the beach,’ she says. She’s part sulky, part nervous about getting into trouble. ‘I found it in the rocks when Daddy was looking for money. But it’s mine!’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She blinks. Shrugs as if to say, Why would I?
I sit for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. Should I go back? No, not with the girls in the car. I’ll drop them off and then return home with the USB. It’ll be fine, I think. Now, everything will be fine.
*
‘Dad!’ I call through my open window when I pull into my parents’ driveway and see Dad in the front yard, pulling weeds. ‘Can you mind the girls for an hour or two?’
Without waiting for a response, I fling open the car doors and start getting the girls out.
‘Hi, sweetie.’ Dad stands upright. ‘Sure. Everything all right?’
‘Fine. It’s just . . . I have a meeting and Gabe isn’t feeling well. I won’t be long.’
‘Slow down, Pip,’ Dad says. ‘A meeting’s not worth giving yourself a heart attack.’
He gives the girls a high five and they disappear inside, probably looking for Freddo frogs.
‘I know. But it’s an important meeting. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
I start to get into the car, but Dad stops me. ‘Pip, wait.’
‘What?’ I say impatiently.
Dad looks uncomfortable. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? You haven’t been yourself these past weeks. And it’s not just me who thinks so. It’s Kat and Mei, and your mother. In fact, you seem an awful lot like the old Pippa that I thought we’d left behind in Melbourne.’
‘I’m fine.’ I squeeze the USB in my hand. ‘It’s just a bit hectic right now, Dad.’
‘Your life is often hectic,’ Dad says. ‘At least, it has been since you met Gabe.’
I almost laugh. There goes another family member, turning on Gabe.
‘Dad –’ I start, but he continues over the top of me.
‘Listen, Pip. I want you to know that while we love Gabe, we have grave doubts about his ability to be a loving and supportive partner to you. It’s just one thing after another with him, and you always end up hurt. He’s so volatile; we just don’t know what he’s capable of.’
He says it loudly and all in one burst, as if he doesn’t want to lose his nerve. It silences me.
We don’t know what he’s capable of.
But I do, I realise suddenly. I do know.
Gabe is planning to kill Max. The realisation hits me with blunt force. How else could he fix this, without the USB? Why else would he want us all out of the house?
I glance at my watch. It’s been half an hour. ‘I’m sorry, Dad – I have to go.’
I reverse the car out of the driveway and, with a screech of tyres, accelerate down the street.
I know what I have to do.
81
PIPPA
THEN
‘We believe that Gabe has bipolar disorder,’ Dr Sullivan said.
I was sitting in a vinyl armchair in a small room off Gabe’s ward. Gabe had been admitted as an inpatient to the psychiatric facility, after having what his new psychiatrist explained was a psychotic episode. Since then, he’d been sedated, poked, prodded and questioned. An endless trail of medical professionals had been in and out. I’d been by his side, or just outside his room, the whole time.
‘Bipolar?’ I said. ‘Gabe is bipolar?’
‘We believe so, yes.’
‘But what about the ADHD?’
‘A misdiagnosis,’ Dr Sullivan said. ‘Or, perhaps he has both – that’s not uncommon either. ADHD and bipolar disorder share many symptoms, but the delusions and paranoia and psychosis Gabe experienced are not associated with ADHD. And given the extended periods of mania he has experienced, I am confident bipolar is the correct diagnosis.’
It takes me a minute to digest this. ‘Do you think he’s had it his whole life?’
‘These days, most people are diagnosed in their teens or early twenties. But it can be missed. And it’s clear you’ve been propping him up for a long time, Pippa.’
A thought hits me, so strong and powerful it takes my breath away. ‘Our daughters! Will this . . . I mean, is it hereditary?’
‘There is a genetic link. If one parent has bipolar disorder, we see an increased risk of it in a child. If both parents have it, the chances increase again. But many children of bipolar parents do not have the disorder. My advice would be to keep an eye on your daughters and have them assessed if you have any concerns.’
Of course I was thinking of Asha. She was her father’s daughter. And as it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that her biological mother might also have had bipolar, or another mental illness, I’d be keeping a very close eye on her.
‘The good news is that, with medication and therapy, the prognosis is good. Especially as he has such wonderful family support. I have every confidence that he will lead a full and productive life, Pippa.’
I latched onto this. Clung to it. Perhaps stupidly, after everything that had happened, I felt hopeful. Now that he was receiving proper treatment, I told myself, I’d have Gabe back. The real Gabe.
‘Let’s start again, Gabe,’ I said, a couple of weeks later. I’d spent much of that time at Gabe’s side, learning as much about bipolar disorder as I could.
Gabe was still in the hospital, but the new medication was starting to take effect, and I could see glimpses of the old him. Now that he had been diagnosed, life would get better, I was sure of it. And a fresh start would help him along.
‘We could move out of the city – maybe down the coast? You can have some time off and take care of the girls, and I can grow my client list like I’ve been meaning to.’
We started looking at homes right then and there on our phones. Only a few days later, we fell in love with the cliff house.
There was still the matter of what happened between Max and me. It bounced around in the back of my mind constantly, a bizarre little flashback that felt like a dream. It was the kind of thing that, under the circumstances, I could have kept to myself. We were moving away, starting again. Max was unlikely to mention it. Besides, nothing even happened. Max stopped it before it started.
And yet.
I was surprised to realise there was a part of me that wanted to hurt Gabe. While I accepted that he’d been unwell, it didn’t change the fact that he’d hurt and betrayed me. For my own self-respect, it felt important to even the score. Then I could put everything behind us, for good.
So, while he lay in the hospital bed, I told Gabe what had happened in Max’s office. Except this version had a different ending.
82
PIPPA
NOW
The house is quiet. I race from room to room, throwing open the doors, as if expecting to find Max and Gabe sitting in a bedroom together, but they are nowhere to be found. I’m about to lose hope when, through the back sliding door, I see them outside.
They are standing at The Drop, close to the edge – precariously so. Just as on the day of Amanda’s death, the wind is wild. Both men stand unnaturally tall, their legs wide, their shoulders back. Max has his back to the cliff, Gabe faces it.
I throw open the door. ‘Hey!’ I shout, loud enough for my voice to carry through the wind.
They both turn to look. The colour drains from Gabe’s face.
‘Pippa, go inside,’ he says as I make my way across the lawn and let myself out the gate.
‘No.’
Max’s gaze moves to me. He’s wearing a navy woollen coat over his clothes, brown leather driving gloves, heavy boots. I am in a T-shirt and jeans, but I don’t feel the cold. I feel acutely aware of how deserted it is – mid-week, mid-afternoon, outside of school holidays. There’s no one around. The houses on either side of ours are weekenders, empty today. Anything could happen and there would be no one but us to see.
‘Gabe just explained that he got rid of the USB.’ Max has the kind of careful blank expression that I imagine would be useful in business meetings.
‘It’s true,’ I say. ‘He dropped it into the rocks the day after Amanda died. But I have it.’
Gabe’s head snaps to me. ‘What?’
I hold it up. ‘Asha found it at the beach.’ I keep my gaze on Max. ‘But if I give you this, we want our life back. More importantly, we want to know that our daughters are safe.’
‘You have my word,’ Max says.
‘Wait!’ Gabe cries. ‘You can’t just hand it over. What’s stopping him from going to the police the moment he leaves here? Or what if he forgets to call off his thugs? Pip, he had our girls!’ Gabe’s voice cracks.
‘For the record, I would never have let any harm come to . . .’ Max stops suddenly. It’s almost as if he’s lost track of what he was going to say. His gaze drifts to Gabe and it becomes softer. ‘Baz was instructed not to scare them, just to leave the note.’
‘We have to trust him, Gabe,’ I say. ‘What choice do we have? Whatever dirty secrets you have on there, Max, are all yours.’
I hand him the USB. Max takes it, and for a moment everyone is silent. I half expect Gabe to make a grab for it. Perhaps he would have? But after a few seconds, Max drops the USB and crunches it under the heel of his boot. Then, while we watch, he pushes the remnants of the USB over the cliff with his foot.
‘I told you I’d destroy it,’ Max says to Gabe. ‘I also called Baz before I left home and told him I had resolved things between us. And I have no intention of speaking to the police. All I want is to know what happened to Amanda. She died suddenly, in very strange circumstances which I know almost nothing about. The only way I’ll ever find out what was going through her head in the lead-up to her death is if you tell me.’
‘She jumped,’ Gabe says. ‘She was devastated. She said your relationship was based on trust and fidelity. Since you slept with Pippa, she didn’t feel obliged to keep our secrets any longer.’
Max’s eyes move to me. ‘Amanda believed I’d slept with Pippa?’
Max stares at me. I force myself to hold his gaze. It’s the very least I can do. The only thing I can offer him. But I feel like I might die from the shame. ‘I told Gabe that’s what happened. I’ll never forgive myself.’
Gabe turns to look at me. ‘You didn’t sleep with Max?’
I shake my head.
‘All right,’ Max says. ‘What happened then?’
‘Like I said, she jumped.’
Max isn’t convinced and the men argue for a moment, but I tune out, stuck on something Gabe said.
Since you slept with Pippa, she didn’t feel obliged to keep our secrets any longer.
‘What did you mean, Gabe?’ I say. ‘When you said Amanda didn’t need to “keep our secrets” anymore?’
Gabe frowns, shrugs. ‘Did I say that?’
‘Was Amanda going to reveal something about Max?’ Then I think of the word ‘our’. ‘About you?’
Gabe’s face colours. I stare at him as realisation dawns. I am an idiot. Amanda didn’t jump. Of course she didn’t! Kat was right. Gabe didn’t tell the police about his connection to the Camerons because he had something to hide. He wasn’t protecting me – he was protecting himself!
‘Tell him, Gabe,’ I say to my husband. ‘Tell him what happened to Amanda. The truth.’
Gabe looks uncomfortable. I see on his face he’s concerned, perhaps worried that Max is tricking him into something. Perhaps he is. But in that moment I can’t bring myself to care.
‘Tell him,’ I repeat, louder this time. And, finally, Gabe does.
83
AMANDA
BEFORE
I‘d only been standing at The Drop for a couple of minutes when Gabe came out. It was a miserable afternoon, windy, rainy, cold. The sun was preparing to set. The surge of adrenaline that had brought me this far was starting to ebb and I felt light-headed and exhausted. But I was determined. I wasn’t prepared to lie down, helpless, as my world collapsed around me, like my mother had. I was going to find out the truth. I wouldn’t let Max’s shame become mine.
‘Can I help you with anything?’ Gabe said.
I turned at the sound of his voice. I’d forgotten how handsome he was. Breathtakingly so. His voice was warm and friendly. It was little wonder people decided life was worth living after a few minutes with him. He approached me slowly, holding up his hands, as if to say I come in peace, stopping several metres back from the edge.
‘I’m not going to jump, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ I said, realising this was the reason for his caution.
Gabe looked puzzled at this declaration. There was a short silence as he scrambled to understand. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ I said. I wasn’t offended; why would he? We’d only met a couple of times. Besides, I wasn’t particularly memorable. Not in the way he was. Or Max.
He came a couple of steps closer, peering at my face.
‘Amanda Cameron,’ I said. ‘Max’s wife.’
Now he knew. Immediately he became wary, even took a small step back. ‘Of course! Amanda . . . What are you doing here?’
‘I read the article about you. That’s how I knew where to find you. But actually, I’m looking for your wife.’
‘Oh.’ Gabe took a moment to process this. ‘May I ask why?’
‘Because I just discovered video footage of her and Max in his office. Pippa was half-undressed.’
‘Footage?’ Gabe’s face expressed his shock and disbelief, which I expected. It was part of the reason I’d brought the USB. But then he said, ‘Max filmed it?’
I stared at him. ‘Wait – you knew about this?’
‘Pippa told me. It happened over a year ago, before we moved away. But I had no idea it had been filmed.’
And there it was, the confirmation. I hadn’t realised how much I’d been hoping that it was all a misunderstanding. That when the footage stopped, Max stopped too. My head began to spin.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gabe said, softer now. ‘You must be upset.’
