Beneath the Skin Page 16

  ‘Really? When?’ She said it casually, with a shrug, but her insides were burning.

  ‘I don’t know, a week, maybe two weeks ago.’

  ‘What for?’ Her voice was a little too shrill.

  ‘She wanted to talk about you, of course. She said she was concerned. Thought that I was putting you under too much pressure to have a baby.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Sophie asked, quietly, afraid of the answer. She felt winded, dizzy, shocked. What the fuck was going on?

  Sami shrugged. His hand was on the door handle. ‘I wasn’t going to mention it, but you said she’d been acting strangely, so that might explain it …’ He hitched up his double cuff and looked at his watch. ‘Look, I’ll be late. I’ll come with you to the clinic this afternoon if you want me to. Give me a ring later, yeah?’

  Now she shifts in the armchair and sighs. She’s thought of nothing else since. What the hell is Antonia playing at? It’s so unlike her to interfere. She doesn’t have the confidence, the intelligence, the courage, surely? But only yesterday, she walked away from Sophie’s caress, the first time ever. She was tempted, Sophie knew, and still she left.

  She looks down at the pile of soft carpet pushing between her toes. Pulling the rug from under her feet. Shock, alarm, uncertainty, fear. That’s exactly how it feels. She rubs her eyes and tries to focus. Antonia keeps secrets, she’s good at keeping secrets. Surely to God that hasn’t changed?

  To make herself busy, she grapples with a clean duvet cover, whips the towels off the banister, scrubs grime from the shower and it helps. Her feverish mind eventually slows. She’s still livid with Antonia and will be giving her a mouthful when she’s worked it all out. But whatever has gone on, Antonia hasn’t told Sami about the infection, the fucking pelvic inflammatory infection she hates to think about. That much is obvious. What bothers her more now she’s calmed down is why Sami mentioned his visit today. Sami, her match, the one man who can give as good as he gets. He never does anything without thinking it through. He has a master plan for life, never mind each day. A typical Sagittarius, she believes, shooting his arrows out high, galloping after them with determination until he gets what he wants.

  ‘We’d make such beautiful babies.’ The thought clenches at her heart. Sitting down on the loo seat, she lowers her head to her arms and starts to cry.

  The Tesco bags are in the red hallway, eggs on top, ready to be emptied. This can’t be happening, Olivia thinks with a sigh. I have no energy to do it. Already. I have no bloody energy.

  She looks at her watch. It’s nearly time to collect Hannah from school. She stops for a moment, deciding to bring down the toy till from Hannah’s bedroom and let her beep the barcodes on the shopping when she gets home. It’s Hannah’s favourite game, but one which goes on too long and rarely without incident. The ice cream melted the last time and the yoghurt pots dropped, splat, on to the kitchen floor. Olivia was cross, but that’s no surprise. She’s painfully aware she’s always bloody cross these days.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Putting her head in her hands, she wants to scream. The shock has worn off and reality has hit her. Just as life had got back on an even keel, here she is, bloody pregnant again with no prospect of being a person, rather than just a mum, for another decade. She’s an awful mother as it is, she spends most of her life shouting. That person is horrible; she doesn’t want to be her any more.

  ‘No one said it would be easy,’ her mother opined when Hannah was a baby. ‘Some say it’s the hardest job in the world.’

  ‘Rachel was easy!’ Olivia wanted to retort, but it seemed too disloyal to say the words out loud. It had taken years for her to conceive again after Rachel was born. She wanted the new baby so very badly, but Hannah didn’t sleep. She was a loud, demanding, clingy baby and moved on to being a loud, demanding and clingy toddler. She never allowed Olivia out of her sight, even at birthday parties or at playgroup. It got to the point where Olivia had no choice but to give up the job she loved.

  ‘You’re such a talent, Olivia. Bright, witty, opinionated and highly valued. Why on earth would you throw it all away?’ the editor had asked when she told him she was giving up the newspaper permanently.

  ‘I have an albatross around my neck,’ she almost replied wearily. Yet she felt guilty too; she loved Hannah dearly. She just needed space, time away from her demanding personality, which ironically she’d no longer have.

  ‘I never knew something so small could be so much trouble,’ she once said to Mike, but he just smiled lovingly at the little angel who slept in his arms. ‘But she’s worth it,’ he said, the inevitable reply.

  That’s the trouble with Mike, Olivia now sighs to herself. He’s a great dad, he loves his daughters and he plays with them endlessly when he’s at home, but he gets the good bits, at the beginning and at the end of the day when they’re docile and sleepy. Then weekends are different, there’s no time limits or supermarkets or lunch boxes. What he sees then isn’t a true reflection of the grind of daily life as a stay-at-home mum.

  She picks up the Guardian and hurls it on to the kitchen table. ‘I was important once,’ she declares. ‘I was respected, I was valued. My opinions counted. For God’s sake, just look at me now.’

  Mike knows he won’t be able to knuckle down to work until he’s spoken to Antonia, to check that she’s OK. ‘I don’t want to talk,’ she said last night. But there are things to be done, surely? Perhaps she’s spoken to the police, perhaps they’re making calls on her behalf and are sorting things out. Nobody close to him has died, so he doesn’t know how these things work, but he doubts it. As far as he’s aware she doesn’t have a family. There’s Sophie, who’s very close. He needs to tell her, or to tell Sami at least. But Olivia was insistent about not telling Sophie, and Olivia is generally right.

  He doesn’t like to think about his blarney to Antonia last night. He rarely speaks for so long, at least not unless it involves sport, football preferably. He talked a lot about his sister Harriet and how she died unexpectedly after a routine operation to fix a squint when she was fourteen. She just never woke from the anaesthetic. That’s when the black dog first arrived at his heels. ‘Her little heart gave up. A blessing really. Down’s isn’t easy,’ people said. He heard those words so many times as a boy that he wanted to scream and shout, ‘Fuck your fucking blessings! A blessing for who?’ But his mother always nodded at the platitudes and it’s only as an adult and a father he realises that perhaps it was a blessing for her.

  He glimpses his face in the mirror as he washes his hands. Not very tactful, Michael. She needed cheering up and you talked about death. But perhaps there was an exaggerated tale or two which brought a small smile to her lips. ‘God, Michael, you know how to tell them,’ he says to the mirror before going back to his office. At another time and in another life, it would be a funny story to tell. That the first woman who listened to the story of his life fell asleep.

  Sami is back in the office. He stretched out the site inspection for as long he could, charming the client and offering to buy him a Friday pub lunch. It’s best to keep busy, he knows, when he has something on his mind. He’s trying hard not to think of the dent in his heart-pride, but it’s like a dent in his car, it niggles and gripes until it’s tapped out and spray-painted, good as new.

  ‘Dent Master,’ he doodles on the pad.

  If only it was that easy, he thinks.

  There’s a knock on the door and one of the trainees glides in without waiting for a reply. ‘That report you asked for, Mr Richards,’ she says coyly in a high-pitched Home Counties voice.

  He usually grins, enjoying the tease and says, ‘It’s Sami to you, Jemima.’ But today he just thanks her and goes back to his doodle. He knows she’s an attractive girl and not afraid to show her attentiveness, but he can’t summon up any interest just now.

  He glances at his watch and wonders if Sophie will call about the clinic appointment. He didn’t tell her the full story of his heated discus
sion with Antonia at White Gables. The truth was that he told Antonia it was none of her fucking business if Sophie drank too much, that she should look at her own marriage and stop interfering with his. She didn’t push it then, but dropped her head and withdrew into herself, as she so often does. It still makes him feel like a shit. He dislikes himself for it intensely.

  Sami rubs his head and groans. He doesn’t want to think about Sophie’s drinking. He likes control, there’s no doubt. He likes to be assertive too. But he hates confrontation. Confrontation never ends well, especially with Sophie.

  ‘I think you should cut down on the wine,’ he’ll say to Sophie when he’s particularly exasperated with her louche behaviour.

  ‘Why? I only drink it when you do.’

  ‘That isn’t true. You drink in the day when I’m not here.’

  ‘Just a glass before you get home.’

  ‘Several glasses, Sophie.’

  ‘So, you spy on me do you, Sami? How terribly charming of you.’

  He prefers it when she shouts back, it finishes sooner. Then of course when they’re out, he’s stymied by etiquette. As his mum taught him well, ‘It doesn’t do to wash your dirty linen in public.’ So in company Sophie can drink steadily all night, downing two glasses of wine to everyone else’s single glass. He’s aware of her eyes on the bottle at the start of the night. She waits politely for someone to pour it for her when her glass is empty at first, but by mid-evening she doesn’t care, she’ll pour it herself, calling for the waiter to bring another bottle. Then at the end of the meal she’ll buy cigarettes, even though she gave up years ago. She’ll stagger outside and flirt with somebody, anybody, her guttural laugh wafting in to pound Sami’s ears.

  His private line rings. He snatches it quickly, stupid hope still tingling the end of his fingertips, but it’s only Mike.

  ‘Sorry to bother you at work, mate. I’m not sure how to put this,’ Mike starts.

  Sami listens, stunned. ‘Bloody hell, Mike, that’s terrible. My God … I don’t know what to say …’ But his mind is already sharp, analytical, working out how this new development will affect their lives.

  Hannah skips home ahead of Olivia along the tree-lined street. A hug at the school gate and then off, happy and carefree. No clinging today. ‘Stop when you get to the busy road and wait for me!’ Olivia calls.

  Another mum walks with Olivia and chats. ‘So it’s back to bags full of nappies, stains on my shoulders from puke. No sleep, no hair washing. No independence. Struggling with the split demands when you’re finally back at work. Oh, and the joy of feeding bras. Not that I ever managed to wear anything remotely sexy in between.’

  Olivia stops and looks at the other mum’s face. Her voice is smiling and so is she. ‘But it’s so exciting, isn’t it? To create a new person. To guess whether it’s a boy or a girl. To see what they look like, to get to know them as they grow.’

  ‘Congratulations, Hazel, that’s lovely news,’ Olivia says, squeezing her arm.

  I don’t want another baby, Olivia thinks with sudden certainty as she catches Hannah’s hand to cross the busy road. I don’t want to be a mum for an additional five years. I need to get a doctor’s appointment. Soon, get referred. I need to do whatever needs to be done. Before it’s obvious. Before Mike notices.

  Antonia sits at the kitchen table and accepts another cup of tea from Ruth, the police liaison officer. She’d replaced Mike in the armchair when Antonia woke up on the sofa, her eyes kind and watchful as she waited for the realisation of what had happened to dawn. The realisation that David was gone. Gone forever.

  It had taken a few moments for Antonia to work out that she’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Reading poems as usual, she’d assumed, waiting for David to come home. She’d removed the blanket and sat up, searching for the slim volume, before noticing Ruth, and when the horrific recall of the evening before kicked in, she’d been grateful Ruth was there, calm and steady and kind. It had stopped the merging picture in her mind, the one she knows she’ll see far too often. Of David, a white body, the red water, wet clothes, her desperate hands. But now she wants her gone. She doesn’t want a stranger in her kitchen, in her cupboards, in her home.

  She lifts her head and looks at Ruth. ‘I have to go out in a while,’ she says. ‘Thank you for staying. It’s been very good of you, but you can go now.’

  ‘Are you sure? I can stay. Or I can come back later. You’ll still be in shock. It takes time and support—’

  ‘Thank you, but no. I have friends, friends who’ll be around. In fact that’s where I’m going now. A promise I made …’

  Ruth eventually leaves with a nod, dropping her business card on the hall table and insisting that Antonia calls any time. Antonia picks up her mobile then, clutching it tightly, framing her words to Sophie. But nothing sounds right. She’s certain that Sophie will be angry for not being told as soon as she found David’s body. Before the ambulance, before the police. She’s still not sure why she didn’t. So she puts down the phone, deciding it’s better in person; she’ll wait until she collects her for the fertility clinic this afternoon as planned.

  Giving the bathroom a wide berth, she walks through every room, checking for dirty footprints and disarray to fill the time. She’d never noticed it before, but her footsteps echo as she walks down the stairs. A dog would be nice, just for company, she thinks. But of course that would be wrong. David, who is dead, had offered her one, an orphan she could have given a home. But unprepared for his suggestion, she’d responded with a knee-jerk lie, telling him she was allergic. The thought almost makes her cry, but she doesn’t, focusing instead on the visit ahead.

  Driving the ten miles to Didsbury on autopilot, she’s almost glad her anxiety about Sophie, and what to say, blocks out thoughts of David and why he felt the need to do something so extreme. But even before she opens her mouth at Sophie’s front door, the reception she’s given is shocking.

  Sophie can barely stand. ‘You can turn your fucking fake arse around and go back to the gutter where you came from.’ Then, finger pointing, face sneering. ‘Don’t bother with that innocent gaze, it doesn’t work with me, I know you too well. “Oh Sami, why don’t you just pop over to my house without your wife knowing and I’ll just flutter my eyelids and remind you of old times? Oh, and perhaps I’ll just fuck you while you’re here?”’

  Sophie teeters, still clasping the door. ‘You married that prat David, so we both know you’ll fuck anything.’

  ‘You’ve been drinking,’ Antonia replies, stating the obvious. But she feels cold and detached, the harshness of her own voice surprising her. ‘You have an appointment at the clinic and you’re drunk. You’re a disgrace. You don’t deserve to be a mother.’

  Sophie laughs, spittle flying from her mouth. ‘Well, as it happens, I agree. I’m not going to the fucking hospital and I don’t want to see your holy fucking face ever again.’

  Sophie wakes at the sound of the front door but struggles to peel back her eyelids. She can hear Sami’s voice. She can smell that bloody aftershave.

  ‘Sophie, wake up.’

  She eventually opens her eyes. It’s dark beyond the open curtains. The television is shrill in the background. Oh, yes, she remembers. She drank all afternoon, all evening. The chilled Chablis won.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asks, closing her eyes and turning away from the harsh beam of the lamp.

  Sami turns off the television. ‘Nine o’clock or so. Wake up, I need to talk to you. Sophie? Are you listening? It’s important. Mike called me earlier and it’s bad, really bad. David committed suicide last night. He slit his wrists in the bath … Mike thought we should know.’

  She doesn’t move for a moment, but then his words sink in. David’s killed himself? Last night? Sami knew about it fucking ‘earlier’.

  ‘My God, Sami. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before now?’ she says, sitting up and vividly recalling Antonia’s earlier visit and the angry words they exchanged. She hadn’t kno
wn that David was dead. Antonia didn’t tell her. More to the point, she didn’t give Antonia the chance.

  Sami holds out his palms in a conciliatory gesture. ‘I couldn’t get away from work and I’m telling you now.’ He sighs. ‘Look, I thought it would be better to tell you in person, Soph.’

  ‘So I’d be the last fucking person to know. You bastard!’

  She scurries to her feet, grabs a crystal whisky glass from the sideboard and hurls it at Sami’s head where it shatters on impact, leaving a small cut on his forehead which immediately pulses with blood.

  Sami stands for a moment, his face frozen with shock, then he puts his fingers to his forehead before bringing them down to his eyes and bolting to the bathroom.

  ‘Poor precious Sami and his beautiful face,’ Sophie yells up the stairs.

  She picks up her discarded wine glass lying on the floor, thumps back on the sofa and sloshes in more wine, but after a few moments, regret seeps in through the fog. She wants to hear more about David’s suicide. She needs some detail to feed her sedated sluggish mind so she can absorb what he’s said. David can’t possibly be dead, can he? Not David, of all people. Antonia was here earlier, they argued. It’s ludicrous, a joke, surely? She hears Sami’s footfall on the stairs and lifts her head as he appears. His jaw is clenched, a pale plaster looks stark and accusing on his dark skin. She takes a breath to speak, but he shakes his head silently. Then he opens the front door and walks out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  It’s a cold Saturday morning in early October, but the Turners’ lofty old home is warm, busy and bright. Olivia and Mike are smiling and chatty, appreciative of each other, helpful. But in the silences, there are unspoken words, Mike naturally assuming hers are the same as his. ‘What a terrible thing to happen. Thank God it wasn’t us. Thank God for all this.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?’ Mike asks a second time.