Before I Let You In (11 page)

I held up my camera and fired off shots, each one quietening the voice in my mind telling me that I’d better get back to work now,
click
, that I was screwing up my job and everyone was going to be saying I’d lost it,
click
, that I was never going to be able to manage a normal life,
click, click, click
. And with each click the pictures of those women faded from my mind, taking up less and less of the space they had occupied all morning – all weekend, in fact.

The pictures, when I downloaded them on to my computer that night, were disappointing. Most of them were faded and out of focus, not quite managing to capture the elusive double nature of the river and the chameleon-like quality that I’d imagined it to have. That second side lay just out of reach, locked in my imagination and failing to translate to the screen. I refrained from deleting them, each one a reminder that something intangible lay beyond the image, something that wasn’t there to the untrained eye but remained very real to me.

‘Mum, is everything okay?’ I threw on my bright and breezy voice like a silk scarf, but my body was tense, braced for the reply. Within seconds I would be able to tell if it was a good or a bad day – before my mum had spoken even. I had long been used to listening for the ragged breaths that signalled a bad one.

‘I’m good, darling, how are you?’ Her words were crystal clear, with a forced casual tone that made it sound as if we had this kind of conversation all the time. Her meds must be set to the right dosage, and she obviously hadn’t washed them down with too much whisky today. I could usually tell exactly how many glasses she’d had as soon as I picked up the phone. Today must be a one-glass day; there weren’t any zero-glass days, hadn’t been for years.

I had to bite my lip to keep from asking why she was calling; even on a good day she was hypersensitive, and the smallest perceived slight could send her spiralling towards bad before I’d realised what I’d done.

To the outside world, she was a reputable widow with a daughter to be proud of – the picture of respectability. But just like most pictures, the image she presented was a still life, a snapshot of what her marriage, our lives might once have been, frozen in time. It didn’t show what happened even moments before everyone plastered on their fake cheese. Careful lighting and heavy make-up hid the lines on my mother’s once youthful face, carved there by years of loss. Did I want that for myself? No, that was a pain I could live without.

‘I’m fine, Mum, just a bit busy at the moment.’

Despite my breezy tone I heard her sigh. This was the part where our conversation would go one of two ways – neither particularly appealing. It was a toss-up between abusive or suicidal. Sometimes it would be both. I suppose that’s the one thing I had in common with
her,
both of us with screw-up parents we so wanted to admire but couldn’t. I closed my eyes and braced myself for what was to come.

21

Eleanor

Eleanor hadn’t sat down since Karen had walked through the door; she’d flitted from room to room, throwing toys into boxes and bundling washing into piles on the kitchen floor. It was a mark of their friendship that she didn’t feel the need to give her guest her full attention – with Karen it hardly felt as though she was a guest at all. Lesley, Eleanor’s cleaner, was fantastic, but the idea of it being just a case of wiping the surfaces between visits had been slightly optimistic.

Karen had boiled the kettle and made them both a cup of coffee, moving around her friend’s kitchen as though it were her own, knowing exactly where to go for cups and spoons. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she’d busied herself washing breakfast bowls and sweeping up crumbs. If anyone else had presumed to start cleaning her kitchen, Eleanor would have lost her shit, but with Karen she just felt grateful. Her friend helped without fanfare as she’d always done, ever the mother, looking after her friends in all the ways she was needed, sometimes without them even knowing.

‘Shall I pop this recycling out back?’ She had pointed at the last few days’ worth of plastics – everything that had accumulated since Lesley was last in.

‘Great, thanks, the back-door keys are on the sofa. Or the TV table maybe.’

Now Karen sat on the sofa with Noah snuggled into the crook of her arm.

‘He’s getting so big,’ she said, gesturing for her friend to sit down and relax.

Eleanor picked up her cup of coffee – black, no sugar, and as strong as a caffeine injection directly into her veins – and folded herself into the chair.

‘It’s all those bloody feeds he has.’ She smiled without complaint. ‘I feel like an all-you-can-eat buffet.’

Karen smiled briefly, then her face grew serious. ‘How are you doing? Honestly?’

‘Honestly? It’s hard,’ Eleanor admitted. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s rewarding and wonderful, et cetera, but it’s bloody tiring. Half the time I feel as though my senses have deserted me. I’m losing things, forgetting things … My keys went missing for a week, I got new ones cut, and do you know where I found them? In my underwear drawer. God only knows how they got in there. It’s enough to make you question your sanity.’

‘And Adam? Does he help?’

Eleanor sensed the change in her friend’s tone. Were they about to get to the reason she was here? It was unlike Karen to drop by midweek without a million texts arranging times and synchronising schedules. And without Bea. It wasn’t that Karen and Eleanor weren’t close, but it was rare for them to be missing their third; if anything, it was more usual for Bea and Eleanor to meet for a casual catch-up. Karen’s job kept her busy, and with Michael working away on the weekends, it was rare to see her in the week.

‘He’s just Adam, you know. He’ll do what I ask him to. It’s not like he’s lazy, but it’s almost as though he’s yet to notice our lives have changed. He just expects Noah to fit into our schedule and we’ll barely notice his arrival. And then there’s the fact that I’m off all day – I swear he thinks I just sit around drinking coffee.’ She looked at her cup and laughed. ‘Which I usually don’t.’

Karen didn’t laugh. Her brow furrowed and her eyes stayed trained on Noah. Eleanor got the distinct impression she was avoiding looking at her.

‘We could carry on making small talk if you like,’ she offered. ‘Or you could tell me what you came here to attempt to say,’

Karen grimaced. ‘It’s not that easy, Els …’

‘Is it Michael?’

‘No, it’s Adam.’

Eleanor felt her stomach churn at the words. Karen wasn’t one for drama – whatever she was about to say, she’d thought about it a lot and it was clearly concerning her.

‘Spit it out then.’ She tried to sound unconcerned, but the wobble in her voice gave her away. ‘What about Adam?’

Karen switched Noah to the other side, prolonging Eleanor’s unease for a few more seconds. When she spoke again, it was in a low voice, but her words might as well have been an assault.

‘I saw him with another woman.’

Although she’d been half expecting it – what else could have been so important and yet so hard for her friend to say? – Eleanor felt sick. When she said nothing, Karen continued.

‘They were in a jewellery shop in town. He had his hand on her arm; they were obviously, um, together.’

‘Obviously?’ Eleanor repeated, almost feeling the moment the denial kicked in. ‘Why obviously? Did you see them kissing? Were they holding hands?’

‘Well no, but …’

‘But what?’ Eleanor’s voice went up an octave. ‘What else is there?’

Karen shook her head and for the first time looked straight at her friend. She let out a sigh. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing else. But they were together, I just know.’

‘You just know.’ Eleanor suddenly felt every minute’s sleep she’d lost in the last twelve weeks weighing down on her. She just wanted to curl up under a blanket and not have to think about what Karen was trying to tell her. ‘It isn’t like you to embellish, Karen. If there’s something else, you need to tell me now. This isn’t some teenage boyfriend; this is my husband. The father of my children. I need more than just “I know.”’

Her best friend sat on her sofa, cuddling her little boy and looking as though there was so much more she wanted to say. Why was she holding back? Was she protecting Eleanor? Because if she had solid evidence, Eleanor needed to hear it. She’d never been one for holding on to faint hope – she needed a definitive reason to believe her husband was betraying her, because she couldn’t afford to be wrong.

‘No, there’s nothing else. But it was the way they were together; there can’t be an innocent explanation for it. I’m sorry, Els, I know you don’t need this now, but I couldn’t not tell you. Do you hate me?’

Eleanor couldn’t bring herself to answer, the question was so ridiculous. The floor had just been ripped out from under her, and all Karen could worry about was whether she was still going to be speaking to her at the end of it.

She stood and crossed over to take her son from the arms of the other woman. ‘I don’t hate you, Karen, I just don’t know what to think. You come in here with literally nothing other than “the way they were together” and expect me to – what? What should I do now?’ She paced back and forth, instinctively rocking Noah on her hip although he wasn’t making so much as a grizzle.

‘I don’t know. I thought maybe you already suspected, that this would be enough to make up your mind.’ Karen bit her lip. She looked as though she was already regretting her decision to tell Eleanor what she’d seen.

‘Well I didn’t. And now I’m supposed to confront him with “Karen saw you touch a woman’s arm”? Let’s be honest, even if he was having an affair, all he’d have to do would be to say you were wrong, it wasn’t him you’d seen, or that she was a work colleague, and I’d have to believe him anyway. I can’t risk throwing away my marriage over your hunch.’

‘So you’re admitting it’s possible?’

‘No! Look, we might be a bit tetchy with one another, but Adam and I are solid – when would he even find time for an affair?’

Even as she was saying it, her mind was showing her a slideshow of all the times he’d been late home from work recently, or out with friends. She allowed herself to feel the pain of the image of her husband touching another woman, kissing another woman. No, she couldn’t let herself go down that road. Not on the basis of him standing next to some woman in a jewellery shop.

Karen sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I had to tell you what I saw, but you’re right, you need more. Maybe I should have followed him, or confronted him or something, but I panicked. You know your husband better than me; there was probably a totally innocent explanation for what I saw.’

Eleanor knew instantly that Karen didn’t mean a word of what she had just said. Something had made her believe unequivocally that Adam was seeing someone else and she was refusing to say what. But why tell her anything if she couldn’t tell her everything?

‘Look, I appreciate you letting me know what you saw. I know you, and I know you wouldn’t have said anything unless you really felt like you had to. Do I believe Adam is having an affair? No, not really. But I also believe that you thought that strongly enough to tell me. So I’ll keep an eye on things, pay closer attention to what’s going on. But that’s all I can do really, without any proof.’

Karen stood up, clearly taking the hint from Eleanor’s tone of voice that the conversation was over. ‘Will you be okay? Because I hate to just drop this on you and leave, but I’m guessing Adam will be back soon and …’

And you don’t want to face him after what you’ve just accused him of.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, trying to force her face to match her words.

Karen kissed Noah on the forehead and Eleanor placed him in his bouncer to see her friend out.

At the front door, Karen turned. Had she changed her mind about telling Eleanor the full story? ‘You really haven’t noticed anything unusual? Any signs that someone has been in the house, watching you and the baby …?’

‘You’re freaking me out now, Karen. And no, I haven’t noticed anyone stalking me or my family or Adam sneaking anyone out of the back door when I get home. Have I been distracted? Yes. But not enough that I’d let those things pass me by.’

‘I’m just trying to look out for you, Eleanor …’

She nodded briskly. ‘I know. But I’m a big girl now, I don’t need you interfering. Just let me deal with my marriage, okay?’

‘Sure,’ Karen mumbled. ‘Love you.’

But Eleanor had already closed the door.

22

Eleanor

Eleanor leaned against the front door and let out the breath she’d been holding. Exhaustion clawed at her eyelids, but there was no way she could let it win. She stood silently for a second or two, listening for the sound of crying that usually accompanied her leaving the room. When she heard nothing, she took the stairs two at a time and crossed the landing to the bedroom she and Adam shared, shoving open the door and cringing as it slammed against the wall.

She didn’t know what she was looking for, and whatever it was she didn’t have much time to find it. Considering that until recently she had been the one who did all the cleaning and tidying, there weren’t many places Adam could hide things, but there were places she didn’t touch – his bedside drawers for a start. She moved with a frantic urgency, pulling out her husband’s innocent belongings: a phone charger, a spare light bulb, a remote control for a docking station long taken to the tip. No letters from a secret lover or spare phone, no lacy underwear or receipts from a fancy hotel room. A search of his jacket pockets and under the bed yielded the same result. Nothing to suggest he was anything other than a loving husband and father. Of course that didn’t disprove what Karen had told her, but it didn’t give her anything to confront her husband with.

What are you doing?
she asked herself, sitting back on her heels.
Do you really think Adam is cheating on you?

She tried to picture her husband browsing for jewellery with another woman, placing a hand tenderly on her arm as she chose her consolation prize. Another thought occurred to her. Was he going to leave her? With a sickening clarity she realised that even if she found evidence that Adam was cheating on her, there was no way she could ever confront him. Because that would force him to make a choice. And what if he didn’t choose her?