The Cry (18 page)

‘I’m trying to. I can’t. It’s blank. I’m sorry.’

‘So where do I go to talk to him?’

‘Talk?’

‘Where do I go? Yes, talk, where do I talk to him? Where do I say sorry? Where do I say goodbye to my son?’

‘We can’t visit him. What do you think you’re doing, going there? What if someone saw you?’

‘You’re the one who remembers everything and you don’t remember digging a grave with a tiny trowel and putting my little boy in the ground and throwing earth on top of him, on top of Noah’s face and Noah’s legs and arms and toes, and then patting it down, patting it down, even though it’s your son down there, you patted earth down on top of him. You don’t remember where that was? By the rockery? Next to the fountain? You don’t remember?’

Alistair grabbed her wrists and pinned her down so quickly she was still feeling anger instead of fear when she realised she’d lost the power. He had one knee on each arm and a hand on her mouth.

‘Shhh, don’t kick, ow, calm down Joanna, calm down, we’re on the same side. I just didn’t want to upset you. It was important to you, that it was lovely, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. That’s all. We’re on the same side.’

The same side? Against who, Noah?
She couldn’t say this because his hand was pressing on her mouth so hard that she couldn’t bite him either.

‘Shh, shh, my love. Shh. Come on. Jo, Jo-Jo, shh . . .’

Noah was not under a tree. His place would not bear Noah fruit. No one would remark on the beauty above him, or make jam – or jelly – after picking from him. Joanna would never hear his cry, feel connected, say goodbye. She had clung to this in these horrible weeks, clung, and it was a lie.

She hushed, just as he ordered. She hushed and didn’t mention the tree, or the fucked assumptions they made about their roles on that first dinner date: that Alistair is someone you should listen to, that Joanna is forgetful. She didn’t mention the drama triangle, or her killing Noah, or the triangle, which was so clear to her now that other people would surely see it. And they would know what she was now: the Persecutor.

She had a plan. Not Alistair-style, involving facts and the like, a Joanna plan, involving doing the right thing.

Alistair kept his phone in his pocket at all times, and under his pillow at night. Joanna understood why he did this during their affair, but often wondered why it continued afterwards. ‘Just habit,’ he said when she last asked him. She slipped it out from under the pillow and took it to the toilet with her. He had a four-digit pin number. Last time she asked to use his phone, the number was his birthday, 1307, so she tried that, but it didn’t work. He’d changed it. ‘I change it regularly,’ he said when she asked him once. She tried her birthday, Noah’s, Chloe’s. Hers. Nup. She gave up and crept out to check his diary, which was on the desk in the study. Sure enough, Alexandra’s number and address were written in the back.

She probably shouldn’t have phoned Alexandra when she did, but Joanna had lost touch with time. And Alistair was fast asleep, so it was safe. ‘It’s Joanna Lindsay,’ she whispered from the toilet. ‘I need to see you, tomorrow morning. It’s very important. I want to help you. It’s not something I can say on the phone, I’ll explain tomorrow but you have to believe me when I say that you do need my help.’

‘I’m going to Melbourne today,’ Joanna said over breakfast, ‘to do some shopping. You’re right. I need to get back into the real world.’

Alistair smiled. She found it hard to believe that not so long ago that smile compelled her to take his hand and put it in her pants in public bars.

‘I’ll drive you. I’d like to try and catch up with Phil for real this time.’

Yeah whatever, she thought, not interested in checking to see if he had his cheating face on.

They both donned caps and sunglasses, but there was no one to hide from here.

Joanna felt nauseous in the passenger seat. She closed her eyes and reminded herself of the plan.

Twenty minutes after leaving, she realised they were on the same road as last time. ‘Alistair, please take another route.’

‘I’m afraid there is no other route.’

Joanna wanted to open the door and jump out. But she didn’t, she had things to do. And perhaps it was important to see where it had all happened, to remind herself of the first lie in this particular episode. She should embrace the road, face the truth, and the consequences, of her actions. She opened her eyes.

A cross.

Some hills to the left. ‘They’re the You Yangs.’ Alistair had noticed where she was looking.

A lorry.

A huge metal sign: Avalon Airport.

And after a while, to the right – the place where she discovered that her son was dead: Nothing Field.

Or was that Nothing Field over there?

There were a lot of Nothing Fields along this highway.

In the distance she could make out patches of blackened earth, scars from the fire that had refused to kill her.

Apparently it took them an hour to get to the West Gate Bridge. Alistair could have told her it took three hours. He could have said ten minutes. To Joanna, that road was a black hole.

Alistair dropped her at a tram stop in North Melbourne. ‘Meet back here at two?’ he said, kissing her goodbye.

‘Sure.’

‘Hey, what about you get some lingerie to cheer yourself up? I have a surprise for you after.’ And he drove off.

Everyone was looking at her at the tram stop. At first she thought her dress might be tucked into her pants or something, but then she remembered she was famous, and pulled her cap down to cover her eyes. It didn’t work, they still recognised her. Most people averted their eyes when she caught them staring, but one gave a sympathetic nod and one touched her on the shoulder and said something about Jesus.

When the Number 19 finally arrived, she walked to the back with her head down. She took a seat and pressed her face against the window to avoid being talked to. The tram rambled through the leafy university suburb of Parkville. The name rang a bell. Oh, that was where the old lady who sat behind her on the plane lived. Melbourne became less leafy after the university area: lots of traffic, low-lying strips of shops filled with eateries like falafel places and cafés and the occasional gun shop. Higgledy-piggledy Victorian cottages after that, the flat land widening out for slightly larger cottages and bungalows.

There was no way to avoid walking past all the remaining passengers when the tram reached her stop. To her dismay, they were all looking at her with compassion. She ran when she got off, following the map she’d downloaded on her phone. Alexandra’s house was three blocks away.

She stopped at the sign for Portville Street and caught her breath. This was where Alexandra lived. She was about to talk to her, face to face, for the first time. Except for the phone call last night, she’d had no communication with Alexandra at all. She’d written an email. The seventeenth draft read:

She didn’t send it. The words were meaningless and pathetic. Her sixteen previous drafts were even worse. What could she say that wouldn’t be self-indulgent bullshit – that she didn’t know for a month, that she knew they were unhappy, that she had managed to avoid Alexandra’s bed for nine months, that she had never lied before, been the other woman before, hated herself before? No, there was nothing she could write that would make her apology meaningful, nothing that would dilute her hideousness.

The houses were mostly weatherboard, all different colours and shapes and sizes. Alexandra’s, the fourth on the left, was a cream Californian bungalow with blue trims. It had a white picket fence and a scruffy looking driveway. It looked like a happy house: pretty and comfortable.

Joanna took off her hat and glasses and put them in her bag. She steeled herself and walked up the drive, along the small veranda, past the stained-glass windows, and knocked on the front door. She heard music being switched off, footsteps, the door opening . . . and there she was, dressed in three-quarter length Lycra running trousers, a sleeveless top, and runners. She was slim and toned, no make-up. By ‘bigger curves’ Alistair obviously just meant ‘bigger boobs’. Alexandra’s were at least a C cup, pert and perfect. And she looked younger than Joanna did now, even though she was twelve years older. Joanna had avoided looking at herself, but when she caught an accidental glimpse, she saw a haggard, gaunt wreck with red eyes and black sunken sockets. She could see her ribs nowadays. Her hips bones jutted out like elbows. Alexandra, on the other hand‚ was a healthy weight, fresh-faced, had well cut hair, and no bags under her eyes. She didn’t smile or offer a hug. ‘Come in.’

It was perhaps the most nerve-wracking meeting she had ever anticipated. Like being sent to the Head Teacher’s office for cheating in an exam or being paraded in front of a jury for cold-blooded murder. No, add those two things together, multiply the result by about a thousand, and that’s how guilty and small and scared Joanna felt.

Inside had the same feel as outside – unpretentious, comfortable, but trendy. The long wide hall had stripped floorboards and white walls that were covered with a galleria of framed photographs. Joanna spotted a few as she walked behind Alexandra: Chloe on her bike, at the beach with her mum, with Alistair on Tower Bridge. Joanna was shocked to see the photo of Alistair. She was seeing in-context Alistair again. She liked him more here than in his childhood bedroom.

She asked herself what she was feeling, tried to pinpoint it the way Anne Docherty had taught her. Emotional intelligence, it’s called, identifying your emotions. Only then can you deal with them. She was feeling jealous, but she didn’t understand why. Or more accurately, she couldn’t choose one single reason.

Maybe it was because Alexandra was better looking than her, and in better shape. Even when Joanna was happy, pre-affair, she was a league below the gorgeous woman walking down the hall before her. It must have been newness and youth alone that had propelled Joanna to a league above in Alistair’s eyes.

Maybe it was because Alexandra was cleverer. A qualified lawyer – her graduation picture was on the wall in front of her now. And Joanna was ‘just’ a teacher. While she’d argue against the ‘just’ at dinner parties (Teachers are underrated / Teachers are underpaid / Teachers are the most important people in the universe), she had to admit she only did teaching because whenever she tried to write the Great Scottish Novel she couldn’t get further than two pages, both of them terrible.

She might have been jealous because Alexandra was guilt free, waltzing along like someone who hasn’t committed adultery and killed a baby.

Or because she had her baby, and that child was happy – the little girl in the photos there, smiling, growing up, living.

Or because Alistair did not, in the end, turn out to love Joanna more. She was not more special; less so, in fact.

The back of the house had been renovated into a large open-plan kitchen/dining/living area, with glass doors leading out to a pretty patio with a barbecue and outdoor furniture, and a grass area, which had a large round trampoline on it.

An aviary filled with colourful chirping budgies was just outside the back door, a hamster cage was in the corner of the dining room, and a cat purred on the window sill. That’s right, Chloe was an animal lover.

‘I made fresh coffee for you.’ Alexandra pulled the kitchen stool out and indicated that Joanna should sit on it. She then walked over to the other side of the bench and leant her hips against the sink. ‘But then I threw it out.’

Joanna almost laughed. She definitely smiled.

‘I’ve imagined this a lot.’ Alexandra filled two glasses with tap water and put them on the bench. ‘You’re usually bleeding by now.’

Joanna pulled the glass towards her and looked at Alexandra. ‘I’d quite like that.’

The fridge was covered in school notices and happy photographs. As Alexandra tried her best not to fidget, failed, and started filling the dishwasher with breakfast dishes, Joanna knew what she’d always suspected. This was not the house of a neglected child.

Alexandra put powder in the dishwasher, shut the door, crossed her arms, uncrossed them, and took a large gulp of water. ‘I’m sorry about Noah, I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.’ She still hadn’t offered eye contact.

Joanna hadn’t rehearsed what she wanted to say but it didn’t bother her now. Alexandra wasn’t making her feel uncomfortable. The opposite. Odd, but she hadn’t felt so relaxed for a long time. Perhaps because the lying was about to end. It reminded her of the day after she and Alistair were outed. She couldn’t stop smiling. It wasn’t a happy smile, but one of freedom. She didn’t have to lie any more. ‘Have you ever read
Anna Karenina
?’ Joanna found herself asking.

‘I’ve seen the film. Not the Keira Knightly one.’

‘Sophie Marceau?’

‘Is she French?’

‘Yeah, that’s the best adaptation, but the book, God, I was obsessed with it as a teenager, re-read it year after year, and I bored my students silly with it before Alistair. Since him, I haven’t been able to look at it. I didn’t wonder why at the time, but now I know it’s because of the book’s theme: “You can’t build happiness on someone else’s pain”.’

Alexandra turned the kettle on and spooned fresh coffee in the plunger, a sign that Joanna could go on.

‘Alistair doesn’t get the book, says, “What kind of woman would throw herself under a train for no reason?”’

‘It’s not the book Alistair doesn’t get.’

The comment gave her shivers. How she wished she’d spoken to this woman as soon she heard of her existence. She felt sane for the first time in four years. ‘You’re not mad and you’re not an alcoholic,’ Joanna said.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

‘You’re a good mother.’

‘That’s debatable too.’

‘What was Alistair like as a dad?’

‘He liked the theory of it.’

‘So you felt Chloe would be better off without him?’

‘I felt she needed me and her grandparents more.’

Joanna stiffened at the thought of her own father. Tucking her in one night, gone the next.

‘He didn’t tell me about you for a month. By then . . . it’s no excuse.’

Alexandra stopped pouring water into the plunger, shocked, and looked at Joanna for the first time. ‘I didn’t know that.’ She paused. ‘It is an excuse. One that expired at four weeks.’

Joanna nodded slowly. Alexandra was funny, clever, wise. In different circumstances, she would have a girl-crush on her. She knew it would never be possible, but she wanted her to like her, or at least to connect. ‘I wasn’t a liar before him. Now that’s all I am,’ Joanna said.

Alexandra put mugs and milk on the bench.

‘Maybe you’re not, but I’m definitely mad,’ Joanna continued, unperturbed by the lack of response so far. ‘I can never make my mind up about anything. One second it’s this, the next that . . . Last night I rang my counsellor in Glasgow. She’s probably working out how to get me sectioned today. I told her I was trapped on a drama triangle.’

Alexandra raised an eyebrow and poured the coffee. ‘Milk?’

Joanna nodded. ‘When I’m near Alistair now, it’s almost like I can actually see it.’

‘Victim, Rescuer, Persecutor,’ Alexandra said.

‘You know about that?’

Alexandra came and sat on the stool beside Joanna. She sipped her coffee in silence for a moment. ‘If you’re here to say sorry, I don’t want or need to hear it. I’m okay.’

Joanna knew she wasn’t lying. Everything about her, about this house, was okay.

‘A small, weak word, sorry, but I am,’ Joanna said. ‘If I’m honest, mostly for myself. That’s not why I’m here though.’

‘Why, then?’

‘A few things. Before I do anything I wanted to check what it’s like here . . . for Chloe, with you.’ Joanna knew what she’d just said came across all wrong: inappropriate, obnoxious. She cringed as soon as the words came out.

Alexandra stood up. If there’d been any bonding it had come to an abrupt end. ‘Why don’t you leave that to the social workers, eh?’

‘That’s the thing. I don’t want the hearing. Now I’m here I know for certain I don’t want him to take Chloe away from you.’

Alexandra walked back to the other side of the bench. ‘He’s not going to. Didn’t he tell you he came to see me, said he wants us to work it out together?’

A wave of heat on Joanna’s face. Once again, Alistair had given her information that was different from the truth. He’d told her one thing, Alexandra another. She shook her head, annoyed that this should surprise her. ‘He told me he came to see you to warm you up. He still wants to take her back to Scotland, Alexandra.’

Alexandra lost her grip on the coffee mug. ‘Fuck!’ She raced to the sink, grabbed a cloth, and wiped the spilt liquid with a trembling hand. Joanna could almost feel the fury radiating from her. ‘I assumed he meant we wouldn’t go to court, but he didn’t actually say that. God, I’m still such a fool. I should know how he works by now.’

Joanna understood exactly what she meant. Alistair had a knack for making you think you’d agreed on something, when you hadn’t at all. ‘I want to help,’ Joanna said. ‘She should be here in Australia, with you.’

‘How are you going to help exactly?’ The contempt in Alexandra’s eyes scared Joanna.