Woman with a Secret (15 page)

Me
. I’m that thing.

Fuck you, best friend
. I haven’t killed anyone. I haven’t even driven without a side mirror—not recently, anyway. And nothing bad happened to any living thing—human, plant or animal—when I did. I’m not going to feel guilty about a so-called sin I committed that harmed no one.

“Scheming all the time, covering up, calculating . . . How can you bear it?”

“It’s called life on the planet earth,” I snap. “For those of us who aren’t perfect, that is.”

I shouldn’t let her rile me. I ought to be savoring my success. Plan B worked. She hasn’t said, “But, Nicki, your side mirror
wasn’t
missing when we went to the auction in Grantham. What are you talking about?”

What Melissa isn’t saying is ideal. Couldn’t be better. It’s what she
is
saying that’s hard to take.

“I’m worried about you, Nicki. You’re going to come a cropper one of these days.”

“You hope. You’ll have been painstakingly good all these years for nothing, won’t you, if I get away with the heinous crime of being me?”

She’s taken a mug from the cupboard to the left of the window and is shaking decaffeinated instant-coffee granules into it straight from the jar. “My answer’s no,” she says quietly. “I’m not prepared to lie to the police for you. People can end up in prison for that kind of
thing.” She brings her mug of coffee over to the table and sits down opposite me. “And when I tell Lee about this conversation, he’ll probably call the police.” She sighs.

Nice of him
.

“You know how he feels about honesty.”

I nod. “So . . . you’re not going to tell him?”

“I don’t know.” Melissa’s mouth twists. “I’d rather not be put in the position of having to make these horrible choices!”

“Again . . . life on the planet earth. Sorry.” I don’t sound it, because I don’t feel it. “You don’t like the idea of Lee landing me in it, but you’re not prepared to lie for me if the police contact you? Interesting ethical distinction. Might there be some cowardice and hypocrisy involved?”

“Nicki, stop.” A tear rolls down Melissa’s cheek. The sight of it makes me stiffen. The last time I cried in front of her—three weeks and five days ago, after my first encounter with the sand-haired policeman—she told me that whatever I was upset about was bound to be my own fault, and declared herself unwilling to hear any of the details.

I’m equally incapable of comforting her now. I like to think I’m open-minded, but it’s hard to sympathize when I’m me, and having me as a friend is the cause of all her pain. Even I don’t think I’m that bad.

“Are you trying to arrange it so that I won’t be able to speak to you at
all
, Nicki?” Melissa blurts out. “Is that what you want? Maybe you’d like me to be so frightened of what you might say that I don’t open the door to you anymore, or take your calls.”

“Frightened? What’s the worst I’m going to do, Melissa? Oh, wait, I’m not going to”—I mimic a prissy voice—“
put you in a difficult position
, am I? No, as it happens,
I’m
not. You put yourself in that difficult position when you decided to shack up with my brother!”

Even if I live to be a hundred, I doubt I’ll ever forget the way Melissa chose to tell me. I remember the date too: May 24, 2010. She called me up and, without saying hello, asked, “How would you feel if Lee and I . . . you know, sort of got together?”

“Lee? My brother Lee?” He and Mel had recently met for the first time in many years at my birthday party a few months earlier. As far as I was aware, they hadn’t seen each other since that night. Realizing that there must have been subsequent secret contact between them didn’t especially bother me; unlike my mother, father and brother, I don’t feel I have an automatic right to know everything about those close to me. I’m not against secrecy; it’s hypocrisy I can’t stand—people who preach honesty and straightforwardness, then keep you in the dark when it suits them.

People like Lee and Melissa
.

“Yes, your brother,” Mel said nervously. “Sorry if this comes as a bit of a shock.”

I knew it must have taken all her courage to ask for my opinion and so her feelings for Lee must be serious. In normal circumstances, Mel would have preferred to disappear off the face of the earth, leaving no trace, than instigate something that might be contentious.

Don’t do it. Avoid him. He’s not normal. He’ll destroy you
. These were the first things that flashed through my mind, but I didn’t say any of them. I decided I was being unnecessarily melodramatic, and I loved and love my brother, in spite of everything. I didn’t want to tell Mel the horror story I could have told her; it wouldn’t have been fair to Lee if I had. We all make mistakes, I thought. We all deserve a second chance. Lee was a child when all the bad stuff happened; he couldn’t be blamed, could he?

I realized Mel was waiting for my response. I could feel her growing anxiety pulsing out of my phone. “It’s not really up to me, is it?” I said diplomatically. “I mean, if you and Lee want to start seeing each other, it’s none of my business. I’d be unreasonable if I tried to stop you.”

“Yes, but I still want to know how you’d feel about it,” Mel said. “I’d hate to do anything that’d upset you, or change things between us.”

“I wouldn’t feel great about it,” I admitted. “You’re my best friend. He’s my brother. If you and he get together and stay together,
suddenly the loyalties start to shift. You know stuff about me that I don’t want him ever to find out.”

“Nicki, I would never tell Lee anything you’ve told me in confidence,” Mel said solemnly.

I felt better when I heard those words. I thought,
Good. I’m covered
. Little did I know that, six months later, Mel would summon me for an important chat and explain that, from now on, I wasn’t allowed to tell her anything that she couldn’t share with Lee. She would continue to keep any secrets of mine that had gotten in before the deadline, but this was the cutoff point: I was forbidden from confiding in her in future, unless it was something I didn’t mind Lee knowing about too.

“The thing is, we kind of . . .
are
already seeing each other,” she went on hurriedly, keen to get it over with now that she’d finally taken the plunge. “Lee’s asked me to move in with him and . . . I’ve said yes.”

“Oh. Well . . . congratulations.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Mel asked.

I hadn’t said I didn’t mind. I had said, as tactfully as possible, that I did. Or I thought I had. I minded the manipulation: the fiction that they cared how I felt about it, and that their relationship was no more than a vague notion at this stage, awaiting my approval. I later found out that before she’d called me, Melissa had confirmed her booking of the moving van that would transport her possessions to Lee’s flat the following Friday.

Do what you have to do, and indeed have already done
, I should have said,
and if I want to tell you how I feel about it, that’s up to me
.

“It’s fine,” I reassured Mel instead. “I hope you’ll be very happy together.” This is the thing about deception that some people forget: its practitioners don’t do it solely for their own sakes. Often they do it to make others happy. It’s embedded in the training program we liars go through: we see that when we tell the truth, our instructors scowl, raise their voices, turn red in the face. Anyone who cares more about pleasing other people than about their own happiness—anyone
who believes, deep down, that everyone else matters more than they do—learns fluent dishonesty at a young age.

I swallow the last of the tea in my mug. Something inside me cracks and gives way. I can’t keep up my brittle act any longer. “What’s happened to us, Mel?” I say.

Her eyes widen at my use of the old nickname.

“Does it really have to be this way?”
I will not cry. Will not
. “Look, we can’t change the facts—I’m a reprehensible slut, and you’re a self-righteous prig who imagines she has to tell her husband everything, even things about his sister that are none of his business—but can’t we accept each other’s shortcomings and get beyond them? I’m sorry for asking you to lie to the police. Don’t do it if you don’t want to.”

“It
is
Lee’s business if his wife and his sister conspire to keep things from him,” Melissa insists. “He’d hate it. You know he would.”

“And he’d have no right to,” I say flatly.
Please see sense, Mel. Please tell me I can tell you anything and you’ll keep my secrets. You never minded before. You knew I lied—we used to laugh together about the scrapes I’d get myself into. I need so badly to tell you about Gavin
.

His name is like an icy hand closing around my heart. I shudder.

“What’s Lee told you about our childhood?”

Melissa looks uncomfortable. After half a minute or so of silence, she mutters, “I know about the . . . lunatic asylum.”

I force out a laugh, while my heart freezes over.

Did he tell her it turned out to be a hospice? That it was all my fault, that I brought it on myself? I’d ask, but I’m slick with sweat suddenly, and desperate to change the subject. Bardolph House: a name I’d like to forget but never will.

Tell her about Lee. Tell her the full story. They deserve it, both of them
.

I can’t. If it would turn her against him, then I can’t do it. And if it wouldn’t turn her against him, I’d want to die even more than I do already.

I’ve gone over and over the dilemma in my mind and always
arrive at the same conclusion: it wouldn’t be fair to tell her. She loves Lee, and so do I. To me, he will always be my sweet little brother, wailing about a stripy cardigan and a cuddly penguin. I still want to protect that small, fragile boy who doesn’t exist anymore. I try not to let myself think about this; it makes me cry whenever I do.

“Nicki? Are you OK?”

“No. No, I’m not OK.” Maybe I should throw myself under a train—do everyone a favor. That’s how I’d do it. I decided in February, though I’m not sure “decided” is the right word. The knowledge was already there, in my head. If I did it, I would do it by jumping under a fast-moving train.

“I can’t . . . collude with you, not now that I’m married to Lee,” Melissa says. “Please try to understand. If you want to do things you shouldn’t be doing, fine, I can’t stop you, but you can’t expect to come around and have a good gossip about what you’ve been up to and have me go along with it as if it’s not wrong!”

“Collude? Anyone would think I was . . .”

“A murderer?” Melissa says sharply.

I stare at her and notice that she is shaking. Does she think I killed Damon Blundy?

When I told her he’d been murdered, she didn’t express shock or regret. Not even surprise.

I wait for her to avert her eyes, but she stares back at me. A cold feeling spreads upward from the pit of my stomach.
Hard to breathe
. I have to get out of here.

I grab my bag and make for the front door—walking, not running, though I’d like to. No one has ever said so, but I assume running would be forbidden in my brother’s house.

I wait for Melissa to call me back.

Nothing
.

Pulling open the front door and breathing in the loud exhaust-fume air feels like being saved. It’s a good feeling.

I don’t want to die.

I’m halfway to my car when a familiar face stops me: the man from the school playground, with the streaked hair and the blue BMW. Smoking a cigarette and leaning against his car, which is parked opposite mine—directly across the road from Melissa’s house.

Flash Dad from Freeth Lane School in Spilling. In Highgate, North London. What the hell is he doing here? Did he . . . ? He can’t have followed me. Why would he?

I can’t think of any other explanation for his presence.

That’s when I notice his car registration . . . It’s the same BMW I saw behind me, too close behind, when I was driving home after crashing the side mirror off my car. That was him.

He’s getting into his car. In a hurry, cigarette dropped, half smoked, on the pavement.

I don’t think he expected me to reappear so soon.

Seeing him move quickly jolts me out of my shocked stillness. I start to run toward him. I might have changed my mind about throwing myself under a train, but I’d risk putting myself in front of his wheels if it’d give me the chance to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing.

I’m not fast enough. He’s gone in a screech of tires before I’m halfway across the street.

From
: Mr. Jugs

Date
: Tue, July 2, 2013 15:47:08

To
:

Subject
: Re: Distress signal

Nicki,

Forgive me. I don’t know if you understand, or misunderstand, the full extent of what I’m asking you to forgive me for, but . . . forgive me.

I would forgive you anything.

I will even forgive Damon Blundy for being a bad man, if you ask me to. Evil is a strong word, but I do believe he was toxic. I assume it’s all right for us to disagree about this?

The only person I know whom I can never forgive is my wife. I’ve never told anybody this, but shortly after we got married, I found out something about her that I couldn’t get past. (No, it wasn’t that she’d cheated on me. She’s never done that.) I pretended to forgive her, but I never truly could, and in my heart I knew things were irreparable between us from that moment on.