As though I had never been there before.
Suddenly it is clear, like a view over the hills after the morning fog has evaporated. ‘We haven’t lived in that house for over a year, have we? We’ve only just moved here.’
Stephen picks at a piece of loose lint on his trousers, flicks it to the ground.
I want to scream at him for his indifference, but I know I have to contain my fury, extract every piece of information from him while I can. ‘Why did you tell me we’d lived there all that time?’
When Stephen replies his words are steady, deliberate, every syllable carefully enunciated. ‘I did it for you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Stephen sighs – slow, languorous – as though I am a dim-witted student. ‘To give us some time together without your family’s interference.’
None of what Stephen is saying makes any sense. ‘But why has nobody been to visit? Why isn’t Leo with us? Why’s he with my parents?’
Stephen looks at me, unblinking. ‘You told them you didn’t want them visiting for the time being. You’ve been busy.’
Somewhere overhead a plane’s engine rumbles, but my eyes remain fixed on Stephen, focused on the dislocation between his words and my understanding. ‘What do you mean, I told them? I haven’t spoken to them.’ For a moment I doubt myself, wonder whether my memory is betraying me, whether Stephen is right and I simply can’t remember.
‘They know you don’t want visitors at the moment. They understand you don’t have time right now.’
There is a chill in Stephen’s voice, and something slots into place like a missing word in a crossword puzzle.
I think of the surreptitious phone calls, the snapping shut of the laptop, the startled expression on Stephen’s face when I have interrupted him. For the past few hours, I have attached those moments to a different story: a story of infidelity and sexual betrayal. Now I realise it is a betrayal of a different kind, altogether more malign. ‘You’ve been telling them I don’t want to see them, haven’t you? Telling them not to come.’
Stephen doesn’t contradict me, and the confirmation of my suspicion is loud in his silence.
‘Why would you do that? You know how lonely I’ve been. Why would you cut me off from my family when I needed them most?’
Stephen lifts the cuff of his sleeve, glances down at his watch as though perhaps I am keeping him from more pressing business. The desire to throttle him is overwhelming.
‘You’ve had the support of your family. You’ve had me.’ He stares at me phlegmatically, and for a few seconds neither of us speaks.
I think about my son, about our three-week separation, feel a burning need to get back to him. It is a feeling beyond tangible memory; it is instinctive, primeval.
I think about my mum, about why she isn’t feeling like this about me. Why she hasn’t come to see me in spite of Stephen’s insistence that I don’t need her to visit. It strikes me that if a child of mine had been in a serious car accident, I would be by their side, whatever their husband said, whatever reassurances he gave.
And then a thought occurs to me, so monstrous that I almost dare not release it into the world for fear that, in doing so, I will make it real. ‘You haven’t told them about the accident, have you? They don’t know about the crash?’
Stephen stares at me, doesn’t blink. ‘I can take care of you. We don’t need anyone else.’
The ground seems to shift beneath me, as though there is a rupture in the earth and I am being pulled deep into a sinkhole. ‘They’re my parents, Stephen. I need them. They must be worried sick if they haven’t heard from me for weeks.’
‘I already told you. They have heard from you. There’s no need to worry.’
‘What are you talking about? Why do you keep saying I’ve been in touch with them when you know I haven’t?’
Stephen says nothing, stares across the park as though he is not even listening.
You told them you didn’t want them visiting. I cannot get Stephen’s words to settle in my head, know there is a misalignment somewhere but cannot understand what it is. His words are like water on damp soil, dissolving before I can touch them.
A sudden breeze unfurls across my shoulders and I pull my jacket tighter across my chest. I feel the mobile phone Zahira gave me in my pocket, and a thought slips into my mind, quietly, surreptitiously, as if unsure it wants to be seen.
My mobile phone. I must have had one, before the crash. I wondered where it is.
It got broken in the accident.
I think about the fact that I don’t have a laptop, about Stephen’s reticence to let me use his. I think about my lack of contact with the outside world: no mobile phone, no computer, no access to the internet. The suspicion snowballs in my head until it is gathering pace, has a momentum of its own: preposterous and yet, at the same time, horrifyingly plausible. ‘You’ve been contacting my family, haven’t you, pretending to be me?’
ANNA
LONDON
The accusation sounds outlandish, but then I turn to face Stephen and see it immediately: expressions of self-righteousness and defensiveness chasing each other across his face.
‘You can’t have been speaking to them, impersonating me. So, what – texting from my phone, emailing from my account, saying I’m fine and I don’t need to see them? Is that it?’
He looks at me, nonchalant and unsentimental. ‘It was the right thing to do. We need to focus on us, on our marriage, without any distractions.’ The self-justification is inconceivable and yet Stephen’s tone is matter-of-fact, unapologetic.
‘Distractions? My parents aren’t a distraction. My son isn’t a distraction. They’re my family, for god’s sake.’ My voice gets louder, the unreality finally catching up with me. ‘What were you planning to do? Hide me away forever? Carry on pretending that my parents are dead, that I have no other family? Keep me from my son?’ I do not know where my disbelief ends and my anger begins. ‘Why would you do something like that?’
Stephen shakes his head, impatience spilling from his voice. ‘I did it for you. For us. I just want you to be happy. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?’
‘Because it’s insane. You’ve been contacting my family, pretending to be me, telling them I don’t want to see them. Why on earth would you imagine – for a second – that I’d be happy about that?’
Stephen’s face hardens, as if set in concrete. ‘I just wanted to give you enough time to realise that we don’t need anyone else. We’re better on our own.’
‘Without our son?’
Stephen groans, loosens the tie from around his neck. It dawns on me that he is wearing a suit, that perhaps he has been at a work conference after all. Perhaps it is the only true thing he has told me.
‘Of course not without our son. I was going to get him back, just as soon as you understood that we’re happier without constant interference from your family.’ He looks at me, eyebrows raised, as though it is the most logical plan in the world.
‘How can you possibly think I’m better off without any contact from my family? It’s inhuman.’