She steps closer to me. I remember the touch of her cool hands on my bump that time in the market. The feeling it had given me, like I was teetering over the edge of something. Instinctively, my hands fly to my belly.
‘I don’t know what happened to whatever note was in your book,’ she says again. ‘But I can explain everything else. All of this.’ She gestures to the laptop, the passport, the cuttings. ‘Look, Helen. You’ve been good to me. I know you didn’t have to let me stay here. But you need to listen to me now, OK? Because I know other things. Things you really should know. Before this baby comes.’ Then she reaches out, closes her hand over my stomach. ‘I had to wait before I told you – I just had to make sure I understood it all.’
I flinch, horrified by the feel of her fingers on my stomach, and catch the shelf with the back of my head. A glass vase falls but I manage to turn, pin it clumsily to the wall before it hits the ground. I feel the weight of it in my hands as they close around it. The thick rim, the heavy glass bottom. I think about it, just for a moment. I just want her to be quiet, I think. I just want her to go away. Leave me alone.
‘I’m on your side, Helen,’ she says. ‘Trust me, OK?’
‘Trust you? After this?’
‘I’m serious. You need to listen to me – or we could both be in danger. I mean it.’
I look at her and, at last, I see her for what she is. A fraud, a meddler. A source of trouble. A thief, in a dress she stole from my dead mother, over-plucked eyebrows and a face of cheap make-up. She is a joke. I don’t trust her. I don’t believe her. I don’t want to hear another word she says. I just want her gone. For good.
‘Rachel,’ I tell her, ‘we’re not friends. We never were.’
Rachel’s mouth drops open, her eyes wide. For once she is speechless, gawping at me like a child.
‘I’m sorry. I want you to leave, tonight, and not come back.’
KATIE
As I walk through the hallway, my hand finds the wall. I’ve had too much, far too much. I turn towards the kitchen. That’s when the velvet dress catches my eye again. I only see it for a moment. It must be Rachel, heading down to the cellar, following somebody. I can’t see who, and in a split second they are both gone.
I stare after them. Who was that? Was it a guy? Was it Charlie? The two of them have been together most of the night. What the hell are they planning on doing in the cellar? I feel my body stiffening. I can imagine what Charlie might want to do in a cellar. He likes enclosed spaces. Places that are cool and dark. Come on, Katie. Too stupid. Don’t think about it. Don’t.
In the kitchen, I find a dirty glass on the sideboard and rinse it to pour myself a glass of water. A large one. Then when I’ve finished it, I pour myself more wine, stumble back to my spot at the end of the garden. It’s nice out here. I light another of my cigarettes – where did they come from? No matter, no matter. I sit on the grass and watch the fire. After a while it starts to swim in front of me, as if it is burning under water.
A figure emerges from the smoke and darkness. Charlie. He is grinning. I frown, take another drag, determined not to let a smile show on my face, hating the way my heart lifts up in my chest at the thought that he has come to find me.
‘All right?’ he says cheerfully. He passes me a beer.
‘I brought wine. Thanks.’
He shrugs, puts the beer on the grass, twisting it into the earth so that it stands up.
I glance over at Charlie’s clothes. He is covered in dust. My stomach twists. So that was him, going down into the cellar with Rachel.
‘You’re a mess,’ I tell him. I brush the dust off his leg. I can hear the slur in my speech, feel the clumsiness of my movements.
He looks down at his clothes, then back up at me. ‘You’re wearing a dress.’ He grins again.
I smile without meaning to, look away. ‘I do that occasionally.’
‘Yeah, well,’ he says, ‘I’ve been down to the cellar. Wanted to see the Grand Designs.’
He doesn’t mention Rachel. I feel a tightening in my heart. I want to ask but stop myself.
‘How’s it looking down there?’
‘Like a load of wet concrete. They only laid the foundation today. Too wet for me to even write my name in. Can I have a drag?’
I roll my eyes, but pass him the cigarette. He takes it, his fingers brushing against mine. I close my eyes. I long to put my face against his chest.
‘I can’t understand why they’re doing it,’ he says.