Robin didn’t exactly put up a fight. If anything, the divorce was surprisingly amicable given that they’d been married for a decade.
She left. He stayed. I moved in.
It was best for everyone and we were happy – Adam and I. We still are. Perhaps not as happy as we were, but I can fix that. This weekend was supposed to help, but I realise now that it was a big mistake. It doesn’t matter. I’m sure dealing with his crazy ex will only bring Adam and I closer together again. And she is crazy. If I was in any doubt before, now I know for certain.
I tell myself that as we stand at the top of the staircase, looking at the photo of their wedding day on the wall. They are both smiling for the camera. As usual, I wonder what my husband sees. Does he see the face of someone he misses? Or is it just a blur he can’t recognise? Does he think she is beautiful? Does he look at the picture and think they look good together? Does he wish they still were?
They must have been happy, too, in the beginning. Just like us.
Changing love into hate is a much easier trick than turning water into wine.
It didn’t seem to matter that Adam and I had very little in common when I first moved into the house they used to share. He didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t love books and films as much as he did, and the sex was great for the first few months. I took better care of myself and my body than Robin ever did – I went to the gym and I made more of an effort with my appearance once I had someone to look pretty for. We did it in every room of the house that his ex-wife had so lovingly renovated – always my idea – an exorcism of the ghosts of their marriage. And, unlike so many couples, Adam and I never seemed to run out of conversation. His world fascinated me – the trips to LA and the celebrities he got to meet at readings, it all sounded so… exciting. Adam liked talking about himself and his work just as much as I liked to listen, so it was a good match. We got married as soon as the divorce was finalised. It was a small affair, and very private. I didn’t mind that it was just the two of us at the register office that day, I didn’t think we needed anyone else. I still don’t.
If Robin really is behind all of this, and has been plotting some kind of revenge, then I’m considerably less scared than I was before. I’m smarter than her. A lot stronger, too, mentally as well as physically. If this is her way of trying to win her husband back, it won’t work. Nobody wants to be with a crazy woman, and I think it’s safe to presume that’s what she has become.
‘We should just leave,’ I say.
‘She slashed the tyres.’
‘Then we’ll walk to the next town, or hitch a ride if we see a car.’
‘OK,’ Adam replies, without much conviction. It’s as though he’s gone into shock.
‘Come on, help me grab our stuff.’
I step back onto the landing, but open the wrong door by mistake – they were all locked when we arrived last night; the bell tower, the child’s room – and now I see what must have been the master bedroom – Henry’s room. There is a large bed in the middle, as you might expect, but what I wouldn’t have predicted and haven’t seen in a bedroom before, are all the glass display cabinets covering each of the walls from floor to ceiling. Unlike in other parts of the house, these shelves aren’t filled with books. Instead they are crammed full of little carved wooden birds. When I take a step closer, I realise they are all robins. There must be literally hundreds of them, all the same but different.
‘This place just gets stranger and stranger. Let’s go,’ I say, again.
Adam follows me back out onto the landing, then into the bedroom where we slept last night. I wish that he hadn’t. Robin’s presence is clearly visible in here too. There is a red silk kimono neatly arranged on top of the white sheets on the bed.
‘What is this supposed to mean?’ I say, but it is a stupid question, one which we both already know the answer to. The woman in the red kimono is what Adam has recurring nightmares about, caused by the memory of what happened to his mother. That’s what she was wearing when she walked his dog late one night and was killed by a hit-and-run driver.
‘Why would Robin do this?’ he whispers.
‘I don’t know and I don’t care. We need to leave, now.’
‘How?’ he asks again.
‘I told you already, we can walk if we have to…’
He looks away and I follow his stare. Three words have been written on the mirror above the dressing table, using red lipstick: