‘Where did you learn how to do all this stuff?’ I asked one day, when she came into the kitchen after laying the slabs, a smudge of dirt on her cheek.
She glanced around to make sure you weren’t in earshot. ‘I learnt a lot in prison,’ she said, her cheeks reddening, and she looked vulnerable then. ‘I was there for a long time.’
‘Oh, Daphne.’
I tried to remain strong, for her and for you.
But the nightmares continued and I would wake up during the night covered in a film of sweat. Neil’s face morphed into Victor’s and I was convinced he would find us. After all, Neil had.
I still hadn’t told Daphne about Victor, but the deeper in love we fell, the harder it was not to talk about my past. Not that she ever asked, or pushed. She didn’t talk about her time as Jean either. It was as though we both just wanted to live in the here and now. As though we didn’t exist before we found each other.
‘You must stop torturing yourself over Neil,’ said Daphne, on the many occasions when I had gone to her, shaking and crying, guilt and fear taking me over. She’d pull me into her arms and kiss me and reassure me that it would all be okay. ‘Nobody will ever know,’ she said, but that just made me feel worse. Out of control and vulnerable.
It puzzled me how Daphne didn’t seem to worry about Neil and the fact his rotting remains were buried in our garden. His disappearance had made the papers, after all. He had been married with a young son. The guilt of that ate away at me. Even with the new paving slabs I hated going out there, and every time I did, the memories of that night flooded back. It was hard, especially during that hot summer as you wanted to be in the garden all the time. ‘I’ll go with her,’ Daphne would say, touching my arm gently. And I’d watch, like a prisoner, from the kitchen window as she sat with you as you dug your little spade into the soil and made a small rockery, trying not to wince that the body of the man I had killed lay less than twenty feet away. At night I’d dream of going downstairs and seeing the paving slabs taken up to reveal the hole in the ground, empty, his body gone. Other times I worried that we hadn’t dug deep enough and something, a neighbouring dog or fox, might accidentally dig it up, exposing the corpse. Or that he was still alive, he’d survived the stabbing and was intent on revenge, still wearing his bloodstained T-shirt.
‘No animal can dig it up now I’ve laid the slabs. Don’t worry,’ Daphne would reassure me, when I confided in her. Most nights she crept into my room, after you were fast asleep. It was comforting to have her warm body next to mine. I didn’t feel so alone with my dark thoughts. One hot sticky night in July, as we lay in each other’s arms with just a white sheet covering us, she said, ‘Do you think you’re bisexual?’
I sat up, leaning on my elbow to look at her, the moonlight highlighting her sharp cheekbones. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, you were married.’
‘Um, actually I’ve never been married.’
Her eyes looked huge in the half-light. ‘What? But Lolly’s father …’
‘I’m not a widow. I ran away from him. He was … is … a psycho.’
I felt her stiffen beside me. ‘I did wonder if you were running from someone too. You always seemed so … cagey. Like me, I suppose. Although we were both running from very different situations by the sound of it.’ She reached out and touched my cheek. ‘But then I thought maybe you were just shy.’ She took her hand away and pulled the sheet up over her chest. Her arms were tanned after so many days in the garden with you. ‘So he’s still out there, Lolly’s dad?’
I nodded. ‘His name’s Victor.’
‘Victor.’ She sounded the name slowly. ‘That sounds posh.’
‘We were never in a relationship. Romantically,’ I said, to try to put her mind at rest. ‘It’s … it’s complicated.’ I didn’t want to tell her about Victor and what he’d done to me. I didn’t want it to sit between us, like an evil presence, tainting what we had. ‘Before him I was with a woman for a long time. Audrey. What about you?’