DC Clements glances at Fiona. Fiona can feel heat rise through her body. She feels they want to ask why she is here. Again. She wishes she hadn’t stayed last night after all. Her head is too hot. She’s relieved that they don’t ask her anything but instead continue to direct all questions to Mark. “Why did you lie to us?”
“Did I?”
Tanner pulls out his notebook, flips through it. The sound of the turning pages cracks like a whip. “When DC Clements was talking to your eldest son, you said, ‘My first wife died of cancer when Oli was five years old. I suppose he remembers Frances a bit. But Leigh has been his mother since he was not quite seven.’” The policeman snaps closed his book.
Mark looks surprised. Didn’t he know they would be taking notes? They are the police, for God’s sake. That’s their job. To investigate. “She did have cancer. She would have died of that—that is the sad truth,” he says. “Then she slipped.”
“Slipped.”
“Or tripped,” he says firmly. “I didn’t actually see the accident. I assume you’ve read the coroner’s report.”
“Yes, yes we have,” says the detective. Fiona can see Mark looks frozen to the chair. A statue touched by the Queen of Narnia. “Did Leigh know how Frances really died?”
“No.” His voice cracks with the admission.
“You didn’t tell her?”
“It never came up.”
“Oh, come on, Mark. All those years?” Tanner doesn’t try to keep the exasperation or disbelief out of his voice.
“It was an impossible thing to tell her.”
“What? The truth was impossible?”
“Yes.” His voice is steady, neither defensive nor regretful. The lack of emotion unnerves Fiona more than his previous displays of anger have. What will the police make of it? He plods on. “The thing is, it was all to do with how we first met. You’ll remember, Fiona, you were there at the play park, the day Seb fell off the slide and cut his head open.”
Fiona nods. That much is true. “Do you remember, I froze? It was because I was thinking of Frances and her bleeding out at the bottom of our stairs. Later in the hospital when I told Leigh I was a widower I couldn’t bring myself to say my wife died of a head injury following a fall. It was too much. Especially in front of Oli, I didn’t want him thinking Seb might die like his mother.” Mark sighs. “I was trying to protect Oli and so I said, she had cancer. Which she did. I thought I was just saying something that wasn’t a lie as such, just a less uncomfortable statement to a stranger. I never expected the stranger to end up being my wife.”
Fiona wants to believe him. A less uncomfortable statement, not a lie. She can understand that. She wants the police to believe him too. “But afterward? You had years to tell her the truth,” the detective points out.
“Well, how do you come back from that? How do you say, ‘Oh, by the way I got it all mixed up about how my first wife died’？ It was easier all round to just stick with the original story.” He is getting impatient.
“So, you lied to your sons, too, about how their mother died?”
“Well, yes, I had to be consistent.”
“Jesus, Mark.” The words tumble out of Fiona’s mouth. She is shocked, exasperated. Clements and Tanner turn to her. Fiona doesn’t know whether she wants to collapse on the sofa and put her arms around him—this poor man who didn’t have the confidence to correct a simple lie and has therefore made things very awkward for himself all these years later—because obviously the police have some level of suspicion of him now. Or, ought she make a dash for the door? Because one dead wife is a tragedy until a second goes missing and then it is a genuine problem. Why stay and support this man, this liar?
Clements allows the interruption to sit with them for a moment and then she says, “Well, that’s all we wanted to clear up for now. We’ll be in touch.” Fiona sees the police officers to the door. She doesn’t know what to say to them, so she stays silent. Clements simply comments, “Nice to see you again, Ms. Phillipson. It’s good of you to keep such a close eye on your friend’s family.”
“The boys,” Fiona mutters, by way of explanation.
Clements smiles briefly. Fiona gets the sense Clements knows her concern extends beyond the boys. Fiona returns to the sitting room. Mark hasn’t moved a muscle. It is tricky negotiating the intimacy of sleeping on this man’s couch, feeding his children, kissing him; this man who is her best friend’s husband. Yet she owes her best friend nothing because Leigh has lied to her too, to everyone, for four years. Why is the truth so hard to pin down and offer up? She should probably grab her jacket and walk out, right now. The problem is she wants to stay, to kiss him again. She does neither thing.
“Why didn’t you tell her? Trust her to understand the initial lie in the hospital.”
“You are saying I should have trusted my bigamist wife more?” Mark’s voice is spiked with indignation. He sighs. “Is there anything you need to ask me?”
Fiona can hear the challenge. “Yeah. Did she make you happy?”
He looks surprised; that was not the question he was expecting. “Yes, she did. Does,” he corrects himself hurriedly. Then he shrugs and says deliberately, “She did. Past tense. I’m using the past tense because she doesn’t make me happy any longer, not because I think she’s dead. God forbid. Just to be clear.” Fiona blinks, remains silent. “I didn’t kill Frances or Leigh. Okay? I guess you need to hear it from my own lips. I guess you must have trust issues too, right now. I don’t know where Leigh is, and I didn’t hurt her. Do you believe me?”
Fiona doesn’t know what to do or say. She sits quietly, perfectly still, and considers. After a few minutes she says, “Let’s have a cup of tea, then I have to get back to my flat.”
“So, you are leaving?”
“I just need to get back to my flat for a bit, Mark.” Fiona tries to keep her voice level. She’d do well to ape his emotionless state. Not to give anything away. “I haven’t been there for a couple of days. I need to put a wash on. Go through some emails. You understand.”
“Yeah,” he says with another sigh, “I understand.”
40
Kylie
My stomach cramps, spasms of acute hunger cause me to crawl into the corner of the room. I pull my knees up, tight to my body, trying to flatten out the cravings. I think he has decided to let me starve to death. My head swims. I fall to sleep, for just moments, and then jerk awake. Or maybe it’s longer. I don’t know. Both men are waiting for me in my dreams, my nightmares. The two men are completely unalike. Almost nothing in common. Other than me, I suppose. Yet they are both waiting for me. Furious.
The water is all gone.
Having two husbands, two lives, is very time-consuming. Something had to give. I chose to sacrifice friendship. I took Daan’s phone calls before friends’。 If he suggested we meet on a date where I was already tied up, I pulled out of the prior arrangements. The lovely women I met at work—who I had joked with in the staff canteen, swore with when bosses were unreasonable—all fell by the wayside. As did my mummy-friends, the mothers of the boys’ friends. I turned down invitations to join book clubs or spend the evening with someone enthusiastically selling beauty products or kitchen utensils. The only friend I could not give up was Fiona. She has always been like a sister to me. The thought of her comforts me but in some ways hurts me too. I lost her anyhow because I couldn’t tell her. Of course not. So the honesty and intimacy between us faded and then disappeared altogether.