I was in a black car with Shane’s mother.
‘Well, I hope that job in Dublin was worth it.’
‘Sorry?’
‘What kind of a wife would put a job before her husband.’ She had been staring straight ahead at the road, but now her red-rimmed eyes were trained on me.
‘I didn’t.’
‘And my poor Shane, he’d never stand in the way of your dreams. Said he didn’t mind if you were away for a few months. Oh, but he was so looking forward to bringing you home with him.’
He hadn’t told her I’d left him. I took a deep breath in. Of course he didn’t tell anyone. How would he explain it? Either she had no clue about the violence, or her mind wouldn’t let her see what was staring her in the face. Not my son.
‘If it hadn’t been for the accident—’ She broke off, swallowing her words in one big gulp and pressing a handkerchief to her nose. ‘Why weren’t you there, Martha?’
‘I …’ My voice cracked. ‘I’m sorry.’
She took my hand in hers so tightly I thought my bones would crack.
‘I know what people are saying, that it was a suicide, but I don’t believe them.’
I nodded and felt the mixed sensations of guilt and relief shudder through my body. No one suspected anything.
The day passed by in flashes, like some kind of avant-garde movie. His uncle making a speech at the church. The open coffin. Shane’s cold, white face that looked as innocent as a child’s. The graveyard and the cries of his mother when the coffin was lowered into the ground. The hotel afterwards and his friends retelling the story of how Shane and I had first met. Love at first sight. My two brothers toasting pints, saying what a sound man he was. Always fixing their cars at mates’ rates. Never missed his turn paying for a round of drinks. As though that was what made a good man. I never cried once. I worried that people might think it was odd, but the priest assured me that we all express our grief differently.
My parents offered to drive me back to the apartment I had shared with the man who almost tried to kill me. The man who was now dead and buried himself. It was a terrible accident. I had repeated that line so many times to myself, like a mantra. If you say something enough times, it becomes true. Or at least that was the plan. I turned the key in the lock, but as soon as I stepped inside, I knew I could never stay there again. Everywhere I looked, I could see all the times he threatened me, yelled at me, hit me. Short films, with no beginning and no end. I never knew where the arguments began. I would try to trace them back to some logical starting point, but there wasn’t one. Anything could spark his anger and the more and more I tried to cut off the parts of me that seemed to annoy him, the less and less there was of me. I was only existing in his world, on his terms, just trying to survive this ‘love at first sight’。
I turned to my mother and without even speaking the words, she understood what I was asking. I went home with them.
I didn’t sleep. I just lay in my childhood bed wondering how I had ended up here. By the time the first rays of morning light came through the thin curtains, I had made some decisions. I would never come back to this town again. Regardless of how it had happened, I had been given a second chance to start over. I dressed quickly and tiptoed out to the back door. Just as I lifted the latch, I heard a voice from behind me that I hardly dared to believe.
‘I’m glad he’s dead,’ she said.
I turned around to see my mother standing there in her old dressing gown, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. These were the first words I had ever heard her speak. Rusty and half-whispered, they confirmed what I had suspected all along – she had silenced herself. But why? That was when all of the unshed tears released from within me and we held each other for the longest time.
‘Come with me,’ I said eventually.
I knew she wouldn’t leave my father. He was a good man. It’s just that people have very different definitions of ‘good’。
She signed that I should go, be free and enjoy my life. That was all she ever wanted for me.
‘I should’ve saved you from him.’
Her face was white as a sheet. Only now could I see how much she blamed herself.
‘You couldn’t have. He isolated me from everyone, made me feel like it was all my fault. I couldn’t tell anyone, I was so ashamed.’
‘Oh love, I thought you were ashamed of me! So I kept my distance.’
I hugged her again, as tightly as I could. It was all so obvious now, how he’d manipulated me. I would never forgive him. Never.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
HENRY
Felicity Grace Field decided she was going to make her entrance into the world two weeks early. Lucinda had convinced me to stay in London for another few days to help Neil finish off decorating the nursery. At 3 a.m. I heard panicked voices outside my bedroom door – my mother shouting at Neil about the overnight bag, Neil shouting at himself for misplacing the car keys, my sister shouting at both of them to stop creating a stressful environment for the baby. I jumped out of bed and lunged into the hall, where Lucinda stood in a puddle of liquid in her bare feet.
‘What’s going on?’ I said, stupidly.
‘I’m having a baby,’ she replied, still managing a sarcastic tone.
‘Like, now?’
‘Like, yeah,’ she said, imitating my gormless voice.
Just then my mother arrived with slippers in hand and an overcoat. I stood there, immobile, watching as they both struggled to get her dressed for the hospital.
‘Henry! You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem,’ my mother shouted and told me to help Neil look for the car keys. I obeyed and found them in full view on the kitchen table, as Neil walked past them unseeing for the umpteenth time.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Neil said, wide-eyed and panic-stricken. ‘I don’t think I’m ready for this.’
‘Right. Okay, well, I’m not sure we can really factor that in at this stage.’
‘How the fuck am I going to drive? I don’t think I can even see properly, my eyesight’s gone all foggy. Is that normal?’
I drove. Lucinda had Mum and Neil on either side of her, puffing out their cheeks and exhaling air through pursed lips like two demented blowfish. I’m not sure it was helping but I could see by Lucinda’s face that she was just glad of the quiet. It was an improvement on all of the shouting. I was quietly congratulating myself for being the rock in the situation and pulled up outside A&E.
‘Here we are,’ I said, as though I were dropping them off at the airport for a fortnight on the Costa.
‘This … isn’t … maternity,’ Lucinda said in a very low, threatening voice and then emitted what could only be described as something akin to a cow bellowing. I stamped my foot on the accelerator and followed the signs for maternity before once more pulling up at the door. After helping them out, I parked the car and, by the time I got back, everything was over.
‘It’s a girl,’ my mother whispered through tears and I hugged her tightly under a broken fluorescent light that flickered overhead. I couldn’t quite believe that we had arrived as four people and we would be going home as five. ‘They’re delivering the afterbirth now.’