Woman with a Secret (12 page)

Please. Please, something, be around the next bend in the road
. The hour between one and two that felt so long ten minutes ago is shrinking all the time.

Finally, when I’m starting to despair, I turn a corner and see a children’s playground ahead, separated from the pavement by tall, chunky metal railings with sharp points at the top. There’s no one around apart from a mother pushing her daughter on a swing.
A woman pushing a little girl on a swing
, I correct myself. I of all people should know that it’s impossible to identify a relationship from the outside.

Sometimes it’s equally hard from the inside.

The woman and the girl are both facing away from me. This will do.

The curb is high here, all the way along, and I’m going to have to mount it to get close enough to the railings. I try to work out if this is better approached at speed in a high gear or slowly, in first. I’m not the world’s greatest driver.

Maybe I could find somewhere more suitable.

Or maybe not
.

It takes me several attempts, but finally I manage to get my car up over the curb. The exhaust makes a metallic crunching noise as it scrapes against the pavement. The woman and little girl turn and stare at me. I stop and wait, unwilling to do any more with them watching. A few seconds later, they get bored with gawking and look away.

I reverse, adjusting the car’s position as I go so that it’s parallel with the beginning of the railings. Then I drive forward, accelerating fast, veering to the left until the passenger-side mirror hits against one metal railing after another. The noise is unbearable. I clench my teeth and wince. I can’t stand to look at the damage I’m doing; knowing it’s happening is bad enough.

It must be gone by now
.

I keep accelerating all the way to the end of the railings, then brake and look.

My car no longer has a passenger-side mirror.
Thank God
.

My relief doesn’t last long. The woman in the playground has left the little girl on the swing and is hurrying toward me with a concern-creased forehead and a “We need to have a serious talk” expression. Why, for fuck’s sake? The railings are fine. I haven’t hurt anyone, only an object—one that belongs to me and is none of her business.

Slamming down my foot on the gas, I screech around the corner and disappear before she can get to me, powered by my desperation to escape as much as by an engine.

She can’t have seen my plate number. I drove away too quickly. I’m safe
.

It’ll be easier to pretend to myself that I haven’t just done what I’ve done once I’ve put some distance between me and the scene. Fifteen minutes from now, I’ll be at home, with a car that’s missing one side mirror; the story I told the police will be truer. True, in fact.

I don’t understand how I can do this: deceive myself and believe it, while knowing I’m lying.

The word “lying” gives me a jolt. I look up at the rearview mirror. There’s a car immediately behind me—blue again, and too close, like before. Is it . . . could it be the same car? No, that’s paranoia. I accelerate so that I can see the make: BMW. Like Flash Dad’s from school. I dismiss the stupid idea that Flash Dad might be following me and sigh with relief when the car takes a left turn and disappears from view.

I spend the rest of the drive home checking my mirror every two seconds. Nothing.

Back in my house, with my newly wrecked car safely stowed in the garage, I avoid looking at my BlackBerry while I make the cup of coffee that’s essential to my survival for even another ten seconds, then call Adam at work and tell him I need him to come home straightaway. “Melissa’s summoned me,” I say. “I have to go to London.”

I used to call her Mel, when she was only my best friend, before she met my brother, Lee, and decided to double up as my sister-in-law. I called her Mel when they moved in together, and when they got married. I switched to Melissa a few months after their wedding, when she explained her new policy to me—how everything was going to be different between us from now on. Including her name in that “everything” made sense to me: an effective way of signaling the change in the way I felt about her. I’m sure she’s noticed, though she’s never commented.

“What? That sounds inconvenient for me,” Adam says cheerfully. “Though not impossible, I suppose. What’s wrong with Melissa?”

“I don’t know.”

“But . . . she’s not ill or—”

“No, she said it’s nothing like that. Could be a her-and-Lee issue. She refused to talk about it on the phone. I think it’s something private. She made me promise not to mention it to anyone, including you.” Every time I lie to Adam, I feel a spurt of fear that I have to struggle to overcome. I’m terrified of what I’m doing to our relationship: polluting it with deceit, pushing him farther away with each manipulation. I’ve been living with this dread for too long: maybe one day I’ll push him so far that I won’t be able to retrieve him when I’m ready to be close to him again.

I can’t let that happen. I have to save us
.

It’s only when this panic floods my system that I realize I couldn’t bear to lose Adam, and feel the stab of horror that ought to stop me from endangering what we have. If only I could feel it all the time . . . but he’s too embedded in my world for that to be possible. Sometimes I can barely distinguish him from myself and the children; at others his presence in my life strikes me as absurdly jarring, as if I’ve woken up to find I’m living with someone I once met at a bus stop and have exchanged no more than a few friendly words with.

Like when you’re emailing Gavin, you mean? That’s how you feel about your husband—that he’s an intruder—while you’re secretly writing to a man whose presence in your life looks sometimes like a BlackBerry and sometimes like a laptop computer? A man whom you don’t know, let alone love, and shouldn’t need?

I don’t want this kind of marriage. Don’t want to live in a state of permanent threat.

Yet you’ve created the threat, and prolonged it. For the sake of what? Excitement? Adventure?

I’m finding it harder every day to pinpoint where pleasurable anticipation ends and fear begins.

“So you want me to leave work early and go and pick up the kids?” Adam asks.

“Yes, but I need you to come home first—now—and drive me to Rawndesley Station.”

“What’s wrong with your car?”

“It’s missing a side mirror. Long story,” I say briskly. “I’m going to leave it in the garage with the door unlocked and slightly open—the police are coming around later to have a look at it.”

“Nicki, what’s going on?” Adam sounds worried. “Have you had a crash?”

It would make sense to tell him as much of the truth as I can afford to, but I can’t bring myself to mention Damon Blundy, the CCTV footage, being taken to the police station by two detectives. I’ll have to think of another story, but not now. I need to get to Melissa before the police work out that I gave them the wrong number for her and track down the correct one.

“I’ll tell you on the way to the station, but . . . please, can you set off now?”

He agrees, as I knew he would.

It will take him at least half an hour to get here.

BlackBerry or computer? I prefer to be sitting at a desk, for Gavin. It helps me to think more clearly. Our spare room has become my cyber-adultery office.

I run upstairs to the computer.

From
: Mr. Jugs

Date
: Tue, July 2, 2013 10:39:24

To
:

Subject
: Re: Distress signal

The police? At your front door? Are you serious? Why would the police come to your house?

G.

From
: Mr. Jugs

Date
: Tue, July 2, 2013 10:50:02

To
:

Subject
: Re: Distress signal

Nicki, are you there/OK? I am concerned. I don’t want to have to call your local police station and ask if they’ve got you in custody!

G.

From
: Nicki

Date
: Tue, July 2, 2013 13:43:15

To
:

Subject
: Re: Distress signal

Yes, the police really did come to my house and take me back to the police station with them. It was about Damon Blundy—my car was seen near his house so they wanted to talk to me. I am now back at home and fine.

I hate to be argumentative, but . . . what you said before about Damon Blundy was silly. Yes, some people are evil, but that in no way proves
that Damon Blundy was, so don’t say it in a way that makes out it does. That’s as stupid as saying I don’t know that Barack Obama isn’t a vegan, since, after all, some people are vegans. It’s possibly the weakest argument I’ve ever heard.

N x

From
: Mr. Jugs

Date
: Tue, July 2, 2013 13:46:05

To
:

Subject
: Re: Distress signal

Why so defensive on behalf of Damon Blundy? Is it compulsory for me to like him?

G.

From
: Nicki

Date
: Tue, July 2, 2013 13:50:33

To
:

Subject
: Re: Distress signal

Did I say it was compulsory for you to like him? No, I said that to point out that some people are evil in a way designed to suggest this proves something about DB is a dishonest, and daft, way to argue. Which it is. And so is accusing me of saying something I never said.

Do you have trouble reading and interpreting words? If not, I suggest you reread Damon Blundy’s columns. He almost always argued for truth or goodness of some sort. My take on him (which you will probably do your best to misunderstand) is that he was embarrassed by his desire to make the world
a better place and so did his best to hide it under surface outrageousness.

Sorry if I’m sounding harsh. I’m probably being unfair to you, and if I am, I’m sorry. The police-station thing wasn’t fun. I’m not in the calmest frame of mind.

N x