Never Go There Page 4

  She tried to concentrate on regulating her breathing but all she could see was the slash to her car, the red paint flaking to the floor like dried blood. All she could feel was that cut on her finger.

  Her hand reached up for the thin gold chain she wore, pulling it, fondling its charm and hiding it beneath her jersey, only to seek it out again immediately.

  She raised her hand to her chest, just as she’d been taught, and felt the weight of it on her skin, the rise and fall of her ribcage as her heart beat against her palm, willing its pace to slow.

  It doesn’t mean anything, she told herself, opening her eyes and staring in the rear-view mirror. The scratch to the car was an accident, a child or a dog with a stick.

  Her reflection didn’t believe her. Void of makeup she looked corpselike, emaciated beneath her jersey and jeans, her hair limp, cheeks hollow, accentuating her bloodshot eyes.

  Maybe this was why James had begged her not to come.

  She pushed away those words – ‘don’t ever go there’– tried to forget about the scratches and concentrate on the reason she was here.

  The hope she would still be made welcome, despite what had happened so far. That she would still feel those arms around her, holding her, telling her it would all be OK.

  Rehearsal, she needed rehearsal. Body language, tone of voice, the exact words she would say. She thought about it all, visualising the scene that lay before her until her heartbeat slowed and her breathing was even and deep.

  As the last set of phrases took shape she opened her eyes and saw the note.

  A page of plain A4, damp from condensation, had been laid down flat between the wiper and the windscreen. By turning her head to the side Nuala could read the words in all their cutting clarity, written in a scrawl so angry it had, in places, torn the page.

  THINK BEFORE YOU PARK

  YOU SELFISH MORON.

  IF I WERE A FIRE ENGINE

  I COULD NOT GET PAST.

  SOMEONE COULD BE DEAD IN A FIRE.

  DEAD!

  Nuala’s chin trembled, the corners of her mouth turning down, eyes hazy to the narrow street and all its shadows.

  Her fingers worked her necklace, the charm moving back and forth along its chain. Her eyes were glued to the note.

  She reminded herself that they didn’t know who she was. That the note was a mistake, that if they knew who she was they would never have written it. They would have been kind. Surely, they would have been kind?

  But all she could think of was that horrible truth, that they didn’t know, that James had never told them, never written, emailed, phoned.

  That even his mother had no idea who Nuala was.

  She should have parked in front of the pub, last night, and walked to the house, she knew that now. Her car would have been saved. But, her mind forever caught in the London suburbs, she’d taken the space that was located so attractively outside her destination: the house of her mother-in-law, a woman she’d heard of, talked about, imagined, but never met. A woman who clearly delighted in writing venomous do not park letters.

  She knew, before looking up, that James’s mother was watching from her window. There were no curtains for the woman to hide behind.

  Outside the car, Nuala picked her way along the gravel path, uneven and weed-ridden. The cottage was tiny, a front door and one bay window beside it, the thatched roof mouldering, the rendering cracked. Her feet landed on the front step and the door sprang opened an inch, the security chain like a rusted moustache across the other woman’s face.

  ‘This about your car?’

  Nuala was speechless, her rehearsals null and void.

  She felt herself blush but could do nothing to stop it. She hadn’t prepared herself for such a likeness, had not expected the woman to be so young.

  ‘I’m looking for Mrs Lois Lunglow.’ A redundant statement: the similarities between mother and son were evident in every sharp feature, every flick of her sandy hair. Even her voice had a flavour of James.

  ‘You can’t park in front of my house in my space. What if I had a car? Where would I have parked if I had a car? What if there’d been a, a—’ she looked past Nuala, scanning the street either side, – ‘a fire? What then, hmm?’ She pulled her cheeks in, accentuating her cheekbones, high and sharp like James’s. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m not here about the note.’

  ‘It wasn’t me who did the scratches.’ Her eyes met Nuala’s, blue eyes, as cold as the weather. She seemed devoid of softness, the very opposite of how Nuala expected a mother to look, the opposite of what she had hoped for. ‘It was them.’

  ‘I don’t care about the scratches. I’m just looking for Mrs Lunglow.’

  ‘What do you mean? I’m standing right in front of you.’ She closed the door with a slam only to open it again, the security chain unfastened, revealing Lois in all her James-like glory. ‘Move your car.’

  Lois folded her arms, pulling her cardigan closer with one hand. The sleeves didn’t match the body, didn’t even match each other, as if the woman had created the cardigan from a mismatch of others. With her other hand, fingers pressed tightly together, she tapped at her chest, a tic. Tap, tap, tap.

  ‘I was hoping I could come in, Mrs Lunglow?’

  ‘I don’t know you. Why would I let you in?’ She leant her head forward. ‘Move your car.’

  ‘I’m Nuala, Mrs Lunglow, Fionnuala Greene.’

  Lois looked at Nuala as though she were mad, her face showing no signs of recognition, her fingers still tapping her chest, the tap, tap, tap of a pulse.

  He had promised to tell her.

  ‘I’m here about James.’

  Lois untangled her arms, the fraying end of one sleeve catching her fingernail. Her face lightened, softened. ‘My James?’ She smiled at his name, her teeth exposed.

  ‘Yes, your son—’

  ‘How do you know him? You’re from London, are you? Has he sent you?’ She began scanning the street again, looking through Nuala, the tendons in her neck twitching as her hands smoothed and neatened her hair.

  ‘I’m his wife, Mrs Lunglow. Won’t you please let me in?’

  ‘His wife? His wife?’ Another stab to the gut, each word from Lois twisting the knife. ‘No, no, no, he’s not married, you’re not his wife. I would know if he had a wife; I’m his mother, he would have told me. He would. Is he here with you? Is he coming?’

  Six months ago

  Nuala

  Thursday, 11th May, 2017

  Nuala was in the bathroom when the doorbell rang. Her mind had been preoccupied that day. She’d achieved a vast amount, full of manic glee. The carpeted rooms had been hoovered and dusted, the wooden floors swept, laundry hidden away. The aroma of garlicky lasagne hung in the air as their supper waited patiently to be devoured and (hopefully) praised. Nothing, at all, that could be complained about.

  Lastly, with manicured hands, she had hidden a half bottle of Bollinger at the back of the fridge.

  She noticed the time: past six but, outside, the sky was still light. Half an hour until he was home, until they could share their favourite supper, pop the champagne cork, touch glasses.

  She pictured James riding home through the park, remembered guiltily how she’d chastised him for picking flowers there the day before, how upset he’d been with her for doing so, calling her ungrateful whilst he stabbed the stems into a vase. Those same flowers, pickerel and Joe-Pye weed, columns of purple loosestrife, were sitting in the crystal cut vase beneath the open window, their vague scent wafting through the room, mingling with the musk from her perfume before being overwhelmed by the smell from the oven.

  She went to the bathroom whilst the dinner was cooking, heard the doorbell sound as she pressed the flusher.

  Two navy blue shadows darkened the frosted glass, a head in height between them.

  Their ears pricked, no doubt, to the flush of the toilet.

  She couldn’t shake it, imagining the shadowy figures sniggering to each other as they
rung the bell, the sound of the flush echoing down the hallway, and she blushed as she opened the door.

  Police.

  They stood with their hands behind their backs. One looked directly at her; a woman, short black hair, the pits of acne scars across her brow. The other, taller and older, was a man, his eyes to the ground as he rocked on his heels.

  ‘I’m PC Woollard, from Kingston Police Station.’ The woman spoke, nerves making her sound impossibly young.

  The sight of their uniforms, their serious faces, stole her breath, her voice.

  ‘Are you Fionnuala Greene?’

  Why are you here? She failed to ask.

  But she knew.

  She backed away from the open door, watching as they glanced at each other, the man holding back and letting Woollard lead the way.

  ‘Is there anyone else here at the moment, Mrs Greene?’

  James hadn’t phoned all day. He would normally call at lunchtime, or during a coffee break.

  Nuala had reached the end of the hallway, her back to the door of the kitchen, the smell of dinner leaking through. James’s dinner.

  Where is James? Did she say that aloud? She couldn’t tell.

  ‘Is there somewhere we can sit down, Mrs Greene?’

  Why are you here? But the words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t move.

  Woollard turned her head, looked at the silent man blocking the light from the open front door. He nodded, keeping his eyes to the floor, hands behind his back.

  The woman took Nuala by the arm, led them through the kitchen and sat her at the table, sitting opposite. She could hear the man rifling through the kitchen, the flick of the kettle and the rumble of its boil, the waft of tea and strong coffee when he eventually found the right cupboard. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t take her eyes away from PC Woollard and her small, ringless hands.

  ‘I need to talk to you about your husband, Mrs Greene.’

  ‘He’ll be home soon.’ Was that her voice? It sounded muffled, quiet, only the vague trembling of her throat telling her she had spoken at all. Her fingers moved to her wedding ring, spinning the plain gold band.

  Her eyes darted to the door, expecting it to open, for her husband to walk through and tell her not to worry.

  Woollard held on to Nuala’s hands, stilling the spinning gold ring.

  ‘Mrs Greene, I’m afraid he’s been involved in a very serious accident.’ Woollard lowered her head, tried to make eye contact but Nuala couldn’t do it, could only look at their hands on the table, her wedding band hidden.

  Her eyes filled, the salt stinging and her eyelids suddenly so heavy, so burdened with tears. She opened her mouth to ask if he was OK, if he was coming home, but her voice wouldn’t come.

  ‘Mrs Greene,’ the woman said, looking away, her jaw tightening for the briefest of moments. ‘I’m afraid he died at the scene.’

  Nuala shook her head, horror silencing her, the blood draining from her face.

  ‘It happened at lunchtime. He suffered an aneurysm whilst cycling away from the park.’

  She should have known something was wrong.

  ‘He entered the ring-road from the left.’

  She should have known when she didn’t hear from James during the day. She should have felt something, surely.

  ‘Witnesses saw him slump on his bike and then swerve into oncoming traffic. It would have been very quick, painless.’

  Nuala was talking, after all, the same words spilling out of her repeatedly. ‘I didn’t know.’ And her mind shouted, of course you didn’t know, how could you have? She realised that this, too, had been said aloud and clasped her hands over her mouth.

  She should be screaming.

  She should be hugging herself, rocking back and forth, biting her fist to stem the tears.

  She shouldn’t be sitting here mumbling uncontrollably, tears refusing to fall, blood cold in her veins, her hands, fingers, feet beneath the table, all numb.

  ‘Everyone is different, Mrs Greene. There is no right way to react.’ And again, Nuala realised she had been speaking constantly, that Woollard was trying to comfort her and didn’t realise Nuala’s mortification. She gave into the trembling that started in her hands and spread up her arms to her shoulders and chest and up to her lips and jaw and her teeth began to chatter.

  ‘You’re in shock, Fionnuala.’

  She wondered when they had started calling her Fionnuala, and if she had given them permission or they just presumed to call her that to create an air of familiarity and, perhaps in familiarity, comfort.

  But it didn’t give her comfort; it just made her long for her mother.

  A hot, sweet smelling tea was placed in front of her and the heat of the vapour and the sugary smell turned her stomach. She was aware of the smell of the lasagne and this too was nauseating. She remembered the bathroom and what she had been doing there before the police officers arrived.

  She stood and walked towards it.

  She heard Woollard’s chair move as she, too, stood to follow.

  The test was on top of the cistern. Nuala turned it over to read the positive result, her hand flying to her belly, just as the other woman asked, ‘Is there anyone I can call?’

  Maggie

  Saturday, 18th November, 2017

  Arthur would have killed James Lunglow had he ever shown his face again, Maggie was sure of it. That’s why Lois had snuck the lad out of the village when she had. Arthur would have killed him without a moment’s regret. But that was seven years ago; even the bad luck of a broken mirror would have faded by now.

  What was the point in Emma dragging it all up again, when James had been gone for so long? When he’d left, run away, not come back or checked in? Why was Emma wasting her energy thinking of him, just because a woman from London stared at his photo that morning?

  Maggie walked on down the main street of the village, the sky thunderous but withholding its rain. She walked away from the pub, from her goddaughter, the centre line of the road ahead marked out not in shining white paint but by a band of inch-thick mud.

  Nuala Greene, Emma said her real name was. Not Mrs James, after all.

  ‘They all do it,’ Maggie had offered in reply, coat already on, fingers on the door handle ready to make her Saturday morning pilgrimage, when Emma appeared from the kitchen and sprung the news on her. ‘They all give a false name. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Then why was she staring at him?’ Emma held a photo aloft between her red fingers, the image shuddering in the draught from the door. The photo she’d taken down from the wall of Polaroids, after Nuala Greene had left. ‘Why did she call herself Mrs James, like she was his wife or something? She wasn’t wearing a ring, unless maybe she took it off?’

  ‘Stop it, Emma. Just because she was looking at his photo doesn’t mean she has anything to do with him. Don’t start dragging all that up now. Look,’ Maggie had said, softening her tone and holding Emma’s shoulders between her two hands, hoping to still the girl’s nervous trembling. ‘Sort the bar, clean the floor, get the shopping in, take your mind off Mrs James or Mrs Greene or whatever her name is.’

  And then she’d left, before the uncomfortable memory of her conversation with Arthur’s right-hand-man, Edward Burrows, of his talk of Lois and lawyers and the fire next door showed too clearly on her face.

  ‘Arthur won’t like it,’ Edward had said from his seat by the fireplace and Maggie still wondered what it was he didn’t want Lois talking about, still hoped it was something she could use in her favour.

  Maggie walked on towards something more important, a Saturday routine that would never be broken. Walked away, with the pub, Nuala Greene, those photographs all left behind her. All except one, held safe in the breast pocket of her coat, the picture she always carried with her.

  She lifted it out and looked at it, allowing her feet to tread the familiar path along the roadside, muscle memory leading the way along the tarmac, edged by dead leaves. Tom, her husband, smiled back,
hunched in the damask chair by the fire, one hand holding a cast-iron poker and the other hugging a tumbler of whisky, the drink’s colour faded from amber to dull brown with age. In the background, beside the kitchen door, were Lee’s white trainers.

  Nearly twenty years ago, that photo had been taken. A time when her future was mapped out in an easy path by her relationship to the men in her life. Wife to Tom, the village landlord. Mother to Lee, a young teenager with a good academic record and a solid history of Sunday school attendance. She couldn’t call herself either of those things any more. Widow was her label now, failed mother to boot, and she hadn’t stepped inside a church in twenty years.

  At least she still had Emma to look after, Maggie’s role as godmother still stable.

  Emma had said that she couldn’t even remember Tom’s face any more, without looking at his photo. Was it the same with James? Had she forgotten his face yet, other than the photograph, or was he embedded in her memory?

  Emma still searched for James online, Maggie knew that much even if she couldn’t use the computer herself. She’d seen Emma type his name in. Knew from the sighs and huffs of frustration that she’d never found him, not yet.

  Seven years.

  She wanted the girl to stop looking, give up. There were other men in the village, in the town down the road, more people who would be better suited to Emma than him. And Maggie wasn’t stupid, she’d seen Toby sneak out of Em’s room at half five, seen the flush on the girl’s cheeks all next day. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on Toby, rather than stalk someone online who was living way off in the city? Or at least he was according to Lois.

  Maggie walked on, past the terraces that opened right onto the road, through the lopsided wooden gate at the front of the yard, towards the stone building with its crumbling steeple.

  The grave was at the front, protected from the wind by blackthorn and a lone silver birch. Flakes of white bark had fallen onto the headstone, a promise of the snow that would no doubt come with the deepening of winter. She tidied them into her side pocket. Felt the brush of the bank manager’s letter there, too.