Chapter 21 #2
‘I think everyone was, like, how the hell can you stay with him, after what he did? So, rather than have to put up with that, she cut them all out of her life. Which I guess is understandable.’ She sighs. ‘I wonder if they’re still together.’
I wonder too, but I suspect they are.
All the years I’d been living in the women’s prison at Mountjoy while unwittingly owning a home, Jason had been paying my Local Property Tax and something new that had come in a couple of years ago – the Vacant Homes Tax.
When the solicitor discovered my name on the deeds, Jason had no choice but to let me keep the house, but he could’ve pursued me for those payments.
He agreed not to, so long as I agreed not to kick up a fuss about what he’d done or attempt, now or ever, to make contact with either of them.
He and I didn’t even make contact then; it was all done through solicitors.
‘It was awful,’ I say, ‘by the way.’
Nicole frowns.
‘Prison,’ I clarify. ‘Jill came to visit. Just once. But I’m sure you know that.
I’m sure you all heard all about it. Because that’s why she came, wasn’t it?
To get a good look around so she could report back.
Where was the big debrief? Bottomless brunch?
Wine-and-cheese night? If you see her, you can tell her it was obvious from the moment she opened her mouth that it was the prison she wanted to visit, not me. ’
‘We just didn’t know what to do,’ Nicole says. ‘Or say.’
‘You still don’t.’
‘Look, I’m sorry, OK? I’m sorry. Really. Of course I am. I’ll keep saying it, however many times you need to hear it, but—’
‘I don’t need to hear it at all.’
‘—I came here to help. To try and make up for it in some tiny way. So, whatever you need, please get it from me. I can … I could help you with the house, maybe? Help you furnish it? Or a car? Do you have one? If you don’t, I’m available to drive you wherever you need to go.
Or’ – she flushes – ‘money? I can do that too. Or just sit here and listen, if you need to talk. Whatever you need because I don’t …
’ She throws up her hands. ‘I don’t know what else to do here. ’
I think of all the problems I could solve if I just took her up on her offer.
I could get the locks changed, front and back.
I could have the boiler fixed. I could buy a mattress, curtains, food that isn’t dried pasta and a tin of tomatoes.
I could feel a little bit more comfortable and infinitely more safe.
Nicole probably wouldn’t even miss the money; they have three children and she doesn’t need to work.
It’s so tempting, but I can’t do it.
I won’t.
‘We were best friends,’ Nicole says. ‘I don’t understand how we got so derailed. Or when we did, even. And I mean, before. Before everything. Before him. Because it was already different, wasn’t it? We’d drifted apart by then.’
‘You let us drift apart.’
‘So did you, Han. So did you. You know, sometimes, what I felt from you? It was almost contempt. Like you thought we were so below you. Like you’d rocketed off into space and left us chained up in our kitchens, barefoot and pregnant.’
‘Well, what I felt was that none of you could give a shit about what was going on in my life. You had no interest in my business, in what I’d achieved … Strangers on the internet cared more about it than you lot ever did.’
‘It was your job! I must have missed all the times you wanted to talk about what I was doing at work every day.’
‘Well, you’re not doing it any more, are you?’
‘That makes two of us,’ she snaps back.
I feel a headache threatening, right behind my eyes. This conversation is exhausting me.
Nicole sighs wearily.
‘This is probably the wrong thing to say too,’ she says then, ‘but just so you know, I admired you. I admire you now. For getting through it. For coming out the other side. It was a completely insane situation to end up in, but you’ve survived.
I knew you would. You were always so strong.
Ballsy. I was jealous, you know, of your confidence.
You were doing your own thing and you were laser-focused on it.
Meanwhile, I didn’t even have a thing.’ She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand.
‘And you can do it again. I know you will.’
It’s been years since someone who actually, really knows me has looked at me the way Nicole is looking at me now, and I feel something unravelling deep inside.
Loosening.
It’s my resolve, my caution.
Words are rushing up into my throat in a desperate, panicked urge to tell her everything, to tell her the truth, to let it all out in a rush. About how hard this has been. About where the house came from. What’s been happening in it.
What really happened, back then.
But then other, stronger feelings come surging up behind it, overtaking it, pushing all those truths back down, down, down.
Anger. Fear. Shame.
I pull my hand away.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, pushing back my chair, ‘but I’m supposed to call someone about a thing, so …’
Nicole looks like she’s about to argue with me, but thinks better of it.
‘Of course,’ she says lightly. ‘I need to get going anyway. But will you take my number? And use it, if you need something. Or even if you don’t need anything. If you just want to talk.’
I put her number into my phone.
Thankfully, she doesn’t demand mine.
On her way out, Nicole nearly trips over Alex’s plastic crate, which is still sitting on the floor in the hall.
I apologize and push it into the living room with my foot.
The various bottled cleaning products inside are empty or nearly empty now, after the mammoth clean-up operation.
Idly, I wonder if Sophie has missed her drill.
‘There’s a vibe,’ Nicole says then. ‘That’s what I was thinking when you asked me what I thought of the house. When I supposedly made a face. If I did, it was because I was thinking that. That this place has a vibe. You don’t feel it?’
‘I think it’s just cold,’ I say. Especially since she insisted on having the patio door open the whole time she was here. ‘It’ll be fine once someone’s been living in it for a while. It’s been vacant.’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Maybe.’
‘Thanks for the wine and stuff.’
‘Call me, OK?’
‘I will.’
But I won’t.
As I wave Nicole off, I feel an overwhelming certainty that I’ll never see her again.
When I go back inside, the temperature in the kitchen is low enough to make me shiver. I close the patio door, replace the dowel and run upstairs to grab a thicker sweatshirt.
But when I reach the landing, I see something that makes me stop.
The door to the bedroom is open, pushed all the way back against the wall, just as it was last night. The difference is that now, in the daylight, something is visible through the gap between the hinged side of the door and the frame.
Something new, behind the door.
A slash of bright red across the wallpaper.
The strength goes out of my knees and I have to reach out and grab hold of the newel post to stop myself from falling backwards down the stairs.
Someone has been in the house again.
Today.
This morning, while I was out.
Alex’s gift of a safety chain only secures the place while I’m inside it.
I was gone for at least an hour, at the library and then the supermarket.
I didn’t have a chance to check the house when I came back in, because Nicole was with me.
Truth is, I didn’t even think about doing it.
I was distracted by her. We went straight into the kitchen and stayed there. I didn’t offer her a tour.
I haven’t looked in the other rooms downstairs. I haven’t seen the office or the bathroom yet. There could be anything in there.
There could be someone in there.
Here with me, right now, in the house.
My heart starts to pound so hard it drowns out everything except the beat of it, thundering relentlessly inside my head. I tell myself to take a step forward, then another, then one more, until I’m standing in the open doorway of the bedroom and can see all the way into the room.
It’s empty.
I force some air into my lungs and then, quickly, in one movement, I step fully inside, pull the door away from the wall, and turn to look at it. I hear a noise, an anguished sob.
It takes me a moment to realize it’s come from my own throat.
The word is painted in five-foot-high letters, dripping red.
BITCH.