Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
GEORGIE
I’m shaking as I peel off my clothes in the en-suite bathroom, allowing the warmth from the heated floor tiles to seep into the chill that’s settled inside me.
Tonight has been… a lot. We almost killed a man.
And the worst part? I wanted Beth to do it.
I thought it was our only way to fix everything, to get us out of this nightmare.
What if we’d gone through with it? At least we have something on Keira now. Our own evidence to use against her like she’s been doing with us.
I draw in a long, steady inhale, releasing the air slowly. I stare at my reflection in the mirror above the sink, trying to ignore the tremor in my hands and the terror in my eyes, and ground myself in my present.
I make myself look at the slate-grey tiles, the white walls, the polished chrome. Then I close my eyes, feel that heat in my toes, and the scent of eucalyptus from a diffuser in the corner. ‘I am blessed,’ I whisper.
I step into the shower and let the hot water wash away the fear I felt in Jonny’s house tonight. Beth holding up that photograph. I swear my heart faltered, and I couldn’t stop myself from snatching it from her hands as though if I was fast enough, Beth would unsee it.
But it wasn’t the photo I was looking for – the real reason I suggested going to Jonny’s house – it was Keira and Jonny arm in arm in what looked like an old holiday snap. Their faces slightly blurred.
The water steams around me as I scrub at my skin with the frangipani monoi salt glow body scrub.
Just one of dozens of expensive indulgences I cherish in my daily routine and share on my Insta stories.
But right now, it feels like a scour on my skin.
Like I can rub away the fear and panic of the night.
I shiver and turn up the temperature. Hot water needles my skin, burning like the sting of Nate’s rejection last night.
‘I don’t think we can be fixed,’ he said.
It isn’t just the humiliation of standing in my underwear, offering myself up, trying to fix whatever has broken between us.
It’s the fact he doesn’t want to try. Doesn’t care enough to try.
Not for me. And not for Oscar. That’s what really hurts.
Our sweet little boy who loves dinosaurs and Lego and pretending to be a pirate.
How do we tell him his perfect world is being torn apart?
‘You’ll change your mind,’ I whisper, putting my back to the water and letting the needles pummel the knot at the nape of my neck. ‘I haven’t done all this to let you go.’
After my shower, I pull on my tartan pyjamas – the ones I bought in matching sets last Christmas and posed with in front of the tree. Oscar wore his for a week straight, but now they’re too small in the legs. Nate never wore his after that first photo.
Still, I like mine. I wouldn’t usually wear them downstairs. Choosing something more fitted – sexier – in the evenings, but after Nate’s rejection last night and everything we did earlier, I crave cosy and warm.
I check on Oscar, slipping silently into his room, tiptoeing over the obstacle course of books and plastic toys scattered across his floor.
He’s asleep, duvet half-kicked off, a little damp curl of hair stuck to his forehead.
I kiss the top of his head and fight back a sob as I tuck his favourite bear a little closer.
I will not destroy his world. I will do whatever it takes to protect it.
I pad downstairs and find Nate by the living-room window with a glass of wine, lights off, like the night of Jonny’s death. I linger in the doorway, unsure and unsettled. We’ve shared our lives and our bed for over ten years, and I don’t know what to say to my husband.
It’s Nate who fills the silence. ‘I think it’s about time you told me what’s going on,’ he says without moving his gaze from the window.
My pulse stutters. How long has he been watching at the window? We were careful when we went to Jonny’s house. Beth parked her car outside the gates and we slipped through, sticking to the shadows. But if he was watching closely, he would’ve seen us. Anyone could have.
I force a lightness into my voice. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I say, turning away on trembling legs.
He isn’t the only one who knows how to leave a room.
Suddenly, the desire to flee is stronger than the need to talk to Nate and find a way for our marriage to work. He knows something. I’m certain of it.
‘Georgie,’ Nate calls after me.
I pause.
‘I want a divorce,’ he says.
Ice floods my body. Four words. That’s all it takes to unravel everything I’ve worked for. My heart lodges in my throat.
‘I don’t,’ I reply, the words barely a croak. ‘I want to try. I want you to try. If not for me, then for Oscar. Please, Nate. We can be good again. I know it. I’ll do anything.’
I step back into the living room and curl myself up on the sofa. I wonder if he’s kept the lights off not to watch the neighbours but to make this moment easier. In the dark, he doesn’t have to see my hurt. Coward!
I try to reach for his hand, but he moves it away and sighs like I’m just another board meeting he doesn’t want to attend.
‘Do you know how exhausting your toxic positivity is, Georgie? Do you know how tiring you are to live with day in day out? The constant photos you want me to pose in. Then checking how many hits and comments. You’re obsessed with posting our entire lives online and going viral.
It’s exhausting trying to live up to the expectations of who you think you are and who you want everyone to think we are.
We’re just normal people. I want to be normal. ’
‘I can change,’ I say, too fast.
He shakes his head in the darkness. ‘No, you can’t. And you shouldn’t have to.’
‘But—’
‘You live in a delusion,’ he says.
I grit my teeth to the hurt cracking in my chest. ‘That’s not true.’
‘It is,’ he replies. ‘You think you’re this amazing, superior person, but you’re just…
so fucking ordinary. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
You’re a normal mum. A housewife. Maybe if you’d accepted that…
’ He trails off for a second; shakes his head.
‘But you think you’re some kind of super mum influencer who’s going to take over the world one day, and you’re not. ’
The words slice through me. He’s blaming me.
The failure of our marriage isn’t because of all the times he shuts himself away and ignores us.
All the ways he shows he’s bored of us. It’s all me.
After everything I’ve done. Every compromise, every sacrifice, every dark, terrible thing I’ve done to protect us, and this is how it ends?
All I’ve ever wanted is to be enough. And instead, I’ve never felt more disposable.
‘You can’t blame me for all of this,’ I reply, forcing myself not to break. I’m keeping myself together with sticky tape, but it’s holding for now.
‘That’s not what I’m saying.’
‘It sounds like it,’ I push. ‘Because what about you, Nate? You checked out of this a long time ago. You’re a great dad and a great husband when it suits you. But a lot of the time, you can’t be bothered. And you ignore us. Do you have any idea how painful that is?’
‘I don’t mean to ignore you or Oscar—’
‘You stopped trying to see the good in me,’ I carry on while I still can. ‘You go out night after night instead of spending time with us.’
A niggling, awful feeling sweeps over me. Suddenly, I’m thinking of the moment in the playground when he was talking to Keira. The anger in her eyes. The hardness in Nate’s expression.
‘You are having an affair with Keira, aren’t you? Admit it.’ The question is blurted and rushed. I don’t even know why I say it, only that even now, with my world falling apart, I can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something.
Another deep sigh sounds in the dark living room. ‘I told you, I’m not,’ he says.
‘Then what were you two talking about the other day? And don’t you dare tell me it was nothing because I know it was something, and you’ve just told me you want a divorce, so I believe I’m owed some honesty here.’
After a pause, he says, ‘Keira recognised me.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘From a dating app.’
My mouth drops open. I’m not sure if I breathe as I repeat his words.
‘A dating app? You’re using a dating app?
Why?’ The moment I ask the question, I wish I could snatch it back.
It’s obvious why, isn’t it? Nate wanted to meet other women.
My ears ring. I can’t tell if it’s rage or grief building inside me. Both.
‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I never meant for it to go so far. I set up a profile just to see who would like it, and then I started getting messages.’ He clears his throat. Suddenly, I’m glad it’s dark and I can’t see his face.
‘It felt good to talk to other women,’ he continues. ‘And then at some point, I just… started going on dates.’
‘Dates? Like one date just to chat and then you’d come home again?’ I can feel myself trying to justify this. Make it OK.
Nate makes another noise in his throat. ‘Sometimes.’
‘You slept with them?’ I force myself to ask, even though it feels more like a statement than a question. Our own sex life has been non-existent for so long.
‘Some of them,’ Nate admits. ‘I’m sorry, Georgie. I just wanted to spend time with women who didn’t drain me the way you do.’
I shatter at that final comment. The sticky tape gives way under the weight of my grief, and the tears start to fall. ‘How long for?’ I ask. The answer doesn’t matter, but I have to know.
I sense him shrug in the darkness. ‘A few months. Six maybe.’
All those nights out. I should’ve known, but I didn’t want to see it. The hurt cuts into my throat. Tears sting my eyes, and I have to bite down on the inside of my cheek to stop any more from falling.
Don’t you dare let him see you cry, Georgie Bell.
What the hell happened to Nate’s moral compass? The man I married saw the world in black and white. Good and evil. In loyalty. Choose a side and stick with it. The man I married wouldn’t…
Then I realise how wrong I’ve been about everything.
How stupid! All those times I felt Nate watching me.
Fearing he’d figured out I’d been insider trading with Reggie all those years ago.
I thought he could see my lies. But it was never about me.
It was about him. He was worried about his lies.
He’s been working up the courage to tell me this. I should be relieved, but I’m not.
‘Did Jonny know?’ I ask because suddenly I know. The memory slams into me – Jonny that night at the gates when I was on my way to set up for the quiz night. The night he died. That flirtatious smile. The threat.
Nate takes a long swig of wine before answering. ‘Yes. Jonny was my friend. I told him our marriage was over.’
‘When?’ I ask.
‘When what?’
‘When did you tell him?’
Nate shrugs again. ‘The week before he died, I think.’
It suddenly makes sense. That’s when Jonny changed.
All these months, he’s been keeping my secret, dangling the threat of telling Nate over me.
If Nate told him our marriage was over, he’d have realised he was about to lose his leverage.
The game he was playing would’ve been over.
It’s why he was pushing me to sleep with him and scare me while he still had the chance. Bastard!
‘Is the hidden camera yours?’ I ask.
Nate laughs bitterly. ‘What? No. Why would you think that?’
‘Come on,’ I reply. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy knowing what everyone is doing?’
He’s quiet for a moment. ‘Fair enough. But why would I need a camera when I’ve got a perfect view of the street from my study?’
‘You’re not there all the time,’ I push.
He shrugs. ‘True. But it wasn’t me. And I don’t really care whether you believe that or not.’
‘So if you’ve got nothing to hide, why is there a lock on your study door?’
He looks surprised for a moment, and I can see in his face that he knows I was snooping.
‘For your information, I found Oscar playing on the top floor landing one evening while you were out at one of your meetings. You know what a tornado he is. I was worried about my computer equipment, so I put a lock on the door to make sure he couldn’t go in there. ’
In the beat of time that passes between us, I think I might hate my husband.
But love him or hate him, I do believe him.
I might not know Nate as well as I thought I did, but a hidden camera really isn’t his style, and the explanation of the lock on his door makes sense.
Oscar does have a habit of knocking drinks over and breaking things in his battles with imaginary dinosaurs.
‘What’s going on, Georgie?’ Nate asks. ‘Why are you asking about Jonny and cameras and trying to go into my study?’
‘Don’t turn this on me,’ I say, deflecting the question. ‘We’re nowhere near done talking about you.’
‘We’re over. What more is there to say?’ he asks.
‘I think I have a right to know why you were dating other women, Nate? What wasn’t I giving you?’
‘It’s honestly just like I said – I wanted to spend time with women that didn’t drain me of energy. That didn’t make me feel like I was living a fake life inside a magazine shoot. But it turns out all women are crazy.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘One of the dates found out I was married and called me up, screaming down the phone at me. Absolute psycho.’
‘The night of the quiz?’ Not a reality TV show then, like he told the police.
I grit my teeth, fighting the desire to scream. To throw something. To storm out. To collapse to the ground and cry and cry. I’ve lied. I’ve schemed. I’ve almost helped commit murder. All for nothing. And still a part of me is clinging to the belief that everything can be fixed.