Chapter Thirty-Seven
Thirty-seven
The next afternoon a woman approaches me.
Another slow morning with nothing to do except plan the next meal, and I was itching to leave the house.
I don’t know how Alice endured it: the monotony.
The endless hours that yawned and stretched and languished.
I am languishing. I tell myself I don’t mind, that this is all part of the plan.
I remind myself how special our bond is, that this—the clothes, the adopted traits—are a way of proving to him that I care.
Sometimes, though, it’s not quite enough. Sometimes it all feels a little boring.
I’m sure it’s the reason I’ve become so caught up by the past in recent days, craving that excitement again. That sense of drive and perseverance. Of finally getting what you want.
Conscious that I was descending into self-pity—always dangerous for someone of my constitution—I left the house.
I had a vague plan to stop by the café, anticipating the onslaught of sympathy that Mick would provide, but I don’t get that far.
Because there is a shout from behind me as I turn off Jack’s road, and I swing round to see a woman marching toward me.
“Has he got you wearing her clothes?” She delivers this with so much anger and aggression, I take an involuntary step backward.
This woman is blond, red-lipped, and furious. Her face is twisted with it. And I realize I’m glad of it. I’d take anything at this point. Anything to shatter the boredom.
“I asked you a question.” Her jaw is set, eyes narrowed. Her accent bears the distinct trace of money and good breeding: clipped consonants, rounded vowels.
“I’m sorry,” I say calmly. “I have absolutely no idea who you are.” And I don’t.
“Well, why would you? You’re just the stranger who jumped into her bed when it was barely cold.”
I think we can safely assume she is talking about Alice.
People always get so tedious about honoring memories, like the deceased are sentient, not decaying corpses that are currently six feet under and riddled with worms or burned to a cinder and scattered to the wind.
Like they are beings that continue to live and breathe among us.
It’s all bollocks. That’s the point of death.
They’re gone, and any claim they hold over those they’ve left behind should have evaporated with them.
But I’m not one to miss an opportunity to take the moral high ground when it’s presented to me. “I’m sorry,” I say in a dignified manner. “Are you talking about Alice Reynolds?”
“Yes, I’m talking about Alice Reynolds,” she spits.
“Hasn’t she been dead for, what—six, seven months now?”
I know the exact date, of course—it’s the same as Freddie’s unfortunate departure from this world—but I’m enjoying how her face is reddening.
“Which,” she says, “is absolutely no time at all. So I’ll ask you again: Has he got you wearing her clothes?”
Truth be told, I am in Alice’s clothes again, and Jack did pick them for me.
They were laid out on the bed, like yesterday, but this time he’d placed a pair of underwear on top.
Not my usual choice: Comfort is key, and thongs always make me feel like I’m being split in half; but I sighed and put on the lacy garment anyway.
“Yes,” I say. No acting necessary. It’s the truth, which makes a nice change.
“That sick fuck,” she says, and she takes a step away from me. “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”
The hysteria is starting to get dull. “Look,” I say, holding out a conciliatory palm.
“I can see you’re upset and I’m not trying to step on anyone’s toes.
But Alice is dead. She’s not coming back.
And the way I see it, better for me to be wearing her things than them rotting in a cupboard. No need for clothes where she’s gone.”
She stares at me, eyes wide, then takes a step backward and begins shaking her head. “You’re just like him. I’ve been trying to call you—to warn you—but clearly you don’t need my help.”
“No,” I say, and I shrug. “I don’t.”
“He makes me sick. And so do you.” And then she does something that I would never have expected from someone with her girls’ school training. She spits on the pavement in front of me, turns on her heel, and walks away.
It is the sort of gesture that once would have called forth a spew of vicious words. But they don’t come. I stare at her retreating back with my mouth open, indignation pulsing through my veins.
I walk to Mum’s, unsettled. I had assumed that my phone ringing off the hook was her trying to get through to me, but now that that woman has put paid to that theory, it feels, suddenly, important to check she’s all right.
We may be in the midst of our worst argument to date, but usually we’d have patched things up by now, begun a tentative remediation.
I unblock her number and try to call her as I walk, but it goes straight to voicemail.
I have no leverage with her anymore. Perhaps she meant it when she said she never wanted to see me again.
The thought makes me feel inexplicably sad.
When I get to the house, there is no twitch of the curtain on my approach, and when I ring the bell, nobody comes to the door. Perhaps Tilly changed her mind and really did call the police.
—
When Jack gets home that evening, I wait until he is seated at the table before I broach the subject of the woman.
“Blond, red lipstick. Tall, about five eight. Do you know her?”
I watch his reaction carefully, and—yes—there it is.
Once again, his eyes flick to the left. He takes a careful sip of wine.
I log it but don’t react. Just continue to spoon pasta onto his plate.
A simple dinner this evening; I wasn’t in the mood to slave away in the kitchen all afternoon.
Not when Mum’s phone continues to go to voicemail.
Not when I’m still fizzing from my encounter with that woman.
“It must have been Serena,” he says eventually.
“Serena?” Voice nice and light. Even though the bitch spat at my feet like I was nothing. Like I meant nothing. “She was…very angry to see me.”
He clears his throat. “Yes. I’m not surprised. Serena was…” A pause—slightly too long. I pause, too, as I’m spooning pasta onto my own plate. “An ex of mine.”
An ex. It would explain the vitriol. It would explain the fury.
It wouldn’t explain why she knew exactly what Alice’s clothes looked like.
Unless he did the same to her: dressed her up like a child’s doll just to stopper the chasm her absence left behind.
Maybe I misjudged Serena. Maybe she was playing the exact same role I am.
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Jack had an affair before me: He’s famously cagey about his past. But what doesn’t make sense is how concerned she seemed about Alice. Too concerned for some jilted ex.
I decide to let it lie. Jack doesn’t like it when I press. But I mull over the problem in my head as I shovel pasta into my mouth.
It’s a few seconds later that I realize Jack’s looking at me. His brows are pulled together as he watches the fork travel to my mouth.
“Everything OK?” Sweet, light, girlish. Even as the problem of Serena churns over and over in my mind.
“All fine,” he says, but I don’t believe him. “It’s just—you’ve got quite a big portion there. That’s a lot of unnecessary calories.”
I place my fork—still full of spaghetti—back onto my plate. He did not just say that. The fury is so intense, I’m sure there’s a flicker of it on my face. I shut it down, force myself to breathe. This isn’t him. He’s pushing me away, testing my loyalty.
“Of course,” I say. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”
But later, in bed, his words come back to me and the fury rises again, and I release it on him.
I take control, tighten my fingers round his throat until he is gasping for breath.
He is stronger than me. And it’s not long before he is on top of me, and his hand is tangled in my hair, and his breath is hot on my face as he pulls my head back by my scalp.
“Good girl. Good girl, Alice,” he says as he finishes.