Chapter Thirty-Nine
Thirty-nine
I regret it the moment I hear the door close.
Kicking her out like that. An unattractive loss of control that compromises me and everything I have been working toward.
I shouldn’t have revealed that side of myself.
I should’ve at least mined her for the information she does have before dismissing her so definitively.
I can’t believe she played me like that.
Reeled me in with biscuits, kept me sweet by feeding me details of Jack’s past, all so she could report back to Serena. Now I don’t know whom to trust.
I feel as though I am going mad. So many moving parts, so many different accounts. And even if Martha was lying, I am sure that Jack is, too, about something. I’ve become very good at sniffing out lies since Freddie.
For lack of any other leads, I try the chest again, but it’s still locked, and all the frustration that I have suppressed erupts. I aim a kick at the old wood but only succeed in stubbing my toe so hard I grit my teeth in pain. I need air. I need to get out of this house.
But when I go through to the hallway to collect my key, I find it’s not there.
I’m always so careful about where I leave it—in the little bowl atop the radiator cover as you walk in.
I always like to have an exit strategy, just in case things go wrong.
You can never be too careful. But it’s gone.
And I have a very good idea of who has taken it.
He still does not trust me. That much is clear. I don’t know what more I can do to convince him. Trust is a difficult thing. Once it’s gone, it’s nearly impossible to rebuild. It was just the same with Freddie. That lack of trust drove me to depths I did not think myself capable of.
Now the plan comes to me fully formed. A risk, but the time for caution has passed.
I must get to the truth. I still have my phone, so I log in to my Facebook profile: the one that bears my own picture.
There are limited details about my life on there.
I’ve never had friends to tag me in pictures, but I prefer it that way. That way, I can control the narrative.
I find Catherine’s Facebook profile and tap out my message.
Hi Catherine, it’s Iris (staying with Jack). I’m sorry to get in touch out of the blue, but I’m worried about him. His drinking is getting out of control again. Is there a time you could meet today? At the house? He’s out until 7.
It’s not a complete lie. Jack’s promise to go to AA was evidently a platitude. I can smell him when he comes home at night. That stench of alcohol that I associate with my mother.
The reply comes ten minutes later.
I’ll get a train up this afternoon. Be with you at 5.
I have the whole day to perfect my persona, and it is so effective—that look of calm concern, when underneath I am still reeling—that, when Catherine enters the house, she takes one look at me and pats me gently on the arm.
“Thank you so much for getting in touch. I can’t tell you how nice it is to know that someone is looking out for him.”
I nod reverentially. “Of course. I’d do anything for him—Jack.” And I would. I really would. She gives me a strange look. A cross between pity and alarm.
“Come through,” I say, and I lead the way to the kitchen.
I bustle around, making a show of my familiarity with my surroundings.
Allow silence to settle between us, so that—when I break it—she will hang on my every word.
I take my time—asking only if she takes milk and sugar—and I am sure I succeed in appearing like the perfect hostess.
Finally, I set the tea down between us and take a deep breath.
“I think it’s all getting to him,” I say. “He’s been drinking earlier and earlier. I suspect it’s because of her. Alice, I mean.” I pause, allow this to sink in. Cracking the door open, so that when my questions come there will be nothing suspicious about them.
She nods slowly. “Well, yes. That makes sense. It was all so sudden. I thought he was doing better—he was going to work at least—but I suppose grief does hit you when you least expect it.”
“Yes. I have to confess”—I lean forward as though I am taking her into my confidence, confessing some innate failing of mine in that way that people do when they are trying to form a connection—“I’m not entirely clear on what happened to Alice.
Jack mentioned something about cancer, but I was under the impression that she went into remission. Is that right?”
“Is that what he told you?” Her voice is sharp. “That she died of the cancer?”
“Well.” I look down. “He implied it, yes.”
She’s shaking her head, face very white. “Alice didn’t die of the cancer. That’s just what he’d like to believe,” she says quietly. “She died by suicide. It rocked the whole family to the core, as you can imagine. I don’t think any of us saw it coming.”
“God, I am so sorry, Catherine. I had no idea.” The news rocks me, too. Jack’s web spans before me, endless mistruths, misrepresentations. This woman has no reason to lie to me. Jack’s been playing me. The real question is why he would lie about something so important. Particularly to me.
“It was terribly sad, yes,” Catherine is saying. “I’m not surprised Jack turned back to drink. I tried to get him to come and live with me in Dorset, but he insisted he’d be OK.”
I bite my lip, adopt that confessional tone once again. “I’ve been trying to move any alcohol I find out of the house. But there always seems to be more. There’s a chest in the sitting room. Do you know it?”
“The old antique? In the corner?”
I nod, heart skipping. “Yes. I think he’s hiding his booze in there, and I’ve looked, but I can’t seem to find the key. I don’t suppose you have any idea where it might be?”
She looks at me blankly. “God, I didn’t even realize we had a key to that. Did you check the drawer in here?” She nods to an old drawer that contains an assortment of odds and ends, and I do my very best not to roll my eyes. It was—obviously—the first place I looked.
“I have, yes,” I say, regretful. “Not there.”
“Well, I’ll have a think and let you know. And perhaps you can have a think about ways to get him back to rehab.”
“Of course.” I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. “Oh,” I say lightly. As though the thought has only just occurred to me. “I don’t suppose I could borrow your key to the house? Just for the next couple of days. I think I’ve misplaced mine.”
“Misplaced it?” Again, there’s that slightly sharp edge to her tone. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was almost panicked.
“Yes,” I say. “Frustrating, but I’ve always been a bit of a scatterbrain, and I’m sure I just put it down somewhere and forgot where it was.” Silly, ditsy me.
“Of course,” she says, and she rummages in her bag. “I’ve got a spare at home anyway.”
“Thank you, Catherine. I really appreciate it.”
She checks her watch. “I’d better be getting off. Jack will be home soon, and I doubt he’d be pleased if he knew we were talking.” She’s right. He’ll be home in half an hour.
When she gets to the door, she pauses, gives me a long, searching look.
“Don’t think too badly of him, please. He’s had a very difficult year.
And I know he can be tricky, but his heart’s in the right place.
When Alice was ill, he spent every moment he could with her.
Between him and Alice’s friend Serena, she was barely ever alone. ”
The mention of that name very nearly blows my cover, but I wrestle with my face, keep it neutral. “I know that,” I say. “He’s a kind soul underneath it all.”
I truly believe it. Jack showed me that kindness all those weeks ago, when he recognized that I was someone worth talking to. “Do let me know about the key to the chest,” I call after her. “I want to give Jack every possible chance of fighting this.”
She turns in the road. “Of course I will.”
Jack gets home twenty minutes later. Not everything I said to Catherine was a lie. When he kisses me, in that hungry, possessive way of his, I can taste whisky on his breath.
It is later that night—when Jack is still downstairs, drinking himself into a stupor—that the email from Fiona comes in.
Hi all, as I mentioned briefly last time, please do bring photos with you to the next session. It will be a fun experiment! F x