Chapter Fifty-Nine
Amina offers me her spare room, but I decide to go back to the house. Somewhere in the weird grey desert this Bethany calls home will be more information about what happened to Cesca.
‘You shouldn’t pick at the scab like that,’ she tells me.
‘I need to,’ I reply simply. I need to make it real. And then I need to figure out what the hell I do now. How do I live here in this world when Cesca isn’t in it?
And there, tucked away at the bottom of the box, the card thick and almost creamy to the touch is an order of service.
Francesca Louise Raven.
1995 – 2018
I hear Nick’s key scrape in the lock and I brace myself to see him. ‘I’m home,’ he calls from the downstairs hallway.
I stay silent. I don’t want to see him. We haven’t spoken since he slapped me yesterday and I’m in no mood to hash things out right now.
I slip the box back into the bottom of the wardrobe and stand up slowly.
But I bump my head on the way up and cause a stack of handbags to come crashing down on me.
Heavy thuds boom up the stairs and I turn to find Nick in the doorway, a golf club brandished in front of him.
‘Jesus Christ, Bethany!’ he exclaims when he realizes it’s just me. ‘What the fuck?’
I don’t answer as I turn to pick up the bags and stuff them back into the wardrobe.
‘You’re not still in a huff with me, are you? I said I was sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.’ He is saying the words he thinks I want to hear. I wonder how many times he’s had this conversation with his Bethany. Does my husband really think he can hit me and there are zero repercussions?
My arms stop in mid-air and then I allow the bags to fall back onto the floor. I just don’t care any more. I push past him and head down to the kitchen, opening the fridge and reaching for a bottle of wine. I pour half a glass and am taking a long, delicious swig as he catches me up.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I hear him whisper under his breath, but it’s a stage whisper, one designed to travel so I’m sure to hear it.
I top the glass back up and then down the entire contents before wiping the back of my hand across my mouth. Then I top up my glass again. Something tells me the only way to get through the torture of this world is alcohol.
‘You remember we’re going to see John and Ella,’ he says from the doorway. It isn’t a question, it’s a statement.
John is his brother and Ella his girlfriend. Or wife. They must have been together for a decade now so they’ve probably got married. Do they have kids? Am I an aunt here?
‘I’d hoped you would drive. I have been at work all day.
’ He says it as if I’ve just been sitting on my arse.
Like I’ve just been swanning around doing absolutely fuck all and not trying to rebuild the broken pieces of this world, which has already broken this Bethany to such an extent she literally built a machine to avoid having to live here any more. Like I didn’t lose my sister.
But I can’t say any of that, not out loud anyway. ‘I’m not driving,’ I say instead.
He laughs, a short sharp laugh which is closer to a bark than an expression of humour. ‘Now, there’s a surprise. I thought you were going to try drinking less.’ Supercilious, patronizing bastard.
‘It isn’t that,’ I reply, although to be fair I have just necked a whole glass of wine.
The bigger issue is that I never learned to drive in my world and muscle memory may have saved me from a few complicated coffee machines and a scratched tune on a piano, but it probably won’t extend to being able to get us to Guildford in one piece.
‘I’m not driving because I’m not going. I don’t want to be around you. ’
He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, but then he closes it again.
I take the moment to study him. I’ve barely looked since we came back from the hospital.
He looks different. Older – of course, it is six years since I last saw him in my world – with fine lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth.
His forehead, though, is suspiciously smooth, with a similar shine to Flick’s.
I guess he’s getting some Botox. He obviously still works out; he has that lean look men tend to get when they do a lot of running.
He’s attractive. Objectively I know that. And he has this charm that just oozes from him, this way of making people fall in love with him. But there’s something in his eyes, something hard and mean, something I used to try to convince myself I couldn’t see.
Nick takes a step towards me and then stops, eyes narrowing as he looks at me. I can feel my heart rate rise under the heat of his stare. Why is he looking at me like that?
‘Perhaps an evening in would do you good. I’ll cancel John and Ella and then draw you a bath.
I’m sure a soak and time to relax will have you feeling yourself again.
’ He sounds genuinely concerned and it knocks me off balance for a moment, the world tilting on an axis.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve been neglecting you. I’ll take a few days off work to look after you. ’
I can feel myself sinking into his orbit, a part of me saying see, he isn’t all bad. Maybe I’ve misjudged him, just a little.
‘Hey,’ he says and reaches out to pull me into an embrace. ‘It’s all going to be okay.’
He senses a change in my posture as I sag into him and he tightens his hold on me.
‘I’ve got you, BeeBee.’
It’s the use of the nickname that jolts me to my senses.
What am I doing? This man, this cheating horrible weasel, made this world’s Bethany so miserable she invented a machine to punch a hole in the universe to escape through.
He is all bad. I haven’t misjudged him. Oh, and he slapped me. So, yeah. Fuck him.
I push him away. ‘You don’t have me. I don’t want anything to do with you.’ I keep my words measured, my tone even and each syllable enunciated clearly.
‘Oh come on, BeeBee. Don’t be silly.’
‘You hit me.’ I stand firm.
‘It was just a misunderstanding. There’s no need to overreact.’
I take a deep breath and then I push past him, picking up my handbag from where I’d hooked it over the banister at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Where are you going?’ he asks, following me into the hallway.
I open the front door and turn to face him one final time. ‘I’m going home.’
Confusion clouds his features but I don’t wait for his reply. I slam the door as loudly as possible behind me, the sound ringing through the warm air of the summer night.