Chapter 40
I listen to the radio on the drive back to Bramblethorpe, but it’s not enough to stop my conversation with Simon from infiltrating my mind.
It’s clearer than ever how shut off from everyone Alexa was, especially Otis. A man who has lied to me, to Gabby, to the police. A man both Simon and Sonya describe in unflattering terms.
I bite my lip, thinking of how, by this time tomorrow, no one will have seen or heard from Alexa in a week.
Seven days is a long time. Long enough to change a life, for better or for worse.
You can fall in love in seven days. Have an affair that destroys your marriage.
Find out you’re pregnant, then learn that you no longer are.
I’m so focused on untangling my thoughts that I barely notice I’m back in Bramblethorpe, driving too fast for this village and its winding roads. The first time my surroundings register with me is when Bernie races across the road ahead, chasing a rabbit.
‘Fuck!’ I screech, slamming on my brakes and waiting for the sickening thud of impact.
Thankfully, it never comes.
Releasing the tension from my face, I open my eyes to see Jim in the centre of the road, scooping Bernie into his arms. He holds him to his chest as if Bernie were a baby, then locks his furious gaze on me. My spine pins me to my seat as Jim storms towards my car.
‘Why the hell were you driving so fast?’ he bellows. ‘It’s a thirty zone around here!’
My hands are shaking so much it takes me three attempts to wind my window down. ‘I’m so sorry. Is Bernie okay?’
‘I don’t want your apology. I want to know why you were speeding.’
I glance at my hands, white-knuckling my steering wheel, but when Jim follows my eyeline, he thinks I’m looking at my phone clipped into its holder.
‘I hope whatever’s on your phone is more important than a life,’ he spits, then kicks the side of my car. A terrified yelp escapes me at the menace behind the impact.
Jim doesn’t give my fright a second thought, though. He stomps away, still cradling Bernie. Remorseful tears blind me as I watch him go, but I can’t blame Jim for being so angry.
Slumping forward, I rest my forehead on my steering wheel, breathing deeply to fight my tears.
I’m losing my grip on everyday life, I can feel it – but the more I tangle myself in Alexa’s story, the harder it is for me to walk away.
A tear trickles down my cheek and lands on my jeans.
I watch it soak into the material, staining the denim darker.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I whisper, but my upset is interrupted by the sound of a horn beeping. Jerking upright, I glance in my rear-view mirror. Of course it would be when I’m crying in the middle of the road that there’s traffic in Bramblethorpe.
Trembling from the aftershock of my almost-collision, I set off driving, slower this time. The sting of my tears grows as I pass Jim and Bernie further along the road, peaking when I notice Jim glaring in my direction.
The sight of my house has never been more welcome, but as I draw nearer, I notice something odd. There are two cars in the driveway.
One belongs to Kamal.
The other belongs to my sister.
The questions surrounding her unexpected appearance are screaming at me by the time I pull into the driveway. I take a second to build my courage before leaving my car. When I do, my legs are trembling even more than they were when I nearly hit Bernie.
I find Kamal and Beth in the living room, standing sombre and silent.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, dropping my handbag on the sofa.
‘I’m asking the questions here, Janine, not you,’ Beth snaps. ‘Namely, where the hell have you been?’ Kamal dips his head at my sister’s icy tone, but he doesn’t tell her to be nicer.
‘Jesus, Beth. There’s no need to bite my head off.’
‘You’d know all about biting people’s heads off, wouldn’t you?’
Ignoring her, I turn to my husband. ‘Shouldn’t you be working?’
‘Shouldn’t you be, too? Or in all your obsessing over Alexa Clarke have you forgotten you have a job?’ Beth cuts in frostily.
I step backwards at my sister’s hostility. ‘Why are you so angry with me?’
‘Angry? Janine, I’m way past angry. I’m furious. When are you going to stop playing with people’s emotions? When are you going to stop acting like how they feel doesn’t matter?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Look around you, Janine. Everyone is sick with worry. Mum can barely speak about you without crying. When’s the last time you called her? Called any of us, for that matter. No, the only time we hear from you is when everything’s falling apart.’
My body clenches, wounded. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘None of this is fair, Janine. Most of all on everyone around you. I mean, have you noticed that I’ve had to leave my children, again, to run to your aid? Have you noticed anyone else’s struggles, or are you still ignoring what’s staring you in the face?’
Squaring my shoulders, I hold Beth’s gaze and refuse to acknowledge what she is saying. I’d have thought my petulance would increase my sister’s anger, but the crack in her voice when she next speaks tells me it did the opposite.
‘You know how much we love you, so why do you treat us with such contempt? It’s as if we’re your enemies, not the people who care for you most. I know we can’t begin to understand how you feel, but we want to be here for you. Please, let us. Stop shutting us out.’
As her words do their best to chip at me, I shield myself from the attack. ‘I don’t shut you out.’
Beth sighs. ‘If you can’t admit doing it when you dodge my calls and refuse to meet, at least acknowledge doing it to Kamal. You practically ran out of here earlier, using me as your sordid little alibi. No one had any idea where you were, yet again.’
I glance at my husband, so compressed by worry he can barely lift his head. ‘I told you I was going out.’
‘Yes, with me, which was a lie,’ Beth snaps. ‘You didn’t say where you were going or what you were doing. You just left, hours after the police came to visit. Was Kamal meant to be reassured that all was well? He called me, panicked that you’d disappeared for another wander until three a.m.’
Shamefaced, I lower my gaze, but Beth isn’t done with me yet.
‘Once again, I left my children with our mother to help look for you. We thought you’d been in an accident. We drove all around Bramblethorpe. We even stopped for a chat with your new friend Otis.’
My stomach drops. ‘You saw Otis today?’
‘Yes, but he hadn’t seen you. No one had. And better still, you thought it was a good idea to not pick up your phone.’
‘I didn’t get any missed calls,’ I argue, but then I remember putting my phone on Do Not Disturb in Café Marco. Cringing, I pull my phone from my bag and change the setting. Straightaway, the screen fills with missed calls and voicemails, some from Sonya, but most from Kamal and Beth.
I go to apologise, but Beth continues before I can.
‘Twice in two days you’ve told Kamal you’ve been with me when you haven’t.
Twice you’ve asked me to lie for you, and now you’re home, acting shocked that we’re worried, so guess what?
After months of living with the constant dread that I’m going to get a phone call saying something terrible has happened, I’ve finally had enough. ’
‘I didn’t ask you to check up on me,’ I protest.
‘No, you didn’t, but that’s what you do for people you love.
You keep an eye on them when they’re having a hard time.
You are patient and you help, but the way we’re helping needs to change.
Playing nice and waiting for you to come around in your own time doesn’t work with you, Janine.
It never has, even when we were kids. So it’s time for me to step up and be the sister you’ve always been to me.
It’s time for me to say enough. You need help.
You need to go to therapy and learn that as horrible as this time is, you will get through it. ’
Everything in me bristles at my sister’s words. ‘I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not fine and you’re not doing as good a job at pretending you are as you think. Kamal knows you’ve been lying. He knows you’re not writing or taking your meds.’
The bottom of my world falls away with that revelation. I look from my sister to my husband, his wearied stance striking me harder than any punch ever could. ‘You know?’
Kamal nods. ‘Tiff reached out a couple of weeks ago,’ he croaks. ‘I knew your deadline had been extended, but I thought you’d been given six months. Tiff told me it was only three.’
Again, guilt engulfs me.
‘Tiff told me that you’d not handed in any pages,’ Kamal continues. ‘I’ve known for a while about the pills, too.’
I have never heard my husband sound so defeated. I almost want to cover my ears at how heartbreaking his empty voice is. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I wanted to give you space to come to me when you were ready. I kept talking about writing, hoping it would give you the chance to open up. I tried to make taking your medication as easy as possible. I thought if I did all that, then it wouldn’t come to this.’
As Kamal’s voice splinters, so does my ribcage. The bones pierce my lungs, stealing my breath. ‘Kamal,’ I say, stepping towards him, but when he looks up, his potent sadness stops me in my tracks.
‘I’m losing you, Janine. I’ve no idea how to stop it from happening, but I can’t pick up the slack anymore.
I’ve tried taking you to a doctor. I’ve tried letting you work through this how you see fit.
I’ve let you lie, let you sneak around, let you forget work and plans and relationships, but I’m tired of coming home and not knowing where you are.
I’m tired of thinking you’ve hurt yourself.
I’m tired of waking up worried and going to sleep worried. I’m tired, Janine. I’m so tired.’
‘We all are,’ Beth adds. ‘We’re right here, saying we want to help. Don’t push us away.’
As I study the faces of the people I love most, everything that’s happened over the last few years ploughs into me. The cramps, the tears, the shame. Loss in all its unfiltered, unedited rawness.
‘I don’t like lying to you,’ I reply, my throat thick with emotion. ‘In fact, I hate myself for it, but I can’t seem to stop. I know I should be writing. I know I should take the pills and go to counselling.’
‘So why don’t you?’ Beth pushes.
‘Because I’m scared.’
‘Of what?’
My brain screams at me to lie. To shout, storm off, do anything but share the deepest, darkest part of my soul, but as I absorb my sister’s concern, I realise that the time for lying has come to an end.
‘I’m scared that if I take the medication, I’ll stop feeling the pain,’ I whisper.
‘It’s the only thing I have that reminds me that they were once here.
There’s no baby in my arms, no nursery filled with love.
The pain is all I have. I’m scared that if I start feeling better, it means I’ll forget them. ’
‘Janine,’ Kamal says, reaching for me, but I hold my hand up to stop him.
‘Please, I need to say this. I need to explain. I watch you all trying to make things right for me, but nothing will ever make me feel better about what I’ve lost or the way I’ve changed.
The person I am now – she isn’t me. I can barely leave the house, never mind see friends or go dancing or do any of the things I used to love.
I don’t want to be this person anymore. I want to be who I thought I was going to be. I want to be a mum.’
With those words, I dissolve into tears.
This time when Kamal reaches for me, I don’t protest. As he wraps me in his arms, he speaks into my hair. ‘I know I can’t fix this, but please let me be there for you while you try to. You are everything to me.’
‘I shouldn’t be,’ I sob. ‘Not anymore.’
Kamal takes my head in his hands and brushes my hair from my cheeks. ‘How can you not see what’s staring you in the face? I will always, always love you, Janine.’
Crumbling, I hold my husband properly for the first time in a long time. We cling to each other, weighted by the perpetual crush of sadness, but reminded that we’re not the only person feeling it. And, more importantly, that we don’t need to carry it alone.