This Charming Man (64 page)

‘Okay.’ He sighed. ‘I met Juno.’

I thought I was going to puke. The tiredness, the shock…

‘But she wasn’t here. We just went for a quick Indian on Sunday night. Warner was away.’ Then he added – and I couldn’t decide if it was defiance I was hearing, ‘And so were you.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘It was nothing, a last-minute thing. I’m telling you now because I didn’t want to tell you over the phone while you were at work yesterday.’

‘But if it was important enough that you didn’t want to tell me on the phone, then it’s obviously not nothing.’

‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he said firmly.

Was I?

If there really was anything going on, he wouldn’t tell me he’d met her. Or would he? Was he simply covering his tracks, in case they’d been spotted together? Would he even have told me if I hadn’t guessed something had happened?

Or was I just going mad?

I thought I could trust Damien.

But could any human being really trust another?

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘She’s nothing to me.’

‘Then why see her?’

After a pause he said, ‘I won’t see her any more.’

‘Okay.’ I hadn’t the energy to be feisty.

‘What?’

‘Okay, then, don’t. Don’t see her.’

‘Okay.’ He nodded his head. ‘Done.’

Sky News was her only friend. It gave her vital information without passing judgement. Today, it told her, was Thursday, 15 January, 11.40 in the morning. (Also that there had been a coup in Thailand but she wasn’t so interested in that.)

The last day she had any memory of was Monday. Grace had left for Dublin at ten past six in the morning and as soon as the taxi taking her away had turned the corner at the bottom of the road, Marnie was overwhelmed with guilt and loneliness and had retrieved the vodka she’d hidden in the bathroom. Since then she’d come in and out of reality only briefly, but now she was sober.

She was shaky, fearful, nauseous – but she didn’t want a drink. It happened that way. It seemed to go through a cycle: she’d start drinking and be unable to stop; and then, almost abruptly – although she could never predict exactly when – it would come to an end.

Today all she wanted was her daughters. The smell of Daisy’s skin, the feel of Verity’s trusting hand in hers…

Oh the guilt. God, the guilt, the guilt, the guilt. They were so young, so fragile…

How had she ended up in this life? How had they all ended up like this? She living in this huge empty house, her daughters and husband in an apartment two miles away.

It was so strange, so not what she had planned, that it was hard to believe it was real. Perhaps it
wasn’t
real. Maybe she’d never been married. Maybe she’d never had children. Maybe she’d imagined her entire life? Maybe she’d never been born…

She managed to frighten herself so much with this line of thinking that she had to get up and walk around the house, trying to see reason. She was being silly. Worse than silly. But the thoughts wouldn’t stop.

I’m not real
.

I was never born
.

She needed to talk to someone. But who? They’d just think she was a nutter.

I am real, I am real
.

Struggling for breath, she rang Grace at work. ‘Am I real, Grace?’

‘Oh for the love of Christ! What’s up with you?’

Marnie explained, as best she could. ‘Am I going mad, Grace?’

In a very quiet voice, Grace said, ‘It sounds like you’ve got the DTs.’

‘No, not at all –’

‘Delirium? Tremens?’

‘I just miss my daughters.’

As soon as Marnie hung up, the panic returned, choking the breath out of her. She was fixated on Daisy and Verity. If they existed, then she existed.

Perhaps she should talk to Nick. Perhaps he could confirm whether or not Daisy and Verity were real.

However, all-consuming as her fear was, she knew she couldn’t ring Nick when she was in such a state. He thought badly enough of her as it was. But the fear squeezed tighter and tighter and eventually she found herself grabbing the phone and calling his office and even as she asked to speak to him, she was seized with terror that a voice might say, ‘Nick Hunter? No one of that name has ever worked here.’

Someone who sounded like Nick answered and seemed to know who she was. The clouds of horror dispersed – then regrouped. She had a wild moment when she wondered if the part of Nick was being played by an actor.

‘Nick, I have to see the girls.’ She needed physical evidence.

‘They’re in school,’ Nick said.

School. That must mean they existed. ‘Can I go and see them?’

‘No, no!’ Then, more calmly, he said, ‘No, Marnie. It’ll upset them.’

‘They haven’t seen me in weeks.’

‘Whose fault is that?’

After he had left her –
left
her – Nick had decreed that Sunday afternoon would be their designated time. But, on the first Sunday, the unprecedented strangeness of getting a mere afternoon of their presence – she, their
mother,
who had given birth to them – had compelled her to have a drink before they arrived. Then another. By the time Nick showed up – alone, doing a recce while the girls remained in the car –
Marnie was accepting of the situation. But Nick pronounced, like an autocrat, that she was drunk, that it would upset Daisy and Verity to see her in such a state.

‘For shame on you,’ he had said.

He changed her allocated time with the girls to Saturday morning. Then to Friday evening.

‘Dirty tricks,’ Marnie had told Grace. ‘Messing with my head. Using the children as pawns.’

‘No. Surely he’s trying to find the best time so that you’ll be sober?’

Dirty tricks.

Marnie had a revelation, which instantly dispersed her panic: she’d take the girls to the zoo! She’d go to their school right now and take them out of their classrooms and the three of them would go to the zoo together. They’d
love
it. Well, Daisy would. Verity was afraid of animals. And the weather was very cold – maybe not suitable for the zoo. But that was just defeatist thinking!

Yes, they’d go to the zoo and she’d buy the girls sweets, zoo T-shirts, anything they asked for, anything to let them know how much she loved them, how sorry she was to have broken up their lives. Then she’dgo to Nick and persuade him to come back.

Once the decision was made, she was frenzied at the idea of all the different actions she had to execute before she would see them. What could she dispense with? No need to eat. No need to wash. No, perhaps she’d better. It had been a while. She darted under the water and squirted herself with shower gel but another flurry of anxiety propelled her back out of the shower, still covered in suds. No time to rinse off.

Dragging a towel around herself, she looked for something to wear and the first thing that came to hand was a floaty dress, she’d never worn it much and now was as good a time as any. Then she took a bundle of banknotes from a little carved box on the window sill. Nick had cancelled her cards but – way ahead of him – she’d withdrawn thousands from the cashpoint and hidden it all around the house; who knew she could be so clever?

Then she was leaving the house and getting into her car, and as she drove through the gates she had a moment when she wondered what
life would be like if she was banned from driving? If that case ever came to court?

But why would they ban someone like her? She was no criminal. Besides, she had two young children, she needed her car.

As she stopped at the lights, she saw an off-licence. Well,
the
off-licence. There was a time when she had rotated five or six different ones, never visiting the same place more than once a week. Now the one nearest to the house was the one she invariably used.

She surprised herself by pulling in – force of habit, she thought; blame it on the car – and entering the shop.

‘Five bottles of Absolut,’ she said to Ben. Sheepishly she added, ‘Having a party.’

‘Aren’t you cold in that frock?’ Ben asked. ‘It’s below freezing out there.’

‘… Um… no.’ But she was suddenly aflame with embarrassment. This was a floaty summer dress. She had bare arms. And no coat. What had she been thinking of?

She grabbed the carrier bags and anxiously returned to the car. The moment she was back in her seat, she was breaking the safety seal on one of the bottles, tilting her head back and pouring the liquid magic into her. She gulped it down, then wrenched the bottle from her mouth, gasped for breath, then tipped her head back again. Within seconds, the humiliation melted away, her purpose was restored and, fuelled by molten stars, she sped to the school.

With buoyant confidence, she swung through the double doors. Two women appeared in the corridor. She recognized one of them. ‘Headmistress! Good afternoon. I’m here for my girls.’

‘Mrs Hunter, they’re in class.’

‘I know. But I’m taking them out for a treat.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’

Aha! She suddenly saw what was going on. ‘He told you I was coming? My husband? But it’s okay, I’m their mother.’

‘Mrs Hunter –’

‘Please let me see them.’

‘If you could perhaps speak a little more quietly, please. Come into my office, we’ll discuss it.’

‘Which rooms are they in? Okay, don’t tell me then. I’ll find them!’

They physically manhandled her! They actually restrained her as she attempted to run down the corridor, flinging open classroom doors. She tried to twist away from their hold. ‘Get your hands off me!’

Alerted by the commotion, heads began to peep out of classrooms. Alarmed teachers, followed by wide-eyed, giggling little girls, spilled into the corridor.

Then she saw Daisy. ‘Daisy! It’s me, Mum. We’re going to the zoo. Get Verity!’

Daisy seemed frozen to the spot.

‘Go on! Quick!’

One of the giggling girls asked, ‘Daisy, is that your mum?’

‘No.’

The next time she woke, Grace was in the bedroom with her. Was it the weekend already? How many days had she lost?

‘What time is it?’ she croaked.

Grace looked up from her book. ‘Ten past nine.’

Morning or evening? Of what day?

‘Thursday night, the fifteenth of January,’ Grace said. ‘Do you need to know the year?’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came over after work. I’ll take tomorrow off and stay for the weekend.’

Marnie suddenly knew why Grace was here in London. It was that phone call she’d made to her earlier that day – hard to believe it was still the same day – when she’d asked Grace if she was real.

Oh God, no. She’d behaved like a mad person and scared Grace into getting on a plane. She was so ashamed she could hardly utter the words. ‘Grace, I’m so sorry, I was a bit… anxious… but I’m okay now.’

That was actually a lie: she needed a drink right now. The want was making her tremble and sweat. It was pointless checking for her bedside bottle – Grace would have emptied it. But there was one hidden in the loftspace above the bathroom. If she balanced on the side of the bath, she was just tall enough to lift the MDF rectangle and retrieve it.

A memory zipped through her, a split-second sequence of colour and noise: shouting and scuffling with the headmistress at the girls’
school; yelling at Daisy that they were going to the zoo; the headmistress taking away her car key; being driven home by one of the teachers.

No, it hadn’t happened.

She clambered out of bed and went to the window – her car was out there, parked innocuously in the drive! A great wave of giddying relief almost brought her to her knees. She had dreamt it all.

‘One of the teachers brought it back here,’ Grace said from behind her. ‘It all happened, it’s all true.’

Lurching and sinking with shame, dragged towards the centre of the earth with its weight, Marnie remembered Daisy’s face. The hatred stamped on it.

She couldn’t let Grace see how she felt; she’d seize on the weakness and try to crowbar it open. But the need to drink was upon her with renewed intensity. It couldn’t be ignored, sidestepped, resisted; it was too big.

‘Grace.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I’ve got to go to the bathroom.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Don’t. I just need to pee. Trust me.’

‘Trust you?’ Grace was scornful.

‘I’m begging you.’ Hot tears were suddenly pouring down Marnie’s face. ‘Just let me go to the bathroom alone.’

‘No. I know you’ve got drink hidden in there.’

‘I’ll get on my knees, Grace. I’ll beg you. Is that what you want from me?’

She toppled to her knees and Grace seized her elbow and yanked her painfully upwards, back onto her feet. ‘Get up, get up, Marnie! For God’s sake, get up!’ Now Grace was crying too – which Marnie had to admit was a novelty.

‘Look at you!’ Grace said. ‘Marnie! This is breaking my heart.’

‘Please, Grace,’ Marnie begged. ‘Please stop coming here.’ They held on to each other, part-scuffle, part-embrace. ‘I can’t change. Stop trying, don’t do it to yourself. You’ve got your life. What about Damien? Doesn’t he mind that you’re always here?’

‘Never mind,’ Grace said wearily. ‘Ups and downs, everyone has them.’

∗

It didn’t take Grace long before she brought up the subject of rehab.

You could set your watch by it.

‘If you just gave it a try, Marnie, something might stick.’

But Marnie didn’t want anything to stick: it was what she was most afraid of. Alcohol was all that was keeping her going.

Grace eventually gave up and changed the subject. ‘Have you heard from that Rico bloke since you left work?’

‘No,’ Marnie said quickly. That was an episode so shameful she could never let herself think about it. Ever. If thoughts of Rico appeared in her mind, she immediately drank them away.

‘Or Guy?’

Guy
.

At the sound of his name, guilt flooded her. He’d been kind and patient, astonishingly so; he’d had no choice but to sack her. ‘No.’

‘Do you mind?’ Grace asked.

Please let’s not talk about it.

Grace drove Marnie to an AA meeting at lunchtime on Friday. She made Marnie go to meetings every time she visited London but she no longer sat in on them. Instead she waited outside in the draughty hall because – Marnie knew – Grace was worried that by flanking Marnie at the meetings, she might be inhibiting Marnie’s Big Admission. The admission that she was an alcoholic.