14
Jade
Sitting in your drawing room looking across at you Emma, oh jewel of middle-class suburbia. Stereotypically beautiful. Multitoned highlights. Gym-enhanced figure. Long legs. Designer clothing.
If I spend more time with you, will some of your effervescence rub off on me? Shoulder to shoulder. Face to face. Let me get to know you. Teach me your tricks.
I stand up. ‘I need the bathroom, where is it?’ I ask.
‘There’s one off the hallway,’ you answer nonchalantly, keeping your gaze fixed on my husband.
I sidle away unnoticed and irrelevant, but I do not visit the bathroom. I go upstairs and open door after door until I find the master bedroom. Girly and frilly with gold bedding. So girly and frilly it makes me feel sick.
15
Emma
It’s Sunday evening. Jade is standing on my doorstep, smiling at me.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ I repeat.
‘It was so lovely having you in for drinks. But I’d like some girl time without the men.’ There is a pause. ‘We can talk about them, then.’ She laughs, a small jittery laugh.
I grit my teeth. I like being with men, not talking about them. And we had drinks together only last night. This is claustrophobic. Too friendly, too soon.
‘Would you like to come over for coffee one morning?’ she continues.
I put my head on one side and smile at her. ‘But … but … I work full time.’
‘What if I pop into the surgery tomorrow and take you out for lunch?’
‘Well … I usually have a quick sandwich and do paperwork at lunch.’
‘There’s a sandwich bar a few minutes away. I promise to only keep you twenty minutes.’ She pauses. ‘Pretty please.’
Pretty please? Insipid playground talk harking back to the seventies. I feel like putting my fingers down my throat to let her know the phrase makes me want to vomit.
But she flashes another steely smile at me and I find myself saying yes.
16
Alastair
I’m sitting in my lab taking swabs from a crowbar suspected of being used to smash a garage window by a car thief. It was found on the ground at the crime scene. So many swabs. So many changes of pairs of gloves. Twenty-nine of each so far. I’ll be so glad when I’ve finished. Maybe Jade has a point: you require patience beyond compare to do this job. No one warns you when you apply. TV glamorising our work in crime dramas has a lot to answer for. Swabs finally complete, I place them on the collection tray, and step out of my lab into the changing area.
As I open my locker, pleased to be changing back into my normal clothes, my iPhone buzzes. A text. I grab it. Heather.
I’m going to warn Emma about you.
Leave me alone you creep, I reply.
Don’t say that to me. I’m the mother of your child.
I know she won’t do anything. She has threatened me like this before and nothing has come of it. I take off my scrubs and hang them up. As I pull on my jeans, I shudder inside remembering the girl I first met at school. Sixteen years old, so different from the woman she has become. What happened to the girl I met? The shiny girl with swinging chestnut hair? The girl who swept me along with her bold attitude? She says our relationship breakdown is my fault and bandies about words like ‘coercive control’. But anyone with any sense must realise we just met too young and grew apart. It wasn’t my fault she started to sleep around and smoke dope.
17
Emma
It’s Monday lunchtime and Jade is here, stepping into my consulting room, wearing a stripy trouser suit. Her short hair is shorter than ever, too short to be fashionable. She must have had it cut this morning by a butcher not a hairdresser.
I put the tools I have just finished using into a tray for Tania to sterilise in the autoclave later, grab my coat and walk towards her. ‘I’ve not got long.’
She shrugs. ‘You told me and I’m not bothered. I’m used to being fitted in.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
A grimace. ‘Well, you know. Busy husband and all that.’
We walk through my waiting room, nodding at Andrea as we pass. Outside. Into a sharp, cold day, breath condensing in the air in front of us.
‘How long have you been feeling abandoned?’
‘Ever since I met him.’ Her voice is bitter.
In the sandwich bar, a solid wall of heat pushes against us. The hiss and steam of the coffee machine drowns our conversation. We raise our voices above the background noise to order two cappuccinos and two club sandwiches. Then we sidle towards a table at the back of the shop, as far away from the cacophony as possible.
We wait for our lunch to arrive, huddled at a small wobbly table, knees touching.
‘Tell me about your relationship with Alastair,’ Jade asks.
‘We’ve only just met. On Tinder, a few months ago. We’re busy in the week with our careers, so we just hook up at weekends.’
‘Tomas and I met on Tinder too. I’m not sure Tinder is all it’s cracked up to be.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think it encourages promiscuity.’ She sighs. ‘Do you feel tempted to use it to roam?’
I shake my head. ‘No. And I don’t think roaming is a good idea. I’m starting a new relationship. I want to make it work.’
‘I know Tomas visited you on the twentieth and twenty-fifty of February.’ Jade gives me a slow, stretched smile. ‘How convenient to have such troublesome teeth, when you have a beautiful dentist.’ She leans across the table so that her breath touches my face. I lean back.
‘I’m flattered that you think I’m beautiful, Jade, but I can assure you, there is nothing between Tomas and me. He needs a crown. It’s my job to help.’
The sandwiches and coffee arrive. Suddenly not hungry, I look down at the food. Not wanting to put up with any more of Jade’s company, I make a show of looking at my watch, and stand up.
‘Sorry, I didn’t realise what the time was. I need to get back to work.’
18
Jade
I know you’ve slept with my husband. I can tell from the way you narrow your eyes when you talk about him. You feel guilty, don’t you? Too guilty to stay and eat lunch with me.
Memories
My earliest memory of the violence is when I was six years old. The day after my birthday. Walking down the stairs to look for my mother, when I woke up in the morning. A sunny morning, sun streaming through the landing window. Usually I called for her and she came to me. Held me in her arms for a hug. But that morning, I called and she didn’t come, so I went to look for her.
I heard her scream.
I crept down the stairs. She was in the lounge, shouting at someone. The door was open. I hid behind it and peered through the gap. My mother was on the floor and my father was kicking her. Her legs, her arms, her back. She was curled up trying to shield her face.
I ran back upstairs and hid in the wardrobe in the spare room. Body and mind trembling.
19
Jade
‘How’s it going, Jade?’ my psychiatrist, Siobhan, asks, leaning back in her chair, flicking her glossy red hair.