Rachel knew Charlie hadn’t stabbed Patsy. She had heard that cry. It echoed in her memory like the sound of nails being dragged slowly down a blackboard – a screeching, penetrating sound that made every fibre of her being sing with pain. Most of all it was the memory of the hollow devastation in his eyes that assured her of his innocence both then and now.
If she told him now, told him the true reason she had walked away from him and Amy, she would see that look again. Not just the shadow of it reflected back at her when she looked into his eyes, but a full-blown re-creation of the moment his world had fallen apart for the first time.
Patsy. The woman who had brought them together, and the woman who still stood between them.
Patsy had been a magical creature, the only person Rachel remembered in colour. On the rare occasions she allowed herself to look back at her childhood, everyone else either appeared in black and white, or materialised as a faded, jaded representation of their younger selves.
The Seventies had been like that: dull, and leached of colour. But Patsy had been vibrant and alive, like a bird of paradise among a flock of lesser creatures. When Patsy was in a room she’d had the effect of magnifying everyone else’s mundanity. Stella had become smaller and dowdier; Valerie became more pinched and bitter and even more like an indignant bird of prey than had been usual. Frances’s arrogance became whiningly petulant and Roy had puffed himself up like the peacock he pretended to be.
Rachel had felt even more insignificant in Patsy’s presence, like a drab cuckoo chick in a borrowed nest. Only Charlie hadn’t changed. Charlie never changed.
Rachel’s thoughts were still consumed with the memory of Patsy lying on the hall floor like road kill when Charlie finally broke the silence. ‘So here we are, pulled together again by your damned family. Like always eh? And you haven’t even asked me about your daughter. Remember her? Amy – in case you’ve forgotten. For what it’s worth she thinks you’re dead. I never had the heart to put her straight and tell her she wasn’t wanted and you walked away towards the money. Her life’s been hard enough without having to know her mother is a bitch. I guess you’re just like the rest of them.’
She tried to speak, but the prickling had started in her head again, making her brain feel like an over-shaken Coke.
‘Oh that’s it, have another fit – opt out again why don’t you? It’s what you do best.’
The venom in his words was pulsing through her like liquid fire – she deserved every ounce of it. She would take it and take it again rather than tell him the truth. He was hurt enough. ‘I’m sorry, can’t help it, so sorry,’ she mumbled, already slurring.
***
When the seizure had abated, and Rachel lay once again in a deep sleep, Charlie rifled through her bag, found her medication, and saw that the day’s dose had been taken. He looked in her purse and found a card with the name and contact number of her neurologist, and made the call. All the while feeling like an utter bastard for losing it with her.
Mr Parnell, consultant neurologist and Rachel’s doctor for the past nineteen years, was deeply concerned that her epilepsy had intensified so dramatically. He needed to see her – soon. Could Charlie bring her back to London as soon as possible?
Charlie didn’t have a choice; there wasn’t anyone else who could take her and he hardly had a solid reputation for dealing with wifely welfare. Besides, everyone was better off if she went back to London – especially Amy. Of all the things that Rachel had brought back with her – memories, regrets, hurt, confusion – the threat to Amy was the worst of them. If she found out that her mother was alive she would never forgive him, or her grandmother.
Christ – he’d spent years taking her to a bloody graveyard once a year to put flowers on some complete stranger’s grave just to maintain the lie that Rachel had died. Thank God for common names. He should never have allowed the lie to stand, but his mother had convinced him it was for the best. He’d been so angry and so hurt by Rachel leaving he’d gone along with it, like an idiot, like a sad and stupid man.
He looked down at the sleeping woman, unsure of how he felt now – guilty mostly. He had bullied her and caused the fit. But angry too, still angry, still confused, still hurt.
By the time Rachel woke up, groggy and hung over from the overactive neurotransmissions that were determined to destabilize her brain, Charlie had packed her bag, paid her bill, and was waiting – keys in hand – to drive her back to London. She couldn’t have looked more relieved if she’d tried. He was relieved too, but her eagerness to leave stung a little. Damn his bloody head! His thoughts were making no sense.
The drive to London was silent and strained. Charlie didn’t say much and Rachel spent the journey with her head resting against the window, eyes closed against the overhead lights that blurred and streaked across the evening sky as they sped past.
Charlie let her rest, figuring it was better just to keep his thoughts to himself. He didn’t want to trigger off another fit, not in the van, and she’d made it clear she wasn’t willing to talk about the past. He had debated phoning his mother to tell her he wasn’t going to be calling round that night, but two things stopped him. If Delia knew he was with Rachel she would probably blow a gasket and the last thing he wanted to have to deal with was his mother having a stroke on top of everything else. Besides, at fifty-two years of age it was hardly necessary to call his mother and check in.
The second reason was Amy. He just couldn’t contemplate having to explain why he’d been such a shit dad and lied to her for her whole life. He’d stayed out before. It needn’t be a big deal if he just played it cool.
He glanced at Rachel, and tried to work out what on earth he was feeling. Any other man would have just walked away and disappeared, but not him. What kind of mug was he? He must be some kind of masochist, going back for more. She was the woman who had just about broken him, but she was also the woman who had given him the most precious thing he had – their daughter. Amy was all grown up and looking far too much like Rachel than was good for his mental health, and still believing that her daddy was her hero. Her daddy felt like a coward and knew he was a liar.
Not that anyone had ever stated Rachel’s supposed death as a fact; it had been something Amy had assumed. There was a vague memory of her asking Delia about it. Amy would have been about five, had just started school, and she had asked outright if her mummy was dead. Some snotty-nosed kid in her class had said that if she didn’t have a mum it must be because her mum had died.
Delia had heard these innocent words and had looked at him, raising her eyebrows as if that unknown kid had presented them with the perfect solution. Then she had soberly lied and told Amy that, yes, her mummy was dead.
Charlie had never had the guts to disabuse her of the notion. His mother had been right; it had been an easy solution at the time. Even though he’d had to search the county’s cemetery records to find a grave with the same bloody name when Amy had asked at age ten if she could take flowers for her mother. It had been excruciating, standing by the grave of some other R. Jones and watching his little girl put flowers there and tell her mummy what had happened at school that week. He’d felt like the worst scumbag on earth.
That was the trouble with lies: they always came back and bit you in the arse eventually.
He knew for a fact that over the years Amy had excused his lack of meaningful relationships, his need for solitude, and his moody silences as chronic grief. That was Amy; she could always take something dark and weave it into a bright shiny ideal just by deciding it was the way things should be. Charlie wished he found it so easy to put such a spin on life. The romantic fantasy that Amy had manifested had satisfied her enough that she hadn’t pressed Charlie for details about Rachel; she didn’t want to cause him pain. That was