I finish her sentence for her by reaching down and firing the ignition, checking the mirrors and pulling out of my parking spot outside her house.
Beatrix
Hi ya. Could you call me when you get the chance? I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I could really do with hearing your voice. Love you. Bea x
One year ago
‘Your tits are my most favourite part of your body,’ he said.
‘They’re breasts not tits,’ I said. ‘And thank you, that’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.’
Scott rolled his eyes. He was emperor of the ‘give me strength’ eye roll and king of the near-silent, frustrated sigh. ‘Don’t come over all politically correct on me, I get enough of that at home.’
‘“Tits” sounds so … so … dismissive? Is that the word? “Breasts” sounds like sex, “tits” sounds like an unsatisfying quickie.’
His thumbs began stroking my nipples, causing pleasure to ricochet to all the right places. ‘I love your breasts, tits, boobs,’ he murmured. ‘They’re my favourite part of your body.’
I lay back on the bed, giving him a full view of my body. ‘What about my legs? Aren’t they your favourite?’ I stroked my hands along the length of them. He shook his head. ‘What about my bottom?’ I ran my fingers up the sides of my bum. He shook his head. ‘What about my stomach?’ I stroked along my abdomen. He shook his head. ‘What about my arms?’ I stretched them out to show him. He shook his head. ‘So it’s true? These are your most favourite part of my body?’ I coyly ran my fingers over the curve of my breasts. The pale skin was smooth to the touch because I kept out of the sun and exfoliated and moisturised every day. Slowly and seductively I circled the small, pink mounds of my nipples and the soft, paler-pink areola with the pads of my fingers. Nobody had said my breasts were their most favourite part of my body before. I liked it, though, that Scotty had said it, that he thought enough about me to have a favourite part of me.
In case you hadn’t noticed, I like my body. I love my body. It is perfectly proportioned, it is slender and it is curvy and it is basically who I am. Women have all these hang-ups about their bodies, apparently. We worry about the size of our bums, the size of our breasts, the flatness of our stomachs. It’s true, I do see this going on around me, but I’ve never joined in. I don’t think like that, fret in that way, because I love my body.
My body hates me.
My body has turned on me. It has turned on me in that sneaky, snide way of a friend who stabs you in the back. It has done this thing to me, it has made this thing in my body and it is slowly destroying me. I don’t know how long it’s been going on for, but now it is out in the open, it hurts like nothing I have experienced before. Yes, I know my body has done to me what I have done to her, but that doesn’t make it right, does it? And I never set out to hurt her.
I love my body, my body is making me suffer.
I wasn’t alone when the doctor gently broke the news. The surgeon was there, the specialist nurse was there, too. The specialist nurse sat beside me as the doctor started to talk. I should have known when they both trooped into the room that I wasn’t going to be told the blueberry-sized lump I found on the left side of my cleavage was nothing more serious than a cyst. I didn’t guess, though, because since I had gone to the clinic for the tests, and had waited around for the preliminary results, my mind kept wandering, going astray like a child let out without reins. At every stage I had to keep bringing my mind back to where I was, what was happening, instead of wondering when Scott was going to get in contact? Which team in the league would go into administration? How many more wears I’d get out of the Prada Mary Janes I’d bought in New York? Every time I forced my mind to focus on what was happening, I discovered this was happening: I was sitting in a room with two people I had been briefly introduced to, being told my body had turned on me.
When the doctor told me, I had a sudden sensation of standing on a desert island, surrounded by sand and sea and knowing I was alone in this. I was stranded and no one could save me, could rescue me.
As I looked up and down the island, searching for a means of escape, I thought of all the people who would try, who would care enough to navigate the sea to get to me, take my hand, let me know I wasn’t alone. The sea was empty for a long, long time as the vision played out before my eyes. I was standing alone on that desert island for a lifetime until I saw that person. The one person who would try to save me, who would care enough to want to be with me at a time like this. It wasn’t him, but you knew that, didn’t you? I knew that, too. He’s going through some stuff and needs space right now. If I told him, if he knew, I’m sure he’d want to be here. He’d want to take me in his arms and hold me, and reassure me and tell me it’s all going to be OK. He’d tell me he was coming to all my appointments with me, he would promise to hold my hand through all the treatments, and he would look at me and see who he’s always seen, the woman he fell for – he won’t see the woman I am going to turn into. He won’t see the woman whose body has decided it hates her.
The person in the sea, the one who would go through anything, I think, to get me safe and secure again? You know. Of course you know.
Tami places a mug of tea in front of me, and retreats to the other side of her kitchen. She doesn’t want to get too close to me, that’s clear. Why would she?
But still, she let me in her car, she drove me home – to mine first and then to her home – and she sat me in the kitchen and made me tea. ‘The kids are with my parents,’ she said as we came in and I tried to shut the door quietly. ‘It’s just me here.’
‘And me,’ I wanted to pipe up. ‘I’m here, too. I’m not gone yet.’
My eyes automatically go to my mobile on the table in front of me. Nothing.
She stands with her back to the worktop she’s in front of, her arms outstretched but gripping onto the solid wood, her head lowered, her body still and tense. ‘When did you find out?’ she asks.
‘Erm … I … What day is it? Friday?’
She nods without raising her head.
‘OK, if it’s Friday, then I found out two days ago. On Wednesday.’ In about two weeks I should know everything: what type, what grade, the treatment options, apparently. I remember that.
Tami nods again, as if slowly taking in my words with her head trained downwards.
‘It only hit me tonight. I heard what the doctor said, I understood it, but it didn’t seem real until earlier on when everything sort of snapped into focus and it hit me like a truck.’ I take a sip of my drink. ‘It’s hard to describe that feeling.’
A small, humourless smile fades in and out on her face, and she lifts herself upright and stares out of the blackened glass of the bi-fold doors. ‘Yeah,’ she says quietly, her gaze still fixed on the doors and not in my direction. ‘I know that feeling.’
Tami’s been through this too? Her body has turned on her, too? When? Why didn’t I know— She means finding out about me and Scott. About all the stuff that came before when she thought it was Mirabelle and Scott. Although it’s not the same, surely? Can you genuinely feel that broken, traumatised, by finding out someone you’ve already fallen out of love with has found love elsewhere? Really?
I want to ask her about him. How he is. How he’s coping being away from the girls. I can’t ask though. I am in the presence of the one person in the world who has access to the man I love, and I can’t ask about him for fear of what it would unleash. This is torture.
Why do I keep cycling between feeling scared and sick and falling apart and then worrying about him? Not about myself, or Tami or anyone else, just him. It must be because I love him so much, but that doesn’t seem a complete enough explanation to me. It doesn’t seem to fit. Is this me flitting in and out of denial? Is this me not wanting to face what comes next by concentrating on something else I have absolutely no control over? Do two out of control things make a whole?
‘Who have you told?’ she asks.
> ‘I, erm, haven’t told Scott, if that’s what you mean. I haven’t spoken to him since he left.’
She shakes her head, still refusing to look in my direction. I can see the lines of her face reflected in the night-blackened doors and she looks a little incredulous. ‘No,’ she replies, ‘that’s not what I meant. I … I don’t actually care if you’ve spoken to him. That’s your business. Since you’re here now, with me, of all people, I’m guessing you haven’t told that many people or anyone else. I was wondering if there was anyone you wanted me to call to be with you so I could take you home.’ That’s why she brought me here after stopping outside my house: she didn’t want me to be alone. She knew I had no one else, and she didn’t want to deliver me into the cold, icy grasp of an empty flat after my diagnosis. She doesn’t want to rescue me, she doesn’t want to help me, she wants rid of me.
A lump gathers violently in my throat, I can barely swallow or breathe. Carefully, I place the mug on the table, my eyes going to the silent mobile phone in front of me. She doesn’t want me here. Why would she? But I have no one else.
We are breathing in sync, Tami and I. Both of us taking in deep chunks of air and releasing them at length. We are living in time. I wonder if our hearts are beating in time, too? I used to listen to Scott’s heartbeat, trying to will it to match mine, trying to confirm that we were meant to be together no matter how much the world said it was wrong. I believe that our soulmate is the person whose heart beats in time with ours, who contracts and expands at the same most basic, vital level with us. Our heartbeats never matched in all the times I got to listen, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t in the future. That one shock that caused one of our hearts to stop for a moment wouldn’t result in them beating in time.
Is my heart beating in time with Tami’s? Are our hearts beating in time because we loved the same man? Are we soulmates because she’s all I have?
Her fingers are curled so tight into the rim of the worktop, I’m sure she’s leaving indents. She wants me to leave. The silence, the heavy, relentless silence, is because she wants me to leave. She brought me here, but now she wants me to go. She won’t say it, though. She doesn’t want to be the one to send me back to an empty home.
I should offer to go, to leave her alone. I’m not going to. I know that makes me a bad person. But I can’t be alone right now.
I have cancer. I can’t be alone right now. Even if it means being here in complete silence, with only the rhythm of our breathing to link us.
Tami
She is asleep on my sofa.
It was obvious she wasn’t leaving last night. Even more obvious that she knew I wouldn’t make her leave. When did I become this person? When did I become the doormat that people like my husband and his mistress think they can walk all over?
We stood and sat in silence in the kitchen for a long time as I waited for her to get up and leave. Like any other normal person would. Is she a normal person? I’m starting to have my doubts. Who does what she has done to our family and then still wants to be around when the reason for what she did is gone? Or is she still here because she thinks I’ll call Scott and tell him and he’ll come riding in to save her?
I would do that to get rid of her if it didn’t involve the act of calling Scott. I have told Cora and Anansy that he is staying away on business for a long time, and they have seemed fine with it. He calls them on the house phone – I know it’s him because I changed the number to stop Beatrix calling – and only he has the number. He tells them he’s working hard and misses them and that they should take care of Mummy. He doesn’t ask to speak to me and I don’t want to talk to him. They haven’t asked if he is in prison – which I was expecting – but I suspect they talk about it among themselves. I am trying to fill up their lives with lots of other people, lots of other things so they don’t dwell on the atmosphere in the house before their dad left. He’s not coming back. I haven’t said that to them, yet.
One of the reasons he was not coming back was sitting in the kitchen, desperate not to leave.
After a while, I went upstairs to what used to be the master bedroom – I still hadn’t moved back in there – and dragged off the duvet and the pillow. Leaving them in the living room, I went back to the kitchen.
‘You can sleep on the sofa,’ I said, then left without saying goodnight, left before she thanked me or added another sorry to the list.
She is still asleep. It is nine o’clock and she is still asleep. I did not sleep, the images of her and him drove me from my bed to my office. I sat there working until the birds started to sing and the sun started to bleed into the sky.
I cannot imagine sleeping if I had that news. I don’t think I would be able to let go enough to sleep; if I could stand to lose my grip on consciousness knowing I might never regain it. I’ve often thought that going to sleep was an act of faith, was believing without any proof whatsoever that you would wake up again.
‘What time is it?’ she asks without opening her eyes. Her dress lies in a pool on top of her flip-flops. How many times has she been like that – naked or as near naked as possible – in this room, in this house?
‘Nine,’ I reply.
‘Can’t believe I’ve slept.’ She still has her eyes closed. ‘That’s the first night’s sleep I’ve had since I found out.’
I haven’t slept properly since I found out. Enough so I’m not a danger to the children or myself, but nowhere near enough to make me feel healthy, whole, human.
‘I can’t open my eyes because if I see you I’ll remember that I need to say sorry to you over and over again.’
‘Did you do it in my bed?’
Her eyes open and she takes a few seconds to locate me in the room. ‘No, no we didn’t,’ she says.
‘OK,’ I reply. ‘I’ve got a lot on today, so …’ Get dressed and leave.
‘Right, of course, of course.’ She doesn’t move. Simply closes her eyes again and pulls the duvet up towards her ears. She is going nowhere.
Beatrix
I can’t believe she’d ask me that.
Of course we made love in her bed. We did it in most of the rooms in this house except the children’s room and the downstairs toilet. We even did it in her office. I hated doing that, invading her private space with something so craven, but he’d insisted. I’d cried afterwards because it was a terrible thing to do: sitting on top of him in her chair, making love while looking at the certificates framed on the walls, the awards on the mantelpiece, the organised chaos of piles of work all over the place. The plethora of happy pictures of the children. ‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said when he realised how upset I was at what I’d let myself be talked into. ‘That was a rotten thing to do. I feel awful now. We won’t do that again.’
The bed was my preferred place in the house. It made me feel legitimate, as if it was only a matter of time before we’d be in there together, permanently.
It wasn’t right, but we all do crazy things when we’re in love, please remember that.
Why did she ask, though? It’s not as if her knowing the truth would make her feel better.
I can’t believe she did that to herself.
Tami
When Cora was about two-and-a-half I had this fantasy that she would allow herself to be ‘contained’ by a playpen. I had it set up in the kitchen so I could cook while she played with toys, maybe while watching a video or two. She’d still be near me, still see me, but I could get things done. The reality was completely different. The reality was more in keeping with all I’d learnt about parenting – you know absolutely nothing because every child is different so the rules very often don’t apply. I would open the gate to the hexagonal playpen, lined with a thick, bouncy cushion – perfect if she wanted to lie down for a nap (I was seriously deluded) – furnished with all her favourite toys, and she would stand in front of me, fingers of one hand laced into the black metal bars, never allowing one foot to leave the tiles of the kitchen floor while her free hand would stretch i
nto the pen, reaching for a toy. ‘Just go in,’ I would encourage, ‘and get the toy.’ She would ignore me, reaching and reaching, rather than allow herself to be ‘tricked’ into going in alone to somewhere she didn’t want to be, lest I left her behind.
Beatrix is acting like Cora at two-and-a-half.
I’ve brought her home, walked with her in silence because it was clear I wasn’t going to get rid of her until I took control of the situation. Now she is standing at the door, going through her bag, looking for her keys, even though several times her body has relaxed that fraction we all do when we find what we’re looking for. When that can’t be drawn out any longer, she puts the key in the lock and tries very hard to find that the key doesn’t work. When it does, of course, she takes an age to open the door.
‘I’ll see you,’ I say to her and she swings to me, her eyes wide and horrified. Just like Cora’s eyes when I picked her up and tried to place her in the playpen. She would twist her little body, constantly moving her legs so it would be awkward to put her down without hurting her, all the while her eyes wide with the potential betrayal I was attempting to perpetrate upon her.
‘Erm … I—’ she says, visibly trembling at the thought of being alone. ‘Could you, erm, wait until I get in?’
Scott used to ask taxi drivers to do that for me. ‘Could you just wait until she gets in before you drive away?’ he’d say. He knew, even then, that danger could be found right on your doorstep; exactly where you thought you were safe.
‘I, erm, get nervous ever since … you know, Mirabelle. I don’t like being alone.’
That is low, even for someone capable of the low acts I know Beatrix to be capable of (of course she did it in my bed, I wanted to know how honest she’d be). It’s also plausible she could be worried: we don’t know why Mirabelle was killed. Mirabelle wasn’t … wasn’t interfered with sexually before her death, the house wasn’t burgled, but it could still have been a random killing, or a killing by someone preying on single women living alone. It could have been an act carried out by a woman who was so drunk and angry she didn’t know what she was doing.