Page 37

Natalie

Natalie stands there speechless, adrenaline leaving her breathless as she debates what to do.

Eve knows about Montpellier Square, knows what Pete has been doing, but how?

Did she follow him? A horrifying thought floats into Natalie’s mind.

Did Eve take Erin in an attempt to frame Pete?

Is that why she asked if I knew where he was when Erin disappeared?

Decision made, Natalie hands her still full cup of hot chocolate to the police officer and heads for the lifts down to the ground floor.

Jabbing impatiently at the buttons, she hopes she can make it downstairs before Eve leaves the hospital.

She is about to push open the swing doors to the stairs when the bell pings and the lift doors open.

Natalie steps in beside a doctor with a stern face and a clipboard, and an older lady clutching a mangled tissue in her hands, pressing it to her nose in tiny dabs.

Her eyes are red-rimmed and Natalie looks away, towards the mirrored walls.

Immediately she wishes she hadn’t.

Her reflection in the glass is set, her lips a thin white gash, and the tiny lines that she’s recently noticed around her eyes and mouth have deepened into gorges.

Her skin has a waxy sheen to it, as if she’s in the middle of a bout of flu.

After stopping at every floor, the lift finally reaches the ground floor and Natalie is alone.

Hurrying through the doors, she rushes through the accident and emergency department and follows the signs for the car park, her breath coming in short pants as her sandals slip on the wet pavement.

The rain has finally stopped, but the air has an unseasonable chill and Natalie shivers as she casts her eye around the car park, searching for Eve’s car.

She has almost given up hope when she sees movement at the parking pay station, and then Eve crosses the tarmac in front of her, the street lamp illuminating her slight figure.

‘Eve!’ Natalie runs across the car park, ignoring the puddles splashing over her feet and up her bare calves, as the lights on Eve’s car flash.

‘Eve! Wait a minute.’

Eve pauses, about to step into her car.

Her eyes are wide and alarm flits across her features before she realises it’s just Natalie.

‘God,’ she breathes, pressing a hand to her chest, ‘I thought I was about to get mugged. What is it?’ Her hand goes to her mouth.

‘Oh no. It’s not Erin, is it?

’

‘No,’ Natalie frowns.

‘I wouldn’t chase you down out here if it was about Erin – I would be with Erin .

’ Natalie thinks this is a prime example of how important Eve believes she is to their family – important enough that Natalie would leave her daughter to tell Eve any news.

‘What did you mean upstairs? You said Pete should have been at home instead of spending time in Montpellier Square. What did you mean?’ Natalie’s hand shoots out and grips the car door, so Eve can’t close it if she gets into the car.

Eve’s gaze drifts to Natalie’s hand on the door, and then back to her face.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it.

I’m sorry, I’m tired and I wasn’t thinking.

I shouldn’t have said it.

’

‘You knew.’ Natalie feels winded, as if all the air has been knocked out of her.

‘You knew Pete was having an affair and you didn’t tell me.

’

‘It wasn’t my place to tell you, Natalie.

’

Natalie isn’t buying that, not one little bit.

‘Bullshit, Eve. There’s nothing you love more than running Pete down, so why not tell me something you know is going to blow my marriage apart?

Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for?

Something to prove you right about Pete?

’ Natalie pauses, drawing in a breath.

‘That’s not true, Nat.

I might not like Pete – in fact, I think he’s a right shit – but I wasn’t going to come between the two of you.

He can do that all by himself.

’

Natalie’s voice rises, echoing in the empty car park.

‘You think Pete had something to do with this. With Erin’s disappearance.

’

Eve scoffs. ‘I never said anything of the sort—’

‘You don’t need to!

’ Natalie half screeches as Eve takes a step back, raising her hands as if to ward her off.

‘You’ve made it perfectly clear what you think about him.

What has he ever done to you, Eve?

Even before you knew about the affair, you hated him.

You’re so … so down on him all the time, and he doesn’t deserve it.

’ If someone had told Natalie a couple of hours ago that she would be defending Pete – Pete the cheat – she would have laughed in their face, but now standing in front of Eve, Natalie has never felt so passionately about him as she does now.

‘You’re deluded,’ Eve says, fury making her voice tremble in the still night air.

‘I can’t believe that after all this time you can’t see what he’s really like.

Even after you know he cheated on you.

’ She takes a step towards Natalie, her eyes never leaving her face.

‘He was with that other woman when you were crying at the bottom of the stairs. He was with her when Zadie was playing up at school and you had to meet the headteacher alone.’ She eyes Natalie with disdain.

‘Pete was with her when you called me, afraid of what you might do to your own baby.’

Natalie can’t speak, winded by Eve’s mention of that awful, desperate phone call.

‘No one asked you to be there.’

‘Yes, you fucking did!’ Eve shouts, drawing attention from a man who hurries past them into the emergency department, his head lowered as if to drown them out.

‘It was me you called, not Pete, because you knew he would never respond to you. It was me who took care of Erin when you couldn’t, me who spent time with Zadie, when all she wanted was a little bit of attention and you couldn’t give it to her.

It was me, every time, when it should have been Pete.

So forgive me if you think I’m unreasonable for thinking he’s a complete piece of shit.

’ Eve takes a breath, her chest hitching, but Natalie can tell she isn’t done yet, not by a long shot.

‘Pete should have been the one doing all of this. Pete should have been the one supporting you, not me,’ Eve says, quietly.

‘Pete should be grateful he even has a family like yours to come home to. He doesn’t deserve you.

’

Natalie’s veins spark with something deeper than plain old rage.

It’s the innate instinct to lash out and knock down whatever is threatening her family.

‘What is it that you want, Eve?’

‘I want you to see what you have,’ Eve says, her voice breaking now.

‘If Erin was mine, I would take such good care of her, I would worship the ground she walked on, but you – neither of you seem to appreciate what you have. You need to wake up, Natalie, to the fact that you are lucky to have a healthy baby at your age – to have three beautiful kids, which is all I ever wanted – and to the fact that Pete will never give you what you deserve.’

‘None of this is my fault,’ Natalie says, the words tumbling out before she has a chance to process what she’s even going to say.

All she knows is that she wants to make Eve hurt the way she is hurting right now.

‘It’s not my fault you don’t have a family, Eve.

It’s not my fault none of your many, many boyfriends want to marry you, and it’s not my fault you can’t have children.

’ Eve opens her mouth, her face a bleached, sickly white in the glow of the street lamp overhead, but Natalie holds up a hand.

‘I’ve tried so hard to include you in our family, to make you feel welcome, and in return all you’ve done is try to turn me against Pete.

’

‘I was trying to show you that you deserve better than him.’

Natalie laughs, a bitter brisk bark that hangs in the air.

‘Why can’t you just admit it?

You were jealous, Eve, you always have been, even when I tried to make you a part of it, even when Pete told me you were obsessive and annoying, and that something wasn’t right about the way you were so fixated on our family.

The way you were constantly looking for a way in.

’ She pauses before she leans in close, so close she can feel Eve’s breath hitting her cheek.

‘I know what you did.’

What little colour is left in Eve’s face drains away and she swallows hard.

‘Natalie, I—’

‘You told Pete I knew I was pregnant. You told him I told you first!’ Natalie shakes her head, as Eve lets out a long exhale.

She looks almost relieved, but Natalie is too furious to question why.

‘I trusted you, Eve, and you couldn’t even tell me my husband was lying to me.

Does it make you happy?

Knowing you’ve had a hand in destroying my marriage?

’

Eve’s eyes narrow, and she yanks open the car door again.

‘I don’t think telling Pete you lied about your pregnancy is the nail in that particular coffin.

’

Natalie pulls her hand from the door as Eve slides into the driver’s seat and shoves her key towards the ignition, fumbling it and dropping it into the footwell.

‘I will never, ever let you take Erin from me, do you understand?’ That look of relief on Eve’s face when Natalie brought up the pregnancy flashes in front of Natalie’s eyes, and she steps back, something dark and ugly stirring in her gut.

‘Where did you go, Eve? When you left the party after Pete’s speech?

Where were you?’

Eve finally manages to get her key in the ignition and she guns the car into life with a roar.

‘I am not to blame for your family’s problems, Natalie.

Instead of looking at me, perhaps you should be looking a bit closer to home.

I think everything else that needs to be said has been said.

Go back to your baby.

’ Without another glance at Natalie, Eve speeds out of the car park, her brake lights flashing only briefly as she reaches the junction back out on to the main road.

Drained, Natalie leans against the street lamp, willing her heart rate to return to normal.

She’s not going mad, she’s sure of it.

The look of relief on Eve’s face just now – it was almost as if Eve had expected to be accused of something else, far worse than telling Pete a secret.

Where did Eve go when she left the party ?

Natalie thought she went home, but then Eve was there when the police turned up, after Erin was reported missing.

Did she hear the sirens and come back?

Or had she returned prior to that?

Natalie closes her eyes, thinking about Pete running back into the house, shouting that he’d found her.

Erin, a tiny bundle in his arms, wrapped in a carrier bag.

Oh, God. Natalie wraps a hand around the cold metal of the street lamp, keeping herself upright, the pavement suddenly tilting beneath her feet.

Erin had been found inside a plastic Marks and Spencer’s bag.

The same bag that Eve had brought to the party, filled with expensive wine.

Erin was found in the hollow tree, beside the woodland path.

The woodland path leading from the back of Natalie’s house, all the way out to the village, to the street that Eve lives on.

Eve uses that cut through all the time.

And she would know about the tree – of course she would.

Natalie’s hand goes to her mouth, and she’s surprised to taste salt on her lips.

She’s crying again. Eve has been with Natalie on numerous occasions during the summer holidays when they’ve taken Emily and Zadie – and even Erin, this year – to the hollow tree for a picnic and to try and catch sticklebacks in the stream.

Natalie’s eyes go to the illuminated windows of the hospital, to the third floor where Erin is being looked after by the doctors in the ICU.

She still doesn’t even know if Erin is going to survive the ordeal she’s been through tonight, and at this thought Natalie’s feet turn towards the building and she begins to run, back inside, back to her daughter.

With every footstep, Eve’s words rebound in her mind.

If Erin were mine I would take such good care of her.

Eve has made it clear to Natalie that she thinks she is a terrible mother.

Did Eve take Erin to prove that to the rest of the world?