Page 84 of We Live Here Now

83

Emily

“God, that’s so awful.” It’s only the start of March but it feels almost like a spring day in the little sun-trap courtyard the Watkinses built by the orchard where I’m sitting with the vicar sipping tea.

“Yes, it really is. So hard to get my head around. He was always so alive.” Paul’s so distraught he’s aged a decade. I want to hug him. But then, despite this terrible news, I’m in such a good mood I want to hug everyone.

Instead, I stroke my currently flat tummy. I can’t wait for Freddie to get home to share our brilliant, brilliant news. I thought my queasiness might have been down to my medication, but then I found some used pregnancy tests in the back of my underwear drawer and had a hazy memory of taking them a couple of weeks back. It must have been just before I banged my head. Freddie says concussions can do that to you. Mess with some of your memories. A few things are a little off, but I’m fine in myself. I need to remember that. I’m right as rain now. Even righter than rain. I went down to the pharmacy and got a fresh test and yes, we are very much pregnant.

“What happened?” I ask, bringing my focus back to the present.

“Sally said she’d gone out for a hill walk while he was going to stay in the rental and paint. He was doing an enormous canvas of her, but she’d started spending the first couple of hours of the day out on the hills and moors and then bringing back breakfast from the bakery in the village before settling in to lie still for the rest of the day while he worked. She said he’d said he had a bit of a headache and was feeling off, but to go just the same. So she went on her walk and picked up breakfast and some medicine in the village, and when she got home he’d either slipped or maybe felt unwell or fainted in the shower and cracked his skull.”

“Oh god, the poor man.” It makes me shiver.

“And poor Sally,” he adds. “He didn’t die instantly, apparently. Bled out in the bath. It was quite a mess when she got back. She called an ambulance straightaway, obviously.”

“It’s such a nightmare for her. She must be in a terrible state. If only she hadn’t gone for that walk.”

“That’s what she kept saying to me. I told her that accidents happen all the time and you can’t live that way. And he knew she loved him.”

“They did love each other so very much.” It’s strange, but I always get a weird heavy headache when I think about Sally, as if there’s something about her I can’t quite remember. Maybe I should take a painkiller, even though I’m trying to avoid medicines at the moment to protect the baby. “And having you visit for the weekend must have helped.” I touch Paul’s hand, a gesture of comfort. “When is she coming back here?”

“She’s not.” Paul gets to his feet. “She says she wants to live abroad. Maybe go to her niece in New Zealand. She says there are too many memories here. Anyway, the reason I stopped by was that she gave me something for you before I left.” He takes out a lilac envelope and hands it over. “She says it’s only for you.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” I’m surprised though. I can’t imagine why Sally would have anything to say to me. We weren’t that close, I don’t think. Were we?

After Paul’s gone, I make a cup of tea and curl up on the sofa to read the letter. It’s beautiful, neat cursive, written carefully in ink pen.

Dear Emily,

So, Paul has spent all weekend telling me how happy you and Freddie have been recently, and what a positive change there’s been in you, and it alarmed me to the point that I figured I’d better write. If you remember everything that happened with us, then nothing in this letter will come as a surprise. But if you find you’re a little muddy and confused in your recent memories when you think about them too hard, which I suspect you are, then read on. The last time I saw you I told you I owed you one. Well, this is it. Me paying my debt.

This may seem like a wild story, but it’s one you found out about, and you set me free. I think perhaps, by luck or design, maybe your husband found out about your blackmail cash and put you in the third-floor room too…

My head starts throbbing and the words blur, but I force myself to read on. What is she talking about?

… but I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to explain this to you one step at a time so you can understand what your darling or not-so-darling husband has done to you.

I read and read as she tells me everything that I suddenly feel like I already knew, and then I go back and reread it all, my head spinning. I look at the last line again.

And when you’ve read this, burn it. For both of us.

I do as she requests and lean forward, lighting the paper with the matches. The sun is sinking by the time it’s ash, and I sit back and stare out the window for an hour or more. It can’t be true, can it? Can it? It’s crazy, but at the same time I feel the very truth of it. I remember a vague feeling of guilt.

Mark and Cat. I was blackmailing Mark, that’s what Sally said. The inside of my skull itches as if there’s a scab over an empty space.

I don’t have any extra money anywhere. The whole thing is insane, but I humor it. If I had an account with money in it, and Freddie knew about it, then where would he hide that from me?

I go to the red room that Freddie uses as a home office and rummage through all the drawers, going against my every instinct that this is lovely sweet Freddie who would never hurt anyone, especially me. I’m about to give up when I pull a drawer free and check underneath like they do in old spy films.

There’s an envelope taped to the underside of it. An envelope addressed to me. My heart in my mouth, I take the papers out and read.

A hundred and fifty thousand pounds sitting there in my name and an awful note from Mark. God, why would I have done something so grotesque? Does this mean that everything in Sally’s letter is true?

Oh, Freddie . Tears sting my eyes, anger and upset and hurt, and I touch my stomach where our little baby is growing. What did you do?