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Chapter 17

Anna

I can smell it in the house the moment I open the back door. A scented citrus aerosol clinging to the curtains and carpets. Drew is trying to disguise something. Alcohol. He’s been drinking again.

I turn, lift the recycling bin lid and peer inside. There are no cans or bottles in here, which is evidence in itself. If he had nothing to hide and he wasn’t binge-drinking, it’d contain at least a couple of empty lager cans. So he’s hidden his empties elsewhere. Last time, I found them in the boot of the car we share, under the false floor next to the tyre jack. The time before that, they were in the box that attaches to the back of the lawnmower and catches the grass.

He’s wearing his delivery driver’s uniform when he appears: green jacket, white shirt and black trousers. He’s been employed by a haulage firm for the best part of a year and I hate to think of the number of hours he must have exceeded the drink-drive limit while behind the wheel. Each time I confront him, he promises that he’s never driven while drunk. I’ve yet to believe him.

‘Oh hi,’ he says, faking surprise. ‘How was the spa?’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘Really good. How are you?’

‘I was upstairs putting the washing away,’ he adds, holding up the blue wash basket he’s carrying.

His eyes are ever so slightly glazed and he’s trying hard to focus on mine without allowing them to wander.

‘What was it this time?’ I ask without emotion.

‘Huh?’

‘Lager? That’s what you normally turn to when things get bad.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Your breath smells of mints, so I assume you’ve been sucking the life out of a packet of Polos.’

‘I’ve just cleaned my teeth.’

‘At half past four in the afternoon?’

‘I didn’t get around to doing it earlier.’

‘You’re struggling to maintain eye contact with me.’

He closes his eyes, then opens them and forces himself to hold my gaze. ‘I had a couple of drinks last night,’ he concedes. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘Where are your empties?’

‘In the recycling bin.’

‘I looked. They’re not.’

He folds his arms and fixes me with a cold gaze.

‘You’re checking up on me?’

‘Don’t turn this around on me, Drew. You shouldn’t be drinking at all. I let it go at Liv’s party but I shouldn’t have.’

‘Don’t start,’ he says, and puts the basket away under the worktop in the utility room. I follow him.

‘I’m not starting,’ I say, when in reality, that’s exactly what I’m doing. ‘We need to find you help again.’

He shakes his head. ‘I’m not going back into that place.’

‘I’m not saying you have to. But maybe you could try an AA meeting? They hold them twice a week at a church in town.’

Drew removes his asthma inhaler from his pocket, and I wait until he takes two puffs.

‘I can go weeks without a drink,’ he argues.

‘And when you start again, you make up for lost time by bingeing. You have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol.’

A darkness descends upon him. I can see it in his eyes. I don’t like the version of him that’s about to rear its head.

‘I’ll tell you what, Anna,’ he sneers. ‘I’ll get help for my “unhealthy relationship with alcohol” when you get help to stop your own unhealthy relationships.’

My face heats up.

‘I haven’t done that in a long time,’ I say.

‘Really?’

He edges closer to me and I swallow hard. I worry that one day, his verbal aggression will manifest itself as something physical. But I can’t abandon him. I love him. I open my mouth to protest again but he beats me to it.

‘The bedsheets don’t lie,’ he says.

Then he opens a cupboard and thrusts a bin bag at me. It’s transparent and I see the stains on the bedding and the other objects I threw away.

‘Not nice being spied on, is it? I told you I wasn’t going to drink again and you told me you weren’t going to do that again. Yet this is where we find ourselves.’

He grabs the car keys from a cabinet and slams the back door so hard behind him, the glass vibrates.

I make my way into the lounge and sink into the sofa. I thought I’d been careful. Is he going to tell Liv or Margot? I’d hate for Liv to think any less of me. She might not want to be my friend anymore.

And it only takes worrying about it to make me want to spiral again.