The Carrier (26 page)
Authors: Sophie Hannah
Tags: #Fiction, #Psychological, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Thriller, #Mystery
- ‘I didn’t ask for a dry white wine. I asked for a Bacardi and Coke. You could try listening to what I say for once in your life.’ (You asked Tim to get you a dry white wine. We all heard you.)
- ‘Tim, why’s the heating on? It’s boiling. What? No, I didn’t. Why would I turn the heating on when I’m boiling?’ (Dan, Tim and I had all seen you adjust the thermostat, turning it up from 20 to 25.)
- ‘I didn’t say that Valentine’s Day was a meaningless commercial waste of time. I was probably being tactful, so that you wouldn’t feel you had to go to great trouble and expense to surprise me – which you clearly had no intention of doing anyway, because you don’t give a toss about me, obviously.’ (When were you probably being tactful, Francine? When you didn’t say the thing we all heard you say?)
Dan reckons you’re not so much dishonest as unable to think clearly when you’re angry or hurt, which I refuse to accept. If everything that was wrong with you pre-stroke was the result of a psychological flaw that you couldn’t help, I would have to make allowances, and I can’t. I want to hate you, awful though that sounds.
That’s why I always found it so unsettling when something happened that seemed to support Dan’s theory. Remember when you went apoplectic at Tim over the twist at the end of that film? I can’t remember its name – it was a schlocky TV movie, your favourite kind. For a technically bright person, you had such stupid taste in everything, Francine. Favourite TV programme:
Hollyoaks
. Books: you only ever read fantasy goblin nonsense – you weren’t interested in reading about human beings, were you? Favourite song: ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’ by Shania Twain. I suppose it was apt, at least. Nothing impressed you. Do you know, I don’t think I ever heard you say in a restaurant that your food was nice, or lovely, or even okay. Tim always asked you, ‘How’s yours, darling?’, afraid of being accused later of failing to care about the quality of your dining experience, and the answer was always pursed lips and a disgusted shake of the head: the pizza base was too thin, the curry too spicy, the beef too underdone, the vegetables too soggy or too dry.
When the schlocky film finished, we turned off the telly and had the discussion that everyone who watched it had: did we guess the twist or not? ‘I guessed,’ you said proudly, expecting our admiration. ‘Did you?’ Tim asked. ‘How early on?’ Poor sod, he thought it would be an opportunity to praise your intuition, boost your ego. ‘I guessed as soon as she opened the filing cabinet in the garage and saw what was in there,’ you said. ‘It was so obvious.’
Dan, Tim and I looked at each other, baffled. If only we hadn’t. You caught the look and demanded to know what it meant. Dan made things worse by denying there had been a look. Tim decided to cut his losses and be honest, hoping to win points for full disclosure. ‘I don’t think that counts as guessing the twist, darling,’ he said as mildly and good-naturedly as he could. ‘That was the moment of official revelation, when she opened the filing cabinet.’ ‘What do you mean?’ you snapped at him. ‘“Official revelation” – what are you talking about?’ Tim went on as if he hadn’t noticed your sneery mimicry of him. ‘That’s when the film-makers showed the viewer the truth.’ He stressed the word ‘showed’. ‘You know: the “ta-da!” moment.’
You’d think Dan and I would have been laughing by now, wouldn’t you? We weren’t. We were perched tensely on the edges of our chairs, awaiting social Armageddon. ‘No,’ you said indignantly. ‘No one revealed anything! No one said anything. It just showed her opening the drawer of the cabinet and seeing what was inside.’ ‘That was the reveal,’ I told you, thinking Tim shouldn’t have to carry the burden alone. ‘Everyone watching the film knew the twist at that point.’ Yes, I’ll admit it: as I aimed those words at your utterly uncomprehending face, Francine, I wondered if Dan might be right and there might be something structurally wrong with your brain – something a neurologist could point to on an X-ray and say, ‘You see that knobbly nodule there with an impossibly long Latin name? That’s what’s been causing all the problems.’
I’ve never seen anyone storm out of a room so quickly. Tim, Dan and I didn’t have a chance to exchange any words before you marched back in with a hammer and stood with it beside the TV, gripping it so hard that I could see a muscular bulge in the sleeve of your top. ‘Francine, please don’t—’ Tim started to say. You interrupted him, jabbering too fast, as if you’d necked a bottle of speed: ‘Please don’t what? Please don’t put up the picture I’ve been meaning to put up for ages? Why not?’ You then insisted Tim get up and hunt everywhere for a hideous painting of two sheep in a field, which you’d bought from a craft fair for thirty pounds nearly a year earlier, I later found out from Tim; this was the artwork you suddenly, urgently needed to put up, despite having completely forgotten where you’d put it. While Tim searched, you stood next to the TV, staring at the screen, swinging the hammer dangerously close to it. You wanted us all to be scared of what you might do, didn’t you – to the TV, to us? You wanted us to fear what might happen if Tim didn’t find the painting, and the tin with the nails in it. Luckily, he did. I remember thinking, ‘For God’s sake, get the hammer off her.’
That painting’s up on the wall just outside your room, in the hall. Shame you can’t see it.
I wish I’d kept a diary, Francine. Perhaps one day I’ll collate all the letters Dan and I are writing to you and make them into something – I don’t know what. I am growing increasingly certain that it’s important to remember the bad things that happen as well as the good. You inflicted suffering on a scale that ought to be remembered, Francine. I truly believe that. It bothers me that I can’t remember when the hammer horror evening was, chronologically. Six months after Making Memories Night? No, later. You and Tim were living in the Heron Close house by then.
And now I don’t have time to write about Making Memories Night because I’ve got to drive to the tip with all the empty Christmas bottles. Which, having written this, I feel more like smashing over your head, Francine.
Friday 11 March 2011
I stand in front of my house and stare at the key in my hand. It proves that my life must be inside this building – my real life. Sometimes I feel as if it isn’t firmly located anywhere, but constantly sliding out of sight as I race to catch it up.
After everything I’ve been through to get back, I wish I felt happier about being here. The sound of football rushes out from the single-glazed windows to greet me; the ever-present backing track to my evenings at home. West Ham could play Liverpool in my lounge and invite all their fans and I don’t think I’d notice; I’d walk straight past the closed door on my way to the kitchen, assuming it was the TV making the god-awful noise as usual.
I take off my St Christopher and slip it into my jacket pocket before letting myself in. Sean hasn’t seen it since I first unwrapped it, when it provoked a row that ruined Christmas Day. Correction: when
Sean
provoked a row that ruined Christmas Day. He accused me of buying the medallion for effect, to make a point: that I planned to do even more travelling in the coming year and he’d better get used to it. It’s one of the few times I’ve burst into tears instead of fighting back. I couldn’t bear to explain that I’d bought it for my sake – that I was someone who had a sake all of my own; Sean clearly wasn’t thinking of me and didn’t plan to any time soon.
I forget the details of most of our rows soon after they happen, but that non-row was a landmark that led to the introduction of new policies: I decided that St Christopher and I would only get together when Sean wasn’t looking, and that in future it would be sensible to keep my soul safely out of reach.
I open the front door, feeling like a teenager who’s ignored her curfew and must now face the consequences. Sean’s standing in the hall with a bowl of something in one hand and a fork in the other. Steam from the food rises in the air between us. I smile at the man I have lived with for eight years. If I want this conversation to surprise me by not instantly degenerating into acrimony, smiling is a sensible first step.
Sean’s response is discouraging. As welcoming committees go, this one errs on the side of scowling like a self-centred tosser.
‘So,’ he says. ‘You decided to come back, then.’
Tell him. Tell him you’ve only come back to explain that you have to leave.
I don’t know how to say it. It’s easier to fall into the familiar groove of petty point-scoring, at which I happen to excel. I have no experience of abandoning a partner and a shared home. Sean’s the only man I’ve ever lived with. ‘Yesterday evening I decided to come back,’ I say in my best upbeat voice, looking at my watch. ‘I checked in for my flight home at six o’clock, twenty-three hours ago. It’s taken that long. Rubbish, isn’t it?’ I am still smiling, skin stretched tight. ‘I was furious with the German weather at first, but I got over it.’
I force myself to look at Sean’s face as a way to avoid seeing his feet. I keep noticing new things about him that grate, and today it’s his socks – the same kind he’s worn since I met him, but they’ve never bothered me before: woolly, bulky as shoes, with things like ‘Extreme Precipice Crater Climbing’ emblazoned across them. Which would be fine if he wore them for more adventurous missions than padding to the kitchen to get another beer.
‘I haven’t made you any supper.’ He lifts his bowl. ‘If you’d rung to tell me what time you’d be back . . .’
‘I’m not hungry. Sleep’s what I need. I didn’t get any last night.’ Why did I say that? I don’t want to go upstairs and get into a bed that smells of Sean; I want to pack a suitcase and leave. Except I might have to lie down and close my eyes for an hour first. The way I feel now, I’m not sure I’m fit to drive.
Sean knows I’m a for-better-or-for-worse sleeper. He’s watched me sleep on airport floors, in loud train carriages, in nightclubs with deafeningly loud music blaring out. I wait for him to ask me what happened last night to keep me awake, but all I get is a mumbled ‘Sorry if I’m keeping you up.’ It isn’t a genuine apology; its sole purpose is to draw attention to the apology I’m not offering him, the one he’s convinced he deserves. He turns his back on me and heads for the lounge. There’s a lager can protruding from each of his back trouser pockets.
No
.
Not today. Not the beer and football routine.
I beat him to the remote control and mute the sound. ‘I got no sleep because I nearly had to share a tiny double bed with a weirdo who ended up running away in the middle of the night, but not before she’d confessed to framing an innocent man for murder.’
Sean puts his bowl and fork on the floor, pulls the two beer cans out of his pockets and stands them on the arm of the sofa. He sits down and devotes his silent attention to the equally silent television, as if he and it have arranged to meditate together.
Nothing. No response whatsoever. Unbelievable.
I shouldn’t have agreed to such a huge TV. Even switched off, it would be the most commanding presence in any room. I regret all the arguments I let Sean win in the early days of our relationship: the too-soft mattress, the wet room he’s always just had a shower in, so that the loo seat needs to be patted down with paper before I can sit on it. And last but not least, our picture-hanging policy. As a result of my lust-induced weakness when Sean and I first bought this house, each of our paintings and prints hangs from a triangle of cord that in turn hangs from a picture rail. It looks fussy and old-fashioned, and I hate it nearly as much as I hate the fact that one of the pictures, framed for a mere £56, is a poster of some guy who used to play for Chelsea that anyone with a brain would see was hideous and chuck in the nearest skip.
‘Is there no part of what I’ve just said that you’d like to explore further?’ I ask Sean. ‘Murder, et cetera? I can elaborate if you want. That was my concise introduction, not the full story.’
‘Your plane landed at Combingham at eleven o’clock this morning,’ he says.
‘Yeah, I know. I was on it.’
It’s Sean’s turn to look at his watch. ‘It’s five o’clock. It doesn’t take six hours to get from Combingham airport to Spilling.’
‘No. It takes an hour and a half. Oh, hang on!’ I fake a moment of enlightenment. Acting plays a central part in my relationship with Sean, in so many ways. ‘You’re angry that I didn’t rush home straight away, even though you were at work.’
He’s communing with the mute television again, blocking me out. If he looked up, if he expressed even minimal concern for my wellbeing, I might tell him everything.
The love of my life is in prison, charged with a murder he didn’t commit. I thought I’d be able to rely on Kerry and Dan’s help in getting him out, but they’re lying too. All of which has brought home to me that if I’ve only got you, Sean, then I’ve got nothing. There’s a book of poems by e. e. cummings in my bag that means more to me than you do.
It’s probably best if I keep quiet about all the important stuff.
‘You got back when?’ I say. ‘Ten minutes ago? Five? And you found the house empty. You’d looked on the internet, found out when my plane landed, and you were expecting me to be home before you. But I wasn’t here. Which means . . . what? I’m a heartless bitch who doesn’t love you?’ Is that what I am? Am I floating that description of myself to see if he’ll recognise it and identify me?
‘I rang here, rang your work,’ he says, tight-lipped. ‘No sign of you.’
‘For God’s sake, Sean! I was out of touch for a while – it’s not a crime. I told you when we spoke yesterday I’d be home as soon as I could. I needed to go to the police, so this is it, now: the soonest I could get back.’
‘I rang your mobile – no answer.’
I can’t take my eyes off his face. If he isn’t embarrassed to be wearing that expression then he ought to be. It’s redolent of hopes cruelly dashed. I want to scream, ‘Nothing bad has happened to you! At all!’
‘You didn’t think to ring Spilling police station?’ I say instead. There is no trace of mockery in my voice; I wouldn’t be so careless. I am a master of domestic passive-aggressive warfare techniques.