The Breakdown Page 3

  But she carries on, unaware: ‘Just as well. It could have been you.’

  ‘Except that I wouldn’t have broken down,’ I say.

  She laughs, breaking the tension. ‘You don’t know that! She might not have broken down. It’s only supposition. Maybe somebody flagged her down, pretending they were in trouble. Anybody would stop if they saw someone in trouble, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Would they, though? On a lonely road and in a storm?’ I desperately want the answer to be ‘No’.

  ‘Well, not unless they didn’t have a conscience. Nobody would just drive on. They’d at least do something.’

  Her words slam through me and tears prick my eyes. The guilt I feel is almost unbearable. I don’t want Rachel to see how much her words have affected me so I lower my head and fix my eyes on the vase of orange flowers sitting between us on the table. To my embarrassment, the petals begin to blur and I reach down hastily, groping in my bag for a tissue.

  ‘Cass? Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t seem it.’

  I hear the concern in her voice and blow my nose, giving myself time. The need to tell someone is overwhelming. ‘I don’t know why, but I didn’t…’ I stop.

  ‘Didn’t what?’ Rachel looks puzzled.

  I open my mouth to tell her but then I realise that if I do, not only will she be appalled that I drove on without checking that the woman was all right, she’ll also catch me out in a lie, because I’ve already said that I didn’t go home that way last night.

  I shake my head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It obviously does. Tell me, Cass.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I scrunch the tissue with my fingers. ‘Because I’m ashamed.’

  ‘Ashamed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ashamed of what?’ When I don’t say anything, she gives a sigh of exasperation. ‘Come on, Cass, just tell me! It can’t be that bad!’ Her impatience makes me even more nervous so I look for something to tell her, something she’ll believe.

  ‘I forgot about Susie,’ I blurt out, hating myself for using what is just a mundane issue compared to the woman’s death. ‘I forgot that I was meant to have bought her something.’

  A frown appears on her face. ‘What do you mean, forgot?’

  ‘I can’t remember, that’s all. I can’t remember what we decided to buy her.’

  She looks at me in astonishment. ‘But it was your idea. You said that as Stephen is taking her to Venice for her birthday, we should buy her some lightweight luggage. We were in the bar near my office at the time,’ she adds helpfully.

  I let relief show on my face, although the words mean nothing to me. ‘Of course! I remember now – God, I’m so stupid! I thought it must be perfume or something.’

  ‘Not when there’s so much money. We all put in twenty pounds, remember, so you should have a hundred and sixty altogether. Have you got it with you?’

  A hundred and sixty pounds? How could I forget being given that much money? I want to admit everything but instead I carry on the pretence, no longer sure of myself. ‘I thought I’d pay by card.’

  She smiles reassuringly at me. ‘Well, now that that little drama’s over, drink your coffee before it gets cold.’

  ‘It probably already is – shall I get us a fresh cup?’

  ‘I’ll go, you sit here and relax.’

  I watch her as she joins the queue at the counter, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. Although I managed not to tell her about seeing the woman in the car, I wish I hadn’t had to admit that I’d forgotten about the luggage. Rachel isn’t stupid. She’d witnessed Mum’s deterioration on a weekly basis and I don’t want her to worry, or to start thinking that I’m heading down the same road. The worst thing is, I have no memory of suggesting that we buy luggage, or of where I put the hundred and sixty pounds, unless it’s in the little drawer in my old writing desk. I’m not worried about the money itself; if I can’t find it, it doesn’t really matter. But it’s frightening to think I’ve forgotten everything to do with Susie’s present.

  Rachel comes back with the coffees.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ she says, sitting down.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s just that it’s not like you to get so upset over something as mundane as forgetting what present you’re meant to have bought. Is there something else troubling you? Is everything all right with Matthew?’

  For the hundredth time, I find myself wishing that Rachel and Matthew liked each other more. They try not to show it but there’s always an undercurrent of mistrust between them. To be fair to Matthew, he doesn’t like Rachel simply because he knows she disapproves of him. With Rachel, it’s more complicated. She has no reason to dislike Matthew so sometimes a little voice in my head wonders if she’s jealous that I now have someone in my life. But then I hate myself for the thought, because I know she’s happy for me.

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine,’ I reassure her, trying to push last night from my mind. ‘It really was just the present.’ Even those words seem like a betrayal of the woman in the car.

  ‘Well, you were a little worse for wear that night,’ she says, smiling at the memory. ‘You didn’t have to worry about driving home as Matthew was picking you up, so you had quite a few glasses of wine. Maybe that’s why you forgot.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘Well, drink up and we’ll go and choose something.’

  We finish our coffees and go down to the fourth floor. It doesn’t take us long to choose a couple of powder-blue suitcases, and as we make our way out of the shop, I sense Rachel’s eyes on me.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go for lunch? If you don’t, it doesn’t matter.’

  The thought of lunch, of having to talk about anything and everything to avoid speaking about the woman in the car, suddenly seems too much. ‘Actually, I’ve got a splitting headache – a bit too much celebrating last night, I think. Can I take you to lunch next week instead? I can come into town any day now that I’m not working.’

  ‘Sure. You’ll be all right to come to Susie’s party tonight, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course. But could you take the cases, just in case?’

  ‘No problem. Where are you parked?’

  ‘At the bottom of the High Street.’

  She nods. ‘I’m in the multi-storey, so I’ll say goodbye to you here.’

  I point to the two suitcases. ‘Can you manage?’

  ‘They’re lightweight, remember? And if I can’t, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a nice young man to help me!’

  I give her a quick hug and make my way to the car. As I turn on the ignition, the time comes up and I see that it’s a minute past one. A part of me – quite a large part – doesn’t want to listen to the local news, but I find myself turning on the radio anyway.

  ‘Last night, the body of a woman was found in a car in Blackwater Lane, between Browbury and Castle Wells. She had been brutally murdered. If you travelled that road between eleven-twenty last night and one-fifteen this morning, or know anyone who did, please contact us as soon as possible.’

  I reach out and turn the radio off, my hand shaking with stress. Brutally murdered. The words hang in the air, and I feel so sick, so hot, that I have to open the window, just to be able to breathe. Why couldn’t they just have said ‘murdered’? Wasn’t ‘murdered’ already bad enough? A car pulls up alongside me and the driver makes signs, wanting to know if I’m leaving. I shake my head and he drives off, then a minute or so later another car comes along, wanting to know the same thing, and then another. But I don’t want to leave, all I want is to stay where I am until the murder is no longer news, until everybody has moved on and forgotten about the woman who was brutally murdered.

  I know it’s stupid but I feel as if it’s my fault she’s dead. Tears prick my eyes. I can’t imagine the guilt ever going away and the thoug
ht of carrying it around with me for the rest of my life seems too high a price to pay for a moment’s selfishness. But the truth is, if I’d bothered to get out of my car, she might still be alive.

  I drive home slowly, prolonging the moment when I have to leave the protective bubble of my car. Once I get home, the murder will be everywhere, on the television, in the newspapers, on everyone’s lips, a constant reminder of my failure to help the woman in the woods.

  As I get out of the car, the smell of a bonfire burning in the garden transports me instantly back to my childhood. I close my eyes and, for a few blissful seconds, it’s no longer a hot, sunny day in July, it’s a crisp, cold November evening and Mum and I are eating sausages speared onto forks, while Dad sets off fireworks at the bottom of the garden. I open my eyes to find that the sun has disappeared behind a cloud, mirroring my mood. Normally, I would go and find Matthew but, instead, I head straight for the house, glad to have a little more time to myself.

  ‘I thought I heard the car,’ he says, coming into the kitchen a few minutes later. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. Weren’t you meant to be having lunch out?’

  ‘We were, but we decided to leave it for today.’

  He comes over and drops a kiss on my head. ‘Good. Now you can have lunch with me.’

  ‘You smell of bonfire,’ I say, breathing it in from his T-shirt.

  ‘I thought I’d get rid of all those branches I cut down the other week. Luckily, they were under the tarpaulin so the rain didn’t get to them but they would have smoked the house out if we’d used them on the fire.’ He wraps his arms around me. ‘You do know that you’re the one for me, don’t you?’ he says softly echoing what he used to say when we first met.

  I’d been working at the school for about six months when a group of us went to a wine bar to celebrate my birthday. Connie noticed Matthew the moment we arrived. He was sitting at a table by himself, clearly waiting for someone, and she’d joked that if his date didn’t turn up she would offer to replace her. When it became obvious that his date wasn’t going to materialise, she went over, already a little drunk, and asked him if he wanted to join us.

  ‘I was hoping nobody would notice I’d been stood up,’ he said ruefully as Connie sat him down between her and John. It meant that I was opposite him and I couldn’t help noticing the way his hair fell over his forehead, or the blue of his eyes whenever he looked over at me, which he did, quite a lot. I tried not to make too much of it, which was just as well, as by the time we stood up to leave, several bottles of wine later, he had Connie’s number firmly in his phone.

  A few days later she came up to me in the staff room, a huge grin on her face, to tell me that Matthew had called her – to ask for my number. So I let her give it to him and when he phoned, he nervously admitted, as he so sweetly put it, ‘As soon as I saw you I knew you were the one for me.’

  Once we began seeing each other regularly, he confessed that he couldn’t father children. He told me he’d understand if I didn’t want to see him again but, by then, I was already in love and although it was a major blow, I didn’t feel it was the end of the world. By the time he asked me to marry him, we’d already talked about other ways to have a child and had decided that we would look into it seriously once we’d been married a year. Which is about now. Usually, it’s a constant thought in my mind but now it seems so far away I can’t reach it.

  Matthew’s arms are still around me. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, we bought Susie some luggage.’

  ‘Are you all right? You seem a bit down.’

  Suddenly, the need to be on my own is overwhelming. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache,’ I say, pulling away from him. ‘I think I’ll get an aspirin.’

  I go upstairs, get a couple of aspirins from the bathroom and swallow them down with water from the tap. As I lift my head I catch sight of my face in the mirror and search it anxiously, looking for something that could give me away; something which would tell people that everything isn’t as it should be. But there’s nothing to show I’m any different to the person I was when I married Matthew a year ago, just the same chestnut hair and the same blue eyes staring back at me.

  I turn my back on my reflection and go into the bedroom. My pile of clothes has been moved from the chair to the now-made bed, a gentle hint from Matthew to tidy them away. On a normal day I would be amused but today I feel irritated. My eyes fall on my great-grandmother’s writing desk and I remember the money Rachel spoke about, the hundred and sixty pounds that everybody gave me for Susie’s gift. If I took the money, it would be in there, it’s where I always put things I want to keep safe. Taking a deep breath, I unlock the little drawer on the left-hand side of the writing desk and pull it out. Lying inside is a scruffy pile of notes. I count them; there’s a hundred and sixty pounds exactly.

  In the warm peace of my bedroom the hard facts of what I forgot suddenly loom over me. To forget a name or a face is normal but to forget suggesting a gift and taking money for it isn’t.

  ‘Did you take some aspirin?’ Matthew says from the doorway, making me jump.

  ‘I quickly push the drawer shut. ‘Yes, and I feel much better.’

  ‘Good.’ He smiles. ‘I’m going to have a sandwich. Do you want one? I thought I’d have mine with a beer.’

  The thought of food still makes my stomach churn. ‘No, go ahead. I’ll get something later. I’ll just have a cup of tea.’

  I follow him downstairs and sit down at the kitchen table. He puts a mug of tea in front of me and I watch him as he takes bread from the cupboard, a slab of cheddar from the fridge and makes himself a quick sandwich, pushing the two together and eating it without a plate.

  ‘That murder has been on the radio all morning,’ he says, crumbs dropping to the floor. ‘The road’s been closed and the police are all over it, looking for evidence. It’s insane to think it’s all happening five minutes from here!’

  I try not to flinch and look absent-mindedly at the tiny white crumbs on our terracotta stone floor. They look as if they’re stranded at sea with no help in sight. ‘Do they know anything about her yet?’ I ask.

  ‘The police must do because they’ve advised her next of kin but they haven’t released any details. It’s awful to think what someone must be going through right now. Do you know what I can’t get out of my mind? That it could have been you if you’d been stupid enough to take that road last night.’

  I stand, my mug in my hand. ‘I think I’ll go and lie down for a bit.’

  He looks at me, concerned. ‘Are you sure you’re OK? You don’t look great. Perhaps we shouldn’t go to the party tonight?’

  I smile sympathetically because he’s not a party person, he’d much rather have friends over for a casual dinner. ‘We have to, it’s Susie’s fortieth.’

  ‘Even if you still have a headache?’ I hear the ‘but’ in his voice and sigh.

  ‘Yes,’ I say firmly. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to talk to Rachel.’

  ‘I don’t mind talking to her, it’s just those disapproving looks she always gives me. She makes me feel as if I’ve done something wrong. Did you remember to get my jacket from the cleaner’s, by the way?’

  My heart sinks. ‘No, sorry, I forgot.’

  ‘Oh. Well, never mind, I guess I can wear something else.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say again, thinking of the present and all the other things I’ve forgotten lately. A few weeks ago, he had to come and rescue me and my trolley-load of food at the supermarket when I left my purse on the kitchen table. Since then, he’s found milk where the detergent should be and detergent in the fridge, and has had to deal with an angry call from my dentist over an appointment I forgot I’d made. So far he’s laughed it off, telling me I’m in overload because of the end of the school year. But like with Susie’s present, there have been other times when my memory has failed me, times he doesn’t know about. I’ve driven to school without my books, forgotten both a hair appoint
ment and a lunch with Rachel, and last month I drove twenty-five miles to Castle Wells, unaware I’d left my bag at home. The thing is, although he knows that Mum died when she was fifty-five and that towards the end she was forgetful, I’ve never actually come out and told him that for the three years before she died, I had to wash, dress and feed her. Neither does he know that she was diagnosed with dementia when she was 44, just ten years older than I am now. Back then, I couldn’t believe he would still marry me if he thought there was a possibility that a dozen or so years down the line, I’d be diagnosed with the same thing.

  I know now he would do anything for me but too much time has passed. How can I admit that I held things back from him? He’d been so open about not being able to have children and I’d repaid his honesty with dishonesty; I’d allowed my own selfish fears to get in the way of the truth. How I’m paying for that now, I think as I lie down on the bed.

  I try to relax but images of last night flash through my mind, one after the other, like stills in a film. I see the car ahead of me on the road, I see myself swerving out around it, I see myself turning my head to look at the driver. And then I see the blur of a woman’s face, looking back at me through the window.

  *

  In the middle of the afternoon, Matthew comes to find me. ‘I think I’ll go to the gym for a couple of hours. Unless you want to go for a walk or something?’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I say, grateful to have some time on my own. ‘I need to sort through the stuff I brought back from school. If I don’t do it now, I never will.’

  He nods. ‘Then we can both have a well-deserved glass of wine when I get back.’

  ‘Deal,’ I say, accepting his kiss. ‘Have fun.’

  I hear the front door slam but, instead of going into the study to sort out my work things, I stay at the kitchen table and let my mind clamber over the thoughts in my head. The house phone rings – it’s Rachel.

  ‘You’ll never guess what?’ she says breathlessly. ‘You know that young woman who was murdered? Well, it turns out she worked in my company.’