‘I hope your first day goes well. They’re lucky to have you. And by the way,’ I say, fighting back tears, ‘I haven’t said it yet, but it’s wonderful having you both here. Please treat this place as your own.’
They both leave the house looking every inch the professionals with their slick suits and briefcases, Gemma with her phone tucked under her chin, talking animatedly and Gavin strutting along beside her. They hop into their taxi and head towards the train station, then I slump down into the nearest chair, the exhaustion of my playacting – pretending that everything is going swimmingly when in reality, I am close to collapse from lack of sleep and the fear that my life is about to fall apart – almost too much to tolerate.
A strong cup of coffee later and I have summoned up enough energy and courage to do what needs to be done. No more prevaricating. It’s time to face it head on.
I don’t knock, entering instead unannounced. They wouldn’t hear me anyway through the huge rooms of this house, my tapping disappearing into the ether, absorbed by the sheer vastness of the place. So I walk in instead, using the element of surprise.
‘Grace? Everything okay?’ Greg appears in front of me, a plate of toast in one hand and a laptop in the other. He frowns, glances around like a startled creature ready to take flight.
I should explain, tell him why I’m here. None of this is Greg’s fault. He is a victim in all of this, just like me, but I am too angry, too hyped up to go into the minutiae of my visit. ‘It will be once I’ve spoken to Kim,’ I say with a smile that belies my true intentions. ‘Is she about?’
He points through to the kitchen, a frown engraved into his brow, carved by confusion and anxiety. Greg isn’t an idiot. He senses my anger. I haven’t tried to disguise it but neither have I stormed in here shouting, tearing from room to room searching for her. Controlled. That’s what I am. Controlled and precise. But not for much longer.
I spot Kim in the distance, standing at the sink, her hands lowered into the water, her hips swaying as she rinses pots and places them on the drainer. She looks relaxed, easy in her own skin. That’s because she has no idea what is coming, what sort of havoc I am about wreak. How I am about to rip her carefully planned life into tiny little pieces.
My legs are rubber, my heart a trapped bird beneath my ribs, fluttering wildly as I stride towards her, a trail of sentences stacked up in my head, words that will tear her in two, expose her tawdry secret. Possibly even end her marriage.
‘We need to talk.’ My fingers push at her shoulder, knocking her off balance.
She spins around, soap suds dripping from her fingers onto the polished floor. Her eyes are wide. She has seen my face, the exhaustion, the ferocity there. Now she will know. Now she will understand.
‘Grace? What on earth…?’
I cut her off before she can say any more, grabbing her by her arm and dragging her over to the table where I press her down into a chair with force. She doesn’t resist, shock rendering her weak. Defenceless.
‘I know now why you wanted me to dispose of all Warren’s documents. It’s all so clear to me. God, I’ve been blind. Stupid and so fucking blind but not any more.’ I sit opposite her, my face close to hers, our noses almost touching. ‘When were you going to tell me about you and Warren, Kim? Or were you just hoping that now he’s dead, it can all be conveniently forgotten about?’
She narrows her eyes, her defences awakening. I sense Greg’s presence behind me, hear him shuffling about. Kim glances at him briefly, shaking her head for him to retreat and leave us alone.
There is a barely discernible shift in air pressure at my back as Greg moves away and closes the door with a muted click.
I am panting now, my nostrils flaring, beads of sweat covering my top lip. I have to stay cool, calm, not lose myself in my anger. I need to be surefooted. Precise. Ready to do battle.
‘Grace, with the greatest respect, I have no idea what you are talking about.’ She sighs and closes her eyes for a second, biting at her lip feverishly. Good. She is starting to buckle under the pressure. I’m not the only one feeling the strain. ‘Or maybe I do, but it definitely isn’t what you think.’ Her voice has lowered, is almost a whisper. She sounds resigned to this, as if it’s been a long time coming.
‘So, tell me then, what exactly is it you think that I am thinking? Because as far as I can tell, before my husband died, he had been having an affair with you. My husband and my sister, my only remaining sibling, sleeping together, sending one another secret notes thinking I would never find them. But the thing is, Kim, I did find them. I opened them, read them, wondered the fuck was going on, gave Warren the benefit of the doubt, but then heard from my son that you and Warren had been meeting up and realised what an idiot I had been, not seeing the obvious. You must have both had a real laugh at my expense, knowing you could carry on behind my back and I wouldn’t suspect a thing. Stupid, pathetic Grace, eh? So wrapped up in her writing, so caught up with her own dull little existence that she is too stupid, too dim witted to see what is going on right in front of her nose.’
I bring my fist down onto the table with a thump. She jumps then straightens her posture and lets out a trembling sigh, hoping to appear unmoved by my words. She is shaking her head repeatedly, rubbing her curled fists into her eye sockets and moaning softly.
I prepare myself for a stream of denials, for her apologies and repeated requests for forgiveness. I am not prepared for what she says next.
‘I was definitely not having an affair with Warren. Yes, we met up, but it was to discuss something that affects you, something about you. Something that Warren felt you should know.’ She stops, stares off over my shoulder, glances back at me, then continues, her voice a whisper, hoarse and full of resignation. ‘Grace, the pregnancy, the baby I had – it was you. I’m your mother, Grace. I’m not your sister. I’m your mum.’
The room sways, the floor turning to liquid as I try to stand, to back away from her. I slump down onto the chair, my head swimming, the steady thump at the base of my skull making me nauseous.
‘Warren went out for a drink with Greg a few months before he died and Greg got drunk, told Warren what I had told him about the baby. So Warren got in touch with me, told me you should be informed, that it was wrong for you to not know. And he was right. He was so right.’ She leans towards me, her eyes shiny, wet with tears, her chin trembling violently. ‘Please say something, Grace. I am so sorry. So very sorry. We never meant to hurt you. It’s just that the lie went on for so long, there seemed to be no way back from it, no easy way to break it to you after all these years.’
Her voice is distorted, my thoughts askew. I cannot make any sense of this. I have no idea what to say or do next. I am too heavy, too solid and dizzy to stay upright as I attempt to stand, everything leaden, my body a dead weight. I cling to the rim of the table for balance. It slips from my grasp, my fingers, my arms, flailing, grasping. I reach out for purchase on something – anything to stop me from falling. There is nothing. Nothing at all. Only a head full of angry insects, buzzing and flapping, battering against my skull. Skin that burns like a furnace. All my senses heightened. A thick veil of darkness descending. Then nothing.
Faces hovering over me. Blurred, indistinguishable faces. Voices in the background. Low, disembodied. I try to sit up. No strength. A headache. My cheeks hurt, my chin, my forehead filled with pain. A dull thump hammering in my head. Fingers stroking my hair. A soft voice calling my name. I try to remember. Am I at home?
‘Grace?’
That voice. I know it. So familiar. A soft voice calling out to me, offering platitudes.
And then it comes flooding back.
Layer upon layer of deception and hurt. Years of it. Decades. My entire life. One big lie. I am nothing more than one fucking awful, fat lie.
I try to sit up, slapping away the hands that press down on me, the voices coaxing me to lie still, to remain calm and gather my strength. A cup is held to my lips. Warm tea. I gag, spit it out, fluid leaking out of my mouth, drool running down my chin. Moisture settling on my face.
My eyes snap open. I blink, focus, blink again then grab the cup, throw it as far as I can. A smash close by. Crockery breaking. A cry. A pleading insistence for me to listen. Then tears. From me and Kim and possibly Greg as well. A river of tears that threaten to drown us all.
I want to go home. I don’t want to hear anything else. No more lies. No more of anything. Just a reprieve from this whole damn mess. A reprieve from my life.
‘Leave me alone! I want to go home. Just let me go home. Please…’
25
Torturous and endless, that’s what this is: a journey fraught with acrimony and hurt and resentment. It goes on for forever: trees, shrubbery, pedestrians, fast-moving vehicles all a blur as we move past them at speed, my face turned away from Kim, my refusal to look at or speak to her the only power I have to show her how angry and upset I am. How I despise her for this, for how she has upended my life. Everything about me is a huge fabrication. I am nobody, nobody at all. I no longer know who I am. The invisible person, the ghost of Grace, that’s me. The unseen. The unspeakable. The mistake.
Behind us, Greg follows in my car. Even my ability to get myself home was snatched away from me, the pair of them insisting I was in no fit state to drive. So here I am, being ferried about like an errant child. At this moment in time, I hate them both. I hate Warren for not being brave enough to tell me himself and I hate Kim and Greg for conspiring with him; all of them knowing this terrible fact and omitting to disclose any of it to the person at the centre of it. Me. My life. One big lie. Everything I thought I knew has been turned upside down, inside out, shaken about like a snow globe, the tiny fragments of my existence falling about me like confetti.
‘I need to know everything,’ I say as we pull up outside Woodburn Cottage. ‘Every single thing.’
