Chapter Ten

 

 

THE NEXT THING I KNOW, I’m in bed at Mum’s. I have no recollection of how I got here or why I’m here. Scared, I get out of bed and wander the upstairs rooms, finding the kids absent. When people hear me coming down the stairs, they pile into the hallway looking frantic.

“What’s happened?” I ask quickly. “How did I get here?”

There’s my mum and dad, plus Joe and Het, who’s carrying Elizabeth and Rupert at the same time. She holds out Rupert to me and I take him, kissing his head.

“Are you okay now?” Hetty asks, motioning towards Rupert.

It takes a few minutes, but I realise she’s motioning that I was acting strangely before and that I should try to get a hold of myself for the sake of Rupert.

Once we’re all in the living room, I notice it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. I must have had a few hours kip then.

“I’ll make the tea,” my dad says, because he’s not good with situations like these.

“I don’t remember much of what happened after the paramedic went,” I admit, rubbing my temples while Rupert crawls off my lap to play with his toys on the carpet. “I didn’t sleep well last night and then there was the shock of it all. I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.”

“I’m going to pick Emily up from school in an hour, darling,” my mother says gently, “but perhaps we shouldn’t tell her just yet. It’s up to you, but perhaps we should wait until we can get some professional advice on how best to tell her.”

I look at my baby boy, Rupert and my heart breaks. How will I ever tell him? He will never know his father. He’s only eighteen months old and I doubt he will grow up with any clear memory of his daddy.

The sadness sitting on my shoulders is so heavy, I haven’t even got the energy to cry anymore. I’m completely gutted, utterly empty.

Gage wasn’t perfect and he did cause me pain, but he was still my husband.

I catch Joe staring at me with a funny look in his eyes and I demand, “What is it? Can you stop looking at me like that?”

He appears upset and shrugs. “I just know how you feel, that’s all.”

“How could you possibly know?” I snap.

How could he? My own actions killed a man, his didn’t.

“His mother was an alcoholic,” Hetty whispers, after Joe leaves the room to help my dad with the tea.

“Gage wasn’t a drunk,” I decide, firmly asserting myself. “He was just stupid. He drank too much when he was with his friends, that’s all.”

Maybe Gage’s friends are to blame. Maybe I’m to blame because Gage was an alcoholic and I should’ve got him help. God knows how he was keeping up any standard of play if he was, though. No, he was just stupid on nights out with his friends. Stupid and feckless and not thinking about me or the kids. Not thinking about the fact that his actions might leave his children without a father. Drink driving…

I mean, he might have eventually died in a car accident, if he hadn’t died last night.

He might’ve ended up killing not just himself then, but loads of other people, too. Maybe it’s a blessing he’s gone. Maybe he was too much of a hazard and God decided it was his time to go.

No, I’m not having that. I’m not.

“I’m angry,” I blurt out. “Angry for so many reasons.” I grind my teeth, I’m that angry. “I’m angry I stayed with him. I’m angry he’s gone and there’s nowhere for this to go now.” I slap myself in the chest, trying to hit myself in the heart. I feel crazy and I must look it, too. I didn’t apply make-up this morning and I know my hairdo is probably all kinds of all over the place right now.

Hetty nods for my mother to leave the room and Granny takes Rupert to the playroom, out of the way of me, the crazy mother.

“Do you want me to get Warrick? He’ll know exactly what to do and say and he’ll take care of everything. He’s an ex-social worker, remember? If he can fix me, he can fix anyone.”

I take Hetty by the wrist. I know my head’s shaking and my eyes are dry as I explain, “Don’t you see, Het? I find love and then this happens, all in the space of a few days. It’s my punishment, it must be. Why did he drink so much? Was I that bad a wife? Was I that horrible to live with?”

Hetty gently separates my fingers from her wrist and walks to the window. “Can I call Warrick then, or not?”

“You can call him, but it won’t make any difference. Someone’s done this on purpose, to punish me. Wherever Gage is now, he’s not the one in pain, I am. It’s always been me in pain and I do not know what I have done to deserve this!”

Hetty turns around and swings for me, slapping me hard across the face, almost knocking me off the end of the sofa. I grasp my cheek and reel from the shock, my eyes peeled wide open.

“Wake up, Liza. Wake up! He was on a mission to self-destruct before you even married him. You couldn’t have done any more for him than what you did do. Some people like to think that it’s life that’s got them down, but do you know what? Gage brought himself down; he didn’t need any help from anyone else. You’ve been living with this catholic guilt shit for as long as I’ve known you.” She shuts the door on the living room and lowers her voice: “I’ve just about had enough of this shit, Liza. I’ve had it up to here,” she gestures, showing me a level of annoyance that’s well above her head. “You are the single most talented person I know and he didn’t care, not one iota. You’re the cleverest of anyone I’ve ever met and the most beautiful and the most gorgeous soul… and this is the day this shit ends, okay? This is the day he got what was coming to him. He didn’t love you, Liza. If he had, he would have never put you through the ringer like he has all these years. He would’ve seen the pain in your eyes as plainly as I’ve seen it over the years and he would’ve bucked up. He had no excuse whatsoever. No excuse. He had you, but he still went out and fucked other women and drank himself to death. But he had you. And he still did this.”

“But did he ever really have me, Het? Or did he always suspect there was someone else I loved?”

Het turns on her heel and, after shaking her head, yells for Joe to get his arse in the car because they’re going. She’s lost patience.

“I’m calling Warrick to come and deal with you. You’ve been warned,” she tells me over her shoulder as she’s on her way out – no hugs this time.

My mother enters the room after they’ve gone, wondering why I’ve got a big slap mark across my face. It’s funny because I can’t feel a thing. She knew it, too – she knew not even a scolding would fix me. Not today. Not any day. Maybe never.