Emily
Owen’s words stopped me in my tracks.
I didn’t know how to react. He was looking at me, shock written across his face, as if he couldn’t believe he had said what he had.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ I said, my voice a whisper. It was the only thing that explained all this. ‘Your jealousy is making you say stupid things. Point the finger at an innocent man. Is this what you’ve told the police as well? That he’s a bad man? It would be laughable, Owen, if you weren’t destroying people’s lives.’
I turned to leave because I didn’t want to listen to him any more – the way he threw out stupid accusations with nothing – nothing at all to back them up.
‘The bruise on your neck, Emily,’ he said as I walked to the door.
I stopped.
‘I’ve seen it,’ he said.
‘It has nothing to do with you,’ I said, my face blazing, as I put my hand to my neck, annoyed that my attempts to cover it up hadn’t been successful.
‘I’ve seen bruises like that before,’ he said.
‘I imagine any of us who was ever a teenager has seen bruises like that, Owen,’ I said, but with a shake in my voice that I couldn’t hide. I remember how Cian had bitten my earlobe, bitten my neck, became rougher, his hands groping, pulling, pinching. Passion, I thought. But the feel of his teeth on my skin, biting – more pain than pleasure. A sensation that could never be pleasurable.
‘He treated Rose like that. Owned her. Used her. Controlled her. Don’t you understand that? He was an abusive husband. That’s why I hate him. That’s why the sight of him makes my skin crawl because I know what he did to her.’
‘You’re a liar, Owen. And don’t worry, I’ve told the police just who it was that controlled her, abused her and made her life hell and we both know it wasn’t Cian. You can stick your toxic, hateful job and your lies. I don’t want any part of them any more.’
I turned and walked out of the surgery, every part of my body shaking. I felt the bruise on my arm smart, my skin burning from the friction of sleeve against skin. I walked as quickly as I could to the staff room where I emptied the few items I had in my locker into my bag and walked out without speaking to anyone. I didn’t even make eye contact because I would have lost it – one way or the other. I would have cried, or shouted, or called Owen out publicly, not caring who heard. I didn’t look back.
I stopped at a small coffee shop, ordered a latte and took out my phone.
I’d call three people, I decided.
First of all I’d call DS Bradley, tell him about Owen’s outburst – how he had left me bruised. How I felt unsafe with him.
Then I’d call Cian – tell him I had stormed out of work. That I was scared and sore. I’d allow him to soothe me. God, I hoped he would soothe me. I hoped he would hold me, gently caress me. Tell me he was glad I had stood up to Owen.
And finally, if I had enough courage, I would call Maud and tell her that I was in well over my head. I had done it again. And not in a quirky Britney Spears kind of a way – in a spectacular, fucked up, confusing, violent way that meant I didn’t understand anything any more about anyone.
Roughly brushing my tears from my face, I felt embarrassed to be so exposed in public. So I lifted a newspaper from the magazine rack in the café, hid behind it, and started to read Ingrid Devlin’s piece in which Cian Grahame was vowing he would never love again.
‘Only one woman could ever make me feel as whole and complete as Rose did. You don’t get that twice in a lifetime – I don’t even see the point in looking,’ he said.
My heart sank and I put the notion of calling him and asking him to reassure me out of my head. I cried a little harder too – until, not a single phone call made, and my coffee not touched, I lifted my bags and headed back into the rain again.
I couldn’t face the thought of going home, so I took out my car keys and climbed into my car, switching on the engine and the fans to clear the steam on the windscreen. I paused to light and smoke a cigarette – allowing the plumes of warm smoke to calm me. I wouldn’t think about the fact that, again, I had no job. No income. I had been making friends at Scott’s – but those friendships were not well enough established to continue when I wasn’t working there any more. Especially when I had all but told Owen I believed he had abused and hurt Rose. I had stopped just short of telling him I believed he had been responsible for her death. But only just.
I lit a second cigarette and dialled the number DS Bradley had given me, swearing when it went to his answer service. I rattled off a quick message, asking him to call me. Telling him I might have information – or maybe not. But a suspicion. I had a suspicion. And if he could call me, that would be great. I left my number, even though I knew he had my number already.
I looked at my phone, at Maud’s number. I did a calculation – it would be about 6am in New York. She would be up and getting ready for work – maybe even at the gym.
She would help me; I knew she would. But would she judge me too? There had to be times – had to be – when she rolled her eyes to heaven and wished I would just disappear.
The thought hit me like a sobering slap to the face. I stubbed out my cigarette, slipped my phone into my bag, put the car into first gear and drove off.
*
I drove around for an hour before I decided to head towards Tullagh Bay, a secluded beach on the Atlantic coast about forty minutes from Derry. I could lose myself to my thoughts there without interruption. And I did lose myself there. Sat for an hour or more on the beach. I had taken off my shoes and my socks and buried my toes in the damp sand – trying to ignore the cold seeping into my body. The rain had turned to a fine mist – the kind that looks as though it couldn’t do much damage but that soaks through to your skin in seconds.
I watched the waves roll in – the foam crashing and curling before reaching further and further up the shore towards me. Watching the sea never ceased to ground me. It was unchangeable. It was constant. Whatever happened – whatever seasons came and went, whatever way the wind blew, whatever was going on in the world, whatever was going on in the lives of the people who walked along the shores – the waves always just did what they did best. They came and went.
I wondered how many people had sat where I sat now, contemplating their lives.
I thought about everything that had happened since that first day when Rose and I had travelled down in an elevator together. How things had spiralled.
I wondered had Rose visited this beach? Maybe with Cian. Maybe with Jack. Had she found comfort from the tides? I rubbed my arm, it didn’t hurt so much now – but I was still aware of it. Still felt his grip as I turned to leave. He seemed too convinced Cian was a bad person. A dangerous person. But was he just protecting himself?
I had to trust my gut. I thought of Rose – the bubbly persona on Facebook. Her declarations of love for Cian. The happy pictures she shared of them together. How proud she said she was of him and his achievements. There was never an ounce of negativity on her page. Only happiness. Only a smile that would light up the world.
I thought of her pictures hanging in their home. Again that smile – bright and genuine. Those moments we shared together too – in the lift as it travelled down the four floors to the bottom of the shopping centre. I closed my eyes and tried to recall every second of it. The doors opening. Her smiling. A chubby-fisted wave from Jack. Bags hanging on the back of the buggy. A funky coloured changing bag hanging there too – a soft blue teddy peeping out. Rose, hair in a loose bun. Leather jacket. Skinny jeans and heavy boots. A maroon T-shirt – I remembered that. Remembered how the maroon T-shirt and the blood merged together when she hit the ground. A scarf, white, with black swallows. She looked so stylish. I remembered thinking that. A real yummy mummy with a baby that looked like he should have been in a Baby Gap advertising campaign. We reached for the button for the ground floor together. Laughed – that little polite laugh people do in these situations.
‘Done with your shopping for today?’ I’d asked her.
A silly question. She was heading to the bottom floor – to the exit.
‘All done.’ She had smiled at me. ‘We’re all done, aren’t we, Jack?’
He’d cooed at her and she’d smiled brightly at him.
‘Best to get this wee man home for tea,’ I’d said.
‘Actually, we’re going to a friend’s house, aren’t we Jack?’ She was glowing with happiness. With contentment. I’d smiled and she’d turned her attention fully to Jack, singing softly to him as we descended. When the doors had opened, I’d smiled. Gestured at her to go first. Wished her a lovely evening with her friend.
She had smiled back. ‘Thank you. I know it will be,’ she’d said – and she walked out, across the hall, through the automatic doors and into the street. Onto the road.
You couldn’t fake that level of happiness, could you? Not the kind of happiness that glistens in your eyes. She was luminous.
I climbed to my feet, lifted my shoes and carried them by my side as I walked back up the sand, towards my car. I decided to drive to see Cian. Where I hoped he could make me as happy as he had made Rose.
*
He answered the door with Jack in his arms. Jack squealed with delight and hurled himself at me and I took him in my arms and told him it was lovely to see him too.
Cian was smiling too. That gentle smile that I loved so much. Loved. It dawned on me. I smiled back, content with the realisation.
‘This is an unexpected surprise,’ he said, bending forward to kiss me on the cheek.
‘Oh, I was just passing and thought I would call in,’ I lied.
‘But you’re soaked through again,’ he said, peeking out and seeing my car. ‘Is it just your preferred state these days?’
He turned before I could answer him, and led the way to the kitchen where I sat Jack down on the mat in front of his wooden toy garage and smiled as he lifted a little blue car and watched it speed down a ramp.
I made to sit down on the sofa but he baulked.
‘No,’ Cian said. ‘Don’t sit there. You’re soaking. You’ll wreck the fabric.’ I jumped up at the harshness in his voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, going to the utility room and carrying through a couple of towels. ‘Why not get dried off? Or better still a quick shower? Warm up a bit?’
‘I’m fine, really,’ I said, taking my coat off. ‘My coat took the worst of it – and my hair – I’m sure I look like a drowned rat.’ I made to dry my hair with one of the towels, but he stopped me.
‘Emily, go and get a shower. Tidy yourself up.’ His voice was soft – but there was a curl to his lip, a determined edge to his words that made me realise it was best not to argue. I should have gone home and changed first. Showered. Reapplied my make-up. Not shown up like a bag lady at his door.
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘I left the robe you were wearing in the guest room, hanging on the back of the door,’ he said.
I nodded and padded up the stairs – wondering whether he’d ever invite me into his room. Or into the family bathroom. Perhaps that would be too difficult for him – his shared space with her? I had to give him time to cope with his grief, I reminded myself. Besides, I did love this guest room, had started to see it as my own space. And it didn’t feel as if Rose was all over it. Sure, he said it was she who had made certain it was always sitting hotel perfect – but it had no pictures of her staring at me. Her half-empty bottles of shower gel weren’t in the shower. No ornaments or clutter sat on any surface. It was as anonymous as any hotel room and I liked that – in a house where Rose smiled down from every wall.
I stripped off, showered and pulled the dressing gown back on but not before looking at my reflection in the mirror in the bathroom. The bruise on my neck had turned a dark purple. There were bruises on my thighs from where he had gripped them tight – where I had made him lose control.
I padded downstairs to where he had changed Jack into his pyjamas and packed away his toys. Jack was cuddled into his chest, his hand to his daddy’s face while Cian kissed his hand and gave him his bottle of milk. I watched from the doorway for a bit – it was such a beautiful, tender scene. Jack’s eyelids grew heavy, fluttering closed while Cian soothed him, whispered that he loved him and he would never let anyone hurt him. He would never leave him. His would never let anyone take him from him.
I dared not speak and break their precious moments together. I watched them until Cian turned to look at me, and smiled. ‘I’ll just take him up,’ he said. ‘You pour the wine and we can talk.’
When he came back downstairs, I had poured two glasses of white wine. He sat turned towards me and sipped from his glass.
‘You look unsettled by something,’ he said. ‘Was it the article? The things I said about not finding love again? You know I have to make people think there is no way in heaven I would have hurt her. We did talk about this. It was your idea, of course, to keep quiet about us. You said people wouldn’t understand.’
When he put it like that it was churlish of me to tell him I had been upset by it. It was all part of the game he had to play to make sure he wasn’t taken from Jack. ‘No, it’s not that,’ I said. ‘Owen pulled me aside today.’
His face darkened at the mention of Owen’s name.
‘And?’ he said.
‘He said he wanted to warn me about you. He said you were a dangerous man.’
I watched as Cian stiffened, his jawline taut, his hands clenched. He shook his head. ‘What else did that waste of space say?’
‘I told him he was the one who was dangerous,’ I offered. Keen to soothe him.
‘But what did he say?’ Cian asked, his tone angrier.
‘He said … he said Rose had died long before she stepped out in front of that car and that you were to blame.’
The sound of the wine glass smashing on the wall made me jump. Cian jumped to his feet, paced the room. ‘Jesus, he has some cheek. Some fucking gall. We were happy. We were making things work. We were trying for another baby, for the love of God. What did you say to him?’
‘I told him he could stick his job,’ I said meekly. ‘Then I stormed out. I’ve been driving around since, trying to figure things out, and I came here because I needed to see you.’
He sat down beside me, took my face in his hands. ‘You did the right thing, Emily. You know that, don’t you?’
I nodded. ‘I called DS Bradley, left a message. I want to tell him how Owen was with me. His temper.’ I reached for my arm, but decided not to tell Cian. Was I afraid of how he would react? ‘So yes, I did the right thing. Even though I haven’t a clue how my rent is going to be paid …’ I tried to put on a brave face. ‘But sure there are other jobs.’
‘There are,’ he said. He let go of my face and stood up and paced the room again. ‘Work for me,’ he said. ‘Come here. Be my housekeeper. Jack’s nanny. I don’t like sending him to nursery. I don’t want Rose’s family poisoning him against me. You could do it, Emily. He loves you. You’re so good with him. And you get me. You understand.’
‘Work here?’
‘It’s a perfect solution,’ he said. ‘You could keep your flat – or you could live in,’ he said, still pacing, but his voice faster. Excited even.
Live in? Was he asking me to move in with him? Staff or lover? Housekeeper or friend?
‘You like the guest room, don’t you?’ he rattled on. ‘You can make it your own. Until we know where we’re going? Me and you? If we could be a proper thing? A family?’
A family. It was all I had ever wanted – and yes, I had fallen hook, line and sinker for Jack already; not to mention Cian.
I wanted to throw myself into his arms. I wanted to kiss his face. See, he could make me happy. He was doing it right now.