Cath Staincliffe - Dead To Me

Going up to bed, Gill heard a fox barking, the noise high and raw, like a scream. She looked out of her bedroom window, left the lamp off, but still couldn’t spot the animal. Over the way, she could make out a light in the velux of the barn. Matthew’s house. Thank God it was him Sammy tangled with and not some nutjob boy-racer or a little old lady who’d have had a heart attack. Close escape.

She was asleep in minutes, dreaming of tobogganing and chasing foxes in the snow.

COMING HOME TO Ade, Janet felt sure he’d sense that she had lied, someone who knew her so well, for so long, who knew her inside out and had watched her go from a scared schoolgirl to a woman and a mother. How could he not tell? Not smell it on her, hear it in the spaces between her words?

‘Good do?’ he asked.

‘Same as ever,’ she replied. ‘The buffet was better though, think they got a new caterer in. How’s Elise?’ Changing the subject. Elise had come down with a bug. Sick daughter, loyal husband – and where’d she been? Tucked up with another man in a smart hotel in town. Jezebel. Ade didn’t ask her anything else about the evening and she dared to think she’d got away with it.

She went up to see Elise, who was in bed with the telly on. She looked feverish but if she could cope with the telly she couldn’t be too bad. Janet felt Elise’s forehead. Hot and dry. ‘You had some paracetamol?’

‘At four.’

‘More soon then. Like a drink?’

Elise shook her head.

‘It’s good to drink.’

‘I had one.’ Her eyes were heavy.

‘Food?’

‘No. Can you top up my phone?’ she said.

‘What do you do with it all?’ Janet said.

‘Speak to people, text people – it’s a phone, Mum, what do you think I do with it? God.’ Dripping with sarcasm. Elise ill was a mixture of martyrdom and bad temper.

‘OK,’ Janet agreed. ‘Poor thing,’ she sympathized and Elise assumed an expression of such suffering that Janet had to work very hard not to snigger at her.

‘Where were you last night?’

A clutching sensation in her belly. ‘Works party, stayed at Rachel’s.’

‘Who’s Rachel?’

‘New woman at work.’ Janet felt uncomfortable lying. She’d picked Rachel because Ade hadn’t met her, didn’t know her, unlike Gill. Less chance of him ever catching on. How could she think like this? ‘So, half an hour, take the tablets. Early night, eh?’

‘Don’t forget the phone.’

‘I’ll do it now.’

Janet tried to imagine how she would feel if Ade cheated on her. But it just didn’t seem realistic. Who’d have him? Morose, set in his ways, dull. When had he become that man? Safe, yes, reliable; qualities she had craved, had valued. But how close was safe to dull, reliable to boring?

And she’d be shocked to the core if Ade slept with someone else. He wouldn’t do that. He just wouldn’t. He loved her, for all his faults. He loved her and the girls. He’d never dream of doing something that might jeopardize all that. And nor would she, in the normal course of things. It made her feel ill. She’d betrayed her own morals, her personal code of conduct. Yes, it was only one night, a single night, and never to be repeated. A lot of people would think she was ridiculous to condemn herself so harshly for one slip. Get over yourself. Chalk it up to experience and move on. But that wasn’t how she was wired. And although she kept trying to forget, she could not find a way to forgive herself.

Dalbeattie’s number burned a hole in Rachel’s notebook all Saturday night. She went to the gym, worked the treadmill, did some weights, swam fifty lengths after. She could still feel the pull in the back of her thighs from chasing Kasim when she hadn’t been warmed up. One call. One call and devise a clever way of finding out where he’d been on Monday afternoon. Market research perhaps? Don’t be a tit, she told herself, he’s off limits.

She’d hoped Nick might be back for the weekend, but when she had sounded him out Friday morning, him in a rush, he said he was staying in London and catching up with some old friends. What friends? Had he known them at school or law school? She wondered briefly if she had anything to worry about but squashed the thought. Nick was into her, no doubts on that score. He made the running when they met and Rachel had been careful to appear interested but relaxed. Played it casual and saw it made him want her more. Want more of her. Each time it was Nick who raised the stakes, calling her to get together again, pushing for a weekend away, persuading her to meet up even when they could only snatch a couple of hours and he had to go out after and entertain clients. So she wasn’t going to turn into Little Miss Needy anytime soon. Quickest way to kill the relationship stone dead.

Sunday the boss had given them off. Sunday morning she drove up to Marsden and went for a run up along Stannedge Edge. Then she mugged up her tier three modules. It was a tough qualification to pass and not worth putting in for without plenty of preparation.

Rachel rang Nick. Listened to him talk about his weekend in London and how they should have a weekend there together some time, and then he asked how her new job was going, said she sounded a bit tired.

‘Not great,’ she said. ‘I tried to bring a girl in for sectioning on Thursday and she jumped from the fourth-floor flat. Topped herself.’

Suicide Act 1961 decriminalized the offence of taking one’s own life. Still a criminal offence to aid, abet, counsel or procure …

‘Rachel! Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Middle of the night before I got back, and Friday there wasn’t a chance.’

‘God, how awful. You OK?’

‘Yes, just… bit shitty. Works do Friday night.’ Trying to sound brighter.

‘Any funny business with the photocopier?’

‘No. Was at this hotel.’

‘So you’re making friends?’

And enemies. ‘Janet’s OK, I guess.’

‘High praise indeed,’ he laughed.

‘I have high standards, me.’ She smiled.

‘Is this the same Janet you described as an uptight WI reject?’

‘Modified my opinion a bit.’ Suddenly she really missed him, wanted to be having this conversation face to face over a meal in one of the Michelin places in town, or at his flat afterwards. Wanted to be making love, or laughing with him. Not going to bed on her own. ‘Do you know what you’re doing at Christmas?’ she asked, surprising herself because she always let him take the initiative. Maybe his parents would expect him there?

‘Ah…’ he sounded disappointed, ‘Monty has invited me to his. Three-line whip.’

Monty, sort of poncey name you’d give a poodle, was Nick’s head of chambers. Monty was God in pinstripes. Rachel waited a beat, just in case the invitation extended to her. Imagined four-poster beds and vast rooms with huge fires, sweeping staircases, people with frightful accents and fabulous wealth.

‘Shooting and fishing,’ Nick added. ‘You’ll see your folks?’ Was he worried about her being lonely?

‘Yeah, probably. Same old.’ She’d put in an appearance at Alison’s on Christmas day. Watch the kids get fractious with all the excitement and sugar, have turkey and the works, keep her glass well topped up and slope off soon as she could.

By four o’clock Sunday afternoon she couldn’t sit still. She prepared her spiel:… a survey of local transport, it’ll only take two minutes, we sample a day of the week, ask you to tell us the time and distance of any journeys you made and the method of transport used. If I can ask you about Monday…

If he refused to tell her, she’d have to find another way to dig. Of course, he might just lie: No, never went out of the house all day and there’d be no way, posing as a market researcher, to verify it.