J.S. Lark - After You Fell

All the pressure and excitement of the last few days slips away on my outbreath.

I have lied so many times to Simon and Chloe my mythical life is a tangled ball of yarn that could unravel at any moment. They think I start a job here on Monday, but I have been vague about the family and the address so they can never try to find where they think I work.

I don’t like having so many secrets between me and them, but Louise and her family come first now. They must come first. This is a place that’s been prepared for me. She’s chosen me to fill the gap in her family, to love her children.

This is my job.

I am starting to feel as if the reason for my life since birth was to be ready to fill her space. Left alone by my parents so that I would want hers. Born with a faulty heart so that I would need hers. Prevented from having children so that I can love hers.

But I know that can’t be true.

I am renting a room in a woman’s house. I spotted it for rent only a few streets away on SpareRoom and rushed to move because I didn’t want to lose the chance.

I have moved to Bath, and I am going to sit here and live on the last of my savings until I find a way to be with the children.

I am due to meet Alex in just over a week, for the fake appointment. I’ll need to create more lies then. But I am becoming a very good liar, with Louise as my cheerleader, pushing all these shameless tall tales out of my lips. But if lying means I can have what I want, I am happy to lie.

The rungs of the chilly metal seat press into the backs of my thighs. The cold creeping through my jeans.

I take my phone out of my back pocket but I don’t look at it, I look in through the first-floor windows of Alex’s house. Into his living room.

I came last night and saw Alex walk across the room when there was a light on. I couldn’t see very much, but I saw enough to know it’s the living room.

If Alex or the nanny see me, I imagine they barely notice me. I am probably just the woman who sits in the park .

The phone shivers in my hand. The single vibration of a message from Chloe.

‘Good morning. What’s life like in Bath?’

‘Nice. Laid-back.’ I reply via WhatsApp.

‘At least you’re only a short train journey away. If you’d moved farther away I would have hated you.’

‘I promise we’ll see each other—’ my thumb stops, hesitating over the letters when I hear the familiar rattle of a doorknocker ‘—often,’ I type and send without looking back down.

I leave the phone resting in my lap and take a sip of coffee that scalds my tongue.

A woman with long pitch-black hair has stepped out of the house and turned back to face Alex, who is standing in the doorway.

She’s wearing a sequin-covered black mini dress and high heels – nothing else. No jumper. No coat.

The sequins catch the sunlight. She wobbles slightly, balancing on killer thin black patent stilettos. She’s gripping a small evening bag with both hands.

I get up and start walking over the grassy mound that dominates the middle of the park, sliding my phone into my back pocket and gripping the coffee cup tightly in the other hand, walking across the grass towards the house.

I want to hear what they’re saying.

The chaotic curls that define the children’s hair suggest Alex has just got out of bed.

‘That’s okay. But call me. If you want to,’ the woman says in a high flirting tone that belongs in a bar, not on the doorstep of a posh street.

‘I did say it was a one-off …’

One hand brushes her hair back. ‘Yes.’

If Alex looks across her shoulder he will look at me.

‘But thank you for last night.’ His hand is holding the door, telling her without words he wants to close it.

He’s wearing the same loose grey jeans I saw him wearing through the living-room window last night, and they look like the ones he wore to work on Friday. His T-shirt is creased – as if it has just been picked up off a bedroom floor, but his clothes are always creased. Today, though, his feet are bare as if he’s dressed quickly, solely to say goodbye to this woman; as if they have got up together and he’s only dressed to walk her downstairs.

I doubt there was even a stop for breakfast, his body language is so keen to dispose of her.

The woman takes a single step back. ‘It was my pleasure.’ The clutch bag is moved awkwardly from one hand to the other as she turns away and the door bangs shut, rattling the doorknocker again.

She walks a few paces then stops, fumbling with the catch on her bag. She takes out a cigarette and a lighter, lights it, before carrying on with her walk of shame.

It is obvious what went on in that house last night.

Louise’s spirit lurches, with the leap of a panther racing into my heart. If she had the ability to control my body she would make me run, and make me scratch out that woman’s eyes.

Vengeance becomes a pressing emotion on the back of my tongue, as Louise tries to shout abusive words through my lips.

I don’t care about the woman. He can sleep with whoever he wants to.

But it’s a quick bounce-back for a man whose wife has only recently died.

Louise screams in my ears, trying to focus my attention on her anger. She wants me to feel it.

Did he love Louise?

It’s less than three months since she died in a horrific way. And that was clearly a one-night stand.

A tremor of disgust twists in my stomach. What if the woman is a dangerous bunny-boiler?

Are the children in there? I don’t care about Alex or that woman, but the children …

From the level of anger welling up inside me, I know Louise cared about Alex, though.

Dan let me down.

What about Alex? Has he done this before?

Are most men unable to keep their dicks in their trousers?

Is this why Louise jumped from the car park? Because he’s a cheating bastard.

Now I am angry. I’d like to see revenge dished out on every man who is like Dan. Telling shallow lies about love. Setting up a false shop window about what life would be like with them – from happy ever after to The Little Shop of Horrors .

What if Alex created a family with her and then betrayed her?

Bastard.

I need to get inside that house and save the children from him, not just his nanny.

I walk forward and stand on the edge of the mound, the steep slope dropping away in front of me, down to the wall with the doors for the passages that run under the road.

It is like an ancient moat, a boundary defending the houses on the far side.

Louise is willing me into that house. She’s working in my mind as well as my heart, trying to help me think of a plan. I listen, waiting for the words and ideas she is trying to put there, but I can’t hear them.

‘Is this why you gave me your heart? Because you know I’ll rescue the children, and get them away from him?’

I thrust my fist into the pillow again and lie back down. The pillow feels like a lump of cement tonight even though it is stuffed full of soft downy feathers and releases the aroma of lavender.

I can’t stop thinking. I can’t stop seeing that fucking woman.

Slut.

Louise is so angry her thoughts fizz amongst mine, spitting out from a shaken champagne bottle, and she keeps shaking the bottle; she will not let the anger die.

I thought Louise had a perfect life. Perfect parents. Perfect children. A handsome, wealthy husband. A perfect family.

That was the façade. Behind the scenes Alex was a bastard; that’s what she’s been trying to tell me.