Renée Knight - Disclaimer

It is hard for Catherine to think about these things, she normally pushes them away, but she allows herself to hope that now Nicholas has moved out, the distance and space might help them see each other with a better perspective.

She can’t remember ever looking forward to going to a supermarket, but she does today. It is good to be able to concentrate on the mechanics of ordinary life and she wallows in the experience. She picks up a bunch of flat-leaf parsley, its long stems flopping in her hand, and puts it in her trolley. She buys fresh food, things that, if they are not eaten, will rot and smell and remind her she is losing control again.

The dull task of putting away the shopping gives her as much pleasure as the supermarket. Something so ordinary and thankless is such a luxury when you have been feeling the way Catherine has been feeling. She savours the simple pleasure of taking the food from the bags and putting it away: everything has its place and she is the one making sure it gets there.

It’s only four o’clock, hours before she needs to start cooking. She goes into the sitting room and lies on the sofa. She is like a cat, luxuriating in the one sunny spot in the room. She closes her eyes, but she is not tired, just relaxed. Then she does something she has not done for weeks. She picks up a book and starts to read. It is a safe book — one she has read before — and she lies back on the sofa and disappears into it.

At six o’clock she pours herself a glass of wine and phones her mother. She never misses this weekly call, although recently they have been hurried, careless conversations and her mum deserves more than that.

“Mum? How are you? How’s your week been?”

“Lovely, darling. Quiet, you know… but very nice. When did you get back from holiday?” Catherine hesitates, not sure whether to correct her. They haven’t been on holiday since last summer but recently her mum has started getting confused about dates and times.

“We’ve been back ages, Mum, you know, I’ve seen you lots since then.” She tries to be gentle and not alarm her. There is nothing to be alarmed about, not yet. Her mother shrinks time but she remembers other things very well. Catherine gets her back on track: “So did you go and see Emma’s new baby?” Catherine’s younger cousin has just had her third child.

“Yes, they came and picked me up. They’re so kind. Lovely little thing. All smiles. And how’s Nick? Is he still enjoying his job?”

“Yes, he likes it, he really does.”

“That’s super, he’s such a clever boy.”

Nick and his grandma have always been close. When he was born Catherine’s mother moved in for a few weeks to help. It had given Catherine a new respect for her. She helped care for Nicholas, but she cared for Catherine and Robert too. She made meals, babysat, allowed them to have naps in the afternoon, whatever she felt they needed. She was never a martyr about it, never told Catherine how she should do things, she simply offered her support and love.

“Sorry I haven’t been over recently, Mum, but it’s been a bit hectic with the move and things. Let’s organise a Sunday lunch and I’ll get Nick over too. I’ll come and pick you up.”

“You don’t have to pick me up, Catherine, I can pop on the bus….”

“Well, we’ll see, Mum.” The last time Catherine’s mother tried to take the bus she panicked about where to get off and stayed on until it returned to the bus station. She knows she is tiptoeing around her mother’s gentle decline, not yet named but gradually making itself visible. Catherine has organised someone to come in twice a week to help with cleaning and shopping. It is good to know that someone else is keeping an eye on her too.

“Well, I better get on with supper, Mum. Speak soon, lots of love.”

“And to you, darling, take care of yourself.”

At seven, she texts Robert to let him know supper will be ready for seven fifteen. She puts on some music, allows herself to turn it up loud, allows herself another glass of wine, allows herself to feel at home.

But by nine o’clock Robert is still not home. Catherine is worried. He has not replied to her calls or texts. It is not like him to be so utterly thoughtless. To just not show up. A knot twists in her gut. She leaves a message for Nicholas asking him to call her if he hears from his dad, but she hears nothing from him either. She begins to rehearse what she will say to the police, but then Robert finally texts her. He is stuck at work. No apology. No kiss. Fucking hell. She is hurt. Bugger. Fuck. He hasn’t given her any thought.

But Catherine is wrong. Robert has done nothing but think of her. For hours. Unmoving. Sitting at his desk when everyone else has gone home, his head on fire with thoughts of his wife. The package had sat unopened on his desk all afternoon and then, just when he was about to leave, he had picked it up.

He had his jacket half on, ready to go home to Catherine, when he tore it open. He had, like her, been looking forward to an evening together and that’s what he was thinking of when he opened the envelope. He had frowned and slipped out a fan of photographs, thoughtless, not really registering what he was looking at. A quick glimpse. There was something else in the package too. A book. The book Catherine had burned. The Perfect Stranger by E. J. Preston. He opened it to the first page: “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental…”

And then he had sat down and taken his jacket off.

He went through the photographs again, this time giving them his full attention, studying them one after the other. There were thirty-four in all. He picked up the manila envelope they’d arrived in and studied that too. The handwriting on the front. But he didn’t recognise it. Delivered by hand, it said in the corner, with Robert’s name written in fountain pen, not a biro, a fountain pen loaded with royal blue ink. Then he had stood up to catch his assistant before she left.

“Where did these come from?” he had asked. She had been surprised by his tone, stopped doing what she was doing.

“Someone left them with reception.”

“Who?”

“I’ll find out,” she said and picked up the phone with Robert standing over her. She turned to him.

“It was a man. An old man. Lucy said he handed her the envelope and told her they were for you. He didn’t say anything else. She said he looked a bit, well, rough. She thought he was a tramp but he was polite and he didn’t hang around, just left the envelope and walked out.”

“Thanks, I’ll see you in the morning,” and he’d dismissed her.

He is still sitting at his desk, the photographs spread before him like a Hockney collage: small images pieced together to reveal a bigger picture. But Robert cannot see what that bigger picture is. What he sees is Catherine. Catherine on a beach fingering the ties at the side of her red bikini with Nicholas nearby, smiling at the camera. Catherine asleep, peaceful. Another with her propped up on one arm, her breasts pushed together, beautiful, spilling over the top of her bikini, her smiling face resting on her hand. Who is she smiling at? Catherine and Nicholas sitting in the shallows, Nicholas looking out to sea but Catherine looking directly at the camera. She looks sexy, swelling with it, and their little boy, five at the time, sitting at her feet.

The photographs have been taken over a series of days, not just one day, but several. More than several? He tries to remember. Nicholas is in most of the beach scenes. But there are other photographs too, where Nicholas does not appear. But was he there? In the background? He must have been nearby. Was he in the same room? Was he in the next room? Alone? Was he asleep? What did he see? What did he hear? In these other photographs Catherine is wearing underwear, not a bikini. Knickers and bra. Definitely not a bikini. Lace. Straps that slip off shoulders. Nipples seen, sharp, through the lace. Knickers, not bikini bottoms. Nothing as robust as that. Tiny, fragile. Nothing that would stay on underwater. He should know — he had bought them for her, for their holiday. And her hand is down the front of her knickers and her head is back as if she is looking at something on the ceiling, but she is clearly not looking at anything. She has taken herself away somewhere else; she has reached a place which has parted her lips and closed her eyes. Lost in her own exquisite space. But not quite alone because someone else is there. A silent, appreciative witness. Invisible. Except in one photograph. One slipup. A shadow on the edge of the frame.