Paula Hawkins - The Girl on the Train

Still, when we were finally done and she was playing happily by herself, I let myself cry for a minute. I allow myself these tears sparingly, only ever when Tom’s not here, just a few moments to let it all out. It was when I was washing my face afterwards, when I saw how tired I looked, how blotchy and bedraggled and bloody awful, that I felt it again—that need to put on a dress and high heels, to blow-dry my hair and put on some makeup and walk down the street and have men turn and look at me.

I miss work, but I also miss what work meant to me in my last year of gainful employment, when I met Tom. I miss being a mistress.

I enjoyed it. I loved it, in fact. I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to, with my married girlfriends, the ones who live in terror of the pert au pair or the pretty, funny girl in the office who can talk about football and spends half her life in the gym. I had to tell them that of course I felt terrible about it, of course I felt bad for his wife, I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do?

The truth is, I never felt bad for Rachel, even before I found out about her drinking and how difficult she was, how she was making his life a misery. She just wasn’t real to me, and anyway, I was enjoying myself too much. Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are.

I was selling a house. Number thirty-four Cranham Road. It was proving difficult to shift, because the latest interested buyer hadn’t been granted a mortgage. Something about the lender’s survey. So we arranged to get an independent surveyor in, just to make sure everything was OK. The sellers had already moved on, the house was empty, so I had to be there to let him in.

It was obvious from the moment I opened the door to him that it was going to happen. I’d never done anything like that before, never even dreamed of it, but there was something in the way he looked at me, the way he smiled at me. We couldn’t help ourselves—we did it there in the kitchen, up against the counter. It was insane, but that’s how we were. That’s what he always used to say to me. Don’t expect me to be sane, Anna. Not with you.

I pick Evie up and we go out into the garden together. She’s pushing her little trolley up and down, giggling to herself as she does it, this morning’s tantrum forgotten. Every time she grins at me I feel like my heart’s going to explode. No matter how much I miss working, I would miss this more. And in any case, it’s never going to happen. There’s no way I’ll be leaving her with a childminder again, no matter how qualified or vouched for they are. I’m not leaving her with anyone else ever again, not after Megan.

EVENING

Tom texted me to say he was going to be a bit late this evening, he had to take a client out for a drink. Evie and I were getting ready for our evening walk. We were in the bedroom, Tom’s and mine, and I was getting her changed. The light was just gorgeous, a rich orange glow filling the house, turning suddenly blue-grey when the sun went behind a cloud. I’d had the curtains pulled halfway across to stop the room getting too hot, so I went to open them, and that’s when I saw Rachel, standing on the opposite side of the road, looking at our house. Then she just took off, walking back towards the station.

I’m sitting on the bed and I’m shaking with fury, digging my nails into my palms. Evie’s kicking her feet in the air, and I’m so bloody angry, I don’t want to pick her up for fear I would crush her.

He told me he’d sorted this out. He told me that he phoned her, they talked, she admitted that she had struck up some sort of friendship with Scott Hipwell, but that she didn’t intend seeing him any longer, that she wouldn’t be hanging around anymore. Tom said she promised him, and that he believed her. Tom said she was being reasonable, she didn’t seem drunk, she wasn’t hysterical, she didn’t make threats or beg him to go back to her. He told me he thought she was getting better.

I take a few deep breaths and pull Evie up onto my lap, I lie her back against my legs and hold her hands with mine.

“I think I’ve had enough of this, don’t you, sweetie?”

It’s just so wearing: every time I think that things are getting better, that we’re finally over the Rachel Issue, there she is again. Sometimes I feel like she’s never, ever going to go away.

Deep inside me, a rotten seed has been planted. When Tom tells me it’s OK, everything’s all right, she’s not going to bother us any longer, and then she does, I can’t help wondering whether he’s trying as hard as he can to get rid of her, or whether there’s some part of him, deep down, that likes the fact that she can’t let go.

I go downstairs and scrabble around in the kitchen drawer for the card that Detective Riley left. I dial her number quickly, before I have time to change my mind.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2013

MORNING

In bed, his hands on my hips, his breath hot against my neck, his skin slick with sweat against mine, he says, “We don’t do this enough anymore.”

“I know.”

“We need to make more time for ourselves.”

“We do.”

“I miss you,” he says. “I miss this. I want more of this.”

I roll over and kiss him on the lips, my eyes tight shut, trying to suppress the guilt I feel for going to the police behind his back.

“I think we should go somewhere,” he mumbles, “just the two of us. Get away for a bit.”

And leave Evie with whom? I want to ask. Your parents, whom you don’t speak to? Or my mother, who is so frail, she can barely care for herself?

I don’t say that, I don’t say anything, I just kiss him again, more deeply. His hand slips down to the back of my thigh and he grips it, hard.

“What do you think? Where would you like to go? Mauritius? Bali?”

I laugh.

“I’m serious,” he says, pulling back from me, looking me in the eye. “We deserve it, Anna. You deserve it. It’s been a hard year, hasn’t it?”

“But . . .”

“But what?” He flashes his perfect smile at me. “We’ll figure something out with Evie, don’t worry.”

“Tom, the money.”

“We’ll be OK.”

“But . . .” I don’t want to say this, but I have to. “We don’t have enough money to even consider moving house, but we do have enough money for a holiday in Mauritius or Bali?”

He puffs out his cheeks, then exhales slowly, rolling away from me. I shouldn’t have said it. The baby monitor crackles into life: Evie’s waking up.

“I’ll get her,” he says, and gets up and leaves the room.

• • •

At breakfast, Evie is doing her thing. It’s a game to her now, refusing food, shaking her head, chin up, lips firmly closed, her little fists pushing at the bowl in front of her. Tom’s patience wears thin quickly.

“I don’t have time for this,” he says to me. “You’ll have to do it.” He gets to his feet, holding out the spoon for me to take, the expression on his face pained.

I take a deep breath.

It’s OK, he’s tired, he has a lot of work on, he’s pissed off because I didn’t enter into his holiday fantasy this morning.

But it isn’t OK, because I’m tired, too, and I’d like to have a conversation about money and our situation here that doesn’t end with him just walking out of the room. Of course, I don’t say that. Instead, I break my promise to myself and I go ahead and mention Rachel.

“She’s been hanging around again,” I say, “so whatever you said to her the other day didn’t do the trick.”