Paula Hawkins - The Girl on the Train

He’s not laughing anymore.

He’s coming towards me. He has something in his hand.

I’ve fallen. I must have slipped. Hit my head on something. I think I’m going to be sick. Everything is red. I can’t get up.

One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl . . . Three for a girl. I’m stuck on three, I just can’t get any further. My head is thick with sounds, my mouth thick with blood. Three for a girl. I can hear the magpies—they’re laughing, mocking me, a raucous cackling. A tiding. Bad tidings. I can see them now, black against the sun. Not the birds, something else. Someone’s coming. Someone is speaking to me. Now look. Now look what you made me do.

RACHEL

• • •

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013

AFTERNOON

In the living room, we sit in a little triangle: Tom on the sofa, the adoring father and dutiful husband, daughter on his lap, wife at his side. And the ex-wife opposite, sipping her tea. Very civilized. I’m sitting in the leather armchair that we bought from Heal’s just after we got married—it was the first piece of furniture we got as a married couple: soft tan buttery leather, expensive, luxurious. I remember how excited I was when it was delivered. I remember curling up in it, feeling safe and happy, thinking, This is what marriage is—safe, warm, comfortable.

Tom is watching me, his brow knitted. He’s working out what to do, how to fix things. He’s not worried about Anna, I can see that. I’m the problem.

“She was a bit like you,” he says all of a sudden. He leans back on the sofa, shifting his daughter to a more comfortable position on his lap. “Well, she was and she wasn’t. She had that thing . . . messy, you know. I can’t resist that.” He grins at me. “Knight in shining armour, me.”

“You’re no one’s knight,” I say quietly.

“Ah, Rach, don’t be like that. Don’t you remember? You all sad, because Daddy’s died, and just wanting someone to come home to, someone to love you? I gave you all that. I made you feel safe. Then you decided to piss it all away, but you can’t blame me for that.”

“I can blame you for a lot of things, Tom.”

“No, no.” He wags a finger at me. “Let’s not start rewriting history. I was good to you. Sometimes . . . well, sometimes you forced my hand. But I was good to you. I took care of you,” he says, and it’s only then that it really registers: he lies to himself the way he lies to me. He believes this. He actually believes that he was good to me.

The child starts to wail suddenly and loudly, and Anna gets abruptly to her feet.

“I need to change her,” she says

“Not now.”

“She’s wet, Tom. She needs changing. Don’t be cruel.”

He looks at Anna sharply, but he hands the crying child to her. I try to catch her eye, but she won’t look at me. My heart rises into my throat as she turns to go upstairs, but it sinks again just as fast, because Tom is on his feet, his hand on her arm. “Do it here,” he says. “You can do it here.”

Anna goes across into the kitchen and changes the child’s nappy on the table. The smell of shit fills the room, it turns my stomach.

“Are you going to tell us why?” I ask him. Anna stops what’s she’s doing and looks across at us. The room is still, quiet, save for the babbling of the child.

Tom shakes his head, almost in disbelief himself. “She could be very like you, Rach. She wouldn’t let things go. She didn’t know when she was over. She just . . . she wouldn’t listen . Remember how you always argued with me, how you always wanted the last word? Megan was like that. She wouldn’t listen.”

He shifts in his seat and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, as if he’s telling me a story. “When we started, it was just fun, just fucking. She led me to believe that was what she was into. But then she changed her mind. I don’t know why. She was all over the place, that girl. She’d have a bad day with Scott, or she’d just be a bit bored, and she’d start talking about us going away together, starting over, about me leaving Anna and Evie. As if I would! And if I wasn’t there on demand when she wanted me, she’d be furious, calling here, threatening me, telling me she was going to come round, that she was going to tell Anna about us.

“But then it stopped. I was so relieved. I thought she’d finally managed to get it into her head that I wasn’t interested any longer. But then that Saturday she called, saying she needed to talk, that she had something important to tell me. I ignored her, so she started making threats again—she was going to come to the house, that sort of thing. I wasn’t too worried at first, because Anna was going out. You remember, darling? You were supposed to be going out to dinner with the girls, and I was going to babysit. I thought perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing—she would come round and I’d have it out with her. I’d make her understand. But then you came along, Rachel, and fucked everything up.”

He leans back on the sofa, his legs spread wide apart, the big man, taking up space. “It was your fault. The whole thing was actually your fault, Rachel. Anna didn’t end up having dinner with her friends—she was back here after five minutes, upset and angry because you were out there, pissed as usual, stumbling around with some bloke outside the station. She was worried that you were going to head over here. She was worried about Evie.

“So instead of sorting things out with Megan, I had to go out and deal with you.” His lip curls. “God, the state of you. Looking like shit, stinking of wine . . . you tried to kiss me, do you remember?” He pretends to gag, then starts laughing. Anna laughs, too, and I can’t tell whether she finds it funny or whether she’s trying to appease him.

“I needed to make you understand that I didn’t want you anywhere near me—near us. So I took you back up the road into the underpass so that you wouldn’t be making a scene in the street. And I told you to stay away. And you cried and whined, so I gave you a smack to shut you up, and you cried and whined some more.” He’s talking through gritted teeth; I can see the muscle tensing in his jaw. “I was so pissed off, I just wanted you to go away and leave us alone, you and Megan. I have my family. I have a good life.” He glances over at Anna, who is trying to get the child to sit down in the high chair. Her face is completely expressionless. “I’ve made a good life for myself, despite you, despite Megan—despite everything.

“It was after I’d seen you that Megan came along. She was heading down towards Blenheim Road. I couldn’t let her go to the house. I couldn’t let her talk to Anna, could I? I told her that we could go somewhere and talk, and I meant it—that was all I was going to do. So we got into the car and drove to Corly, to the wood. It was a place we sometimes used to go, if we hadn’t got a room. Do it in the car.”

From my seat on the sofa, I can feel Anna flinch.

“You have to believe me, Anna, I didn’t intend for things to go the way they did.” Tom looks at her, then hunches over, looking down at the palms of his hands. “She started going on about the baby—she didn’t know if it was mine or his. She wanted everything out in the open, and if it was mine she’d be OK with me seeing it . . . I was saying, ‘I’m not interested in your baby, it’s got nothing to do with me.’” He shakes his head. “She got all upset, but when Megan gets upset . . . she’s not like Rachel. There’s no crying and whining. She was screaming at me, swearing, saying all sorts of shit, telling me she’d go straight to Anna, she wasn’t going to be ignored, her child wasn’t going to be neglected . . . Christ, she just wouldn’t fucking shut up. So . . . I don’t know, I just needed her to stop. So I picked up a rock”—he stares down at his right hand, as though he can see it now—“and I just . . .” He closes his eyes and sighs deeply. “It was just one hit, but she was . . .” He puffs out his cheeks, exhales slowly. “I didn’t mean for this. I just wanted her to stop. She was bleeding a lot. She was crying, making a horrible noise. She tried to crawl away from me. There was nothing I could do. I had to finish it.”