‘It’s been almost two decades.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘Everything’s changed.’
‘Some things change. Others stay the same.’ He traces the outline of my face in the air before me and it is enough; my lips remember the press of his thumb; my scalp remembers his fingers through my hair. A flash of heat shoots up my spine.
I clamp my jaws together. ‘You don’t know me. Do you know how much muscle it takes to make it through the day? To get out of bed, to go to work . . .’To be with Kit, to play with Millie.‘I’m not a very good . . . I haven’t been a very good . . .’Wife, mother. ‘—You don’t know anything about me.’
‘Then, tell me.’
‘—Not a single thing.’
‘Then show me.’
Can it be this easy? I’ve watched countless YouTube videos of abusers being confronted by survivors – aged Catholic priests, doctors, film producers – watched their faces fall in as their victims bared their rage. None of themwantedto be there. They wouldn’t look up, wouldn’t even respond, who wants to be confronted with what they’ve done? I was certain Daniel would be the same, that’s why I started my garden beyond the brambles, the pots in my greenhouse, I would make him listen. I never anticipated he’d justaskto hear it. And I wonder. How certain am I that he is wrong and I am right?
‘You really want to do this?’
‘Yes.’
‘You won’t like it.’
‘I want it. All of it.’ He holds my eyes for an excruciating length of time. Once, I wouldn’t have been able to meet his gaze, bewildered by its intensity, the flame in my cheeks. Now, I raise my chin higher and higher, my eyes defiant and unblinking, and as the moment unspools, it settles on me, the risk I’m taking, the bargain I’m striking. He is going to prove he loved me. I am going to prove he ruined me.
My stomach twinges, I need a painkiller. I rifle through my backpack. He watches me pop them out.
‘Lauren,’ he says. ‘Start by telling me what’s wrong.’
‘It’ll make sense later.’ I stand up, start walking.
‘Later?’ he says, still at the bench.
‘Tomorrow,’ I say. ‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow.’
I make my way slowly out of the park. I think of nooses around necks, lambs led to slaughter. But who is lamb and who is butcher?
PART II
Sunday
17
Ivy
Now
01:49. I can’t sleep. The hotel room is sunk in darkness. I could be anywhere. I thought I heard Millie, she gets up round this time, calling for me from her cot bed. By the time I stumble downstairs, she’ll be sitting up, trying to push back her own bed-head hair. ‘Mop-a-top’, Kit calls her. He says she doesn’t need me to get in beside her, on nights when she’s on his watch, he kisses her, tells her he loves her and leaves. But even though her cot blanket is the size of three tea towels and I end up with a backache, I can’t resist the warm bun of her body, her heavy, sleepy limbs. A few months ago, she started saying, ‘snuggy’. ‘Get into my snuggy bed, Mummy,’ she’d whisper when she spotted me sleepy at her door. When I told Kit, he put his hand over his heart, like it was breaking. ‘Yeah, all right. She wins.’
But I’m not at home. And it isn’t Millie. Only the gurgle of pipes, the thud of a suitcase against the wall. I reach for my phone, I have to see her, my heart is thundering because she might actually be awake, it’s the right time, she might be calling for me, and though seeing her will split me in two, I’m desperate.
The screensaver of the three of us appears, we’re on the heath, eating Mr Whippy ice creams, Kit’s head tilted almost ninety degrees so he can squeeze into the selfie, his blond hair lighter in the sun, his green eyes creased at the edges from the broadness of his smile. On the bar at the bottom, my messages total fifty-eight. Kit. My husband who washed the rug after I dripped blood onto it, who checked my scar for infection because I was too frightened to look myself, who fitted those mammoth maternity pads into my equally mammoth knickers because I couldn’t bend down. ‘Let’s get this bad boy in,’ he’d joked, and though the pain was breathtaking, I smiled. One tender, funny word from him and I’ll go straight home. Leaving would have been for nothing.
I don’t click on the messages.
I click on the Nanny app.
Millie is asleep. The shadowy curl of her body rises and falls with her breath; she’s kicked off her blanket. I start pushing back my own covers, my brain on automatic – I’ll get an Uber across London, it’ll be quick at this time of night. I won’t wake them when I get to The Wedge, I’ll be quiet up the stairs, tuck her back in, kiss her cheek. I’m already standing up when I see Kit pulling her blanket over her. He smooths the hair back from her face and then lies on the carpet beside her. He hasn’t brought a pillow or blanket. He’s always like this. He doesn’t eat breakfast unless I make him, won’t wear a new coat unless I put one over his shoulders, he’s the second of four siblings, he’s used to getting by without much. I used to worry what he’d do if something happened to me. I know he’d look after Millie; he’d read her books, tie her hair up in bunches, play unicorns with her. But who will look after him?