Dave arrived on time, she heard his car on the gravel, steeled herself. He came in, shucked off his coat and pulled up a chair. He still had it, that presence, that magnetism, even in this toilet of a situation. Not just his physique – tall, broad, handsome, piercing blue eyes – but there in the way he carried himself and something indefinable. Pheromones? Gill could not believe her response. She still fancied him, was still drawn to him. Her Judas body betraying her too.
They had been so good together. Bright, energetic, ambitious. Matching each other stride for stride. The sex had been phenomenal. State of permanent arousal, and there like a promise, like a drug, at the end of each exhausting day’s work. There too in the morning. Times they met for lunch, took a room, frenetic, greedy.
He didn’t say anything now. Sat four-square, arms on the table, hands folded. Wary, perhaps? Something of the big cat in him, waiting. Muscles tensed. She had loved the size of him, the power in his back, in his arms, the way they fit together making love.
‘I want a separation,’ she said, her voice sounding loud in the kitchen. ‘Move your stuff out by the end of the month.’ She couldn’t help trembling, but fought to keep her voice steady.
Dave nodded once. No quarrel, no question, no pleading. No ‘sorry’ either. No regret. ‘I’ve moved in with Emma,’ he said.
Gill blinked. ‘Really? You didn’t hang about!’ Thinking: do you love me? Did you ever? When did you stop? You cold-hearted prick.
‘She’s… we’re…’ He gave a sort of a gasp.
‘What?’ Spit it out.
‘We’re having a baby,’ he said.
Gill’s heart thumped, she felt adrenalin spike through her, scalding. God, the gift that just keeps on giving! It hurt, deep hurt. She screwed up her mouth, biting her cheek; to no avail, tears, treacherous tears, stood in her eyes. ‘Get out,’ she managed.
‘Gill…’
‘Fuck off!’ Enraged.
‘The house,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to sort out the house.’
‘No.’ Her face was wet and she was shaking with fury. ‘No way, matey. I’ll see you in a fucking hostel first.’ The unholy family: Dickhead, Pendlebury and the spawn of Satan.
‘Gill, this is completely-’
‘Get out,’ she screamed, standing and kicking at her chair. ‘Get out.’
He shook his head, gave a little snort and grabbed his coat.
When she had cried herself out, she went upstairs and selected his ceremonial uniform. She unpicked the hem of the trousers and fetched a king prawn from the freezer, put it in the hem and re-stitched it neatly. Moved the suit, along with his other clothes, into the wardrobe in the spare room. She felt a tiny bit better then, a very, very tiny bit. Hard to see without a microscope.
29
IT WAS TOO late to ring Nick. Rachel longed to talk to him, explain something of the freakshowfucking nightmare day. She had caught him briefly the evening before. Told him about her car chase, one in the bag. As a defence barrister, Nick hadn’t done more than his opening speech at the Old Bailey and had to wait, garnering ammunition, while the prosecution case was presented. He was confident, that was part of who he was: confident and assured. He’d gone to an independent school before doing his law degree. Rachel hadn’t even gone to university, but she’d done well at sixth form – well enough. By then already set on the police, she got work at a young offender’s institution and took various courses: first aid, computer training, kick-boxing. She learned to drive and volunteered as a special constable.
Nick never seemed particularly curious about her past and didn’t talk much about his own. It was the present and future that excited him. The same for Rachel. On the few occasions when he did ask, Rachel had dismissed her earlier years as boring: boring house, boring family, dull, middle of the road, thought I’d suffocate…
In the time since she joined the police, Rachel had reinvented herself. Learning new habits, new lifestyle. She chose clothes and accessories carefully, quality items that would last and most importantly of all would lend substance to the impression that she wanted to create: smart, stylish, contemporary. When she got her flat she didn’t bring anything from home – not that there was much to bring. If it had been down to Rachel, she’d have set the family home alight and razed it to the ground, but Dom still lived there, and their dad – when he could remember what his address was. In her own place everything was new, clean. She liked it simple, unfussy. It suited her new streamlined life. No baggage, no history, no ghosts weighing her down.
She kept in touch with Dom back then, but on her own terms. She didn’t invite him to hers but met him in town. She hoped he’d get out too, soon. He was bright, clever, a daft streak in him that needed channelling. Rachel had worried that he couldn’t seem to settle on any one thing. He’d messed about at school, but talked about learning a trade, carpentry or brick-laying, then next month it was catering or Internet start-ups. All ideas and no action. Rachel tried to point this out, but he got the hump. Thought she was getting at him.
Alison was out working by then and doing her diploma in social work, so Rachel was the one minding Dom. For a while she thought he might try the police, or the fire service. Once she’d left home, she felt her influence weakening. But he was a grown-up, he had to make his own way, sort himself out. Trouble was, he liked to be liked, was easily swayed. ‘They’re twats,’ Rachel remembered yelling at him one time when he’d been excluded from school for disruptive behaviour, along with his so-called mates. ‘They’ll drag you down with ’em. You’ll end up like Dad – or worse. That what you want?’
Now and again he tried to defend himself: ‘There’s no decent jobs, I’ve no bits of paper like you have. You expect me to work forty hours a week shovelling chips for five quid an hour? You don’t get it.’
‘I do,’ Rachel had said. ‘It’s down to you, pal. You find your own chances. No one’ll do it for you. You make your own luck.’
And he had. Bad luck. All that potential, all the energy and cheek and charm, lost because of some crackpot caper, some get-rich-quick scheme. Armed robbery. Four years. The shock when she heard, a shower of ice-cold water, then the sadness. Dom gone bad, after everything she had tried. But the overwhelming emotion was anger, spitting tacks just thinking about it. His whole life wrecked, all because he hadn’t the sense to say no, to walk away, let some other loser make up the numbers. She couldn’t forgive him. He’d chosen that path, he could walk it without her.
How could she ever have told Nick the half of it and kept his interest, his respect? Alky dad, benefit drinker, Mam ran off and left the kids – chavs the lot of them, brother serving time. Welcome to the Baileys. Nick’s smile fading, eyes growing cold with distaste, seeing her as some trashy slag from a council estate, ideas above her station. Fridge full of sterilized milk and pies and chips. Tat on the walls, Jeremy Kyle on the box. Common as muck. Thick as pigshit.
He would never know. That Rachel was gone now. The new Rachel made sure she’d never see the light of day again.
Gill had a face that’d turn milk.
‘She’s ignoring me,’ Rachel leaned over and whispered to Janet. ‘She’s got it in for me.’
Rachel looked exhausted, bags like thumbprints under her eyes. Janet thought she’d probably taken the suicide harder than she’d ever let on. She had brushed aside any attempt Janet made to ask her how she felt, shaking her head emphatically when Janet suggested she take some time off. Seemed to get no succour from the expressions of sympathy and nods of understanding that the lads had greeted her with as they each arrived for work.