“Okay,” she said, in a gasp. “I’m okay. Just - just leave me alone for a bit, Jake. I have to be alone for a bit.”
He hesitated, until she said ‘please’ again. Then he stood up, uncertainly.
“Bella – “
She was looking down at the carpet again, trying to breathe deeply.
“What?” she said, without looking up.
“You won’t – “ he said, and stopped.
“What?”
She could hear him swallow before he spoke again.
“You won’t go to the police, will you?”
Bella blinked. She must have misheard him.
“What?” she said, for the third time.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Jake. He mumbled something else. Then she heard him say ‘I’ll be downstairs’ before the door shut behind him.
Bella lay down on the bed, pulling the duvet over her. She was still shivering with cold and clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. She fixed her eyes on the smeared paint of the bedside table and concentrated on breathing, in and out, in and out, trying to think of nothing else.
Somehow she must have fallen asleep because when she woke, the room was dark and she could feel the warm shape of Jake beside her in the bed. For a disorientated moment, she wondered whether she’d dreamed the entire conversation. Bella lay there quietly, trying to ascertain whether Jake was asleep. As if he’d read her mind, he suddenly said her name, quietly.
“I’m awake,” she said.
He shifted position, rolling over to face her.
“Bella – “ he stopped for a second, and then went on. She had the impression he’d been waiting for hours to for her to wake, so he could speak to her.
“Bella – I know that you might hate me. And I should have told you, I shouldn’t have lied to you. But Christ, can you see how my life has been since it happened? I’ve been in – in torment, wondering what to do. I’ve been suffering so much, I thought I was going mad. I just didn’t know what to do.”
Bella took a deep breath and then closed her mouth again, unable to speak.
Jake pressed on.
“Ever since the bombings – since I met you then, you’ve been my saviour. You’ve been the only person who can save me. I’ve needed you so badly all this time. Believe me, I wanted to tell you so many times but it was as if something was stopping my mouth, gagging me. And the others – “
He stopped speaking. Bella felt a sudden, unpleasant clutch of the stomach. The others – how could she have forgotten them? Carl and Veronica – the other sides of the triangle. Carl – she suddenly felt an actual, physical fear at the thought of him. And Veronica – how did she feel about Veronica?
“What about the others?” she said, so softly that Jake had to ask her to repeat herself.
“God,” he said soberly, when he’d finally heard her. There was a moment’s silence. “Christ – I don’t know. For fuck’s sake, don’t let onto them that you know.”
She felt him move closer, and recognised the touch of his hand, his fingers sliding gently over the curve of her hip. She thought of how she’d felt his hand in the tunnels, after the bombs; how his hand had led her out, from darkness into light. Tears came into her eyes. She took his fingers in hers.
“Why didn’t you go to the police, Jake? It was an accident, you said so yourself. You hadn’t done anything wrong.”
He was silent for a minute.
“I wish we had,” he said. “But – Carl said – Christ, Bella, I was in a state, I was in a mess. I couldn’t even think straight. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to go to court and tell them all the – the sordid things we’d done. And, who’s to say they would have believed us when we told them it was an accident?” He cleared his throat and spoke again in a lower voice. “They wouldn’t have believed us.”
Bella lay in silence. Jake put his hand out to her again, touching her tentatively.
“How did you find out?” he asked her, in a low voice.
“What?”
“What made you – why were you looking in my stuff? Was it – did you just come across it?”
Bella spoke and her voice clogged. She cleared her throat.
“I found the photograph.”
Jake’s stroking hand stilled.
“Photograph?”
Bella blinked in the darkness. It still hurt, even now.
“The photo of – of you all. In bed. You and Carl and Veronica and – and Candice.”
He was holding his breath. She heard him release it.
“That photograph…”
He sounded winded. She turned to him.
“Jake –“
“Sorry. It’s just – Christ – I’d forgotten about that. I’d forgotten all about that.”
“You must have hidden it away and forgotten about it.”
“I must have,” he muttered. “I don’t remember though.”
“You must have,” said Bella, wanting to stop talking about it. “How else could it get there?”
They lay in silence for a long moment.
“Why did you keep the clipping?” she asked.
“What?”
“The newspaper clipping. Why did you keep it?”
Jake didn’t answer for a moment. Then he sighed and moved closer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think it was to prove to myself that it actually happened. I had to see it to prove to myself that I wasn’t going mad.”
Bella said nothing. The words reverberated in the dark air above their heads.
Jake put his face against her shoulder. She could feel his breath moving against her skin.
“I love you,” he said quietly, and for the first time, she truly, utterly believed him.
“I love you too,” she said. They turned towards each other in the dark, feeling for warmth and comfort.
“Let’s not talk about this anymore,” said Jake, unsteadily. “Let’s sleep now. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Jake woke her early next morning. They dressed quietly and quickly in the grey half-light of dawn, and then crept down the stairs. Bella was halfway down before she realised it was these stairs that Candice had fallen down. She gulped and held onto the banister, holding herself so tightly that when she was on the other side of the front door, her whole body relaxed with an audible sigh.
“You okay?” whispered Jake.
She nodded. They got into the car and closed the doors as quietly as they could. Jake gently revved the cold engine and then they drove away down the street.
“Are we running away?” said Bella, as they reached the M25. Jake had driven all the way in silence.
He looked grim. “Not quite. We’re going for a day trip, that’s all. Dad’s got some land up in Hertfordshire, thought we’d have a day out.”
“Okay,” said Bella, somewhat unhappy. She felt swept away by circumstance, flailing for a grip on the situation. Briefly, she thought of her workplace. How could she go back to work on Monday? How could she go back to work at all, knowing what she knew? This was what it must have been like for Jake, she realised, after it happened. Having to cope with reality as your whole world fell apart. She clenched her cold hands.
“Can we stop for a coffee?” she said, not really caring what the answer was. Her voice felt creaky from misuse.
“Sure, Bel. We get off at this junction, anyway.”
They stopped briefly at a little roadside café, greasy-spoon standard, the room filled with the comforting smells of hot fat and bitter coffee. Bella cradled the hot paper cup against her breasts, warming herself. She felt divorced from the everyday world, sure that she and Jake were standing out from the landscape in glowing Technicolor, attracting every eye. She felt watched. They got back into the car.
“God, I wish I still smoked,” she said, leaning her head back against the car seat and closing her eyes. Jake didn’t reply.
Soon, he turned off the road and began to bump the car slowly down an unsurfaced track. The winter hedges scraped at the doors with their denuded branches. The sky was greyish-white, sagging with imminent rain. Bella took a last gulp of cooling coffee and crumpled the paper cup in her hand, watching the slow, flapping progress of a solitary black crow across the clouds.