‘Paperweights never have paper underneath them, do they?’
I mumbled something noncommittal. We talked nonsense for a few seconds. I think she said something about looking for a place to live. I couldn’t really hear. The words were drowned by the hiss of static in my head. She handed me the paperweight and I put it back carefully on the mantelpiece, her eyes on it all the time. She said she was going dancing.
‘Nice,’ I said, and stayed silent. I wanted to tell her that she mustn’t let Owen touch her again. Not a kiss. Not a caress. Nothing. Or else.
I was left alone, staring at the paperweight. Melanie wouldn’t remember it, but Astrid would. It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t the way I’d planned it. I wasn’t like this. I wasn’t really a murderer. All I ever wanted was to begin again, and be allowed to be myself at last. No, it wasn’t fair.
Chapter Thirty-eight
There was so much to do and so many small details to attend to. It was my job to hold everything together in my head, and I knew that if I let one thing slip, that could be my undoing. And once I had started, the clock was ticking and I couldn’t stop it. I found that I was good in a crisis.
As the household fell apart, it became comically easy to carry out what I had planned without being noticed. I was invisible. Leah was glaring at Miles. Miles was looking at Astrid and trying not to pay any attention to Leah. Owen was looking at Astrid too. Astrid was looking back at Owen and, although she didn’t yet know it, she was also witnessing the spectacle that was being played out in front of her eyes. Pippa was watching herself, as usual. Dario wasn’t looking at all, and when he was he clearly wasn’t noticing. He was even worse after he was beaten up. Fear made him even more addled. Who knew what Mick saw? Mel was looking at me, all right, but Mel was a fooclass="underline" she only saw what she wanted to see. I was looking at everything, at everyone. I was waiting, poised to strike when the time was right. In the meantime, it was me who called the journalists about Astrid, me who stirred up Leah’s hatred. I was calling the shots now.
On the evening of the house sale, it seemed to me that everything was working out. I provoked some suspicion here and created some hostility there, all the while pretending to be nice Davy, peacemaker Davy, dull, dependable, sweet Davy. I almost felt like telling them the truth, just to see the expressions on their faces. I was like a magician who wanted to show them how the trick was done, how easily they had been fooled.
I steered Pippa towards Leah’s bag of clothes and Dario towards Miles’s shoes. As the noise grew and the violence started to turn ugly, I casually pushed Astrid’s bike into the middle of the yard, where it was whisked away. As an afterthought, I stuffed the takings into my pocket – much more than I’d expected, thanks to the run on Leah’s clothes – and threw the box into the bushes.
In front of the house where the sale was out of control, it felt like a forest fire. I just had to stand back. Leah struggled with a large black woman in the middle of a crowd. Dario and Pippa watched her, enjoying the disaster. Owen was taking photographs. I stepped forward and put my hand on Leah’s shoulder, Davy, trying to help. I felt something jingle at my feet and looked down. Carefully I knelt and picked up the bunch of keys Leah had dropped. I put them into my pocket. Now, what could I do with them?
It got better. Because Leah told Astrid about Pippa and Owen. Right in front of everybody. Like a little bomb tossed into the already maimed and dazed group. And when Astrid walked out of the room (chin up, that’s my girl), with everyone’s eyes following her, I knew now was the time to strike.
That night I didn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to. I knew that this was a watershed in my life, and that after tomorrow everything would be different. I needed to savour the moment and not waste it in unconsciousness. After I had made everyone large mugs of tea and told them it would be all right, we just needed to take a step back from what had happened, they wandered off to their rooms one by one, shamefaced and miserable. I heard them shuffling along corridors, gargling and coughing in the bathroom, tossing and snuffling like animals in their beds. I heard Miles snoring. I heard – much later – Astrid returning. She came up the stairs quickly and lightly, and I could imagine her face, serious but not distraught, her jaw firm. For an instant I considered joining her. Perhaps she would tell me her feelings and weep on my shoulder. I could hold her against me and kiss her at last along her jaw line or that small hollow of her neck. Slender neck. No, it wouldn’t do.
At last the house was dark and silent, and I could tell that only I was left awake, sitting upright on my bed with my hands in my lap, my breath steady, and my eyes fixed on a point on my wall, just above the door. I could feel myself growing taller and stronger as I sat there, each breath making me more powerful, readying me. My past self was dropping away: the Davy whose dad didn’t want to know him, who was bullied at school, who had flattered his cow-eyed mother, who was eager to please, who had been humiliated by Pippa, who went out with someone like Melanie rather than someone like Astrid, who had to pretend all the time to be someone else. Those days were ending.
At dawn, I washed and shaved carefully. I went downstairs and made myself a piece of toast, but after one bite I threw it in the bin. No more food and no more sleep until this thing was done. Usually Astrid was the first up, and so it was this morning.
‘Coffee?’ I asked her, as she came into the kitchen. Her dark hair was still damp from her shower, but she was already dressed for work in her shorts and singlet. Her face glowed, clean of any makeup, and her long legs were tanned. I could see the muscles in her calves. My eyes burned just to look at her. My cheeks already stung with the tears I would cry, when it was done.
‘Thanks, Davy. You’re up early.’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Me neither. At least it’s Friday.’ She went over and pushed open the door leading into the garden. ‘It’s going to be a lovely day.’
‘Is it?’
‘Sure. Look at the way the mist’s burning off the grass. This is the best time of year.’
I could tell she was making an effort to be cheerful after the calamity of yesterday evening, but I gave her a chance anyway. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened last night, Astrid.’ She shrugged, but I kept on: ‘If you want to know, I think Owen was an idiot and -’
‘But I don’t want to know,’ she said firmly, coolly.
There. Her last chance was gone. She didn’t realize what she had done. My cheeks flushed.
‘Toast?’ I managed to say.
‘I’ll grab something later. Have a good day.’
‘Right. Um, you too, Astrid. Take care on that bike of yours.’
‘I don’t have a bike any more,’ she said. ‘Remember?’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Borrow Campbell ’s. Again.’
‘I’m going to do some shopping and then I’m seeing Mel,’ I said. ‘Do you need anything?’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘Sorry if I snapped just then.’ She smiled at me sweetly, and then she was gone, striding out of the kitchen and taking the stairs two at a time. I heard her opening the door, then closing it behind her.
I stayed where I was. I saw Miles leave, without even his usual cup of tea. I made coffee for Pippa when she emerged, dainty and demure. Leah strode into the room, all business and briskness: dark brown wrap dress, discreet eyeshadow, slim briefcase, generally contemptuous.