One Step Too Far (30 page)

71

Three years later

I sit alone in the pews in the flower-filled church, and the scent reminds me of summer meadows from long ago, from when I was a little girl. The church is beautiful, with a soaring stained glass window, but the brightness of the colours make me think of Daniel lying like a smashed toy in his cobalt blue coat, covered in blood, so I try not to look at it. The lectern is golden, in the shape of an eagle, and the eagle is standing upright, and its little fat legs remind me of Daniel’s, but its face is mean and beaky and I can’t look at that either. I still find it hard to go into a church, ever since the funeral.

I’m wearing a black silk dress from my agency days, feeling self-conscious that I’m on my own, it’s the first wedding I’ve been to since my divorce. Maybe I should have agreed to be Matron of Honour after all, but I felt too old, too frumpy, too bowed down by life to feel like I’d do a good job of it, and the bride didn’t seem to mind. I keep turning round, looking down the aisle to see if she’s coming, she’s fashionably late as usual. I catch the eye of Angel’s old friend Dane, who’s hard to miss, massive in an ostentatiously bright blue suit and a crimson button-hole, bald head gleaming blackly, and he makes me think of Daniel too. I give him a little wave, and he recognises me and after the initial shock he waves back and blows me a theatrical kiss. Angel’s mother Ruth sits in front of me wearing deep vivid red, the colour of the blood that courses wildly through her veins, and she looks as sensational as ever.

I feel close to tears, and I’m not sure whether it’s just because of Daniel, or because it’s a wedding, or whether it’s knowing that people have recognised me and are looking, whispering. I wonder whether it will ever end, being pointed out as the woman who caused the death of 24-year old Roberto Monteiro, the unfulfilled football genius, even though the post-mortem proved what Ben had always thought, that the drugs had had nothing to do with it, that Robbie had died from a rare heart defect that no-one had known about until it was too late.

I look towards the altar and the groom’s still standing there patiently, noticeably nervous, and next to him stands his best man Jeremy, and he looks so smart and handsome it’s hard to fathom he’s the same lanky boy who long ago flung himself upside down out of a plane, and scared me witless.

I turn to peek back up the aisle, the bride is unacceptably late now, the vicar’s looking agitated, but at last the music starts up and as I look again she comes into view and I feel like I cannot,
cannot
believe my eyes, because there is my ex-husband walking straight towards me, and now he has seen me too, for the first time in nearly two years. My whole face feels like it’s burning and I put my head down and sharp angry tears claw at the back of my eyes, begging to be let out. Angel is on his arm, looking like a vision of virginal loveliness, younger than her 27 years, a frothy halo of white silk tulle framing her blonde tumbling hair. I have never hated her more than I do at this moment.

The service is lovely but to me it’s interminable, and although I try to stay calm I find that when it’s over I can’t think of anything else to do but leave. I can’t possibly go to the reception in this state. I’m sure Angel won’t mind and anyway after what she’s done today I don’t much care, and so whilst everyone is milling about outside, waiting to congratulate the bride and groom, I duck around behind the church, through the gravestones, and make my way quickly to my battered black Golf. I kick off my heels and as I start the engine I can barely see through my mascara and the rhythm of my sobs is in tune with the car. The car-park is at the rear of the church so I have to drive round the front past the people, it’s the only way out. I drive as steadily as I can and I feel like I’m going to make it without anyone noticing, until I see someone in a morning suit run out from the throng and manage to get in front of my car and I’m shocked when I see it’s him, he’d looked so appalled to see me. He signals frantically for me to stop, and I panic – what does he want? I have to get out of here, I just can’t face him, not now he’s with someone else, and my foot wavers – my God, the moment lasts forever – my foot wavers between the accelerator and the brake.

PART FOUR

72

I stand at the edge of the road outside the off-licence at the end of my old street in Chorlton and nothing much seems to have changed. No-one pays me any attention, I’m just a 40-something woman with my husband stood next to me, looking like we’re waiting to cross at the lights. As I stand silently in the rain my body feels unconnected to my mind and I realise I’m swaying and that if I’m not careful I could lose my balance and pitch forward into the road. My husband seems not to trust me, and he takes my arm and holds me tight, like you would a child, like I should have done with my own child so many years ago.

It’s funny how hard it is, when it really comes down to it, to move on from a tragedy that will always define you. You need a bucket load of determination and a resolve to never go back to the scene of the original devastation, to leave that place behind. Or that’s what I thought for such a long time. But standing here now I wish I’d come back years ago. Seeing the buses clattering past, and how easily it must have happened, how one smashed bottle can be the difference between life and death, makes me realise that tragic accidents like that occur every single day around the world, and this knowledge has finally helped heal me. A mother who lets her concentration slip for half a second, with her toddler in the bath, or at the edge of a pool or by a busy road is not incompetent, not evil. These things happen, and 99 times out of a hundred it doesn’t matter, fate intervenes and the child is OK, and the odds don’t work so maybe there is a God, after all. My darling Daniel was the one in a hundred it wasn’t OK for. I weep for him now, quietly, calmly, but I know he's at peace, next to his baby brother, I’m sure it was a he.

My son is not the only person I’m mourning today, not the only one who has died here, at this exact spot. I’m also weeping for my twin sister Caroline, who last week on the 10
^th
anniversary of Daniel’s death stepped in front of her own bus-shaped destiny, has left her own gruesome mark on the ground here, and who we buried at lunchtime. When I got the call from poor long-suffering Mum I wasn’t really surprised, I knew long ago that Caroline’s story would never be a happy one. But I also knew that this was her own way of finally saying sorry, of trying to make amends, that it is she who has forced me to face up to what happened, to come back to this spot and say goodbye to them both. I’m grateful to my twin sister in a strange sort of way, her final step has released us both – her from a lifetime prison of addiction and turmoil, me from my ten year sentence of anguish and guilt. As I stand on this miserable, rain-sodden corner I feel the forgiveness flood through me, of her, of myself, and the feeling is one of lightness and brightness, as though four sparkling angels, one for each life lost, have left my shoulders and flown free above the dark streets of Chorlton into the ever-expanding sky. After long healing minutes, serenaded by honking horns and squealing brakes, beeping crossings and wheel-splashed puddles, I finally sense it is time to leave, and we turn wordlessly together and head back to our car.

73

I leave the gravel footpath and I miss the reassuring sound of the crunching underfoot, reminding me that I’m real, that I’m really still here. I move quietly amongst the wild flowers, moving with the breeze and the bees from the magnificent Georgian house down to the playground next to the running track. No-one pays me much attention, I’m just another well-dressed mother, with an ageing spaniel and two young children. I went back to Manchester for the first time in ten years yesterday, for my sister’s funeral, and perversely today I feel as if my steps on earth are that bit easier. The breeze feels cold and cleansing, despite the sunshine, despite the early promise of the mid-May morning, and the weather suits my mood of absolution.

It’s funny how easy it is, once you actually finally confront something, to move on right away from it, to leave it behind at last. I knew I couldn’t face going back up north on my own, so my husband came with me, obviously, and Mum, and of course my dear friend Angel, the only person other than Simon who has straddled both my lives and knows me as Cat as well as Emily. In fact she still calls me Cat, and none of us minds, although the children do sometimes ask. I’ll tell them the whole story one day, I owe them that.

It’s ten years now since Daniel and my unborn baby died, six since I remarried and I thank God for the two little girls we’ve been blessed with. I’m glad they weren’t boys, I think that would have been harder, but I admit it was an unwelcome shock at first when I found out I was having twins. At least they’re not identical, and they share a closeness I never had with Caroline, thank goodness, and I adore them both, exactly the same.

I suppose looking back it was inevitable Ben and I would get a divorce. I guess it was too much to expect that we could just carry on after he found me again. It was all too hard: the horrendous publicity, what with the media digging up the whole sorry story of Daniel’s death and my desertion of my family; the strain of being an ongoing hate figure (although Roberto Monteiro was always a hero, he has absolute cult status now, another God-given boy who will never grow old); my struggle to come off drugs, it turns out I did have a problem after all. But those things were nothing compared to our grief for our dead children and my terrible guilt about Robbie, who I think I loved a little, not just because he was so like Ben, but for himself too. Ben and I were both jealous of each other’s lovers, although we didn’t like to admit it – I may have slept with the most desirable man in the world, but he slept with
my sister
. It was too grim. I think the clincher was Ben’s anger at my running away, he couldn’t help himself, once the relief at finding me had faded, and we found ourselves descending into petty rows about everyday things, fights full of rage and jealousy and abandonment. When after nearly a year it still wasn’t working it seemed easier to split than to keep on trying, although he didn’t want to at first – but finally I left and went to stay with Mum for a while. I think we were both just worn out by the end.

As we walk further down the hill into the fields I let Charlie off the lead and he bounds off, more slowly these days, he’s nearly eleven now. I find my thoughts wandering still as I let the girls run: I’m a bit easier with them of late, slightly less panicky, less paranoid that they’ll be stolen or drowned or run over.

It was Angel who engineered my next marriage. Who would ever have thought she’d end up with one of Ben’s friends, another boring parachuting accountant at that? But she went for counselling and has given up drugs and stealing and sleeping with men for money, and I’m happy for her. She was always going to marry well, she’s one of those girls, and now her bastard rich boyfriend has been replaced by her adoring rich husband. She spotted Tim’s potential and he has turned out to be such a catch, and he treats her like the fairy princess she is. I don’t know how she gets away with it, but Tim just accepted her past life, he was that puppy-struck from the moment we introduced them, that first Christmas after Ben found me. It took her a while, and a few of his City promotions, to fully come round to Tim, but now she shows him the loyalty of a lioness to her cubs, like how she is with me. She doesn’t work in casinos any more, of course, she gets her kicks these days out of 10,000 foot free falls over southern Spain and from trading shares on her laptop – Tim taught her, and she’s quite brilliant at it, she always did have a sharp brain.

I could not believe her cunning over her wedding though, that trumped anything else I’d ever known her to do. OK, she didn’t have a father to give her away, but choosing Ben? How ridiculous. How calculating. She knew we’d be forced to confront each other, that we wouldn’t be able to get away, although my God I’d tried.

My mind wanders back to that moment seven years ago when I was sat slumped in my car wondering what on earth I was going to say to my ex-husband, who I’d just very nearly run over in my bid to escape from him. Although I only had seconds all my thoughts came rushing past, like an auto cue on fast forward – how could Angel do that to me, her supposed best friend? Why was Ben running out to speak to me, what could he possibly want? Does he really think I'd run him over, surely he knows I was just trying to get past him, escape? What the hell was Ben doing giving Angel away? Why is Angel such a stinking liar, why did she swear that he was working overseas, that he couldn’t make the wedding? Who’s he here with, where’s the new girlfriend I heard he has now?

I’d had no time to work out anything before the passenger’s door was yanked open and Ben piled into the car, bigger than I remembered. He was making sure I couldn’t get away I suppose, if I drove off now he was coming with me. I must have been in shock. I sat looking straight ahead, out the windscreen, over the faded black bonnet he'd so nearly ended up on, my breath shallow and jumpy. Ben was raging, hopping mad like I’d never seen him.

“What the fuck are you trying to do, you maniac?” he yelled in my face. “You could’ve killed me.” And then he obviously realised what he’d said but he carried on, his fury hadn’t burned itself out yet.

“What are you doing here anyway? Angel said you were volunteering in Malawi with your mother.” I remember snorting at this, at Angel’s level of conniving.

“Don’t laugh, it’s not fucking funny. Are you trying to ruin this day for everyone, like your sister tried at our wedding? Why can’t you just leave me alone? Why do you keep tormenting me?”

I snapped then. “
Tormenting
you? I'm not trying to torment you. I didn’t want to see you either, I can assure you. Angel swore on her life you wouldn’t be here. D'you think I wanted this to happen? I just wanted to go home, I wasn’t trying to run you down, I’m not that insane, I was just trying to avoid THIS.” And as I spat out the last anguished word I twisted and looked at him for the first time, full in the face, and it was like my heart had just taken another 90 degree turn, back into unconditional love for this man I used to be married to, and he saw it in my face, I couldn’t disguise it, and he leant across the car and grabbed me, not tenderly but with rage still, and he kissed me like he was trying to kill me, and then I was kissing him back and we were pulling across the car at each other so hard, so clumsily, so fucking furiously that we forgot completely that everyone, including his soon to be ex-girlfriend, was watching.

Charlie is lying down in the long grass under a tree, it’s too hot for him already, and the girls are turning cart-wheels and I call to them to mind where they put their hands, there are nettles just here. I missed Charlie so much in the two further years Ben and I were apart, it’s lovely to have him back. I’m so glad we decided to make our new home together in London, where Ben was living anyway – I moved straight back in with him the Monday after Angel’s wedding, it’s like we both felt we had no more time to lose. And after a few months we bought a tiny house not far from that hotel in Hampstead, the one where we stayed when Ben first found me. Our original attempt to try neutral territory, in a little Cheshire village, never had felt right, we’re city people really, and Manchester wasn’t an option either. But I love it here. Who’d ever have thought you could feel so at one with the earth in the middle of this monster city?

I still see Simon occasionally. It’s wonderful to see him so happy now he’s finally split from his wife – he waited until his son was 18, which is typically honourable of him, and his girlfriend is gorgeous. I’m lucky to have Mum nearby too these days, now she’s moved down to see more of her grandchildren, and although she’s devastated about Caroline of course, hopefully it will be easier in the future – at least she won’t have to worry anymore, and she’s happy that Caroline is at peace at last. Dad seems to have coped OK too so far, his new wife has been fantastic, and perhaps one day we’ll see that it’s a release for all of us.

I don’t feel anger or guilt about Caroline anymore. I found it so hard to forgive her but it seems she never forgave herself, and ten more years of misery and self-abuse are at least over for her, my poor tortured twin sister. Ben kept his promise to not see her again, so I barely saw her either and although I don’t like to think it, perhaps what’s happened is best for everyone in the long-run.

I walk with my girls down between the ponds, and I call Charlie and I stoop to put him on the lead, I don’t want him to chase the ducks. As I look up I see my husband walking towards me, he must have finished his swim early, and he has the weekend papers and coffee and fresh buns from the café by the tennis courts. My heart swoops and soars and our twins yell, “Daddy,” and Charlie breaks free from my grasp and runs like a puppy again. Charlie speeds towards him and Ben catches him by the collar and then the twins are there too, and I watch my family fall in a crumple to the soft grass, and laughter sounds across the sweet air.

***