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Chapter 6

~

I don’t recognise her the second time I see her. And then I do that thing where you realise someone’s face is familiar but they seem out of context, and I can’t immediately place her. If she wasn’t wearing a swimming hat and goggles, it might help.

She has stopped in the shallow end and, as there are only the two of us in the lane, we’ve said hello to each other.

‘Do I know you?’ I feel stupid for asking that question.

‘Sorry?’ She pulls the silicone hat away from her ears and tips her head from side to side.

‘Have we met?’ It sounds like a cheesy chat-up line and I cringe inside.

‘I don’t think so,’ she says, moving her goggles up onto her forehead and giving me a quick wide smile. Her teeth stick out a bit, and now I’m sure I’ve seen her somewhere before.

She rubs the inside of her goggles where they have misted up and puts them back on. Then she pushes off the wall. I watch in admiration as she glides through the water gracefully and tumble-turns at the end. It doesn’t look like she’s going to stop for a rest any time soon, so that seems to be the end of our little conversation. After my opening gambit, I’m not surprised she sprinted off.

As I’m lathering shampoo into my hair after my swim, she reappears. Whipping off her swimming hat and goggles, she presses the button for the shower opposite mine. Now I can see she has short hair and as she locks her large dark eyes on to mine it comes to me. She’s the woman from the lake.

‘You have a little white dog,’ I say.

‘Yes, I do.’ She looks at me suspiciously. ‘How did you know that?’

‘I saw you once a few weeks ago when we were out walking the Coffin Trail.’

Her pencil-thin eyebrows have shot right up and disappeared under her wet soapy hair. ‘We?’

‘My husband and I.’

‘Husband?’ she echoes. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t remember you. Or your husband.’

‘We didn’t talk. I probably only remember because Alex – that’s my husband – was scared of your dog.’

‘Really?’

She introduces herself then. She has a soft melodious voice.

‘Hi Vicky. I’m Kaitlyn,’ I say. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ And I am. Apart from a few shopkeepers and some of Alex’s friends, I’ve hardly talked to anyone local since I moved here.

‘How far gone are you?’ she asks, lowering her gaze to my stomach.

‘Seven months.’

‘You’re looking very good for seven months,’ she says, still focusing on my bump.

I’m not. I’m huge. Which is why I wanted to swim today. I’m hoping to come to the leisure centre here in Kendal regularly from now on, but of course Alex mustn’t find out. He seems to think any unnecessary movement I make might have an adverse effect on our baby. I find it sweet that he frets so much, but it’s stifling spending nearly all day every day in that mansion of his.

‘You swim very well,’ I say, desperate to keep the conversation going.

‘I swam competitively as a kid,’ she says. ‘I used to train for about three hours a day. I’m bored of doing lengths now, but it keeps me fit.’ She grins, revealing her improbably white teeth again, but as she hasn’t met my eyes, it’s as if she’s talking to my tummy.

‘I’d like to get fitter,’ I tell her. I’ve put on way too much weight with the pregnancy, but I don’t add this out loud.

‘You’re a pretty good swimmer yourself,’ she says, bending down to pick up her shampoo bottle. With a little wave of her hand, she’s gone, and I wish we’d chatted more. Perhaps I’ll bump into her again if I make a habit of coming here to swim.

But when I’ve finished getting dressed, she’s drying her hair. I fumble in my purse for change for the hairdryer and take the one next to her. I study her in the mirror. I’m tall, but she is a good two inches taller. I consider myself to be a little ungainly, particularly at the moment, whereas she holds herself up straight with an elegant poise. Despite her stark facial features, she’s very attractive.

In the shower, I had the impression she was refusing to make eye contact, but now she’s staring at me with insistent wide eyes. I look away, feeling a little uncomfortable, as if she’s scrutinising me.

To my surprise, when the hairdryers cut out, she says, ‘Would you like to go for a coffee in the leisure centre café?’

‘I’d love to,’ I say, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t today.’

‘Oh. Well, maybe another time,’ she says. ‘It was nice talking to you, Kaitlyn.’

And with that, she disappears through the swing doors and I’m left alone in the changing rooms. Damn! I should have made sure there was going to be another time. Just as this thought enters my head, she’s back, rummaging in her handbag. She finds a pen and a receipt. Leaning on the little ledge by the mirror, she scribbles something and then hands the scrap of paper to me.

‘Give me a call next week if you come for a swim. Evenings or lunchtimes suit me best. We could grab a coffee afterwards then if you want.’

I look at the paper and see she has noted down a mobile number. She hasn’t written her name.

‘OK, thanks,’ I say, pleased at how eager Vicky seems to meet up with me again. This time she holds the wooden doors open for me and I follow her through the reception area and out into the car park.

As I get into my car, it dawns on me that I know hardly anything about this woman. I don’t know what she does for a living or if she’s married or single. All I know is she has a dog and she’s an excellent swimmer. She knows even less about me. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to see her again. I ignore the niggling doubt in my mind, thrilled at the idea I might finally be making a friend.

I fish my mobile phone out of the pocket of my jacket, which I’ve flung on the passenger’s seat, and as I add Vicky to my contacts, the phone beeps and vibrates several times. I have six missed calls, two voice messages and four text messages. They’re all from Alex. I read the text messages. Trepidation erases the joy I was feeling. I turn the key in the ignition, opting to get going rather than ring or text him back.

‘Hi,’ I say, brightly as I make an attempt at breezing through the front door with my large frame about fifteen minutes later. I’ve left my swimming bag in the boot of my car for now. Alex is sitting on the stairs in the ‘vestibule’.

‘You’re late.’ He sounds aggressive.

I wonder how to play this and decide it’s best not to snap back at him. I need to placate him before this gets out of hand.

‘Where have you been?’ he barks before I can say anything. ‘Didn’t you get my messages? Why didn’t you answer your mobile? I was worried.’

‘You don’t need to worry about me.’ I can feel a bead of sweat roll down the side of my face.

‘I wasn’t worried about you.’ He looks at me as though I’m unhinged. ‘We’re supposed to be there at six.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, we’ve got loads of time.’ I try to come over as reassuring, but I can hear my voice falter. ‘I popped out to buy these.’ I thrust the huge bouquet of orange gerberas, lilies and roses, which I bought on the way home, into Alex’s arms. ‘I didn’t want to answer any calls in the car.’ It’s stretching the truth slightly, but it works. He calms down. I force myself to breathe in and out slowly.

‘She’ll love them,’ he says, holding them up to his face and smelling them.

‘Oh, they’re not for your mother,’ I say, unable to resist winding him up a little to get my own back. His face falls and I burst out laughing. To his credit, he manages a smile. ‘Why don’t you go and hunt out a bottle of good wine while I put some make-up on and then we’ll be off.’

‘It’s just that she thinks it’s bad manners when people arrive late, you know?’

‘I know. Oh, and Alex?’

‘Yes?’

‘I made some brownies. They’re on the worktop in the kitchen in a Tupperware box.’

He looks delighted, which gives me such a sense of relief. I turn and run up the stairs as fast as I can, feeling light despite my extra bodyweight. In the bedroom, I apply foundation to conceal the red marks the goggles have left under my eyes. I do a quick job with the mascara, blusher and lipstick and I appraise my reflection. I don’t look too bad. I feel good, too, for having done some exercise.

Alex and I arrive ten minutes early at his mother’s house and we sit in the car and listen to the news while we wait. As Alex has already told me, my mother-in-law is a stickler for punctuality. She hates tardiness, but she can’t bear it when her guests arrive early either.

There is an interesting debate on Radio 4 about the recent French presidential election. I know my colleagues will be discussing this topic amongst themselves as well as with our students and for a moment I miss the world I used to live in.

Just as I’m about to turn up the volume, Alex switches the radio off.

‘It’s time,’ he announces. He comes round to my side of the car, opens the door and helps me out. I carry the flowers and he takes the brownies and the wine.

My mother-in-law opens the door before we can ring the bell. She’s a stick-thin petite woman with greying hair and the same hooked nose and blue eyes as Alex. She speaks with an annoyingly loud, shrill voice. She and Alex are very close, and that’s an understatement. She gives me a perfunctory air kiss near my cheek and then she hugs Alex for several seconds while I wait on the doorstep.

She leads us into the living room, which is pristine. Not a speck of dust, nothing out of place. Even the magazines have been positioned dead centre on the coffee table. The first time I came into Mrs Riley’s house, I realised Alex must have got his obsessive tidiness from his mother. I hope he won’t expect everything to always be immaculate when our baby comes along.

‘What a lovely picture, Mum,’ Alex says.

I look around the walls, before spotting the painting on the floor. It’s a striking cityscape, an oil painting in which the hustle and bustle of the centre of London is conveyed by blurred colour highlighting the furious movement of buses and taxis alongside a pavement illuminated by streetlamps. It is indeed lovely.

‘I was wondering if you could hang that on the wall behind the sofa for me,’ Alex’s mum says. It’s an order rather than a request.

‘Of course. I’ll do it right now.’

Alex prides himself on being a dutiful son. He’s a bit too devoted to his mum for my liking – he drops everything and rushes round to her house to sort out every little problem the moment it arises, from a squeaky door to a dripping tap. But Alex is an only child and I suppose once his father left, he must have taken on the role of man of the house from an early age.

In truth, I envy their closeness. I miss my own mother when I observe the two of them together. Alex can do no wrong in his mother’s eyes. I wonder what my mum would have thought about me getting pregnant after a one-night stand. I know she would never have criticised me. She would have been caring and understanding. I could have done with her support. I could still do with it now.

‘Come through with me to the kitchen, Kaitlyn,’ my mother-in-law says, breaking into my thoughts just as I’m starting to feel morose.

I follow her as Alex heads for the garage, presumably to fetch the toolkit. She pulls out a kitchen chair for me to sit on, and then she turns away from me to stir the dinner bubbling away in the frying pan on the hob. My gut churns at the aromas drifting towards me.

Since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve had a heightened sense of smell. I’ve become very sensitive to certain odours. I’m suddenly transported from my mother-in-law’s kitchen to a lakeside café in Windermere where Alex and I had brunch a few weeks ago. The smell of Alex’s bacon sandwich made me so nauseous that in the end I couldn’t eat my pancakes. I’ve stuck to beef, chicken and fish since then.

‘I’ve made your favourite meal,’ my mother-in-law trills. ‘Sweet and sour pork.’

‘Oh.’ I can see an open tin of pineapple on the work surface next to the stove.

I frown. I’ve never told her what my favourite meal is. It certainly isn’t sweet and sour pork. When I’m not pregnant, I eat pretty much anything, but I’ve never liked sugary things mixed with savoury foods, like fruit with meat.

She turns and narrows her eyes as she examines me, no doubt trying to decipher my reaction.

‘That’s very good of you,’ I say. It doesn’t sound very sincere, but she looks pleased with herself and goes back to stirring the meal with her wooden spoon. For a fleeting moment, I wonder if she has intentionally made a dish I won’t enjoy. But I dismiss the thought. It must be a misunderstanding. She’s not that friendly, but she’s not so vindictive as to do something like that on purpose. Alex probably told her what I like and what I don’t like, and she got confused.

‘Shall I set the table?’ I say, as the sound of a hand drill starts up in the living room.

Arming myself with plates and cutlery, I make my way into the living room where I dump everything down on the dining table. I go over to Alex to tell him about the mistake so that he can have a word with his mum. But as I reach him, I think the better of it. Resolving to eat up my dinner without making a fuss, I kiss Alex tenderly on the back of his neck as he crouches down to pick up the painting.

At the table, Alex serves me a large helping of the meal before I can ask for a small portion. I can feel my mother-in-law watching me as I take a mouthful.

‘It’s delicious, Mrs Riley,’ I say, trying not to gag.

‘Sandy,’ she says. ‘I kept my husband’s surname when he left because it was easier for Alexander but, please, my dear, call me Sandy.’

I give myself a stern talking-to in my head. My mother-in-law has gone to a lot of trouble for me. I should show more appreciation.

‘It’s delicious, Sandy,’ I say, plastering a smile on my face and resolving to keep it unzipped for the duration of the dinner. It gets easier and I manage to swallow down every last morsel.

‘Would you like some more?’ Alex asks, as I put down my knife and fork. He has already loaded up the spoon, which is hovering over my plate.

‘No, thank you,’ I say a bit too hastily. Alex serves his mother and himself instead.

He is attentive to both his mum and me during the meal. He hardly takes his eyes off me. He cracks jokes and tells humorous anecdotes. This is the man I fell in love with. And then it sinks in. This is my husband. I feel a rush of joy.

~

I muse over the day’s events while Alex is in the bathroom that evening. I’m so excited about making a friend. I’d like to tell Alex about Vicky, but that would mean confessing I went for a swim and I can’t do that. Alex wouldn’t approve. Only two months to go, though. I rub my tummy.

Suddenly, Alex storms out of the bathroom. ‘What was that all about?’ he demands.

My heart sinks. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I say.

‘That was delicious, Mrs Riley,’ he says in a high-pitched voice, clearly trying to imitate me. ‘You hate sweet and sour pork.’

‘I was being polite, Alex,’ I say, not sure yet where he’s going with this.

Earlier, when I arrived home from the pool, all I needed to do was cajole Alex and pretend to be light-hearted. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to work this time. He seems implacable.

The snake residing in my stomach uncoils just as the baby starts to jiggle around, as if they’re competing for my attention. I want to sit down, but Alex is standing close to me and I mustn’t appear inferior. Instead, I stretch myself to my full height and jut my chin out defiantly.

‘You lied!’ he shouts. His hot minty breath is like a blow to my face. ‘You lied to my mother!’

His words are trapped in the small space between us while I try to interpret them. Even when I do, it takes me a second or two more to find my tongue. ‘Would you have preferred me to tell her I couldn’t eat the dinner she had made especially for me?’

‘Put it this way: at least I’d respect you for being honest. You liar!’

I stare at Alex. He looks like my husband, but he sounds like a stranger. He bores holes into me with his penetrating stare. I have a sudden flash of those piercing blue eyes on me throughout dinner. It strikes me that he may have deliberately set this up.

‘Alex, did you tell your mother that was my favourite meal?’

‘Are you out of your mind? Why on earth would I tell her that?’

For a split second I think he’s going to hit me. But he grabs his pillow and his mobile and storms out of the bedroom.

‘I’m going to sleep in one of the guestrooms,’ he yells as his parting shot, slamming the door.

In a daze, I drift into the bathroom and go through the motions of my nightly routine. I brush my teeth, hardly aware of what I’m doing. In the mirror, I catch sight of my reflection and I’m stunned by how white my face is.

I don’t know how long I sit up in bed, trying to process what just happened. A furious incomprehension has taken hold of me. The more I replay the incident in my mind, the more bewildered I become. My anger is rising inside me, like milk about to boil over in a pan. How dare he talk to me like that!

I’m reminded of the necklace incident on our wedding night. On that occasion, Alex acted out of hurt and jealousy, thinking I’d lost his necklace and worn a gift from an ex-boyfriend. But this time, there’s no excuse for his behaviour. I won’t put up with it!

There’s no point trying to sort this out with Alex tonight. But I’d love to talk to someone about it. In the end, I get up and fetch my mobile out of my jacket pocket. My hands are shaking as I scroll down my contacts to find Hannah. Maybe my best friend can help me make sense of all this.

But Hannah’s phone goes straight to voicemail. I look at the clock on the bedside table. It’s late, so it shouldn’t surprise me that I can’t get hold of her. But she hasn’t returned any of my calls or text messages for about ten days now. Usually, we text each other a lot. Every other day at least. We did even when I lived in Somerset.

I rack my brain, but I can’t think of any awkwardness between us since she has come to terms with me moving in with Alex. There has been no sign she has taken something I said badly.

So why haven’t I heard from her? This silence isn’t like Hannah. I tell myself she’s probably busy, but deep down I’m convinced something is wrong. Maybe the problem isn’t between Hannah and me, but I know, with unwavering certainty, that there is a problem.

To: kaitlyn.best@newzmail.co.uk

From: alexanderriley9987@premiernet.co.uk

Sent: Sun, 01 Jan 2017 at 00:06

Subject: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Dear Katie,

Happy New Year!!! I can’t seem to get through on the phone (perhaps the networks are all saturated), so I’m writing you a quick email until we can talk and I can hear your beautiful voice.

You can’t imagine how thrilled I am that you’re coming to live with me here in Grasmere.

Just think, we’ll be together very soon. What a start to the New Year!

And this time next year when I wish you a happy new year, we’ll be face to face. There will be three of us by then, not just you and me.

I understand that you need a while to finalise things with Kevin and put the house on the market. I know you need to sort out your work commitments, too. It sounds like your head of department is being very sympathetic. I’m so glad you can take your annual leave just before the start of your maternity leave. That means you’ll be here by the end of March at the latest.

Given that you had a bit of a scare and ended up at the hospital last week, do you think you might be able to finish up at the university even earlier? Perhaps you could get a fit/sick note from your doctor? I’ve been very worried about you. Did the gynaecologist say why you had lost some blood? The main thing is that you and the baby are fine, but I don’t want you to overdo things. The sooner you’re up here with me, the better. I’ll take care of you.

I’ll leave you for now and let you get on with celebrating with your family and friends.

I love you, my soulmate,

Alexxx