Page 95 of Close to You
For a moment Jane glances to the stun gun and I feel certain she’s going to lunge for it. I think I see her hand flinch, but then, in a blink, I’m not sure if she’s moved.
‘Do you know how easy it is to get a stun gun?’ she asks.
‘What?’
‘On holiday or the internet. They’re quite common in certain places. It wasn’t hard to get. There are all sorts of settings. I wasn’t sure if it would work properly – but then it did. I guess I got my money’s worth…’
I find myself touching the double pinpricks on my neck – and then the original scar I got from David. She must have been hiding behind the front door when I stepped inside.
‘Ben is Norah’s father,’ Jane says. ‘If you were ever expecting me to choose, then it was always going to be him.’
‘You used your own daughter,’ I say. ‘It must have been you in the park.’
‘She was always safe. I didn’t expect you to dump her in a toilet while you disappeared to take a phone call.’
I could argue the point – that’s not how things were – but there are bigger hills. ‘It shouldn’t have happened,’ I say. ‘None of it should have happened.’
‘No – but it says plenty because, after all that’s gone on this week, you still couldn’t tell me you thought David might be back. If you did that, you’d have to admit that he ran off because he found out you slept with my husband.’ She stops and then adds: ‘We’re supposed to be friends.’
Jane waits for a reply but what is there to say?
Suddenly, the anger overtakes her and her voice rises to a shout: ‘It’s the unfairness I can’t stand. You were going nowhere. You sleep withmy husbandand force your husband to run off and then, suddenly, you’re a success. You’ve got people inviting you to conferences, to give speeches, to give you awards. You get your own studio, you hook up with the cute guy who looks after kids, and volunteers, and runs a business. Theonlyreason it happens is because people feel sorry for you.’
Jane has said all this without seemingly taking a breath. She gasps and then picks up the stun gun.
‘But they don’t know you, do they? At the awards, when they said, “after all she’s been through”, I wanted to scream. To stand up and tell them who you really were. Do you think they’d be giving you awards if they knew why your husband left?’
I understand the anger. It’s not only what Ben and I did, it’s compounded by the jealousy that, while Jane has given up her career for a child, however willingly, I’ve gone from strength to strength. There’s supposed to be karma in the world. Good people are supposed to win. What goes around comes around, and all that. These are the lies to get us through the days; to stop madness descending. And here I am – a person for whom none of those things apply.
‘I don’t understand what you want from all of this,’ I say. ‘I get the idea of revenge. You wanted to make me think David was back and to drive me mad. Then what?’
Jane weighs the gun in her hand before placing it back on the table. There’s something about the way her shoulders slump that says she isn’t going to use it a second time. I don’t think she’d necessarily thought so far ahead. She was going to use David as something to hang over me for months. Something to enjoy until she eventually revealed herself.
The next time we lock eyes, it feels as if something’s changed. There’s a cold determination in her stare.
‘I want you to go away,’ she says, almost mechanically. ‘That’s all I want.’
I almost laugh because of the simplicity of it all. She isn’t after my death or any great suffering. There’s no big, grandiose gesture to bump me off or frame me for something. The car crash was an accident on her part. All she wants is for me to go away.
‘I’m sick of looking at you,’ Jane adds. ‘Sick of hearing about your success and everyone feeling sorry for you. I want you to go and live somewhere else a long way away from here.’
Deep down, it’s not even that unreasonable. Imagine someone sleeping with their best friend’s husband. There’s not only the betrayal – but then that person is there all the time. To disappear is the least someone who was actually sorry could do.
Jane slips down until she’s sitting on the dining chair once more. I take the seat on the other side of the table from her. We sit a short distance apart while barely acknowledging the other’s existence. A minute passes and neither of us says anything. Longer. I know that what happens now will shape who I am. Is the world full of good guys and bad guys, or are we all shades of grey? And, if so, how dark does my grey run? I know I should go and give us both a second chance.
Except nothing can bring David back and I already know who I am.
‘What if I don’t?’ I say. ‘What if I want to stay?’
‘Then I’ll tell Andy about you and David. About how you were pregnant, whose baby it was, and why David ran off.’
‘Then you’d be admitting what Ben did.’
Jane nods. She suddenly seems exhausted. ‘I can live with it. Norah’s too young to understand if it gets out – and we’ll get by anyway. You’re the one whose life and career is built around, “After all she went through”. You’ve got way more to lose than me. I’ll be the one getting sympathy.’
She’s probably right. Once word goes around, the conference and speaker invites probably will dry up. Membership at the studio might drop. My personal clients might look elsewhere. It’s the world in which we live. Perhaps my life and career will fall apart. People will forgive all sorts – but sleeping with a best friend’s husband is probably not one of them.
All of which means I have a decision to make.
