Forget Me Not Read online

  Leaving the girls watching the TV in their room, he led me into the second bedroom and closed the door.

  ‘First of all, you know I didn’t hurt Clare, don’t you? I have nothing to do with what happened to her.’

  He looked so sincere. As if it were madness for me ever to have doubted him. I wanted to cling on to that, if only I didn’t know for myself how easy it was to convince someone of a lie.

  ‘I’m not sure what to believe any more,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure if having you here is the right thing. I’m not sure if being here is the right thing.’

  ‘Rachel, you know me. You know I’m not perfect and I’d never pretend to be. But I didn’t hurt Clare. I’m not a killer.’ He spat the word ‘killer’ out in a whisper as if it burned him to say it. ‘I couldn’t do that to anyone. I wouldn’t …’

  He looked distraught. The part of me who loved him – and a part of me still did love him – ached to comfort him, but the part of me who was aware that our marriage was falling apart around our ears couldn’t bring myself to do so.

  He sat down. ‘I know you have questions,’ he said. ‘I know what the police have told you. I know what they’ve shown you, but it’s not what it looks like.’

  I snorted. That line.

  ‘I know that sounds like a lie,’ he said. ‘But I promise you, it’s not. Yes, I was in Derry that night and yes, I met Clare for dinner, but it was perfectly innocent.’

  ‘If it was perfectly innocent then why didn’t you tell me about it? Where did you sleep, or do I not want to know the sordid details?’

  Even as I spoke I knew I was being a hypocrite. I was guilty of betrayal, too, and my emotional betrayal with Michael had started long before we’d become physical.

  ‘Rachel, I slept in my mother’s house that night. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to get the chance to talk to Clare privately and I knew you’d ask all sorts of questions if I told you outright I was going out for dinner with your friend. But the dinner was just incidental. We were both hungry. It seemed sensible to have something to eat.’

  ‘But why did you want to talk to my friend in private?’ I kept my voice low, but there was no mistaking my anger and confusion.

  I watched Paul take a deep breath. ‘Because I didn’t know how to talk to you any more. It seems we can’t be in the same room without a row breaking out.’

  I bristled, opened my mouth to bite back.

  ‘And I’m not saying that’s all your fault, or that it’s all my fault, but it is what it is, Rachel, and I thought Clare could help me to reach you.’

  ‘But you can reach me. You just had to pick up the phone and talk, or sit across the table from me, or ask how I was and listen …’

  I felt a wobble in my voice then and I was surprised at the emotion I was feeling. Grief. Loss. The loss of him and so much else that year.

  ‘That’s the thing, Rachel. I can’t, and I’ve not been able to for a long time. Not since your mother took ill, and then when she died …’

  Those words still had the power to pull the air from my lungs. I wanted to cover my ears. I didn’t want to hear that she’d died. I knew it. I was acutely aware of it every hour of every day. Someone saying it out loud didn’t make it any more real to me, but it did make me feel as if I were being punched in the stomach. A visceral physical edge to my emotional pain. Those words … those words had the power to reduce me to tears without even realising. I missed her. God, I missed her every moment of every day. Missed being able to pick up the phone to chat. Missed sitting across the table from her, cup of tea in hand, a shared plate of biscuits in front of us. I missed just knowing she was there. This person who loved me unconditionally, who’d been on my side from the moment I was born. I’d never truly known what loneliness was until that first time I wanted to talk to her and realised she was gone. It had only grown since.

  I raised my hand. ‘Don’t!’ I said.

  I needed him to stop talking about her. I didn’t have the emotional energy to think about my mother and just how much I missed her at this moment. How much I wanted her to hold me and tell me it would be okay. That she’d keep me safe. I missed her with an ache so deep that I could only truly allow myself to feel it occasionally, afraid that if I gave in to my grief, I’d fall and never get back up again.

  ‘But we need to talk about it, Rachel, don’t you see?’ Paul cut in. ‘We’ve been putting off talking about it so much. Arguing over stupid things rather than facing the elephant in the room. You’ve changed so much. You’re not the person you were and yes, I get that you’ve been through a traumatic loss. But we all have. You lost your mother, but I lost you. Your friends lost you. You’re unreachable, both to me and to your friends. To the girls, too, to an extent.

  ‘That’s why Clare and I met. She was worried about you as much as I am. We wanted to talk about what we could do to help you. If there was anything we could do to help you. She hated seeing you this way. She hated that she didn’t feel she could pick up the phone and talk to you, that she couldn’t tell you that she was falling in love because you seemed to shrink away from any good news. You must have noticed that you were spending less time with her?’

  ‘Yes, because she was seeing someone. Someone she’d told me about, as it happens.’

  ‘Just not his name, or where he lives. Or how she really felt. And, Rachel, you didn’t just see less of each other because she’d met someone. You’ve become so insular since your mother died. You don’t go out. The occasional run, maybe. That creative writing class. But that’s it. Where did the Rachel I knew, who grabbed life with both hands, go?’

  I wanted to tell him, but couldn’t, that that girl was lost and the only thing that made her feel found was spending time with another man. One who seemed to understand her loss and her pain and didn’t spend all of his time trying to make her feel as if she should be over it by now.

  She’d never get over it.

  Michael could understand that. Why couldn’t Paul?

  I realised I was angry with him. Angry that he didn’t try harder. That he ran away to Belfast when things got tough and then turned all the problems in our marriage back on me. It wasn’t just me. Was it?

  Paul spoke. ‘Rachel, we were all worried about you. We’re all still worried about you. And selfishly, and this isn’t something I’m proud of, but selfishly, when you told me that Clare had been killed … do you know what my first thought was?’

  I shook my head, watched as my husband started to cry. I’d never seen him cry before. Not even when the girls were born.

  ‘Rachel, all I could think was that this would mean there was no way back for us. This would just take you away from me further and look, just look what it’s done. We’ve been at each other’s throats since and I know I’ve been on edge, before you say anything …’

  ‘The scratches on your arm,’ I said, the one truth that neither of us could escape from. ‘I saw them, Paul. That night we …’

  ‘That night we had sex. You can say it, you know, Rachel. It’s allowed. We’re married! We’re allowed to have sex and to talk about it. I know we barely do any more.’

  There was a bitter tone to his words. Had I been pulling away from him? It had seemed to me that we’d pulled away from each other.

  ‘It hasn’t been easy,’ I said. ‘I can’t just switch on that side of me, not with everything else.’

  In my head, a little voice whispered that I’d found it easy enough to switch it on when I’d been with Michael on Wednesday night. Too easy.

  ‘I know that. I’ve not pushed you, or pressured you.’

  ‘But you went elsewhere,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you? Don’t tell me you didn’t. I know what those marks were, Paul.’

  He looked to the ground. ‘I was afraid we were over. I was lonely. Flattered. Stupid. I didn’t mean for it to happen.’

  I sniffed.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking. It can’t just happen by accident. But … I didn’t plan it, Rachel. That mi
ght sound like a weak excuse, or no excuse at all, but it’s the truth.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s unimportant. It was a mistake,’ he said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, shaking his head. ‘Does it make it hurt less if I tell you it was just some woman I met in a bar after work? In Belfast.

  ‘I was stressed. I went for a drink and we got chatting. And I felt flattered, Rachel. Wanted, even. I gave in to that. We went back to her place. It was quick, and messy, and it felt wrong. Sordid. The scratches made it more so.’ He looked down, rubbed the stubble of his chin. ‘Everything about it was a mistake. I wish, with everything in me, that I hadn’t done it. And I know you might not believe me, but it was just once, and I’ve barely been able to look myself in the mirror since.

  ‘Why do you think I’ve been so short-tempered? I’m so sorry and I’m so ashamed. I don’t want to lose you, or the girls. Even if what we’ve got is broken, it’s still what we’ve got, isn’t it? But what you told the police, about the scratches, that you thought for even one minute I could do something so utterly horrific to our friend …? It’s all just a bloody mess, Rachel. And I want to fix it. I want us to fix it. Despite everything, I still think we can.’

  I heard him say the words I wished he’d said weeks ago. Or months ago. That he didn’t want to lose me. Or us. That he wanted to fix us. I heard him say those words I’d wished he’d say for a long time. But he’d prefaced them with ‘It was a mistake’ and ‘it was just the once’. And even though I’d known in my heart that there’d been someone else, and even though I was in no position to judge, I started to cry anyway. And my crying soon turned into sobbing.

  I felt his arms around me, holding me tight, trying to comfort me, reminding me the girls were next door. I heard him say he was sorry over and over again.

  ‘As soon as I’d done it, I knew I’d messed up,’ he said. ‘I hate myself for it. You couldn’t hate me more than I hate myself.’

  ‘Would you have told me?’ I asked him, pulling back slightly. ‘If it hadn’t been for what happened to Clare? If the police hadn’t called you in? Would you have told me or would we just have gone on as we were?’

  ‘If I’m being honest with you, Rachel, I don’t know. I can’t answer that because what happened, happened. And it changed everything. It made me realise I don’t want to lose you. And now there’s someone doing their very best to hurt you or scare you, and I’m scared. I’m trying not to be, but I am. But no matter how scared I am, I promise you this. I’ll do everything in my power to try to make sure they don’t hurt you, or the kids. If you’ll let me.’

  He held me tightly again and for the first time in a long while I felt a genuine connection between us. It was a fine one, thin, fragile, but it was there. If only I could escape from the fact that I was guilty, too, and I’d also slept with someone else. Someone I still had feelings for. Someone I couldn’t stop thinking about. Someone with whom I wondered if I’d ever have allowed myself to get close to if things between Paul and I hadn’t slid so far off course.

  I just held him, allowed him to hug me, then I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder, trying hard to cut out all the outside noise.

  I had no idea at all where we went from here except that in that moment, in that room, keeping the people here with me safe was the only thing that mattered.

  Molly ended up sleeping in between us that night. Beth slept in the other bedroom on her own but insisted on keeping the light on and the door open so she could see us. I’m not sure I really slept at all. I jumped at every voice walking along the corridor, at the sound of every car driving into the car park. I’d pushed a chair against the door, making sure the back of it jammed the handle so no one could get in or out, but still my nerves jangled. I wondered if we should have stayed at home, where the police could’ve kept a closer eye on us, after all.

  When it was quiet, instead of drifting off, my mind wandered to what Paul had told me. What the police had shown me. I wondered how Julie was. How Ronan was. Had the police told him they’d been speaking to Paul? Did he think Paul was guilty now?

  And Julie – had anyone gone to her house like they had to mine? I suddenly felt sick. She was on her own, with Brendan and the children away to his mother’s. Wouldn’t she be more vulnerable than I was?

  Then again, the picture left at my house clearly said I was next. It still made little sense. I wished I had the photo to look at again. To see if it sparked more memories. I hadn’t really absorbed it properly when the police had showed me – not the subtleties of it, anyway. I didn’t remember it being taken.

  Did I remember Laura trying to hang out with us? Maybe. Maybe she sat on the outside of our group. A memory flickered. A time when she was there, always there. We were trying to discuss something really serious – Julie’s crush on Ronan, if memory serves me right – and there was Laura. Listening in. Always listening in. It was none of her business.

  Had I told her as much? Something niggled at me. Oh, God! I cringed with shame. I’d told her to get her own life. I remembered it now. Remembered the look on her face as she’d slinked away, face scarlet. Clare muttering, too loudly, that Laura was ‘so rude’.

  ‘Who does she think she is?’ she’d asked.

  We really could be bitches, in hindsight. But these were small incidents. It wasn’t like we bullied her. We didn’t hurt her. We just protected our own group. It had been none of her business, after all. It was a private discussion, about private things.

  But now it was keeping me awake, wondering if she felt it more. Wondering if there was something I wasn’t remembering about the whole sorry episode.

  I crept out of bed, lifted my phone and went into the bathroom. Sitting on the floor, I sent a few text messages. One to Ronan to ask how he was, one to Julie to make sure she was safe, and one to Michael to let him know what had happened and to tell him that we were currently holed up in a hotel. I told him it was unlikely I’d be able to see him soon and even sending messages would be riskier than normal. I knew I should’ve had the guts to tell him it was over. That I needed to be there for my family now. God knows, I wanted to be there for my family, but I wasn’t ready to let him go. Not just yet. Not over a text message.

  Julie replied to say she’d gone to Brendan’s mother’s house, too. Once he’d heard what had happened at my house, he’d driven back to insist she go with him. She apologised for the state she’d been in earlier. Said she hoped I was okay.

  I was far from okay.

  My phone lit up with a silent notification. Michael replied:

  Run away with me. I mean it. Let me keep you safe. x

  I stared at his words, thought of my family sleeping in the next room. If I just disappeared … they’d be safe. Whoever was doing this didn’t want to hurt them. He only wanted to hurt me. He’d surely leave them alone if I was out of the picture.

  But my girls, they were my life. I wasn’t sure life would be worth living if I couldn’t be with them. And my husband, who was hurting, who wanted to save us, what would it do to him? I deleted the message from Michael, and crawled back into bed beside Paul, where I lay awake for hours.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Elizabeth

  I woke to the sound of a woman saying my name, over and over. I could just about make out indistinct noises in the background, but it was that one voice – calm, soothing – that gently encouraged me to open my eyes.

  Her green uniform, hair tied back. A pretty face, scrubbed clean, no make-up. Blue eyes. Like Laura’s.

  ‘You’ve taken quite a knock, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘You’ve been out for quite a while.’

  I tried to speak but couldn’t make my mouth work just yet. A voice, male, familiar, was in the background. The policeman. The tall one. I couldn’t remember his name. Remember why he was there. This was my house, wasn’t it? My head throbbed.

  I could hear the whining of a dog. My dog. Where was she? I tried to move my head.


  ‘Steady there, Elizabeth,’ I heard the paramedic say. ‘No sudden movements. We want to make sure you’ve not done yourself any real damage.’

  She was shining a torch in my eyes, but I tried to close them; the light was too bright.

  ‘Do you know where you are, Elizabeth?’ she asked me.

  I was sure I did. But my mouth still didn’t want to work. The words were stuck in my head. Where was the policeman? Was he with the dog? It was my dog, wasn’t it?

  ‘You’ve had a fall,’ the female paramedic said, enunciating each word slowly and purposefully as if I were stupid.

  My head was still spinning. There was pain. Like hot knives. Like electric shocks.

  ‘You hit your head. Can you tell us your name?’

  I wanted to scream at her that she already knew my name. Hadn’t she said it to me already? That was my name, wasn’t it? Everything seemed to fade in and out and in again. I didn’t know any more what was what and who was real, and where was Laura?

  I tried to sit up but had barely moved before the paramedic was telling me to stay still and calm.

  ‘She’s very confused,’ I heard her say to someone.

  Maybe the police officer. Maybe Laura. Was she there? Something told me over and over that she was. Or was at least nearby.

  ‘She’s getting agitated,’ a disembodied voice said.

  Of course I was getting agitated. Where was Laura? Why couldn’t I hear her voice?

  I tried to speak but my stupid mouth still wouldn’t move and I knew I was crying, tears of frustration, but I couldn’t feel them on my face.

  I was tired. I wanted to close my eyes.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ I heard and opened my eyes again.

  A paramedic. Was it the same one as before? I didn’t know.

  ‘Can you stay with me? Try to stay calm and we’re going to help you. Can you squeeze my hand?’