The Breakdown. B A Paris

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СКАЧАТЬ it’s in the little drawer in my old writing desk. I’m not worried about the money itself; if I can’t find it, it doesn’t really matter. But it’s frightening to think I’ve forgotten everything to do with Susie’s present.

      Rachel comes back with the coffees.

      ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ she says, sitting down.

      ‘Go on.’

      ‘It’s just that it’s not like you to get so upset over something as mundane as forgetting what present you’re meant to have bought. Is there something else troubling you? Is everything all right with Matthew?’

      For the hundredth time, I find myself wishing that Rachel and Matthew liked each other more. They try not to show it but there’s always an undercurrent of mistrust between them. To be fair to Matthew, he doesn’t like Rachel simply because he knows she disapproves of him. With Rachel, it’s more complicated. She has no reason to dislike Matthew so sometimes a little voice in my head wonders if she’s jealous that I now have someone in my life. But then I hate myself for the thought, because I know she’s happy for me.

      ‘Yes, everything’s fine,’ I reassure her, trying to push last night from my mind. ‘It really was just the present.’ Even those words seem like a betrayal of the woman in the car.

      ‘Well, you were a little worse for wear that night,’ she says, smiling at the memory. ‘You didn’t have to worry about driving home as Matthew was picking you up, so you had quite a few glasses of wine. Maybe that’s why you forgot.’

      ‘You’re probably right.’

      ‘Well, drink up and we’ll go and choose something.’

      We finish our coffees and go down to the fourth floor. It doesn’t take us long to choose a couple of powder-blue suitcases, and as we make our way out of the shop, I sense Rachel’s eyes on me.

      ‘Are you sure you want to go for lunch? If you don’t, it doesn’t matter.’

      The thought of lunch, of having to talk about anything and everything to avoid speaking about the woman in the car, suddenly seems too much. ‘Actually, I’ve got a splitting headache – a bit too much celebrating last night, I think. Can I take you to lunch next week instead? I can come into town any day now that I’m not working.’

      ‘Sure. You’ll be all right to come to Susie’s party tonight, won’t you?’

      ‘Of course. But could you take the cases, just in case?’

      ‘No problem. Where are you parked?’

      ‘At the bottom of the High Street.’

      She nods. ‘I’m in the multi-storey, so I’ll say goodbye to you here.’

      I point to the two suitcases. ‘Can you manage?’

      ‘They’re lightweight, remember? And if I can’t, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a nice young man to help me!’

      I give her a quick hug and make my way to the car. As I turn on the ignition, the time comes up and I see that it’s a minute past one. A part of me – quite a large part – doesn’t want to listen to the local news, but I find myself turning on the radio anyway.

      ‘Last night, the body of a woman was found in a car in Blackwater Lane, between Browbury and Castle Wells. She had been brutally murdered. If you travelled that road between eleven-twenty last night and one-fifteen this morning, or know anyone who did, please contact us as soon as possible.’

      I reach out and turn the radio off, my hand shaking with stress. Brutally murdered. The words hang in the air, and I feel so sick, so hot, that I have to open the window, just to be able to breathe. Why couldn’t they just have said ‘murdered’? Wasn’t ‘murdered’ already bad enough? A car pulls up alongside me and the driver makes signs, wanting to know if I’m leaving. I shake my head and he drives off, then a minute or so later another car comes along, wanting to know the same thing, and then another. But I don’t want to leave, all I want is to stay where I am until the murder is no longer news, until everybody has moved on and forgotten about the woman who was brutally murdered.

      I know it’s stupid but I feel as if it’s my fault she’s dead. Tears prick my eyes. I can’t imagine the guilt ever going away and the thought of carrying it around with me for the rest of my life seems too high a price to pay for a moment’s selfishness. But the truth is, if I’d bothered to get out of my car, she might still be alive.

      I drive home slowly, prolonging the moment when I have to leave the protective bubble of my car. Once I get home, the murder will be everywhere, on the television, in the newspapers, on everyone’s lips, a constant reminder of my failure to help the woman in the woods.

      As I get out of the car, the smell of a bonfire burning in the garden transports me instantly back to my childhood. I close my eyes and, for a few blissful seconds, it’s no longer a hot, sunny day in July, it’s a crisp, cold November evening and Mum and I are eating sausages speared onto forks, while Dad sets off fireworks at the bottom of the garden. I open my eyes to find that the sun has disappeared behind a cloud, mirroring my mood. Normally, I would go and find Matthew but, instead, I head straight for the house, glad to have a little more time to myself.

      ‘I thought I heard the car,’ he says, coming into the kitchen a few minutes later. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. Weren’t you meant to be having lunch out?’

      ‘We were, but we decided to leave it for today.’

      He comes over and drops a kiss on my head. ‘Good. Now you can have lunch with me.’

      ‘You smell of bonfire,’ I say, breathing it in from his T-shirt.

      ‘I thought I’d get rid of all those branches I cut down the other week. Luckily, they were under the tarpaulin so the rain didn’t get to them but they would have smoked the house out if we’d used them on the fire.’ He wraps his arms around me. ‘You do know that you’re the one for me, don’t you?’ he says softly echoing what he used to say when we first met.

      I’d been working at the school for about six months when a group of us went to a wine bar to celebrate my birthday. Connie noticed Matthew the moment we arrived. He was sitting at a table by himself, clearly waiting for someone, and she’d joked that if his date didn’t turn up she would offer to replace her. When it became obvious that his date wasn’t going to materialise, she went over, already a little drunk, and asked him if he wanted to join us.

      ‘I was hoping nobody would notice I’d been stood up,’ he said ruefully as Connie sat him down between her and John. It meant that I was opposite him and I couldn’t help noticing the way his hair fell over his forehead, or the blue of his eyes whenever he looked over at me, which he did, quite a lot. I tried not to make too much of it, which was just as well, as by the time we stood up to leave, several bottles of wine later, he had Connie’s number firmly in his phone.

      A few days later she came up to me in the staff room, a huge grin on her face, to tell me that Matthew had called her – to ask for my number. So I let her give it to him and when he phoned, he nervously admitted, as he so sweetly put it, ‘As soon as I saw you I knew you were the one for me.’

      Once we began seeing each other regularly, he confessed that he couldn’t father children. He told me he’d understand СКАЧАТЬ