The perfect home, p.30
The Perfect Home, page 30
Clare knew she should go back to the house to help Sandy finish packing, but instead, she turned down the lake path, walking past the locked boathouse and into the woods. She needed a few moments alone, to say goodbye to Westford Park. To tell the ghosts that they couldn’t haunt her any more and they couldn’t haunt Sandy either.
The driving rain was sneaking in through the trees, soaking her hat and her coat, and she shivered but she kept walking, on and on. A noise startled her, and she stopped dead, listening keenly as her eyes scanned the trees. She spotted three figures in the distance and relaxed. It was just Micky and his friends. They were walking with their heads down. They were probably saying goodbye, Clare thought, with a pang of regret. Micky was furious that they were leaving but he’d get over it. Eventually. When he got to Manchester and realised how fabulous it was, he’d forget all about Bethany and Poppy and Westford Park. Micky had his whole life ahead of him, he’d make new friends, find a girlfriend, finish his A levels.
Then he’d go off to university and Sandy would be upset to see him go but she could wave him off without being consumed by dread, because she didn’t have to worry about his safety any more. Grant was gone and so, too, was the threat to Micky.
He must have sensed her presence because suddenly Micky stopped and looked directly at her. His head was covered by a hoodie and his face was unreadable but for a moment Clare’s breath caught in her throat because she’d seen that look before. She’d seen it in the photographs the private detective had shown her, and it sent chills up her spine.
‘Grant,’ she whispered.
But then the moment passed and Clare found herself looking into the kind, good-natured eyes of her stepson again. It had been a trick of the mind, nothing more. She lifted a hand to wave at him and he waved back. And then he hurried off to catch up with the girls.
Clare felt a thrill run through her as the realisation settled in that they were finally free. This time tomorrow they would be on their way to Manchester, heading towards a new and better life. In a moment of childish excitement, she stretched her arms out wide and started turning around in circles, her face angled up towards the rain, laughing in exhilaration about it all. What she had done. How she had, against all the odds, got away with it. What exciting things their future held. She turned and turned until she was dizzy.
‘Goodbye, Westford Park,’ she shouted. ‘And good-bloody-riddance.’
And then, with a light head and an even lighter heart, she walked away.
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Prologue
What would you do if you were given the choice to marry the man of your dreams knowing it will end in tragedy five years later, or to just walk away from him and live a long, healthy life?
You might say that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
You might say it’s not worth the sacrifice, that there are plenty of men in the world but you only have one shot in life and it’s too precious to risk something that you may never recover from.
But it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s a trivial conundrum, a ‘what if?’ question that might come out at dinner parties or on long, boring car journeys. It’s not real. You can consider it for a few brief moments, give your answer and then laugh it off as theoretical nonsense.
That’s what I did. I discussed it with my friends and moved on to other topics, immersing myself in the warm, blissful enjoyment of good food, wine and company. I listened, I laughed, I talked, I ate. I was single and carefree, and I had plenty of other things to occupy my mind. I still had the rest of my life to look forward to and the path ahead was full of possibilities.
In truth, I almost forgot about it. Almost.
But now I can’t forget. It’s all I can think about. It haunts me day and night, extinguishing the light, plunging me into a deep, desperate darkness. It is a curse that has consumed me, eating me up from the inside out until I don’t know who I am or who I can trust. It has already cost me my happiness, my relationships, my sanity and what scares me most is that I know the worst is still to come. I ignored the signs and now it’s too late. I am in the eye of a great storm, facing terrible danger but unsure whether to run or hide from it. The storm is building up around me, I can feel it. It’s determined to destroy everything in its path and I don’t know who will survive it. Something very bad is about to happen and yet I am powerless to stop it.
Have I created this? Did I bring it upon myself or am I the victim in a game that I did not want to play and which I do not control? I don’t know any more. When I think about that person I once was, the younger version of me who laughed and ate and drank with her friends, unaware of what was yet to come, it’s hard to believe it was me. I am no longer the person I was and I don’t know if I will ever find my way back. All I know is that all storms die out eventually and only then do you truly know the damage they have caused. It started with a choice and I’m about to find out where it ends. It’s nearly time for the clock to stop ticking.
It has been four years and eleven months since I faced this choice. And I married him.
PART ONE
Chapter One
FOUR YEARS AND ELEVEN MONTHS EARLIER
We giggled as we stumbled into the tent, four grown women as giddy as children. The sounds of the funfair, the excitement of the evening, the lights and the painted carousel horses fed our imaginations and captured our minds, transporting us back to an innocent time in our lives.
We weren’t innocent any more, though. We were in our early thirties and had experienced too much. We had lived hard, we had played harder, taken reckless risks, and now we were slowly moulding into new people again, grown-ups who had responsibilities and mortgages.
But that night we had freed ourselves from the burden of our daily lives and allowed ourselves to morph into excited girls again as we linked arms and strolled through the fairground, dodging overexcited children clinging onto candyfloss sticks and gaggles of teenagers flirting with each other. We had ridden the carousel and taken selfies for our Instagram grids, we had hooked ducks and scoffed toffee apples until our fingers were sticky. By the time dusk started turning into dark, we still weren’t ready to leave. There was an unspoken agreement in the air between us that we wanted to stay in this bubble of nostalgia for a little while longer, reliving our youth. We saw the gaudy fair through rose-tinted glasses that night and we didn’t want to take them off.
By chance, we had paused outside a small tent, so unassuming among the other attractions that you could easily miss it. I hadn’t given it a second glance but my friend, Emily, had leaned forward to read the sign outside and waved me over. Unlock the secrets of your future with Mystic Maggie, I read. £10 a reading.
Emily had grinned. ‘Shall we go and see the fortune teller?’
I had laughed dismissively, but the truth was that my curiosity was piqued. I’d never had my fortune read and it was an unofficial bucket list goal, like bungee jumping or seeing the pyramids of Egypt, something I wanted to experience once just to say I had done it. There was a tiny sliver of hope too, somewhere deep down inside me, like a schoolchild who knows that Santa isn’t real but still wants to believe. What if they really can read my fortune? What if they tell me what’s in my future?
‘What a waste of money.’ Helen had scrutinised the hand-painted sign, which was slightly peeling at the edges. ‘You know it’s all a load of nonsense, right?’
I shrugged. ‘Ah come on, Hels, it’s only a bit of fun.’
The three of us had turned to Shivani, who had been affectionately known as Shiv for as long as I could remember, to cast the deciding vote and I’d held my breath, hoping she said yes.
‘Go on,’ she’d said, with a mischievous expression.
A rush of anticipation had run through me as we parted the curtain and piled into the dimly lit tent, stopping in front of a small table. A woman was sitting quietly on the other side and she watched us, her expression blank beneath her red and gold headscarf. Her outfit was just like the fortune tellers in storybooks, and she was covered in heavy gold jewellery, her dark eyes thick with eyeliner and her long jet-black hair falling around her like a river of silk. She was younger than I had imagined, mid-twenties perhaps, and I instinctively felt disappointed, as though her youth made her inexperienced in a practice I wasn’t sure I believed in anyway.
Her slender hands gently stroked a crystal ball as she studied us, unsmiling. We all shuffled around a bit, suddenly nervous under the intensity of her gaze.
Shiv nudged Emily. ‘You go first,’ she hissed.
‘Your friends can wait outside,’ the fortune teller said, in a voice that was both gentle yet authoritative, and we obediently slunk back out of the tent and hovered by the entrance.
‘What do you think she’ll tell Em?’ I asked.
Helen shrugged. ‘Probably that she’ll meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger.’
‘Poor Mark.’ I thought of Emily’s short, sandy-haired and jovial boyfriend.
‘Or that a great fortune awaits her,’ Shiv suggested.
‘Oh, that would be nice.’
Helen rolled her eyes. ‘You don’t seriously believe in this crap, do you?’
‘Of course not, it’s just a giggle, Hels.’
Helen folded her arms across her chest. ‘Well, I’m not parting with my hard-earned money just to be told some absolute bull by a girl who doesn’t look much older than my niece. I’m out.’
I looked at Shiv. ‘What about you? Still up for it?’
She shrugged. ‘Why not? I’ve spent a tenner on worse.’
I grinned, relieved that she was still game. ‘Me too.’
We stood about listlessly, waiting for Emily to emerge, which she did a few minutes later.
‘Well? What did she say?’ I demanded.
‘Apparently I’m going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger.’
Helen was victorious. ‘I told you!’
But I was still curious. ‘What else?’
‘I’m going to get a new job opportunity. And my current worries will end soon. The usual stuff they teach you in fortune-telling school. Who’s up next?’
Shiv and I exchanged glances. ‘You go,’ I said.
Shiv grinned and headed in, turning back to wink at us before she closed the curtain behind her. Emily and Helen drifted over to a nearby van selling snacks and drinks, but I stayed close by, waiting for my turn, eager to keep my place in the non-existent queue. Time crawled by and I began to grow bored. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that it had been a long time since lunch and the smell of onions frying from a nearby hot-dog stand tempted my hunger. I felt the first drops of rain start to fall, which I hoped was a passing shower, not a full-on downpour, and I put my hood up over my head. Helen and Emily wandered back over, glancing up at the dark and increasingly ominous-looking sky and pulling out their umbrellas.
‘Our dinner reservation is in twenty minutes,’ Helen warned.
‘The restaurant is only across the park, I’ll be five minutes,’ I insisted.
‘Shiv’s been in there forever.’
As if on cue, the curtains parted, and Shiv emerged, shaking her head.
‘So?’ I asked.
‘I’m going to live abroad, apparently.’
‘Ooh!’
‘It’s never going to happen.’ Shiv and her husband had just bought a new house to accommodate their growing family as well as her parents. A move to sunnier climes seemed unlikely.
‘Well, you never know what’s around the corner.’ I observed Helen and Emily, who were looking fed up now, the rain and the lure of a tasty dinner dampening the magic of the fair. ‘Why don’t you three head to the restaurant and I’ll follow on in a few minutes?’
Helen was relieved. ‘Good shout. I’m ready for a drink. Good luck with Mystic Meg.’
‘It’s Mystic Maggie,’ I replied, but they’d already turned away. I watched them disappear into the crowds and then parted the curtains and made my way into the tent, pulling my hood back down and nodding my greeting at the fortune teller who gestured towards a card payment reader on the table and a sign which read, no fee, no fortune. Trying not to feel disappointed by the transactional nature of our interaction so far, I tapped the reader with my credit card and sat down opposite her, smiling. Even fortune tellers had a business to run, I supposed.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello, Simone.’
My eyes widened in shock at the mention of my name. How did she know? Excitement and incredulity surged through me as I considered the possibility that Mystic Maggie really was psychic. Then I glanced down at my credit card, still on the table with my full name printed across it, and felt foolish for thinking that she might possess supernatural powers.
‘What would you like to learn today, Simone?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ I said with a nervous laugh. ‘I’m just curious about my future, I guess.’
Mystic Maggie nodded and then closed her eyes, breathing in and out deeply. Feeling a little awkward in the intense silence, almost as if I was intruding on a private moment, I looked around the sparsely decorated tent, the scent of sage tickling the back of my throat. When I turned back to the fortune teller, she was gazing directly into the crystal ball and her eyes were unfocused. I watched her curiously and waited for her to speak.
‘You’ve had a difficult few months,’ she eventually said.
‘Yes.’ It was true. My father had died suddenly in the spring, and we were all still trying to come to terms with it. Then, when I’d returned to work after a couple of weeks’ leave, I’d learned that my colleague had been promoted to a job I’d thought would be offered to me. A month later, I’d been informed that my landlord was selling the beautiful garden flat I rented and I’d have to find somewhere else to live. Mum always said that bad things came in threes, so I was hoping that was the end of my run. But I tried not to read too much into Mystic Maggie’s words. I knew that this was the fortune teller’s trick, a verbal sleight of hand, to make you convince yourself that their generalised statements were specific only to you.
‘Things are about to change,’ she said. ‘The tide is turning.’
‘That’s good.’ Whatever, I thought.
‘Good things will be coming your way soon, the stars are in your favour. Something you have lost will be found again. And I hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet in the not-too-distant future.’
It was the last one that really extinguished any hope I’d had that I might learn something from the reading. I had polycystic ovary syndrome and I’d been told that I might have difficulty getting pregnant. If Mystic Maggie had alluded to my health condition in any way, if she’d mentioned a struggle to become a mother, or overcoming adversity in my journey to having children, she’d have had me, hook, line and sinker. But her statements were too generic, based on taking my age and gender and assuming that this was what I wanted to hear. It was like fortune telling by numbers. In any event, procreation took two to tango and there wasn’t even a hint of a male admirer in my life, nor had there been for some time.
I sighed with disappointment and, as if on cue, my stomach rumbled again. I was bored now and I wanted this to be over so that I could go and join my friends in the restaurant. The rain spattering against the canvas made the tent seem even more oppressive and the incense was starting to irritate my throat. I shuffled in my seat, preparing to stand up and leave.
‘Wait!’
The abruptness of her command made me stop. When I looked at her, she was frowning, like something was troubling her, and I couldn’t help being drawn back in.
‘What is it?’ I asked eagerly.
She was staring into the ball, her eyes almost vacant. ‘I see something. A dilemma.’
I fidgeted nervously, unsettled by the change in her tone and the shift in her demeanour. Before I had felt that she was simply going through the motions, but now something seemed different.
‘You will face a choice soon, Simone, a very important choice. And what you decide will have a profound impact on your future happiness. You must choose wisely.’
‘What kind of a choice?’
She seemed annoyed that I had distracted her, but she answered the question. ‘Someone is about to come into your life, someone very important. You will be drawn to this person, you will think that they are your future. But you must be careful. The sword is double-edged.’
I was enthralled now, captivated by her words. ‘Who is this person? A man?’
She nodded. ‘A man. If you choose him, Simone, he will make you happy, happier than you have ever been. But the happiness will not last, it is destined to end. Five years after you marry, a terrible tragedy will befall you. There is nothing you can do to stop it. It is written in the stars.’
My logical personality told me that there was no way she could see all that in a sphere of glass and yet a shiver still ran down my spine. In that moment it was as though we were the only two people in the world and nothing else mattered, nothing existed.
‘And if I don’t choose him?’
‘Then you will live a long, healthy life. When you reach this crossroads, you will choose your path. But you cannot go back. Once the wheels have been put in motion, there is no return.’
