Weird Sister (26 page)

She empties Graeme’s side of the closet onto the bed. Jackets, trousers, shirts, these are clothes she knows, clothes she has laundered. She hauls out the dry-cleaning bag, lifts the plastic away from the shoulders of the suit.

Karen knows Graeme splashes out from time to time, she knows he needs to, he needs to have beautiful things. She remembers how, a long time ago, he used to take great pride in his uniform, always after her to polish his shoes, starch his shirts. She knows he buys things they can’t afford and she turns a blind eye – it makes him happy, he is so rarely happy these days. They can handle the debt, they always handle the debt somehow.

But this suit is different. She can tell right away. She can see it is well-made. She notices the label. When she lifts the suit to examine it more closely, a waft of perfume drifts up. Karen sniffs the cloth – Agnes.

She sits down on the bed, dry-eyed, breathing evenly. Everyone has something to hide, she thinks. Robert is the father of my children; we all pretend that’s not the case. Agnes hates us but she convinces us of her love. And Graeme? Well, my husband hides a lot – his failed career, his infertility, his infidelity, his designer suit. It keeps him very busy.

And me. Karen sighs and brushes her hair away from her face. I hide from the fact that I no longer love Graeme. I hide from the fact that my marriage is a dead and rotting thing.

Elizabeth

I was in the Black Hat on my own one evening. I had gone in hope of finding Marlene and Geoff – they hadn’t been at home when I rang earlier. Marlene was nearly four months pregnant and she and Geoff had vowed to see every movie ever made before the baby arrived, and so I wasn’t surprised when they weren’t at the pub either. I sat at the bar on my own for a little while, talking to Lolita. I moved to a table by the fire. After a while the door opened, and Karen came in.

It was very unusual to see Karen Throckmorton in the Black Hat, and even more unusual to see her there on her own. I’d known her for years but when she walked in that evening I realized I didn’t know her at all. We’d never had a proper conversation – on our own, without the commotion of her household surrounding us. I resolved to try and change this; perhaps Karen could be my Throckmorton ally, my friend. She was probably not all that keen on Agnes herself, even if she didn’t suspect the affair. I beckoned her over and offered to buy her a drink. It was silly of me to imagine I could make up for all those years in one evening.

‘Agnes and Robert are at home with the children,’ she said, apologetically. ‘I thought I’d get out for a while.’ She looked harassed, nervous.

‘It’s good to see you.’

‘Thanks. Cheers.’ She raised her glass.

‘How are the boys?’

‘Oh, they’re fine.’ She gave a fond and trampled smile.

‘And yourself? Graeme?’

She looked at me, around the pub, evaluating the situation. ‘You know us pretty well, don’t you Elizabeth.’

‘I guess . . . I –’

‘You’ve been Robert’s friend for a long time, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

She took a long swallow of her drink. ‘I always thought he’d marry you.’

I turned toward the fire.

‘He should have married you.’

I wasn’t comfortable with the conversation. And yet, when I think on it now, there was little else I’d rather have discussed with Karen. ‘I don’t know, he seems happy –’

She leaned forward, silencing me. ‘I should never have married Graeme.’ With that, she got up and fetched another drink for herself, trading pleasantries with Jim Drury. She sat down again – she was still wearing her coat – and carried on from where she’d left off. ‘I should never have married Graeme Throckmorton. That’s what my mother said. But, it was like . . . I don’t know, it was like we were fated. I couldn’t avoid it – him. I couldn’t alter the path we were taking. I loved him.’

I couldn’t believe she was saying this to me; I don’t think she could quite believe it herself. Her cheeks were very red.

‘Are you having . . . difficulties?’ I knew about Graeme’s previous affairs, everyone did. He had hit on every woman in Warboys, even me. And suddenly, I wanted Karen to be concerned with that alone; I didn’t want her to suspect Agnes and Graeme. I wanted her to be spared.

‘Difficulties?’ she said. ‘No, not really. It’s quite straightforward. Graeme’s having an affair with Agnes.’

For a moment I thought I hadn’t heard her properly and must have looked that way. She repeated what she had said.

‘How do you know?’

‘I just know.’

It had to be true. I wanted it to be true. It meant I was right and that Robert should not have married Agnes. She was like a curse. It set on me then, like I’d stuck my heart in a deep-freeze; I hated Agnes Samuel. I hated her and everything about her. I hated what she was doing to this family, what she was doing to Robert and Karen.

‘What will you do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Karen, ‘I don’t know. The terrible thing is that I don’t think she even likes him.’

‘Does Robert know?’

‘Robert?’ She looked at me. ‘No. I don’t think so. Not yet.’

We didn’t talk much after that. We sat and looked into the fire. Karen drank steadily. I know it was her life that was devastated, not mine, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Robert. About what this would mean to him. And I’ll admit that I felt a little hope spring up, a little hope for my own future. Perhaps Robert would leave Agnes. Perhaps Robert would be free.

After Karen left – I could see she was drunk and feeling it – I sat on my own for a while. Then Geraldine Andley approached me. We hadn’t spoken for a long time. On the street and in the pub we exchanged greetings but nothing more than that. I hoped she wasn’t harbouring a grudge left over from Robert’s thirtieth. I was pleased that she made an overture toward me; tonight was a night for overtures. Until I heard what she had to say.

‘What do you think of her then?’ Geraldine looked around furtively.

‘Who, Karen?’

‘No. That Agnes. Agnes Samuel.’

No one ever called Agnes by her married name.

‘Robert’s happy.’

‘You’re avoiding my question.’

I didn’t want to talk about this with Geraldine. ‘She’s lovely.’

Geraldine frowned. ‘I feel that I know her.’

‘Well, she can be very personable.’

‘No, not like that. I mean really know her. We’ve met before.’

‘When?’

‘In the past.’

Ah. Geraldine’s ‘other’ lives. I nodded. I didn’t want to encourage her, but I wasn’t ready to go home yet, back to my chilly, silent cottage.

‘Agnes Samuel. It rings a bell. I don’t know. I’ve got to do some more –’ She paused, unsure of her words.

‘Some more what, Geraldine?’

‘I’ll find it – her,’ she said. ‘Just wait.’

Karen drinks as much as Graeme

Graeme is drinking. He is at home, in the sitting room, drinking. Agnes and Robert are putting the boys to bed – his own sons – Agnes and Robert are taking care of them. Karen asked them to baby-sit, not him, as if he can’t be relied upon to take care of his own boys. Karen said she wanted to go out for a drink, alone.

Graeme gets another beer out of the fridge. The kitchen is a mess, dirty dishes, pots and pans left out after dinner. Martin sits next to the window, Graeme speaks to him gently. ‘Come on dad,’ he says, ‘let’s get you into bed.’ It’s been a long time since he has put Martin to bed and he is gentle and loving as though to prove to himself he can be, as though providing insurance against what might come next.

His father in his pyjamas, tucked up, his face turned toward the wall, Graeme goes back to his beer. He gets out the whiskey and pours himself a glass. Before he drinks it he goes upstairs to check on the boys. The nightlight illuminates their room eerily, the stuffed animals cast dark awkward shadows. They are both sleeping soundly, Andrew small in his big boy’s bed, Francis spread-eagled in his cot.

Graeme pauses by the window. He looks out into the moonless black night. Across the fields are the frozen fens, flat and low all the way to Norfolk. As always, he can hear the wind. He can hear other sounds as well, after a few moments he recognizes the voices – Agnes and Robert. Murmuring, talking, warm and excluding. He stops outside Robert’s old bedroom and leans his body against the wall, his forehead touching the cool paintwork. He decides that what he hears is the sound of love-making and he presses himself against the wall with a surge of passion and frustration. He pushes his hand down into his trousers and takes hold of himself. His breath is speedy and laboured and beads of beery sweat break out across his forehead.

The door opens suddenly and Agnes steps out of the room. She is fully dressed. She looks at Graeme calmly, she sees what he is doing, she is unsurprised and uninterested. She shuts the door behind herself and goes down the corridor to the bathroom.

Graeme slumps against the wall. He removes his hand from his trousers and draws a deep breath. He walks toward the stairs. As he passes the bathroom he hears Agnes say, ‘Good-night Graeme. Sweet dreams.’

Back in the sitting room, he goes to work on the whisky.

Karen is coming home, she is weaving down the lane, she feels giddy and hilarious and tearful. Marlene and Geoff drive by, catching her in their headlights, and Karen glimpses Marlene’s face. ‘Hello,’ she calls out when the car is already well past, ‘Goodbye.’ She is glad to have told Elizabeth about Graeme and Agnes and she is sorry that Elizabeth now knows. She wants to tell everyone, she wants no one to know; she wants to hide and display her humiliation.

She stands in the drive and feels inspired to sing her favourite song. ‘It’s a little bit funny . . .’ She sings loudly and badly and makes herself laugh, she hasn’t done anything like this for so long. She starts over. ‘It’s a little bit funny . . .’ Her singing wakes Andrew in his bedroom upstairs. He sits up and rubs his eyes.

Karen enters the house through the front door and goes straight into the sitting room. Graeme is sitting in the half-light. He has not lit the fire, he is alone with the bottle of whisky, Agnes’s bottle of whisky.

‘You’ve been gone a long time,’ he says.

‘Graeme,’ says Karen, ‘it’s a little bit funny –’

‘You’ve been drinking.’

‘I’ve been to the fucking pub, haven’t I? What else do you expect me to do there?’ Karen never swears. Graeme gets to his feet.

‘You’ve had a lot to drink.’

‘Yes, well, I’ve had a lot to think about.’

Graeme walks toward Karen slowly. Karen backs toward the fireplace at the same pace.

‘I’ve been thinking about you,’ she says, her tone still aggressive.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘I’ve been thinking about our marriage.’

‘Yes?’ Graeme comes forward, Karen backs away.

‘You’ve been –’ she pauses, licks her lips, her mouth has gone dry. She wants to stop moving backward, but she doesn’t want Graeme too near. She takes a breath, she knows what she’s going to say. ‘You’ve been screwing Agnes, haven’t you?’

‘Screwing? Karen,’ he chides, shaking his head, ‘not me.’

‘Stop lying,’ her voice is sliding up the scale.

‘Lying?’

‘You’ve been having an affair with Agnes,’ she says.

‘Not me.’

‘You bastard,’ she is shouting now, high-pitched, ‘why can’t you just admit it? Do you have to lie as well as be unfaithful?’ She is backing up, she is nearing the hearth of the fireplace. Graeme is moving closer and closer. ‘You’re fucking your own sister-in-law,’ she flings the words at him.

‘I am NOT,’ he roars, and he raises his hands and, throwing his weight – six foot two inches, two hundred pounds – gives Karen a heavy, hard shove.

Karen grunts on impact, air forced from her lungs. Her heel strikes the hearth. She loses her balance and, unable to grab hold of anything, falls backward. Graeme lurches forward, to catch her or push her again, he isn’t sure. His fist dislodges the big ceramic vase from where it stands on the mantelpiece.

Karen hits her head on the pitiless marble surround and crumples to one side of the hearth, away from Graeme who is reaching down to her, to strike her or help her, she isn’t sure. The vase is falling from the mantelpiece, neither of them sees it, it falls and falls and then it hits Karen on the head, crack, and her skull smacks the stone hearth. There is a terrible shattering. Her head, her neck.

Graeme is on his knees. He brushes the broken pieces of ceramic away from Karen’s face, slowly, carefully, like an archaeologist at a dig. He gathers his wife into his arms, one limb at a time. She is limp and bleeding. It takes him a moment to realize that she is dead.

Andrew is standing in the door of the sitting room. He has seen Mummy fall and Daddy go forward. He is silent, as if he recognizes the enormity of what is happening. Agnes is directly behind him. She puts her hands on his shoulders and turns him and as she moves Graeme looks up and their eyes meet. Her expression is odd, she is wearing a little half-smile. She leads Andrew away.

Graeme starts to wail.

Robert

Karen’s death was calamitous for us all, but especially Andrew and Francis. They couldn’t understand why she was gone, why she wasn’t there with them, she had always been there with them.

I was in bed, asleep. Agnes told me later that when she got Andrew into bed he went back to sleep immediately, as though he’d been sleep-walking. She came into our room, woke me and told me to call the police. ‘Graeme’s pushed her,’ she said, ‘Karen’s dead.’ From the moment I heard her words I felt like I knew what had happened; it suddenly felt so inevitable that I was surprised it hadn’t happened already. Agnes got into the bed as I got out of it. She smiled at me, lay back, closed her eyes and turned away.

I went down to the sitting room. Graeme was sitting on the settee holding Karen in his arms. She looked small and young in her shirt and jeans; her head was bloody, her hair plastered to her forehead. He was rocking back and forth, a tiny movement, barely perceptible.

Graeme didn’t notice I’d come into the room until I was standing right in front of him. ‘She died,’ he said, ‘just like that. People shouldn’t die so easily.’ He looked down at Karen, pushed a bloody strand of hair away from her eyes.