Текст книги "The Girl on the Train"

Автор книги: Paula Hawkins

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I finish the second can and make a start on the third. The blissful rush of alcohol hitting my bloodstream lasts only a few minutes, and then I feel sick. I’m going too fast, even for me, I need to slow down; if I don’t slow down something bad is going to happen. I’m going to do something I will regret. I’m going to call her back, I’m going to tell her I don’t care about her and I don’t care about her family and I don’t care if her child never gets a good night’s sleep for the rest of its life. I’m going to tell her that the line he used with her—don’t expect me to be sane—he used it with me, too, when we were first together; he wrote it in a letter to me, declaring his undying passion. It’s not even his line: he stole it from Henry Miller. Everything she has is secondhand. I want to know how that makes her feel. I want to call her back and ask her, What does it feel like, Anna, to live in my house, surrounded by the furniture I bought, to sleep in the bed that I shared with him for years, to feed your child at the kitchen table he fucked me on?

I still find it extraordinary that they chose to stay there, in that house, in my house. I couldn’t believe it when he told me. I loved that house. I was the one who insisted we buy it, despite its location. I liked being down there on the tracks, I liked watching the trains go by, I enjoyed the sound of them, not the scream of an inner-city express but the old-fashioned trundling of ancient rolling stock. Tom told me, “It won’t always be like this, they’ll eventually upgrade the line and then it will be fast trains screaming past,” but I couldn’t believe it would ever actually happen. I would have stayed there, I would have bought him out if I’d had the money. I didn’t, though, and we couldn’t find a buyer at a decent price when we divorced, so instead he said he’d buy me out and stay on until he got the right price for it. But he never found the right buyer, instead he moved her in, and she loved the house like I did, and they decided to stay. She must be very secure in herself, I suppose, in them, for it not to bother her, to walk where another woman has walked before. She obviously doesn’t think of me as a threat. I think about Ted Hughes, moving Assia Wevill into the home he’d shared with Plath, of her wearing Sylvia’s clothes, brushing her hair with the same brush. I want to ring Anna up and remind her that Assia ended up with her head in the oven, just like Sylvia did.

I must have fallen asleep, the gin and the hot sun lulling me. I woke with a start, scrabbling around desperately for my handbag. It was still there. My skin was prickling, I was alive with ants, they were in my hair and on my neck and chest and I leaped to my feet, clawing them away. Two teenage boys, kicking a football back and forth twenty yards away, stopped to watch, bent double with laughter.

The train stops. We are almost opposite Jess and Jason’s house, but I can’t see across the carriage and the tracks, there are too many people in the way. I wonder whether they are there, whether he knows, whether he’s left, or whether he’s still living a life he’s yet to discover is a lie.

SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2013

MORNING

I know without looking at a clock that it is somewhere between seven forty-five and eight fifteen. I know from the quality of the light, from the sounds of the street outside my window, from the sound of Cathy vacuuming the hallway right outside my room. Cathy gets up early to clean the house every Saturday, no matter what. It could be her birthday, it could be the morning of the Rapture—Cathy will get up early on Saturday to clean. She says it’s cathartic, it sets her up for a good weekend, and because she cleans the house aerobically, it means she doesn’t have to go to the gym.

It doesn’t really bother me, this early-morning vacuuming, because I wouldn’t be asleep anyway. I cannot sleep in the mornings; I cannot snooze peacefully until midday. I wake abruptly, my breath jagged and heart racing, my mouth stale, and I know immediately that’s it. I’m awake. The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. I lie there, listening to the sound of Cathy’s urgent, cheerful busyness, and I think about the clothes on the side of the railway line and about Jess kissing her lover in the morning sunshine.

The day stretches out in front of me, not a minute of it filled.

I could go to the farmer’s market on the Broad; I could buy venison and pancetta and spend the day cooking.

I could sit on the sofa with a cup of tea and Saturday Kitchen on TV.

I could go to the gym.

I could rewrite my CV.

I could wait for Cathy to leave the house, go to the off-licence and buy two bottles of sauvignon blanc.

In another life, I woke early, too, the sound of the 8:04 rumbling past; I opened my eyes and listened to the rain against the window. I felt him behind me, sleepy, warm, hard. Afterwards, he went to get the papers and I made scrambled eggs, we sat in the kitchen drinking tea, we went to the pub for a late lunch, we fell asleep, tangled up together in front of the TV. I imagine it’s different for him now, no lazy Saturday sex or scrambled eggs, instead a different sort of joy, a little girl tucked up between him and his wife, babbling away. She’ll be just learning to talk now, all “Dada” and “Mama” and a secret language incomprehensible to anyone but a parent.

The pain is solid and heavy, it sits in the middle of my chest. I cannot wait for Cathy to leave the house.

EVENING

I am going to see Jason.

I spent all day in my bedroom, waiting for Cathy to go out so that I could have a drink. She didn’t. She sat steadfast and unmovable in the living room, “just catching up on a bit of admin.” By late afternoon I couldn’t stand the confinement or the boredom any longer, so I told her I was going out for a walk. I went to the Wheatsheaf, the big, anonymous pub just off High Street, and I drank three large glasses of wine. I had two shots of Jack Daniel’s. Then I walked to the station, bought a couple of cans of gin and tonic and got onto the train.

I am going to see Jason.

I’m not going to visit him, I’m not going to turn up at his house and knock on the door. Nothing like that. Nothing crazy. I just want to go past the house, roll by on the train. I’ve nothing else to do, and I don’t feel like going home. I just want to see him. I want to see them.

This isn’t a good idea. I know it’s not a good idea.

But what harm can it do?

I’ll go to Euston, I’ll turn around, I’ll come back. (I like trains, and what’s wrong with that? Trains are wonderful.)

Before, when I was still myself, I used to dream of taking romantic train journeys with Tom. (The Bergen Line for our fifth anniversary, the Blue Train for his fortieth.)

Hang on, we’re going to pass them now.

The light is bright, but I can’t see all that well. (Vision doubling. Close one eye. Better.)

There they are! Is that him? They’re standing on the terrace. Aren’t they? Is that Jason? Is that Jess?

I want to be closer, I can’t see. I want to be closer to them.

I’m not going to Euston. I’m going to get off at Witney. (I shouldn’t get off at Witney, it’s too dangerous, what if Tom or Anna sees me?)

I’m going to get off at Witney.

This is not a good idea.

This is a very bad idea.

There’s a man on the opposite side of the train, sandy blond hair veering towards ginger. He’s smiling at me. I want to say something to him, but the words keep evaporating, vanishing off my tongue before I have the chance to say them. I can taste them, but I can’t tell if they are sweet or sour.

Is he smiling at me, or is he sneering? I can’t tell.

SUNDAY, JULY 14, 2013

MORNING

My heartbeat feels as though it is in the base of my throat, uncomfortable and loud. My mouth is dry, it hurts to swallow. I roll onto my side, my face turned to the window. The curtains are drawn, but what light there is hurts my eyes. I bring my hand up to my face; I press my fingers against my eyelids, trying to rub away the ache. My fingernails are filthy.

Something is wrong. For a second, I feel as though I’m falling, as though the bed has disappeared from beneath my body. Last night. Something happened. The breath comes sharply into my lungs and I sit up, too quickly, heart racing, head throbbing.

I wait for the memory to come. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it’s there in front of my eyes in seconds. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.

Something happened, something bad. There was an argument. Voices were raised. Fists? I don’t know, I don’t remember. I went to the pub, I got onto the train, I was at the station, I was on the street. Blenheim Road. I went to Blenheim Road.

It comes over me like a wave: black dread.

Something happened, I know it did. I can’t picture it, but I can feel it. The inside of my mouth hurts, as though I’ve bitten my cheek, there’s a metallic tang of blood on my tongue. I feel nauseated, dizzy. I run my hands through my hair, over my scalp. I flinch. There’s a lump, painful and tender, on the right side of my head. My hair is matted with blood.

I stumbled, that’s it. On the stairs at Witney station. Did I hit my head? I remember being on the train, but after that there is a gulf of blackness, a void. I’m breathing deeply, trying to slow my heart rate, to quell the panic rising in my chest. Think. What did I do? I went to the pub, I got on the train. There was a man there—I remember now, reddish hair. He smiled at me. I think he talked to me, but I can’t remember what he said. There’s something more to him, more to the memory of him, but I can’t reach it, can’t find it in the black.

I’m frightened, but I’m not sure what I’m afraid of, which just exacerbates the fear. I don’t even know whether there’s anything to be frightened of. I look around the room. My phone is not on the bedside table. My handbag is not on the floor, it’s not hanging over the back of the chair where I usually leave it. I must have had it, though, because I’m in the house, which means I have my keys.

I get out of bed. I’m naked. I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe. My hands are trembling. Mascara is smeared over my cheekbones, and I have a cut on my lower lip. There are bruises on my legs. I feel sick. I sit back down on the bed and put my head between my knees, waiting for the wave of nausea to pass. I get to my feet, grab my dressing gown and open the bedroom door just a crack. The flat is quiet. For some reason I am certain Cathy isn’t here. Did she tell me that she was staying at Damien’s? I feel as though she did, though I can’t remember when. Before I went out? Or did I speak to her later? I walk as quietly as I can out into the hallway. I can see that Cathy’s bedroom door is open. I peer into her room. Her bed is made. It’s possible she has already got up and made it, but I don’t think she stayed here last night, which is a source of some relief. If she isn’t here, she didn’t see or hear me come in last night, which means that she doesn’t know how bad I was. This shouldn’t matter, but it does: the sense of shame I feel about an incident is proportionate not just to the gravity of the situation, but also to the number of people who witnessed it.

At the top of the stairs I feel dizzy again and grip the banister tightly. It is one of my great fears (along with bleeding into my belly when my liver finally packs up) that I will fall down the stairs and break my neck. Thinking about this makes me feel ill again. I want to lie down, but I need to find my bag, check my phone. I at least need to know that I haven’t lost my credit cards, I need to know who I called and when. My handbag has been dumped in the hallway, just inside the front door. My jeans and underwear sit next to it in a crumpled pile; I can smell the urine from the bottom of the stairs. I grab my bag to look for my phone—it’s in there, thank God, along with a bunch of scrunched-up twenties and a bloodstained Kleenex. The nausea comes over me again, stronger this time; I can taste the bile in the back of my throat and I run, but I don’t make it to the bathroom, I vomit on the carpet halfway up the stairs.

I have to lie down. If I don’t lie down, I’m going to pass out, I’m going to fall. I’ll clean up later.

Upstairs, I plug in my phone and lie down on the bed. I raise my limbs, gently, gingerly, to inspect them. There are bruises on my legs, above the knees, standard drink-related stuff, the sort of bruises you get from walking into things. My upper arms bear more worrying marks, dark, oval impressions that look like fingerprints. This is not necessarily sinister, I have had them before, usually from when I’ve fallen and someone has helped me up. The crack on my head feels bad, but it could be from something as innocuous as getting into a car. I might have taken a taxi home.

I pick up my phone. There are two messages. The first is from Cathy, received just after five, asking where I’ve got to. She’s going to Damien’s for the night, she’ll see me tomorrow. She hopes I’m not drinking on my own. The second is from Tom, received at ten fifteen. I almost drop the phone in fright as I hear his voice; he’s shouting.

“Jesus Christ, Rachel, what the hell is wrong with you? I have had enough of this, all right? I’ve just spent the best part of an hour driving around looking for you. You’ve really frightened Anna, you know that? She thought you were going to . . . she thought . . . It’s all I could do to get her not to ring the police. Leave us alone. Stop calling me, stop hanging around, just leave us alone. I don’t want to speak to you. Do you understand me? I don’t want to speak to you, I don’t want to see you, I don’t want you anywhere near my family. You can ruin your own life if you want to, but you’re not ruining mine. Not anymore. I’m not going to protect you any longer, understand? Just stay away from us.”

I don’t know what I’ve done. What did I do? Between five o’clock and ten fifteen, what was I doing? Why was Tom looking for me? What did I do to Anna? I pull the duvet over my head, close my eyes tightly. I imagine myself going to the house, walking along the little pathway between their garden and the neighbour’s garden, climbing over the fence. I think about sliding open the glass doors, stealthily creeping into the kitchen. Anna’s sitting at the table. I grab her from behind, I wind my hand into her long blond hair, I jerk her head backwards, I pull her to the floor and I smash her head against the cool blue tiles.

EVENING

Someone is shouting. From the angle of the light streaming in through my bedroom window I can tell I have been sleeping a long time; it must be late afternoon, early evening. My head hurts. There’s blood on my pillow. I can hear someone yelling downstairs.

“I do not believe this! For God’s sake! Rachel! RACHEL!”

I fell asleep. Oh Jesus, and I didn’t clear up the vomit on the stairs. And my clothes in the hallway. Oh God, oh God.

I pull on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. Cathy is standing right outside my bedroom door when I open it. She looks horrified when she sees me.

“What on earth happened to you?” she says, then raises her hand. “Actually, Rachel, I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to know. I cannot have this in my house. I cannot have . . .” She tails off, but she’s looking back down the hall, towards the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry, I was just really ill and I meant to clear it up—”

“You weren’t ill, were you? You were drunk. You were hungover. I’m sorry, Rachel. I just can’t have this. I cannot live like this. You have to go, OK? I’ll give you four weeks to find somewhere else, but then you have to go.” She turns around and walks towards her bedroom. “And for the love of God, will you clean up that mess?” She slams her bedroom door behind her.

After I’ve finished cleaning up, I go back to my room. Cathy’s bedroom door is still closed, but I can feel her quiet rage radiating through it. I can’t blame her. I’d be furious if I came home to piss-soaked knickers and a puddle of vomit on the stairs. I sit down on the bed and flip open my laptop, log in to my email account and start to compose a note to my mother. I think, finally, the time has come. I have to ask her for help. If I moved home, I wouldn’t be able to go on like this, I would have to change, I would have to get better. I can’t think of the words, though, I can’t think of a way to explain this to her. I can picture her face as she reads my plea for help, the sour disappointment, the exasperation. I can almost hear her sigh.

My phone beeps. There’s a message on it, received hours ago. It’s Tom again. I don’t want to hear what he has to say, but I have to, I can’t ignore him. My heartbeat quickens as I dial into my voice mail, bracing myself for the worst.

“Rachel, will you phone me back?” He doesn’t sound so angry any longer, and my heartbeat slows a little. “I want to make sure you got home all right. You were in some state last night.” A long, heartfelt sigh. “Look. I’m sorry that I yelled last night, that things got a bit . . . overheated. I do feel sorry for you, Rachel, I really do, but this has just got to stop.”

I play the message a second time, listening to the kindness in his voice, and the tears come. It’s a long time before I stop crying, before I’m able to compose a text message to him saying I’m very sorry, I’m at home now. I can’t say anything else because I don’t know what exactly it is I’m sorry for. I don’t know what I did to Anna, how I frightened her. I don’t honestly care that much, but I do care about making Tom unhappy. After everything he’s been through, he deserves to be happy. I will never begrudge him happiness—I only wish it could be with me.

I lie down on the bed and crawl under the duvet. I want to know what happened; I wish I knew what I had to be sorry for. I try desperately to make sense of an elusive fragment of memory. I feel certain that I was in an argument, or that I witnessed an argument. Was that with Anna? My fingers go to the wound on my head, to the cut on my lip. I can almost see it, I can almost hear the words, but it shifts away from me again. I just can’t get a handle on it. Every time I think I’m about to seize the moment, it drifts back into the shadow, just beyond my reach.

MEGAN

•   •   •

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2012

MORNING

It’s going to rain soon, I can feel it coming. My teeth are chattering in my head, the tips of my fingers are white with a tinge of blue. I’m not going inside. I like it out here, it’s cathartic, cleansing, like an ice bath. Scott will come and haul me inside soon anyway, he’ll wrap me in blankets, like a child.

I had a panic attack on the way home last night. There was a motorbike, revving its engine over and over and over, and a red car driving slowly past, like a kerb crawler, and two women with buggies blocking my path. I couldn’t get past them on the pavement, so I went into the street and was almost hit by a car coming in the opposite direction, which I hadn’t even seen. The driver leaned on the horn and yelled something at me. I couldn’t catch my breath, my heart was racing, I felt that lurch in my stomach, like when you’ve taken a pill and you’re just about to come up, that punch of adrenaline that makes you feel sick and excited and scared all at once.

I ran home and through the house and down to the tracks, then I sat down there, waiting for the train to come, to rattle through me and take away the other noises. I waited for Scott to come and calm me down, but he wasn’t at home. I tried to climb over the fence, I wanted to sit on the other side for a while, where no one else goes. I cut my hand, so I went inside, and then Scott came back and asked me what had happened. I said I was doing the washing up and dropped a glass. He didn’t believe me, he got very upset.

I got up in the night, left Scott sleeping and sneaked down to the terrace. I dialled his number and listened to his voice when he picked up, at first soft with sleep, and then louder, wary, worried, exasperated. I hung up and waited to see if he’d call back. I hadn’t disguised my number, so I thought he might. He didn’t, so I called again, and again, and again. I got voice mail then, bland and businesslike, promising to call me back at his earliest convenience. I thought about calling the practice, bringing forward my next appointment, but I don’t think even their automated system works in the middle of the night, so I went back to bed. I didn’t sleep at all.

I might go to Corly Wood this morning to take some photographs; it’ll be misty and dark and atmospheric in there, I should be able to get some good stuff. I was thinking about maybe making little cards, seeing if I could sell them in the gift shop on Kingly Road. Scott keeps saying that I don’t need to worry about working, that I should just rest. Like an invalid! The last thing I need is rest. I need to find something to fill my days. I know what’s going to happen if I don’t.

EVENING

Dr. Abdic—Kamal, as I have been invited to call him—suggested in this afternoon’s session that I start keeping a diary. I almost said, I can’t do that, I can’t trust my husband not to read it. I didn’t, because that would feel horribly disloyal to Scott. But it’s true. I could never write down the things I actually feel or think or do. Case in point: when I came home this evening, my laptop was warm. He knows how to delete browser histories and whatever, he can cover his tracks perfectly well, but I know that I turned the computer off before I left. He’s been reading my emails again.

I don’t really mind, there’s nothing to read in there. (A lot of spam emails from recruitment companies and Jenny from Pilates asking me if I want to join her Thursday-night supper club, where she and her friends take turns cooking one another dinner. I’d rather die.) I don’t mind, because it reassures him that there’s nothing going on, that I’m not up to anything. And that’s good for me—it’s good for us—even if it isn’t true. And I can’t really be angry with him, because he has good reason to be suspicious. I’ve given him cause in the past and probably will again. I am not a model wife. I can’t be. No matter how much I love him, it won’t be enough.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2012

MORNING

I slept for five hours last night, which is longer than I have done in ages, and the weird thing is, I was so wired when I got home yesterday evening, I thought I’d be bouncing off the walls for hours. I told myself that I wouldn’t do it again, not after last time, but then I saw him and I wanted him and I thought, why not? I don’t see why I should have to restrict myself, lots of people don’t. Men don’t. I don’t want to hurt anybody, but you have to be true to yourself, don’t you? That’s all I’m doing, being true to my real self, the self nobody knows—not Scott, not Kamal, no one.

After my Pilates class last night I asked Tara if she wanted to go to the cinema with me one night next week, then if she’d cover for me.

“If he calls, can you just say I’m with you, that I’m in the loo and I’ll ring him straight back? Then you call me, and I call him, and it’s all cool.”

She smiled and shrugged and said, “All right.” She didn’t even ask where I was going or who with. She really wants to be my friend.

I met him at the Swan in Corly, he’d got us a room. We have to be careful, we can’t get caught. It would be bad for him, life-wrecking. It would be a disaster for me, too. I don’t even want to think about what Scott would do.

He wanted me to talk afterwards, about what happened when I was young, living in Norwich. I’d hinted at it before, but last night he wanted the details. I told him things, but not the truth. I lied, made stuff up, told him all the sordid things he wanted to hear. It was fun. I don’t feel bad about lying, I doubt he believed most of it anyway. I’m pretty sure he lies, too.

He lay on the bed, watching me as I got dressed. He said, “This can’t happen again, Megan. You know it can’t. We can’t keep doing this.” And he was right, I know we can’t. We shouldn’t, we ought not to, but we will. It won’t be the last time. He won’t say no to me. I was thinking about it on the way home, and that’s the thing I like most about it, having power over someone. That’s the intoxicating thing.

EVENING

I’m in the kitchen, opening a bottle of wine, when Scott comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders and squeezes and says, “How did it go with the therapist?” I tell him it was fine, that we’re making progress. He’s used now to not getting any details out of me. Then: “Did you have fun with Tara last night?”

I can’t tell, because my back’s to him, whether he’s really asking or whether he suspects something. I can’t detect anything in his voice.

“She’s really nice,” I say. “You and she’d get on. We’re going to the cinema next week, actually. Maybe I should bring her round for something to eat after?”

“Am I not invited to the cinema?” he asks.

“You’re very welcome,” I say, and I turn to him and kiss him on the mouth, “but she wants to see that thing with Sandra Bullock, so . . .”

“Say no more! Bring her round for dinner afterwards, then,” he says, his hands pressing gently on my lower back.

I pour the wine and we go outside. We sit side by side on the edge of the patio, our toes in the grass.

“Is she married?” he asks me.

“Tara? No. Single.”

“No boyfriend?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Girlfriend?” he asks, eyebrow raised, and I laugh. “How old is she, then?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Around forty.”

“Oh. And she’s all alone. That’s a bit sad.”

“Mmm. I think she might be lonely.”

“They always go for you, the lonely ones, don’t they? They make a beeline straight for you.”

“Do they?”

“She doesn’t have kids, then?” he asks, and I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but the second the subject of children comes up, I can hear an edge in his voice and I can feel the argument coming and I just don’t want it, can’t deal with it, so I get to my feet and I tell him to bring the wineglasses, because we’re going to the bedroom.

He follows me and I take off my clothes as I’m going up the stairs, and when we get there, when he pushes me down on the bed, I’m not even thinking about him, but it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t know that. I’m good enough to make him believe that it’s all about him.