The Half Truth(47)

‘Yes. I had been attacked. I’d taken a blow to the head. I was petrified.’ She rubbed her temples with her fingers. ‘I was mistaken.’

John exhaled. ‘Mistaken is fine. We all make mistakes.’

The rattle of the letterbox and faint thud of mail hitting the floor was a welcome distraction. At the same time, John’s phone began to ring. Tina left John in the kitchen answering the call and padded down the hallway to collect the post.

It didn’t look like anything very exciting; a couple of bills and a bit of junk mail. The postcard amongst them, though, was rather more interesting. Who sent postcards these days?

She looked at the picture realising it was of Brighton Pier. Her heart gave a heavy beat. Brighton Pier was where Sasha had proposed to her. It had been a wet and windy, supposedly, summer’s afternoon. A Sunday. The day was engrained in her memory. They had sat on the wooden bench, looking out over the English Channel, sharing a portion of fish and chips wrapped in white paper. As Tina had put her hand in to get a chip, her eyes watching the waves chase up the pebbled beach, she had felt something square and hard.

It had been a small ring box and inside was a beautiful diamond engagement ring. She had looked at Sasha, who had the most serious look on his face that she had ever seen and then, without saying a word, he had slipped to his knee and was asking her to marry him.

Brighton Pier had always been their place after that. Their special place. It didn’t matter that thousands of tourists every year trod the boards of the pier, it was always hers and Sasha’s place. No one else had the connection with it that they did.

She picked the postcard up and flicked it over. The message was short. She read it again, the words swimming in front of her eyes. The air in her lungs disappearing making her gasp for breath.

Dear Chris

Wish you were here.

X

Tina dropped the card and backed away, her eyes hypnotised by it. She collided with the hall table, knocking over the photo frame, which clattered to the floor.

The postcard remained on the mat within a few feet of her.

This couldn’t be happening. It was impossible. She must have read it wrong.

She waited a few moments while her breathing settled back to a more normal level. Taking slow steps as if the postcard was going to out-manoeuvre her somehow, Tina stalked it like a lion creeping up on its prey.

She stopped in front of it. The tips of her black court shoes were now a centimetre away. Steeling herself, Tina crouched down and tentatively reached out, her fingertips picking at the corner of the card. Securing it between her finger and thumb she slowly stood up and looked at the message again.

This time the words were clear. The message was clear, the impossibility of its meaning still knocking the wind from her. The tears took her by surprise and she swiped at them with the back of her hand as the anger ignited from deep within her.

How dare he do this to her? She hadn’t been mistaken. Sasha had been there the other day. These past five years she had cried an ocean of tears for her dead husband. And now … now, he clearly wasn’t dead.

Tina looked back down the hall. She could hear John ending his call. He called out to her to see if she wanted a cup of tea. Somehow she managed to answer.

‘Yes please.’

Her thoughts were running riot, rattling around inside her head like a Roman chariot race, thundering so fast she couldn’t focus on a single one of them, they came and went so furiously.

Tina gathered up the letters. She folded the postcard in half and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. The sounds of John moving around in the kitchen were magnified in the silence of the house.

The kettle rumbling to the boil. The chinking of cups. The opening of the fridge as the suction released the door from its hold. The milk trickling into the cups and the clank of the teaspoon as he swirled the tea bag in the hot liquid. She imagined the dark streaks of the tealeaves, colouring the milky water, staining it to a shade of Mediterranean tan.

‘You okay?’ John called down the hall to her.

She coaxed a cheerful expression to her face and turned. ‘Yes, fine.’

Another lie.

‘Anything exciting?’ asked John, nodding to the letters in her hand.

‘No. Bills, junk mail. That’s all.’

Liar! The word echoed around in her head.

‘I’ve got a meeting with Martin this morning,’ said John. ‘Will you be all right on your own for an hour or so?’

‘Of course.’ She hoped she sounded convincing. ‘I’ve got my new phone now, so I can easily get hold of you if needs be.’

‘I won’t be far away.’ He dropped a kiss on her head and held her for a moment in his arms.

It felt good. It was comforting. It fed her need to feel safe. The world around her was collapsing. It wasn’t a new thing. It had collapsed once before, when Sasha had … had died. Yes, he had died then. The Sasha she loved, and was married to, had died five years ago. The Sash who was alive now had been reborn into a world she wasn’t part of. And now he was back destroying her new life. Anger licked at her heart, curling the edges of once-cherished memories – ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Her belief in her past, her history, flaky and charred.