‘I didn’t really mean to do that.’
‘All the same, you’re in the papers as denying being “the woman in the kitchen” or whatever they tried calling it. And you’ve definitely given quotes to journalists since then about what a good guy Matthew is. How do you get around that? On top of which it’s been quite a while since she appealed for that witness to come forward. If you do that now, it’ll look really bad. The papers will tear you apart for not coming forward immediately.’
Becky doesn’t respond. What is there to say?
‘And Medea?’
‘It’d be over.’
‘So on the one hand you’ve got stepping forward, which won’t make the blindest bit of difference as to whether Matthew gets convicted or not. Plus you don’t even know what you saw so what would you be trying to say? And then on the other hand you have getting to make your film, and not becoming a hate figure in the press for covering for your boss instead of coming forward immediately?’ He weighs up the choices with the palms of both hands.
‘I know, I know,’ she says, though she doesn’t quite feel it. ‘Do you think I’m a bad person?’
‘No, I don’t. Not at all. This is about Matthew and Amber. Nobody else.’
‘I can’t live with myself.’
‘Yes, you can. You’ve lived with worse. Becks, this is what I do every day with my businesses. I weigh up the opportunity, the cost, the risks, the benefits. You have to step back and try to see the big picture. It’s not about one decision, it’s about your life. Your future. Our daughter’s future. All those things matter as well.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Be a good person? Try your best to be kind and generous? Give people a chance? That’s how you make the world a better place. Not by throwing yourself onto the fire because you feel like you owe something to a woman you’ve never even met. Who you’ve done nothing to.’
‘She tried to kill herself.’
‘You didn’t do that to her. You didn’t do anything. And, more to the point, even having seen it, you don’t know what you saw.’
Becky nods. She wonders if she can do it. Just absorb it. File it away. Forget about it. Let the red carpet roll out. Smile, and thank Matthew from the podium if she wins.
‘You didn’t seem that surprised when I told you,’ says Becky.
‘What, about Matthew?’
‘Yes.’
‘I suppose I’m not that surprised. I think shit like that happens every day.’
‘And I’m supposed to let Maisie loose into all that …?’
‘Yes. You have to. We have to. It’s what good parents do.’ He smiles at her. ‘Hey, I’ll be right there with you stalking her boyfriends and threatening them with a baseball bat if they don’t make her feel amazing every single day.’
‘I am so going to be that person,’ she smiles. He always makes her feel better with his reasonable thinking and jokes. If only she’d said something sooner.
‘I know you’re going to be that person. And so does Maisie. It’s fine. We’ll still love you when you are. I do think you should think about changing jobs though. Maybe once Medea is filming? You don’t want to be working next to someone you’re afraid of.’
‘I’m not afraid of Matthew. I think he made a terrible mistake. I’m not sure … I don’t know what it was, but I don’t think he’s a bad person.’
‘There you are then.’
‘There I am.’
‘Ready for some breakfast alcohol?’
‘Can I have a pancake instead?’
‘Always.’
She kisses him. Somewhere in the city, Amber is lying hooked up to multiple machines, everyone trying to keep her alive against her wishes, and here is Becky, realizing that, if she is honest, she has fallen in love with Adam, or has finally admitted that she has always loved him. How can this be fair? But how can it be otherwise?
They spend the rest of the morning under their own glass dome, breathing each other’s air, moving in the warmth of their own microclimate. They lie in bed, legs flung over each other, talking, laughing and remembering: I thought you were annoyed with me that time … But then I caught you looking at me … At first I thought it was just my new haircut … I saw it in your eyes … Felt it, yes … But couldn’t be sure …
That afternoon, the rumbling crashes of a summer storm make Becky so nervous she can’t settle. You have a choice, she says to herself. So she chooses to ignore it. But the thunder rolls and it feels like her heart and stomach are being flattened by heavy stones. You can always do something. So she shuts the windows tight, turns the music up and her phone off. She throws her arms round Adam and they kiss each other.
You have a choice, you can always do something.
Chapter 26
Becky sleeps fitfully, waking near dawn but then quickly falling back into a viscous dream where she is standing at the bottom of a bank of spiked hedgerows, on the hard shoulder of the motorway. An unending stream of lorries and cars pass her at terrifying speed. A man walks towards her holding a breeze-block in his arms. Becky knows that he is coming to smash her brains out, in front of everyone. She cannot move her feet. She screams but no sound comes out. Why does nobody stop? She tries to beg him to spare her. He comes closer, raising the block high above his head.
Only the blow never comes – instead he tosses the block sideways into the nearest lane, where it caves in the windscreen of a family car. The car swerves, clips a van in the passing lane, and spins and flips. Cars, trucks and vans collide, piling up, flinging off their wing mirrors and tyres high up into the air, sending engines spinning across the tarmac like flaming tumbleweeds. Becky stands transfixed. She is alone, watching the vehicles smash and pile, making
