Chapter 8: After

AFTER

When Hannah wakes up, it’s with the feeling that something is different.

It’s not the fact that the bed is empty. That happens every Wednesday—Hannah’s day off, in lieu of working Saturdays in the shop. On Wednesday Will puts his phone under his pillow so that his alarm doesn’t disturb her, and tiptoes out of bed before she wakes.

It’s not just the fact that she’s pregnant and the strange feelings that go with that—the odd morning stiffness, the heaviness in her body, the feeling of queasiness that she has never quite gotten under control, in spite of what the books say about when it’s supposed to end.

No, it’s something else. She knows that, even in the dazed aftermath of sleep, before the events of yesterday come rushing back to her. Now she lies there, staring at the ceiling, trying to work out how she feels. Wednesdays are usually a treat—a chance to catch up on errands, call into town, or, increasingly as her pregnancy has progressed, just spend the day lolling around their sunny mews flat, doing nothing, in a kind of lazy trance.

But today the thought of sitting by herself in the empty flat, Will at work, nothing but the news and the yawning Google search bar to distract her, is intolerable.

It’s not that there isn’t stuff she could be doing—she could be researching prams, or building the flat-pack crib that has been sitting propped in the corner of their bedroom for the last six weeks. But somehow she can’t bring herself to slit open the cardboard boxes. It feels like tempting fate, a presumptuous taking for granted of a future she has learned the hard way not to rely on.

But she can’t lie there, thinking like that. Instead she gets up, pulls on her dressing gown, and goes through to the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from the corners of her eyes as she makes the one coffee she allows herself these days.

Will has left the radio on, as he often does when running out to catch an early meeting. She hasn’t really been paying attention, but now something the newscaster is saying snags at her—and she leans across the counter to turn up the volume.

“… has died in prison, aged sixty-three. Neville, who was convicted in 2012 of the killing of Oxford University student April Clarke-Cliveden—”

Hannah’s hand shoots for the off button, cursing her own stupidity, but it’s too late. As the room falls silent, she finds her hand is shaking.

She can’t stay here. She has to get out.

---

IT’S DRIZZLING IN THE PARK,but the rain provides a kind of comforting cocoon as she walks slowly down the leafy avenue in her mac. When she and Will moved into Stockbridge a few years ago it was the hip, artistic district of Edinburgh, still relatively affordable compared to New Town—if anything in central Edinburgh could really be called affordable.

But the area has grown up with them, its village vibe luring in young families alongside the bars and coffee shops, and now the streets are filled with bumps and buggies—or it seems that way to Hannah. Maybe it’s just her own bump making her see the world with different eyes.

There are children in the park today, despite the weather, stomping about in wellies or clambering across dripping rope bridges, while their resigned parents and carers huddle under the cover of the trees, doing their supervision from a distance.

Hannah comes to a halt under the shelter of a big yew, watching them, when her phone goes. She pulls it out of her pocket, wipes the mist from her glasses, and glances cautiously at the caller ID. But it’s okay.

She picks up.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Hello, love, is it your day off? Did I get it right?”

Hannah smiles. Her day off has always been Wednesday, for all of the nine years she’s worked at Tall Tales, but for some reason her mother can never seem to remember that.

“Yes, I’m in the park. How are you?”

Her mother ignores the question.

“I’m driving so sorry if I cut out. I’m on hands-free. But are you okay? I felt worried after you rang off yesterday. I shouldn’t have ambushed you at work.”

“No, it was fine.” Hannah watches a little girl evade her father and run gleefully into a huge muddy puddle at the foot of the slide. “You were right, it was better I heard it from you.”

“Did you get any trouble?”

She means journalists, doorsteppers, cold callers, Hannah knows. In the early days it was a swarm. When they came back to Dodsworth, in those first few awful weeks after April’s death, her mother had wooden shutters installed on the ground floor of their home so people couldn’t peer through the curtains, and a brush on the inside of the letter box. Hannah remembers them calling through the door, Any comment, Mrs. Jones? Is Hannah here? What would you like to say to John Neville if you met him?

“Not really,” she says now. “Just an email. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“And how’s Will?”

That’s a more complicated question and Hannah pauses. How is Will?

“I think he’s okay,” she says at last. “You know what he’s like, he clams up whenever it comes up, but we talked about it a bit last night. I think he’s just relieved it’s over, mainly.”

“He needs counseling,” Hannah’s mum says severely. “You both do.”

Hannah rolls her eyes. This is a discussion they’ve had before. In fact, she did have a few counseling sessions after the court case, and it helped in some ways—gave her tools to deal with the panic attacks and unhealthy behavioral patterns. It was the counselor who suggested the Requests folder on her phone, so she could mentally put the emails away until she was ready to move on from them. But she got everything useful out of the sessions, and then got out. And Will—she certainly can’t imagine Will sitting in some office talking about his feelings.

“I know. We have talked about it. We’re just a bit busy right now. You know, work, the baby. Will’s working really long hours at the moment—he’s barely ever home before seven.”

“He should be looking after his pregnant wife!” her mum says, and Hannah feels a rush of annoyance.

“It’s not his fault—he’s hardly choosing to work twelve-hour days. But there’s a partnership position coming up. He needs to be seen to be putting in the hours if he’s going to be in with a chance.”

And God knows, they need the money before the baby comes, though she doesn’t say that to her mother. Cathy is the nicest employer in the world—but the shop barely makes a profit. Hannah will be getting the statutory minimum maternity pay, and that’s it. Cathy can’t afford any more. And although Will has a reasonable salary, once they’ve paid their mortgage, there really isn’t much left. If Will can make partner before she goes on leave, they will both breathe easier.

“I thought I’d come up in a couple of weeks,” her mum is saying. Hannah can hear the tick-tock of the indicator over the car speakers. “Help you out. Cook you both a few meals. Faiza at work gave me some absolutely lovely maternity clothes, there’s a really good coat. She said take what you want and charity-shop the rest. I’ll bring them up when I come.”

“That sounds lovely,” Hannah says. “I’ll try to get a day off, maybe. What date are you thinking?”

She waits for the answer but it doesn’t come, and when she looks down at the phone, the call has ended. Great. Presumably her mum has driven through a dead spot.

The rain has stopped, and she leaves the shelter of the yew tree and walks across to the gate to the playground, pulled, as if magnetized, by the little group of kids and their parents. There’s a strict limit to how long a lone adult can watch children playing, she’s discovered. About five minutes before you start to get glances, maybe ten before someone comes over and asks if you’re looking for someone, though her growing belly gives her something of an alibi now. Women are more likely to smile sympathetically than glare suspiciously, and some will even start up a conversation. “Do you know what you’re expecting?” or “When’s the wee one due?”

Poor Will has no such leeway, though, and if they’re out together he pulls her past the park when she stops, lingering, trying to imagine her future here—Will’s future. Now she watches a father pushing a little girl dutifully on a swing, rain still beading his hood, and she has a sharp, almost painful flash-forward to a possible future—herself, standing at this gate, watching Will, her husband, pushing their child in the same swing.

She’s standing there, holding her breath, trying to imagine her perfect future in this perfect life, with this perfect man, when her phone rings again.

“Mum?” she says. “We got cut off.”

“Is that Hannah Jones?” says a male voice. “You don’t know me. I’m a reporter with—”

Hannah almost drops her mobile. Then she stabs the “end call” button with a shaking finger and stands looking down at the phone in her hand.

For the truth is this, and she will never escape it: her perfect life has come at a price. Mostly she thinks of herself as unbelievably lucky to be here, in this beautiful city, with the only man she has ever really loved. But now, with the reporter’s voice ringing in her ears, she has a different feeling: that she is living a stolen life. Not just one she never deserved, but one that was never supposed to be hers.

For what would have happened if April had not left the bar alone and gone up to their room to change? What would have happened if Hannah had followed her just five minutes earlier, discovered Neville in the room, interrupted the attack?

Would she have ended up dead too? Or would April have been alive, living with Will, carrying his child?

It starts to rain again as she shoves the phone into her pocket and begins to walk, past the playground, towards the road, with the children’s cries following her as she goes. And she wonders. Maybe it wasn’t only John Neville who stole April’s life. Maybe she has done the same.