Читать книгу Love Me, Love Me Not: An addictive psychological suspense with a twist you won’t see coming - Katherine Debona, Katherine Debona - Страница 15

Hong Kong, one year ago

I wasn’t going to come. Tried to ignore first the email then the message on my phone announcing his arrival in Hong Kong. Wondering whether I would be free to have dinner with him. He’d heard wonderful things about the Tin Lung Heen restaurant and knew it overlooked the harbour.

His voice. Winding through from thousands of miles away, as clear as if he were standing right beside me, the effect on my resolve the same. And so I replied. Of course I would meet him. It would be so lovely to catch up over dim sum and extortionately priced wine. Why not? We could even share opinions on the state of the economy and chuck in a few memories along the way.

Four years and counting. Four years since I’d scurried away from their celebrations and cried myself to sleep on the plane before arriving in a city built on water, fishermen living alongside corporate bankers, tourists and thieves. Each of us drawn to the ocean in our own way. From the balcony of my high-rise apartment I could see both sides of the city – jutting shards of brick that rose from the ground like stalagmites, the stretch of ocean that cut through its centre. I would sit and watch the passage of ships, windows open to the sky and breathing in the night. Wondering what they were up to. If they, too, looked upon the stars and the moon and thought of me.

It had taken me so long to allow myself to simply be. Not to compete, not to worry about fitting in. It took so long to be forgiven by my brother for running away, to justify that it was what I needed both personally and professionally. It took me so long to start spending all the money I was making, to start creating a life for myself that didn’t include them.

And it worked. The darkness that used to consume me every night slowly subsided. The cuts on my skin healed because I chose to forgive myself for what had happened. Because I had pursued him. I had been the one to bring Patrick into our lives and it all would have been so much better if I had never met him.

For the first time in so many years I would wake in the morning and not wonder where he was. If he was happy. If Elle had replaced me too. For the first time I allowed myself to believe my father would be proud of who I had become.

We are our own worst enemies. Looking back, looking forward, brings nothing but sorrow and regret. I had learnt to live in the here and now, but one phone call from him and it was like an earthquake had gone off in my soul.

I arrived at the restaurant early. Sat with flushed cheeks and jittery limbs as I gazed across the harbour. There was so much opulence, so much money to be won and lost. But despite my capabilities, I didn’t quite fit. Single, rich and attractive, but not looking for a husband. The native women were as mistrustful as the ex-pats, sheltering their own conquests from me, drawing rank, keeping me at the very periphery of the circle.

So I took a lover. Then some more. Hiding my loneliness in the arms of faceless men, none of whom ever brought me either comfort or peace. All of whom disappointed when my eyes opened to discover they were not who I still dreamt of night after night when exhaustion finally won.

I found Patrick in the periphery of my vision, watched as he strode past the maître d’ to lift me from my chair and into an embrace I had tried to recreate with strangers. He was there. Real. Bone and flesh. So why did I taste remorse instead of joy?

‘You look really well. Life out here is clearly suiting you.’

‘So do you, Patrick.’ He didn’t – he looked like a well-trodden doormat, all sallow skin and melancholy eyes. I accepted the plate of scallops the waiter put in front of me, the sweet aroma of ginger and lemongrass reaching my taste buds.

‘I hear you’ve been climbing the ladder faster than they can carve the rungs,’ he said, and I watched as he dipped his head to inspect his own meal, revealing the curl of hair against his collar. ‘You made a great decision coming out here.’

‘It was a fantastic opportunity.’ Which was true. Hong Kong had provided me with a job I never would have secured in London. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you’re desperately hiding from your past. No distractions, no ties, just mathematical formulae I was able to translate into bucketloads of cash.

Money makes the world go round, and while Elle was trying to fill her womb with chubby offspring, I’d been adding zeroes to my bank balance.

‘Why didn’t you tell us you were leaving?’

‘Fear can do that to a person.’ I wanted it to be more. So much more. But the voice inside my head, telling me I wasn’t like her, that I wouldn’t be chosen, forbade me from taking that risk.

‘I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.’

He was so far from right it was almost laughable. But fear wasn’t my only torment, not anymore. It was like I could feel the devil on my shoulder, trying to claw his way back in. Part of me had missed his taunts, his malevolent ways. Part of me understood I could no more resist him than I could stop my heart constricting whenever Patrick looked at me. Part of me knew that to ignore my darkness only gave it strength.

‘How’s Elle?’

‘She can’t get pregnant. We’ve tried everything and, as much as I want to support her, it’s becoming a definite issue.’

There was more to this visit, this meeting of minds, than first suggested. But was he simply the messenger, the go-between, or something more?

‘You’re having problems?’ She hadn’t mentioned anything in her emails. It was all sunshine, hearts and flowers as far as she was concerned. Or at least that was what I was supposed to think, even though I could see through her carefully constructed comments all too easily. The observations about how many of her friends were now mothers, how her social circle seemed obsessed with the benefits of co-sleeping versus controlled crying. How dull their evenings out were now, as everyone was worried about pumping and dumping or the increasing cost of childcare.

How she tried not to think about creeping ever closer to thirty and wondering at the way her life had turned out. As if thirty were some kind of barometer by which we should set our goals in life.

But I forbade myself from ever asking, because all it took was one slither of doubt, a single step back towards being her support system, and my escape would have been for nothing.

‘There’s still time, surely?’

‘If only it were that simple.’

‘I’m assuming you’ve had the tests?’

He took a long sip of his drink, refilled his glass before the waiter could do so for him. ‘I don’t think there’s a single test I haven’t been subjected to.’ He said this without meeting my eye and I could only imagine the horror he must have felt at being interrogated about his personal habits. About having to fill a cup with his seed and hand it over to a nurse for examination.

‘And?’

‘They can’t find anything wrong with either of us.’

‘What about IVF?’

‘Two rounds already. Costs an absolute fortune, but Elle says it’s not about the money.’

Easy to say when there was no limit to how much she would be willing to spend in order to get the picture-perfect family. It would have been killing her, the inability to do what came so naturally to others. To watch as, all around her, people were delighting the world with yet another screaming child. It should have given me nothing but pleasure to learn she was being denied something she craved with every part of her soul.

So why couldn’t I help but feel sorry for her? Wonder why didn’t she confide in me?

‘What about alternative therapies? Chinese medicine has been used for centuries to treat all sorts of issues. I’m sure I could find out about local clinics if you had time during your stay?’ I wanted to help. I wanted to be the one to provide the solution to their little problem. I wanted to be the one who could do more.

But I could tell by the look on his face that she had already tried it all. Anything and everything to prove that she too could be a mother.

‘Like I said. She can’t get pregnant and Elle isn’t used to things not working out as she expects.’

Surely we all have our limits? Surely we all reach a point when we wake up and realise we’re no longer the person we aspired to be when we were young enough to still have dreams?

‘You do know children are a dealbreaker for her?’ I said it even though he already knew, already understood that without the requisite heir to the family fortune, Elle would never be content.

He changed the subject then. Something about an expedition to Guatemala where a new species of bat had been discovered in the Lanquin caves. His face relaxed back into itself as he spoke, the excitement fizzing away, the promise of carrying out his own wishes for once instead of following the routine of baby-making. It was a trip Elle would never want to join and I only half heard him when he invited me to go instead.

‘I can.’ I said the words before they even registered in my mind. Before I even decided what it was I was offering.

‘You’ll come with me?’

I would run to the ends of time for him, but unfortunately that wasn’t the idea that chose to announce itself when I should have been thinking about nights camped out under the Milky Way with nothing but a campfire and whisky to keep us warm. How treacherous and shrewd my mind could be, almost as if it chose to punish me for something I wasn’t aware of having done.

‘I can get pregnant.’ It was something I could do that she could not. Something that set me apart, that made me indisputably better than her.

‘I really don’t see what this has to do…’

‘I can get pregnant.’ I became manic, overly excited, pawing at him like a woman possessed. ‘For you. For both of you.’

‘Well, that’s awfully kind, but I couldn’t possibly…’

Except he could. The hesitation before he spoke was enough for me to see the workings of his magnificent brain. The triumphant return, making him once more the hero in her eyes. The sacrificial lamb resuming her duties and giving the queen what her heart most desired.

‘Would you at least consider it? I mean, if she really does want a baby, then surely this wouldn’t be such a ridiculous idea?’

A small shake of his head as he scratched the tip of his nose. ‘Why would you do that, for us?’

‘Because it doesn’t make sense without you.’

I held my breath. Waited for him to reply. For him to understand what it was I was trying to tell him. Trying to apologise for my mistake all that time ago. Trying to see if this might be my opportunity to turn everything around, steer the path my way.

I don’t know if in that moment I ever truly meant to keep my promise, to see my ridiculous plan all the way to its rather bitter end. But then he did something so subtle, yet so unspeakably clever, that it took me forever to understand the weight of one sentence.

‘She feels the same. She misses you more than you could possibly know.’

She doesn’t miss you. She betrayed you.

There it was. My own private Lucifer, risen from the depths. Giving me the push I needed to throw myself in, all of me. My entire existence pulled back to her.

‘Then I should come home. Talk to her. Tell her I want to help.’

‘What about your life here?’

‘It was never going to be forever. I always knew on some level where it is I really belong.’ The idea that had started out as nothing more than a throwaway comment, a desperate bid for attention, began to germinate and bloom. Just like the life that would feed from me, that would be nurtured by my womb, so too would the plan to take back even more than I’d ever thought possible.

Because if Elle was no longer around, who would take care of my beloved? Who would take care of the baby?