Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson Read Free Book Online Page B

the morning without crying, I think.
    The man called Mawhinney comes round to have a word with us. They’re making house-to-house enquiries throughout the town,
     he explains. Though obviously, he adds, he would have wanted to talk to us anyway, because of our relationship with the family.
    He says he’s sorry to have to do this when we’re still feeling so raw and having it sink in, but he needs to ask us both exactly
     where we were on the night it happened—between eleven and, say, eight in the morning.
    I blush hot to my hair, but Mick doesn’t hesitate. He takes my hand and squeezes it. He tells Mawhinney that he and I were
     both in bed.
    We were exhausted, he tells him, really shattered. That’s why Tess didn’t go to the meeting. She’s on the PTA and she should
     have been there but she just couldn’t face it. I wouldn’t have let her go. I think we went to bed at—well at a guess—ten,
     ten thirty.
    Mawhinney listens.
    Would that be earlier than usual then?
    Mick pinches at his nose with his thumb and finger as he thinks about it.
    Pretty early for us, yes.
    Something unsaid floats past me. In my hand the balled-up tissue is coming apart with dampness. Bits of it sticking to the
     sides of my fingers like skin.
    Mawhinney turns to me. I can see he is trying to be kind, to make it easy. I wonder if he has a wife and kids at home and
     if he goes home and takes a beer from the fridge and tells them all about his day.
    Is that right? he says and you can see by his eyes what he expects me to say.
    Yes, I tell him, yes, that’s right.
    Then I remember a sudden, true thing: that I had to stay awake to feed the baby. I tell Mawhinney this, though my heart bangs
     crazily as I say it.
    He listens without much interest.
    Oh yes, says Mick just like it’s not important at all, so you did, I’d forgotten that.
    I glance down at Mawhinney’s little notebook. He hasn’t written anything down.
    We’re bringing her feeds forward, I explain, or trying to anyway.
    My voice sounds reasonable. I hate myself.
    Why did you say that? I ask Mick once Mawhinney has gone.
    He looks up from the floor where he’s kneeling on newspaper and cleaning Rosa’s brown school shoes.
    Why did I say what?
    About us being in bed at ten thirty?
    He goes on dabbing polish in with the cloth, working it carefully into all the cracks and creases. He breathes through his
     mouth as he does it, his tongue touching the inside of his top lip. That’s what he does when he concentrates. Mick’s good
     at concentrating. He says that’s how you make the smallest jobs satisfying.
    Because we were, he says carefully.
    I swallow, taste polish in the back of my mouth.
    You were, I tell him. I wasn’t.
    He sits back on his heels in an unsurprised yet exasperated way.
    Oh for fuck’s sake, Tess—
    I wasn’t.
    You wanted me to tell him that?
    I gaze at him. Sometimes his confidence amazes me.
    I thought you’d tell the truth, I say.
    Well I was in bed, he says. And as far as I know you were too. As far as I’m concerned I was telling the truth.
    He says that but his eyes narrow. He’s angry.
    But I got up, I tell him. You know I did. You know I got up.
    He says nothing, picks up the shoe.
    Don’t you want to know where I went?
    He hesitates and I don’t like the look on his face.
    You’re saying I should stop you?
    No. I don’t know.
    You can’t have it both ways, Tess.
    He laughs then. He laughs because he knows my position is ludicrous. You can’t make someone want to know things. Just like
     you can’t force someone to be jealous or upset or aroused. They either are or they aren’t and that’s it. There are no halfways.
    But I love him, I tell myself. I do. I would never, never want to be married to Alex—thank God I didn’t stay with him, we’d
     have been hopeless together, fatal, lethal, always knowing what each other wanted and getting there quicker, wanting it first.
    Now, every clock in the house is ticking, but each one