Girl A Dan Scottow (reading women .TXT) 📖

it a second time, he slammed it down on the counter. As he poured a third, Beth approached sheepishly as he drained the glass again. She placed her fingers on his arm.

‘Charlie, please…’

He jerked away.

‘Don’t touch me,’ he shouted.

He picked up the bottle and the glass, barging past Beth with such force that she almost fell. She steadied herself on the worktop, taking a deep breath.

He strode to the French doors, flinging them open. Stepping out onto the patio, he pulled a cast-iron chair from under the table, sliding down into it, and poured himself another drink. He sat sipping it while he stared out into the field at the back of the garden.

Beth followed him outside, standing beside him as he drank.

‘This is all such a mess,’ Charlie said sadly.

Beth dragged out a chair, sitting opposite him. Still, he refused to look her in the eye.

‘I’ve been so scared, Charlie. Do you know how hard it is to carry a secret like this with you? Of course you don’t. Not many people do. I always planned on telling you, in the early days. Until I realised I was falling in love with you, and I was so terrified that you would react… like this.’

Charlie slammed his glass down on the table. The sound, the level of aggression made Beth jump. She glanced up and saw Peter back away from his bedroom window.

‘Don’t you dare, Beth! Don’t you try to turn this around on me. I’m angry because you have lied to me. About everything. If you had told me in the beginning, I wouldn’t have reacted like this.’

‘Yes, Charlie, you would have. I know you would. Because people always do. I learned at a very young age that I could no longer be Kitty Briscoe. People despised her. They blamed her.’

‘You took him!’

‘Yes,’ Beth replied quietly, nodding. She gazed into the distance, eyes glazing. ‘And there is not a day that goes by that I don’t regret it. Don’t you think if I could go back and do things differently, I would? But we can’t change the past. I was a child. But you have to believe me. I am innocent. I had nothing to do with Billy’s death.’

Charlie looked up, locked his eyes on Beth’s face. She couldn’t read his expression. For a moment she thought he might embrace her, tell her he forgave her. That he believed her. Her heart fluttered as she imagined how good that would feel.

‘This is all your fault,’ he said coldly. ‘I need you to go.’

It took a few seconds for the words to hit Beth.

‘What?’

‘Go. I need some time to process all this without you here. Can you do that for me?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I don’t care. I need space. You have put our family in danger. You knew exactly why all this was happening, and you acted like it was a mystery to you. You questioned my loyalty when I asked you about it.’

Beth reached her hand across the table, placing it on top of Charlie’s.

He snatched it away.

‘I can’t even look at you. You disgust me.’

Charlie’s words stung. Beth’s lip quivered. But she held it back.

‘Give me some space. I need to think and I’m so angry, I can’t do that with you around. So please go.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t care. Anywhere but here.’

Beth knew Charlie well enough to know that he was being serious.

She crossed to the door, turning briefly back to her husband. He didn’t look up. He sat staring into the bottom of his empty glass.

Beth entered the kitchen, looking once more at the bloodstained collar of their beloved spaniel. Picking up her car keys, she left the house. She didn’t know where she was going, but she couldn’t be here.

* * *

Charlie heard the front door slam shut, followed by Beth’s Range Rover starting. He listened as she drove away across the gravel. The sound deteriorating until all that was left was the twittering of a solitary goldfinch.

The hot sun beat down on Charlie’s face, but he shivered. He couldn’t process what was going on in his head.

His wife, the woman he had loved for all of his adult life, was not who she said she was. She had a secret.

And it was horrifying.

Charlie tried to put himself in her position, asked himself if he would have acted differently. Part of him understood why she had lied. It must have been a terrible burden. But that didn’t make him feel less angry. Less sad.

He thought of good times with Beth. He heard her laughter. He pictured the day they found out she was pregnant with Peter, and again with Daisy. He tried to reconcile that with what he had now learned, shaking his head.

He picked up his whisky tumbler, and before he realised what he was doing, he threw it as hard as he could.

It hit the back wall to the house beside the French doors, smashing into a thousand tiny shards. The splinters fell around the patio and Charlie thought how the shattered glass was an excellent metaphor for his life.

‘Daddy?’

Charlie’s eyes darted up quickly. Daisy was standing on the doorstep, looking at him with fear and confusion.

She’d been crying.

‘Don’t come out here, honey, Daddy has broken a glass.’

‘Are you okay? Where’s Mummy?’

Charlie stood.

‘Go inside, Daisy. Go upstairs and pack some clothes. Tell Peter to do the same. We’re leaving.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘For an adventure. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

‘What about Mummy?’

Charlie crossed to the door, crouching down so he was face to face with his daughter.

‘Mummy will meet us there, okay, so go up to your room and pack a bag.’

Daisy scurried away and up the stairs, and Charlie thought, funny, it is easy to lie to your family after all.

He stepped into the kitchen, crossing to what was affectionately known as the shit drawer in the Carter household.

Opening it, he rummaged through charging cables for long-dead mobile phones, old wallets, and antiseptic wipes. He eventually found a notepad, creased and dog-eared, towards