Page 72 of Unforgivable
“I don’t know. Hide it somewhere. I have to, because the only reason she would have left it here is to frame me. She’s going to dob me in at some point. Call the police, tell them she’s seen it. They’ll come and raid the place and I’ll get arrested. I’m amazed she hasn’t done it already.
Bronwyn puts her hands on my shoulder while panic zigzags through me. Am I going to jail? Is that what’s going to happen? Why? What the hell did I ever do to her? And it occurs to me that I have no idea who she is because when I gave her the job, I didn’t check her references, I didn’t even go through her resume because she wasn’t my first choice, offering her the position was a spur-of-the-moment decision. And now I’m thinking I don’t know her at all. And yet I was quite happy to bring her into my relationship drama.Here’s a hundred bucks, go seduce my fiancé and make it good.
“Listen, I’m going to take Charlotte to her soccer game, and you’re going to pull yourself together, okay? Be strong. You’ll get through this, Laura,wewill get through this together. Go and hide that thing, don’t tell me where. Don’t tell anyone. And when I get back, we’ll sit down together and come up with a plan, okay?”
I nod, hook the sleeve of my shirt over my knuckles and wipe my nose. Then I hug her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I love you.”
I laugh. “I love you too.”
“We’re in the eye of the love circle. Remember that.”
I chuckle, wipe my cheeks with my fingers. “I will.”
After she and Charlie are gone, I brush myself down, take a breath. She’s right, of course. I need to pull myself together and confront this situation head on, whatever that means. Easier said than done, though. Summer could be ringing the police right now. An anonymous tip.It could be nothing, but I thought you should know, remember that robbery at gallery Bruno Mallet? Check her garage.
Maybe I should tell Bruno the truth, but just as the thought pops into my head, I kick it right out. There’d still be a police investigation. A witness—Summer—will say she saw me break the lock. The artwork turned up in my garage. I’ll be carted off to jail before I have time to say,I’ve been framed!
No. I need to hide this thing and then figure out what the hell Summer wants from me. And if it’s Jack, then I’ll tell her, honestly, I don’t know why I thought you had to go through all that trouble.All yours, babe,as Bronwyn would say. You can have him. We don’t want him. Not anymore.
I walk to the top of the stairs and drag an ottoman from my bedroom. I climb on it to reach the cord that opens the trap door to the attic. The trick is to hold the trap drop with both hands and let the ladder slide out slowly, otherwise you could well accidentally decapitate yourself. The attic is the perfect place because nobody ever goes up there. It’s a classic gable-ended space with exposed timber rafters, dormer windows covered by spider webs. It’s dim inside, dusty from disuse and I trip on a roll of insulation. I am reminded of a time when Jack was full of enthusiasm and full of ideas, and he was going to convert the space into a light-filled office and workshop before Jenny the Babysitter sent him into spiraling hopelessness.
When I made changes to the décor of the house, we moved some furniture up here that Bronwyn had chosen and might like to reclaim one day. Angular dining room chairs, two dressers in brushed stainless steel with drawers I could never work out how to open, an antique, inlaid wardrobe that stands alone in the middle the room, and beyond it, in the far corner, a slate colored, steel sideboard—Bronwyn was going through a big steel and slate phase back then—with curved doors, shelves, and drawers. There’s an open cardboard box of tools that Jack left behind, balancing on stacks of timber, and I briefly consider it as a hiding place, but then decide that the sideboard is better. I walk over, floorboard creaking under my feet, brush past the wardrobe and as I glance sideways behind it, I stop. What happens next feels like it’s unfolding in slow motion. I am so shocked by what I see that for a second my vision blurs and I let go ofThe Inverted Garden. It falls, slowly, and lands on a corner, smashing into pieces, spewing out its lilliputian insides—bits of columns, peacocks, trees, shrubs—in every direction. And as my vision clears and the room rights itself, I know, as clear as day and without a shadow of doubt, that Bronwyn doesn’tloveme.
Shehatesme.
THIRTY-FOUR
I remember Jack saying he’d stored my portrait of Bronwyn in the attic, but I don’t remember ever seeing it the few times I’ve been up here, but then again, I wasn’t looking for it.
It’s here, propped against the wall, and I am on my knees, blood thumping behind my ears. The canvas is torn in myriads of places, small cuts, wide cuts, like someone has taken a knife and stabbed it over and over. It is covered with lime green graffiti, and my knee bumps against an old spray paint can, sending it toppling. She must have found it among Jack’s tools, and used it to scrawl in big angry letters,FUCK YOU BETHand under that,BETH IS A SLUT, and below that again, over two lines,LAURA IS A FUCKING SLUT.
She has vandalized her own portrait because I’d painted it.
I have a sudden and visceral memory of being fourteen years old and arriving at school to discover that I am a slut, and for those who didn’t already know, it had been painted in garish red letters on the side of the toilet block. I never, ever think of that hideous year, not if I can help it anyway, and it’s a testimony of how effectively I’ve put it behind me that I only now remember the school principal, an older woman—she was probably in her early fifties, but every adult looks old when you’re fourteen—with a helmet of blond hair and thick-rimmed glasses, gathering all the students together in the school hall and demanding the culprit come forward, thereby ensuring my humiliation was absolute and irrevocable. Nobody came forward, that should go without saying. But everyone sniggered behind my back, and sometimes in front it too. The next day a maintenance worker came and painted over it, but you could still see the faint outlines under the cheap, public school regulation paint.
I think back to how Bronwyn swore to me the other night that she had never done any of those things. She started the rumors, yes, she’d admitted to that, but things got out of control, and she was powerless to stop them. “But I tried!” she said. “I felt terrible! I got my dad involved and I tried to talk to you, remember that? I never meant for these shocking rumors to go this far.”
And I believed her, for the simple reason that I wanted to. But now I realize I always knew it was her who sprayed the school wall that night. I knew it in my heart, but seeing these words again, I know there’s no use pretending. It’s in the way she does her As and her Ts. It’s just the same as she did them back then. Same handwriting, same hatred.
I move closer to the painting, slowly, my hand outstretched and touch it. There’s a lot of fine dust in this attic, but none on the painting and none on the spray can on the floor, so I know this act of violence was done recently. And anyway, this is about me confessing to being Beth and she only just found out about that the other night.
Who is Beth, Laura?
Two notes. Two stupid love notes torn out of that stupid notepad. It’s not like I bought a burner phone and sent naked pictures of my tits. It was just a joke, I thought she understood. She told me she didn’t care.
My heart is bouncing against my ribs like it’s trying to punch a hole through. I pick up the small pieces fromThe Inverted Gardenscattered around the floor but my hands are shaking so much I keep dropping them again. I tell myself the damage is not as bad as I’d thought, except it’s pretty bad, although the pieces themselves seem to be whole. Maybe Claire Carter can put it back together.
Once I’ve put everything I could find in the bottom of the plexiglass box, I go back down the ladder and shut the door behind me.
I have to get out of here. I have to get away from this house and from the painting in the attic before she comes home with Charlie because I couldn’t bear to look at her right now. I have to think how to handle this.
I have to get rid ofTheInvertedGarden.
I leave a note on the kitchen table to tell her that I’ve had to go to the gallery and I’ll be back soon, but my handwriting is shaky so I crush it and stick it at the bottom of the trash and do it again. This one is better. It will do. I grab a brown paper bag from where I keep them in the pantry and shove the artwork in all its pieces into it. I grab my leather jacket, my keys and my purse and I run down the street to the taxi rank and give directions to the gallery, because let’s face it, I still have to hideThe Inverted Garden, and it occurs to me that the gallery is the last place anyone would look for it. The driver shoots me odd looks in the rearview mirror and I figure I must be breathing too loudly, which is something I tend to do when I’m stressed, although I can’t imagine I’m alone in that.
It’s Saturday, therefore our busiest day, and yet I’m still surprised how busy the gallery is. Visitors flocking to see the exhibition because of Kurilak’s review and others equally as praising. I thought Gavin would work today, but my stomach drops when I realize Summer is here instead. She has her back to me, she is chatting to an older couple in matching windbreakers. I have to walk past her larger-than-life photo of Jack’s back to reach her, and it’s all I can do not to grab it and yank it off the wall. But I do stop. I can’t help it. I stare at the poem, the words dancing in front of my eyes, blurry and ugly and twisting upon themselves.