The Imposter, Anna Wharton [romantic story to read TXT] 📗

because she still hasn’t found Angie.

Back at the house, Maureen is washing up in the kitchen.

Chloe puts a celebrity magazine on the worktop between them.

‘I thought you might like this,’ she says.

Maureen glances back, her hands pushed deep in yellow gloves. ‘Oh Angie, you . . .’ Her voice trails off.

The two women look at each other quickly, realising the mistake. Soapsuds pop quietly in the sink between them.

‘Chloe, I’m so sor—’ Maureen starts.

‘It’s OK,’ Chloe says quickly.

It is OK. Really it is.

Maureen looks down into the washing-up bowl and shakes her head as Chloe tries to busy herself rearranging the condiments on the table.

‘It’s not . . . I shouldn’t . . . it’s just sometimes these days I get confused,’ Maureen says. ‘It’s just having you here, it reminds me . . . you understand, don’t you?’

Chloe nods. She does understand.

‘Patrick thinks I’m going mad, he says . . . he says . . .’ She lifts a soapy glove from the bowl to waft away a thought. When she looks up at Chloe her eyes are teary.

Chloe swallows. ‘It’s actually quite warm outside, why don’t we go for a walk? I haven’t seen much of the area and, you know, with Patrick out all day, perhaps some fresh air would do you good?’

Maureen nods, pulling a tissue from her sleeve.

TWENTY-NINE

They walk along those straight Fen roads, the camber often pulling Chloe away from Maureen and into the verge. She picks up her pace to meet her back in the middle of road as Maureen points out the differences between the fields sown with sugar beet and those with barley. As they walk, Maureen paints a picture of the Fens in the summer, hares that box among the birds at dusk and dawn.

‘You make it sound so beautiful out here,’ Chloe says. ‘When I arrived here it seemed so bleak.’

‘Do you still think that now?’

‘Not anymore.’

The two women’s gaits fall in line and they walk on, silently.

‘Now I think about it, maybe it was a bit bleak out here for me too before you arrived,’ Maureen says, looking down at the tarmac. ‘Patrick’s noticed. I know it worries him.’

There’s a beat before she answers. ‘Why would it worry him?’

‘After Angie, I was in a really bad way for a long time. I couldn’t accept that she’d gone and Patrick, he was my rock. I don’t know what I’d have done without him.’

Chloe knows she has prepared for moments like this, but she can’t remember what to say for the thud of adrenalin in her veins. Instead she listens. This is the first time that Maureen has talked to her about Angie, about what happened – what really happened.

‘Angie going, well, it took its toll on us, it was bound to.’

Chloe watches the tarmac, the dull grey of it allowing her to concentrate on every word that Maureen is saying. She’s already filing it away for her notebook.

‘I kept everything, kept her room, her toys, her books, her clothes, everything exactly how it was. Can you believe that?’

Chloe looks at her, but she’s not waiting for an answer.

‘But how long do you wait? How many years? I slept in her room, in her sheets until I realized that they didn’t even smell of her anymore, they smelt of me, and I realized I’d have to wash them, but then I’d be washing her away, and that was all I had left . . .’

She stops on the road, and Chloe stops too. Maureen covers her face with her hands. There is no other life around them except for long fine grass that sways gently at the edge of the road. Maureen sniffs and walks on.

‘Patrick was so worried about me. Sometimes he even said it: that I was clinging on to something – to someone – that wasn’t there any longer. But she wasn’t gone either, was she?’

Chloe shakes her head.

‘That’s the problem. We’re stuck in this no-man’s land, this place in between. We can’t move on – you feel guilty for moving on – but then how could we carry on doing anything that we’d done before when everything was because of Angie? And the guilt . . . you feel guilty for laughing – smiling even. Imagine that, feeling guilty for putting a smile on your face.’ Maureen shakes her head. ‘It’s no way to live. It’s wicked. It’s cruel, that’s what it is. I wouldn’t wish this not knowing on my worst enemy.’

Chloe wishes there was a script inside her coat. But instead it’s Maureen who grabs her, tucking her arm inside her elbow. She pats the top of Chloe’s hand and they walk on. Arm in arm. Like mother and daughter for all anyone else would see. But there is no one to bear witness, for the road is completely deserted.

‘Listen to me,’ Maureen says, ‘going on like this to you. I’m sorry, Chloe, I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t, it’s just . . .’

Chloe looks at her, she sees the way Maureen’s eyes flicker across her face.

‘What?’ Chloe says. ‘What is it?’

Maureen looks away, back down at the road. When she next speaks it’s quieter, as if Maureen is daring herself to say the words.

‘And then you turned up wanting that room. I remember when you said how old you were – twenty-nine, exactly the same age as Angie would have . . .’

Now it’s Chloe’s turn to look down at the tarmac. There’s a lane turning right beside a disused signal box, where wild flowers run up to the road.

‘Shall we go this way?’ Chloe says, not because she wants to change the subject – far from it – but because she isn’t sure how to respond. Or rather, she doesn’t want her response to be too eager, too obvious. She almost feels exposed out here on these open fen roads.

Maureen nods.

The two women walk for a little while and as they do Maureen points out snipe dipping their long beaks into the dykes that run alongside them, and lapwings pecking at fields sown with cereal. Chloe listens – half listens. She knows when she needs to nod, but she doesn’t ask a single question about