A Question Of Sanity: Chapter 5 C: I Saw You

Although Matt agreed to stay with Rob and Gail, he wasn’t happy about Ellie coming with them. The four-mile drive was endured in terse silence. Gail tried to make small talk, but the atmosphere swallowed her words before they’d properly left her mouth. She cut her losses and gave up. Ellie sobbed and felt that the few inches of space between her and Matt on the car’s rear seat was an ocean that could never be crossed. Not only had Matt accused her of terrible things, things that she was incapable of doing, even if she’d had the opportunity or the desire but he seemed to have forgotten her illness. How could he be so insensitive?

Gail made coffee and then sat beside Ellie on the sofa, taking her hand and trying to comfort her friend. Matt sat in an armchair as far away from Ellie as possible and still refused to look in her direction.

‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘you just sit there crying and gunning for the sympathy vote. Never mind that you tried to murder me. You know something, Ellie? You scare the pants off me. Can you imagine that? I’m scared shitless of my own girlfriend because I don’t know when you’re going to go off your head and do something crazy again. You’re a liability.’

‘Matt,’ said Gail, ‘how could you? You know Ellie’s—’ she didn’t want to hurt Ellie by saying the word, but was appalled by Matt’s behaviour, ‘—dying,’ she finished in a whisper.

‘Ha, dying my arse. Who says she’s dying? After all, we only have her word for that, don’t we? Did she tell you she lied to me about the result date so that I couldn’t go? Bet she never told you about that, did she? How do we know she’s not making that up as well?’

Ellie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was the man she loved and wanted to share the rest of her life with. He’d been to see Fielding with her twice in the past week; he knew she wasn’t making her illness up.

‘Listen, mate,’ Rob cut in. ‘I don’t know what the hell happened with you yesterday, but whatever it was, you’ve made a big mistake, you know. It had nothing to do with Ellie. She was with me the whole time that she was supposed to be at home caving your head in. What time did it happen?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Matt, ‘sometime between half one and two, I suppose.’

‘Well, there you go then. At that time we were just tucking into an excellent dinner while a snotty waiter with a fancy title looked down his nose at us.’

‘Maybe she went to the loo or something.’

 Ellie had tried to be reasonable, but she’d had enough.

‘Oh right, so I left the table, drove the eight miles home, tried to kill you for no apparent reason, though I could come up with one or two corkers right now, and then I drove back to the restaurant all in the space of time it takes to have a pee. That must be one helluva bladder I'm packing. I wouldn’t get downhill of me if I need a leak. You’ll be washed away in the current.’

‘Right, but you forgot the bit about changing your clothes and taking off the ring I bought you, which I see you’ve put back on now, by the way. I don’t know how the bloody hell you did it, do I? Or why, for that matter. Especially why. I just know that you did.’ Matt looked at Ellie for the first time and saw her glance down at her ring.

Rob spoke as though he was talking to a small child. He enunciated each word, and was trying hard to be calm and keep the irritation out of his voice.

‘Ellie was with me all afternoon. There was no time that she was away from the table for more than a few minutes and she didn’t hurt you, Matt. You must have fallen down the stairs and are confused about what really happened. Ellie wasn’t there.’

Matt’s eyes had opened wide. Finally he saw what could be the only other explanation for the previous afternoon.

‘Of course, I’m such a bloody fool not to have seen it sooner. You’re right, Rob, I was confused, but I’m not now. It all makes perfect sense. Bravo for pointing it out to me, mate.

‘Eureka, we have a breakthrough,’ said Rob, ‘Glad you’re seeing sense mate, now we can sort this out.’

‘You’re in it together. I know Ellie hit me over the head, because I was there and I saw her. You say she was with you in the restaurant all afternoon. And it’s impossible for her to be in two places at once, you must be covering for her. You drove her home. You are, aren’t you? You’re both in it together to get rid of me.’

Rob gave a mirthless laugh. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Oh, now you’re just being bloody ridiculous.’

‘You’re having an affair.’

Rob looked furious. ‘Bullshit.’

‘Listen. It’s the only thing that makes any logical sense. I hear what you’re saying to me but it’s only words. What proof is there in a bunch of words? I know what I saw. I saw my girlfriend knocking me out and trying to kill me with a Greek goddess. So she wasn’t with you the whole afternoon. Therefore, you must be lying to cover up for her. Why else would you do that other than because you’re having an affair with her? I’m sorry, Gail,’ he finished, glancing towards Rob’s wife.

‘Matt. I love Ellie. There you go, I’ve said it.’ Rob gave a small rueful smile across the coffee table to Gail. ‘I’m probably a little bit in love with her too. Let’s face it, what man wouldn’t be? Everything about her is gorgeous. But I’ve been with Gail for seventeen happy years. I’ve invested my entire life in that woman sitting over there.’ He pointed towards Gail and gave her a comforting wink. ‘I’ve loved my wife through all the good and bad times we’ve had— and probably in spite of some of them, and I’m telling you here and now, mate, she’s the only woman for me. I love her. Do you know we were apart for three years while I was away on tours in the army? She sat by the telly waiting for news from the frontline. We had trust and her only worry was that I’d be killed out there. We’ve never once doubted each other. You’re bang out of order my friend, and I can’t believe that you’d even think that. We’ve been friends, Matt, and I’m insulted and want you to apologise to my wife when you come to your fucking senses.’

Rob and Gail looked at each other and the trust between them was like a wedding vow renewed. Rob had spoken with openness that can only be between two people who are secure in their love.

Ellie raised her head. Her face was swollen with the tears she’d shed, but she was done with crying. Now she was just plain, red hot mad. Her grey eyes glinted like steel. She’d tried to be reasonable. Through whatever misguided reasoning, Matt believed that she’d hurt him. The trust between Rob and Gail had touched her and brought home the fact that she and Matt didn’t have that level of trust to rely on. If they had, then she’d have been able to convince him of the truth, no matter what he thought he saw. She felt the familiar knot of temper rising. She tried to swallow it down, but it was too strong to be eaten.

‘Okay, okay, you’re right, of course. Because you’re always right, aren’t you, Matthew? Couldn’t possibly be mistaken, could you? So, yes, all right, Rob and I are having an affair, and rather than just finish with you to be with him, it seemed to make so much more sense to kill you and leave you bleeding on my hall floor for the police to find lots of forensic evidence? But it doesn’t matter because Rob and I have a flight booked for Hono-bloody-lulu at three o’clock.’ She glanced over at Gail, too angry to hold back. ‘He’s got his bags packed in the boot of the car ready for us to leave, Gail. But hey, you won’t have time to be upset about it because he’s going to do you in too before we go. I mean, that’s the logical thing to do, isn’t it? That’s what we’d do if we’re having an affair behind your back.’ She looked back at Matt. ‘Well, if that’s what you want to believe, you go right ahead. I hope you and your bloody theories and accusations will be very happy together. I’d just like to know which one of us is crazy, because none of this makes any bloody sense to me.’

Ellie was livid that Matt had put their friends in such an awkward situation. He’d been jealous of her relationship with Rob in the past, but she thought that had been put to bed a long time ago. All the love they shared was dissolving into a simmering pool of bitterness and distrust and there was no way back, no way to stop what was happening to them. She felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life. There were no tears left to cry. She was exhausted and shamed.

‘This is all getting way out of hand,’ said Rob, trying to calm the situation. ‘Okay, you only have our word for it that there’s nothing going on between us. But Matt, everything else can be proven. You can go with Ellie to speak to her consultant about the illness, if previous visits to him haven’t convinced you. And we weren’t the only people at that restaurant, you know? Waiters will remember us. All you have to do is talk to them. We went for a walk in the park after we’d made pretence of eating. Neither of us was very hungry under the circumstances. We sat on a park bench in front of the snack kiosk. We drank several cups of horrendously strong coffee. The lady is bound to remember us. Don’t take our word for it, Matt. Ask. We can account for almost every minute of yesterday afternoon. We bought two ice creams with raspberry topping and sprinkles; the lady will remember us because she recognised Ellie, they talked about her books. The woman insisted that we have two flakes each. Go and check it out, everything I’m telling you is the truth.’

Matt dropped his head into his hands and tried to think. Rob was right, everything they said could be proven one way or the other and if they had wanted an alibi then that wasn’t going to be a very good one because Ellie couldn’t have left for long enough without her absence being noted. She had no reason for wanting to kill him. They’d always been happy and surely her illness couldn’t account for her becoming a psychotic madwoman overnight. Everything was muddled. His thoughts wouldn’t clear because he kept coming back to the same thing. He actually saw Ellie hit him with the statue. It wasn’t somebody who looked like Ellie and wore the same perfume, it was Ellie. And yet it couldn’t be, because Ellie had a restaurant full of people who were with her somewhere else at the same time. But he saw her, the national bank saw her, her next door neighbour saw her, the woman in the costume shop saw her, and all of them saw her in places and at times, when she wasn’t there. He looked over at her. She was so tired, so miserable, so vulnerable and he knew that, no matter what, he still loved her. He had to find a way to sort out the craziness.

The colour had drained from Ellie’s face. It was too much for her. She said that she felt unwell and could she be taken home, please.

Rob and Gail wouldn’t hear of it. Gail helped Ellie up to the guest room to lie down.

It was dark when Ellie woke up. She’d slept for hours. The day was gone and the night was well in. She’d been partially undressed and covered with the quilt. The biggest surprise of all was the lean, naked body lying beside her. Matt stirred and then came fully awake within a couple of seconds. He looked over and smiled, tightening his grip, pulling her body into him. He put his finger to her lips to shush her then he kissed her with all the love and gentleness that he felt.

‘Matt,’ she began, ‘I’m so sorry about everything. I really didn’t hit you. Please say you understand that.’

‘Shush, baby, let’s not talk about it any more. I don’t know what’s happening. I know that I think I saw you. Maybe the concussion has mixed everything up in my mind and I really did fall down the stairs and only imagined it. Maybe they sent an alien down to take your place. I don’t know, but what I do know is that I love you and somehow, we’ll sort this out and I’ll be there for you for as long as you need me.’

They cried and they hugged and then later, some time later, they made love.