Like she was thinking of that too, she continued: “And then in Cannes, you smashed your own face into a basin just to score a point, and I realized that’s what I wanted. This. The life I was already living. So I …”
Joel at the Emmys, his snarled words:“Haven’t you done quite enough?”
“You had an abortion,” I finished, when it was clear she couldn’t.
“You know what it’s like, throw as many stories at the press as you can and hope it covers up the truth.”
I nodded. “The only time I ever gave them something real was when you pried it out of me.”
She smiled a little, but it didn’t erase how damn sad she felt. “Your restraining order was an excellent cover. It couldn’t get out, there was no right answer there, just options that would have destroyed everything I’d worked so hard for. Have the child and I’m a terrible mother who works too much. Give it up for adoption and I’m heartless—and Joel never would have allowed that anyway. Or have an abortion and deal with … everything that came with it.”
Right. You could be forgiven almost anything in Hollywood. But not as a woman. Not when it came to the politics of our very bodies.
She remained silent, staring ahead, lost. Then, quietly: “For a few months before it all … my periods were irregular. My cramps were worse. My skin was breaking out. All these things I first went on the pill to stop …”
She let that hang in the air.
“Fuck,” I said, as understanding dawned.
“I don’t know for sure,” she said. “Maybe I’m reading into it.Dramatizingit. But everything cleared up when I started keeping my birth control on set so … anyway. It’s not like suspecting my husband of entrapment changed the fact the abortion was the most difficult decision of my life. I didn’t want it getting out not because I was ashamed but because it was invasive and complicated and I knew I’d have to defend it again and again and again. Joel knew that and he was goingto leak it anyway, said that it was the reason he cheated, said I must have wanted this. He was going to turn one of the most traumatic things that ever happened to me into his great excuse so that when he ran off with his pregnant mistress it would be his happily-ever-after in the eyes of the public, away from the vicious, selfish wife who took away his chance at fatherhood.”
Oh. Oh, fuck him. I wanted to resuscitate him so I might stab him myself.
“It’s not like I decided he should die for it,” she said, flicking the indicator like she might have a body in the boot but would never be as irresponsible as to turn without proper notice. “But I realized what he was planning and I was, well, not shouting—I knew we were still in a hotel and the last thing I wanted was for it to become public—but hissing, I suppose. And he kept trying to touch me, to hold me still—hold me down—and I was shoving him off me and that made him angry. I grabbed the knife, ready to dramatically wave it and make clear that he was not to lay a hand on me again and then he charged forward and I … It was instinctive.”
Her voice broke. A quiet whisper, like the words haunted her as much as the memory.
“I just thrust it out and in it went. And then he pulled it out and suddenly he was the one holding the knife and I’d never seen him look so angry, and I just ran. I ran so goddamn hard. Right to you. He must have collapsed the moment I left but … I think if I stayed he would have killed me, even if just out of spite.”
Harper was still staring ahead, her expression bleak. But the pain underscored every word she spoke—her voice strained, her warbling tone, so that all I could think was that her body was petrifying itself, hardening a protective shell, would shed no further tears because they’d never fixed a damn thing.
“It wasn’t mutual,” she said, knuckles paling on the steering wheel. “The hatred. The spite. I loved him so fucking much, but I just wanted him to stop hurting me. And now he …”
She pressed her lips together firmly, but it wasn’t enough to halt the choking noise in the back of her throat. Something about it caught at mine too, and I felt tears burn.
“I’m glad you ran,” I said, turning to look out at the fleeing scenery. It felt like sincerity was only safe like this, tossed behind my shoulder, like to look at her would force something else in its place. “I’m glad it was him that died.”
I felt her turn to me, but still I did not face her.
“I’m glad we’re about to bury him.”
———
Barlam Thicket was a dense, sprawling forest and an offshoot of far nicer, more touristy ones nearby. It was the overgrown cousin, the uglier sibling. Darker and less frequented, like it awaited something like this.
When we finally located the road that had led to the lodge, it appeared half-abandoned.
Not fully, of course, we would not be lucky enough for that.But the path was cracked, the growth creeping in, the trees that lined it last trimmed a long time ago.
We pulled off the road a quarter of a mile down and did our best to hide the car. I even scooped up a handful of mud and smeared it across the number plates, just in case.
“That’s disgusting,” Harper said, wrinkling her nose.
I had gloves on but I quite agreed, the wet mulch and the cold water within. I wanted Jo Malone infusions (nutmeg and gingeronly) in a bath lined with Loewe candles (I didn’t care which, so long as there was a dangerous number of them.) But no, right now I had Hampshire mud and a body turning stiff with rigor mortis.
So instead I countered: “And stabbing through sinew isn’t?”
Harper blanched and I worried I’d gone too far but then she burst out laughing. “True.”
