The Secrets She Must Tell - Lucy King Page 0,14

amber liquid swirling continuously. ‘I phoned my parents but they didn’t answer, which I more or less expected, since we hadn’t spoken for a while, so I rang Carla, the friend of mine you met earlier. She came over and scooped us up and took us back to her house. And that was great for a couple of days. I scoured the internet and read books and did a crash course in babies. And I got a bit better at changing Josh’s nappies and feeding him and generally looking after him. But as the shock wore off, reality kicked in.’ She looked up at Finn, who was sitting impossibly still, his eyes dark and his expression unreadable, although she guessed he wasn’t missing a thing. ‘Did I ever mention my five-year plan?’ she asked with a slight tilt of her head.

‘You mentioned having one.’

‘Well, that went out the window. And so did all the structure and routine I’d created for myself and have always depended on. My life fell completely apart, and for the first time in years I had no idea where I was heading.’ She shook her head, the memories swirling. ‘It was all so overwhelming. I went into a sort of spin and it happened really quickly and really intensely. I wasn’t sleeping much anyway, but suddenly I wasn’t sleeping at all. My appetite all but disappeared. And then I started doing things that were really out of character. Like talking really fast one minute then not uttering a word for hours. I developed panic attacks and became convinced that Carla’s neighbour was following me. I even called the police one night,’ she said, biting her lip and remembering how scary it had been to realise on some level that what she was doing wasn’t normal, wasn’t right, but not knowing why she was doing it and not being able to do anything about it. ‘Anyway, eventually I was admitted to the psychiatric ward of my local hospital, where I was diagnosed with post-partum psychosis.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Like postnatal depression but worse.’ Far, far worse. ‘I stayed there for a week and then a bed came up in a mother-and-baby unit a hundred miles away. Josh and I left there ten days ago,’ she said, glossing over five intervening months, since Finn did not need to know how bad it had got before the medication had kicked in and the therapy had started to take effect. In any case she doubted she could even begin to explain how terrifying the delusions and the hallucinations and the disorientation had been, or how distressing she’d found it knowing that she wasn’t well. The feelings she’d had for Josh, or, rather, the lack of them, were far too upsetting to put into words, and Finn would never understand her gut-churning dread that the long, dark tunnel she’d been in had no end. He’d never fully understand any of it. No one could.

‘And that’s why it’s taken so long for me to contact you,’ she said, determinedly not letting those agonising memories descend but instead focusing on the man who was now looking at her a little as though he’d been slapped round the head with a wet fish. ‘I wasn’t in a position to do so. As soon as I was, I did. And that’s it. Now you know everything.’

Everything? Everything?

He knew nothing.

Watching dazedly as Georgie finished her drink, set the glass down on the coffee table and sat back against the cushions, Finn could barely recall his own name. He was reeling too hard, too stunned and shattered to be able to make head or tail of anything. Whatever explanation he could possibly have envisaged, none would have come anywhere near the one she’d just given him.

That she was telling the truth was without doubt. He might have had suspicions initially—who wouldn’t?—but not for long. No one would make up such a story, and no one could fake the emotion that had emanated from her, despite her attempts to contain it. When she’d been talking about what she’d been through, her voice had cracked and her eyes had become twin pools of pain. Her hands had trembled and her anguish had been palpable, and her obvious distress had cut right through him.

On one level he could identify with some of what had initially happened to her. He knew what it was like to have your life turned upside down and your plans destroyed. He’d experienced the sort of catastrophic shock