The Couple: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist

by Sarah Mitchell

‘Well, in that case she should go home.’

  Daniel doesn’t reply.

  I toss the last of the limp blades to one side and lean against him. Through his T-shirt the baseline thump of his heart is directly next to mine. I know what losing him will feel like; I don’t suppose I will be rational about it either. I breathe out, slowly. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  But it’s not OK. I can tell there’s something else he needs to say. There’s a pause that scratches like fibreglass before he brings himself to add, ‘Look, I won’t be long.’

  The sentence takes a second to register. ‘What do you mean?’ Although I have worked out what he means I want him to say it out loud. I want him to admit that he’s spoiling our perfect day to meet his crazy ex-girlfriend and dry her tears – again.

  Daniel straightens up; I notice that he’s still clutching the phone as though expecting it to sound again at any moment. ‘I’ll be back,’ he says, ‘in time for Mike and Lucy’s party. Wait here. I’ll be half an hour, an hour, at most.’ He is moving already, stepping back away from me as though I might suddenly grab at him.

  ‘You’ll make it worse.’

  He’s shaking with head. With guilt? Regret? I really can’t tell. ‘I have to go talk to her. She’s so unhappy, babe.’

  ‘And what about you, Daniel?’ My throat is too knotty and sore to speak properly, I practically have to spit the words out. ‘How happy are you?’

  ‘Hey, babe’ – he makes an effort at levity, holds his arms out wide in an embrace to the world – ‘I’m happier than I’ve ever been.’

  * * *

  He’s gone less than an hour. I see him returning through the gateway into the garden as I’m chatting with Myla and Barney, two medics I’ve known since my first term when we were thrown together in the same flat and had to navigate the demands of the enforced intimacy that is part of a drunken fresher’s week. They managed it pretty well by hooking up with each other on the first night and staying together ever since.

  As Daniel approaches I see his fists are in his pockets and his gaze keeps flicking down towards the ground.

  ‘Myla and Barney were telling me about their plans for the summer,’ I tell him. I am determined not to show how pleased I am to see him back so soon or ask him any questions, but the effort is wasted.

  ‘She wasn’t there,’ he says shortly. ‘I waited thirty fucking minutes at the Starbucks in the Grand Arcade and she didn’t fucking show.’

  Myla touches Barney’s arm and they melt away, making some convoluted excuse that neither Daniel nor I bother to take on board.

  ‘Well, you went to meet her, you couldn’t do more than that,’ I shrug. My tone is carefully nonchalant although my heart is cheering and mentally I’ve already chalked it up as a victory.

  ‘What a fucking waste of time.’

  ‘Forget it. Forget her.’ I put the flat of my hands against his cheeks and kiss his mouth. He kisses me back, pliable and contrite.

  ‘It’s ruined the afternoon.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘It didn’t. I’ve had a lovely time.’ It’s lucky he didn’t come back twenty minutes earlier, when I was still sitting where he left me, tearing up the grass. I like this sudden reversal of my role, no longer the clingy, ungracious girlfriend, instead the generous, supportive girlfriend. For a moment I allow myself to believe I am someone that Daniel will want to stay with, that we have a future just like Myla and Barney. The feeling lasts all through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. It lasts during our lazy meander to Mike and Lucy’s party, stopping to kiss in doorways, brazen and shameless; it lasts as we join the heaving jam of bodies in a tiny flat downing vodka martinis to a backbeat of indie and jazz; it lasts during the long stagger home through the blue night air, oblivious to anyone but each other. It lasts, even as we ascend the twisting staircase to Daniel’s room, hanging onto each other for balance, our footsteps loud against the stone, our whispers raucous and jubilant.

  It lasts until I see the heap of clothes huddled beside Daniel’s door. The clothes stir, a head lifts, and the light from the overhead bulb catches the glass of a gin bottle and face smeared with so much lipstick she resembles a pissed clown.

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ But he says it gently, more in shock than anger.

  ‘Daniel…’ The voice is slurred – which is inevitable, given that the gin bottle is empty. ‘I’m so sorry… I’m really so sorry…’

  Daniel steps forward, but I stay rooted at the top of the steps and all at once Daniel and I are no longer a couple, instead there are three of us, three separate individuals: him, her and me. The heap of clothes attempts to get a purchase on the door handle and stand up but immediately she loses her balance and sits down again hard. Her chest convulses, I think she’s about to cry but instead she starts to puke and a stream of vomit runs down her light-blue cardigan and makes pools in the folds of her skirt. I try to look away although I am transfixed with the horror of it. The sour, fermented stench filling the corridor makes me want to retch myself.

  ‘Oh God… Oh Daniel. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…’ Her stomach heaves again to produce a final drool of sick, and then she begins to weep.

  Daniel kneels down beside her, looking at me over his shoulder. I think the look means just wait, be patient, I’ll get rid of her.

  I’m wrong.

  ‘I’m going to have to deal with this,’ he murmurs, his voice low and not with intimacy, it’s more as though he’s speaking quietly to me to spare her blushes, ‘so I think you’ll have to go back to your own room tonight. Sorry, babe.’ For a split second I wonder if I can have heard him right, in my confusion I assume for a moment he must surely have meant to direct that last part of the sentence to her, that stinking mess of a person collapsed like a homeless wino on the floor. I hover, uncertain what to do, but when Daniel’s gaze doesn’t waver, I realise he was speaking unmistakably to me. I understand that he, that both of them, are waiting for me to leave. Instantly my celebrated, chalked-up victory evaporates, like a mirage that vanishes just as soon as it floats within touching distance.

  Chapter Seven

  Now

  I have my arms full of dirty washing when the telephone rings. It’s the landline, not my mobile, which means the caller is either somebody in India offering to fix my computer, or my mother, neither of whom I particularly want to have a conversation with right at this moment because I have finally begun to clean the house.

  Angus has been away all weekend – a conference in Frankfurt, dull, apparently, and not worth the claustrophobia of an overcrowded departure lounge and the crawl through passport control that is already snail-like even pre-Brexit. I think he is coming home tomorrow rather than tonight. I hope this is the case because while, in his absence, I have not exactly trashed our home, the living space presents very differently from how it did forty-eight hours ago when he kissed me as he left and told me in a tone that sounded surprisingly directive to ‘be good’.

  It seems his entreaty was not entirely misplaced. Left to my own devices, free of Angus’s routines and standards, I find I have not moved on quite so far from my student habits as I might have believed. Plates sticky with half-eaten meals and mugs of cold tea now perch by the side of the bath and on the sitting room carpet, while a wine glass, an empty bottle of New World Chardonnay and a saucer full of cigarette butts litter our bedroom – I’ll have to sleep with the window open tonight to get rid of the telltale reek.

  The bed itself is strewn with the contents of my wardrobe, the result of my attempt the previous evening to clear out some old clothes for charity – an exercise I abandoned after I finished the wine. The alcohol was enough to unleash the thoughts of Mark that had been hovering on the sidelines, ready to claim the centre stage; the way he led me unequivocally up the stairs, the path his fingers took as they prised apart my shirt and slipped inside the cup of my bra. The touch that felt like Daniel – that was Daniel as long as I didn’t open my eyes. As the bedroom gre
w dark I sat for an hour, perhaps longer, smoking and not bothering to switch on the light. Remembering that afternoon I felt guilt, of course, a feeble stir somewhere in my stomach, but my need for him, the want of him was so strong the wine and cigarettes exacerbated rather than dulled my desire. Instead of sorting through my fashion failures, I fell asleep amidst the fluffy fragrance of old sweaters, my hand deep inside the waistband of my jeans.

  This afternoon, gazing at the debris of the weekend – my debris of my weekend – I was strangely reluctant to clear it away. Instead of shame I felt an odd sense of comfort. I suppose the house felt more mine than it had ever done before, like a dog denoting its territory with a trail of pee, the fusion of sweet and acrid odours, the clutter of untidy possessions, was the mark – the smell – of me, asserting a little independence beyond the swim lanes of my newly ordered and coupled life.

  I wait for five rings, six, but when the phone continues to yelp I finally drop the laundry onto the kitchen floor and step over a Boots carrier bag to pick up the receiver.

  ‘Claire, is that you?’ My mother’s standard opening line takes no account of the fact she knows Angus is away and save for the possibility of an overconfident burglar, I am her only option.

  ‘Hello, Mum.’ I sink onto the floor beneath the Spanish mirror – the armchair is crowded with shopping from Zara and the sofa has my coat strewn across it. I prepare myself for one of her Sunday chats about my work, Angus and the wedding. She rings often these days, any excuse to revel in my acquisition of a handsome fiancé and my sudden, reassuring affluence nicely visible in bricks and mortar. To be honest, normally I enjoy basking in my change of fortune with her – nobody wants to be the child whose family makes an effort not to pity. Besides, the memory of that tiny flat above the newsagent – the damp that meant the washing never dried, the light bulb on the stairs that never worked – has been burned forever into the bones of us both.

  This time, however, I soon realise my mother doesn’t want to talk about Angus and me at all. After a couple of perfunctory questions she gets straight to the point.

  ‘We’ve got some news. Or rather your brother has some news.’

  ‘Oh?’ I hear her intake of breath over the rain that has started to fall, striking the windows in gravel-like gusts.

  ‘You’re not the only one who will be getting married. Robert and Elsa have got engaged.’

  ‘Really? That’s wonderful!’ Even as I make the correct noises my brain is processing the fact that something doesn’t sound quite right. My mother’s voice is not transparent with pleasure in quite the way I would expect. Why hasn’t Rob called me himself? Despite the arrival of Elsa in our lives I like to think we are still close, bonded by all those times we walked home from school together, better able, with the other by our side, to stare down the bullies and the dope-pushers from the council estate. When Daniel and I fell apart, Rob was the only person I could bear to talk to me.

  ‘I think they would have waited until after your wedding, they didn’t want to steal the limelight, only…’ The sentence stops abruptly.

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘Only Elsa is pregnant.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. I remember how she didn’t drink at my engagement party, how I thought it was because she was afraid of letting her hair down in front of my friends when in fact she had her own, far more precious, reason for abstaining. I wonder if my mother has discussed with Rob who should break the news to me and know immediately they must have done.

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re not saying anything, are you all right? About Elsa, I mean. It hasn’t upset you too much has it, that she’s pregnant? I don’t imagine it was, you know, deliberate. I expect it just happened without them really meaning to…’ My mother’s voice tails away with the embarrassment of discussing Rob and Elsa’s sex life; if right now she could resort to stories of storks and the delivery of babies in little white bundles I’m certain that she would.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I’m very pleased for them.’ I pick a piece of fluff off the floor, although my clearing-up operation has some way to go before a scrap of fuzz on the carpet would be noticeable.

  ‘That’s good,’ my mother says. She doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

  ‘I’ll give Rob a call later,’ I tell her, injecting more conviction into my voice, ‘to congratulate them.’

  ‘Will you? That would be marvellous. I think they will be at home tonight because they don’t go out much at the moment. Apparently Elsa’s feeling very sick. I’ve told them it’s perfectly normal, still Rob can’t help but worry and Elsa doesn’t feel like eating or drinking so there doesn’t seem much point in—’

  ‘Mum,’ I cut through her babble, ‘I have to go. I need to tidy the house before Angus gets back, it’s a bit of a tip.’

  ‘Is it?’ She laughs, although I don’t think she would if she could see the place. ‘Well, in that case I’d better let you get on with it!’

  After I put the phone down I head to the kitchen and fill the kettle. Tea, I decide, in preparation for the big house clean, but my head is full of babies. Babies – and now, of course, Daniel. And Daniel makes me think of Mark. Which brings me back to Daniel again. A not-so-perfect circle. The water is almost at boiling point when I realise that tea is the last thing I feel like drinking. My little brother is going to be a father. Taking another bottle of white wine out of the fridge, I kill the power to the kettle and listen as the life drains out of it almost instantaneously.

  * * *

  Later that evening I discover we have run out of milk, bread and coffee, the staples of any well-managed kitchen. Still, there is a Seven Eleven less than a mile away and, I tell myself, a brisk walk will do me good. If I run the errand now then not only will I seem considerate and organised should Angus pop home tomorrow before heading to the office, I also have a proper reason not to call Rob; it is nine o’clock already – it has taken me that long to make the house presentable again – and by the time I get back he and Elsa are likely to be in bed. After all, being pregnant is exhausting. Given the unsettled nature of the weather, I fetch my mac and belt it tight around my waist.

  The Seven Eleven is busier than I expected, the checkout queue moving slowly. Idling in a semi-soporific state, clutching my modest collection of shopping I wonder what each of the customers is doing here; what does it reveal about us and our inadequacies that we have chosen to spend the last dregs of our weekend under the glare of strip lighting that makes us resemble characters from another tedious vampire movie? The man in front of me is holding a wire basket heavy with eight large tins of dog food. Is that truly an emergency purchase or just an excuse to get out of the house? He is short with thinning, curly hair and has a small man’s hunch to his shoulders. It is easy to imagine him beleaguered by his wife, driven to temporary escapes, little freedoms. But perhaps he is just besotted with his dog. Or lonely, maybe the Seven Eleven is the closest he gets to a night out.

  I am so busy inventing lives for the man with the dog food it is at least a minute before I notice the long white ponytail dangling from the head of the male customer who is standing in front of him. For a moment I stare transfixed, both certain it is the same man who came to my door searching for Mark and equally sure my mind is playing tricks, conjuring him up because I have spent so much of the afternoon, of the whole weekend, in fact, thinking about Mark.

  While I am watching the queue shuffles forwards. The dog food man moves up a place and his basket collides, very slightly, with the thigh of the customer ahead of him. As the white-haired man turns around, a glimpse of his unusual, almost translucent irises, a snap of recognition, activates my fight-or-flight response like a panic button.

  Spinning on my heels, I hurry to the exit not daring to look back in case I make contact with those startling eyes. Only once I am on the pavement do I realise that I am still clutching my basket. I risk a peek towards the shop, but thankfully neither a man with a white
ponytail nor a security guard materialise in the doorway. At this precise moment I’m not certain which of them would be the most terrifying. Hands trembling, I quickly decant my intended purchases into the rolled-up plastic bag I keep in my handbag, dump the basket next to a rubbish bin and head towards home.

  The streets appear unusually and eerily quiet. It is dark, or as dark as it gets in the city, and the headlights of the traffic dazzle on the lacquered surface of the road still wet from the earlier deluge. At one point I pass a communal garden, a scrub of green with a hedge surround, and I half expect a moon-bleached face to float out from the dense black foliage. Mark said he owed the man with white hair and the fat guy money. More precisely, he said he owed somebody money – perhaps ponytail and lardy arse were merely tasked with the job of debt collecting. Whatever their particular job title might be I have no desire to run into either of them again. During the last few weeks it has occurred to me that despite my Oscar-worthy performance they might not have left the vicinity when I assumed they did, they may have stayed to watch the front door and could well have seen Mark depart an hour or so later. Not only might they know I lied, they might also assume Mark and I are together, a couple; they could believe I am their best chance of finding him.

  I am so preoccupied with listening for footsteps, twisting occasionally to look over my shoulder at who might be following, that I walk straight into the open car door that is blocking two thirds of the walkway. It takes me a moment to realise the collision is not entirely due to my carelessness but also the fact that the lights of the vehicle, both inside and out, are switched off.

  ‘Jesus! What the hell…?’ I am rubbing my knee, still trying to squint back along the road when a familiar voice says, ‘Get inside the car, Claire!’

  My heart does a lazy somersault and then explodes with shock, ‘What the hell…?’ I say again.