When Imogen walks in, it’s to a scene of domestic bliss. She must think the cooking was my idea to right things with our daughter, because she wraps her arms around me and smooches my neck.
“Well done, Mr Armstrong. Well done.”
Chapter Twenty
Gasping for breath, I remember it clearly. The same nightmare; not with the telephone; the driving in the Mercedes, Angel of Death one. Is Uma the cause? Or is it the Mini’s seatbelt warning light and airbag? Or is it something else?
I stretch out my shaking hand to silence the alarm, and sit and take deep breaths for a few minutes before throwing my legs into the cold real world, and plodding to the shower.
Through the cascading water, I hear Jess knock at the door. Shouting over the noise, I understand she wants a lift into college. “No problem,” I holler back.
We rush out to the car with just enough time to get to college and school. Jess is full of smiles and tales of how her exams are going. Mission ‘reassure Jess,’ has evidently been successful. As I leave her at the college gates, she pauses to grin at me, waving vigorously before skipping off with a group of friends.
I drive away with my own grin moulded onto my face like it will never move. But move it does, as Uma is only a few feet from me when I take my first steps into the corridor leading to the history department.
Forced to pass her, I keep my eyes down but can’t resist a surreptitious glance. She beams at me with such warmth, I’m almost tempted to stop and chat, but settle for a grateful smile back.
Scuttling into my classroom, I lean against the door to get my breath back. She’s taken that well. Too well perhaps, or am I being silly? It was rude of me to run away, I suppose. But she must understand why. I decide, despite our apparent friendly terms, to continue avoiding her.
Venturing from my class for the first time at lunch time, today I leave the school completely and head to the corner shop.
Nodding and smiling at about a hundred children who have done the same, I’m not convinced they all have permission to be out of school, but they have nothing to fear from me, and they know it.
The sandwich I select is dry. Washed down with a sugary drink, it’s not the best lunch I’ve had, but it’s kept me from my problems. I re-enter my class via the tennis courts and sixth form and into the back door.
When I’m in the express supermarket again on the way home, it’s clear we need to do the weekly shop, which we’ve failed to schedule since our return from Wales.
I’m drawn to scallops tonight, which I decide will be nice on a bed of couscous and parsley, and of course a complementary wine.
Busy with my preparations, Jess pops her head into the kitchen and announces we have the pleasure of Amy’s company for some revision and they’ll order a pizza. From the noise as they trample upstairs, they’re studying GCSE giggling.
Whilst wondering whether I should refrigerate some of the scallops or be greedy in light of Jess’s plans, my phone vibrates my pocket. Fingers covered in scallop juices, I have to let it ring. Why does this always happen to me?
Washing and drying my hands, I pull out my phone.
1 missed call: Imogen. 1 new message.
Phoning straight back, she doesn’t answer, so I call again. When there’s no reply a second time, I listen to the message she’s left.
“Eliot. It’s me. I’ll be late in tonight. I’ll grab some food, so... So, don’t cook me anything.”
Raking my fingers through my hair, I blow out my cheeks, phone in hand, trying to work out what’s wrong. Did I imagine a coldness to her tone? Surely. But where was she calling from? It didn’t sound like the surgery, or a house call. It sounded like a bar. Chatter and music in the background.
My heart is rattling in my chest as my mind tries to stay calm. She’s meeting someone. Who? Guilt hits hard at the recognition that this is how I’ve made her feel countless times. Perhaps she’s just asserting herself. Maybe she’s having an affair.
I shake my head. No. Definitely not. There would have been undercurrents with her parent’s. Jess would know. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that whoever she’s meeting, it’s innocent. Maybe a drink after work with another of the practice partners. She probably doesn’t even want to be there. That’s why her tone of voice was odd.
A nagging doubt gnaws at the back of my mind, but I plaster on a smile and watch TV. Smiling and joking with Amy when she leaves, I’m pleased to have the opportunity to gauge Jess’s opinion.
“How was Amy?”
She frowns at me quizzically. “Fine. Where’s Mum?”
Doing my best to sound non-plussed, I’m keen not to sway her. “She phoned to say she’d be late. Did she say she was meeting anyone? It sounded like she was in a pub.”
Her pout joins her frown. “Er, like you’ve never gone to a pub after work. At least she phoned!”
She’s right. Imogen works hard. Why shouldn’t she let her hair down?
Jess trots over and hugs me. “I’m going in the shower, then I’m going to hit the hay,” she mimes unconsciousness with her tongue out, adding a few comical snores. I can’t help laughing as she skips up the stairs.
I am calmer. As the movie I’d selected finishes, the Range Rover lights flood the drive for a moment before it plunges into darkness again. It’s not even late.
Perched on the edge of the couch, I’m ready to pounce and get her a drink or food if she hasn’t had a chance to grab something; anything to keep in her good books.
The front door clicks shut, but I don’t hear her footsteps along the hallway straight away. Why is she waiting? The pounding of my heart restarts. Something is wrong.
The clip-clop of her heels on the wooden hallway floor eventually echo towards me in the lounge. She doesn’t walk in, but instead merely pauses at the door. Glancing at me, she regards me, expressionless.
My heart drops with a splash into the depths of my stomach.
“I’m going in the shower.”
I jump from my seat, and she stiffens. “What?”
I pause at her coldness. “Jess is in the shower already,” I offer pathetically.
“Well, I’ll use our shower in our en-suite then, won’t I,” she says with a frown and a shake of her head.
“What’s wrong?” I call as her foot rests on the first step. She pauses, but without looking at me, she continues up the stairs.
My heart is drowning in the pit of my stomach and I feel sick. Mind rattling in my head, I decide my appearance with a cup of cocoa may well serve as the gesture of caring that might appease whatever is wrong with my wife.
I make three strong, sweet cups, and carry them upstairs. With a knock on Jess’s door, she seems thrilled to receive her bedtime drink.
“Mum back?” she asks.
“Mm Hmm. In the shower,” I answer with an emotionless smile as I exit her room.
My hands are shaking with nerves, and hot chocolate spills onto my wrist. “Damn!” I curse as I stumble to our bedroom, struggling not to drop the cups as the burning worsens.
Imogen is sitting on the bed in a bath robe, and one of those towel-turbans women are born knowing how to do.
“I’ve made us cocoa,” I blurt, slopping both onto the bedside table and rushing to the bathroom to soothe my wrist with cold water.
When I step back into the bedroom, she’s sipping her cocoa, not smiling but thoughtful.
“Are you okay, my love?”
She recoils before nodding.
I sit beside her and pick up my own drink. “Sure?” She nods again.
“Eliot?”
“Yeah?”
“El, shall we have ‘date night,’ tomorrow? We never got round to it before.”
It’s not what I’m expecting, and I stumble on my words. “Er, Yes. Of course. What do you have in mind?”
She smiles, hugging her cocoa to her chest.
“Oh, I don’t know. A nice restaurant. Some ‘us’ time. Yeah?”
“I’ll b
ook somewhere,” I say. If this is a guilty conscience here, then as much as the thought grates in my skull, I have no come-back. But date night could be good; the start of our new beginning. “I can’t wait,” I add, leaning in for a kiss. When she pulls away, I’m shocked.
“Tomorrow,” she says, and plonks her empty cup down, and lies on top of the duvet, back facing me. A tentative stroke of her arm provokes similar chilliness and I give up.
“Tomorrow it is,” I mumble and face the other way.
Chapter Twenty-one
I don’t understand. Where has she been tonight that has made her act so oddly? My head pulses with the strain of reason. It must be a guilty conscience. Date night? She’s never wanted to do anything like that before. Cheesy, she says. What you do when romance isn’t there naturally. Has it really come to that?
Maybe making a regular effort will be good for us. But the suggestion on the back of tonight doesn’t sit right. Something’s not right.
I try to picture the pub she might have been in, like I’ll have a mystical power and be able to see her and who she’s with.
I can almost hear the bom, bom of the music under the hubbub of noisy pub chatter. There can’t be many in the area that boast such a busy Thursday.
I’m drifting into it now: that space between awake and asleep. My vision pans the crowd and I spot someone sitting at the bar. As she turns toward me, for a split second, it’s not Imogen... it’s Uma!
Her power to enter my thoughts even at their most preoccupied jolts me into heavy breathing consciousness. Imogen is motionless beside me. I think I detect gentle snoring, but she might be faking.
Shaking with emotion—fear, rage, confusion—I’m certain of one thing: if I sleep, I’ll dream. And if I dream, it will be that dream. My nightmare.
I can’t face it, but I’m exhausted. The alarm clock announces it’s a little after midnight in glowing red digits. I’d be tempted to read, or play some mind-numbing app on my phone, but I don’t want to risk waking Imogen; or forcing her from her pretence.
The ceiling gets my full attention as I try to force all thoughts from my mind. I shake my head to be free from my imaginings of the bar scene, but they seep in, taking me unawares every time.
I’m panning over the room again. The pub combines with my discovery of Uma wrapped around Bruce. The image zooms into a few inches from their faces, locked at the mouth, moving as one slobbering organism as they devour one another.
His hand strokes her face and moves to slide the strap of her top over her tanned arm in the first step to her becoming naked. I want to step in, claim her for myself; shove Karl ‘Bruce’ King back Down-Under.
It’s all in my mind, I know, I can change the image. I don’t have to torture myself like this. But the scene does change, it’s no longer Uma Bruce is consuming, but instead, it’s my beautiful wife.
Seeing them together, even in my mind, maims me. I can’t stop imagining them as he slides the strap further down, undressing her right there at the bar; his head nuzzling her breasts as she throws her head back in sheer delight.
I can’t help but believe a version of that is exactly what happened tonight. That’s why she showered as soon as she came home: to wash him from her; and out of her!
I feel sick. The only good thing is sleep is impossible now. Laying, staring, snippets of the scene pop into my head like raining blows, inescapably gaining their K.O.
And I’m right back there, into the nightmare my unconsciousness is so set on dragging me every chance it gets.
The stupid big phone is ringing in my class again. It’s with resoluteness I drag the chair screeching across the vinyl floor to reach it.
I answer it without problem this time; I’ve either grown, or it’s lower down. As the ethereal fingers protrude from the earpiece, I watch with a knowing calm.
Stepping back, fear is only a breath away, but for now it’s under control. I know what’s coming and am able to maintain a calm detachment.
The fingers pull the rest of the vision out. Not a rotting corpse, just the usual Angel of Death, ragged black cloak billowing in a breeze which I cannot feel.
Holding out bony fingers, she’s inviting me to join her. If I touch her; if I grasp the skeletal hand, will I die?
Before I can choose, she lunges for me and our arms are locked, circus-grip, and we’re soaring into the sky.
Below, I see a car. We speed towards it, almost hitting the windshield. The driver of the car, beyond the three-pointed-star on the bonnet, is me.
Starting at the sight, I look terrible; ashen, tear-streaked. Suddenly, I am catapulted into a tumultuous cacophony of twisting metal and squealing brakes.
The horrific smell of spilled fuel and burning rubber consumes the space like the flick of the switch on a blender.
I am standing in the silence that follows, blood rain falling from the sky, dripping from leaves of trees onto the tarmac and into my eyes. I can’t see, but I can just make out Imogen’s Mini; or what’s left of it.
I rush to pull her to safety, but my legs don’t work; running on the spot, I make no progress at all.
I see her, yards from the car, motionless on the ground. And she’s not alone. Another figure, a good distance away lies in a contorted position only possible in death.
As blood drips like scarlet tears, I watch in paralysed horror as the flash-flood rises once more, floating the Mini and my girls away in its wake.
When I open my eyes, tears are running down my face, a silent sob trapped in my throat. I turn to Imogen, but she’s not there. All I see is the clock digits winking at me in crimson contempt as it tells me I have over-slept: it’s ten past nine. Imogen must have taken Jess. They must be cross with me again.
I flirt with the idea of calling in sick, but I need the distraction of work, so I phone and say “Something’s cropped up. I’ll be in late,” to which Alix offers sympathies and doesn’t question me further.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I rest my head in my palms. Rubbing my face, I force my brain into action. What are these nightmares about?
My recent notion that I’m being prepared for a new role as a life-saving super hero offers scant comfort with the horror of it still in my mind. And if that isn’t what’s going on. If it’s just a horrific metaphor for my marriage, what can I do? Avoiding Uma? I’ve done that. Fixing the car? I’ve done that too (well I will have on Monday, and we’ve taken interim precautions.) But if my weirdness has driven my wife into the arms of another man, what can I do about that?
Her suggestion of date night tells me we need more romance. And I agree. I suppose. Certainly, if that’s what it’s going to take to get happy; and get rid of this nightmare, I’ll do whatever she wants.
I pull at my face with all my fingers, stretching my cheeks and opening my blood-shot eyes to their lower lids. “I can’t take it anymore! This nightmare has to stop!” I shake my fist at the room as if it’s responsible for my terror.
But what if Uma, and Imogen are coincidences: just notions I’ve come up with to try to make sense of why I’m having these torturous visions over and over and over again? What if it is a precognition of the future? A future I’m powerless to stop?
For the first time, I consider professional help. Maybe Imogen can use her position to fast-track me in to see a counsellor, or psychologist or whoever. I can’t cope with much more. I can’t.
I spend too long in the shower. The scolding water fails to wash away my distress. When I’m certain I won’t feel better, I give up and turn off the flow of water.
I dab at myself with a towel in a daze. Without engaging my mind, soon I’m dressed and sitting behind the wheel of my Mercedes. “Come on Eliot. Let’s get through another day.”
As if he’s prodding home the distress of my nightmare, Bruce is heading my class when I arrive after ten.
“Ah. Here he is. Everything all right, mate?”
“Sure thing, cobber,” I don’t say. I smile weakly and give a little coug
h, insinuating I might be coming down with something. “Sorry class. It’s been one of those mornings.” I roll my eyes. Those who bother to look up, don’t care.
I walk with Bruce to the door and step into the corridor expecting him to update me on the lesson he’s taken. He leans in and pats me on the arm.
“Uma... Er, Mrs Taylor was looking for you, sport.” He gives a wink and slaps my arm harder.
“I thought, after encountering the pair of you together, it would be you she’d be looking for.”
“No, mate. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick there. But I really think you should talk to her... Before it’s too late.” My face contorts.
“Too late? What do you mean?”
“She’ll have to tell you. It’s kinda personal.”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “If you mean she’s leaving Mr Taylor, I already know, and I’m not interested.” He rubs his granite chin for a moment.
“It’s not that, mate. Go and see her, yeah?” I nod just to shut him up. As he saunters, whistling to himself, down the corridor, I re-join my class whose time I have surely wasted.
In an effort to do some teaching, I open the lesson up for questions. I expect them to be about Hitler’s rise to power, as that’s what they’re learning, but I shouldn’t have been surprised when three questions in, some delightful child comes up with their off-curriculum enquiry.
“Do you and Mrs Taylor love each other, sir?”
After cringing denials and rebukes for impertinence, I dismiss the class for break. I sit at my desk, dazed from the airtime Uma has enjoyed in my life this morning.
Should I see her, as Bruce suggested? I’m torn. Curiosity is winning when my door opens and there she is, specs lowered as she observes me before speaking. “Eliot. Not here, but I want to talk to you. After school?”
My mind splutters into action. I don’t want to. I can’t trust myself. I know what’s on the line, but seeing her a few feet from me, I want to hold her.
Blurred Lines: A box-set of reality bending supernatural fiction (Paranormal Tales from Wales Book 9) Page 75