by Lucy Dawson
It’s horrific, like all of my worst nightmares where I’m trying to run away from something that I know is going to hurt me. I’m trying to sprint, but inexplicably it feels like I’m wading through thick gel that is clinging to my legs.
The head twists back slowly and then the figure begins to sink down, crouching low, like an animal poised to spring. It just waits there for a moment, and then noiselessly, the letter box begins to hinge open and I see fingertips creep in round the edges. Still I find myself unable to make a sound. Then, as the fingers hold it open, I see eyes appear. Wide, mad, staring eyes; violent red rims. They roam quickly around, taking everything in—and then they alight on me. They stare at me for a moment and I stare back. Then, thank God, from somewhere I find some sound and just shriek, “Pete!”
As the sound of my voice cuts through the silence, the fingers shoot back and the letter box clatters shut. The figure draws away, and when Pete dashes into the hall to find me shaking and incoherent, pointing at the door, there is nothing for him to see.
Once he manages to get it out of me, he flings the door open and dashes out into the street, but there is nothing, and no one there. Just a deathly silence punctuated by the distant, mournful wail of a cat as a cold, damp rush of night air surges past me into the house.
Once he has come back in, hugged me, and assured me that it was probably just kids messing around, although he doesn’t sound convinced himself, I calm down a little. He says he’ll make me a cup of tea, but I send him back into the sitting room, assuring him that I’ll be okay, I can do it. He kisses the top of my head—and after a worried look at me, he wanders back into the living room.
In the downstairs loo I take some deep breaths. After all, what do I have to be frightened of? I’ve done everything that he thinks is Liz. It probably was kids. Feeling a little better, I creep nervously into the kitchen. It’s started to rain outside and I glance at the window as I pick up the kettle and wander over to the sink to fill it up.
Big fat raindrops slide down the glass. I can’t see out into the dark garden, I can just see my reflection staring back at me. It’s foul out there, so cold and miserable. Maybe a holiday would do me and Pete good. Help us put everything behind us? Somewhere hot. I need to feel some sun on my face. I turn to sit the full kettle on its base and grab a cup to wash up. As I rinse it off, I glance back up, out of the window again, and then let out a full scream as I jump and the cup slips out of my hands and shatters on the lino, because there, staring straight at me, on the other side of the glass, her hair plastered to her head and makeup starting to run down her face, is Liz.
The scream makes Gloria start barking in the living room and she comes dashing through, claws scrabbling on the floor. There are broken chips of china everywhere and I am suddenly aware of not wanting her to shred her paws. Liz just continues to stare at me, unmoved by Gloria barking and growling. Pete comes bursting into the room, saying, “What’s happened? What’s…fucking hell!”
He sees Liz and stops dead in his tracks, staring at her. She’s not looking at me now—she’s just gazing at him, and then she comes to life. She starts to bang on the window, bag in one hand, shouting. It’s muffled, through-glass shouting. She presses up against the window and I can make out most of what she’s saying:
“…can’t be like this, Peter! Please don’t do this! Look! Come and…see what I’ve got!” She points at the bag. “It’s hers! Her!” and she points at me and I look at it and realize it is my bag—the one I left in her wardrobe. I’d planned to call the police and use the bag being there as evidence that it was her that had done the breakin. OH SHIT—there was something I forgot about.
“…got to believe me!” she’s shouting, scraping nails desperately down the glass. “It’s her!” She points at me. “Got to be her!”
Pete is moving to the door and unlocking it.
“Don’t, Pete!” I shout, alarmed. “She might have a knife or something!” I think at this point I’m so caught up in everything I actually believe she might.
But Pete ignores me and flings the door open. She’s through it in a second, flooding the kitchen, my kitchen, and imploring him, “Peter, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I’m doing this, but I don’t know what else to do! You’ve got to believe me! I haven’t done anything! I love you! You know I do!”
“Shut up!” he says harshly and grabs her tightly by the wrist. She yelps and he starts to drag her through the kitchen and out into the hall. She’s sobbing now, pleading, “Please don’t do this!…Ow! Peter—let go, you’re hurting me!” I follow them, horrified. I never meant for this to happen. Did I?
He’s dragging her so roughly and quickly, she stumbles over my shoes in the hall and falls to her knees. He holds her arm up like she’s a child that has fallen over on purpose and gone limp, and says, “Get up, Liz, get up!”
It’s hard to see what are tears and what is rain on her face. She is completely soaked through, with mascara streaks coursing down her cheeks. “Please don’t, Peter,” she bleats desolately. “What do I have to do to make you believe me?”
Pete flings open the front door and tries to force her through it.
“No!” she shrieks. “This isn’t fair! You said you loved me! You said it! It’s not me doing this, Peter—I promise you!”
“Liz, you need help!” he shouts at her. “Please—just get out. Leave us alone!”
“You promised me!” she continues, trying frantically to cling to the door frame. “I want you, Peter, I can’t be without you!”
He wraps his arms around her tiny waist and lifts her up, pulling her away violently. Her fingers grab at the frame but slip off and she collapses on to him, flinging her arms round his neck and sobbing, “I love you, and I swear it isn’t me!”
He sets her down and tries to pull her arms from him. “No! Please, no!” she shouts. Curtains are starting to twitch now next door and across the road.
He pushes her away from him and she stumbles slightly, swaying like she’s drunk. Then she sinks to the ground and begins to cry as though her heart will break. “You said you loved me!” is all she says. “You said it would be us.” She wraps her arms around herself as if she’s literally trying to hold herself together.
I glance at Pete, just in time to see a look of utter pain pass over his face as he hears her words. He looks for a moment like he is about to speak, but then chooses not to. I’m rushed in my mind back to our bedroom, after we made love and I asked him if there was anything he wanted to tell me, and he hesitated.
“We were fine until all this started happening!” she bleats inconsolably, looking up at him. “I never asked you to leave her! I said I’d wait! Why would I do this? You’d still be with me if this wasn’t happening. You know you would! Don’t you love me at all?” she pleads.
“No, I don’t love you!” He laughs incredulously and she cries out, as if he’s hit her or something. His voice is a little unsteady for a second, as if he is choking something back. “How could I love someone who could do all this?” he says in disbelief. “You’re mad!”
He takes a breath, tries to calm himself, lifts his head and eyeballs her.
“I don’t love you. And I never did,” he finishes simply. “Go home, Liz.”
She slumps, defeated, and begins to cry racking, heaving sobs like a wounded animal.
He winces at the sound but nonetheless he turns to me. “Come on. We’re going inside. Just leave her,” he says.
But now I’m fixed to the spot, looking at her—this woman that I have hated. She’s not the one I have obsessed about, the one in the cute hat who flicks her hair confidently and struts down the street. Not the one who looks out into the audience and flutters stuck-on eyelashes, not the one who smiles kittenishly out of the pages of the program, and certainly not the one I imagined wrapped around my boyfriend in bed.
She looks broken, she looks wrecked. Just like I have done this week.
Pete draws me gently back toward the house and she l
ooks at me for the first time. “What has she got that I haven’t?” she whimpers to Pete, gesturing at me. “I’ll do anything, anything!” The humiliating desperation in her voice cuts through me like a knife. “I found her bag—she put it there. Oh God!” she sobs, sinking her head into her hands.
Then a car screeches up, a door slams and there is a clatter of heels. My heart stops as I see Debs come running up the drive. “Shit, Liz! I told you not to do this! I told you!” She dashes up to Liz and tries to pull her to her feet. “Are you happy now, you bastard?” she spits at Pete. “Look what you’ve done to her! Your boyfriend is a lying shit!” She spins round to face me. “Whatever he’s said to you, he’s lying! You…” The words die on her lips as she recognizes me.
“Lotts?” she says, confused. “What are you doing here?”
She pauses, then it dawns on her. She is not as stupid as I thought.
“Oh my God! Liz, she’s the girl that came to the flat. The one that was going to take the room!”
Liz is peering at me curiously, as if she’s only just noticed I’m there.
“That’s how your stuff got here. You were right! It wasn’t you!” Debs says triumphantly.
There is a pause, and then Liz says slowly, “She came to our flat?”
“Yes she did,” says Debs quickly. “She said she was Marc’s mate. She’s been in your room and everything!”
I say nothing, but my heart starts to pound. Oh no, oh no, oh no…
Then Liz gets it. “Oh my God. How could you?” She pushes her hair back and scrabbles to her feet, and I see a flash of hope spark in her. She turns to Pete. “She lied to you, Peter. She lied. Not me! See, this is her bag!” She holds it up eagerly. “She left it in the back of my wardrobe. She planted it there on purpose! How else would I have it? See, that proves it!”
Still I say nothing, I just stand there.
But Pete shakes his head. “Listen to yourself! You’re both as mental as each other! Of course you’ve got her bag! You nicked it when you trashed our house! I know you know how much it’s worth—what were you going to do? Flog it on eBay or something?” He looks at them both and shakes his head. “How many times do I have to say it? LEAVE US ALONE!” he shouts. “She’s never been near your flat! Have you?” He doesn’t look at me, just waits for me to back him up. Liz stares right at me. She is silently begging me to tell the truth while at the same time hating me every bit as much as I hated her.
Still Pete waits, and when I say nothing, he swings round and looks at me. “You haven’t been there…have you?”
He doesn’t sound as sure as a second ago.
I take a deep breath. Everyone waits for me to speak. I look at Debs, her arms wrapped protectively round her friend, obvious loathing on her face; then I turn to Liz. She knows the truth, knows what I’ve done, and meets my eye unfalteringly; this is her last chance for everything to be all right after all.
I stare stonily back at her. “No, I haven’t,” I say firmly “And I’ve never seen this woman before in my life.” I nod toward Debs. “Come on, Pete. Let’s go in.” I take his arm. Liz reaches a hand out to him and insists desperately, “She’s lying, she’s lying! You know I love you, you know it!”
I tighten my grip and start to draw him back toward our house. Her fingers try to grasp his shirtsleeve, but I’m too quick for her, pulling him back sharply so she grabs only air. He’s just watching her bleakly. I push him past me into the house, then, wedging myself between him and Liz, I pause and turn back to her and Debs.
“If I see either of you anywhere near my house or my fiancé…” I pause to let that sink in; Liz’s eyes widen in shock and she slumps slightly. Debs has to grip a little harder to hold her up. “I’ll call the police. Do I make myself clear?” I turn and start to go in through the door.
“Peter, please…I love you!” Liz shouts behind me. I see Pete’s hand grip the door frame a little harder at the pain in her voice, and desperately I push him back into the hall, so I can get in and shut the door, drown her out.
“Go in the sitting room,” I order him. “I’ll finish this.”
Looking drained, he just nods and disappears into the gloom of the house. I pull the door to and stride back out on to the drive.
Debs is trying to persuade Liz to get into her car. “Come on, baby, he’s not worth it,” she’s saying in pleading and soothing tones. “You’ve got to move on, he’s made his choice. I know it hurts, I know, but he’s made it.”
They are caught off guard to see me again, and freeze. Lowering my voice so Pete doesn’t hear, I say in a strangulated tone, “If I do call the police, they will find what they’re looking for in your flat. Proper proof that you did that burglary, understand? You think that bag is all I left there? Well, it’s not. And you won’t find it if you go looking. It’s hidden, just waiting for if I need it.”
I’m bluffing, of course; all I did was dump those two brooches right at the back of her wardrobe, but she doesn’t know that. “You don’t call him, you don’t phone him. He is nothing to you any more.”
Debs looks contemptuously at me. “She gets it,” she says.
“No—I do,” I say, fighting to keep myself steady.
Then I turn my back on them and start to walk up the drive.
“You bitch!” Liz shouts to my retreating back. “You’ve ruined my life and his. He should be with me. I really love him and he really loves me. You can’t change that, no matter what you do. He’ll never be yours. You’ll never be right for each other.”
I just carry on walking, my head held high, trying not to hear her.
Slamming the front door behind me, I find Pete just standing there, waiting. We listen until we hear the car pull away. Pete says nothing for a moment, then he speaks slowly and carefully. “I’m so sorry. She’s mad. Completely mad.”
I look at him sideways for a second, leaning against the wall. “Is it over, Pete?” I say tiredly, my eyes closing.
There is a pause, and then he says, “Yes. I hope so.”
“I don’t want ‘hope so,’” I say. “That’s not good enough for me. Is it over?” I open my eyes again and look directly at him, my stare unwavering.
“Yes. It is,” he says finally, dropping his gaze first.
I nod silently, and close my eyes. Thank God for that. It’s over. I won—I got him. I held on to our lives. It can all be okay again. It’ll take some work, but it’ll be okay. I can make this work, I know I can. I love him. He loves me. We can have it all.
Then Pete clears his throat nervously and says, “And great thinking about saying ‘fiancé’…” and he laughs unconvincingly.
I open my eyes and look at him. “What?”
“Well, we haven’t…I mean, I didn’t…you know. Not exactly.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I say what I feel. For once.
“Well, we love each other,” I say simply. “We’ve been together a long time. Isn’t that what people in love do? Get married, have children, grow old together. Be happy? Formalize it, you said. You do love me, don’t you?”
But as I’m saying the words, all I can see in my mind is Liz, sitting brokenly on our drive, weeping desperately for him. I think of Patrick saying, “She’s fantastic,” and Clare saying simply, “I love him.” I think of Amanda saying, “We’re going to be a family!” And of Katie saying, “You’re on your own.” And finally I think about Lottie looking straight at me: “It’s good to know that he’s worth all of this.”
So I close my eyes really, really hard and force it all out of my head. All of it…the whole horrible jumbled-up swirling mess. When I open them again, Pete is still standing there and I realize he hasn’t answered my question.
“I love you,” I say softly, and I wait for him to say it back and set the seal.
“I know you do,” he says. Then he walks past me into the living room, sits down heavily in his chair and turns the TV up, as if nothing has happened. Nothing at all.
ACKNOWLEDGM
ENTS
With thanks to Sarah Ballard, Joanne Dickinson,
Melissa Chinchillo, Lucia Macro,
and all at Avon Books/HarperCollins,
my family, friends and James for their support.
About the Author
LUCY DAWSON has been a journalist and magazine editor, and continues to work as a Pilates instructor, alongside writing. She is thirty-two and lives in Kent.
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By Lucy Dawson
HIS OTHER LOVER
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HIS OTHER LOVER. Copyright © 2009 by Lucy Dawson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition July 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-189851-8
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