She's Mine

by Claire S. Lewis

  ‘You could have laid off the drink for one night, in the circumstances,’ she said crossly.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said James. ‘I thought you’d be happy to have seen your friends.’ He leaned his head back and slurred his words. ‘We had a very nice evening with your friends; I was perfectly charming to them.’

  Gabrielle wanted to scream. She had nothing to say to him. She was too enraged to argue. Lara’s betrayal came as no surprise but she was incensed by James’ stupidity. He didn’t even have the mental agility to acknowledge his own infidelity.

  She drove in silence, preoccupied with her murderous thoughts.

  He couldn’t even comprehend that they were two distinct individuals. In his eyes, they were just two identical incarnations of a woman he loved. She didn’t exist as a separate person and if she didn’t exist then he couldn’t be unfaithful. What a jerk! She swung into the church car park and slammed on the brakes.

  Well damn it, I’m going to show him that I exist. I’m going to make him appreciate me as a unique human being. He’s got to learn. If I have to put a knife to his throat to make him understand that this flesh and blood and this beating heart belongs only to me, I’ll do it. Whatever it takes.

  During the service she regained her composure, smiled mechanically at members of the congregation who recognised her as the vicar’s daughter, and murmured the words of the creed that she knew by rote. But her mind was elsewhere. She was incapable of joining in with the carols and while all round her sang enthusiastically she stood staring intently at the statue of the Madonna and Child to the right of the altar.

  It was just after midnight as the congregation were singing ‘For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given’ that Gabrielle had her very own epiphany.

  She felt as if she were sinking into a cool, dark river, the current swirling high above her head. It was refreshing, liberating, exhilarating. She didn’t love James. She didn’t need James any more.

  She glanced across at him sitting a little further along the pew. He had grown scuffed, grey, soft round the edges. The lustre was gone. She was tired of him and it was time to get rid of him. The words: Jim, je vais te tuer! Jules, regard-nous bien! resonated in her head, like a mantra, drowning out the carol.

  ‘He’s served his purpose. I don’t need him any more,’ she said to herself.

  *

  ‘Mine’ and ‘More’ – Gabrielle’s mother had told her that until they were three years old, those were the only two ‘intelligible’ words she could make out in her little girls’ babbling baby talk. They had invented their own private language and communicated in their own exclusive universe. But when it came to the adults, the only words they bothered with were ‘mine’ and ‘more’. Gabrielle’s mother feared they had learning difficulties and started consulting speech therapists and child psychologists. But then she came to realise, that in fact those two functional words were all they needed as toddlers to satisfy their needs and appeal to adults for assistance in regulating the endless power struggle that formed the basis of their relationship.

  ‘You competed for everything, fought over everything,’ said her mother. First the demands – more food, more attention, more love – and then the staking out of claims and the fight over the spoils: it’s mine, hands off, give it to me, it’s mine. It was the selfish gene – survival of the fittest, competing to the death with an identical copy of itself. ‘I read something like that in those psychology books when expecting you girls,’ she told Gabrielle.

  Gabrielle’s mindset had changed very little since those nursery battles over gifts and treats. The attachment she felt for all her prized possessions was bound up with the fact that they belonged to her and not to Lara – mine, mine, mine.

  The satisfaction of owning any special thing was intimately connected with the pleasure of depriving Lara from the satisfaction of such ownership. It didn’t matter whether ‘the thing’ was an object or a person. That’s why, when Lara started going out with James, Gabrielle was determined to win him back – come hell or high water! And it followed that when Gabrielle tired of a toy, she never thought of giving it to her twin. The toy would be destroyed and thrown in the trash: denying her sister the pleasure gave her infinitely more happiness than owning the toy in the first place.

  But James had violated this natural order of things. He thought he could have them both, thought he could make her share. What a reckless fool! And now she’d finally had enough of him. The romantic idealism of his younger days had ebbed away. He had grown too familiar and too worn. Threadbare – like her old teddy that she had ended up decapitating with her mother’s needlework scissors and burning in the log fire.

  She didn’t love him. The love was gone. She was tired of his cheating and his lies. She didn’t need this soft plaything any more. She wanted his baby, her baby. But now that the baby was on the way, he was of no further use to her. And she would make damn sure he didn’t get the chance to share the baby with Lara. Come hell or high water, Lara was not to share in the joy of Gabrielle’s baby. No way!

  *

  Gabrielle was driving the Jaguar. After three whiskies and five beers at the pub, followed by two glasses of mulled wine to accompany his mince pie after midnight mass, James was not only well over the limit but also well out of it, by the time they left the church hall.

  ‘Happy Christmas. We’ll see you back at the house,’ called out Gabrielle as she steered James towards the car. Her father waved cheerily as he made his way back to the main building to thank the Dean and make sure all the candles had been extinguished and the doors locked.

  James plonked himself down into the passenger seat and fumbled for the seatbelt.

  ‘Here let me do it,’ said Gabrielle. ‘You’re pathetic! Can’t hold your drink. Worse than a teenage girl!’

  The metal clasp of the seatbelt was bent from having been slammed in the car door but she managed to lean onto it and force it in to place. Then she threw her Florentine handbag into James’ lap.

  ‘Hold this’

  He tried to kiss her cheek.

  ‘Thanks for driving, darling. Happy Christmas.’

  Gabrielle shoved him away.

  ‘Your breath stinks,’ she said.

  She put the car into gear and released the handbrake, wincing as the pain shot through the lacerated palms of her hands.

  James lay back against the seat and shut his eyes.

  But if he thought she’d let him have a quiet snooze on the drive home, he could think again. As soon as she got onto the open road, Gabrielle started on him.

  ‘I saw your messages. I answered her bloody phone call,’ said Gabrielle. ‘So there’s no point trying to deny it.’

  James kept his eyes closed. From the corner of her eye, she saw a muscle twitching near his jawline.

  ‘I know you’ve been cheating with Lara.’ The car veered across the road as she craned her neck to look at him.

  He opened his eyes but they were dull with alcohol.

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong…’ began James.

  ‘I found the photograph in your wallet,’ said Gabrielle. ‘So now I know why you were so keen on attending that conference in Milan.’

  James turned away to look out of the window into the dark.

  ‘I’m so done with you, James. You’ve grown tired… boring… shabby and unreliable. I don’t need you any more. I don’t want you any more.’

  ‘Gabrielle, I can explain… I can’t think now. Let’s talk in the morning.’

  His speech was stumbling and incoherent.

  She didn’t raise her voice but spoke with a steely calm.

  ‘I’ve heard enough of your lies. I’m indifferent to you now. You’ve become a disposable item.’

  She put her foot down on the accelerator until, even in his drunken stupor, James gripped on to the door handle fearing for his life. It was his turn to urge caution. Seventy miles per hour, on icy, winding country roads.

  ‘Slow down, Gabrielle
. It’s too dangerous… shouldn’t be driving with those bandages.’

  ‘If you had a shred of self-control I wouldn’t be driving,’ she snapped back at him. Then she spoke through gritted teeth, in a hard tone, that he had never heard before. ‘I want you out of my life, and out of Lara’s life forever. If that whore thinks she’s getting my leftovers, she can think again.’

  Far ahead on the road, beyond the red mist inside her head, she could see red lights flashing. They were coming up to a level crossing. A train was approaching. On impulse, she decided to race it. The speedometer needle climbed to eighty, then ninety – the barriers were coming down.

  ‘Fucking slow down, Gabrielle,’ shouted James. ‘Stop.’

  ‘Too late.’ said Gabrielle, and she pushed her foot right down to the floor.

  The little sports car accelerated wildly and flew over the tracks just as the barriers closed over the boot, scraping the metalwork with a sickening screech as the car sped on and the train’s whistle screamed down the track.

  ‘Christ, Gabrielle, you’re scaring the shit out of me.’

  She eased off the accelerator and seemed to relax at the wheel.

  ‘Well, that sobered you up,’ she laughed, as he sat up straight and alert.

  ‘There’s something you need to know,’ said James making an effort to speak slowly and clearly, enunciating every word painfully. ‘It’s not your baby.’

  She made him say it again, just to make sure she’d heard him correctly. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘It’s not your baby.’ The words gushed out in a current of despair. ‘The baby is hers. Hers and mine – a natural surrogacy. She’s the biological mother. But she’s going to give you the baby anyway. She’s keeping her word. You’ve got the same DNA. It won’t make any difference. She’ll give us the baby… to save our marriage.’

  Gabrielle didn’t flinch. They drove in silence for a mile or so. Then she switched on the radio.

  ‘You do talk a lot of tosh when you’re drunk,’ said Gabrielle. She glanced briefly at James who, having unburdened himself, had relapsed into an alcoholic daze. He was leaning back against the seat with his mouth hanging slightly open. ‘You’re disgusting,’ she said.

  The local radio station was playing the usual inane Christmas pop songs that were recycled every year.

  ‘So here it is merry Christmas…everybody’s having fun.’ She sang along tunefully, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. James stirred, reached out and squeezed her knee.

  About a mile further on, she turned off the road into a layby. Now James was slumped in the seat, with his head thrown back, snoring. She cut the engine. She took her handbag off his lap and gently wrapped the long leather strap round his neck.

  Then she pulled with all her strength.

  ‘Because she’s mine,’ she said, very quietly.

  *

  She was driving carefully now along back roads taking the bends slowly and observing the speed limits as they came into the outskirts of the town.

  A police car passed in the opposite direction.

  ‘They’re on the lookout for drunk drivers this evening,’ she said out loud. ‘Good thing I’m driving.’

  James was slumped sideways in the seat, his head tilted forward, held up by the seatbelt.

  As they approached Clandon Bridge, she slowed for the temporary lights.

  ‘Road works. Must still be repairing the flood damage from last month.’

  There were temporary barriers on one side of the bridge where the brick wall had been washed away by the force of the floodwaters and traffic was reduced to a single lane. The bridge was deserted. She stopped at the lights. The windows were misted up. She opened her window.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said.

  The lights changed to green. She moved away smoothly.

  ‘Almost home,’ she said quietly. She turned to James whose head was knocking against the window as they went over the ruts, ‘Regarde moi, regarde moi,’ she insisted.

  As the car got to the middle of the bridge, she turned again and gave James her sweetest smile. Then she swung the wheel sharply onto full lock and rammed her foot down on the accelerator. The car lurched on a right angle. The temporary barriers crumpled on impact as the solid little Jaguar flew through the twisted metal and plunged gracefully into the inky water.

  *

  Gabrielle is a strong swimmer and she is sober. She braces as they fly through the air. When the car hits the water she is ready to unclip her seatbelt and wriggle out though the open window like a mermaid into the deep. Her head is throbbing where she hit the steering wheel. The river is at full flood and the current drags her away from the bridge further downstream towards the weir. Those many hours of training for her local club, competing with teenagers in other clubs, personal best pitched against personal best, every tenth of a second a matter of personal pride, survival of the fittest, and all the while, Lara standing on the sidelines clapping and cheering her on.

  Now it pays off. Every tenth of a second counts for real this time, a matter of life and death. With every muscle and sinew, she fights the current. Stroke-by-stroke, she pulls back until she is able to haul herself up onto a concrete ledge at the base of a pillar beneath the bridge.

  She doesn’t know how long she lies there, coughing up river water, catching her breath, stunned, looking down at the boot of the Jaguar floating nose down in the water – it could be ten seconds, it could be ten minutes.

  Eventually she hears a car pulling up on the bridge, a door slams, footsteps and voices, someone calling out. She comes to her senses. Now it’s time for her best performance, her all-time personal best. She scrabbles around the base of the pillar for something hard or sharp. In amongst the debris she finds a broken brick. Then she stands up on the ledge and strips off her dress. She hears a man’s voice shouting.

  ‘Stop! Wait.’

  She doesn’t hesitate. She stretches up her arms, bends her knees and with broken brick in hand, dives gracefully into the water, down to the sunken car in a desperate underwater struggle to smash the window.

  Battling the current, she hangs onto the door handle. His face is pressed against the glass. His eyes are open. His head is lolling from side-to-side in the water. She smashes the brick against the glass. She’s good at this. The glass cracks, she strikes again and again, and pulls at the jagged edges, her flesh protected by the sodden bandages, until at last the opening is clear. She grabs the seatbelt, yanks at the broken catch. Good. It’s well and truly jammed. He’s trapped.

  Clinging to the window opening, she pulls the seatbelt from his chest and lifts it over his arms and shoulders until it tightens and cuts into the flesh round his neck.

  Feeling as if her lungs will burst, she comes up for air at the surface. Sirens fill the air, sirens and pulsing blue waves. She’s flailing in the water. Someone flings a life buoy out from the bank. Just out of reach. Her head slides under, she gulps the rancid river water.

  ‘Keep going. You can do it. You’re almost there. Reach for it.’

  That voice in her head. It’s Lara, cheering her on, laughing, clapping, watching from the side of the pool…

  A police officer grabs her arm and hauls her out of the water onto the bank. Another throws a metallic survival blanket round her shoulders and leads her away to the ambulance. She’s exhausted and shaking. Her head bleeds from a gash above her eye. Blood streams down her forehead, into her eyelashes, clouding her vision with red. The bandages have come loose and her hands are raw.

  As she collapses onto the couch in the ambulance, Lara’s face floats above her. She’s wearing a red silk evening gown – the very same one that Gabrielle borrowed that night she first met James.

  ‘I asked for champagne. More champagne’ says Gabrielle, as the apparition hands her a mug of tea. She toasts the lady in red.

  ‘You’ll be needing stitches, for that cut,’ she hears her say.

  A policeman stands to one side. He’s saying something
. ‘You gave it your all. That was a splendid performance.’

  ‘Thank you’ says Gabrielle softly, as she sips her mug of tea. ‘He had it coming.’

  ‘What did she say?’ says the policeman.

  ‘Je vais te tuer Jim!’ mutters Gabrielle manically. ‘Je vais te tuer.’

  ‘What’s she on about?’ says the policeman.

  ‘I think it’s French,’ says the paramedic. ‘She’s in shock.’

  Fortunately for Gabrielle, the policeman didn’t speak French and he certainly wasn’t a fan of French cinema.

  *

  It was on Christmas Day 2010 that Lara had finally made up her mind – when the rising sun hit the glass wall of her apartment in New York and she was woken by Mrs Kennedy’s distraught phone call communicating the shattering news. Once she had eventually understood her mother’s strangled message, not really understanding how it had happened, but only those dreadful words, ‘James is dead, drowned…’ that Lara made her repeat a hundred times – that was when she knew for sure. Struck with the immediate conviction that if she hadn’t cancelled her trip, James would still be alive, Lara’s world had changed. This baby stirring in her womb was her own flesh and blood. She could not give her away to Gabrielle.

  ‘I’m keeping the baby.’ said Lara.

  ‘I don’t understand. What on earth are you talking about?’ she heard her mother say as she put down the phone.

  I’m keeping the baby, because she’s mine.

  ‘I think she’s in shock,’ said Mrs Kennedy when she returned to the kitchen where her husband was busying himself making a cup of tea for the local police liaison officer who had come over to provide support. The Reverend Phil Kennedy looked up from the teapot that he was stirring mechanically, round and round.

  ‘What dear?’

  ‘I think she’s in shock, or she was still half asleep. I must have woken her from a dream. I couldn’t understand a word she was going on about, something about a baby.’

  ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea,’ said the Rev Kennedy. ‘You look exhausted.’ Mrs Kennedy, pulled up a chair, lent her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.