Behind Closed Doors

by Catherine Alliott

  Then I crouched in my nightie. I felt his pulse. Very faint. And blood was seeping still, from his head. Beside him was a heavy marble lamp stand, a wedding present. The shade was off, away in a corner. We didn’t have a landline, and when I reached in Michael’s jacket pocket, on the sofa arm, for his phone, it was out of charge. I’d have to find mine. I realized my movements were slow, though, and my breathing was very laboured. Very … considered, almost. Where was it? My phone? Upstairs? No, of course not, it was still in my bag, in the kitchen on the island. Somewhere in the distance a light went out. I darted out and found it.

  When I returned, I sat down on the sofa, looking at Michael on the floor. I felt numb. Weirdly disconnected from my body. Michael seemed miles away. Yet he was right at my feet. Vast and motionless. All at once, he looked very close. Such a big man. His mouth was open as if in shock, eyes shut. Two buttons on his shirt were undone and there was a yellow curry stain down the front. It took me a while to avert my gaze. I’d never seen him so defenceless. I looked at the phone in my hand. I’d been out all day, so maybe it was out of charge? It wasn’t. There was twenty per cent left. I raised my head. The French door was hanging on one hinge. We had good locks, so the frame had been forced too. The garden, long and thin, was illuminated by the moon. He must have legged it over the wall and vaulted into the next garden, I decided. It was high, the wall, but not insurmountable. I looked at the phone, limp in my hand. I must be in shock, I told myself, although I sort of knew I wasn’t. And I have to tell you, I was neither trembling, nor terribly scared, as I picked up Michael’s wrist again. This time the pulse was barely there. I sat on the sofa and waited. I felt extraordinary. Other-worldly. As if it wasn’t me sitting there at all.

  At length, I tapped a number into my phone. Raised it to my ear. When the ambulance arrived, minutes later, from Charing Cross, the young team of paramedics checked Michael quickly on the floor, before placing a blanket calmly around my shoulders. The elder one sat beside me. She told me quietly and very gently that my husband was dead. I wasn’t really surprised. In fact, I wasn’t surprised at all.

  4

  Michael’s wasn’t the first life I’d had a hand in ending, actually. During the course of my writing career I’ve obviously seen off quite a few individuals; it’s something of an occupational hazard. But fiction aside, in real life, I’d killed someone else. It was an accident, of course, and years ago, but still, to this day, harrowing.

  Helena and I had been going to a party and I’d just passed my test. I was seventeen to her nineteen. In the country you learn to drive at a young age, unless you want to be dependent on your parents, or dreadful public transport, so Mum and Dad were not unduly concerned when, one night, they saw us both off. Helena was in the passenger seat, having promised not to drink and to drive us both home. The party wasn’t her age group, so it was less of a big deal for her. I was at the wheel, dressed up and excited. We’d literally barely left our lane, we were scarcely a mile from home. And it was his fault, luckily for me, the motorcyclist’s. I don’t mean luckily – there was nothing lucky about that terrible night – but he flew across the T-junction when it was my right of way, and I was travelling quite slowly. And then he didn’t really stand a chance. In my darkest moments I still see him, somersaulting fast through the air in black leather, and then plastered against the windscreen, his face, through his helmet visor, towards us. I still hear Helena’s piercing screams, her hands over her face, as I sat shocked and silent beside her.

  After that, it’s a bit of a blur. Police cars arrived, sirens blared, blue lights flashed. My parents arrived, white-faced, in the fading summer dusk. I remember a police station in the local town and a kind female detective, my parents beside me. Helena sobbing quietly. Then nothing, really. It was the end of the summer holidays and I went back to school for my final year to take my A-levels. My friends were kind, sympathetic, but I found I couldn’t talk about it. Didn’t want to. And I couldn’t for some time. Not when I went to university the following year, where I thought it would be a relief for people not to know, where I could turn to a new chapter in my life, to be someone else; but in a way, it felt almost worse somehow. I felt as if I was hiding something. Deceiving everyone around me.

  He was a local boy, not much older than me. Nineteen. He’d lived two villages away in Barrington. I’d written to his parents, the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write, saying how deeply sorry I was, but I hadn’t got a response. He’d been on a technical training course, learning to be a bricklayer, and eventually, a builder like his father. He was their only son, although I believe there was a daughter. I say I believe, I know. For a while I became obsessed with the family, wanting to know everything I could about them. But later I found I couldn’t maintain what had become a self-imposed determination not to forget him. A penance. It brought me too low. I became dangerously introverted and quiet. I recognized it myself, without going to a therapist or anything, so I took action. Went the other way. I threw myself into university life, parties, and made new friends, good friends actually, and at more of a remove than my school friends, so it was easier.

  Boyfriends I found difficult, though. I dated one or two people, but when it came to the more intimate, confiding nature of the relationship, I came unstuck. When one boy told me, slightly teary-eyed in bed one night, that he’d never got on with his father ever since he discovered he’d had a long affair, that it compromised all his childhood memories, I knew that was my moment. Knew I should reciprocate with a confidence of my own. An admission. But even though it hadn’t been my fault, I still found the magnitude of ending someone’s life, of taking someone’s child, leaving such a hole in a family of four (like mine) of such breathtaking enormity, that if I struggled to comprehend it, how could I expect anyone else to? Also, I knew it would define me. Change me into the girl who’d killed someone, with that aura of pity and fascination around her. And so I broke it off, the relationship. An avoidance technique I would use repeatedly.

  I was reading Modern History at York, and whilst most of my girlfriends on the course majored on feminist subjects, like patriarchy and female oppression, the suffragette movement, the rise of political empowerment for women, I concentrated on the survivors of the battle of the Somme. On why they never spoke of the horrors of war. I wrote about PTSD, and why men were subjugated and marginalized in that they were ordered to take lives, whereas women weren’t. I championed for men’s rights, in a way, and for their voices never heard. I got a first.

  When I left, I went home for a while and wrote quite a lot of poetry. I also did a fair amount of cooking and gardening, but as my parents pointed out, I needed a proper job. I wasn’t sure about proper, wasn’t sure I deserved a career, but I knew I had to do something. And so I went to London and cooked directors’ lunches for a large firm of City accountants. I think Dad got the job for me, through contacts. I had no formal training, but I knew enough from Mum to put a boeuf bourguignon for twelve on the table and follow it with summer pudding. One of the young directors there took a bit of a shine to me and asked me to a party. I was trying to get over myself more, and so, even though he was a bit clean-cut for me – Paul, he was called, very ex-army and Winchester – I went anyway. And it was there, at a house party in Clapham, that I met Michael.

  Michael was holding court in the kitchen, clearly a colourful character. He was telling amusing anecdotes, and generally playing to a very appreciative audience. All the people there were much older than me and when Michael’s eye fell on me as Paul and I went across to get a drink, I could tell it was in an ‘ah, fresh meat’ sort of way. An older man distracted for a moment from his familiar coterie of writers, journalists and actors, of which this gathering, Paul had told me, was comprised. Paul was an accountant for some of them, and I think rather flattered to be invited.

  ‘The white’s filthy,’ Michael told me, as I picked up the bottle. His eyes were hooded and pale blue: slightly bloodshot perhaps, but sexy. They forced me
to meet them. ‘Here, have some of this.’ He reached behind him for a bottle of red. I didn’t drink red as a rule, but accepted the glass he offered me. I smiled a thank you, and instantly let Paul lead me away, although I knew Michael’s eyes were on my back.

  It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, actually, knowing, as the party wore on, that this jovial, very tall and good-looking man, for no reason other than my youth, I suspect, and my novelty value, had his eyes trained on me for the rest of the evening. It was a hot summer’s night and we all danced in the garden on the terrace: Michael with a stunning but rather sulky-looking redhead in tight leopard-skin who shot me savage glances occasionally; and me with Paul, who was sweet but incredibly earnest, asking me every five minutes if I wanted to move on, or go out for supper.

  Suddenly they were right beside us, Michael and the redhead. Michael was facing me. He had a good sense of rhythm, unlike Paul, who, to compensate, was gyrating rather too energetically. Michael was smiling mischievously, right into my eyes. It was too much for the redhead, who stormed off, which meant the three of us were dancing together, which suddenly struck me as terribly funny. It was his sheer force of personality that did it, his chutzpah. It should have been annoying, but I got terrible giggles. Paul was obviously miffed and, apologizing profusely, I followed him off the dance floor to somewhere quieter in the garden. He was alive to the situation, though, and when some friends of his came across for a chat, and then suddenly Michael was beside us again, siphoning me off, he didn’t object. He carried on chatting to his friends. That left the two of us smiling at one another under a pear tree.

  ‘Go on then, what is it?’ I asked, three glasses of red wine in and emboldened.

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘Your well-honed, well-versed opening gambit. Your chat-up line that hasn’t failed you yet and which you’re about to unleash to devastating effect.’

  His eyes brightened delightedly. ‘Who says I’m even interested?’

  ‘You do. With your body language and your special effects – which include ignoring the girl you probably arrived with. Charming.’

  ‘Unlike you, you mean?’ he said, glancing at Paul in his group of friends.

  ‘I met Paul last week. I don’t suppose he’ll be too distressed.’

  ‘Whereas I’ve known Celine for years, and our on-off relationship is decidedly off at the moment.’

  ‘Right.’

  We seemed to have discovered a great deal about each other remarkably quickly and I for one would have liked to slow things down. Aware, however, that it was me who’d got the ball rolling so fast in the first place, I decided I couldn’t really cry foul.

  ‘Still, I agree, it seems indelicate to share the same space with them. To parade our mutual attraction quite so blatantly. Come. Let me lead you up the garden path.’ He waggled his eyebrows and nodded further down the garden.

  ‘There’s nothing mutual,’ I said, my mouth twitching. ‘I’ve literally just met you.’ Nonetheless, I found myself following him down the garden, which was long and grassy and lit with fairy lights in the trees. It was like a garden friends of my parents might own. Indeed, the whole thing was incredibly grown-up and beguiling, and despite my protestations, I felt ridiculously excited.

  And excited was something I hadn’t felt since the accident. Ever since I was a little girl, I’d had a profound crush on someone. The family dog; Brad Pitt; Pierce Brosnan; the boy in the village shop with floppy hair and a devastating smile; Mr Simons the music master, who closed his eyes when he played the violin; and then a real boy, called Chris, who’d taken me to the pub a few times, a friend of Helena’s. And then, after that – nothing. For years. Just an empty space and a glaring white light thereafter. It was as if that side of my head had died, with Liam Stephens, in the crash. Chris I didn’t see again, despite his entreaties, his phone calls, and at university, as we know, the white light and the empty space persisted. However much I tried, I never felt a thing. And previously, even with Brad and Pierce, it was not just a crush, but true love. These people would consume me. I’d make up stories about them, about how I’d save them, perhaps, from an accident – ironic, obviously – or become best friends with their sisters. So that even when I was alone, I never felt I was. Even if I was sewing, or walking the dog, I always had my love. I never felt lonely. But now, when I was on my own, I did.

  Something about Michael, though, made my heart peek out a little from the shadows: made me curious, despite myself, to look. Call it animal magnetism, which sounds rather brutish, or sexual attraction, which isn’t much better, but whatever it was, within moments we were walking right through the garden and out of the gate.

  ‘Hang on.’ I came to. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Just to the shop. I need some cigarettes. Walk with me? Tell me, what are you doing with that boring young man?’

  ‘Paul’s not boring, he’s sweet. He just doesn’t wear his charisma on his sleeve like some people. He’d probably feel it was attention-seeking.’

  His eyes lit up in delight and he suppressed a smile. ‘For someone you met five minutes ago, you seem to know an awful lot about him.’

  ‘I try to be perceptive, particularly when I’m asked out to a party. I find it helps.’

  ‘He looks like a bank clerk to me. One of Eliot’s thousands pouring over London Bridge.’

  ‘Nice to see you wear your learning so lightly, too. Are you one of those people who litters their conversation with literary allusions to put others at a disadvantage? Or are you just showing off?’

  This time he threw back his head and laughed outright. ‘Definitely showing off.’

  The shop was shut, predictably, and so we went to the pub and got cigarettes there. Obviously we had a drink, too, so that by the time we got back to the party, Paul had gone. Celine too. Michael scratched his head with theatrical bewilderment and regarded the thinning crowd.

  ‘Good Lord. It seems I have no other choice but to escort you home.’

  He did, in a taxi, and, to my surprise, he didn’t ambush me. He just dropped me back at my flat and said goodnight. But not before he’d got my number and then clearly asked the driver to wait. The taxi didn’t trundle off until I’d found my key, opened the front door, and shut it behind me.

  I found myself thinking about Michael the whole of the following day as I cooked. When I delivered my coq au vin to the assembled directors in the dining room – Paul thankfully not amongst them – it was with a cheery smile, so that a couple of the elder statesmen smiled back, not averse to having their lunch delivered by a pretty young girl. But they looked surprised, too, so that it occurred to me that perhaps I hadn’t smiled much, historically.

  He didn’t ring that evening, nor the next, but the following night the phone went and I found myself pouncing on it before Helena could. She looked at me in surprise. I dragged it out to the hall and sat on the stairs as we chatted. We agreed to meet on Saturday. I went back in. Helena raised her eyebrows and looked at me in amusement.

  ‘You look like you’ve just had sex.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Your eyes are huge and your face is flushed and your hair’s all over the place.’

  ‘Crap,’ I scoffed, but I smoothed my hair down quickly where I’d obviously been flipping it back and forth as we’d chatted.

  ‘No, I’m thrilled. Haven’t seen you look like that for years. Who is he?’

  I told her. She nodded slowly. Was silent.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Only by repute. Ant does, I think. You might be a bit careful, hon.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ I bridled defensively.

  ‘No, nothing terrible. Just … well, he’s older, and therefore a bit more – you know.’

  ‘Experienced?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, he’s bound to be, surely?’

  ‘Oh quite,’ she said quickly, not wanting to rain on my parade. ‘It’s just, I’ve heard he gets what he wants
.’

  I shrugged. ‘I may not want him.’

  She smiled. ‘That’s the spirit.’

  I did, of course. And my excitement grew as, on our first few dates, he was terribly chivalrous, much as he’d been at the party, I was able to tell Helena triumphantly. He didn’t try a thing. Just took me out for the most delicious supper at L’artiste Assoiffé, which had parrots and sofas and golden retrievers and a menu that made my eyes water it was so expensive, and then dancing, and then home. Once back, he simply kissed me, albeit rather thoroughly, on the steps of my flat in Gloucester Terrace, and then he hailed a taxi, so that actually, as I watched him go, I was the one wanting more.

  Helena had smiled thinly at this, but said nothing. I assumed it was because she was rather agreeably surprised, and irritated she’d been wrong. It didn’t occur to me she might recognize a practised technique. In bed, I played the evening back to myself, line by line, word by amusing word.

  For Michael was very funny. Once, a friend asked me what he was covering with the constant jokes, and I couldn’t think what she meant. And when we did sleep together, a month or so later, he was kind and lovely, but not intense or declamatory, as boys of my age had been. He didn’t seem to want anything from me, which made him all the more attractive. In fact, it was me, as we lay in his bed overlooking Onslow Gardens, the French windows open to the night, who asked him questions about his past, his life. His parents, I knew, had both died, hence the rather plush pad in South Ken, his sister in a similar one down the road, but I didn’t ask him about that: I asked him how he came to write. He admitted it was a form of therapy after losing his parents, something he’d taken solace in, so that when he asked me in turn about my poetry, which I’d once vaguely admitted to, I found that, remarkably, and no doubt in recognition of something similar, I was able to open up.

  ‘I killed a boy once,’ I found myself saying. ‘In an accident. I was driving. I hit his bike. I found writing helped.’