Behind Closed Doors

by Catherine Alliott

  There didn’t seem to be many signs of my parents in the kitchen or garden, and then I realized they were in the sitting room, the remains of a ham salad on their laps, watching the news.

  ‘We didn’t know whether to disturb you,’ said Mum, rather guiltily. ‘You seemed busy, but there’s plenty in the fridge.’

  ‘Yes, don’t worry, I’ll get my own. Drinking lots of fluids, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, loads. Your father gives me a glass of lemon barley every time he sees me, you know I can’t abide water.’ She made a face. ‘And I’m about to have a nap. I slept for hours yesterday.’

  ‘Good. Um, I’m popping out. Be back probably about supper time, but if I’m not, start without me, OK?’

  ‘OK!’ Their faces brightened and it occurred to me that in their present contentment they were quite pleased to have the house to themselves. After all, they’d been used to that sort of modus vivendi for many years, and much as I loved Imo and Ned, there’d been times when they’d gone back to school or university when I’d been relieved too, although sometimes for different reasons, to do with their father.

  As I drove along the A40 in a light drizzle and happily only light traffic, I rehearsed a few pithy sentences in my head. But then, knowing that actually I was better on the hoof in these sorts of circumstances – see my performance yesterday – I turned on the radio and caught the end of the Jeremy Vine show. He played the sort of easy listening conducive to maintaining equilibrium and morale.

  The London traffic wasn’t too terrible either, plus I knew the best route, so I arrived at forty-two Arlain Road in good time. I slotted the car right outside. As I climbed the steps to the tall, white, stucco-fronted town house, I realized it had only a fifty-fifty chance of occupancy, but this sort of place usually had a housekeeper, so some clue to whereabouts might be ascertained. I could return. Steps came down the passage after I’d rung the doorbell, but then, no housekeeper, or even sulky daughter appeared. This time it was Ingrid herself.

  She’d opened the door with a smile, but then, as she recognized me, looked surprised. She blinked. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know I should have phoned or emailed you, but I was terribly afraid you wouldn’t see me and I badly need to speak to you.’ This came out in a bit of a rush.

  She digested this silently: looked thoughtful. Then her face softened. She gave a small smile, nodded, and opened the door for me. Her blonde hair was up in a ponytail and she was wearing black leggings and an assortment of grey and black vests. She had trainers on her feet.

  ‘I haven’t got that long,’ she told me apologetically, ‘I’m on my way to the gym.’

  ‘I promise I won’t keep you long,’ I told her, surprised at her tone. This was very different to the unfriendly, uptight woman I’d previously encountered at lunch in my club.

  She led me through a beautiful pale grey hall lined with mirrors, framed photographs and architectural prints. A delicately carved bust sat on a console table flanked by two huge vases of white lilies. I followed her into the kitchen which was so different to mine on the other side of the wall it took my breath away. Pale limed wood and Swedish in design, obviously, it was ultra-modern and achingly chic. There were two white leather and chrome bar stools either side of the island which she pulled out. We sat down opposite each other. The island was smooth white marble and completely bare. No mess, no clutter. Ingrid clasped her hands loosely before her. They were not heavily jewelled today: in fact she had no rings on at all. She waited. I took a deep breath.

  ‘I came to see you, because I now know that you witnessed my husband’s death. The police told me.’ She remained expressionless. Her pale blue eyes held mine. ‘The thing is, Ingrid, it doesn’t tally with my own recollection of events. Timewise, that is.’

  ‘I saw on the news they got the man who did it. Isn’t it all over now? Should we be comparing notes?’

  ‘Possibly not, but I’m going to plough on anyway. I need to know. And the police didn’t tell me not to talk to you. Did they say anything to you?’ She didn’t reply. I blundered on. ‘You see, I know I sat there for a long time while Michael was on the floor. And yet, you say I called the police immediately. The moment I came down.’ She remained silent but a muscle went in her cheek. ‘Can I ask where you were?’ I asked.

  ‘In the top bedroom. In the attic. It’s the spare room. I sleep there sometimes. Usually when my husband’s at home.’

  ‘Oh … right. And he sleeps?’

  ‘In ours.’

  ‘I thought you were separated?’

  ‘We are, but he stays here sometimes. When he’s in London.’

  ‘That’s civilized.’

  ‘No, he insists. It’s his house. And if I want to stay here, it’s part of his deal. And I do. Want to stay. My house is my life’s work. I put my heart into it. And I wouldn’t get it in any divorce settlement.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ A rare glimpse into someone else’s world. I reorientated myself. ‘So … he was in the main bedroom.’

  ‘Fast asleep. And I was reading upstairs.’

  ‘With the light on.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you didn’t see him break in? The burglar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So … when did you look out? Why?’

  ‘For some reason I went to the window when you appeared. Maybe I heard something. I turned off my lamp to see better. I saw someone on the floor. Then I saw the smashed door, realized there’d been a break-in. I thought about getting my phone, but then I saw you check him, Michael, and dash to get yours. So I didn’t. I’ve told the police all this. I watched you make the call and then, very quickly, it was all sirens and blue flashing lights – I gather you had them out again the other night. I told the police all of this when they came round. Told them that it all happened very quickly.’

  I stared at her. ‘You see, it’s so strange. Because my own feeling is that it happened very slowly. That I sat down. On the sofa. In my nightie. For quite some time. And watched the blood seep out of his head. My recollection is that I did nothing. Some may say through shock, some might say through deliberate design. I know what I think. But I probably need to keep that to myself. Anyway. I remember sitting there, in the dark, until I was really quite cold. Apparently shock does that to you, it does chill you. The police said that was no surprise. It’s why they wrap trauma victims in blankets. But it may also be that it’s cold to sit still for so long in a thin nightgown. Again, I know what I think. I remember checking him occasionally, using the light on my phone. I didn’t time it, but I reckon I sat there for at least half an hour. Waiting for him to—’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ Ingrid interrupted grimly. She leaned forward, her hand on mine. She gripped it. ‘Don’t say the word,’ she breathed. Her expression was urgent. I blanched in astonishment. Saw something in her eye. Something like gritty determination.

  Eventually she spoke. ‘You sat there for two hours and ten minutes,’ she said softly. I inhaled sharply. Couldn’t speak for a moment. I stared at her.

  ‘You watched me.’

  ‘Yes. I sat with you.’

  ‘For that long?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes. Me upstairs, and you, in your white nightie, next to him. I’d seen you in that nightie before. In the garden. At night. Locked out.’ My breathing became very shallow. I felt that horrible, panicky feeling return. ‘When your husband locked you out, sometimes in the winter. I saw him open the door, once. I didn’t know then it was Michael. Didn’t know you were the couple I’d met at Millie’s dinner until much later. He was just the odd man who lived at the back. And you were that poor strange wife. I assumed you were the wife. He left you there for ages, in the garden, and you sat in dark corners, where he pointed, in the flower beds, crushing your plants. I saw you from my top-floor room, whenever Lars was here. Once, I nearly rang the police. Or social services. But I didn’t. I don’t know why. I wish I had. I think … because he didn’t push you out. You seemed to g
o willingly. He sort of …’ she hesitated. ‘Let you out. Like a dog. I should have done, should have said something, I realize that now. But I told myself it was domestic. Private. And I was having my own domestic turmoil here. I had a husband having sex with a friend of my daughter’s down the road. Same age. Seventeen. That’s where he’d returned from, that night, when I was in the spare room. I wasn’t reading, obviously. Just … awake. Thinking. Thinking. Then I saw you.’

  I stared at her, dumbfounded. Eventually I found my voice. ‘But … we had lunch. And you and Michael had already had lunch—’

  ‘I told you,’ she interrupted, ‘I didn’t know it was you. Or him. That you were that couple. How could I? I didn’t know you were the woman at the back, as I called you. Did you know where I lived, when we met at Millie’s?’

  ‘No. I had no idea.’

  ‘And the police didn’t talk to me for ages. The first time they came, early on, I was out. They spoke to Sophia, my daughter, who said we were all asleep. By the time they returned, I’d just been to the memorial service, with Millie and Simon. Millie had casually mentioned, when you came in with your family, that you and Michael lived right behind me. When your daughter got up in the church and told us what he’d done, what a bully he was – suddenly I went cold. I knew. I realized who you were. I was so shocked, I left early. I couldn’t stay there any longer. I felt sick. Really sick. The police came round that afternoon. I was still very angry.’ She gave me a flinty look and raised her chin defiantly. ‘I told them what I’d seen.’

  I stared at her in astonishment. ‘You did that for me?’ I whispered.

  ‘I did it for us.’ She closed an elegant fist and placed it firmly on her heart. ‘For other women like us. Women who suffer. On account of … And don’t forget, you didn’t do something, you just did nothing. That is very different, in my book. I wish I could do nothing and Lars would die.’

  She picked up a packet of Vogue cigarettes and lit one with a gold Ronson lighter. She snapped the lighter shut and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. She regarded me coolly. I couldn’t speak. After a moment, she got up and made some mint tea. She put a white china cup in front of me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said quietly.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For protecting me.’

  ‘I wasn’t protecting you, it’s what I saw.’ She looked at me keenly. ‘I spoke to the police on the record. They came again yesterday. I was far more scared. Wasn’t full of rage and adrenalin. But I stuck to my story. Except, of course, it’s not a story. It’s what I saw. I’m scarcely going to lie twice, am I? Scarcely going to falsify evidence?’

  ‘No,’ I breathed quickly. ‘No, of course not.’ I gazed at her, amazed. She was much braver than I was. Much stronger. She was quietly sipping her tea. Smoking her cigarette. How scary that must have been yesterday: forced to back up her story. But she’d done it. Stuck to her guns. I found her remarkable. And admirable. Her composure. Everything about her. She was gazing beyond me now, deep in thought, and I moved my eyes from her face and looked beyond her too. I was facing her garden. It was beautiful, full of plants I liked, albeit more formal. Small box hedges, alliums, a grey slate terrace, white walls. At the end was the dividing wall. Above it, the sloping roof of my house, a storey lower than hers. The house next door to Ingrid’s was a nursery school. It was empty at night. The other neighbour, I could see, had a tall line of conifers: Leylandii. They would afford complete privacy. She would be the only one with any sort of view. I wondered what else she’d seen, over the years. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. My eyes came back to her. She looked much younger than I remembered. Softer. No make-up, I realized.

  ‘You’re different to when I first met you,’ I said uncertainly.

  She came back to me and gave a wry smile, remembering. ‘I was nervous. At your club. I got there horribly early, I remember.’

  ‘Oh … I didn’t realize …’ Nervous.

  ‘I’d met you at Millie’s, and I’d already had lunch with your husband. It didn’t sit well. I don’t date married men. I shouldn’t have met Michael, but my confidence had been at an all-time low. Luckily he wasn’t my type. And I badly needed that lunch with you. Badly needed the things you were promising. My business was hanging on by a thread. You said you wanted a new kitchen. And that you might get me published, that you could talk to people. I knew what that would do for me. But still … I didn’t like myself much at the time. For meeting you. But I felt I was being manipulated at every turn. By Lars …’ she made an ironic face. ‘By you, as it turned out.’

  I looked down at my hands, ashamed. ‘Yes. I was manipulating you. And I know that feeling. It’s horrible.’

  She shrugged. ‘You were in your own little world of shitty despair, and I was in mine. We were both trying to muddle through. Find a way. But I’d decided, before I met you, that I needed a mask, a protective layer. I played it deliberately cool. Tough. You can see I had my reasons.’

  ‘Yes. You did.’

  A silence prevailed. I wanted to ask her how things were now, if her business was still precarious. If she’d made any decisions with regard to her marriage. If she was going to stay with Lars for the sake of the house. But I knew it was far too complicated. Life was. It was never black and white. It was grey, smudged and messy. As Tolstoy reminds us, every happy family is alike, but every unhappy one is unhappy in its own way. I wouldn’t ask her about it. Wouldn’t ask whether he was still with the young girl, or if it had played out. If that was what she was banking on. Sitting on her hands and waiting, as I had done that night. For something to give. I was sure she wouldn’t want to talk about it. None of us did. We were veterans of different wars and we didn’t choose to parade our scars.

  I drank my tea in silence. She seemed to have forgotten about the gym. About me, even. She was looking past me again, deep in thought. I noticed the kitchen wasn’t as pristine as I’d thought. There were pictures of her daughter on the fridge, fixed there with amusing magnets. And a pile of library books on the side, her card on the top, which surprised me. Very few people went to the library these days. I could tell I’d misjudged her. She was just battling on, like so many of us. She just did it in a different way. Under a different guise.

  I finished my tea and we sat in silence, but it was a companionable one. It had a degree of comfort to it, for both of us, I hope. I gazed out. The drizzle I’d arrived in had abated and the sun was just about to make an appearance: to peep out around a bank of cloud above the roof of my house. Not quite, but the rays were there, gathering strength.

  At length I sighed and got to my feet. I gathered up my keys and my bag. She got up too and walked me silently to the door. Before she opened it, though, we looked at each other, and then we hugged. I don’t think either of us instigated it, neither of us opened our arms, it just seemed like a natural thing to do. We held on to each other for a few moments, in silence. We’d been so close, separated by only a slim brick wall. But we’d both been in our living hells.

  ‘Good luck,’ she whispered, as we stood back, blinking a bit.

  ‘And you too, Ingrid. I can’t begin to thank you for what you’ve done, what you’ve—’

  ‘Shh.’ She stopped me. ‘Don’t. I didn’t, remember?’

  I smiled. Nodded. ‘No. You didn’t.’

  ‘Don’t let me down.’

  ‘Never. I’ll never tell a living soul,’ I told her fiercely, and I knew I wouldn’t. Not to anyone. And she knew it, too.

  She opened the door and I went down the steps. At the bottom I turned, remembering something. Something she’d said which tapped me on the shoulder now, but which I’d previously passed over. I’d been so absorbed by her version of events that night.

  I looked up at her. ‘By the way, what did you mean about sirens and blue flashing lights? Having them out again the other night?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh.’ Her face cleared. ‘Didn’t you know? I assumed you would. The guy in your house was rushed to hospital. Perit
onitis, apparently.’ She made a face. ‘Which I gather is pretty serious.’ She sighed bleakly. ‘It’s all happening in our neck of the woods, isn’t it?’

  I stared at her. My voice, when it came, sounded unfamiliar. ‘I had no idea.’

  She shrugged. ‘Other people’s lives. They pass us by, don’t they? When we have only one perspective. When we’re so caught up with our own.’ She gave a wry smile and closed the door.

  32

  As I stood in that quiet, leafy street, the pavements damp with rain, I felt my world tilt. My head seemed strangely airy, but I made myself digest what she’d said. Blue flashing lights and sirens. My house. Where Josh now lived. And he lived alone. To call for an ambulance would have gone against all his natural instincts. He must have been in terrible pain. Peritonitis was excruciatingly painful. I imagined him reaching for the phone, having resisted for a long, long time. I found myself making haste past my car, and in another minute, I was arriving at the front of my old house and leaping the two steps to the front door. I rang the bell urgently. I’d recently found a key at the bottom of my bag so I could always use that, but after a few moments, the door opened. It was Tilly. She looked surprised, and then pleased to see me.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. Good, come in.’ She stood aside.