For One Night Only

by W W Walker

  From where she was, she could look directly into the window of the house opposite, No.3. Uncle Rolf had told her it was empty, and that a new family was moving in next week. There were no curtains up, and it was dark inside.

  Her eye caught movement out on the road. She shuffled her knees on the bed to get a better view while her elbows leaned on the windowsill. She saw a woman hugging a cardigan around herself, while her breath looked like she was smoking. Still wearing her slippers, she’d just left the house at No.1. The woman inside the house, Kiki, had waved her off and then closed the door quite forcefully as if she was glad to see the back of her. The woman staggered along the eight looking like she must have had a drink or two. She walked to the side of No.2 and opened the wooden gate to go around the back. That must have been Wilbur’s wife, Marigold.

  Rhianna’s eyes went to the front gate when it opened. A car was waiting to enter with its lights dimmed. The lone driver went straight to No.2 and parked the car on the sloping driveway. When he got out, she saw it was Wilbur, coming home from darts. Lucky his wifey got home first, Rhianna thought, chuckling.

  The gates were opening again. A man on foot! Where was his car? she wondered. He rushed through the gap before the gates had opened fully and then he went straight to No.1.

  Before he knocked, he hesitated as if he’d heard something. He tapped the door. A woman answered and he slipped inside like a thief in the night. A secret rendezvous!

  Woah, thought Rhianna, Seaview wasn’t so quiet after all.

  With all the coming and going happening at Seaview, Rhianna felt quite hot. She opened the window to get some air, but then she heard a muffled scream. She gasped as the noise made her skin crawl. She closed the window again.

  It must have been the couple next door at No.7. Uncle told her about how the man, Eddie, abused his poor wife. He said that if Rhianna heard anything untoward, she should just ignore it. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do,’ Uncle Rolf had said.

  Chapter Eleven

  The turn of events on Friday night began after that cat tipped over the flowerpot. After that man from No.2 had gone, Drake had slipped into the greenhouse where the cat followed him as if they were best friends. Maybe he’d keep him, Drake thought, stroking his back to his tail.

  Now at midnight, he’d been hiding out in the greenhouse with the cat, when, feeling a little warmer, he decided to have another scout around. He went down the side path of No.8 to see if there was anything going on, but everything was quiet, which was a shame because he was in the mood for a bit of excitement.

  He knew the lay of the land in Seaview very well. He’d taken a part-time job there last summer, just so he could keep an eye on Kiki Cutter. He’d been given some odd jobs, cash in hand, by all the residents except Kiki, and Roger Lang. They would have recognised him, so he’d kept his distance. If he ever noticed them go past, he would pull his cap down over his face.

  He knew the old people well. Mr and Mrs Butler had employed him to do a few things around the place. Once he had to clean out the gutters. Up the ladders, he had a good view of what was going on in Seaview and he pretty much knew all the residents now.

  He was disturbed from his thoughts when the old lady, Mrs Butler, came out of the side door of her house to put the empty milk bottles out. Caught unaware, in the shadows, Drake stood still, pinned up against the eight-foot wall, hoping she wouldn’t look too hard. If she did, he’d have to quieten her, but that didn’t faze him.

  Earlier, he’d watched her as she went across the back garden to the house next door. When she came back half an hour later, muttering something under her breath, Drake went back into the bushes near the gate so that he had a better view of the eight.

  At eleven-thirty Kiki’s front door had opened. He was surprised to see her. He had always admired her, but that week she had been the one who had sent him to Lang’s office where he got his cards. Now, he didn’t know how he felt about her at all.

  He watched a woman, still in her slippers, come out of Kiki’s house to rush next door to her own place at No.2. It was a cold night. Even from where he was hiding, he could still see the breath coming from her mouth as if she was smoking.

  Drake had to step back into the shadows when a car stopped at the gates. The driver dimmed his lights as he worked the keypad and then the gates opened, and he drove in. He parked his car on the drive, at No.2, and as if there wasn’t enough going on, the gates opened again, and a man walked in. Don’t these people ever sleep, Drake thought.

  When the light caught his face, Drake recognised him immediately. It was Tyrone from the office, the one who had relentlessly pursued Kiki. He was so surprised to see him, Drake had accidentally gasped aloud and Tyrone turned about. ‘Who’s there?’ he called.

  Drake wanted to jump out of the bushes and put a knife deep into his neck, but there was still too many people wandering about, and he might get caught. Then he wouldn’t be able to carry out his plan. No, better to leave Tyrone alone for now.

  He remembered the ‘accidents’ Tyrone had had at work. When Drake had hurled the brick through his office window, he’d left Tyrone wondering about the culprit. Another time in the depot, the crate Drake had pushed off the shelf above his head had also been a surprise for Tyrone, and when he’d almost ploughed him down with the forklift truck, Drake’s satisfaction had been complete, only made better when he heard that Tyrone had resigned and left the company.

  Now he watched Tyrone tap on Kiki’s front door. Sneaking around in the dark of night, like a damn criminal. The tap was like two crashing symbols in his ears, and by the time Kiki had let him in, Drake had no choice but to slap himself on the cheek three times on the left and twice on the right.

  He’d gotten so wound up, that when Mrs Butler came out to put out her empty milk bottles, he grabbed her from behind and forced her back inside.

  When she screamed, he loosened his grip and she crumbled to the floor in a faint.

  End of Part 1

  Part 2

  Chapter Twelve

  It was barely dawn when Constance was roused from her sleep. She wasn’t a habitual early riser, but after everything that happened last night, she could barely sleep a wink. In her own bed, faced away from him, she heard him get up, shuffling his bare feet into his slippers. She knew his habits. He would go downstairs, strip off his pyjamas in the kitchen and pull on his wet suit. He was always naked underneath and whenever she thought about that, she cringed at the notion of his limp penis beneath that rubber suit. She often wished it got caught in the zip. That would serve him right after what he did last night.

  Constance’s eyes were swollen. Not from him lashing out at her, but from the constant stream of tears that had soaked her pillow. She felt exhausted, mentally and physically and she was sore, down there, after he’d left his mark on her.

  Last night, she thought she would just go to sleep while he stayed downstairs watching television with his mother. The incident in the kitchen after Mrs Butler left, had shaken her, but it wasn’t anything she hadn’t experienced before. Not that it made the things he did any easier. It was just that now, after five years of being married to him, she accepted his abuse as a regular part of her life.

  The first time he laid his hands on her had been a shock. They were on their honeymoon, of all things. They’d taken a caravan in Porthcawl. He paid for it out of a bonus he’d been awarded at work, and all week he didn’t stop reminding her that he had to work long and hard to earn that bonus and he was spending it all on her. She didn’t see his reasoning at the time. She was his wife, so surely, he should pay for everything anyway.

  It was raining that evening in the caravan in Porthcawl. She was sitting inside doing a spot of crochet when the subject of her work came up. She’d given up her job as an actress. She only did extra work at the BBC studios in Bristol, but it was a living.

  “Have you handed in your notice yet?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “There’s no need. I only work wh
en they want me to. I’m not obligated in any way.”

  “But you should tell them so that they don’t keep contacting you.”

  “I’ll see what I’m doing at the time,” she said, “I could always do a bit of work occasionally.”

  “But you’re married now.”

  She dropped a stitch off her hook and had to work back to pick it up again. Annoying thing. When she finally retrieved the strand of baby blue wool and looked up, there was Eddie standing over her, bent down, with his arm resting on the back of the seat behind her shoulder. She didn’t know what to make of it when his face got closer to hers and she thought for a second that he was going to kiss her.

  But he didn’t kiss her. He headbutted her.

  She was dazed by the blow, and her nose had bled profusely, but then he placed his fingers over her face and squeezed. “Eddieee,” she cried dropping her crochet hook to grab his wrists. She didn’t know what she’d done or why he was acting that way, why he was hurting her.

  “No more acting,” he said simply as he let her go. She grabbed some tissues and held them to her nose. “I’ll go down the pub for a while,” he said as if nothing had happened. Then he grabbed his coat and left.

  Constance had been stunned to silence. Her face hurt bad and surely her eyes would turn black from the force of the blow.

  When she looked down at her baby blue crochet and saw it splattered red, she stood up, got her balance and then dropped it in the peddle bin at the side of the sink.

  That was the very first time he assaulted her, but it wasn’t the last.

  She heard the back door closing and knew he’d left for his swim. She got out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown. She needed a cup of tea to soothe her stomach. Going downstairs, her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of her burden. She knew she’d reached her tolerance level. It was time to end it. She switched on the kettle as the events of last night churned over and over again in her mind. She’d woken up with him on top of her, her legs spread apart as he fumbled to get himself inside her. It was made worse by the fact that she hadn’t woken straight away, that she had been in such a deep sleep, he had gotten that far.

  Only an hour before, she had been thinking about how he never had sex with her anymore, glad of it too, and there he was forcing himself inside her as if she was an object to defile. He wasn’t even looking at her. She could have been anyone or anything. He was using her. She’d sobbed when he finished and got off. She heard him take a long sniff to get the catarrh out of his nose and he repulsed her more than anything she could describe.

  Constance now looked through the kitchen window up at the sun coming up across the bay. He was in the sea right at that moment, swimming the surf with carefree abandon.

  She suddenly found herself outside.

  It was as if she was in a trance and she couldn’t shake herself from it. She walked down the garden, going along the path, past the vegetables and herbs to the end where the garden dropped away to the 30ft cliff. There, she stood like a statue looking out to the sea. She was going to jump. She wanted it to end. She could stand it no more.

  She felt a hand on her arm.

  She swung about in the quiet of the morning as the wind lashed her body.

  The hand belonged to Gladys, Eddie’s mother.

  She was right next to her, wearing a thick flowered nightdress with long sleeves to her wrists, edged by elastic. The bottom whipped about her frail legs, while her small bony feet were kept warm inside fluffy slippers. On her head, she wore a hairnet with bobby pins securing some curls on her brow. Cotton wool was tucked under the net each side of her ears, keeping two curlers from hurting her head while she’d slept. “It’s not you who deserves to die,” Gladys said. “It’s him.”

  Sandra was stunned.

  Gladys, an ally!? How can that be? Constance pondered, as she briefly wondered if she was still in bed, dreaming.

  Without speaking, Gladys guided her by the hand back along the garden to the house. The exterior light was turned on and Eddie’s robe was draped over the patio chair. “Get that,” Gladys said, pointing to a large stone, one of the rocks Eddie had used to build up the rockery.

  Gladys switched off the exterior light.

  At the side of the house, next to the tap jutting from the wall was a panel of fencing used to disguise the bin and garden tools. Gladys guided Constance behind the fence as if she had the whole thing worked out. The two women stood side by side inside the nook. Constance was trembling while adrenalin coursed through her veins. She didn’t know what she was doing there behind the panel. What was Gladys’ intention? What would Eddie say? What would he do?

  Then they heard footsteps coming along the side of the property. He was back.

  From the shadows, with no light to guide him apart from the breaking of the dawn, the two women watched as Eddie unzipped quickly his wetsuit and peeled it from his body. Naked, he pulled on his bath robe, wrapping it around himself and pulling the tie belt tight across his hips. He went to the tap jutting form the wall. He turned it on and washed his feet.

  He was looking down, leaning one arm against the wall above the tap.

  That’s when Gladys nudged Constance, and without any further coaxing, Constance knew what she had to do.

  As the water splattered on the terrace drowning out the noise of her footsteps, she stepped out from behind the panel. At his side, as he bent over washing his feet, Constance lifted that rock above her head as if she were the winner of a race, lifting a trophy high in the sky. Without consideration for any consequences, only the demise of her husband, Eddie, she brought it down upon his skull with a strength she never knew she possessed.

  His crown cracked like an egg, spilling blood everywhere.

  Gladys stepped out of the shadows. The two women looked down, watching the flow of water from the tap washing away the red. “Just like his father,” Gladys said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Up with the lark, Eva Lang went about her daily routine. The first thing she’d do is make a pot of tea and take one up to Roger. Who could get anything done without a cuppa first? she thought. He was still snoring when she went in. She smiled to herself. He won’t like being woken so early, but better he started stirring if he was to be in time for the golfing trip. “Roger,” she whispered as she rocked him awake. “Cup of tea here.”

  He grunted and she placed the drink on the bedside table.

  On the chair in the corner, balanced atop the two wooden arms, his small overnight bag was open, awaiting toiletries and last minute essentials. His suit, wrapped in dry cleaner's plastic, hung above it for the dinner they’d be having in the night. On the floor at the side of the case, was his golfing shoes alongside a best pair of smart loafers she’d bought him for the anniversary party at Marigold and Wilbur’s house last summer. She decided to take them down and give them a polish.

  Back in the kitchen, she poured her own cup and bit into a Rich Tea biscuit. The sky outside the south-facing window was beginning to change colour with the dawn. She always loved that time of the morning, watching the day awaken, listening to the early bird.

  She wondered if she should take up a cuppa for Jack. It was only five, so maybe it was a bit too early for him.

  Jack!

  Suddenly she stopped and looked out across the bay. Her eyes became transfixed on a flock of birds against a backdrop of grey clouds. How odd that she had gone about her business for the past half hour without thinking about what had happened the night before.

  Oh, God. She had betrayed her husband, with the man who had stood up for him at their wedding. His best friend, Jack. She was ashamed and humiliated, but she had done it to herself. She only had herself to blame.

  Last night they’d made love. At first it was wonderful but the longer it went on, the more her head had cleared, and she began to think about Roger coming down the stairs to catch them at it.

  On the sofa, Jack lay on top of her, thrusting with an urgency she no longer posse
ssed. Before he’d finished, she pushed him off. She sat up and tidied her clothes, wiping his saliva from her mouth with her sleeve. That was reality. The passion had long gone at that point. Only the wet remained.

  Eva had rushed from the room and up the stairs.

  When she came out of the bathroom, she bumped into him on the landing. He didn’t speak. What was there to say? The best thing she could do at that point was to forget the whole thing. After he closed the door to the spare room, she went into hers and leaned against the door watching Roger snoring away under the blankets of their double bed.

  Now she was riddled with guilt. She had betrayed her husband. How could she ever forgive herself?

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Rhianna awoke at six-thirty, she didn’t know where she was. She threw back the blankets and leaned up to the window.

  Seaview.

  A mist covered the ground of the estate where just the roofs of the houses jutted into the grey sky. It looked cold out there. She wished she could see the sea, but Uncle Rolf was the only one with that privilege, from the window of the back bedroom.

  She quickly pulled on a pair of faded jeans, a t. shirt and an old blue jumper her mother had knitted for her. Rhianna had made a hole in each sleeve for her thumb to poke through. Her mother had been horrified and never forgave her for ruining a good jumper. ‘Maybe I’ll start a new fashion,’ Rhianna had said, but her mother had scoffed. ‘As if! Who in their right mind would want to deliberately look tatty?’

  With the smell of bacon wafting up, she walked down the stairs and opened the door to the kitchen. Uncle was standing at the guarding a frying pan.