The doorbell goes. They have come straight round, the children, or perhaps the mother or the boyfriend.
I think suddenly of the Honda Civic.
It worries me.
More than I can say.
Do I want to answer the door, do I want to deal with that? If I ignore it, will it all just go away?
I open the back door of the kitchen slowly, step out and take the three or four paces to get the ball. I throw it back over.
And I sit and wait.
Knock, knock, knock.
For whoever it is at the door to go away and leave me alone.
Knock, knock, knock.
They will go.
Knock, knock, knock.
For now anyway.
But I know that one day – one day soon – they will not.
THURSDAY 27 JULY, 12.30PM
I have decided to write more of my diary.
About her. And him.
And how it all ended.
She told me, a morning or two later as I was leaving for a walk to the shops, that she was going to see a show with friends, at short notice, at the seafront theatre in Felixstowe that evening, a Tuesday. Last-minute tickets, given away for free.
I did not believe her. Not for one second. I knew straightaway what she was going to do.
See him.
Have sex with him.
The two of them laughing and joking about me behind my back. Humiliating me.
I simply looked up from polishing my shoes and nodded casually and then smiled and feigned a cursory interest. I had a hot soup spoon in my hand at the time – it helps add that extra shine to black leather – and I needed all my powers of self-control not to jab it into her stupid cow face. But I did not at this stage want her to know that I was aware of what was going on. I wanted her to think I was still a happy, loving – cuckolded – husband. I wanted to be sure, see for myself, be certain of what she was doing, before I decided precisely what to do.
There was the bungalow, mortgage paid off. Relatively meagre savings. HMRC does not pay well. Divorced and shared between the two of us, it would not amount to much; to anything really.
The rest of my life on or close to the poverty line. Benefits. I could not face that shame. To have fallen so far. From what I had been. Respected. Master of my own little kingdom. Feared by tax dodgers and cheats.
And she had a life policy worth a tidy six-figure sum. When she died, that is. Enough for someone to live the rest of their days in relative comfort. Should he get this? No. Never.
As I tied my shoelaces and got to my feet, I glanced in her general direction rather than meet her eye. My gaze, bland though it would have been, might have alerted her to my knowledge of her behaviour.
I do not know if she would have held my gaze, defiant, or whether she would have looked away, ashamed. I did not want either response. I wanted to retain the element of surprise for what I would do once I knew the truth for certain.
If she left me, I would lose my home, the savings, everything, including my reputation. That was not going to happen. As I turned to go, I just asked her the usual questions that any loving husband would do.
Did she want a lift?
What would she do about eating?
What time would she be back?
For some extraordinary reason my innocuous questions made her snigger – more of a derisive laugh, really – and I have to say I came close to addressing the matter of her lies and cheating there and then.
But I contained myself, as I have been trained to do in the face of the most extreme provocation. I pretended not to notice as she stifled the laughter and turned away to continue washing up the breakfast things in the sink.
I waited for a moment as she composed herself and then thanked me but advised that she was getting a lift to the theatre with friends.
As I picked up my reusable shopping bag and took the few short steps out of the front door and into the porch, I stopped and turned and looked back at her. I watched as she switched on her radio on the windowsill and started humming to herself. Perhaps thinking I had gone, she then began jigging about in a lumpen, ungainly fashion.
I do not know why, but I had, at that instant, an almost overwhelming urge to do her some great harm. If I had had anything more substantial in my hand than my soft shopping bag, I think I might well have done. I may have bashed her stupid brains out. As it was, I restrained myself and stepped out of the porch and closed the door quietly behind me.
I hear, from the bottom of the garden, the sound of a train, a freight train carrying containers to or from the nearby port, braking slowly. The squeal. The screech. The eventual grinding to a halt. The long and endless silence that plays havoc with my mind, triggering my imagination.
The driver, waiting for the red light to change, is sitting there, looking down into my garden. I can imagine him. Checking the garden bit by bit. Watching until something catches his eye. It does. He opens the door of his compartment. Dropping down from the train. He takes a closer look. He reaches for his phone in his pocket, making a 999 call as he moves from the track into the garden.
Only the sound of the train suddenly lurching into life and pulling away breaks my thoughts. I find that I have been holding my breath. I gulp in air greedily. Reach for a sip of water from the glass by my bedside. Pause. Think. Relax. Continue my writing.
She spent ages getting ready to go out that evening. She was in the bathroom for 25, close to 30 minutes. I listened at the door, heard her using the toilet, moving to the basin, cleaning her teeth, getting into the bath, lying there for what seemed forever, moving, noises, the splash of more hot water from the tap. A long silence. A final noise. A minute or two’s silence. Then the rush of water as the bath drained away and she stepped out, busy now, drying herself, coming out of the bathroom wrapped in a huge towel.
I pretended to tidy around and dust and polish and move things about, coming in and out of the bedroom to see everything she did. She ssshhh’d and shooed me away in increasing irritation. She had in recent years become somewhat coy, going into the bathroom to change her bra and pants, even to put on or take off her dress.
And so she did this evening, going back and forth each time as she tried on this and then that, making sure she was just so for him. I noted, from the waste-paper basket to the side of the dressing table, cut-off labels from underwear from Marks & Spencer. Even when we were intimate, and it had been so long, I never recall her wearing matching, let alone new, items for me.
I felt myself rising. Against my will. I did not want this.
The desire, at least for physical release, still there after all this time.
But other feelings too, of disgust and loathing and anger. Fear as well, that I might lose everything to her; and to him. The courts always favour women. Every time.
And then her final touches at the dressing table and mirror. Pampering. Preening herself. Wrapping a new red and white silky scarf around her neck. Brushing down her new dress. Stepping into new red shoes. Checking she looked nice. She’d never spent so long – taken so much care – before, not for an ordinary night out.
She was doing it for him, of course. I could see it all in her face. The flush of excitement. Worry too. Doing her best to disguise her lined face and flabby figure.
I saw no sense of shame, no feeling of respect towards me. I was of little concern to her. I studied her, flicking her hair, looking at herself from side to side, changing earrings, pursing her lips, smoothing her clothes.
I felt the anger surging in me.
The thought of her with him.
Him inside her. Her face in ecstasy.
I had to walk out of the bedroom, the bungalow too, and went to the car and then to the garage. Raising the up-and-over door, moving inside. To potter about, distract myself, let my emotions subside. My body as well. To stand in the shadows. To see but not be seen. I wanted to watch what happened next.
She had said, when I had pressed her for an answer, that t
here was no need for a lift. That she was being picked up. Just after seven. I wanted to see who was in the car that would pull up outside of the bungalow. Him. Alone? Or with others? Maybe just others? Surely she would not be so brazen as to be picked up by him on his own?
After a few minutes, standing there, out of sight, I heard the front door being opened and then closed, the sounds of her clickety-clack heels on the path and the gate screeching open and shut; and the sight of her moving along the pavement to the left and away. She did not turn or call back at me, although she must have known I was there in the garage. I waited. In agony. Not sure what to do. If I moved out of the garage, down the driveway, to the edge of the pavement, I would see her, what she did, who came to fetch her – but she would then see me watching her.
So I waited. Two minutes, three – maybe four. To the moment when I came close to walking to the road to see where she was anyway. And then I heard, but could not see, a car pull up a little way along to the left. A door opening, slamming shut. The car pulling away.
I saw the car, a Honda Civic, with him closest to me and her next to him, moving across the road at the top of our driveway, gathering speed. They were already in an animated conversation, both laughing. I could not remember when I had last laughed with her. Not like that anyway. Not loving. Comfortable. At ease with each other.
I could not know for sure that they were going to the seaside theatre.
They could have been going anywhere. A pub, maybe. Or fields or woods. A country lane.
But I got in my car, and I followed and saw the car in the distance as it turned onto the by-pass and down towards the seaside town of Felixstowe.
I hear, from somewhere at the front of the bungalow, the sound of a heavy vehicle slowing and pulling up outside. It sounds like the lorry that comes for the bins. But that is not today. And it is not the bin van.
I know what it is. I do not need to go and look.
It will be a pick-up truck. It has come to collect and take away that blue Honda Civic that sits over the road in the cul-de sac. It has come to remove it and I suspect that it will be preceded or followed by the next knock on my front door. I think it has to be soon.
Eventually, I sat and waited on a bench in the clifftop gardens, as dusk fell and turned into night and the theatre down below me was lit up both inside and out.
There were sparkly lights along the front. People came and went, couples arm-in-arm, old men walking their dogs, a group of teenagers taking photos of themselves with mobiles. All happy, having fun in their own little ways.
I could have gone into the theatre, bought a ticket, slipped in and sat at the back as the lights dimmed; watched them, as my eyes got used to the dark, sitting next to each other.
I did not need to. I could imagine them there together, her head on his shoulder. And they might have seen me. And then what would I have said or done, the element of surprise gone?
I could see the entrance of the theatre – entrance and exit being one and the same – and simply sat and waited, obscured by ornate railings and bushes, until, at some time close to 10.30, she emerged with him, arm-in-arm, in the crowd after the show.
I followed them – easy in the dark and at a distance – to see what they did next.
They walked further than I expected, to his car, tucked away quiet and dark in a wooded area.
I stood there, some distance off, to the side, not sure what to do. Waiting for something to happen. For me to decide what to do.
As the minutes passed, the car seemed to move slightly, so imperceptibly at first that I was not sure it was happening. But, soon enough, it was clearly rocking from side to side. Not much, not so you’d really notice if you were passing by, but enough for me, watching closely, to know what they were doing.
Her passenger seat laid flat back. Knickers on the floor, shoes kicked off. Him on top of her, trousers loosened and half pulled down. Riding her back and forth. His head up above the top of the seat so he could see out, would know if anyone were approaching.
I could have run forward at that point and confronted them. Hard to deny what was going on with her legs spread wide and his backside bobbing back and forth in front of me.
But I did not. I stood, half out of sight, half watching, imagining his grunting pig face as he brought my wife, her back arching and making little whimpering noises, to the brink of ecstasy. The thought of this angered me more than I can say.
I must stop here, pause a moment, for it still upsets me greatly.
Regain my composure. Gather my thoughts.
I will stop there. It is a suitable moment to do so.
Let me just say though that I knew, as his car came to a sudden juddering halt, that I could rush them, wrench the door open suddenly, surprising them. I had a knife in my pocket. I could have used it. First on one, then the other. Stabbing and slashing and cutting away at them one by one. Over and over.
Yes, I could have slain them there and then and no one in their right mind could have blamed me. But I did not. For I am a smart and clever man. I did not – do not – want to go to prison. And I had a plan forming in my mind. I held myself together as best I could. And so I went home. To have a cup of tea and a custard cream biscuit (slightly stale) and to wait and watch for their return.
THURSDAY 27 JULY, 3.20PM
I would never, in a million years, have ever expected to be doing what I am doing now. I am babysitting, if that is the correct word, the little girl while Adrian and the beauty have gone to the pictures.
Babysitting is not something I wish to do!
(I have, in my head, amused myself by now thinking of them as ‘Beauty and the Beast’, given Adrian’s stooping gait and general ugly awkwardness. Not that I would refer to them as such out loud. Not in front of her anyway.)
By the by, I have not become a children’s entertainer!
The three of them turned up, out of the blue, just after I finished my last diary entry. Their arrival, unexpected as it was, made me jump. It was only when I recognised their voices as they entered the hallway that I realised I had been holding my breath for what must have been half a minute.
I mopped the sweat from my face and under my arms, tidied myself, made myself decent, as it were, by changing into a fresh, dry shirt, and went to see them. They were carrying bags from Greggs the bakers and bottles of water. She invited me to join them for lunch. They went into the kitchen. I sat in the living room, waiting.
Have lunch with us, she said. (Have lunch in my own home!)
They busied themselves in the kitchen, Adrian coming back and forth to set up and arrange the table in the living room in his usual obsessive, stop-check-repeat, stop-check-repeat way.
Madness, utter madness.
I do not understand how she has not recognised this yet. Perhaps she has and just ignores it. Because she loves Adey as she calls him. Aaah! Not for long, though. It will drive her mad eventually, as it does me.
We sat down to eat the assorted rolls, crisps and pastries and what I call ‘vegetable things’. They are vegetarians apparently – no doubt ‘Adey’ will become one too. The meal was something of a free-for-all. The child reached greedily for whatever it wanted and pushed food into its mouth like a fat little pig. While I was distracted, watching the girl, Josie asked me if I were doing anything that afternoon.
I had noticed already that she has this habit of looking down while glancing up at you in a disconcerting manner; as if she were rather shy. It is, in its way, rather endearing.
I answered cautiously, “No, not especially” but immediately wished I had said the opposite; that I was very busy indeed. (But then Adrian would have given me one of his sly, sidelong looks and maybe said something to make me look foolish and I do not like to be made to look stupid, not least because I am a highly intelligent man.)
I expected her to want to play happy families in some way.
A walk in the park. A go on the swings. A tea-time picnic on the beach.
Not my th
ing. No, not my thing at all. I would have said so, politely.
But she talked in a rather forlorn little Minnie Mouse voice, quite at odds with her strong, firm body, about not having been out with Adrian on “a proper date”, never really having had “quality time” together, a cinema trip and a meal out and all of that.
(Although, I thought to myself at this point, they had got to know each other well enough to have, I assumed, been ‘going to bed’ with each other.)
Then she asked if I’d babysit the little girl that afternoon.
A “play date” she called it, laughing suddenly and putting her hand to her open mouth as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
I saw Adrian give her a warning look and an over-emphasised shake of the head. I did not know what that was about.
I queried the phrase ‘play date’. I had never heard it before. I thought it sounded strange. She explained that it simply meant two children getting together to play.
I am not sure whether she was suggesting that, being together, the little girl was one child and I was the other; or if she just meant generally. But I smiled at her as if I found this amusing too and so, two hours or so on, here we are now, Beauty and the Beast at the cinema and me and the little girl – little madam – in the living room.
The child sits in front of me on the carpet on the other side of the coffee table. She has taken off a pink rucksack with a cartoon pig on it and has unzipped it, taking one item out at a time and placing them neatly in a row on the coffee table.
A handful of sheets of white drawing paper, A5 sized, some used, others unused. All rather soiled and scruffy.
(She looks up solemnly at me watching her.)
Next, she brings out a pencil case, which she empties with a clatter as crayons and felt-tipped pens tumble across the table.
(“Oops,” she goes, putting her hand to her mouth – just like mummy – and giggling at me; even though she must have been aware that would happen.)
Then, knowing I am watching her, she makes a show of searching at the bottom of the rucksack, before taking out three small tubes; one looks to be full of small golden stars. The other two contain red and silver pieces of glitter respectively.
Mr Todd's Reckoning Page 11