SELMA
August 2014
From here on in it’s a breeze. We meet most days at the coffee shop. She’s so desperate for a friend. To be liked. It’s tragic.
From the copy I’d made of Ed’s electronic diary before I left the accountants, I know he’s due to attend a conference in London today and will be staying there for a further two days. When Inez brings it up at the coffee shop, I try hard not to smirk.
‘My husband’s away for a couple of days on business. Would you want to-’ Her voice fades.
‘Want to what? Go to the cinema maybe?’
‘Erm, no, actually, I wondered if you’d like to come over to the house? I could make a meal. That’s if you aren’t busy with your husband.’
‘No, I’d love to. He’s in his writing cave for a change. I’m climbing the walls with nothing to do. He hasn’t come to bed the last two days, he’s slept in his chair.’
‘Well, you could stay if you like? That way you could drink. We could have a girly sleepover. I never did that when I was younger.’
‘No girly sleepovers? How come? They’re a rite of passage. Midnight feasts and chick flicks.’
‘I wasn’t allowed.’
‘Well then, I’m definitely staying over, and I’ll bring films and nail polish.’
She smiles. ‘I think for the first time ever I might actually be pleased my husband has to stay away.’
Inez lets me into the house. The outside is as uniform as it was all those years ago, but there are no longer net curtains, modern times have ditched that look. Instead, there are blinds, angled so as not to be able to see inside. The house is surprisingly masculine. All greys and sharp angled furniture. I thought Inez would have let herself free with decorating, but it seems her husband’s control is in the decor too.
Bounty comes yapping at my feet. I want to swing my leg and kick her into the wall. She must sense it as she nips my ankle.
‘Ow.’
‘Bounty. Naughty girl, come here.’
I watch as Bounty is fed three pieces of steak. Well, talk about rewarding bad behaviour. Don’t worry, Bounty, I’ll give you a treat later too.
Inez cooks an amazing meal. To be frank, I’m astounded by her culinary skills.
‘I watch a lot of cookery programmes,’ she explains, ‘and then I practice the recipes. I have nothing but time.’
‘I quite like a good cookery programme too,’ I tell her.
‘We are so alike. I can’t believe it,’ says Inez. ‘Do you like the film Chocolate?’
‘Do I? Johnny Depp plus chocolate? What’s not to like?’ I laugh.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d have seen it, with you being so young.’
Fuck. I forget I’m only supposed to be in my twenties.
‘Well it’s a classic, isn’t it?’
She leans back against the sofa and sighs. ‘I don’t know why you want to hang around with a middle-aged woman like me and not someone your own age.’ Her face falls.
‘Why? How old are you?’ I ask as if I don’t already know.
‘I’m almost forty-nine.’
‘Wow. You don’t look it,’ I lie. ‘I thought you were early forties.’
‘How old are you? If you don’t mind me asking, that is?’
‘Twenty-seven,’ I tell her. ‘Age is just a number, Inez. I don’t make friends based on it. Most women my age are having babies, and well, you know what that subject does for me. I’d rather hang with you. You have life experience, history. We have lots to chat about. I bet you’ve done some amazing things in your life.’
I see a wobble to her lip. A nervous tremor to her hand. ‘My life’s been quite stale,’ she lies.
It doesn’t matter. I know all her secrets anyway, whether she confides in me or not.
‘Could you tell me where the bathroom is?’ I ask. ‘I’ve drunk too much water.’
When I’m safely ensconced in the bathroom, I take out a prepaid mobile from my pocket and dial her house phone, praying there won’t be any interference.
I change my voice to Sam’s and make myself sound drunk.
‘Hello?’
‘Inez, sweetie, how’s tricks?’ I slur.
‘S-Sam?’
‘That’s right. Remember me, darling? I miss our chats.’
‘Erm, h-how’s the new job?’
‘What new job? Ohhh, that’s right. Poor Inez. I didn’t leave, honey. Ed just told you that so you’d stop being so paranoid.’
‘What do you want?’ Her tone goes cold.
‘Oh, babe, well I’m drunk, and I just wanted to let you know that your husband’s cock is a-maz-ing. I almost couldn’t fit it in my mouth.’
‘W-what?’
‘No, I didn’t think he’d have told you. That’s why I’m calling. I think you deserve to know. There’s no conference. We’re holed up in a hotel in London just fucking. I’ve come out to get something to take back for us to eat, instead of each other. Such an appetite. Anyway, I thought you should know, Ed’s planning on leaving you.’
There’s an anguished squeal.
‘He says he likes me best because I have a more responsive pussy.’ I laugh and put the phone down.
I hide the phone and flush the toilet. Then I head back downstairs.
I find Inez in a heap on the floor, tears pouring down her face as she presses keys on her phone, no doubt trying to ring her errant husband.
I can hear the reply. The number you have called is currently unavailable.
And it is. Because Edward is otherwise engaged – against the wall of my old family home, with his phone locked in a drawer there. Turned off.
Ed always did insist on walking to the gym early every morning. That’s the thing with routine. You know where someone is going to be at a certain time of day. So, I knew Ed would walk past the derelict industrial estate ten minutes away from my old home at six-fifteen am. That’s where Bobby stuck a handkerchief full of chlorophyll in his face before we took him to my house. My parent’s old home where no one lives close enough to bear witness to a large man being dragged inside. I paid Bobby a handsome sum of money. He may be a mate, but his silence needed to be bought. I sent him back to my apartment once Ed was secured to the wall.
I put a blonde wig on and my contacts in, so I looked like Sam again, albeit with puffier lips. At this stage I didn’t really give a shit what Ed saw.
When he came around it was so cool to see him freak out about his new surroundings.
‘Sorry. I forgot you like routine. I don’t think you’re going to the gym today, Edward, or your conference.’
I expected him to pull on his chains, but he didn’t.
‘What do you want, Sam?’
‘Simple,’ I told him. ‘I want to destroy your life. Like you did mine.’
I spend the night consoling Inez. Telling her men are bastards and that she could do better. I lie and tell her I’m sure my own husband has had an affair. That I’m always feeling lonely. She soaks up every word and eventually falls asleep on my shoulder.
I ease her off and go and let Bounty out for a piss. I take out a piece of chicken from my bag that I prepared earlier. Fucking dog had kept barking near it, almost giving the game away.
‘Here you go, Bounty. You’ll love Auntie Selma’s chicken. It's marinated,’ I tell her.
She barely chews the meat. It’s gone in seconds. Chicken a la antifreeze.
She returns to the warm house, as do I. I place myself back in the position we were in before. After an hour or so Bounty starts to wobble as if she’s drunk. Then she shits herself; the smell is so offensive I want to throw up. A small part of me wants to rush the dog to the vets, but a larger part, the winning part, knows it has to be done.
‘I’m sorry, Bounty,’ I whisper. ‘Sarah will take care of you in Heaven.’
Sarah. That’s what I called my beautiful lost baby. I lost mine. Now Inez is about to lose hers.
I wake to another scream.
‘Bounty. Oh,
my God. Bounty.’
Inez is up and cradling her pet in her arms.
‘She had a seizure. Something’s wrong.’
‘Where’s the vets? I can run us there if you like?’
‘Please.’ She sobs. ‘Can we get there fast?’
We arrive. Inez is a dishevelled mess with mascara smears down her face. The vet rushes Bounty into surgery, and tell us they’ll call.
They phone Inez at home hours later to tell her that Bounty died from kidney failure. That it looked like she’d been poisoned, likely by antifreeze. They tell her that it’s so easy for it to happen. It’s kept in people’s garages. It drips from cars and the pets lick it.
‘But she never goes out of my sight.’ Inez looks at me, her face crumples as she cries again.
I put a look of terror on my face. ‘Oh, God. I let her out last night while you slept. She was at the door, I thought she needed a wee. I wasn’t going to tell you because you had enough on your mind, but she ran down the road, and it took me an hour to get her back. She must have done it then. I’m so sorry.’ I begin to cry, easily done as I am truly sorry about what I had to do. I had a heart before they broke it. Sometimes it tries to beat again.
‘Selma. No. It was an accident. You weren’t to know.’
We sit, arms tight around each other and weep. Consoling each other, before I make my excuses to leave, to return to my ‘husband,’ when really, I’m returning to hers.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SAM/SELMA/MELISSA
3 September 2014
My artwork is almost complete. Edward has been mute for the last couple of days, offering me no physical or emotional response to my news. Today that changes.
‘We thought you’d finally moved on.’
It’s the first words he’s uttered that I believe are honest.
‘Well, now you know.’
‘To go to all that effort.’ He appraises my body. ‘There’s no trace of Melissa Simmons.’
‘Thank God,’ I retort, ‘Or my surgeon-’
He interrupts. ‘I know you lost your husband and your baby, and I can’t know what that must have felt like. The betrayal…’
He’s trying to get to me. It won’t work.
‘That’s right, you can’t possibly know. That’s why we’re here, Ed, so you can gain some understanding.’ I continue with my inking.
‘Inez wanted to move. She couldn’t stand you watching us. But I told her she’d done nothing wrong. We weren’t going anywhere. If anything, I felt you and Dave should move, away from the bad memories of that place. Instead, you spent years taunting yourselves.’
‘We spent years bringing up the children left without their mother because of your actions.’
‘My actions? You stifled your husband. He couldn’t be himself, having to fit in with your playing house games just like when you were at school together. He’d grown up.’
I swipe the alcohol rub from my desk and pour it over his fresh tattoos. I watch him try to hold back the pain but his face grimaces and he groans.
‘You fucked my husband, and you fucked me over. If you hadn’t instigated this. If you’d left us alone, there’d still be me, Jarrod, and at least one daughter. There’d still be Sandra, Dave, Becky, and Joanne.
‘You’re fooling yourself. There’d be no you and Jarrod,’ he spits out his name. ‘Because it was all a fucking lie.’
I grab my tattoo machine and swing it at Ed’s head. A huge gash appears on his cheek as his head collides with the wall. He’s knocked unconscious.
I check my machine, ensuring it still works and carry on with the final inking while he’s quiet. Tomorrow I hope to let him go home - if he still has one.
4 September 2014
I walk into the room with a brilliant smile on my face.
‘Ed. Darling. Today’s the day. I’m letting you go.’ I smile, noting the gash to his cheek. His face is no longer clean shaven. He has dark brown stubble. I bet he’d hate his reflection.
He awards me a cold, calculating look. ‘Why? Did you finally realise you’ve gained nothing from keeping me here?’
‘You silly billy. What do you mean? I’ve gained so many things.’
He looks at his chest. ‘You tattooed me. I’ll have to wear shirts for life. I’ll live.’
‘Hmmm. How will you explain them to your wife?’
‘I’ll tell her I was held hostage by Melissa Simmons. The same story I’ll give the police.’
‘If you do that, then there’s a bounty on your head, darling. You don’t think I haven’t covered myself, do you? Speaking of Bounty. It’s a shame what happened to your wife’s dog.’
He strains at his cuff. ‘What have you done? You’d better not have been anywhere near Inez.’
‘Oh, I’ve been near her alright. Very near.’
‘You can do what the fuck you want with me, but not with her. Do you hear me? She’ll have been frantic while I’ve been missing. She’ll have called the police.’
‘I think you’ll find she doesn’t want anything more to do with you, and she doesn’t care where you are,’ I taunt. ‘What with you fucking Sam from work, which is where she thinks you are now.’
‘How the fuck have you managed to see her? She’d recognise you.’
I shake my head and remove my wig to show him my cherry red hair. ‘Nah. She’s looking for a blonde she saw once in a photo. Not her best friend Selma.’
‘Selma? You’re fucking deranged.’
‘I certainly am. Congratulations. You made me this way.’
‘I don’t know how you keep up with your multiple personalities.’
‘It’s all an act. I think I’m actually really fucking clever and that’s what you didn’t bargain for when you fucked over a meek little housewife.’
‘Do it then, let me out. I won’t go to the police. I’ll sign something. Bring me a fucking legal document. I bet you have one.’
‘Of course I do. Legal documents and your demise plotted should anything go wrong. Yours and Inez’s. I’m not choosy over whichever one of you rots in hell.’
‘All I want is my wife. All I ever wanted was my wife.’ Ed’s face shows actual pain as a tear runs down his cheek.
‘Except to get your wife you had to steal my husband, didn’t you?’ I spit. ‘So, I didn’t just lose my baby. You fucked up my husband so badly he relinquished his whole self and became Inez Bonham. You screwed up my world.’
‘He was never yours.’
‘He was always mine,’ I spit. ‘Then he ceased to exist. Have you any idea what that was like? I almost died. I had to have counselling. I’d lost my baby and my husband. I find out when I’m conscious that my husband wears dresses; a long dark wig, that looks like my own fucking hair, and you’ve named him Inez. He didn’t even choose his own fucking name. He looked a complete joke. You made me a joke. I had nothing,’ I scream.
‘I did what I had to do,’ Ed says quietly. ‘He was mine more than he ever was yours.’
‘You. Stole. My. Life,’ I spit out. ‘Now you’ve lost her. Good luck with getting her back.’
‘You stole mine first, you bitch,’ Ed snaps. Then he looks shocked.
‘What do you mean?’
He tightens his lips. His jaw tense. I can see he’s not going to tell me anything.
‘Oh, Ed. Just when I’m ready to let you go, you show me you have more to tell. I’m intrigued.’ I drag my nails up his arm and hold his chin in my hand. ‘You’re not leaving today after all.’
I leave him in the room. My phone rings. Inez wants to go out to the pub. It’s eleven-thirty am. She’s having a bad day. I grab my things. I’m sure I’ll be able to turn this to my advantage.
PART TWO
INEZ
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Inez
I was born Jarrod Lee Simmons.
I remember finding it hard to make male friends at school. I didn’t want to play football. I wanted to play with the girls and their dolls. I wouldn’t let
my mother cut my hair short, preferring it to my shoulder and wavy. Luckily mullet hairstyles were all the rage back then and my hair hadn’t thinned like it did in my mid-twenties. Mel was my best friend from us being five years old. We met in the first year of infants and were inseparable. She had been fed fairy stories from birth and decided I was her Prince Charming. We even got married in class. She looked so pretty in her dress-up wedding dress. I kept playing with the net of it.
I kept my dirty secret to myself. In my teens, I couldn’t understand why I’d want to wank to pictures of both men and women and yet hate my penis and wish it didn’t exist. I’d steal clothes from Mel’s house. She had so many she never even noticed. Every so often her mother would make her clear out her unworn clothes and put them out on the street in a bin bag for the charity collection. I’d come back later that night under cover of darkness and go through the bag, taking out the items I liked. When we were thirteen, Mel was actually taller than I was by a few inches, so the clothes lasted me a long time. When my own height shot up to six feet, while she stayed five foot five, I couldn’t raid her clothes anymore. I’d pretend to buy makeup for my mother, saying it was her birthday. At night, I’d lock my door and put on makeup and a skirt or dress, and I’d sit in my room feeling normal.
The first time I realised that my sexuality was not defined by the sex of a person was when I went on a camping trip with the Scouts. I’d met a young guy from a different group a couple of times. I confessed to him about my feelings, and he understood. He kissed me, and we fooled around. I met up with him a few times afterwards, and we progressed to anal sex, but it couldn’t last. I had to end it.
Mel and I became lovers when we were fifteen. I guess I’d resigned myself to the fact that my life would be spent with her. To be honest, I was fascinated by her soft breasts and her warm pussy lips. I tried to imagine I had them. I’d quiz her all the time on how it felt when I touched her. She thought I was an attentive lover, but actually, I was a jealous one. I didn’t much care for sex. It was too confusing for me with my male genitalia and female mind. I’d get off and then feel guilty about it. Sometimes I’d imagine that scout boy was sucking me off. Other times I’d get Mel to sit on top of me, and I’d try and visualise that she was fucking me. That the penis was hers.
MInE: A Hate Story Page 6