Don’t Stand So Close

by Luana Lewis

  Peter had a good way of being quiet. She could see he was taking it all in, thinking about what to say. She supposed it wasn’t every day he found out he’d slept with a crazy woman. He reached for her again, and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘You were a child. It was only the one episode.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m screwed. I’ve made these claims before and they were false. I nearly destroyed someone’s life – my poor English teacher who tried to help me. So you see: I have no credibility. His lawyers will dredge it all up and use it against me. I know it and he knows it.’

  ‘You’ve been well for years. You’ve done brilliantly in your job.’

  ‘I’ve been rethinking everything. Maybe my choice of career was a huge mistake. I’ve just stayed, stuck in the hell of my childhood, working with abusers and abused children. Maybe that’s what’s destroying me.’

  He looked sceptical. ‘You love your work,’ he said.

  She was grateful for the pressure of his thumb against the back of her hand.

  ‘The point is, it will be my word against his, because that’s all there is. They’ll ask for my medical records. They’ll want a psychological evaluation. I’m not going through with all of that. It’s not worth it. And at the end of all of it, best case scenario he’ll get a year or two in jail. I’ve worked with these cases, I know.’

  She held his face, she forced him to look at her. ‘Promise me you won’t report this. Promise you won’t tell anyone without my permission. Promise me. I want to hear you say it. Right now.’

  It took him a few moments, but he said it: ‘I promise.’

  He didn’t look happy about it, but she believed him.

  Her hands dropped from his face. She felt selfconscious, in her robe, barefoot, her hair gone wild. ‘I think you’d better go now,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling tired.’

  He gave her a big bear hug. She wanted him to scoop her up and take her with him. She could go back outside and face the world, like a grown-up. But it was a brief spark and it passed quickly. She let him leave and she put the chain back on the door behind him. She returned to the empty flat, feeling a familiar loneliness descending.

  Max had given her three bottles of pills. One contained industrial-strength painkillers she no longer needed. The second was filled with tranquillizers and the third with sleeping tablets. According to Max, it was safe to take the sedatives three times a day. Stella allowed herself one sleeping tablet before bed. She needed the pill to wipe out her thoughts and anaesthetize her troubled consciousness. She would close her eyes, put her head on the pillow and sleep without dreaming.

  The supply of tranquillizers and sleeping tablets lasted precisely one month. Stella had assumed that when the pills ran out, her time would be up and Max would expect her to return home. He might also expect her to return to work. Stella had no idea how she was going to manage any of it, since she still had not been able to take a single step further than the front door of his Hampstead flat. She decided not to think about her future prospects. She hoped each day that the panic attack would not come, testing it out at exactly eight in the morning, after Max had left for work. Each day, she experienced the same set of symptoms. On the twentieth day, she gave up hoping.

  The night of Peter’s visit, she experimented with taking half a sleeping pill instead of a whole one. Falling asleep wasn’t so difficult. It wasn’t the usual plummet into blissful oblivion, but the dose was enough to relax her, and after lying with her eyes closed and forcing herself to stop ruminating – about how she would ever live alone again, about naked photographs of herself surfacing on the internet, about her job – she drifted down to sleep.

  At two in the morning, she sensed something. A presence, moving, at her bedside. She crept out of bed and cowered at the side of the chest of drawers, closing her eyes, like a child, hoping she was invisible. When she opened her eyes, the darkness in the room was absolute. Blackout blinds blocked out any brightness from the streetlights and she could see nothing. She held her breath and stayed completely still. He was in the room, moving towards her. She felt him brush past her, his flesh, cold and scaly like a reptile, grazing her shoulder. She was terrified.

  As her pupils adjusted, benign shapes of furniture emerged from the darkness. She knew the intruder had been a nightmare, but the racing heartbeat and the terror remained as she crouched with her head in her hands, waiting for something terrible to happen. She managed to stand, went into the bathroom and splashed water on her face. She felt better, but she couldn’t bear to be alone. Softly, she opened the door to Max’s room. She felt her way over to his double bed and eased her way in under the duvet. He lay with his back to her and she spooned up behind him. He adjusted himself slightly and then his hand took hold of hers and pulled it up to his chest.

  Hilltop, 3.30 a.m.

  Stella doubted she would find a window-repair service willing to come out to Hilltop any time soon. As she rummaged through the cupboards to find masking tape and black bags in order to attempt some makeshift repairs, she came across her boxes of pills, as she had known she would.

  She could not last one minute more. She lifted the box of benzodiazepines. One would take the edge off her restlessness, would pull her back from the cliff-edge, would keep her paranoia at bay.

  She swallowed. She didn’t care that Peter was watching.

  In the living room, he wrapped a cushion cover around his hand and smashed out the remaining pieces of glass from around the sides of the window frame. Stella cut open a few black bags and together they stretched them across the open space and taped them to the sides. It was pretty much a hopeless endeavour: the wind battered the thin plastic membrane and it was obvious that the temporary fix would not last long.

  Peter was still covered in Blue’s blood. It was all over his sleeves, and down the front of his shirt. ‘You look terrible,’ she said. She managed a weak smile.

  ‘Thanks. I’ve been in touch with the Met,’ he said. ‘Simpson’s ex-wife has given them some more details about what’s been going on.’

  He did not seem as furious with her, or as disappointed, as she had feared. Maybe, despite his antipathy for her husband, Peter was relieved that Max had taken responsibility for the troubled girl.

  Stella reached up and held the corner of the plastic bag steady as Peter put on yet another layer of masking tape. The minute she lifted her hand, the wind began its assault on their work.

  ‘After Simpson … attacked you,’ Peter said, ‘it seems the relationship with the new girlfriend didn’t take too long to break down. Apparently he is back to his old ways – he’s been stalking his ex-wife, with emails and phone calls, sometimes following her when she leaves the house. She claims he tormented them, drove her back to drink after she’d got her life back on track. She didn’t bother to report him. She doesn’t have too much faith in the police.’

  ‘That’s what Blue was trying to tell me last night. Except that she didn’t tell me the name of the man she was describing, or that he was her father.’

  Even with the help of tranquillizers, she didn’t know how much more of this conversation she could take. ‘Why are you going on about this? Don’t you think I feel guilty enough already? Yes. You were right. I should have reported him.’

  The roll of masking tape was empty and Peter dropped it to the floor.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. ‘The point I’m trying to make is that Max has been treating Blue, as well as her mother. He probably knew. And yet he didn’t mention to you that Simpson is still at large. Don’t you find it strange that Max has had contact with the family the whole time, without telling you?’

  Yes, she did find it strange. More than strange. Max had broken boundaries by treating both mother and daughter – while married to another of Simpson’s victims. Stella couldn’t get her head around all of the implications, there were so many potential pitfalls. And yes, Peter was right: Max’s
decisions were questionable. But then she hardly had a right to sit in judgement, when she had been so utterly passive. She herself had done nothing at all to try and resolve anything. At least Max had tried to do something to help mother and daughter.

  The plastic bin liner flapped, frantic, as the wind tried to break the fragile barrier between the inside and the outside world. It wouldn’t hold much longer.

  ‘I’m not saying this to scare you,’ Peter said. ‘Because I really don’t think that Lawrence Simpson sent his daughter out here. It doesn’t make any sense. But I think something else is going on. Do you want to hear my theory?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘I think Max agreed to treat Blue and her mother so that he could find out how much they knew about Simpson’s attack on you. I think Max was scared that Simpson might – for whatever reason – tell his wife what he’d done. Simpson might have wanted to scare Blue’s mother into giving in to his demands for custody. And if Simpson could show that he could control you, then what chance would his wife have? And he’s a sadist – so he might not have been able to resist boasting about his victory. He might have been tempted to show those photographs to someone.’

  He glanced at her, looking stricken. He regretted his comment about the photographs. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s lack of sleep. I’m even less tactful than usual.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’m not that fragile. And I already worked out that Max might have had his own reasons for wanting to treat Blue and her mother. And I’ve already asked him about it.’

  She enjoyed the look of surprise on his face.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He denied any ulterior motive.’

  ‘What a surprise. And don’t you find it amazing that his practice has stayed squeaky clean through all of this?’

  The corner of the plastic bag came loose. Neither of them bothered to try and fix it back into place. Stella wondered why she was so angry at Peter.

  ‘I think you’re wrong. I believe Max meant well, I believe he genuinely wanted to help Blue and her mother. He does like to be in control, but that’s not a crime. So do I. So do you, for that matter. He’s been under huge stress – he’s carried the pressure of both my mental state and the survival of his practice – and so he took on too much. Yes, he can be over-confident and, yes, he thinks he has to take responsibility for people he cares about – I think he thought he could help Blue and her mother at the same time as keeping an eye on them. But somehow it backfired, and the girl has become fixated on him.’

  ‘So that’s your excuse for him this time?’

  ‘It’s not an excuse.’

  ‘He’s your blind spot.’

  ‘He’s a man who has a strong need to be in control. Sometimes that’s his weakness.’

  ‘He’s a control freak who likes to play God.’

  ‘He’s my husband.’

  ‘Ellie, please. Can’t you think about this logically, objectively – from a professional perspective? Max must have been concerned that Blue’s mother would find out from Simpson himself that you and Max had, by omission, concealed information in your report. If she had got desperate enough, she could have gone to the police. I think Max knew exactly what he was doing. I think he was desperate to stop what happened to you from getting out, and from destroying his practice and his reputation.’

  ‘I know you’re only trying to help. I know you care about me.’ Stella heard herself and she sounded condescending, like Max at his worst. She didn’t mean to. ‘It’s a huge relief, to accept that Lawrence Simpson wasn’t behind all of this, but as for the rest, there’s too much conjecture.’

  ‘Funny that you and I reached exactly the same conclusion. Even if it is just a theory. Don’t you think?’

  Stella moved away from him. She collected the cushions from the sofa and tried to stack them on the windowsill in front of the broken window, but they all fell straight back down to the floor. She gave up.

  ‘There’s no proof,’ she said. ‘We could be completely wrong.’

  ‘I can’t think of any innocent explanation why Max would choose to get involved with that family.’

  ‘Isn’t it fair to say you’ve never liked Max, and this has nothing to do with Blue or her father? It’s about me.’

  Having given up on window repairs, they were standing in front of the fireplace, staring at the wizened logs in the hearth as if hoping a fire might magically ignite.

  ‘Max took advantage of your feelings for him,’ he said. ‘To keep you quiet.’

  ‘That’s not true. I became dependent on him because I didn’t want to deal with my own trauma.’

  ‘He convinced you to do something terrible.’ His voice rose as he became angrier. ‘He encouraged you to conceal a crime. And it had consequences – not only for you, but for Blue and her mother. Max thinks of his own interests – and only his own interests. He puts himself first, always.’

  She placed both hands on his shoulders. ‘Calm down. Let me be clear. For the last time – Max didn’t make me do anything.’ Her hands dropped. ‘I’m sorry. I was always in love with Max.’

  ‘The problem is, Max doesn’t act like a man in love with you.’

  The compassion in his eyes made her pain worse. ‘Sometimes he needs a break – from me and my agoraphobia and my post-traumatic stress and my tranquillizers.’

  ‘How long are you planning to stay a victim?’

  ‘You’re a policeman, Peter, a rescuer. I thought you liked victims. I thought you liked coming out to rescue me now and again.’

  ‘I thought you were tough. I thought you were a survivor.’

  ‘You can’t understand what it’s like to be raped.’

  Despite all the pills, she was agitated; her voice was too loud. She was angry. She wanted to be left alone. She didn’t want to be alone. She was lonely.

  ‘I tried to get you to report what happened. I thought that was the first step in getting your life back.’

  ‘That’s what you thought. But it wasn’t what I wanted.’

  ‘And being locked up in this concrete monstrosity is what you want?’

  ‘It’s a modernist fucking icon!’

  He tried to put his hand on her arm, but she shrugged him off. He knew how to put together a convincing argument. It was part of his job. His words were getting inside her, confusing her.

  ‘Are you so sure there’s no truth to what Blue said?’

  Stella didn’t want to listen any more. She wanted to get away. She wasn’t entirely sure where she wanted to go; then she realized she wanted her bed.

  ‘It’s so cold in here. I’m going upstairs. I need to lie down,’ she said.

  ‘Look,’ Peter said, ‘your life is your own business but at the very least you must see that Max should not be allowed to go on treating that girl without a second opinion?’

  She crossed the frosty entrance hall and grabbed hold of the steel tubular railing. It stung her fingers, as though she’d grabbed a piece of ice. She didn’t look back. The higher she climbed, the more the numbness took over.

  ‘I’ll stay until the glass-repair people get here,’ Peter called out. ‘I’m sure they can board up the window. The house will be secure.’

  Still, she did not turn around. She did not want to see him. She kept climbing, putting one foot in front of the other.

  Bloody hell. Her bedroom. She had forgotten the wreckage Blue had left behind. Stella weaved her way through the chaos and the debris on the floor. She picked up her duvet, shook it out and laid it across the bed. One pillow was still in place, but the other was missing. She soon spotted it, stuffed into the fire grate.

  The girl was a demon.

  One pillow would have to do. She just wanted her bed. She shook it, fluffed it up and removed two long blonde hairs. She didn’t need any reminders. She lay down on her back and closed her eyes.

  Something hard was digging into her backside. She reached under the covers and felt around, but there was nothing ther
e. There was something tucked into the back pocket of her jeans. Blue’s phone.

  Hampstead, July 2009

  Five weeks after Stella had been living in his Hampstead flat, Max came home late for the first time. Her chicken in lime coconut curry sat cold and untouched on the Aga. She wanted to hurl it into the dustbin, but then she couldn’t bear to throw away something she’d worked so damn hard on. So, it sat, congealing. Stella simmered. She flicked aimlessly through the television channels. He was with a woman. It was only so long, she supposed, that he could embrace a celibate lifestyle with an unwanted, much younger colleague camped out in his flat.

  He couldn’t be seeing anyone. Stella had expected, at the very least, that he might have an emergency or two – a suicide, or an overdose – that would mean he had to stay out late. But he must have passed any emergencies on to a colleague, because he was always home on time. He had completed the Simpson report himself and he had arranged with Anne to cancel all of her other commitments. He always came back to her at the same time each night: eight o’clock. He would let himself in and then he would come and look for her. She would be in the kitchen, standing over the cooker. He would approach her and give her a friendly peck on the cheek. Sometimes he would squeeze her shoulder as she stood with her back to him. The cooker was the nicest one she’d ever used. Judging by how pristine it was, he had never used it himself.