When I hear tyres moving over the tarmac I pull at the brake handle, but find it already pulled up high. Then I hear the horn coming from behind me. It is Mrs. Sedgwick in her birthday present, an obnoxious black Range Rover, strangely perfect for the local roads, and yet grossly oversized to pass in them. She toots again and waves, but the turned down over-plucked eyebrows are really asking if I am alright, and I can tell that she is wondering why I am sat here on such a cold day with my head hanging out of the window. I acknowledge her with a slight wave and a smile before proceeding along the driveway. I wish she hadn’t seen me here like this. I try so hard to appear sane in front of the neighbours. Gregory prefers it that way.
I have certain expectations of our marriage, that if I am honest with myself, are not being met. For example, I expected that I might smile each day, safe in the knowledge that two became one and that there would always be somebody at my side, every day of my life. That I would never be alone. Not again. I think this is a fairly reasonable expectation and yet it hasn’t really worked out that way. I feel alone each day of my life. I spend most days as if I were mute, talking only to Ishiko, which doesn’t even count. I don’t have anybody with whom I can gossip about the weight that Mrs. Sedgwick has gained or the new breasts that Mr. Wexley bought for Marianne. Mr. Wexley is our closest neighbour. Marianne is his girlfriend. She will also be coming for dinner tonight to celebrate my birthday. Mrs. Wexley is away visiting friends.
I also expected that I might be encouraged to do the things I wanted, rather than the things deemed acceptable for me. Instead I have been encouraged time and time again to leave my job, to learn how to bake, to take up a craft, and align myself with a charitable organisation. After all, I live in the largest of the Windermere Grove Cottages, mansions built by Gregory’s grandfather in the late forties after a hefty incentive was paid to the planning department. I have repeatedly disappointed Gregory by continuing to work, by my reluctance to have a housemaid for him to enjoy, and with my lack of involvement with the other wives. He believes that I do not understand or support his position in the community. If only I could accept the new life, I might find I would be happier in it, he used to tell me. At first he thought it quaint that I wished to hold on to some resemblance of normality. He humoured me for a couple of months. I thought, naively I see now, that he might appreciate my efforts not to have to support me financially. I have since established that he would have been much happier if I had been around to cater to his whims, to float about the house being precious and delicate and needy and rely on him for everything. I realised this when I returned from the hospital. He thrived when lavishing me with his suffocating brand of attention. I think if I had stayed depressed and post suicidal he would have happily tended to my every need for the rest of our life together. He would never have needed Ishiko if I had continued to need him so much. To not be needed would be the worst thing in the world for him.
I already noticed that the Auschwitz style chimney from our roof is pumping out smoke into a royal blue sky, which tells me that Gregory will be in the drawing room, sipping a brandy, getting into character of Entertainer and Friend. He is neither of these things, but tonight I will see the man I married. He will be charming and full of wit, sharing anecdotes of our life together that I do not recall or remember living through.
He does not greet me at the door as I had hoped and scripted in the moments leading up the steps. I push open the door and Ishiko is standing in the hallway waiting to greet me with her head bowed. I consider for a moment grabbing it and pushing my fingers into her eye sockets as I lean her backwards and smash it against the banister, but my ideas fade at the sight of her outstretched arms, one empty and waiting for my coat, the other loaded with a small disc tray, on top a brandy over ice. She doesn’t say a word. There is no nod to the drawing room. She just holds out the tray, and like a good guest I drape my coat over the servants arm and take the glass.
The drawing room is my least favourite room in the house. He is sitting in the green Queen Anne chair, always reserved for moments of reflection such as this when he wishes to appear pensive and refined. Next to him is a fireplace draped in ivy, clinging to anything it can hold on to, as if even the trinkets and mantle piece want to escape. Many times I have entertained the thought of setting it alight, the flames tearing murderously up through the stems and leaves. I imagined waiting until the tips of the flames tickled the canvass of the portrait of his parents above. I wondered how long it might take before the whole room was ablaze, the flames scorching through the thick drapes and lush wallpaper as if it was tinder. I lit a match once and held it to the lowest leaf. At first I didn’t think it would catch, but then all of a sudden it sparked, a tiny firework of joy, before I heard company in the hallway and quickly patted it out.
Gregory has angled his chair to the French doors which overlook the garden. He has pulled the drapes back to view the expanse of garden which surrounds the house, and meanders down to a line of trees before the vista of the lake beyond. Sometimes I want to look at it, and other times not. Today I have done my looking. I take a seat on the settee behind him which is closer to the piano that nobody can play and wait for his acknowledgement. I cannot see above the trees here. There is no vision of the water. I could almost forget that it’s there. Almost.
When he sits in his chair like this, gazing out at the world beyond, he always looks like he is in mourning. To be around him sometimes is so depressing. He sips his brandy, keeping the glass to his lips and the syrupy drink in his mouth, so close to the front it is almost spilling back out. There is a stool alongside him and he motions to it. I consider being stubborn, to motion to the settee which has ample room for him and no view. But I remember the decisions I took whilst on the way back home and instead I smile, walk over to him like a schoolgirl to the call of her demanding father and take a seat at his side. Again he sips his brandy and I consider changing my mind. But it’s too late. For a bit of self encouragement I tell myself that I am going to be a mother, hoping that this might be enough to get me through the next few minutes. A mother. A wife and mother. That’s what I have to be.
“How was your day?” I ask, as he swills his glass around creating a small whirlpool of brandy. I can see that he has opened the expensive bottle that he ordered from France in the heart shaped canteen which came in a wooden display case that reminds me of an open casket. I hear Ishiko close the kitchen door. I am still holding my glass and I bring it up to my lips and pretend to drink. My glass doesn’t smell of warm wood, or rich like tobacco like I know the expensive brandy smells like. Instead, mine smells like alcohol, and I assume that what is in my glass is the cheap brandy which he serves to unimportant guests. It is the same brandy that Wexley will drink tonight after being shown the heart shaped chalice. “Mmmm,” I say, motioning to the glass. “It was worth the money.”
“Not really,” he says. He puts his glass on the table and rubs his hands together to rid his fingertips of the icy condensation. He adjusts the position of last Sunday’s newspaper which is hovering on the edge of the table. Props ready. I attempt to set my glass down on the table but he quickly gets up and produces a silver coaster faster than the hand of a magician and slides it under my glass just in time. Stood next to each other I can see that my brandy looks orangey, his more like mahogany. “Anyway, it was pleasant.”
“The brandy?” I ask.
“No, my day. It was pleasant.” I wish for once he would give me something other than middle of the road. I would love for him to love me, but I would rather him hate me than feel nothing of importance.
“The renovations?” I have chosen to believe that the renovations were not a cover story for his lack of desire to be at the hospital today. I have chosen to believe they are actually happening. To not believe this is too difficult.
“They are going very well, thank you.” I haven’t been to the hotel in a long time. He used to take me each Saturday but after a few weekend house showings his will to figh
t for my time expired. I know this because Gregory told me so. There is silence for a moment whilst he sips from his drink.
“Gregory,” I say, “I have taken a decision of which I think you will approve, and I hope that it makes you happy.” He doesn’t turn to look at me. Instead he sets his glass down onto the coaster and strokes the tweed of his jacket sleeves, pulling off a small bobble of material that had the impudence to appear. He tutted at the offence, at the audacity for it to show up on his jacket. “I think it will help us, help us to.....” I pause, uncertain if he is even listening.
“To what?” he says without looking at me, dropping the fluff ball to the floor.
I want to say survive, to be what I thought we might be. I want to say it might help me to feel alive, to feel that I exist, and that I have a place in the world instead of living somewhere that feels like purgatory, neither living nor dead, just floating through a poor excuse for Elysium. Instead I say, “to spend more time together.” I smile encouragingly like the doctor did for me earlier on today. He isn’t smiling, but he looks at me, and I take the acknowledgement as a good sign.
“What decision have you taken, Charlotte?”
Even as I am saying the words I cannot quite believe it. I would never have thought that I would succumb to that which was expected of me. I never thought that I would agree to spend my days as others saw fit, to run by their schedule, or to rely on the presence of another person to validate me. I want to be sick as I hear myself say, “I have resigned from my job.” With an overstretched smile plastered onto my face, and the fact that I am forcing my eyes not to wrinkle and cry, I look like a moving version of a fucked up Picasso, my features out of line and two dimensional.
At first he doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me, his interest garnering momentum as if I am appearing through a haze of smoke. His eyes move across me, tracing the line of my lips, and then my nose, my eyes. It feels like he is wondering what I am thinking like he did when we first met, wondering who the person is behind the body, before he got to know the mind behind the eyes. I feel his eyes move down across the profile of my face, and his features slacken, his mouth opens and I see his straight teeth, long and tombstone shaped. He isn’t smiling, but he looks almost like he is about to when his gaze falls onto my breasts. He lingers there a while and I feel my face flush because he looks like he wants me. I can’t remember when he last looked like he wanted me. He stands up from his chair and towers over me, casting me in shadow. He kneels at my side, and I can smell his sticky tobacco rich breath. He pushes his hand into my blouse, places his lips against mine and kisses me hard, his mouth as wide as a lion. With his other hand, which I noticed had remained limp at his side until now, he grabs the back of my head. His fingers work through my hair until they make contact with my green scarf. He grabs this, choking me a little and I cough. He seems to like it so I do it a bit more, on purpose. He pulls at my nipple and the flush that once filled my cheeks has moved across my body and into my pelvis. I feel as if he is possessing me like a spirit, or a demon. He is claiming me, his hands moulding me as his own to become what he intended.
“This is mine,” he says, whispering in my ear before licking the auricle and biting the lobe. His lips move along my neck, and as he pulls my breast out from inside my white blouse, he moves his tongue towards it.
“I am yours,” I whisper, thinking how easy it was all along to get him back, but as I reach to return his kiss on the side of his face he withdraws his lips, pulling me back with the scarf as if I have overstepped a line. He stands up, adjusts himself, as if he suddenly realised his mistake, as if he realises that he was in the wrong place with the wrong woman. I find that he is still staring at me as I look up to him, my lips swollen red, and left breast hanging loose.
“Thank you,” he says, and turns to leave the room. I am not sure what he is thanking me for. “Take a shower. The first guests will be arriving shortly.” For a while his form blocks the door frame, his size filling the void between drawing room and hallway. He turns towards the direction of the stairs, and behind him I see Ishiko standing there, this time her head upright staring straight back at me. I don’t know if she has been there all along but all thoughts of my own arousal are cast aside as I am aware of my exposure and I pull at my blouse gulping like a teenager caught by her parents. As I cover myself she turns to walk away. She is following him. For a few moments I sit in shock, aroused and angry and full of blood. I take a gulp of brandy, the cheap stuff, and sit for a few moments more. Several uncertain minutes pass. I drink the other brandy too. It’s nicer. I stand to find that Ishiko is no longer in the hallway. I glance into the dining room and see that she has laid the table for our guests. Simple white plates, unsuitable for venison or pheasant, or for whatever the fuck Gregory has decided upon. I climb the stairs, my breath creeping in and out in short pulsations of Morse code. The light isn’t on in my bedroom and the door sits ajar. I walk past. The floorboards creak. I push the handle of the guest bedroom where Gregory assures me that he is half living only for my convenience, and not because he is a cheating fucker of a husband who I sometimes think about gutting in the night with the knife set that he bought for me but cannot because he has since locked it away. I can hear the spray of the shower hitting the glass cubicle. The steam is rising out from behind the inner door which has been left open. I push the door quietly and see Gregory standing there, head down, arm against the wall with water cascading over him and spraying off in all directions. His other arm is moving frantically and he is grunting like an animal. Like a pig or a boar. I stand dumbfounded in the doorway, watching, half in the light, half in the dark. I am distracted only by Ishiko as she walks in behind me. I turn to look at her, my first instinct to shout, to arouse Gregory to the intruder and betrayal of his privacy, but as I open my mouth no sound comes out. She stares at me as my mouth hangs open like a ventriloquist’s dummy whose puppeteer is lost. I look back at Gregory, unaware and lost to a place built of his own virility. I turn back to Ishiko but she is no longer staring at me. Instead she stares past me, tilting her head to the side as if I am no more than an apparition in the steam, an inconsequential element of the scene. She places clean towels on the bed without taking her eyes off him, regarding his body as if it were a statue on display to be admired.
“You cannot be here,” I whisper as I pull the door to the bathroom closed but without shutting it, sealing Gregory from view, and leaving Ishiko and I in the near darkness of the bedroom. Her eyes glisten back at me as they catch the reflection of the small amount of light sneaking out from the bathroom. I can still hear him grunting, and it is intensifying.
“I have brought fresh towels, as Mr. Astor told me to.”
“But he is in the shower. You saw him in the shower.” I do not feel the need to add any other details about what she has seen or what we can both hear.
“But you opened the bathroom door. If you were not here, the door would have been closed, and I wouldn’t have seen,” she pauses before adding, “anything.” The noises have stopped.
I wanted to tell her that what she saw was not for her eyes. It wasn’t for her eyes, because it wasn’t even for mine. But I can’t because I know he had been waiting for her. I wonder if she had been in here before like this. I wondered if before it had been her hand on his body, or his on her. I wondered if this is how it started, a casual and supposed accidental meeting as she brought in towels. I got another urge to smash her pretty face against something, the bed frame or the nearest cabinet. I thought for a moment how I would enjoy seeing her blood spray onto the sheets, but I was interrupted by the bathroom door opening. I hadn’t realised the water had stopped running during the moments lost to my own fantasy.
“What are you both doing here?” His words were stern, that of a father, and me the child. He referred to us both, but it was me who he looked to for answers.
“I came to ask you something, and she brought you towels.” I stuttered my words and knew that they sounde
d unconvincing, abashed. He was covered by a towel already, his selfish seed spilling penis covered from view, his oversized body underworked and underdeveloped. Where his pectoral muscles should be hung lumps of skin, and his stomach was protruding over the towel as it cut through his flab. I hated him for making me feel this way, and I hated her even more for not feeling the same.
“Well if you wouldn’t mind.” He ushered us both to the door, irritation and no hint of shame in his voice as he flicked on the light. “Ishiko, organise the food, and you,” he said, looking at me, “organise yourself. Your cheeks are all flushed and your hair is a mess. We are expecting guests, remember.” He had managed to get us both out of the door as if I had no right to be there whilst he was naked. I wanted to scream back at him that I saw what he did, that it was too late for privacy, but he closed the door, shutting us out. So instead I gripped Ishiko by the arm, firmly to the point I could feel her blood pooling in her hands and pulsating back at me trying to push me off. She pulled her arm away but I held it tight, my fingers locked in a grip.
I said, “You are not to go in there again. Do you hear me?” I was whispering but spitting at the same time and I saw a few drops land on her face. I think one hit her eye because it flickered shut.
She nodded without saying anything and wiped her face. She walked down the stairs without looking back to me at all. I walked across the creaking floorboards to what was once our bedroom and slammed the door shut behind me. I pulled of my blouse and my bra which was still displaced with my left breast hanging free. I threw them on the bed and then kicked off my trousers, leaving them in an inside out pile half in the bedroom and half in the bathroom. I washed my hands quickly, rubbing the soap up and down my arms, the water gushing from the tap so forcefully that it sprayed back out over my stomach and the drips trickled across my skin. Using my nails to grate at my flesh I worked the soap into a lather and then rinsed it away with handfuls of water. I did the whole process again, and again, and again, and again, and...
PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller Page 4