‘I know you think the whole thing sucks,’ the lawyer said on the street outside the station just after two o’clock that afternoon, ‘but it might very well have gone to court, and you might have ended up with a conviction, so you just be grateful. More important, remember what I told you about being careful.’
‘And meantime Holly gets away with the whole thing,’ Nick said, raising his voice over the din of traffic, too exhausted and, frankly, too relieved to make much more fuss.
‘Not entirely.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means she’s had a warning, too.’ Liza Montgomery flagged down a yellow cab. ‘It means that she’s been noticed, just like you have.’
‘Except she doesn’t have an arrest record,’ Nick pointed out.
‘No, she doesn’t,’ the lawyer agreed, opening the cab door. ‘But it’s better than nothing, expecially if she’s on her way to law school, not to mention a moral character screening.’
Nick supposed that it was, probably – hopefully – better than nothing. That at least Holly Bourne had, for the first time, been drawn to the attention of the police, which meant that surely, from now on, it would be in her own interest to stay out of trouble and away from him.
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Chapter Thirty
I’m coming to it now. The worst part. The thing that stopped me, right at the beginning, from telling Nina the whole truth about Holly and me. That still stops me, even now.
It’s strange, really, and sad, because I realize, looking back, that Nina would have believed my side of the story. Nina would even have understood. I know that now. Now, when it’s too late to tell her. And it is too late, simply because we’ve loved each other now for what feels like the whole of my life. I feel, sometimes, you see, that my life – the life I want and need so badly that the fear of losing it chokes me – only began that day on Fillmore Street when I first saw Nina.
I love my wife, but, unlike her, I haven’t shared all of my truths. I know, therefore, that Nina ought not to trust me completely. And I am so afraid that the day will come when she discovers this. I am so desperately afraid that we will be damaged by that discovery.
I can face many things.
I don’t think I can face losing Nina.
Chapter Thirty-one
After the fiasco in Christopher Street that had resulted in Nick earning an arrest record with the NYPD, he moved out of his apartment and went to stay with Jake Kolinsky at his home on Mulberry Street. It wasn’t far enough away from the old place – and Holly knew where Jake lived – but it suited Nick well enough while he was looking for a new apartment.
At Thanksgiving, when Jake went home to Brooklyn, Nick turned down his parents’ invitation to go to Bethesda, certain that Holly would be heading for the Bourne household. He was right. Holly did go home and reported, in a neighbourly kind of way, to Ethan and Kate that she was concerned about the company Nick had lately been keeping, which prompted Ethan to call Nick to express his and Kate’s own anxieties for him. Nick erupted on the phone and told his father the whole truth and nothing but the truth about butter-wouldn’t melt Holly, and Ethan said that he believed him. But not quite before Nick had heard a tiny worm of doubt in his dad’s voice, and although Ethan Miller had always been a good, decent father, and Nick loved him without reservation, he found that moment or two of wavering hard to forget.
Nick didn’t go home for Christmas either. He was busy moving into a Chelsea apartment on Twenty-third and Ninth. A big, old, anonymous building. A fresh start.
Except that, in February, Holly came to live there too.
She never put a foot wrong, never even tried to speak to Nick, but she was there, in his face. He tried talking to Liza Montgomery about getting some kind of an injunction against Holly, but Ms Montgomery wasn’t any too hopeful. Or helpful, come to that. Holly moving into the same building as Nick hardly constituted any kind of a crime. He’d admitted himself that she wasn’t actively doing anything to disrupt his life; she had neither assaulted him nor trespassed on his property – she hadn’t even spoken to him. If Nick was keen to throw cash down the john in the same way that someone (he didn’t care for the way Ms Montgomery said that ‘someone’) had tossed the marijuana down his Christopher Street toilet, then she was prepared to approach a judge on his behalf. But when it came down to it, unless Holly Bourne seriously overstepped the line, Nick would be advised to remember that he was the one with the arrest record, and Holly was still the law student, with no rap sheet.
‘So what am I supposed to do? Move again?’
‘I can’t think of a better idea,’ Liza Montgomery said.
So much for Holly having been warned off.
Nick broke his new lease and found a place in a small brownstone in Gramercy Park. He could barely afford the rent, but he figured it was worth every ounce of sweat and exhaustion he was going to have to go through to pay for it, because there were only two other apartments in the house, both fully occupied by long-stay residents, and so, even if Holly did track him down and try to move in, there was no vacant space for her.
This time, he really thought he’d cracked it. Months passed. He took his finals, went home for a week, came back to Manhattan, and there was still no sign of Holly, and Nick knew she was starting her senior year that fall and facing her own finals and her Law School Aptitude Test, and maybe – just maybe – even Holly knew when she was beaten.
And then he met Julie Monroe, a black music student who taught jazz aerobics part-time, and life became pretty special for several months. Until, not long before Christmas 1989, Julie told Nick that she had been hassled in the park by a young woman claiming to be his ex-fiancée and wanting to warn Julie that Nick Miller was a racist.
He knew it was Holly even before she described the woman. Julie assured him that she had shrugged it off, but the other woman had persisted, had claimed that if Nick was spending this much time with a black woman it had to be for some kind of warped pleasure – or was he just going through some African art period? Julie swore that she hadn’t believed a single word of it, and Nick thought that was probably true, yet he knew, too, that from that moment on, every time he so much as a lifted a stick of charcoal to sketch Julie, a little splash of Holly’s poison would inhibit them both.
It was too much.
He went looking for Holly that evening.
She was still living in the Chelsea apartment. Nick stood in the lobby while the doorman buzzed Holly, a part of him hoping she might not be home because maybe he was too angry to think straight.
She was home.
‘I knew you’d come,’ were her first words as he came out of the elevator on the tenth floor.
She had grown her hair longer, and was wearing it off her face in a simple pony-tail. She wore no make-up and she was more beautiful than she had ever been.
‘I’ve been expecting you,’ she said as she stood back to let him in.
She was wearing a pair of silky, black pyjamas, the kind some women wore for entertaining and others wore for bed, and she smelled of one of the perfumes he still vividly remembered from their days of sharing, a soft but penetrating jasmine scent. He wished, already, that he had not come.
The door closed, and they were in Holly’s small, square, dimly lit entrance hall.
‘Coffee?’ she offered.
‘I’m not staying,’ Nick said.
‘I didn’t ask you to stay,’ Holly said calmly. ‘I just asked if you wanted coffee.’
‘No coffee,’ Nick said.
She led the way into her living room. There was no overhead lighting, just two table lamps that came on as Holly touched the switch by the door. She had furnished minimally, a few expensive-looking matte black pieces and plain off-white walls. No paintings.
‘I’ve come to warn you to lay off,’ Nick said straight off.
‘Warn me?’ Holly said softly.
‘Yes.’
‘Have a seat
,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Mind if I do?’
‘I don’t mind what you do, so long as you stay out of my life.’
Holly sat down on one of her straight black chairs. It looked uncomfortable. She looked up at him. Her naked face, the candour in her grey eyes, made him edgy.
‘Don’t you know?’ she said.
‘Know what?’ He was aware that he sounded aggressive, which was good. Aggressive, he had concluded a while back, was the only way to be with Holly. Aggressive and then gone.
‘That I only said those things to Julie to provoke you.’
‘Of course I know.’ Nick paused. ‘How come you even know her name?’ he asked, then shook his head. ‘No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.’
‘I knew if I said enough,’ Holly went on, ‘made you angry enough, you’d come and see me. I knew calling you up and asking for help wouldn’t work this time – we’ve been through that one before, haven’t we? So I figured anger would do it.’ There was unmistakable sadness in her smile. ‘And I was right.’
Nick sat down on the chair furthest away from Holly. It was as hard as it looked. He wondered, fleetingly, why anyone would choose a piece of furniture this uncomfortable for their home.
‘I like them,’ Holly said, reading his mind. ‘I do a lot of my reading in this room. These chairs keep me awake. I’m doing pretty well in school, but there’s so much to learn. I can’t afford too many hours’ sleep, you know?’
‘What did you hope to achieve by getting me here?’ Nick asked. A little of the aggression had drifted away. He felt almost bemused. ‘I mean, what is the point of it? Knowing that there’s no other way someone’s going to agree to see you, unless you make them mad enough to want to hit you. Why would you want that?’
‘Is that what you want?’ she asked. ‘To hit me?’
‘Of course not.’
‘It must be, or you wouldn’t have said it.’
‘Violence isn’t my style, Holly.’
‘Are you sure?’ Her eyes goaded him.
Nick stood up again. ‘I came here for just one thing, and that was to tell you, one last time, to leave me alone – to stay out of my life.’
‘To warn me,’ Holly added, emphasizing the word as if the idea of it was giving her a buzz.
‘If you like.’
‘It’s what you said when you came in.’
He sighed. ‘That’s right.’ He looked down at her. ‘I’m warning you to remember that I could make it hard for you to get as far as law school, let alone as far as getting admitted to the bar.’
Holly looked back up at him, her eyes unwavering. ‘How would you propose doing that, Nick?’
‘I could tell people about you. The right people.’
‘You think they’d listen to you?’
‘Enough to give them cause for a few doubts about you.’
‘They wouldn’t listen for long if you were in jail,’ Holly said.
He stared at her. ‘I won’t be in jail.’
‘You might be if you get into any more trouble,’ she said. ‘I know your lawyer told you that.’
Bemusement vanished and anger returned, but he held it steady and under control. ‘Just leave me alone, Holly,’ he said, one more time. ‘Just concentrate on getting your own life together and forget that we ever knew each other.’
Holly said nothing for a few moments. She sat quite still and very straight, her black silk-covered legs uncrossed, one hand on each knee.
‘Don’t you understand how much I miss you, Nick?’ she asked, at last, looking directly ahead at the wall, not at him. ‘How much I regret driving you away?’
He couldn’t believe the switch.
‘You have to forget all about that, Holly,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
‘It does to me.’ She raised her face, looked at him again. ‘Surely you must realize by now, Nick, that no one else – not Julie Monroe, not anyone – is ever going to love you as much as I do.’
Nick shook his head. ‘You’re sick, Holly.’
Hurt filled her eyes. ‘Sick because I love you?’
‘Sick if you don’t realize by now that you’re the last woman on earth I could ever love.’ It was no harsher than what he’d told her once before, standing on Christopher Street after the business at the pottery store, but he knew that he had to say the words again, had to hope that this time they might get through to her.
Holly stood up and walked over to him. Nick thought, for just an instant, that she was going to slap him, but he didn’t flinch. She was small, after all. He’d forgotten how small she was.
She came at him, not to hit him, but to kiss him.
Her arms snaked around him, and she kissed his mouth.
Startled, Nick pushed her away. ‘For God’s sake, Holly.’
‘Why?’ Holly asked. ‘You know you want to.’
She reached out, grabbed his right hand and laid it over her left breast. He snatched it away. ‘Cut it out, Holly.’ He turned away, feeling stifled, claustrophobic, wanting suddenly to get out.
‘Why don’t you want me?’ she asked, baiting him. ‘Wrong colour?’
He was at the living room door.
‘Is black cunt more thrilling? Is that it?’
He turned around and she was right there, right up against him, one arm going round his waist again, one hand pulling at his head. He tried to draw back, tried hard to resist the temptation to shove her – he knew that with one single hard push he could send her flying, but that wasn’t what he wanted. All he wanted now was to get out of there.
‘Oh, come on, Nick,’ she said. ‘You know you want this.’
‘No, Holly, it—’
She cut him off with a kiss, right on his mouth. He backed off, but the door was at his back, and she started kissing whatever she could reach – his face, his hair, his neck. He felt her tongue, hot and hard, in his left ear, felt one of her hands sliding down his back, gripping his buttocks – and, for just an instant, for just one hideous, unbelievable instant, he felt his body involuntarily responding to her—
Oh, Jesus, no! This is not what I want.
‘You see?’
Her other hand was at his zipper, and she knew – he could see that she knew – what had happened, and his anger upped another notch, and thank God – thank you, dear Christ – obliterated that brief, disgusting flicking of desire—
‘No, Holly.’ He grasped at the invading hand, pulled it off him.
‘Don’t you want me any more? Don’t you want to be in my mouth again, Nick?’ Her eyes were wide, wild. ‘Is Julie Monroe better? Is that it? Is that why you want her?’
‘Shut up, Holly.’ He let go of her hand and pushed her away, pulled his zipper up, felt his hands shaking.
‘Do you like sucking her off more than you did me, Nick? Is that it?’ She was relentless. ‘I’m just trying to understand, don’t you see? To understand exactly what I’m up against—’
‘Shut up, Holly!’ He got out of the living room, backing into the little square hall, but it was dimmer than the room had been and it took him a moment to get his bearings, to figure out where the front door was.
‘Is it because she’s an athlete, Nick?’ Holly was right behind him. ‘Does Julie teach you new things? Is she stronger than me? Does she know how to keep you harder for longer than I did?’
He turned round again, faced her. ‘Holly, I’m warning you—’
‘More warnings. Why?’ Holly moved swiftly, got between him and the door. ‘What’s wrong with my asking a few questions? Aren’t I entitled to be curious about the woman who stole you from me?’
‘I wasn’t yours to steal, Holly.’ Nick was fighting one of the hardest battles of his life to stay in control, to stop himself from grabbing at her and slamming her against the wall to get her out of his way – but it was getting tougher, it was getting close to impossible.
‘Of course you were, Nick.’ She flicked the light switch ne
ar the door and an overhead lamp dazzled him with brightness. ‘You can’t have forgotten, you can’t have.’ She unbuttoned the black silk top and exposed her breasts. ‘You remember these, surely. You loved them for long enough—’
An ugly, panicking sense of suffocation overwhelmed Nick again. For the second time he did push her away, harder than before, and her right shoulder hit the wooden frame of the living room door. She flew at him, pressed herself right up against him, and this time he couldn’t tell if she was kissing or biting. He could feel her teeth and her tongue on his ear, on his neck, and he could hear himself shouting at her to stop, yelling at her in a voice that was scarcely his own, and her perfume was all over him, and he thought he was going to explode with anger or maybe pass out with it . . .
He hit her.
The shock stopped her for just an instant – stopped them both in their tracks. It seemed to Nick that a light sparked sharply in Holly’s eyes – half fear, half exhilaration, and then she came back at him again, tilting her pelvis so that she was rubbing against his groin—
‘I said no!’ he yelled. And hit her again.
All his life, Nick had believed – even after the two drug pushers had beaten him up and Holly had driven him almost to breaking point – that real violence was not in his nature. He was a gentle man. He had never, in his wildest dreams, thought that he could hit a woman and – dear God in heaven, forgive him – that hitting her could feel like some kind of release.
Yet there Holly was, down on the floor, and, crazy as she was, she’d dragged him down on the carpet with her – and even now she was still pulling at him, still wanting him, and – oh, Christ – he slapped her again, and he could hear panting and a kind of moaning, and sweet Jesus, that was him . . .
With a final, terrible groan, he tore himself off her.
And knew what he had done.
Holly lay on her black carpet, gasping. Her lower lip was bleeding, her face flushed, one mark from his hand vivid on her left cheek, another on the white skin just above her naked right breast.
She stared up at him. For several long, hideous seconds, Nick thought that he might have hurt her badly, and his whole being jangled with horror and terror.
Too Close Page 13