by Liz Lawler
Early evening, and the sound of his key in the front door set her ready to shock him. The idea had come to her in the last few hours and she’d quickly revised how she would look tonight. She sat in a Queen Anne chair instead of going to greet him, poised and straight-backed, feet flat on the floor and knees pressed together. His eyes opened wide in surprise as he stepped into the room. She now rose from her seat and went to take his briefcase and jacket. Her graciousness marked the occasion of her new attire. A lace-collared blouse, an A-line skirt, finished off with a pair of flat court shoes. She’d styled her hair differently too, in a low bun, giving her the look of a provincial schoolmistress.
‘My, you look different,’ he eventually said.
She smiled. ‘How was your day?’
‘Busy,’ he said. ‘Yours?’
‘Busy,’ she murmured, beginning to feel like an actress on stage, playing the part of ‘The Lady of the House’, modelling best behaviour. ‘Dinner won’t be long,’ she said sweetly.
‘Better, much better,’ he declared, after taking a longer look at her.
She waited for him to burst out laughing and admit to making a bloomer with his choices, but instead he carried on the charade. He stepped over to the mahogany drinks cabinet and picked up a small sherry glass from a silver tray. Holding it by its delicate stem he offered her a drink.
‘May I pour you a glass of sherry?’
She feigned a demure look, refusing politely. ‘No, thank you.’
He put down the glass and gave her an acknowledging nod as if to say well done. He was monitoring her drinking. He didn’t deny her a glass of wine in the evening, but was careful not to pour her more, no doubt thinking it wise to drink less when trying to conceive. She felt guilty for this deception – telling lies was not in her nature. She should have told him the morning after that she’d taken the replacement birth-control pill that she wasn’t quite ready, but she had chickened out.
He poured himself a neat whisky, taking a sip, before looking at her over the rim of the glass. ‘Have you tried on everything?’
She flushed at the intensity of his gaze, at the meaning of his words. A polite enquiry she would normally be able to answer if he was making polite conversation, or wasn’t looking at her that way.
‘No. Not everything,’ she replied, throwing him a slightly indignant look.
His eyes wandered slowly down her body, stopping too long in some places. ‘Well, do you want to go and choose something now?’
‘I’m not tired,’ she replied, almost snappily, and saw his eyes darken.
‘Did I say you were?’ he asked in a tone that surprised her.
His voice was what had first attracted her. She had heard it across an auditorium when he gave a lecture and it had made her toes curl. When the lecture ended, without thinking, she’d joined a short queue of people waiting to ask him questions. When it got to her turn he waited politely for her to speak and when she didn’t a warm amusement entered his eyes and he whispered something no one else could hear. ‘I saw you sitting at the back.’
She didn’t recognise the voice he was using now and wondered if he spoke this way to others. With slow rises and falls. It sounded a little unpleasant, instilled an uncertainty to her mood. She shook her head, thinking she would tell him she was getting uncomfortable with this play-acting, and ask him to stop messing about and tell her how awful she looked in the clothes.
‘Well, do you? Want to go and choose something?’
That tone again. Where was he going with this? Perhaps she should let him carry on and see how far it went. But if he spoke like that again, she was likely to tell him to fuck off. Then he’d be shocked, having never heard her swear before. She found herself nodding.
‘Good. I’ll join you shortly then. And, Tess…’
She halted as she reached the door.
‘Wear something less.’
In the bedroom, wearing black bra, panties and stockings, her dark hair still up in a bun, she waited nervously. Standing close to the bed, she knew she looked awkward. Stiff. Not sexy. Not able to relax. As he entered the room, her nervousness increased as he slowly advanced towards her. She raised her hands to cover herself. He pulled them down by her sides. Turning her to face the bed he held the back of her head and rested his forearm against her upper spine. With that leverage he easily pushed her so she bent over the bed. She heard him behind her, unbuckling his belt, unzipping, getting ready, and decided this should stop. She didn’t want to make love this way, her back towards him. She wanted him to hold her lovingly and end this silliness, to turn her to face him so they could kiss. She made to move and felt his vice-like grip on her hips.
‘Hey, back up,’ she chided. ‘What’s your rush?’
His answer: fast fingers, fast actions, tearing the gusset of her panties, her yelp ignored when his nails caught delicate parts. Her cry ignored when thighs made to part.
‘Stop! You’re hurting!’ she cried.
No warning, no pausing, he thrust in fast. A second thrust to push in fully took her breath. Holding tightly to her hips, bearing down on her back, he kept still what was his to enjoy. He had the power to do to her whatever he liked. Dragging and burning and shaming her flesh with all his might.
Her mind was slipping, elbows buckling, wrists burning, arms kept straight, hands spread flat on the bed. Muscles straining, on the verge of giving up, when suddenly he pulled her up hard against him, her breasts grabbed to lock her in an embrace. A low groan let her know it was ending. Then his crushing weight lay heavy on top of her, his breath hot against her skin, and his skin, slick with sweat, sliding over her. He planted a wet kiss in her ear and asked if she wanted dinner. She gave a shake of her head, keeping her face pressed into the bed.
When he finally moved she covered her nakedness and shivered as if ill with fever. A weakness spread throughout her body and she could barely raise her head to see if he were still there in the room, still in her presence.
Sounds from the kitchen identified where he had gone. A clanking of dishware and ping of metal said he was now serving himself dinner. The lovely dinner she had made him, meant to have been shared across a table illuminated by the candles that never got lit. Then silence, and she guessed he was eating. He’d be hungry after expending all that energy. While she… Her throat closed in upon her at what she thought, at what she felt, at what she couldn’t bear have in her mind. Why? Why had he just done that to her, as if she were nothing more than a plaything? She felt dirtied and used, and right now she wished she’d never met him.
A short time later she heard piano music drifting up the stairs. He hadn’t told her he could play the piano. He was playing Chopin. He had played this piece of music to her in the car during their honeymoon as they drove through Cornish villages and along winding roads, one hand on the wheel and his other clasping hers. She liked it then. Now it just made her utterly sad. That he chose this moment to let her remember something quite special, after what just happened on this bed.
Chapter Four
Martha had tears in her eyes as she tied the ribbon back around the bundle of condolence cards. She had read them so many times she knew them off by heart. Carefully, she packed them away again in the small wooden box with her other precious possessions. Many of her memories were inside this box, and even though she looked at them sometimes, she wished she could recall where she got them and what they might mean to her. She kneeled down to push the box under the bed where it was kept safe from harm’s way and then got back up to sit on it. She stared at the flowery wallpaper. The light blue flowers had been vivid once and she could hear the ghost sounds of giggles after it was put up. She patted the bed as if Ted were there, wishing he was so she could talk to him. He’d advise her on what to do.
She mopped her face with a handkerchief and gave her nose a blow as she heard sounds downstairs in the kitchen. In a moment she’d go down and say hello, once her face was less blotchy and her eyes didn’t give her away. Ted, if he
were alive, would tell her off for crying and tell her to pack it in. She’d like to tell him she once nearly did, and but for intervention she’d be up there with him now keeping him company. That memory was still vivid in her mind.
She’d been mortified when led away from the railway track. More so, when she saw it would be Father John taking her confession. He’d asked her what it was that changed her mind, no doubt hoping it was divine intervention? She never told him it was the sight of her shopping bag. The ridiculousness of how she would look, standing there at the pearly gates with her Tesco shopping bag in her hands, and hearing God asking her why she thought she would need it. He didn’t have a shop up there.
She was grateful for whatever it was that saved her that day. Apart from it being a mortal sin, there was a day of reckoning to be had.
Four weeks on she could safely say he was not a mirage. Right now, this minute, he was no doubt at home in his house, never suspecting he was being watched. She just hoped she had the same courage to one day step out and show herself.
Jim was making tea when she joined him. The layout of the kitchen was practical and minimalistic, with just the essentials for two people. Everything needed was out on the surfaces. Jim, a stickler for having things put back in their rightful places, had labelled the cupboard doors with their contents to make it easier to find things. Simple words like plates and bowls, biscuits and Weetabix had been written in bold black capitals, causing Martha to wonder if in a past life he was a primary schoolteacher, and had forgotten to stop practising these habits.
He seemed to have lived with her forever yet that couldn’t be so because while Ted was alive it was only ever the two of them there.
Jim had to have lived in his own house at one time; he’d had a wife once, a memory of a thin moody woman wearing click-clacking heels was crystal clear. He never spoke about his past and Martha, being private herself, was not the sort to pry. She was glad for whatever the reason he chose to be there. He had become a good friend and was easy company and in his fifties he was well house-trained. He kept house better than her.
She could tell by his face he had something to say. He put a mug of tea on the table in front of her and sat down. He cleared his throat a couple of times and pulled at his collar, a clear indication he was finding it hard to begin.
‘Martha, you left the lights on this morning when you went out.’
She breathed easier, relieved it wasn’t something worse.
He caught hold of her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘And you left the tap running upstairs. It’s all right,’ he assured her as he saw her alarm. ‘I’ve had the floorboards up and it’s all drying. A lick of paint on the hall ceiling will see it right again.’
She squeezed his hand back. There was no point telling him she had no memory of it. It would only fret him more. ‘Thank you, Jim. I’m sorry to have put you to that trouble. I’ll take better care next time.’
‘Martha, those things don’t matter. But you do. I’m worried about you and you’d be doing me a big favour by having a check-up with a doctor.’
Martha inwardly sighed. That was the only downside to having Jim live there. He saw every little change in her. A mischief twinkled in her old grey eyes.
‘What do you expect at eighty-four? I’m an old woman. I’m allowed an off day.’
His eyes showed his fondness and he briefly smiled. ‘Tell me what year it is and I’ll leave you alone.’
She gazed at him reproachfully. Disliking to be tested like this.
‘OK, how about the month and the season?’
She refrained from smirking. She wouldn’t be as rude as that. But inside she was feeling gleeful that she could answer him so easily. ‘The month is March and the season is spring.’
Jim lowered his head, his eyes avoiding her. Reluctantly, it would seem. He pushed back his chair and got up to walk over to the kitchen window. He rolled up the kitchen blind and then opened the back door. Next he turned on the garden light.
‘Can you see the trees, Martha? The apple and pears and the plums? And the blackberry bushes? Can you see them? They’re full of fruit, Martha. Summer is nearly over. It’s September.’
He sat back down at the table and there was a flush to his face, a worry in his eyes.
‘You need to see a doctor. You can’t go on like this. Wearing yourself out, day in day out, visiting that house. You can’t keep tormenting yourself believing it’s him! That’s not possible, Martha. It’s just not possible.’
Her upset was so great Jim had to fetch her spray. When she was recovered he saw her up to bed, leaving her with water, her spray medicine and her bedside light left on.
She heard the stairs creak as he went down them and knew he would sit up awhile worrying about her, believing she had something wrong with her mind because she forgot what month it was. September. Was it any wonder she would prefer it to be spring? She eased herself up against the pillows and reached over to open the bedside drawer. The brown envelope was still there and so was her magnifying glass. A moment later she was staring at his face from a newspaper cutting, holding the paper close to the light. The quality of the photograph was grainy, but under magnification she had no doubts. The man in this photograph was the same man she had been watching, the same man who got out of a car a month ago and let himself into that house. Changing his name to something else and removing his moustache did not change that fact. Jim was therefore wrong. It was possible. This man had returned home, he had come back to his roots, to what was familiar and once the home of his victims.
Martha stared at the eyes in the photograph. She had no doubts whatsoever that it was him. And no doubts in believing he could do it again. He had done it before. Coldly, brutally, without compassion. Why not again?
Chapter Five
Her eyes couldn’t take much more of this crying. They were stinging as if they had been bathed in saltwater. She saved all these tears from throughout the night and only let them fall once he was gone. She’d kept one hand out of the water to keep it dry so that she could hold her mobile and talk to Sara while she was in the bath. She trusted Sara with all her heart and had told her most of it now, about the clothes Daniel bought, the surprise of pleasure she got from opening the door to all the deliveries and then the awful disappointment after seeing them, about how ugly they were, about how unworthy and embarrassed she’d felt standing in her Asda pyjamas.
‘But that’s not the worst of it,’ she cried.
‘So what is then?’ Sara asked.
In fits and starts, between trying to quell her embarrassment and a rise of indignation for mentioning such intimate details, Tess finally got to the events of last night. ‘He then asked me if I wanted any dinner! I can’t get my head around it, Sara. Why would he behave like that? Why is it all going wrong?’
‘Where are you now?’
‘I’m sitting in the bath. Have been all the while we’ve been on the phone. I’m turning into a prune.’
‘And Daniel? Where’s he?’
Tess gave a short bitter laugh. ‘Would you believe playing golf? It’s as if nothing happened.’
Sara sighed heavily down the phone. ‘You may not want to hear this, but maybe for him nothing has really happened. Nothing bad, that is. The clothes, he can be forgiven for. You can’t blame him for trying, even if it does sound like he’s trying to dress you like a member of the royal family. He’s thinking of his position, possibly, how he imagines you should dress. And the sexy underwear is because he knows the real you.’
‘Really, Sara? The real me? When have you ever known me to wear sexy underwear? I like my sports bras, and my knickers covering my bum with more than a piece of string. No, that underwear was for him to use me like a sex object! He… He… ’ Her voice cracked and Sara cut in to make her stop talking.
‘Hey, calm down, just calm down and stop speaking for a minute. I know you’re upset, Tess, but just calm down a bit. Listen to me. I know you think what he did was terrible, but let’
s be realistic about this. He gets home from work and you’re all dressed up like the Queen, and things just got a bit out of hand. He read the signals wrong, as simple as that, and you didn’t put a halt to it soon enough. What did you expect to happen, you silly moo? Daniel’s not a saint. He just read it wrong! And now you have to put it right again. Explain it to him. Truth is he probably already knows but is embarrassed to talk about it. Do you think you can do that? Do you want to give him a chance to put his side across?’
‘I don’t know, Sara. I thought he liked how I was. How I am. Comfortable and—’
‘Ha!’ Sara laughed, before pretending to cough exaggeratedly. ‘Sweetie, you take comfortable to a whole other level. I can barely recall a time when I saw you in anything but your fluffy slippers and PJs. Whenever I saw you at work, I’d have to look twice to make sure it’s you. Now that’s not to say you don’t look perfectly gorgeous in them, because you do, but you have to bear in mind most of your dating before you married him was spent shagging in bed. You’ve got daytime hours now to consider. Just get him to send it all back and go out and buy new stuff.’
‘He got me a pair of leather slippers.’
‘Send them back.’
‘He got me a lavender dress only a very old, very blind granny would wear.’
‘Send it back! Though maybe scratch that. Don’t send it back. Bin it as a kindness to all the old blind grannies out there!’
‘He hurt me.’
‘I know he did, Tess. I know you don’t forget. I know just how sensitive you are about fitting in.’