by Mark Edwards
He laughed. ‘She told me you’d suggested it.’
‘Perhaps you could persuade her. You should come along, and that would help you understand what this website needs to convey.’
He had gone pink, though he was still smiling. ‘Jess would never agree to it. She’s not . . . she’s not like you.’ Hurriedly he added, ‘I’m not saying she’s repressed or anything like that.’
‘I know. But she’s shy. And she probably thinks it’s a load of hippie nonsense, though she’s too polite to say that to me. It took me a year to persuade her to practise mindfulness.’
He nodded and took a sip of wine. Isabel had been sitting on an armchair, leaning over to see Will’s laptop screen, but now she got up – surprised by how much the wine had gone to her head – and sat beside Will on the sofa.
‘I do think it would be useful for you to learn about Blissful Massage,’ she said. Their thighs were only an inch apart. He seemed agitated by her nearness, but didn’t move away. Again his reaction made her feel wicked. ‘Perhaps I could teach you.’
He went a deeper shade of pink.
She began to explain to him exactly what Blissful Massage involved. How it was all about touch, taking time, not rushing things.
‘It really frustrates me that Jess won’t try it,’ she said. ‘She has this silly squeamishness about her body.’
‘Or maybe our sex life is perfect already,’ Will said.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Is it?’
He looked away.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Maybe Jess won’t ever do it. Maybe you think it’s a load of New Age crap too. But I still think it’s important for you to understand the fundamentals. Let me show you how it’s done.’ Seeing his face, she said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to take my knickers off. Wait here.’
She went off to her study, detouring to the kitchen on the way back, where she grabbed another bottle of wine she had already brought up from Darpak’s cellar. She leaned against the counter, opening it, thinking about how Darpak owed her.
After that night in October when Darpak had confessed to his ‘mistake’ – that was what they were calling it – they had sat up all night talking. A lot of wine had been drunk by both of them while he pleaded for forgiveness. He had been stupid and disrespectful. But surely that wasn’t enough for them to give up on their marriage, their partnership? They were good together, and he promised – he swore – to be a better husband from now on.
At one point she had wondered how many other couples were having the exact same conversation in homes around the globe at that moment. And in the list of things she was still angry about, that was up there: that he had made her life a cliché.
She had always sworn she wouldn’t tolerate infidelity, but she had found herself agreeing to give him another chance. Because they were good together. And she didn’t want to give up on something she had poured so much life and love and energy into.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t angry and disappointed and, at least several times a day, filled with hatred. Hatred and suspicion and pure, wounded misery.
So she drank. She drank to numb those emotions.
She drank to get through the night.
Like now. She returned to the living room holding the wine along with an object that made Will’s eyes widen.
‘I’m sure you know what this is,’ she said.
It was an anatomically correct, life-size model of female genitalia. Isabel used it occasionally in class, though it was a poor substitute for the real thing. She sat beside him again, holding the model on her lap.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Here’s what happens during Blissful Massage. The woman removes her clothes from the waist down. Then she lies back – we tend to use cushions or beanbags to create a comfortable place where the woman can recline. It’s important that she’s supported and doesn’t feel any physical discomfort at all.’
‘Makes sense.’
‘Okay. First, the couple spend a few minutes talking to each other, using some words of praise. You would tell the woman how beautiful you find her. We can skip that bit and go straight to the main part. You put your thumb here . . .’ She demonstrated on the model. ‘And then you use your left hand like this.’
It was almost silent in the room. All Isabel could hear was Will’s breathing. It was getting heavier.
‘And you stroke, using a circular motion, like so.’
She showed him how it was done.
‘It’s important to communicate,’ she said. ‘Ask the woman how she’s feeling. What’s good, what isn’t. Try to find the perfect speed and rhythm. If you get it right, your partner could have up to ten orgasms in one session.’
‘Wait. Ten?’
‘Yep.’ She laughed. ‘Mind-blowing, huh?’
Her finger continued to stroke the plastic clitoris of her model, which Will was watching intently. She wondered if he was picturing himself doing it to Jess.
Or maybe he was imagining that it was her, Isabel.
She felt a little guilty for thinking it. He was enrapt, watching her fingers move on the model as if he was hypnotised. He was visibly sweating. Was he aroused? What would he do now if she touched him? Would he respond?
She mentally slapped herself. He was her sister’s husband. And even though she was drunk, even though – she realised with a start – it would give her pleasure to take revenge on Darpak by screwing another man, she would never do that. And she was sure Will wouldn’t either.
Ninety per cent sure.
She stopped stroking and stood up, holding the model vagina behind her back.
‘So there you go,’ she said with a smile. ‘What do you think?’
He stared at her. He had that look, the one a man gets when he’s turned on and can’t think about anything else.
‘Will?’ she said. ‘Are you okay?’
But he just kept staring at her, his breathing audible in the quiet room.
Chapter 26
Once or twice during the night, Jessica felt herself slipping into the merciful oblivion of sleep, submerging for a second or two before she awoke, gasping for air. Remembering. And then she would be wide awake again, but desperate for sleep. Desperate to escape.
Finally, at some point between the witching hour and dawn, she surrendered and sat up. Her pyjamas were soaked through with sweat and the sheets were damp and rucked up. It almost looked like she’d spent a night of passion here with a lover.
She went to the bathroom, stripped off her wet pyjamas and got under the shower, turning the temperature up so the water burned, scrubbing her skin till it was pink. When she couldn’t stand the heat of the shower any more, she went back to the bedroom and sat on the bed. Simon’s monitor was still on, displaying an infrared image of Olivia’s room. Jessica leaned closer, gazing at her daughter. After the seance – she had no idea what else to call it – Olivia had sobbed and clung to her mum as if terrified she had done something awful. Jessica had brought her in here and lain down with her, whispering consoling words, wishing she had someone to do the same for her.
‘Olivia, it’s really important that you don’t tell Daddy about the game we played, okay? It’s our little secret.’
‘Me, you and Auntie Izzy.’
‘Yes. Just us girls.’ She forced a smile.
‘Okay.’
‘And it’s extra important that you’re not scared of Daddy, even if he might have done something . . . naughty.’
‘What about Santa?’ Olivia asked.
‘Huh?’
‘Will he put Daddy on the naughty list?’
Jessica smiled and felt tears fill her eyes. She stroked Olivia’s hair. ‘I think he might. But you’re definitely on the nice list.’
Olivia nodded, apparently satisfied, and Jessica felt relief wash over her. It seemed the whole idea of what her dad might have done to the aunt she’d never met was an abstract one. She wasn’t frightened of him in the way she would be if she saw him do something violent.
&n
bsp; Of course, Jessica knew there must be stuff going on in that little head that she didn’t understand. Children are sponges: they soak up and process experiences even if they profess not to remember them. Jessica had no idea what long-term effect all this would have on Olivia – especially if it turned out that Will was guilty. Maybe it would be a good idea to take her to see a child psychologist at some point in the near future. Until then, Jessica was going to keep an eye on her. Right now, in the immediate aftermath of the seance, Olivia seemed surprisingly unaffected.
It hadn’t taken long for Olivia to fall asleep, but at some point – Jessica must have been asleep longer than she realised – Olivia had got up and gone back to her own room.
The little girl lay on her side in bed with a teddy bear pressed against her chin. She looked peaceful, the very opposite of haunted, and Jessica wondered if Izzy had gone now, having imparted the information she needed to share. Or would she stay until Jessica had done something about it?
Done something about it. Like what? What was she supposed to do?
The weird thing – the funny thing? – was that of tonight’s two revelations, the idea that Izzy’s spirit really had returned and was talking to Olivia was easier to believe than the other. Will had murdered Izzy? It was ludicrous. She knew Will. He wasn’t capable of murder. He didn’t have a violent bone in his body. But then she thought about all those people you’d see on the news, the wives and mothers of murderers, the lovers of men who had been proven to be killers. I know him, they would say with blind conviction. He would never do something like this.
Was she one of those women now?
Tearing herself away from the monitor, Jessica put on a clean pair of PJs, wrapped herself in her dressing gown and went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Caspar hauled himself out of his bed, excited to see her, and she sat at the table and stroked his ears.
Could Will really have killed Izzy? Why would he have done it? She forced herself to push aside the voice that told her it was impossible and tried to think logically, like a detective. It would be easier, she realised, if she could write it down, so she opened the drawer where the children’s art supplies were kept and took out a few sheets of paper and a felt-tip pen.
At the top of the page, she wrote Why?
The first possibility was almost too horrific to contemplate but she made herself write it down: They were having an affair.
She stared at the words, a bubble of nausea swelling in her stomach. Could two of the people she loved most in the world really have betrayed her like that? It seemed impossible to believe – that both of them would be willing to hurt her in the most devastating way possible – but it was another thing that happened all the time, wasn’t it? A staple of agony columns and real-life magazines. I only did it because she looked like you, the men would say to their wives.
She thought back to 2012–2013, the months before Izzy’s death. That was the period when Jessica and Will had given up hope of conceiving their second child, when Will had complained of feeling like a ‘mobile sperm farm’. Their love life had dwindled to almost nothing. Had he sought out an affair because of that? It was such a cliché. And anyway, it wasn’t true that their sex life had completely died, because otherwise how had she got pregnant?
Jessica sat up straighter, the sheet of paper trembling in her hand. Had it all started when Will was helping Izzy with her website? She could imagine a chain of events. She wrote it down:
Will and Izzy start affair (Dec 2012).
Izzy ends it.
Will won’t leave her alone.
Izzy threatens to tell me.
Will, afraid of losing everything, including baby, kills her (Mar 2013).
Jessica went over the sentences, seeing it all play out like a TV drama. It was possible. It was plausible, even, a straightforward, logical narrative. She could imagine them both, racked with guilt but unable to stop themselves. It would all have happened rapidly. Jessica had found out she was pregnant in January 2013. She had told Izzy straight away. And Izzy died six weeks later. Could the affair have played itself out that quickly? It was possible . . . Or maybe it wasn’t an affair. Maybe Will had made a move on Izzy, she’d rejected him and threatened to tell Jessica, so he’d killed her. Although both scenarios were dreadful, this one was slightly preferable. In this one, only one person had betrayed her.
Could he have done that, even if he’d been desperate enough? It was hard to imagine, but she tried to think clearly, to push past the havoc all this was causing inside her heart. What would the police look at? She thought back to all those crime novels she’d read, the many episodes of Columbo and Murder, She Wrote she’d watched when she was young.
Jessica had been so swept up in her own grief after Izzy’s death that she had hardly thought about Will’s feelings. He had been there, by Jessica’s side, throughout. He had seemed stoic, strong. She vaguely remembered that she had described him as her rock. Darpak had organised the funeral, but Jessica had helped where she could, although she’d hardly been able to do anything without bursting into tears, a mess of bereavement and pregnancy hormones. The funeral itself was a dark blur in her memory, like driving through heavy rain at night. She didn’t think Will had cried, though. He’d been pale and quiet. Serious. He’d spent most of the day minding Felix.
She raked her memory, trying to find a clue that Will had seemed guilty or grief-stricken, but there was nothing. She simply couldn’t remember.
Caspar nudged her hand, reminding her that she hadn’t stroked his ears for a while. Caspar had been much more energetic back in 2013 and that was one thing Jessica did remember: Will had taken the dog out for a lot of long walks when she was pregnant with Olivia. She had questioned him about it, asking him if he was trying to get away from her. His very reasonable answer had been that the dog needed exercise and he didn’t want Jessica to exert herself too much. But what if that had been a cover story? What if he’d actually been out there working through his emotions, the guilt and grief he hadn’t shown anyone?
‘Did he confess to you?’ she asked the dog, who responded by lying on his back and waiting for his belly to be tickled. ‘You’re no help,’ she said.
Where had Will been when Izzy was killed? It had happened on a Thursday afternoon; Jessica would never forget receiving the call that evening, while she was trying to persuade Felix to eat his dinner. Will had got home from work ten minutes later, finding his wife in a hysterical state on the kitchen floor. So Will had been at work that afternoon – that was his story, anyway. It was something that would have to be checked out.
But by whom?
She ripped up the sheet of paper and dropped the shreds in the recycling bin.
A yawn stretched her jaw. She couldn’t think straight any more. Maybe if she could sleep, her unconscious mind would work through the knots and she’d wake up with a clear idea of what to do.
She couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping in her damp bed so she found a blanket and went through to the living room. Her brain switched itself off the moment she lay on the sofa.
She woke with Olivia standing over her. Light flooded the room and Caspar was asleep in the armchair. Olivia held out Jessica’s iPhone.
‘Nanny wants to talk to you,’ she said.
Jessica took the phone and was greeted by the strident blast of her mother’s voice. ‘Is it true? What Simon says?’
She sat up, trying to get her thoughts in order. For a blissful moment she had forgotten what had happened last night. Then it all came rushing back.
‘You mean, is it true that I told him to leave? Yes, it is.’
She held the phone away from her ear while Mum ranted.
‘Have you calmed down now?’ Jessica asked.
There was a sigh at the other end of the line, a sigh that Jessica recognised from her teenage years. What am I going to do with you? That’s what Mum always used to say.
‘So, tell me, what happened?’ Mum asked. ‘Did you . . . communicate
with Isabel?’
Jess didn’t realise she was going to say ‘No’ until the word left her mouth. She would have to deal with Olivia, tell her not to say anything to Nanny, but it would be a mistake to let her mother get involved at this point. Jessica needed to investigate first, to gather more information before she accused Will.
‘Nothing happened,’ she said.
‘What, nothing at all?’
‘No. Listen, I can’t talk now but I’ll come by later to drop off Simon’s equipment.’
She hung up before Mum had a chance to argue or ask more questions. Then she noticed a text from Will.
Morning. Heading to ferry now. Can’t wait to see you later. Love you xx
She hesitated. He would worry if she didn’t text back.
But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Chapter 27
‘That was weird,’ Will said, coming into the kitchen after reading Olivia her bedtime stories. He and Felix had got home just as Olivia was finishing her tea and now he was with Jessica, two hours later, both of them pausing for breath after the whirl of activity that filled every Sunday evening: homework, baths for both kids, getting the school uniform ready for Monday morning, bedtime for Olivia, ‘chill-out’ time for Felix.
Jessica knew she ought to act as if everything was normal, but she wasn’t going to be able to go through with it. Not tonight.
‘What was weird?’ she asked as Will grabbed a bottle from the wine rack and searched for the corkscrew.
‘Olivia. Halfway through The Gruffalo she sat up, flung her arms around my neck and said, “You’re on Santa’s naughty list, Daddy.”’
Jessica, who had been stacking the dishwasher, froze. ‘Really?’
He pulled the cork out. ‘Yes. Not sure what I’m supposed to have done. Maybe going away for the weekend without her?’
Jessica faked a laugh. ‘That’s probably it.’
‘Also, some of her teddies seem to be missing. She always has Stretch in bed with her but I couldn’t find him . . . She said something about him having an accident.’