Lie For Me

by Mick Bose

  As I open the door and disable the alarm, I step on a pile of papers put in through the letter box. I bend down and pick them up. They are interior decoration and lifestyle magazines that I have subscribed to. I stare at the happy, smiling faces on the glossy covers and a bitterness stabs at my heart. I clutch the magazines and sink to the floor, a heavy weight at the back of my throat.

  A red mist cascades over me like the waves of a storming river, drowning me in its crimson deluge. For a while, any action is impossible, and I can just about breathe and feel. Then the waves recede, leaving me like a wreck.

  I bare my teeth. It was a simple desire, wasn’t it? To have a happy married life? But for me, it was too much to ask for. Because of one man. One man who had hounded me for the last decade, turned my life into a living hell, and now come back for me again.

  Well, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

  I open my purse and take out the ring. I put it back where it should be, and then stare at it in wonder. I think of the love that had made Jeremy buy it for me. Damn thing was still loose. I wiped tears away and smiled. I needed to get to the jewellers soon to get the width corrected. To be honest, part of me was worried about getting it back. I hadn’t asked Jeremy if he had insured it.

  Is love like that not worth fighting for?

  Deep down in my bones I feel the answer reverberate, filling me with a conviction.

  *****

  I am in a daze when I pick Molly up. I barely say hello to anyone, and I can’t see Eva. After I have picked up Molly, and given her a snack of jam biscuits, I hear a voice calling my name. I want to ignore it, but I feel a presence behind me and I stand up. It’s Suzy, with the pram and Lisa in tow.

  “Are you OK?” she asks in a concerned tone. Guess my washed-out appearance is obvious for all to see.

  I try a smile. “Just tired, that’s all. Have you seen Eva around?”

  “Yes, she was here, but left early. Heard you guys are going out tomorrow night.”

  This is news to me. Then I remember Eva mentioning Simon and Jeremy wanted to go out, and I mentally smack my forehead. She has been sending me texts, which I have ignored as I have been so caught up with everything else. Is that what she meant when she said see you later? I flip my phone out. Damn it, the message even has an emoji of two champagne bottles. I groan. I really don’t feel like going out.

  I tell Suzy. She says, “You should make an effort. Maybe a night out is just what you need.”

  I haven’t even called a babysitter. How can I go out? Jeremy left early this morning, and last night he came in very late. Haven’t seen much of him the last couple of days as he has been so busy with work.

  Instead of going out, I need to tell him about my meeting with Clive. That is now more important than anything else. I have to do it tonight.

  “There’s something else I had to tell you.” Suzy’s voice is lower and she is leaning forward.

  “What?”

  “Joanne Burton-Smyth is speaking to the sports teachers to stop Molly from taking her place in the gym squad. She is claiming that Henrietta couldn’t perform to her optimal level because she was scared of being bullied by Molly. So, she wants Molly’s name withdrawn from the squad, and a retrial.”

  Colour is rising to my face and my breath comes in short, spasmodic jerks. “What?” is all I can say. I am speechless with anger.

  Suzy’s eyes widen at my change in expression and she touches my arm. “Calm down. I’m sure the teachers will see sense. What Joanne’s doing is silly.”

  “Silly? It’s downright pathetic and vile. I have a good mind to go around her house and give her a piece of my mind.”

  Suzy closes her eyes. “I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry. Look, it’s just something one of the mums in my year overheard. The teachers will have to think long and hard about this. Molly got into the squad on merit.”

  “Yes.” I am seething with anger. “How dare she! She has is it in for Molly, anyone can see that. But to go this low, well, I…” words fail me again. I glance to where Molly and Lisa are playing with each other.

  “Thanks, Suzy,” I say. “I will check with the teachers tomorrow, that’s for sure.” My mind is made up. If that Joanne tries to take Molly off the gym squad, I will personally make her life a living hell.

  I speak to her for a bit longer, then leave. My mind is in turmoil. I can’t figure out women like Joanne. She has everything in her life – money, family, security. It’s unfair that her daughter is being bullied, but pointing fingers in the wrong direction is not the right way to deal with it.

  How would she like it if the roles were reversed, and I was blaming her child? What if I was taking her to the teacher’s office every week, complaining about Hen being a bully?

  Something tells me she would raise merry hell if that happened. Probably would call Buckingham Palace and get The Queen in.

  I am still festering when we pull up at home. We do Molly’s homework, and I keep glancing at the clock.

  What Clive said is playing on my mind like on a feedback loop. I cannot leave this any longer. Whatever happens, Jeremy must know about it. There is simply too much going on inside my head, in my life, and I am struggling to keep so many plates dancing in the air. Something has to give.

  At 7 pm I hear the key turn in the lock and I am at the door swiftly. It’s Jeremy and he looks exhausted. I give him a hug and he kisses me back.

  “Is everything OK?” he asks.

  “Yes. Can we talk after dinner?” I am bubbling away inside.

  “Yes, sure. Is everything OK?” Jeremy’s eyes are watchful.

  “It’s fine,” I smile the best I can. “Why don’t you have dinner?”

  I have made a chicken curry and rice, one of his favourites. It’s out of a jar but he won’t know the difference. There’s a nice bottle of red as well, and my wine is chilling in the fridge. I’ve had a glass already, just to cool my nerves. OK, two glasses.

  “Smells nice,” he says as he takes his shoes off.

  “Made a chicken curry,” I say and he gives me a wan smile. He goes upstairs to get changed. I am washing dishes in the kitchen while Molly is doing her homework on the kitchen table. It’s very dark outside, and the yellow halogen glow of the street lamps only serve to emphasise the darkness.

  I look up to dry my hands and my breath freezes. I stare as if hypnotised.

  On the opposite side of the road, under the lamp-post, a man is standing. He has a hat pulled over his head, just the type of hat that Clive was wearing this morning. I can’t tell if it’s Clive from here. He is smoking a cigarette, and the red tip glows as he pulls on it.

  We do have pedestrians walking past our house, like in any residential street. But this man is clearly watching our house. He is not looking in any other direction but at us. His face is turned at the kitchen. At me.

  Fear spikes inside me. My heart hammers inside as I quickly lower the blinds. Molly is oblivious, she is still doing her homework. I rub my cold hands. What shall I do? I have to go outside and face him. There is no other way. Unless he leaves of his own accord, which is the best scenario.

  I hear hurried footsteps coming down the stairs. I go out into the hallway to see Jeremy with a frown upon his face.

  “Have you seen that guy opposite our house?”

  My heart sinks. He has noticed it as well. Breath rasps in my throat. “Just leave it, darling. Probably a homeless man, he’ll go soon.”

  “He doesn’t look like a homeless man. Seems quite intent on checking out our house.” He sits down to put his shoes back on.

  “What are you doing?” I ask apprehensively.

  “I need to go out there and ask him who the hell he is.”

  “No! There’s no need, Jeremy.”

  He looks up at the tone of my voice. He stands up and gets close to me.

  “Don’t worry. He won’t do anything to me. There might be an explanation. He might think our house is for sale or something and he�
��s just having a look.”

  “Jeremy, please. Just leave it.” I catch his sleeve, and pull him towards me.

  He frowns, and passes his hand over my cheek. “Darling, what’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  His expression changes and I can see he remembers something.

  “The other night, when you said there was someone in the park, behind our house…”

  I don’t let him finish. “It doesn’t matter. Just leave it be. Like you said, he might just be here to look at the house.”

  Jeremy gives me a strange look, and it wounds me deeply to see the scepticism in his eyes. He doesn’t believe me.

  He pulls out of my reach, and opens the door. I shout his name, and rush after him. If he’s going out there, then so am I.

  Jeremy is standing outside the porch, on our front garden. The pavement opposite is empty. The yellow haze from the light shows an empty space underneath it. There’s no one there. I look around, and the whole street is empty.

  CHAPTER 29

  Jeremy follows me back inside the house. He shuts the door and then locks it. I don’t look at him, I walk down to the kitchen. Molly is doing her homework. I take her upstairs, and put her to bed.

  When I get downstairs, I reach for the drinks cabinet and pull down a bottle of gin. I pour myself two fingers and mix it with tonic water. I am aware that Jeremy is standing opposite, leaning against the kitchen counter.

  He shifts closer to me, and we look at each other.

  “What’s going on, Em?” he asks, his tone neutral. I can see from the way his arms are folded and the stiffness in his posture he is not happy.

  I take a gulp of the G and T. After the glasses of wine it’s making my head swim a bit, but in a nice way. Things are getting hazier, a bit softer around the edges.

  “I used to have this boyfriend. From a long time, ten years ago. He was…” I close my eyes as the creaky doors in the hidden recesses of my mind open. Like oozing black liquid the visions come out. Once I open these doors there’s no going back.

  “…He was dangerous. A crook who cheated me out of my trust fund money. I broke up with him and left. For some reason, he’s now come back.”

  I pause. Jeremy is looking at me intensely. “So that was him out there just now? And the other night, behind our house, in the park?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe him or one of his friends.”

  Jeremy looks confused. “Then how can you be so sure it’s him?”

  “Because someone sent me Molly’s birth certificate, and then threatening texts about her.”

  “He threatened his own child?”

  I put my drink down and cover my face with my hands. This is worse than I thought it would be. For Molly’s sake, there are things I can’t share with anyone.

  Jeremy gives me time, to his credit. I look up and say, “Sorry. Can we sit down?”

  He gets himself a glass of red wine and sits opposite me.

  “A man came to Steve Ponting’s art gallery, pretending to be you.”

  He looks aghast. “Me? Whatever for?”

  I tell him about the gallery, including its destruction in the fire. I leave nothing out, telling him about the police, and how he might be interrogated as well, to be my alibi. He listens with mounting disbelief, I can tell by his frown.

  He shakes his head when I pause. “This sounds crazy. So what does this guy actually want?”

  “What he took from me last time. Money.”

  Actually, what he took from me was far important than the money. But for the time being, I keep that to myself. Jeremy will know one day, but not now.

  I look at him and know what he’s thinking. “Your money,” I say.

  He knots his eyebrows together. “But how can he…” Then his puzzled expression clears. His eyes take on a startled look as realisation hits. “He wants you to…”

  I nod, feeling miserable. “He wants me to, I don’t know, harm or kill you, something bizarre like that.” I hold my hands up. “I know this sounds strange. But believe me, this guy is crazy. I think he’s a psychopath.”

  Jeremy is looking at me with a strange light in his eyes. “Have you ever done anything like that…?”

  I am stunned. I close my mouth eventually. “How could you even think that, Jeremy? No, for the record, I have not done anything like that to anyone, ever,” I continue. “And if you think this is some sort of a plan, then you are very wrong. I am telling you all this, aren’t I?”

  “I know.” His voice is warm, strong. The usual voice that I know and depend on. My fingers shake on the ice-cooled glass as I pick it up. I don’t want this voice to go away. Ever.

  I gulp down some gin. “Then why are you asking me?”

  “How do you know? He must have told you something.”

  I tell him about my meeting with him. It still gives me shivers. Jeremy listens attentively.

  “Do you still have the texts he sent you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you take any photos when you went to see him?”

  “No.”

  “But you did meet him at a public place, right? So, there will be CCTV images.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t want to go the police, Jeremy.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why not?”

  Because he’s blackmailing me. I want to scream the words out, but somehow, I keep them in.

  Aloud I say, “I don’t think you understand what kind of person we are dealing with here. He will hit first, ask questions later. At the same time, he’s very clever and manipulative.”

  “Can I see the texts he sent you?”

  I get up and get him my phone.

  Jeremy spends some time going through the texts. “We need to tell the police,” he says.

  “And tell them what? That this guy is out to get me?”

  “You have the texts to show them. I agree it’s not much and of course you can’t go to court with this, but it’s something.”

  I grip my forehead. “But what will the police do, Jeremy? They can’t guard us 24/7.”

  He gets up and looks out the window at the darkened garden outside. It’s an inky-black, amniotic evening. He scratches the back of his head.

  “I don’t know what to make of this. It’s all very strange.”

  I hate to think I have brought this upon him. He has a right to be upset. It’s a lot to take in. His next question throws me a bit. He is still facing the unlit garden, a granite darkness, with his back to me. I can see from the tautness of his broad shoulders he is tense.

  “How long have you known about this?” The tone has an undercurrent of steel in it, like he is bracing himself for the answer. I know Jeremy. The question he really wants to ask is: How long have you been hiding this from me? But he doesn’t ask that, because he suspects he won’t like the answer.

  “Since I started getting the odd messages. About a week.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it, then?”

  “There was never the right time. You’ve been busy with work, and I’ve been busy…”

  “Keeping secrets from me,” he says, turning around. His eyes are dark, deep, unfathomable. “What else are you hiding from me, Em?”

  I can’t look at him for long. I seek refuge in the glass, only to find it’s empty. Jeremy is standing, watching me, and I have to answer him. “Nothing. This was a long time ago. Look, I never thought it would be like this, OK?” Almost to myself, I whisper, “It’s not my fault.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Jeremy is still not happy, and I can see it in his eyes. He grips the top of the chair he’s standing behind, holding it like a shield in front of him. Afraid of my lies. I can’t blame him, and I feel the fear myself. The fear of unravelling, of sliding down that slippery road of destruction.

  “Is this the reason why you don’t want to buy the house?”

  “What? No! I don’t want to buy the house because I don’t want you to become stressed. A large house will need a l
ot of upkeep, not to mention the bigger mortgage.” I can’t escape the attention he’s focusing on me, and in the end, I just stare back at him. “That’s the real reason. I promise you.”

  He scrapes the chair back and sits down, running his hands through his hair. He looks up and grins cynically. “So what has this ex-boyfriend of yours have in store for me? Some nasty surprise. A car crash maybe?” His lips bend downwards and a muscle twitches in his jaw.

  I close my eyes. “I don’t know, Jeremy. Please don’t ask me.”

  “Then who do I ask?”

  I slam the palm of hand down on the table. It makes our glasses jump, and I regret it instantly, as I don’t want the sound to wake up Molly.

  Jeremy has a right to ask me questions, but he can also be pedantic at times. He likes things to be plotted out in advance, like neat lines on a map, tracing a destination. He hates uncertainty, and I have just dumped a whole cauldron of that mess on his head.

  “I am not a part of his sick game, Jeremy. Can you get that, please?”

  I push off the table and shove my empty glass in the sink. I have good mind to have another glass of G and T, but I don’t want to lose it. I turn the tap on and start scrubbing dishes aimlessly.

  Jeremy comes and stands next to me. “You have been out of sorts recently. I was wondering why.”

  I say nothing. My fingernails feel they are holding tightly to the edge of a precipice, my legs dangling free, whipped about in a wild wind. This is not a fall I want to, or am prepared to, take. Yet, with every passing moment, every heated comment, I am dragged closer and closer to the edge.

  I don’t want to feel like this again. That black hole of helplessness. That horrible, restless anxiety that eats away inside like a malignant termite. I went through that once, and I came out on the other side. Rebuilt my life from scratch. And now, that bastard is back. I realise with a sick sensation that maybe he has been watching me all this time. See where I get to. Then turn the screws on when he needs something.

  I would like to say I am different now. Stronger, leaner, harder. In many ways, I am. But I am also vulnerable, and Clive knows about it.