by Karen Perry
‘Oh, how exciting!’ Anna remarks. Claire tells her that she’ll add it to her list of holiday reads, and the others agree.
Hilary appreciates their enthusiasm, feels buoyed by their friendship, and for the rest of the main course, she fields their questions about the book, about Greg’s writing life, about whether he will quit his teaching post and turn to writing full time.
The conversation runs along pleasantly, aided by the tinkling of wine in her head, and Hilary thinks of all the dinners she has shared with these women over the years, and all the other times, too, when life’s difficulties entered the fray, requiring the friendships to step up a little. When Evelyn went through her cancer treatment three years ago, Hilary was on hand, calling her religiously after each round of chemotherapy, taking her for walks along the pier to get some exercise, clear her head, talk. When Anna’s marriage went through a rough patch, Hilary arranged for all four of them to head away for a weekend in a spa retreat where they could be pampered, get drunk, cry, do whatever was necessary to bolster Anna’s resolve. And when Hilary herself went through her own trial of sorrows – the string of miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy that led to an inevitable surrender of hope – she had felt supported by the many kindnesses of her friends.
‘You know, there’s nothing I couldn’t tell you girls,’ Anna had declared on that weekend away when she had given them chapter and verse on David’s affairs, his cruelties and deceits, the shame she felt at having put up with them for so long. ‘I feel like I can tell you the deepest, darkest secrets and you still wouldn’t judge me.’
The others had loudly concurred, and Hilary had made soft noises of agreement. But, in her heart, she knew differently. Because some secrets are too dark to tell. And people do judge. Even the strongest friendships, in the face of horrors, would balk and break, run for cover.
Inevitably, her thoughts turn to Charlotte, as they so often do. She thinks of an evening long ago when Charlotte had tapped on the patio door with the stone in her ring, a bottle of wine in one hand and some flowers in the other. ‘A welcome gift,’ she said.
Her voice was throaty, her manner smooth and confident, and she listened to Hilary’s effusive thanks – for the flowers, for the use of the flat – while her eyes looked beyond, flickering over the room and taking in the mess of their possessions, most of them still in boxes. Charlotte’s dress, her hair, her casual elegance made Hilary feel drab and scruffy in comparison.
‘Why don’t you and your husband come upstairs later, hmm?’ Charlotte had suggested. ‘Once you’ve settled in. Come up and we’ll have a little drink.’
It was evening by the time they mounted the steps, tired from their unpacking.
‘Just make yourselves at home there,’ Charlotte had instructed, while she disappeared into the kitchen to fix their drinks.
Greg collapsed on the sofa, exhausted, legs akimbo, while Hilary sat on the edge of an armchair, alert, looking all around her at the scrolled marble of the fireplace, the cornicing, the ceiling so very far above their heads.
‘Now! The bar is open,’ Charlotte said, returning with filled glasses. ‘You must tell me all about yourselves!’ She passed around the G-and-Ts.
There wasn’t much to tell, but dutifully they explained the essential details: how they were both teachers, how they’d used a small inheritance to buy the house across the road. Builders would begin work on Monday. Ten weeks, they’d been told.
‘And how long have you been married?’ Charlotte asked. She’d taken a seat on the sofa next to Greg, sat perched on the edge, like Hilary. She was not relaxed. Something over-attentive about her, eyes a little too wide and glittery.
‘Six years,’ Hilary said.
‘No kids?’
‘No,’ she answered, offering a tight smile. Without looking, she could feel Greg’s eyes on her, knew that she’d see concern there.
‘Plenty of time for that,’ Charlotte replied. Her own children were nowhere to be seen, although there were occasional thumps and shouts from upstairs. ‘But you have a little dog.’
‘That’s right. Bella,’ Hilary said, instantly brightening. She always did when it came to Bella. ‘She’s a cocker spaniel. A blue roan, to be precise.’
‘Lovely,’ Charlotte said, but she did not sound sincere. Hilary had the impression that she was not really interested, that her thoughts, in fact, lay elsewhere. And when the front door banged and her husband appeared, her manner seemed to change again.
‘There he is. The man of the house,’ Charlotte announced, in a way that felt falsely bright.
She disappeared once more to fix a drink for him, while Anton walked slowly into the room, loosening his tie. Dressed in a suit, he’d come straight from work, and it was obvious from his expression that he had not expected to find Hilary and Greg in his living room, and was probably not thrilled about it either, as he dutifully shook their hands, introducing himself.
‘Here we are!’ Charlotte proclaimed, in her new fake tone. There was a shrillness to it and Hilary caught Anton glancing at his wife – wariness in the swift, assessing gaze – as she put the glass into his hand, resuming her place on the sofa.
In one way, she was easy company, with a gift for moving the conversation along. Peppering them with questions, she never once allowed the talk to flag. Her responses to their offerings seemed effusive and generous, if not entirely heartfelt. The husband, on the other hand, Hilary noted, was watchful and laconic. He preferred to let his wife do the talking. Only once – when Charlotte returned to the kitchen to fix a second round of drinks – was Anton pressed into conversation, exchanging a few sports-related opinions with Greg while Hilary sat there, smiling, and taking in the room.
‘God, I can really feel that gin in my legs now,’ Greg remarked, laughing, when they were halfway through their second drinks.
They had all loosened up by that stage, their conversation splitting in two. Hilary was leaning forward and listening to Anton describing the history of the street, how the houses had been built in the 1840s by a wine merchant, while Greg and Charlotte sat alongside each other discussing restaurants and pubs, and gossiping about the other neighbours.
‘That’s one of the wonderful things about gin, I find,’ she heard Charlotte say, ‘how it wends its way gloriously into all the limbs,’ and she put out her hand and touched Greg’s leg as she made her point, then left it there.
Until that moment, the atmosphere in the room had been convivial. But now the air seemed to shrink, charged with a new and dangerous mood. All of them were aware of Charlotte’s hand resting on Greg’s leg, the fingers slowly caressing the tiny hairs peeping out where the cotton of his shorts ended above the knee.
Hilary couldn’t quite believe it. Greg was just sitting there, staring now at his drink, frozen to the spot while those fingertips kept gliding up and down his thigh. And when Hilary’s eyes passed to Charlotte, she saw with a jolt that Charlotte was staring right back at her, a hard smile on her face, her eyes bright with the challenge. Confusion tangled her thoughts, and her heart was pounding with an unnamed fear. She hadn’t a clue what to do, completely out of her depth.
Greg knocked back the rest of his drink, and leant forward quickly, placing his glass on the coffee-table.
‘Well, that was lovely,’ he declared, getting to his feet.
Hastily, Hilary stood up, too, taking his cue.
They said their goodbyes and hurried back downstairs to the garden and into their flat. The door closed behind them and they fell against one another, elated, delirious in their disbelief, their shared excitement. ‘Oh, my God!’ they said, clinging to each other. ‘Did you see that?’ Their laughter and excitement mingled like an aphrodisiac, and it carried them to their bedroom where they abandoned themselves to a new, gleeful lust. But distantly, above them, Hilary was aware of voices raised, sharp words spoken. Sometime in the night, she awoke and heard a woman crying.
‘Hilary?’
Her attention snaps back
to the table, and she sees Claire leaning towards her conspiratorially.
‘Is it true what I heard?’ Claire asks, her eyes flaring with ghoulish delight. ‘That man on your street – the one who murdered his wife – has he been released?’
Dryness in her throat. She reaches for her glass. ‘Yes, it’s true,’ she says, then takes a gulp and swallows.
‘My God,’ Anna says, her hand going to her neck. ‘And have you seen him? Is he back living in that house?’
‘I haven’t seen him, no, but I believe he is back.’
‘Aren’t you freaked?’ Anna asks. ‘I mean, he murdered someone! Honestly, Hil, I admire your sangfroid, but even you must feel a little twinge. After all, you knew the woman, right? Weren’t you friends with her?’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to call us friends. But we were … friendly.’ She says this lightly, but feels the heaviness of the words in her heart. ‘She was our landlady for a little while. When the work was being done on our house, before we could move in, we rented the basement flat beneath their house. Just for a couple of months.’
‘So, were you guys living there when it happened?’
‘No, no. We’d moved out at that stage,’ Hilary says, making it sound like they were long gone when, really, they were barely out of the door.
‘What was he like, though?’ Claire asks, a hungry look entering her eye. Hilary has seen it before, inwardly recoils from it. ‘Had you any inkling at all of what he was capable of?’
‘No, of course not.’ She laughs, but it sounds forced and she’s aware of Evelyn watching her from across the table. ‘I hardly knew him, really,’ she adds, a twist in her gut at this denial. ‘He was always polite to me. Well-mannered.’
Anna shakes her head. ‘That poor woman. God love her. Had she any idea of what was in store for her?’
Poor woman, Hilary thinks, the words curdling inside her. Not words she would ever have associated with Charlotte. And then it comes at her without warning: a flash of memory. Coming up from the past, the sound of banging on glass. Charlotte with her fox-red hair, wearing a green sun-dress, spaghetti straps carving tracks through her shoulders, standing on the patio. Breasts, not large but shapely – you couldn’t miss them under the stretch-cotton. The little boy in tears by her side – Charlotte clutching his wrist and quivering with rage. Greg, inside, calling: ‘Hil? What is it?’
A shiver passes through her despite the heat of the restaurant. She realizes she’s drifted into silence, the others staring at her, awaiting her response.
‘Who knows what she knew?’ Hilary says, her voice dry and scratchy in her throat. ‘The things that go on inside a marriage – can you ever really tell when you’re outside looking in?’
‘That’s certainly true,’ Anna agrees, with feeling.
‘And I think he was misrepresented in the press at the time,’ Hilary goes on, a little recklessly. ‘Making him out to be some sort of monster. He really was a very nice man. Always very charming.’
‘Hmm. They’re usually the ones you have to watch,’ Claire replies.
‘Don’t they say,’ Anna adds, ‘that nine times out of ten, when a woman is murdered it’s her husband or partner that’s the guilty party?’
‘That’s right,’ Claire agrees. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
‘And yet, growing up, we’re always warned about men we don’t know, cautioned against walking home alone in the dark or taking a lift from a stranger. My God, it’s the same drill I’m giving my own daughters.’ She throws down her napkin with an angry little pout. ‘When, really, it’s the men we share our lives with – the men we share our beds with – who pose the real danger. We should be warning them about that.’
Afterwards, Evelyn drives Hilary home. The two of them are mostly silent in the car, the radio tuned to Lyric FM, some baroque choral music filling the space between them. Hilary has drunk too much and the food she has consumed sits uncomfortably in her stomach – a fat greasy lump lodged in her gut. As the car draws up alongside the kerb outside her house, she unclips her seatbelt, and says: ‘Will you come in for a coffee?’
To her relief, Evelyn says no, that she’d best get home. And yet Hilary can sense a lingering within her friend – a hesitation – and when she looks across to wish Evelyn goodnight, she catches the look her friend is giving her: watchful, probing.
‘You are all right, aren’t you?’ Evelyn asks.
‘Of course I am!’
‘It’s just I know how difficult it must be for you, with Anton being back.’
Hilary feels herself stiffen.
Evelyn seems nervous now, as if unsure whether to proceed with this line of questioning, but she continues nonetheless. ‘Years ago, I know that you were very unhappy. Things you said back then, the way you were … It seemed to me that he offered some sort of consolation. I know you were friends. It must be awkward for you now with him –’
‘It’s not awkward,’ Hilary says sharply.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘I don’t see him. I’ve had nothing to do with him since it happened.’
Evelyn’s eyes flicker over her face, as if searching for a chink in the veracity of her statements. ‘Haven’t you? I thought you had.’
‘No, Evelyn. You thought wrong.’ Words spoken coolly but firmly. A line drawn under it.
She thanks her friend for the lift, leans in to kiss Evelyn swiftly on the cheek, and then she is clack-clacking up the path in her high heels, inserting the key into the lock, and by the time she turns to wave, Hilary has recovered enough to have a smile of reassurance plastered across her features. Evelyn’s pale face shimmers behind the windscreen.
She bangs the door shut, leans against it for a moment, eyes closed, awash with regret.
Foolish woman! The things she’d admitted to back then. Loose thoughts aired aloud. She bangs her head lightly against the door, then pushes herself away. The house is quiet. It hums with a feeling of emptiness, the lights off in the rooms downstairs, no sign of Greg.
In the kitchen, Mona has been sick on the floor. Hilary stares at the small puddle of vomit by the back door and the dog cowering in her basket and feels a surge of angry despair rise within her. Sometimes it’s hard to love Mona. Not like Bella, Hilary’s first dog, whom she had loved unconditionally. A silly, warm-hearted spaniel with beautiful eyes and silky fur. But Mona is nothing like Bella. As she looks at her, burrowing deeper into the blankets of her basket, casting occasional rueful glances in Hilary’s direction, something snaps inside. Rage vibrates through her, and she drags Mona out of her basket, then flings open the kitchen door and the dog flees to the safety of the garden.
Hilary cries as she cleans up the mess, down on her hands and knees, in her Marigolds, scrubbing at the floor with disinfectant and paper towels, great big sobs of self-pity. Afterwards, she sits at the kitchen table, hunched over a notepad, scribbling furiously. The words pour out of her on to the page, and it is only when the letter is written that she looks up, sees the dog’s doleful gaze through the glass, and feels ashamed. When she opens the door, Mona slinks back in, eyeing her warily, and silently bearing it when Hilary presses her face to the dog’s flank, whispers that she’s sorry.
The lead is hanging from the newel post, and once she’s fixed it to Mona’s collar, they head out into the evening air. Hilary feels sober now, aware of the quiet in the street, the swish of warm air against her bare arms, the dog’s claws clicking against the pavement. She hurries to the house, up the steps, not giving herself time to think, to change her mind, opens the letterbox and slips the note through. She presses the doorbell once and then she hurries away, across to the safety of the park where she can hide in the shadows, watching safely from the distance.
In the park, she lets Mona off the lead, appeasing her own guilt by allowing the dog to run loose for a few moments. The trees hulk in dark shadows against the purplish sky. Across the street, the houses glow in the moonlight, and she watches his door – Number 14 –
shut firmly against the night, the windows dark upstairs.
He hasn’t come to the door – hasn’t answered the bell – and that makes her feel twitchy with disappointment and impatience. Curiosity has been nudging at her for some time, but now it builds inside her, pushed by the time she has spent waiting, the endless accumulation of days, and by Evelyn’s words – the reminder of past confidences, of secrets told. Hilary thinks of that note waiting for him and feels the draw of that garden, awash with memories. The things that had happened to her there …
She clips the lead back on to the dog’s collar and, moving with purpose now, she walks down Wyndham Park and out on to the road behind. It’s late now, and all is quiet. She finds the entrance to the alleyway easily enough, feels her heart fill with fear and expectation as she hurries along the narrow space, ivy spilling over the high walls. It’s been years but she finds the gap quickly. The garden is densely overgrown and it’s dark back there. The dog is her cover. If caught, she can claim Mona slipped the lead and ran this way – she was merely coming to reclaim her.
Through the undergrowth, she sees a light and creeps towards it. Catches the scent of cigarette smoke on the air – at once nostalgic and achingly familiar. Halfway down the garden, the house comes clearly into view and she stops. Stares. Grips the dog’s lead firmly to her side, feels the animal’s warmth against her shin.
Voices in the darkness. Two of them. Her eyes narrow and strain through the gloom.
They are sitting together, Anton and the young woman. Hilary holds her breath, taking him in – the broadness of his shoulders hunched forward a little, a new thinness to his frame. Through the darkness it’s difficult to see, but she can make out the contours of his shapely head, the line of his jaw, a pugnacious tilt to his chin – these things have not changed. The dog shifts by her side, looks up at her, confused, but Hilary doesn’t move. She is transfixed.
‘There is something about you,’ she hears Anton say, ‘that seems utterly familiar to me.’ Watches him reach forward, touch the girl’s hand.