Come a Little Closer
Page 27
The young couple made their excuses, then hurried away downstairs. He imagined them turning to each other with muffled hilarity, falling into one another’s arms, delighted and aghast at the awful behaviour of that odd couple upstairs.
After they’d left, Charlotte had held his gaze, raising her eyebrow in an arch expression, saying, ‘What?’ like some bratty teenager. He knew it was his fault, and when he attempted to apologize, she stormed past him. He could hear her crying upstairs but, like a coward, he remained in the living room, drinking his gin and watching the light fade from the window. When he finally went upstairs, their room was empty. He found her asleep in Mark’s bed, the little boy wrapped around her, his arm slung across her neck.
The first time he met Hilary – so, a bad start. Almost immediately, Charlotte took against her.
‘She’s a dull sort, don’t you think?’ she would say to Anton. ‘Not even you would be tempted.’
They had a little dog, which drove Charlotte mad with its constant yipping.
She complained that they left their washing on the line for too long. That the dog fouled the garden and they were lazy about cleaning it up. The wife was always hanging around, staring after her – it gave Charlotte the creeps.
Anton knew that none of this was real or, rather, that it had nothing to do with Hilary but stemmed from Charlotte’s deep unhappiness over his betrayal. It was always the same after she’d discovered one of his affairs – the drinking and the carping began. He knew it wouldn’t last. In the same way he knew that it was best for him to hold his tongue. But when the dog snapped at Mark, and Charlotte insisted it be destroyed, he felt the guilt of letting things get so far.
Hilary was different from the other women. Different because he hadn’t pursued her in the way he had the others. There was no need to. He sort of stumbled into their affair, and engaged in it half-heartedly. It was lazy and foolish, but in the heat-haze of that summer, it served as a distraction.
They said stupid things to each other in the way that all lovers do – lavish praise and excessive sentiment, but it was all just part of the game. It wasn’t serious.
Mostly they came together in the basement flat in the mornings while Greg was at summer school and Charlotte was out with the children. Sometimes they snuck across the road to Hilary’s house on days that the builders weren’t there, rutting on the floors of those bare, echoey rooms, the smell of paint and sawdust lingering in the air. They were coupling in his shed at the end of the garden the night Charlotte found out. The party was in full swing back at the house; no one had noticed them slipping away. Earlier in the evening, he had done two lines of cocaine with Steve, a friend from the golf club. It had made him feel reckless and invincible. Hilary, compliant as ever, had followed eagerly when he’d suggested it. He hadn’t spotted Charlotte until she’d found them among the shovels and bags of compost and potted seedlings, his slacks around his ankles, the small mounds of Hilary’s breasts exposed.
Charlotte’s face was white; she looked but said nothing. She’d never caught him in the act before.
‘Wait,’ he’d said, but she’d withdrawn into the darkness, and somehow that made it worse – her silence. Better if she’d cursed them, spat out her fury and hurt. But that silent withdrawal sent a chill through him – the air of finality.
Hilary fell apart then. Pulling her clothes back on, she’d snivelled and prattled on about being caught out and what they should do next. He’d tried to calm her but his mind was addled. God knew what he’d said, what promises or concessions he’d made.
When he’d gone back to the house, everything was as it had been. The rooms still alive with music and drunken chatter. People sitting on the stairs, talking, the party spilling on to the street outside. And Charlotte leaning against the railings, a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, throwing back her head and laughing at something Will Bolton was telling her. He marvelled at her ability to act in such a manner – as if nothing had come between them. And when she passed him later in the hall on her way to the kitchen to refill her glass, she had said the words so casually, he almost didn’t catch them: ‘You’re to sleep downstairs in the basement flat tonight, Anton. I don’t want you in the house.’
And that was it. The last time he would ever hear her voice.
A chill comes over him now, a shiver of cold air, as he remembers.
The memory has left him weak. He blinks and looks to the window, sees it is open a fraction, the air passing through it a chill draught against his neck. He gets up and crosses the room, reaches up to pull the sash closed, and as he does so, his eye snags on the flash of colour.
Across the road, at the entrance to her own house, Hilary stands staring at him. He cannot read her gaze, too far to make out her expression, though her presence – the act of staring – brings on a lunge in his chest. He lets go of the window and steps back into the safety of the shadows. But as he does so, he recalls a line from one of her letters – the frenzied scrawl across the page, spelling out her dark threat: I want you to get rid of her, Anton, or I swear I don’t know what I’ll do!
He’d dismissed the letter when first he’d read it. But now the words crowd his thoughts and he feels behind him for the coolness of the wall, needing to steady himself against the heat of those words, the dread rising within him at what he has unleashed.
27
Leah
She reads quickly, her eyes passing over the tight weave of sentences. The letters are in no particular order, the information coming at her jumbled and confused, but still she understands. The truth of the past comes at her through these secret missives.
Anton and Hilary were lovers. The shock of that knowledge transcends the feelings described on the page. A love that was strong, obsessive.
I yearn for you. I feel you in me. Without you I am an empty vessel, my heart a wasted organ uselessly pumping blood around a body that is dry and parched for your touch.
Leah thinks of Hilary, her primness, her manners. She recalls that lunch in Hilary and Greg’s garden: the silver cutlery, the starched linen napkins. Everything just so. Hard to imagine her writing such a letter. Hard to envisage a heart bursting with such passion encased within Hilary’s stout bosom.
Leah sits on her bed as she reads the letters, one leg curled underneath her. Two days have passed since she occupied this room, and there is a stale abandoned atmosphere inside it. The smells that have become trapped here invade her nostrils: the musty dankness of the partially subterranean walls, the decaying sweetness of wilting flowers on her bedside table, slimy stems visible in brackish water through the glass vase. She is still in Jake’s T-shirt, her feet bare, her dressing-gown falling open as she puts one letter down and moves on to another.
I think of what it must have been like for you, my darling, faced with that horrible task. You made the decision for both of us. And when I think of your bravery in executing that task, my passion for you is renewed, strengthened ten times over. ‘A crime of passion’ is how they described it during the trial, that term splashed across the pages of all the newspapers. And they were right, in one way, but they were also mistaken. You didn’t kill Charlotte because she drove you into a passionate rage. You did it for me. Because of your love for me. Driven by that desire for us to be together, you plunged your knife. Agamemnon turning the blade on Clytemnestra.
Outside, a cloud is passing over the sun and the room around Leah darkens. Her feet are cold, her hands and face numb. She thinks of Anton and his tenderness towards her, his gentle care. The soft melodic sweetness of his voice as he sings while he goes about the house. The kindness of his eyes. The way he holds her gaze and listens – really listens. There has been a bond between them, a deep connection that she can no longer trust. When he told her that he had been wrongly convicted, she had believed him. When he had maintained that his conviction had rested on unsound and circumstantial evidence, she had allowed herself to be persuaded that he was an innocent man. People judge crue
lly – she knows this – and he had responded to her own dark past with compassion, a feeling she had reciprocated. Over the past few weeks, she has come to think of him warmly, tenderly even.
But now, with the coldness of these letters invading her mind, he becomes recast in a new light. She pictures them together: Anton and Hilary. Lovers whispering in the dark, making their plans, Charlotte oblivious to what lay ahead. Words come at Leah now: Greg telling her that Charlotte was an unhappy woman, misunderstood. ‘He was very controlling,’ Greg had told them, that day in the garden, but she had dismissed those words, preferring to rely on her own version of Anton. It was easier to think of Charlotte as a drunk and a flirt, who made his life a misery but still he loved her. Easier to think that a terrible injustice had been done to him than confront the hard truth of his capacity for violence. But now, when she recalls him telling her how he loved his wife, how deep was their connection, she feels the hollowness of those words, knows them to be untrue. Jake hadn’t trusted him and now Jake is gone and she is alone.
Upstairs, there are voices, the creak of floorboards as someone crosses the room above.
Leah picks up another letter, and immediately her own name jumps out at her from the page.
We had them over for lunch today, your tenants. Jake’s a bit of a bore, but there is something intriguing about Leah. I can understand your interest – your fascination, my love. But I have to tell you how it pained me to hear her speak of you with barely disguised affection, your little defender. Don’t you know how it hurts me to think of you engaging with her, the young woman in your basement flat, knowing I was that young woman once? Surely you can understand how easy it would be for me to jump to the wrong conclusions, conjure up images of romance between the two of you, even though, in my heart, I know you would never betray me. I know that you’re just testing me, that she means nothing to you really. All of this would be so much easier, my love, if you would just reach out to me. Give me the sign. We agreed to wait but for how long? When will enough time have passed for you to deem it safe for us to reveal our love?
Leah reads quickly, putting the page down and snatching up another, scanning the text for her own name, a dark feeling opening inside her at her own presence within these letters.
I saw you tonight, in your garden – the two of you. Caught together in your cosy corner. This has to stop, my love. She needs to go.
The next letter then:
I saw you, Anton! I saw you and her in the window of your bedroom. For one horrible moment, I thought it was Charlotte up there, back from the dead, and that you were being tender towards her, like you actually cared for her instead of hating her! But then I realized it was Leah, your little friend, your little ingénue! Parading her in your dead wife’s clothes in the window of your bedroom! You knew I could see, didn’t you? Why are you torturing me like this? Why are you punishing me, after all I’ve done for you, after all I’ve given up? I want you to get rid of her, Anton, or I swear I don’t know what I’ll do!
The numbness has spread up Leah’s arms and legs, as if all the nerves are frozen. She looks at the letter, the way the biro has bitten into the page, imagines the force and frenzy involved in the writing. She puts it down and stares sightlessly about her.
For the first time, she feels frightened. Her heart hurts with scared feelings. She puts her hand to her chest, feels the thin cotton sticking to her skin. Even though she’s cold, her body is clammy with sweat. It comes to her then that she must leave. Right now, there’s not a moment to waste. She reaches for the suitcase on top of the wardrobe, dropping it on to the unmade bed next to the letters. She empties the wardrobe of her clothes, dumping them haphazardly on the bed, then pulls out drawer after drawer, their contents spilling, a snaking mass of legs and sleeves. Stuffing the clothes in, she shuts the case and carries it out into the hall. Then she goes back into the kitchen and finds her phone. It’s been days since she checked it, and the power is dead. She plugs it in and decides to shower quickly while waiting for the phone to come back to life.
In the bathroom, she turns the taps on, sets the temperature to high. When she steps under the shower, the water on her skin feels shocking. It scalds her flesh, reviving some spark of energy inside her. After days of wallowing in her depression, the skin on her body disgusts her. She scrubs vigorously, her nails clawing through her scalp as she shampoos her hair. She wants to get clean and away. She wants to wash these past few days and weeks from her body. She turns the water’s heat higher, needing to be cleansed to the bone. A plan forms in her head: she will call Jake and ask him to meet her, and then she will take only what she can carry and walk away. Later, they can return together for their furniture, her piano. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it’s best to leave it all behind – a scorched-earth policy – and start anew somewhere else.
The towel is rough on her skin. In the mirror, she sees her reflection – pink-skinned and puffy-eyed. She pulls on her underwear and then a loose-fitting cotton dress. Her hair drips on to the fabric as she steps into her shoes. She opens the door and there is Anton, right in front of her. The breath catches in her throat.
The door behind him is open to the flight of stairs he has just descended. Her suitcase lies at his feet and he looks at it now before bringing his eyes up to meet hers.
‘You’re leaving?’ he asks, his voice low. It makes the silence that surrounds them feel deeper, more profound. She realizes she cannot hear any sounds from outside: no birdsong, no kids in the park, no traffic humming from the streets beyond. Despite the recent heat from her shower, the skin over her neck and the backs of her arms prickles with goosebumps.
‘I’m going to stay with my parents for a few days,’ she answers, her voice level. She knows, somehow, that it’s important not to betray her nerves.
‘Your parents.’
His eyes are on hers, and even though he seems calm, unperturbed, an undercurrent of quivering doubt is there beneath it. He knows that she never goes home. He knows her reasons for staying away.
‘Jake is coming to pick me up,’ she says, the lie slipping awkwardly from her tongue. ‘He’ll be here soon.’
Anton nods, never once releasing her from his gaze.
The door to her bedroom lies open. She remembers that the letters are right there on the bed. Has he seen them? How long has he been down here? She doesn’t ask – or question him on the liberty he has taken in walking down here, entering her private space without first seeking permission. She doesn’t ask because she’s afraid, and somehow not asking draws attention to that fear.
‘You’re not coming back, are you?’ he asks, and she catches the forlorn note that is barely there in his voice.
She shakes her head. There is something shameful about her plan to run away. After all they had shared, all that he has done for her in the past few days. But those letters … Now that she’s read them, now that she knows …
‘Could I ask one thing of you?’
She looks up, sees the shyly perturbed look on his face.
‘Would you come upstairs and have one last drink with me before you leave?’
‘Oh.’
Fear jumps along her nerves. She knows she should not go back up those stairs.
‘I get the feeling that after today we will not see each other again,’ he tells her, his voice a silky ribbon. ‘I would so like for us to sit down this one last time, just like we did at the start of the summer. A cold glass of white wine, a little company. You have no idea how that was a lifeline to me, Leah. How that saved me. Please. Just until Jake comes for you. Let’s part as good friends. What do you say?’
She thinks of their conversations in the garden, the soft warm night air, the consolation of talk. He had been kind to her. He’s standing there, waiting for an answer, and she thinks about her phone charging in the kitchen, the front door locked, just the two of them alone together in this house. A whisper of nerves passes over the back of her neck. Somehow she cannot think of a way to say no.
‘Your health, my dear,’ he says, with benevolence, and she takes a cautious sip, leaning back a little into the sofa.
She expects him to sit in the armchair closest to her, but instead he stays on his feet, moving slowly to the marble mantelpiece. She watches as he reaches out to put his wine down on it. Through the foxed glass of the ancient mirror, she sees the reflection of his face. He looks tired, the lines running through his tan like deep grooves, harsher, more permanent than she remembers.
‘What made you decide to leave?’ he asks, in a speculative tone, still with his back to her, his gaze fixed on the wine glass, his fingers stroking the stem.
‘I don’t know. I just thought I should. I’ve been feeling so down. Maybe it might help.’
‘I thought I was helping,’ he tells her softly, and she hurries to reassure him.
‘Yes, of course you were. You’ve been amazing. But I don’t want to intrude on your kindness any longer. I can’t stay here indefinitely.’
‘Why not?’
‘Anton … I just can’t …’
He nods, still smiling, still not looking at her. There is an inwardness about his behaviour, a quiet containment, that does not feel quite right.
‘I went to the market this morning,’ he tells her, ‘while you were sleeping. I bought olives and salami, treats to tempt you. I had it all planned, that I was going to set up the table in the garden and spread out our little feast. In my head, it was perfect.’