Nemesister: The gripping women's psychological thriller from Sophie Jonas-Hill

by Sophie Jonas-Hill

  Christ, I’ve never stolen a thing in my life, why the hell would I steal from one of them? Like I fucking care, living in that shit-hole anyway. Good luck getting another idiot in to cover my rent, I’m so out of there. I’m doing alright anyhow, I earn more than all of them, just fucking jealous. I’ve always been the same though, always get on better with men than women, you know?

  She moved to a motel, a new place, smaller room yet more expensive. She calls the tutor to explain, because now there’s no money for the class any more, or the bus or the coffee shop, half hoping he’ll say it’s okay. Half hoping he might leave his wife.

  ‘Look, it’s probably for the best, Lisa. Susan and I? We’re going to try again, you know? I’ve really enjoyed our time together, you’re such a special person, really you are, but, like I said, we’re going to give it another go. Thought we might take a week in Cancun, at my brother-in-law’s place. Look, don’t worry about coming to class any more, because hey, maybe there’s nothing left I can teach you … You’re a very talented actress.’ That was nice of him.

  Her face in the mirror of the motel room, was lit by the glow of the sunlight through the curtains. This glow was yellow, hotter than before, and just four walls, one bed, one window, and a rug with the corners kicked up. The black square of a silent TV, coin slot empty, and the drip of water in the silverfish-scuttled bathroom. She told herself that this was better, hey, there was even a pool, though they were waiting for the cleaners and it was closed.

  ‘Ya always been a swimmer.’

  I have more time to myself, which is way better. I sit and listen to the people here, because you can hear everything through the walls. I don’t mind, I kind of try and imagine what they’re like, so I can draw on them when I have acting jobs.

  At night, there was the sound of the people next door. Lisa listened to them, for want of money for the TV. There was a woman who cried, the sound hollow and gasping. Lonely, so lonely, like she was crying for two. Lisa couldn’t stand it after a while, so she put on the white worn-through slippers, thin as prison gruel, and went to the door. Hand on the latch, she made up her mind to do it, only then there was the crack-slip of footsteps coming closer, the man’s tread, then the sound of the door in the next cell opening, closing. She stood by the door a moment longer, then went and sat down again. The woman stopped crying, so it must have been alright. All better now, only Lisa didn’t take off her slippers just then.

  There is a grey patch on the wall and it looks like a map of the state or something, like I should be able to stick a pin in it and say ‘I am here.’ But I can’t, because some days I wonder if I’m here at all.

  I saw him coming before she did, in the way the sky changes as the storm approaches, if you know what to look for. Lisa didn’t know, she was head-down working, but I saw him. I called out, but I was talking in my sleep, from the wrong time and the wrong place, and she could never have heard me. I couldn’t even hear me.

  ‘The Devil’s beatin’ his wife.’

  She woke in the hard yellow light of the afternoon, to wash among the silverfish. She walked to catch the bus, shades on, passing the door of the neighbouring room. All was quiet. She caught the bus to start her shift, and the sky above her seemed bruised – that odd colour that promises rain. She’s never seen it rain there before.

  Two in the morning, six hours in, and there were five guys in the corner of the casino, the spot where the cameras couldn’t reach. College kids, about her age.

  ‘Hey doll, we were wondering …’

  Ignore the sniggers, she told herself, ignore the grin, ignore the implication. Set down the tray, unload the drinks, slide the bill across the table. Do not make eye contact, do not rise to the bait. Serve the drinks, that’s all.

  ‘Hey doll …’ Big, raw faces, good teeth and nice hair, skin bronzed or scarred, or still white with library pallor. Money in his hand, a lot of money. More money than in the tip jar.

  ‘Look, I’m just a waitress.’

  ‘Come on, you’re killing me here!’

  ‘Hey, let go of me.’

  They closed in on her, out of sight of the bar, out of sight of the cameras. Two o’clock, not many people in, just the man with his paper and his beer; the man who smiled and was polite, the good tipper, who said, ‘Thank you, darlin’. Change is all yours.’

  The college boy had money too, folded in his hand. ‘Now look, doll, this is two hundred bucks. More than you make in a night, right? It’s his birthday, and we promised we’d get him something special, so play nice, okay?’

  ‘Fuck you!’ She piled the empty glasses onto the tray and turned her back on the chorus of catcalls, face hot and humiliated. She went to leave. One of them put out his leg, and the others saw, and hissed with laughter. Everything crashed down, glasses, tray, dignity, all of her sprawled across the floor.

  The good tipper gets up, leaves his beer. He folds his paper and takes a moment to put it on the table, before he comes over.

  ‘Get off me, get off me—’

  ‘Hey, easy … what’s up? Sein’ as you’re on your knees, you might as well.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  ‘Hey,’ and the college boy puts his finger on her forehead, as if one finger was all he needed. ‘Did I say you could get up?’

  The college boy didn’t see the good tipper, until the man took hold of him, one hand being all he needed to make the boy squirm in his grasp. ‘What the fuck—’ One of the others flinched as if he meant to go help his friend, only he didn’t. Good Tipper fixed him with his gaze, fixed all of them, and then somehow, none of them were going to help. Good Tipper bent the college boy’s arm backward.

  ‘You’re goin’ have to forgive me, son, but I ain’t been servin’ my country, so some little pissant like you can bad mouth a lady. You better apologize, before I go break your arm.’ College boy squealed, his face blubbering and snivelling.

  ‘Hey, dude,’ one of them said, anxious, keeping out of reach. ‘Hey dude, you hurtin’ him.’

  ‘That a fact?’ Good Tipper let the boy go, and the whole pack scampered off, shaking themselves, trying to make it no big deal, trying to look cool, and see that they were not being followed.

  ‘Now, may I give you a hand up, miss?’ Good Tipper asked, hand out.

  ‘No, really, it’s alright.’

  ‘Please? There you go. Now, I must apologize on their behalf. Boys will be boys I guess, but that ain’t no excuse for takin’ liberties. Sure, you’re just tryin’ do a job of work, aren’t you?’

  The noise of the bleating boy brought the security man over. There were explanations, there were apologies, Good Tipper shook the man’s hand and made everything quite alright, one professional to another, and suddenly, Lisa’s shift was over. The security man even gave her the twenty for a cab. Outside, Good Tipper was waiting.

  ‘Excuse me miss? Hey, I don’t mean to frighten you, forgive me for approaching you in this manner, but I’m just concerned, after the incident earlier?’ She smiled, because she kind of knew he was going to wait.

  It was nice when he took her for coffee. When he talked to her long into the morning as the dawn snapped awake around them, when he told her things she thought too precious for him to give away lightly. She told him things too, nothing real of course, just things that sounded real – about the schools and being sent away from home, and running back there only to run away again, and the running away this last time, and the being in the house with all the girls. Not the acting tutor, though. But some of it, some of the real stuff, as if it was a confessional, always half watching to see his reaction, waiting for the disgust to show on his face, only it didn’t. She looked into his eyes, and I felt the warmth of the smile he gave her hot on my cheeks. It felt like forgiveness. And as she talked, the voice she used there, her valley girl voice, was quieted by the roll of his vowels, until something of her real voice, with its clipped, New England staccato, played about between them, and she thought how good the two sounded t
ogether, how nice the counterpart.

  He told her first his name was Rooster, which made her laugh. When he saw her laughing, she blushed and told him it was because of the old movies she and her sister loved, and because Rooster was a character played by John Wayne. They always watched Westerns, she said; she and her sister would make a teepee with towels over the airer, and use their mom’s lipstick for warpaint. They wanted to be Red Indians, wearing their hair in braids like the Indians in the films.

  To prove they were brave – because they read somewhere you had to before you could call yourself a warrior – they’d dared each other to run past the nasty dog that lived three doors down. It barked and barked at them through the fence, until the mean neighbour who owned the dog shouted at them to stop. That dog though, they were both so scared of it, she and her sister. Her sister always made her walk next to the fence while it snarled at them because it frightened her so much. They had to hold hands and run together, or they’d never have made the school bus. That was in grade school, of course, before the sent-away-schools that came later. Silly, really, because it wasn’t that big a dog, not when you thought about it.

  He paid for a cab to take them both all the way, and made the driver wait while he walked her to the door. She was ashamed about the stinking pool with the covers on, and the vending machine at the foot of the stairs; she didn’t want him to see. But he didn’t seem to notice, and walked her to her door and asked if he might see her again. She wasn’t sure if she was more excited about that moment, or that now she had something nice to write about.

  We just talked and talked, and I told him everything, like I couldn’t help myself. And he listened and he made me laugh, and then it was morning already and the sun came up. For this first time since I arrived, I saw how magical it could be here.

  He asked if he could see her again, and she said of course he could, Rooster, of course. And he laughed, and then he kissed her hand, just like they do in the movies. He kissed her hand and he said, ‘you don’t need call me that. Them that knows me, calls me Red.’

  You are Red, Rooster Levine, red in tooth and claw.

  Chapter 9

  THE FORCE OF THE WORD had me sprawling back against the bed as if he’d hit me. I broke the surface of the vision with a shock, my cry harsh, the sound of it echoing in the soft, damp space of the room. I was on my feet in seconds, wanting to run. I grabbed for the doorknob, then snatched my arm back and forced myself to stand still, hand jammed over my mouth, other arm hugging my chest.

  The echo of my movement died in the instant, and around me the little room waited for the night to creep back in.

  It was him, it was Red, in the emails, the messages. He knew me, he knew me all along, and I knew it, I’d felt it, but this? I tried to swallow against the tightness of my throat, tried to think. The images I’d seen, mixed with the words … what was that? I tried to pick at them, to bring them to mind; they were all new and raw and tender underneath, like fresh skin exposed under a loose scab.

  No.

  I wasn’t the girl, the blond girl. I knew her, I knew her eyes; but like I’d known mine would be hazel when I looked in the mirror, I knew hers were blue. But he was Red, he just had to be, this man who’d saved her.

  The urge to run swelled inside me. I looked at the closed door, and thought of the padlock below, and how there might still be something in there to force the door with. I went to the owlish wardrobe. Its door opened without protest and revealed another, small, grey little space, running with damp and rot. There was a metal rail across the top, which looked good and heavy, but was held in place by two brass clips. They themselves were also plenty good and heavy, good enough not to budge. The ends of the rail were decorated with ornate bulbs of metal, all very fancy and all speaking of a once far finer home, but as none of it seemed about to come loose without a great deal of noise, not much use to me. If I’d swung on it and pulled, there was a chance the wood might give way, rotten as it was, but I couldn’t imagine how much noise that would make. The whole thing might splinter apart and topple over, and that would wake Red for sure. So I closed its door again.

  I told myself again, that if Red wanted me dead, he could have killed me while I was unconscious, or gone for the cops. He could have locked the door and walked far enough to raise help, or flag down a passing woodsman, or whoever the fuck might hang out in a place like this – all of that he could have done and yet he had not. There was something he wanted from me, I was sure, just as sure that the girl he’d met in – well, it had to be Las Vegas, now didn’t it? Yes, the girl he’d met in Las Vegas waiting tables, was not me, but my sister.

  I could see the barking dog too, feel my fear of the damn thing, its nasty, snarled up face and how it always went for me through the fence, and the neighbour saying how I just had to be brave about it, that it could smell fear, that was all. I could picture myself hiding under the bed. But from whom, or what? The dog? All that green carpet and me and Lisa hiding there, with it scratching at the door, whining and snarling to get it. I turned to stare at the mouldering iron bedstead in the flicker of the lantern light.

  Lisa and I, under the bed, because the dog was coming for us, the dog was bounding up the stairs to get us. No. Lisa and me though, Lisa and me hiding under the bed together. In a big house, in a quiet street, in a cold city, far from here, far from Vegas. Hot summers, but winters blown white with snow and ice, and iron skies, and vents in the streets billowing smoke, along a river that sometimes froze right over, froze right to the bottom. I longed for it, that cold, for the crunch of snow up to my knees, up to my elbows, covering everything over and making it cleaner, brighter, whiter. I stood in the dark, damp, room, stifled with residual heat and the itch of memory, and I tried to think of Lisa.

  I saw her crying. I saw her crying on the bed, not underneath, and I knew that I knew why. I tried to say something to her, something like, ‘It’ll be okay, Lisa. He’s gonna find him, Daddy’s gonna find him,’ but she didn’t believe me. She looked up, her face pink-swollen and tear-bubbled, and her desolation was complete.

  ‘He’s back,’ I’d said then, because I’d heard the sound of the car, and we both knew how odd it was, Daddy driving, because he really didn’t care to; he liked Mom to drive him, but she was out, and that was a problem, because though Mom would have gone, we didn’t think he would. But he had.

  I went running down through the kitchen and out through the side door, sprinting to the front path, because I couldn’t bear not knowing. He was getting out of the car, taking forever to unclip the safety belt, to adjust the seat back to where Mom liked it, to open the door and ease himself out. Tall man, stooped even then, brown coat with the collar up and the smell of lemon and leather he had, moving slow because of the pain.

  ‘Daddy, did you get him? Did you find him, Daddy, Daddy?’ He reached inside his coat, and smiled at me.

  Then I was running back to Lisa. Daddy had given it to me and I’d hesitated, because surely Daddy wanted to give it back to Lisa himself? But Daddy held it out to me, and said, ‘Oh, hey, you take it, sweetheart,’ and I did, I snatched at it and I ran without thinking.

  ‘Lisa, Lisa, I’ve got him, I’ve—’

  My hand flinched – what was it? I stared at my fingers, seeming bright and white against the dark of the room, and I tried to remember what it was that had mattered so much, but all I kept seeing was the dog, that goddamn dog, its lips all snarled up, teeth clashing. It was fading, the images running one into the other: Daddy, stairs, dog scratching, whining, hiding under the bed, Lisa crying, Lisa happy. My eyes hurt in their sockets, as if I’d been gazing too long at a screen. I blinked, and night was back round me. A screech owl began to call in the trees outside, the sound acid-bright against the endless insect throb. I let my hand fall to my side. I looked down at the papers. A bug pinged against the lantern, and while it threw itself at the light over and over, I sat down to read the emails again.

  Chapter 10

  THE ROOM
IN THE MOTEL was yellow, and the heat through the blind seemed warm for the first time, seemed joyous. The city became starbursts, churned into song, spinning round and round.

  I remembered Lisa on a carousel when we were children; the music, the lights and the faces all whirled and tumbled together. They called her to come back, said it was time to go, it was late, but she wouldn’t. She clung to the neck of the horse, and they had to get the man from the carnival to hold up the ride and help them pull her off. She wanted so much to be the girl on the horse, the girl with the lights in her hair, and that was how it was for her again, that time. I felt it, through the words she wrote to me, words churning and tumbling from the page, excited, lit up, the carousel taking her further and further away from me.

  They weren’t just for me though, her words. I’d thought it then, and the thought came back to me: they were as much for her. They were a story she was telling herself, as if by writing it down, it might make it real, might make her the person on the page, the girl on the horse.

  I didn’t want to ruin our last night, so I put on a pink dress and he took me to dinner to this amazing place.

  Pink dress, pink nails, the camera flash in the mirror blanking out her face, so that she was all girls, and no girls; all of the girls who wait at tables and go to acting classes, and who believe. She was the girl that sneaked a lace tablecloth from the linen closet, and ran with it to the end of the yard.

  And after the meal, he just suddenly said it.

  She hardly talked about home, about us, though he asked her. She told him she was an orphan, with a sister back east, who lived with an aunt. She wrote me into her story – like when we were Indian braves, like when we were mermaids – she gave me a role. She killed both our parents at a stroke, easy, no mess. She even told him how, one day when she was set, she was going to come get me, how she’d build a big house and I’d get to live with her, and it would be like when we were children. And then he asked her to marry him. Well, you know how romantic soldiers can be, how sentimental.