At first, I resolved not to mention it. I mean, what if he wanted to finish with me but just didn’t have the guts? I’d be making it so easy for him to bring things to a swift conclusion. Instead, I decided just to hang on in there in the hope that she would find a guy of her own age and he’d return all of his affection to me.
My resolve lasted for two whole days then I burst into tears.
‘What’s wrong? You’re usually so calm,’ he said, taking his hand from my left breast where he’d been sending thrill after thrill through my nipple.
‘I saw you holding hands with a blonde girl.’
‘Christ,’ he said, looking shocked, ‘I never wanted you to know.’
I took a deep breath. ‘I thought that we promised to be exclusive?’
He swallowed visibly. ‘We did.’
‘So?’ Don’t end it, don’t end it, don’t end it.
‘She . . . she’s just so young and lively. She really gets under my skin. But at the same time, she can be overwhelming. I love being with you as it’s so nice and restful here.’
He made me sound like a day spa, but it was a start.
‘At her age, her hormones must be all over the place?’ I hoped against hope that she had wicked PMS.
‘Tell me about it. For one week out of every month she snaps my head off and sometimes throws things at me!’
‘And is that what you want?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s exhausting. But the rest of the time, she’s . . .’ He seemed to belatedly realize who he was talking to. ‘I’m sorry, but she’s really gotten to me.’
‘It’s probably just lust,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from breaking again.
He shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe I’m having an early midlife crisis.’
I tensed every sinew in my body. ‘I’d like you to give her up.’
‘I can’t.’
‘But we were so good together!’
‘We still are. I don’t want to lose either of you.’
I took the deepest of breaths. ‘And if I issued an ultimatum?’
He looked down and played absently with my pubic hair. ‘I’d choose her.’
So, there it was.
‘Because she’s new?’
‘And different to everyone else that I’ve ever gone out with. I mean, my wife and girlfriends have always been traditionalists.’
‘But you are, too.’
‘I was, but she’s made me think about things differently. She’s sort of New Age but she’s somehow tied it all in with quantum mechanics. It’s fascinating stuff.’
‘I was something of a hippy at university,’ I said, somewhat desperately. In other words, I’d owned a couple of tie dye outfits and an afghan coat.
‘She likes all these esoteric things, believes in the supernatural.’
‘But you’re an atheist. We both are!’
‘I think that I’d consider myself an agnostic nowadays.’
I should end this, I thought, then breathed in his aftershave and faint manly sweat and knew that I couldn’t. I wanted him in my bed and in my life every single day. Surely three days a week was much, much better than nothing? He made me laugh, made me think, made me orgasm twice in one night. She was offering the hurly-burly of the futon whilst I gave him the deep, deep peace of the king-size bed.
I made the next three months so peaceful that it’s a wonder he didn’t die of bliss. We had once-weekly home-cooked meals at my place, washed down by the finest wines and brandies. We lay in my Jacuzzi and listened to whale music, made love using a vibrating relaxing massager which I’d purchased online. On other nights, we went to see feel-good movies or enjoyed weekend trips to bird sanctuaries and nature reserves.
Would he really enjoy going clubbing with her once the novelty had worn off? Was being the oldest swinger in town truly his preference? Surely he’d tire of her monthly aggression and choose comparatively laid-back me?
‘Shall we go to the Eden Project this weekend?’ I asked. Eve had tempted Adam with an apple but I was using greenery and pastoral music as my offerings.
‘Can’t - Becky’s no longer going to her parents at the weekend so I’ll be taking her dancing instead.’
I felt as if I’d been hit.
‘What’s changed?’
‘They’ve moved abroad.’
‘But she’d been seeing them every weekend?’ I’d always thought that he mainly saw her straight from work, that he’d made an active choice to spend every Saturday and Sunday with me.
‘Uh huh. They were running a struggling bed and breakfast and she was helping out.’
‘So now you’re going to switch between the two of us?’
He looked away then mumbled, ‘Not sure.’
‘What if she has PMS?’
‘Oh, she’s switched to a different pill. She’s much better.’
‘Is she really?’ I said, and a little acid came back up from my stomach and burned my throat.
Have you any idea how difficult it is to fill an entire weekend when you know that the man you love is having fun with your much younger rival? Oh, I resurrected my old social life with the hillwalking club and went for meals out with my neighbour, but nothing brought me pleasure any more. Now I lived for Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights which I spent with Jack, sometimes socializing and sometimes staying in. I tried so hard to please him on these nights - my conversation sweet, my laughter ready, my tongue bionic - but he still went to her every weekend and maybe even saw her on Tuesdays and Thursdays too. Plus they were together all day at work, had hours in which to build up shared jokes. I couldn’t compete.
Eventually, it began to affect my health so badly that I’d lie there in the mornings unable to get out of bed. I felt literally weighted. This was particularly strange as by now I’d lost two stone, looked pale and weak. I also lost concentration when I did finally arrive at work, was called in front of the board of governors and warned that I had to shape up. But he was still touching her, licking her, doing all of the things that he was doing to me but doubtless preferring her silkier and perkier body. It was driving me mad.
After the sacking, I signed on but the Job Centre didn’t offer a new start.
‘Once you’re over forty . . .’ one of the other jobseekers said sadly.
‘Everything’s aimed at people in their twenties,’ I said savagely.
She had it all. I had less and less. We were reaching a showdown. It was then that I realized I had to kill.
It wasn’t difficult. After all, I knew where they worked and lived, their day-to-day movements. I simply aimed my car and watched the body fly through the air. Afterwards, I ran over the cadaver as it lay on the ground, reversed and ran over it again numerous times. I was taking no chances, had to eliminate every breath.
I received a life sentence for his murder, of course. Does that surprise you? I mean, that it was Jack that I killed, my beloved? It surprised the prison psychologist.
‘Why didn’t you kill Becky, your rival?’ she asked.
‘Because there are new female graduates going into engineering all the time nowadays,’ I said sadly, remembering my recent research. ‘There would always be other young women tempting him away.’
‘So why not let him go?’
‘I loved him too much, he meant everything to me. This way he’s mine for ever. No one else can ever have him now.’
‘But you’ve given up everything in the process,’ she said sadly.
I was so glad that she cared.
She’s right though - life can be pointless in here unless you have someone to think about all of the time. Fortunately I realized within days that she and I are meant to be together. We talk easily during our sessions and she always looks pained when she admits that our time is up. She, too, used to work in an all-girls school so we share a history. I imagine she’s also had secret crushes on the older girls, just like me. And there’s a synchronicity in our names - she’s Lilian and, if I use my full moniker, I’m Gilli
an. It’s rhyme and reason. It’s fate.
There’s only one problem: Raisa, who is on the extended privileges programme, likes Lilian too. She has more independence than me as she’s a trusted prisoner, has free reign of the building. She’s probably popping in to see Lilian whilst I’m in the workshop, stuffing soft toys.
Not for much longer, though. I’ve bought a knife from one of the metal shop workers, had it honed to the sharpest point imaginable. I reckon it’ll only take thirty seconds, during my one-to-one therapy, to cut the psychologist’s throat. Lilian will always endure in my memory, alongside Jack, and neither of them will ever again be unfaithful. It’s the ultimate ownership - I take their lives and they become mine.
<
~ * ~
SQUEAKY
Martin Edwards
Martin Edwards is the author of eight books featuring Liverpool lawyer Harry Devlin, as well as of the Lake District Mysteries, most recently The Hanging Wood. His stand-alone mysteries include Dancing for the Hangman, a novel about Dr Crippen. He has written many short stories, and The Bookbinder’s Apprentice’ won the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2008.
~ * ~
L
et ‘s go into the forest,’ Squeaky said.
Adele glanced at Brendan. Her husband was hunched over the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Lips motionless. She looked over her shoulder.
Squeaky squatted on the back seat, grinning at her.
Something about Squeaky disturbed Adele, and in wilder moments, she fancied Squeaky knew it. Those widely spaced blue eyes weren’t as innocent as they ought to be. They stared through Adele, as if her skull were made of glass, exposing her thoughts like scrawl on a postcard.
The car rounded a bend. Fields dusted with the first snow of winter bordered either side of the road. In the distance, a dark gathering of trees stretched as far as she could see. A brown signpost for tourists pointed the way, but the lane was deserted.
‘Let’s go into the forest.’
The scratchy, high-pitched voice made Adele’s flesh tingle. She clenched her small fists. Brendan’s lips were parted. She could see the pink tip of his tongue. The car jerked forward, as he pressed his foot on the accelerator. They raced past the road sign.
‘But I wanted to go into the forest.’
‘Shut up!’ Adele muttered.
‘Oh, dear me!’’ This was Squeaky’s catchphrase.
‘I told you to shut up!’
How shaming, to scream like that at Squeaky. Stupid and immature of her, too, but she couldn’t help herself. Brendan threw her a glance. Was that dread in his eyes? The heater was buzzing - he had changed it to the highest setting - and the car’s interior was stuffy. Sweat slicked his brow.
‘Are you . . . OK?’ His voice never used to falter like this.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
They drove on in silence for another twenty minutes, until they reached the hospice on the outskirts of the next town. While Brendan waited to reverse into a vacant space, Adele jumped out to buy a parking ticket. She took another look at Squeaky through the window of the car. Snub-nosed and straw-haired, with a red top and baggy blue jeans. A figure that might have walked out of a bad dream. Squeaky ought to find it impossible to scare a grown woman. But a tremor ran down Adele’s spine as she shoved coins into the slot of the machine.
When she returned to stick the ticket on to the windscreen, Brendan had Squeaky over his shoulder, and the big canvas hold-all in his hand. He pecked Adele on the cheek.
‘See you later . . . Have a good shop.’
Why couldn’t he meet her eye? She strove for brightness. ‘Good luck. Hope the kids have a wonderful time.’
As she walked towards the main road, Squeaky’s piercing gaze seemed to track her movements. She felt naked, despite being wrapped against the cold in a warm woollen coat and scarf. Squaring her shoulders, she looked straight ahead, determined not to spare Squeaky another glance. Though she itched to put her hands round that scrawny neck.
Drifting through the crowds in the shopping mall, she found it impossible to push Squeaky out of her mind. Sometimes she thought there were three people in their marriage, not two. Whenever she tried to talk about her anxieties to Brendan, he was kind but intransigent. Squeaky had changed his life for the better, he said. Surely Adele understood? He’d found his true vocation. It wasn’t as if his wife had any cause to worry.
After all, Squeaky was only a doll.
~ * ~
When Adele first met Brendan, at a party thrown by a casual acquaintance neither of them knew well or much liked, he told her he was a magician. After their first night in bed together, he confessed that his magic amounted to little more than a few conjuring tricks. He didn’t even run to a glamorous assistant, he said with a mock-sheepish grin. For years, he’d worked as a quantity surveyor, but after the death of his wife he’d wanted to change his life completely. Adele knew how he felt.
They had plenty in common. Liked the same TV shows, laughed at the same jokes. He was marvellous company, charming and courteous, although Adele was perceptive enough to detect a streak of self-indulgence running through him. But that had been true of Josh, it was true of most men. Maybe all men. Brendan was a nice guy, but not the strongest of characters; forced into a corner, he’d put himself first. But you had to balance positives against the negatives. Brendan made her smile, for the first time since Josh’s accident, when they were out boating in his native Australia, on the final day of the holiday of a lifetime to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary.
Bereavement was another thing they had in common. Brendan made no secret of his devotion to the first Mrs O’Leary. Not that Adele resented this: jealousy wasn’t one of her vices. She deplored the way Gilly had betrayed Brendan’s trust. He still kept photos of her in an old suitcase in the loft, and the identical pout featured in every single one. Gilly was pretty and vain, the doted-on daughter of a widowed wealthy banker. When Daddy died, she needed someone else to spoil her rotten. It was clear even from Brendan’s kind-hearted comments that she’d been flattered by his unfailing attentiveness, and relished having a good-looking man at her beck and call. And Brendan, tall and introspective, with a mop of dark hair and deep brown eyes, was a very good-looking man.
Adele lingered in her favourite fashion store, where Christmas carols sung by a kids’ choir trilled over the loudspeakers.
‘Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel.‘
After that disturbing episode with Squeaky, she was in the mood for a treat. A skimpy designer nightdress caught her eye. The price was extortionate for something so skimpy and insubstantial, but money wasn’t a problem, and Brendan would love slipping it off her slim white shoulders. So, a treat for both of them. She carried her trophy to the till.
Poor Brendan deserved his fun. He was terrific in bed, but that hadn’t been enough for vain and selfish Gilly. She’d started an affair with an old school friend called Hodgkinson, who’d contacted her via a social networking site. Hodgkinson was married to a woman disabled by some rare malfunction of her auto-immune system. Brendan knew none of this until the police came knocking at his door one Saturday afternoon, and told him that his wife had been found dead in a car filled with exhaust fumes. She and the school friend had perpetrated the ultimate in selfishness. A suicide pact.
‘Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer.’
She stabbed her PIN number into the credit card machine. Brendan was quite open about the fact that the police had needed to check him out in order to make sure that he hadn’t contrived an ingenious double murder. To a suspicious detective, the affair might seem to give him a motive to do away with Gilly and her lover, and to make matters worse, Brendan inherited all the money her father had left her.
Lucky he was a conjuror in his spa
re time. While Gilly spent her last hours with her lover, he’d risen bright and early to travel to a hotel in Bath where he’d been booked by a distant cousin to perform some table magic at her husband’s fortieth birthday party.
It all made sense. Gilly was a flake, the other man was depressed about his wife’s deteriorating health, and they couldn’t see a happy future together. Two star-crossed lovers whose self-absorption knew no bounds.
Guilty Consciences - [A CWA Anthology] Page 7