by Hilary Boyd
‘I’ve got a brewer mate who’s experimenting with a stout blend. I’m going over there tomorrow, if you fancy coming along for a tasting.’
Devan, who loathed stout, was nodding eagerly. ‘That’d be great.’
Connie stared at her husband in horror.
‘It’s serious stuff. Tastes like singed soil, really gross,’ Jared was saying. ‘You can’t drink much and stay upright.’
They chatted on, like the best of friends, the two of them side by side, glasses in hand, faces lit by the bonfire as they watched the extravagant display of fireworks. Connie edged away until she was standing on her own. She was both stunned and furious. What the hell were you doing at the launch? she asked Jared silently. And how dare you pretend to pal up with my husband?
In the car going home, Connie’s head was pounding from too much mulled wine. ‘You’ve always said stout was vile. Why on earth are you going for a tasting with that guy?’
He grinned. ‘I know. But he’s nice. I like him. And you always say we should be friendly to people settling in the village.’
She had no answer for that because she was assailed by a silent shriek of panic, of blind fury. This cannot be happening to me … The words smacked the sides of her brain like a hundred-mile-an-hour squash ball.
Late morning the following day, Connie phoned her sister. She’d been going crazy since the early hours, trying to work out what to do, without success. She knew she needed someone else’s advice. ‘Have you got a moment?’ she asked, after they’d exchanged greetings. It was a Friday morning and, remembering Lynne and Rhodri’s rigid schedule, she knew they wouldn’t be at the supermarket or at church or changing the sheets. Connie had waited till Devan went out to meet Jared. She had barely slept and now felt tearful. Swallowing hard, she tried to explain.
‘Crikey,’ Lynne said, which was as close as she usually got to swearing. ‘He’s living practically next door?’
‘Three minutes away.’
‘Why? Does he think you’ll leave Devan?’ There was a pause. ‘Might you leave Devan?’
‘No. No no no! Absolutely not. And I’ve told him that a hundred times.’
‘Hmm. Weird. He’s stalking you, Connie.’
Since his arrival in the village, she herself had reluctantly begun to use that word in relation to Jared. But it was scary: she didn’t want it to fit. ‘He doesn’t call me, text me, send letters, leave stuff on the doorstep, boil bunnies, slash tyres … He doesn’t do anything. He’s just there.’ She felt tears of frustration, which she’d kept under firm control for weeks now, finally breaking free.
‘Please, don’t cry.’ Lynne hated tears. ‘You say he’s promised not to breathe a word. Maybe he won’t.’
‘How can I trust him, though?’ Connie wailed. ‘In fact, how do I know he’s not telling Devan every single thing that happened between us even as we speak?’ Angrily she wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘But that’s almost beside the point. Even if he never breathes a bloody word, I can’t live like this, Lynne, with him breathing down my neck. I daren’t even go out in my own village for fear of bumping into him.’
‘He doesn’t sound sane to me.’
‘What he’s doing is totally insane. Although he appears completely normal to everyone else. They love him.’
There was a baffled silence at the other end of the phone.
‘Well, perhaps he doesn’t mean any harm, Con. Perhaps he means what he says – that he just wants to be near you.’
‘And I’m supposed to roll over and let him be part of my life, am I? Ignore the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head, the threat that one day he’ll get drunk and blurt out he had wild sex with me all summer?’
There was silence as Lynne digested this. ‘So, he didn’t mention he’d met you before, when you were introduced?’
‘No. But he turned up at Fiona Raven’s book launch. How the fuck does he know her? It’s like he’s found out every single detail about my life and is quietly infiltrating it all.’
‘It’s called stalking,’ her sister repeated patiently.
Connie let out a frustrated sigh. ‘Call it what you like. But I hardly think the police’ll send out their armed response because I don’t particularly like the look of some man who’s moved into our village.’
‘He’ll get bored, won’t he? If you ignore him,’ Lynne said, after another short silence.
Connie hoped she was right, but Jared didn’t seem to follow normal rules. ‘God, Lynne. I know I did a really bad thing, cheating on Devan like that. And I know it serves me bloody well right. But this level of retribution doesn’t seem quite fair.’
‘“He who digs a pit will fall into it”, Proverbs twenty-six, verse twenty-seven,’ Lynne murmured to herself. ‘There is a very simple solution, of course.’
‘What?’
‘Tell Devan.’
Connie felt her gut seize.
‘Then Jared has no power.’ Warming to her theme, Lynne went on, ‘He really should know, Connie. It’s such a big lie sitting at the centre of your marriage.’
It wasn’t as if Connie hadn’t considered telling Devan. Part of her was desperate to let the toxic secret slip from her grasp. Surely it would be a massive relief. But then she examined the fallout, the hurt and humiliation on her husband’s face … the probable ruination of their marriage. And now Jared had compounded the potential mortification by becoming friends with Devan.
Connie began to cry. ‘I can’t, Lynne. I honestly can’t tell him. Can you imagine? Devan would hate me for ever …’ The thought froze her tears.
‘How was the stout?’ Connie had been on tenterhooks all day. Devan did not appear until gone seven and hadn’t answered any of her texts asking where he was. Mad scenarios had built in her mind as the hours passed. When he finally arrived home, she searched his face for signs of stress. And found none.
‘Foul. As you so rightly pointed out, I still loathe the stuff. But Torsten was a hoot. Looked like a cross between an overweight Viking and a computer nerd. I think he’d been sampling too much of his brew because he kept bursting out laughing at nothing at all. Jed said they were friends, but Torsten didn’t seem to know him that well. Kept calling him Mr Temple …’
‘And … Jed?’ She only just stopped herself calling him Jared.
‘Yeah, interesting man. He’s been literally everywhere, Con. Seems to have spent his whole life travelling. Although he’s also run a successful kitchen-design business, which he just sold for a great deal of money, apparently.’ Devan bent to drop a kiss on her forehead as she sat at the kitchen table. ‘He’s good company. I said we’d have him over for supper one night next week. I’ll cook, if you like. I’ll make him my sausage pasta.’
22
Connie was sleeping so badly. She would fall asleep, then wake soon after as if to a loud noise, her heart beating like a drum. There was no actual noise: Devan was snoring peacefully beside her. What woke her was Jared’s face, looming at her, wanting something, desperate. Wanting her? Then she would lie there, rigid with tension, unable to fall back to sleep.
What’s he playing at? The question plagued her. Is he waiting for me to see the light and leave Devan? Is he waiting for the right moment to destroy our marriage, so he can step in? She knew it was pointless to ask. He never answered her questions straight. Maybe her sister was right: he’d tire of the game. But, meanwhile, it looked as if she would just have to accept him into her circle of friends … her life. It was like living with an explosive device strapped to her chest.
That morning she lay flat on her back on her yoga mat in the village hall. It was the first class she’d been to in ages, and she was stiff from illness and immobility, her joints aching as she attempted to keep up with poses in which she had previously been quite fluent. Nothing felt right, these days. She had even been worried Jared would take up yoga and be there on a mat beside her.
She walked the short distance home on wobbly legs, in a haze of tiredness – she’d
almost fallen asleep during the meditation at the end of the session. A gentle hand on her arm as she reached the corner barely registered, until she turned to find Jared beside her. She pulled her arm away, looking right and left to check they were not being watched. But no one was around.
‘Can we talk?’ he asked, his expression anxious.
‘No,’ she snapped, turning to go.
‘Please, Connie. I never see you alone. Will you meet me somewhere?’ His voice was low and pleading.
Spotting a couple she knew quite well getting out of their Jaguar across the road, she was desperate to get rid of him. ‘Shotgun Inn, eleven thirty,’ she said reluctantly.
I don’t need to go, she told herself. But, as she plastered a smile on her face and walked across to greet her friends, she decided she would meet him. It was worth giving it one more shot. If Lynne was right and he was a stalker, it wouldn’t work. She had to try, nevertheless. The pub she’d chosen was down-at-heel, hidden in a small hamlet off the Cheddar road. No one would be there at this time of the morning – no one she knew, anyway.
What would I do without Tesco? she thought, as she collected the supermarket bags and waved to Devan – contentedly ensconced with his crossword and Classic FM in the sitting room, Riley snoozing at his feet. He was like a different man since his recruitment to the new hospice. Connie no longer detected the lost, dissatisfied look in his eyes. He met up with Sylvie once a week now, often talked with her over the phone. The plan for opening was coming together nicely, according to Devan.
It was still raining as she pulled up on the tarmacked pub forecourt of the low brick building. The only other car was Jared’s black Golf. She took a deep breath.
He was sitting by the window, the gloomy interior stuffy, smelling of stale fat and furniture polish. He got up as she approached. ‘Coffee?’
She nodded, sat down on a wheelback chair with a stained red cushion tied to the spokes.
‘Nice place.’ Jared raised a wry eyebrow as he set the two mugs of white coffee on the table. ‘Don’t run to lattes, I’m afraid.’
She stared at him. He didn’t look quite his usual nonchalant self. Something about his eyes implied stress.
‘I’m not here to be friends, Jared,’ she said peremptorily.
He looked surprised at her tone. ‘I just wanted to check on you, Connie. I mean, Devan is such a great guy. Our day with mad Torsten was hilarious. But now he’s asked me for supper tomorrow, and I wanted to make sure you’re OK with that.’
She shook her head in amazement, mouth agape. ‘Seriously, Jared? What part of the-man-I’ve-been-having-an-affair-with-coming-to-supper-with-my-husband would I be OK with?’ She took a breath. ‘You’ll have to cry off.’
Jared shrugged. ‘I get where you’re coming from.’ He took a sip of his coffee and pulled a face, set the cup down again. ‘But if you’re worried I’m going to blab at supper, you must know I’m not.’
She wanted to beat him over the head and scream in his face till he understood. ‘You can’t come to our house, Jared,’ she said, her voice breaking with the effort not to attack him physically, but still sharp with anguish. ‘You can’t be mates with Devan … or any of my friends. And you can’t be living five minutes from my door.’ She took a breath, trying to control her leaping heartbeat. ‘I don’t want to ever see you again.’ She spoke in a low hiss, although the girl who had served Jared was nowhere to be seen. ‘Do you understand?’
Jared looked genuinely shocked. He frowned. ‘Connie …’
Driving home her advantage, she leaned across the table, glaring into his eyes. ‘I AM NOT GOING TO LEAVE DEVAN.’
He held up his hands, as if to fend off her words. ‘OK, OK, no need to shout. I hear you.’ But his expression was bewildered.
‘You say that every bloody time. You keep saying it, but you aren’t listening. You just carry on like you did before, turning up and doing exactly the same thing. Which means exactly what you want.’
‘You used to want it too,’ he said, almost flirtatiously.
Connie growled in frustration, throwing herself back in the wooden chair. ‘I know I did,’ she said softly.
Jared seemed to be waiting for her to go on.
‘I don’t want to live without you in my life, Connie,’ he said, when she didn’t say anything more.
A shiver of dread shot through her at his words. She felt she was pounding on a hamster wheel, going round and round and coming back to exactly the same horrifying place. But she could think of nothing to say that might halt the wheel. She had assured her sister that Jared appeared perfectly normal to Devan and Neil and his new friends in the village. But the look in his eyes right now, as he singularly failed to accept what she was telling him, seemed off-the-scale delusional. Exhaustion overwhelmed her. She felt too tired to argue any more.
Jared was smiling now, his face relaxed. ‘Trust me, Connie. You have to trust me. I’d never do anything I thought might hurt you.’
As they got up, she remembered something. ‘So did you really work with Fiona Raven?’
‘Of course. We did some stuff on kitchens together, a while back.’
‘“Stuff”?’
‘She wanted to include kitchen design and how it works in one of her books.’
He spoke easily, seemed to be telling the truth.
‘Bit of a coincidence,’ she commented, as he held the pub door open for her.
‘I prefer to think of it as synergy,’ Jared said.
Connie walked out into the deserted pub car park. Turning to him one last time as she approached her car, she said, her tone cold and uncompromising, ‘Just go away, Jared, get on with your life.’ She looked him directly in the eye. ‘Or it’ll destroy us both.’
‘Let’s ask someone else with Jed,’ Connie said to Devan, when she got back with the groceries. She was still hoping, vainly, Jared might do as she’d asked and cry off. But she knew that was unlikely. At least if there were other people as a buffer, his opportunities for mischief would be reduced. Her husband was sitting exactly where she’d left him, with the addition of a glass of red wine on the table beside him. He looked up and frowned.
‘We could. But I thought it might be nice, just the three of us. You could get to know him better. He’s a lot of fun.’
‘We owe the Birtwhistles.’
Devan groaned. ‘Please, no. They only ever talk about house prices and their super-clever Oxbridge grandchildren.’
She laughed. ‘We’ve got to have them some time.’
‘Yeah, but not tomorrow. Let’s just have a cosy evening with Jed.’
Connie looked on in disbelief as she watched Devan and Jared, sitting at the kitchen table, begin to tuck into the pasta that her husband had cooked. How did this even happen? She was unable to raise a forkful to her own mouth. She knew she must, and praise Devan’s cooking into the bargain. But she felt as dumb and inanimate as the fork in her hand.
‘Connie travels,’ Devan was saying. ‘She’s a tour manager for a train company. Goes all over Europe, don’t you?’
She stared blankly at her husband. ‘Umm, yes.’ She couldn’t look at Jared.
But she heard him say politely, ‘That’s a difficult job, I imagine. All those people to herd on and off trains.’
‘I love it,’ she said dully.
‘Tell Jed where you’ve been,’ Devan urged, giving her a puzzled look. Connie was usually the best of the two at providing lively conversation at their suppers.
Forced to respond, she finally met Jared’s eye with a half-smile. ‘Oh, you know. The usual – Italy, Germany, France.’
For a second his gaze seemed fixed on her, his eyes so glazed and intimate she was sure Devan would notice. She frowned and he snapped out of it.
‘Have you been to the Italian lakes?’
She held her smile steady. This isn’t a bloody game, she wanted to shout. ‘I do Como and Garda a lot. Beautiful.’ Her answers, she knew, were monosyllabic and unconvincing. But to e
ngage properly with Jared felt impossibly dangerous. She was certain she would give something away.
‘Desenzano, on Lake Garda, is one of my favourites,’ Jared was saying. ‘Do your tours go there?’
Connie refused to rise to the bait. The night he was deliberately reminding her of, the one that had started it all, now made her feel sick with shame. Levelling her gaze, she replied, as calmly as she could, ‘They do. I like the town but I prefer San Felice.’ She deliberately named a town further round the lake, which had no associations.
Jared smiled. He’s enjoying himself, the bastard, she thought.
‘I feel I’m way behind you two in the travel stakes,’ Devan said. ‘I really need to catch up. I’ve been stuck behind the surgery desk too long.’ He pushed the dish of sausage pasta towards their guest, who took another spoonful. Connie was struggling with her first helping. The food felt claggy and solid in her mouth, as if she were chewing tennis balls, but she choked it down and said again how delicious it was.
‘I was in Warsaw earlier this year,’ Jared, relentless, was saying. ‘What an extraordinary place. The way they rebuilt the old city after the war is mind-boggling. Although I sometimes wonder if, by doing so, they’ve papered over the reality of what happened.’
Jared was gazing at her again, but luckily Devan engaged him about an article he’d read recently about the Warsaw ghetto and her heartbeat was allowed to subside, her cheeks to return to their normal colour.
‘You were sent that lovely Warsaw snow-globe, Con.’ Devan had turned to her. ‘Where did it go? We were going to give it to Bash.’
‘It’s around somewhere,’ she said abruptly, pushing back her chair and making for the door. She couldn’t stand it a second longer. With the loo door firmly locked, she sank onto the seat and buried her burning face in her hands. She wanted to cry, but she knew she couldn’t.
When she returned to the kitchen, Devan had cleared the pasta bowls and put a wedge of Manchego and a dish of mango chunks with pomegranate seeds on the table. The supper seemed interminable. But at least the men were still talking about the war.