He strides over to me, where I remain unmoving in the kitchen doorway and extends his hand clutching the phone. “It’s Kirsty. She wants to talk to you.”
Why? is my kneejerk reaction, but I have the good grace not to voice that. I accept the phone, raising it tentatively to my ear.
“Hello?” I ask, not sure why I am suddenly so inexplicably nervous.
“Tess, how are you?” comes Kirsty’s familiar, brisk voice.
“I’m fine. Are you okay? Has something happened to your mum?”
“Yes, she had a fall yesterday evening. Slipped in the shower. I’m going up now, seeing as Shane is busy.”
Her tone is characteristically cold and blustery, but I know her better than that. I can see straight past her brisk, doctorly exterior.
“Is she okay?” I ask.
“Oh, she’s fine, but I’m going up for the night, anyway. She didn’t hit her head and from the sound of things there’s no need to cart her off to hospital. But I want to take a look at her, just the same.”
“Right,” I say, unsure why she is telling me all this. “I hope she isn’t too shaken.”
Kirsty sighs heavily on the other end of the line. “Me too. I was actually going to invite myself ‘round to yours tonight, seeing that my darling brother is out on the raz, but it looks like that idea has been well and truly scuppered.”
“Oh,” I say. “That would’ve been nice.”
Would it really? I wonder fleetingly. My head’s all over the place right now, and I’m not sure that I’m in any fit state to cope with my sister-in-law.
“Yes. But seeing that Shane is popping up to Mum’s this weekend, I was thinking that maybe I could come Saturday night instead? Don’t worry about cooking, I’ll do that. And I’ll bring wine.”
Kirsty is thoroughly organising me again. Given my current mental state, it leaves me feeling dazed and bamboozled.
“That sounds nice,” I say robotically.
“Fantastic, I’ll see you on Saturday. There’s no need to put my brother on again – we’ve said all we needed to say.”
Abruptly, she says goodbye, then the line goes dead. I don’t react for a few seconds and just stand there uselessly with the phone pressed to my ear.
“Goodbye,” I eventually say, quite stupidly, into the severed line.
I hand the phone back to Shane.
“What did she want?” he asks.
“She’s invited herself ‘round this weekend for a girl’s night while you’re at your mothers.”
“Oh.”
He doesn’t look so surprised at this, and I am immediately hit by a truth that I hadn’t seen up until this moment – Shane knew that Kirsty was planning to come here this weekend in his absence. It had been something that they had arranged between themselves, behind my back. Although, perhaps Kirsty’s impromptu little visit was probably supposed to be for tonight, rather than Saturday.
A stab of indignant anger ignites in my chest.
“You had planned this,” I say slowly. Deliberately. “You don’t think I’m good enough to be around your precious mother, and you’ve got your sister to babysit me, to psychoanalyse me while you’re not around.”
I’m overreacting, I know I am, but I can’t help myself; I am hurt by his actions.
“Tess, that’s not true,” he says with more kindness than I probably deserve. “I don’t want to burden you with my mother, not the other way around.”
“Why won’t you let me in?” I whine. “Why won’t you let me help you with your mum? Why don’t you just talk to me, instead of asking your sister to do your dirty work?”
“My God Tess, it’s not like that. Kirsty is a professional woman, and she thinks the world of you. I just thought that you might benefit from a proper chat with her. And by the way, that’s rich, coming from you. The only person that shuts people out ‘round here is you.”
I bristle in indignation. “You manipulated me, and you’re lying – you just don’t want me anywhere near your mother. She hates me and she always has. No one is good enough for her precious son.”
“That is entirely untrue, and you know it. You need to calm down, before you say something that you’ll regret.”
Is it untrue, I wonder? Is he simply thinking of me and unwilling to burden me with his mother, or is he shutting me out?
All I know is I can’t deal with this right now.
“Are you threatening me?” I shoot back, my voice rising uncontrollably.
My voice isn’t the only thing that’s rising – a wave of nausea is, too.
“Tess…”
My hand flies up to silence him.
“Forget it, Shane. It doesn’t matter.”
I lurch from the kitchen, stumbling down the hallway in the direction of the bathroom. I only just make it in time, hunching over the bowl for the second time in as many days.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
TESS
I am watching Alice from the shadows, mesmerised by her nude beauty, high up on the small stage. She is twirling naked, as graceful as a ballerina, arms above her head, hands elegantly poised. She is everything that I am not, but wish that I was.
One leg extends behind herself, her thigh level with her back. I notice that she has nude-coloured ballet shoes on her feet, the wide, criss-crossing ribbons snaking up past her ankles. She is en pointe, her raised right foot a perfect, straight extension of her shin.
Gracefully, she lowers her leg and turns around, fixing me in place with her steely gaze, the smallest, cruel smile tugging at a corner of her luscious, red-painted lips.
I gasp and stagger backwards, so sure that I had been invisible to her, for the shadows are dark and deep – so dark and deep, in fact, that I can’t see anything, apart from the raised stage before me, and the heavily spot-lit figure upon it. I don’t know where I am, or even if I am inside or outside.
You can’t escape me, Tess, Alice says.
Or at least, it is Alice’s voice, but her lips aren’t moving. Despite this, her voice hovers clear and true in the black air around me.
I am coming for you, and you can’t stop me.
I go to open my mouth, to scream at her to leave me alone, but my lips are immobile and no sound emerges upwards from my chest.
Alice’s smile broadens. It won’t be long now. They will all pay for what they’ve done to us.
In my head I scream at her to stop, but I am paralysed. The shadows are a tangible weight around me, pressing down upon me, physical entities crushing the life out of me.
And then I am gliding backwards, but it is not of my own volitation as I am still paralysed, invisible forces sucking me backwards. The stage recedes before my very eyes, Alice growing ever smaller.
Alice is so small now, just a pinprick figure on a tiny stage. But her voice is strong and true, as if she is standing right next to me.
Tonight is going to be fun, dear Tess. They will all pay.
I am plunged into total darkness, Alice on her stage having disappeared completely. The darkness is pulling me down, enveloping me in its chilly embrace until I am no longer even have the capacity to draw breath into my lungs…
I lurch upright in the bed with a gasp, yet again convinced that I haven’t been breathing. My heart thumping hard against my sternum, I stare around the darkened bedroom, trying to get my bearings. I am so disorientated that for a moment I don’t even know my own name, yet alone where I am.
Slowly, as my breathing and heart rate comes under control, I see that I am in the spare bedroom.
How did I even get here? I think miserably.
I hate how this is happening to me more and more lately. There are great chunks of time missing from my life with my constant bloody sleeping. Also, things are just so generally hazy. I have, for instance, no recollection of coming upstairs to bed.
And I am naked.
There is nothing odd about this per se, as it is my preference to sleep naked, but it’s frightening that I can’t remember gettin
g undressed. I am just hating how I feel so out of control. I don’t feel like me anymore. I don’t feel like my life is my own.
Also, I feel rough. My headache isn’t horrendous, but I can feel that it could become very bad. Did I take painkillers before bed? I honestly don’t remember. Plus, that nausea from earlier was wholly unwelcome and unexpected, and it’s knocked me for six.
Clutching the duvet to my naked chest, I reach for my smartphone on the bedside table. The light from the screen casts the darkened room in a spooky, green-tinged glow, causing shadows to dance and flicker over the walls. I shudder, remembering my dream, the way the shadows had been a living, breathing thing and had dragged me into the waiting darkness…
Pushing aside the bad thoughts, I look at the time. It is seven fifteen. Shane had arranged to meet the boys at half six, so he will be long gone by now.
I flop back down on the bed, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. I could get up, but I don’t want to. I feel completely drained and strangely empty, like I have nothing left to give.
And the headache is growing worse by the second. It’s not a migraine, not yet, but I can feel it coming. The best thing I can do is sleep it off. What’s the point in getting up, knowing that Shane is out on the town, and I’m stuck in the house, alone and friendless?
I will just sleep it all away, things will look better in the morning.
I don’t quite believe that, but neither can I bring myself to get up. I stare up at the darkened ceiling, letting my mind empty, willing sleep to hurry up and claim me and make all the pain go away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ALICE
Jack is all on his lonesome tonight. His dog of a wife has gone to stay with her mother – she’s had a turn, apparently – and his teenaged-brat is on a sleepover.
He texted me earlier on our secret phones, informing me that I could come over tonight, if I so desired.
And I do desire, but not for the reasons he’s thinking.
I have elected to walk the final half mile to his place tonight. I live in the neighbouring town to him, but I didn’t want to get a taxi directly to his door. Instead, I got it to drop me off in the heart of Cliftonville town, next to the pub, The Brown Bear. I hovered outside the entrance of the pub until the taxi was out of sight, and then I was on my way.
I wish to remain as anonymous as possible. I don’t want to set any tongues wagging, for the nosey parker neighbours to see me entering or leaving, especially as I am going over relatively early.
I have requested that Jack leave open the back door of the kitchen, as well as the garden gates. There is a back alley that runs behind Jack’s street, parallel to the back gardens.
The back gate of Jack’s garden is the fifth one along this narrow walkway. True to his word, it is indeed unlocked. The tall, wooden gate that looks more like the door to a church, creaks when I push it open, and I stiffen in fear.
But there is no need to be alarmed, for there is no one around. Behind me is a high, concrete wall, beyond which is a golf course. I am all alone, safe from prying eyes. No one in the world knows I’m here, apart from Jack.
And he will never tell.
Smiling to myself, I enter the near pitch-black garden, the only light illuminating my way coming from the kitchen window, where the sink overlooks the big garden. The light guides me like a beacon, a halo-effect spilling out around the drawn blinds.
I edge nearer, swallowed by the shadows, the darkness inside me at one with the night.
*
Jack is waiting for me at the kitchen table, tumbler of scotch in hand, when I let myself into his home. I don’t knock, silently easing into his kitchen like an encroaching shadow.
“Baby, you made it, I was so worried you wouldn’t come.”
He lurches unsteadily to his feet, the wooden chair scraping back noisily over the tiled floor.
He’s half cut, I think. That’s good.
I hover in the doorway, shutting it gently behind myself.
“Why wouldn’t I come, Jack, when I have been summoned?”
Something in the tone of my voice must have given me pause, for he stops dead in his journey towards me across the vast room.
“Is everything okay?” he asks, a frown creasing his forehead. “You seem upset.”
“Why on earth would I be upset?” I smile at him, but I can feel the hardness radiating from my eyes. I make a conscious effort to soften my expression.
“I don’t know, maybe I haven’t been giving you enough attention lately? But it’s not easy with work and… family commitments.”
He was about to say Kirsty, but pulled the word back in time.
“Yes,” I say neutrally.
He comes over towards me, clearly about to bundle me into his arms and kiss me, but I hold up a black-gloved hand, stopping him in his tracks before he gets into my personal space.
“What is it? What’s the matter? His gaze sweeps my body. “And what are you wearing?”
I am dressed in the same outfit of black jeans, black hoodie and black trainers that I wore to break into Tess And Shane’s. I am also wearing gloves, for practical purposes.
“What’s the matter, Jack? Doesn’t my outfit meet your approval? Isn’t it good enough for you?”
He looks confused. “No. I mean yes.” Ever so slightly, he shakes his head. “What’s going on with you, sweetheart? You’re acting so strange.”
I smirk at him. “Can I have your phone, please?”
“Huh?” he says, looking at me stupidly.
“Your phone. You know, our special, secret phones. May I please have it?”
“Why?” he retorts, not making any effort to hide his confusion.
“Please? There’s something I need to do to it. To both of them.”
I allow him a full-blown, seductive Alice smile, gazing up at him hotly through my thick lashes.
“Trust me,” I say, “it’ll be worth your while.”
Jack loves it when I tease him. Even if this request is a little strange, the promise of sex is enough to spur him into action. He reaches into the back pocket of his snug-fitting Levis, producing the pay as you go phone. Normally, he says he keeps it locked in a drawer, either at the car lot, or in his office at home, but as his fat frump of a wife is away tonight, as well as his pubescent off-spring, he obviously feels safe keeping the phone on his person.
“But why?” he bleats, as he thinks with his brain for a fleeting moment, rather than his penis.
“Just put it on the table,” I tell him.
I watch as he turns around in the direction of the kitchen table, my gaze taking in the whole kitchen. Kirsty favours the more rustic look, and this kitchen has the vibe of an old country cottage, ala Beatrix Potter. Except this isn’t a country cottage, but a Georgian townhouse, and the décor strikes me as utterly pretentious. If Jack had his own place, I feel quite sure that it would be all sleek minimalism and state-of-the-art gadgets. He looks so out of place here, it’s laughable.
It is clear to me that he has nothing fundamentally in common with his wife, and he is only using her for her money.
I’m really doing her a favour.
Having done as I have asked, he turns around to face me. “Anything else, my darling?” he says with mock deference.
There is a glint in his pale-blue eyes that I recognise only too well – Jack is horny. Despite the fact my outfit is not sexy per se, the black rollneck beneath the fitted hoodie is flimsy and tight, and I make a show of slowly dragging down the hoodie’s zip.
Jack’s gaze widens slightly, almost imperceptibly, but I can feel his desire. It is a physical thing that weighs heavy in the air around us. There was a time I so adored basking in his lust, for it fed my ego and ignited my own desire, but now the experience leaves me cold.
I am done with Jack.
“Why don’t you sit down?” I suggest casually.
He attempts to suppress his horny smirk, but he’s not doing a very good job of it. I want to
slap him around his smug, animated face, but I refrain. That would be counterproductive.
“Wouldn’t it be more comfortable upstairs?” he asks.
“You mean in yours and your wife’s bed?”
“It’s never bothered you before,” he replies. “And I changed the sheets.”
Like that somehow makes a difference.
“I’m happy in here,” I say, suggestively tugging at the hem of my black pullover, as if I am about to whisk it over my head.
“We could take this into the spare room,” he continues.
“I’m not in the mood for a bed,” I say silkily, holding his hungry gaze.
“Or the living room?”
For God’s sake.
I pull the top over my head by way of reply, letting it fall to the floor; he’s not going to sit his sorry arse down on the kitchen chair otherwise.
“Fine,” he says, finally taking a seat. “Have it your way.”
“Good boy, that’s better. Take your cock out of your jeans, I want to see you touch yourself.”
Jack loves it when I take control like this, it’s one of the things he likes most about me. His wife is, by all accounts, a bore in the sack, and Jack is the adventurous sort who gets off on danger.
He does as I ask, and I drink in the sight of him, not turned on by him as such, but the power I have over him.
“Are you coming over?” he asks huskily, his hand stroking up and down at a leisurely pace, his eyelids heavy with want. He looks quite ridiculous, and I do my best not to snort laughter.
“In a minute, big boy, we’re not quite ready yet.”
I saunter over towards the sink where there is a tea towel hanging from a hook on the cupboard beneath it.
“Baby, I want you, get your sweet arse over here now,” he whines.
“In a minute,” I repeat, making sure to keep my expression full of promise.
I swipe the tea towel from the sink hook. Gracefully pirouetting on the spot to face him, the red-chequered tea towel dangling from my fingers.
“A tea towel?” he says mockingly. “And what, exactly, do you plan to do with that?”
In Spite: A terrifying psychological thriller with a shocking twist you won't see coming Page 14