The peaceful atmosphere in the library always helped Penny feel clean and new, whatever was happening in the outside world. Her job was to put the books back in their places, right the furniture and help readers with any requests that involved going up the ladder, as Miss Milligan, the chief librarian, was old and unsteady, and even ascending one step would give her a severe case of vertigo.
Penny was looking for a book on one of the top shelves right this minute, in fact. She was on her own, up her beautiful ladder on wheels, sliding between the aisles as if on a skateboard. It was fun going up and down like this, and she was contentedly humming a song from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast under her breath. She came across the volume she was after and headed back to floor level, pleased to have tracked it down for Mr Aubrey, who was longing to read this rare memoir.
And right there in the library, all her simple pleasure suddenly vanished in a puff of regret at the sight of Grant leaning against the bookshelves, arms folded across his chest, with his honey-coloured hair, turquoise eyes and that mockery of a seductive smile, which tricked anyone stupid enough to overlook the wicked sneer when his mask slipped. Stupid people like Penny, in short.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Long time no see.’
Penny knew all too well that a madman must be indulged and not provoked, but something about Grant made her want to fight back. Maybe he’d lose it in public, in front of witnesses who could give her some credibility with the police.
‘I see you almost every day, Grant,’ she replied. ‘Wherever I go, there you are.’
‘Because I’m in love with you, baby,’ he said, those damn perfect teeth still bared in a grin.
‘You sure have a funny way of showing it.’
‘It’s the best kind of love there is, baby,’ he whispered, coming closer. ‘I can’t live without you.’
‘So this kind of love includes trying to rape me, right?’
‘Come on, you know you loved it, Penny,’ he whispered near her ear, and Penny’s guts tightened like a boa constrictor around a lizard in its death throes. ‘You are one angelic bitch, honey.’
‘Maybe, but you still disgust me,’ she said bravely.
Come on, you asshole. Hit me, do something so I can go to the police right now. Let’s finish with these exhausting, ridiculous ambushes.
Grant snarled at her. ‘Our time will come, baby. Meanwhile, I’ll let you savour the wait. You’ll always have me breathing down your neck.’
‘But why? Why can’t you just leave me alone?’ she asked, even though she knew perfectly well why that was. He didn’t behave like this with girls of his own social standing. With them, he played the good boy, the young lawyer – his mother’s official companion to charity soirées. On those he considered socially inferior, however, he felt free to unleash the worst excesses of his behaviour. He chose his targets with care, deluding them with a couple of dates where he’d be graceful and gentlemanly, but then he’d show his true self: violent and dirty sex; sex without consent; threats, insults, verbal humiliation. Even his kisses were promises of abuse to come.
‘Because a nobody like you can’t afford to tell me no.’
At that moment, Miss Milligan appeared from the central hallway.
‘Everything OK, Penny?’ she asked. ‘Mr Aubrey is waiting for his book.’
Grant unleashed one of his most devastating smiles. ‘Of course. I’m not gonna waste any more of your time, ma’am.’ Then he turned to Penny. ‘Until next time we meet, my love.’
He walked away like a perfect gentleman, unburdened by guilt. Penny handed the book over to the librarian, and realised suddenly that she’d been holding her breath the whole time. She let out a long and agonised sigh, and, looking down, saw that her hands were shaking. If Grant wanted to bring her down psychologically before he got to her physically, he was sure succeeding.
Those damned two blocks till she got home. It was such a short distance from the Well Purple to Penny’s apartment, but anything could happen in that stretch. It took a year off her life every single night. After Grant’s warning that afternoon, she was taut and tense as a strung bow. It wasn’t raining this evening, at least, but the gleam of the streetlights barely made it down to road level. She pulled her coat down over her legs as far as she could, certain the problem would drive her mad if it didn’t get sorted soon.
Suddenly she heard footsteps nearby, as if someone were lurking in the alley to her right. There was no time even to wonder Who, what, how? before something touched her arm, and she screamed at the top of her voice.
But once again, it wasn’t Grant, but that guy – the new neighbour. The one who sent Penny’s hormones into a tailspin.
‘Hey, listen – cool it, OK?’ he said, annoyingly calm and reassuring. ‘I’m not gonna hurt you.’
Penny froze, her face white as a sheet, her hands on her chest trying to stop her heart from exploding. While she caught her breath, Marcus lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag, exhaled and then looked at her.
‘What do you want?’ she asked furiously.
‘Nothing. I saw you coming and waited for you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you always look like a rabbit caught in the headlights.’
Penny swallowed and glanced over her shoulder, as if a whole pack of wolves were following her, then she looked back at him, and the shuddering panic she had felt up to then for quite different reasons became a stark quiver of physical awareness, such as you might feel in the company of some wild animal. Marcus was dressed all in black, like the night before.
She stood still for a moment as he walked ahead, then after a few yards he turned and threw her a puzzled look.
‘If you wanna go on alone, go for it, OK? I’m tired and in a hurry, and I don’t make a habit of escorting people home, just so you know. It’s a coincidence that yesterday and today I came back so early. I’m usually way later.’
‘Who cares what time—’
‘So I can go now?’
‘Go ahead!’
He grimaced and shook his head. ‘Hurry up, I’m tired,’ he said, waiting for her.
She sighed with secret relief. It made no sense to feel safe next to a man with tattooed arms and a murderous-looking face, but that was exactly how she felt.
‘So where do you work?’ she asked, to make conversation. It turned out to be a nightclub just a few blocks away. She’d even been there once with Grant, back when she still thought he was a nice boy. ‘Strange, I never saw you there . . .’ she murmured.
‘Because you’d have noticed, you mean?’ he asked, holding the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds.
‘Well, actually . . .’
‘I just started,’ Marcus explained, breathing out. ‘I’m a bouncer.’
He didn’t ask, but Penny told him anyway. ‘I work at Well Purple – the bar at the end of the block.’
‘That explains your outfit,’ Marcus commented, pointing to her skirt, barely concealed by her coat. ‘Do you also provide other services?’
She scowled at him, and said loftily, ‘Just because one is a bartender in a place of dubious taste and is forced to dress like a manga nymphet does not mean one is a slut.’
‘Never dreamed of such a thing. I was simply trying to understand why someone with the face of a sixteen-year-old fresh out of bible study goes around half-dressed at night, but that’s your business obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Just don’t get raped on my watch, OK, or I’d feel like I had to intervene – and I’d like to avoid any unnecessary trouble.’
‘If that happens, I hereby authorise you not to intervene on my account.’
‘I have many faults, but I’m not a coward.’
Unable to restrain herself, she asked him in a rush, ‘So what are your faults, then?’
Marcus let out a hoarse laugh. ‘I always have this effect on girls, I don’t know why – don’t feel you have to hold back, huh?’
‘What are you talking abou
t?’
‘OK, so we start with the usual questions, right? Like, who are you, what do you do, what’s your story, maybe my love can save you – but you ought to know that I don’t sleep with little girls.’
Penny’s eyes widened and she stared at him in bewilderment. ‘What? You’re out of your tiny mind!’
‘I am? It’s written all over your face and I know how to read. Go take a cold shower. If you’re under eighteen I won’t even touch you with my fingernail. I really don’t need any more problems right now.’
‘But I’m twenty-two!’ Penny replied, irked, then realising immediately it wasn’t the right thing to say.
‘Are you serious? I’d never know. I’m still not gonna touch you.’
‘You’re disgusting! How did we even end up talking about this?’
‘I was trying to be clear here. I don’t want problems. I’m only here for two months, and I’m not intending to make friends or enemies, so don’t even try.’
‘Who’s trying? Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit of a bully?’
‘Oh, they have, and they usually do it before they beg me to fuck them senseless.’
‘OK, stop it. We’re almost home, so you can leave now, and try not to speak to me if you see me again.’
‘I’ll have no problem pretending that you don’t exist. I don’t even know your name, and I don’t care to know.’
‘Well, I have no intention of telling you!’
‘Great. If you’re normally heading home round about this time, I’ll try to avoid it.’
‘Great. Sounds perfect to me.’
He brought two fingers to his forehead in a sort of military salute, and stopped to light another cigarette. Penny walked ahead of him, annoyed, wounded, tired, and eager to have no more to do with this man – even by accident – for the rest of her life.
Whenever Penny felt anxious, she had two tricks to get the smile back on her face: the first was to breathe in the aroma of books, and the second was to get herself a wacky manicure. That afternoon, thanks to a persistent bad mood, she found herself with ten Tiffany-green nails with panda decals. To complete the ensemble she bought bright purple mascara, which gave her a vaguely alien appearance, but not even that managed to shift her mood. She was anxious because of Marcus, and also because she couldn’t stand feeling anxious because of Marcus. How dare that boorish and arrogant newbie to the building think he was God’s gift to womankind? He had flat out assumed she wanted to sleep with him!
Not that she hadn’t thought about it, to be honest; she would have been a hypocrite to deny that. Of course she had – she thought about it every time she saw him, and even when she didn’t but was hoping to see him again. She made out like she was this great ice queen, but one peek at him and she lost her mind, and she hated it. She couldn’t stand having nearly got to the grand old age of twenty-three without any temptation, only to suddenly find herself gripped by this indecent obsession. Every single square millimetre of Marcus seemed fashioned specifically with the intention of making her want him. He looked like someone straight off the front cover of Men’s Health, as if the most attractive version of those guys in the glossy magazines had crossed who knew what gap in the space-time continuum and ended up right there in her building. The only thing he did lack was their smile; unlike your average model, Marcus always looked super pissed off, his ice-cold eyes devoid of light or warmth. He looked like someone who’d seen and done things that had stolen away his very soul. But she wanted him. OK, fine, she could admit that to herself now – she wanted him. The red light in Penny’s imagination was forever on, and her senses were on constant alert. When she saw him, she felt a fiery torment deep within.
But she couldn’t bear that he took it for granted that she would want him, and compared her to all those oversexed women who slept with him! And, above all, that he had humiliated her by rejecting her and treating her like some little schoolgirl.
With a knot of anger tightening inside of her, despite the cheerful nails and purple lashes, she was just heading back into the building when she almost bumped into a stranger at the entrance – a tall guy in a tatty suit and tie, with the air of an underpaid government employee.
‘Do you know Marcus Drake?’ he said. ‘He just moved into this building.’
Penny nodded and pointed upstairs.
‘How is his behaviour?’ the stranger asked.
‘Sorry, in what sense?’
‘Does he behave well? Does he bother anyone?’
He bugs the hell out of me. He’s a jerk who doesn’t acknowledge anyone under five-eight.
Even if she didn’t have the faintest idea who this guy in the suit was, she could have told him about the vibrating noise that sometimes came from the attic, probably while Marcus was kicking the hell out of his punch bag, and how annoying it was that he chain-smoked in a building full of old people with asthma. But she didn’t.
‘He’s no bother to anyone,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘He’s a very quiet tenant actually.’
She wasn’t clear why she was siding with Marcus, whatever side that was, but it seemed to come naturally to her to want to protect him.
The man nodded and smiled with a strange paternal satisfaction as he wrote something in a notebook that he’d pulled from his pocket. Right at that moment, Marcus came in through the front door. He was about to light a cigarette but stopped in his tracks. His face fell visibly when he saw the man and he dropped his glacial facade for a moment. Then he looked at Penny and frowned, realising she’d been talking to the guy. Penny was sure of one thing: Marcus was wondering, with a hint of alarm, exactly what she might have said about him.
‘Oh, so you’re here,’ the man said to Marcus. ‘Where can we go to talk?’
‘I didn’t think you’d be here so early,’ Marcus muttered in a low voice.
All three of them started up the stairs, Penny trailing behind them, listening in as the man in the suit asked Marcus questions about his work, which Marcus answered in dry monosyllables.
At the door to their apartment, Barbie appeared with a tray of cookies, the same ones she’d been busy baking before Penny went out. As soon as she spotted Marcus she lit up, her manner suddenly flirtatious, as she always was when she saw him. Penny had tried her hardest to dissuade her from being so friendly with Marcus, but her grandma felt eternally young and was still inclined to appreciate the statuesque good looks of certain young men. When she’d been in a particularly sentimental and romantic mood, she had even advised Penny to ask him out.
‘You can’t deny he’s a handsome boy, my dear. If I were your age, I’d ask him to the movies or to a nice restaurant with candles on the table.’
‘Er, yes . . . maybe . . . I’ll think about it.’ Penny had decided to let her grandmother live with that hope, though no way would she be asking him unless she were forced. And Barbie, living in her own sweet la-la land, had convinced herself that her niece was having an affair with that hunky young man from the top floor.
‘Oh, Marcus!’ Penny’s grandma exclaimed. ‘I made cookies. Would you like some?’
‘You two know each other?’ asked the stranger.
And then Barbie said something that made Penny wish the earth would go ahead and swallow her up. ‘My Penny and this young man have a little thing going on. It’s real love at first sight! Isn’t that romantic?’
Marcus looked as though he’d been kicked in the gut. He reeled backwards, shooting a hostile look at Penny.
‘Are you a relative of Marcus?’ Barbie went on. ‘My Penny’s a good girl. She’s twenty-two, works in the library and has a good head on her shoulders.’
‘Great!’ the man declared, giving Marcus a smile of explicit approval. ‘So I trust she knows everything then.’
This time it was Penny who was reeling. What is it I’m supposed to know? But Marcus unexpectedly beat her to a response. ‘Of course she knows everything,’ he confirmed earnestly, and put an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her hard as i
f to say, Don’t say a word or I’ll crush you.
Penny nearly collapsed in shock.
‘Come upstairs with us,’ the man said.
So, without knowing what on earth was going on, Penelope found herself climbing the stairs behind Marcus and his mysterious visitor, urged on by her grandma, who was bubbling over with joy.
Marcus turned for an instant and threw her a look, with an unspoken command not to mess this up for him.
They entered his apartment, and Penny forced her face to stay neutral. Should she pretend she’d already been here? She made out that she wasn’t surprised at the transformation of what she remembered as having been a dump into a decent apartment – very masculine and lacking in frills, but clean. There was a blue throw on the couch, to cover up the holes. The punch bag Marcus had carried in a few days earlier towered in a corner. The worn wooden floor had recently been swept, and, right under the skylight, a bed had been pushed up against the wall, covered with a light-green duvet. The whole place still reeked of the white emulsion used to freshen up the walls.
The stranger looked at everything carefully, nodding repeatedly and loosening the knot of his tie a little. Finally he sat on the couch and turned to Penny. ‘So, is he behaving himself?’ he asked again. ‘With you, I mean. To gauge Marcus’s progress, I need to take a few things into consideration: not only whether he’s employed and sober, but also how he behaves with the people around him, such as his neighbours and his girlfriend.’
Penny swallowed hard, more embarrassed than she’d ever been in her whole life. Marcus stared at her, his polished-steel eyes boring into her, filled with emotions she couldn’t even begin to guess at. Suspicion? Fear? Anger? The man in the suit was also staring at her, with a pinch of apprehension and the air of a parish priest awaiting the confession of his most rebellious believer, whom he nonetheless loved and wanted to save from the fires of eternal damnation. Everyone was waiting for her to speak.
‘Well, as I already told you,’ she said finally, feigning a quiet sincerity, ‘his behaviour is exactly as it should be. He smiles at everyone and he’s an absolute angel with me.’
Trying Not To Love You Page 3