by Terri George
“Just got in, you dirty stop-out? It must be gone midnight there.” Cristina’s filthy laugh was cut short as she’d sucked down coffee. Even if the sound of her slurping and swallowing hadn’t zipped skywards, bounced off a satellite in space and hurtled down to my end of the line, I would have known she was. She can’t go more than five minutes after getting up before her first caffeine fix of the day.
She was quick to follow that up with a complaint, but to be fair she had reason to. I’d forgotten to text her to say I’d arrived safely.
“I was ready to call Interpol to track you down.”
I’m still not sure they have jurisdiction here and told her she’d be better off calling the FBI, or if they won’t help, a Private Investigator. What’s that they say about many a true word spoken in jest?
Cristina scoffed at my teasing about her having wild parties every night in my absence.
“Yeah, right. After working my arse off all day, it’s more like a glass of wine and feet up in front of the telly, with just Milù for company. She says hello by the way. She misses you too.”
A picture meandered across my mind’s eye of our rescue kitty slinking across the wooden floor; inky black, tail flicking, stalking shadows cast by the morning light from the sitting room windows.
“It’s not the same without you, Abs. It’s too quiet, and you’re too far away. How far are you?”
I could tell her exactly because I’d checked: Four-thousand, six-hundred and eighty-three miles. I don’t know why I checked. I just felt compelled to know how far I was from home.
Now I feel even further away, and wonder if I’ll ever return…
Cristina was happy to hear Jensen was living up to my expectations, but now I realise even her pleasure had a hint of foreboding. “Because you never can tell what a person’s really like when you only know them virtually.” I probably didn’t notice it at the time because I wasn’t thinking that way.
Of course, she couldn’t resist adding that although she was happy he was living up to my “fantasy” (her word, not mine) I wasn’t to do anything stupid like running off to Vegas and getting married.
As if. I’m not in a hurry to become Missus Anyone. And anyway, as I told her, Denver was okay, but I couldn’t see myself living there. So, if things had ever got that far, I’d have had to convince him to move to London.
I do remember her envy showing just a smidge when she asked me about the hotel. “Is it as fancy as you hoped, you flash bitch”.
Confused when I told her I was checking out for a couple of days, she’d been wary when I told her why; wondering if meeting Jensen’s family (such as it is) on this first visit wasn’t a bit fast.
And she was surprised, and a tad scathing, when I told her where Jensen’s grandfather lived.
“Nebraska? It’s all wide-open nothing there isn’t it?”
Cristina’s more of a city girl than me and snorted derisively when I said I like the countryside. To be fair, she does too, but a very particular kind. “The Cotswolds. Rolling hills, sleepy honey-stoned villages, sipping chilled Chablais outside a quaint country pub. Not miles of flat as far as the eye can see, like Norfolk,” she retorted before singing, “And the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye…”
She laughed when I reminded her that’s Oklahoma.
“Same diff. And Nebraska’s in Tornado Alley you know.”
As tornado season had only just started I assured her I was safe.
“As safe as you can be where everyone and anyone has a gun.”
Maybe it’s because we’re British, but she and I aren’t alone in finding the idea of anyone being allowed to own and carry a gun not only preposterous, but terrifying. Even so, I thought she was being unnecessarily paranoid.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
Had I been tempting fate saying that? Or had my destiny already been written?
Fate and destiny never entered my head as Jensen drove us from downtown Denver to the wide-open spaces of its neighbouring state.
She usually is, and Cristina had been right about Nebraska. After we passed the sign welcoming us into the state the landscape had been endless fields; vast swathes of yellow-fringed spearheads wrapped in still-green husks that swayed, stroked by a gentle breeze, perfectly encapsulating why it’s called the Cornhusker state.
Of course, the sky is the same size everywhere, but when there are no high-rise flats or rows of houses to obscure the view, it feels bigger. The road ahead stretched to the far-off horizon, so distant one could almost discern the curvature of the earth. I knew Cristina would get a kick out of it so, even though I knew my phone’s capabilities wouldn’t really do it justice, I shot a quick video of my surroundings and sent it to her with a message I knew would make her laugh: You were right. Miles and miles of nothing.
I hadn’t expected a reply any time soon. Given it was almost ten p.m. back home, I reckoned Cristina would have been down the pub with her work-mates for a good four hours by then. If the blokes she works with are anything to go by, the IT industry is even more boozy than my world of publishing. Their Friday nights out usually followed the same pattern. A few drinks at the Phoenix pub just across Cavendish Square from the office, then a short stroll, that by then is already more of a stagger, to O’Neill’s in Wardour street. And after being chucked out of there in the small hours, it’s a three-doors-down stumble to end the night filling their faces with crispy aromatic duck at Hung’s.
My Friday nights out with work-mates are fun too, but by the time Cristina lurches through the front door I’ve usually been firmly planted on the sofa she scares poor Milù behind for a good hour and a half. Not having ended my night with a Chinese feast, I’m always ravenous when I get in, and there’d be no point going to bed anyway because Cristina crashing home would only wake me up.
Ten minutes later we turned off the tarmac; tyres kicking up dust as the BMW bumped down a short dirt track before coming to a halt on scrubby grass; threadbare and straw-yellow.
Despite the comfort of the car’s leather upholstery, after sitting for three hours, it was a relief to stretch torpid muscles as I strolled to the house; the south-facing frontage of its once honey-toned weather-boarding now more of a sun-bleached biscotto beige.
As he got my suitcase from the boot of the car, Jensen called over that the spare key was under the clay flower pot on the porch.
I didn’t think anyone did that anymore, if they ever had. But then the nearest house was so far away it looked like a doll’s house. Why would anyone drive all the way out to this isolated spot unless they lived here, were visiting someone, or just passing through? It was such a long way for anyone to come, thieves included. Especially when there must be so many soft targets closer to home in cluttered suburbia. All those unsecure patio doors, their insufficient latches so easily jimmied. Car keys dangling from hooks, or in handbags unwisely left downstairs at night. And these days that’s what thieves are after: the car.
You get used to the dimness indoors, but it was a shock when I first entered the house. Thin horizontal slits of silver slivered through the slats of pulled down blinds, slicing across the dark interior. Once my eyes got accustomed to the sudden lack of light, my over-riding impression of the sitting room was brown. From dark hardwood floors, sturdy mass-produced mahogany furniture, to drab landscapes in ornate gilt frames hung on magnolia walls, and cream-coloured throws on large taupe sofas arranged around the fireplace, everything was safely within the brown palette; innocuous in the extreme. Yet what hit me most wasn’t the dreariness of the unimaginative decor, it was the stuffiness of stagnant air and the underlying musty smell of dirt.
I reasoned the lack of cleanliness must be down to his grandfather’s age and him probably not being up to regular housework and hid my distaste as Jensen trundled in my suitcase and closed the front door.
Given it was mid-afternoon, I wondered when he was going to collect his grandfather from hospital. In England, w
hen you’re due to be discharged, they chuck you out as soon as possible once the doctor has given his/her okay after seeing you during their morning rounds.
My heart is beating faster even as I write this, just as Jensen’s eyes narrowing and his lop-sided grin as he moved closer had my pulse beating a little quicker then.
“Ah now, that’s gonna be a bit difficult to do. Seeing as how he’s been buried in the local cemetery going on three years.”
Something fisted deep in my gut as the realisation of just how colossal and life-changing a mistake I’d made in coming here sent a chill shuddering down my spine, and some unseen thing whispered in my mind’s ear: Too late.
My stuttering murmured plea for him to let me go just made Jensen sneer. And I knew my fate was sealed when he told me I was going nowhere.
My neck made a horrible crunching sound, cervical vertebrae grinding together from the force of his slap to my left cheek that sent my head snapping sharply to the right.
The shock of his unprovoked blow paralysed my brain for a second, rendering it incapable of processing what had just happened. Then I felt the flush on my face as blood rushed to the surface, and the needle-sting of pain. Right before he pushed me against the wall and held me there with one strong hand gripping my jaw.
He’d insisted it was worth the detour off the I-25 near Loveland, and his face was so close I could smell the runza he’d eaten in the car on his breath. The cheesy-beef smell of it turning my stomach as he breathed the words that are indelibly burned on my brain.
“You know what I loved most about you? Why I picked you. Because you’re so trusting. So gullible. You bought it all.”
I tried to blink back the tears that welled. Even then I knew I’d be damned if I’d let him see how he was getting to me by crying in front of him. But I only succeeded in allowing them to overflow; a river of them running down my face unchecked.
Even though I tried to pull my head away as he traced a path down my cheek, his grip on my jaw had been too tight. Then he put his fingertip in his mouth and sucked off my tears; smiling as he savoured the taste of salt on his tongue.
His attention snapped to my bag as a tinkling tune sounded from inside. He snatched it off my shoulder, rummaged inside, took out my phone and stared at the screen before showing me Cristina’s message: Ha ha. Told you.
He looked angry, but also curiously nervous as he demanded to know me what she meant and what I’d told her.
I lied and said I’d only texted her that she’d been right. That it is miles of nothing around here.
The fury on Jensen’s face melted away as his features relaxed; the nervousness replaced by a knowing smirk as he closed the message and put my phone in the back pocket of his jeans. “Yeah. Miles and miles of nothing. A person could disappear here.”
The suddenness of Jensen’s change in mood was startling. My heart barely had time to beat twice before something shifted in him. His gaze softened, and he stroked the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. There was a tenderness to his touch, a gentleness that was simultaneously confusing and nauseating.
“There now,” he said, in a tone so soft, in any other circumstance I would have been soothed by it. “You do as I say and we’ll get along just fine.”
How could anyone have made sense of that?! Get along fine?
Yeah, that would be the problem. We were getting along fine. That was where I’d gone wrong. Allowing myself to be sucked in by his charade. Believing myself safe enough with him to end up here; trapped in the middle of nowhere.
Chapter Two
ABBEY
JOURNAL ENTRY TWO
“You know what this place needs?” he asked. “A woman’s touch. Make it a house you’d want to live in.”
Yeah, the only way that would happen is if you recognised there’s a whole world of colour beyond beige, dragged the furnishings into the twenty-first century, and transported the whole bloody house thousands of miles and over an ocean to somewhere in the English countryside. Preferably where the neighbour’s houses are more than mere specks in the distance. And if you weren’t in it!
You think you can trick me here, keep me your captive, and for what, to clean you stinking, squalid house? You think you can send me back sixty years. To turn me into some sort of time-twisted version of Mira,* endlessly polishing the dining table?
The words spewed from my mouth like molten lava, scorching my throat, erupting in a fiery plume of loathing and disgust.
But I said none of them out aloud. They were all in my head.
I may have been naïve enough to be taken in by his charade, but I’m not stupid. Though his tone was sweet like liquid honey, his grip on my arm as he dragged me into the kitchen was tight enough to leave a bruise. And his slap when we first got here was more than warning enough of his volatile nature. Only a fool would have said anything to piss him off… So I cleaned.
*(I found a dog-eared copy of The Women’s Room a couple of years ago in Henry Pordes on Charing Cross Road. It’s portrayal of marriage and the separate roles of the sexes seem almost cartoonish now, but still, you can see how it spurred a movement.)
Not only am I a voracious reader and have a degree in English, (first class with honours) I’ve also edited a fair few books in my four years at Burgess & Fowler. So, I think it’s fair to say I have a good grasp of the English language, but even I would struggle to find just the right word to describe the smell that had me dry heaving when I opened the dishwasher door. Rising from the scum on the surface of the fetid pool of undrained water, it was sort of soapy, with a metallic hint of chemicals and the sulphur stink of rotten eggs all mixed together. Holding my breath, I chucked in a washing tablet, set it to run on the heavy wash cycle and hoped for the best.
Mugs relinquished their vice-like hold on the countertop, leaving behind sticky coffee rings. Teetering piles of bowls like mini milk-sour towers of Pisa, food smeared plates stacked higgledy-piggledy large on top of small, knives, their thick buttery coating slowly going rancid, a saucepan with something unidentifiable congealed in the bottom and an eggy, grease spattered frying pan were all tossed into the steaming sink to soak in the suds of the alarmingly electric blue washing up liquid with its indeterminate fragrance.
After I swept it, the tiled floor took three goings over with hot water thick with Lysol (it was all I could find in the jumble of detritus under the sink) before the beige was revealed beneath the grime.
Hours of scrubbing, scraping, mopping and wiping later, finally the room… Well it didn’t exactly sparkle – aged things can never recapture that bloom of youth – but at least it was clean; the faint putrid pall that had shrouded the space now trapped within tightly tied rubbish bags.
While Jensen sat in the adjoining living room watching TV and drinking beer.
With some sort of sixth sense, knowing the exact moment when I was done, he jiggled the lever of the recliner which shot the footrest back under the seat and him into an upright position, stood his lazy-arse self on two feet and wandered into the kitchen.
He looked around, corners of his mouth pulled down as he nodded.
“I’m hungry. There’s macancheese in the cupboard.”
I haven’t misspelt that. He actually said it as one word.
“Better use two boxes.” Making his way back to the living room he stopped, and half turned. “On toast.”
Of course, I’ve heard of Mac-N-Cheese. I know Americans love it. And we have our own version, only it’s called Macaroni Cheese and comes in a tin, ready-made, and you just warm it in a pan on the hob. There is something universally comforting about pasta with a cheesy sauce, but preferably (and only, really) the way Cristina makes it. Properly. With real cheese. From scratch.
Cristina has inherited many traits and talents from her father. She’s bi-lingual (naturally) and can fire off a torrent of swear words in Italian with machine-gun rapidity that would make a sailor blanche. Her fiery temper erupts like Mount Vesuvius, suddenly, but the fury that spe
ws from her mouth is over quicker; then it’s all kisses on both cheeks and all forgotten. She gets her kindness and compassion from both parents. But her greatest patriarchally-endowed talent is cooking.
As I add the other ingredients to the cooked little tubes of pasta: butter, milk and desiccated cheese sauce mix that has a smell reminiscent of the insoles of well-worn trainers, my mind is back in London. Coming home from work to be greeted by an aroma wafting from the kitchen that must be what heaven smells like.
The ever-thickening mixture in the pan bore little resemblance to what was in my head.
A quick check of the bag confirmed my suspicions about the bread. Out of date by more than a week, there were small patches of green furry mould on the crusts. He wasn’t all that bothered, but I didn’t fancy it, so I put two slices in the toaster for him and went back to stirring the gloopy contents of the pan.
There was something about the way Jensen looked at me while we ate; how he fidgeted, one hand in his lap, his gaze fixed on me every time he took a sip from his fresh bottle of beer, that had me unnerved, on edge. I didn’t have to wait long to find out what he was thinking. And planning.
I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about having sex with Jensen. What it would be like; what he’d be like. The feel of his hands on my body; my skin coming alive, tingling under his touch. Mouths meeting in soft kisses that become more fervent, more desirous as our mutual need grows. Our sweat-drenched bodies slipping and sliding, moving as one, as we climb ever closer to a joint release.
Maybe all those erotic romance novels I’ve read have raised my expectations. It was supposed to be romantic, passionate. Not how it was… Not him pushing my legs apart with his knee and shoving his hand between my thighs under my dress as I stood at the sink.
I struggled. Told him no. Not like this. That I would never–
But that just made him angry.