Later as I hunched over the kitchen sink, straining a boiling saucepan of spaghetti for tea, I heard Neil at the front door, back from work.
I glanced up at the kitchen clock. It was almost six.
Neil was normally back by half-five. Half an hour late.
Scalding steam plumed up from the colander and I moved my head to avoid it.
I heard Neil drop his briefcase in the living room and as I turned from the sink he appeared at the kitchen door. His face was blotchy red and his eyes looked a bit wide.
‘Are you OK?’ I said.
He seemed not to hear me. I wondered if it was because I was being Anne. Perhaps I was talking too quietly.
‘Neil!’ He heard that. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit hectic at work, that’s all.’
His eyes searched the kitchen.
‘You’re a bit late,’ I said.
Eyes still scanning.
‘I know, sorry. Had a ton of paperwork to do. Just had to get it done.’
‘Just you?’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean was it just you that had to work late. Or did you all have to?’
He started opening cupboards, then the fridge. Still looking for something.
‘Just me really. I didn’t have to I suppose. But I just needed to get it done.’
He stepped on the pedal bin and peered inside. He was starting to piss me off.
‘Have you lost something?’
He looked up, foot still resting on the pedal bin pedal.
‘Neil, what are you looking for?’
‘Have we got any wine open?’ he said. ‘I really need a drink.’
I must confess that the last few weeks had seen me open a bottle of wine daily. Perhaps more than one. So it was not uncommon for Neil to arrive home from work and find opened bottles of unfinished red, white or rose dotted about the place.
I wasn’t trying to hide them. Not consciously anyway. But because my mind was so scatty, I did leave them in odd places.
He reached into the bin and pulled out two empty bottles. He looked at me.
‘I’ve not had any today,’ I said. I found those two opened and emptied them down the sink.’
His eyebrows raised a little. Pleasantly surprised? Or slightly suspicious?
‘Seriously,’ I said. ‘I’m knocking it on the head. I don’t think it’s helping me very much at the moment.’
I didn’t tell him about the one unopened bottle that I couldn’t bring myself to throw. Just in case.
He stared back at me. I read nothing in his face. I could see why his eyes were so wide now. He was forcing them open.
His brow was furrowed and he hardly blinked. His eyes were watery and he had dark semicircles under them. He was tired. Exhausted.
His eyes flickered and dropped slightly, so that he was looking under my nose. “Vicks”. I’d forgotten I had it on. And the fact that he was only just noticing it made me realise that we hadn’t even kissed since he’d arrived home from the bank.
‘I think your nose is running,’ he said. ‘A little.’
Instinctively I wiped the back of my hand under my nostrils, even though I knew it wasn’t running.
‘“Vicks”,’ I said.
‘Have you got a cold?’
‘Just a little,’ I said. ‘I’ll be OK.’
I decided not to go into the real reasons for the “Vicks”. And I certainly didn’t want to tell him about Anne.
‘Are you OK?’ I said. ‘You look tired.’
‘I’ve not been sleeping too well,’ he said. ‘Not recently anyway.’
Was that a dig? I had been going to bed later than Neil. I had wanted to stay up and drink. And I think that subconsciously I was scared to shut my eyes and sleep in case of what it brought. Perhaps even consciously.
‘Have I been waking you when I come to bed?’ I asked. ‘You haven’t said anything.’
‘No, it’s fine. Maybe occasionally,’ he said. ‘But I’ve been waking in the night for some reason. And then not been able to get off again.’ He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his knuckle. Rubbed them hard. One of his eyes squeaked. ‘I think maybe I’m just a bit stressed,’ he said. ‘What with all this,’ he waved his eye rubbing hand. ‘And work and stuff. I’ll be fine.’
And stuff?
I should have noticed. How long had he been like this? A week? Two?
I had been so wrapped up with my own issues — and drinking too much — that I hadn’t noticed what was happening with Neil. What else had I missed? What about Michael and Rose? Were they struggling too?
I put the colander of spaghetti on the sink drainer and moved toward Neil. He seemed surprised. Maybe even flinched a little. I hugged him, tried to pull him close.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve been so caught up with what was happening to me — I wasn’t paying enough attention to you.’
His arms tensed around me, but not in a loving way. It was almost as though he was preventing me from getting any closer.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Just overworking at the moment. That’s all. It’ll be fine.’
I thought I could smell alcohol on his breath as he spoke.
‘Have you had a drink already today?’ I asked.
He stepped back from me and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘I had a quick one at lunchtime,’ he said. His tone was defensive.
It smelled fresher than lunchtime to me. I wondered whether he had stopped on the way home. Perhaps that was why he was late. I decided not to push it.
‘I don’t blame you,’ I said. ‘That’s what’s been keeping me going since the attack.’
I smiled at him. He managed one back.
‘I’ll dish up the tea,’ I said.
He nodded and mumbled something. I couldn’t hear what.
It had been four weeks since the attack. I couldn’t believe how rough Neil looked — I felt shocked that I hadn’t spotted it until now. It had obviously been happening over a period of time.
And then I considered how rough I looked, how much I had changed over the last few weeks.
Over tea I studied Michael and Rose. Scanned every inch of their faces. Bloodshot eyes? — no. Pale skin? — no. Looking tired? — a little. Quieter than usual? — definitely.
Michael slurped the spaghetti into his mouth. Rose made a face. Neil looked distracted.
‘Will you have to work late again tomorrow?’ I said.
He looked up. ‘Maybe. We’re doing an audit at the moment. And I generally seem to be running a bit slower than usual. I might have to do a bit.’
‘Can you let me know if it’s going to be too late. Just a quick text will be fine.’
He nodded. Forced another smile.
‘This is lovely,’ he said, looking down at his plate.
The throbbing pain started in my thigh. I concentrated hard on being Anne, stretched my left leg out under the table, accidentally bumped Neil’s foot. His chair scraped against the floor as he moved it back a couple of inches.
The pain intensified and I breathed deeply through my nose. Sucked up the vapours, made myself be Anne. Speak softly.
‘I hope you manage to get it all sorted,’ I said. ‘At work. I hope it goes well.’
He must have noticed my tone. I was Anne, not Christine.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I think it will be fine.’
His shoulders moved a little. Less weight on them.
17
When Neil put the children to bed I was surprised to hear him get straight in the shower. It was pretty early, even by his standards.
Twenty minutes later the third stair creaked and Neil appeared, bathrobe tied tightly around him.
‘Rose is a bit quiet tonight,’ he said. ‘And Mikey too. He’s not really himself.’
‘Is he ill?’.
‘I don’t know. He asked me if I thought you were still beautiful.’
‘M
ichael asked you?’
‘If I thought you were still beautiful, even though you had scars on your head.’
‘He must be ill. What did you say?’
‘I told him that you and Rose are the prettiest girls in the world.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said you aren’t a girl and that Rose isn’t pretty, she is his sister.’
‘I wonder why he asked you that?’ I said.
Neil wandered through to the kitchen. ‘You know what kids are like,’ he said.
I heard the tap running and a glass clinking as he took it from the cupboard. His night-time routine. Down from the shower, glass of water, straight to bed. I was surprised he had stopped to talk to me about Michael.
Obviously Michael had noticed how “off” Neil had been, how “off” I’d been. Perhaps he was worried about us splitting up.
Although I was being “Anne”, which I thought meant I was nicer to be around, and Neil had looked more relaxed after his shower — he still went straight to bed. Still without me.
It was probably just as well. I stank like a menthol and eucalyptus factory. By the time I finally climbed under the duvet next to him, he was in a deep sleep, snoring. I wondered if it was the exhaustion or the drink making him sleep.
I lay back in the darkness, eyes open. Although it was pitch black outside, I could still make out the edge of the curtains at the window. Patches of lighter darkness seemed to creep around them.
As I lay there I thought about being Anne. I had done pretty well, I thought, through dinner, and the kid’s homework. While they were supposedly getting on with it, Neil and I had sat in the living room. I tried to work my way through a word-puzzle book, tried to keep my mind busy (not drinking, remember) and Neil had sat open-mouthed in front of the telly. He wasn’t really watching it but was nevertheless absorbed. It was as though it had sucked all the stress and thoughts from his mind and left him just sitting there. Numb. Empty.
We barely spoke. And then at 8:30pm he’d announced that he was going to put the kids to bed.
I had coped well with that too, I thought. The silence. Especially as he had come home late AND smelled of drink. I thought about Abi. About when Neil and her worked together. He had worked late a lot then. Had something happened after all? Was something happening now? I blinked my eyes in the darkness of the bedroom. They felt tired and sore. I held them shut for ten seconds or so, tried to relax, tried not to think about Neil working late, about Abi.
My leg thumped. Brought me back on course. Be Anne.
I decided I would try to be Anne all the time now. If Neil called me Chris or Christine I would imagine that that was just a nickname, that everyone called me that — but my real name was Anne.
I felt goosebumps on my lower back. The tip of my nose felt cold, as though a breeze had swirled through the bedroom. I pulled the duvet further up the bed, covered the tip of my nose, and then pushed it away again. I didn’t want “Vicks” on it.
I wondered what the skateboarder was doing now. Was he in bed? Was he alone? With someone? I wanted to hear the phone ringing, for the police to call and tell me they’d caught him. I wanted him to have had an accident on his skateboard. To have hurt himself. Badly.
I wanted the fucker here, in front of me. Not dead, but suffering. I wanted to make him suffer. Prolong his agony. But not let him die. Not let him off the hook.
Breathe deeply through your nose, Anne. Feel the vapour purifying your mind. Cool vapour. Speak softly. Think softly. Be gentle. Be Anne.
The first thing I noticed was the wind. Loud and ferocious. I wanted to cover my ears to protect them from the buffeting and the hideous noise. The wind was wet, as though it was full of rain. But it wasn’t raining. It was daylight. Very bright. But that mist.
I was out in the open. Not hiding this time. I could see the girl walking up the hill toward me. I couldn’t make out her features through the mist, but I knew it was her. She was dragging something along with her. What was that? As she grew closer I could feel myself smiling. A huge, broad smile. I sensed she smiled too.
And then I was walking up the hill with her. Talking to her. Asking her about someone. Then I asked her about the thing she was dragging. I still couldn’t see her face clearly because it was dripping wet. The wind had soaked her, making her features distorted. But I knew she was still smiling.
I was pointing somewhere, over toward the gorse bushes. We walked over together. It was important that I take her there. I had something to show her. A crashing, thunderous roar came to me. Louder than the wind, but carried on it. She was speaking, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. She was shaking her head, pulling back a little. I moved towards her and took her arm. Why wouldn’t she let go of that thing she was pulling. It was as though it was tied to her.
Behind the gorse bushes now. There was the thing I had to show her. A container of something. Liquid. In a bottle.
Then I hit her. Forced her down to the ground. Kicked the thing she was dragging. Covered her mouth. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
I smelled Vicks. Shifted around in my bed. Vicks.
And there was Neil. His eyes were so dark and wet. His breath felt hot and smelled of Christmas Pudding. He didn’t know I was there. Didn’t know I was watching him.
Vicks. More shifting.
And now a woman sitting at a table. What is she doing? Writing? She looks up at me. She is pretty but plain. She is my age. Perhaps a little younger. Dark hair, pulled back into a rough ponytail. Do I know you? She closes the book she was writing in. She looks scared. I move closer to her. She seems blurred to me. I can’t see her too clearly now. I feel different. I feel like I want to hurt her.
Vicks. More shifting. Wake up, Christine. Wake up.
And then I’m awake.
The dark glow from outside was still creeping around the curtains. Neil had stopped snoring. The bedside clock flashed 4:15am at me.
I moved my head on the pillow and felt a damp patch on the back of my neck. Despite the cold weather outside I had been sweating. I didn’t feel hot.
I rubbed my forefinger under my nose and breathed deeply, longing for the Vicks to work its magic.
But all I could smell was garlic. I sniffed the back of my hand, then my arm. Just garlic, seemingly seeping out of my skin. Not unpleasant, to me, but not what I was expecting.
I realised I had been cooking a lot of meals with garlic.
I thought about what had just happened in my sleep. I remembered it all. The girl in the gorse, Neil looking tired. And a younger-than-me, pretty (ish) woman sitting at a table, writing.
Three dreams. I wondered if they were connected. Whether they were all one dream, albeit a little disjointed.
Again I thought about premonitions. Wondered if I had somehow gained access to the future. Wondered whether the doctors really had any idea what they were talking about at all.
But if I was seeing the future, then maybe Neil was with this other woman. Maybe I’d wanted to hurt her because of that. Perhaps I’d seen her writing to him. Perhaps the child in the gorse was their child.
I felt a rage surging up in my belly. I wanted to elbow Neil, sleeping beside me in silence. Wanted to “accidentally” kick him in my sleep. Wake him too, at 4:15am.
And then I heard a noise outside the bedroom window.
18
Neil always insisted on having the bedroom window shut. I always liked it slightly open at night — even in the middle of winter. Otherwise I woke up with a headache. Neil had closed the window when he came to bed. I opened it when I came up later. Let him question me about it in the morning.
At first it sounded like leaves blowing in the wind. Scraping along the patio, whirling against the side of the house.
But then something heavier came to me. Like a shuffle. A footstep. Just below the bedroom window.
I fought against the urge to bury my head under the duvet. To hide from the noise. Instead I turned my head slightly. Turned m
y ear to the sound.
Another shuffle. And another. Definite footsteps. And then they stopped.
I wondered if it was a hedgehog snuffling around. Trying to find a morsel amongst the dead leaves.
And then I heard a rattle. A tinny sound. It wasn’t a hedgehog.
I nudged Neil. Gently. He mumbled in his sleep. I whispered to him.
‘Neil. Neil. Wake up. There’s someone outside.’
I nudged him again and he turned to face me.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’
I told him to shush and listen.
The tinny rattle came again. Then a sound like deodorant being sprayed.
Even in the darkness I could see Neil’s expression change. This wasn’t another imagining from my mind. This was real.
Neil swung his legs out from under the duvet and reached for his dressing gown on the floor.
‘Don’t go to the window,’ I whispered. ‘You don’t know who is out there. I’ll just call the police.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Neil said. ‘We need to see what it is first. It might just be nothing.’
We both knew it was something.
I picked up the phone from my bedside cabinet and Neil nodded.
I sniffed the air. Over the garlic, and remnants of Vicks, I could smell something. It wasn’t deodorant. It was more chemical than perfume. A fire starter of some sort? I dialled 999.
Neil kept half a wooden broom handle by his side of the bed “Just in case…”. I saw him fumble for it now.
More rattling from outside, and more chemical spray.
Then very heavy footsteps. Running away. I heard the dustbin clatter. Whoever it was must have misjudged the path around the front of the house.
Neil ran out of the bedroom door, broom handle at the ready, just as someone came to the other end of the phone.
‘999 emergency, which service please…’.
I couldn’t believe how long it took for the police to get to us. It was almost 5:45am.
Whoever had been outside could have come back with his mates and had a party in our garden in the time it took for them to arrive.
No sirens and no flashing blue lights. They obviously hadn’t been in a hurry.
As soon as they arrived, Neil shoved the broom handle he’d been gripping the whole time into the corner of the living room.
‘Just in case,’ he said to me.
We had already been outside and seen the results of our nocturnal visitor. I was still trembling. Michael and Rose were still in bed. Hopefully asleep.
I had rubbed copious amounts of menthol and eucalyptus under my nose. I was wondering whether to just give up trying to be Anne.
“BACK OFF CUNT”.
Spray-painted in red letters against the back of the house. Letters about a foot high with drips, which looked like blood, coming down. The words went across the brickwork and the back windows of the living room.
There was a dead fox, horribly mutilated, spread out on the ground below the words.
‘Do either of you have any idea what it means?’ a police officer asked.
I had thought it was pretty much straight to the point. But I knew he didn’t mean that.
We both shook our heads.
‘Is it possible you might have upset anyone recently,’ he said. ‘Or had any disputes with any neighbours?’
‘It’s not really that sort of neighbourhood,’ I said. ‘And we’ve not fallen out with anyone.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘Even the nicest areas have their share of nutters.’
‘I was attacked four weeks ago,’ I said. It sounded like a blurt — but it wasn’t.
‘So I understand, Mrs Marsden. Do you think this has anything to do with that?’ He looked surprised that I had mentioned it.
‘The person that attacked me got my handbag. It had all my stuff in it. My purse, with all my contact details, driver’s licence and stuff. So he knows where I live.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean it was him,’ he said.
‘AND he has my house keys and car keys too,’ I said. ‘It has to be him.’
‘I understand you were advised to change all the locks on the house after that,’ he said.
Neil looked up at him. ‘We did all that. Perhaps it’s a message to the police?’
I looked at Neil — not really sure what he meant. The police officer looked at him too.
‘If he thinks you’re getting close to finding him, maybe he left this as a message to you.’ Neil said.
‘I don’t think he would leave a message to us on your house,’ the officer said. And then he smiled. ‘And besides, the last word is singular, not plural.’
Neil stared at him. ‘Is that a joke?’
The officer blushed.
But I wanted Neil to be right. I wanted it to be aimed at the police, not at me.
‘I think we disturbed him,’ Neil said. ‘I think he ran off before he finished.’ He looked at me and nodded. ‘And he left it on our house so that the police would know it was to do with the attack. If he had written it on the police station wall, it could have been from anyone about any case. This way he knew you would get the message.’
I was convinced, even if the police officer wasn’t. He still had a smirk on his face, either from his attempt at a joke or from his disbelief of the scenario Neil had just painted.
The officer nodded and turned back to join his colleagues.
The stench of the dead fox was horrible. Even the gunk under my nose didn’t stop it from making me feel sick. It smelled like a butcher’s shop where all the refrigeration had packed up several days ago. No on else seemed bothered by it.
As the light of dawn slowly reached us, the full impact of the words could be seen. We asked the police to be as quiet as they could so as not to disturb Michael and Rose, but they still made an unruly racket. In the light I recognised some of the faces. They had been here before.
Eventually they took photographs of the words, scraped some of the paint off the wall and window, and took away the fox.
‘We probably won’t get much from it,’ one of them said to Neil. ‘But if someone’s gone to all the trouble of doing that to it, it’s probably worth a look.’
What an inspiration of hope. I decided not to hold my breath.
‘Can we get this washed off?’ Neil asked.
‘Go ahead,’ said the officer. ‘We’re done with it.’
He hadn’t meant that — but he didn’t push it. At least if we did it ourselves we would know it was done properly. And the sooner the police were gone, the sooner it would feel like getting back to normal.
As soon as the last officer left, Neil’s expression changed. I saw an anger in his eyes, more intense than it had been earlier. But I also saw something else. Fear, I think. He looked like he was ready for a fight, but it was as though he thought he might not win. I had never seen a look like that in him before. The Neil I knew was scared of nothing and confident about everything. A little too confident sometimes. I had no idea what it meant.
‘Do you want to go and check on the kids,’ he said. ‘And I’ll make a start on this.’
When I came back outside a few minutes later, Neil had already hosed away the residue from the fox. I felt my stomach rumble when I thought about it. I couldn’t believe how brutal its death must have been. I felt angry and sad in equal measure. Had he killed it there, in our back garden? It was horrible.
‘The kids OK?’ Neil asked.
‘Both asleep. Slept through it all.’
Neil had an old towel and a bucket of water. His dressing gown had a wet patch on it, the towel dripping as he lifted it to the wall. He dabbed at the words. It didn’t seem to make much of a difference.
‘I’ll get a scrubbing brush,’ I said. ‘I think there’s one under the sink.
It took us the best part of an hour to get the words off the house and the windows. And even when we had finished you could still see an outline of the w
ords.
‘It might look better when it’s dried off a bit,’ Neil said.
I hoped he was right.
It was fully daylight now. I wondered if any neighbours had spotted our bizarre house-cleaning exploits as they got ready for work.
I was too frazzled to care.
Our knuckles and fingers were red. Partly from the paint, but mostly from bleeding where we had scraped them on the brickwork. At times we had been working like demons, scrubbing and scraping and towelling. Fuelled by anger and feelings of violation. We were determined that the kids wouldn’t see this. Or even any trace of it.
As he rubbed away at the last remnants I could see that Neil’s look of fear had gone. He was ready for the fight now.
‘Do you think it really was a message for the police?’ I said.
He didn’t answer straight away. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, then shut it again.
He didn’t look up from rubbing away at the brickwork.
‘What else could it be?’ he said.
End of subject.
Inheritance Page 16