by Naomi Joy
*
Rick gets home late, gone ten, and I try to remove the disappointment from my face when his frame fills the doorway. I hurriedly end my chat with Alex.
I hate to feel upset that my husband is home, I really do, but as the door slams and an angry grunt follows, I remind myself that the bad feeling between us is entirely mutual. What happened to us? I wonder, as I pad through to the kitchen in pink slipper socks, thinking back to the way I used to feel about Rick.
It had been cold the night we met, late October, the Indian summer we’d been enjoying blasted out by high winds, whipping in winter. My friendship trio had decided to brave the elements and head out regardless. We weren’t about to let our first year of adulthood be marred by a bit of wet weather. Lisa, head of the group with a sensible haircut and a future in project management, had talked us into it and suggested wearing raincoats over our clubwear. She went for tight jeans, wedges, and a burgundy anorak. Fern slipped into a ski jacket, complete with snow guard, atop her little black dress, and I settled on a short skirt and low-cut halterneck, heels that I’d borrowed from Lisa’s wardrobe, and a voluminous yellow top-layer: a splash-proof shell that began with a tented hood and ended in a wide-angled skirt. We’d staggered up to the queue in our sensible attire, trying to keep our made-up baby faces out of the rain, cuddling into each other to conserve body heat, our waterproof outers merging into one. We were glad of them but, to our dismay, the older girls that joined the queue later had decided to brave the elements: slick skin and wet dresses on show, looking down on us through lashings of waterproof mascara. Did you get lost? one of them had asked, blowing cigarette smoke into my eyes. Or is this a stop on the hop-on hop-off bus tour now? She flicked my yellow poncho and her group burst into laughter.
When we got to the front, the three of us had been asked for ID, while the older girls were waved through without a second look – hardly a surprise. If it hadn’t been a quiet Friday night on account of the rain, a persistent drip of water splashing from the bouncer’s nose in a steady rhythm on the photo page of my passport, I doubt we’d have been let in. But we had! I burped vodka and Diet Coke up from my stomach with excitement when the rope across the entrance was reluctantly raised.
Heavy drumbeats shook through our feet as we stepped into the club, the music claustrophobic, the smell of alcohol and the rush of body-heat ambushing me. I took a moment while Lisa and Fern staggered for the bar, promises of sambuca on their lips. That was when I saw him, standing in a cluster of fellow students, puffed bodies in white shirts, athletic legs in dark-wash jeans, a clutch of blazers draped over the backs of nearby chairs. I spotted the occasional flash of signet ring as they knocked back glasses of lethal-looking liquids.
Half an hour of furtive glances and nonchalant but seriously-please-notice-me dancing later, Lisa made the first entry into the group of student boys. Her forthrightness paid off and she splintered off to the bar with a boy in shiny brogues, shooting us a thumbs up moments later. But I couldn’t do that – I simply didn’t have Lisa’s confidence – so I decided to bide my time, dancing with an inebriated Fern instead – scared to approach – and then, later, when the university girls these boys had been waiting for arrived, the group scattered and my boy, the one with the blue eyes, was suddenly by himself.
I made my move quickly, while Fern was chatting the ear off a girl she’d just met, and shuffled fast across the dance floor, ducking under the arms of his preppy friends to close in on him, electric beats and flashing neon pinwheeling around me. He looked down-to-earth, comfortable, safe, and, most of all, he looked normal. Like me. I knew already, as I went to speak to him, that we were going to be together.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m Tabby. This might sound weird but… I feel like I know you already.’
*
I run my hand along the grey surfaces as I set about making a hot chocolate, the silver edges sharp and metallic beneath my grip – and freeze when he comes in. He’s catatonic. Rigid. His gaze is focused on the middle-distance. He looks wrong, strange, uncomfortable and my gut churns with worry. Does he know what I’ve done?
My mind unravels, guilt and anger and self-loathing bubbling beneath the surface. Though I know things are over between us I can’t help but feel guilty for my part in our most recent downfall.
I take a few silent steps towards my husband and wrap my arms like runs of ivy round his neck.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask gently.
He grunts in reply, his shoulders meeting his ears. I feel detached, distant, the man in front of me shutting down just as I try to coax him into opening up.
‘How was your day?’
His breath is warm and wet on my neck as I pull close, his muscled body heavy. His hand traces the sides of my body and, involuntarily, I shiver.
‘Fine,’ he tells me, breaking away. ‘Stressful.’
I study his face. I’ve seen him grow from boy to man over the years, and, somewhere in there, behind the muscles he’s grown and the tight jaw, lies the sensitive boy I met all those years ago. There’s something I want to ask that boy, the one who used to love me.
‘Hey,’ I begin. ‘You know those cosmetic qualifications I was telling you about?’
He tilts his head. Not this again.
‘A really great one starts next month. It’s just a few days, a few hundred pounds.’ I wrap clammy fingers round his palms. ‘Would you be able to pay for me to do it? It would make me so happy. You know how I’ve been shadowing Bella at work? Well, she thinks I’m ready.’
Though it doesn’t sound like much, I’ve just stepped on a conversational landmine. I watch the skin over his knuckles tighten as he grips the kitchen table and brace myself for the inevitable conclusion. Why I keep bringing it up, foolishly expecting a different outcome, I don’t know.
‘Are we really having this conversation again? Tabby, if you want these qualifications you have to pay for them yourself.’
I don’t have the money. He knows that. What little I earn never seems to hang around for very long, probably because I’m always the one who buys things for the house, the one who’ll remember to pick up dinner on my way home from work. I need to earn more than I make at the surgery – I am desperate to become financially independent – and these qualifications would really help with that. Rick earns more than enough to help me achieve my dream, to pay for these courses he just… doesn’t want to.
So much for our wedding vows.
What’s mine is miniscule, and what’s his he doesn’t want to share.
In my darker moments, I wonder if he wants to keep me in my position on purpose. I can tell he thinks my aspirations are delusional. He’s used to being the clever and successful one in our relationship and I don’t think he’s ever going to be ready for that to change.
‘I’d pay you back, Rick.’
He rubs his face and it reddens beneath his hands.
‘No, you won’t. You’re in debt as it is, Tabby, don’t lie to me.’
‘Don’t pretend you can’t afford it,’ I hit back. ‘You’d just prefer to spend your money on other things.’
I stop short of accusing him of spending his cash on flash hotels and designer lingerie for his other woman. Rick’s never been very good at confrontation.
He looks at me, picking up on my coded meaning. ‘I take out my salary so I can invest it in shares, Tabby. In insurance policies. In businesses. In things that will help our future but take a little while to build up. You forget that I spent my entire time at university working, earning, trying to put us in a better situation so that we’d have more than either of us did growing up.’
I roll my eyes. Now that he’s made his money, he doesn’t want to let go of it. ‘Where are these investments then? Show me.’
‘They’re funds, Tabbs, it’s complicated.’
‘If you wanted to invest in our future, you’d pay for me to get these qualifications. I’m a far better investment than stocks and shares you can’t tell me anything
about.’
At that moment, my phone presses against the curve of my thigh, hidden in the pocket of my pyjama bottoms and buzzes.
It’s like he’s here with me and knowing that makes me stronger.
Rick sighs, bored of the conversation, then heads upstairs. ‘Are you coming up?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘I’m not.’
*
I’m lit by the glow of the phone, my face bathed blue, sinking into the sofa with him, rather than the mattress upstairs with my husband. I write, my fingers quick over the keypad, heart in my mouth.
Are you there?
Right where you left me, beautiful.
My heart flutters. Though I know this is ridiculous, childish, irresponsible, the feeling of having someone who wants me again is addictive. I couldn’t leave our conversations if my life depended on it. Knowing Rick, it probably does. I write another message. Coy, flirty.
I just wanted to say goodnight…
I watch as three dots appear on my screen. He’s typing. I wonder what he’s going to say. A floorboard cracks overhead, startling me, but no footsteps follow – it’s just the house settling down for the night, cooling. The three dots disappear, and a message lands:
I thought you were with your husband tonight. I’m glad you’re not. I like having you to myself.
My senses tingle. I like his protectiveness of me. His infatuation is safe, comfortable. It isn’t real. I keep telling myself that: this isn’t real. Until I take this offline, it’s just a fantasy.
You sound jealous.
My stomach curls, embarrassed. Then releases its grip as he replies in kind.
Maybe I am.
I stifle my naughty smile with the sleeve of my pyjama top as another message lands in my inbox.
I want to meet you.
What? The words jump from the screen, shocking me. Meet? They blur into one another as I stare, disbelieving. Adrenaline surges.
How about it?
I type quickly.
Really?
You don’t even know what I look like, I want to add, but of course I don’t.
We might not get another chance.
I shift in my seat, paying attention.
What do you mean?
I’m moving to Turkey. The surgery I’m working for needs help in their office over there, I leave in a few weeks. I didn’t want to tell you until it was definite.
For how long?
As long as they need me.
What about us? I write, then delete the message. Instead, I type:
You only just got here.
Why don’t you come with me?
I laugh out loud.
I can’t do that…
Really? You can’t bear to leave the job your idiot boss almost fired you from? Can’t walk away from your cheating husband?
You make some good points.
But as I send that last message, my mind flips to Bella. I’d have to leave her, too.
Later, I go through the ritual of deleting all traces of him from my phone, then slide the screen to turn it off, my heart pumping. He wants to meet.
I curl into bed beside my husband, taking care not to disturb him from his sleep and, at some point we drift off, our dreams full of other people.
Annabella
Now
I pace to my front door, Kay Robero’s anxious face on the other side when I swing it open to let her in. Her tie-dye skirt ruffles as the gust catches it, a curiously contrasting black blazer strapped to her top half, fastened with four shiny buttons.
‘I’ve seen the news, obviously. I barely slept last night,’ she says, undoing the buttons as she steps inside, not stopping for the answer. ‘Oh, God, are you OK? Is Mandy OK? What happened? Was there a fight?’
We’d discussed the plan together. What had started as weekend research comparing notes between Chad’s intel and Kay’s, had quickly progressed into this ‘information-gathering mission’. At first, we’d planned to wait until Mandy and Rick were on holiday but – frankly – we were impatient. We’d waited long enough to catch him already.
‘Come in,’ I say, leading her through to the living area, not keen to have our discussion in earshot of my neighbours.
‘So…’ Kay prompts as we shuffle through.
‘I found something,’ I say, taking a seat next to Kay on the sofa.
Her eyes widen and she clasps the black onyx hanging round her neck.
‘There were a load of bank statements in his house,’ I tell her, then pause. ‘He pays £1,000 to the same account on the first of every month. Without fail.’
‘Really,’ she gasps. ‘You think it’s a bribe?’
‘Exactly,’ I tell her, enjoying riding on the same wavelength.
‘How long’s he been doing it?’
‘I got back to ten months ago but there may have been more statements, it could have been going on for years. Five, maybe. As a guess.’
‘This is brilliant,’ Kay says gleefully. ‘It gives us something to work with, somewhere to start.’ Our eyes meet and my core swells with pride as I do my mentor proud.
‘Do you have them?’
‘I don’t,’ I reply. ‘I decided to leave them. I didn’t want him to realise they’d been found.’
‘Good,’ Kay agrees. ‘Yes, far better ammunition in his red hands than ours. I’d rather avoid jailtime on account of the break-in plot so, yes, good idea… let him think he hasn’t been rumbled.’
‘There’s something else,’ I tell her. ‘They sleep in separate rooms.’
‘Really?’ Kay replies. ‘Trouble in paradise, you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I can’t figure it out.’
‘Seems a little strange,’ she says, rubbing her nails into the beige corduroy of the couch, deep in thought.
‘Do you want a tea?’ I ask.
‘Please,’ she replies, pulling her notepad from her bag.
I walk to the kitchen and fill the kettle with water, the filler in my lips exaggerated in its shiny surface, bringing me back to thoughts of Tabby. She used to fill them for me occasionally when we worked together. Though Tabby worked on reception, she often sat in on my procedures, helped out where she could, and when she showed an interest in learning the ropes of aesthetic nursing, I was happy to be her guinea pig. She’d touch my lips with gentle gloved fingers, following my instructions, and take her time to select just the right places to plump. My stomach throbs with how much I miss her.
‘What happened to Mandy?’ Kay presses, remembering the real reason she’d shuffled over here at the crack of dawn to question me.
The kettle clicks in the background.
‘She heard me.’
‘Did she see you?’ Kay asks, rising from her seat.
‘No, well, not really,’ I stutter, unsure how to tell Kay I’d hit Mandy, feeling terrible about what I’d done, about what I was capable of when I was pushed into a corner.
I look down at the floor, guilt tying my tongue, muting me.
‘It’s OK,’ Kay tells me, reading between the lines, putting two and two together. ‘Mandy’s going to be fine.’
‘I hope so.’
‘God,’ Kay sighs, rubbing her forehead. ‘What a night. Have you checked what people are saying online?’
She comes into the kitchen and pulls my laptop, sitting on the kitchen table, open.
‘Not yet…’ I reply, logging into Twitter.
Surprise, surprise, Rick Priestley’s partner packed-up in the back of an ambulance… anyone wanna bet she kicks it like his last one?
How many times can this creep get away with the same crime?
He makes me sick.
I thump our cups of tea on the side as we scan through the public’s take on Mandy’s visit to hospital. My bias confronts me as I scroll: I’d agree whole-heartedly with these people if it weren’t for the fact I’d been the one standing over Mandy, blood on my gloves, and not Rick.
‘Is he on any social media?’ a
sks Kay, noting that none of the posts tag him.
I type Rick’s full name into Facebook, Kay observing, sipping noisily on her brew. I click through various profiles and, when I stumble across his, I’m disappointed to find it still set to private, just his profile pictures publicly available. Kay asks to take a look so I click through and, before long, I find myself staring into the young face of a girl I used to know. I’ve seen these pictures before, of course – looking through Rick’s social accounts were oft-performed rituals of mine a few years ago – but I am arrested by seeing Tabby today, breathless, for a moment. I forgot how rosy-cheeked she was back then, how colourful, how hopeful. In the picture I’m looking at, Tabby’s yellow hair frames her young face in windswept waves. Her lips are painted pink, nails to match, wedding band gleaming, the rest of her make-up deceptively natural: her eyelids dusted light gold, her brows coloured warm brunette, her cheeks subtly blushed. She’s wearing a ruffle-collar blouse, so all of your attention falls on her face. You barely even notice Rick beside her, his blue eyes and close shave his most stand-out features.
‘Don’t they look young?’ Kay muses, leaning in.
I click forward, scanning through holiday snaps and selfies, and then, after a while, Tabby is replaced with Mandy. Mandy is beautiful, definitely, with pillow lips and messy dark hair, wild eyebrows and a tiny, pinched nose. I look closer, analysing them: where Tabby was soft, Mandy is strong, and where Tabby was a little scruffy, Mandy is poised and precise.
‘Don’t you think it’s weird that they’re polar opposites?’
‘Not really,’ I reply. ‘Would you want to move on with someone who reminded you of the woman you killed? If anything, moving on with a woman so far from his type proves his guilt.’
I look at Mandy a while longer, deducing she’s not quite the woman I’ve observed through their windows. Here, in these pictures, she looks carefree and in control. In person, I’d say she looks the opposite.
Kay pulls out her own laptop then, mumbling about patterns in the future-relationships of convicted wife-killers. Do these men choose pen pals who look like their victims? What about the ones who go free, do they act like Rick and choose someone completely different?