by Daisy Pearce
My man. Even his name, William, meant ‘resolute protector’. That was how he was. But still, as I sat in front of the television that night, waiting to hear his key in the lock, my heartbeat fluttering wings against my ribcage, I kept thinking. Over and over, until the wine washed the thoughts away.
I’m not proud of what I did next, but I was getting desperate and needed to get on to his computer, just for peace of mind. God, ‘peace of mind’, what a lovely phrase. My mind was in perpetual motion, even in sleep, like a snake eating its own tail.
Because many of Three Squares’ clients were in other time zones, William spent a proportion of his time making phone calls in the middle of the night from the box room. Some nights when I couldn’t sleep, I would lie awake and listen to the soothing rhythm of Will’s voice asking, ‘How’s the weather out there in Kyoto?’, ‘How’s Seattle treating you today?’ and ‘Ni hao, Mr Ling, I hear you need our help.’ It was a balm, his voice, in the dark.
About three days after I’d called Porters of Mayfair, I sat awake, back pressed against the wooden headboard of the bed. I’d been trying to read a book, but the words had slid about on the page like grease in a pan. In the end I just gave up and sat there, hands folded on my lap, listening to the metronomic tick-tock of William’s muffled voice. The clock read three-oh-seven as I slid out from under the covers and padded to the box room. The door was ajar and William was leaning back in his chair, talking on the phone. When I silently pushed the door open he looked over at me, his eyes widening as he covered the mouthpiece with his hand.
‘You’re naked!’ he whispered, smiling, trying not to laugh. ‘What are you even doing awake?’
‘I’m horny,’ I said. ‘Come back to bed.’
He laughed, but I could see how dark his eyes had turned. That was the thing with Will. I always turned him on. Still, I remember how he shook his head, saying uh-huh, sure, sure into the mouthpiece while frantically waving me away. I didn’t go. I walked on tiptoe into the room and bent over his desk so my nipples brushed against the keyboard. I hissed between my teeth as they immediately hardened into small, pink peaks. I let my free hand slide down my stomach, in between my legs, shifting my position a little so he could see. He’d stopped shaking his head now. Poor William was frozen to the spot. I pulled my hand away after only a moment so he could see my fingers glistening, before sliding them between my lips and closing my eyes, tasting myself. I heard his voice, strangled-sounding, telling his client he would check in with him tomorrow and not even waiting for a reply. He put his hands in my hair and pulled me towards him so that when our lips met they were crushed against my teeth.
His breath tasted of coffee and the antacids he chewed. I felt it against my cheek as I led him into the bedroom, shedding his clothes with a speed I rarely saw in Will, pressing his erection against me and tangling his hands in my hair. When he came he arched his back and his hands were claws on the curves of my shoulders, digging into the flesh to the point of pain, a sharpness that thrilled me. However much he loved me I could never get him to agree to hurt me, even consensually. This would have to do.
Another thing I know of Will is that he always, always, sleeps after sex. It’s a perverse narcolepsy, a form of sexual concussion. I lay still, waited for his breathing to soften and lengthen, watching the rise of his belly in the darkness. I looked back at the clock. Three thirty.
William’s computer has a timeout setting of thirty minutes before you need to re-enter the password to gain access again, and even though only twenty-three minutes had elapsed since I’d left the bedroom I had no idea how long he’d left his computer idle before I’d gone in there in my birthday suit, smiling wickedly. Perhaps I was already too late, I thought as I sat in his chair. I pulled the keyboard towards me, alert to any movement from the bedroom, the rustle of the bedcovers, a hand scratching at his chest. I should have closed the bedroom door, I thought; at least then I’d hear him coming. Too late now. The screen lit up. It was unlocked.
Carefully, I minimised every tab he had open until I reached the desktop. I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I opened his emails and scrolled quickly through, looking for anything unfamiliar, a name I didn’t recognise. One thing I’ve learned about myself from leaving home aged just sixteen is that I know instinctively when something is amiss, and trust me, living like that, it’s fucking exhausting.
Nothing jumped out at me. In fact, his most recent emails had been to me, sending me a link to a new gym that was opening near our home and suggesting jobs I could apply for. His search history was a combination of media sites and clients, with a handful looking at Airbnbs in southern Thailand and flights to Indonesia (third choice on our list). Nothing for Porters of Mayfair, and his last visit to a poker site had been nearly three months ago. I even discovered a news alert set up for the small town he grew up in. In fact, I was so caught up that I barely noticed when the sky started to lighten outside. I stretched, hearing the muscles of my spine click noisily. I wanted a shower, to get warm somehow. The rain hushed against the glass as I closed down the browser windows and stood up, careful to leave his desktop as he’d left it. He couldn’t know I’d been snooping.
That’s when I found it.
A memory stick, taped behind the screen of his computer. I reached down for it carefully, using my fingers like tweezers. My hands shook as I pushed it into the port, and just for a moment I had that same sour taste rising in the back of my mouth, fear tasting like spoiled apple juice.
My stomach clenched as I opened up the folder and peered at the single file there. The name of it was numeric: 16032015. Secret bank account, I thought as I clicked on the folder. He’s hiding money from you. You knew it all along, you felt it in your gut and he—
I caught my breath. Snatched it, holding it hot and shivering in my throat.
She was young, although beneath the carefully applied make-up and coy, doe-eyed poses it was hard to tell. She knew her angles, I can tell you that much. Her skin was as golden as Egyptian silk. Her nose was long and straight with a noticeable bump on the bridge that only surgery could iron out. There was a piercing in her nose, a tiny silver stud, barely there. She had a curtain of straight dark hair, glossy and slick. I touched my hand to my own messy blonde waves, half grown out from a blunt bob I’d given myself last autumn. I felt something in my chest, a singular shard of glassy pain. Envy, maybe.
I quickly flicked through the handful of photographs. She wasn’t naked, but her underwear was revealing: the hard little bumps of her nipples beneath peach-coloured lace, the soft creases of her upper thighs as she sat on the edge of a bed, toes pointed, delicate and ballerina-like, to elongate and define her calf muscles. Like I said, the girl knew her angles. In one she was bent over a dressing table, ass towards the camera, pink satin and the long road of her spine just visible where her hair fell. She was looking back at the lens with an eyebrow arched, slight smile on her glossy lips, and in her hand was a bag. I stared at it for what felt like a long time, even as outside the birds began to sing. A pink sequin shoulder bag with a chain strap, and on it, the Miu Miu logo in silver. Distantly, I heard the alarm going off in the bedroom, the grunting noise Will made as he reached for it, his voice furred with sleep.
‘Frances? Where are you, babe?’
‘I’m just here,’ I said, struggling to keep my voice straight. I hurriedly pulled the USB out and taped it back behind the screen. I’d barely had time to close everything down when I heard his feet shuffling out into the hallway, the long, elastic sound of him yawning. I was swept with a fierce chill that flushed my skin with goosebumps and rattled my teeth.
In all the years we’d been together I’d never ached for him as much as I did right then.
After that, I waited each morning for Will to leave, his bag slung crooked over his shoulder, hair still damp from the shower, and I would watch him walk up the tree-lined avenue towards the train station in the pearly morning light. I’d watch him until he was out of sight,
letting my forehead lean against the glass until my breath misted my vision. Then I would take the USB from its hiding place behind the computer and look through the photographs over and over again, searching for clues in her poses, in the background of her small, messy flat, until acid burned the back of my throat. Her mirror, smudged with fingerprints; the unmade bed, the tattoo snaking up her outer thigh, the catalogue flatpack furniture – nothing gave me any idea about the type of person she was or how she knew my husband so intimately.
I studied the faces of every dark-haired woman on the street, on the train, looking for the familiar lines of her features; almond-shaped eyes heavy with kohl, narrow lips, that thin, angular chin. Since I’d first seen her photographs I’d felt there was something familiar about her, and it was only after a week or so that it came to me. Samira.
When I’d first told William about my previous relationships with women, we’d both been drunk on wine and Pernod and he’d struggled to conceal his interest.
‘Is it better or worse than with men?’ he’d asked, picking up the knife and cutting a chunk of brie from the cheeseboard on the table. The candlelight had carved shadows in his features, sharp glaciers of bone. ‘Like, is it, uh, softer?’
‘Softer?’ I’d laughed. ‘How do you mean?’
He’d shrugged awkwardly, and I’d decided to make it easier for him. ‘Do you mean hornier? Is that what you mean? You want to hear about me with women, is that it?’
‘God, yes. Fuck. I thought you’d never offer.’
We’d both laughed. Then, he’d leaned in closer. ‘Was there ever anyone serious?’
‘Sure.’
‘Who?’
‘She was beautiful. Let me just get that out the way. As you know, I’m incredibly shallow’ – we’d both laughed, because it’s true – ‘and Samira was just – you ever meet someone so good-looking you almost forget to breathe? Like that. She had long hair almost to her waist and the darkest, blackest eyes I’ve ever seen. She knew all these great bars and clubs and just dazzled everyone she met, and I can honestly say that it’s the only time I’ve been happy to be in someone else’s shadow. She had tattoos and a piercing in her nose and another in her labia and she made me feel – I don’t know – vital.’
‘You’re so pretentious.’ William had laughed, but his voice was heavy and when he kissed me I could tell by his urgency how turned on he was. It had been funny, at the time.
Samira. That was who she looked like, William’s mystery girl. The piercing, the long curtain of hair, that golden skin. At least, I thought more reasonably, she looked like my description of her: the one I’d given him all that time ago on a humid night in Avignon, our sweat glistening and scented with aniseed.
If you’d asked me any time over the last six years how I’d react to William’s infidelity, I would have laughed and told you William was no more capable of infidelity than he was of alchemy. Finding the photos had shaken me, but not in the way I would have expected. I felt energised, curious. That same feeling of elemental wrongness persisted, and I couldn’t put my finger on why, and until I could I didn’t feel like I could confront him. I felt like I needed to know more. Knowledge is power, after all.
That night I cooked tarragon chicken (a memory of Avignon still lingering, perhaps) and Will noticed as soon as he came through the door. He put his bag on the sofa slowly, telling me how good I looked. I’d tidied my hair and put on the simplest thing I owned – a mid-length black dress with spaghetti straps – because William liked things simple. Or so he’d told me. Now, though, who knew?
We ate sitting close to each other, not opposite one another but side by side on the floor, our backs against the sofa, legs stretched out in front of us. I’d lit candles, and the dreamy scent of next door’s roses washed in through the open window. The rain of the last couple of weeks had given way to a clear, bright warmth.
‘I noticed you’re not sleeping very well at the moment,’ he said, spearing a piece of chicken with his fork. ‘You having those bad dreams again?’
It’s happened before. Me, running through my dream, heavy and ugly and slow-moving as molasses, chased by a man with a hammer raised over his head. I don’t know where this image has come from. A film maybe, or a story told to me as a kid by my older sister. The finer details of the dream change from time to time; sometimes I’m a kid with scabby knees and a bowl haircut, sometimes I’m in the jungle, sometimes I’m underwater, but it’s always a hammer and it’s always the kind with two hooks on the back, a claw-head. When I have these dreams William tells me I start to twitch and then cry out, clawing at the air. I wake in a panic, close to tears. It wasn’t the dreams, though. Not this time.
‘Do you love me, Will?’
He paused, fork halfway to his mouth. I watched him carefully and sipped my wine. Waited.
‘Of course. What kind of question is that?’
‘You don’t sometimes wish things were different?’
‘No!’
‘Ever miss being single?’
‘Jesus, Frances.’ He picked up his own glass and drained it. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘Sometimes I feel like you’re not really here.’
‘I have to work, babe. It’s all I do. We’re living off one wage right now until you get another job.’ He held up a hand to ward off a verbal attack. ‘I know, I know. Employment is tough to find at the moment. I’m not blaming you. It’s just tiring, that’s all. And now you’re having a go at me for not being present—’ His phone vibrated in his pocket, just once. A message. He put his plate to one side and reached for it. ‘It feels a little unfair.’
‘I suppose I’ve just been thinking about the old times recently. Before.’
‘Before what?’
But he wasn’t listening. He was looking at his phone. Whatever that message was, it was holding his attention. He stood up, still staring at the screen.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked him, my heart beating too fast. I wanted him to stay, I wanted to claw at him and drag him back towards me so I could bite the soft sides of his neck until he gasped with pain. He flicked his eyes up to me, just once, then back to the phone, scrolling.
‘Email from Phil at work. I need to go upstairs and get some information for him. I’ll be two seconds.’
His hand strayed to his hair and tugged at the curl there, just once. You lying bastard, I thought.
That night I waited until I heard his breathing soften and then I slid out of the bed and into the box room, swiping the USB stick from its usual place at the back of his computer. I loaded it into my own laptop and locked myself in the dark bathroom. There were more photos. I thought of that message he’d received earlier and a bitterness rolled through me. I clicked on them all the same. She was in a different room this time, and it was daylight, but the poses were the same, the looks she was casting towards the camera hazy-eyed, glassy almost. Stoned or bored, it was hard to tell. She wore sheer black knickers and no bra, holding her breasts in her hands as if she couldn’t contain them. I was fascinated with her; the sparse rooms with the peeling wallpaper, ashtrays balanced on the arms of sofas, even the small bruise flowering at the top of her hip. I was fuelled with a slow, throbbing anger that made my muscles clench. I enlarged the picture, taking in her false eyelashes, the mole on her elbow, the thinning places on her scalp where her hair extensions needed refitting. Then, in the background, through the window overlooking the street, a sign. Sandwiched between a bookmaker and a Turkish restaurant – Tufnell Park Food & Wine. I stared at it for a long time. Found you, I thought.
I didn’t tell William I was planning to go to London. I forced myself to wait an hour after he’d left the house the following morning before picking up my bag and heading out the door. I was dizzy with a reckless, headstrong sensation I hadn’t felt in years. I wore a bright lipstick and winged eyeliner as sharp as a knife and when a man smiled at me on the Bakerloo line I returned it with feeling. By the time I got to Tufnell Park I was fizzi
ng with adrenaline. My mother used to say I was spoiling for trouble when I got like this as a kid. She’d tell my sister not to come near me. She was right.
I found Tufnell Park Food & Wine quicker than I expected. Outside the tube station I handed a couple of pounds to a young woman with damp, grey skin sitting with a cardboard sign in front of her reading Need WORK, Need MONEY.
There but for the grace of God, I thought as I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened up the picture I’d transferred to it. I lifted the screen so I could find the angle seen through the window, moving it slightly left and right until I discovered a match. I looked up towards the building above the phone shop I was standing outside, the windows reflecting the cobalt sky like still water.
There were three buzzers at the entrance to the flat and as I pressed the first one I felt the first tremblings of anxiety. What the hell are you doing? a voice in my head asked me, and I answered in a whisper, raking my fingers through my hair: ‘Spoiling for trouble.’
There was no answer at the first buzzer and after ringing it a second time I moved on to the one above it. This one had a name label attached but the writing had rubbed off. After a minute a voice blared out, fuzzy with distortion.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m looking for – uh, a girl, a woman who lives here—’
‘Oh yeah? Which one?’
Shit. Shit. I hadn’t thought this through.
‘She has dark hair. Very pretty.’
I waited. The voice, young-sounding, female, seemed to consider for a moment.
‘Probably Kim. Wait there.’
I waited, digging my hands into my pockets. Behind me a car horn blared and a cyclist responded crisply: ‘Go fuck yourself!’ When the door opened there was a young woman standing there, dark hair cut into a sharp bob, round blue eyes looking down at her phone. I felt a spike of disappointment.