Last Kiss (13 page)

The next time I saw her, she told me she knew I wanted to kill someone, but that I should wait, endure longer. Evil defines you. If it pushes you hard enough, you’ll break or, like me, find ways to survive it. When I lived with the hunched shadow of the witch, she extracted pleasure from my vulnerability, took joy from my hurt. If you’ve never reached that point, the one asking you if you want to die, or kill to survive, you can never understand me or my desire to take another person’s life.

Until now, the only woman I have ever killed was the witch, but I need to rid my new lover of his pathetic security blanket. I’ve become more convinced than ever that he is the one. I can’t allow her stand in my way. She is at breaking point. Little by little, she is falling apart, and when she least suspects it, I will destroy her.

IT WAS AFTER Edgar had left for work that I saw the shadow again. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. I felt such a strong sense of foreboding that my relief, once the shadow disappeared, was quickly followed by fear: if the stranger was no longer in the garden, they could be inside the house. I felt like a prisoner inside my own home.

Last night, I slept in the studio again. I didn’t want Edgar reaching for me in the bed, whispering in my ear, willing me to wake up and have duty sex with him. We haven’t made love in such a long time, but I couldn’t take the risk that his old habits would return. It was Karen who told me sexual desire towards your partner rises rather than falls when you’re having
an affair. The libido is sparked by extra-marital activity, and you imagine you’re having sex with your lover rather than your partner.

Lori phoned earlier, but I brushed her off. I needed to get out of the house, even though I was forced to agree to meet her later on. I decided to drive to Edgar’s showrooms in town, as if I was some kind of secret-service agent. I waited for more than an hour before I saw him leave: I had made the decision to follow him. If I was wrong about Edgar lying to me, so be it, but if I was right, it was better to know the truth than be kept in the dark.

Considering everything, I don’t know why I was so shocked when I saw him drive to that other house. Maybe I hadn’t expected to discover something so quickly, but when he turned the key in the front door, I still couldn’t quite believe it. He had walked up to the house with such familiarity, turning the key as if he was arriving home. How long has he been seeing this woman?

It took me a while to realise I was shivering in the car. I pulled my collar up around my neck for some warmth, and it was then I heard the voice inside my head saying,
You’re in denial
.

I drove past the house, cursing myself for not being better prepared. I hadn’t made a detailed plan. I had simply wanted to get to the bottom of things, but presented with reality, I needed to think about my next move.

I parked at the end of the street, keeping my eyes on the house. Ideas, notions, ridiculous explanations formed repeatedly in my mind, but one thought kept coming back: I needed to find out everything I could about this woman. Was she a stranger or
someone I already knew? Were Edgar and her in this together, planning and scheming against me?

The house was no more than an hour’s drive from the centre of Dublin, and I had visited Greystones, a busy seaside town, many times as a child. Alice and I had often gone there by bus. It felt weird being there again, and there wasn’t anything particularly unusual about the house. It didn’t look very different from any of the others on the street, except for one thing: I felt I had seen it before.

I’ve tried to tell myself there were plenty of logical reasons for Edgar being there. It could be a business meeting, the house belonging to a new client, or an old friend, a relative I hadn’t met. It was seeing him turn the key that contradicted all of it, and with that came an attack of questions. What if he had another wife? What if we’d been living a lie for years? What if I was the other woman?

Fear was driving me, and it was fear that kept me there, waiting until he left the house, taking note of the time on a scrap of paper in the car. He had stayed there for at least an hour. When I saw him leave, I should have gone straight up and confronted him, asked him why he was there.
So what stopped you?
I DON’T BLOODY KNOW.
You’re putting off the truth. More fear, Sandra, more bloody fear
.

I followed him back to work, thinking he might make another stop along the way, which would help me build up a picture, but he didn’t. It was then I decided to phone him. His secretary put me straight through. He sounded in great form. He told me how he’d known I was in the studio last night, and hoped it had been productive. He wanted to tell me how much he loved me, that
I meant the world to him. It was all I could do to stop myself blurting it all out. He even suggested going away for a while – a holiday would do us both the world of good, he said. I let him think I was going along with it, but when he started talking about counselling, I pulled back. He said someone at work had mentioned that writing things down was often very helpful. He wondered if I’d ever considered that.
Had he found my diary?
Why was he talking about writing things down? Did he know I was keeping notes? I panicked, and could tell my voice sounded less assured. Could he have read my words? Had he found the old tea chest in the attic? It was his house too. It was possible, but he couldn’t have stumbled upon it. His fear of heights would have kept him away from the attic. He hates that ladder. Maybe Alice told him. Was that it? I ended the conversation as quickly as I could, but driving home, I couldn’t get the idea that Alice had betrayed me out of my mind.
The only person you can trust is yourself. Everyone else is a potential enemy
.

I needed to check the attic. I practically stormed into the house, rushing up the stairs, not even thinking about locking the front door behind me. The most important thing on my mind was to find my diary and, if necessary, another hiding place. I climbed the attic ladder and crawled into the tiny ceiling space. It was the perfect place to keep something away from his prying eyes. Then the questions came back, only this time there were more of them. How would I know if he had found it? Would I know if the diary had been moved? Even in the dark I could see it on top of the old tea chest. I pulled myself in further, curling up into a ball, the way I used to do when I was younger. I turned the pages one at a time until I
reached my last entry. I felt relief. Everything was as I had left it. Maybe things were okay after all.

It was only on closing the diary that I noticed the gold ribbon page marker had been moved further than my last entry. Sweat rose on my neck, and my right hand trembled as my fingers reached for it. Opening the page, which should have been blank, I read the words in bold black letters:
YOU’RE A FOOL
.

I stared at the page. There was something familiar about the writing. That’s when I heard someone moving downstairs. I thought about calling Edgar’s name, but what if the person downstairs wasn’t him? What if it was the stranger who had broken in, the person lurking in the shadows? How would I protect myself? And, once again, I felt cornered.

ARRIVING BACK AT the showrooms, Edgar was no longer sure how he felt about anything. Everything had changed. He knew he had made choices, which he had to live with, but now he was at the point of achieving his lifetime goals – professional success, financial security, respect and admiration for his designs – and his personal life was unravelling. To the outside world, everything looked perfect: career on a high, a wonderful home and a beautiful, talented wife. Despite the lack of children, he would have been considered lucky.

He thought about Lori too. The more time that passed, the more he realised he had made the wrong choice in hooking up with her. She was far from the timid flower that Sandra had
described and he was now uncomfortable with the relationship. From the moment the whole thing had begun, he had known he was risking everything but continued to walk a dangerous path. She seemed to have gained a sense of power. He might have to talk to Alice, but what would he tell her? Certainly not the truth – that was something he couldn’t tell anyone, not Lori, not Alice and certainly not Sandra.

Everyone makes mistakes, he told himself. It had all happened without planning. A few weeks ago, if anyone had said this could happen, he would have seen it as a sick joke. Now the joke was on him, and he knew he’d made one of the worst decisions of his life. Retreating without huge complications was no longer an option. He needed to keep everything from Sandra. There was no telling what she would do if she knew the truth. Her writing details down proved one thing, though: that she knew something wasn’t right.

When his secretary told him his next client had arrived, he wasn’t sure if he could continue pretending any more. Asking her to give him a few more minutes, he cupped his face in his hands, closing his eyes, as he thought about Alice, Lori and Sandra, and the history he had clocked up with each of them. Now his wife was like a stranger. He felt guilt, knowing he had played his part in the wreckage, but it wasn’t entirely his fault, not by a long shot.

He could still recall the moment he had first seen her, really seen her, and how utterly beautiful and enchanting she was. He had been captivated. They had drunk plenty of wine, but she was the one doing most of the seducing, although there was no denying his attraction. From that first split second, he had
fantasised about being inside her, feeling horny at the curves of her body, watching her legs below the hemline of her skirt, stretched out in the passenger seat, like one delightfully long temptation. Driving her home that night, he had visualised the two of them naked many times.

She told him to turn down a side road he hadn’t travelled before. At first he didn’t know where she was taking him, but he didn’t ask. He simply drove until she told him to stop.

It was late, and the street was deserted. She smiled at him, a knowing smile, then got out of the car. He remembered watching her walk around to the driver’s side, the headlights lighting her as she passed the bonnet, a ghost-like creature. At first he thought she was going to walk away without explanation. She had that kind of intrigue about her. She wasn’t like any other woman he had ever met. Instead, she opened the driver’s door, asking, ‘What are you waiting for?’ He hesitated. ‘There’s no need to worry,’ she said. ‘We won’t be disturbed here.’

All his earlier fantasies became a reality, as she took him by the hand into the house in Greystones. He could still hear the click, click of her stilettos on the pathway as she led him to the back door, taking a key from under a garden pot. Once inside, he kissed her hard on the lips, her face, down to her neck and, opening the top button of her blouse, her breasts. His excitement rose. She felt his groin, undoing his zip. He was surprised at her forwardness, but liked it. Removing her blouse and bra, she shivered, and he held her. She let out a tiny cry, then brought him upstairs. She lay on the bed. Running his hand up her inner thigh, he felt her shiver again, and he had wondered if she wanted him to stop. He pulled away, then saw the satisfied
look on her face and let his hand go further, realising she wasn’t wearing any underwear below her skirt. She spread her legs, as he rolled her skirt up. She closed her eyes when he entered her, letting out the tiniest of groans. It didn’t take him long. He was far too fast the first time. Afterwards, she stroked his head, like he was a little boy. He had wanted to give her pleasure too, but she told him it didn’t matter once he was pleased. It was such a strange word to use, ‘pleased’.

Yes,
she
was the one who had seduced
him
, rather than the other way around. There were two sides to everything, Sandra often said, and she was right. Had Sandra driven him away?

Instructing his secretary to send the client through, he knew that if he could turn back the clock, he would do things very differently.

ALONE IN THE darkness of the attic, I realised the person walking around the house was doing so with a sense of familiarity, almost as if my home belonged to them. Every sound I heard seemed magnified, but the footsteps were moving at speed. They were light, and I was positive they weren’t a man’s. Pulling back from the attic door, I tried to get a better view of below, going further into the dark, as a scared child might. When I heard the footsteps in the kitchen, I knew that, whoever it was, they were getting closer, and they would soon see the attic ladder. I thought too late about pulling it up, hearing their feet mount the stairs.

It was her lower half I saw first, wearing tiny black ankle boots
and grey leggings. They could have belonged to anyone. It was only when I caught sight of her short black hair that I realised it was Lori, and let out an enormous sigh of relief, allowing my breathing to slow down. It took me a while to call her name, almost as if I was trying to gain some elusive upper hand. The reprieve of fear was quickly followed by another rush of questions. How had she got in? And why hadn’t she called out? When she put her foot on the attic ladder, I told her to stay there, that I was coming down. If she was taken aback by my aggressive tone, her face didn’t show it. I was nervous. I felt uncomfortable with my back to her. When I reached the bottom, she asked me, coyly, what I had been doing. I didn’t answer, remembering the words in my diary: YOU’RE A FOOL. Had Lori taken me for a fool? Had Alice, Edgar, the whole lot of them?

‘How did you get in?’ I finally asked her.

‘You left the front door open.’ She looked at me as if I’d asked her the daftest question in the world, but she used a caring tone, like a parent who had caught their child doing something stupid. I kept hearing that voice in my head, saying,
Don’t trust her
.

‘Why didn’t you call out when you came inside? I didn’t know who you were.’

When she gave me a hug, I pulled back from her.