Nearest Thing to Crazy (12 page)

I know everyone’s eyes are upon me when I get out of the car. I can guess what they are thinking, especially the women. Who is she? Where’s the husband? I know only too well how threatening a lone woman can be. I will be weighed up and judged, to see how predatory I seem, to see how trustworthy I might be; I could have worn something that said, ‘yes, I’m safe’, something nondescript, but the safe option was always the boring one. Instead I had opted for full-on glamour. I can sense the tension as I walk up the steps to the terrace, and I can read the questions in all those curious faces. I love that; in another life I should have been an actor. I think I’d have adored that feeling of walking onto the stage, holding the audience in the palm of my hand, just like playthings, just like my own toys. I loved the play-acting, the wearing of masks, inhabiting different roles, leaving your audience guessing who you really are.

As a child I’d learnt how to act for survival, but now I devoted my skills to the art of having fun. And here assembled, like presents beneath a Christmas tree, are all my new toys, my new playthings.

What I hadn’t bargained for was that underneath the wrapping I’d find a surprise waiting for me. I thought I’d done my research fairly thoroughly; I thought I knew exactly what I was going to get. But I was wrong.

I was much too streetwise, too cynical to believe in love at first sight. But lust at first sight, that I can buy in to. He looks at me for a fraction of a second longer than he should, and I hold his eyes with mine. That’s when I know that he knows, that we both know. When we’re introduced I just nod and smile slowly. He takes my hand in his and as he lets it fall, his fingers slip slowly across my skin. A sensation like an electric shock pulsates through me and I pull my hand away and look at it. I look up again and he is watching me, and I know he felt it too. I get my pack of cigarettes out of my handbag and offer him one, which he takes. I try to light them both but he sees my hand is shaking, so he takes the lighter and lights first mine, then his, staring at me all the time. We exhale and the two streams of smoke merge into one. All of this takes just a couple of minutes, but I feel we’ve known each other for a very long time.

‘Bella,’ he says. ‘Nice name.’ The first time I hear his voice.

‘Thanks.’ I want to smell him. I have to stop myself from leaning forward. My eyes fix on his mouth and I am vaguely aware of someone handing me a glass of champagne. I feel myself acting normally on the outside while inside I am on fire. I have to be introduced to the others so I am forced to move away, but all the time we are talking to other people I know that he is as aware of me as I am of him. I am only half listening to the conversation I am involved in; I am unable to shut him out. There’s an undercurrent of anticipation, like knowing a monsoon is on its way after months of drought. I know I shall have him. It is inevitable. And I know that he knows this, too.

I could feel the blood draining from my head and my knees giving way. I could easily vomit. I needed to sit down. I needed some air. I didn’t want to stay in this room a second longer. I staggered to the front door and grabbed at the handle, then slammed it shut behind me, blinking in the harsh sunlight and choking on the clean air. I ran back down the lane to the sanctuary of my kitchen and made myself a strong cup of coffee to steady my nerves. I sat down in Dan’s chair and hugged the warm china to my chest and there, sitting right in front of me in the middle of the kitchen table – where I knew they had certainly
not
been before – were my keys.

CHAPTER

5

‘How was your day?’ Dan asked, as he helped himself to a cold beer from the fridge.

‘Do you think you could pour a glass of wine for me?’ I asked.

‘Sure. That bad?’

‘I’ve had better.’ I stood in front of the Aga clutching the glass, tracing my fingers over the tears of condensation and then wiping the moisture on my jeans, distractedly. Dan opened a packet of nuts and poured them into a bowl and then offered them to me. I shook my head. I dreaded the conversation getting on to Ellie and the bloody dog, but I decided to get it over with.

‘Good news,’ I said, although from the flatness of my voice you’d never have guessed it. I told myself to try and sound brighter because I didn’t want him to ask me what was wrong. All day long I’d wrestled with whether or not I should tell him what I’d read on her computer. I wanted to, I really did, but the trouble was I just had this nagging sense of uncertainty, a hangover from Sunday lunch. Maybe it was the way they’d laughed together, or the way he’d talked to me in front of her, as if he was hinting that his life hadn’t really worked out; the fact that he’d gone out for such a long time that he really could have been with her. I was so close to spilling it all out but something stopped me. Even if it wasn’t true, what would Dan think? He’d be hurt, insulted that I should doubt him, and it would undo all the good things that had happened between us. The only thing I could do, I reasoned, was to wait and watch and say nothing for the time being, and try and believe that she was just using Dan and me for her story; that she was making it up, that we were just her plot fodder.

‘Good news?’ he repeated.

‘The postwoman nearly ran over Ellie’s dog this morning. It was just running around in the road outside her house, apparently. It obviously found its way back . . .’

I paused, staring at Dan, alert to any sign of uneasiness. ‘Thank
God for that.’

I went on: ‘So I went down there, and there she was, trying to get in the house. The last thing I could risk was the bloody dog going off again.’ Again I studied his reaction, to see if he reddened, looked guilty in any way, but he seemed to be just listening, normally. I was watching him. Hard as I tried not to be, I was suspicious of him. I knew then just how potent her little drop of poison was. ‘But anyway the door was unlocked . . .’ I continued with my story but omitted the best bit. ‘So I left her in the kitchen, filled her water bowl . . . didn’t know what else I could do, really.’

‘I knew she’d come back.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yep. When she was hungry. That’s what they do.’

‘I had no idea you knew so much about dogs.’

‘I don’t. But it’s logical, isn’t it?’

‘As I said, I don’t know.’ I knew that there was an edge in my voice, that I was sounding chilly and distant. I just couldn’t help it.

Dan let out a long sigh. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong.’ I took a mouthful of wine and couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes.

‘Have you spoken to her?’

‘I sent her a text . . . and she didn’t text back.’

‘Well you know how crap the signal is.’

‘Not
everywhere.
’ I couldn’t tell him that I’d kept my phone sitting in the signal hotspots practically all day, just to see whether she replied or not.

‘Whatever. I’m sure you’ll hear from her shortly. And now we can forget about Ellie and her bloody dog for a while.’

‘That would be nice,’ I said, under my breath.

He gave me a sideways glance, and then shook his head at me, like a disapproving parent.

When the house phone started to ring I just looked at it and Dan looked at me.

‘It’s bound to be for you,’ he said.

I crossed the kitchen and picked it up from its cradle on the wall.
‘Hello?’

‘It’s Ellie. I just wanted to say thanks so much for finding Coco and putting her in the kitchen. That was such a wonderful surprise when I got back.’

‘Good.’

‘I would have been distraught if anything had happened to her.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And I wanted to say thank you for yesterday, for lunch. It was all so lovely and I’m only sorry that Coco and I messed it up.’

‘Well thank heavens she’s back now.’ I realized I had to sound reasonably normal for Dan’s sake. But it was a real struggle to keep my voice level.

‘I feel awful at making such a fuss. Stupid little dog. I won’t let her off the lead again in a hurry.’

‘Won’t you?’ I said. ‘Or maybe you’ll leave her behind next time
. . .’ Careful, I told myself. ‘So everything’s all right . . . Did you manage to get lots of writing done?’

‘Everything’s absolutely fine and yes, I did get quite a lot done, thanks.’

‘Good. Well, terriers are notorious, aren’t they?’ I couldn’t believe how well I could keep up this charade.

‘Listen, I was wondering if you and Dan are free next Saturday. I’m having some people to supper and it would be great if you could join us.’

‘Hang on, I’ll check with Dan.’ I placed my hand over the receiver. ‘She’s asked us for supper next Saturday night.’

‘Can we?’

I shrugged. ‘So you’d like to go?’ More than anything, I wanted him to say ‘no’, ‘let’s not,’ ‘let’s say we’re busy . . .’

‘It’s up to you. I suppose if we’re not doing anything . . .’

‘Saturday would be fine,’ I said to her, feeling as though an invisible noose was slipping around my neck.

‘Great. Around 8.15. See you then . . . if not before . . .’

‘Absolutely.’

I replaced the receiver and turned to Dan. ‘Dan?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you love me?’

‘What kind of silly question is that?’

‘Well do you?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Because you know I really do love you, don’t you?’

‘Yes. I do know. Now, what’s for supper? I’m starving.’

I got the feeling she’d been in my house. Sorry, correction, I knew she’d been in my house because she told me. But I got the feeling she’d been snooping in my house. I thought I’d ask them to supper so I could watch her . . . see if she looked guilty around me. Test her out. But I knew when I spoke to her on the phone she was guilty as hell.

I don’t know how I was getting through each day, haunted by what I’d read. Ellie invaded all of my thoughts. I hated myself for it but she just wouldn’t go away. Whenever the phone rang I jumped out of my skin, expecting it to be her, and when there was a knock at the door I dreaded finding her on the other side. When I drove past her house I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the road in front of me so that I wouldn’t have to wave or stop to say hello. Even as I searched through my wardrobe for something to wear on Saturday night, I realized I was carrying this image of her in my head; all girly-girly pretty-pretty in her macaroon colours and skinny jeans which I couldn’t seem to help comparing and contrasting against my own collection of assorted shades of vermin. It felt ridiculous. I felt ridiculous. I yo-yoed between denying to myself – no, really believing that Dan wouldn’t, couldn’t, be having an affair with her – to then piecing together all his behaviour and examining it forensically and thinking it might be true.

I decided to get away from the village, to put some space between myself and
her
, and I hadn’t told Dan I was going to Birmingham. I felt sneaky and guilty, and wondered how he must be feeling if deception on such a small scale as mine could be so unsettling. But then I wasn’t used to not telling him things. The Bullring was jam-packed with jostling people armed with offensive carrier bags. My temper was frayed, having been stuck in traffic for half an hour longer than necessary, and mostly because I just felt so bloody awful.

‘Looking for something special?’ the shop assistant asked.

God, I found it so annoying when they did that. ‘No. Just looking, thanks.’

What was I supposed to say? ‘Well . . . if you really want to know
. . . just something that will make me seem half the size I am; something that in spite of what you see will transform me into a vision of loveliness; something that will make my husband fall in love with me all over again despite the fact that there is this drop-dead gorgeous predator who may, even at this very minute, be indulging in text sex with him. Oh, you haven’t got anything in at the moment? There’s a surprise . . .’

‘Mum! Here you are!’ My daughter arrived in a bomb-burst of hair, colour and noise. ‘Where have you been? Is your phone switched off?’ Her long blonde ringlets framed her head in a wild halo, which she tossed constantly this way and that around her head. I doubted that she would have been able to speak at all without the accompanying dramatic affectation.