Nightsiders (7 page)

She was standing a yard or two away, staring at him and nursing a bottled lager. When he saw her, she raised her bottle and winked at him. He recognized her immediately, but could not place her face. Then, abruptly, realisation rushed it. It was Nathan Corbeau’s wife, Monica, and she was alone.

Before he knew it she was standing next to him, a fresh lager in one hand and a whisky in the other. “Can I join you? I’m pretty good at this game. Misspent childhood, an’ all that.”

Robert was numb. He looked at her badly made-up face, her pale blue eyes, and her cheaply dyed hair. Then his gaze trickled down to her chest—the low-cut blouse revealed just a little bit too much cleavage—and her flat belly, then finally to the tiny leather skirt wrapped like a thick belt around her waist. Her legs were firm and shapely and hairless, coated with obviously fake tan. He felt an erection stirring, and grabbed the whisky from her hand just to occupy his mind.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Let me set them up.”

Robert stared at her, taking her in. All of her. “I can be arrested for even standing next to you.” He took a sip from his drink, feeling shut off from his surroundings. The whole room narrowed down to the small area around them: the wet floor, the dust beneath their feet, the scuffmarks on the wooden boards.

“I know. I’m sorry. That wasn’t my idea.” Slowly she walked the length of the pool table, enjoying the fact that he was watching her.

Her sexuality was blunt, vulgar, yet it was also crudely effective. She bent over too far to reach beneath the pool table and retrieve the balls from their slot, and as she arranged them in the wooden triangle, she made sure her breasts were spilling out of that thin blouse. Her smile devoured him, and then spat him back out in pieces.

Robert knew precisely what she was doing, and part of him was flattered; another part of him, the part that ate healthily, slept well, read good books and tried to lead an orderly and productive life, was utterly horrified. The coarseness of this woman made him feel at once unclean and highly aroused. He could blame the drink, of course, but deep down he knew something about her had connected with something inside him. It was a truth he would have preferred to ignore.

Also, deep inside him, the man that was weak and wounded and resentful noted this might be the perfect way to take revenge on Sarah. How dare she send him away? What right did she have to doubt him?

In his past, Robert had experienced many sleazy sexual encounters: he had been drawn to the thrill, and to the filth. He liked dirty women; he loved dirty sex. When he was single, he visited prostitutes out of choice rather than desperation, and even the act of paying for that kind of sex had given him a thrill. Once he was married he started pushing that side of him away, repressing his proclivity for sleaze, but it was still there; it was always there, waiting to be unleashed. This whole situation had triggered something and a door had opened up inside of him, letting out those dark, base desires.

Something inside him was stirring. The shadows of his past were on the move.

“My break,” she said, reaching out to pick a cue from the rack on the wall.

They played in silence for a while, and Robert noted she had not been lying: she was very good indeed.

“I really am sorry about that little misunderstanding,” she said when they paused in their game to take a drink. “Things got out of hand. It was silly.” She licked her lips; again it was such an obvious thing to do that Robert could hardly believe what he had seen, or his response to the action.

Robert did not know what to say. His civilized aspect wanted to indulge her in conversation, to discuss what had happened, why it had happened, and how they could resolve things. His primitive self wanted to grab her by the hair and fuck her across the pool table. Never before had he experienced such intense and unwelcome feelings. It was both terrifying and invigorating. He felt strong. He felt weak. He felt like a man.

His head was spinning; the whisky was taking hold. He was aware of the pub emptying, of people drifting out into the night, and thought it must be getting late. “It’s getting late,” he said, as if confirming his own wayward thoughts. “I should go.” He could hear the slurring of his voice, and was more than aware of his uneven gait as he stalked along the edge of the pool table, but some part of him refused to leave.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s late. I’ll walk you out. My car is parked in the back. Want a lift?” She walked away without waiting for an answer, nodding at the barmaid as she passed and going through the rear door. Robert stared at the pale patches on the back of her knees, where she’d forgotten to apply the fake tan.

The seduction was so easy that Robert was almost embarrassed. He had not even put up a fight. He stumbled after her, not really thinking about why; he just felt the urge to be out there, in the night, where anything might happen. He felt the hot air on his cheek; he smelled tobacco mixed with diesel fumes; and then he saw her leaning against the back wall, smoking a cigarette.

He stood before her, as if naked. He stared into her damned and damning eyes, and he realized he wanted her—all of him, every tiny element that made up his being, wanted her. He was ashamed; he was thrilled. The night seemed to shift and form a funnel, the narrow end positioned directly above him, vomiting out blackness. He reached up, reached out, and embraced it…embraced her. The cigarette fell from her hand and described a fiery arc as it headed toward the ground. Her lips went to his throat, but not his mouth: that kind of intimacy had no place here.

She spun him like a toy and pinned him to the wall, her hands going to his trousers and pulling down his zipper. She took out his cock and rolled it between her palms, brought her hands to her face and spat on them, and then once again grabbed his twitching member. Slowly, she went to her knees, her warm, wet, sticky mouth enveloping him. He grabbed her head, his fingers knotting in her tatty hair, and felt like punching her, smashing her skull with his bunched fists just to watch her bleed. Again the intensity and horrific nature of these thoughts took him by surprise, and he was instantly ashamed of them. Robert was not a violent man; he was a man of peace. But somehow this woman had reached deep inside him and unlocked a door to reveal a kind of brute carnality that had always been there but never before let out.

She wants this
, he thought.
She wants this…and so do I
.

He came in seconds, and when she pulled away, he saw his seed glistening on her cheek. She laughed, drawing the arm of her blouse across her mouth, her lips twisting into an animalistic snarl as she stood and backed away from him. “Fucking useless,” she said. Then she spat in his face and turned her back on him, walking toward the center of the car park.

Robert sank to his knees, ruined, the potential for violence now gone. He watched as she reached the exact center of the car park, and suddenly headlights flashed on in the darkness. An engine rumbled to life, and a battered Ford Cortina trundled into view from the shadows.

The car stopped beside Monica Corbeau, and the passenger door popped open. She climbed in, still laughing, still snarling, and slammed the door shut. The car made a slow circle, and Nathan Corbeau stuck his head out of the window.

“My turn next,” he said, grinning. “But I’ll do a lot better than that with your woman.” Monica’s leering face hovered at his shoulder, a grim ghost riding shotgun.

The car roared away into the night, and Robert dropped his head and threw up on the cracked concrete, thinking about his wife, his children and hoping he could still face them all in the morning.

TUESDAY

7:10
A.M.

He awoke curled up on the ground behind the pub, his mouth plastered to the cracked cement and his back and legs aching. Cautiously, he raised himself into a low crouch. There was vomit on his face and the cuffs of his jacket. He did his best to rub away the dry flakes from his cheeks and lips, and then pulled himself fully upright using his hands against the rough wall. He tried the back door, but it was locked. Turning slowly, he surveyed the car park; it was empty.

Robert trudged across the tarmac and stepped over the low fence, where he followed the footpath round to the front of the building. Daylight stabbed at his eyes. The sky was pale blue and looked incredibly distant, like a painting or a photograph; or, to extend Sarah’s metaphor from yesterday, a matte background from an old film.

Before long he was outside the hotel. There was a police car parked at the curb. Robert’s heart began to stammer, punching against the inside of his chest.

He entered the hotel and saw Sarah standing in the lobby, biting her nails and talking with a uniformed police officer he had not seen before. He wondered where Sergeant McMahon was, and if he knew what was going on here.

“Rob!” Sarah ran to him, reaching out and then pulling back her arms at the last minute. Her momentum carried her forward, and she almost collided with him. It was clumsy and a little embarrassing, but she managed to save face by putting a hand on his chest. “Where have you been?”

He hoped he didn’t smell of sex. “I…slept on a bench somewhere. Had too much to drink after we fought. I’m sorry. What’s happening?” He could not maintain eye contact with her.

Sarah leaned into him, more, he felt, for show than out of any kind of real affection. “It’s Molly. She was out all night.”

Robert staggered backward; the world seemed to hitch, like a roundabout getting stuck on its bearings. “Where is she now?”

“It’s okay. It’s fine. This officer found her about an hour ago, walking the streets and pinching a milk bottle from someone’s doorstep. Molly’s upstairs, asleep. We can talk to her later, when she wakes up.” Robert suddenly realized Sarah’s odd behavior was probably due to the intense relief she felt at having both her daughter and husband back. He felt guilty for missing it all, ashamed for allowing himself to be drawn into that absurd and vaguely nightmarish situation last night. And what about that anyway; was it even real, or had he dreamed it all? Right now, under the harsh hotel lights, it seemed he might have imagined the whole thing.

He certainly wished he had.

“I’ll leave you to talk,” said the officer, putting away his notebook and skulking out of the lobby, toward the door. “Call if you need anything.”

“Where’s McMahon? Has he been here?” Robert rubbed at his head and scratched his scalp.

Sarah looked at him askance; there was something odd about her expression, and it made him feel uncomfortable. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “I mentioned McMahon to that young officer, and he looked at me as if I was mad. He said there was no such person as Sergeant McMahon in the Battle constabulary.” Her face was hanging loose from her bones; the skin was slipping like the wallpaper in the hotel stairwell.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Robert said, backing away. He pulled at his hair, trying to connect himself to the pain, to inhabit the moment entirely. Strangely, it did not hurt a bit. “This is insane, all of it. It makes no sense.” Everything was spinning out of his grasp—his wife, his children, his very existence. “Where was Molly? Has she said anything?”

Sarah took a single step toward him and then halted. She raised her hands, an attempt at a placatory gesture that seemed somehow forced, as if she were trying to make it happen rather than let their reconciliation take its natural course. “She said she was with a boy—a local. Nothing happened, she promised me. They just walked around all night, talking.”

“That’s not like her. It’s not Molly. She doesn’t do things like that.” He started for the stairs. Things were slipping out of control. “Where’s Connor?”

“He’s in the bar, finishing his breakfast.”

Robert changed direction and headed for the bar, feeling the rage building inside him. He took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down; he knew shouting at everyone would achieve nothing. By the time he entered the room and saw the boy sitting at the table, he had just about managed to bring down his blood pressure.

He sat down opposite his son. “How are you doing?”

Connor looked up from his toast. There were crumbs on his chin. His eyes were ringed with black; clearly he had not slept much at all. “I don’t know anything, Dad. She left me outside the chip shop and made me promise not to say anything. She put me in an awkward position.”

“I know, son, and I promise you’re not in trouble. We just need to know where she’s been, and what might have happened.” He slipped his hand across the table but stopped it before the fingers touched Connor’s sleeve.

“All I know is she was with some boy. I don’t know his name, or where he lives, but Molly’s smitten with him.” His use of that antiquated word—
smitten
—was almost comical under the circumstances. It was a word Robert himself used often, and his son had obviously picked it up without realising. Robert felt a strange kind of pride.

“Okay, son. We’ll just leave it at that. You finish your breakfast and I’ll go and talk to your sister. He stood and pushed away from the table, still light-headed and slightly nauseous. He needed a shower, and to brush his teeth. He needed to wash the stink of Monica Corbeau’s mouth off his cock.