One Night (22 page)

‘He’s been very kind – ’

‘He’s dangerous.’

I was silent.

‘Has he made a pass at you?’

All the time
, I want to
yell. Instead I faltered, ‘Not really. In a way. You see – ’

Stephen stood up. ‘You have any
trouble with him, you let me know.’

‘And you will do what?’

‘I’ll kick his fucking head in.’

This was said with such vehemence
that it gave me pause. What was I supposed to read in this reaction? Then he
said, ‘Anybody else, Casey. Just not him. That’s all I have to say.’

I stood as well. Barefoot, I hardly
reached Stephen’s shoulder. He looked down at me. ‘Thanks for the wine.
Fortified me.’

‘Enjoy your dinner.’

He hardly smiled. He turned at the
door. ‘Just remember what I said.’

We stared at each other as though
at any moment we would say entirely different things. Unspoken words vibrated
in the room. Why couldn’t I just tell him I was frightened of Todd? Why
couldn’t I ask for his help?

Stupid, stubborn, fuck-faced
pride!

He said, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.

‘Why?’

His eyes sparked, looking at me in
a steady fury. ‘Because I want to.’

We were both angry. And it had
nothing to do with Todd Pennington. There was something else. Taut, emotional,
deeply hurt. A sense of blame.

Then he broke away. ‘Night, Casey.
Lock your door.’ And he was gone.

I locked the door. Click, click,
click. Bolt and chain.

Anybody else,
he’d said.
He
didn’t mind. Just so long as it wasn’t Todd.

I made supper out of the left over
cheese puffs and sandwiches. And finished the bottle of red wine. Then, with my
arm around Sticky, I cried my way through a comedy on television about three
men and a baby.

Shannon arrived early. I was still cleaning up the mess from the evening
before: plates and glasses piled in the sink, empty wine bottles, a pile of tissues
I had snorted into during the movie.

‘Hey, hey,’ said Shannon, overly
cheery. ‘You’ve been entertaining.’

‘Sort of.’

‘Anyone I know?’

‘Nothing special.’ I didn’t want to
get into a whole thing about Stephen, all the concern and sympathetic looks. As
I spoke I also realized I was being evasive. It was becoming a habit. I pushed
the subject away. ‘You sounded upset on the phone.’

‘Yip.’ She was casual. ‘Some things
just buzzing in my head.’

She was dressed in a tracksuit with
a jacket and scarf. She looked half-dressed somehow, as if she’d thrown on the
first things to come to hand. She wore very little makeup – a dab of eyeliner
and nothing else. Without makeup, Shannon looked mousey, pink-eyed and fragile.
I had the feeling that there were about to be more tissues screwed up on my
coffee table.

‘You sit,’ I ordered, plumping
cushions. ‘I need some strong coffee. You?’

She nodded absently. I busied
myself in the kitchen, feeling thoroughly apprehensive. At last she said, ‘You
have a nice little place here, Casey.’

‘I like it.’ I came through with
the tray. ‘I didn’t get cake I’m afraid but there’s some shortbread.’

We sat. Shannon sipped her coffee,
nibbled at the shortbread as though it had absolutely no taste whatsoever. She
kept looking down at her hands as though there was something wrong with them.
Between halting bits of conversation, she kept lapsing into silence, eyes down,
studying her nails.

Eventually, feeling I would scream
with edginess, I asked: ‘So what was it you wanted to talk about? You said it
had something to do with Todd.’

She looked up at me. Her blue eyes
were pale, far less electrifying without the dramatic lines of eye makeup. ‘I
don’t know how to say this unless I just say it,’ she said.

I tensed. Here it was: accusation
and blame. A rumpling of my innocence. The destruction of friendship over a misunderstanding.

She said: ‘I think Todd is a
pervert.’

Light from the window held her
still as a painting, her eyes suddenly luminous with tears. ‘I don’t know who
to talk to, Casey. You’re my best friend. I can’t talk to my mother or sisters.
You’re so steady, so together. You were the only one I could think of. I’m
sorry.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ My voice shook
slightly. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Things were all right for a while.
I mean, they were really wonderful. I loved him madly. He’s such a hunk, such a
sexy guy really. But after a few months I thought he was two-timing me.’ She
saw my expression change. ‘Oh, it was nothing I could put my finger on – just a
kind of loosening in his attitude. When I approached him about it, he said I
was being neurotic.’ Her eyes fixed on mine. ‘He said that a lot after that. I
couldn’t say anything and he said I was paranoid. Even suggested I see a
psychiatrist. Even when – when I asked him not to do that –
thing
.’

There was a moment. I collected myself.
‘What thing?’

She looked away. ‘Well, it was a
couple of things really.’

She stopped, looked at me, as
though now she had come to the point of her visit, she was lost for words.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Say whatever
you want to say. It stays here with me.’

A flash of fear crossed her face
that shocked me. ‘Promise me you won’t say anything to Todd.’

‘Of course not.’

‘After I asked him if he was seeing
someone else, he sort of changed. He was still good, still loving – but he
asked me to do things.’ Her eyes fixed now on mine. ‘He wanted to take
photographs of me in the nude on the bed – in different poses. He said I
shouldn’t mind because I was an actress after all, and should be comfortable
with that sort of thing. Except – ’ her eyes looked a little wild, hunted ‘ –
except I wasn’t comfortable at all. I didn’t think it was the kind of thing
that a man who loved a woman would ask her to do. But when I protested, he
threatened me.’

I felt sick. ‘He hurt you?’

‘He had a
way
of hurting
me.’ She flinched as she said this and I knew she wasn’t going to elaborate.
She went on, ‘The poses became – ’ she looked away again, ashamed. ‘The poses
became more and more
explicit
. And I didn’t trust what he would do with
them. He told me they were just for him, that he wanted to celebrate my beauty
– that it was a bond between us.’

The sunlight fell on us both now
from the window but I couldn’t feel any warmth. I was cold to the bone. This
was worse than anything I had imagined.

‘Then he made me do the other
thing. He wanted to fuck me – his words – you know – ’ she paused, swallowed.
‘I don’t know how to say this. But in his words – up the bum.’

There was a horrible silence.

I said, ‘You mean – ’

She waved a hand as if she wanted
to stop me saying the words. ‘I mean – you know – the rear end.’ She swallowed.
‘In the rectum.’

‘Shannon – ’ I breathed.

She began to cry now, rocking
backwards and forwards. ‘He said it was an expression of animal love and we
should experiment – but he hurt me. He
hurt
me!’

Outrage consumed me. ‘You let him
do this?’

Her look was broken by fear and
bewilderment. ‘I couldn’t stop him.’

‘He forced you?’

‘Well, yes. In Todd’s way. Which
doesn’t seem like forcing but in the end, is exactly that. He’s very strong.’ She
looked at me almost defiantly for a second. She was trembling. ‘He makes you
know that if thwarted in any way, he would use that strength against you
without compunction. You just know. There’s no misunderstanding.’

My blood turned icy. ‘But
report
the fucking bastard. Call the police! There’s no reason you should go through
that!’

She gave me a sad little smile as
though I was a child who didn’t quite understand. ‘But he had the pictures,
remember? He could have ruined my career in a second.’

‘But that’s blackmail! You
must
go to the police.’

Her eyes were fixed sadly on me.
‘Can you imagine trying to explain how I got myself into this predicament. The
pictures, for God’s sake! Our long relationship. They would assume it was a
lover’s spat. I would look a fool.’

‘They can assume the hell they
like. You have the right to lay a complaint. They have an obligation to
investigate.’

The light from the window gave her
face the dense texture of marble. She was too pale and too thin. ‘You don’t
understand,’ she said in desperation. ‘If I report him – and it doesn’t succeed
for any reason – he’ll kill me.’

She pulled her scarf away from her
neck. A deep raw bruise the colour of lead lay across the base of her throat.

‘Shannon,’ I whispered. ‘No.’

‘You see?’ She pulled the scarf
back again. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Shannon, you can’t go back there.’

She was silent, not denying the
obviousness of this solution. Then she said, ‘Could I come to you?’

‘He knows exactly where to look.
Not a good idea. Why don’t you go home?’

‘Equally bad idea.’

We sat, looking at one another
while fear crept into the room like a mist, draining colour as though
everything had darkened slightly. I knew now that every instinct I’d felt about
Todd was right. I wasn’t crazy or neurotic. Now I understood Stephen’s reaction.
I’d thought he was being dramatic but he was right – Todd was a very dangerous
man. And now he had made me an object of his obsession. I was chilled. The most
terrifying aspect of Shannon’s testimony was that Todd’s behaviour was
impossible to explain to other people. Unless you experienced his strange
ability to appear both solicitous and cruel at the same time, nobody would take
your complaint seriously.

At last I said, ‘You must leave him
– and right away. You can’t go back there. Not even for tonight.’

She looked utterly lost. ‘What
shall I do?’

‘I have an idea.’ I grabbed my
phone and dialed.

‘Who are you calling?’

‘Mona’s mother. Elva Spears.’

We approached Shannon’s block of flats with caution. Sunday late morning the street
was quiet. I glanced up at her windows. ‘Are you sure he’s not there?’

‘Quite sure. He’s gone for the game
this afternoon. He always goes to the gym in the morning, then usually onto to
the club for lunch. Often he stays to watch the match in the afternoon and I
know there’s one today. My guess is that he’ll stay for that and only be back
at around six.’

‘Your guess?’ I repeated. ‘
Usually.
Often
. Sounds like you not really sure at all. I think we better look
sharp.’

We slunk into the building. Shannon
rattled her keys at her door, making I thought, unnecessary noise. I kept
glancing around, feeling Todd’s eyes on me despite the empty corridor, the
silent stairwell.

Shannon packed a smart-looking
hold-all. ‘It’s the one I use when I’m on the road,’ she explained when I
remarked on the quality. ‘I’ll have to come back for the rest of my things when
I can.’

‘Sure,’ I said, thinking Stephen
would have to accompany us. I knew what would happen when Todd came back and
found Shannon gone. The rage. The silent, implacable sense of revenge that
would brew. I knew enough about him now to instinctively connect with his
warped thinking. I also I knew he had no idea where Mona’s mother lived. As a
hidey-hole it was pretty much the best choice.

Shannon was fussing. I began to
feel edgy. ‘Come on, girl. Get a move on. Let’s get out of here.’

‘It’s just that I’ve got a
rehearsal tonight. And I need my makeup.’ She gave me a rueful smile. ‘There’s
always so much stuff to cart around.’

‘Look, we can always come back
tomorrow to get stuff. You look pretty packed to me. Let’s go.’

She went back to the bathroom. I
could hear her rummaging in a cupboard. I looked around. Everything seemed neat
but there was a layer of dust on the table, a pair of old sneakers on the floor
underneath, a pile of newspapers in a corner that indicated some lack of care.
One curtain at the window had lost its hooks and was sagging in the middle. An
old bag of golf clubs had overturned and split its contents in a corner next to
the couch. I remembered Shannon as being rather like Mona. It looked as though
she had lost interest. Then I thought about what she had told me. How did you
maintain interest in the mundane things of life while that sort of thing was
going on in your life?

‘Come on, Shannon! What’s keeping
you?’

I went to the bathroom door. She
was kneeling on the floor, something in her hands, her eyes full of tears.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Look at this. This is his last
birthday gift. I spent a fortune on it and it’s just been shoved into the bathroom
cupboard.’ In her hand was a bottle of expensive aftershave. ‘He hasn’t even
opened it.’

‘Perhaps he was finishing up
something else,’ I suggested.

She stared up at me and I realized
I had immediately done what everybody was going to do: I had tried to defend
him.

‘Forget the bloody aftershave,’ I
almost snapped at her. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘I must find my wigs.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake!’

‘I’m going to need them for
tomorrow – and I’m not coming back here.
Oh
– ’ she stopped.

‘What now?’

She fished further into the
cupboard. ‘These were the cufflinks I bought him.’

‘Cufflinks?’

‘God, he never even took them out!’

‘Who on earth wears cufflinks?’

‘It was for his dress suit for the pantomime
opening night in December.’

‘Well, just leave them, Shannon.
For crying out loud, let’s just go!’

‘Go where? Where are you going?’

The voice came from behind me, a
deep, pleasant, well-modulated voice, laced with the merest hint of threat. I
turned. Todd was standing in the front doorway, his eyes on Shannon’s hold-all
on the couch.