Painkiller (27 page)

Niall rubs his stubbled cheek. The sound is terrifyingly loud in my ears. ‘Give me twenty minutes to get ready.’

‘Make it ten.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he grins, and leaps up, and I see the little boy inside the man.

I sit there, and I listen to him moving around, dragging out a large suitcase, opening and closing drawers. I hear his
thud thud thud
in the corridor and he explodes into the room, like a boy off to his first Scout camp.

‘I’m ready.’

We get out and walk to my car. It was dusk when I arrived, now the streetlights are glowing.

He opens the passenger door for me, and I try not to whimper as I climb in. He slams the car door with too much force. He doesn’t seem to notice; he’s staring straight ahead, his fingers tapping on the roof of the car.

At last, he clears his throat. ‘I know this isn’t a good time to say this, but I’m glad you came to me.’

‘I’m glad you agreed to help.’

He smiles and hauls his bags into the car.

‘You’re bringing a lot with you,’ I say.

‘Well…’ He grins awkwardly. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be coming back.’

He looks up and he holds my gaze. He doesn’t have to say anything. The street lamp bathes his face in an intense, yellow glow. It makes him look even more determined.

‘Thanks,’ I say.

He gets in the driving side and, deep down, I sag with the effort of what I’m doing. I’m already tired, and I’ve only just started this journey. The car trundles away and I allow myself to slump against the door, my cheek against the window.

The streetlights are stretched in the reflection of the passenger-side window, and they glide across the glass
like spaceships, like moonbeams flying in formation, heading for a safe place away from something terrible.

I just have to stay focused.

After we get on the main road I say, ‘I’m glad too.’

‘What about?’

‘That you’re here with me.’

This is the absolute truth.

His shoulders relax and he reaches out to touch me. He keeps his eyes on the road, so his fingers scuttle clumsily across the side of my face, on my neck, across my nose. He nearly lodges a pinkie in my nostril, but he manages to locate my cheek and cup it in his hand, tenderly, lovingly.

‘Stop.’

His hand withdraws. ‘Sorry.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean stop doing what you were doing. What you were doing was very comforting. I mean, stop the car before we hit the motorway.’

‘OK.’

‘I need to go home first.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t go anywhere yet. I need to leave this letter for Dominic.’

‘No way. We can’t go back to your house. That’s mad.’

‘Don’t call me mad, Niall. This is important. It’s important to say goodbye to the past, and it’s important to explain why I’m saying goodbye.’

‘But he’s made sure he’s the past, Monica. So let go of him now. What’s to explain? He had an affair, you’re leaving him. Goodbye.’

I sigh. ‘You just don’t understand.’

That’s the phrase that I know clinches it.
You just don’t understand.
It puts him on the outside of my life. Just like the talk about having a baby, it’s his lack of empathy that shows him up. But he’s a clever boy.
He’s learning.

He taps the wheel with the tips of his fingers.

‘No,’ he says at last. ‘You’re right. I’m being insensitive. We’ll park outside, and you can bung your letter through the letter box. How’s that sound?’

My house is almost in darkness when we pull up outside; just a dim glow from one room.

‘He must be out,’ I say.

‘He’s at home. The lights are on.’

‘The
kitchen
light is on,’ I say, with all the patience I can muster. ‘We always leave the kitchen light on when we go out.’

I push against the car door.
Jesus! It’s heavy.

He watches as I go up to the door with the envelope. He’s waiting for me to pop the letter through the mouth of the door. I can picture his jaw falling open as I push the keys into the lock, twist, and go in.

I’m standing in the kitchen. The tension in my body rises and pain fights for control of my body. Breathe. Relax. Breathe. Relax.

(
It’s all under control
)

I leave the envelope carefully on the table. Right in the middle. Then I head towards the living room, and the gun hidden behind on the low shelf. I’m praying that Agnieszka hasn’t dusted behind it.
But then she’s never done it before.
I’m praying that Dominic hasn’t come back home and had a sudden craving for watching a series of
The West Wing
.

In the darkness of the living room I lie flat on the floor, lying on the prickly rug, and stretch my arm out. My fingers tickle the edge of something hard and cold that doesn’t feel like a DVD box set. I have it in my hand but I can’t get up. The blackness around me is shimmering. I need to get up, but I can’t. I need to get up.
The gun is so heavy.

I crawl up the wall, and hang on the wall light.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ hisses a voice in my ear, and I nearly scream, because I think the voice belongs to Dominic. It sounds like Dominic. But it’s just Niall.

I still have the gun in my hand. I pretend the gun is part of the wall light, which sounds ridiculous, but it’s very dark and he’s not looking at my hand. He’s glaring straight into my face. All I can see is the silhouette of bristles on his cheeks, oscillating as he works his jaw.

‘You said you’d just deliver the letter. You didn’t say you’d come in the fucking house!’

‘I’d forgotten something,’ I breathe, slow and steady.

‘You’d forgotten something?’

I have to keep control. ‘It’s all right. Dominic’s not here.’

In the darkness, I can see the shape of Niall’s head shaking. ‘We didn’t deactivate the alarm. It’s not beeping. If he’s not here why isn’t it on?’

I am thinking that myself.

I’m thinking: perhaps my tame policeman hasn’t caught up with Dominic yet.

But I just say: ‘We don’t always switch it on.’

‘Have you found what you’re looking for?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank God,’ he says, not bothering to ask what it was. He’s too angry. ‘Come on. We’re done here. We’re going now.’

And he leaves, expecting me to follow him, and I try, but I’m trying to hide the gun, and when I put it behind my back and try to tuck it into my knickers it unbalances me, and I collide with the frame of the kitchen door, jarring my whole body. I stagger, as I go into convulsions, and I sob as a fist closes over my body and

(
squeezes
)

very hard.

Instinctively, I sink down. As my knees hit the floor I already know I’ve made a mistake; the impact shudders through my body and I stifle a scream in my throat.

I can’t get up. The floor is rippling under my knees and I claw at it, clinging on to the tiles, pulling at the kitchen table leg like I’m hauling myself up a mountain.

I clamber under the table and crawl into a fetal position, hugging the gun, praying for the waves of agony to subside.

The pain is what saves me.

I can see feet running
towards
the back door, but they are not Niall’s feet. These have slippers on, slippers with smiling tiger faces. The tigers stop at the table, and I can hear someone above me, opening the envelope, reading the letter, and a stifled sob.

The tiger slippers move behind the stairwell, peering out from behind the umbrella stand, waiting to pounce on their unsuspecting prey.

I can’t speak. I have no voice as my mouth is a maw, a hole sprouting from something that is not a face, but a ruin of molten wax.

Niall’s realised I haven’t followed him. His trainers walk slowly into the kitchen, slowly around the table, and I think I should tug at his trousers, to warn him, but it’s too late.

The tigers attack.

The table shudders as Niall is shoved against it. A high-pitched ‘fuck’ escapes his lips.

‘WHERE IS SHE?’

Dominic’s voice.

‘I’m not… She… she’s not here.’

‘You stupid —! WHERE IS SHE!!’

The table shudders again.

‘Get off me.’

‘Oh you silly, stupid little…’

And then the tigers rock back on their paws. Niall has struck back, and he is strong, and in good shape. Another punch, and the table sags under a dead weight; Dominic is lying flat across it, his legs dangling, the tigers pushing their faces into my abdomen, as if trying to feed on my carcass.

He struggles to his feet but Niall is ready for him, and there is a ‘fahh’ sound, and then Dominic’s falling, and his eyes are staring right into mine.

Can he see me?
 

He looks so out of it from the punch it’s difficult to tell. His eyes are wide and sightless, just like when he’s sleeping.

Yes, he can see me.
A small thread of spittle slides out of his mouth and down to the floor, and his lips move apart, and his right hand twitches in my direction. He’s watching me under the table, me hugging his gun tightly to my breast, instead of a baby.

I touch his fingers with mine, I can’t help myself, but he is already floating away from me, his consciousness bobbing away like a balloon slipping from a toddler’s careless fingers.

His eyes close.

There is heavy breathing; Niall is staggering around, but I can’t reach him. I can barely move or speak.

The door does that scuffy-bang thing, and I can hear the crunch of gravel as his feet hit the tiny bit of garden by the back door, the muted
clump-clump
as they race over the flagstones down the path.

I wonder what he’s going to do when I don’t come out of the house.
Does he have the courage to come back for me?

I grab hold of the underside of the table and lever myself up, scrabbling on the edges. I’m on the edge of a cliff, and if I drop…

The car lights wash the kitchen with yellow, and I stagger to the door.

‘Monica!’

Niall is gunning the engine. He gets out of the car and pulls me inside, I’m shaking, shuddering, with the effort.
My clothes. I need to take my clothes off. They’re hurting me. Oh God.
When can I die? (
I want to die
)

In amongst the pain raging in my ears, I can hear another voice screaming my name.

‘Monica! Stop!’

My husband is screaming.

Niall says ‘fuck’ again, under his breath, and does a lightning three-point turn, crunching into the wall, and we roar away.

Dominic’s eyes opened and he saw blackness. Nothing but blackness. For one moment he thought he had gone blind. Then he thought he was in limbo, waiting for hell, but there was the red winking light of the fridge, which told him he was lying on the kitchen floor.

The letter was in his hand. She had gone. And she had taken that man with her.

He staggered to his feet with a groan.

After all that effort!
All that
lying!

He picked himself off the floor.

‘MONICA! STOP!’ he screamed. It was a scream of pure rage and helplessness.

He heard a car engine. One more chance. If they were still here, he could throw himself in front of the car. He could stop them.

Dominic ran, screaming, out of the house, only to see the rear of Monica’s car leaving the end of the street. As it turned into the road, the two little red brake lights glowed at him, like the eyes of something of purest evil.

He kept running, out of the gate and down the pavement. His eyes were filled with more light. So much light it hurt. Blue lights. Dark shapes emerged in front of them, blocking out the blue lights. The dark shapes were so dark, they were wearing luminous vests.

‘Dominic Wood?’ said a voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Can you come with us, please, sir? We’d just like to ask you some questions about an incident.’

‘No.’

‘Just an hour of your time, sir. It’s rather serious.’

‘I’m busy. Can’t you see I’m busy? My wife has left me.’

‘I’m sorry about that, sir, but this can’t wait…’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘Fine. Dominic Wood, I am arresting you for purchasing and possession of an illegal firearm. You do not have to say anything. However, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

We’re in a motorway restaurant. Niall has gone off to Boots to buy some plasters for his hand. He’s grazed his knuckles quite badly on Dominic’s face.

I’m propping myself on a stiff plastic-covered chair and trying to unpeel a triangle of plastic-covered food.

My phone scuttles away from me; butting the napkins off the edge of the table. I look at it – it’s reading ‘unknown’.

Should I answer it? It could be Dominic. Well so what? He can’t get me here.

I press answer and put it slowly to my ear. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, Monica. I thought you wouldn’t answer if my number came up, so I withheld it.’

‘Clever.’

‘I thought so.’

‘It’s good to hear from you, Geoff.’

‘You too. I just thought I’d tell you; your husband is in custody.’

‘Good. How long can you keep him there?’

‘For trying to buy a firearm? At least fifteen hours. Now if we can find where he put it we could have him in for twenty-four.’

My mind flips to the bag under my seat.

‘Don’t worry. Fifteen hours is long enough. My friend and I will be long gone.’

‘Monica… Please. Don’t go. This is not the answer.’

‘But this is what I want to do. This is my way.’

‘There’s nothing I can say, is there?’

‘Not really. How is he? How’s Dominic?’