Painkiller (28 page)

‘I’ve not been in to see him yet. The arresting officer said he was upset. Angry. But a bit defeated… Well no. Resigned. Yeah, that’s the word he used. Resigned.’

I don’t say anything more. I just ring off.

Niall stood in the doorway of Boots, between the sunglasses rack and the umbrella display.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Monica was eating a sandwich and talking on the phone to that friend of hers in France. He wondered how she would react when he said he was coming with her. No, he
knew
how she would react. She would throw her arms around him and burst into tears with relief.

He wondered how he would do it. He had his passport ready, in his pocket, and he could wave it in her face, and she could make the connection. He would love to see the expressions cross her face: confusion, puzzlement, and then, finally, joy.

He still felt whiplash from the events of the last three hours. The next stage had been reached with staggering speed. Monica’s husband had forfeited his place by her side, and she had come to him
to him
!
To him!
to take her away to safety. And he was replacing Monica’s husband, and he was rescuing her and he was doing it all.

For her.
 

To be honest, he felt slightly exhilarated that he had left Monica’s husband a broken mess on the kitchen floor. It was good that the last she had seen of him was a screaming, incoherent, rage-filled apparition in the rear-view mirror. It was symbolic somehow, and symbols take on a weight in people’s lives. He was sure Monica had seen their flight from her home as an important moment.

He was more and more convinced that pushing her down those steps was the right thing to do, for all concerned. A woman like Monica needed a push, sometimes, to get her life back on track. After all, if it hadn’t happened, her husband wouldn’t have shown himself for the weak, self-interested man he was.

A Monica without pain would have endured such a man, and their lives would have bled into the sand inside some sham of a marriage. But the Monica
he
had made, the stronger, wiser Monica, had turned her back on that man.

He thought about the letter Monica had written, and left on the table. He wondered if he should sit down here and write a letter to his son, and explain what he was doing and why he had to go.

He decided against it. Peter was too young to understand, and Lorraine would just tear up the envelope. Perhaps he would send a message in about twenty years, and Peter would come and visit him and Monica in their French villa and eat pastries and drink wine, and he would understand.

Everyone understands in the end, it’s all just a matter of time.
Time is a great healer
, they’d say.
Just ask Niall and Monica. They understand.

He had to remind himself sometimes. It was down to him, after all. He didn’t mean to push her down those car park steps, it was just a surge of desperation when he saw her there, alone on the roof. He had to save her from herself.

It was
for her.

From the moment Niall met Monica he loved her, deeply and unreservedly. Seven years ago he was just an amateur actor, doing little plays with his mates, doing them for the crack more than anything. From the split second he took that curtain call in that tiny pub theatre in Little Venice and peered out into the gloom, and saw that mysterious woman on the front table, with her legs, the coat, the gloves, the lipstick, he loved her.

He sensed, no, he
knew
that the woman would be waiting in the bar downstairs to buy him a drink, to tell him how good he was. She pulled off her gloves, put her naked hand on his and a ripple of excitement surged through his body. She put him on her client list and she got him auditions for parts (apparently the industry called them ‘interviews’ now, which didn’t sound as exciting) for bad telly, cheap adverts, and he got all the roles he went up for. He got them all.

It was
for her
.

It was part of the arrangement; he would do those things and she would be happy with him and he and Monica would eventually end up together. That was the arrangement. Of course it was never said out loud, but it was
there
; you just had to watch for the signs. He recognised all the clues.

For her.
 

She’d tell him to shave, put on a tie and suit so he could be ‘fat yobbo at nightclub’, and he’d gladly do it. She’d tell him to grow a three-day stubble so he could sell drugs to little girls in
EastEnders
and he’d do it in a heartbeat. He even did
Heartbeat
in a heartbeat. He was a great evil poacher. He looked very sinister.

For her.
 

One day, she rang and asked him to come to central London
. Joy!
She took him for lunch in a little Italian next door to the Soho Theatre in Dean Street, with grapes painted on the walls and bottles on the tables wearing little grass skirts.

She said it was about time to talk about the next stage. That was what he had been waiting for. The next stage of the arrangement. She ordered the food, and talked ambition, about bigger parts, bigger roles, perhaps theatre?
Educating Rita
was just getting under way for a regional tour. Perhaps he could try for Rita’s slobby husband?

It didn’t feel like the next stage. It sounded almost as if she was sending him away. He was confused. Then, when she was halfway through her mozzarella salad, she got a call. Her husband had forgotten his keys and was wondering how he could get back inside the house.

She erupted with rage, bringing the tiny restaurant to silence. She said he had interrupted a vital meeting with an important client. She meant him! He,
Niall Stewart
, was the
important
client! She said he was more
important
than her own husband. That was the first sign.

She said it was his own stupid fucking fault that he was locked out, and she wasn’t in any fucking position to do anything about it. Perhaps he should try and get in round the back? Only he could hardly do that, could he? If he got off his fat flabby arse and went to the gym sometimes, perhaps he would fit in the bathroom window, but there was no chance in his current condition. He’d have to go to a coffee shop and wait until she got home, and she wasn’t going to be home early. Next time, put a spare key in the lamp, or somewhere? Just try and
think
, Dominic, why don’t you?

That was the second sign.
She despised her husband because he was overweight!
She only liked trim, toned men. Niall looked down at his own belly, making his T-shirt ooze over the belt of his jeans. When the menus came round again, he skipped dessert, even though he had a hungry eye on the profiteroles.

He went to the gym the following day. Over the next twelve, tortured, sweat-stained weeks, he brought his weight down, tightened his gut, and started to develop muscle tone.

For her.
 

The interviews kept coming in, but he didn’t get as many roles. And then he got no roles. He wasn’t looking right any more. Not a ‘type’. She kept putting him up for ‘angry slob’ roles, but the ‘angry slob’ roles went to actors who looked angrier and slobbier. He didn’t mind, because that wasn’t important. It was the next stage of their arrangement.

For her.
 

Then he got the phone call. She was slimming down the agency, because of personal reasons. Keeping things lean. He approved of her logic. He knew she liked things trim. After all, that’s what he was working towards, wasn’t he? To become what she wanted, so they could be together.

And then she continued talking. Things hadn’t been working out as she’d hoped. She felt she could no longer represent him in a way that he deserved. These things happen. He shouldn’t take it personally. Perhaps he could try someone else? She had a list of other agents she was sure would be a great fit for him. She wished him well in his future career. She was sure he was going to be very big.

It wasn’t until a good minute after the phone call had been terminated that he realised he had been let go. She didn’t want to be with him any more. She had ended the arrangement.

None of it made sense!
He’d done all she’d asked for.
It didn’t make sense!
He had to know what was going on.

Niall had an actor friend who was still on Monica’s books, one of the lucky ones she’d kept on. She showed him the email she got from Monica the same day that he was let go.

He was consumed by rage and confusion. He had been
betrayed
! After all his work! After everything he had done! She turned her back on him and decided to have a baby? With her
husband
, of all people?
None of it made any sense!
Then he forced himself to calm down. There had to be a rational explanation for this. Perhaps her husband had trapped her into having the baby? Perhaps he wanted her to look fat? Perhaps she had got pregnant by accident and her husband was forcing her to go through with it?

He had to know.

For her.
 

He spent his days finding out what had gone wrong. He followed her home in his car and found out where she lived. He watched her go to the hospital in Kensington, with her husband. Like he was escorting her. Like her husband was making sure that she would have the baby. Making sure she wouldn’t run away.

He waited outside their house for days. Her husband was there all the time, it seemed. There was no chance to talk to her on her own. He got more and more agitated as the days passed, knowing there was a ticking time bomb inside her, ready to explode. On the ninth day, when Monica and hubby left together in their car, he just turned his ignition and followed them, without knowing what he was doing.

He knew where they were going. If they left together, Niall knew for certain. Sure enough, they went to the hospital. He followed them all the way in to the car park. He needed a chance to talk to her. He needed to do something.

For her.
 

He went up and up the multi-storey, round and round, round and round. Searching. At the top he saw her car, and parked his car next to it. And he waited.

For her.
 

Maybe it was the altitude. Maybe it was the round-and-round driving up the multi-storey; perhaps it made him dizzy. But when he saw her, alone, looking out onto the London skyline, coat fluttering in the wind, he didn’t know what to say. Guys never know what to say. They would do everything they could to avoid words and, to be honest, after all the waiting and agonising… he didn’t have a single coherent word in his head.

He didn’t have a plan, and when people didn’t have plans, they did things that they never really planned to do at the time.

It seemed to make sense in the moment. It seemed the obvious way to get rid of the baby. In his head, it sounded like the only way to free her.

So he went

…
for her.
 

It all happened in complete silence.
She didn’t even scream!
He guessed she was as surprised as him. She was on her back, lying in an ugly unnatural way, one leg touching the bottom step and the other leg tucked up awkwardly under her body, like a rag doll dropped from a pram. Her white coat was splayed out around her, and at that moment he thought she looked like an angel, dropped by a careless god from heaven.

‘Shit. Are you all right?’ Someone was saying those words. By a process of elimination it was probably him.

His arm – the one he’d used to push her down the steps – was still outstretched, rigid, straight out in front of him. His arm seemed to want to go and help her up, but his body didn’t want to follow. His mind said:
There are lots of very good reasons why you should not help her. I can’t think of them at this very second, but trust me on this; there will be. Important reasons.

He moved, stiffly, awkwardly, back to his car, and sat there in the driver’s seat. His mind told him not to move.
They’ll check the CCTV
his mind told him.
There might not be cameras up here, but I’ll be willing to bet there are some at the entrance.

They’ll watch for cars leaving at the time of the incident! They’ll watch for cars leaving in a hurry!
 

He hunkered down in the back seat, threw a blanket over himself, and listened to the noises, the shouts of alarm, the heavy grinding on the gravel as an ambulance struggled up the multi-storey ramp. He waited for a long time until all the noises went away. Then he waited even longer, until it got dark. Then he drove away. There were no police around.

In the days that followed he cowered in his flat, terrified, waiting for a knock on the door, waiting for the police to come and stare at him and ask him loads of questions that he didn’t have a hope of answering. He eventually had the courage to emerge, and drove past Monica’s house but the curtains were closed and the house was dark. He checked the website of Manic Dynamic and found that Monica’s contact email had been removed. There was just the email of her new assistant.