Painkiller (32 page)

‘Hit me! Hit me, you bastard! Give me my pain back!’

He gives me a slap across the face, a half-hearted slap.

‘What kind of man are you? Hit me! Hit me, you little coward.’

He gives me a hefty knock on the chin, and I can taste blood in my mouth.

I turn my back on him.

‘Now push me down on the bed. Push me like you pushed me down those steps.’

He looks startled. ‘I… what? What steps? I don’t know what you…’

I turn with sudden energy and grip his wrists. ‘Come on, Niall. Do you think I didn’t know?’

‘I…’

‘You following me around in your little car? Waiting outside my house? Looking for your moment?’

‘You knew?’

‘I knew you were there. I was waiting for you.’

‘You were?’

‘Of course I was. Wasn’t it obvious? I was waiting for you to change my life. Why else would I stand there for you, all alone, on the edge? Think about it, Niall. Just think about it for a moment. Wasn’t it obvious?’

Tears are sprouting from Niall’s eyes. ‘I didn’t realise. Obvious… Of course it was… Obvious… You wanted me to do it. Oh God. I ran. I wasted years… I should have stayed…’

‘You should have stayed. But we’re together now.’ I turn again, back to him. ‘So go on and push me! Like a man! Push me down on the bed. Push me hard and make me helpless, like I was with the pain.’

Niall pushes me in the small of my back, just like he had done five years ago. I pitch forward and the mattress swallows me up.

‘Now do it quickly. Do it to me so quickly, like you’re a hungry wolf, and you can’t control yourself. Now! Quickly!’

He slides into me, deep and hard, and all of a sudden I’m screaming on the inside. My mind is raging with the pain, and it’s all I can do not to howl. There’s a strange man inside me; not Dominic. That’s not happened since… When? Since 1996?

Who was that with back then? I can’t remember anything.

‘Push me down. Tip me over the edge and let me fall. Make me helpless.’

‘YES!’ The wolf howls.

I can’t think of anything now but the pain, and the relief.

It takes mere seconds. Niall accelerates, groans, and rears up on his hindquarters, and I feel a warmth inside me. His head flops on my shoulder, the inkwell beckons, and I threaten to fall down the rabbit hole.

My dress has stayed on. My breasts, belly and abdomen are still hidden from him.

‘Shit,’ he says.

‘Now ask me if I’m all right,’ I say.

‘Are you all right?’

I say nothing.

‘Are you all right?’

‘No. Say it all together. Say: “Shit, are you all right?”’

‘Shit. Are you all right?’

‘It’s perfect,’ I say.

He falls off me, lands on the other side of bed, and it dips with his weight. I cling on to the mattress to stop myself rolling into him, and my thigh is damp.

‘Was that OK?’ he gasps, finally.

‘As I said. Perfect,’ I say. ‘Just perfect.’

‘So you didn’t mind me…’

‘How could I possibly mind?’ I nibble his fingers. ‘It can be our thing now. You can hurt me now. It can be our thing.’

‘Yes.’ His voice is tiny, like a child’s, full of wonderment. ‘It can be our thing.’

‘Why don’t you close the curtains? Give us a bit of privacy.’

‘Of course,’ he says brightly, and dances over to the window and stares, awestruck, out to the sea.

Dawn is coming up. One more dawn.

‘So many seagulls,’ he gasps. ‘I’m sure there are much more of them now, than when I was a kid… They’re much bigger too, I swear it.’

‘Niall, the curtains are still open! Show some modesty, for God’s sake.’

I throw a pillow playfully at him, and he catches it. He dances around, going up to the window with his crotch covered by the pillow. He does a mock wave to non-existent bystanders below, and with a huge effort I laugh through the pain.

‘Why don’t you take a shower?’ he says.

‘No thank you. I just want to lie here and relax.’

‘Do you mind if I take one?’

‘No of course not.’ He starts to the bathroom and I say, ‘Oh. Before you get in… We’ve no milk for tea. Can you slip on some clothes and grab us a pint from the shop?’

‘Sure thing.’ He puts his shirt on, extracts his jeans from the puddle of clothing on the floor, and slips those on too. He doesn’t bother with his socks or underpants. And then he’s at the door.

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Come here. A kiss before you go.’

Grinning, he trots back to the bed.

‘No problem,’ he smiles. And leans over, pushing his head next to mine.

This is when I go mad.

I fly at him, clawing and punching, grabbing at his face with my nails, channelling my pain into one furious onslaught.

He falls back, totally surprised. ‘What the fuck? Monica, calm down!’

But I won’t calm down. All my rage, all my fury, all the pain of the last five years bursts like a poisonous cyst and pours out of my face.

‘Bastard!’ I scream. ‘Bastard bastard bastard! You fucking bastard! You fucking, cunting bastard! You fucking fucking
fucking
bastard!’

We both fall onto the thin carpet, and my spine jars on the floor, sending white hot knives into my pelvis.

He’s on his back, his face already marked where my nails have drilled into his cheek. He is slapping my hands away from his face, trying to defend himself, but not too hard. He doesn’t know what’s going on. I know what’s going through his mind.

(
I’m the mind reader this time
)

Is she mad?
he’s thinking.
Have the endless years of neuropathic pain sent her mad? Has she suddenly had an attack of guilt about leaving Dominic, and this is how she’s dealing with it? Either way I’m in a hotel room with a screaming woman. I’ve got to calm things down or I’m in trouble.

I know what he’s going to do next, and I’m right. He grabs my wrists and rolls us both over so he’s on top. He pins my wrists to the floor and sits astride me. The edges of the hotel room shiver and ripple around me, and I feel like I’m being held underwater. I struggle and shriek until my voice sounds like a scratched record. ‘You did this to me! You did it! Bastard bastard bastard!’

He’s strong. God, he’s strong. He brings one knee forward to pin my right arm to the floor, freeing his left hand which he tries to clamp over my mouth.

‘Monica, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with you? Do you need anything? Do you need your drugs? Have you taken something?’

I go limp; he relaxes, just a bit, then I bring my knee up into his bollocks, and my teeth sink deep into his hand. He howls and lashes out, punching me. The pain of his fist against my nose is the deepest, warmest most glorious pain I’ve ever experienced.

Niall says ‘Jesus Christ’, and the weight of him on my body is gone. I fall back to the floor. He is scrabbling to his feet, but he stops, stunned, mouth open.

The gun is already in my hand.

Niall says ‘Jesus Christ’ again.

Niall stares stupidly at the gun. I’ve wrapped the barrel in one of his socks. It looks quite comical.

‘Jesus Christ,’ is all he’s managing to say.

The gun is so heavy; I can barely hold it. I scramble up into the chair and rest it on the arm. I am shaking so much and my teeth are chattering. I place both hands around the gun to keep it steady and keep it upright.

‘So you pushed me down the steps. I just wanted to make sure.’

The wolf is cornered, he looks right and left. Left and right.

He speaks at last. ‘Sorry… What? I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

‘I pushed you… where?’

‘Down those steps.’

‘What steps?’

‘Down the steps. The bloody steps! You know what I mean! The car park steps! You pushed me, and that is why I’ve spent the last five years in fucking agony!’

Finally he says: ‘None of this is true, Monica.’

‘What?’

He keeps his voice calm. ‘I don’t know what you just heard, but I didn’t say I pushed anybody. Is this something to do with your accident?’

‘Of course it is!’

‘Then I’m afraid… It’s the drugs, Monica, they’re making you think things. You’re creating a fictional world, which makes sense to you. You can’t cope with your husband betraying you, so you’re making me into the villain.’

The sock-covered handle of the gun feels slippery in my hand. Niall shimmers and blurs, as my eyes fill with water.

Is that true?
I think.
Is what he just said true? Did he not just admit he pushed me down the steps?

Did I just manufacture the last few minutes because I so want to find the person who pushed me?
 

Did I?
 

Because it’s so important to my plan, and because I so need it to be Niall, that I just made up his confession in my head?
 

‘I think you want someone to blame,’ he says. ‘And your subconscious mind seems to have settled on me.’

‘Nice try,’ I say at last. ‘You know the inside of my head is scrambled. It’s very tempting to exploit that.’

Niall still has a mock-puzzled look. ‘But this is the first I’ve heard about any car park steps. I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’re a very good actor, Niall. Of course you are. That’s what I saw in you. I’m good at spotting acting talent, and that’s why I took you on. But acting is just lying. Lies can be very effective for a short while, but you can only do one at a time. The problem is, when old lies pile up around your feet, it’s harder to add new ones.’

‘Listen, Monica, what I just said was true. We were just making love and you went
crazy.
Are you OK?’

I’m still imagining what’s in his head.
OK, no sudden moves
,
he’s probably thinking
. This can be saved. I can turn this around.

‘As I said, too many lies, and people stop believing you. You are the original little boy who cried wolf, you know that? For example, I know you’re not an osteopath.’ I giggle. ‘More like a psychopath. You’re just an actor who does a bit of personal training on the side. You don’t even work in that hotel. You hired a room, and you used the facilities as a paying guest, to feel me up. Clever of you.’

‘I wasn’t feeling you up. I just wanted to help you.’

Niall is slowly moving towards the bathroom. He’s trying to put the wall between us.

‘Stay where you are!’ I scream.

He stops. ‘I was just —’

‘Shut up and listen to me. How could I have been so stupid? I even saw you in adverts on daytime telly, jogging and cleaning a kitchen, and I thought it was my fantasies about you coming to life! Fuck!’

The gun is so heavy. So very heavy.
 

‘And there’s something else you’ve forgotten, Niall. Five years ago. You said, “Shit, are you all right?” right after you left me broken on those steps. That’s what you said. “Shit, are you all right?”’

‘I told you, I didn’t —’

‘My memory is like Swiss cheese, but I definitely remember you saying that, because it was so important to me, deep down. It’s stayed in my dreams. It’s lain there, sitting like a key to a box. And once I started picturing you on that roof behind me, I was struck by your voice, how familiar the voice was, how those words sounded like you saying them. Of course I could have been making a false connection in my overheated brain, so I got you to say those words, just now. And it was you. It was you on that car park roof, Niall.’

‘You’re mistaken.’

‘It was definitely you. I’m as certain of that fact as I am certain of anything.’

I wonder what’s in his head now. I can’t stop thinking about the cogs in his head.
Time to go into damage limitation mode
. That’s what he’s thinking.

There’s no way she’s not going to be persuaded that I didn’t push her. She’s not going to let me go. Even if I get out of here, she’s going to call the police.
 

I don’t want to talk to the police.
That’s what he’s thinking.

Time to talk her around. Time to adjust the truth again.
 

Sure enough…

‘OK, look,’ he says, his eyes tearing up. ‘I know I should have told you before. It was a stupid accident. I’m so sorry, but that’s all it was. I saw you on the roof, and I went to greet you. I put my hand on your shoulder and I startled you…’

He covers his eyes, as if to hide tears.

‘God, you don’t think I haven’t gone through that horrible moment a thousand times in my head? I mean, if only I’d
said something
to you before I put my hand on your shoulder, perhaps you wouldn’t have jumped so badly, but it happened, and when it happened, I got scared, and I ran. I’m not proud of myself, but I ran away like a coward. I felt so
bad
at what happened, Monica, you have to believe me. When I saw you in the gym, it was so providential. Just… a miracle, that you’d drawn yourself to me, just when I was in a position to help you.’

He runs his finger through his hair wearily. (
It’s a brilliant performance
)

‘Of
course
I told you I was an osteopath. You would hardly let me work on your body if I told you I was just some actor with a few basic massage skills, would you? And of course, I didn’t let on I was there, during your fall. I think that would have been an impossible conversation to have, don’t you?’

He smiles, (
the most genuine fake smile I’ve ever seen
)
.

‘So look, that’s the plain honest truth. I’m standing here asking for forgiveness. All I’m guilty of is trying to make amends, Monica. That’s all I was trying to do. I couldn’t undo what I’d done, so I was trying to atone, the best I can, for what had happened.’

‘So it was a miracle, was it?’ I say. ‘Us meeting up in the gym?’

‘I’m not a religious person,’ he says. ‘But it seems like a miracle to me.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t frame the question correctly. I’ll try again. So it was just a coincidence, was it? Us meeting up in the gym?’