The Woman Who Stole My Life (24 page)

Following Mannix’s directions, I drove south with the rest of the evening rush-hour traffic. At Ashford I turned off the main road, then off a smaller road, then down a long, long boreen, passing fields of rough marram grass. Light was lingering in the evening sky – spring was coming.

I could smell the sea and I crested a hill and suddenly there it was, heaving and swelling below me, pewter-coloured in the on-coming night.

Down to the left, all alone, was an old, single-storey farmhouse, lit with welcoming yellow lamps. That must be the place.

I drove through a gateway with dry-wall posts and up to a bright porch featuring some sun-bleached chairs and a couple of those eco-unfriendly heaters that everyone frowned on. (Although, to be honest, I never had any issue with them; I’d rather be warm.)

Mannix was in the yard, carrying an armload of logs.

He watched me as I parked and got out of the car.

‘Hi.’ He smiled.

‘Hi.’ I looked at him. Then I smiled too.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘It’s cold out here.’

Inside, everything was cosy in a rough-and-ready way. A fire was on the go in the grate, sending shadows jumping up the walls. Rugs were strewn across the wooden floor and two
big shabby chenille couches sat facing each other. Fat cushions and throws in faded colours were dotted about the room.

‘It’ll be warm soon,’ he said. ‘The place heats up quickly.’

He threw the logs into a box and walked under an archway, into the kitchen. On a long wooden table were two bottles of wine and an enormous bag from the Butler’s Pantry.

‘I got food,’ he said. ‘Dinner. I mean, I didn’t make it. I picked it up. We just need to put it in the oven. Red or white?’

I hesitated. I didn’t know how this was going to go. What if I decided to drive home? What if Betsy or Jeffrey needed me? ‘Red.’

You will be punished.

I took a seat at the table and a glass of wine was put in front of me.

‘I’ll just sort out the white.’ He produced a bag of ice cubes and, with a tremendous rattle, emptied it into a metal ice bucket. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with the ice? Why’s it so loud?’

Clearly he was as jumpy as me.

While he was jamming the bottle of white wine into the bucket I took the copy of
One Blink at a Time
out of my bag.

I waited until he had poured himself a glass of red and was seated opposite me.

‘So!’ I said, all business. ‘Tell me about this.’

‘Right!’ he said, equally businesslike. ‘I was just giving your own words back to you. In hospital, remember the conversations we had? When you blinked stuff and I wrote it down? Well, I kept the notebooks.’

‘Note
books
? Plural? How many?’

‘Seven.’

I found that astonishing. I’d never even noticed one
notebook filling up and being replaced by another. All I’d been concerned with, at the time, was making myself understood.

‘Why did you keep them?’

‘Because … I thought you were brave.’

Oh. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t been bred for praise.

‘You didn’t know how sick you were. You didn’t know that almost no one thought you’d recover.’

‘God.’ Maybe it was a good job I
hadn’t
known.

‘And after we started doing the Wisdom of the Day thing? You said a lot that was wise
.’

‘Ah, no, I didn’t,’ I said, automatically.

‘I used to read them, when I knew Georgie was never going to have a baby and that she and I weren’t going to make it, and they made me feel …’ He shrugged. ‘You know? They made the … sorrow, if that’s the right word, feel smaller.’

‘But why get them made into a book?’

‘Because … I wanted to.’

That was him in a nutshell: because he wanted to.

‘Roland put the idea in my head,’ he said. ‘After he came out of rehab, he wrote a book about his dissolute life. No one would publish it, so he contacted these people. Then he realized that it mightn’t be the best idea to put himself further into debt by publishing a book about owing a fortune. But it made me think about your stuff. It gave me something to focus on, choosing the paper and the script and all. I hoped I’d be able to give it to you sometime.’

‘Did you do it before or after you and Georgie had split up?’

‘… Before.’

‘That’s not good.’

‘It’s
not
good. Which is why it’s no surprise that Georgie and I are getting divorced.’

Okay. Next item of business. ‘Why didn’t you come after me?’ I asked. ‘The other night?’

‘Because I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I’d been asleep and I’d just woken up. I was trying to show that I’m cool with you having kids, and the next thing a shoe is being thrown at my head.’ He leaned towards me and said, with intensity, ‘I got it wrong. I called and explained. I was sorry. I rang you eight times.’

I nodded. He had.

‘Why didn’t
you
call
me
?’ he asked.

I was startled. ‘Are you kidding?’

‘No. I apologized. I held my hands up. There was nothing more I could do. So why didn’t you ring me?’

Why didn’t I ring him? ‘Because I have pride.’

‘A lot of it.’ He gave me a long, long look. ‘We’re very different, you and I.’

‘Is that going to be a problem?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

A cracking noise made us both jump. It was the ice in the ice bucket melting and it broke the tension.

‘Do you have a blindfold?’ I asked, suddenly.

‘For what?’

‘I’m here … we might as well have fun.’

‘What do you … Why a blindfold?’

‘I’ve never done it. I’ve never been tied up either.’

‘… Haven’t you?’ All kinds of emotions were moving behind his eyes – caution and curiosity. And interest. ‘Ever?’

‘Ryan was fairly … vanilla,’ I said.

Mannix laughed. ‘And you’re not?’

‘I don’t know. I never bothered to find out. And now I want to.’

He stood up and grasped my wrist. ‘Come on, then.’

‘What’s the rush?’ I grabbed my bag and he hurried me down a wooden-floored hallway.

‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that you’ll change your mind.’

He opened the door to a room and looked in, as if assessing it for its tying-up possibilities. I pushed the door further – it was a bedroom, which was lit by a dozen or so fat white candles. Flames flickered and reflected off the brass poles of the bed and the duvet was almost completely hidden by a thick layer of dark-red rose petals.

I didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered. ‘You fancied your chances.’

He looked like he was trying to come up with a plausible lie, then he shrugged and laughed. ‘Yeah. I did.’

Hungrily, we kissed, and he steered me across the room. I fumbled at his shirt buttons and managed to open three, then the bed hit the back of my knees and I tumbled onto the mattress, pulling him on top of me. Petals flew everywhere and the smell of roses filled the air.

He straddled my hips and slid his hands over my fitted shirt, inserting his finger in the gaps between buttons and rubbing until, one by one, they popped open. I was wearing a black front-opening bra and slowly, almost experimentally, he snapped the clasp and my boobs spilled out, looking pearly white in the candlelight.

‘God.’ He stopped in his tracks.

‘Okay?’ I could hardly breathe.

He nodded, his eyes gleaming. ‘Very okay.’

Quickly he undid the last two buttons of his shirt and threw it off. Then he whipped his belt through the loops of his jeans and pulled it taut between his two hands. He looked at me, as if he was trying to decide something.

Was he …?

‘You want to try?’ With lightning speed, he turned me
over, rolled up my skirt and flicked my bum with the tip of the belt. It hurt.

‘Stop! I’m vanilla, I’m vanilla!’ I was shrieking with excitement and glee, and he collapsed onto me, laughing his head off.

‘Okay, we won’t do that again.’ He pulled me to him, his eyes sparkling. ‘But you want to be tied up?’

‘No. Yes. I don’t know!’

‘Right.’ He positioned me in the centre of the bed, stretched my arms above my head, then wrapped his belt around my wrists and fastened it to a bar in the headboard. In the candlelight, he was a picture of concentration as he checked it was secure.

‘Should we have a “word”?’ I was suddenly anxious. ‘If I want to stop?’

That made him laugh once more.

‘Don’t mock me.’ I felt wounded.

‘I’m not. You’re … sweet. Okay. How about “No”?’ He quirked an eyebrow. ‘Or “Stop”?’

Uncertainly, I watched him.

‘Just say, “Stop, Mannix”,’ he said. ‘And I’ll stop.’

He started to fold his shirt.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I don’t have a blindfold handy,’ he said. ‘I’m improvising.’

He kept doubling the shirt over on itself until it was an impressively neat strip.

‘Okay?’ He held it above my face.

I swallowed. ‘Okay.’

He lay it across my eyes and fixed it in a knot, tight enough to generate a twinge of fear.

‘Can you breathe?’

I nodded. Instead of roses, all I could smell was him.

I felt his hands working, easing my skirt off, followed by my
knickers. A door creaked open – I guessed it was the wardrobe – then something cool and silky was slid and knotted around one ankle; I was fairly sure it was a tie. There was a tug that went all the way to my hip socket, then I couldn’t move my leg. The same happened on the other side and suddenly I was stretched and immobile. It was hardly a surprise, but yet it was. I gave an experimental pull on my hands and again felt that little thrill of fear. I’d asked for this and now I wasn’t sure.

The room was silent. I couldn’t hear him. Had he left? My anxiety went up a couple of notches. I could be abandoned in this remote house – no one knew I was here and …

Unexpectedly his weight pressed down on me and his breath was hot in my ear. ‘You will enjoy this,’ he whispered. ‘I promise you.’

Afterwards, Mannix removed the blindfold and untied me and my limbs fell heavily onto the petal-strewn bed. Stunned and floating in weightless bliss, I lay on my back and, for endless time, stared up at the ceiling, at the wooden beams …

‘Mannix?’ I eventually mumbled.

‘Mmmm?’

‘I read in a magazine about a swinging bed …’

He laughed softly. ‘A swinging bed?’

‘Mmmmm. It’s not for sleeping in, just for … you know?’

He rolled on top of me, so we were face to face. ‘For … you know?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re full of surprises.’

Languidly, I ran my hand along the taut muscles on the side of his body. ‘What do you do?’

‘“Do”?’

‘To exercise.’

‘Swim.’

‘Let me guess. First thing in the morning. Fast lane in the pool. No one gets in your way. Forty laps.’

He smiled, a little uncertainly. ‘Fifty. But people get in my way. I mean, I don’t mind if they do … And sometimes I go sailing.’

‘You have a boat?’

‘Rosa’s husband, Jean-Marc, he has a sloop. He lets me take her out. I love the water.’

I didn’t; I was afraid of it. ‘I can’t even swim.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. I never learned.’

‘I’ll teach you.’

‘I don’t want to learn.’

That made him laugh. ‘So what do you “do”?’

‘Zumba.’

‘Really?’

‘… Well, I did it a couple of times. It’s hard. Complicated steps. I don’t really “do” anything. So tell me things. Tell me about your nephews.’

‘I’ve four. Rosa’s boys are Philippe, who’ll be ten next month, and Claude, who’s eight. And Hero has Bruce and Doug, also ten and eight. They’re great fun. You know what boys are like – rough, uncomplicated …’

‘Not always.’ I was thinking of Jeffrey. ‘Oh God!’ It had suddenly struck me that I’d better call Betsy and Jeffrey. ‘What time is it?’

‘When? Now?’ Mannix stretched so he could see the old-fashioned ticking clock on the wooden bedside cabinet. ‘Ten past nine.’

‘Okay.’ I began to wriggle out from under him.

‘Are you leaving?’

‘Got to call my kids.’ I scooped my handbag up from the floor and into the bed.

‘I’ll give you some privacy.’

‘… You don’t have to.’

He froze, half in and half out.

‘If you promise to stay quiet.’

‘Of course.’ He seemed almost offended.

‘It would upset them if they knew I was calling from … with you.’

‘Stella … I know.’

I rummaged and found my phone. Jeffrey, as usual, didn’t pick up. But Betsy answered.

‘Everything okay, hun?’ I asked.

‘I kinda miss you, Mom.’

Score!
‘I’m always here for you, sweetie,’ I said, lightly. ‘So what did you have for dinner?’

‘Pizza.’

‘Great!’

Some shouting kicked off in the background. It sounded like it was Ryan.

‘Everything all right?’ I asked.

‘Dad says you’re to stop checking up on him. That he’s been a parent as long as you have.’

‘Sorry, it’s just –’

‘Laters.’ She hung up.

‘Okay?’ Mannix was watching me.

I handed him my phone and he dropped it into my bag, and I said, ‘Make me feel better.’

He looked into my eyes and took my hand. ‘My sweet Stella.’ He kissed my cracked knuckles with exquisite tenderness. Still holding eye contact, he moved his mouth up my arm and into the hollow of my elbow and I exhaled and let it happen.

I woke to the sound of the sea; the sun was starting to come up. Mannix was still sleeping so I slid out of bed and into the
pyjamas I’d brought, as if I’d been going to a Betsy-style sleepover.

I made tea, then wrapped myself in a blanket, got my copy of
One Blink at a Time
and went outside to the porch.

The day was cold but dry and I looked out to sea, past the marram grass and white sand, watching the sky fill with light. It was like living someone else’s life, perhaps a woman from a Nicholas Sparks film. Just to see what it felt like, I wrapped both my hands around the mug, something I would never normally do. It was pleasant enough, at least initially, but you couldn’t do it for too long, you’d burn your fingers.