A Wayward Game (29 page)

“What about
your marriage?”

“I’ve had a few
eventful days of my own, Katherine,” he says. “On Thursday evening,
while you were driving back from your first little trip to Essex, I
was talking to my wife. We’ve agreed to divorce.”

I see a
momentary flare of sorrow in Neil’s eyes, and believe I understand.
It can’t have been an easy decision. They did love each other once,
and if that love slowly died it is hardly their fault. How does it
feel, to follow a road for so many years, only to come to a dead
end?

And then I
remember his call to me on Thursday evening.

“Oh God,” I say
dully. “You called me because you wanted to talk about it.”

“I wanted to
hear your voice, see you perhaps.”

“And I brushed
you off.”

“I was a bit
taken aback. But, of course, I had no idea what you were up to.” He
smiles, and takes my hand. “Anyway, I won’t be a married man or
much longer. So if you want me, I’m available.”

“Of course I
want you,” I say, and squeeze his hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever
wanted anyone so much in my life.”

“It won’t be
easy, you know. I get the feeling that you and I just aren’t very
good at making our relationships work. We’ll have to deal with each
other’s baggage, as well as our own. But we can try. We’ll see if
we can make it work. Frankly, given what you’ve been getting up to
lately, I think you need someone to keep an eye on you.”

“You’re
probably right,” I say, and smile. “You know, that little flat of
yours doesn’t sound very comfortable. I know it’s early days, and
you don’t want to make any big commitments, but perhaps you could
spend a little more time at my place. I’ve got more space, after
all, and it’s more convenient for your work. Just a couple of
nights a week, maybe, and then – well, we’ll see how it goes.”

“I’d like
that.” He leans over and kisses me. “I might as well make myself
useful while you’re in here. Can I do anything around the place?
Get some shopping in, do some cleaning?”

“No, nothing
like that. The keys are in my bag, though, and if you take them you
can go there as often as you like. It looks like I’ll be stuck in
here for a couple of days yet, so one of us might as well make use
of the place. And make yourself at home. Come and go as you please,
do whatever you want to do.”

“It’s not like
you to be so compliant. What’s got into you?”

“Things have
changed, Neil.”

“Not
everything, surely,” he says, and there’s a wicked light in his
eyes. I laugh.

“No, not quite
everything.”

“Good. That’s
one thing we’ve always done very well, and I’d like it to continue.
That’s if we trust each other.”

“I trust you.”
I squeeze his fingers, hard. “We haven’t always been honest with
each other. We’ve played all kinds of silly games and hurt each
other. But from now on, we’re going to be playing by different
rules, and we’re going to stick to them. Is that understood?”

Neil laughs,
and squeezes my hand in return.

“Yes,
Mistress,” he says.

We’ll never
know exactly what happened to Diane. Without a body, we can’t even
say for certain that she’s dead. This is one of those cases in
which there’ll never be justice, at least in the usual sense of the
word. Diane’s disappearance remains unexplained, and Sallow never
stood in a court of law. Legally, he is innocent. The legal truth
and the actual truth, as Neil is fond of saying, are often two
different things; only in fortunate cases do they coincide.

Sometimes,
then, I dream up little scenarios in which Diane ran away from a
life that was becoming unbearable, and instead created her own
life. I imagine her living in a quiet part of the country, finally
cured of her ambition, and bringing up her child in peace. That
child would be eight by now, and sometimes I try to visualise it –
boy or girl? Headstrong, or placid? Academic or sporty? I can drift
for hours in these comforting fantasies, conjuring up a happy
afterlife for Diane, in which all worked out well and everything –
eventually – made sense.

They are just
dreams, of course. I know, deep down, that Diane would never have
walked away without a passport or money, without even telling her
own mother. And the fact that Sallow tried to kill me lays any
remaining doubts to rest. I suppose that Diane must lie in some
quiet part of the country, in an unmarked grave, in a sleep so
profound that there are no dreams, good or bad. And eventually all
our dreams of her will come to an end too, and we will all be
forgotten, and absolute peace will be restored.

For now,
though, the darkness lingers. Two months after Sallow tried to kill
me, I still suffer from nightmares about Tidesend. I imagine my
body drifting in the estuary, being washed out towards the North
Sea and oblivion. At least, though, I don’t have to face these
horrors alone anymore. Neil is often beside me now, and when I wake
up sobbing and sweating he comforts me. It is soothing, I find, to
rely on another person, to accept their care. To submit, if you
will. Dominance, submission: we all carry those two tendencies
within. If we express them in harmless ways, there shouldn’t be a
problem. The danger comes, perhaps, when we attempt to dominate
another person in earnest, or when we submit in anything other than
fantasy. Sallow and Diane found that out the hard way.

Frieda is in
prison, of course. Just as the justice system and public opinion
are generally sympathetic toward her, so too are the prison staff
and the other inmates. She is treated well and, given the
circumstances, will hopefully be freed before too many years have
passed. Then, I hope, she’ll be able to live out the rest of her
life in peace – or such peace, at least, as she can reasonably hope
to find.

I go to visit
her when I can. The prison is out in the countryside, surrounded by
woods and farmland; driving there, you can almost imagine that
you’re going on a picnic or day trip to a castle or country park.
That illusion is shattered, of course, when you drive up to the
grim periphery wall, with its constantly-guarded, mechanical gates,
and see the large rectangular building and barred windows beyond.
Venturing inside, you are accompanied by a chorus of jangling keys
and opening and closing doors. But the prison is far from being the
worst of its kind. Cells are clean and modern. Prisoners have
access to a library, paid work, training schemes and education. The
focus seems to be on rehabilitation rather than revenge.

“It’s not too
bad,” Frieda tells me one day, sitting across the table from me in
the visitors’ room. “I have a cell to myself, and everything I
need. The other women are pretty good, on the whole. I wouldn’t say
I liked it, but it’s
bearable
.”

“I wish you
weren’t here, Frieda,” I say, holding her hand across the
table.

“So do I. But I
don’t regret what I did, not for a moment.” She shakes her head,
sadly. “People say you shouldn’t take the law into your own hands,
but what happens when the law can’t help you? What choice do you
have? What choice did
I
have? To watch him living in that
penthouse of his, earning more money in a year than most people
ever see in their lives, snorting coke and partying with his rich
friends, while my Diane lay somewhere out in the cold, all alone,
without justice? So I killed him, and I don’t regret it.”

“Hardly anyone
blames you. Personally, I think they should just let you go
free.”

“Ah, well. It
can’t make that much difference, you know.” Frieda glances around
with calm, uncomplaining eyes. “I’ve been in prison since the day
Sallow took my girl away from me. I’ll always be in that prison,
and it’s a life sentence. No release, no parole.”

“You can’t live
like that.”

“I don’t have a
choice. My life was over years ago.” Frieda sighs and pats my hand
in an almost maternal way. “You, though, Katherine – you’ve got to
move on, girl. The whole world’s out there waiting for you. If
Diane loved you, then you’re someone special, and you deserve
everything that life’s got to offer.”

“Oh, I don’t
know about that.”

“I do. And
Diane’d want me to tell you so, too. You’ve got so much life in
you, and so much love. So go out there and put them to the best use
you can. Live and love and be happy, the best way you know how,
every day of your life. And then you’ll honour Diane’s memory.”

Later, after
I’ve left the prison and am walking back to my car, I remember
Frieda’s words. I stand on the edge of the car park for a while,
looking out over the quiet, wintry countryside. Miles of bare
fields and thick woods stretch out before me, punctured by church
spires and threaded with silver rivers, and I feel my soul
soar.

Frieda said
she’d been in prison since Diane vanished. There’s a sense in which
I have been a prisoner, too. I’ve been trapped by my own past and
my own memories, and by my bitterness and suspicion. I’ve been held
by bars and locks that I couldn’t even see. Now, I feel free. My
life stands in front of me like the quiet countryside:
incalculable, unknown, but there to be explored and experienced to
the full. I smile, get into the car, and begin my journey back to
London, and Neil.

THE END

Pandora Witzmann was
born in London, and is of English, Austrian, Dutch, Portuguese and
Jewish descent. She has lived in New York, Amsterdam and Rome, and
has degrees in Philosophy and Psychology. She currently lives in
West London. She may be contacted at
[email protected]
.

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A
Wayward Game
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Table of Contents

Start

Chapter
One

Chapter
Two

Chapter
Three

Chapter
Four

Chapter
Five

Chapter
Six

Chapter
Seven

Chapter
Eight

Chapter
Nine

Chapter
Ten

Chapter
Eleven

About the
Author