His Other Lover (23 page)

L
ater that night, we’re trying to watch TV and not acknowledge the balloons in the corner of the room. I want to burst them and throw them away, but Pete thinks we should keep them in case they are needed as evidence. How did this slip so far out of my control and go so wrong?

The balloons are not the only thing setting us on edge. Since he hung up on Liz, his phone has rung almost continuously, until finally he switches it off, swearing under his breath, before staring blankly at the TV screen.

From the other sofa, I question how she has his number again, seeing as how he changed it. He, still clearly simmering with rage in the corner, says he was so angry when he called her earlier, he forgot to withhold his number. So that’s how. “Not what you think!” he says, flashing me a hot, don’t-go-accusing-me! look.

I apologize and say I wasn’t accusing him of anything and that I’m going to get a drink, does he want one? He shakes his head silently and then says, “Sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you.” I smile gratefully at him and walk out into the hall. My
smile slips as soon as I’m out of sight and I pause to sigh, leaning my head on the wall for a moment. This is hellish. What have I done? Maybe if I just sit tight and say nothing, it’ll just go away. There’s nothing more to come, nothing more I’ve planned. It can be over now. Really it can. After all, he does think she’s mad. I don’t think he is interested at all now—even if he was before.

I think I’m getting a headache. I can feel a dull throb starting to pulse at my temples and spread over my brow. I might just take a paracetamol and go to bed. It’ll all be better in the morning.

Since I’ve been in the sitting room it’s got dark outside, and I can’t see a thing in the hall without the light on. I’m fumbling around to find the switch when I happen to glance at the front door, the top half of which is frosted glass. There, framed in the eerie fluorescent orange glow from the street, is the distinct outline of a figure.

Someone is out there, just standing on the doorstep.

I freeze to the spot, completely unable to move or make a sound. I feel my chest constrict and my heart starts to thud. Then, as I watch in horror, the figure leans in slowly and silently presses its face up against the glass.

I can’t see distinct features, just the impression of a nose, an eye and some long tendrils of hair. The head moves a little jerkily as I stand there in the dark, paralyzed with fear. I’m trying to scream but no noise will come out. I’m just making this hoarse, breathy rasp, too low to hear. “Pete!” I’m breathing frantically. “Pete!”

It’s horrific, like all of my worst nightmares where I’m trying to run away from something that I know is going to hurt me. I’m trying to sprint, but inexplicably it feels like I’m wading through thick gel that is clinging to my legs.

The head twists back slowly and then the figure begins to sink down, crouching low, like an animal poised to spring. It just waits there for a moment, and then noiselessly, the letter box begins to hinge open and I see fingertips creep in round the edges. Still I find myself unable to make a sound. Then, as the fingers hold it open, I see eyes appear. Wide, mad, staring eyes; violent red rims. They roam quickly around, taking everything in—and then they alight on me. They stare at me for a moment and I stare back. Then, thank God, from somewhere I find some sound and just shriek, “Pete!”

As the sound of my voice cuts through the silence, the fingers shoot back and the letter box clatters shut. The figure draws away, and when Pete dashes into the hall to find me shaking and incoherent, pointing at the door, there is nothing for him to see.

Once he manages to get it out of me, he flings the door open and dashes out into the street, but there is nothing, and no one there. Just a deathly silence punctuated by the distant, mournful wail of a cat as a cold, damp rush of night air surges past me into the house.

Once he has come back in, hugged me, and assured me that it was probably just kids messing around, although he doesn’t sound convinced himself, I calm down a little. He says he’ll make me a cup of tea, but I send him back into the sitting room, assuring him that I’ll be okay, I can do it. He kisses the top of my head—and after a worried look at me, he wanders back into the living room.

In the downstairs loo I take some deep breaths. After all, what
do
I have to be frightened of?
I’ve
done everything that he thinks is Liz. It probably was kids. Feeling a little better, I creep nervously into the kitchen. It’s started to rain outside and I
glance at the window as I pick up the kettle and wander over to the sink to fill it up.

Big fat raindrops slide down the glass. I can’t see out into the dark garden, I can just see my reflection staring back at me. It’s foul out there, so cold and miserable. Maybe a holiday would do me and Pete good. Help us put everything behind us? Somewhere hot. I need to feel some sun on my face. I turn to sit the full kettle on its base and grab a cup to wash up. As I rinse it off, I glance back up, out of the window again, and then let out a full scream as I jump and the cup slips out of my hands and shatters on the lino, because there, staring straight at me, on the other side of the glass, her hair plastered to her head and makeup starting to run down her face, is Liz.

The scream makes Gloria start barking in the living room and she comes dashing through, claws scrabbling on the floor. There are broken chips of china everywhere and I am suddenly aware of not wanting her to shred her paws. Liz just continues to stare at me, unmoved by Gloria barking and growling. Pete comes bursting into the room, saying, “What’s happened? What’s…fucking hell!”

He sees Liz and stops dead in his tracks, staring at her. She’s not looking at me now—she’s just gazing at him, and then she comes to life. She starts to bang on the window, bag in one hand, shouting. It’s muffled, through-glass shouting. She presses up against the window and I can make out most of what she’s saying:

“…can’t be like this, Peter! Please don’t do this! Look! Come and…see what I’ve got!” She points at the bag. “It’s hers! Her!” and she points at me and I look at it and realize it
is
my bag—the one I left in her wardrobe. I’d planned to call the police and use the bag being there as evidence that it was
her
that had done the break-in. OH SHIT—there
was
something I forgot about.

“…got to believe me!” she’s shouting, scraping nails desperately down the glass. “It’s her!” She points at me. “Got to be her!”

Pete is moving to the door and unlocking it.

“Don’t, Pete!” I shout, alarmed. “She might have a knife or something!” I think at this point I’m so caught up in everything I actually believe she might.

But Pete ignores me and flings the door open. She’s through it in a second, flooding the kitchen, my kitchen, and imploring him, “Peter, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I’m doing this, but I don’t know what else to do! You’ve got to believe me! I haven’t done anything! I love you! You know I do!”

“Shut up!” he says harshly and grabs her tightly by the wrist. She yelps and he starts to drag her through the kitchen and out into the hall. She’s sobbing now, pleading, “Please don’t do this!…Ow! Peter—let go, you’re hurting me!” I follow them, horrified. I never meant for this to happen. Did I?

He’s dragging her so roughly and quickly, she stumbles over my shoes in the hall and falls to her knees. He holds her arm up like she’s a child that has fallen over on purpose and gone limp, and says, “Get up, Liz, get up!”

It’s hard to see what are tears and what is rain on her face. She is completely soaked through, with mascara streaks coursing down her cheeks. “Please don’t, Peter,” she bleats desolately. “What do I have to do to make you believe me?”

Pete flings open the front door and tries to force her through it.

“No!” she shrieks. “This isn’t fair! You said you loved me! You said it! It’s not me doing this, Peter—I promise you!”

“Liz, you need help!” he shouts at her. “Please—just get out. Leave us alone!”

“You promised me!” she continues, trying frantically to cling to the door frame. “I want you, Peter, I can’t be without you!”

He wraps his arms around her tiny waist and lifts her up, pulling her away violently. Her fingers grab at the frame but slip off and she collapses on to him, flinging her arms round his neck and sobbing, “I love you, and I swear it isn’t me!”

He sets her down and tries to pull her arms from him. “No! Please, no!” she shouts. Curtains are starting to twitch now next door and across the road.

He pushes her away from him and she stumbles slightly, swaying like she’s drunk. Then she sinks to the ground and begins to cry as though her heart will break. “You said you loved me!” is all she says. “You said it would be
us.
” She wraps her arms around herself as if she’s literally trying to hold herself together.

I glance at Pete, just in time to see a look of utter pain pass over his face as he hears her words. He looks for a moment like he is about to speak, but then chooses not to. I’m rushed in my mind back to our bedroom, after we made love and I asked him if there was anything he wanted to tell me, and he hesitated.

“We were fine until all this started happening!” she bleats inconsolably, looking up at him. “I never asked you to leave her! I said I’d wait! Why would I do this? You’d still be with me if this wasn’t happening. You know you would! Don’t you love me at all?” she pleads.

“No, I don’t love you!” He laughs incredulously and she cries out, as if he’s hit her or something. His voice is a little unsteady for a second, as if he is choking something back. “How
could I love someone who could do all this?” he says in disbelief. “You’re mad!”

He takes a breath, tries to calm himself, lifts his head and eyeballs her.

“I don’t love you. And I never did,” he finishes simply. “Go home, Liz.”

She slumps, defeated, and begins to cry racking, heaving sobs like a wounded animal.

He winces at the sound but nonetheless he turns to me. “Come on. We’re going inside. Just leave her,” he says.

But now I’m fixed to the spot, looking at her—this woman that I have hated. She’s not the one I have obsessed about, the one in the cute hat who flicks her hair confidently and struts down the street. Not the one who looks out into the audience and flutters stuck-on eyelashes, not the one who smiles kittenishly out of the pages of the program, and certainly not the one I imagined wrapped around my boyfriend in bed.

She looks broken, she looks wrecked. Just like I have done this week.

Pete draws me gently back toward the house and she looks at me for the first time. “What has she got that I haven’t?” she whimpers to Pete, gesturing at me. “I’ll do anything, anything!” The humiliating desperation in her voice cuts through me like a knife. “I found her bag—she put it there. Oh God!” she sobs, sinking her head into her hands.

Then a car screeches up, a door slams and there is a clatter of heels. My heart stops as I see Debs come running up the drive. “Shit, Liz! I told you not to do this! I told you!” She dashes up to Liz and tries to pull her to her feet. “Are you happy now, you bastard?” she spits at Pete. “Look what you’ve done to her! Your boyfriend is a lying shit!” She spins round to face me.
“Whatever he’s said to you, he’s lying! You…” The words die on her lips as she recognizes me.

“Lotts?” she says, confused. “What are you doing here?”

She pauses, then it dawns on her. She is not as stupid as I thought.

“Oh my God! Liz, she’s the girl that came to the flat. The one that was going to take the room!”

Liz is peering at me curiously, as if she’s only just noticed I’m there.

“That’s how your stuff got here. You were right! It wasn’t you!” Debs says triumphantly.

There is a pause, and then Liz says slowly, “She came to our flat?”

“Yes she did,” says Debs quickly. “She said she was Marc’s mate. She’s been in your room and everything!”

I say nothing, but my heart starts to pound. Oh no, oh no, oh no…

Then Liz gets it. “Oh my God. How could you?” She pushes her hair back and scrabbles to her feet, and I see a flash of hope spark in her. She turns to Pete. “She lied to you, Peter.
She
lied. Not me! See, this is her bag!” She holds it up eagerly. “She left it in the back of my wardrobe. She
planted
it there on purpose! How else would I have it? See, that proves it!”

Still I say nothing, I just stand there.

But Pete shakes his head. “Listen to yourself! You’re both as mental as each other! Of course you’ve got her bag! You nicked it when you trashed our house! I know you know how much it’s worth—what were you going to do? Flog it on eBay or something?” He looks at them both and shakes his head. “How many times do I have to say it? LEAVE US ALONE!” he shouts. “She’s never been near your flat! Have you?” He doesn’t look at
me, just waits for me to back him up. Liz stares right at me. She is silently begging me to tell the truth while at the same time hating me every bit as much as I hated her.

Still Pete waits, and when I say nothing, he swings round and looks at me. “You haven’t been there…have you?”

He doesn’t sound as sure as a second ago.

I take a deep breath. Everyone waits for me to speak. I look at Debs, her arms wrapped protectively round her friend, obvious loathing on her face; then I turn to Liz. She knows the truth, knows what I’ve done, and meets my eye unfalteringly; this is her last chance for everything to be all right after all.

I stare stonily back at her. “No, I haven’t,” I say firmly “And I’ve never seen this woman before in my life.” I nod toward Debs. “Come on, Pete. Let’s go in.” I take his arm. Liz reaches a hand out to him and insists desperately, “She’s lying, she’s lying! You know I love you, you know it!”

I tighten my grip and start to draw him back toward our house. Her fingers try to grasp his shirtsleeve, but I’m too quick for her, pulling him back sharply so she grabs only air. He’s just watching her bleakly. I push him past me into the house, then, wedging myself between him and Liz, I pause and turn back to her and Debs.