Into the Darkest Corner (17 page)
Sylvia’s party was at the Spread Eagle, a favorite pub that had been the scene of many great nights out over the years. Sylvia had had an on-off relationship with the manager, more off than on, but they’d managed to stay friends in between arguments.
We got a cab to the Spread Eagle, and Lee was in a foul mood.
“Look, we don’t have to stay long if you don’t like it. Seriously. Just an hour or two, okay?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
If it hadn’t been for the fact that he looked so good, I might just have told him to fuck off. I couldn’t decide if he looked best suited up, shaved and smelling divine, or if I preferred him in jeans and in need of a wash. He was halfway between the two extremes tonight, jeans and a navy blue shirt that made his eyes look brighter and bluer than ever, and—at least—clean. And as we headed for the door, bracing ourselves against the racket that was emanating from within, he took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
It was all because of that stupid dress.
When he emerged from the shower, toweled dry and boldly naked, strolling into my bedroom with that swagger of confidence that only a man with his sort of physique could pull off, I was wriggling into my black velvet dress.
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
He slipped his hands around my waist, pressing the length of his body against me.
“Clearly,” I said, amused.
“Why not the red one?”
“Because we’re only going to the Spread Eagle. It’s a pub. And not a very posh one, either. I can’t wear a red satin dress, I’d look seriously overdone.”
He looked into the open wardrobe, then, and took the red satin dress from its hanger, a bright shiny jewel among all the blacks and purples. I thought for a moment he was going to throw it across to me, but instead he sat on the bed, undoing the buttons at the back of it, one by one.
“Lee?”
It was as if he’d forgotten I was there. He stood up beside me and buried his face into my neck, running his tongue along my skin, breathing into my ear and making all the hairs on my whole body stand up on end. “Wear the red one,” he said softly.
“Lee, I can’t. Really. What’s wrong with this one?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. But you look good in red.”
“I look all right in black, too,” I said, contemplating our reflection in the mirrored wardrobe door. “Don’t I?”
He ran a hand up the top of my leg, around to the front, making me melt. Then the other hand pulling up my dress—and before I realized it, he’d pulled me over to the bed and pulled my dress back up over my head. I fell backward onto the duvet, laughing, as he blew raspberries on my bare stomach and wrestled me out of the sleeves.
I let him undress me. I let him devote all his attention to my body for another half hour, then, when he’d dressed and gone downstairs, I put the black dress on again and was ready just as the cab arrived outside. He didn’t speak to me all the way to the pub.
When I opened my eyes on Christmas morning, the sun was shining in through the window, onto my face, making me think it was summer. I could hear Stuart in the kitchen, rattling pans, and I suddenly remembered it was Christmas, and that Alistair was going to turn up in a few hours’ time.
He noticed me sitting up. “Hello,” he said. “Happy Christmas.” He had on jeans, and a frayed gray T-shirt. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
“I’d better get up,” I said, still snuggled in the duvet up to my neck.
He came and sat on the sofa next to me, wincing a bit when his shoulder twisted. “I was thinking,” he said, his eyes on me, “I can call Alistair and cancel if you like.”
“What? Cancel Christmas?”
“If you’re feeling like you’d rather be on your own, you know. After yesterday. I’m sure he’d be okay.”
I smiled at him. “That’s kind, but I’ll be fine. Really.”
I pulled the duvet up a bit, suddenly conscious of how little I was still wearing. Memories of being sick and having a panic attack last night were coming back to me. “Better get dressed, then,” he said cheerfully. “Do you want me to go downstairs and find you some clothes, or are the ones you had on yesterday okay? They’re all clean.”
I thought about going downstairs to my flat, and being on my own while I scouted out something to wear. If it hadn’t been for the sunshine, I think I would have needed him to come with me. I looked at the window, the sunlight streaming through. Nothing bad could happen on a day like this.
“I’ll be all right, I think. I’ll just go and get dressed and then I’ll come back up.”
“Bring some stuff back with you,” he said, getting up.
“Stuff?”
“You know, toothbrush and stuff. I mean, if you wanted to stay tonight.”
I wasn’t going to stay tonight. In fact, he’d be lucky if I ever managed to leave the flat again. I was going to be spending at least the next two hours checking, I thought, carrying my work clothes, neatly folded, and my shoes balanced on top, down the chilly stairs.
The flat was okay. Cold, because normally I’d be at work by now and the central heating goes off at six. The curtains were fine, the way I’d left them; everything in the flat was as it should be. I worked my way around, checking, thinking how peculiar it was doing this wearing nothing but Stuart’s T-shirt and sweatpants, loose around the middle.
Once I’d managed to check three times, I had a shower to warm me up a bit and washed my hair back into some sort of reasonable shape. I looked through my wardrobe, wondering if I actually possessed anything any more that didn’t make me look as if I was in my fifties, or trying to hide in a pile of shapeless fabric.
In the end I found a black fitted top that I usually wore under my suit at work, a black skirt that was short enough to be quite daring. And some black tights. I looked like a trainee ninja. Finally, at the back of the drawers, a pale pink cashmere cardigan. At least that would cover up the scars on my arms. Instead of buttoning it, I tied it at the waist.
I looked sadly at all my sensible shoes, all just right if I ever felt the need to break into a sprint, but not exactly alluring.
Hell, I didn’t need shoes anyway, I was only going upstairs.
I rubbed my hair dry with the towel and found some make-up, just a little, I didn’t want to scare him, after all. After all that, I had a look in the mirror. I looked very strange, and very thin. Not like me at all. If he does come looking for me, I thought, he’ll be lucky to recognize me.
I didn’t want to think about that. I found a bag and stuffed a few essentials into it, toothbrush, sneakers and a T-shirt, clean underwear. Just enough so I didn’t need to come back downstairs later, if I didn’t want to.
I put the bag right by the door so it would be handy, and started checking.
The Spread Eagle was full of people, most of them friends of Sylvia’s from the
Lancaster Guardian
. The noise levels were immense and there was even a DJ, although the music was actually being drowned out by the shouts and laughter. Judging by the noise and the state of those present, they’d been drinking for most of the day.
Sylvia, who was holding court at the bar, looked even more beautiful and exotic than usual in a magenta skirt and an emerald-green silk blouse that matched her eyes, open to a low enough button to reveal a good portion of cleavage and a glimpse of cherry-colored bra. When she saw me, she gave a shriek, peeled herself away from the men in suits either side of her, and tottered over to give me a cuddle. She smelled of expensive perfume, gin and pork rinds.
“Oh, my GOD! Can you believe this? I’m actually fucking going to the
DAILY MAIL
!”
There was a bit of mutual jumping up and down, and then I remembered Lee, and stepped aside.
Sylvia stepped forward with her best coy smile, gave Lee her hand and made a delicate little curtsy. “Hello again, Lee.”
To his credit, Lee gave her one of his smiles and kissed her on the cheek. This clearly wasn’t enough for Sylvia, who put her arms around his neck and honored him with a cuddle. He looked at me over Sylvia’s shoulder and gave me a wink.
After that, he seemed to relax. I flitted about the pub, talking to various people I knew, drinking far more than I should have, accepting drinks from people I knew vaguely and some I’d never seen before in my life. From time to time I caught sight of Lee, and each time he seemed fine, talking to Carl Stevenson mainly, who’d been Sylvia’s editor when she first joined the paper. Later on, I saw him in a group with Sylvia, who was partly talking to him and partly to the rest of the crowd. He saw me looking and gave me a smile and another wink.
So much for an hour, I thought to myself, watching with amusement as Lee stood at the bar, chatting away animatedly to Len Jones, the chief crime correspondent. He was the one who had pursued Sylvia relentlessly, back in the summer, despite the existence of Mrs. Annabel Jones, who had more than once threatened to castrate him with a pair of nail scissors.
I sidled up to Lee at the bar and snuggled under his arm.
In response he gave me a beery kiss just above my ear.
“Ah, you never said this lovely young vixen was yours!” said Len, raising a sloppy pint in my direction.
“Hello, Len,” I said.
“Cath, my little sexpot. How are you? And why haven’t you been to talk to me?”
“I came over just to talk to you now, in fact,” I said. “Nothing at all to do with the fact that I was hoping Lee might buy me another drink.”
He took the cue and shouted over the bar, handing over a tenner and getting me a vodka in exchange, while Len muttered something about going for a piss.
“You having a good time, then?” I asked, loudly, in his ear.
He nodded, meeting my eyes. I was getting very good at reading him. I could tell pretty much exactly what he was thinking, and it made my legs feel weak. Without taking my eyes off his, I put my hand deliberately on the front of his jeans and felt how hard he was. I gave him an appraising squeeze, watched his eyes close and his skin flush, then let him go and swallowed some of my drink.
“You are such a fucking tease,” he growled into my ear.
“Wait till I get you home,” I said.
His look told me he wasn’t prepared to wait that long.
To be honest, I was enjoying the teasing part of it all a bit too much. I went to have a dance with Sylvia, who’d taken off her Louboutins and was dancing barefoot on the grotty bit of laminate that passed for a dance floor.
I saw him watching us, and Sylvia saw it too, pulling me over and giving me a good full-on kiss.
“You’re such a tease, Sylvia!” I shouted at her, when she finally let go.
“Come on,” she shouted back. “No chance of a threesome before I fuck off down to London, then?”
I laughed and shot him a glance. The look on his face was priceless.
She snaked an arm around my waist and we both turned to have a good look at him. “He’s fucking gorgeous!” she yelled.
“I know, and he’s all fucking mine!”
We laughed and hugged, and jumped up and down in time to “Lady Marmalade.”
Having Sylvia’s undivided attention didn’t last long, though, and she was pulled away by two young sweaty-looking men I didn’t recognize. I didn’t think they were from the paper at all, but Sylvia didn’t seem to care.
Lee had disappeared. I stayed on the dance floor, practically held up by the bodies on either side, my ears ringing with the noise, half wishing I’d worn something a bit cooler than this velvet dress.
Eventually I decided I was too desperate for the bathroom to continue, so I sauntered over to the ladies’, took one glance at the line, and went into the men’s room instead.
“Not looking,” I said, turning my face away from the few guys standing at the urinals, locking myself into a stall and perching with relief.
When I finished, I went on the prowl for him, weaving my way between drunken bodies with serious intent. He was back propping up the bar, chatting to Len.
“Would you excuse us a moment?” I shouted politely, and Len raised an eyebrow and nodded, before turning back to the bar to call for another pint.
I took Lee by the hand and pulled him down the corridor past the bathrooms, out into the beer garden. The area around the door was crowded with people getting some fresh air, but I took him farther, through the gate at the end of the beer garden that led to the playground. This place was absolutely heaving in the summer, but right now it was deserted, and very, very dark.
I didn’t have to drag him; in fact when he realized where I was taking him he took over and started pulling me instead.
I stumbled on a lumpy bit of grass and parked the edge of my behind on a picnic table, pulling up my skirt, glad I’d decided to wear stockings and equally glad that I’d left my underpants behind in the wastepaper basket in the men’s room.
I could just about see his outline, silhouetted against the faint orange glow from the skyline, but I could hear him breathing. I hooked one finger over the waistband of his jeans and pulled him close, undoing the buckle of his belt, unbuttoning and unzipping as he ran one hand up the inside of my thigh. When he realized I wasn’t wearing any underwear, I heard a low groan.
He kissed me, roughly, forcing my mouth open, and then pulling away to whisper in my ear, his voice just a rasping breath, “You’re such a dirty bitch . . .”
“Shut up,” I said into his mouth. “Bet you’re just glad I’m wearing this dress now, aren’t you?”
It took longer because he’d had a bit to drink. As much fun as I was having, with him fucking me hard in the freezing night air, part of me started worrying about someone hearing the noises we were both making. And another not inconsiderable part of me was starting to worry about getting splinters in my backside.
Then he pulled out and turned me, pushing me back onto the table with one hand and dragging up my skirt again with the other until it was around my waist, before pushing into me again from behind with a sound that came from between clenched teeth. Hitting the table knocked the wind out of me a little, and I felt the rough lichen on the wood under my fingers, bracing myself for each thrust. He was holding my hips, pushing me forward against the table, and his grip was strong and bruising.
In between thrusts I could hear other noises—was that him? It sounded too far away. And then—unmistakable—a woman’s giggle. Someone else was clearly enjoying a turn in the night air, and the playground was apparently the place to be. I didn’t know whether to say something, and I tensed a little; clearly this had the desired effect because at that moment he came, thrusting into me with such force that I felt a sharp stab of pain on the front of my stomach as it grazed against the rough edge of the table.
Immediately, he pulled out of me and did up his jeans, leaving me to stand awkwardly and pull my dress down. I heard him clear his throat just as two figures emerged from behind the slide—the bright pink skirt visible even in this light. And behind Sylvia—holding on to her hand like a lifeline—was Carl Stevenson, looking sheepish and wiping his mouth across the back of his hand.
“Evening,” said Sylvia with a giggle, giving me a wink and heading past us back to the pub.
Hand in hand, we went through the side gate to the parking lot, and back around to the front to look for a taxi. I was shivering again.
“Why don’t you women ever wear a coat, for fuck’s sake?” he said, wrapping his arms around me.
“I’ve got you to keep me warm,” I said, kissing his neck.
That part of the evening was fine. The taxi ride home was fine, particularly as he had his hand up my skirt and was fingering me all the way back to my house.
When we got in, however, something changed.
“I think I’ll go and have a shower,” I said, kicking my shoes off. He was standing in the living room, his face clouded, hands in his pockets.
“I’m going home,” he said.
I came back into the room, not sure I’d heard him properly above the ringing in my ears. “Did you say you’re going home? Why? Aren’t you staying?” I went up to him and slipped my hands around his waist. He kept his hands in his pockets for a moment, and then took hold of my upper arms and pushed me gently but firmly away from him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, a sinking feeling starting to take over from the feeling of being happily drunk.
He met my eyes at last, and his were dark with a level of fury I hadn’t seen before. “What’s wrong? You really have no fucking clue? Jesus.”
“Lee, tell me, for fuck’s sake. What have I done?”
He shook his head to clear it. “What was all that about, then? Coming out of the men’s room? Accidentally left your pants behind?”
“I only went in there because the ladies’ had a line. Sylvia and I always do that when it’s busy,” I said in a small voice.
“Sylvia!” he exploded. “That’s a whole other issue! What did you think you were doing, kissing her face off on the dance floor? Feeling her up?”
“I thought you’d think it was erotic,” I said, feeling tears starting. This was going all horribly wrong. “It’s not like I’d do anything with her.”
“Oh, don’t start fucking crying,” he roared. “Just don’t dare start fucking crying.”
I bit back the tears. “Lee! I took my underpants off in the bathroom because I knew I was going to come straight out and find you.”
“Yeah, how am I supposed to know that? You could have been fucking anyone in there. You dirty fucking bitch.”
That hit a nerve. “Don’t you call me names, just because you’ve suddenly gotten all uptight! I didn’t hear you complaining when you were fucking me in the beer garden.”
“And then you got your little friend out there, to give us a fucking audience!”
“I had no idea she was there!”
“Do that often, do you, go out there to watch each other? Fuck!”
“No!” This was a bit of a lie. We had done that once or twice, for a giggle. It was a challenge to see who could get someone out to the playground first. But not tonight . . .
“Lee . . .” I touched his arm, tenderly, trying to bring him back, trying to calm him down, but he shrugged my hand away.
“Come on, I’m sorry. It wasn’t like that. Lee.” I tried again, and this time he shoved me, hard, with both hands. I fell backward onto the sofa, the breath knocked out of me.
He took a sharp breath in, turned his back on me. “I’d better go.”
I sat back on the sofa, stunned by the force of his fury and devastated by the prospect of losing him. “Yes, you better had.”
I spent the first hour after he’d left having a long hot shower, then walking from room to room, thinking over everything he’d said, how my behavior had been interpreted. I hadn’t fucked anyone else, I hadn’t even flirted with anyone else, and you couldn’t count Sylvia, who was just about my best friend in the world. He’d been out of order. But then I thought about how he hadn’t known anyone there except for me, how I’d abandoned him and spent the night flitting between people, laughing and joking, swishing my hair around and batting my eyelashes. And kissing Sylvia on the dance floor. Oh, God.
The second hour I spent sitting curled up on the sofa, hugging my knees and staring blankly at the television screen, taking nothing in, the effects of the alcohol now worn off to the extent that I felt sick to my stomach.
Just as I was contemplating going to bed, even though I knew I’d never be able to sleep, there was a quiet knock at the door. And then everything was all right again, because he was there, and the light from the hallway shone over his face, the tears, the hurt, the terrible, naked hurt in his eyes. He stumbled toward me, saying, “I’m sorry, Catherine, I’m sorry . . .”
I took him in my arms and pulled him inside, kissing him tenderly, kissing the tears from his eyes. He was freezing. He’d been walking for miles. I pulled his clothes off him and put him in the shower, and it was almost a repeat of that first night when he’d stumbled into my house with blood pouring from his eyebrow and three of his ribs broken.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, as I lay beside him in bed, using my body to try to get some warmth back into him.
“No, Lee, you were right—I was out of line. I’m sorry. I’ll never show you up like that again.”
And when he made love to me, it was very gentle.
Hours later, lying in the darkness of my bedroom, listening to his breathing, regular, deep. The question that had been swimming around in my mind, since the moment I first saw those eyes, finally found a whisper. “Who broke your heart, Lee? Who was it?”
His reply took so long I thought he was asleep . . . and then the word, whispered into the air like a charm, like an incantation: “Naomi.”
The next morning I had forgotten where the bruises on my arms had come from. But I never forgot the name, nor the way he said it, with such reverence: a breath, a sigh.