Into the Darkest Corner (28 page)
Lee’s working all this weekend; just for a change, he’s told me in advance. I don’t know if this is a test, to see if I’m going to run out on him. I’m certain he doesn’t know about New York, so I think he is still half expecting me to try to get away from him some other way. He even said I should go out tonight, see my friends.
For the past few weeks he has been acting more than ever as though this relationship we have is normal. He hasn’t been violent toward me; he hasn’t turned up unexpectedly, he hasn’t even made any unreasonable demands. He’s actually been kind, too—looking after me when I had a cold last week, cooking me dinner and getting some shopping in. If I hadn’t seen that other side of him, I think I would be pleased at the way this relationship is turning out.
Things got better when I told him I was thinking of taking a sabbatical from work. I did it as a safety precaution; if anyone from work phoned, or if I let something slip, it would give me an explanation to fall back on. And of course he’d always wanted me to give up work, right from the start. I had thought it was because he wanted to see more of me, but of course it was all about control, even then.
I know him so much better now. When I’m at work, he phones me at odd times of the day. If I get back to my desk and find a missed call from him, I have to phone him back immediately. He always asks if I’m going to be off-site, if I have any meetings—he knows my schedule better than I do. Once I was called into a meeting with the GM for several hours; when I called him back I was expecting him to be angry with me, but he wasn’t. Turned out later that he’d driven to where I work, found my car in the parking lot, opened it with his spare key (he has a duplicate set of my keys now; I haven’t given them to him, but he has them anyway) and checked that the mileage on my car was right, meaning that I hadn’t been anywhere without letting him know. He knows exactly how many miles my car has done, and how many miles it is from home to work and vice versa. I cannot deviate from the route.
I’ve not tried to challenge him on any of this. I know it’s wrong. I know he’s got me completely controlled. The fact that I know all this is my own private rebellion. He doesn’t know what’s going on in my head. He doesn’t know that I am going to seek an opportunity to escape, or that I know I can only attempt this once. He will kill me, I know he will, if I mess this up.
I’ve been in touch with Jonathan. I came right out with it and told him why he should consider me for his job in New York. I don’t remember telling someone that I want to set up my own company one day, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d said it in an inebriated state at one of those conference dinners. In any case, I don’t care what the job is—although I’ll work hard at it—it’s the escape route I’ve been looking for. Fortunately it should all be dealt with by e-mail at work, nothing at all needs to go to my home address—no need for it to be. When my replacement passport arrived a week ago, I took it with me to work and left it in my drawer.
I’m hoping that Jonathan will accept me, because I’ve almost been assuming that this is all going to go ahead. I don’t think my sanity would hold up if it doesn’t. My credit card went to paperless billing a long time ago, so if I need to book flights Lee shouldn’t be any the wiser. I check my e-mails at work. After the burglary, I didn’t bother to replace my laptop. There didn’t seem to be any point.
So, for now, he can watch me all he wants; my time in Lancaster is limited.
Soon I will be free.
I heard Stuart on the stairs, dragging his backpack, bumping it against the wall. I was sitting on my sofa, my socked feet tucked under me, my nerves singing like an electric fence. When I heard him I wondered whether to leave him to go all the way up to the top floor with his bag, get home, get settled in, have a shower, make a drink, whatever else people do when they get home after a journey. I wondered whether he might have forgotten about coming to see me, even though we’d talked about it on Friday night, even though he’d mentioned it again last night, even though he’d sent me a text from Heathrow to say his plane had landed and he was on his way home.
Then I remembered his shoulder, and before I had time to think about it anymore I ran over to the door, unbolted everything and unlocked it and opened it.
He’d just about made it to the landing.
He was a bit out of breath, his backpack lying at his feet like some kind of hunted beast, his hand looped through the strap as though he was going to drag it back to his lair. “God,” he said, “this thing is fucking heavy.”
“What’s in it?”
“Shitloads of books. I don’t know what I thought I was doing, bringing them back. They were in Rachel’s garage.”
I stared at him for a moment. “Do you want me to give you a hand taking it upstairs?”
He didn’t reply at first. He looked as though he’d forgotten where he was and what he was doing. He looked lost.
“Can I come in?” he said at last.
I nodded and stood to one side. He left the bag where it was, stranded on its back on the landing.
I pushed the door shut as soon as he was inside, started the process of locking and checking, counting as quickly as I possibly could without making any mistakes, all the while Stuart standing there behind me, waiting.
At last he said, “Cathy, for fuck’s sake. This is torture.”
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“Seriously. Please. Leave it now, it’s locked.”
“The more you talk, the longer it’ll take, so shut up, okay?”
He waited. He must have been counting with me, because just as I finished, before I could start again, he came up behind me and slipped his arms around my waist. I didn’t flinch. He rested his head against mine, his breath warm against my hair. I looked down at his forearms around my middle. I turned slowly and raised my head so that I could look at him, the expression in his eyes difficult to determine.
“You’re nervous,” I said.
He smiled. “That obvious, huh?”
“It’s okay,” I said, and kissed him.
After that first kiss, it got easier. I took him into my bedroom. He started undressing me and then we got tangled up and so I took over and stripped off.
The bedroom was dark, the only light coming into the room from the living room, but even so I was conscious of the scars. He must have felt the scars, in the dark, as he ran his hands over my skin. But he didn’t say anything. He must have felt them with his mouth when he kissed me, with his tongue. He didn’t say a word.
The strangest thing was that I felt it, I felt everything. Normally I feel nothing but itching, discomfort, tightness, soreness. The surface of my skin is dulled by the scars, lots of it is numb—nerve damage, apparently. When he touched me, I felt everything. It was like having new skin.
Jonathan called me on my cell yesterday; thankfully nobody was in my office at the time. It was supposed to be an interview of sorts, but I could tell right away that it was just a formality. I tried to picture him, but I couldn’t put the voice to the face. I was nervous in any case, trying not to let it show in my voice. Slightly exaggerating my management consultancy experience—whatever, it did the trick. He said he would employ me on a three-month temporary contract, just to get things started. If I liked it and he liked my work, he would extend it. He booked my flights and e-mailed me the times—I will have to pick up the tickets at the airport.
I saw my boss at the end of the day and handed in my notice. With unused vacation days, I’ve got just over two weeks left with the company. She wasn’t happy. I made a pretense at apologizing for leaving her to find a new HR manager but in reality my heart was singing.
So, today I made one of my rare trips out in public. Although I wanted to go to the post office to get some U.S. dollars, I was reluctant to head straight there in case Lee was watching. He was supposed to be off working somewhere, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t busy following me. He’d done it before; he’d done it so often that I saw his face everywhere I went. Probably most of the time I was imagining it, but not always.
I strolled around Boots for a while, pretending to look at the pregnancy tests—that ought to get him going, I thought, if he’s watching—and then the makeup.
My flight was booked for 4 p.m. on Friday 11 June—my last day at work in the UK would be Thursday, the day before. I decided to buy a suitcase and leave it at work, sneak important things out of the house, clothing, one or two items at a time, more when he wasn’t there to see. I could hide the suitcase in my storeroom at work—fortunately I was the only person who ever went in there. It wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t a way I’d ever packed before, but it would have to do. I’d take the minimum amount of clothes and buy new stuff when I got to New York.
There was still a lot of stuff in the house, though. I couldn’t just pretend I was suddenly deciding to declutter—it wasn’t worth the risk. With my New York salary I could afford to keep up the rent on the Lancaster house, for now. Maybe in a few months’ time I could come back and hand the keys back to the landlady, and clear out my stuff. All I needed was a few months, just long enough for him to forget about me and move on.
I stole a glance over the top of the display counter, and there he was—right over the other side of the store, by the entrance, to one side—wearing his suit, today, I noticed—maybe he’d had some kind of a meeting with the management.
I had to pretend I hadn’t seen him, although I’d have loved to have given him a wave. It put paid to my plans to visit the post office, though. I would try again tomorrow—I’d tell him I needed to collect a parcel for a friend, or something.
I woke up suddenly, going from deep, dark sleep to wide awake, heart thumping, in a matter of a few seconds.
I was in Stuart’s bed, and it was perfectly dark. No sound except him breathing next to me. I listened with my whole body, straining to hear whatever it was that had woken me.
Silence.
I looked down at Stuart, the shape of him illuminated in the half-light from the window, his shoulder a pale curve. I was still getting used to sleeping with him, even though we’d spent every spare minute together since he’d come back from Aberdeen. Every time I woke up and he was there, it took me a few moments to calm down and remember.
I’d been dreaming about Sylvia. Stuart was there with me, and we were naked, making love in bed as though we were all alone, just as we had been doing just a few hours ago. In my dream I’d looked up and she’d been there, in the doorway, the pink beret set firmly on her blonde hair, her mouth thin, a mean smile.
There it was again, a sound. Not in the flat, though—outside. I got out of bed and crept around to the other side, to the window, pulling Stuart’s shirt off the hook on the back of the door on the way past and putting it on, wrapping it over my front.
It wasn’t quite dawn, still perfectly dark, the sky just beginning to turn gray. I looked out from the side of the window over the backyard, the wall a rectangle of darkness, a regular shape, the grass gray tussocks underneath. I couldn’t see the shed from here, my balcony below was in the way. I leaned over the windowsill and peered down into the darkness, starting to relax, when suddenly—something moved.
At the same moment Stuart spoke from the bed and made me jump out of my skin. “What are you doing? Come back to bed.”
“There’s someone outside,” I said, an urgent whisper.
“What?” He swung his legs out of the bed and stretched for a moment before coming to stand next to me. “Where?”
“Down there,” I whispered. “Near the shed.”
I stood back from the window a little, not wanting to obscure his view.
“I can’t see anything.” He put his arm around my shoulders and yawned. “You’re cold, come back to bed.”
He saw my expression and looked out of the window again, then to my horror lifted the sash. It made a noise like the door to Hell creaking open. “Look,” he said suddenly, pointing.
A shape darted across the lawn and under the gap between the gate and the lawn, a dark shape, but definitely not a human. “A fox,” he said. “It was a fox. Now come here.”
He pushed the window back down, peeled his shirt away from my shoulders and drew me back into the warm bed. My skin was cold against his but he warmed me quickly enough, with his tongue and his hands and his whole naked body against mine, until I forgot all about the shape I’d seen; forgot how it was actually nothing like a fox, but bigger and darker and bulkier; how it seemed to be on my balcony, on the floor below; and how I’d seen the reflection of the gray sky against something shiny, something long and thin and shiny, like a long knife.
It was too much to hope that Lee would be working on the day I was planning my escape. In a way, though, having him at home with me was better. If he was here watching me, I knew exactly where he was. And if I managed to leave early enough, I might even get a head start.
Last night he let himself into the house, late, when I was watching a film on the sofa. My mind was fizzing with it all, the thought of getting away from him, the fear of it all going horribly wrong. When I heard his key in the door I forced myself to smile, stay calm, not give anything away.
He was in a suit today. He hung his jacket over the back of the chair in the dining room and came to give me a kiss.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked.
“A beer would be good,” he said. He looked tired.
I got him a bottle from the fridge and brought it through.
“I was thinking,” he said, “we should go on vacation. What do you think? Get away from it all for a bit, just you and me.”
“Sounds good.”
“Have you sent off those passport forms yet?”
I looked at him, hoping he hadn’t seen me jump. “I sent them off. Not had anything back. Takes ages, doesn’t it?”
Lee raised his eyebrows and took a swig from the bottle. “I’ve always fancied going to the States. Never been. Have you been?”
“No.”
“Maybe Vegas. Or New York. What do you think?”
My heart was thumping so loudly he must surely be able to hear it. “Mm.”
“You know I love you, Catherine?”
I smiled at him, “Of course.”
“I think it’s important that we’re honest with each other. You love me?”
“Yes.”
“We could get married. In Vegas. What do you think?”
Right at that moment, I would have agreed to anything, just to shut him up. I only needed another few hours.
“I think it sounds fabulous,” I said. And I kissed him.