PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (4 page)

It
took over an hour for Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Life to view the house.  He is a
doctor and she is radiologist.  Their daughter didn’t walk anywhere.  She ran. 
Up the stairs, into the bedrooms, outside again, which made me feel both
exhausted and thankful that I had lit the fire, because each time she swung
through the French doors the wind whipped through the house like the flight of
an eagle.  They wanted to get a feel for the place, they said.  When your
client is paying almost one million for a property you let them.  If they need
a couple of hours to get a feel for the place
,
you give it to them.  If
they want to see how it feels to take a shit in their potential new home, you
open the door and offer them the toilet seat.  It is my misfortune that this
actually happened.

It
is exactly this element of my job which bothers Gregory.  He finds it demeaning
that his wife does this.  As far as waiting for somebody to defecate in
something that is neither public nor theirs, I would have to agree with him,
although I argued against it when Gregory questioned my sanity in accepting
such behaviour.  This was shortly before our wedding.  He wouldn’t question my
sanity now.  But this is the thing with the rich.  They are generally rich
because they are eccentric and stood out from the crowd.  The rich like to be
different, it sets them apart from the rest of society which conforms.  I
imagine the man who used the toilet in the house that was neither public nor
his, enjoyed that experience immensely.

Gregory
too is eccentric.  He is the man who goes out to shoot pheasant wearing tweed, trousers
tucked into his socks to avoid the undergrowth on a dew soaked spring morning. 
He wears a flat cap with flaps that cover his ears and carries the shotgun in
his hand, tucked up into the crease of his arm, even in the house whilst he is
preparing himself and getting into the character of
The Hunter
.  He has
many characters.  Sometimes I used to wonder if he was pointing the shotgun at
me, just to tease me, to taunt me with it to let me know who holds the power
and to see what I would do.

Gregory
decided not to come with me to my hospital appointment today.  He provided me
with a loose and somewhat transparent excuse about a busy schedule and a
renovation to oversee when I questioned him a few nights ago.  My first
instinct was to be annoyed, and for a day or so as the fact of his not coming
lingered with me I placed a degree of pressure on him, the gentle sort like a
child’s fingers as they prod at you to investigate the alien changes of
adulthood.   At first he tried reassurance and repeated his story of renovations
and prior engagements.  But after a while he became frustrated and on the last
occasion that I insisted he rearrange a few things in order that we might make
the trip together he simply didn’t answer.  I took this as a sign and resigned
myself to going alone. 

I
had forgotten the beauty of the southbound A592 from Bowness to Barrow.  It
narrows delightfully as the trees cluster into the road to share secrets with
those opposite.  Occasionally the trees give way to hedgerows or
higgledy-piggledy walls which border land and join up with the stone walls of
roadside farmhouses.  There is a frost which appears to have been sprinkled
across the slate rooftops and it glistens under an uninterrupted winter-blue sky. 
As the trees recede the land opens up, and as I follow the road I also follow the
lake as it narrows into a river.  Here there is space, air, open land, and no
constraints.  Here, for a brief moment pleasure in life feels possible and I
reach down and stroke a hand across my stomach.  But soon I realise I have been
swallowed up by the reality of the journey and am once again sucked into the
town and as I look down I find both hands on the steering wheel.

The
doctor’s waiting room is small and smells like antiseptic.  I assume it is
clean and so I sit down, but I do not remove my gloves.  Opposite there is
another couple, young, and beyond any doubt here as the result of an accident. 
Her stomach is swollen, the shape of an egg, cradled in smooth protective hands. 
She is barely beyond childhood but already feels the need to protect that which
she has created, and I think again of how I had considered hiring a boat and
killing both myself and the early life inside of me.  There is a boy who sits
alongside her wondering how life played such a cruel trick on him.  His arms
are folded tightly across his chest, his eyes half closed.  I feel sorry for
him because he looks scared, and I feel envious of her because he is here.  I
feel sad for myself that I am alone.  It is not how I imagined this.  I catch
my reflection in the nearby aquarium and I realise that my hair looks like
grass blades covered in droplets of spring dew, perfect for Gregory to trample
through.  The frost has crept into my hair and in the heat of the hospital it
has started to melt.  I flatten it down, conscious of my scar which has begun
to pulsate.  I have the beginnings of a headache.

“Mrs.
Astor,” a voice says before looking up to meet my gaze.  “Mrs. Astor,” he says
again.  He is impatient.  He sees me walking towards him and he realises that he
knows me and so starts tracing through the clustered compartments of his brain
to work out where from. 

“I
am your estate agent,” I say.  I am not one for guessing games, and I do not
like to play haven’t-we-met-somewhere-before.  I was with him only two hours ago. 
I forget enough already so I have no desire to play around with the things that
I do remember.  I don’t believe that he has forgotten me, and I am irritated at
his display of pretend confusion and my headache feels immediately worse.

“Of
course,” he says, “come in, take a seat.”  I was unimpressed at the house
viewing when he decided to help himself to a coffee from the pot, and then
complained that it was cold.  The old fashion iron that had been placed on the
windowsill in a decorative nod to the past seemed a good object with which to
strike the back of his head, and I believed that it would ease my irritation,
but instead I took his cup from him and heated it in the microwave.  He is
young for a consultant, and I wonder if he is my only option.  I have
investigated the option of private hospital care and suggested several options
to Gregory but he was of the opinion that the local hospital was better.  He
hadn't performed any research.  It was simply his opinion.  I know this because
he told me so.  Here I am.

He
asked me a few questions about my medical history, which for the most part is short
and uninspiring.  He checked the results of the blood tests which my midwife
had taken earlier.  She is a pleasant, chubby lady, like I might be if I wasn’t
careful with food and if I tried to smile more.  He tells me that everything is
satisfactory and that I should get onto his couch.  I ask him to clean the
couch first, and whilst surprised, he obliges my request.  He makes a show of
cleaning the probe and I appreciate his effort and consider that I may have
judged him too soon.  I lie down as he instructs me too and within one minute
there is a lump of grey matter flashing up on the screen as he wobbles a
jellified probe around on my belly.  It jiggles in and out of view, revealing a
gaping hole in the middle, black and at first empty.  As he rocks the probe
back and forth I see something that looks like a fish swimming out at me,
flipping in and out of view as his imaginary tail beats left and right.  Then
the sound of life fills my ears, whooshing along at pace.  Gushhush, gushhush,
gushhush, gushhush.  He turns to me and smiles.  I am pregnant, he tells me.  I
wipe a little tear from the side of my face and manage an unconvincing smile. 
He looks confused by my reaction.  I am confused, too.

He
points to the screen with his oversized fingers, almost covering the tiny fleck
of life that he wants to show me.  His voice has changed a bit, and now he
sounds encouraging, like the voice of a parent to a small child who needs
nothing more than a gentle push in the right direction.   He is used to bringing
joy, and has almost forgotten how to deliver bad news.  I have made him
uncomfortable, I know it, and he shifts his weight about on the couch, trying
to settle.  I know he is wondering what might be wrong with me, and I see that
it is only now that he notices just how empty the black chair to the side of
him feels.  It is the chair of the husband, where the boy outside with his arms
crossed will take the choice to stand up and become something, or chose to live
with the albatross of an abandoned child hanging from his neck for the rest of
his life.  I believe he will do the right thing, but I cannot decide why.  I
can feel the doctor carrying on with his scan, and I dream about the boy
outside and wonder if I would feel better with him at my side as opposed to
nobody.  I wish Gregory was here, and I feel pathetic for wanting his
prescriptionary method of support.  A set of delicate fat fingers resting
absently on my arm as if I were a stranger. 

The
doctor nudges me in the arm just forcefully enough to wake me from my
daydream.  He points to something flickering back and forth, a tiny little
switch going on and off, a wagging finger of judgment.  It is the heartbeat.  The
sounds, the gushhush gushhush of imminent life were alien and new to me.  But
the heartbeat looks as my own pulse feels.  It is a sensation of reality.  It
is only now that it is tangible to me that there is something moving inside of
me.  No matter what else was happening in the world, this little fish was
protected by nothing but my own mortal body which I had on occasion tried to
destroy.  This revelation was a chink of winter sunshine in an otherwise bleak
landscape of grey, the diamond in the tray of river mud, the first flower to
burst through the ground after a nuclear winter.  In new beginnings there is
always the first day, the first moment, the first drop of monsoon rain to
quench a barren landscape.  Maybe, for me this was it.

On
the way home I stop the car because an urgent need to pee takes over everything
else.  I park in Glebe Road car park and use the facilities which are not
acceptable according to my usual standards, but I accept this change as part of
the pregnancy and my first sacrificial act as a mother.  There was no time to
clean the surfaces, so instead I try not to touch anything and fight back the
tears.  Afterwards I discard my gloves on the floor because no amount of
cleaning would be ever be enough for me to consider wearing them again.  I
cross the road and walk along the pavement which leads towards the town centre. 
The trees which line the roads are sparse, big giants stripped of their summer
frills, their leaves long since rotted into the ground and the spiders web of
branches glisten white like Narnia.  The lake is just visible through a shroud
of mist which has rolled in from the surrounding hills, a sleeping beast hiding
his might behind a hazy facade.  I hate this lake.  I hate its size.  I hate
its depth.  I hate its beauty, of which I am not unaware.  I hate the town’s
dependence upon it.  I despise the tourist crowd which flocks to it, riding
around on boats and water-skis as if it were a friend to be visited and enjoyed. 
I hate that I allowed it the chance to take my life, and I hate that I failed
to give myself to it.  I hate it because this was the last place he ever took
me.

I
drop down on to the gravel path which abuts the lake like a poor excuse for a
beach and make my way through the pestering swans and moorhens, cawing at me to
feed them.  I pass the Old England Hotel on my left, originally beautiful but
now defaced by the surgical stoma bag attachment of a new wing, a necessary but
ugly appendage.  I cut up through Church Street and I feel the pull of my
lungs, their task made harder by the intruder in my womb.  I pull a new pair of
gloves from my bag and as I step inside the café, the heat is
overwhelming, blistering and nauseating.  I order a takeaway latte and drop the
coins onto the counter before heading back towards the lake. 

I
take a seat under the shadow of The Belsfield Hotel.  I don’t turn to look at
it but I know it is there, like the moon during the day, not in view but
unmistakably present.  I watch as the water lurches back and forth through the
cloud of fog.  I remember eating ice cream sat on this bench as a child, when
the sun always seemed to shine and when I trusted that life would stay as
people said it would, and when all I needed were words to comfort me because I had
no concept of real or false.  I pick up my latte, take a sip and cross the road.
 I abandon the use of the pelican crossing and wonder if that makes me a bad
almost-parent.  I take steady steps towards the nearby jetty before thinking
about those who have stood here before me.  Those who gazed out at the water
and found happiness.  Some find peace in the gentle lakeside tide, the hollow
clatter of the boats which displace the water as they knock together.   Some
find reassurance in the rise of the green trees beyond, which dip into the
water's edge providing a nesting site for ducks.  Some of these people take out
a rowing boat.  They heave themselves and their family into the middle of the water,
laughing as the boat rides over the swell of waves from the steamers that pass
by.  They won’t see the danger.  They arrive back at shore, Dad’s arms aching,
Mum giggling and reminiscent, interrupted by a nauseas child.  This is a memory
that will last, one that will not perish in the passage of time.  The water
does that.  It is a life source that fixes memories in a single moment, feeding
them so they are not forgotten.  But it is just the surface that we see, a
public facade reflecting our own lives back so not to reveal its true self.  Really
it is a pit, the negative of the world sucked down into the silt, a land of the
dead.  Even the earth tries to claim back the void, depositing silt from its
banks, a gradual reclamation lest not to anger it.  The mountains on the far
side know this.  They reveal their inverted forms on the surface of the water
to remind me that I should never assume what I see of the lake to be the truth,
for it distorts all too well.  Lake Windermere is the largest in England.  I
have lived near it my whole life and I have hated it for as long as I can
remember.  But yet still I come here, drawn to it.