The Stranglers Honeymoon (7 page)

‘With a priest.’

‘A priest?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why have you spoken to a priest?’

‘Because I needed somebody to talk to about it, of course.’

‘I didn’t know you had a priest among your friends.’

‘I don’t. He was visiting the school and telling us what programmes the church was organizing for young people. I went to see him after that.’

‘Which church?’

She tried in haste to decide whether or not she wanted to reveal the name of the church, and made up her mind that she did. I might as well, she thought, so that he doesn’t get the impression that I’m making it all up. It struck her also that it was a sort of insurance – an independent person who knew all about it. Even if it was only a priest bound by vows of silence.

She didn’t have time to ask herself why on earth she should need that kind of insurance.

‘Which church?’ he asked again.

‘The one out at Leimaar. Pastor Gassel. I’ve met him twice – it’s part of their job description to listen to what people tell them, but not say anything about it to anybody else. A sort of confession, although they are not Catholics.’

He nodded vaguely, and scratched his neck.

‘But you haven’t told your mother at least?’

‘Of course not.’

He turned left behind the university into Geldenerstraat, and parked in one of the lanes leading up to the Keymer churchyard. It was raining quite heavily now, and there was not a soul to be seen in the dark alley. He switched off the engine and took out the key, but made no move to get out of the car. He just sat there, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

‘And what do you think would happen if she found out about it? If somebody were to tell her what we’d been up to?’

‘What do you mean? She’s not going to know anything about it.’

‘Of course not. But how do you think she would take it if she did find out? Hypothetically, that is.’

‘I don’t understand why you’re asking about that. It’s pretty obvious that she would have a nasty shock – we’ve talked about that before.’

He carried on drumming on the wheel.

‘So you don’t think it would be a good idea for me to tell her?’

Monica stared at him.

‘Why would you . . .’

‘Because I also feel that I need to be honest about things. More of a need than either you or she has, it seems.’

In a split second the penny dropped for her. And just as quickly she knew what the implications might be. It wasn’t he or she, the guilty parties, who would be worst affected if their affair became known: it would be her mother. No doubt about it. Twofold treachery of this nature – on the part of her lover and her only daughter – given her fragile state and her emotionally unstable situation . . . No, anything but that was Monica’s reluctant reaction. And in the circumstances she seemed to be ending up in, to make things even worse . . .

An image of her mother’s washed-out face as she lay in bed earlier that afternoon found its way into Monica’s mind’s eye, and she felt the tears welling up behind her eyes. She swallowed, and tried to pull herself together.

‘You mustn’t do that,’ she said. ‘Do you hear? You really must not do that!’

He took a deep breath and let go of the steering wheel.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I know. But can’t we go up for a while and talk it over, at least?’

She looked out through the rain-soaked side window at the building they were parked outside.

‘Is this where you live?’

‘It certainly is. Shall we go in?’

She glanced at her watch again, but realized that it no longer mattered much what time it was. Whether she got home at ten or eleven or even later. She opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement.

He hurried round the car, put his arm round her shoulders and steered her rapidly through the rain and in through the entrance door, which was some ten metres further up the alley in the direction of the churchyard. She had time to note that the building was four or five storeys high, quite old and with stone walls. The entrance door led into an inner courtyard with bicycle stands, a shed for rubbish, and some benches under a large tree she thought was an elm. It was all a bit reminiscent of Palitzerlaan, and she felt a slight pang of nostalgia.

‘What a lovely building,’ she said.

‘Art Nouveau,’ he said. ‘Built exactly a hundred years ago. Yes, it’s pretty impressive.’

His flat was also impressive. To say the least. Four rooms plus a kitchen, as far as she could tell; large parquet floor tiles made of light-coloured, grained wood and an open fire in the large living room. Heavy, dark furniture widely spaced – and well-filled bookshelves covering almost all of every wall. Two large, low sofas and soft carpets. She compared it with Moerckstraat, and felt a somewhat different pang.

He must be rich, she thought. Why is he bothering with the likes of us?

‘What was that name on your door?’ she asked. ‘It wasn’t yours.’

‘What did you say?’ he shouted from the kitchen.

‘It didn’t say Kerran on your door.’

He came back into the living room.

‘Oh, that . . . I had a lodger last spring. A student. He insisted on having his name on the door, so that visitors could find his pad. I forgot to take it away. Would you like something to drink?’

She shook her head.

‘Can we do the talking now, and get it over with?’

She sat down on one of the sofas, and he flopped down beside her after a moment’s hesitation.

‘I hadn’t thought of restricting ourselves to talking.’

Before she had time to respond he stood up again and disappeared into the kitchen. Came back carrying a single candle in a holder. He turned off the ceiling light using the switch in the doorway, lit the candle with a cigarette lighter and put it on the table. Sat down next to her again. She began to catch on to what was going to happen next.

I don’t want to, she thought. Not again.

‘So it wouldn’t be very good if your mother found out about us?’ he said.

‘No . . .’

‘If you can be nice to me just one more time, I promise I won’t breathe a word.’

She wouldn’t have thought it was possible to combine an emotional entreaty and an ice-cold threat in such an ingenious way, but it evidently was. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was so dry that it was no more than a facial twitch. He put his arm round her shoulders and hugged her closer to him.

‘I don’t want to,’ she said.

For a few seconds the only sound to be heard was his calm, regular breathing and the pattering of rain on the windows. When he started speaking again, she thought for a confused moment that it was somebody else. That it wasn’t him.

‘I couldn’t give a damn if you want to or not, you diabolical little whore,’ he said. ‘You will kindly allow me to fuck you, otherwise I shall make sure that your bloody mother ends up in a loony bin for the rest of her life.’

He said it in an almost normal conversational tone of voice, and at first she thought she had misheard him. Then she realized that he meant exactly what he had said. He held her tightly with one arm round her back and shoulders, and started pawing at her lap with his other hand. For the first time it dawned on her how strong he was, and how incapable she would be of resisting if he were to force himself on her.

‘Is that clear, you silly little bitch? Take your clothes off!’

Everything went black before her eyes; she had always thought that this kind of thing only happened in tenth-rate books or in old girls’ magazines – but it was happening to her, here and now. It became black in reality. The candle’s little flickering flame suddenly vanished as if someone had blown it out, and it was several seconds before it was lit again.

Help, she thought. God. Mum . . .

He pulled her closer and started kissing her. Forced her jaws apart and thrust his tongue so far into her mouth that she could scarcely breathe.

Then he let go of her.

‘Or perhaps you would prefer it a bit more gently?’

She was gasping and tried to think a sensible thought. Just one would do.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes please.’

The thought came. Slowly, like a thief in the night. I must kill him, it said.

Somehow or other. Kill him.

‘Take off your tunic,’ he said.

She did as she was told.

‘And your bra.’

She leaned forward on the sofa and unhooked the straps with her hands behind her back. But he didn’t bother about her breasts. He stood up instead and placed himself behind her. Moved her hair out of the way and put his hands on her bare shoulders. She felt herself going stiff.

‘You are tense,’ he said, stroking his fingers along the sharp edges of her collarbones, moving them inwards towards her neck. ‘My fingertips are like small seismographs. I can almost feel your thoughts . . . My sick rose. My sick, sick rose . . .’

‘I need a pee,’ she said. ‘Where’s the bathroom?’

‘Pee?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

She stood up. He walked behind her into the hall, keeping his fingers on her shoulders, as if it were some silly kind of follow-my-leader game.

I must kill him, sang a voice inside her. Must find a way . . .

‘Like seismographs,’ he said again.

LONDON

AUGUST 1998

7

At first there were two of them.

Both in their thirties. Both of them jolly and a bit merry after visits to the cinema followed by a restaurant meal together. They lived in Camden Town: this pub was more or less halfway between home and Oxford Street, and this wasn’t the first time they had dropped in after a night out.

He had been to see a play at the old Garrick Theatre – one of those incredibly thin and pointless West End hits that ran before packed houses for tourist season after tourist season. Thank the Lord there had been an interval, and he was able to sneak out and call in at three pubs on the way back to his hotel near Regent’s Park. This was his fourth.

The Green Stallion
. It was turned eleven, but this was evidently one of the establishments that no longer observed the old opening hours. He had just collected another Lauder’s and another pint when they came in and asked if the empty chairs at his table were taken. The pub was full and noisy both around the long bar and at the tables. There didn’t seem to be any other empty chairs anywhere, as far as he could see. So why not? He beckoned with his hand, and smiled.

The women smiled back, and sat down. Each of them lit a cigarette, and introduced herself. Beth and Svetlana. Obviously keen to talk.

Svetlana was Russian, but born in Luton. By hook or by crook her parents had managed to wriggle out of the Soviet Union during the thaw in the early sixties, and of course it was anybody’s guess why they had given their first-born child, born in the West, the same name as Stalin’s daughter. ‘A fucking mystery!’ said Beth, laughing and displaying her forty-eight perfect teeth.

‘Beth is just another London bitch who knows nothing about anything,’ explained Svetlana. ‘Who are you, please?’

He didn’t tell them who he was. For some mysterious intuitive reason he gave them a different name and a different nationality.

But he did tell them his profession. He could see that both of them were quite impressed, and he knew immediately that he wanted them.

Or one of them. It didn’t matter which, certainly not: but for the first time for ages and ages he felt that he really must have sex with a woman.

It wasn’t clear why this was. Perhaps it was his being in a foreign but even so very familiar city. A sort of reunion – he had been there a dozen times before, but when he worked it out he realized that it must be six years since the last time. Six years . . .

Perhaps it was the warm summer’s evening, perhaps it was the booze. He was agreeably drunk, and when he drank a toast with the two women, he made sure he looked them both in the eye. He couldn’t detect any trace of reluctance. On the contrary. In vino veritas, he thought, and drank deeply.

Or perhaps it was just the passage of time. He had needed three years, and now they were over. It didn’t need to be any more remarkable than that. You must learn how to wait, his mother used to say. If you are able to be patient, you will be able to achieve anything you want, my boy. No woman will ever refuse you anything, never ever – remember that.

Not even your mother.

He realized that he was sitting there and thinking about those very words while Beth and Svetlana had briefly taken their leave to powder their noses.

No woman will ever . . .

It was Beth.

Presumably they reached an agreement during the aforementioned visit to the toilets, because shortly after they returned to the table Svetlana announced that she really ought to be thinking about making her way home. A few minutes after midnight she took her leave and hoped they would continue to have a pleasant evening. With unambiguous looks and routine cheek kisses.

They continued talking for another half-hour, then they took a taxi to Beth’s little flat in Camden Town Road. His hotel would have been nearer, but a home is always a home – and she had a bottle of white wine in the fridge and a chicken that only needed heating up.

Shortly after two, she suddenly didn’t want to go through with it.

By that time he was completely naked, and she was wearing only her knickers when out of the blue she decided that enough was enough. They were half-lying on her cramped sofa, the wine bottle was almost empty, the remains of the chicken were on the table, and she had been stroking his stiff penis.

‘I can do it for you,’ she said.

But she didn’t want to go to bed with him tonight. Another time, perhaps, if he would be staying on in London?

But it just wasn’t on right now. Could he understand that?

He said that he could. Moved her hand away and sat there for a while as they drank what was left of the wine. Then he heaved himself up and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Brushed her red hair to one side and began stroking his fingers over her soft, naked skin and the sharp edges of her collarbones.