‘The flat,’ he echoed.
‘Yes, which is where you’re going now, right?’ To my relief he began backing away towards the gate, nodding to himself. ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ I cautioned, which made him stop mid-step and stare at me.
‘I already have,’ he said, and of course I assumed he meant the attack on Toby. He looked so utterly heartbroken that I moved towards him, my fury easing a little.
‘Then don’t do anything else stupid. I’ll talk to the boys in the morning and we’ll see you after work as usual, okay?’
No, I didn’t find out what he’d come to talk about. If anything had been made clear by this dysfunctional scene it was that I was no longer the right person to hear it.
*
In the kitchen, Toby was standing drinking, our tuna steaks cold on their plates. I could see on his left cheekbone a red mark that would deepen to bruising.
‘Are you all right?’ He was composed, civilized, a different species from the wild man I’d just seen off.
‘Are you? You hit your head quite badly. And look at your face. Do you need ice? I’m so, so sorry, Toby. I can’t believe that just happened.’
He pulled me towards him. ‘You don’t have to apologize, Fi.’
His body was flaming, not yet readjusted after the raised temperature of the fight.
‘I do, though. I feel so ashamed.’
He took a step back and regarded me with unusual scrutiny. ‘Are you sure . . . Are you sure you’re over this guy? He obviously doesn’t want you to be, does he? It’s a complicated set-up, I know. You’re still living together but you’re not living together, you’re married but you’re not married . . .’
For the first time, I felt unequal to this, overwhelmed by the experiences I’d accrued these last six months, as if they were stacked, interlocking, on top of me, their weight deadly. Was Bram going to make life impossible for me, after all? Had I made a terrible mistake ‘still living together but not living together’?
I felt a deep, guttural lurch remembering the sensation I’d had when waking in the flat with a man who wasn’t my husband in a bed that should have felt new, separate from my marriage, but that in reality I shared with Bram.
‘I’m sure,’ I said. ‘He’s sure too, he just doesn’t realize it. But when he meets someone himself, he won’t care who I’m with.’
‘I thought you said he’d already started shagging around?’
I flinched at the term. ‘I mean someone he’s really interested in, someone he considers special.’
‘I would question whether he’s capable of recognizing that,’ Toby said with a certain significance to his tone and I wondered what was coming next. I broke the silence myself.
‘Well, he should be capable of recognizing how special his children are. I’ll talk to him tomorrow and make it clear this can never happen again.’
‘If you want my advice, I wouldn’t make a big deal of it,’ Toby said. ‘It was mainly bluster, I’m not injured. He’ll come to his own conclusion that he was out of order.’
‘That’s very understanding of you.’ I doubted he would feel so charitable when he’d had the time and solitude to reflect.
‘Everyone comes with baggage,’ he said, shrugging.
‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ I said. ‘The problem is that some of us have exceeded the weight limit.’
He smiled, rubbing absently at his sore cheek. ‘All the more interesting to unpack.’
‘What, even when you realize there are false bottoms and hidden compartments?’
He laughed. ‘Especially then.’
‘Good, because we can’t stretch this metaphor any further.’
It was very sweet of him to act as if the evening had not been catastrophically wrecked. Two boys in the rooms above our heads believing him to be an intruder, a jealous ex baying at the door: there were plenty of men out there who would have just walked away.
#VictimFi
@Tilly-McGovern Stick with Toby, girl!
@IsabelRickey101 Bram is like one of those abusers who kills his whole family and then gets called a tortured hero.
@mackenziejane @IsabelRickey101 I know. ‘I’ll burn the house to the ground’. He gives me the creeps.
Bram, Word document
In the morning, my head a Catherine wheel of pain, I stumbled into the bathroom and splashed cold water over my face. After leaving Trinity Avenue, I’d gone straight to the Two Brewers, where I drank until every image of the evening had been obliterated. I’d missed Roger and the other guys, but that suited me. I was in no mood for banter with men whose lives were everything mine used to be, everything I’d thrown away.
Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I recoiled from the creature gaping back at me. I’d aged badly since the last time I’d looked: my skin was puffy and threaded with the crimson veins of a drunk, my eyelids were hooded and blinking madly, general neglect was resulting in the beginnings of a beard and too-long hair. I looked like the old man who lived rough in the park before the so-called Friends of Alder Rise had had him removed.
(He was probably dead now.)
For the record, I’m not proud of attacking him. Quite apart from anything else, it was yet another witnessed incident of violence that could come back to haunt me. But what can I say? Either you’ve experienced the onrush of pure anger or you haven’t, the brief feeling of concussion chased by a superhuman energy that can’t be summoned by any other emotion, not even lust. They call it red mist but it’s not red, it’s white. It obscures your reason, it blinds you to consequences, it holds you in its atmosphere – and then it flings you back to the ground.
Which is when you discover that everyone who might have supported you has scattered in terror.
I checked myself for wounds beyond the minor bruises of our scuffle in the hallway and, finding none, deduced that there’d been no drunken blackout of my having gone back to the house and killed him.
Because I wanted to kill him: I state that explicitly. I despised him from the pit of my black heart.
Turning from my reflection, I vowed to make an appointment with the GP, get some medication. Anti-anxiety, anti-psychotic, anti-breakdown.
On the kitchen counter, next to a coffee mug I’d used as an ashtray last night, my pay-as-you-go pinged. He knew to use this number now, the one element I’d been able to dictate, for what it was worth. I opened the message with a new sense of surrender:
- Just passing, were you? One word to her about us and she will suffer. Do you understand me?
I understood. I had no idea if I’d have had the guts to go through with my confession to Fi last night, but he was very, very lucky he’d been there when I rolled up. The bastard had wormed his way into her affections, and withholding from her the fact that he’d met me before was a deliberate act of torture. He had my balls in his grip. He planned not only to steal my property, but to help himself to my wife. He had hijacked my life.
Mike. Toby. Cunt.
37
Friday, 13 January 2017
London, 4.15 p.m.
‘This is totally screwed up,’ David Vaughan says in exasperation. He is starting to fray now: any human would, exposed to this sort of strain for long enough. It is Russian roulette in the suburbs, with solicitors holding the gun. ‘This other woman says she’s Fiona Lawson and hasn’t received proceeds of the sale that are rightfully hers. You say you’re Fiona Lawson and never sold the house in the first place.’
Fi flares up. ‘I don’t “say” I’m Fiona Lawson, I am Fiona Lawson. Look, here’s my driving licence. Is that enough to convince you?’ This man might be claiming her house, but he will not take her identity. Both the Vaughans examine the licence, but there is little discernible alteration to their manner towards her.
‘Any chance of getting a phone number for this fake Mrs Lawson from the estate agent?’ Merle says.
‘I asked, but Rav says he’s only ever had Mr Lawson’s, which I’m assuming is the same number you have for him.’