by Sarah Till
‘It’s not really like that, Gabriel. Not really.’
‘Oh. Has he always been like that? A bit of a philanderer?’
‘Not really. Well, I suppose he was. There was Aunty Jean.’
He smiles.
‘So you do have family?’
‘Yeah. But I don’t have anything to do with them. I think Aunty Jean and David...’
He’s rolling a cigarette now. I wonder if I should tell him what had happened, how I’ve come to be so alone. How my voice has been swallowed up into the violence, the threat of hurt and pain.
‘So why didn’t you end it then?’
I take a deep breath.
‘He... he...’
His eyes move to the bruises on my wrist and he touches them lightly.
‘Has he hurt you?’ I nod and he shakes his head. ‘I knew it. I fucking knew it. Look, Patti, if he does anything to you again, even a verbal threat, anything, tell me, and I’ll help you. Yeah?’
‘Help me? How can you?’ It’s all jumbled in my mind and I spit the words at him. ‘I’m not some weak fucking woman, you know, just lying down to be walked over. I know it might look like it, but seriously I’m not. I’ve tried to get away. I’ve left twice now, I went back to London once, stayed there for two months, but he found me. He always finds me. Don’t you think I’d leave if I could? Don’t you Gabriel?’
‘So leave. Walk out. Just get up and go now. He can’t stop you.’
‘Why should I? Why should I give up my home, my work? He should fucking leave. Besides, he’s already got that covered. He said that if I leave he’d kill me and bury me on the moor.’
He also said that if I told anyone he’d kill me, and I’d just told Gabriel in anger. I look at him, gauging if I can trust him. His face is scarlet, but he’s calm.
‘Right. That’s all I need to know. Stay out of his way. I’ll make sure this is resolved.’
‘Resolved? Who the fuck are you, Gabriel? The fucking A-team? What are you doing here?’
He sighs. I swear he’s going to say ‘if I told you I’d have to kill you’. He doesn’t, he just stares at me, his fingers tapping on the table.
‘Never mind that. Just trust me. I’ll help you. But stay away from him. Yeah?’
‘Well that’s going to be difficult seeing as we sleep together.’
‘I’ll sort it. Just try to keep him calm until then. I just need a few more days.’
‘For what, Gabriel? It doesn’t make sense. You’re not going to hurt him are you, or do anything stupid?’
He’s standing now, striding upstairs.
‘Like I said, keep away from him. I just need time, a little bit more information, then it will all be out in the open.’
‘What will? Gabriel?’
He’s gone. I hear his bedroom door slam and footsteps across the ceiling above me. I suddenly realise that this is serious, that if Gabriel feels like he has to defend me, then David will find out I’ve been talking to him. It’s an impossible situation. The only option open to me now is to end it, to confront him straight away, in a public place, with his lover. Then I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how he’s treated me.
I wash my hair and apply make-up, ready for the rest of my day. Despite everything, I’m proud of myself for making a decision, and for taking action on it. It’s been a while since I made my mind up, but I can’t hide here anymore, pretending that I can carry on my relationship with David. I go outside and gaze at the moor. It’s a bright day and I can see all the way to the reservoir, and up to the hills beyond. It looks so inviting, until I remember that death hangs over the moor, as well as under it, and I’m almost afraid to breathe in now I feel more hopeful. There’s a slight stab of guilt as I think about Vera’s pain. Her long trek across the moor every day, and my plan with Gabriel to write a book about it, when, eventually, my nightmare with David is over. A book about death, written for those death tourists who hover like vultures, picking on the bones of grotesque mystery. We don’t talk about it, but we write about it. I look back and see Gabriel standing at the window, watching me reverse out of the drive. I wonder who he really is and why he’s in our home. David clearly trusts him – no one has ever stayed here before. I go over his arrival and his nodding acquaintance with David. Maybe what he says is true, that they met in the pub and he asked him if he had a spare room. Even David would be hard pushed to refuse someone he thought was a friend.
Whatever and whoever he was, he seemed hell-bent on helping me. My hope grows with every minute, as I drive towards the school. I feel a bit like Angie Dickinson in old re-runs of Police Woman, screeching down the road to confrontation. David will be gone and I’ll be free. Then I’ll be able to work out how the moor works, how it breathes. Even my heather seems trivial compared with the rest of it now. It’s a base for my life, a reason to be here, the creatures need me to find out why, the causation of their demise. They need me. Someone out there somewhere, someone like Gabriel, needs me. I have hope and beauty, so how can I fail now?
In no time I’m at the school. It’s two forty-five and David’s car is parked outside. Maybe this will turn out better than I imagined. Maybe she is a teacher at the school? Or a dinner lady? Don’t they call them kitchen operatives these days? I park up at the far end of the car park and walk slowly into reception. Susie, the receptionist who fell over at the Christmas party, welcomes me.
‘Here to see David? He should just be going to 303 now. For orchestra practice.’
I glance at the rota on the wall. I’m too early. I thought I would have to go to the staff room to see where he was.
‘Right. I wasn’t sure if I would catch him. He pops out so often.’
She looks puzzled and checks the signing in book.
‘Not really. He hardly ever goes anywhere. Very dedicated member of staff, Mr Anderson. He sometimes doesn’t leave until eight or nine.’
‘Yeah. I expect you have a lot of members of staff like that?’
‘Not really, most of them can’t wait to get out of here. But he likes to make sure everything is put away for the after-school classes.’
‘Mmm. A regular hero. Isn’t he?’
She giggles.
‘You certainly found your prince there, he’s such a lovely, kind guy.’
I walk up the corridor towards the lift. If only she knew. My heart is pounding as I press the button for the third floor. I’m still a little bit early so when I step out of the lift I rush to the end of the corridor and duck into an empty classroom. Now I’m here, on the verge of finding out what’s going on in my own relationship, I feel strangely calm. Apart from the thumping in my chest, I actually feel a little excited. I realise I have no idea what I will do when David’s secret is public knowledge. Would I throw him out? I picture myself dumping his clothes at the front of the house, with him and Sam driving up to get them. In my mind she’s a blank figure, woman shaped but with no detail, but soon I’d know exactly what she looked like. I panic a little at the thought of being alone in the house with Gabriel once David is gone, and promise myself that, once this was over, I’d make a fresh start. Kill two birds with one stone.
I can hear footsteps on the corridor as the classes change at three, then the noise settles into a slow hum of activity. I open the classroom door, walk down the corridor, and find room 303. I listen at the door, but it is completely silent. I turn the handle quickly and thirty-one pairs of eyes are on me. The string section of the school orchestra is seated, bows at the ready, and David stands beside the piano, arms raised, ready to conduct. I see the score, and it’s ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee’. I smile weakly and scan the orchestra and the room for an extra person, the woman who is fucking David.
He watches me for a split second, then motions the orchestra to lower their bows. He grabs my arm and pushes me onto the corridor and shuts the door.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
I fold my arms but he pushes me again, backwards into an empty clas
sroom and closes the door.
‘Looking for your lover. I know she’s here somewhere. Does she work here?’
His face is red and a small vein in his forehead is throbbing.
‘Look, Patti, for the last time, you’re out of your mind. You’re a lunatic. You need to see someone. As you can see, I’m taking a lesson. Thirty musicians are in there ready to play, and you burst in? Is this the action of a rational woman?’ I stare at him, for the first time doubting myself. Maybe they had cancelled during the day, she couldn’t make it. I glance at the door and back at David. He’s clearly angry, but his voice is low. ‘You really need to see someone. Go to the doctor and tell him what you’ve been thinking. All the accusations, all the sneaking around after me. Go and tell him.’ He opens the door slightly, and, for a moment, I thought that I was imagining the texts and phone calls. That’s how he makes me feel. He makes me doubt my own sanity.
‘OK, David, just say you aren’t seeing someone, which I fucking know you are. What about this?’ I pull up my sleeve and show him the bruises. ‘Am I imagining this? Am I howling at the fucking moon now? You call me a lunatic, but you’re a fucking psychopath.’
He grabs my hair tightly and I can hear the follicles popping out of my scalp. He twists my head round, so my face is level with his.
‘You tell a living soul about this, and I swear I’ll kill you. I mean it, Pat. You’re brave now, aren’t you, with all those kids across the way? All mouthy now, aren’t you? But wait until we’re up there, in that big house all alone. What will you say then? Eh?’ He lets my hair go but pushes my head over a desk, my face meeting with the dusty plastic. There’s a flash on contact, a familiar sensation as my brain rattles around and settles into a terrified state.
‘I won’t tell anyone. I won’t.’
‘Better not, Patti. Better not. Don’t forget, if you tell the police, they’ll only bail me, and I’ll come to get you. And I’ll kill you. What will I do?’
‘Kill me.’ I whisper it, repeating the same phrase I’ve heard so many times over the years in this exact situation. The rational part of me knows it’s classical conditioning, repeat something until you believe it, but what’s rational about this? What’s rational about David’s behaviour?
‘Good. So go home, there’s a good girl, and forget all about this now. Don’t come here again, showing me up with your paranoid ideas. Stay at home. OK?’
‘Yes. OK.’
He lets me go and spins me around to face him. Strands of hair fly out of his hand and land on the desk in slow motion. He’s nodding at me, and smiling now, and patting my hair down, wiping away my tears. He leads me out of the classroom and into the corridor, past the open door, careful to stand between me and the children.
But I look back into the room, past the thirty pairs of eyes, and wonder where she is hiding.
‘Just go home, Patti, and leave me to do what I love.’
He goes back into the room and shuts the door. She clearly isn’t in there with him. Did I imagine the arrangement, the text messages to meet him at three? I stand there, staring at the door, and ask myself why I didn’t argue with him, ask him about the text messages, tell him that I know her name. There would obviously be consequences, but wouldn’t it be worth it for him to know that I was onto him? I know deep down that it makes me look mad, the scary woman who sifts through people’s belongings instead of asking them straight out what they are up to. I hear Gabriel’s words, his pleas to leave David alone, to not flare the situation, but I still had to find the evidence. In the back of my mind I wonder if I am mad?
Is it me? Do other people live like this, so consumed by their lives that they don’t notice their relationship had gone to shit? At the start of all this I had gone to my GP and told him what I suspected; what David would repeat time after time.
‘He keeps telling me that I need to see someone, you know, a counsellor.’
The doctor had leaned back on his chair and sighed.
‘OK. Why would he do that?’
‘I’ve suspected him of having another woman, someone else. Of not loving me. Every time I ask him he tells me I’m mad. I suppose all the hysterical crying doesn’t help.’
‘Do you think you need to see someone? Are you imagining it? Are your reactions to your situation out of the ordinary? Are you angrier than you can cope with?’
I had smiled through my tears and considered telling him about the violence. The cruelty. But couldn’t, because then he would ask me why I hadn’t phoned the police. I would have to say that I thought David was going to kill me, and it all sounded very unreasonable when you say it out loud.
‘No. I’m just deeply hurt and upset. So upset that I could just cry at the thought of it. I know something is wrong, but I have no evidence, no proof. I know what I’m seeing, and he’s saying that I’m not. David says nothing is wrong and I’m mad. I’ve been doing some work on the moor, for my thesis, and I’ve been interested in the crash and how it’s affected people.’
He perked up, as everyone does when the crash is mentioned these days, after all the recent publicity.
‘Oh yes. So is your project about that, then?’
‘No, not really. It’s about the aetiology of the moor, the cause and effect of how the moor is balance and survives. I chose this moor by accident, it could have been any, the house was perfect and right next to my data field. I didn’t know the history then. But somehow, it all seems to have become intertwined.’
‘Isn’t that why we do research, though? I mean, to discover many different variables through actually doing the investigation? It sounds to me like you are doing good work, and you’ve found a factor that could add to previous research?’
I smiled a little.
‘Mmm. If you look at it that way. I suppose it’s the same with David. The more I look at the situation, the more I see something extra, something else going on.’
I knew immediately that I’d managed to steer an interesting conversation back to David. The doctor was an intelligent person trying to have an intelligent conversation with me. I had to denigrate it to gossipy relationship stuff. It was always like this. Fucking hell. Maybe I was mad? The doctor scribbled on my file and sat up straight.
‘I think you need to go home and think about things. If you really feel so bad, so upset, then it’s your life situation you need to consider. Make some changes. I can arrange for you to see a counsellor, if you like, to talk it through.’
‘But I would only be able to say what I told you. Isn’t there something you can give me for it?’
‘No, Patricia. I could prescribe you anxiety pills, or anti-depressants, but please go home and consider your situation first. If you make some decisions, you might feel better in the long run. If not, come back and I’ll try to help you. OK?’
I nodded and left, prescriptionless. I was bitterly disappointed and began to feel as if I was let down by the NHS, and not David. I still felt unbalanced. As if something was out of kilter. And I still hadn’t been able to do any serious work for thinking about David and the plane, the wreckage clearly visible on the distant hillside on a clear day.
I’m disappointed with myself now. I was so sure that this was it, the moment I would catch David, the culmination of my suspicions confirmed. It was, in reality, an anti-climax. I’d lost the battle, but I hadn’t lost the war. As I strode out of the school I knew there would never be another opportunity to catch David. His words rang in my ears, and I wonder what will happen to me when he gets home, and if I will live to see another day. Susie stands as I almost run out of the building.
‘Did you get what you want?’ she shouts.
‘Not this time, Susie, not this time.’
The Lizard
The common or viviparous lizards (Lacerta vivipara) are not as common as they used to be throughout the UK, mainly due to their natural habitat being used to build houses on. They used to be found in urban areas, but this is now rare. However they are widely spread over the Bri
tish Isles and in a range of areas of central and northern Europe and are not considered to be an endangered species. The habitat of the lizard is similar to that of the slow worm, which includes open fields, hedgerows, moors and sparse woodland. Unlike the slow worm, which tends to shade from the sun, the lizards can be seen basking in the sun. They are sociable creatures and where the conditions are suitable they tend to live in colonies. Lizards generally search for food when their body temperature reaches 30 degrees Celsius. The lizard's diet is made up of various insects, spiders, small earthworms and snails, all of which they grip in their jaws and stun by shaking, before swallowing them whole. Lizards are at their most vulnerable when they are cold, as they tend to be sluggish and easy prey for predators. Their main predators are snakes, wild rodents and birds of prey including kestrels. The lizard's main defences are both the speed at which it can run and the ability to shed the lower part of its tail. Thus if the predator grabs the lizard by its tail, that is all it gets; a squirming tail that confuses the predator and allows the lizard to escape alive, ready to strike again.
Chapter Seven
I wake up and David isn’t here. I thought I’d felt him slide into bed last night, but he’s not here now, and there’s no trace of him. I hadn’t seen Gabriel last night, as I had returned from the school, shaken and bruised; he’d been standing at the bus stop as I drove past.
Stepping out of bed and walking across the cool floor, I get to the kitchen before I realise that I feel different today. Where there had been a dark hole of despair in my soul where I was a prisoner to David’s temper and oppression, I suddenly felt brave. There had been flashes of this before, even yesterday as I walked towards room 303, but it had always been extinguished quickly with a fist or a threat, and it had taken me a long time to recover. This time it’s much stronger, and I’m a little bemused at what I’m going to do.
The water boils and I make tea before I go to the utility room and watch Sarah’s sun salute. I notice Gabriel’s brown boots by the door, and realise that he’s in his room, upstairs and not so far away from me. It’s real. He’s here and yesterday did really happen. Someone finally knows what is going on and is going to help me. Even David’s absence didn’t matter so much. In fact, I begin to realise, it’s giving me an excuse to finally find out what he’s up to. This time I’d just go to a solicitor and tell them I want David out of my life. I feel a stab of fear, a knowledge of what he would do when he found out. It didn’t matter. It had to stop. Of course I was scared, and it would take something big, something irreversible now to put a barrier between us. Naturally, I already knew what I was going to do. It had been in the back of my mind for a long time, David’s workshop, the endless phone calls, the locked drawer, the hours spend in there doing who knows what? Then, when he had finished, or was going to work, the locked door. Out of bounds for me in my own home. I’d known all along that the answer must be in there, the final proof to his sneaking around.
