The Women: A gripping psychological thriller

by S. E. Lynes

  She should go and see her father, she thinks. It has been a long time.

  ‘Hey.’

  Samantha opens her eyes. She is lying down. Peter is sitting beside her, looking – actually, no, not looking, gazing. Peter is gazing at her. In the daylight, the brown of his eyes is more complex, flecked with rich autumnal shades. She shifts, hears the creak of leather. Art on the walls. This is not her home. This is—

  ‘I’ve brought you some tea,’ he says. ‘It’s Darjeeling. I hope that’s all right.’

  She raises herself onto her elbows. A soft grey blanket falls from her shoulders. She is fully dressed, which is a relief, though she can’t say why.

  ‘Did I fall asleep?’ She pulls herself up to a sitting position.

  ‘I woke up when the record finished, so I grabbed you a blanket.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What for?’ He hands her the tea in a white china mug. ‘It’s lovely that you’re still here.’

  ‘I should text my friend; she’ll be worried.’

  ‘Is that Marcia?’

  She stares at him, alarmed, but he laughs.

  ‘Your phone was ringing. I didn’t want to answer it, but it kept going, so eventually I took it out of your bag. That was probably the wrong thing to do, but I was a bit out of it and I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘You spoke to her?’ It is then that she notices her phone on the coffee table.

  ‘Don’t panic. I told her exactly who I was and that we’d got talking and you’d fallen asleep on the sofa and it was too late and too far to send you home. I gave her my address. She seemed to know about the department drinks and she knew my name. Even so, I think you should give her a call, tell her I didn’t take advantage of you. Yet.’ He gives a wicked grin, hands her phone to her. ‘I’m making waffles. Do you want some?’

  Her stomach answers before she does – a loud, drain-like gurgle. She giggles. ‘Yes please. Thanks.’

  He kisses her on the forehead. ‘And then I have to go. I’m lecturing later. Come with me if you like. It’s a juicy one. “Caravaggio: sex and death, life and art”.’

  He leaves her. She listens a moment, hears cupboards opening and closing, the clank of pans. It is still odd to her to think of a man cooking. She never once saw her father so much as boil an egg.

  She calls Marcia.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ her friend says without saying hello. ‘Honestly, I leave you on your own for one night … I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve gone from thinking you were celibate or something to thinking you were dead in a railway siding.’

  Samantha giggles; Marcia always makes her giggle her head off.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ she says.

  ‘What? Liar. Not even a snog?’

  ‘Stop it, you’ll make me pee. Honestly. We talked. That’s all.’ She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘Marcy, he offered me an E! I think he was trying to be, like, cool or something. Down with the kids, you know?’

  ‘Fuck! That’s mental! Did you take it?’

  ‘I took a bit, yeah. I thought with him being more experienced it would be, like, OK.’

  ‘But he’s a professor for fu— Oh my God!’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Samantha crosses her legs. She really does need to pee now. ‘But he’s not … he’s not stuffy. I know he’s, like, forty or something, but he doesn’t seem it, you know? Except for in all the good ways. Like he’s got an old record player and he listens to jazz and classical music and stuff from the nineties, he’s got a wine cellar actually in the actual cellar and he’s … he’s making waffles. For breakfast.’

  ‘Bloody hell, that’s proper grown-up. Jacob buys me a Starbucks if I’m lucky.’

  ‘I know! And he’s taking me to see him lecture. In the car. You know, the car.’

  ‘Oh my God, you got a ride in the Studmobile?’

  Samantha laughs. ‘Don’t call it that.’ She gasps, lowers her voice again to a whisper, covers her mouth with her hand. ‘It’s not like that. He didn’t even try and kiss me. He didn’t try anything. I know we thought he was a bit of a player, but he’s the opposite of a predator, the absolute opposite.’

  Peter appears at the door. He raises his eyebrows and points in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she says hurriedly into the phone. ‘I’ll text you later.’

  At eleven, Peter drives them to UCL. As they weave through the London traffic, Samantha texts Marcia:

  Breakfast = home-made waffles, home-made granola, Greek yoghurt and honey. Freshly ground coffee from a place in Covent Garden!!!!!

  Marcia replies:

  Stobbit! A GIF follows: a woman waxing orgasmic over a strawberry sundae. Samantha laughs.

  ‘You don’t mind me being here,’ Peter says, ‘while you’re on your phone, do you?’

  His tone is light enough, but Samantha apologises and slides the phone back into her bag.

  He parks on Gordon Square, ushers her to the lecture hall; she feels his hand at the small of her back as they step through the door. Once inside, they part like lovers: he to the lectern; she to the front row, smiling occasionally at him as his students file in. From his bag, he produces a pair of black glasses, which he puts on. They suit him; he almost looks better in them, and the way he gazes at her is so direct, so intimate, it almost feels like they are doing something they shouldn’t. For those few seconds, she feels the room recede, leaving her in a kind of void. Then the contact breaks, and her surroundings return in all their chattering aromas: charity-shop clothes and coffee, last night’s gig, roll-up cigarettes and stale alcohol. Two girls pass in front of her. They nudge each other, glance sideways at Peter before exchanging a smirk. As they take their seats beside her, Samantha wonders if their excitement is real or whether she’s projecting; whether she’s falling prey to the mythology, the aura, the cult of Professor Bridges.

  Peter, she thinks, her insides folding over. Peter, now.

  At midday on the dot, he looks up from his notes. The room falls into an immediate silence.

  ‘Amazing how the numbers swell when you put sex in the title of a lecture,’ he says.

  An easy laugh.

  ‘Caravaggio was a cad and a bounder,’ he announces from his pulpit with an ironic widening of eyes. ‘A death-dodger, a cheap slut, a brawler, a murderer and a drunk. He was a genius, a fugitive, a master of chiaroscuro, an innovator and an enduring influence on the Baroque, on world-famous painters such as Rembrandt, Benini and Rubens.

  ‘This morning I want to look at the psychological realism often praised in his work, and how his dissolute life might have given him the edge over …’

  Peter, who less than twenty-four hours earlier was merely Professor Bridges, no substance beyond his youthful appearance, his clean-cut style and his iconic car, continues for an hour: pacing, pointing, raising his voice, lowering it, polished as a stand-up comedian. And like a stand-up, he makes it look as if he’s making it all up there and then, as if these informed observations have come to him only now. Watching him, Samantha thinks about the night they spent together, how differently it played out from how she’d imagined. This private side of him, known only to her, thrills her like a secret, especially here in the packed, public lecture hall.

  He talks without notes, his thumb deft on the remote. Behind him, paintings bloom on the screen. Under his analytical commentary, the sacred historic scenes come to life: blood oozes from Holofernes’ throat as Judith slits it, holding her poor victim at arm’s length while her maid cowers behind her; when he introduces a painting called Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, she thinks of that bag of pills and allows herself a childish smile; and then, into the rapt silence, comes the disembodied head of the Medusa.

  ‘Caravaggio used his own face, as you can see.’ Peter gestures loosely at the screen. ‘Which creates a kind of hermaphrodite, grotesque grimace, framed by the famous writhing snakes of hair. This is the gorgon caught in the terrible instant of self-recognition. Look at
that horror. It is the moment the monster realises who he – or she – actually is.’

  Samantha feels a chill pass through her. She looks about her to see if any of the others feel it too, but Peter is off again, leading her through Roman streets with nothing but words: pungent ale sloshing in the taverns of the Via Margutta; the raucous hullabaloo of the brothels; violent brawls on the slimy cobbles. He transports her, transports all of them, to the Eternal City at the turn of the seventeenth century, a time of murder, rape and danger.

  ‘If you ever get the chance to visit,’ he says at thirty seconds to one, ‘make bloody sure you do.’

  The lecture is over. After a brief moment of silence, a roar of applause. Samantha has never seen a lecturer applauded before. Afterwards, the students pack up their notebooks, throw their bags over their shoulders and leave talking nineteen to the dozen.

  Samantha sits perfectly still, last night a foggy dream to her now. On his leather sofa in the firelight, Peter promised he would take her to Rome. This morning, he has. Now they will return to his beautiful house on the hill together. There is no doubt in her mind that this will happen. She watches him fend off the gaggle of female students who flock around the lectern like geese around a bucket of cornmeal. Peter will drive her to his house and he will press his hand to the small of her back as they step inside. The door will close and she will turn to him, and finally—

  ‘Ready?’ Bloody hell, he moves quickly.

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  He leads her to the car. Brushes his fingers across her thigh and starts the ignition. Her throat is dry.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ he says.

  Four

  ‘Move in with me,’ Peter says.

  They are propped up on pillows against the headboard of Peter’s white king-size bed. They are drinking freshly ground coffee as stripes of weak sunlight filter through the Venetian blinds, and Samantha has no idea how to reply. Yesterday is like a dream. She can’t believe she’s even had that thought, framed it with that word. But it really was like a dream, that’s the problem.

  On the way back to Peter’s house, she found yesterday’s knickers balled up at the bottom of her coat pocket. All she wanted was to grab a fresh pair of pants, her razor and a few toiletries, maybe a change of top.

  ‘Is it too out of your way to call at my flat?’ she asked.

  He’d put on an album by that old band that was still quite cool, The Chemical Brothers, was it? Cousins? Whatever, he’d raved about them anyway, asked her if she’d seen the film Trainspotting, which she hadn’t, and again she felt the keen stab of her own ignorance.

  ‘Why do you want to go to your place?’ he asked, turning the volume down.

  ‘I need a change of clothes, that’s all. You know, if we’re going back to yours.’ A hot flare of near panic; she’d assumed too much.

  He gave a slow nod of understanding. ‘Sorry, I should have thought.’

  But he didn’t take her home. Instead, he drove into Richmond and took her to House of Fraser, the big department store on George Street. In the women’s department, he told her to choose an outfit and some underwear and stood at a distance looking into his phone. She flicked through the rails, barely seeing anything but the tags. Everything was too expensive. She didn’t know what he meant by an outfit. Not wanting to keep him waiting, she chose a dress she thought he’d like: short, black, strappy. She didn’t try it on.

  ‘Is this OK?’ she asked.

  He looked up from his phone, took the dress from her and, hooking the hanger on one finger, held it out in front of him. ‘You’re not going to want to wear that tomorrow, are you? Buy something practical. Jeans, a sweater, whatever. It’s cold out.’

  He chose some designer indigo jeans, three tops by a brand she’d only ever looked at online and a merino wool sweater with a label she’d never even heard of, and waited while she tried them on. With a loose wrist, he flipped his bank card at the shop assistant, keyed his number into the terminal as if bored. When she looked in the bag, she saw he’d included the strappy black dress she’d originally chosen. It was all a bit weird. But the feeling was not unpleasant. And it’d been years since she’d bought clothes from anywhere other than charity shops and the cheapest high-street chains.

  In the underwear department, again he stood at a distance, looking elsewhere. She sidled up to the racks of bras, traced the lace contours with the tips of her fingers. The colours conjured up saloon bars, the Moulin Rouge, busty, confident women laughing in red lipstick. But what was the right thing to pick? They both knew why they were going back to his place. She didn’t want to seem naïve. But she didn’t want to seem like a slut either. He was being so nice, but it felt like a trap. She would never have worried about any of this with boys of her own age. She’d never have found herself in this situation, full stop. She was a feminist, she was, but … It was like that podcast she listened to: she was a feminist, but she wanted to look hot when she took off her clothes. There. A rubbish feminist. Tentatively she lifted a turquoise and acid-pink set from the rail and walked over to where Peter was waiting.

  ‘Are these OK?’

  He frowned. ‘If you like them, we’ll buy them. But don’t buy them for me. I would never objectify you, Samantha, you must know that.’ He looked away, then back at her, his intense brown eyes on hers.

  ‘I … Sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I’ve got it wrong. I don’t know how to be.’

  He gripped her wrist and put his lips to her ear, as if to threaten her. ‘Yourself,’ he said softly. ‘That’s all you need to be. That’s all you ever need to be. If you’re not sure, I’ll help you.’

  Together they walked over to the more practical underwear: packs of five, sensible schoolgirl neutrals. He waved his hand over the selection.

  ‘Choose something comfortable. Choose for yourself. You’re the one that’s going to wear it, not me.’

  Again he paid, with the same unceremonious wave of his card, as if money were an unlimited commodity to be exchanged for … well, for whatever he happened to want. And later, much later, when she looked back with the wisdom that only comes from experience, she realised that what he wanted that day was her. But this was not later, there was no hindsight; her thoughts had not refined themselves quite yet. Dreams are blurry realities – time slips, shrinks and warps; opinions are but embryos.

  ‘For you,’ he said, handing her the bag. ‘If you like the fancy stuff, wear it. But wear it for yourself.’

  Later, at the house, before the door had fully closed, she pushed him against the coats and kissed him hard on the mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t wait another second.’

  They staggered as far as the living room. Once he discovered her lack of underwear, the whole thing lasted seconds, but they laughed at themselves, still half clothed and breathless on the antique rug. Afterwards, he opened a bottle of red.

  ‘To us,’ he said.

  She was getting better at stifling the giggles and replied simply, ‘To us.’

  Leaving him to cook a sauce for spaghetti he boasted would change her life, she left her second glass of wine in the kitchen and went upstairs. She showered and shaved her legs with his razor, which she rinsed carefully, dried on the towel and replaced. She put on the new, fancy lingerie – why not? She considered the new black dress but at the sight of his soft denim shirt on the back of the chair, she threw that on instead. Cheesy, but she was caring less and less.

  At the sight of her, he turned off the gas and held out his hand.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s do this properly, shall we?’

  Later still, after dinner, he made love to her again, and in the night she woke to his kisses down her spine, his hands sliding around her. Afterwards, when he told her he was crazy with love for her, she kissed his chest and told him she felt the same, the urge to giggle almost gone.

  And now here they are, in his white king-size bed with sun filtering through the blinds. A dream. A blurry rea
lity that has left her absolutely exhausted.

  ‘I know it sounds sudden,’ he is saying, taking her hand in his. He has little tufts of dark hair on the backs of his fingers; his nails are manicured perfection. ‘But trust me, when you get a little older, you realise that this’ – he waggles his finger between the two of them – ‘doesn’t happen very often. If at all. It’s never happened to me, at least.’

  A current of what feels like electricity passes through her. ‘But what about Marcia?’ The question is practical enough, but in reality, she can’t take it in, can’t take any of it in. A dream. Shut up, Samantha.

  His brow knits. ‘What do you mean, what about her?’

  ‘It’s just … I live with her. I’d be letting her down. There’s no way she can pay the rent without me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll pay your share until the end of the year. And she has a boyfriend, didn’t you say? Jake?’

  ‘Jacob. Yes, she does.’

  ‘So you’re not leaving her alone. And she can visit.’

  Visit. He makes his house sound like prison. He lifts her empty cup from her hands, places it on the bedside table. Another second and his lips are on her belly, his hands under her buttocks. ‘So, Marcia will be fine, yes? What else?’ His breath is hot on her navel. He is smoothing his hands over the tops of her legs, now over her hips, her waist. He makes a soft hum of appreciation, plants baby kisses on her abdomen.