by S. E. Lynes
‘Did you want to ask me something?’ she says.
‘There’s mine,’ Sean interrupts. ‘I wrote three.’
Perhaps seeing Samantha can’t talk, Aisha raises a hand and she and Jenny slope away.
But Sean has not moved. His anorak is still zipped up to the top as it has been all class.
‘I’ve got to go into Kingston now,’ he tells her. ‘Do you know the Games Workshop?’
‘Can’t say I do, Sean,’ she says, walking towards the classroom door and holding it open for him.
‘It’s behind the Bentall Centre and Marks & Spencer, next to the art shop. I need a new crystal fortress for my blood angels.’
‘Well, I hope you find one.’ Looking at him, she wonders if he’s lonely. She fights the urge to ask if he’d like a cup of coffee, some company just for half an hour – wouldn’t hurt her to give him that, would it? But she has to get back for the baby. Instead, she gives him a warm smile, walks with him down the length of the corridor to the outer door and waves him off. ‘See you next week! Hope you find your blood angels!’
‘I’ve got the blood angels,’ he replies. ‘It’s the fortress I’m going for.’
‘Of course. Well, I hope you find your fortress.’
He gives a shy grin, the merest hint of a raised hand, and turns to go.
She watches him a moment. The hems of his jeans trail on the floor. They are frayed and darker at the bottom where they have absorbed rainwater from the pavement. He is a fragile soul, she thinks, not quite tethered to the earth. She hopes that the world has some kindness to offer him as he goes along his way. With a pinch in her heart, she returns to her desk.
At the sight of the small pile of paper, her heart beats faster, harder than it should. Ridiculous. She is ridiculous. Last week, someone pulled a silly prank that this week they didn’t want to own up to. They will have been too embarrassed. It is ridiculous to let it bother her so much.
But still.
She picks up the pile, torn between the desire to count the poems and the urge to drop the whole lot in the bin unread; to read them all here, now, or to save them until she gets home to safety. She stands by her desk and looks at the top one – Sean’s.
The last man on earth was called Sean.
Into a brave new world he was born.
There are two more limericks on the sheet, which look like variations on Sean’s favourite theme. She exhales, lifts the page. The second one is Daphne’s. So that would mean Sean has left only one sheet. Or would it? He may have slid a second, anonymous one underneath while she was talking to Aisha and Jenny. God, this is horrible, thinking badly of Sean, poor man. She reads Daphne’s offering.
There was a young girl name of Sue
Who needed help tying her shoe.
She called a kind man
Who could dance the cancan
And whose high-kicks made her go woo-woo.
Despite herself, she smiles. Emboldened, she peels the corners of the sheets one by one, like banknotes. One, two, three …
There are eight.
‘Fuck,’ she whispers into the silent room. ‘Fuck.’
She should not have walked Sean to the outer door. She left the classroom open, the pile of homework on the desk, not to mention her bag, her phone. Idiot. Anyone could have slipped an extra sheet in; it would have taken seconds. Idiot, idiot, idiot. She checks the names. Most have been typed up; some sheets have one verse, some have a few attempts. The typed verses are printed on blank paper. The two handwritten ones, from Daphne and Tommy, are on lined paper pulled from a jotter.
One, typed on a blank sheet, is anonymous.
There was a young girl, easy led,
Whose husband took many to bed.
But she was the one
Who stopped all his fun
And now she’d be better off dead.
Thirteen
Lottie
The Wolffs’ house isn’t as grand as the Murphys’, but it’s cosier in many ways. A well-appointed three-bed end of terrace within easy reach of local amenities, with a good-sized patio to the rear. Lottie pops her washing on and makes coffee for Joanne and herself. There’s no one to watch her. It’s no one’s business what she does, who she does and doesn’t make coffee for. She’s got an hour and a half before she has to be over in Edge Hill to show a two-bed and box semi to a young couple hoping to buy their first home. Was a time she hated anyone with a baby, but she doesn’t hold it against them, not anymore. Not fair, is it? Not their fault. Was a time she hated so many people, with their baby showers and their strollers and their Facebook posts about their perfect family life. Now there’s only one person she hates.
Well, two.
She leaves Joanne’s coffee on the side and takes her own upstairs. Feeling a bit antsy today. There’s no furniture upstairs, so the bedroom floor will have to do. It’s hard on her shoulders, and the small of her back hurts, so she has to bring her knees up before she closes her eyes. That’s better, flattens her spine out nicely. She’s forgotten the bloody radio; the house roars with quiet. That’s because of what she’s found out; it’s got her all over the place, and with the new year coming in and that. That always makes things a bit raw, doesn’t it?
She starts singing to calm herself: a bit of Adele – really belts it out – and that lovely song by Corinne Bailey Rae from ages ago. She’s good at remembering lyrics, knows all her favourite songs off by heart: ‘I Believe I Can Fly’, ‘… Baby One More Time’, ‘Wonderwall’. She loves the nineties ones. Sometimes she even writes her own songs, when the mood takes her. She always was quite good at English, though she worked hardest in history. Because of him.
It was a mistake, looking on the internet. Obviously. She told herself she wouldn’t search. She’d lost track of him years before, but there’s always been that shadow hovering at the back of her mind. Then Facebook came along. She looked, but nothing, and she thought maybe he’d changed his name. But these last few years, well, you can find anyone now. You’re no one if you don’t have a profile of some sort – a digital footprint. Even her, a loser who spends her free time pretending to live a life she could have had but didn’t in houses she doesn’t own – yes, even she has a digital footprint, and like everyone else’s hers is made with her best shoes and not the smelly old trainers she keeps in the shed. She made sure she posted her award at the end of last month. Nash and Watson Regional Agent of the Year. Oh yes, up that went, all smiles. But she’s not posting this, is she? Not posting herself lying on someone else’s floor crying her eyes out, heart breaking all over again.
Best foot forward. Her nan used to say that. Never complain, never explain and always look your best. Her nan used to say that as well. Her mantra, that was. Times don’t change, not really. At the end of the day, Facebook, Instagram and all that crap is just your Sunday best, isn’t it? It’s your best foot forward, in its best shoes, making its digital print.
Obviously, he was always going to turn up online eventually. And like everything else, just when she’d stopped looking. Doing very well for himself, thank you very much. Still a handsome bastard. Still has that house on the hill. Now that was a house! If pushed, she’d say that was probably where her whole interest in the property market sparked. It was definitely the first time she felt the rush of a cold set of keys in her hand as she slid them into her pocket. She bloody loves keys. People collect all sorts. You see that, working in this game. She’s seen everything from stuffed owl collections through tin soldiers to all that train set stuff a certain type of man has in the attic. With her, it’s keys. House keys particularly. They’re easy as pie to copy; you just take them to the cobbler’s, and if you have the key to someone’s house, their front door might as well be wide open. If you have their digital footprint as well, you have their habits, their haunts, their place of work, their friends. You have the key to their whole life then, don’t you?
And you may as well step inside.
And if that someone ruined your life, ruined yo
u, in fact, then it’s only fair that you should ruin theirs right back. There she is again, her nan, God rest her soul, coming in with another of her old sayings: Revenge, Lottie. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Fourteen
Samantha almost falls into the house when Peter opens the door.
‘I hate it when you don’t use your key,’ he says. ‘It’s so lazy.’
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I was rushing and I got flustered. I’ve had another poem and it’s not a joke, it’s definitely not a joke this time.’
She pushes past him and into the living room. On the coffee table is an empty wine glass, the smallest bud of burgundy at the bottom. It stops her in her tracks.
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘I had the leftover lasagne,’ he says. ‘There was literally a dribble of the Pinot Noir left.’
Momentarily derailed, she sits on the sofa. After a moment, she digs her folder out of her bag. ‘Is Emily asleep?’
He nods, yes, and sits beside her. ‘So, let’s see the offending article.’ His tone is light, almost amused.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He stares at her as if perplexed. ‘Nothing. Sorry. I just meant let’s see the … what is it, another clerihew?’
Warily, she hands it to him. ‘A limerick. I’m trying to build their confidence by getting them to play around with words. Lose their fear, you know?’
He reads, his frown line deepening at the centre of his forehead. She reads it herself, yet again, upside down.
There was a young girl, easy led,
Whose husband took many to bed.
But she was the one
Who stopped all his fun
And now she’d be better off dead.
‘Just how promiscuous were you?’ The question is out before she is able to stop herself, and as she could have anticipated if she’d had the presence of mind to keep quiet, Peter looks at her aghast.
‘What? Where did that come from?’
‘I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m just … It was nerves. I’m just, like, really creeped out, that’s all.’
He winces. She has said ‘like’ – his pet hate – and he won’t like the term ‘creeped out’ either.
‘Samantha.’ He has used her full name, never a good sign. ‘I told you the first time we met that I’ve been with other women. I know we don’t think about our age difference much, but it really is an inevitable aspect of me being a little older, you know that. We talked about this.’
‘Sorry.’ She nods, a little ashamed. They did talk about it, back when he asked her to move in. She’d been concerned about this very thing. He told her how unhappy he’d been, how he’d searched and not found for years. Until her.
‘I’ve never asked anyone to move in with me,’ he said. ‘And I’ve certainly never asked a woman to marry me. Only you. Only you, Sam. You are my one, you know that.’
She promised him it was enough, that she would never use his past against him. Which is what she’s just done.
She apologises again.
‘The point here,’ he says, ‘is that this isn’t about me. And it’s not about you either. You’re reading it through your own subjective lens.’
She takes the poem from him and reads it again. There are no names. And she’s not easily led. And Peter has a past, yes, but he’s hardly a gigolo.
‘The thing is,’ Peter says, ‘it’s actually pretty generic, isn’t it? There are no names, it’s a standard set-up and pay-off, just that the pay-off is a bit … misjudged.’
‘Misjudged? Is that, like, code for sinister?’
‘Don’t say like.’
‘Soz – sorry.’ She bites her lip. She’s almost eradicated any trace of youth-speak along with oh my God, but in her stress, it has popped out.
He scratches his head, blows air through pursed lips. ‘Let me think about it. I don’t think it’s anything to get hugely panicked about. It’s not malevolent. Just someone with a terrible sense of humour or maybe lacking in social skills. It could still be innocent, someone trying to be cheeky but getting the tone wrong. As I said, we’re not named.’
‘I suppose.’ She leans into him, presses her face to his chest.
He puts his arm around her and kisses her on the head. ‘Above all, don’t worry. Nothing bad can happen to you while you’re with me, OK? I’ll keep you safe.’
‘Thank you,’ she says, sliding her arms around his waist. ‘I wish you didn’t have to go to work.’
‘I’ll be back before you know it.’ He loosens her arms and stands up.
Panic fizzes in her guts. She really doesn’t want him to leave her here alone. But there’s nothing she can say. A student with a taste for sinister humour is not enough to make him miss his lecture. And he’s right, it’s not about them.
He pulls her up, into his arms, and kisses her on the mouth. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ His eyes are so deep and so brown.
‘You don’t think he or she knows where we live,’ she says, ‘do you?’
He frowns. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a stupid verse written by a stupid human being. Let’s not blow things out of proportion.’
She watches him pull out of the drive. Once he has gone, silence hisses through the house like gas. She stares out of the front window, over the hedge to the street. There is no one outside, no one watching the house – of course there isn’t, for God’s sake. And Peter won’t be gone that long. It isn’t even four o’clock, and he’ll be back around eight; it’s nothing, no time at all. To resent him going to work is beyond pathetic.
She goes upstairs to check on Emily, who is fast asleep, fists raised. This isn’t good; she should be awake now. Yet again, Peter has managed to disrupt the routine it has taken Samantha months to establish. In all likelihood, he has done it to please himself, and this annoys her even against the worry of the potentially malevolent poet. She shouldn’t complain, even in her mind. Her dad never lifted a finger inside the home; his domain was outdoors and that was that. Outdoors – pretty far out of doors, as it turned out. Stop it, Samantha. Stop.
With her and Peter, the boundaries are less defined, less easy to define. The demands on his time are more ad hoc, and of course he has lived most of his life on his own and she gets that, she really does. Plus, he is around much more than other husbands, from what she can glean from the mums in the two baby groups she has joined. So what if he’s often home late and has to hide away in his study at weekends? The other women seem to spend a lot more time alone, long evenings waiting for their partners to return and hold the baby while they grab a shower or prepare a hasty meal. They see her as a girl, these women, she knows that. Last week, one of them asked in super-slow English if she was the au pair.
Downstairs, she makes herself a cup of tea and sits on the sofa. If Emily is going to sleep, she can at least put her feet up for five minutes.
There was a young girl, easy led,
Whose husband took many to bed.
She stands up, walks over to the record player. Tom Waits is on the turntable. She’s not in the mood for that maudlin growl but can’t be bothered to flip through the other discs.
And now she’d be better off dead.
Stop it. If only there were some biscuits in the house, but Peter doesn’t like her to eat too much sugar. And he’s trying to persuade her to take up running. He says it’s good for low mood and excellent for aerobic fitness, though she suspects he is keen for her to lose the half stone she gained during pregnancy. Just the thought of running makes her feel tired. Besides, the Fitbit he bought her tells her she walks almost ten kilometres with the pram every day. How much air does one pair of lungs need?
… better off dead.
Stop. It. She could make some toast. Or call her mum. Or take a nap.
No chance.
Peter’s wine glass is still on the table. She puts her mug next to it and lies down. The cushions shift; she can’t get comfy. Her eyes sting. She opens them, props herself u
p on her elbow. The cushion slants. The corner of what looks like one of the plastic bags she uses to store her breast milk pokes out from behind the cushion. She pulls at it. A moment of resistance and it comes free. In it are coloured pills.
‘Oh my God,’ she says aloud. ‘You are joking me.’
She puts the bag to her nose and sniffs inside. It smells of nothing; she has no idea why she even did that.
‘What the hell?’ she asks no one at all, the habit of talking to herself one she has acquired since Emily. Is this what Peter does when she’s out teaching – gets Emily to sleep and then takes drugs? In their home? Her head throbs.
The pills could have been there for ages. He offered her Ecstasy many times in the early days, though never calling it by that name and never in pill form since that first night. Fancy a cheeky bit of Mandy? he would say, or Few sprinkles in your wine? She always refused, telling him to go ahead, which he did the first few times, then didn’t. And he has not offered her anything since she was pregnant, before that even. She assumed he’d forgotten all about it, had moved on now that they were a family.
But they have never openly talked about it. A mistake.
She wonders if and how she can broach the subject. It isn’t as if Peter was out of it just now. Which points to him having forgotten about them. In fact, it’s possible they got lodged behind the sofa cushions the first night she spent here. It’s not like they’re at risk of friends discovering them. Apart from her mother coming to stay that one time, they’ve never, in all the time she’s lived here, invited anyone over.
She pushes the bag back where she found it. She will pretend she hasn’t seen it, check in a few days and see if it’s still there. If it is, she can make light of it, or maybe pretend to discover it by accident when he’s here with her.
‘Peter,’ she could say, the trace of laughter in her voice. ‘Look what I just found. Shall I throw them away now that we’ve got Em?’
