The Women: A gripping psychological thriller

by S. E. Lynes

  ‘I’m here about my thesis,’ she says. She lays down the book, picks up one of Peter’s biros and taps it against her teeth.

  ‘I … I read it.’ He looks stressed.

  She puts her feet on his desk, crosses her ankles. ‘Oh yes? And what did you think?’

  He blows at his ridiculous acrylic-like hair and comes to sit on the edge of the desk. She lifts her leg, repositions it so that she has a foot either side of him. For the first and, she suspects, last time in her life, she is wearing stockings and suspenders. Peter has told her so often that he doesn’t objectify women. But that was bullshit and this is role play.

  ‘Christ,’ he whispers, runs his hands up the inside of her leg.

  She whips her feet from the desk and leans forward, unzips his fly.

  He stays her hand.

  ‘Wait,’ he says. He looks about him, seems to be searching for something.

  ‘I hope there aren’t too many corrections,’ she insists, pushing her hand inside the loose opening of his boxers.

  ‘Not too many.’ His voice has thinned. He bends forward and kisses her hard on the mouth. ‘Just a few things we need to go over.’

  She almost loses it. The whole thing is so cheesy, like an old film, or even porn, not that she’s seen more than a few minutes of that stuff. But he’s into it, the evidence is hard in her hand, and she knows she can’t bottle out now.

  But despite the early encouraging signs, Peter struggles to keep up the necessary enthusiasm. She does what she can, but he fades in her grip like a week-old balloon. She wonders at his initial reticence, right at the start. Is it possible that he’s so drug-dependent now that he can’t enjoy anything unless he’s taken something? Or has he felt the power shift already?

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, sitting back from her. ‘We’ll have to try again later.’

  ‘That’s OK. Don’t worry about it.’

  He zips up his fly with an apologetic grimace, opens the deep bottom drawer of his desk. It is a filing section, she can see the steel runners, but inside are not files but bottles, five or so, housed in a cardboard wine carrier. Something about this makes her feel sad, so sad it almost makes her question what she’s doing. Peter is not bad, not really, just pathetic. He pulls out a bottle and waves it at her.

  ‘Maybe if we have a drop of this, we can try again?’ he says.

  She wrinkles her nose. ‘Let’s just get to the restaurant, shall we? It’s booked for two thirty. It’s Mexican; we can have margaritas. I’m in charge today, remember. This is your surprise.’

  He puts the bottle back without argument. She can’t decide if he’s disappointed or relieved, but it feels weird to have him do what she says.

  They head towards Fitzrovia. In the restaurant, she orders margaritas – virgin for her; she’s still breastfeeding, she reminds him, and a cocktail might be too strong. They arrive crusted with glittering salt. Peter excuses himself to go to the bathroom. While he’s in there, she takes out the shampoo miniature and pours a little of his magic powder into his drink. It is astonishingly easy, as easy as taking a painkiller, in the bustle of the busy restaurant. And she has practised. The sprinkles hit the cloudy duck-egg-blue drink and just as quickly dissolve. She knew she’d have the opportunity to do this because the thing about Peter is that he needs the loo a lot, much more than boys her age. Not surprising, not anymore. Goodbye, grumpy Peter; hello, nice Peter.

  ‘I’ve been busy,’ she announces when he returns from the little boys’ room. ‘Very busy indeed.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ His smile is the same as when they first met, the same smile he was giving that girl at the theatre last week, the one that says: Go on, you fascinate me.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she quips. ‘But have a drink first.’

  He doesn’t need asking twice. He puts the glass to his lips and takes a large swig.

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ he says.

  ‘Are you ready?’ She raises her eyebrows and pulls a face, egging him on as you would a child. She pulls out two small jeweller’s boxes and pushes one over to him.

  ‘Look at me.’ She giggles. ‘I’m a wreck.’

  But she is not a wreck – far from it.

  ‘What’s this?’ He is half amused, half … something – she’s not sure what. He takes another slug, almost finishes his drink.

  She reaches out and takes both his hands in hers. ‘I’m going to count to three. On three, I want you to slide your box over to me, and I’ll slide mine over to you, all right?’

  His expression is still amused, a touch of paternal indulgence.

  ‘All right,’ she says. ‘One, two, three.’

  The boxes slide, cross over.

  ‘Now,’ she says, giggles threatening to ruin the moment. ‘Another three and we open them.’

  She closes her eyes for a moment.

  ‘One,’ she says, blinking. ‘Two.’ She grins, gratified to feel her eyes filling with open-to-interpretation tears. ‘Three.’

  She opens her small burgundy jeweller’s box. But she’s looking at him.

  He frowns, that half amusement again playing at the edges of his pink mouth. He takes out the wedding band.

  ‘It’s engraved inside,’ she says, and while the reasons might be other than Peter will surely deduce, her excitement is real. ‘It’s a date.’

  ‘Nineteenth of the fourth, two thousand and eighteen,’ he reads.

  ‘Yes,’ she rushes in. ‘That’s when we’re getting married.’

  He meets her gaze. ‘What?’

  She knows, can feel, her eyes are shining. Oh, it is so good to be in charge! Energy surges through her. She wanted to wait until this moment to tell him! She has done this for spontaneity! For romance! For love!

  ‘I’ve booked a wedding at Richmond Register Office. Low-key, like you prefer. We get married that day, on the date on the rings. And afterwards, we’re going to Luigi’s for lunch – he’s going to do something really special – and after that … guess where we’re going? Rome! You’ve arranged so much for me, so this time I thought I’d arrange everything for us. What do you think?’ She’s out of breath, which is as it would be.

  His features fight – he looks like he can’t decide whether to be excited or horrified, as if he knows what is expected of him but has no idea how he could have expected this of her, his little malleable princess, so much younger, so much less worldly than him. She can only hope the sprinkles are kicking in.

  But his eyes are soft. The chemicals must have hit his bloodstream. He takes hold of her hands and kisses her knuckles. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done all that in secret. How did you … how did you get my passport details?’

  ‘From the safe!’

  His brow creases. ‘How did you know the number for the safe?’

  ‘Well, I … I tried your birthday and my birthday, and nothing. I knew your bank card pins were listed under Caravag1 and Caravag2 and I’ve seen you type a number into the cashpoint a few times and I was pretty sure it started with fifteen. So I looked up Caravaggio on Wiki and I saw his birthdate was fifteen something and I thought maybe you’d used that, the same as your cash cards.’ She shrugs. ‘I knew I only had one more try but I thought, well, if it all goes wrong, I’ll just ask you, you know.’ She reaches for his hands again. ‘But I so wanted to surprise you. And when it worked, I was so happy.’ She laughs: a merry, feminine trill. ‘The only thing is, I am so skint now. I might need you to transfer some money, is that all right? But I thought, you know, you were going to book an Easter holiday, and I know you wanted to take me to Rome, so I thought you, me and our beautiful baby girl … I thought you’d be pleased.’ She smiles with all the warmth she has in her, an attempt to return the power to him. He must feel that she is seeking his approval; he must sanction it before it is allowed to happen. ‘You are pleased, aren’t you, hon? Did I do a good thing?’ That last was maybe a bit over the top.

  His face breaks, thank God.

  ‘You’re amazing,’ he says. ‘You’ve org
anised it perfectly. I thought you’d want a large wedding, but if you prefer a register office, then so do I.’

  ‘I don’t want a fuss. I don’t want my mum coming down because then I’ll have to invite my dad and … no, too stressful, I can’t face it.’ She kisses the back of his hand. ‘I want it to be just us. It’s … well, I think it’s really romantic, don’t you?’

  ‘Where are we staying?’

  She holds up her hand. ‘Well, actually, I made enquiries. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Sally and she said your favourite hotel is the boutique place in Trastevere. It wasn’t too expensive so I … I just went for it.’ She cocks her head to one side. ‘Did I do OK?’

  He drains his drink, signals to the waiter for another. ‘Well, we’ll probably need self-catering, with Emily.’

  ‘You’re right. Of course. I’ll change it.’ She gives an excited little shrug. ‘Told you I’d been busy.’

  She has told him everything, though not of the shock of finding out his real age, as he now knows she has. If it hangs in the air between them, he doesn’t show it. Neither of them does. That’s another little discovery about lying. Once you know you’re being lied to, it’s up to you whether you walk away, or stay and play along.

  Thirty-Seven

  Rome, April 2018

  The dusty yellow light sweeps up the Via Veneto, glances off the foreign embassies and the five-star hotels, the Lebanon cedars, the stone pines and plane trees of the vast Villa Borghese park. Doubling back, down it comes, over the Centro Storico, floats over the gurgling brown wash of the River Tiber, over the distant footfall of long-dead Roman soldiers in the Castel Sant’Angelo, over the statues wrestling on the Vittorio Emanuele bridge. Onto the white dome of the Vatican this light sprinkles its hazy yellow dust, downriver, down, down to Trastevere, with its students and its buskers, its homeless, its pizzerias and late-night bars. Its artists and its lovers.

  And here are two such lovers … although they are no longer in the first throes of passion, the first exquisite moments of mutual discovery. The tourists eye them as they walk hand in hand, form their instant, baseless opinions. His hair is chestnut brown, his stomach doesn’t trouble the buttons of his shirt, but those who observe with a keener eye see the telltale grooves in his forehead and the crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes, the creases that bracket his mouth, the chin that is losing its definition. Still, he has kept himself in shape. He’s really looked after himself. Probably afraid of losing her, yes, look at her – much younger, and pretty too. He lets her carry the baby, they notice – his back’s probably packed up, knees giving him gyp. She really is so much younger, now they look closely. Fine blonde hair slung up in a messy ponytail, limbs like string, too young to be with him. Maybe she’s the au pair, maybe a third wife, maybe she’s after his money. A baby, though, oh, and look, new, shiny wedding rings, how sweet.

  He’s taking a photograph of his young wife, positioning her against a dilapidated Roman doorway, telling her exactly how to stand. The picture is composed: the perfect juxtaposition of radiant youth and vainglorious, crumbling ruin. He has an artist’s eye.

  ‘Rome,’ Professor Peter Bridges says when the photo is taken, straightening to his full height. ‘Roma,’ he qualifies with a sigh, as if he is the first person ever to be struck quite so hard by the impossible magnificence of the Eternal City. He stretches out his hand for hers. Together, laughing like children, they head for the Ponte Palatino, to the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin, the only sight she has chosen, has been allowed to choose, for their itinerary.

  ‘Another church,’ he says, with the barest lacing of reticence.

  ‘It’s a hidden gem.’

  ‘This city is full of hidden gems.’ A dismissal, or note of appreciation, it’s hard to tell. ‘Rome is a city always with a bunch of flowers up its sleeve.’

  Samantha Bridges, née Frayn, smiles – not at her husband’s words but at the memory of a time when the way he spoke moved her. It wasn’t long ago, though it feels like decades.

  ‘Just when you think you’ve seen all its tricks.’ Peter is warming to his theme now. ‘Bam! Rome always surprises. That street with the antiques, Sam,’ he says. ‘Yesterday, what was it called? The one between the Piazza Navona and the Vatican?’ He clicks his fingers one, two, three times. She wonders if he is pretending, to test her. She can’t imagine he’d want to concede to her in anything.

  ‘Via dei Coronari?’ she offers.

  ‘Yes.’ He kisses her on the forehead. A test then, the kiss a reward bestowed from professor to student. Although she is not a student, not anymore. And she was never his.

  In truth, what she is is exhausted. They have walked all morning. They had a good lunch in a little place they discovered not far from their Airbnb apartment in Via della Paglia, and like all good lunches, it was a soporific one: fried courgette flowers, tortellini and tiramisu made by the restaurant owner’s mother. A carafe of house red, which Peter drank, and now he’s complaining of thirst. That’s because he’s drunk too much, as usual. And it’s possible he’s taken too many recreational drugs.

  I’m thirsty, he complains as they make their way to the church, and she thinks about how he never complained when they first met, well, not about anything pertaining to his physical state. No aches and pains, no grey hair, no bad back. You give me life, he told her in those first heady weeks and months. You give me the energy of a teenager. His fists thumped against his chest in triumph. And then, in bed, between soft bites of her plump resisting flesh, he murmured words of desire that made her want to giggle and call Marcia so that she could giggle too: I could eat you alive. His teeth against her thigh. I could drink you right down.

  Like a vampire sucks blood.

  Or like Emily drains the milk from her breasts, leaving her depleted and sleepy.

  She is depleted. He has drained her dry.

  He squints against the low sun. ‘So, we’re going to see La Bocca della Verità?’

  ‘The Mouth of Truth,’ she translates.

  He squeezes her hand, swings it as a father might with a young child. She doesn’t enjoy the comparison and yet, deeper still, she does. He smiles at her, but his wariness of her is palpable. As if he fell in love with one person and has ended up married to another. How ironic that it is he who should feel like this.

  In the queue, he fusses and grumbles like a child. He is a spoilt child. He has not grown up. And when he refuses to put his hand into the gargoyle’s stone mouth, she knows she has finally got to him. She knows that he knows that she has seen him clearly, that she saw him clearly a while ago now. How right he is. To her, he is nothing but code raining down in a black sky. She can read the numbers, make her predictions. She knows what he will do next.

  What he does next is stagger, cough into his hand. Moments later, he is pushing through the queue, away from her. She follows, calling his name, the baby heavy on her back. On the tiled floor of the church, he falls to his knees, his face set in a grotesque silent scream. Like the Mouth of Truth, she cannot help but think. Or better, Caravaggio’s Medusa – a face with fake hair, caught in the full horror of self-recognition. Peter would be proud of her for the comparison. He has taught her so much.

  ‘Aiuto!’ she cries. ‘Ambulanza! Someone call an ambulance!’

  She holds back the worried crowd with her hands.

  ‘Lasciaci,’ she begs them. Leave us.

  She unbuckles her backpack and lifts Emily out. Cradling their baby against her body, she lies beside her husband and strokes his face. On the floor of the church, their family must make for a tragic tableau worthy of Caravaggio himself. Churches always manipulate the light so well. They can make you think you’re in the presence of God when actually what you’re looking at is paupers’ money spent for the glorification of those in power. Ah well, her husband’s eyes are closed now, his mouth slack against the shining tiles. The baby grizzles. Samantha opens her blouse and lets Emily suck and be calmed. This infant, so tender and mil
d, this young wife, her old man. Around them, the soft buzz of those who stand observing this scene of aching poignancy: a bereft new wife lying on the floor so as to whisper tender words of reassurance to her beloved husband while their baby suckles at her breast. She puts her lips to his hot, clammy ear.

  ‘Peter,’ she whispers, pulls her head back so she can see him. She wants him to open his eyes. She wants him to look at her.

  His eyelids flicker open. A deep, peaty brown.

  She holds his gaze. ‘I know what you’ve done,’ she whispers. ‘And I know what you are.’ She leans further in and, at the risk of a tad too much religious symbolism, plants a kiss on his cheek. ‘Trust me, my darling. Time’s up.’

  Peter gasps, reaches out. His eyes are open wide; he is trying to speak. She lowers her ear to his dry, cracking lips, feels his fingers clasp around her arm.

  ‘But you were the one,’ he croaks. ‘You. You were my—’

  Rubber soles, shouts, bustle. A clamour of paramedics.

  ‘I love you,’ she cries over the shoulder of a man in a white overall. Someone helps her up and guides her and her baby back a little.

  Her husband’s legs are all she can see of him, the rest white jackets who bend over him with tubes and plastic lungs. Their briskness contrasts with Peter’s utter stillness, and for a moment she thinks things might have gone too far. She holds Emily to her chest. Sweat runs down her back, tears fall from her chin, roll down her neck. Minutes pass. A paramedic stands back, wipes his gloved hand across his face, a gesture of regret and sympathy she recognises from hospital dramas on the television. A wave of nausea rolls inside her. She knows what this man is about to say, and with a sympathetic knitting of his brow and a sad shake of his head, he says it:

  ‘Mi dispiace.’