Even then I thought it peculiar how we opened up to one another. The previous twenty-five years had, in effect, rendered us strangers, yet we forsook reticence and shared like ... well, like old friends. I found it refreshing. Liberating, even. So much of my life with Lorna had been spent behind a wall. One that she had built. Perhaps it was the occasion (or more likely the alcohol), but I relaxed into a space where before there was impediment, and felt that Richard did the same.
Our former classmates danced unabashedly to songs that topped the charts when we were at school, but neither Richard nor I - in keeping with our younger selves - joined them; we had never sought the limelight - were content, both, with our roles of little remark. This reserve was one of many reasons for Lorna’s discontent. My “spectacular nothingness”, she called it. I preferred Richard’s term: under the radar. However viewed, it suited me - suited us - and we sat while the music played.
Not that we weren’t enjoying ourselves; the discourse flowed as readily as the alcohol, and, in timely fashion, we switched from Zinfandel to Glenflddich as our conversation turned to matters of the heart.
“How long have you been married?” Richard asked, indicating, with the rounded base of his tumbler, the ring on my finger.
“Seven years,” I replied, and sighed. “I should probably take this off, though.”
“Oh?”
“We’re recently separated,” I said. “It’s too long a story. One for another occasion, perhaps. Suffice to say our accord has ... faltered.”
Richard’s light brown eyes gleamed. “Do you still love her?”
I rattled the ice cubes in my glass, took a sip, and contemplated my wretched heart. If I looked beyond the disillusionment and self-pity, and assessed my marriage for what it was, did love remain? I thought, on my part, it did, but was too drunk and emotional to be certain. I needed time and perspective, both of which Lorna had granted me. She had also granted me torment, of course, and loneliness. Our union had gone from being blessed - witnessed by God, no less - to a tumult of lies and heartaches. I was guilty of spectacular nothingness. Lorna was guilty of abuse, infidelity, and spite.
“She’s an unthinkable cunt,” I said.
Richard raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you’ll revise that opinion with a sober mind.”
I smiled and shrugged, took an ice cube into my mouth and crunched it between my teeth. “And you?” A vague gesture in Richard’s direction. “A special someone?”
“Very special,” he replied at once, and I watched the emotion touch his face like rain. His gaze faded and skimmed away. “Constance. My wide-shining light. My shelter from the storm.”
I swallowed the ice. It leaked into my chest and I imagined it, as bright as dye.
“And you didn’t bring her tonight?”
His eyes snapped back to mine. Clear again. “She died eight years ago.” He finished his drink with a hiss, showing his teeth.
“I’m so sorry,” I offered.
“Not at all.” Richard set his tumbler down and ran his finger around the rim until it sang. “I’m a stronger man for having had Constance in my life. And her death was a deeply spiritual moment. Quite beautiful, in fact.”
I had no idea how to respond. All I could do was hold his gaze, and even that was challenging.
“Her light saved me,” he said.
I nodded; all I could manage.
A rare lull in the conversation, which was lifted when a frightful redhead, her nametag illegible, invited us to dance. We declined, politely of course, and she shuffled away, leaving us to smirk in a juvenile fashion.
Richard tapped the base of his tumbler on the table. “Another drink, friend?”
I replied, “A double, I think.”
And so continued our evening, with conversation, always affable, touching upon many topics, and the alcohol flowing with disconcerting ease. The DJ’s choice of music ensured the dance floor was always full, and the class of 1987 kept things lively. Beneath whirling lights we saw bravado and coquettishness, ostentation and acquiescence. There was naked skin, stolen kisses, groping, fumbling, embarrassment. Richard and I opined that, of the latter, there would be even more the following morning. We watched it all from our pedestal, wearing smiles some would no doubt consider supercilious, though, again, I prefer Richard’s term: detached.
“These people live clockwork lives,” he said, flapping a hand at the dance floor. “They do the same thing day in, day out, marking the hours like wooden figurines in a clock.”
Needless to say, we exchanged contact information with only each other at the end of the night. The old-fashioned way: with business cards. None of this Facebook nonsense.
“I live in Marlow,” Richard said as we walked to the taxi rank. “Not such a drive to Thame. I’d like to see more of you.”
“Absolutely,” I concurred. “I’ve had an enjoyable evening. Very much needed.” And it was. I already felt lighter, somehow, as if a stone, resting against some vital place inside me, had been lifted, or at the very least nudged aside, allowing me access to the man I’d been before Lorna came into my life.
By noon of the next day - before my hangover had even worn off - that stone would fall back into place, and I’d again be secured to the emotional pillory of dissolution. But at that moment, with Richard beside me and my head lightly spinning, I was unbound.
“I can see why we were such good friends at school,” Richard said. “We’re really quite alike.”
“I’ll say.” I smiled at him.
“The same disposition, politics—”
“Kindred spirits.”
“Quite.” He laughed, swaying a little, the heels of his expensive shoes clicking off the pavement. His shadow, beneath the street lights, appeared disproportionately longer than mine. “And here we are, into our forties, with women absent from our lives.”
“Better to have loved and lost,” I offered. “Or so they say.”
“So they say.”
We arrived at the taxi rank, where our separate cabs were waiting. Mine would take me to a better grade of hotel than the Bellston Mark. Richard’s would take him to his home in Marlow, four miles away. I thought, for a moment, that he was going to invite me along, so that we could imbibe into the early hours while Shostakovich blared from Denon speakers.
He didn’t though; he held out his hand and I took it, shook firmly. I wasn’t to know he had other plans - that Alexandra Locke, his latest victim, lay bound and gagged in his garage, and would be dismembered and disposed of before morning light.
“It’s been a pleasure, Richard,” I said.
“Absolutely,” he agreed, and patted the pocket in which he’d placed my business card. “I’ll call.”
“Do.”
And with that he got into his taxi. I watched as it pulled away, out of sight, wondering if I’d discovered my thread. And I had -only it wasn’t one I controlled, one I could weave. Rather, it dangled loosely from my state of mind, and Richard had hold of the end.
He pulled. I unravelled.
~ * ~
Is there anything beyond redemption? Without hope or worth? Surely even the cruellest acts have extenuating circumstances, and the cruellest souls a vein of good? This is certainly true of Richard Chalk, my old friend. Yes, I saw his murderous side, but I also saw his kindliness. Small things, like calling his elderly mother to say that he was thinking about her - a thirty-second exchange that doubtless made her day. And much bigger things, like organizing a fun-run to raise money for Huntington’s disease.
I wonder, did Richard balance his wickedness because he feared for his mortal soul, or did he genuinely wish to do good? I cannot pretend to understand the mind of a serial killer. Only one thing is for certain: he flashed between light and dark like a coin-flip in the moonlight.
Redemption, perhaps, for the man who murdered eleven women in eight years, but my marriage was beyond salvation. In the weeks following the reunion, I ende
avoured to repair what was broken. I first took the old-fashioned approach; I sent Lorna flowers and gifts, and had Steve Wright dedicate “Nights in White Satin” to her on BBC Radio 2.
These things didn’t work. If anything, they further soured her opinion of me. So I embraced my spiritual side (something Lorna constantly requested I do) and sought the advice of a medical intuitive. She - her name was Echo - claimed my Prana was agitated and my chakras out of line, and referred me to an energy healer. I went not because I believed it would work, but because I wanted Lorna to see how committed I was to winning her back, and how open to change.
Alas, my efforts were in vain; Lorna had no investment in reconciliation. Our separation had graduated to an irreparable rift - as I was to discover over a “reality-check luncheon” at Gee’s in Oxford.
“How do I look?” I asked her, seated, wine in hand. Lorna had ordered tap water - would not allow herself anything as daring as Perrier, and certainly nothing alcoholic, for fear this luncheon be regarded a pleasure. I wanted her to loosen up, of course, enjoy herself, but she sipped water, ate salad, and sat board-stiff throughout.
“The same,” she replied. “Gaunt.” She had on a flesh-tone lipstick that made her mouth appear a thin, uncompromising line. “Why? Is there a reason you should look different?”
“I’ve had my chakras aligned,” I said.
“Your chakras?”
“I’m energetically balanced.” I inhaled vigorously and took another sip of wine. “Feels splendid. Apparently my sacral chakra was in a perilous state.”
She sighed and looked away from me, her expression one of disdain. Such an ugly reaction. It twisted her face like a rag. Hard to imagine it the same face that would pulse pleasurably while we made love, and glow afterwards, sometimes for hours.
I wondered if any part of the old Lorna - the one who’d whispered “I do” seven years ago - remained. I reached across the table, perhaps to grasp it, if it were there, but she pulled away, folded her hands, placed them in her lap.
I touched the tablecloth where her hand had been only seconds before. I imagined a cat chasing reflected light.
“This luncheon—” I started.
“Lunch,” Lorna interjected. “It’s the twenty-first century, Martin. Nobody calls it luncheon any more.”
I bit my lip and wished Richard were sitting beside me. We’d have ordered from the luncheon menu with glee. “This lunch,” I said. “I’d assumed its purpose was to discuss reconciliation.”
She looked at me again and her eyes were chips of granite. “All I wanted was to meet with you. Briefly. Lunch was your idea. And no ... we won’t be discussing reconciliation. It’s time for a reality-check, Martin.”
“You want a divorce?”
“Yes.” A quick, unwavering reply.
The waiter came over and Lorna found a smile for him, ordering her sterile salad (she even turned down the vinaigrette) while I - unsmiling - ordered the veal. I could feel my carotid artery thumping as I enquired into the tenderness of the meat. The waiter assured me it was gourmet, and I assured him that nothing less than absolute atrophy of the muscle would suffice.
Lorna raised her eyebrow but said nothing. Her hand - no ring on her finger, I noted - was back on the table. I imagined driving my fork through it.
“Divorce,” I said. “What would your mother say?” Lorna’s mother was a devout Christian who kept the scriptures closer than her undergarments. No doubt she would decry the putting asunder of that which God joined together. “She’ll be beside herself.”
“This is not about my mother’s contentment, it’s about mine.” Lorna flicked tawny hair from her brow and sipped her tap water. “Besides, she gave me the number of an excellent solicitor.”
“She did?”
A dry smile in reply.
I groaned - more of a growl, actually - and glugged my wine, spilling it down my chin, managing to draw the attention of the table to our left. I stared at them, eyebrows knitted, chin stained, until they went back to their meals. Then I reached across the table and grabbed Lorna’s hand before she could pull away.
“Lorna, darling, I—”
“Let go of my hand.” She kept her voice low, but I could see the stringy muscle in her forearm tensing as she tried to pull free.
“Let’s just—”
“Do you want me to scream?”
I let go and her hand snapped back so forcefully that the table wobbled and her glass almost toppled over. Again we drew the attention of other diners. I saw their scowls and heard them mumble in disapproval. It took a few moments for the general hum of conversation to resume.
“If you insist on making a scene,” Lorna said, rubbing the back of her hand, “I’ll leave.”
“You already left,” I said.
“Show some dignity, Martin.”
“Perhaps if you were to show some compassion ...”
“Oh, really!” Now it was her turn to scowl. “It was compassion that brought me here. I could - should - have had my solicitor send you a letter.”
I closed my eyes and recalled a breathing exercise my energy healer - Leaf, his name was Leaf - taught me: four-seven-eight breath. Slowly inhale through the nose for a four-count. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight. I repeated until I reached a plain of calm as broad as a motorway. No, a runway ... a runway of calm that I could take off from and soar, jets trembling.
“Your nostrils are flaring, Martin.”
Four-seven-eight.
“Martin?”
“I don’t want a divorce,” I said, and looked at her squarely. “I believe our marriage is worth rescuing. I can change, Lorna. I have changed. Let me prove it to you.”
I saw something in her eyes. A smoothing of the granite. As close as she would come to lenity. It made me ache for the woman who had promised herself to me, and who could make me breathe, as if for the first time, with a well-chosen word, or the gentlest touch.
“It’s over,” she said.
And this ache ... I buried it, like I would have to bury all hope of reconciliation.
“Over?”
“Yes, Martin.”
I’d had more enjoyable luncheons, if truth be told. We sat in near-silence, merely picking at our food (the veal was indeed gourmet, but my appetite, sadly, absent). I looked mostly out the window, but occasionally at Lorna, hoping to see a trace of the woman I had lost. But she was a stone, dull grey and bluntly edged. She avoided eye contact, and the closest she came to conversation was to remark on Alexandra Locke, the Hemel Hempstead woman who’d been missing for four weeks. A chap at a nearby table was reading the Telegraph, the pages folded so that her black-and-white image stared woefully at us.
“That poor woman,” Lorna said. “I wonder if they’ll ever find her.”
She excused herself a short time later to use the facilities, and I did something I’m not proud of; I fished her mobile phone from her coat pocket and read several text messages (the phone was password-protected, but you don’t share almost one-quarter of your life with someone without learning a little something about them, and I accessed the device on only the third try). I sought evidence of another man, if I’m being honest, reasoning that my solicitor should have all information pertinent to the separation.
I found nothing incriminating, however, only a number of messages to her harridan friends that were unnecessarily spiteful towards me. He’s a pithless cretin and I can’t wait to get him out of my life, one of them read. And another: I’m doing the right thing, Molly; I couldn’t live another second with that pompous arse. Reading them made me remember the vindictiveness and anger directed at me in the final year of our marriage, how she brimmed with scorn, and pulled away when I tried to get close.
Lorna returned from the ladies’ room and grabbed her coat from the back of her chair. The phone was safely back in her pocket by this time, but I still seethed. Pithless cretin, I thought. Pompous arse. I could barely look at her.
>
“I should leave,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “You should.”
Granite eyes and an uncompromising line. “My solicitor will be in touch.”
“Don’t expect me to make this easy for you.” Spoken through clenched teeth, this sounded anything but pithless.
She swept from the restaurant, tawny hair bouncing, and I poured another glass of wine. I considered ordering a Glenfiddich, a double, and then another ... drinking until the world’s hardness was smoothed away, but to do so would be to risk making a scene. So I chose, as ever, spectacular nothingness.
Psychomania: Killer Stories Page 47
