by Bo Brennan
He stood on the step, arms laden with token gifts, and laughed as the doorbell chimed out a Christmas carol causing all hell to break loose on the other side of the door. The house was alive, noise streamed from within. He could hear they still had their yappy ankle biting Jack Russells. God knows how they coped with two manic dogs and three kids. Colt winced at the size of the two mountain bikes dumped on the lawn, and wondered if sweets had been the right choice for the twins.
“Can someone get that please, I’m feeding Jessica,” Ruth – his sister in law – shouted. “And don't let those bloody dogs out.”
Colt heard the twins, Lewis and Lois jostling for position on the other side of the door. He smiled how they remained so competitive, the sudden fear they wouldn't recognise him caused his pulse to race and his mouth to dry. Three years was a long time for a kid. In the twins case a third of their lives.
“Get out the way, Lois. It's dangerous for girls to answer the door.”
“Ow that hurt,” a small girl’s voice cried. “Mum, Lewis pinched me!”
“Lewis, come here. Now,” Ruth hollered.
“Ha ha, you get told off and I get to answer the door,” the cheeky voice of his eldest niece sang out as the door finally began to open.
Colt bent to stroke the two miniature devil dogs leaping at his legs with their tails wagging frantically, and looked up as Lois peered into view. My god how she'd grown. With her long red hair she was the image of her mother. He straightened up and smiled, not sure what he should say. Should he introduce himself or ask if her mother and father were home?
“Uncle James,” she screamed, throwing her arms around his neck and squealing in that pitch only young girls can reach . . . the one that shatters glass. As he stepped over the threshold with her still clinging from his neck and Satan’s little helpers lapping at his legs, Lewis ran into the hall to join the medley.
“Jim?” Luke's concerned voice came from the top of the stairs. His worried tone betrayed his smiling face as he hurried down to greet him. “Are you all right, bro?”
Overwhelmed, Colt looked around. At Lois clinging onto him for grim life, head buried in the crook of his neck, and flame haired Lewis hugging him. Dogs excitedly leaping, tails working like little rudders. And a beaming, radiant Ruth standing in the lounge doorway cradling baby Jessica in her arms. He daren't have dreamed a welcome like it. Extending the gifts to his brother, he said, “I am now.”
Ruth smiled as she handed him a cup of tea. “We weren't sure if we'd see you while you were home.”
“Well, I only just arrived.”
“On Tuesday,” Luke said. “Lacey told Karen and –”
“Karen told everyone.” Colt sighed, picking real and imagined dog hairs from his trouser legs. “No change there then.” He sipped from his tea as an awkward silence settled. It was clearly still a taboo subject.
Ever diplomatic, Ruth was the first to speak. “Why are you staying in a hotel, Jim?”
“Mum and Dad obviously know you’re back,” Luke said. “They’re upset you haven’t been to see them yet. You should be staying with them.”
Colt huffed out a mirthless laugh and shook his head. He'd never asked his parents to take sides, but to say nothing? Pretend it hadn't happened, and then give her the run of their house when she took a sledgehammer to her own marriage? That hurt. She was the reason he’d stayed away so long.
Ruth gave her husband a look of disdain. She got it. She was on his side. He’d once longed for a wife like her. “Stay with us,” she said. “She's not welcome here.”
Colt raised his eyes in the direction of the noise from above them. What sounded like a train taking a short cut through the first floor of the house caused the mock chandelier light fitting to quiver. He’d once wanted all of this, but right now he couldn’t think of anything worse. “Thanks,” he said. “But really, I'm fine where I am.” He finished the last of his tea in one final gulp and stood, empty mug in hand. “I'd best be going. I want to go to the house, and I've got a lot of work to do.”
Luke nodded. “I'll get the keys, d’ you want me to come with you?”
Colt followed him into the kitchen and rinsed his mug in the sink. “There’s no need,” he said, drying his hands on a Sponge Bob tea towel. “I'll drop them into the agents when I'm done.”
“You know tomorrow's Sunday,” Luke said, tentatively passing him the keys. “Just the usual, boys only. It would be great if you could make it.”
Colt tossed the keys in his hand and looked at his brother’s hopeful face. “We’ll see,” he said.
Great, India murmured to herself as the man hammered the 'For Sale' board into the verge at the entrance to the dirt track. New neighbours. Now people would have a valid reason to be poking around. She let out a heavy sigh as she drove the uneven track home; with each bump she hoped the access would be the first barrier to prospective purchasers.
It had been inevitable really. Mr and Mrs Trelesk had been spending less and less time at their holiday home in recent years, especially since Mrs Trelesk had her stroke. India never believed they’d actually sell up, though. They’d owned the houseboat for thirty years; it was perfect for Mr T to indulge in his passion of sailing while Mrs T pottered happily around the immaculately tended garden area. India always felt a little embarrassed for leaving her half to the free will of Mother Nature, when the elderly woman forced shrub and flower cuttings on her. She didn't know a thing about gardening, just chucked them in a bit of dirt in the pot on her deck and sprinkled them with a healthy dose of hope. In return Mr and Mrs Trelesk never went short of jam; the brambles at the back of India’s overgrown plot always produced a bumper crop of the fattest, juiciest blackberries you’d ever taste.
Shit, she thought, pulling up next to the Audi on her hard standing. She'd been so wrapped up in herself she’d completely forgotten Gray was coming over today. Hopefully he'd used his key to let himself in, better still he'd have the kettle on. Alas, the small green tent at the river’s edge indicated he'd brought his rods. It looked like she'd be making the coffee as usual.
Locking the car she pulled her coat around her, shivering as the cold crisp air bit through her flimsy sweater despite the winter sun. “Shove up,” she said, plonking herself down next to him in the cramped one man tent. “Caught anything?”
“Just a cold.” He sniffed. “Where you been?”
“Had some errands to run, why didn't you let yourself in?”
“What and miss the opportunity of getting my rods out,” he laughed.
Fishing had always been Gray’s passion; he'd fish a puddle if he could. Other hobbies had come and gone but fishing had always remained. An addictive personality his Dad had often said, coupled with a low boredom threshold. Whatever he took a liking to he did to excess, getting bored once he'd mastered it before moving swiftly on to something else. Over the years she'd indulged him skydiving, mountain biking and canoeing, even threaded the maggots on his hooks during their regular fishing expeditions as kids. He'd banked so many favours over the years that when she'd asked something of him – it had been impossible for him to say no.
“Right, come on,” she said, crawling out of the tent. “This cat flap isn't going to fit itself.”
“Put the kettle on then, Ind, a nice cuppa tea would go down lovely.”
“Typical bloody workman,” she hollered from the door, “you haven't even started yet and already you want tea.”
Colt left the engine running when he got out of the car to survey the closed wrought iron gates. They clanked solidly as he pushed and pulled them. The bloody things wouldn’t budge. He frowned; brute force wouldn't help him today. Brushing the flakes of rust bubbled black gloss from the palm of his hand, he pulled his mobile from his pocket and called Luke. “The gates won't open,” he said, discarding the pleasantries and cutting straight to the chase when his brother answered on the first ring.
“They should do,” Luke said. “I only put a new battery in the zapper yester
day.”
The zapper. How could he have forgotten the zapper? It had been the bane of his life when he'd lived here, but she'd insisted. 'Added security' she'd said, followed by the sentence that had sealed the deal: 'It will be so much safer for our children.' That had been the clincher, got him thumbing through the yellow pages for electronic gate contractors within a week of moving in. She knew how to play him, knew how to get her own way. Pressing the button on the key fob the gates smoothly parted, clearing the way onto the long shingle drive.
“Do you want me to come over?” Luke said.
“No, it's fine thanks; I've got it sorted now.”
“You shouldn't be there on your own, I'll come over,” he said. “I'm only babysitting while Ruth's at Weight Watchers. It's not a problem; I can chuck the kids in the car and be there in twenty minutes.”
“Thanks Luke, but seriously you've done enough.” This really was something he needed to do alone. “Enjoy the time with your kids, they'll be all grown up and leaving home before you know it.”
“Here's hoping,” he laughed. “Well give me a call if you need me.”
“Will do.”
“And Jim,”
“Yeah?”
“Please try and make tomorrow, it really would mean a lot.”
“Bring a spare rod. I'll see you there,” Colt said, and ended the call.
The deep shingle crunched under the car tyres as he made his way up the sweeping drive towards the portico gracing the front door of his old house. Lisa hadn’t seen the point of a portico, wanted to ruin it by adding white plastic UPVC doors and windows. He’d loved that door once. He’d loved her once too. But then he never really knew her. He took a deep breath and turned the key in the lock of his marital home.
Wandering the downstairs rooms it seemed different somehow, felt like more had been removed than the furniture. The house was big, but nowhere near as impressive today as it had seemed back then. It was a remnant from a different life, a life that valued wealth. The glitz and glamour had never mattered to him – that wasn’t who he was – all that mattered was making her happy.
He frowned and kneaded his right thigh with his knuckles; the cold weather was playing havoc with his leg. It hardly ever bothered him in London; it seemed so much colder near the coast. Leaning heavily on the smooth mahogany handrail he slowly climbed the sweeping staircase to the first floor, and wandered the five smaller bedrooms. This beautiful old house deserved a family; he always imagined one day it would be filled with children’s laughter, sadly not the laughter of another man's children.
They'd been trying to conceive for years. He was even booked in at a private clinic for a sodding sperm count when he found the contraceptive pills hidden in a kitchen drawer. In the blazing row that followed she'd had the audacity to accuse him of treating her like one of his trophies, and trying to wreck her body. In hindsight, he should’ve called it a day then. There was no reason for her to be on the pill, the sex had dried up completely after the accident. By the time he’d joined the force so had his bank balance.
His trophy wife hadn't been too vain with the bloke she’d left him for though, the one who had long term prospects in a hundred different currencies and the offshore accounts to match. Within a year of leaving she'd given birth. Colt suspected undergoing the surgeon’s knife to hoist her tits back up to her chin afterwards was part of the birth plan.
He firmly closed the doors on the children's rooms and crossed the galleried landing to the family bathroom; it was bigger than the lounge in his London apartment. A roll top bath dominated the centre of the room. They'd made awkward love in that bath once, not an easy feat for a man of his size, he almost required shoe horning out. The crick in his neck had nagged him for days. He pulled the door shut, took a deep breath, and made his way to the open door of the master bedroom where he leant against the frame.
He’d always hated the wallpaper. She'd picked it. A feature wall in flock was all the rage, apparently – it reminded him of his favourite restaurant in town, the Argi Bargi. He smoothed his hand across the flock and could still feel the slight indentation where he'd broken his knuckles, a reminder of the angry man he used to be. The man she made him. He'd found them here, in his bed. He closed the door behind him and meandered back down the stairs.
Colt stood in front of the French doors and smiled out at the pool. He and his mates had had some pretty wild parties after she’d left. He’d made up for a lot of lost loving in that pool, thankfully not all of them had made the papers. The apple tree he’d planted in the centre of the lawn the week they’d moved in had been lopped to a two foot stump, a casualty of his and Ray’s pissed up ceremonial burning of her wardrobes of designer gear.
Climbing back into the car, he threw his head back and laughed. All that time he'd been afraid to come here, thought he'd feel sad and crushed, angry even. Instead he felt none of that, just relief that he could finally close this chapter in his life and genuinely be free. It was a moment worth celebrating. His skin began to itch as the need to revisit old friends engulfed him.
Gray rose from the dining table to greet her, relieving her of the case of Bud as India admired the newly installed flap in her front door. His royal highness could come and go as he pleased now without further interruption to her life. She placed the pizza box on the table next to the open file and frowned.
“I’m sorry,” Gray said, passing her a beer. “Curiosity got the better of me.” India stared at him, then at the DVD stills of unconscious women spilling from the file. “I just worry about you, India, that’s all.”
“You don’t need to,” she said, slamming the file shut.
“Are you serious?” Gray glared at her. “All those women lived alone.”
India glared back at him. “You had a fucking good read while I was gone then.”
“Yeah, I did.” He took a swig of his beer and crossed his arms. “What’s it got to do with AJ Colt if they’re all over the age of consent?”
“It’s personal.” She rolled her eyes when he inclined his head. “Not that sort of personal,” she said. “The perp films the rapes and sends him copies.”
Gray stood silently staring at her for a long time. “Promise me you'll be careful,” he eventually said, reaching for her hand. “I don't want to see you hurt again. And I’m not just talking about the psycho either.”
She tilted her head and pulled her hand away, planting it firmly on her hip. “I thought you didn't know him.”
Gray let out a sigh, kicked off his shoes and slumped down on the sofa. “C’mon, Ind, people talk. Everyone knows of him. AJ Colt’s had more women than I’ve had hot dinners. Talking of dinner, what we got?” he said, swiftly changing the subject and raising his arm to form her usual crevice.
India kicked off her shoes and cozied down into the space next to him as he rested his arm around her shoulders. “Hot and Spicy Meatfeast,” she said, dropping the giant pizza box into his lap.
“Film?”
“Ps I Love You,” she mumbled.
“Not again,” he groaned, chinking his bottle of Bud against hers. “You seriously need to get out more.”
She scowled. “Beats that action man shit you always pick.”
“Talking of action man, is that for his benefit?” Gray said, nodding at her hair.
“No, actually it's for yours.” She grimaced and dropped her slice of pizza in the box. “This time next week you'll be on your honeymoon.”
“India, we're pushing thirty. At some point one of us was going to get a life.”
She huffed and swigged from her bottle of beer. “Drink up. We'd better make the most of it; we won't be able to do this when you're married.”
He put the pizza box on the coffee table and shifted to face her. “We’ll always be able to do this,” he said fiercely. “No one will ever come between us.”
“Not much fear of that my end,” she said, uncapping two more beers.
“That’s because you shag and run.” Gray
shrugged. “You never know, one day you might actually meet a man you want for more than just an hour.” India blenched at the thought. Gray swallowed hard and sadly looked away. “Men are for life, not just for Shagmas.”
India tutted and jerked away, shooting him one of her 'die bastard' looks. Gray laughed and pulled her to him. Embracing her tightly, he whispered, “Someone’s gonna come along and sweep you clean off your feet. He'll have to get past me first, of course. And no matter how good a prop he was . . . AJ Colt will never do that.”
Chapter 16
Sunday 5th December
The Sunday traffic had proved a pleasure getting into Leigh Park, the weather for December – bright but crisp – was simply divine.
He picked his parking spot carefully, approximately one hundred yards from the alleyway running behind the row of back gardens. Hers being the last house, occupying the corner plot, would allow him a swift and easy means of access and escape through the back door, far away from prying eyes in the park opposite.
Leaving his black leather driving gloves on, he adjusted his woollen hat in the rear view mirror. There'd be no need for latex gloves or masks today, there'd be fuck all left of the place by the time he'd finished.
He found the back door just how he’d left it on Thursday night – unlocked. Whistling he made his way up the stairs, glad she hadn't started stinking the place out yet, that would just be wrong and terribly undignified. “Hi honey, I'm home,” he trilled, jovially stepping into the master bedroom.
He placed the carrier bag containing a green plastic petrol container at the foot of the bed, and stared down at her. The site of her naked and spread-eagle, beckoning him, invoked such fond memories he bit his bottom lip. Needed to experience her again.
