by Adele Parks
Fiona remembered Mrs Federova proudly showing her the communal areas. ‘To help set tone.’ In fact, to show off. The swimming pool, covered with silver mosaic tiles, and the communal gym with all the best equipment on hand to help bodies stay toned, were impressive. Desirable. Every detail was easy to recall. Exquisite opulence abounded. She couldn’t tell Mark that. Or, if she was going to tell him, she should have said something straight away.
The other thing that she recalled about the development was the number of apartments that remained empty for sizeable periods of time, as they were bought up by people with multiple properties and choices about where to live. It wasn’t just Mrs Federova who was looking to employ an interior designer, many of the properties were under construction. Floors ripped up, kitchens and bathrooms ripped out in a constant quest for the latest must-have top-social-status decor. Fiona wasn’t complaining, she earned a living through other people’s ambition, other people’s discontent.
The development was very private, quiet. The apartments were exclusive, practically deserted. There was something else that Fiona didn’t want to say to Mark. Fiona thought they were the perfect place to stash a captive.
Or a body.
29
Kylie
Friday 20th March
I keep drifting into a peaceless sleep and then waking again, shivering or sweaty. Hungry, unrested. Each time I wake there is a split second when I forget I am in this room and I think, am I with Mark? Am I with Daan? The usual question that I ask myself whenever I wake. Usually, whichever answer presents itself, unrolls into some level of organisation and I take control. But now when I wake up, it takes a moment to remember, I am alone. Time sloshes around me. I might drown in it. What can I do other than wait it out? I think it is Friday. If it is, then no matter who is responsible, the world must know I am missing by now.
The world must know I am a bigamist.
All I ever wanted to do was give the boys a happy home but now they will know their home was faulty, fractured.
In most marriages there is a problem with time. There often is not enough of it, sometimes there is too much of it. Naturally with two marriages I have this problem doubled, intensified. However much I plan, compartmentalise, organise, sometimes the two worlds blur, they collide. At Christmas, for example, I can’t be two people and I have to be in one place or another. I have to choose. Until this past Christmas I always chose to be with the boys, with Mark. How could I not? Christmas is for kids. Daan is not a kid. But he is my husband, so it hurt being away from him. I told him I needed to be with my mother on the actual day, that we could celebrate another day, what did it matter to us? And he agreed. So on the twenty-fourth we drive up to Mark’s parents’ home, sit on the motorway for long hours, nose to tail with all the other cars full of people trying to get to their families; compelled by love or duty, or a blurred blend of the two. Love and duty can be smudged together like two different coloured packs of playdough; once teased, mauled, handled they can never be completely separated. Both bright colours smirch into a duller shade.
Our Christmas Days pan out very much like everyone else’s we know, I suppose. An early start, the kids bouncing on our bed, bony knees and elbows landing indiscriminately, stockings already opened, a chocolate orange quickly consumed, the evidence of which is smeared on their faces. There are paper hats and too much food, too much drink, a polite pretence that new slippers are the ideal gift from my mother-in-law. I drown in a mass of plastic and tantrums, and sulks and laughter. Then it is all over by 4 p.m. By that time, Mark’s parents are usually dozing on the sofa, not replete, stuffed. The boys are huddled in the corner of the room playing with new toys, sometimes contentedly but most likely low-level bickering abounds. A full row might erupt or be avoided because the turkey sandwiches and trifle are served. Food none of us need or really want but we have to have it because, ‘Christmas isn’t Christmas without turkey sandwiches and trifle, is it, pet?’
Mark’s parents are nicer to me at Christmas than they are at any other time of the year. They are never horrible or mean to me, but they are – despite stereotypes about northerners – cool towards me. They see me as an interloper. To them, I am not simply Mark’s wife. I am Mark’s ‘second wife’ or worse, his ‘new wife’. That is how Mark’s mother once introduced me to a neighbour. We’d been married six years at that point. Longer than he and Frances were ever married. But at Christmas, a morning sherry, Frank Sinatra crooning, maybe my elaborate, well-thought-through gifts seem to soften them. I might get a kiss on the cheek or be pulled into a hug. I don’t blame his parents for their coolness though, their distrust. They are right not to trust me, aren’t they? The other stereotype about northerners – the one that specifies that they are a canny bunch, and that you can’t pull the wool over their eyes – that may be true. Maybe they sense something in me. I always think his mother can see right through me. I wonder what she thinks about my disappearance.
Good riddance, perhaps.
Daan and I make more of the season generally, because we can’t focus on the specific day. Our celebrations are very different. We have never done late-night trolley dashes around Toys R Us, nor do we get stressed about booking our supermarket delivery of the Christmas shop around mid-November, because Daan and I do not shop as though the apocalypse is coming. Which is a relief because who would opt to do that twice? By contrast, we glide around Harvey Nichols food department, slipping delicacies into our basket: New Zealand Manuka honey, Jamon Iberico crisps, large hunks of pistachio nougat. Our groceries are delivered by a series of local artisan food experts: greengrocers, butchers, bread makers, fishmongers. We celebrate Christmas on the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth, depending which day Christmas has fallen on. I tell Mark I need to be back at work, he stays with his parents, so they get to see a bit more of the boys and I get to travel from York to London by train. I love that journey, it is transitional, hopeful, crammed with anticipation.
However, last year, as early as October, Daan started to make noises about how he really wanted us to have a Christmas together. ‘I don’t mind how we do it exactly. I can come up to your mother’s care home with you. I just want us to be together.’
‘No, that’s not much of a Christmas. You are better spending it with your family.’
‘But you are my family. You are my wife. I want to spend it with you. And from what you say of your mother it is not even clear she knows it is Christmas Day. You could go to her the day after. Just one Christmas. Is that an unreasonable ask?’
Of course it was not. Or rather, it should not have been. So, I agreed.
We woke up late and ate smoked salmon on rye bread, sipped vintage champagne, until we started on the oysters and bloody Caesars, which Daan introduced me to, explaining that they are the same as Blood Marys but with a splash of clam juice added. We ate the meals in bed. There was no plastic, or novelty dancing Santas, he did not gift me a sandwich toaster or a new Dyson. He bought me a diamond pendant. As he fastened the clasp, I felt his breath on my neck. I missed the boys and Mark and the smell of sprouts so much I wanted to howl. They believed I was stuck, because of weather, at one of my half-brother’s homes. Suddenly, I was awash with an overwhelming need to get back to Mark, Oli and Seb. I couldn’t have Christmas there with Daan. The routines, the patters, everything could fall apart.
I played with the idea of telling Daan that I’d had a call from the nursing home, that my mother needed me, that I had to leave. But I knew he would rally, offer to come with me. Of course he would. Wouldn’t any considerate husband? He would want to drive me to Newcastle. But I wasn’t planning on going to Newcastle. There was no care home to visit, no sick mother. I wanted to go to my boys. I was stuck. I couldn’t do anything. If I did, I would undermine, I’d destroy everything that I’d so carefully constructed. I felt sick for the entire day. The delicious food, the vintage champagne stuck in my throat as I fought tears. Daan repeatedly asked if I was OK, ‘You are not yourself.’
When I returned to my home with Mark and the boys on Boxing Day night, the house was gloomy. They arrived half an hour after me and made it a home. They’d had a great Christmas, apparently it was the same as ever. I wasn’t really missed.
And that was terrifying.
Are they missing me now?
I am beginning to wonder, even before I was brought to this room and locked up, made to shit in a bucket, was I trapped? Was I already being punished? Why can’t I tell who it is behind the door? Why can’t I distinguish between them? Haven’t I been paying attention? I thought they were so different, so distinct. Two completely separate lives. Two completely different men. I can’t deny it was a thrill discovering another man. His body. His brain. I was curious. With Mark I had been looking for a soulmate. I thought I’d found it. But now, I have to wonder, does such a thing even exist or is it made up by songwriters, novelists, film-makers to comfort the masses? To give us something to search for? The truth is, Mark didn’t answer every aspect of my being, it’s maybe an impossible ask. I yearned to be carefree, but I never could be with Mark. Not entirely.
Because we’re the sort of people who are aware that things don’t always turn out well. I know this because my entire childhood proved it, he knows it because his wife died young. Daan offered me a rose garden of a life. His vast wealth and confidence (both earned and inherited) formed a protective bubble that was so deliciously tempting. With Mark I am always aware that in every garden there are stinging nettles, biting insects. There is a sadness to Mark, a seriousness. Even now, all these years later, he can’t quite allow himself to be completely joyful. I realised when I first met him that things were still raw, I thought it would wear off. I thought I’d make him happy. But I didn’t. As the years went by, I accepted that whilst Mark is indeed a lovely man, he is not a happy man, not entirely and he never will be; I can’t change that. He is slightly depressed. The world disappoints him. I wonder whether he thought the world was rosy when he first met Frances. Did she have that? Something else she beat me to. As the ultimate people-pleaser, this hurts me; that I can’t make him entirely happy. Consequently, I can’t be entirely happy when I’m with Mark.
I married two men in an attempt not to be lonely, yet I have destroyed the intimacy between Mark and I, and I can never build intimacy with Daan. I am not who they think I am. I am just a version of her. They each have a version of me. The problem is not just that no one knows where I am. No one knows who I am.
I am lonelier than ever. My loneliness pulls me under. I close my eyes again. Allow my mind to shut down, my body to preserve energy. My sleep is broken. I keep jolting awake, scared by my dreams, horrified when I land in my reality. On the second or third time I wake up, I find there is a fresh bottle of iced tea. I glug it back gratefully. Fall back to sleep. The next time I wake is in the dead of night. The room is airless, the blackness drenches me, chokes me. Something is not right. Something else.
I sit up full of dread. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I realise that I’m wearing a hood of some kind. It’s been taped around my neck, a fraction too tightly. I’m choking. I panic and take a deep breath which draws the fabric into my nostrils, I start to pant, shallow breaths are safest. I can’t see anything but he’s here. I know he is here in the room with me.
‘Darling?’ I daren’t use a name. I don’t want to inflame him. But the endearment infuriates. He stamps down on my hand. Holds his foot there, grinds harder, I think I hear a bone snap. I scream in agony, pain shoots through my body. He lifts his foot, I try to roll into a ball. He kicks me once, twice. Swift, punishing. It’s controlled. One man is huge, the other compact, both are strong. The kicking winds me, hurts like hell but I know either man could have broken ribs if they wanted to. ‘Please, please no,’ I beg. Another swift choppy kick lands on my shoulder this time, as though I am a dog that’s got underfoot. But kicking a dog is unequivocally cruel, I’ve always believed only sadists mistreat animals.
‘Please, Mark, Daan, think. Stop,’ I beg. But he strides out of the room, bangs the door behind him.
What was that? Dear God, what have I done? What have I driven them to? How could either man have done that to me? I have started this, but the response is madness. I thought I was waiting it out, being humiliated, forced to think about my actions. Maybe choose. Maybe lose both. I don’t know. Now I see this is far, far more. Am I going to survive this? Will he kill me? Could either man kill me? I start to frantically pick at the gaffer tape around my neck that secures the hood. I pull off the hood and gasp at the air, taking in big gulps, recognising breathing freely is a luxury. Even breathing the air in this rancid room. I scrabble towards the door, momentarily forgetting the chain, until it yanks me back, causing the shoulder that has just been kicked to burn with pain. My right hand is throbbing, my ribs bruised. ‘Let me go. Please let me go,’ I beg. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. OK? Is that what you needed to hear? Well, of course I’m fucking sorry.’
No response. There are different kinds of silence, of quiet. Sometimes it is peaceful. Like a child sleeping, their steady breathing a comfort. The silence between two strangers is awkward as they flail around looking for common ground, small talk – but the silence between two lovers, content in one another’s company, reading newspapers perhaps, or completing a crossword, that can be a space of calm and reassurance. The silence between a disappointed husband and wife mid-row is the worst. That is the silence I have spent my life avoiding. The silence that is tense, angry, threatening. And now there is that exact silence between us. He is that side of the door with his typewriter and anger, and I’m this, with my chain and empty uncertainty.
I scream. I let out one long, continuous scream. I howl, a wounded animal. Then I wait, but nothing happens, there is no reaction. No one comes, even though the scream is real and loud and still burns in my throat. Where is everybody? Why are the streets so silent? I can’t look out of the window but am beginning to wonder whether I’m a long way off the ground, away from traffic and life because the silence is eery, London streets are never empty. It grows dark again and no one comes back.
I sit motionless. My eyes straining to focus through the darkness. It’s hopeless. Time passes and I lean back against the wall. Then lie on the floor. More time. I roll into a ball. More time. My eyes flutter. My hands throb. The only sound is my growling stomach.
30
Oli
Saturday 21st March
Oli picks up his skateboard. ‘Are you going out?’ his dad asks.
‘Might as well, nothing else to do.’ Oli sounds bored by the fact because appearing bored is habitual. Showing enthusiasm or having something particular to do, admitting that anything amuses or interests him is not dope. Oli is not bored. How could he be bored right now? But he has worked out that it is best if he acts bored in front of his dad, because that is what’s expected of him. And any emotion bigger than boredom might trigger his dad. His dad is acting crazy. Storming about in and out of the house, so moody. He’s like a faulty firework – you just don’t know when he is going to catch or where he is going to blast and burn. Like when Oli showed him that meme and he went off it. He was only trying to lighten the mood. OK, in retrospect, suggesting they watch Baptiste was a bit off, but all his mates had seen it, and he didn’t know it was a spin-off from a show, The Missing.
Or maybe he did know. But what the hell.
When Oli made the mistake of saying he was pleased that exams have been cancelled, his dad yelled, ‘How can you be thinking about that right now?’ Pretending to be bored is safe. He just wants to help keep things calm, on track. Oli is worried about his dad. He’s worried about everything.
‘Where are you going?’ his dad demands now.
‘The skate park.’
‘Which one?
‘Does it matter?’ Oli doesn’t know why he said that. He should just tell his dad he is
going to Regent’s Park. He isn’t, but that’s not the point. It’s not a good idea to rock the boat and draw attention to himself. All his dad wants is an answer, it’s stupid not to give him one, it will just lead to a scene. But sometimes Oli does stupid things. Like pre-ing too much before a house party, or saying stuff about a girl that he doesn’t mean, or not saying stuff he does, other things. His head decides one thing, but he goes and does something completely different anyway. Leigh would usually excuse it. ‘He’s just a kid, he’s just finding himself.’ She was generally the easy-going parent, the good cop, so to speak.
Until she wasn’t. Bitch.
The pain of the betrayal sears through his body again. Scalds him from the inside. That has happened a few times this week. He is ashamed that he feels this way. That he misses her. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t miss her, not really. How could she? How could she? His own mother. What a total bitch.
‘Wear your helmet,’ says his dad but he doesn’t push for the answer to his question about where Oli is planning on skating. It’s not usual. Nothing is usual.
Just as he is about to leave, the house phone rings. His dad leaps up out of his chair like he is some villain in the Bond car, ejected from the passenger seat. Oli waits to see if it is the police with news.
He hears his dad say, ‘Oh, hi, Fiona,’ Oli decides to linger a little longer. Fiona only left their house about half an hour ago, he can’t think what she’s calling about already but he is OK with the fact that she is always calling or hanging around. She seems to cheer up his dad and Dad deserves that, yeah? After everything. Because it has turned out to be worse than he could have imagined. Not an affair. A whole other world. He hears his dad tell Fiona that Seb is upstairs in his room and Oli is going skateboarding. His dad calls to him, ‘Fiona says if you are going on the tube take some hand sanitiser.’
