The Judas Scar

by Amanda Jennings

  The drizzle turned to rain. He sat there for a while, but soon the drops became too heavy and too cold. Inside, he took his wet shirt off and threw it in the direction of the washing machine. He was surprised to see it was nearly ten o’clock. He peered into the bedroom and saw Harmony was already in bed, the covers pulled tightly over her shoulder, her back facing him. He knew if he went to bed now he would only lie staring at the ceiling, battling his thoughts, and it was too wet to walk. He went through to the study and turned the computer on, shivering slightly as his damp skin cooled. He pulled Facebook up, wondering if Alastair had accepted his friend request.

  God knows why he would, Will thought. He probably just laughed.

  But when the page loaded a small red number one stared at him from his notifications. He clicked on it and his stomach turned over.

  Alastair Farrow hadn’t just accepted his request, he’d sent him a message.

  Will English? My God, you haven’t changed a bit! What a blast from the past. It’s been a long time. Are you still in touch with any of the lads from school? I was glad to hear from you – surprised too – I was a bit of a cock at school! I notice you’re in London. I’m not far away, near Camberley in Surrey. Married to Diane. Two ankle-biters, a boy and a girl, Charlie and Bea. We should go for a drink. It would be good to meet up again and hear your news. In fact, another friend from school (Toddy – not sure if you remember him) mentioned hooking up for a drink soon. I’ll let you know if we do. If you can join us that would be great. Cheers and no hard feelings, Al

  Will’s first response was a burst of spontaneous laughter. He leant closer to the screen, his hand rubbing at his chin, head shaking slowly in disbelief. He reread the message a couple of times. Had Alastair really written that? Had he really dismissed his behaviour in that offhand way? Called himself a ‘bit of a cock’, introduced his children, then signed off with ‘no hard feelings’? It was unbelievable. Will sat back in his chair and stared at the small picture of Farrow to the left-hand side of the message.

  Alastair Farrow.

  The seventeen-year old who recurred in Will’s nightmares wanted to meet up to laugh about all the cock-things he’d done, slap Will on the back and buy him a drink for old times’ sake, let bygones be bygones, catch up on all the news. Will stared incredulously at the message until Farrow’s unfathomable words blurred and his back stiffened.

  Harmony was asleep, or perhaps pretending to be, when he finally crept into bed. He lay beside her, drumming his fingers against the duvet, his mind whirring. He should ignore Alastair’s message. He should unfriend him. He had enough to worry about with his marriage without wasting time on Alastair bloody Farrow. He should just forget all about him. Erase him. But the more Will thought about the flippant, dismissive tone of the message, the more outraged he became. How could he pass off what he did with some glib, throwaway comment? Did he seriously expect Will to have ‘no hard feelings’? Was that how the mind of a bully worked?

  He thought back to that afternoon.

  You’re pathetic, English. Get the fuck out of here.

  Will got out of bed and went into the bathroom. He leant over the basin and turned the tap on with one hand. With the other he splashed water on his face. He lifted his head slowly and stared at himself in the mirror, his face lit only by the moonlight, his skin in shades of blue, shadowed. It was hard to decipher his features – he seemed indistinct, fading into nothingness. A nothing man.

  He bent and splashed his face again, drinking from his cupped hand, then rubbing the back of his neck with it.

  You’re pathetic.

  C H A P T E R F I F T E E N

  She was so angry she could barely see straight. Talking to Will hadn’t helped. If anything it had made it worse. She knew now there was nothing he could have said that would have made his actions easier to comprehend; hearing him apologise was as bad as hearing him try to justify it. How could he have even let the thought enter his head and not dismiss it immediately? She thought about how he’d booked the procedure, travelled to the hospital, signed the operation papers, all without a thought for her. How dare he betray her trust like that?

  The phone on her desk rang – an internal call. She pressed the button to divert it to voicemail; she didn’t want to speak to anyone. Instead, she pulled up her email and began to type a new message out, her fingers frantically punching the keys. When she finished typing, she hesitated, but only for a moment, then she pressed send.

  From: Dr Harmony Hanney

  Subject: Re

  Hi Luke,

  I’d like to see you. I’d like to talk about you and Will. Would you be able to find time for a quick coffee?

  Kind regards Harmony

  She stared at the screen. Her heart thumped against her ribcage. She looked over her shoulder, imagining people watching her, but nobody was anywhere near. They moved about their business as normal, oblivious to the email she’d been on the verge of sending for the last few hours. She had no idea if she was lying to him, or to herself, when she used Will as the excuse to see him. Maybe he could help? Maybe he did know things about her husband that would help explain his actions? But then she had yet another flash of Luke leaning close to her, whispering in her ear, telling her he wanted her.

  She shook her head and glanced down the bullet-pointed list Jacob had emailed her following his read-through of her draft report. As she tried to concentrate on the points he’d raised she found her attention drifting again. She squinted at the screen in front of her in an attempt to focus. His email didn’t seem to make sense. He seemed to contradict himself. Maybe she’d misread. She started from the beginning again, allowing herself to digest each word in turn to try to make sense of them.

  … document needs more detailed/relevant definition of gene expression and your section on drug toxicity contains a number of inaccuracies that weaken the overall argument. Please remember, this is for use by people without scientific background and therefore needs to be easily understood. I know you are aware of this – it is your job after all. Here is a specific list of issues and queries I have with this document. I’m afraid, this report isn’t up to your usual standards. I think we need to meet to discuss. Around 2 p.m. would suit …

  Harmony muttered under her breath, while flipping to the pages in her report that dealt with toxicity. Out of the corner of her eye she saw an email appear in her inbox. She put the pages down and opened the email.

  I’d like to see you too.

  That was all he’d written. She glanced around her again, then stared at the email, imagining him saying those words to her, his eyes boring into her. She remembered the feel of his hand on her knee and his breath warming her cheek. A rush of excitement bowled into her. His words rang in her head for the umpteenth time, unbidden, exciting: Because that’s how I feel about you, Harmony. I want to fuck you.Very much.

  She thought of Will and felt a surge of bitterness. When she’d left Luke yesterday evening her thoughts had only been of Will, of needing to be with him, of needing to talk to him in the hope they could make things better. After they’d talked she had felt worse, as if they really had come to a dead end, that there was no way forward. She’d been consumed by a maelstrom of emotions, anger-hurt-confusion, and then, somewhere in the mix, there was Luke: clever, suave, articulate and driven, everything Will was not. She found herself imagining what it might have been like to kiss him outside that Knightsbridge restaurant, saw herself getting into a taxi with him, leaning against him as he held her.

  As she read the email again amid an office of people chatting softly, reading, writing papers, preparing for presentations, she remembered his smell as he’d leant close to her, the heat that had come off his body, the way her skin had tingled when he touched her.

  She dropped her face into her hands and breathed in the hot, trapped air.

  ‘Are you okay, Harmony?’

  She swung around to see Alice standing behind her. She closed the email and gave a strained smil
e. ‘I’m fine.’

  Alice furrowed her brow. She’d worked in the department for a long time and was a few years older than Harmony. She had, as the office all agreed, a heart of gold, and took the health and well-being of her colleagues very seriously.

  ‘You look flushed. Do you have a temperature?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Alice looked at her as if she didn’t believe her. ‘I’m perfectly well,’ she said a little more firmly. ‘Thank you for asking.’

  Alice didn’t look convinced. Harmony smiled at her and nodded and at last Alice reluctantly went back to her desk. Harmony glanced at her inbox again and saw a second message from Luke. As she opened the email her hand trembled.

  Are you at the office?

  She rubbed her throat with her hand, catching Will’s Tiffany heart with the edge of her finger. She stared at the message, unsure what she should do.

  Though that wasn’t true, of course. She knew what she should do. She should delete it. She should ignore her thumping heart. Ignore the part of her that wanted to punish Will. Ignore the part of her that wanted to feel Luke’s breath on her neck again. She should write back to him and tell him she’d made a mistake, that she didn’t need to see him.

  But she didn’t delete it.

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw Alice deep in conversation with someone.

  Yes.

  Then she pressed send and held her breath. She imagined him at work, in his office, maybe in a large open-plan area on the top floor of a glass and steel building, or a private room with an antique writing desk and leather chairs like you’d find in a gentleman’s club. She saw him typing his reply. His hair falling over his forehead, his long, slim fingers brushing the keys, his lips slightly parted. She imagined those intense eyes locked on his screen.

  She sat back from the computer and looked around again. Her breath caught in her throat. She needed to calm herself. She closed her email and turned the computer off, then took her bag off her chair and walked down the corridor towards the ladies. She kept her head low, and hurried past Alice’s desk without making eye contact. As soon as she reached the toilets her phone buzzed faintly to tell her an email had arrived. Her stomach turned over. She locked herself in the cubicle, closed the lid of the loo and sat down before retrieving her phone and opening the email.

  I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.

  Her heart started racing again. This time with panic.

  I can’t leave work now.

  Tell them you’re feeling unwell. Walk up towards the Albert Memorial and wait for me on the corner of Exhibition Road.

  ‘Shit,’ she breathed.

  I’ve got a meeting.

  Harmony waited for his reply but none came.

  ‘Shit,’ she whispered again. ‘I must be losing my mind,’

  She looked back at her phone, waiting for another email to appear in her inbox, but still nothing came. Oh my God, she thought. He’s on his way here. Her stomach knotted with nerves as she opened the cubicle door and left the toilets.

  Alice passed her in the corridor. ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’ She laid a hand on Harmony’s arm and rubbed it gently.

  Harmony hesitated and then, before she could stop herself, she began her lies.

  ‘You know,’ she said, putting the back of her hand to the side of her face. ‘I am feeling a bit off-colour.’ She rubbed her throat. ‘A bit faint.’ An image of Luke came into her head, of his touch on the small of her back as he’d walked her through the bar in Knightsbridge. A shiver of heat ran from the base of her spine and radiated outwards, up her back, along her arms, and down to her fingertips. ‘A temperature, I think.’

  ‘Maybe you should go home,’ Alice said, with a sympathetic smile. ‘There’s an awful bug going around at the moment.’

  Harmony felt as if she was teetering on the edge of a very high precipice, looking down at the world below, feeling nauseous with vertigo.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her throat tightening as the lie gathered weight inside her. ‘Maybe I should.’

  ‘In fact,’ said Alice, taking hold of her arm. ‘You’re looking very pale suddenly. You say you’re feeling faint? Maybe you should sit down until it passes? I’ll get you a glass of water and a sweet biscuit. Sugar’s ever so good if you’re feeling queasy.’

  Harmony couldn’t look at her. ‘I need some air, that’s all,’ she whispered. She began to walk away but Alice caught up with her.

  ‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay getting home? The tube will be very hot. It’s so close out there today.’

  ‘I’ll catch a cab.’

  ‘Let me come down and wait for one with you.’

  ‘No, no,’ she said too quickly. ‘Thank you. No, you don’t need to do that.’

  But Alice looked unconvinced, walking with Harmony, giving no sign of letting her leave alone. Alice needed a task to distract her.

  ‘Actually,’ Harmony said. ‘Would you be able to tell Jacob I’m not going to be able to catch up with him this afternoon? Tell him I got his email and it all makes sense. I’ll make the changes for him by Tuesday at the latest.’

  Alice nodded, satisfied at last that she was able to help. ‘Yes, of course. I can sort that out for you. Leave it with me. Now you go home and get yourself into bed. Maybe have a nice bath first.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Harmony said with relief. She smiled at Alice and then walked on. The butterflies in her stomach were becoming almost unbearable. What was she doing? Lying to Alice, leaving work early, meeting a man she didn’t know for reasons she didn’t fully understand? You can still stop this, she thought. But she walked on, pulling her ponytail loose and shaking her hair, an undeniable thrill igniting the emotional tinder box inside her, making her feel more alive with each step she took.

  The day was muggy, the sky grey and laden with rain. She waited on the corner of the road as he’d told her to and watched the cars and taxis as they turned into Hyde Park. A man in a suit gave her a lingering look as he passed and she cast her eyes down, feeling seedy, as if there was a neon sign above her head, pointing her out as she waited on a street corner to meet a man who wasn’t her husband, a man she barely knew. She hesitated, about to turn away yet again, but then he was there, his car pulling up on the double yellow lines in front of her. She froze. A taxi blared its horn. She caught the driver’s angry face as he swerved around the Audi.

  Luke leant over the passenger seat and opened the door.

  A voice in her head begged her not to get in the car. But seeing him again, just a few feet from her, she felt her legs weaken. Her breath became shallow, her skin prickled. She pictured herself kissing him, right there and then, not saying a word, just leaning into the car and pushing her lips against his.

  ‘Luke. I … ’ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘I’m … ’

  ‘Get in the car.’

  There was a note of force in his voice that she wasn’t expecting. She glanced back down Exhibition Road towards the university, half hoping Alice might be there to stop her.

  ‘Come on, don’t look so worried,’ he said more gently. ‘I’m not going to do anything to you. I’m parked badly. Just get in.’

  She looked around her, wondering if the people passing her knew what she was doing, if they were tutting under their breath. But nobody even seemed to notice her; they weren’t interested, she was anonymous to them, just a woman meeting a man – a friend, a husband, colleague, a lover – it didn’t matter to them.

  She climbed into the car and closed the door. He didn’t drive off immediately, but turned in his seat to look at her. A heavy silence held them, wrapped in the heat of the car, its smell – new leather and the scented air freshener that hung off the rear-view mirror – sickly sweet.

  ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me what you have or haven’t done.’

  ‘But I haven’t. It’s important you know that.’

  ‘Why?’

 
She didn’t know why. She wondered whether it was herself she was talking to. Whether she was trying to excuse her actions, convince herself of her own good character.

  She looked at him and laughed nervously. ‘I’m not sure I even know what’s going on.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s going on,’ he said. ‘You and I met through a mutual connection. I have a past with Will and you have a present with him. I am as interested – no, fascinated – in his present as you are in his past, and that has drawn us to each other.’ He reached out and drew the tips of his fingers down the side of her face and then played with strands of her hair. Her cheek tingled where he’d touched her. She lifted her eyes to meet his and as soon as she did he smiled again – a gentle, unthreatening smile. ‘Added to that,’ he said, ‘unless I’m reading the signs wrongly, we are both attracted to each other and that attraction has become impossible to ignore.’

  Harmony tried to speak but no words came out.

  ‘Is that fair?’

  His question reverberated in the still air of the car.

  Fair? she thought. On who? Not on Will. It wasn’t fair on Will in the slightest. To do this, to take her anger out on him like this in a way that would devastate him, how was that fair?

  He took her chin between thumb and forefinger and turned her face towards him. He slid his hand down over her jaw and throat. He leant closer to her, his face just centimetres from hers, the smell of him filling her. His eyes were fixed on hers.

  ‘I’m going to kiss you,’ he said. ‘And then I’m going to drive you to my flat and fuck you.’