From the Inside

by Collette Heather

  A few seconds later, we are on a site selling luxury holidays. “Good a place as any to start,” he says.

  I clutch my face in mock horror. “Choices, choices.”

  I tell myself how lucky I am.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Luke is charm personified. Together, we plough through countless remote tropical islands, each one more magnificent than the last. The champagne is slipping down, and, before I know it, we are on the second bottle. I am not drunk, but I am lightheaded, a little giddy.

  “Oh, that one is just delightful,” I exclaim, gazing at the picture onscreen of a water hut, complete with a winding waterslide plunging into the flat, turquoise lagoon.

  “I can just see you and Bella whooshing down that slide.”

  I giggle. “Don’t think she’ll go for that, somehow. She throws a wobbler at the baby slide in the local park.”

  This is true – Bella isn’t one for clambering on things, and she is slower to walk than most toddlers her age.

  “Carry on looking, I just have to pop out to do something, quickly.”

  “Where are you going?” I call after him.

  He spins around at the door, grinning at me. “You’ll see.”

  Automatically, I reach out for my glass, draining what’s left. There is still over half of the second bottle left, and I top myself up, staring unseeingly at the laptop screen.

  I wonder what he’s doing? I think, swiftly followed by; I am alone with Luke’s computer.

  You can look at his history, an evil little voice whispers on my right shoulder.

  My heart instantly starts hammering in my chest and I begin to tremble. I can’t do that, I think. I can’t spy on him, he would be horrified if he thought for just one second that I was capable of such a thing…

  Even as I am thinking this, I am clicking on the back button, tilting the screen slightly so that it isn’t immediately obvious to him what I’m doing should he choose this moment to walk back through the door.

  The pc’s history is blank. No work stuff, no Google searches except for this one, not a single thing. It has clearly been wiped today. I don’t have a clue how to potentially retrieve it, there’s no point even trying, and quickly, I click out of it. I start scrolling at speed through more water huts in an attempt to bury the fact I’ve been on history and spying on him.

  I am shaking badly, and I stop my frantic, mindless clicking to draw breath.

  Come on, Tanya, you have to get a grip, I tell myself sternly.

  I reach for the champagne, drain the glass, then pour myself another. The bottle is nearly empty now. I start wondering what he is doing out there, I can’t hear anything. I reason that he is probably laying the table in preparation for our takeaway.

  The doorbell chimes, and I lurch unsteadily to my feet. I’m drunker than I realised – I really should slow down a bit. A quick glance at the original, art deco, wooden clock on the white marble mantlepiece tells me that it is seven forty-five, which means that the food has arrived a quarter of an hour early.

  “Stay where you are, don’t move a muscle, I’ll get that,” Luke says, sticking his head around the living-room door.

  “Can’t I help?” I ask, but I am already talking to a blank space where he has just been standing in the doorway.

  The sound of voices coming from the front door drifts my way, but I can’t really make anything out because a lot of hallway separates us, and the soft, classical music emanating from the tiny speakers on the bookshelf effectively drowns out what is happening. I really want to turn off Mozart, but if I did, then it would be too obvious that I did it just so that I could better eavesdrop, and I’m sure that Luke is only talking to the delivery driver, anyway. I really don’t think that I’m missing hearing anything important. I give up straining my ears, for the house is simply too big, the voices too faint, and instead lean back against the soft leather of the sofa, doing my best to let go of my anxiety, to just relax.

  I am aware of movement in the hallway beyond the closed door, the sense of Luke repeatedly traipsing up and down with what undoubtedly has to be our dinner.

  The strains of Mozart wrap around me, and once again, I feel like I am dreaming. The sensation that my whole life is a dream is beginning to be my new normal. As fanciful as that notion is, I am almost used to it by now.

  I don’t know how long I stay there like that in a semi-trance on the sofa, neither asleep nor awake, not thinking or feeling much of anything, just merely existing. But Luke breaks the spell of sorts I have fallen under when the door swings inwards and his broad-shouldered figure fills the doorframe.

  “I am ready for you now.”

  I ping into an upright sitting position, swivelling on the sofa to gaze dazedly at him.

  I have been summoned.

  *

  I am not entirely sure why Luke has seen fit to utilise this room for our romantic meal. I think that this is only the second time we’ve actually eaten in it. The other time was when we held a dinner party in here, the Lavingtons being one of the three other couples on the guest list.

  Usually, even when we have guests, we eat in the kitchen. The fact that our kitchen is showroom-worthy aside, this room is just too stuffy. It’s too much.

  And now, as Luke sweeps open the door in grand gesture, so that it is I who must enter the room first, I recoil in a mix of horror and wonder. The austere room must have hundreds of red roses in numerous, crystal glasses dotted throughout the large space. A tingle creeps up my spine. It is just so…

  Over the top, a little voice whispers in my mind.

  No. I’m being grossly unfair. This is romantic, and absolutely not the soulless, empty gesture of a controlling narcissist. I flinch when Luke comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my middle, his fingers interlocking at the front of my narrow waist.

  “It’s because the rose is your flower.”

  That much is true – I only ever wear rose-scented products and I just adore the flower.

  “It’s lovely,” I say, not quite sure what it is that I am referring to. The abundance of red roses? The room? The gesture itself? Him?

  “I know that we never eat in this room,” he says in my ear, “but what is the point of living in a beautiful house, and never making use of all the rooms? We should enjoy everything that we have. We are lucky, and life is short and precious.”

  “Right,” I say, looking around the room, flinching slightly.

  I have never liked it in here, not one bit, it’s just too much. The other dining room isn’t as bad as this one, being considerably smaller, less formal and old-fashioned. This room’s footage is even bigger than the kitchen’s – it is easily forty by seventy square feet.

  Like in the living-room, two large sash windows overlook the front garden. The lower half of the walls are dark-oak wood panelling, which stops at around chest height. The upper, remaining expanse of wall is wallpapered in a red and gold design. Portions of it are flocked and furry. The obligatory crystal chandelier hangs from the high ceiling. An antique, French sofa which I never much cared for, upholstered in a furry, gold fabric, studded with buttons and in possession of ornately carved, wooden legs, rests against the far wall opposite the two windows.

  There is a large bookcase in here, but with nothing on it which I would deem readable. It is all leather-bound, first editions and encyclopedias, the books themselves as stuffy and as quintessentially unusable as the rest of the room.

  A large sideboard dominates the wall opposite the bookcase, a lovingly restored, Victorian piece in a dark mahogany, with fussy, beautifully carved details on its high back and pillars.

  A large, oblong, highly polished table in solid black oak dominates the room, running down the centre of it.

  I think how grand everything is, how overbearing the vibe is. In many ways, this room should look naff, more footballer’s crib than Buckingham Palace, but the fact is, this room would look at home in a palace, because everything in this elegant, Georgian draw
ing-room is the genuine article.

  “Please, sit,” he says, unlacing his hands at my waist and guiding me to one of the twelve, highbacked chairs in the sane dark oak as the table.

  I sit down, thinking how much I hate these stupid chairs, because they are so solid, and therefore nigh-on impossible to manoeuvre. Five vases of roses are placed at even intervals down the centre of the table, and I only then notice that the table before me is laid, as it is opposite, where Luke and I are to eat smack-bang in the middle of the oblong table.

  “Please, taste the wine, let me know what you think.” He gestures to the long-stemmed, fishbowl of a glass in front of me, only the bottom portion of which is filled with the deepest-hued, red wine. “It’s a Bergerac, vintage 1993. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.”

  The wine bottle sits in the middle of the table, and I see that Luke’s glass is also filled with a few fingers’ worth of the dark liquid.

  I reach out, my fingers curling around the stem of the big glass and I swirl the scarlet liquid around in the bottom of it. I think how it is the colour of congealed blood, and when I raise my gaze to look at him, he is smiling at me expectantly.

  Tentatively, I raise the glass to my lips and take a tiny sip. I don’t want to guzzle this back, because I’m already feeling the effects of the champagne from just now. The bubbles always go straight to my head, and if I mix my drinks, it never ends prettily.

  I flinch when the wine slips down. There is a bitter after-tang to it which I can’t say that I care for.

  “Isn’t it exquisite?” Luke sighs. “I’ll let you into a little secret, I’ve been waiting fifteen years to open this bottle.”

  I can feel myself gawping at him incredulously. “Fifteen years?” For this crap? I silently add.

  “Yes. Please tell me that you like it. I have been dreaming about opening this bottle and it would break my heart if you didn’t like it.”

  As he talks, he stretches over the table and plucks up his glass on the other side, where he proceeds to swirl the liquid around in the bottom of the glass. He lovingly examines it, perching on the edge of the table next to me. He gazes down at me then, his eyes shining, I’m guessing more at his passion for the wine, rather than for me.

  “Cheers,” he says, raising his glass.

  “Cheers,” I reply, taking another small sip when he does.

  “You know…” he begins, then falls silent.

  “What?”

  He lets out a small, embarrassed laugh. “Really, it’s silly.”

  “Go on, you can tell me,” I say, reaching over to squeeze his knee through the snug-fitting blue jeans.

  “Well, okay,” he begins tentatively. He puts down the wineglass and picks up the bottle on the table, turning it over in his hands with great care, like he is holding a rare, precious jewel or a newborn baby.

  “I bought this bottle when I was just starting to find my feet as a trader. I mean, really getting steady on my feet, really making a name for myself in the financial sector. This bottle came to represent my career success, and it was this bottle that kickstarted my love of wine, and my love of collecting wine. And, because this damn bottle did come to mean so much to me, so I constructed this whole fantasy around it.”

  Abruptly, he stops speaking, then turns his head to gaze down at me, almost as if he is surprised to see me sitting there.

  “Go on,” I gently encourage.

  “Christ, you’ll think me stupid. I’ve never told anyone this before.”

  But I’m not just anyone, am I? You can tell me anything, I hope you know that,” I say, genuinely curious now.

  After a short, uncertain pause, he continues:

  “Well, okay then, if you really want to know. So, because this bottle represented so much to me, I couldn’t just go and drink it with any old person, it had to be drunk with someone special, in a specific set of circumstances.”

  I raise one inquisitive eyebrow at him when he falls silent – a nifty little quirk that was the source of much envy and derision back in my twenties when I actually had people around me who noticed when I did it. I can’t remember Luke ever mentioning my ability to raise one brow. Slapstick humour is not one of his strong suits – or any kind of humour for that matter, when it boils down to it.

  “And those circumstances were,” he continues, “that this bottle should only be opened in the company of the love of my life. And by that, I didn’t mean just a woman whom I happened to be infatuated with, or even one that I fancied myself in love with, but an honest-to-God soulmate. I promised myself that I would only open this bottle when I was one-hundred percent settled, with a wife who was the mother of my children. And here we are.”

  I am rendered momentarily stunned by his speech, and I simply don’t know what to say to him. The fact that he said children, as opposed to child, is not lost on me. I absolutely do not want to have the, let’s have more children, conversation. I don’t know why the idea of it frightens me so much. I mean, I love Bella more than anything in the world, it just doesn’t make sense to me that the thought of more children fills me with sick dread.

  I clear my throat, forcing myself to say something in reply. To say anything in reply.

  “Yes. Here we are, indeed.”

  Nice one Tanya, real smooth, mocks that devilish little voice in my head who seems to be piping up a lot lately. If Luke is bothered by my lame reply, he shows no sign.

  “Stay right where you are and enjoy your wine,” he says, sliding off the edge of the table and jumping to his feet. He reaches for the bottle and tops up my glass. After his little speech, there’s no way on God’s earth that I’m going to tell him that I’m not so keen on it. That would just be cruel.

  I murmur thanks as more wine glugs into the glass, and Luke beams at me. When I take another small sip, it seems to have improved. Or maybe I’m just growing acclimatized to the sophisticated taste that is clearly too refined for my palette. I concede, there is a chance that I’m merely getting used to it.

  “As much as I loved having this bottle in my collection, and everything that it came to represent to me, the time has come to just drink it. You and me, sharing this bottle tonight, it is symbolic. It can’t last forever, can it? Everything is finite, nothing lasts forever. But our love will. The love we have for each other and for Bella will stand the test of time.”

  He grabs his glass and walks away, pausing for a second in the doorway.

  “I love you, Tanya. Hold tight, I just have to prepare our starters, back in a moment.”

  With that, he leaves.

  I sip my wine and wait.

  *

  The lethargy doesn’t hit until I’ve reached the tail-end of my starter – a tiger prawn platter with an assortment of delicious tapas. But the tiredness has hit me in a great wave, and I can feel myself slowing down.

  “Are you okay?” Luke asks, reaching across the table to hold my hand.

  I manage a smile. “I’m fine.”

  But I’m not fine. I feel…strange. Like I’m submerged under water, and Luke is talking to me from above the surface on dry land.

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “I’m just really tired.” My voice sounds odd to my own ears, slurred, and like it’s coming from far away.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have had all that wine. And so much champagne earlier.”

  I bristle at his patronising tone, not pointing out that it was he who had repeatedly insisted on topping up my glass, like he was doing me a great favour or something by allowing me to drink the lion’s share of his precious, symbolic bottle. No, I don’t say this, mainly because I lack the capacity to do so. I may be thinking this, but it is more a succession of images rather than fully-formed words.

  “Here, have a glass of water.”

  When Luke brought in our food, he also brought with it a jug of iced water and two tumblers that have so far remained untouched.

  I accept the glass with a murmured thanks.

 
“You’ve gone quite pale.”

  “I’m always pale,” I quip, but I am alarmed at how slurred my voice is, how drunk I sound.

  I sip the water, making a concerted effort to pull myself together, but it’s like wading through treacle. I don’t know what’s wrong with me – I’m sure I haven’t drunk that much.

  “My god, Tanya, you look terrible.”

  But I can barely make sense of the words, as a hot, then icy-cold shiver swamps me. I’m so dizzy, and I don’t know whether I want to throw up or pass out.

  I’m not sure what happens next. I have a vague recollection of Luke helping me up the stairs, but maybe that is just a dream.

  I can remember nothing, except the sensation that I am sinking in quicksand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I open my eyes to bright light piercing my retinas. I groan, promptly squeezing them shut again. I am disorientated beyond any capacity for reason – right then I can’t even work out where I am.

  There is a softness beneath me, as well as covering me. I am in bed, I realise.

  Slowly, I become aware of a familiar, babbling voice, and, despite how atrocious I feel, how utterly confused, I am comforted to my very soul, for it is Bella that I can hear. She is not in the room with me though, of that I am sure, for her voice is indistinct, tinny, and there are other voices accompanying hers. They are singing, how old are you today? a jingly, nerve-jangling ditty that the presenters sing most days on cbeebies.

  I may only be able to hear her on the baby monitor, but at least I can hear her. Luke must be with her, and I relax somewhat.

  And it is morning, because the offending light is the morning light that streams in through the slatted blinds. How is that even possible? I think. It would appear that I have lost a great chunk of time. An entire night, to be exact. I cast my mind back to the last thing I remember. Eating the prawn starter. And then…

  I sigh in frustration. And then what? Because after that, things get fuzzy.