He lounged back, slid down the visor and checked his appearance in the mirror. His fringe refused to stand up, young dude style, despite the latherings of gel. He and Freddie would drop by the barbers on the way home. Freddie was thrilled with the new car, begging to be taken for a spin after school. Like father, like son.
Travis readjusted his sunglasses, closed over the sunroof and turned the music up, closing his eyes and bobbing his head to the beat. Life was definitely on the up, money coming in, Gigi chomping at the bit for some serious fun and…
‘Jesus. Fuck me.’ There was an explosive bang on the glass. His eyes shot open as if from a nightmare to be confronted by an axe-wielding murderer.
‘Beverley. For Christ’s sake.’ Her face was pressed hard against the driver’s window and her fist was raised for another blow.
‘Wake up, sleepy head.’ Without blinking she stared down at him. ‘Open up.’
His finger hovered before he pressed the button to let the window slide down.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Waiting to see the principal. I can guess why you’re here. Can I get in? Fab car, by the way.’ She stroked her hand across the glossy black paintwork and walked round to the passenger door.
He reluctantly opened up and she slid in beside him. ‘Listen, this isn’t a good time. Freddie will be out in ten minutes.’
‘Why ever not? Haven’t you told him about me yet? Perhaps now might be a very good time.’
The group of milling mothers was growing by the second. His plan of attracting attention in the school playground with his new car was going horribly awry. Through the window he could see Katy McCarthy standing alone by the playground entrance. Her prick of a husband had recently walked out and Travis had been planning to offer consolation, a shoulder to cry on. The sight of firm buttocks in skinny jeans and pert breasts poking through a white T-shirt were egging him on.
‘Told him what? Listen, Beverley, you need to back off. I’m taking Freddie straight home. Now’s not a good time.’ He pushed his sunglasses on to the top of his head and faced her.
‘You’ve already said that but now seems as good a time as any to me.’
‘Look, I know the timing might not be ideal, but I’ve decided to stay with my wife and kids. I’m sorry, but seeing as you’re here, perhaps it’s best to get it out in the open. I’ve been waiting for the right moment.’ He’d been dreading it but now he’d said the words, a weight lifted.
‘I’m here for a job interview,’ she said, ignoring his pronouncement. ‘I used to be a classroom assistant, many years ago. I love working with kids and they’re looking for someone to help out with Year 6. What year’s Freddie in?’
‘Why here? You could teach anywhere.’
‘Why not here? Anyway, when you get fed up again with life at home, I’ll be waiting. I’m patient and let’s face it, we’re good together.’ She leant across and ran a finger down his cheek.
‘What are you doing?’ He frantically scanned the car park and playground.
‘Also, it’ll give me a chance to get to know Freddie. Not such a bad idea, is it?’
‘Beverley. We’re over. There’s no future for us, no happy ever after. I’ve got responsibilities, a wife and kids.’
Beverley glanced out the window and opened the door. ‘We’ll see about that. Oh look, there’s Mrs Pepper now. Must dash. Let’s catch up soon. I’ll call you.’ With that she leant across and planted a kiss on his cheek. He swiped her away, pushing her backwards at the same time as he heard another rap at the window.
‘Hello. You must be Freddie?’ A small dishevelled boy in a yellow shirt and grey shorts stood by the car. Beverley stooped down and extended a hand for him to shake. He glanced warily at his father who shook his head.
‘Hi. Hop in, young man.’
‘Bye, Freddie. I hope to be your new teaching assistant, by the way. Bye, Travis. Lovely to bump into you.’
With that she turned round and walked up the path towards the head teacher.
18
There it is again. Yes, it’s a definite rattle. I can’t open my eyes because of night dryness, my lids sewn together. I reach for the water by my bed and flick it over them until they peel back.
My phone screen shows it’s only 2am. Through the crack in the window I can hear the tread of footsteps, quiet but unmistakable. Someone is scouting round the side of the house towards the back garden.
I get up, pull my dressing gown tight and move towards the pane, inching the curtain back. Down below is a shape, an indistinct outline. They’re wearing a dark hoodie, like a Crimewatch suspect and trampling on the flowerbeds. A bin topples over and I stiffen as a cat lets out an almighty squeal. All of a sudden they’ve gone, disappeared. Perhaps I’m dreaming in the darkness. Little shards of sleep irritate my eyes and my finger finds the corners and scratches furiously.
Five minutes pass before I go back to bed. I settle on top of the duvet, wide awake and turn on the lamp, making a mental note to buy security lights for the garden, the ones that come on and off with movement. I feel better knowing that next time I’ll have a better view of rogue strangers, consoling myself that it was probably some drunk watering the plants, or an opportunist casing joints for open windows.
Ms Evans asks about my dreams and raises a questioning eyebrow when I say I don’t dream, or if I do, I can’t remember them. I’m not sure why I lie to her because I have the most horrendous nightmares.
Before the rattle woke me, I was being chased along a beach. It must have been a flashback to the beach in Cornwall where I walked every day after Danielle lost her baby, and where I went to escape Scott who hounded me incessantly to find out if I’d been involved. He was so certain, and at that point he was the one who needed a restraining order, not me. He’s as avid a proponent of an eye for an eye as I am.
A smattering of trees along the beach soon turned to forest, thick, gloomy and airless and my pursuant forced me to snake in and out between the towering trunks. When I collapsed, my heart ready to explode, Bob Pratchett appeared out of nowhere and leant over me wielding a huge brush. Scott and Cosette stood behind him, egging him on, but they turned and drove off, leaving me to my fate. Their getaway car was dark, shiny with pink stripes running along the side.
Instead of snuggling back under the bedding, I get up and head downstairs to put the kettle on, sleep now a distant hope. As the water boils, I wonder if I should share my recollections in therapy. If nothing else they might give Ms Evans a good laugh.
I sit up on a bar stool and swivel, letting the relaxing movement calm me down. I then spot something stuck to the window, a large piece of white paper. Automatically I do a three-sixty manoeuvre and scan the kitchen for an intruder, checking that no one is hiding behind the cupboards or standing over me with a meat cleaver.
I scurry across and switch on the lights, bathing the room in fluorescent white, and see that the notice is stuck to the outside of the window. No one has been in the kitchen, but this offers small comfort. I inch open the glass door, reach my hand round and rip the paper away. There’s no noise, no laboured breathing of a predatory stranger. The neighbourhood is asleep. As I bang the door shut again, I double check that the key has turned securely in the lock.
The words are written in bold black ink, childishly scrawled.
Welcome to the world of stalking.
Watching you watching me.
SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT
My legs weaken and I begin to shake. I’m not sure what’s going on. The world of stalking? Who is watching me? Why? What’s going on? Scott can’t possibly be so pathetic and childish.
As the trembling abates, my first thought is that I’ve managed to suck Scott back into my web. The only thing worse than being cast aside is being ignored and if he wants tit for tat, then bring it on. But if he thinks I’m going to back off from Cosette, he’s got it completely wrong.
I turn off the main lights again, but leave alight a small unit
above the oven. The camomile tea is soothing but as the screen on my phone flashes, I splutter. A new message has pinged across from a weird numbers-only Hotmail account.
Not much fun getting night-time messages, is it? Now you know what it feels like.
19
The temperature had risen and hit the mid-thirties. Travis turned the fans up but the whirring noise made it hard to concentrate.
The cramped two-room office space was suffocating in the summer and like a fridge-freezer in the winter. He dreamt of larger premises with air conditioning and proper heating and now with work picking up and his personal life back on track, the dream might well become reality.
‘What’s global warming, Dad?’ Freddie had asked him over breakfast. ‘Miss Digby says that’s why it’s so hot.’
‘Do you like Miss Digby?’
‘Yeah, she’s fun. We’re drawing pictures today. She says I’m very talented. What’s talented?’
‘It means you’re very clever. Just like your father.’
They laughed in unison.
He hadn’t seen Beverley since their meeting in the school car park, and Freddie hadn’t reported back anything sinister about his new classroom assistant. She seemed to be quite the hit. All’s well that ends well, Travis thought. He took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced down across the road.
Gigi seemed to float about her work and he was amazed at how easily she was reeling him in. Images of her naked body would pop into his head all hours of the day and night, her white apron conjuring up all manner of lurid imaginings.
He had booked a restaurant for after work, Bella Roma, taking a punt on something upmarket and expensive. Consummating their relationship couldn’t wait any longer.
A couple of times he waved down to catch her attention but she didn’t respond. He decided to pop down, buy a couple of pastries, and firm up the arrangements. He moved to the window, leant his face out and tilted it towards the scorching sun, but Gigi still didn’t look up. It was only ten. He had toyed with keeping his head down all morning and ignore her waves, play cool, but for some reason she was ignoring him.
Mind games. They did his head in. He gathered up loose change from the ashtray on his desk, counted out the coins and headed down the fire escape on to the street. The humidity was suffocating and a searing heat blanket enveloped him the minute he stepped outside. Tarte Tatin was busy so he hovered outside until there was a lull in customers.
‘Morning, gorgeous. How’s tricks?’
‘Okay. We’re very busy. Everyone’s out and about.’ She kept her eyes averted.
‘Anything up?’
Gigi went and lifted up her handbag and extracted a large brown envelope. ‘See for yourself.’
He gingerly took out a single piece of card that was inside. His whole life flashed in front of him. A glossy A4 photograph of Queenie and him with the kids slipped from his grasp. He bent down, picked it up, turning it over in his hands looking for clues and noticed on the back the date had been pencilled in.
‘What the heck? Where did you get this? Shit.’
It had been taken in Majorca a couple of years back. Queenie and he were each holding a child’s hand and they were racing along the water’s edge. It was one of his favourite photographs.
A stabbing pain, sharp and piercing, shot through him and he visibly winced.
‘You okay?’
A minute lapsed before he spoke.
‘Not really.’
Travis sat down on a seat to the left of the counter. The envelope was addressed in bold black handwriting to Gigi Moreau c/o Tarte Tatin. Across the front of the picture, in neat small text, were written the words ‘He’s happily married. Back off.’
Travis reached into his trouser pocket for the Gaviscon tablets and popped one into his mouth to settle the queasiness. Queenie kept telling him that he needed a full medical check-up and that it wasn’t heartburn.
‘Angina more likely,’ she insisted. But she’d stopped nagging him long ago. Nowadays he was at the back of her ‘worry’ queue, well behind the kids and her job, but as the pain persisted he thought she might be right. This was more than indigestion.
‘I think it’s best we leave it tonight, don’t you?’ Gigi asked. It was a rhetorical question. Her smile sagged as she leant across and lightly touched his shoulder, pulling away when a customer entered. ‘Listen, I must get back to work. Stay there till you feel better,’ Gigi said as she slid behind the counter.
Travis forced himself to get up and, putting on a brave face, he bade a hushed goodbye and made his way across the road, slowly climbing back up the stairs. At the top he took out his phone and scrolled down recent calls. He pressed redial and waited as it went to voicemail.
Hello. Beverley’s phone. You know what to do. Leave a message.
‘Beverley. We need to meet. I’ll come round tonight. Make sure you’re in. It’s Travis, by the way.’
20
I’m upstairs in my parents’ bedroom. I still think of it as their room, and a couple of coats of paint haven’t washed away the stained memories. It feels lonely, as the screams and smacks have left a gaping silence. I was like a stranger living in the same house as my parents, an incidental bystander watching the bloodied battles. There was nowhere to turn so I swallowed up the trauma, buried it deep.
But today is about moving on, about the future. On the end of the new king size bed I bounce up and down, running my palms over the shiny quilted cover. Travis phoned. At last he’s coming round, so I’ve prepared the room. I’ll give him a guided tour and finish with the master bedroom.
I can see the entrance to the Abbott grounds from where I’m perched and suddenly the little therapy group appear through the main gates. Ms Evans is on sick leave so I asked them to come over anyway. ‘It’s not too far and I’ve got freshly ground coffee,’ I said, ‘and biscuits.’ I need to talk, find answers. The group won’t judge me, they’ll listen when I tell them the anonymous phone calls continued all night and, even with the handset turned to mute, they played havoc with my mind. Twenty-seven calls in total.
Bob reaches my front door ahead of Dave and Manuel with Tamsin dragging along behind. She’ll need more than coffee. She’s like a walking skeleton, her tight jeans showcasing the bones. Bob is the big fish in a small pond, the self-appointed leader. In therapy we humour him when he talks of standing for parliament, confident that one day he’ll run the country. Even Ms Evans nods encouragement and I wonder why. She needs to set him straight, tell him a few home truths.
‘Come in. Coffee’s on.’ I fling the door wide as Bob’s finger hits the bell. ‘I thought we’d sit in the kitchen. The table’s not round but don’t tell Ms Evans.’ A collective laugh and they shuffle in. Apparently, sitting in a circle is more conducive to conversation. I lead them down the hallway towards the kitchen like the Pied Piper leading the rats.
I’ve decided to head up the session as if I’m Ms Evans, sucking out personal poisons with a cajoling tone. I’ll share last, getting their full attention once their own unburdening is complete, and talk about the pizza boxes, the phone calls and the Facebook incident as well as the late-night messages. It’ll be good to share and, unlike Bob, I can at least provide physical proof of my paranoia.
After small talk about the weather, Brexit and my exciting house revamp, we’re ready to start. Not a care in the world. I rattle coffee mugs, milk and sugar and pass round the neatly arranged biscuits while the party gets under way. The discomfort only returns when the questions begin.
‘Tamsin. Would you like to go first?’
She’s still firmly in denial about everything. She doesn’t diet, she eats well, and she has a rigorous exercise regime and feels just wonderful. Bob dares to confront her.
‘What brings you here then?’ He smiles through wet slits of lips, a slithery little snake’s tongue lapping up the moisture.
As she goes to speak, justify her inclusion, there’s a sudden ring at the
front door.
I turn my head as if I can see along the hallway and outside. For a moment, edgy and anxious, I toy with ignoring it. Perhaps it’s more pizza, but it’s early in the day and random deliveries are best made under cover of darkness. My nightmare of a dead cat with its throat cut splaying blood on the doormat seems ridiculous in the light of day but it’s fresh in my mind. I get up.
‘Sorry. Won’t be a minute. I’ve no idea who that’ll be. Help yourselves.’ I head towards the front door and peak out through the glass panels. My face comes right up against Travis’ on the other side which makes me jump. I wasn’t expecting him until much later, after the group had gone.
‘Open up. We need to talk.’ He raps loudly on the glass, his image distorted by the frosting. ‘It’s urgent.’ His voice is distorted too, irregular and rasping.
I’m not ready to see him; my lips are dry, my appearance unkempt. I check the hall mirror and smooth down my hair. My face is pale, dark rings testament to the insomnia. I glance back towards the kitchen, wondering how I’ll keep Travis away from the random group of weirdos as he might question my inclusion into such an odd circle of acquaintances.
But he’s seen me and I’ve no choice but to pull back the chain.
‘Travis. You’re early. I thought you said this evening?’ My voice is sing-song. I fiddle with my hair, realising that he’s not seen me in leggings and T-shirt before. Our clandestine dates have thrived on short dresses and stockings, the lush red lipstick a thing of the night.
‘This can’t wait. Can I come in?’
‘Sure, but I’ve got company. We’re having coffee but you’re welcome to join us.’ I point down the hallway, knowing he’ll decline as we’re not yet part of an accepted social couple.
‘No thanks. This is important.’
The Girl Who Turned a Blind Eye Page 8
