Without any conscious thought, he followed the desires of his body. He turned the car around and drove back to the line of girls. He looked up and down until he found the one he wanted. As he stopped beside her, she leaned into his car through the open window and said, ‘Hi, fancy a bit of fun?’
He remembered very little after that, as he gave himself over to his excitement.
Eleven
It was nearly midnight when Peter returned home last night. Louise knew because she had still been awake, but he hadn’t realised that. She’d kept her breathing soft and slow and willed her body not to react to the cold air and freezing feet he’d brought to bed with him. She must have pulled it off, for he fell asleep beside her within minutes. But then she guessed he would have been tired after his sexual exertions. She knew exactly where Peter had been last night and it wasn’t the Officers’ Mess as he’d told her. She’d followed him, hanging a few cars back, until he’d turned onto the perimeter road of an industrial estate. Confused, Louise had continued to track him and when he pulled over to the side of the road, she stopped as well.
From the opposite side of the street, sitting in her dark car, she’d watched him slowly cruise past a line of barely dressed girls strung out along the pavement. When he’d stopped next to one, the girl had leaned into the car and started to talk to him. Talk to her husband. She’d wanted to scream out loud, to tell the girl to fuck off, to tell Peter to get himself back home. Instead, giving into her breeding and conditioning, Louise had bent her head to rest on the steering wheel and closed her eyes, only opening them after she’d heard his car door open, then close and the sound of his engine pulling away. She hadn’t followed him after that as she hadn’t wanted to see further evidence of his infidelity. So she’d driven home, tears streaming down her face.
Once there, she’d mechanically unpacked the shopping, made a cup of tea and taken it to bed. But she hadn’t drunk it, merely burrowed under the bed covers, hiding from the world, her marriage and her husband. More than anything else she’d wanted to erase the memory of what she’d seen. But she couldn’t. The images were looping over and over again in her head, as she examined them as closely as police examine CCTV footage. She couldn’t get rid of the sounds of that blatant, flirty girl, that woman, that whore, leaning into Peter’s car and then driving away with him. Giving into her emotions, she’d screamed her hurt and rage into the pillow.
The following morning at breakfast, still dressed in her silk pyjamas and matching dressing gown, Louise was all sweetness and light, pouring on the charm as she poured the tea from the pot to refill Peter’s cup. When she asked how his evening had gone, he persisted with the lie that he’d been at the Officers’ Mess for hours.
‘Darling, you wouldn’t believe how monotonous it was,’ he said, then took a sip of his tea.
‘Poor you. Tell me all about it,’ she replied, buttering her toast. ‘Who was there?’
‘No one you know.’
‘Well, what did you talk about for all those hours?’
‘Nothing to worry your head about,’ he said, folding up the newspaper he had been reading. Glancing at his watch he pushed his chair away from the table. ‘Anyway, I must be off,’ he said as he left the kitchen.
A few minutes later he called from the hall, ‘See you tonight,’ and with a bang of the front door, he was gone.
She stood in the kitchen, bewildered. Peter had just acted as though nothing had happened last night. He was obviously determined to keep his filthy little secret, wouldn’t any husband? But what should she do about it? Louise had been thinking about that most of the night, lying next to a sleeping Peter. Once her anger and hurt had subsided, she’d tried to analyse her problem and think logically about it, tried to come up with a plan to deal with it. But she hadn’t managed it. She’d eventually fallen asleep out of pure exhaustion.
She walked into the hall and stared at the closed front door. The clock in the hall startled her by announcing it was 9 am. Each striking of the hour reverberated through her and served to bring her back to the present. As the clock struck the ninth note she realised she couldn’t dwell on the problems in her marriage, or Peter’s dalliance with a prostitute last evening, for that morning duty called.
Louise was used to pushing away emotional problems and getting on with the job, very similar to Peter, she supposed. Her job was being the Colonel’s wife. In the army the higher your husband’s rank, the more you were expected to be there as a support to him and act as an unpaid welfare officer or social worker for the men and their wives, which tended to preclude a job of one’s own.
Today she was meeting the Welfare Officer. But before that she had to meet the Regimental Sergeant Major’s wife for coffee. In the informal hierarchy among army wives the two queen bees in the hive were usually the Colonel's lady and the RSM's wife, who between them exerted a lot of informal power. Although Louise had never seen her position as one of power, she took her responsibility as the Colonel’s wife seriously. So she changed gears from spurned wife in her personal life, into the Colonel’s wife in her working life, and went upstairs to dress.
As she drove through the garrison, she looked at the other wives out and about. Some were walking into town in twos and threes, with little ones in tow. Groups of women were chatting to each other as they shopped for bits and pieces at the NAFFI shop. What struck Louise about them was that they were all unconstrained. Not hindered as she was by her position as the Colonel’s wife, they could flaunt their sexuality. Even though they were in the company of women, they still wore their signature low cut tops, or figure hugging dresses, or skirts as short as belts. She looked down at her own clothes, which were staid by comparison and wondered if that was why Peter preferred other women to her.
Her informal meeting with Claudia Knight was like a prelude to her meeting with the Welfare Officer. Claudia was an excellent RSM’s wife, she was sensible, down to earth and unflappable in an emergency. After pouring Louise a coffee, Claudia sat opposite her on a matching settee.
‘You’ve done a great job of settling in, Claudia,’ Louise said, looking around the home that had just the sort of atmosphere she had hoped to achieve in her own and failed. The settees were large and comfortable, adorned with scatter cushions that Louise sank back against. Claudia’s rugs were vibrantly coloured and shaggy, not muted and short piled. The TV was large and modern with a tangle of wires underneath it, snaking in and out of gaming equipment. There were family photos scattered around the room and on one wall, in pride of place, a black and white photo of the whole family, Claudia, her husband and their two teenage boys. All relaxed and at ease in each other’s company wearing broad smiles.
‘Thanks, but its second nature by now,’ Claudia’s eyes crinkled as she smiled at Louise. ‘And anyway I quite like it.’ She ran her hand through her short cropped blond hair and tucked her legs under her. Legs that were encased in leggings that looked far more comfortable than Louise’s woollen trousers.
‘Really?’ Louise found each move hard and had often wondered how others could possibly welcome it.
‘Yes, it means I’ve a chance for a complete change every couple of years, blowing out the cobwebs, if you like. I know my furniture is mostly the same but the house I put it in is different. And each posting allows for more possibilities.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, new people, new town, new facilities, I love it.’
‘Well good for you,’ Louise said pushing away the green monster of envy, then turned the conversation onto safer subjects. ‘How about the ranks? Is everyone alright? Is there anything I should know about before I see the Welfare Officer this afternoon?’
‘They’re pretty much okay. A couple of the lads are getting married soon and there seems to be a problem with accommodation for them. There may be a few who will face financial difficulties, even with the relocation money they get. Some always spend more than they have and I think some of them may need a loan against their wages. But mor
ale is good and most of them seem glad to be home.’
Louise grabbed a notebook out of her bag and made notes as Claudia spoke. Even though the meetings with the Welfare Officer were confidential, Louise often helped by taking some of the requests for help to other closely aligned agencies. At other times, it could just be a case of a little visit to a family and lending a supportive ear. The work was rather akin to being a bit of a counsellor, she supposed.
As Louise reluctantly got ready to leave Claudia’s warm and welcoming home, she wondered who counselled the counsellor. If their roles had been reversed and Louise was the RSM’s wife, she could, conceivably, have talked to Claudia about her marital problems. The trouble was Louise was at the top of the tree with no safety net.
Twelve
Peter came home for dinner that night and as they ate he chatted about his new posting and promotion. How exciting it was, how he’d inherited a great bunch of lads and that he was positive this was going to be a good move for them. He asked after her day and Louise told him of her meeting with the RSM’s wife and the Welfare Officer, leaving out her envious feelings about Claudia Knight’s home. Peter seemed pleased that she was taking up the mantel, as he put it, but in truth he was clearly more interested in the personal troubles currently befalling his men, than any troubles Louise might have. When she haltingly tried to tell him of her nervousness he passed it off as something that she’d soon get used to. He urged Louise to make good on her promise to help his lads, for happy soldiers made for good soldiers.
After their meal Peter grabbed the remote control for the television and Louise excused herself, saying she fancied a nice bath and would then read in bed.
Studying her figure in the bathroom mirror afterward, all pink and glowing from the hot water, she found it still trim, unmarked and attractive. Maybe the problem wasn’t on the inside, but on the outside, she mused. Maybe the problem was her clothes. Perhaps she just didn’t look sexy enough. Walking into the bedroom, she picked out of a drawer a silky ‘teddy’ that she had bought on a whim but never had the courage to wear. As she fingered the iridescent material, she came to a decision. She’d take a risk. For surely if she looked like the type of woman Peter picked up from the street, then he’d be more open to the charms of his wife.
She was looking at herself in the mirror, dressed in the provocative lingerie when he entered the room. She’d failed to realise that she could no longer hear the muted sounds of the television filtering up from downstairs. Startled, she quickly composed herself and turned to him and smiled. She guessed it was now or never.
‘What do you think, darling?’ she asked, once again looking at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. Then moving to him, she slipped her arms around his waist and began nuzzling his neck. ‘Do you want to make love tonight?’ she whispered against his skin and kissed it. ‘It’s been ages.’ Kiss. ‘Do you like what I’m wearing?’ Kiss.
Slowly she began to realise that Peter wasn’t moved by her advances, wasn’t responding. He hadn’t put his arms around her. He wasn’t kissing her.
Taking a step backwards and dropping her arms, she asked, ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’ for the man in front of her didn’t look like her husband.
Peter was standing stock still, his body rigid, his fists clenched, staring at her. He was radiating not heat and lust but coldness and was looking at her with something approaching hatred in his eyes. Louise took another step backwards, her hands grasping and finding the dressing table behind her. The look in his eyes frightened her. It was as if her Peter had been replaced by someone entirely different. Someone who didn’t recognise his own wife. Someone she didn’t recognise as her husband.
‘Look at yourself,’ he said and in those words she could hear his contempt for her. Her legs, suddenly unable to bear the weight of her body, threatened to snap like twigs. But then he grasped her arms and jerked her upright. Turning her around he held her head, making her look at herself in the mirror. ‘What do you see?’ he hissed into her ear.
But she couldn’t answer. She was too afraid. His voice wasn’t filled with love, it was overflowing with venom. She bit the inside of her cheek to dampen down the cry that was building inside her chest, stopping her breathing.
Still holding her, Peter pointed at the mirror. ‘Do you know what I see? I see a dried, shrivelled up, barren excuse for a woman.’
Louise closed her eyes against both the image and his words. Then jerked them open again as Peter grabbed a heavy perfume bottle from the dressing table and threw it at the mirror. The sound of the glass cracking was like an iceberg breaking as it scraped its way through the icy sea. Now all she could see were broken images of herself reflected back in the shards of glass. She was a distorted, disfigured woman, dressed in a satin slip, with a macabre slashed face.
‘There, that’s better,’ he said. ‘That’s more like how I see you,’ and he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Louise continued to stand in front of the mirror, shaking, with tears streaming down her face, until the cold dragged her away from the broken mirror and her cracked image. She shed the lingerie, which now felt abhorrent to her touch and put on warm, familiar pyjamas. She climbed between the cold sheets, where she stayed for the remainder of the night, the sole occupant of their large double bed.
Thirteen
The sun streaming into the bedroom from the window woke Louise the next morning. She patted the bed behind her, but there was no one there. Struggling to free herself from the befuddlement of sleep and tangle of sheets, she sat up, confirming that she was alone in the bedroom. The bedclothes on Peter’s side were undisturbed. Louise had spent a good deal of time crying last night, muffling the sound with her pillow. She knew Peter didn’t like it when she cried. He found it difficult to deal with outward displays of emotion. He often said that it wasn’t that he didn’t feel any emotion, just didn’t feel the need to let everyone see it. And so her tears only seemed to make his resolve to ignore her pain, harden. She’d known he wouldn’t return to their bedroom if he heard her sobs, but she hadn’t been able to help herself, she couldn’t stop the tears, she’d been unable to hold in her sadness.
She shuffled to the bathroom and bathed her red, sore eyes with cold water before going downstairs, where she found Peter in the kitchen.
‘I’ve made the tea,’ he said, indicating the tea pot, resting on the kitchen table next to an empty cup and the milk jug. ‘Must be off, busy day today.’
He pecked her on the cheek and went off to work as though nothing had happened the previous night. Nothing at all. Louise couldn’t get her head around it. Where had his anger gone? Was it still there, but buried somewhere deep inside him? Or had it disappeared as quickly as it had come and he’d been too embarrassed to face her last night?
His angry words had clearly been a reference to her inability to have children. When they’d realised there was a problem with Louise conceiving, they’d embarked on the path of finding a solution. However, the doctors had never really come up with a definitive diagnosis of Louise’s problems. It was established that there was nothing wrong with Peter, so it must be her. But years of tests and fertility treatments had all been in vain, the treatments proved as unproductive as her body.
Louise had been surprised by her inability to get pregnant. To her it was just a given. Get married. Have children. What could be simpler? It was the same with her marriage to Peter. Somehow that became a given over the years of their courtship as well. When Peter had proposed, she had been expected to accept. In everyone’s minds there was no alternative. It was just something she would do. It was her lot in life.
The lack of children had saddened her. Left her as bereft as if she’d had children who had been born and then died. But it had never occurred to her that their relationship would fail because of it. As far as she was concerned marriage was for life. For richer for poorer. In sickness and in health. No one in her family had ever been divorced. And nor would Louise be.
>
Louise had been very upset for a long time. Liable to burst into tears at any moment over their lack of children. But Peter had seemed more stoical about it, at least on the outside. Never before had he given her an indication that he held her responsible, felt that it was her fault. Louise was very much afraid that her failure to bear Peter children had morphed into a hard, dark mass of hatred for her, buried deep inside of him.
Fourteen
Unable to face the housework, in fact unable to face any chores at all, Louise made a pot of coffee. She then retrieved Matilda’s book from its hiding place and once more curled up in the armchair, drink at her elbow and began to read. For she needed a friend and turned to the only one she had. Matilda.....
Being back at home helped me heal, but after a while even the house that had looked after me so well, held no joy for me. I knew I needed to be around people, to get out more. I was becoming isolated, a recluse. But on the other hand, every time I plucked up enough courage to walk down the drive, when I got to the gates I found I was too frightened to leave my sanctuary.
After a while it became clear that I was too self-conscious to go out during the day, least people saw me. Saw my ruined face and were witness to my ruined life. If I could hardly look at myself, how could I inflict that sort of horror on others?
I began to brood on the people that had brought me to this. I had dealt with the first of them and had paid the price for it. But there were more. None of them should be allowed to get away with it. Get away with ruining my life. It was time to decide who should be second on the list. It was time to embark on the next episode in the sad story that was my life.
Glass Cutter: A Sgt Major Crane crime thriller (A Sgt Major Crane Novel Book 7) Page 4
