No Place Like Home_a gripping psychological thriller

by Rebecca Muddiman

  The living room was spotless, no empty cans or wrappers were littering the place, the carpet was hoovered, even the air smelled fresh. Jacob took my hand and led me to the kitchen. There were no dishes piled up, the bin was empty. ‘And look,’ he said, and opened the fridge. ‘You like these, right?’ He’d bought some M&S meals, all my favourites.

  ‘How did you afford these?’ I asked.

  ‘Got my dole today,’ he said. ‘And I got you these too.’ He opened the back door and pulled a bouquet of flowers from the bucket he’d been keeping them in. ‘I’m sorry, Polly,’ he said, and kissed my cheek.

  I took the flowers and started to cry. Fucking arsehole. It was like he knew, like he was playing his own game, trying to win for himself.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. I gave the flowers back to him and ran up the stairs, shutting myself in the bathroom again. And this time, he didn’t even come up and pester me. He knew what he was doing, and it wasn’t going to work. I was still going to do this, I couldn’t stop now.

  I had to get him out.

  42

  That night, I wriggled away from him as he tried to cuddle me. This wasn’t so out of the ordinary, so was unlikely to mean anything to Jacob. But the next day, over dinner, I stared at my plate, making hardly any eye contact with him at all, making non-committal noises as he mumbled on about trains. Then, I left him on the settee halfway through a film he was desperate to watch while I went to bed. I pretended to be asleep by the time he joined me.

  The next day, I crept out of bed, dressing quietly in the bathroom so as not to wake him and left before he got up. I didn’t answer his texts all day and didn’t bring home the bottle of milk he’d asked me to get.

  This went on for a few days but seemed to have little effect, and again I realised that I was being too subtle for Jacob. Whereas any normal person would see something was wrong, Jacob just carried on, oblivious.

  So, the next day, I stepped it up a little and found the collection of tokens he’d been carefully cutting from packets of cereal to claim a free set of bowls. I scooped them up and threw them in the bin and then took the bin bag and put it outside ready for the bin men to pick up later that morning. Jacob didn’t notice immediately, it was a couple of days later when he had another token to add to the pile that he realised his collection was gone.

  ‘Where’re my tokens?’ he asked, looking around the kitchen as if tokens could get up and walk. I shrugged and drank my tea, watching him lift things to check beneath and check the mug they’d been stored in over and over again. ‘They were in here. Loads of them,’ he said, and finally, I gave in.

  ‘Oh, those things. I didn’t realise you were keeping them. I put them in the bin when I tidied up.’ He started rifling through the bin, and I waited a moment before continuing. ‘I’ve emptied it since then. They’ll be long gone.’ I stood up and rinsed my mug. ‘Sorry,’ I said, and left him to it. But two minutes later, he’d followed me upstairs where I was sorting out more of his mother’s things when he came in and apologised to me.

  ‘I shouldn’t have got upset with you,’ he said. ‘You didn’t know.’

  He kissed me, and I wanted to slap him. First of all, he hadn’t even got upset and second of all, I did know and he knew it. He’d told me over and over and over about those stupid bloody tokens. I needed to step it up some more.

  Late in the afternoon, after I’d spent all day sorting through the old woman’s things and listened to Jacob playing with his toys, I dragged a couple of bin bags full of stuff down the stairs and left them by the door. I poked my head around and said to Jacob, ‘I’m just going to the shops.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, barely looking up.

  I took the bags, heaving them down the road. Thankfully, there was a charity shop around the corner. It was supporting some church or other, but I didn’t care; I just needed to get rid of the junk quickly. I left the bags with an ungrateful woman and then browsed for a while before going to the corner shop and then finally did a few laps around the playing fields. I knew Jacob wouldn’t have moved from the settee and even if he had, it was unlikely he’d be looking out the window, wondering why I was wandering around as if I were homeless.

  When I got back, Jacob had moved from the settee, and I could hear him moving around upstairs. I left him to it and wondered if he’d noticed. I let him come to me.

  ‘What’ve you done?’ he said.

  I frowned, not understanding. ‘What’re you talking about?’ I’d started making tea and held up his favourite mug, waving it in his direction. He ignored the implied question. He was angry. Finally.

  ‘Mum’s stuff,’ he said.

  ‘What about it?’ I continued making the tea, pottering about as if nothing was wrong.

  ‘What’ve you done with it?’

  ‘I’ve just taken it to the charity shop, like you told me to.’

  It was Jacob’s turn to look confused. ‘I never said that.’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ I said, and put the kettle down, turning to him now the conversation was heating up. ‘When we started cleaning up the other day, I asked if there was anything you wanted to keep. You took a few of the photos and a couple of the paintings and said the rest could go.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Jacob, you did.’

  ‘I would never say that.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but you did,’ I said, and turned back to my tea, stirring it up.

  ‘That’s my mum’s stuff,’ he said, raising his voice, and when I didn’t reply or look at him, he came over and grabbed my arm, spinning me around to face him. ‘I wouldn’t say that, it’s all I’ve got left.’

  I sighed and put my hand on his cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Jacob. I wouldn’t have taken it if I’d known, but you did tell me to get rid of it.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said, his voice getting louder and louder.

  ‘Look, maybe you can get it back. If we explain to them what happened,’ I said, and Jacob let go of me and walked out, pulling his coat on. ‘It’ll probably be closed now,’ I said, knowing full well it was.

  ‘I’m going to have a look,’ he said. ‘Which shop?’

  ‘The one on the High Street. The cancer shop,’ I said, just before he walked out, slamming the door shut.

  The house was quiet with him gone. I sat at the table and drank my tea, enjoying my time alone, and then I got up and wandered through the house, imagining what it would be like to live there alone, the things I could do with it, the person I could be.

  I lay back on the bed feeling anxious to get to the point I could call it my own place, where Jacob was no longer a problem. I was pleased with how today had gone, not only had I got to Jacob, but I’d also got rid of some of the junk that’d been clogging up my space. I just needed to keep going, and he’d be gone in no time. That was the secret, getting into his head.

  He came back forty minutes later, slamming the door behind him again. I left him to stew for a while before going down. ‘Any luck?’ I asked, and he shook his head.

  ‘It was shut.’

  I sat beside him and rubbed his back. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I forgot.’

  ‘I can’t believe you threw my mum’s things away.’

  ‘I’ve said I’m sorry. But you did tell me to.’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, and jumped up.

  ‘You did, Jacob. I don’t know, maybe you forgot or something.’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell you to do it in the first place, so I can’t have forgotten.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have asked you when you were upset. I should have waited.’

  ‘You didn’t ask me at all!’

  ‘How can you not remember?’ I sighed. ‘Come here,’ I said, and beckoned for him to follow me up the stairs. I led him into his mum’s bedroom where I’d left a pile of photographs and two of the least offensiv
e paintings leaning against the wall. ‘This is what you wanted to keep. Remember? We’d been going through some of it. You took those photos out, and we talked about putting the paintings up on the wall somewhere. Then you got upset about the rest of it, and you said it could all go. I guess you were upset and not thinking, but you did say it. I should’ve known better, I suppose,’ I said.

  He stood there, shaking his head for a while, pacing up and down, and I could almost see his brain working. He was trying to remember it, trying to work out if I was right, if he’d made a mistake.

  ‘Why would I have kept these things and thrown out the rest, unless you asked me to? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have said it,’ he said finally, his voice quiet now as if he knew he was defeated anyway.

  ‘All right,’ I said, making sure my tone said that I still didn’t agree. ‘But you know I don’t think it’s healthy hanging on to all that stuff, anyway. I mean, what’re you going to do with a load of old clothes and bottles of talcum powder? It was all junk, really.’

  ‘You got rid of her jewellery, her paintings, stuff that was important to her. To me, too. They were my memories.’

  ‘Not all the paintings,’ I said, and wondered if I should go back to the church shop and retrieve some of the stuff. But it wouldn’t help me in the long run and that was what I needed to remember. Besides, they’d probably taken one look at the awful paintings and tossed them in the nearest dumpster. Who’d even buy those things?

  I remembered seeing some of them on the walls when I went to Jacob’s party all those years ago. I remember staring at one of them, a particularly ugly one of three angels playing harps on a cloud. His mum had caught me looking and told me she painted it herself. I smiled and said nothing more about it, aware of being diplomatic even at that age. I wondered if she gave them as gifts to friends and family, and if there were hundreds of them disgracing walls all over the place. But Jacob said he didn’t have anyone else, no more family, no friends. So maybe her entire oeuvre was now in the charity shop on the corner.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, and went back downstairs. I could tell from the noises above my head he was in his mum’s room, probably lying on the bed, because now, that was all he had left. The bed where she’d died.

  I sat down and turned the TV on, watching a cooking programme until Jacob stopped sulking.

  43

  Jacob being Jacob forgave me for throwing his mum’s things away, even after he’d been back to the cancer shop, and they couldn’t find the stuff, saying it must’ve sold quickly, if it’d been there. He’d gone to all the others on the High Street too, just in case I’d been mistaken, but none of them had what he was looking for. He obviously didn’t know about the shop around the corner. Or didn’t believe I would lie blatantly about where I’d gone.

  He was slumped miserably on the settee when I came home from work, and I was expecting another row, but he just smiled sadly as he told me all was lost.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said, and I could tell he meant it, that he’d started doubting himself, that in some moment of madness, he’d given the okay to throw everything away. But he moped for days, regardless, and it was hard to make any more in-roads with my plan.

  On Wednesday, he had to go and sign on, something he hated, something that always put him in a mood. Not only did he have to get up early, but the staff at the job centre were rude, he said, and treated him like a piece of shit on their shoe.

  ‘They’re not nice to anyone, I don’t think,’ he said, ‘but they’re especially nasty to me.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you think you’re just being paranoid?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s coz they can’t put me anywhere. No qualifications or anything. Prison. Thick. They don’t like people like me. They probably wish they could just shoot us all. Get rid of us.’

  I laughed, but Jacob was serious. I looked at the clock. ‘I’d better go,’ I said, grabbing my bag and heading to the door. ‘And you should get a move on too.’ I went to the door and stood, waiting to see if he’d notice, or if I’d have to wait until I came home from work to find out what happened.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, and I walked back into the living room.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I can’t find my dole book,’ he said, rummaging around on the dresser. ‘I keep it in this drawer. It’s always here.’

  I went to the dresser, standing beside him as he searched. ‘Did you put it away after last time?’

  ‘Yes! I always put it back. Mum said always put important stuff away in the same place so you don’t lose it. It should be here. I know I put it here the other week.’ He tossed things about, getting more and more wound up by the second.

  I checked my watch. ‘I’m going to be late for work,’ I said.

  ‘And I’m going to be late to sign on,’ he said. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Can’t you tell them you lost it? Can’t they give you a new one?’

  ‘No. It’s got my log in it. They’ll think I’m making it up, that I haven’t looked for any jobs.’

  ‘But you haven’t looked for any jobs,’ I said.

  Jacob ignored me and continued searching the drawer for the tenth time. I sighed and put my bag down, not really caring if I was late for work. ‘I’ll help you look,’ I said.

  ‘It should be here,’ he said, digging amongst a load of old bank statements and other useless things.

  ‘But it’s not. Obviously,’ I said, and made a quick sweep of the living room, then checked the drawer in the hall, before going into the kitchen. I waited a few moments and then pulled the little plastic case out of the drawer where he kept tools and loose screws.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ I said, walking back to the living room, holding up the booklet for him to see. He took it from me and looked it over as if it couldn’t be true.

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘Kitchen drawer,’ I said, and picked up my bag again. ‘Right, I’d better go.’ I kissed his cheek and left him standing there, puzzling over how it got it in the kitchen when he could’ve sworn he put it away where it always lived.

  When I came home that evening, he was still wondering and wouldn’t shut up about it while we made tea. ‘I always put it in the dresser,’ he said for the hundredth time that day. ‘Always.’

  ‘Well, obviously you didn’t,’ I said and chopped an onion.

  ‘Why would I put it in the kitchen, with the screwdrivers and stuff?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe you were distracted or something. Did you need to fix anything that day?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what to say,’ I said. ‘It’s just one of those things.’

  Those things kept happening for the next week or so until Jacob didn’t know if he was coming or going. I could see the confusion all over his face every time something moved or disappeared or he forgot a conversation we’d had just hours earlier.

  ‘Don’t you ever listen?’ I said as he told me he didn’t know what I was talking about again. ‘I told you this morning.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I said. ‘We were sitting there, at the table. You were eating your breakfast, and I told you that the home had rang, that Mum had had a turn.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Polly.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said, and shrugged away from him, leaving him sitting alone to think it over.

  The next day, we went shopping, stocking up on food for the week. When we got back, I pretended I’d had a call from the home and left him to unpack the bags. Later that day, when he was engrossed in a new train magazine, I went into the kitchen and rearranged his unpacking, so that when it was time to make dinner, we couldn’t find half the ingredients.

  ‘We definitely bought tinned tomatoes,’ I said, and searched the tins cupboard, pulling everything out, one by one. ‘What’s this doing in here?’ I held up a pack of cheese.
‘Jesus, Jacob, it’ll have gone off if it’s been in here all afternoon. What were you thinking?’

  Jacob didn’t answer, just took the cheese and looked at it like he’d never seen such a thing before. I let out a big sigh, and Jacob turned to where I was standing, holding open the cupboard under the sink where the cleaning products were kept. ‘I’ve found the missing tomatoes,’ I said, and picked up a couple of tins. ‘I’m getting worried about you,’ I said, and went through the other cupboards and drawers, retrieving the mislaid items.

  ‘But…’ he said, cheese in one hand, tin of tomatoes in the other. ‘I’m sure I put it away properly.’

  ‘Clearly not,’ I said, pretending to be angry for a moment before giving him my most sympathetic face. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ I held my hand to his forehead like my mum used to do when I was little.

  ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘I just don’t understand it.’

  ‘Go and sit down,’ I said. ‘I’ll finish up here.’

  After dinner, Jacob was quiet, barely taking an interest in the night’s film. I knew he was thinking about the shopping and probably all the rest of it too. Apart from all the things being in the wrong place, there were the conversations he’d forgotten, the things he couldn’t remember saying to me. And then, of course, there was the sex that he couldn’t recall.

  I looked down at Jacob asleep on the bed as I came in from the bathroom. I climbed into bed and put my arms around him. ‘That was good,’ I whispered into his ear, and he muttered something. I nipped his arm to wake him properly and said it again.

  ‘What was?’ he asked.

  I looked at him for a second and said, ‘You didn’t enjoy it?’

  ‘Enjoy what?’

  ‘Don’t be mean,’ I said, shoving him playfully.