PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller

by Michelle Muckley

  He had to swerve to avoid me as his car raced past. It startled me and woke me from my daydream. My eyes bat open in a state of frenzied seizure and I find my leather gloved hands are gripped onto the steering wheel as if trying to prevent being sucked into his jet stream as he flew past. Fifteen minutes have passed. I expected to see him leave the hotel, make a small turn and head straight back home, safe in the knowledge that I was out of harm’s way for his afternoon rendezvous with Ishiko. No doubt she would be at home preparing herself for his arrival, waiting for his slack skin to slide over her, his vegetable breath to tickle her ear. I shook off the idea, left its nasty taste behind me, and trailed after him. By the time I got to the nearest junction I had no idea which route he had taken, and I was left panting like a dog for nothing, my scrunched up eyes batting left and right as if following a tennis match. Knowing it was game, set, and match to Gregory I drove back towards the hotel, circled the closest streets, and as I expected found no trace of him. Where was he going in that direction? I thought about driving home, wondering if he had seen me and he thought that by driving away in the wrong direction he would throw me off his scent. But then I thought about what I might do if I found them in bed together, if I would be angry or not, if I would shout, if I would pull her by her hair across the floor and out into the street, her naked skin scraping along the icy floor for Dana and Jemima, and more importantly, Mr. Wexley and Marianne to watch. I wondered if it would be me that came off looking like the bad guy, the crazy one, or if they would just look at each other as if to say, well what did he expect her to do, crazy woman like that. Besides the obvious shark tooth tearing pain it would cause me to witness the extent of their betrayal, there is no way that I wouldn’t appear the crazy one, standing over her like a Spartan warrior over his latest kill. And I have only just begun to appear sane. So instead, I park the car, decide to let them have their fun, and go to meet Marianne.

  Marianne is waiting for me in the cafe. She has picked a table close to the door, as far away from the windows as possible. She smiles and waves, her hand apologetic and nervous, uncertain of what it’s doing. It may as well have been painted white, her shouting I surrender. As I sit, I notice that I cannot see even an inch of lake. It doesn’t matter where I go, this lake is the elephant that I drag behind me, the entity that nobody wishes to discuss. It is like my cancer, the disease that took my hair and that leaves me bedbound. If it was a cancer I could rip of my wig and get one of those T shirts that have an unmockable slogan like I am kicking Cancer’s ass, or Tumours suck. When you get cancer, everybody loves you. That’s why we embrace it like we do. We raise money for it, we bake cakes for it, we research why we get it, we give it ourselves by smoking, or lay in the sun for it to take hold of us. Everybody wants to be a survivor of cancer. Is there anybody who wants to live more than somebody with cancer? Cancer patients hang on, they grip onto life with their brittle chemo-damaged finger nails if they have to. But me? Not me. My T-shirt wouldn’t be so celebratory. Mine might say In the end, I didn’t kill myself, or, I didn’t cut deep enough, after all. I only managed to sneak my way back into life by luck. That doesn’t count as surviving. Nobody wants to be the survivor of a suicide attempt. Nobody makes a T-shirt for me, and nobody wants to comment how well I look now that I’m free of disease. And it’s because they know that really, I’m not. They know suicide doesn’t leave you. They know it’s still there, just like the lake that pulsates around me and watches my every move. I escaped it, but they all know it is following me, waiting for a second chance, waiting for me to relapse. Just like I did in the past.

  I had rather hoped that Marianne didn’t know about the past, but her table selection would suggest she is fully appraised. When you walk into Lakeside Cafe, you are naturally drawn to the windows. Nobody chooses to sit in the middle of the room on the poorer, view starved tables. I had harboured a hope that her desire to get me into town or to a hotel far away from the lake had been a personal preference, but sitting here as far as she can away from the water’s edge, I know she knows. It makes things a little harder, as she too will assume I am crazy. Once you are crazy, you are always crazy. Nobody trusts you anymore. You always have to be careful with what you say, nothing too outlandish, and as for the telling of secrets, people will always assume you have just pulled them from your imagination. How to play it? Perhaps I am the crazy woman looking for friends during recovery. Perhaps the lonely wife who has just given up work. Maybe I can tell her about the pregnancy. Any of these would be suitable reason for our meeting. As I sit, I settle on friend who wants to understand and help her difficult situation. She is after all a mistress, and very few will sympathise with her position. She must be due a bit of support. Why not from me?

  “Oh Marianne, it is so cold out there today.” I flick my coat out behind me as I drape it over the arm of the incoming waiter. I keep my gloves on but realise she notices this, and so I draw attention to it myself to negate her thoughts like a fire blanket over the initial sparks. “My fingers are so cold.” She nods, accepting my reasoning. She stands politely and I air kiss her on the cheek whilst holding her arms, careful not to get too close. She looks relieved. We have never spent time together alone. I see she is thinking that I sound like a normal person, in touch with the world. Her eyes drop into a more relaxed position, her forehead slackening off. She might as well pat me on my gloved hand and say Thank goodness, I thought you were going to seem crazy but you seem normal enough. Fortunately she doesn’t. She doesn't have Mr. Wexley as a security blanket today. She is just Marianne. Apparently, the Marianne that I don’t know orders wine in the middle of the afternoon. There is half a bottle left. The other half is already onboard. Perhaps a bit of Dutch Courage.

  “Oh yes,” she says in her best voice, trying hard to stifle the accent which she has no idea that I love, or that it reminds me of my mother. “It’s very cold.”

  “What are we drinking,” I say as I take a hold of the bottle. It’s the Chardonnay. I know that this is the cheapest on the menu. “Lovely.” I hate this wine. It is acidic and lemony, sharp on the palate and will guarantee to suck the ability to sleep right out of me. I consider the baby and that the wine is a bad choice, but I have already got pretend excited about it, and to refuse the wine now will either seem odd - like a crazy person might act - or she will realise that I am pregnant or perhaps an alcoholic in recovery. I do not want to tell her about the pregnancy because Gregory still seems very reluctant and I certainly do not need another label such as recovering alcoholic. I pull a plastic Ziploc bag out from my handbag and take out a small plastic beaker. Setting it down onto the table in front of me I pour myself a small glass and pretend to sip from it. I top her glass up too. Get her drunk, I think. I order another bottle of the cheap Chardonnay.

  “Oh, it’s my favourite.” She says giggling, although I notice that she cannot take her eyes off my plastic cup and she sips with a bit more enthusiasm from her brimming glass. She does however seem relieved at the ease with which we can feign friendship.

  “It’s nice to get together like this,” I say. “You know, we haven’t done this in all the time I have known you.”

  “I never realised that you wanted to. If I had known I would have asked you before. Sometimes my days are very empty, and I am always free.” Up until this moment, I have seen only a few things regarding Marianne. They are; hanging from Wexley’s arm like an accessory, showing off the latest accessory he has purchased for her, or her standard arrival and departure patterns as dictated by those of Mrs. Wexley. She accessorizes him and he does the same to her. I expect the reciprocity ends here, and that most of the relationship is more of a one way provision to Wexley. Now I see that she does at least have some sort of personality, and at least a smile that flourishes when not under his command, which is more than most people would say about me.

  We chit chat about nothing in particular for a while. Safe subjects whilst we skirt around the idea of actually talking about us. We discuss th
e severity of the winter, the danger of driving through the difficult roads, and how an incredible amount of snow has closed the Kirkstone Pass for several weeks now. I add in how Gregory had to go the long way around to get to his other hotel, in Glenridding. We broach easy topics, and I learn how she adores Beatrix Potter, and owns a collection of stuffed animals of all her favourite characters including Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny. She tells me how each week she passes by the shop dedicated to these happy little characters just to have a peak through the window. I find it rather strange, but smile along at the concept of a grown woman being obsessed with such activities and hope in my boredom such interests do not find me. I tell her about my decision to leave work, and how I think it is the best for my position as Gregory’s wife. She smiles back at me, unquestioning. Her head tilts to the side as if she feels sorry for me. Such difficult decisions I have had to make, she thinks. What with being post suicide.

  “It is hard when you have to make difficult choices like this, but if it’s for the best, then…” She fiddles with her bread knife and nibbles at the chunk of bread that she ordered to help soak up the wine. She is on glass two, since I got here. She swallows hard, as if whatever difficult choices she is referring to have stuck in her throat, something half regurgitated from the past. She looks a bit sad, perhaps tearing in the left eye and I see that she wants to say something.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask. Of course she does. She is well on her way to being drunk, and in the midst of having an affair with an extremely wealthy married man and virtually lives at his house.

  “It’s just, my life feels like it is full of difficult choices just lately.” I nod sympathetically, wondering what they are. “My divorce, the lack of a job, my house, and now,” she looks at me for permission, “with John.” I couldn’t care less about her divorce or house, and although I thought she had a job and must remember to find out why she doesn’t anymore, it’s the bit about John that I am attracted to, like a gem to the eye of a miner.

  “It must be very difficult, the situation that you are in. Especially at the weekends.” She looks around the room, her alcohol soaked eyes swimming in their sockets trying to focus on who is around us.

  “It is. We spend all week together, and then at the weekend, nothing.” I want to say that’s because his wife comes home. I want to say that she is no better than Ishiko and tell her the things I think about doing to her so she understands who I am and who she is talking to so freely but I don’t want her to clam up so I swallow the lump in my throat and start counting in my head.

  “So difficult,” I say between numbers, agreeing that her life is an endless charade of hardships. I get to twenty eight before I feel well enough to carry on. I crouch in a little as if to whisper a secret and I can see her eyes have started to turn red, like mine did when I was at my craziest and most like the Devil. “What are you going to do, you know, long term?”

  “Well we talk about being together on a permanent basis, but how? When I cannot be there at the weekend, it’s very hard to move forward,” she smiles, her accent coming out loud and clear because she is getting drunk, “but at some point this is going to have to change. At some point it has to end.”

  The way she speaks makes me think that she assumes Wexley’s wife to be a bit stupid, that she has judged her in some way for not allowing their 'relationship' to flourish. I have to say I have judged her too. I even agree with Marianne that indeed this situation must shift in order to abide by the laws of reality. Perhaps this will occur sooner than she thinks, depending on how easy I find this. For me, Marianne is like the warm up band that enlivens the crowd before the main act appears. By using her I will learn what could happen, what potential there is in my plan, and how bad it could really be for Ishiko. And for Gregory by seeing just how bad I can make things for Wexley.

  “The situation is simply crazy,” she states as she slams her palm down onto the table. A few eyes look around at us but she remains drunkenly oblivious. It is as if she has just drawn a line underneath the whole situation and summed everything up with one word. I expect as soon as she has said it for her to realise what she has said and to feel guilty for the use of the word, sort of like it was an unintended insult that struck me like a curve ball. Crazy. But she doesn’t say anything. “How can he put an end to this craziness,” there it is again, “with all that’s going on?” Most people avoid talking about crazy with me, and her blatant refusal to skirt around the subject and make allowances almost endears her to me. Almost. I think of how Ishiko might sit at a table like this with her friends and regale the same sorry tale of a misguided mistress, the assumption that she holds the power, and that she is just being patient rather than played. It sounds so pathetic, and I feel a degree of sympathy for them both, but it is short lived.

  I ask, “Why, what is going on?” realising that I almost got carried away with an over-analysis of her use of the word crazy, when she had gifted me the chance to ask for more details.

  She sighs, guilty or frustrated I’m not sure. “We are fortunate that the new job takes her away for the week, otherwise the weekdays would be affected as well.” She looks at me with her lips turned down, her head jutting forwards and nodding slightly, assuming my understanding. “But the mother is still alive.” She is still nodding, like she has let me in on an unbelievable secret, where now all of a sudden I should understand where she is coming from. “She has Alzheimer’s and is in a home here in the town. Acorns. You know it?” I don’t, so I shake my head. “Anyway. So, you know, he feels like he has to be there for that. For support.” She rolls her eyes at this fact as she sloshes her wine glass backwards and forwards to an extent that a little bit escapes onto the bread on her plate. She doesn’t notice. I feel like scratching out my own eyes just so I don’t have to watch her, but still I can’t look away. She has taken the place of a woman whose world is collapsing. Like a vulture who swooped in to pick at the carcass of Mary’s life, a fly resting on another woman’s meal. She is saving bits for herself, poisoning that which is left with her own nasty presence, the rancidification of a life until there is nothing left but rot.

  “When did you meet?” I fight the urge to grip her hand and push the knife through it. I pick it up through, run my thumb over the blade, sharp even through my gloves, but she is too drunk to notice.

  “About eight months ago. He used to come in to the garage where I worked, fill up the car.” She said this in a hushed voice, the kind you would use around a sleeping newborn, eager to hide the shame of a normal, job filled, moneyless past. “Eventually he took me out. We went to Lancaster.” She says it like I should be impressed by the effort, the luxury of a trip to another part of the map, which I think we both realise had everything to do with the necessity of deceit. She is on a roll and spills it all. The meal, the wine, nothing like Chardonnay. He ordered the expensive bottle from half way down the wine list. She is all smiles now. She has forgotten all about her divorce, her lack of a job, her house, a dying mother of the woman she betrays. She is high on the lie, consumed in her false reality, in which the real world only penetrates from a distance. But the real world always gets back in. Reality pushes and creeps like rot in a damaged tree after a fungus takes hold, rendering it barren and unable to bear fruit. Dreams dare to grow like weeds in a forgotten garden, believing that they will be allowed to flourish. But one day when the sun shines and the cover of winter has passed, somebody will come along and rip them up.

  I finish listening to the story and eat the rest of the bread. She doesn’t notice that my wine is untouched. She has had a little cry about the injustice of her situation and those that noticed looked at me with sympathy. I look sane and healthy today in comparison to the tipsy snivelling mess at my side. I look so good next to her right now that not even a suicide attempt could mark me. I consider letting her drive home, enjoying the prospect of what could happen, but instead I insist on taking her back myself. It’s a wobbly walk back to the car, but she manages
with my help. We pull up outside the Wexley’s house, and I see that Gregory is home, and just thinking about him in there with her forces me to squeeze Marianne on the arm until I feel my finger nails dig into her skin. She complains but without much effort, her pain numbed. She hands me the keys to the Wexley’s house, a key chain with a little heart on which I assume he purchased for her. I manhandle her up the stairs and drop her into Mrs. Wexley’s bed. There are a few used tissues at the side, a few glasses of water, half drunk with a small layer of dust on the surface and white rings marking the glass where the water has evaporated. There is a picture of Mrs. Wexley staring back at me smiling, oblivious.

  “I need my tablets,” she says, her arms reaching up to me, her fingers getting caught in my necklace. A rush of anger grips me as I panic that she is going to break it. I prize her fingers out from the chain and tuck the necklace back into the neckline of the jumper. “It’s beautiful,” she mumbles, and I think that she is talking about the Triquetra symbol. “My tablets,” she says again, and I wonder if she is ill with a disease that may evoke a sense of sympathy in me, for her. She points to her purse. I hand it over. It is Chanel. A gift. She empties it out, bits of junk flying everywhere, items that do not belong in such a purse. Gum, a cheap pen a bus ticket, and a small bottle of tablets. I recognise them. Elavil. Amitriptyline. I had a bottle in my cabinet at home. One tablet a day, good for depression, regular follow ups required. Can elicit suicidal tendencies. They stopped me taking it. Too late if you want to be pedantic, but I guess I’m still alive. I hand her the bottle, and she pops one pill with some dusty old water. She flicks a tab of gum into her mouth, dry no doubt thanks to the Elavil, and she closes her eyes, her fingers stretching out for mine in friendship. I avoid her touch, already stepping out of the door.