A Deep Deceit

by Hilary Bonner

  His voice was gentle and teasing. Nonetheless, I heard myself reply very seriously and very honestly, putting into words thoughts I had never mentioned to him before: ‘Sometimes I do want more, Carl, yes I do.’ I touched his face with one hand in order to soften the blow of my words. ‘I just want a job and friends, the normal things, the ordinary things . . .’

  Then I saw the pain flash across his eyes, this man who had given me a whole fresh start in life, a new identity. And fear. Maybe even fear. Carl, too, could be afraid, I knew that, although he seemed to have only one fear, really: the fear of anything disrupting our love and our life.

  I could not hurt him. ‘It’s OK, Carl,’ I said, before he even spoke again. ‘I know you are right. I suppose I always knew it wouldn’t really be possible. Maybe one day, aye?’

  Carl smiled and kissed me again. This time on the mouth. ‘Yes, darling,’ he whispered. ‘One day.’

  I knew he didn’t mean it, though. And sometimes I wondered how long you could keep a secret.

  A couple of days later Carl decided he would make bouillabaisse for supper and we paid a visit to our favourite local fishmonger. Steve was a young man with film star good-looks, totally incongruous in a fishmonger’s apron yet apparently enviably content in his work, who somehow contrived to be quite passionate about fish and frequently waxed lyrical about his product.

  True to form he produced a monk-fish which he proclaimed to be particularly splendid. ‘Just look at the shine on that,’ he enthused. ‘You’ll not get a healthier looking fish than that one . . .’

  ‘Steve, I think I should point out that the fish is dead,’ Carl interrupted dryly.

  ‘Good Lord!’ countered Steve. ‘So it is.’

  On the way home we dropped in at the Logan Gallery to visit Will Jones and find out how the sales of Carl’s paintings were going.

  I was anxious about visiting Will for the first time since I had turned him away from Rose Cottage, but to my great relief, he was as friendly as ever to both of us. He didn’t seem to be harbouring any grudge at all and our visit to the gallery really cheered Carl up, because we learned that his paintings were selling exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that Carl invited Will to share the bouillabaisse with us that night as a kind of thank-you.

  As ever, on the rare occasions when we actually invited him to our house, Will accepted with alacrity. He was something of a loner and I used to think that sometimes he might be lonely too, but neither Carl nor I knew much about his private life. We were always made very welcome at the gallery and occasionally Will entertained us, invariably most generously, at a local restaurant, but we had never been invited to his clifftop bungalow home out on the Penzance Road. We knew that he lived alone and he had told us that he had never been married. If he had a special woman friend nobody in the town knew of it. Indeed, Will seemed not to make friends easily and I always thought that one reason the three of us were so comfortable with each other was because none of us wanted to probe. I had once ventured to Carl that maybe Will was gay. Carl had laughed and asked me if I had never noticed the way the gallery owner looked at me. Nonetheless I was not entirely convinced.

  Anyway, I was glad Carl had invited him partly because it eradicated my remaining guilt about the pink champagne incident, and I welcomed any diversion that might help take our minds off our worries.

  The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly enough. Carl spent an hour or two framing his latest painting and I made a pretence of helping him. As usual, more than anything I just watched. Carl was so deft with his hands that it was a pleasure to watch him choose just the right colour and weight of framing material, and angle the beading so absolutely perfectly. When he had finished he started work on the bouillabaisse.

  By the time Will arrived just before seven the whole cottage was full of an aroma of garlicky fish.

  ‘Delicious,’ Will said as he sniffed his appreciation and handed me a bottle of rather good white wine. We ate around the table in the downstairs room, curtains drawn and candlelit as usual in order to disguise its dinginess. But we had rigged up a single spotlight on the wall, which effectively illuminated my Pumpkin Soup painting.

  Supper was excellent.

  ‘This bouillabaisse is as good as I’ve had in any restaurant,’ remarked Will.

  ‘What do you mean “as good as”,’ countered Carl. ‘How about “far better”, or “much superior” or something else along those lines . . .’

  ‘Why are great chefs always so arrogant, Will?’ I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘What, Carl arrogant? A talented painter, a brilliant cook and he’s got you, Suzanne? What on earth has the man got to be arrogant about?’

  ‘And I’m stinking rich,’ said Carl, waving his arm around the dimly lit little room. ‘How do you like my mansion?’

  Will grinned and put a hand over one of mine, which was resting on the table. ‘You two have quite enough riches,’ he said. ‘I would swap everything I possess, the gallery, the car, my house, for what you have . . .’

  He spoke lightly enough and his tone was as theatrical as ever, but we had noticed before that Will was inclined to become a bit hyperbolic after a few glasses of wine.

  Carl invariably responded with the easy teasing banter which came so easily to him. ‘That can be arranged, Will,’ he said. ‘When do you want to move in? I think you may have to raise the ceilings, though, and God knows how you’ll get on with my old van.’

  Will laughed and said that he had forgotten about the van, and the offer was withdrawn.

  Very occasionally, particularly if Carl had sold some paintings at a good price, we would go out to supper in a little fish restaurant just a few doors away from our home.

  This was a real treat for us, and I was delighted when, later in the week having had such an exceptional run of sales, Carl suggested we celebrate with a meal out in our favourite restaurant.

  I washed my hair, trying desperately to blow-dry a little bounce into its lank flamess which was emphasised by then by my half-grown-out layered haircut, and we both put on our smartest clothes – we didn’t need to, but we enjoyed dressing up every now and again. I even considered risking the orange suit, tucked away at the back of my wardrobe – I hadn’t quite been able to bring myself to throw it out – but thought better of it. In the end I settled for the familiar and safe calf-length skirt, cotton print blouse and a jacket.

  The Inn Plaice, in spite of its appalling name, was anything but and, because it was in a back street away from the seafront, had to rely on the quality of its food rather than a stunning location with which to tempt diners. Its proprietor, Pete Trevellian, the younger son of a family of fishermen, behaved more as if he were hosting a dinner party for friends in his house than running a restaurant, but Pete had a good set-up. His fish, mostly supplied direct from his family’s fishing boats, was good and fresh, and his father and brothers were able to make a better living than many fishermen in the area partly because of the family restaurant outlet. The Inn Plaice had a big local following and, unlike many eating houses in the town, which relied almost entirely on the seasonal tourist trade, was able to remain open all the year round.

  Pete greeted us, as he did most of his regulars, with a complimentary glass of wine. But once we were settled at our table with menus Carl suddenly announced that he had forgotten a quick errand he must run, and jumped up and left before I had time to protest. He was gone for several minutes and, just as I was beginning to wonder where on earth he had got to, he returned clutching a bunch of daffodils. ‘For you with my love,’ he said. ‘Supermarket special, I’m afraid – should have thought of it earlier, shouldn’t I?’

  I shook my head and thanked him profusely. Another of the many things I loved about Carl was his spontaneity. It was typical of him to be sitting at a restaurant table, think about buying me flowers, and just rush off and get some. I was as knocked out by my slightly tired-looking daffs as I would have been by a bouquet of orchids.


  Carl ordered more wine. We then turned our attention to the menu and chose crab chowder followed by an assortment of grilled local fish served with a side dish of Pete’s irresistibly crunchy chips, and fresh fruit salad with clotted cream for dessert.

  In the end we got through two bottles of wine, as well as Pete’s initial glasses, an unusually large amount for us, but it just turned into one of those sort of evenings. As we said our goodbyes and set out on the short walk home I realised that I was definitely slightly tipsy. I made a concentrated effort to walk straight as Carl could be a bit stiff about drinking to excess, but he seemed easygoing enough that night. After all it was he who had ordered the deadly second bottle and I fancied he might not be stone-cold sober himself. I leaned against him heavily as we turned, perhaps both of us swaying slightly, into the cobbled alley that led to Rose Cottage.

  I could see from the light of the street lamp on the corner that there was something strange about our front door. It seemed to have shiny red marks all over it, standing out starkly against the faded, pale-blue paint. I caught my breath. I could feel Carl stiffen beside me. Both instantly sober, we covered the last few yards to the cottage in silence. The shiny red marks were writing, as I think we had both immediately suspected, although we could not see to read what had been scrawled across the door to our home until we were directly in front of it: ‘YOU CANNOT ESCAPE – I’M WATCHING.’

  The words were roughly scrawled in thick daubs of bright-red gloss paint which had run and dripped down the wooden panels. I reached out and touched a particularly shiny patch. It was still wet. My hand came away smeared with red. I stared at it. The dripping red paint looked like blood. I felt my vision blur.

  Carl’s grip on my arm tightened.

  I wanted to cry out, but my voice temporarily deserted me.

  Carl found his all right. He bellowed his anger into the cold night air. ‘Son of a bitch!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. And immediately he began to scrub at the paint with his free hand and the sleeve of his good overcoat. I didn’t try to stop him. After a few seconds he seemed to pull himself together and stopped the frantic rubbing. ‘We don’t even have to look at this,’ he muttered, his earlier flash of near hysteria apparently under control.

  Swiftly he unlocked the front door and together we climbed the stairs to bed. The joy of our evening out had been destroyed.

  We didn’t say much. There wasn’t much to say. But I knew what would happen that night, knew it with dreadful clarity, and so, I am sure, did Carl. I did not have the energy nor the determination to pace the house and keep myself awake, so I just gave in to the promise of misery. Maybe I hoped that the alcohol I had consumed would give me some kind of bizarre protection as I slept. It didn’t.

  That night the nightmare was the very worst of all. The blood had seen to that. For that is what I saw on my front door, blood, not paint. And it was blood, I knew all too well, that I was going to see inside my head. Always.

  At breakfast the next morning, I finally gave voice to most of what I was thinking. ‘The reality may be that we just can’t hide any more,’ I told Carl sombrely.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Not here, anyway. Maybe we can’t stay here any longer. I think the time has come to move on. What do you say?’

  I was numbed by his words. ‘This is our home,’ I protested. ‘I don’t want to move from here, I really don’t.’

  ‘Anywhere we are together would be our home,’ he countered. ‘That’s all that matters isn’t it?’

  I nodded. I didn’t know quite what to say.

  ‘Let’s give it a few days, see if anything else happens,’ I managed eventually.

  But I knew what I truly felt. Not only did I not want to run again, I was not going to run again. The running was over. I also knew I could not expect any more from Carl. He had done too much already to protect me. I suspected that he was drained of energy. I was not going to be a victim any more, not of nightmares nor superstitions nor anonymous threats. I reckoned it was up to me to sort out our lives once and for all, to remove the fear that had always been there in its different ways for both of us.

  That afternoon, while Carl was working, I slipped out of the house. I had to creep away stealthily because Carl would never have allowed me to do what I was planning. He loved me too much and I knew only too well how great was his fear of losing me. But I had had enough. It had all gone on far too long.

  I found an inner strength I did not know I had. On tiptoe I left the cottage, opening and shutting the old front door with the greatest of care. I was afraid, but my steps were determined as I walked along our little cobbled lane and into the network of narrow streets that led down the hill from our cottage to the harbour, the place that had always been so special to us.

  I wanted to be there alone just once more before it all changed, perhaps for ever. Before I took our futures into frightening unknown territory beyond the point of no return.

  This was where Carl had given me my new name. ‘You’re Suzanne from now on,’ he had told me softly. ‘Suzanne – my Lady of the Harbour.’

  And as I walked alone along the harbour side, inside my head I could hear him singing to me softly from the Leonard Cohen song of the Sixties that he so loved and from which he had named me Suzanne, the song that had been so much a part of his growing up, a growing up so utterly different from my own sheltered childhood:

  And the sun pours down like honey

  On our lady of the harbour

  And she shows you where to look

  Among the garbage and the flowers

  There are heroes in the seaweed

  There are children in the morning

  They are leaning out for love

  They will lean that way for ever

  I turned away from the quayside and headed towards the police station.

  Eight

  I was certain it would be a relief to rid myself of the burden I had carried for so long. And as I walked through the Cornish seaside town I had grown to love so much, on my way to confront the past at last, irrevocably, my thoughts turned, as they so often did, to how it had begun.

  Poor Gran. All she had ever wanted was to protect me, to do her best for me. When she arranged for me to marry Robert Foster she believed she had found somebody who would love and continue to protect me just as she had done. And, of course, it did not occur to her to doubt a man of God.

  Until well after the wedding I suppose I never doubted him either. I was bewildered, but not afraid. I had never had reason to be afraid of those close to me – I suppose there had only ever been Gran, really, and I expected, as a matter of course, kindness from both a husband and a clergyman. The fact that I had barely ever been alone with Robert did not particularly concern me at the time. Maybe I thought that was normal for a bride and I suppose it had been once in a bygone age. I read a lot of Jane Austen in those days and had always suspected that I might have been more at home in her time than my own. I told myself that what was happening to me was all rather romantic. I knew Robert Foster only in the way Gran presented him to me – as an intelligent and apparently kindly man, a cleric respected and revered by his congregation. But I quickly found out how wrong I was – certainly about his kindness.

  When we were married in Robert’s church, with what seemed like the entire congregation gathered there, I did feel some of Gran’s pride in spite of the sense of unreality about it all. The music was rousing, people said I looked beautiful. There was something splendid about the occasion and, unused to being the centre of attention, I found I quite liked it.

  My wedding night – spent in the rectory that was to be my home because Robert did not have time for a honeymoon – was painful and difficult. I knew so little about sex and had had no experience. It went without saying that I was a virgin. I hadn’t even known exactly what would happen – or how, but Robert had been patient as he could, and had allowed me to take my time, and I suppose I had expected pain. It was not until much later that I learned that,
had there been more love, more arousal, rather than a clinical kind of forbearance, I might have experienced no pain at all.

  After the wedding he was always busy during the day. And I realised early on that while he undoubtedly worked hard he also drank heavily, although he contrived only very rarely to appear even slightly drunk and never in public. He managed to maintain the façade of being the perfect chapel cleric in an order strongly opposed to alcohol. Extraordinary, really. I had even heard him preach from the pulpit about the evils of drink. Maybe he believed what he said, I don’t know. In a curious kind of way he had good reason to, he must have known what it did to him. Maybe that gave him a crisis of conscience – although he gave no sign of having any kind of conscience at all. I certainly believed in the evils of drink by the time Robert Foster had finished with me.

  Unlike most clergymen, he preferred me not to get involved in his church-work, explaining to his congregation that I was not strong enough to be a traditional pastor’s wife. Instead, I stayed in the big, ugly old Victorian manse that was our home, twiddling my thumbs and cooking his evening meal. After that he continued working or reading in his study while I sat alone in the living room. Then he would summon me to bed – and that truly was the way it was. There was always a coldness about Robert. He never expressed any love towards me, never showed any warmth, but he was an ardent and accomplished lover, and our lovemaking was at first the high point of my long dull days. To begin with, briefly, he had indeed been a surprisingly good lover, technically at any rate. He knew how to excite a woman if he cared to do so. On a good night his knowledge and expertise even made up, at least partially, for his eternal coldness. I learned to relax my body and to switch off my mind against the emotional emptiness I was somehow so aware of, in spite of my inexperience, and to enjoy the sheer physical sensation.

  Eventually I achieved my first orgasm and I think that was when I maybe even began to fall in love with Robert a little. I had no way of knowing that there could ever be more. For his part he seemed to take almost a kind of pride in bringing me so easily to a climax. He once told me he thought it was what gave man the most power of all over woman.