The Woman Before Me

by Ruth Dugdall

  Her job is to take me back to the past. She takes me back to when I was centuries younger, when my face matched my age, and I had hope for the future.

  20

  Black Book Entry

  I was finally normal. I shared my flat with a man, I had a lover. Your toothbrush crossed with mine in the beaker. My flat wasn’t much better than your room at The Grand, but I kept it tidy and clean. It was the upstairs part of a seventies house, with the front room as the lounge, a bedroom at the back and a small box room where I kept Rita’s things. Now your guitar was there, your empty suitcase. I crammed our tiny kitchen with treats from the hotel. Chef was always generous and I had vanilla pods and cinnamon sticks, saffron and even a bottle of Madeira. The flat was fine, apart from the downstairs neighbours who would sometimes argue at two in the morning and then make up even more noisily.

  You still hadn’t found a job, but we got by. Chef knew you from when you had worked behind the bar, and would ask after you, giving me a couple of steaks or a leftover piece of salmon to take home. Sometimes I’d sneak a cigar as a special treat. Working in expensive hotels had given you expensive tastes.

  You were bored with nothing to do all day. When I left for a shift, I felt guilty leaving you slumped on the sofa in front of Jeremy Kyle, strumming the guitar. I worried, too, about how you spent your days without me, knowing that you still kept Emma’s photo in your wallet, and your mobile phone was never out of your reach. If it buzzed you would check the text, but never tell me who had sent it, and I didn’t ask.

  Three weeks after you moved in I had a visitor. It was about seven in the evening on a Saturday, and you were watching Top Gear on TV while I washed up, when the doorbell rang. It rang so infrequently that I guessed it would be Annie.

  I wiped my hands dry and skipped down the stairs. I opened the door smiling, wanting Annie to see men’s shoes by the door, hear your voice calling. But her face was dark as thunder. For a woman in her sixties with a wide girth, she was formidable. She bared her false teeth at me.

  “Rose. What the bleeding hell is going on?”

  My smile was slapped away by Annie’s tone. I’d never heard her so angry before.

  “Young lady, you are coming with me tonight.”

  I tried to protest, but Annie reached her fat arm past me and plucked my coat from its peg. “Now. We can’t be late.”

  “Wait a minute.” I reluctantly pulled the coat on and bounded up the stairs away from her. You were lying on the sofa drinking a beer. “Jason?”

  You didn’t look up from the screen.

  “Do you mind if I go out for a few hours?”

  A weary smile appeared. “Course not, pet. You go.”

  “I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time.” You reached for your mobile phone and started to scroll through your messages. I bent to kiss your cheek, and then trailed back downstairs to Annie. I cursed her for stealing time I wanted to give to you.

  The front door was open and she was standing in the cold air. She held her arm for me to link and we walked quickly to the séance at the church hall.

  “She’s glad to see you here,” Maureen said.

  I knew who ‘she’ meant. I’d been coming here for so many years that Rita needed no introduction. And the regulars, women who remembered my aunt, turned and smiled at me. “She’s been waiting. You haven’t been for a while.”

  Annie glared at me and I blushed. “I’ve been busy.”

  Maureen nodded. “Rita says she knows. You’ve met someone.”

  “Yes.”

  “Rita says he’s very handsome, but his hair is like a girl’s.”

  I laughed—that was Rita all over. She liked men like prizefighters, bulging muscles and shorn scalps.

  “Your mum’s here too, Rose.”

  The hairs on my arm bristled. Mum didn’t come as often as Rita, and when she did she usually stayed silent. “What does she say?”

  “It’s about him. The man.”

  “Yes?”

  “She doesn’t like him, Rose. She says he doesn’t cherish you like he should.”

  I hated to hear the truth, pushed it away. “We’ve only known each other a few weeks.”

  “Your mum says he loves someone else.”

  “He’s just got divorced. He hasn’t gotten over it, yet.”

  Suddenly, Maureen came close, fear in her eyes. “Your mum says it’s dangerous. You should stop: walk away while you still can. She wants to protect you from pain.”

  I felt Annie’s papery hand caress mine. Maureen’s eyes were still on me. Their intensity was suffocating.

  “How can I make him stay?”

  Maureen was silent. The whites of her eyes became crescent moons. When the irises returned they fixed on me, and I thought I saw my mother. “There will be a child.”

  My heart leapt. “Our child. Jason’s and mine?”

  “His child. It will bind you forever, but pain will follow.”

  What did she mean? The pain of childbirth?

  “Your mum says you should leave him.”

  I pulled my hand from Annie’s grip. “I can’t do that.”

  Maureen was so close I could smell her breath, spicy with rum. “Leave him now, while you still can. Once the child is born it will entwine you together, and you will never be free.”

  She was so close, her eyes boring into me, that I couldn’t bear it.

  “Okay,” I said, just wanting her to leave me alone, “okay.”

  Maureen stared at me for a long time, and then she smiled. “Your mum has gone now, Rose. There’s someone else with me. Is there anyone here with a cat in the spirit world called Ginger?”

  She moved on to someone else and the spell was broken. The only person still looking at my burning face was Annie.

  “Do you see why I made you come?” she whispered, her fat thigh pressed to mine. “Every week it’s been the same. And I said to Maureen that you needed to know, duckie.”

  “I want to go home. I won’t stay for tea and biscuits.”

  Annie hugged me tight, “Go on, duck. You do what your mum said. Remember: she knows best. You hurry along now.”

  I did hurry. I wanted to see you so badly I tripped on the pavement, rushing down the street. But I would never do what Mum asked. However much you loved Emma, I couldn’t ask you to go. I had promised never to leave you. I loved you and I would make you love me. I would bind you to me forever, not through marriage—Emma had proved how weak that tie was—but with blood. Flesh and blood.

  Mum had given me the answer to my problem. If we had a child, you would stay with me. I would be safe.

  I turned the key in the lock, my hand trembling, and called out your name.

  But the flat was in darkness. You had gone.

  21

  Black Book Entry

  I’d been in bed for two hours when I heard the key in the door. I kept my eyes closed, lay still, listening to the sound of the bedroom door over the carpet, the rustle of clothes being dropped. You got under the covers, keeping to the edge of the mattress. I moved against you, an arm over your waist, burying my face into your hair. I rolled you onto your back, kissing, touching.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Hmm?”

  You pretended to be asleep, but your breathing was too shallow. The delicate scent of green apples was on your skin. You didn’t respond when I touched you and your penis was wet, already spent. I shook your shoulder.

  “Let me sleep, pet.”

  “Tell me, Jason!”

  You stared up at me. “For pity’s sake, Rose, I’m tired.”

  “And why are you tired? Where have you been?”

  You opened your sad eyes. “Don’t, Rose . . . you know where . . . with Emma.”

  “That slut . . . that whore . . .” and I remembered Mum saying those same words to my father.

  “She doesn’t want me, Rose” you said, voice wavering. You closed your eyes and tears tricked down your cheeks.

>   “Oh God, please don’t leave me, please . . .” I started crying and shaking and stuttering. “Jason, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “After she’d used me, she asked me to leave.”

  And then you started to cry, rolled onto your side, clinging to me like a child. You were still depressed, still so new to pain, and Emma had hurt you again. You let me hold you, comfort you.

  I did the only thing I could: I reclaimed you, sucking in the pain. I stroked and caressed your shaking body, burying my agony as I pulled you into me. An animal marking her territory, wiping out the other female’s claim. I made you make love to me.

  When I arrived at work the next day my anger was like a tumour full of poison ready to seep into my blood. If I tried to speak, bile rose in my mouth. I banged and crashed around the kitchen. Finally, when Chef was on his break, I took a steel ladle to the towers of fine bone china, delicate plates with blue detailing around their edges, piled high ready for service and lashed out. The crash of the falling tower, the shattering of broken china, was a perfect release. Standing in a ground zero of devastation, tears dripping but anger spent.

  Chef ran in, began to shout and then saw my stricken face. “Don’t cry, love,” he said, “accidents happen.”

  That night, when you cried in my arms still scented with Emma’s perfume, some kind of sorcery must have taken place because that was when I conceived. I felt something happen inside and I knew it was the baby Mum had told me about.

  You never did say that you loved me, but there is something stronger than love. Need. You needed me. I had rescued you, salvaged you from the wreckage of your broken heart.

  I want you to understand, Jason. To see how the seeds were being sown for what came later. Given a choice, I wouldn’t tell this story in words. I’d show you pictures to remind you—us throwing stones on the beach, watching TV in the dark, that night when you sobbed in my arms. I’d silently show you these pictures, and you’d understand.

  Words aren’t easy, they can be twisted. The truth is that I loved you. I didn’t expect you to love me back. All you needed to be was faithful.

  22

  Black Book Entry

  I was ten weeks pregnant, but I hadn’t told you. I hid it well, and I’ve always been on the heavy side, so it hardly showed. I wanted to keep my secret for as long as possible, but I kept sneaking away to look at the pregnancy test, that precious plastic stick with the indigo line. It was a talisman; the proof that I was lucky after all. I had finally been blessed.

  We were in bed one Sunday morning, and I was trying to cuddle up, but you kept pulling away. And then something in you snapped like you couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “I can’t do this Rose. There’s something I need to tell you . . .”

  “Shhh . . .”

  I stroked your hair, kissed your cheek, all the time feeling the distance your heart was placing between us, fearing what was to come. You still checked your mobile constantly for text messages, the picture of Emma was still in your wallet.

  “I’m leaving, Rose. It’s no good, trying to pretend. There’s nothing for me here.”

  My hands clasped around the gentle curve of my stomach, the baby inside. “Please stay, Jason. I’ll do anything if you just stay.”

  “No, Rose, you deserve more than that . . .”

  “Just you! I don’t even deserve that . . .” I moved closer, pressing against you like a needy child.

  “Christ, Rose, have some dignity. Don’t be so pathetic.”

  “But I am pathetic.” I tried to cuddle up, but you pulled back to your side of the bed. “I love you.”

  “But I don’t want you, Rose. I love Emma.”

  How easily you said it. My next breath came quick, but I kept calm, “I know that. It’s okay.”

  “Rose,” you were exasperated with me, holding me away with both hands. “What will it take to make you see this won’t work?” You rolled on your back and started up at the ceiling. “I need to get away from Emma, from the hold she has on me.”

  “Don’t talk about that.”

  “Get your head out of the sand, Rose. I never lied to you: you know I’ve been seeing her. We’ve had sex a few times, but she always sends me away afterwards. Anytime she has an argument with that bastard Hatcher she’s texting me.”

  I could hardly breathe, staring up at the dark ceiling, your cruel words pinning me down.

  “Whenever she’s pissed off with him, angry at all the nights he’s working at the school, she gets in touch. And she knows I still want her. I can’t cope with it anymore.”

  I remembered the night of the séance. The scent on your skin.

  “Where do you do it?” I don’t know why knowing was important, but it was. I needed to picture the scene in my head.

  “In their bed.”

  “Their bed?” I sat up on an elbow so I could see your face. “You go to their house?”

  “Afterwards, Emma cries. She always says it’s a mistake, that she loves her bastard husband. That she won’t have sex with me again; it must be the last time. I try to persuade her. I can’t carry on like this, just waiting for her to text me. I think it’s best if I get away from this place. Don’t you see, there’s no future for us.”

  But you had nowhere to go and I wasn’t going to give you up that easily.

  “Jason. We’re going to have a baby.”

  I watched your face, saw the disbelief in your eyes.

  I placed your hand on my stomach. “You’re going to be a father.”

  You thought it was a trick until I showed you the pregnancy stick as proof. But then you did something I hadn’t expected; you cried. You reached for me, clinging to me like a child, and sobbed. You put your hands on my stomach and I felt their heat.

  Then you put your lips to my neck, in the dip above the collarbone. Your breath was hot. “We’re going to have a baby.” You said it like a prayer, soft and musing. I was light-headed with relief, caught up in the embrace.

  “But I don’t love you, Rose.”

  You sounded so sorry, so pathetically sorry for me. Like it was something you couldn’t control.

  “Could you?” I asked, barely audible. “Could you love me?” A begging plea. I had no shame.

  You didn’t answer for a while. “I swear to you, Rose—I will love our child.” And you touched me again, on my stomach, making a pledge. I knew that you wanted the baby. Really wanted it. Even more than you wanted Emma.

  I could have said that I didn’t want you to stay with me for the sake of the baby, but that would have been a lie. I wanted you at any price, even without love. And if a baby kept you with me and away from her, then that was enough. I would make you love me. Or, at least I would make you stay.

  I cradled you, rocking slowly, thinking of our baby. I wasn’t going to let Emma take you from me.

  As you slept, all my gnarled and broken thoughts turned to her. The bitterness of jealousy was turning to the sweeter taste of hate. The woman you’d had before me. My tears kept coming as I rocked to the sound of your breathing. Gold curls had fallen across my wrist and I thought of Samson’s strength, of how, like Delilah, I wanted a knife, a blade to take your strength away, to stop you from leaving. But my weapon was more subtle, hidden deep in my womb.

  23

  Black Book Entry

  Over the following months you were so careful with me. There were no more arguments, only silence. I thought we were going to be a normal family, just like I’d always wanted. For once, everything was going my way. The baby that I carried was safe, nothing could harm it.

  Pregnancy made me happy. It also made me primitive, like a vixen preparing a burrow for her litter, all soft and warm with my secret, but snappy and on edge with the outside world. I stayed at home, lying on the sofa with my knees tucked under and a blanket over me. I didn’t want to go out; as the nights drew in, the winter began to bother me and I would turn the heating as high as our old boiler could muster, put jumper ove
r jumper to keep the cold out.

  At twenty weeks, we went for a scan. The jelly was cold on my tight stomach as the radiographer pressed with her probe and a grainy image appeared on the monitor.

  “Now, I’m just going to do some basic checks and then I’ll tell you what I see.”

  The probe beeped and she and I intently studied the screen. A fuzzy white image bounced up and down on a sea of black and white blobs. I saw an arm raise, a leg kick out.

  You absorbed the image on the screen, your hand clamped to my leg.

  I saw our baby’s profile and then, like it knew we were watching, it turned its face towards us. I could have wept.

  The radiographer moved her probe to the baby’s back, measuring its spine. “Everything looks good. The spine is complete, and the head and heart look good too. From the length I’d say nearly twenty-one weeks.”

  I nodded. “My due date is March 22nd.”

  “And do you want to know the sex, if I’m able to tell?”

  I knew he was a boy as surely as if I’d already met him. But you nodded, needing proof.

  The radiographer concentrated again, her probe moving low on my abdomen, searching.

  “Rose thinks it’s a boy,” you said.

  She smiled. “Well, Rose, you’re right.”

  My heart whooped in joy as my good luck took my breath. I wanted so much to have a boy like you.

  How awful it would have been to bring another Rose into the world.

  The hotel kitchen, for years my second home, was now a cage, and work had become a chore. My hands, scarred with ancient burns, trembled as I melted fat, fearing the spits. I skirted the pointed steel edges of the tables, wary of the knives I had previously handled without a care. I was vulnerable in pregnancy. Happiness was so new to me that I was terrified of it being stolen away.

  It was hard for you, I know, stuck in the house all day, and I began to worry. You’d stopped showering and caring what you looked like. Your mobile phone was in a drawer, switched off, and I knew you were doing that for me. For our son.