by Susan Lewis
She got to her feet and ambled over to look in the mirror. The silence hung heavily in the air, and I knew she hadn’t given up on me yet. ‘I think I’ll go and take a shower,’ she said, looking at my reflection. ‘Care to join me?’
I laughed. ‘Thanks, but I have to go out.’
She gave a long and enigmatic smile before she turned round. ‘Rachel waiting, is she?’
‘Rachel?’ I said, surprising myself at the innocence in my voice.
‘Rachel Armstrong. The woman you go to see most afternoons, in Lennox Gardens.’
I closed my eyes, feeling suddenly very tired. When I opened them again she was still watching me. ‘How do you know about Rachel?’
She tapped the side of her nose. ‘Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ she said.
‘Does Jessica know? Is that what all this is about?’ I waved my hand towards the painting.
‘Jessica? Oh no, I don’t think Jessica knows. And I won’t tell her if you won’t.’
My breath escaped in a long drawn-out sigh. ‘Why do I get the feeling that there are going to be conditions attached to that?’
She gave a low, throaty laugh. ‘Because there are. Shall we begin by taking that shower?’
I closed my eyes and tried to pray that Mrs Dixon had already gone home. I tried to pray that Jessica wouldn’t walk through the door, and last of all I tried to pray for resistance. But all I could hear was the sound of Lizzie taking off her clothes, until there was no sound any more. When I opened my eyes she was standing naked in front of me, holding out her hand.
What could I do? I had no choice.
– 13 –
It was past midnight when I walked upstairs to the gaming room of the Clermont. The cashier greeted me in a friendly manner and I wondered what he would say if I pushed over the bank statement that had fallen through my door that morning.
A low murmur erupted from the roulette table as I reached it, and I saw three towers of black chips being added to Rachel’s substantial collection. Her slanting eyes flickered in my direction, but she gave no other sign of having registered my presence. I guessed she was angry with me, and in turn I was angry with her. OK, I was late, but her reaction to it stifled me. Deciding I had no desire to witness her further success, I went to watch Robert Lyttleton trying his hand at chemmy, before taking my place at a blackjack table.
From the start I played recklessly, doubling and splitting wherever I could, and I raised the table to a thousand in the first hour. The inspector recorded my drop as I won almost every hand, and I had nearly twenty thousand pounds worth of chips at my elbow by the time Rachel joined the crowd that had grouped around me.
She ran her hands over my shoulders and stooped to whisper something in my ear, but I wasn’t listening. This time I had pushed ten thousand pounds to the centre of the table and the dealer had just peeled a second three from the shoe. Her eyes moved across the short distance between us.
‘Split,’ I murmured, and placed my cards side by side to make two hands. The entire twenty thousand was at stake.
The six of spades landed beside the three of diamonds. ‘Nine.’ The dealer’s voice was the only sound in the room. ‘Seven,’ she said, as the four of hearts joined the three of hearts on my second hand.
With the next card my first hand totalled sixteen. The king of diamonds slipped and spun as it came to rest on my second hand. ‘Seventeen.’
I didn’t have to look at the old woman who was playing beside me to know that she was holding her breath. Surely I would stop now, no one in their right mind would carry on. My heart was thudding so hard against my ribs, I thought I could hear it through the hush that had engulfed us. I knew everyone was watching me, fascinated and horrified to see whether I would go on.
‘What!’ It was Robert Lyttleton’s voice that hissed through his teeth as I nodded. Several people shuffled and strained to come closer.
I waited as the next card was turned over. The voice of the dealer was matter-of-fact. ‘Twenty-one,’ she pronounced. The woman beside me totalled nineteen. And then I turned to the dealer.
‘Stand-off.’ And the dealer calmly pushed ten thousand pounds in my direction, followed by another ten.
I sensed that the old lady wanted to leave, that the presence of the crowd had unnerved her. But my crazy bravado had captured the entire casino and she too stayed to watch.
‘Ten.’ I felt Rachel’s thighs pressing against my arm.
‘Double,’ I said immediately. Once again my stake was twenty thousand. The dealer wasted no time in revealing the next card.
‘Blackjack,’ she pronounced the word quietly, as if she herself couldn’t believe it. The tension must have filtered through to her because her hand trembled as she turned over her final card. The hum that threaded through the crowd was one of incredulity and excitement.
I had won fifty thousand pounds.
I stared up at the faces that bobbed over me. Everyone was smiling, reaching out hands to congratulate me. Fifty thousand pounds wasn’t a large amount to most of them; what had impressed them was my nerve – the nerve that had not stuck at seventeen, and the devil’s own luck that had delivered blackjack on a stand-off.
‘Champagne,’ Robert said, clapping me on the back. ‘Your treat.’
I felt Rachel’s hand slide into my trouser pocket and at the same time was aware of someone tugging on my arm. Removing Rachel’s hand, I turned stiffly to see who was trying to attract my attention. It was the woman who had been playing beside me all evening.
My lofty expression dissolved as she smiled. She reminded me of my grandmother. She too had that paradoxical air of reckless safety about her, leaving you in no doubt that an hour in her company would be worth three with most other people. ‘Won’t you join us downstairs?’ I offered.
She shook her head. ‘Thank you, but no. Time I was in my bed.’ She had a deep, commanding voice that was surprising, coming from such a frail body. ‘I just wanted to offer my congratulations. There aren’t many who would have taken a card again on seventeen.’ She was looking searchingly into my eyes, as if seeking something that only she might be able to find. Then her face broke into a smile again. ‘You know, if the old adage is true – lucky at cards, unlucky in love – then I fear for your heart, young man.’ And laughing at her little joke, she bade us all goodnight.
Robert grinned. ‘And yet another conquest with which to swell the Belmayne harem, he quipped. ‘Now, are we going downstairs or aren’t we?’
‘Why don’t you be a darling and go find us a table?’ Rachel jumped in before I could answer.
Robert saluted her. ‘At your service, ma’am. What’ll it be?’
‘The best they have, of course,’ Rachel answered, and chucking him under the chin, she turned him round and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the stairs.
The second she turned back I knew we would not be joining Robert. Her expression was one of naked desire – and it was only then that I realised I had an erection. How long I had had it I didn’t know, but I knew that winning had acted like an aphrodisiac on us both. We needed to fuck, and couldn’t wait.
Outside in the car my fly was open before I could get the engine started. I dropped the keys, and as I stooped to retrieve them I felt her fingers circle my penis. I cried out as the juice began to surge from my body, and tearing her hand away I pushed her back in her seat. ‘Wait!’ I snapped, and starting the car I drove out of the square, only narrowly missing a police car.
When we reached Lennox Gardens I reversed up against the railings and turned the engine off. Rachel started to get out, but I pulled the door shut again. The power I felt swelled in my chest, almost choking me. ‘You want to fuck,’ I said, ‘then you do it my way.’
Her mouth trembled, and leaning over I crushed it with my own. ‘Get into the back seat.’ She started to protest, but I ripped open the front of her dress and scooped her breasts free. ‘Do you want it?’
‘Yes. Oh God, yes,�
�� she groaned, her head rolling back against the seat.
‘Then get in the back.’
For a moment she looked at me, then as her eyes dropped to the erection she had lifted free of my trousers, she turned to do as I told her. I waited until I heard the back door close, then, almost exploding with the need to humiliate her, I got out of the car. When I made no move to join her in the back seat she pushed open the door, watching my face as I gave her my brief instructions.
Obediently she turned away and lifted her legs on to the seat. And forcing her on to her hands and knees, I ripped her underwear and penetrated her from behind.
That night was the first time I had truly fucked Rachel. I couldn’t say we made love, because there was nothing tender about the act that took place in the back of the car; but now, having possessed Lizzie, I could concentrate on Rachel and all that I wanted to do to her. I was drunk with the power of my success. From now on this was how it would be with me and Rachel; I would make her a slave to my lust, just as I was a slave to Lizzie’s.
When I finally returned home the sun was threatening to break the horizon. I looked up at the bleached facade of the house in Belgrave Square and thought of my wife lying in bed, obediently waiting for me to come home. And my sister-in-law in the next room, who only hours before had panted beneath me, begging for more as I thrust into her. And then I thought of the fifty thousand pounds I carried in my pocket.
My blood began to move faster, charging me with the same surge of sexual arousal I had felt when I’d won at the Clermont. I was ready for more. I wanted to win again. I’d go to Lizzie. I’d show her who called the shots around here. And I’d do it while Jessica was under the same roof.
I crept up the stairs, and passed the door to Jessica’s and my bedroom without even stopping to look in. At the end of the landing I stopped at Lizzie’s door and pushed it open.
In the dim light that filtered through the curtains I could see that another head lay on the pillow beside hers. The sheets were in a tangle around the two bodies and for a moment I felt an insane jealousy, wanting to kill him, whoever he was. Then realising that it must be Henry, I closed the door.
My own bed was empty.
Almost bursting with rage, I went downstairs to see if Jessica had waited up for me, but there wasn’t even a note. I made myself some coffee and slumped into an armchair to wait. If Jessica had walked in at that moment I might have tried to kill her: everyone did as I said, everyone wanted me and I controlled everyone – with the exception of my own wife.
I must have dozed, because I noticed by the clock that it was ten minutes past seven when I heard a noise at the bottom of the stairs. Heaving myself up from the chair, I swore as my half-drunk cup of coffee tumbled to the ground, spreading a dark stain across the carpet. I stared down at it, wondering what to do. Then I heard the front door close and footsteps outside.
Quickly I ran to the front door, wanting to tell Henry about my win. But as I looked out into the grey London dawn it wasn’t Henry I saw, getting into his BMW, but Robert Lyttleton starting up the engine of the E-type Jaguar he’d brought round to show off the week before.
As he drove away, I stood trying to sort out the thoughts that were spreading through my head.
I didn’t hear anything, it was more an awareness of the presence of someone else that made me turn and look back through the open door.
Lizzie stood halfway down the stairs. Her hair was tousled, her mouth a deep, savagely-kissed red. Her eyes were watching me, taunting me into speech, but I wasn’t looking at her. I was looking at the woman standing beside her, one arm draped over the banister, her bare foot beating a tattoo on the floor. Their smiles reached me in waves of triumph, leaving me in no doubt as to what it was that had been happening in the room at the end of the landing.
‘Hello, darling,’ Jessica murmured. And as I moved towards the bottom of the stairs, she threw back her head and let out a screech of laughter.
I have no clear recollection of what happened after that. All I knew was a blur of colours, crashing around me, blinding my sight, blinding my reason. Sounds of manic laughter, and then screams, deafening me, piercing my brain. And blood. Blood on my hands, blood on the walls. And all around me pain and chaos and destruction.
I looked around at the paintings on the wall. I’d never noticed them before. They were very like the paintings that adorned the walls of Belmayne House in Suffolk. I shifted my eyes restlessly from one to another, until yet again I was confronted by Monet’s ‘Roche-Blond at Sunset’. Normally I enjoyed looking at Impressionist paintings, but now, different though they were from Jessica’s doom-laden canvases, they somehow reminded me of her, and heightened my guilt.
I stirred in my chair and turned back to the newspaper. A report on page two outlined the background of the forth-coming Haley Weinberg fraud case, and again I felt guilt. Jeremy Corbyn had been handed the brief two months ago, and I’d been devilling for him. I should ring chambers and at least let him know where I was. But I didn’t.
I’d been with Rachel for four days – four days during which I had alternately slaked my fury on her body and gambled like a lunatic at the Clermont, where I was now in debt to the tune of eighty-five thousand pounds. I blamed Jessica. Thinking about her, I could feel my fingers digging into the palms of my hands, the unholy images crowding into my mind as I remembered the early hours of that morning. If only she hadn’t laughed.
The door opened and Rachel came in. She was wearing the sable coat she had purchased with her roulette winnings the week before, and just the sight of it made me want to lash out at her.
‘You still here?’ she said, dropping her bag on to a chair.
‘As you can see.’
She went to hang up her coat. Coming back into the room, she said, ‘That’s a Morant,’ and nodded towards the table that was propping up my feet. I removed them. ‘And now you can do the same with those cartons,’ she said, indicating the remains of the Chinese take-away I had had sent round earlier. I scooped them up and stuffed them into the waste-paper basket next to my chair. Rachel sighed and went to get herself a drink.
‘Scotch for me,’ I said, and went back to the newspaper.
‘Get it yourself.’
‘For Christ’s sake, I’m only asking you to get me a drink.’
She spun round to face me. ‘Alexander, I’m getting a little tired of you lately. Isn’t it about time – ’
‘Forget it! Just forget it!’ I yelled. ‘I’ll get my own.’
We smouldered through the silence that followed; turning pages, and ice clinking against glasses, made the only sound.
It was Rachel who spoke first. ‘You didn’t tell me you destroyed her paintings.’
I shot a glance at her, but she was still flicking through the magazine. When she realised I was going to say nothing, she looked up. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Why did I do it? You can sit there and ask me why I did it?’
‘She went to bed with another man. She was unfaithful. Is the whole of your life built on double standards, Alexander?’
‘We were supposed to be trying for a baby, for God’s sake! What if I hadn’t come in when I did and then found out in two months’ time she was pregnant? The child might not have been mine – and I wouldn’t even have known! And let’s not forget, she wasn’t the only one in the bed with Robert Lyttleton that night. Her sister was there too, her own fucking sister! And in my house! She’s – ’
‘Oh shut up, Alexander. I’m tired of your tantrums. And I still say no matter what happened you shouldn’t have destroyed her paintings.’
‘Have you seen them? They gave me the spooks. I couldn’t stand them any longer. Anyway, she was asking for it.’
‘It’s you who are asking for it, Alexander. You think you can do whatever takes your fancy, don’t you, and be damned to how anyone else feels about it. Well, it’s time you woke up to the fact that the world wasn’t created for the sole purpose of satisfying the bott
omless appetite of Alexander Belmayne’s ego. Your life is a mess, and you’ve only yourself to blame. Look at you! What you’ve done to yourself God only knows, but what you’ve done to your wife is unforgivable. And who are you, anyway, to sit in judgement on her art? Just who the hell do you think you are?’
I opened my mouth to speak, but she stopped me. ‘You’re nobody, that’s who you are. You’re not fit to sit in the same room as decent people. You think those good looks of yours give you the right to behave just as you please. You don’t care who you hurt or what you might be doing to those who love you, like your wife. Do you know why she did what she did? Because she knew you were coming round here. She knew that all the time you were telling her you loved her, you were lying to her, cheating on her — and what she’s done is to show you that two people can play at that game, and you don’t like it. They’re none of my business the dangerous games the two of you play with each other, but I’m telling you, Alexander, your pretty face means nothing. It’s what’s underneath that’s important, and you’ve got nothing underneath. You’re shallow and empty, and a waste of space.’
She got up to refill her glass. Her voice was calmer as she turned round, but her eyes were still cool and hard. ‘I want you to leave, Alexander. Now. Go back to your wife, if she’ll have you. Go anywhere. I don’t want you here any more.’
I leapt up from my chair then, and bunching my fist, I thrust it between her legs. ‘How about here, Rachel? Don’t you want me here any more either?’
She glared at me and I laughed. ‘You can’t live without it, Rachel. You’ll be begging me for it within a week. Well, here’s one last one to be going on with.’ I started to fumble with my fly.
‘You touch me, and so help me, Alexander, I’ll kill you.’
I laughed again. ‘You want me to rape you, is that it? You want me to rough you up again. What’ll it be this time, Rachel? Shall I tie you up? Or shall I just beat you?’ My hand was still between her legs and she made no move to back away.
Suddenly she slumped forward, pushing her glass on to the table. ‘Alexander, stop it,’ she pleaded. ‘Just stop. This anger, this violence, it’s destroying you. Look at yourself – what’s happening to you?’
