Obsession: A shocking psychological thriller where love affairs turn deadly

by Amanda Robson

  ~ Jenni ~

  A fresh start with my husband, Craig.

  Those who the Lord has joined together, let no man put asunder.

  Do you remember, Craig?

  We have moved to Trethynion, an old fishing village in Cornwall, postcard pretty, curling around an old stone harbour. We’re in a two-up two-down terraced cottage, with twelve-inch walls and an inglenook fireplace. There are geraniums growing on the porch, and a sea view from the upstairs windows – if you stand on tiptoes. The children walk to school along the beach. As well as Charlie we now have Lucy, a long-haired black and white cat. The two animals sleep curled up together at night. Our cottage is so small that we know what each other is doing most of the time. A situation, after what happened in Stansfield, which I like.

  When my father visits he has to stay at the local pub, which is attached to the side of our cottage in a row that weaves down to the seafront. He doesn’t seem to mind. He has formed quite a rapport with the landlord, a middle-aged man with a beer belly and a robust laugh. On Saturday nights, long after last orders, when other customers have gone home, the landlord has a lock-in with his favourites, and always includes Dad, if Dad is around. A late night pint and a laugh. A change of environment has given my father a new lease of life.

  Craig has joined the local fire brigade, but it is so remote where we live that firemen don’t have full rotas at the fire station. On the rare occasions they are required, the fire brigade control pages them to come in from their homes. As Craig is so much less busy than he used to be, he’s become a bit of a house husband. He keeps telling me he’s bored. Bored of being associated, or hardly associated, as he puts it, with a fire station that doesn’t get any shouts. He loves the children, and seems to enjoy the time he has with them. But he doesn’t like cleaning. He doesn’t like washing. He doesn’t like ironing. He has told me he hates cooking, especially the sort of food I like; recipes with too many ingredients that take too long to chop up. He’s fed up of listening to pompous drivel on Radio 4, which he only puts on because he doesn’t have anyone real to talk to.

  But then, even in Utopia not everything is perfect. I have to drive an hour each way for my job at the local teaching hospital where I am training to upgrade my nursing qualifications, and the cottage is a bit damp, but we’re working on it.

  I’ve joined a new church. You can drive along the A road that passes the top of the village to get there, but I prefer the footpath that runs from the centre of the village, along the harbour wall and up the cliff path, beyond the beach. I love to climb the hill path serenaded by the peal of church bells and the whisper of the sea.

  This morning, I have taken the hill path and am slightly winded after the climb. I cross myself at the church entrance and bow my head as I move through the arched doorway of the porch. Past the notice board and the umbrella stand, through medieval doors heavy with years, into a church with white painted walls and arched windows. No stained glass, no colour here, just oak pews darkened by time and an altar of brass. A stone pulpit of white, with no choir stalls.

  The congregation comprises six people. A man of about fifty with rounded glasses and a long pointy face, who usually wears walking boots, a purple North Face jacket, and a green woolly hat with a bobble on top. Three old ladies with fingers like gnarled tree trunks, who sit in a line clutching their hymn books. A teenage girl with scarlet lipstick and a nasal piercing. And me. The same six people every week.

  We acknowledge each other with half a smile and then sit ignoring each other as we wait for the service to start. We have no organ. No choir. No heating. No hymn sheets. No flowers. The vicar looks as if she should be Sharon from the surgery’s sister with woolly hair and eyes like a sheep, wearing a simple cassock with no embroidery. And when we kneel to pray I commune with all my friends at St Mary’s. My prayers float up and combine with theirs. My prayers, as always, combine with yours, Rob. I pray for you, and I pray for Craig. I pray for my sons. And Carly, I pray for you too. I pray for you, my old friend, more than anyone else.

  ~ Carly ~

  I’m still here, Jenni. I can’t see, but I can think. I began as dead as dust but now I’ve turned to mist. An ethereal mist, transient and grey. I roll across the land at dawn, or at midnight, pushing my fingers into other people’s lives, looking everywhere for you, Jenni, to find out what you’ve done.

  ~ Rob ~

  It’s at church when I miss you most, Jenni, when I’m sitting with Heather, Pippa and my half of the Gospels, listening to the organ announcing the start of the service. I miss you turning to me, smiling at me with your eyes. The shape of the back of your head as you pray. Your sweet vulnerability, the pride I took in protecting you. I see your hair streaming behind you like a banner as you climb the path to your new church. I see you, and know you still think of us, because you tell me on the phone.

  This Sunday, Heather and I have somehow managed to tear Pippa and our half of the Gospels away from the TV, give them breakfast, dress them in clean clothes, and arrive here just in time for the early service – rushing in at the back to sit in a row to the far right of the pulpit, behind a severe-looking family with long backs and long noses. In seats where we cannot see the choir. In seats where we cannot see the vicar. The first hymn pounds out and the children filter away to Sunday school; Pippa, garish in a neon pink frock with matching hair bobbles that look like pink cherries, the boys neat in jeans and T-shirts. The hymn rolls around the church, resonating off brass and brick, vibrating against the windows, ending suddenly with an unmelodious judder. The organist stopped three notes too soon, and the choir overcompensated. We all sit down and the tired scratchy voice of a member of the congregation starts to lead today’s prayers. She prays for absent friends.

  Absent friends. For Carly. For you, Jenni. I see you now as I saw you the first time I came across you both together, on the sofa at the NCT evening, both heavily pregnant, looking like beached whales. Craig and I enticed you to the pub on the way home. That night, the first time I saw you, Jenni, you walked with Carly to the pub, arm in arm, stopping beneath the streetlight at the corner. Do you remember, Jenni? You whispered something in Carly’s ear; she put her head back and laughed.

  Carly, please open your eyes and laugh like that again. Jenni, you must be content. Be happy with Craig. Carly will come back to me and God will love us both forever. Carly will come back to me and our souls will float in heaven.

  ~ Carly ~

  I am no longer a mist. I am a woman with a body locked in dreams. In my dreams I am falling. You have put something in my wine and it tastes bitter. I am falling. You are laughing, your face contorted. You are trembling with anger and moving towards me as I fall.

  ‘No one borrows Craig and lives,’ you say as darkness tightens.

  And somewhere through the darkness, Rob is speaking in a voice I cannot hear.

  ~ Jenni ~

  Wind buffets the car as I stamp the accelerator pedal down. I’m on the coast road, pushing through blinding rain towards my nursing exam. Nothing, not even the ravages of nature, will stop me from getting there. I haven’t eaten, I haven’t slept, but that doesn’t matter because I’m running on an adrenalin high. I have worked so hard for this exam that I cannot imagine life beyond it. The exam is a brick wall in front of me, which I am going to smash through and only when it is over will I step back to assess the damage the stress has done to me. But needs must. Craig isn’t earning much money. I need to pull myself up.

  The journey seems to take forever as the car continues to plough through horizontal sheets of rain. Eventually I arrive at my examination venue, the Town Hall of our local market town. Despite the quaint charm of our fishing village, the market town is disappointing. Mixed architecture and too much traffic; not enough funding to build a bypass. Town and Town Hall are equally disappointing. The Town Hall looks like an ugly Methodist chapel, an unappealing mix of red brick and pebbledash. I step inside into an entrance hall corridor with peeling plaster on the walls.


  High ceilings and echoing feet.

  I walk, clutching my pencil case and my examination number, towards reception to find out exactly where I need to get to.

  ‘Right and right again,’ the receptionist informs me with a toss of her head.

  Right and right again. I’m in a sea of candidates, nursing candidates from all over Cornwall. The faint hum of subdued chatter. The occasional sliver of nervous laughter. Nausea curdling in the base of my stomach, rising as I walk. Surrounded by people who cannot possibly be as worried or as nervous as me. I retch into my mouth and swallow it. A taste like the smell of camembert. I retch again.

  Silence as we enter the exam room. The desks are laid out in candidate order. I am in the front row, in the corner by the wall clock, every tick pulsating in my head. Waiting to be allowed to turn the exam paper over. The invigilator stands at the front, wearing a cherry red suit and pink lipstick. Pink and red rotating. My stomach is churning and my temples are thumping. The invigilator makes a show of looking at the clock near me and checking it against her watch. As soon as the long hand reaches the top, she makes her announcement.

  ‘You may turn your papers over.’

  Hands trembling, I obey. Words swim in front of me. I blink and they come into focus. I push the world away. I can no longer hear the clock. My head stops thumping. The taste of vomit in my mouth has disappeared. My hand writes seamlessly. At pens down I have just finished the last question. Perfect timing? Please God, I hope so.

  ~ Craig ~

  Where have you gone, Jenni? I never see you. You’ve been working so hard for your exam, stuck upstairs in our bedroom revising, when you’re not on duty at the hospital that is. When you do take a bit of time off you’re too tired to talk to me. The rest of the time, I still don’t get a look in because you are praying. Church on Sunday. Choir on Wednesday evening. Every morning and just before bed, praying. Your compulsive praying is really irritating me. Sitting on your dressing table stool, head down, hands clasped together, as if you think you are Madonna or an angel. Are you trying to grow wings? I don’t like the way you have started adding the phrase ‘please God’ to one too many sentences. You told Jono from my watch that you were born again. Since then he’s stopped inviting me to the pub. Perhaps he thinks I’ve given up drinking.

  Yesterday morning I was brave. I tried to speak to you about the religious war that is about to break out between us. You were sitting in your usual angelic dressing table position. After about twenty minutes of creeping around trying to get dressed without disturbing you, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I stood behind you and tapped you on the shoulder. You turned your head towards me and opened your eyes. But your eyes weren’t focusing. They were trance like. As if you’d taken something.

  ‘Don’t disturb me, Craig, I’m with the Lord,’ your lips hissed in a strange monotone.

  ‘Please, Jenni,’ I said, ‘stop this. Come and sit on the bed with me and talk to me, before you go to work.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m talking to God.’

  Oh, Jenni, how I wish I was as important as God.

  ~ Carly ~

  In my dreams, we are sitting in your contrived apartment, Jenni, surrounded by deep pile carpet and silken throws. Magenta red is overwhelming me. You are crumbling a tablet between your thumb and forefingers, grinding it into my wine. You hand me the wine in a large silver goblet and now I am drinking it. It tastes bitter, but I am necking it; gulping it back. And once again you are laughing at me, telling me that Rob is in love with you. It is funny how much he is in love with you when most of the time I feel him here with me. I can hear his voice but I cannot speak to him. I know he is near me. I feel his hand in mine.

  ~ Jenni ~

  As soon as I arrive home from work, Craig says, ‘We need some quality time together. We’re going out for dinner.’ He almost glowers at me. ‘To talk.’

  I wince inside. I hate talking when I’m tired. I hate the expression quality time. Time is just time. Before I can open my mouth to explain that I’m exhausted, our babysitter arrives. She is here standing in our hallway, taking her coat off, smiling at Craig. She looks like a younger version of Gaby Roslin. She has smooth skin and an elfin smile. I met her at church. A friend, of a friend, of the vicar’s daughter. Craig is annoying me by spending too much time looking at her legs. We say goodbye to her – Craig, I fear, reluctantly. He is grumbling at me at the moment for praying so much, but prayer is comforting me as I try to rebuild trust. Trust. He has broken my trust and it will take the rest of my life for that to heal, if it ever does. At the moment I’m just trying to plaster over the cracks.

  We walk towards his favourite restaurant, holding hands in silence. A restaurant in an old boathouse at the edge of the village. It is midweek and there are not many people about. An old man on the way to the pub. Two teenagers smoking on the harbour wall. The night smells of sea and silence.

  The old boathouse is now a red-carpeted stone-walled restaurant dripping with fishing nets full of glass balls and dried starfish. A scented red candle burns in the centre of every table. It’s midweek; we are the only people here. The waitress is a young girl with bleached white hair cut short like Annie Lennox. She leads us to a table in the far corner, next to one of the fishing nets. For the second time tonight I notice Craig looking at a younger woman’s legs.

  Look but don’t touch, and I would prefer it if you didn’t even look, I warn him with my eyes.

  We sit down and she hands us a menu and a wine list, making a vague attempt to pull down her pussy pelmet; which is exactly that; it really only just covers her private area. If she moves too quickly it might slip up over her bottom and end up as a belt.

  ‘Can I get you anything to drink?’ she asks.

  ‘Two gin and tonics, please,’ Craig says without consulting me.

  Annie Lennox saunters off and Craig turns his eyes to me.

  I pick up the menu and read it. Very 1970s. Pâté, prawn cocktail. Too much steak. No goat’s cheese. No pulses. Oh to be at home eating something healthy. I silently salivate at the thought of the carrot and lentil soup I bought at a health food shop yesterday, waiting for me in the fridge.

  Before too long, certainly before I’ve decided what to risk eating, Annie Lennox returns with the gin and tonics. She places them in front of us. They are overfull. She spills a little off the top. A minuscule pad and paper appear from somewhere, I’m not sure where – I didn’t think that skirt had room for a pocket. She is standing with her weight on one hip, pen poised.

  ‘Have you decided yet?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ says Craig. Our voices collide.

  Annie Lennox’s eyes dart between us.

  ‘Should I give you a minute?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Annie Lennox leaves.

  ‘Can’t you see anything you fancy?’ Craig asks, brow frowning in concern.

  ‘Just spoilt for choice,’ I say, forcing a smile. A few minutes later, ‘I tell you what, I’ll have a salad to start and an omelette for the main course,’ I manage.

  ‘And what about wine?’ he asks, his eyes dancing enthusiastically.

  ‘You choose.’

  Now we are ready to order, as is often the case, the waitress has disappeared. We sit and wait, sipping our gin. We sit and wait, looking at each other. When I look at Craig these days, I no longer see him from a distance, as others see him. Everyone else always tells me how handsome he is. After the way he’s behaved I hate it when people admire his looks. Do they think I’m not attractive enough for him? Do they think he’s too handsome for his own good? But I do not see his exceptional looks any more. All I see is a slightly overweight middle-aged man, whose jowls are beginning to drop, beginning to incubate a paunch. It doesn’t really matter what he looks like anyway. I don’t need to see him from a distance. He is just part of me. Part of my life.

  Annie Lennox arrives with her notepad and a flourish. Craig orders for both o
f us. He has chosen pâté and steak. Too much protein, Craig. Annie Lennox saunters off and this time Craig refrains from glancing at her legs.

  ‘How was your day?’ he asks.

  ‘Fine,’ I reply.

  ‘Fine?’ his voice sounds stretched. ‘Perhaps you’ll pay more attention to me, Jenni, if I speak as if I am asking you an exam question. Please expand and explain?’

  ‘I mean, it’s not that interesting to talk about.’ I shrug a little. ‘That’s all.’

  He reaches across the table to take my left hand in his. His eyes are brittle and tight. He leans forwards.

  ‘OK, your choice then. You start. What do you find interesting to talk about these days?’

  I take a deep breath.

  ‘I want to know when you’re going to start coming to church with me. And the children. They’ve stopped coming to church since we left Stansfield. I want us to go together as a family.’