by John Marrs
The way Tim had proposed with his book was so personal, so thoughtful and so romantic, it was worth more than any gift she’d ever received. In fact, throughout their relationship, it had always been Tim who’d been the one to wear his heart on his sleeve, while she was aware she appeared more detached. She didn’t feel like that, and she sometimes worried if Tim ever found it a turn off.
Suddenly, she had an idea. If Tim could make a book of what he loved about her, she could do something for him too. She would piece photos and mobile phone video footage of them together and create a mini movie.
She found a website on her laptop that would allow her to create her project, and she set to work harvesting media from her phone and iPad. As she went to log in to her Cloud account, she noticed her iPad was already logged in to Tim’s. He must have borrowed it recently. She wondered whether she could pilfer anything.
It contained images from the Christmas they’d shared with her family, a spontaneous weekend getaway to Berlin and some old photos of him as a schoolboy. She smiled as she flicked through the variations of him and wondered if or when they had children together, who they might look like. She came across several childhood photos of a young Tim with a woman, and by the various places and span of time they’d been taken, she assumed it was his mum. That puzzled her – when she’d asked to see a photo of her, Tim had claimed he had none and that they’d been destroyed in a fire.
In one, she was kneeling down with her back to the camera, holding a birthday cake with five candles in it. In another, she had her hand on his shoulder but she was out of focus. Ellie kept swiping through the photos, trying to find one where her face wasn’t blurred. It was like someone had deliberately kept her out of focus.
Finally, when she could clearly see the woman’s face, she let out a loud gasp. She knew exactly who Tim’s mother was.
Chapter 66
MANDY
Mandy sat in her car outside the café where she had met Richard’s ex-girlfriend Michelle and wound down the window in the hope the cold air might cool her down.
She hadn’t suffered a panic attack before, but the sudden heart palpitations and dizziness plus the feelings of intense apprehension certainly felt like the makings of one. She tried to calm herself down by remembering her antenatal breathing exercises. And if ever she had wanted to start drinking again, it was now.
‘Richard is still very much alive,’ Michelle had said.
Richard is still very much alive.
‘Are you OK?’ Michelle had asked when she saw the colour drain from Mandy’s face. Mandy nodded but it was clear that she wasn’t.
‘What do you mean Richard is alive?’ she asked eventually. ‘He was hit by a car, wasn’t he? I went to his remembrance service.’
‘But the accident didn’t kill him,’ Michelle replied. ‘He’s in a private nursing home somewhere in Wellingborough. I mean, the poor boy’s as good as dead. He’s got severe brain damage.’
‘Then why was there a service for him?’
‘From what I can gather, when his mum and sister knew they weren’t going to get their perfect Richard back, they shipped him off to the home. They told his friends not to visit because it would be too upsetting for them to see him, and they said they’d have a memorial of hope service for him instead, where everyone could get together to remember him. Only when it came down to it, the word “hope” never came into it.’
Mandy racked her brain thinking back over the Facebook messages left after Richard’s accident and to the speeches given at his service. She’d been so anxious she couldn’t remember what had been said. For all she knew, it may not have been mentioned that Richard had died. The only people to have definitely used the word ‘death’ and blatantly let her believe he was no longer with them were Pat and Chloe.
‘I don’t understand. Why would they organise something like that for someone who wasn’t dead?’
‘It didn’t make sense to us either, but who’s going to question a grieving family? His friends weren’t allowed to go and see Rich, so I suppose it was their way of coming together and thinking of him. When his family came to me it was almost as if they wanted to forget about him and just find some poor cow to give them a baby as a replacement. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.’
Mandy would never forget the look on Michelle’s face when, at the end of their meeting, she rose to her feet, letting her coat fall open to reveal her pregnant stomach.
‘Shit,’ Michelle had muttered.
Mandy just wanted to get out of that café as quickly as possible.
In her car, when she had finally pulled herself together, she reached inside her handbag for her phone and Googled ‘private nursing homes’ and ‘Wellingborough’. There were five places in the search results, but it was the third one she called that confirmed what she already knew was true.
She typed the postcode in to the car’s satnav, put her key in the ignition and set off. She was about to meet the man she’d been made for.
Chapter 67
CHRISTOPHER
‘Psychopaths won’t often fall in love in the same way normal people do,’ Christopher read aloud to himself in his empty office, ‘but they can still fall in love.’
Too vain to wear reading glasses and having run out of disposable contact lenses, he inched his face closer to the computer screen to gain a better view of the text.
‘Psychopaths prefer to become involved in time-limited, sexual liaisons on the condition that they are the ones pulling the strings,’ he continued. ‘These flings don’t often lead to further contact, because psychopaths see their sexual partner’s eagerness as promiscuity. Yet they’ll justify their own similar actions quite easily. In their minds, they can cheat and engage in intercourse with multiple partners, but if their partner does the same, they place themselves as superior and take the moral high ground.’
Christopher nodded and couldn’t see the problem with that. He thought back to Holly, a girl he’d dated back in his early twenties. She had the audacity to take revenge on Christopher’s infidelity by doing the same herself and she couldn’t understand why Christopher had severed all ties with her, even after he broke her nose.
He took a swig from one of a dozen cans of Red Bull he’d purchased from a newsagent on his return from leaving the Polaroid on Number Twenty-Two’s chest. He’d later become annoyed with himself for taking his eye off the ball and visiting a shop that might have had CCTV cameras.
‘The only way to successfully engage in a relationship with a psychopath is to achieve a balance in power and control,’ he continued reading. ‘Psychopaths make intense, talented and passionate lovers, but if they begin as the dominant partner, this is a pattern that will continue. When they understand they can dominate their partner or if their partner has relinquished control, they frequently lose interest and look elsewhere for sexual contact. There are, however, some psychopaths who enjoy sharing their partners with friends. For them, a partner is an acquisition whom they can lend as they see fit.’
Tori was like that, Christopher recalled. She’d reluctantly attended a swinger’s club at his insistence and he watched as, one by one, seven men had sex with her that evening. He’d begged her to do it, informing her it would arouse him and strengthen their relationship. Tori was so young and naive, she’d believed him. Afterwards, in the car outside her house, he’d called her a filthy slag and ended it.
One by one, Christopher made his way through a mental Rolodex of women he could recollect having sexual relationships with and he’d treated almost all of them in the same demeaning manner. He’d marched through life dominating his affairs and manipulating his partners to carry out whatever new deviancy excited him. But the only person he had not degraded or abused in any way was Amy.
Outside the bedroom, he reserved the slight upper hand as he had his secret, which he was not ready to share, but, inside, they were equals. And it was his realisation of this that made him want to know more about relationships with ps
ychopaths. A web page entitled ‘So you think you’re in love with a psychopath?’ explained it all.
He scrolled down to read on. ‘Once a psychopath is allowed to have double standards, then the relationship is likely to fail. The partner is not their equal and cannot expect to be treated like one. It is a fruitless endeavour to try to regain their interest. The only way a romantic relationship can flourish is if the partner does not allow themselves to become manipulated and preserves their self-respect.’
Christopher jiggled his feet up and down, unable to keep himself still as he recognised a lot about himself, and in turn, about Amy.
‘Because Match Your DNA studies only date back a decade, conclusions have yet to be made to determine the scale to which a psychopath can feel love for his Match. But early indicators reveal the attraction could mean a psychopath is as able to love another person just as deeply as a non-psychopath.’
Christopher let out a long breath and sat back in his seat, rubbing his eyes. So he was capable of falling in love. It was proof that, buried among all his urges, his maliciousness and his cruelty, there was still some normality to him.
Chapter 68
JADE
It was as if Kevin had saved up every last piece of verve and strength for his wedding, because fifteen days after saying ‘I do’, Jade buried her husband.
His decline had been noticeable by all, although none of the family spoke of it. Instead, they went about their day-to-day duties of running the farm and helping to make him as comfortable as possible. Jade aided him with his multiple medications and the town doctor visited twice daily to administer extra pain relief when necessary.
When Kevin’s matchstick-thin legs finally gave up, rendering him completely immobile, she kept him company in his bedroom, whether he was conscious or not, stroking his arm and occasionally being rewarded with a gentle hand squeeze in return. She’d read that a person’s hearing can be one of the last things to go, so she’d talk to him about nothing in particular. She didn’t want him to leave the world with a melancholic silence for a soundtrack.
Jade felt helpless for much of the time, watching her best friend slowly slip away. In his final days, and with the use of his body almost at an end, she would dab the inside of his mouth with a wet cotton swab to put some moisture back into his tongue and applied Vaseline to his chapped lips. She’d assist her father-in-law to change Kevin’s soiled bed sheets and bathed him with wet wipes. She couldn’t help but wonder that if the unthinkable ever happened to her, who would love her in the same unselfish way Kevin had? Her family aside, there’d be no one, she realised.
It was Kevin’s death rattle that scared Jade the most: an awful crackling, cackling noise his throat and chest as his lungs brought to the surface a putrid smelling liquid that made his breath reek. In his remaining hours, the whole family sat around his bed, waiting for his chest to fall one last time.
When that moment came, Jade almost thought she could feel Kevin’s soul quietly leave his body and move on to its next journey. The morning sun outside was beginning to rise. It would be the first in twenty-five years without Kevin beneath it.
Susan and Dan held on to each other, quietly mourning the loss of their son and, without thinking, Jade instinctively reached out to comfort Mark. To her surprise, he reciprocated, wrapping his strong arms around her. In that moment, she could feel everything that he felt, absorbing his months of pent-up frustration as his body and mind surrendered to grief. She could feel his longing for her. She felt it too. Unable to act upon it, he hung on to her with all his might, scared to let go of a second person he loved so soon after the first.
The funeral was conducted by the same reverend who had married Jade and Kevin. But instead of cramming themselves into his tiny, occasional church, they congregated on the farm, as per Kevin’s wishes. Mark and his father had dug the grave themselves under the shade of trees, next to the headstones of his grandparents about a mile north of the house.
The reverend made it clear to Kevin’s mourners that they were there to celebrate Kevin’s life and not to dwell upon how short it was. He spoke of what a wonderful young man Kevin had been and how many lives he’d touched. But when Jade heard her name mentioned, she felt like an impostor. She had no regrets about being Kevin’s friend, but she could never have loved him in the same way he had loved her.
As her husband’s coffin slowly descended into the earth, only now could Jade admit to herself how much she had fallen for Mark. She hadn’t merely transferred her affection from Kevin to Mark; everything she felt for him was genuine. Even in the worst of circumstances, when they were side by side at his brother’s grave, his presence made her stomach flutter. She was aware it was completely inappropriate but, by the way he couldn’t bear to make eye contact with her, she knew he shared what she was feeling.
However, with the exception of the moment immediately after Kevin’s passing when Mark unravelled, he’d since held a tight grip on his emotions and prevented himself from unspooling any further. Any communication between them returned to limited, polite smiles and acknowledgements – and she was growing to hate him for it.
‘It’s good to have them here when they’re so far away,’ explained Susan, as the mourners began to disperse. ‘Kevin always loved spending time with his grandparents, so I’m glad they’re together, looking out for each other. Like the reverend said, let’s go and celebrate Kevin’s life, not mourn it.’
Jade smiled and held Susan’s hand as they walked the rest of the way back to the house. But before she joined the others in the dining room for food and drink, Jade made her way to Kevin’s bedroom. She felt eternally grateful for having got to know Kevin and for him asking her to be his wife, but even more so now that she would never have to break his heart by telling him he wasn’t the one.
She lay on his bed and remembered her friend who’d made her feel so special. Theirs was the only relationship she’d ever been in where she’d felt truly loved, and it pained her that she could not reciprocate. She had given it her best shot, but the moment she felt the explosions there was no denying who she wanted to be with. The only way she could handle her suppressed emotions was to either furiously punch the pillows until the stuffing came out or, for the first time in her adult life, simply cry. She chose the latter.
Chapter 69
NICK
Nick’s final week at the advertising agency moved cripplingly slowly.
He sat at his desk looking over a spreadsheet on his monitor, reminding himself of what he had left to do both in and out of work before he could take his leap of faith. Often he became distracted, googling images of the new town in New Zealand where he’d be living.
With the exception of his remaining workdays, everything in Nick’s world felt like it was travelling at the speed of light, and he buzzed with the thrill of trying to keep up with it all. The most difficult and gut-wrenching parts of it had been dealt with – not for a moment did he doubt his decisions were right – and now he could look forward to the thought of his future with Alex.
Just days after he’d finalised his separation from Sally, Nick and Alex had consummated their relationship. They’d known each other’s personality almost as well as they’d known their own, but exploring each other’s physicality had been a completely different ball game – quite literally. There were awkward fumbles, new tastes and strange manoeuvres to discover, but there’d also been incredible sensations to enjoy – while others he wasn’t so sure about. And he realised that just because they were the same sex, it didn’t necessarily mean they knew how another man’s body worked. However, they both agreed it was something that they could and would work on.
It was Nick who had tentatively suggested that he join Alex on his return home to New Zealand. Of course Alex was delighted by the proposal, although he confessed to being daunted by the thought of introducing his family to a man called Nick when they were expecting a girl called Mary. But they would cross that bridge when they came to it.
Nick’s boss agreed to him taking a six-month sabbatical. Nick hadn’t explained the real purpose behind it, only that since his break-up from Sally, he needed to go travelling and ‘find himself’. However, with Alex, he knew exactly where he was.
Nick had broken the news of his split from Sally to his disappointed family, but chose not to reveal that it was because he’d been Matched with a man. Once the half-year trial period he and Alex had set themselves had passed, he would tell them the truth.
The most onerous part of Nick’s plan had been breaking the news that he was leaving to Sally. She hadn’t looked as pained as he thought she might, but he was sure that it must be a front. Of course she would still be grieving their lost relationship.
He was grateful that she hadn’t sought to make him feel guilty for his decision; it was as if she knew how it felt to be Matched and was aware that sometimes you have no choice but to follow the path your heart leads.
They’d taken a pragmatic approach to dividing up the life they’d shared together. Their savings were split fifty-fifty, and Nick offered her the flat until she was ready for them to sell it. All he needed were his clothes, books and the portfolio of his work – everything else he’d decided could be replaced. He’d spent the last six weeks temporarily living in Alex’s flat, and he’d not spoken to Sally since.
After the monotonous day at work finally came to an end, he prepared to take the train he had booked from Birmingham New Street to London in order to update his travel documents at the Passport Office. He arrived earlier than the train’s scheduled departure so he passed the time in Starbucks with a hot chocolate and a snack.
He picked at the dome of his blueberry muffin and grinned to himself. In the space of just a few months his whole life had been flipped on its head and he’d survived it. And he’d previously had no idea how much joy there was to experience because of it. With a new chapter of his life fast approaching, he couldn’t wait to see what was coming next.
