We’re engaged. We moved in together. This house is ours, with only a small mortgage left on it. But he still uses sex to quieten me and to avoid all the questions about why he still ventures out at night, into the late hours. I know the sands of time are running out, because my ability to curb my inquisition won’t hold out for much longer.
***
The next day I force him into coming out with me. He complained and begged me to stay in bed all day with him but I was insistent. It is Fair season and I want to go, just once in my life. I usually avoid it like the plague otherwise I know I will get heckled by the numerous kids I teach. I can handle it with Warrick by my side. I need to know what it’s like, for the food if nothing else!
The impulse to start questioning him about his mood swings and his yo-yo-ing tendencies is at breaking point. I will drop it into the conversation at some point and he will be forced to answer me.
We get the bus there and as we sit on the back seat together, I hold his hand and rest my cheek in the nook of his neck. I am deeply in love with this man and I want to ask him why we haven’t set a wedding date when clearly, we love one another and we said we would do it. So why aren’t we following through with our promises to each other?
I burrow my nose through his black woollen scarf and kiss his neck. He groans and squeezes my hand and I murmur, “How much food do you think I will eat tonight?”
“Enough for the two of us,” he sniggers.
I rub his cheek in my fingerless gloves and see his love-soaked expression. I reach up only slightly, our mouths brush and my heart and stomach swell with happiness. I shut my eyes and he pulls me tight into his arms.
“Sorry for being a bit distant lately. I’ve just had a lot on my plate,” he explains.
I cling on to his denim jacket and wonder whether it is the time to start interrogating him. I don’t think it is somehow. I just let him hold me and I simply tell him, “We have a week to ourselves. Let’s just enjoy it.”
He’s booked a week off to coincide with my time off and I cannot wait to see my old Warrick return. Hopefully a bit of private time will aid that.
We walk with our arms around each other through the Fair. We’re both so slim and slot together snugly. I really love this time of year when you can get wrapped up. The feel of the crisp, North Sea air on my face makes me feel alive. Warrick’s cheeks are rosy and define his sharp cheekbones even more. I am gushing but I am so in love with him.
We’re barely there a minute before one of my Year Nines passes by us and shouts, “Oi, Miss Simonovich, oi, oi, oi, got yourself a fella ’ave ya!”
Warrick smiles through clenched teeth.
I tell him, “That’s tame.”
The kids at school have become a lot more familiar since I did my dance. Let’s say, Vernon has brought out so much in me! In August, when we got the GCSE exam results after almost a year of Jack’s changes, I had to hand it to him, he was right. The number of C grades increased by fifty per cent. Not just because I have been teaching the usual D minus suspects, no not just that, but also because Hugh seems to have upped his game in the face of examination of his own standards. Possibly, also, he’s desperate to impress Vernon…
My own Offsted inspections have always noted, Great teaching methods, holds class attention, directs intelligent discussion, just a little more personality required. I guess Vernon was that personality and my Offsted inspection this year got me a special, discretionary pay rise!
We pass through the crowds and the smells of food stands; hot dogs, burgers, fish and chips, hog roasts, jacket potatoes, candy floss and popcorn.
Warrick stops to buy us a hotdog each and he asks for extra onions for me, with lashings of ketchup. He squirts a thin line of hot mustard on his and smiles while he watches me tackle the slippery onions sliding between my fingers. He kisses my mouth free of ketchup and throws me a loving glare.
We stop in the middle of the crowds after finishing our food and he rests his arms around my shoulders, pulling me towards him so tight and secure.
“This’ll give the kids something to talk about.”
Strobe lights, commercial dance music and the screams of people braving death-defying rides surround us. I wrap my arms around his neck and passing people bump us but we stay fixed together and don’t move. I stroke my nose along his and smile. He dips and kisses me and we bundle tight together to hide our ravenous mouths from sight. His tongue slips around mine and I pull away, high on love.
“I love you so much, Warrick. I really do.”
“You’re beautiful tonight,” he says, “beautiful whenever, but especially tonight.”
I remember why we should have stayed at home instead of venturing out into the cold night but then I realise, the anticipation will make it all the better when we get back home.
“Rick, when we get home, can we take a long, hot bath?”
“We can. If you had let us stay at home tonight, we might have already been doing that!”
I snicker and jab him in the gut. We walk off to get more food and I jam my hand in one of his back pockets, constantly feeling up his arse as we walk. His hand slips round my waist and one finger of his slides between my jacket, jumper and jeans waistband, touching the warmth he will later enjoy.
I feel sick and say to Warrick, “Take me home to bathe, sex god.”
I’ve gorged on too much. That hotdog and then later a cone of chips, plus candy floss, a giant size muffin with enormous marshmallows and two slushies to boot. Oh, and don’t forget, I took a bite of his burger too.
We decide to walk the two miles home because I need the air to help me digest and we need the time to talk. I need to get it off my chest, this thing that is bothering me.
“When you sold your house, why did you put everything in a skip?”
I decide that is where I shall begin. I shall gently probe it out of him.
I look at his face and he’s shut down on me again. His mouth is a thin line and his eyes look straight ahead, his forehead in a perpetual frown.
“Are you going to let this slide or not?”
“Not. So tell me. I’m ready to listen.”
We keep walking but we detach. We’re not holding hands and he’s still looking straight ahead. He breathes heavily.
“Jules, you know, I lost my marbles in that house. I didn’t sleep there much after I got off the drugs. I slept at my dad’s or in the shed. At friends’ houses or even sometimes at work. I kept stuff there, yeah, but I wasn’t living there.”
Relief. I feel relief.
“When you say you… lost your mind, what do you mean?”
“I trashed that house. Top to bottom. Everything. Gone. Dad got a cleaner and some workmen to sort it all out for me, getting it back into a liveable space, but I…”
“How… I mean… a shed?”
“Yep. Being cold is sometimes better than feeling insane, Julianne.”
“Okay, okay. But I know there’s more, darling.”
I know he will smell a rat. I never use such terms of endearment unless I want something.
“There is, but I won’t tell you, Jules. It’s in the past, okay?” he exclaims, his voice rumbling from his stomach.
“Okay,” I say quietly. I am scared of upsetting him any more.
We walk a mile or so in total silence. The streets are empty. If people aren’t at the Fair, they are indoors avoiding it and keeping warm. My worry is loaded with thoughts of what he is keeping from me, what he is still battling in the back of his mind and what I will do if he doesn’t change. I may end this. I am not afraid to, though I love him so much. But I know I can survive alone. I did do before and I can again. The sex has been phenomenal, but I still need more…
I need to be married, to have his babies. Joe is a wonderful kid and it only reminds me of what I want with Warrick. I might be trying to rush things but I feel like I am missing out on what I should have already achieved. It’s how I’ve always been. I see things and I get them. If I d
on’t, I find it hard to stomach.
So when he launches off at speed and leaves my side, I am viciously broken from my wandering train of thought. I see his figure dashing on ahead and I momentarily freak out. I can’t quite grasp what is going on.
He shouts, screams even, “Jules. Jules! Help the girl!”
I start running and I have no idea what he is on about. I see then, as I run in time with him, that he is chasing a shadowy figure down the street. He’s pursuing him at such a pace.
I reach the underpass of a railway bridge up ahead and I find a young teenage girl, laid on the pavement, badly beaten and with her eyes wide open. She’s been attacked and I dread to think how badly. I approach tentatively.
“I‒I‒I’m Jules. Are you okay? Please, let me help you.”
She doesn’t move. She’s sobbing quietly and I feel hopeless. I have no idea what to do. So I do the only thing I know. The thing Warrick once did for me.
I reach down and take her hand, “Don’t be frightened. Please. Let me help.”
She goes into shock and starts shaking all over. I sit on the ground and lean back against the wall, my body so heavy it hurts. I can’t bear to look at her. I reach and forcefully pull her into my arms, her fragile body in my lap as I hold her.
“You’re having a panic attack, honey. I used to have them all the time after my mummy died. She left me. What you need to do is focus and breathe, just breathe.”
I hold her hair in my hands and stroke it. I rock her back and forth. She starts breathing eventually. She curls against my chest and shuts her eyes. She falls asleep with the continual rocking and stroking of her hair, and the exhaustion of the ordeal, I guess. If I were her, that’s exactly what I would do. Sleep to forget. To negate the reality.
Warrick comes running back up to us out of breath. He must have been chasing the perpetrator for some distance.
He leans against the brick tunnel and catches his breath. “He got away.”
He takes his phone out of his pocket and dials. “Ronnie, I need a rape team ready immediately… twelve or thirteen,” he responds. “Suspect did a runner… six foot. Hoodie. Unremarkable except for a pair of orange running shoes.”
He hangs up. I wonder…
My lip is trembling so badly because everything I didn’t want to believe was true is about to be confirmed, I know it.
“How will they know where you are?”
“They have a trace on me. I am undercover, Jules. I am going to bring down a notorious paedophile. You can’t tell a soul, okay? I shouldn’t even be telling you but I am. Because I know you’re worried. I know you have been for months. Please say nothing to anyone.”
He’s a hero. He’s my everything. My lover. I love him more each day. Now I want to fall at his feet and worship him. I also want to tell him to stop.
“I am after a big one, this time. Do you understand what this means?”
“Fuck,” is all I manage to say.
I continue stroking the young girl’s hair. She sleeps still and looks totally at peace. If only her tiny, pretty face wasn’t bruised and cut, her hair pulled and her clothes torn.
“You’re at risk, are you?” I ask tentatively, as I begin rocking the vulnerable body in my arms again. It is me who needs the rocking more now.
“Yes,” he admits, and kneels down. He pulls my forehead to his shoulder and kisses my cheek. “I was always a copper. Always. Once a copper, always a copper.”
“Oh,” I manage and fight my desperate urge to cry.
“I love you,” he says.
Before I can respond or let myself decide anything else, a police car shows up and screeches to a halt nearby. They try to pull her from me but I don’t let them.
Even when we get in the car, I refuse to let her leave my lap.
I hold my hands over her ears and screech, “If you’d just been fucking raped, would you want to be woken and put in a seat next to some fucking uniformed brute?”
The four male coppers grimace and Warrick mutters something to them. He smiles with pride and I still have to use every ounce of energy to not break down myself.
I avoid their eyes and cradle the girl until we get her to hospital and onto a bed, where she wakes and begins screaming. I have to leave the ward and I run all the way home out of shock and horror.
Warrick crawls into bed with me a few hours later and I fall into his arms and cry like a banshee until my lungs hurt.
“I deal with this every day babes. Now you know.”
Finally I see.
Chapter Forty-One
Jules
In the morning I wake with a lot of questions for him but I don’t give a damn. I roll onto his body and pluck at his lips with mine. Our kisses are soft and tentative and he accepts my wish to make love, even though I know he’s tense. We need to make love because really, I need to know who this man is, now I know he has this other side. He can love me freely now I know the truth.
“Jules,” he whispers when I kiss his cheek.
“I love you.”
“God, I love you babes.”
I drown my lips in his and my grip in his hair tightens. I am rolled over and pinned down and he enters me. We make love frantically and I feel so much more of a deeper love for him than before. I never imagined how much I would love one person.
“I want to marry you, why can’t we get married?” I say into his neck when we’re recovering and he’s still inside me.
“I can’t let you become a part of this, Jules. I don’t want us to marry with something this heavy threatening to break us. I can’t lie to you.”
“But you can withhold, can’t you? You can do that. You can pretend to be Warrick the geeky social worker with cheeky chops and a daft haircut. When really, you’re a hero cop. You’re a force of nature. You’re my lover. The love of my life! The strongest person I ever met,” I screech, and tears fall from my eyes.
I roll away from him and he moves up and spoons me. I accept his embrace though he’s the reason for my pain. He didn’t lie. He just didn’t tell me he was still a hero. Always has been.
He squeezes my shoulder and kisses my nape so I feel his breath against my back.
“I love you more than anything, babes. More than life. I meant every word I ever said. Every word. I tried to protect you, my gorgeous girl. I love you, so much.”
I ache for him inside me again but I am too angry to welcome him back. Not just yet.
“You’re adorable when you’re hurt, my darling.”
“You have a lot of explaining to do, bloody man!”
“Okay, wench.”
I let him hold me for a while longer but the sofa beckons his confessional.
“I miss your flat,” he says, when we’re in the kitchen making breakfast.
He’s brewing the tea and I am buttering the toast with my back to him. I have a smile on my lips but he doesn’t deserve to see it.
“I do too.”
He moves up behind me and wraps his arms around my stomach, over my towelling robe. My hair’s wet from a shower and his is too. I feel his damp locks fall across my throat while he kisses me. My eyes close and my insides churn.
“Don’t try to derail me with your seduction techniques. You still have a lot to tell me. I won’t let it go until you’ve told me,” I warn him, though thoughts of him and his erection have my insides lit.
One tug of the belt on this robe and I would be done for. He’d have me naked on the floor within moments. I shift quickly out of his grasp and motion for him to follow me into the living room with the tea tray.
In our living space, which we have painted white except for the chimney breast, which is ruby-red, we sit on our black leather, L-shaped sofa. I lay out across the longest arm and he crosses his legs in front of him, chewing. I reach for my cup of tea and sip.
“I want you to start from the beginning. Right from the beginning. Anything less, plod, and I shall know about it.”
“What are you going to do if I do
n’t do as you say? Thump me!” he splutters.
I turn my gaze on him and remind him of what happened last night. Even my shower hasn’t rid me of the feeling of having been tarnished by the girl’s attacker. His scent was all over her. Like oil and turps, or something. That poor girl, the one I held tight in my arms, until I had to let go.
“Will you be able to find out how she is? I mean, did you even find out what happened?”
“She was with her friends at the Fair when a man asked if she wanted a free tarot reading. She thought he was just playing about, until he… dragged her off, literally kicking and screaming.”
I reach over and hold his hand.
“When I dashed off last night, it was because I could see he had just finished… what he was doing.” His voice is small.
“You saw some of it, Rick?”
“Only shadows on the tunnel wall opposite. I saw thrashing and that’s when I made a bolt for it.”
“What about the man?”
“He had too much of a head start on me and obviously somewhere to dive into and hide. Gives us a good scope of area to place him living within.”
“Will she be okay, do you think?”
“She wasn’t raped, internally. I guess the attack will still be considered attempted rape, even though it is rape in a sense…” he breathes heavily, “I don’t know babes, I don’t know if she will need five days or five years to get over this. She’ll get all the possible care.”
“I found it distressing, I admit. She was like an animal, like a fox fearing for its life, her eyes all wide and bloodshot. I have never seen anyone that frightened before.”
“I know Jules. I know.”
He smiles the tiniest, cutest of smiles, just an attempt to ease my despair.
Time passes and I contemplate all that has happened, since we met a year ago. So much. I chastise myself for contemplating a life without him yesterday, for considering even leaving him because of his lack of ability to open up.
“I want you to tell me everything, Rick. Everything. If there is anything that has ever been a lie, I need you to tell me. Just get it out. I’ll listen. Tell me it all, okay? If there are things to tell, now’s the time, yeah?”
Angel Avenue Page 26
