I place the boys in their cots which are positioned adjacent to one another. Often the babies try to reach out for each other and we’ll find their little hands hanging out of the bars in the morning. Sometimes when they’re really fractious, we put them in together and they comfort one another. Tonight they’re shattered from non-stop crying it seems and just happy to know their mumma and dadda are home.
As I sing to them, making sure they’re comforted enough to have a good night’s sleep, I think about Anna. I realise I did her wrong, but we never loved one another enough to stay together, not really. The lying portion of our marriage got so big and I guess that was what I got used to being like – as though lying was a totally normal, functional way of being. Since I’ve been with Jules, I’ve realised lying never protects anyone, never. It’s better to always be open, like we were tonight. I know I have to help Anna but it hurts that I still haven’t really said goodbye to my past. It hurts that at any time, in any place, and in any relationship – stuff can go wrong sometimes and there’s no way of controlling it. It still scares me to death, spending my life with a woman I’m utterly in love with. I fear I might muck it up any day. I just don’t know anything for sure, but we take things day by day.
Downstairs I hear the front door slam which must mean Dad and Wendy have headed off home, more than likely to recover from looking after the babies all evening. I tiptoe out of the nursery, sure Harry and Charlie are settled. I hear voices right below and sense Joe and Jules are talking in the kitchen. I can hear the clang of spoons and knives as she makes tea and butters bread.
I creep down the stairs to stand in the hallway and listen in on their conversation.
“Me and your dad talked tonight and he said something.”
“Yeah, what?”
“About your mum.”
“Oh.”
“He said she can be vicious.”
There’s a pause as he pulls up a chair and sits at the breakfast table in the middle of the kitchen. I can tell it’s him dragging the chair because Jules would lift it where he just drags it, not a care for the floors or the chair. Just a typical teenager!
“She can be.”
Jules joins him at the table and I hear her place cups of tea and toast down.
“Out with it.”
“Nah, Jules. It’s nasty shit.”
I step a little further into the hallway so I can see their reflections in one of the glass doors of our house.
She puts her arm around him and says, “It’s not you. It’s not your fault. It’s not you, Joe. I promise you.”
He bursts into tears and my heart burns with pain. They hold one another as he cries and she pulls him close. I don’t want to disturb the scene because I don’t think he would ever open up like that to me. He knows I’m as fragile as his mum, but the difference is, I have Jules and she’s a person so strong, I know she can take care of him like she takes care of me.
Jules is someone you see in everyday life and you think she’s had it easy. You spot her strolling down the street and imagine she’s secure, she’s sorted, she knows it all. Maybe a part of her is all those things, but beneath, she’s hiding a mountain of pain she manages to keep in check – daily. Some nasty bastards in the past bullied her because all they saw was her beauty and they were jealous. They were mean and jealous people who bullied her because she’s beautiful and clever and they weren’t. Beneath the façade, Jules is a warrior, a survivor. I know her so well now, I know everything she’s gone through to be at the stage she is now. There were so many times she could have given up but she never did. She soldiered on when there was nobody there to take pride in her studying like a maniac, when there was nobody there to put tea on the table or treat her to a day at the park, a day out at the seaside even. She didn’t have any of that growing up. She had to give herself everything her parents should’ve done and she never gave up. That sort of strength still baffles me in awe of her, every single day. Beneath the seemingly together woman who walks down the street like she’s not a care in the world is a secret angel who’s lived such a hard life, she’s aware of all the bad stuff and she’s experienced enough to call a spade a spade. She’s a miracle of existence and inside her, there is strength still coiled and ready to be unleashed, I know it. She is nobody’s fool and she’s granite on the surface, soft silk beneath.
I slink upstairs and leave them to it.
An hour later, Jules creeps into our room and finds me in bed with my reading glasses on, a book in my hand. She doesn’t say anything. Her red eyes say it all. She and Joe now share something and they’ve made their bond.
She shuts the door behind her and strips on her way to bed. I put the book down and my glasses, watching the striptease as it unfolds.
Her dress unzipped, it slides off her body, down her legs. She unties her hair and lets it fall over her shoulders, undoing the clasp of her bra until her tits spill out and swing in front of her. I love how her body has changed, I couldn’t love it anymore.
She walks to me and I open the duvet, shifting over so she can squeeze in beside me. I toy with the tops of her lace, hold-up stockings. We’ll be leaving these on.
“Jules,” I breathe and smell her hair, scented with a mixture of the polluted world outside and her fruity shampoo. I rain kisses down her face and neck, her breast in my hand. She nuzzles into me, seeking shelter. I hook a finger into the waistband of her knickers and pull, desperate to touch her. She lies flat on her back and spreads her legs for me. I look down and then into her eyes. I just love the silky hairs lining her entrance, her sex, so womanly.
“Mine, and mine forever,” I tell her, watching her eyes shut and flutter as I ease a finger into her warm depths. She clutches me and squeezes her thighs shut, trying to keep me there.
“Warrick,” she whispers. I hate that she still calls me that, but I love it too.
I slip down a little so I can suck her hard nipple, kneading her between my lips.
I look down at her face again and she opens her eyes, watching me. I glance down and she sees how manic it makes me feel, touching her wetness, coating my finger with it, knowing how much she wants me. I love to see my digit disappear inside her, almost as much as I love watching her face as she enjoys being touched.
She takes my hand in an iron grasp and lifts my finger to her mouth, sucking and licking. It’s too much. Hard as lead, I want her. I taste my finger after her and there’s no two ways about it, I’m going to have her.
I roll her to her side a little and pull her bum against my erection. I tease her, sliding between her buttocks, my hands around her breasts. Floating kisses on her throat, she squirms in my arms, desperate for me. I’m shaking and trembling, full of so much emotion, so desperate to have her. I need her so much. She’s my lifeline. I love how she makes me feel and I love how she feels in my arms, her skin like silk, her bum full and ample, her breasts so soft and round, her belly a little softer after the babies.
She spreads her thighs a little, inviting me in, and I slide inside of her from behind. She turns slightly so she’s almost laid on top of me and I begin pumping my love into her, gradually getting deeper and deeper until I can feel the tip of my cock hugged tight inside her. She reaches back for my hair and scratches her nails along my scalp.
“Jules, I love you, I really can’t tell you enough.”
She pulls me down to her lips and kisses me, our bodies fighting back and forth together. I reach over and tease her clit, rubbing my fingernail over the tip. She throws her head back and comes, her belly convulsing around me, trying to milk me. I can wait.
I pull out and sit up, asking she sit on top of me. She straddles me, sweating and panting, her breaths coming in short rasps. As she slips back down onto me, I push her hair back over her shoulders and lick and kiss the flawless skin of her throat and chest.
She holds my head in her arms and rides me, fast, then slow, deep, then shallow, until I beg, “Come, come Julianne, I’m ready.” I pull on her buttocks
, helping her take me deep, and fast. My fingers graze her nylon stockings and it’s so sexy, watching her strong body dominating mine, watching her with only nylons on. We kiss to try and stop her screaming and she squeezes her arms around me when she comes again, feasting on me inside her until I can’t see straight, ejaculation pulled and pulled and pulled from me until I feel depleted enough to sleep for a week.
We lay down on the bed and Jules strokes my chest, looking into my eyes with love and fear. I cup her chin and give her a hard kiss, pulling her tight into me.
“We’re the only thing that has ever made sense, Jules. That’s all I know,” I say, helping her off with the stockings. “The rest is a basket of frogs, a bucket of slugs, a fucking vat of nonsensical, rotten trifle.”
“I know,” she agrees, tucking herself into me, her arms and legs lost in between mine. She shudders in my arms and tells me again, “Oh, I know.”
Chapter Fourteen
Warrick
I’ve arranged to meet Anna at a coffee shop, to try to find out where she’s at with everything. To be honest with myself, I’m only here at Jules’ suggestion otherwise I wouldn’t be bothering. My ex-wife is a proud woman and won’t admit when she needs help. I sense it’ll be the same as always – she’ll deny there’s anything wrong, she’ll ask me to let her know when I see the light and finally realise she’s the one, and she’ll get angry as hell when she realises Jules is still the only one for me.
I watch out the window from my leather chair as she marches down the pavement, done up to the nines, chewing a wasp. If she looked in the mirror once in a while she’d see how visible her hatred is. She just doesn’t want to admit that’s what she’s surviving on – hatred – instead of facing up to the deeper feelings that are stopping her living her life again.
Entering the shop, her eyes search for me and she smiles, looking cocky, as though she just made a grand entrance and already has me.
“Anna.”
“Rick,” she replies, and makes a meal of removing her bag and coat so that she has everyone in the coffee shop staring at her low-cut dress, skyscraper heels and rouge lipstick. She’s an attractive woman, I always thought so. She wears a pixie cut like a lot of other women couldn’t and her skin is flawless.
“I didn’t order for you, but I can get you something, if you like?” I ask nicely.
She pushes her lips out, dramatically pouting. “A latte, please.”
I stand and she pretends to be indifferent, her eyes glancing around the room as she poses like the Queen accepting a visitor into her sitting room.
I return with her latte and place it down, adding, “I picked up some cookies for you, too.”
“You didn’t have to.”
First sign of depression: unable to accept gifts, compliments or feelings of happiness as genuine.
I should know.
Sitting opposite her, I feel the most awkward I’ve ever felt and that’s saying something. I once brought Jules to this place, unaware it was the place she got strung up by Laurie inside.
I once got caught screwing my ex-wife (yes, this ex-wife) at the back of a cinema once. That was before we were married, before we had Joe, before I was a copper. The cinema let us off but wouldn’t that have looked good on my record when it came to applying to the police?
But no, nothing in my life has ever felt as awkward as this moment.
I start straight, because I’m not one to swim round the houses.
“Jules mentioned she’s seen you,” I pause, my mouth twitching horribly, “following her round corners whenever she’s shopping down the Avenue. Is she imagining it?”
Shit. I gave her access with my word choice then. Shit. Shit. Shit.
She smiles, her red lips crooking at one side. She looks smug. “Of course she’s imagining it. Is this why you got me here? Is she finally showing her true colours?”
I don’t reply, not immediately.
How can I get through to her?
“It’s just that… well, I don’t have any reason not to trust her and she’s not the one who’s been posting shit through people’s letter boxes.”
I take a second to think about that and consider, How does one go about sourcing shit? Did Anna post her own offering, squatting over a sheet of newspaper one morning, or did she go down the park and select the best ripe turd some dog owner forgot to pick up?
Anna’s jaw works side to side and she quickly sticks her nose in the air, a wicked grin betraying her angry core beneath the pretty façade.
Taking a sip of her latte and holding the cup and saucer in her dainty hands, she tells me calmly, “She’ll trip up and I’ll be there when she does. I know girls like her, looking like her. She doesn’t really want you, Warrick. She’ll get caught, mark my words.”
This is all kinds of crazy. (And on my days off, when nobody is in the house and I like to sit in my pants alone, I watch The Real Housewives of California – so I know crazy.)
“She just gave birth to twins, six months ago. You think she’s got the energy to go finding other men? I’d kind of high-five her for it if she did, you know, because right now we’re both surviving on about five hours a night.”
Anna glares at me. Yes, I’ve shut you down, woman. Now what have you got?
She clucks her tongue and sticks her nose back in the air, tucking the cookies into her bag when she thinks I’m not looking. She’s planning her dramatic exit like the femme fatale she is and I’m ready for the latte to come flying. Oh you bet ya, I’m ready for it. I’ve been here before.
Her teeth grind before her mouth turns down and she states, “Okay. So, you think you’ve got the happy family you always wanted, don’t you? You got Joe now too, but… it never lasts, we know that. It won’t last. You’ll be thanking me when I’m here to pick up the pieces when she goes. Oh, you will.”
There’s conviction in her steely stare, which only serves to make me think she really does need help. This is more than a jilted ex-wife kicking off, this is Crazy Does, What Crazy Is. She is not in her right mind at all.
“Anna, I love Jules. I’d die before anyone hurt her. I’d kill anyone who tried to take her away from me.”
And here it comes…
She’s quick, I’ll give her that, but when she stands and begins to lob the contents of her cup at me, I hold up the tray I’ve had resting down by my feet and the liquid ricochets off that, half the contents of her cup splashing back onto her dress.
She gasps, as do most people around us. Her lovely low-cut red dress with matching heels is now covered in milky stickiness.
She shakes her head at me and unleashes her vitriol, the words she’s been holding in this whole time: “Warrick Jones, you don’t deserve happiness anymore than a death row inmate. You fucked someone else when we were married,” she screams, so the whole coffee shop can hear, “yeah, just to save other people from drugs.” (And trafficking, I might add, but I won’t steal her moment of triumph and glory.) “Huh. Ruining our marriage to save other people, yeah, was it worth it, yeah?” Her face contorts as her mind turns to the next subject she will judge with her Mind of Crazy. “That slag you call your wife, she’ll leave when she gets bored. Leggy bimbos like her always do. She’ll leave and when she does, I’ll be there picking up the pieces and you’ll thank me, oh you will.”
I’ve no idea what I’m meant to be thanking her for, but a lot of people around us are now sniggering as Anna reels off her nonsense and wipes at her dress with a bunch of napkins. She has no idea of how she comes across and it’s just so sad.
“You need help, Anna. You know it. You can’t go on like this!” I lower my voice, looking down into her eyes, trying to seem kind. “You need to speak to someone. This isn’t normal behaviour and this isn’t just the talk of a jilted lover. You’re talking absolute nonsense.”
She slaps me, HARD. The crack echoes around the room and the manager comes over.
“I think she’d better leave,” he says looking at me, as if he know
s. He knows. Everyone knows but her. It’s a joke, now. If only I didn’t know how dire this really was.
She throws her coat over her shoulders and huffs, “Hate the fucking coffee in here anyway. It’s shit!!”
She storms out and I’m left gasping for air. She’s gotten no worse nor better, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
Out of the window I watch as she marches away for a few yards, crosses the street and sticks her finger up at me from across the road. It’s not over though, somehow I know, it’s not over.
She barks to herself. I can hear it, even from here in the café. Then someone behind her calls her name. She turns, her face contorting, teeth gnashing.
How did she become this?
I watch as she marches like a toddler in its Terrible Twos, striding back down the way she just came from. I look and see Jules, with the buggy, heading in Anna’s direction.
“Oh SHIT!” I say to myself, lurching from my table.
Jules has just been to the shops with the kids and I should’ve realised they might cross paths!
Her face as red as her outfit, Anna screams at Jules, who doesn’t have any tolerance or patience. I stride across the street without any care for myself and before Jules can punch out Anna’s lights, I step between them and get punched instead.
Whoa, my wife can punch! I should’ve known really. She can carry all her own weight with one hand, a gift of her dancing days.
“Oh my god, Warrick, I didn’t mean–” my wife protests.
“Ha! See? You married a husband beater! Good luck!” Anna turns on her heel and takes off, leaving us alone.
I’m flat on my back on the pavement and Jules is on her phone, checking something.
“She just breached her restraining order. Caught on my camera and on all the cameras on this street, too.” She finally bends down and cups my head in her hands, helping me up. “Always here to save the day. Did I punch you too hard?”
“Grrr, I’ll survive… with a black eye. Doesn’t look good for work, does it? It’s better than you getting a criminal record and not being able to teach anymore, though.”
Beyond Angel Avenue Page 12
