It’s 9.00 a.m. when I wake and I should have left hours ago, before dawn, before David realized I wasn’t in our bed at home. I’ve been on my best behaviour since the dinner party, and have been back to my usual self at the office so David believes his authoritarian regime is working, but my absence last night will reverse all of that. I have a loose excuse – a meeting I’d engineered at the Grand yesterday afternoon, and a room on my credit card with a receipt to show – but I should have called to let him know. If I’d heard his voice it would have panicked me home so I chanced it, the alcohol fuelling my bravado, and now I’ll have to pay.
I settle into an armchair in Will’s front room – my head thick with sleep and last night’s whisky – as the figure of the man pacing the country lane replays in my brain. Crash against my windscreen. I no longer squeeze my eyes shut or hold my head in my hands; the images will keep coming no matter what I do. Sometimes, if I’m lucky and I wake from a dreamless sleep, it takes a few seconds to recall the source of the disquiet, and then boom, back it comes, barrelling into me. From my bag I take the packet of diazepam and knock back a pill with some water from a half-finished glass on the floor. A noise of clanking cups and cutlery comes from the kitchen, plus Will whistling through his teeth to the buzz of the radio, but I’m not ready to face him yet.
This room is full of furniture, so many pieces it’s hard to manoeuvre in the space. Mostly they are finds from skips and junk shops, pieces that other people have done away with, and for good reason. But to Will they are special: mismatched chairs in swirly granny fabrics, a 1960s sideboard with chunky knobs, a coffee table made of orange wood and glass – items that are vaguely kitsch, but not vintage enough for good taste. An old jukebox sits in one corner, not the cool American diner variety with curved edges and illuminated plastic, but late 1970s with sides of tan plastic and a playlist featuring the Darts and Showaddywaddy. The paper song-listing is crinkled with mildew. By the time Will found the machine the rain had already got in and it didn’t work – it never will – but he doesn’t mind or even want to fix the thing. He’s saved it to give it a place to while out the years, like a horse gone to pasture.
In pride of place on the mantelpiece is an antique clock: dark wood, ugly pre-deco glass face that opens for winding; a job Will never forgets even when hung-over. His grandmother left it to him and he believes it’s valuable, but there are heaps of these same timepieces clogging up the windows of charity shops. The heavy clunk of the clock’s tick fills the room with stasis, but the feeling is one of containment and safety. As long as I don’t think about leaving. And as long as I don’t have to stay.
Wind launches itself at the building. The walls shudder with each blast, like a cheap stage set, and the cold seeps through the near-useless membrane of the single-glazed window. My hands and feet are yellow, and I wrap Will’s dressing gown tight round me and rub my fingers and toes, but the blood won’t come back. From the tatty armchair where I sit, I look through the window of his two-bed bungalow, set up on a hill on the outskirts of town. A camera flash of winter sun bounces from windows across the road, the light too thin to take the chill from the air. Tiers of houses on sloping streets give the impression of teetering down the hill, like a brickwork glacier, and in the valley below they are met by a dam of factories in an over-stuffed industrial park. Beyond that is Will’s own personal fragment of sea. From his vantage point up here on the hill, he can watch the boats and trawlers slide in and out of port, big rusty hunks of metal and rigging which for Will transform into vessels of magnificence and beauty. For that view alone it is worth living here.
This house used to belong to Will’s gran and he spent most of his boyhood here. One drunken night he told me the story of his mum, how she’d had him when she was a teenager. He remembers her popping in from time to time to bring him sweets from her job at Woolworths. Later she got a boyfriend, and as Will grew older he saw her less and less, so it was his gran who brought him up. I get the impression the old woman had had enough of child-rearing by the time Will came along, but some care is better than none at all. Will has never met his dad. He thinks he was, or is, a fisherman, and Will’s obsession with the pubs around his town, striking up conversation with anyone who works on the water or in the port, is part of the myth he’s created for himself that the sea is in his blood.
‘If I ever bump into my old man,’ he says, ‘reckon he owes me a pint.’
I wonder why his dad is the hero and his mum the demon. They both left.
Will is hidden behind the open kitchen door. His shadow casts a fuzzy shape on the lino, and the outline vibrates as he works at the pots and pans. A back door leads from the kitchen on to a small concrete courtyard, north-facing, and this door clicks open and shut, the noise followed by a scatter of paws on the slippery floor signalling Bessie, Will’s little dog, coming in from the yard.
Bessie lies down on the floor next to my chair and I stroke her sweat-damp coat. She’s old and smells doggy. Skinny ribs rise and fall with each puffy wheeze and my fingers sense what little fat there is between her fur and the bones underneath. Her body is winding down. ‘You’re not long for this world, are you, my sweet Bess?’ Will said last night as he stroked the little dog on his lap.
Lying back into the cushions, I know I need to get dressed, find my mobile, connect with the day, but I allow myself a few moments as I wait for my head to clear. If I wasn’t here, what would I be doing now?
It’s a Saturday. David is at the gym or walking the dogs and I’d be at home no doubt, tiptoeing around the empty house like an unwanted guest who’s outstayed their welcome. I picture myself walking through our immaculate rooms, the walls and furniture colour coordinated, and my stockinged feet testing the spring of the carpet under my toes. The fabric’s quality thrills me, and the vacuum lines left on the wool by the cleaner look like a manicured lawn. I’m always afraid of spoiling the pattern. The luxury and perfection of the house are my roots, keeping me grounded and sane, and with no clutter or mess I can half believe that state exists within me as well.
If I was there, what would I be doing? I’d be planning to go out.
‘Do you want a tea, angel?’ Will calls from the kitchen. He’s been scrabbling through his repertoire of cutesy names, trying to find one that fits.
‘Rachel? Are you there?’ He turns the radio down and pops his head round the door. I smile – a small smile. ‘Tea?’ he says with a big grin. His nose is on the large side, his lips uneven and flat, and his eyes are squinty with one black socket from last night’s drunken fight, but when all these features are arranged as a whole, some magic of nature creates the sum of a good-looking man. As he smiles, lines ripple from his mouth through to his cheek, and even though his skin holds the wear-and-tear of over twenty years of drinking, underneath is a warm boyish face.
‘OK.’ I raise myself from the creaky chair and follow him into the kitchen, to sit at the yellow Formica table. The surface is speckled like a bird’s egg and scarred by years of cutlery.
Will turns his back to me and resumes the washing-up. He leans across to put the kettle on with a confident flick. It’s his house now, not the pub or the bedroom with the lights off. We’ve explored secret parts of each other’s bodies, but today is only the second time we’ve been together the next morning, and this everyday world of Will embarrasses and shocks me, more so than if he’d stood in front of me naked; there’s greater intimacy and more to reveal from the minutiae of his domestic rituals than in the sex we have. He looks different in daylight and in his own home, away from the protective cloak of the dimly lit pub, and his actions are more mobile though touched with self-consciousness. I get the sense the kitchen hasn’t been cleaned for a while and it’s being done in my honour, or even more worrying, out of some kind of proof to me that he can do it, that he is a viable human who functions on the same level as everyone else, that we could have a future. My hangover helps me resist the temptation to join in and pretty up what is essentially a g
rown man’s den.
My coat hangs on a hook in front of the glass panel on the back door, blocking out the daylight and throwing a shadow over the table. The fabric was smoky from the pub and I’d dropped it on the floor, so Will must have hung it up this morning. On top of the table, folded in a pile for each of us, are the rest of our clothes. Last night they’d been scattered in a line towards the bedroom, like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs.
After sex, Will had buried his face in my hair. ‘We could go away, you and me,’ he’d said. ‘I could arrange a boat, no one would know, we could disappear.’ I lay on his stripy nylon sheets and stared at the ceiling, tracing the damp spots in the plaster above my head and joining up the dots, thinking how true it is that without women most men fall apart; they eat crap, they die young – there’s no one to tell them to go to the doctor’s. And so I stroked his head, kissed him, told him I’d consider it, slipping into role and making myself real to him because it felt good to be needed, all the while resisting the realization that he mattered to me. With the worst of what I throw at him, Will keeps letting me back; he remains consistent, his feelings unconditional. The sense that I don’t deserve his attention overrides the strong temptation to jump in, and of course there is always the background hum of David, my loyalty to him more of an addiction. After all these years of being guided through my life, without him I would be rudderless.
In the kitchen, a mug of hot tea is plonked on the table in front of me. Spills lap over the sides and Will mops them up immediately then returns to his washing-up. He wears tracksuit bottoms covered in splashes of paint, and on his feet are a trodden-down pair of slippers. The radio plays music. He turns it up, swaying his hips to an old Smiths song, then turns to face me with a soapy washing-up brush in one rubber-gloved hand and a cigarette in the other, smiling his huge smile. He sings along to the track.
The butt end of his fag is soggy. He drags sharply on it then raises his hands in the air as if this is a connecting moment for us, hauling us back to some utopian youth where the world was at our feet. His youth may have been like that, but mine passed me by.
The kitchen clock reads 9.30. Through the window, thick clouds steal up the last of the blue sky, and the sun dims like a switch. Will turns on the kitchen light. The unshaded bulb has little effect.
‘D’you remember this one?’ he says, taking a swig of his tea, still swaying to the music. Even at uni I’d never really liked The Smiths – all that sleeve-wearing emotion – and I pretend I don’t know the song. Will laughs and sings, muffled with the cigarette still in his mouth. ‘I used to play this one with the band.’
He turns his back to resume his sink duties, dancing at the worktop, the baggy movement of his muscles pressing through the fabric of his trousers, and I question why it is that I like him. With David there was no choice; it never felt like a romance, more a togetherness with no question of it being other; we were a given, he made me his. With Will, I shouldn’t keep coming back – there’s no practical future here, and it would be dangerous for both of us if David found out – but each time I see Will the sensation of us grows stronger. It comes from nowhere I know how to control. I gulp down my tea, and with it any desire to make this a reality. As the liquid hits the dregs of last night’s spirits in my stomach, nausea rises up.
A text-ping comes from inside my coat. I stand, giddy for a moment, the alcohol still thick in my blood, and walk to the door to fish my mobile from the pocket. Scrolling through the messages I notice missed calls as well, all from David. The texts start with a brusque, ‘Where are you?’ at midnight, and end with the most recent, ‘I will find you both.’
His presence looms through the phone. What he would do if he found us makes me more afraid for Will than for myself.
‘I need to go,’ I say. I’d hoped to drink less last night, to give it more time before I drove home, but the panic of knowing that David is waiting has set in. ‘I’ve stayed too long.’ I’ll drive more slowly this time, I’ll pay attention. Get a strong coffee on the way home.
Will stops moving but doesn’t turn round. The radio crackles as the tuning slips and a burst of voices from a local taxi firm hisses across the ether. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Off you go.’
With my pile of clothes in hand, I push the chair aside. One of the rubber feet has worn away and the bare metal screeches across the lino. In the lounge I gather the rest of my things: my bag, my shoes, the cashmere sweater which Will missed, now covered in dog hair. Bessie’s eyes follow my movements, the useless guard dog and the dispassionate burglar. Will turns off the radio and I hear his feet scuffle the carpet as he comes up behind me. He kisses my neck. His breath holds the tang of last night’s alcohol.
‘We can’t meet in the pub any more. In fact, we can’t do this again,’ I say in a small voice.
‘Please don’t leave,’ he says. I relax inside the fold of his arms. ‘Stay a bit longer.’
Light wisps of rain have begun to fall and the morning appears closer to dusk. Across the street my new Mercedes is parked with rusty vehicles on either side. David insisted I have a duplicate of my last car so that only the discerning would notice the change. It’s also a demonstration that nothing is irreplaceable – with enough money you can do almost anything you want.
The vehicle in front of my car is Will’s other business opportunity. MAN PLUS VAN is etched on the side of the grubby transit, with his mobile number outdated by one digit. Between the occasional trip to the tip and the cocaine profits which he doesn’t snort himself, he has just about enough money to scrape by. Occasionally he has a windfall, a new leather jacket or a guitar – I never ask where the money came from – and when we meet at the pub, I always pick up the tab; the etiquette is that the dealer never pays. That way we get round the shame of his poverty.
Will turns me to him in the circle of his arms. A scruffy quiff flops over his right eye. Once he showed me a photo of himself in his band from twenty years ago, and nothing much has changed: his style, his clothes, the drinking habit and the fighting – all serve as a homage to his adolescence, the glory days from which he’s been unable to evolve. Without the advantage of youth, his image has lost some of its glamour. I twitch a smile and think about the man he should have been, and where it all went wrong for him. At what point did he realize, like me, that he was totally alone?
‘We could go back to bed,’ he says.
The fresh bruise on his eye socket is taking on a purple tint. In the pub last night, insults were spat, old lines of territory tested, then a firework of fists erupted from Will and the other man, over in seconds. I watched with thrill and terror as Will punched the man with less effort than it took him to lift his pint. He was very good, as if he’d been fighting all his life. The man on the floor didn’t get off as lightly; blood spilled from his nose and poured into the barmaid’s beer towel as she hollered at the retreating Will. The wounded man got up and chased us to the door, shouting, ‘I’m not done. Come back, you and your fucking slag.’ I had to pull Will to the car, the fear and excitement giving me the same strength I’d once used to drag a body. On the journey home, all I thought about was how easy it would be for David to find us if he really wanted to.
Gran’s clock chimes ten. Seconds waste into rapid minutes. ‘I have to go,’ I say, taking Will’s hand in mine with a light pat before I move apart from him. ‘It’s late and I’ve got things to do.’
‘What things?’ He glares at me, snatching away his hand, an alcohol temper rising in his face. ‘See that fuck-wit of a husband of yours? Spend loads of money on crap at the shops?’
I shake my head. His eyes glisten. I want to tell him that I don’t like shopping, that my husband’s touch chills me, and that even with all the imperfections I’ve never had anything as close to happiness as this. Instead I move close again and nuzzle into his shoulder, wishing that everything were more simple. ‘I’m sorry. You should forget about me. I’m bad news.’
‘Rachel, we can work this out.’ Will st
rokes the back of my head. ‘What I said last night about getting out of here – I know I was pissed and I know it probably sounded nuts, but I meant it. We could leave. We could go somewhere where David couldn’t find you.’
‘You don’t know David. If you did you’d know there is no getting away.’ With my logic setting in again, I’m itching to leave and get back home before any more time passes.
‘Well, I’m not scared of Mr Big, chucking his money around to get everything he wants.’
My impatience turns to panic. ‘Tough talk, you with your shabby little house and cash under the mattress. Leave problems you can’t handle alone.’
‘Fuck you, Rachel.’
‘Yeah, fuck you too.’
‘You’re a bitch.’
‘Well, you’re a bitch’s whore.’
Will grabs an empty can and hurls it into a wastepaper basket, the bin frayed with spikes of wicker. As he picks up an ashtray and dumps its contents into the basket, clouds of ash plume through gaps in the weaving, covering his hand with speckles of grey. He circumnavigates the room, careful not to come too close to me, punching cushions and hurling them on the sofa. A mist of dust disturbed after a long time is suspended in the air. I watch him for a moment then go to the bathroom, locking myself in and speed-dressing. In my bag, next to the walking man’s watch which I carry with me at all times, I check I have the receipt for the hotel – the evidence that David will probably ignore – plus the wraps of coke I bought last night. Ten. Ten grams. Enough to last David about a month. A month until I have to see Will again. I wonder if it will be hard to stay away or hard to come back.
The Liar’s Chair Page 6
