Eager to Please

by Julie Parsons

  ‘Off you go, darling.’ The younger of the two spoke. He gave her a shove in the small of her back. She fell forward, putting out her arms to save herself. The heels of her hands and her knees made contact with the hard surface of the road. She felt the sting of small stones pricking into her skin. Tears started into her eyes. She heard the sound of their shoes as both men turned and walked away. Then the heavy clank of the iron latch closing. She waited for a couple of moments until it was quiet, then she pushed herself up to standing. She turned away and began to walk up the hill to the village. The darkness pressed in on her, wrapping her in its comfort and safety. She stopped for a moment and tilted her head to look up at the sky. The half-moon hung above her the way it had hung above the prison. But now when she moved it moved with her, following her path, stopping when she stopped, drifting through the night as she began to walk again.

  It was such a big house, the house in which Daniel and his family lived. Full of nooks and crannies. She had it all there in her mind’s eye. She thought about the alarm system, the number she had written down in her notebook, the locks on the doors and the windows. She thought of the bunch of keys she had put carefully away in her cupboard. He would be going around checking them all before he went to sleep tonight, she was sure of that. And would he sleep tonight? Probably not, or if he did his dreams would waken him. But she would sleep well, better than she had slept for a long time. For years really, when she came to think of it. She would sleep like a baby. A baby that at last has been fed and nourished and cosseted. She was so looking forward to it. She couldn’t wait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  IT WAS THE banging that woke her the next morning. Persistent, loud, eating into the warp and weft of her dreams, even though she turned on to her stomach and pulled the pillow over her head, flattening the palms of her hands against her ears. But it was no good. She was awake. She lay for a moment on her back, looking at the sunlight creeping across the ceiling, trying to remember where she was. She sat up, a sudden fright making her sweat, wondering, thinking was she back inside again? Was that where the noise was coming from? The screws working their way down the landing towards her cell? Keys in hand, the jangle, the rattle, the thunk of the lock, then the bang, the shout, the wakey wakey, rise and shine. Breakfast time, ladies. But the voice that was shouting her name now was a man’s voice. A voice she knew from before, before prison even.

  She would have wanted to have the time to brush her hair, wash her face, but now the noise was so loud that her neighbours from downstairs had joined in the racket. Banging on their ceiling so her floorboards shook. Driving her up and out of her bed to hasten to the door and unlock it. To stand back and let him in. To face his rage. To answer his questions.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Who do you think you are?’

  ‘Conning my wife and children with that crazy story. The deserted wife, the two sons, all that crap. So tell me now. Why are you here? Now, after all these years. Why now?’

  ‘I could ask you the same question, couldn’t I? Why are you here, now, after all these years?’ She wrapped her arms across her breasts, feeling suddenly cold. ‘You should be thanking me that I didn’t tell your wife all about you and me. When I realized who she was. That I didn’t just spit it all out. The whole rotten story. That I kept it to myself. That I was cute enough to make up something else that she wouldn’t suspect.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that it was just a coincidence that you met her, is that what you’re saying? Well, I don’t believe you, not for one moment. I know you, remember, Rachel. I know you very well.’ His voice rose in a shriek of anger as he moved towards her, his hands in fists. As the door behind him opened and she saw the boy from downstairs standing there, his blonde hair in a crest like a small child, his eyes puffy with sleep.

  ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ He took a step further into the room, looking at them both. Then said, his voice concerned, anxious, ‘Are you all right, Rachel? Is everything OK?’

  She looked towards Daniel. ‘No, it isn’t. Get the bollocks out of here. Now.’ Her voice was harsh, her accent and tone suddenly not her own as she moved towards him and pushed him hard in the chest so he lost his balance and stumbled back, as the boy from downstairs became changed too, threatening, his slight body inside the sweatshirt and jogging pants, hard and tense. She slammed the door behind Daniel and they listened to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs and the hollow thump as the heavy front door swung back into place.

  He was waiting for her when she finished work later that evening. His van was parked outside the shopping centre and he was leaning against it, flicking through a newspaper. She saw him a moment before he saw her. She was about to turn away, but he was beside her, his hand on her arm.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘I want to talk.’

  ‘You do? What on earth can we have to talk about?’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened this morning. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Please, let me buy you a drink. You look as if you could do with one.’

  He smiled at her. She saw Amy in his face.

  ‘Not here, not around here. Somewhere else.’

  He took her to a big new pub out on the road to Bray. It was crowded, noisy. A wide-screen TV was showing a football match at one end. At the other a jukebox pumped out the latest hits. She had to sit close to him to hear what he was saying. She could smell him. Sunshine, fresh air, newly dug earth. A tang of sweat from his skin.

  He looked well. He looked better than she had remembered him. He seemed to have grown. Taller, broader, fitter, stronger.

  ‘How did you find me?’ she asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I could ask the same thing of you. How did you find me?’

  ‘I used my head, Daniel. I used my prison head.’

  ‘And now, what do you want now? Money, a job, a place to live? Go on, surprise me, give me a hint.’

  She was drinking gin. It tasted good. She looked up at him and smiled.

  ‘She’s lovely, your Ursula. And so are your children. You’re very lucky. You’ve done well, haven’t you, since your brother died and you stepped into your father’s shoes? If Martin had still been alive, he would have been the one to take over. And then where would you have been? His errand boy, his runner, his scapegoat. But when Martin died, all that changed. You know what, Dan? I think you owe me.’

  They drank more. The light outside faded. The lights inside gleamed. A band had replaced the jukebox. Playing old favourites, songs they both remembered. Couples were dancing, lurching and bumping together on the small wooden floor.

  ‘Come on.’ Daniel held out his hand to her. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. She remembered the tattoo. The rose, the line of red just beneath the skin. His hand pressed against the small of her back. She remembered then what it was to lie beside a man’s body. How different from all those years inside.

  When closing time came he drove her home. They didn’t speak. She watched his face in the light from the road. As he stopped the car outside the house he turned to her.

  ‘You do want me, don’t you? You do want me to come in?’

  Afterwards, when he had gone, she slept. This time so deeply that when she woke hours later she could barely remember what had happened. But there were traces of him everywhere. Dark hairs left on her pillow and in the folds and wrinkles of the sheets. A damp stain that she felt beneath her thighs as she turned over. And when she stood in front of the mirror and looked at her body she could read him in the signs. The dark red of the blood he had sucked to the surface at the base of her throat and on the white skin around her nipples. Bruises on the inside of her thighs, and on her wrists and upper arms. And when she sank into the bath she felt the sting in the long scratches down her back, and inside her, where the water gently lapped.

  ‘Don’t mark me,’ he had shouted at her, pinning her hands t
ogether behind her head. And she had closed her eyes as she opened herself up to him. Twice. Dozing fitfully after the first time, then reaching out for him again, and finding him once more.

  He had said nothing as he dressed and prepared to leave.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I want,’ she said, lifting her head from the pillow, her voice low, so he had to lean towards her to hear what she was saying. ‘I want to go out in your boat. I’ve seen her in the harbour. You remember, don’t you, what it was like when we sailed together before? So, grant me one wish, Dan. Take me out on your boat, and I will never bother you or your family again. I promise.’

  She turned her back on him, pulling her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, as she felt sleep dragging her under.

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘it’s done.’

  She smiled as she pulled the quilt over her head. It was warm and dark now, here. Dark is good, she had said to the child. Dark saves you. The child hadn’t believed her. But she was right all along, she knew she was.

  ‘Tell me, Rachel, what is it like outside now? Is it as warm and wonderful as it seems to me?’

  It was night-time. Rachel sat on the floor, leaning back against Clare Bowen’s bed. She had been reading to her. Tonight it was Pride and Prejudice.

  ‘I want the chapter where Mr Darcy asks Elizabeth to marry him and she rejects him. I love that moment, don’t you?’

  Outside it was dark and silent. Inside the lamp on the bedside table cast a buttery glow over the two of them. Rachel turned towards her, holding the book up. She began to read. Clare settled back against her pillows. She sighed. She closed her eyes. When Rachel finished, Clare stirred restlessly.

  ‘You’re not comfortable, are you?’ Rachel put out her hand and touched her forehead. It was warm and sticky.

  ‘Would you like me to bathe you, make you feel fresher before you go to sleep?’

  Clare opened her eyes and nodded.

  Rachel filled a basin with lukewarm water. She pulled back the bedclothes and eased Clare’s nightdress over her head. She rolled up her sleeves and dipped her sponge in the water. She lathered soap in one hand and gently wiped away the sweat that lay stickily between and underneath Clare’s small, flattened breasts. Clare watched her, then reached out and touched Rachel’s arm. She pulled it closer to the light.

  ‘Where did you get those bruises?’

  Rachel looked at them. They were deep purple against the paleness of her skin.

  ‘If I tell you, do you promise me you won’t tell your husband?’

  Clare lifted her hand and pushed back the collar of Rachel’s shirt. Her fingers rested on the marks on her neck. She listened in silence.

  ‘Be careful,’ she whispered. ‘Be very careful.’

  Afterwards, Rachel waited until Clare slept. She had given her her pills, holding her head up as she swallowed them. Then soothed and comforted her, knowing that Clare would fight the sleep that was coming. That she would be scared that this was the night from which she would not waken. Rachel heard Andrew’s key in the front door, and his footsteps in the hall. She heard him stagger against the wall, the sound of water from the tap in the kitchen rushing into the sink, the clatter and crash of something breaking. She stood up and walked towards the front door. Andrew was on his hands and knees, picking up shards of broken glass from the tiles. He looked up at her, his face red, his eyes bloodshot.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. She nodded, and turned away.

  Outside it was still warm. She began to run, gaining speed as she neared home. There was no need for him to thank her. He and his wife were doing her a favour. It was just they didn’t know it. Not yet anyway. But soon they would. Soon it would be clear to them and to everyone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SO WHAT TO do about the Judith Hill case? Technically it was still unsolved. No one had yet been charged with her murder, that much was sure and certain. But with the prime suspect dead and buried, where to go now? Jack sat at his desk and looked around him. Most of the detectives who had worked on the case had been reassigned. Even Sweeney. And he was off on a fortnight’s holiday.

  ‘It’s a really decent thing you’re doing,’ Alison had said when he told her. ‘It’ll be great for Joan to get away with her bloke for a change. You can hardly begrudge her. And you’re always saying you don’t spend enough time with your little ones. It’ll be fun. You’ll have them all to yourself for two whole weeks.’

  Ruth had looked askance at him when he suggested that Alison might come and stay too. Just for the odd night.

  ‘Where on earth, Daddy, will she sleep?’ Her tone was one of moral outrage. ‘Rosa sleeps with you, I sleep on the sofa bed. There’s no more room, is there?’ She glared at him and he felt his resolve crumble. But Alison was understanding.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ she said in her calm no-nonsense way, kissed him and pulled him back down into her bed and held him tightly.

  And it was fun, being with the girls all the time. Cooking for them, getting to know them all over again. Becoming smitten by Ruth’s hard-headed intelligence and Rosa’s wistful playfulness. So that Judith Hill and her father, her brother and her mother became hardly more than characters he might have read about in a book or seen in a TV series. This was real life. This waking each morning with his daughters, getting them their breakfast, sitting on the narrow balcony and watching the small boats come and go through the inner harbour. Watching all the kids who took part in the courses organized by the sailing school at the end of the west pier, splashing around in their wetsuits, falling in and out of canoes, capsizing their tiny sailing dinghies. So when Alison came to visit, he almost resented her presence, the intrusion into his domestic world. Until he got used once again to the feel of her warm soft body against his as he sneaked up behind her in the kitchen or beckoned to her to come into the bedroom for a couple of minutes.

  And when it was over, and life went back to normal, he thought what a lovely time it had been. Those two weeks in the middle of the summer, that special year.

  Rachel had seen Jack Donnelly and the two girls sitting on their balcony in the morning sun as she went for her daily run. They were all very alike. All very dark, with glossy, shiny heads of hair. She had seen them walking together on the pier, taking their time, stopping to look at the turnstones, the wagtails and all the gulls. Looking for the seals that swam out among the boats. Crying out with delight as they watched them surface and turn over on their backs, lazily extending a flipper, before diving deep and disappearing again. She had seen him at night-time too, recognized the blonde woman with him. The social worker, Alison White. Tried not to think of the last time they had met. The pain of being with Amy, and of watching her leave.

  Daniel had told her how he had found Amy too. Boasted about it. Told her how he had gone to the café where she worked. Chatted to her, teased her, made her laugh. She’s cute, he said.

  ‘Did you tell her who you were?’ she asked.

  He hadn’t, he said. He didn’t want to upset her. He just wanted to know what she was like.

  ‘And what is she like?’

  ‘She’s like me. And sometimes she’s like you. And sometimes she’s like none of us.’

  They had seen each other a number of times since that night. He had phoned her, come to meet her after she left the dry-cleaner’s. He had taken her around the city in his van. They had gone to different places. An apartment in a building that his company controlled. His office when no one was there. He had shown her round. Explained to her how after Martin’s death old man Beckett had taken a back seat and Daniel had gradually assumed control.

  ‘Not bad, eh? For the black sheep of the family. Do you remember, Rachel, how you made me feel better about, more confident about what you called my “intellectual capabilities”? You were good that way, weren’t you? And with Martin gone, well, the old man didn’t have anyone else he could trust the way he could trust me. After all, Rachel, I am one of the family, aren’t I?’
/>   Like I’m one of the family, she thought. Part of all that. Indelibly marked.

  ‘Does Ursula know you’ve seen me again?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t you worried she’ll find out?’

  ‘Worried? No. Ursula has the arrogance of her class and her background. She cannot believe that I would betray her. No one has ever betrayed her before. Everything in the world has gone right for her, ever since the day that she was born into a wealthy family who planned how her life would be lived. She knows no disappointment, she knows no fear. In fact,’ he smiled at her, ‘the only time I have ever seen fear on her face was that night at the party. She was scared then. Terrified.’

  ‘So what does she think has happened to me now?’

  ‘She thinks that I have gone to the police about you. She thinks that you have been warned off. She thinks that you are harmless. A broken, bitter woman with no future.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘I think I want to know what you want from me. I think you want me to help you, but I’m not sure how.’

  ‘Kiss me, Dan, for a start. That will do. It’s been such a long time since I’ve been kissed. Then tell me why you killed my husband.’

  He took her face in his hands. His fingers slipped down on to her neck. He pushed her head back. She could feel his thumbs pressing against her windpipe, her breath beginning to catch in her throat. He relaxed his fingers and held her close.

  ‘You know why I killed him. He was going to ruin my life.’

  ‘And instead you ruined mine.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. You ruined it for yourself. You lied to him. You cheated on him. And you paid the price. But now you can start all over again. You’re young enough, you’re still beautiful. You’re bright and clever. I’ll help you, Rachel. You know I will.’