This is Me

by Shari Low

  ‘I told you this would happen, Denise,’ he’d said with a devastatingly attractive smile, when he came in from work that first night and she was sitting at the kitchen table in just a robe and stockings and suspenders underneath. ‘I knew that the minute those two left, things with us would be better than they’d ever been. Now come here, you sexy bitch.’

  Yep, he thought this whole new and improved wife act was all down to the kids shoving off. If only he knew it was more down to where he was shoving his dick. That thought made her wince as she squeezed her eyes shut, desperate for sleep to come and make this stop.

  Sex was only one part of the battle though. She knew the thing that turned him on more than anything was the prospect of more money in his bank account, and she’d come up with a way to do that.

  It had all come from a report she’d read in the paper about people buying their council houses. Everyone was doing it these days. That’s why you could drive along any street in any estate and see at least one house outdoing the neighbours with new windows and a fancy front door.

  When Claire and Doug had buggered off to Fred’s, it had given her a thought. He was in a council house and he’d never bought it. Ray had raised the idea with him a few times, then said he was an old socialist sod for sticking to his principles that it was to go back to the council when he died. What was the point of that? Her and Ray had both voted Conservative at the last election. He’d told her many times that it was the Tories that stood for the same things as they did – putting the work in and reaping the rewards. She’d come from a council scheme and now look at her, with her beautiful house and the Audi Quattro sitting in the drive. And where was Fred? Still in that damp old house she’d grown up in. That said everything about which political party was the way forward. She didn’t understand Fred and his principles at all. He’d be far better to buy that house for the pennies they were asking for it and then it would be his own.

  More importantly, when he was gone, it would come to them and Ray could do it up, sell it on and make a few quid. A lot more than a few, actually. Houses in Fred’s street were going for fifty grand now. Who would pass up a chance to make that kind of money?

  The idea had grown over a week of sleepless nights, staring at this same ceiling, until she’d decided to do something about it. She’d gone down to the council offices, found the housing department and explained that her dad wanted to buy his council house.

  No problem, they’d said, handing her a pile of forms.

  That night, she’d talked it over with Ray, watched as his face lit up when she finished with, ‘Maybe we could buy it and he’d never have to know. I mean, what difference would it make to him?’

  ‘Christ, Denise, you’re not just a pretty face, are you?’ he’d said, leaning over and kissing her. ‘It’s a bloody brilliant idea. I don’t know why we never thought of it before. You’d do that?’

  ‘It would be the only way. My dad would never go along with it,’ she’d said.

  Ray thought about it for a moment. ‘Maybe he doesn’t have to. There must be a way around it. Leave it with me.’

  The next night he’d come home with a plan. ‘Power of Attorney,’ he’d said, then he’d gone on to explain it. Turned out it was a thing whereby people, especially the elderly or vulnerable, could sign over all control of their affairs to their next of kin so that they could take care of their finances and decisions.

  ‘I don’t know, Ray…’ she hesitated, positive that Fred wouldn’t agree to doing that. Ray had already thought it through and come up with a way to overcome the problem. That’s why, the following day, she was at her father’s house.

  Fred had looked surprised when she’d chapped on his door, but she went with the pretence of checking on Claire and Doug. It struck her how old he seemed now, and yet he was only in his mid-fifties. He walked with a stoop, a consequence of years of hard labour at the power plant, and he’d let his beard grow so that it was long and messy. He was in a right state. Agnes would be turning in her grave if she could see him.

  As soon as she’d established that the kids weren’t home from school yet – she’d deliberately chosen a day that she knew they were both in afterschool activities – she’d pulled the papers out of her bag and told him he needed to sign forms for the school now that they were living with him.

  He hadn’t hesitated. Old fool hadn’t even read them, just signed on the dotted line.

  ‘Also, since the kids are living here, Ray and I will take over half the rent. So if you just send half the payment to this account every month…’ she handed him a piece of paper with her bank details, ‘… we’ll make up the difference and send the total to the council.’ This was the risky bit. It was the only way they could think of to take over his rent payment. He didn’t need to know that no rent would be due, because they’d own the house. However, Fred was a proud man and she’d anticipated his objection, so it was no surprise when it came.’

  ‘Indeed I will not. Those bairns are welcome here and don’t want a thing from you.’

  ‘Dad, if you don’t accept this deal, Ray and I will need to insist they come home. My Ray is a proud man too, and he’ll not have someone else supporting his children.’

  She and Ray had practised that line, and she was glad, as she could see Fred thinking it over. There was no way he wanted the kids to be forced to leave, so reluctantly he gave in.

  ‘Aye, fine then. I’m not having you dragging them away against their will. You know, Denise, I don’t know what happened to you. You were a lovely lass. You really were. God knows, yer mother was hard on you, and I blame maself for not stopping her. It was never worth ma while to get in the way of Agnes and her temper. I know you felt the brunt of it way too often, so I understood when you shifted out of here as soon as you could, but I’ll never know why you’ve treated these bairns the way that you have. You’re so busy looking at that man of yours through rose-coloured glasses that you can’t see the truth in front of you. All talk and no trousers that one. Always was. Too flash and too damn arrogant for my liking.’

  Denise could feel her blood beginning to boil. ‘Don’t you be judging me, Dad. You stayed with my mother all those years and she could whip any one of us with that tongue at a minute’s notice.’

  ‘Yer right, hen. And, like I said, I blame maself for not stepping in there. It was an easier life just to stay out of the way and leave her to it. Sure, she drove every one of you away. I don’t think I’ve seen our Ronnie or Rachel this year, and as for Donna…’ His voice had trailed off and she’d almost felt a pang of sympathy for him. Donna had gone to live with Rachel a few years before, when Agnes died. She’d convinced Fred that it was better for her to live with her sister, and he’d given in to her, not wanting to turn her against him by refusing. ‘… Aye, well, I don’t see Donna much either,’ he’d said simply. ‘But I learned ma lesson and I’d like to think I’ve done it right this time. I was a let down as a father, but I’ve tried my damnedest to make up for it as a grandfather. Those two bairns of yours would be a credit to any family, so they would. I don’t know why yer too wrapped up in that husband of yours to see it.’

  ‘If they’re a credit, it’s because we made them that way, Da. My man is the best father any kid could have and he tells me every day what a great mother I was to them.’ She could feel her old broad accent returning, the one she grew up with, as opposed to the one that she’d rounded off when she moved to a much nicer area. ‘If they can’t see that just now, then that’s their problem. They’ll realise it soon enough and come crawling back.’ She actually wasn’t sure that was the case – Claire had a ferocious stubbornness on her and Doug wouldn’t come back without his sister. More than that, she didn’t particularly want them back. Ray might not know the full story – he had no idea that Claire had told her about his affair – but there was no denying that life was much easier when there were less distractions and no one else to cater to.

  Putting the signed forms back in her bag, sh
e decided she’d had enough of her dad’s nonsense. Out the door and back in the car, she’d just switched the engine on when she spotted Claire and Doug in her rear view mirror, getting off the bus and walking towards the house. She’d slipped the handbrake off and driven away without a backward glance.

  There had been a slight glitch in their plan when they’d realised that the power of attorney application had to be witnessed by a lawyer. Denise had no idea how Ray handled it, but there was a visit to his old football pal and lawyer, Hugh Dawson, and a weekend in Gleneagles, men only, and the next thing she knew, it was sorted.

  She wrote a cheque for eight thousand pounds, took it down to the council offices with all the forms and handed it in. Three months later, the house was theirs, all the intervening correspondence sent to their address, because as far as the legal world was concerned, she was his official representative.

  Her dad should be grateful to them, after all it was their money they’d shelled out to buy the house and Fred only paid a pittance in rent now. All they had to do was keep it quiet until the old man passed and then the house – and the profits – would be theirs.

  Ray had taken her for a long weekend to London to celebrate that one. Two nights at the Hilton and front seats at The Phantom of the Opera.

  None of that was any consolation now though, as she lay there, staring at the ceiling, night after night. She was so, so tired. And sick of being worried. If he came home late, she was frantic. If he had to work away for a few days, she’d be climbing the walls until he walked back in the door. When he was out playing five-a-side with his football mates, she paced the floor until he returned, and felt dizzy with relief when she pulled a sweat soaked kit out of his bag. When he was at the pub, she insisted on dropping him off and collecting him, and he never knew that she sat round the corner, watching the front door to make sure he didn’t leave and go elsewhere. She’d never found anything that raised the slightest suspicion. Until tonight.

  A woman in the west end of the city had called and booked him in to give her a quote for a new kitchen. He’d gone out in plenty of time for the seven o’clock appointment.

  At eight thirty, the woman had phoned and said he’d just left but she’d forgotten to ask him something – could he call her back? Denise had told her he’d return the call as soon as he got in.

  She’d watched the clock. Ten past nine. Half past nine. Ten o’clock. Ten thirty. Eleven. Twenty-five to twelve, he’d walked back in the door.

  ‘Jesus, that woman and her man could talk,’ he’d said, without the slightest hint that he was lying. ‘He ended up giving me a beer and we’ve practically redesigned their whole house. Be a cracker of a job if it comes in.’

  She hadn’t challenged a word he said, because she knew… just knew.

  And now, she could barely breathe because of the weight that was sitting on her chest. She’d tried everything to make him faithful again and yet still he was playing away. Sixth sense, female intuition, call it whatever, it told her that once again it was that Yvonne McTay from the Stonebrae estate.

  A thought worked its way through the crevices of panic in her mind. She’d tried it one way – ignoring the affair and hoping that it would end when the whore’s extension was finished. Well, months after that job was done, she was now positive it was still going on. She’d be damned if she would lose him though. It was time to come at it from a completely different direction.

  His snores told her he was still asleep, and the rhythm of his breathing didn’t change as she slipped out of bed and pulled on her jeans and a jumper.

  Creeping downstairs, she grabbed her car keys from the hook in the kitchen and silently slipped out of the door. There was a risk that the noise of her car starting in the driveway would wake him, but it was one she was willing to take. She already had a cover story that she was popping out to the all-night garage for some paracetamol for a migraine.

  It wasn’t a complete lie that she was going out to get rid of a headache.

  When she pulled up outside Yvonne McTay’s house, it was shrouded in darkness. The clock on the dashboard said 3 a.m., so the whole scheme was deserted.

  As quietly as she could, Denise opened her door, closed it behind her and walked up the path to Yvonne McTay’s front door. She held her finger on the doorbell until she saw a light come on in the room directly above her, the one that her husband had been in all those months ago. That very thought made her anger swell enough to suffocate all the nerves and anxiety she’d been feeling on the way there.

  Her finger was still on the bell, the buzzer piercing the air inside the house, when that whore threw open the door. Denise could see she was ready to launch holy hell on the person who was disturbing her sleep until…

  There it was. That flinch of recognition. That’s when she knew that she’d been absolutely right about the affair being a long-term thing as opposed to a one-off fling. This woman had no reason to know what she looked like, they’d never met and she was positive Ray wasn’t the kind of man who showed his clients happy snaps of the missus. Yet this woman knew who she was. Denise immediately guessed that just as she’d been doing drive-bys and keeping tabs on her husband’s mistress, curiosity and jealousy would have compelled this woman to do the same with his wife.

  The whole way over, she’d rehearsed what she was going to say. A childhood with Agnes Harrow had given her a mortal fear of confrontation, but she was fighting for her life here and she wasn’t going to allow her whole world to be taken away by this bitch standing in front of her, wearing the same robe she’d been wearing that night she’d had her tongue down Ray’s throat on her doorstep.

  ‘You know who I am,’ Denise began. ‘And I know you’re sleeping with my husband.’

  There was a pause as she could see her competition was deciding how to react. Deny? Apologise? Go with arrogance and disinterest?

  To Denise’s surprise, she went with calm acknowledgement, topped off with an edge of superiority.

  ‘I’m not going to deny it,’ McTay said.

  Denise had never committed a violent act in her life but she felt an almost irrepressible urge to claw her manicured fingers down this woman’s smug face. It wasn’t even as if she was some kind of stunner. Yvonne McTay was older than her, heavier and those roots showed she was no natural brunette. She looked… rough. Easy. Like the kind of slapper she didn’t think Ray would give a second glance to. She should be no competition for Denise and the time had come to make that clear.

  ‘Let me ask you then – you like living around here?’

  ‘’S’okay,’ came the reply, wary this time.

  Denise reached into her pocket, pulled out an envelope and held it out.

  Slowly, as if unsure whether it was some lethal weapon, Yvonne extended her hand and took it. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Look inside.’

  Yvonne gingerly used one finger to flip up the fold of the envelope and there was a slight gasp when she saw what was inside.

  ‘There’s £2,000 there,’ Denise said. She’d been squirrelling money out of her bank account for the last six months, not entirely sure why. Now she realised that she’d always thought it might come to this.

  ‘You can’t buy me off,’ Yvonne challenged, but Denise could see that now the money was in her hands, there was less bravado.

  ‘Maybe not. But here’s the thing. You can take that money – call it a going away present – and you can do whatever you want with it, as long as you have nothing more to do with my man.’ Denise kept her voice low and steady and just prayed that the other woman couldn’t see that she was shaken to her very core. She could not show weakness. If she did, she knew she would lose this battle.

  ‘And if I don’t?’ Yvonne asked tartly.

  Denise still wasn’t sure that she was winning here. Time to play the last card.

  ‘That’s why I asked if you liked living here. Because if I find out that you’ve been seeing my husband again, I’m going to put letters through all y
our neighbours’ doors telling them what a slut you are. I’m going to spray paint “whore” on your walls for the whole world to see. I’m going to find out where you work and place a call to your boss. Then I’ll stand outside every day and tell everyone who passes exactly what you’ve done. I’m going to shame you until you can’t even remember how to hold your head up. Do you understand?’

  Yvonne’s face was a mask of fear and doubt now. One of those threats had clearly struck home and victory was Denise’s. Slowly, almost indiscernibly, Yvonne nodded.

  ‘You’ll call him tomorrow and you’ll end it. You’ll say you’ve met someone else. Oh, and if you dare tell him about me coming here, I will carry out every single one of those threats, no matter what the outcome.’

  With that, Denise turned around, walked to her car and didn’t look back until she was turning the engine on. The doorway was already empty. Denise’s heart was racing. There was every chance that she was in there right now, calling Ray to tell him what had just happened. It was a risk she’d been prepared to take.

  When her hands had stopped shaking, and she regained the power of her legs, she slowly, cautiously, drove home, tears dripping down her face the whole way.

  When she pulled back into the driveway, she felt something beyond relief that the house was still in darkness.

  Upstairs, she slipped back into bed, beside her snoring husband. It was as if the last hour had never happened. Maybe, if she tried really hard, she could convince herself that it hadn’t.

  It was dawn before she felt her eyes closing. For once, she didn’t get up to make Ray’s breakfast before he went to work. The whole day she lay in bed, every nerve and muscle in her body rigid with fear and anxiety, unable to shift the duvet from over her. She was still there when she heard his key in the door, his footsteps go through to the kitchen, then climb the stairs to their bedroom.