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Teresa was back in Brazil, in her old bed, in her old apartment. A noise awoke her. It was Bob, sat on the edge of her bed.
“Teresa, Teresa.”
Thinking it was a dream, she rolled over onto her other side.
“Teresa, Teresa.”
She sat up, and there was Bob, sat on the edge of her bed wearing all black. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, Bob grabbed her head and covered her mouth with his hand.
Teresa screamed, and Bob struggled to stifle the sound, so he grabbed a pillow and pushed it down over her face. She tried to pull him off, but he was too strong. Teresa was struggling to breathe, she tried to move her head to the side, but Bob was pushing the pillow down with such force that she could not move her head. She tried pushing him away, but he had his full weight on her. She reached out to try and find something to hit him with but when she reached out, all her fingers found were the peel of the orange she had been eating when she went to bed. Bob increased the pressure and Teresa could not draw breath.
She reached out as far as she was able, trying to find something, anything, with which she could hit Bob. Her fingers touched steel. She used all her strength to reach out as far as she could, grabbed the steel handle of the knife and plunged it as hard as she could into the side of Bob’s head.
Bob released his grip, Teresa pushed him away and removed the pillow from her face, taking a deep breath. She saw Bob stagger backwards, the knife protruding from his temple, an expression of disbelief on his face, blood dripping from the wound onto the floor.
As Teresa watched, Bob’s face morphed into the face of Felipe, and she woke up.
Teresa sat gasping for breath. It had been the usual recurring nightmare of the night her ex-fiancé attacked her, but this was the first time that Bob had taken Felipe’s place.
As she got out of bed, she wondered about the significance of the nightmare. She looked at herself in the mirror and noticed she had lost weight. It would please Bob when he saw her. He had spent the last couple of months sending her filthy texts.
Teresa thought she looked good for the first time in a long time, and she would have felt good too were it not been for an annoying backache she had developed.
She looked at the cash she was accumulating in her cupboard. Teresa had worked for nine and a half weeks by the time it came to move up north. It still gave her some cash in her pocket and, considering she didn’t have to pay rent and board; she managed to save a reasonable amount.
Annabel’s school hadn’t closed until the 21st and Henrietta had been fretting about whether she could get everything done for Christmas.
Annabel was very upset on her last day. The idea that she would leave her friends behind and may never see them again had been too much for her, and she had spent most of the previous afternoon in tears. Now she was being asked to leave her house behind. Annabel’s tears started flowing again.
The removal men arrived at the house very early and by mid-afternoon had loaded their van with everything that Henrietta wanted to take back to her house, mainly furniture. It was a long drive to their new home, and Henrietta told them they would not arrive until the evening.
She hadn’t been lying. At least the sun tried to keep itself above the horizon for the first hour as they rounded London, but by the time they joined the M1 motorway and started heading north, darkness had already fallen.
Teresa worried about Henrietta’s driving. She hadn’t even known the old woman could drive, let alone that she owned a car, and that it was parked in William’s street all the time they had been there. Teresa would have offered to drive, but her driving ban had not yet expired.
Annabel was still upset, and Teresa spent the first part of the journey consoling her until Annabel fell asleep. To pass the time, Teresa turned to her phone and caught up on the news about the cats and her possessions from Selma, as well as reply to the daily tirade of filthy texts from Bob.
*
When they arrived at Henrietta’s house, which, as far as Teresa could tell, was in the middle of nowhere, Teresa took Annabel to the toilet while Henrietta made up a bed in what would be Annabel’s bedroom. She helped Annabel into her pyjamas and then tucked her under the duvet where she fell asleep straight away.
Teresa was helping Henrietta take their luggage to the relevant rooms when there was a knock on the door.
“Hello Henrietta,” the sound of Bob’s voice was unmistakable. “I wondered whether you would let me take Teresa on a quick drive to show her the East Yorkshire skies. I doubt she’s seen the Milky Way with all the light pollution in Sao Paulo and London.”
“Bob,” Henrietta didn’t sound impressed.
Teresa descended the stairs.
“Ah, here she is,” Bob was not about to be dissuaded. “How about some stargazing to introduce you to the Yorkshire countryside?”
“I’m exhausted Bob,” Teresa began.
“There. You see?” Henrietta felt vilified.
“But it would be lovely to see the Milky Way,” Teresa was tired, but she wasn’t about to let Henrietta tell her what she could and couldn’t do.
“Well, that’s settled then,” Bob’s smile was wider than Teresa had ever seen it. “Let’s go. I promise we won’t be long Henrietta.”
“I’ll leave it on the latch then,” said the old woman, referring to the door lock. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
“Is she going to leave the door open?” Teresa asked Bob as they walked towards his car.
“You are in the country now,” said Bob. “It’s safe round here.”
Bob led her to a BMW 5 series parked in front of the house. Teresa wondered how much money Bob earned as a pastor as she climbed into the passenger seat.
“Ready?” he asked. A moment later, they were speeding down a country lane, and Teresa was hoping nothing was coming in the opposite direction.
They came to a halt in a car park, and Bob opened the sunroof.
“It’s freezing,” she complained.
“Yes, but look at the view,” he said as he reclined her seat.
She looked out of the sunroof, and there it was — the Milky Way, stretching out from one side of the heavens to the other.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I was not aware there were so many stars.”
“Do you know what those dark bits between the stars are?”
“No?”
“More stars. Everywhere you look, stars. The entire sky is made up of stars, some brighter than others. Our eyes can see the closest or brightest, but they are everywhere.”
“So, if God didn’t create all this, who did?”
“You’ve heard of the big bang?”
“Yes, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that... well... I assume you are driving this nice car because of telling other people that all that up there was created by someone or something for a purpose and yet you don’t have faith in any of that. Does that not make you feel guilty?”
“Not at all.”
“Why not?”
“Look. People hear what they want to hear. They come to me because I tell them what they want to hear. I make a good living by giving people what they want.”
“And you don’t feel guilty?”
“About what?”
“About lying.”
“I try not to lie if I can help it. People hear what they want to hear.”
He leaned over and kissed her.
“I didn’t bring you here to talk about me. I brought you here because I’ve missed you these last couple of months and I thought it was romantic.”
“You could have come down and visited.”
He shook his head.
“I used up all my favours staying as long as I did before William’s funeral. And anyway, you should know that Christmas is one of our busiest times of the year. Lots of people seem to feel more spiritual around Christmas time.”
He smiled a smile, in the presence of which, Teresa was unable to stay angry. He kissed her again, and she sank back into her reclining seat while he closed the sunroof and then climbed on top of her. They made love, but for Teresa, it was painful and not in a good way.
“Are you okay?” he asked when they had finished.
“I’m okay. It was painful, that’s all.”
“Painful?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure why.”