I throw the snow globe out of the door. It smashes into a thousand pieces against the side of the garage.
“Come on, girl. Quick!” With my hand on Milly’s collar, I stumble across the driveway to the car and open the driver’s door. “In!”
Milly clambers across the car and into the passenger seat and I hop in after her, lock all the doors, and start the engine. The radio explodes with sound as “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by the Pixies blares from the speakers, and I glance at the house, convinced someone is watching me from the window.
“Come on.” I wrestle with the gear stick as I try to get from reverse to first. “Come ON.”
Milly whines with excitement beside me.
“Yes!” With the car in gear, I glance at the rearview window. A black shape leaps at the kitchen window. Milly scrambles onto my lap, her claws scratching at the window as she barks furiously.
I pull on her collar and push her back across to her seat. “It’s okay. It’s just a cat. It’s just Jess from next door.”
I pull away, lurching into Western Road and a cacophony of car horns, and then I’m away, onto King’s Road, speeding along the seafront, past the marina and on toward Rottingdean. I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t care.
I hold it together until I pull into the parking lot of the Downs Hotel in Woodingdean, then, as I turn off the engine, I convulse so violently that I’m jolted back and forth in my seat. Milly whines in distress as my teeth start to chatter, but there’s nothing I can do but stare fixedly out to sea and wait for it to stop. After five minutes, maybe ten, the convulsions fade to shakes, then shivers, and then disappear. I slump backward in my seat.
James knows where I live.
The postcard, the slippers. They could be explained away as silly mistakes—someone too distracted to put a name and message on the card and a typing mistake that meant the slippers arrived at our house, not someone further down the road. But the snow globe? That was no mistake. He wants me to know he’s found me. And if he’s been watching us, he knows Brian’s moved out and I’m all alone.
My hands shake again as I rifle through my handbag for my mobile phone. My thumb flies over the screen as I unlock it, select the phone icon, and then tap 9…
I stop, my thumb hovering over the screen. If I call the police, they’ll think I’m having another episode and ring my doctor. That’s what happened the last time. But I was wrong to call them then. I genuinely was ill. Why else would I have believed that James was living in the shed at the bottom of the garden and sending me coded messages via wet laundry and dead birds?
With a tap of my thumb, the 9 disappears.
I select Brian’s number instead.
It rings then—
“Hello.” His tone is curt.
“Brian, it’s me. Listen—”
“No, you listen, Sue. I meant what I said yesterday. You either go and see the doctor or our marriage is over.”
“But Brian, something terrib—”
“Are you going to see the doctor, Sue?”
“No, but—”
“Then I’ve got nothing further to say to you.”
The phone goes dead.
I dial my husband’s number again. This time it goes straight through to voice mail.
“Brian, it’s Sue again.” I pause to steady my breathing. “I know you’re angry but this is important. Really important, and I need you to come home as soon as possible. When I got home from seeing Charlotte this morning, I…no, wait…there’s something I need to say first. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry for what I said last night. Keisha explained to me why Charlotte sent her that message and it was…well, I can’t begin to apologize for—”
To save this message, press 1. To leave a new message, press 2. To end the call, press 3.
2…2…2…I stab at the number. What just happened? Why couldn’t I leave a message?
“Hello, Brian. This is Sue again. I tried to leave you a message but I got cut off and I’m not sure you got it so I’ll try and keep this quick. I’m sorry about last night. I’m so sorry. What I said was horrible. It was worse than that. It was unforgiveable and I don’t blame you for walking out. I wasn’t thinking clearly, because James has—”
To save this message, press 1. To leave a new message, press 2. To end the call, pr—
I press the End Call button and the voice stops instantly. It’s no good. I’ll have to wait until Brian gets home. I stare at the phone. Who else can I call? Obviously not Mum. And I can’t ask Oliver to go back to the house with me because he’s back in Leicester, and besides, I’d never risk his safety like that. I can’t risk anyone’s safety.
I rest my head on the steering wheel and close my eyes.
I don’t know how long I stay there, slumped over the steering wheel, but when Milly nudges my hand and whines, I open my eyes and sit back in my seat.
“It’s okay, girl.” I stroke her wooly head. “I know what we need to do.”
Wednesday, December 19, 1990
I knew it couldn’t last, the blissful bubble James and I had been living in since we returned from Prague. I knew he’d have to go and spoil it.
We’d been to Clapham to discuss the new play the company should do next, and there was an argument between James and Steve about what they should do. The argument ended with James calling Steve “an arrogant little prick” and storming out. We went back to my place and James wouldn’t speak to me. I lay wide awake in the dark, wondering if I’d done something wrong, when James suddenly sat bolt upright in bed and looked at me.
“How many men have slept here?”
“Sorry?”
“In this bed. How many?”
I sighed and rolled over. “I’m not having this conversation, James. We’re both tired. Let’s just go to sleep.”
“How many?”
He was itching for a fight and there was no way I was going to let him have the satisfaction of me joining in. “None.”
“Liar.”
“Okay, one.” I pulled the duvet up around me. “You.”
“Bullshit.” He gripped the edge of the duvet and ripped it away. “This mattress is probably soggy with other men’s spunk.”
I stared at him in shock. “That’s a vile thing to say.”
“I’m not the vile one.” He jumped out of bed and looked down at me, sneering. “And I’m never sleeping in this bed again.”
“James!” I pulled the duvet back over my breasts. “Stop being ridiculous. Come back to bed, for God’s sake.”
“You stay in bed. I’m sleeping on the floor.”
“James!”
I watched in astonishment as he marched up to my wardrobe, threw it open, and pulled out an old camping blanket. He wrapped it around himself, grabbed a cushion from the armchair by the door, and lay down on the floor with his back toward me.
“James, please.” I inched toward the edge of the bed and reached out a hand. “This is ridiculous. You’ve slept in this bed loads of times and it’s never bothered you before.”
He flipped over to face me. “We weren’t engaged then.”
“That’s what this is about? Us getting engaged?” A wave of fear crashed over me. “I don’t understand.”
“Us getting engaged changes things.” He sat up, resting his back against the wall. “You’ll be my wife one day, Suzy, and I can’t deal with the fact that you’ve been with so many men.”
“But I haven’t. I’ve only—”
“Fifteen,” James said and I cringed. Why had I been so honest with him on our second date? Why? “You gave your cherry away to a one-night stand who used you like a dirty wank rag.”
I prickled but said nothing. It wasn’t worth it. At least James had stopped raging and was speaking in a more measured, almost reflective, tone.
“I waited,” he continued. “I waited and I waited to meet the woman who’d saved herself for me but, time and time again, just when I thought I’d met ‘the one,’ I’d find out she was a dirty slut like all the others. Do you know what I did?” He reached up and grabbed my wrist, yanking me toward him so our faces were millimeters apart. “Do you know what I did when I finally accepted there was no such thing as a soul mate and that the world was laughing at me? I gave my virginity to a prostitute!” He spat out a laugh, spraying me with saliva. “Yes, an actual slut. Why give it to an amateur when I could give it to a pro?”
I said nothing. James was scaring me, the way he was staring at me, his fingers pressed into my wrist, his hot beery breath flooding my nostrils. I’d never seen him look so angry, never seen him glower at me with such hatred and resentment. I wanted to reason with him, to apologize to him, to commiserate with him. Instead I said nothing and bit down on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying.
“I never expected to fall in love with you.” His voice fell to a whisper. “I thought you were another good-time girl I’d have fun with.” He leaned away and traced the shape of my lips with his index finger. “But there’s more to you than a regrettable past. You’ve got a beautiful soul, Suzy. That’s why I gave you my grandmother’s ring, the most precious thing I own. I hate that other men have fucked you and they didn’t realize what a precious, precious jewel they held in their arms. I want to destroy them, one by one, until your past is obliterated and there’s just me and you in the here and now.” I must have made a noise, some squeak of surprise, because he added, “I’m talking metaphorically of course. I’d never hurt anyone. You know I’d never hurt a fly, don’t you, Suzy-Sue? Never.”
The atmosphere in the room was so thick, so charged with emotion, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to break out of James’s arms, throw open the window, and gulp huge lungfuls of night air.
“We’re engaged,” he continued. “It’s a commitment to each other but it’s also a new start. Let’s wipe the past from our lives, Suzy, and begin again. Is it too much...” He glanced at the headboard then back at me. “Is it too much to ask you to get a new bed?”
I shook my head. Looking at it like that—like we were practically married—it didn’t sound such an unreasonable suggestion. A new life together and a new bed. It made sense.