PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (5 page)

As
close as I dare, I hover on the jetty, watching my reflection billow in the
black winter waters.  It knows that I am his.  I pull my coat in close, and
wrap it around me before pouring the rest of the coffee into the lake, and
throw the cup in behind it.  A poor offering that will never be enough.  My
reflection blurs and I disappear in the sludge.

I
turn and run, dodging the boat hire stalls and lamp posts, following the path
as it hugs the water’s edge as it reaches out to touch me.  To claim me.  I
reach the car and in the mirror I see my cheeks are pink and I am sweating,
beads stuck to my forehead like frozen diamonds.  My hands grip the steering
wheel, my knuckles whiter than the bone beneath the skin.  My breathing is hard
and laboured, and I tell myself it is due to the pregnancy but I know it’s a
lie.  I ask myself again why I do this, why I come here, but I have no answer. 
I drive out of the car park faster than is sensible and again I wonder if I am
cut out for parenthood.  I take one last look in the rear view mirror and tell
myself I will not come here again.  I will be a mother.  I cannot give myself
anymore.  I whisper, "I can't," before the lake disappears into the
distance.  I swear it knows what I am thinking.

I
pull over just inside the private driveway, designed to keep out the
riff-raff
as Gregory calls them, by the placement of a sign that reads
Private Road.
 
My knuckles still have a Velcro-tight grip of the wheel.  My mouth is dry, like
coffee flavoured sand paper, and my tongue is grating on the roof of my mouth
to the point that I think I can almost taste my own blood.  I wind down the
window and stick out my head like a dog in transit, gasping at the cold air, my
mouth hanging open, the chill burning the inside of my nose.  For a moment I
think I am going to be sick, but I swallow hard and the urge passes.  From here
I cannot see my house as it sits just over the brow of the hill.  I can only see
two of the houses from here.  They look warm and comfortable, lights on and
fires lit, the women inside making a home for their men to return to. 

When
I hear tyres moving over the tarmac I pull at the brake handle, but find it
already pulled up high.  Then I hear the horn coming from behind me.  It is
Mrs. Sedgwick in her birthday present, an obnoxious black Range Rover,
strangely perfect for the local roads, and yet grossly oversized to pass in them. 
She toots again and waves, but the turned down over-plucked eyebrows are really
asking if I am alright, and I can tell that she is wondering why I am sat here
on such a cold day with my head hanging out of the window.  I acknowledge her
with a slight wave and a smile before proceeding along the driveway.  I wish
she hadn’t seen me here like this.  I try so hard to appear sane in front of
the neighbours.  Gregory prefers it that way.

I
have certain expectations of our marriage,  that if I am honest with myself, are
not being met.  For example, I expected that I might smile each day, safe in
the knowledge that two became one and that there would always be somebody at my
side, every day of my life.  That I would never be alone.  Not again.  I think
this is a fairly reasonable expectation and yet it hasn’t really worked out that
way.  I feel alone each day of my life.  I spend most days as if I were mute, talking
only to Ishiko, which doesn’t even count.  I don’t have anybody with whom I can
gossip about the weight that Mrs. Sedgwick has gained or the new breasts that
Mr. Wexley bought for Marianne.  Mr. Wexley is our closest neighbour.  Marianne
is his girlfriend.  She will also be coming for dinner tonight to celebrate my
birthday.  Mrs. Wexley is away visiting friends.

I
also expected that I might be encouraged to do the things I wanted, rather than
the things deemed acceptable for me.  Instead I have been encouraged time and
time again to leave my job, to learn how to bake, to take up a craft, and align
myself with a charitable organisation.  After all, I live in the largest of the
Windermere Grove Cottages, mansions built by Gregory’s grandfather in the late
forties after a hefty incentive was paid to the planning department.  I have
repeatedly disappointed Gregory by continuing to work, by my reluctance to have
a housemaid for him to enjoy, and with my lack of involvement with the other
wives.  He believes that I do not understand or support his position in the
community.  If only I could accept the new life, I might find I would be
happier in it, he used to tell me.  At first he thought it quaint that I wished
to hold on to some resemblance of normality.  He humoured me for a couple of
months.  I thought, naively I see now, that he might appreciate my efforts not
to have to support me financially.  I have since established that he would have
been much happier if I had been around to cater to his whims, to float about
the house being precious and delicate and needy and rely on him for everything. 
I realised this when I returned from the hospital.  He thrived when lavishing
me with his suffocating brand of attention.  I think if I had stayed depressed
and post suicidal he would have happily tended to my every need for the rest of
our life together.  He would never have needed Ishiko if I had continued to
need him so much.  To not be needed would be the worst thing in the world for
him.   

I
already noticed that the Auschwitz style chimney from our roof is pumping out smoke
into a royal blue sky, which tells me that Gregory will be in the drawing room,
sipping a brandy, getting into character of
Entertainer
and
Friend
. 
He is neither of these things, but tonight I will see the man I married.  He
will be charming and full of wit, sharing anecdotes of our life together that I
do not recall or remember living through. 

He
does not greet me at the door as I had hoped and scripted in the moments
leading up the steps.  I push open the door and Ishiko is standing in the
hallway waiting to greet me with her head bowed.  I consider for a moment
grabbing it and pushing my fingers into her eye sockets as I lean her backwards
and smash it against the banister, but my ideas fade at the sight of her
outstretched arms, one empty and waiting for my coat, the other loaded with a
small disc tray, on top a brandy over ice.  She doesn’t say a word.  There is
no nod to the drawing room.  She just holds out the tray, and like a good guest
I drape my coat over the servants arm and take the glass. 

The
drawing room is my least favourite room in the house.  He is sitting in the
green Queen Anne chair, always reserved for moments of reflection such as this
when he wishes to appear pensive and refined.   Next to him is a fireplace
draped in ivy, clinging to anything it can hold on to, as if even the trinkets
and mantle piece want to escape.  Many times I have entertained the thought of setting
it alight, the flames tearing murderously up through the stems and leaves.  I
imagined waiting until the tips of the flames tickled the canvass of the
portrait of his parents above.  I wondered how long it might take before the
whole room was ablaze, the flames scorching through the thick drapes and lush
wallpaper as if it was tinder.  I lit a match once and held it to the lowest
leaf.   At first I didn’t think it would catch, but then all of a sudden it
sparked, a tiny firework of joy, before I heard company in the hallway and
quickly patted it out. 

Gregory
has angled his chair to the French doors which overlook the garden.  He has
pulled the drapes back to view the expanse of garden which surrounds the house,
and meanders down to a line of trees before the vista of the lake beyond. 
Sometimes I want to look at it, and other times not.  Today I have done my
looking.  I take a seat on the settee behind him which is closer to the piano
that nobody can play and wait for his acknowledgement.  I cannot see above the
trees here.  There is no vision of the water.  I could almost forget that it’s
there.  Almost.

When
he sits in his chair like this, gazing out at the world beyond, he always looks
like he is in mourning.  To be around him sometimes is so depressing.  He sips
his brandy, keeping the glass to his lips and the syrupy drink in his mouth, so
close to the front it is almost spilling back out.  There is a stool alongside
him and he motions to it.  I consider being stubborn, to motion to the settee
which has ample room for him and no view.  But I remember the decisions I took
whilst on the way back home and instead I smile, walk over to him like a
schoolgirl to the call of her demanding father and take a seat at his side. 
Again he sips his brandy and I consider changing my mind.  But it’s too late.  For
a bit of self encouragement I tell myself that I am going to be a mother,
hoping that this might be enough to get me through the next few minutes.  A mother. 
A wife and mother.  That’s what I have to be.

“How
was your day?” I ask, as he swills his glass around creating a small whirlpool
of brandy.  I can see that he has opened the expensive bottle that he ordered
from France in the heart shaped canteen which came in a wooden display case
that reminds me of an open casket.  I hear Ishiko close the kitchen door.  I am
still holding my glass and I bring it up to my lips and pretend to drink.  My
glass doesn’t smell of warm wood, or rich like tobacco like I know the
expensive brandy smells like.  Instead, mine smells like alcohol, and I assume
that what is in my glass is the cheap brandy which he serves to unimportant
guests.  It is the same brandy that Wexley will drink tonight after being shown
the heart shaped chalice.  “Mmmm,” I say, motioning to the glass.  “It was
worth the money.”

“Not
really,” he says.  He puts his glass on the table and rubs his hands together
to rid his fingertips of the icy condensation.  He adjusts the position of last
Sunday’s newspaper which is hovering on the edge of the table.  Props ready.  I
attempt to set my glass down on the table but he quickly gets up and produces a
silver coaster faster than the hand of a magician and slides it under my glass
just in time.  Stood next to each other I can see that my brandy looks orangey,
his more like mahogany.  “Anyway, it was pleasant.” 

“The
brandy?” I ask.

“No,
my day.  It was pleasant.”  I wish for once he would give me something other
than middle of the road.  I would love for him to love me, but I would rather
him hate me than feel nothing of importance. 

“The
renovations?”  I have chosen to believe that the renovations were not a cover story
for his lack of desire to be at the hospital today.  I have chosen to believe
they are actually happening.  To not believe this is too difficult.

“They
are going very well, thank you.”  I haven’t been to the hotel in a long time. 
He used to take me each Saturday but after a few weekend house showings his
will to fight for my time expired.  I know this because Gregory told me so.  There
is silence for a moment whilst he sips from his drink.

“Gregory,”
I say, “I have taken a decision of which I think you will approve, and I hope
that it makes you happy.”  He doesn’t turn to look at me.  Instead he sets his
glass down onto the coaster and strokes the tweed of his jacket sleeves,
pulling off a small bobble of material that had the impudence to appear.  He
tutted at the offence, at the audacity for it to show up on his jacket.  “I
think it will help us, help us to.....” I pause, uncertain if he is even
listening.

“To
what?” he says without looking at me, dropping the fluff ball to the floor. 

I
want to say survive, to be what I thought we might be.  I want to say it might
help me to feel alive, to feel that I exist, and that I have a place in the
world instead of living somewhere that feels like purgatory, neither living nor
dead, just floating through a poor excuse for Elysium.  Instead I say, “to
spend more time together.”  I smile encouragingly like the doctor did for me
earlier on today.  He isn’t smiling, but he looks at me, and I take the
acknowledgement as a good sign.

“What
decision have you taken, Charlotte?”

Even
as I am saying the words I cannot quite believe it.  I would never have thought
that I would succumb to that which was expected of me.  I never thought that I
would agree to spend my days as others saw fit, to run by their schedule, or to
rely on the presence of another person to validate me.  I want to be sick as I
hear myself say, “I have resigned from my job.”  With an overstretched smile
plastered onto my face, and the fact that I am forcing my eyes not to wrinkle
and cry, I look like a moving version of a fucked up Picasso, my features out
of line and two dimensional. 

At
first he doesn’t say anything.  He just looks at me, his interest garnering
momentum as if I am appearing through a haze of smoke.  His eyes move across me,
tracing the line of my lips, and then my nose, my eyes.  It feels like he is
wondering what I am thinking like he did when we first met, wondering who the
person is behind the body, before he got to know the mind behind the eyes.  I
feel his eyes move down across the profile of my face, and his features
slacken, his mouth opens and I see his straight teeth, long and tombstone
shaped.  He isn’t smiling, but he looks almost like he is about to when his
gaze falls onto my breasts.  He lingers there a while and I feel my face flush because
he looks like he wants me.   I can’t remember when he last looked like he
wanted me.  He stands up from his chair and towers over me, casting me in
shadow.  He kneels at my side, and I can smell his sticky tobacco rich breath. 
He pushes his hand into my blouse, places his lips against mine and kisses me
hard, his mouth as wide as a lion.  With his other hand, which I noticed had
remained limp at his side until now, he grabs the back of my head.  His fingers
work through my hair until they make contact with my green scarf.  He grabs
this, choking me a little and I cough.  He seems to like it so I do it a bit
more, on purpose.  He pulls at my nipple and the flush that once filled my
cheeks has moved across my body and into my pelvis.  I feel as if he is
possessing me like a spirit, or a demon.  He is claiming me, his hands moulding
me as his own to become what he intended. 

“This
is mine,” he says, whispering in my ear before licking the auricle and biting
the lobe.  His lips move along my neck, and as he pulls my breast out from
inside my white blouse, he moves his tongue towards it. 

“I
am yours,” I whisper, thinking how easy it was all along to get him back, but as
I reach to return his kiss on the side of his face he withdraws his lips, pulling
me back with the scarf as if I have overstepped a line.  He stands up, adjusts
himself, as if he suddenly realised his mistake, as if he realises that he was
in the wrong place with the wrong woman.  I find that he is still staring at me
as I look up to him, my lips swollen red, and left breast hanging loose.