Stranglehold (12 page)

She thought of turning into the driveway of that house, but there were high rhododendrons which shut out the sky for thirty yards beyond the gates, and she could not face the possibility of being overtaken in that darkness. She tried to increase her speed as she passed the gates: they seemed to swim past her in slow motion, as if someone was replaying the scene to study her futile flight at his leisure.

She wondered why the man had not overtaken her yet. He was no more than ten yards behind her, and he must surely be capable of arresting her stuttering progress now whenever he wished. Then came the worst moment of her horror, as she realized that he was merely biding his time, playing with her like a cat with a mouse. He would attack when she was at the least illuminated part of her route.

She wanted to turn and scream at him, to hurl defiance and abuse, to kick and scratch, perhaps even to put him to flight by the fury of her resistance. But the legs which so obstinately refused to flee any faster also would not let her stop. With her lungs bursting, she flung herself on towards the light which marked the first house of her road and possible safety.

She was at the darkest point when the hand fell over her mouth, gagging her, preventing her from flinging forth the wild screams which might still save her if there was anyone to hear them. She tasted the smooth glove in her mouth, tried unavailingly to close her teeth and bite it.

Then she heard the man laugh, hoarsely, excitedly. He was trying to twist her to face him. Suddenly, illogicallv she knew that he wanted to see her face as she died. She must not turn round, or let him turn her. She kicked out wildly with her heels, tore fiercely at the strong forearm that pressed so tight across her neck, refusing all the while to see the face of the man who was going to kill her.

It could have been only a matter of time. She was making no forward progress, and he was immeasurably the stronger of the two. But her struggling saved her, by the single extra minute it bought for her.

A car turned the corner at the end of the lane, by the lamp which she had been trying to reach, and came slowly towards them. Her assailant was aware of it before she was; it was not until he released her that she registered that the vehicle was there.

Suddenly, he was gone, half walking and half running back along the way they had come. Amy staggered forward, knowing she should stop the vehicle and secure her salvation, unable in her extremity to utter a sound from the throat which had a moment ago been crushed. She lurched unevenly towards home, expecting the vehicle to stop as it drew level with her.

She realized afterwards that she had assumed that it was the police car she had seen in the town centre: all she could see were the two orbs of light from the headlamps. Perhaps, from the speed with which he had released her, her attacker had thought the same. In fact, the car moved slowly past her, and she did not think to raise her arms in distress until she knew she must be outside the vision of the driver. It was an old blue saloon, its exhaust blowing a little from a hole: it moved on down the lane behind her without even checking its pace.

But it had saved her. The man who had followed her had disappeared rapidly before it. She hastened on, into her own road and towards the sanctuary of her house, looking fearfully behind her but seeing no more of the man who had followed her. He must be back at his car now. She could still taste the plastic of his glove in her mouth.

There was only a forty-watt reading lamp switched on in the lounge: Mrs Price, concentrating on her television film had no need of more. She did not notice how white and shaken young Amy was. And she was anxious to get away, so that she could catch the end of the film on her own set next door. Her haste made her miss the only real bit of melodrama that had fleetingly entered her drab life.

Amy found that Harry had left a little of his whisky behind him. There were about two inches in the bottom of a bottle under the sink, where she had hidden it from him months ago. She poured it into a tumbler and drank it like medicine, laughing a little hysterically as she saw her face screwed up in the mirror.

She was careful not to breathe on the children as she checked their sleeping forms before she crept into bed.

The whisky worked quickly: she did not realize that there were about six measures in the glass she had poured. Her last thought before she fell asleep was that there was no point in reporting the assault to the police. She had not seen the man, and she did not want the police asking about how she managed to support her children on her own. She had far better keep quiet.

It was the last and most serious of the foolish decisions she took that day.

‘It's our Ladies' Night in two weeks,' Charles Kemp reminded his wife. ‘You've got the date in your diary, haven't you?'

‘It's been there for months.' Diana Kemp looked in her dressing-table mirror and made a minor adjustment to her right eyebrow, studying her husband surreptitiously as he moved about the room behind her. He was running more obviously to fat now. He had always been a powerfully built man, seeming stocky despite being nearly six feet tall, but in their early days he had been hard and muscular. Now she could see his belly drooping a little above the belt of his trousers.

Had there been love still between them, she could have been quite affectionate about this touch of physical weakness; as it was, she found she rejoiced to see it. She wondered how his other women reacted to it. Perhaps his money would blind them to it for a little while. But she was long past deceiving herself.

‘Need a new frock, will you?' Kemp still spoke to his wife as his father had once treated his mother, so that dresses were still frocks to him. Party frocks, they used to call them, when he was a lad. And women could always be bribed to good behaviour by the offer of a new one, in those days.

‘I shan't be going.' Diana was pleased with the way she delivered this. It came out calm and clear, as she had intended. Modern women would have had no difficulty with the delivery, but she had been rehearsing it for four days. She could hear the pulse drumming in her head, even now, when the announcement was out.

Charles said, ‘What do you mean, you won't be going?' It was like a line in a bad soap, one of those American things she had insisted on watching a year or two back, but he couldn't think of any other reaction. He needed to think; already he was wondering what pressures he could apply to her when ordinary persuasion failed.

‘Just that I won't. I don't want to. You can go on your own.' She picked up a nail file and began to smooth some invisible blemish on the nail of the index finger of her left hand. She did not normally spend much time on such things; now she found them quite useful. They saved her from looking at her husband, reinforced the air of indifference which she did not feel but so wanted to project.

‘But you've got to, Di,' he said clumsily. ‘I can't go to a Ladies' Night on my own. Not when I've got a wife. Not when I'm to be the Master of the Lodge next year.' He realized anew how important to him it was to be Master, how much he treasured that assurance of respectability.

‘That's up to you. Sort it out as you think fit. Next time you play your dressing-up games with the other little boys.'

She shocked herself with the words: she had never spoken like this before; had even, in the early days, enjoyed putting on her finery to go out with him to the occasional Masonic functions where women were permitted. But with the surprise that she should speak to him like this came also an exhilaration. Her part in this exchange was not proving as difficult as she had thought it would be in the days of her anticipation.

He came over and stood behind her, placing a hand on each of her plump shoulders. It was a long time since he had done anything like that, and he felt her flesh stiffen under her dress. ‘Come on, old girl. Don't go sulky on me. Is it the change giving you problems again? We'll –'

‘No, it isn't. Can't you get it into your thick head that you can't write everything off to the menopause?' It was the first time he had heard her call it that. He had let her go her own way too much lately, he thought, been too confident that this section of his life would take care of itself while he got on with the rest. Perhaps the separate rooms hadn't been such a good idea after all. His eyes fell upon a copy of
Cosmopolitan
on her bedside table. She had been filling her head with these silly ideas of independence.

But she'd come round, if he gave her a little attention. She always had done. ‘Listen, why don't you go and get your hair done, and we'll talk about this later?'

‘I had it done yesterday. You just haven't looked at me.' She was triumphant in her grimness, not afraid to look at his face in the mirror now, enjoying his disconcerted reaction.

‘Sorry, old girl, I should have noticed. It's just that I've been rather busy at work these days, with –'

‘It isn't. And I'm not your “old girl”. Not your girl of any kind. I'm a woman, and one that's fed up with you and your ways.'

He tried stroking her hair, another half-forgotten gesture from their youth. It was dry and hard now beneath his fingers, where once it had fallen soft and lustrous over the back of her neck. ‘I need you, Diane. These blokes sneer at me behind my back. You give me credibility.'

It was so near to the truth that for a moment she weakened. It took her back to the old days, when the streetfighter making his way had needed both her support and the cloak of respectability provided by a wife who knew nothing of his more dubious dealings. He so seldom told her the truth now that his vulnerability almost won a concession from her.

Then she thought of the last twelve months and hardened her resolve. ‘They won't stop sneering at you because of me. They're sorry for me, those who know anything about you, because they know the way you use me. Wheeling me out to be examined whenever you need to show a dutiful wife, ignoring me the rest of the time.'

‘It was your idea to have separate rooms.' He felt himself being drawn into the argument he did not want, the one he could not win.

‘Only because I was sick of you coming home stinking of a different whore every night.' She checked herself, feeling herself being persuaded into anger and resentment. She had intended to be cool as ice about this. She didn't think he'd hit her, not any more, but she didn't want the kind of row where they flung obscenities and accusations at each other. He was better at that than she was; she would fight this battle on her own ground.

‘You've always enjoyed our Masonic do's,' he said. He was not used to having to get his way simply with words. He was used to having weapons to make people do his business: muscle or money or knowledge which could be used to apply the necessary pressure. Without them here, he felt himself powerless to crush her stubborn opposition.

‘How do you know what I enjoy any more? I might have enjoyed them a little once – I can't remember any more. But for years you've tarted me up like a Christmas tree and brought me out to be inspected.' It wasn't completely fair, she knew: she had gone along with it willingly enough for too long. But she was no longer interested in being fair to him. ‘I've had enough of being afraid to open my mouth, in case I reveal something I shouldn't about one of your shady deals before you've pulled it off.'

‘I need you, Di. Go with me this time, at least. Then we'll talk about things, see if we can put it right.'

It might have worked, if she hadn't heard the echo of the phrases he had used on her so often before. ‘No, we won't. I've tried to talk to you plenty of times in the last year, but you've never had time for me. You're only trying now because you want to parade me at the Masons.' She was surprised how calm, how logical she sounded, despite the pounding of her heart. She drew strength from that.

It was her logic that was defeating him. He had not expected this, had never invited her to reason with him in his life. Confronted with it now, he was at a loss. He clenched his powerful fists, resisting the impulse to try to beat her into submission. ‘It's my fault, I admit it. You're right to bring it to my notice.'

He used the phrase he had picked up as a standby when people began to complain about his business operations. He could hardly claim here, though, that some unthinking underling was at fault, that he had not been personally involved. ‘Now that I know you're unhappy, my love, we can begin to do something about it.' He made a clumsy grab for her hand, trying to cushion it between his own broad paws. It was another gesture from the past, but she easily avoided him.

‘I'm not your love, and I haven't been for a long time – perhaps I never was. And I no longer want to be your love.' She had picked up that phrase he never used, and contrived to deliver it back to him with a sneer that became more pronounced with her repetitions. This was easier than she had thought possible.

‘Doesn't all – all this I've provided mean anything to you?' He gestured vaguely round the bedroom, trying to take in the big house and the garden beyond it with the movement.

She looked at the long velvet curtains, the wallpaper with its small blue flowers, the long range of built-in wardrobes, the double bed with its bedside cabinet, its elaborate reading lamp and Teasmade, as though she was registering them for the first time. ‘I've never asked you for any of this. And God knows what you've done at times to get it. But I'll have my share, when I go. I reckon I've earned it.'

She had never before even hinted that she might leave him. He could not cope with the idea. But he had the sense not to continue an argument where she was scoring all the points. He would get away; think over her bombshell – marshal whatever resources he could to help him. Perhaps he could get their daughter over from Norwich to paper this over: he found it difficult still to think beyond the short term. ‘I've got to go, Di. We'll talk later. Whatever it is, I'll make it up to you.'