Valentina: A Hauntingly Intelligent Psychological Thriller (34 page)

So fill your boots, judge all you like. What do I care? I could bleat on, in my defence, about my mother’s depression at the hands of a cold academic husband, her spineless acquiescence in the face of my being posted off to boarding school, as if I were her ward and not in fact her own daughter. I could rant and rave about her move back to Aus the day I went to uni as if she had been waiting all my life for the freedom to leave me. I could wipe away a tear and tell you about my father
–
the esteemed Melbourne University Professor of Geophysics
–
who could be in a room with you and still be so absent you would begin to wonder whether or not you were really there. But I won’t.

So I got into the cottage, I drank her Scottish tea, ate her mother’s recipe cake and got her to show me upstairs. Seeing the picture of Michael on the chest of drawers was a kick to the solar plexus, I will admit.

“
That’s us at my parents’ silver wedding,” she said, in that self-satisfied way, as if happy marriage was in her genes or some similar smug self-delusion common to the terminally glass-half-full types. I had to throw myself on the bed to get her to shut up.

So we started to hang out
–
when I wasn’t teaching yoga
–
again, where that came from I have no idea. I think someone might have asked me if that’s what I did once, on account of my slim figure, perhaps my dancer’s posture. It’s possible I should have kept my distance but it wasn’t like I had better things to do on my days off, now that I had Zachary. Being with Shona was a little like being a stay-at-home mum except that, instead of the crushing boredom of polite exchange, I got to invent a whole other life for myself while someone with half a brain cooked my lunch. I loved eating her vegetable soup, staring around my future home and imagining all the changes I would make. The back wall would come off the day I moved in. The house was begging for picture window sliding doors where I would sit and gaze out at the lawns, the trees, the vast, vast space.

I don’t know where Graham came from, let alone Red. I’d had a dope smoker boyfriend at boarding school. He went to the boys’ school over the field. We used to meet
–
there was a dell where kids used to go to fuck. He was wild, sexy in a clumsy kind of way, but no, he didn’t have red hair. I think that came out because my own hair is rich auburn but once I’d said it I knew I couldn’t go back. I knew I’d have to find a red-haired guy. Not that we go round showing our friends pictures of our husbands, but it was possible I would have to provide photographic evidence, casually, if she ever asked. I’d seen a guy in Fittie who lived in one of the really small places like mine. I was pretty sure he worked offshore because I’d noticed him around, sometimes with his kids, sometimes not. Turned out he didn’t work offshore at all. He was divorced, only saw his kids at weekends and during the school holidays. I found this out when I knocked on his door and asked him if he could spare any milk. I was hoping to get from there to a photo, which was ambitious.

“
Hi, I’m Georgia,” I began. “I live opposite?” I waited.

“
Hello. Er. Colin.”

“
Colin. Lovely to meet you.” I giggled, shook his hand awkwardly. “Listen, I’ve just got back from the supermarket.” I shifted Zachary on my hip, making heavy work of it so he could see how awfully heavy my baby was. “I only went out for milk. I’ve spend fifty quid on all sorts of stuff I don’t need and guess what I’ve forgotten?”

He smiled, blushed. “Er. Milk?” And then he was standing back, ushering me in. I was trying to think whether or not he looked like a musician. His hair was red, yes, but rather nondescript, not what you’d call trendy. Might he be geek chic, I wondered. The kind of guy that wore nineteen-seventies metal-rimmed glasses and parted his hair at the side in a kind of ironic way
–
a beyond-fashion kind of style? So square he’s cool? Possibly.

It was dark in his place, no pictures on the walls, a television on a cheap birch veneer unit, a can of Fosters on the coffee table. The whole place smelled of stale cigarette smoke but you can’t smell a photo, can you?

I followed him through into the kitchen. He was wearing long khaki shorts and thick ski socks pushed down over his thin white shins.

“
I’ve seen you around with your kids,” I said. “I didn’t really know who to call on. I don’t know anyone here, you see.”

He opened the fridge door, pulled out a pint of milk. While we talked about his divorce, his kids, his ex-wife, he set about the painstaking process of finding a Tupperware tub, emptying a measure of milk enough for perhaps two cups of tea
–
big spender
–
and closing the lid so that it sealed, which required what looked like preternatural amounts of strength.

“
There.” I shifted Zachary to the other hip. “That was an effort and so kind of you. I didn’t mean to put you to so much trouble.” Too much? Did he spot the sarcasm? I don’t think so. Not like I said,
25ml? Are you sure? No, it’s too much, your generosity is overwhelming. I might weep.
“I’ll make sure I drop the tub back when I’ve finished,” is what I limited myself to.

He shrugged. “Aye. Great.”

I led the way out. His house was beginning to make me feel depressed. OK, so you’re divorced, I wanted to say. Do you need to be quite so central casting about it? Put some damn pictures on the walls, for Christ’s sake, hell, buy a throw. You see, don’t you, how restrained I had to be?

“
Hey listen,” I said, once we were on the threshold. “Sorry to be an absolute bore, but could I ask you another favour?” I took his shrug for yes. “I need a photo of Zachary to send to my mother. She’s nagging me about it and you know what it’s like in the evenings ... by the time my husband gets home, I’m tired, I forget, you know? You couldn’t hold Zacky for me could you while I take a quick pic? The light is so much better during the day.”

“
Sure.”

Well, what was he going to say? I couldn’t believe I’d ever worried about getting something as simple as a snap. Any old tourist can ask for a photo and people usually do what I tell them so why would Colin be any different? I handed Zachary over and dug my phone out of my pocket. Smile. Click. Smile again. Click. How about a selfie with all three of us. Tralala. What fun. Thankyouverymuch.

It was a blast, making all that up. And I wasn’t doing anyone any harm. People are so limited in the things they say and do, the way they live their lives. People are so damn dreary. Michael and I had vision, that’s all. We were just trying to do something different.

After my first meeting with Shona, I felt so much better about the arrangement. When Michael got in and hung up his coat and came to kiss me in the kitchen, I thought: I know something you don’t know. You think you’re so clever with your two lady puppets dancing to your tune. Little did he know that there was someone new pulling the strings.

Later, when he was on the phone to her, I went into the bedroom and texted her at the same time. Well, that was a riot, pure and simple.
Valentina
, I heard him say.
I knew you’d find your feet
. What a laugh. What a pair of idiots. Later still, when we made out on her sofa, I knew my gamble had paid off. Now, when he went to her, instead of sitting and waiting, resentful in pathetic compliance, I could really start to enjoy myself. From now on, things would only get more interesting.

There were other advantages. When Michael came to me he too needed to cut loose after two weeks of cloistered domesticity. I hired a marvellous babysitter from the nursery. She brought Zachary to the house straight from there, bathed him, fed him, put him to bed. We were free to go to the cinema, to dinner, we even went to a club one night and stayed out until three. We were freer than we’d imagined. In fact, sometimes it felt like we didn’t even have a child. And all the time, she was out in the countryside so there was no way she’d be in a restaurant, a pub, a club. How could she be? Someone had to look after Isla while Mikey was offshore. Even if she did eventually get around to a social life, my decision to befriend her so soon after her arrival would pay off handsomely. If she ever cobbled enough friends together for a girls’ night out, I would be the first to know, since I would be not only her friend but her oldest friend, her best friend.

Only once in that entire first fortnight did I think Michael might back out. That was the time he came off the phone the colour of stone.

“
She was here,” he said. “Today.”

“
What do you mean, here?”

“
In Fittie.”

“
Christ, I was here.” I heard the panic in my voice and immediately shut up. He didn’t know she and I had met, it was important to remember that. “But that’s OK, isn’t it?” I said, calmer. “She doesn’t know who I am so even if she saw me it wouldn’t matter.”

But he was still fazed. “I was in a meeting. I didn’t check my phone. I need to be more careful
–
she could see me.”

I kissed him, slowly, began to unbutton his jeans. “But she didn’t.”

He stayed my hand. “We need to come up with a story
–
something I can say if she ever catches me onshore.”

“
That’s easy,” I said. “Blame the weather. Say you’ve been emergency helicoptered back. Play up the danger, make her feel afraid. Say there was a fire, a mortal accident. Say you barely escaped with your life.” I finished unbuttoning, slid my hand inside his boxers and stopped talking.

As did he.

At the end of those first two weeks together, Michael and I were exhausted! I didn’t care. I knew I’d have two weeks off, as it were, to take it easy, go to bed at nine o’clock if I wanted to. This was perfect. While he was here, I could go out on dates, have regular sex late into the night, enjoy a limited amount of domesticity. While he was with her, life didn’t have to dry up altogether. There were lunch hours, there were hotels, and Fittie was not far from the office. While he was with her, I had my own space. I could read, shave my legs, eat digestive biscuits for dinner if I wanted to. I could take another lover, if I wanted to. This is what it meant to think big, bigger than the worker ants who spend their lives chained to convention. Two weeks in four, he lived with me. Four weeks in four, I did exactly what I wanted. I was happy with him, happy without, and I had my own little game of jeopardy going
–
only for my own self-respect, you understand. My life had never felt so balanced. Isn’t that what everyone wants, balance?

TWENTY-FOUR

And yes, I did leave Zachary with her while I went to meet Michael. That first time, as a test to see if she would, then several times after that. I’m sorry, but I cannot allow you to feel pity for her. Let’s not forget whose husband he was, not to mention who put up the deposit for the damn cottage. And while I was holed up in some minuscule hideaway, the North Sea battering against the walls, she was wandering the vast green lawns
–
aren’t the leylandii lovely, Mikey reckons we should make the pond into a sandpit
–
offering me, me, her hospitality like the lady of the fucking manor. Have you any idea how irritating that was for me? And the expense was crippling. It was a good job I was cushioned, financially, and that Michael’s parents were such a soft touch. We’d never have been able to afford it otherwise. That’s another thing that was so annoying about Shona
–
she was always telling him not to ask his parents for money. Never taking it upon herself to go out and earn some, you understand, but always pointing out how she was ‘managing’, how she ‘didn’t need much’. God knows, everyone hates a martyr.

So if I did let her look after her own stepson while I was a bit naughty with her boyfriend, so what?

Let’s not forget: I was his wife.

Looking back, I was nothing short of a saint putting up with it all. Sundays were terrible
–
endless. I called him once, desperate to talk to him, to someone, only to find out he’d taken her out into the country for Sunday roast.

“
We need that money, Michael,” I said. “I can’t believe you’re taking her out while I’m stuck here on my own.”

“
But I take you out.”

“
Michael, no one takes me out. I’m not a dog. We go out together.”

“
But if I never take her anywhere she’ll get suspicious. I can’t pretend we’re that skint.”

“
I had to pay her damn nursery bill last month and there you are, swanning off to country pubs. Tell her to sling a damn chicken in the oven. Tell her she can’t have any more childcare until she’s got a bloody job.”

“
I don’t want her getting a job,” he hissed
–
he was trying to keep his voice down, hiding in Isla’s bedroom like a crook
–
it was all so seedy, so bedroom farce, now I think about it. “If she goes back to being a reporter she’ll be zipping about all over the place. Even with Spyware, it’s too risky.”

I sighed. “Convenient.”

“
Look, you knew the deal when we moved here,” he said. “It’s a bit late to start moaning about it now.”

There was an edge to his voice I recognised. I knew I could push him no further. I took a deep breath
–
theatrical, perhaps
–
and reminded myself of the long game.

“
OK,” I conceded, forced a conciliatory smile into my voice. “You’re right. I miss you, darling, that’s all.”

My phone rang at 8:20am on Monday. Michael’s work number came up on the screen.

“
Georgie, thank God.” He sounded shaken.

“
Michael? Are you OK?”

“
Shona’s gone mad.”

My throat went tight. This was it, game over. I wasn’t even nearly ready for the fun to end quite yet. “Why? Has she found something out?”