Who Are You? (8 page)

‘I just pinned her up against a wall – I
certainly
wasn’t going to kiss the woman. Oh no, my darling, this was sweet revenge. And then I started lifting her skirt and I simply asked her to get ’em off. And she did.’

‘Just like that? I don’t believe you … and even if I did it’s just so bloody unthinkable that you’d do something like that. I mean, can’t you see how that makes
me
feel? And what about Caroline? What’s she going to tell everyone? And Marcus? Is that going to help us settle in here? God, Alex, I just don’t understand you.’ She’s pulled away from him and she’s just staring at him with a look of loathing on her face. ‘I can’t do this anymore, Alex. I try. God knows I try. But when you go and do something like that! Just tell me you didn’t. Tell me this is all some kind of cruel joke. You didn’t, did you?’

‘Juliet, I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about. I sorted it, all right?’

‘No you didn’t, Alex. You didn’t sort anything. You fucked it.’ She stands up and marches out of the room. Alex hears her going upstairs. No doubt she’s going to see her precious Ben.

He gets himself another whisky and as he pours it his hand starts to tremble. Bitch! What’s the point? Can’t she understand what he’s trying to do, to protect her from arseholes like Marcus Hunt? Christ, she complains about the fact that
he’s
the one who’s changed, but look at her and her insistence on acting like a bloody ice queen. No wonder he’s on edge. She’s the one who keeps telling him he needs help, but with a wife like her it’s no bloody wonder. Why can’t she be more supportive and sympathetic towards him; why can’t she try and
really
understand him? Call herself a wife? He empties his glass and pours himself another. The trembling has subsided; focussing on Juliet and her behaviour is making him angry, and anger is good. Why can’t she just let him love her for once instead of throwing it back in his face? Why else would he have taken it upon himself to sort out the business with the Hunts? Because he loves her, that’s why. All he wants is just to be able to feel normal again, to try and get back to the person he was … before. And you’d think that she’d understand that, that she’d be able to see how hard he’s trying to be a good husband and father. If she could only let him sort everything out in his own way then maybe they could move forward, or go backwards to rediscover the people they used to be. He drains his glass. He’ll have just one more.

An hour or so later, alone in their bedroom, he undoes the top button of his shirt and removes the bone collar stiffeners, then unhooks the cufflinks. He places them neatly in a small leather gentleman’s stud box, which has his initials tooled onto the lid. Beside this he has a set of ivory-backed brushes, also engraved with his initials. He lines up the brushes so that they are an exact distance apart. Then he trains his ears and listens to the thick silence coming from Ben’s room on the floor below. He throws his shirt into the dirty laundry, lines up the folds in his trousers and drapes them over the chair arm. Then he uses the bathroom quickly, cutting short the two minutes on the electric toothbrush. Basically he just can’t be arsed. Instead of rinsing the evidence of spit from the basin, he leaves it there, and leaves the seat up on the lavatory. The little things that annoy Juliet. His anger is rising. He wants his wife. He deserves his wife. He could have had Caroline Hunt with a click of his fingers. But his wife … She should be
grateful
that he hadn’t taken advantage of the situation. She should appreciate him. He gets between the sheets and lies on his back, thinking, or rather trying to control his thoughts. There are tricks he’s learned which help. Focus on the minutiae, remember … think back to this morning. Getting up, going to the bathroom, the journey to the office. The day’s business. What did you have for lunch, Alex? Focus … What calls did you make? What meetings did you plan? Christmas – think about your mother’s arrival. The tree you’ve promised to Ben tomorrow. The visit to the country’s most expensive garden centre, the ritual of getting the box of decorations from the big oak coffer. The moment you discover whether the lights will light or not. Juliet saying: I told you we should have bought a new set. Focus. Focus on all these things and then you won’t think. He turns onto his side and strains his ears for any sound of movement downstairs. Harder – he concentrates so hard that it seems the cavity in his ears is growing bigger, hollow caves sucking in every microscopic wave of sound, and he thinks he can hear tapping, almost rhythmical, like the sounds of rodent feet scurrying across floorboards. Then it stops. There’s silence again. He thinks about Juliet, he thinks about Caroline’s stockings. Marcus Hunt’s frightened face. He thinks about Ben. And Ben’s fear. And then he stops himself … the tapping starts up again … the rodent dance. But it’s not rodents, its fingers on a keyboard. Alex gets out of bed, pulls on his silk robe and goes down the stairs as quietly as he can, stealthily, just like a cat would stalk a mouse. There’s a faint glow of light coming from Ben’s door, which isn’t quite closed. He pushes it open and sees Juliet look up. Her face is lit by the reflection from the laptop screen.

‘Come to bed,’ he tells her.

‘No. I’m watching Ben. I’m going to stay here tonight.’ She keeps her eyes fixed on her screen.

Alex feels his temper rising. This is not good. Things can get ugly. Instead of raising his voice, he lowers it. ‘I said
come to bed.
’ He walks over to her, takes the laptop from her hands and snaps the lid shut. Then he takes her hand, pulls her out of the chair and says, ‘Good girl. Come on. Don’t worry, Ben will be fine.’

Back in their bedroom, he says, ‘Shall I unzip you?’ She doesn’t reply.

He slides the zip down to where it ends just above the cleavage between her buttocks. He pushes the shoulders of the dress down to her elbows so that the dress slips towards the floor. She steps out of it. She’s wearing tights.

‘What are these?’ He asks.

‘They’re tights.’

‘I hate tights.’

‘I know that.’

‘But you still wore them.’

‘Yes, I still wore them. I’m not your fucking doll, Alex.’

‘You are my doll, my little girl doll that I can do with whatever I please.’

‘I am
not
!’ She hisses.

‘Take them off!’

She looks at him defiantly, and then with a sigh of defeat she pulls the tights down and steps out of them. Alex grabs her hand and pulls her over to the bed, then pushes her onto her back. The bedside lights are still switched on so he can see her face quite clearly. That light in those iceberg eyes – it’s fear, he knows that. But it’s also arousal. He knows that she loves the edge, the riskiness, the never knowing what to expect. That’s why she’ll never get bored of him. She’s still got her bra and pants on. ‘I like seeing those new babies of yours shown off, like they’re framed, presented for me,’ he says, as his hands explore her, pushing her knickers down her legs and pulling them free. She closes her eyes. He kisses her lips lightly, then her cheek, then his mouth is next to her ear: ‘I love you, Juliet Miller. Never forget that.’

Juliet opens her eyes and he smiles down at her, and then as he enters her he can feel her body start to tremble. He knows she wants him; she needs him. They
need
each other. And for a while, just a short while, while he fucks her as hard as he is capable, his mind escapes to a better world altogether. Afterwards he pulls her into him and wraps his arms around her. He nestles his head close to hers and then he whispers into her ear: ‘You are mine,
all
mine, and I couldn’t live without you.’ Juliet doesn’t respond, so after a few moments Alex says, ‘You hear me?’

‘Yes, Alex, I hear you,’ Juliet sighs.

CHAPTER

5

Juliet is up and in the shower before Alex or Ben have stirred. Sometimes she loathes Alex so much she has to stop herself from getting a blunt instrument and smashing him over the head. She feels dizzy with it and has to breathe slowly to get herself under control. All the time Alex had been fucking her last night, all she could see was Caroline Hunt’s face smirking at her. Fucking. That’s what they do, she and Alex. Or rather that’s what he does to her. She doesn’t think he’s really
with
her any more. She’s not even sure if he remembers who she is – or even whether he’s aware that she’s actually there – when he’s driving himself into her. One time she imagined that she was the enemy, and his prick was a bayonet, stabbing away at her insides, until finally when he came, it was as though
his
life was ending. His eyes, even when open, are unseeing, as if there’s a film over them blocking his focus. He doesn’t seem to notice that she is withdrawing deeper and deeper inside herself; that she is searching for somewhere to hide away – somewhere safe in her head, if not her body. He doesn’t seem to realize that she no longer responds to him; that her limbs are flaccid and lifeless beneath him. He doesn’t seem to realize that he could be fucking a dead body, for all the response he gets. She scratches the shampoo into her scalp, feeling the rake of her sharp nails. If she could just scrub the dirty feelings away. She rinses the soap out of her hair, and then takes the shower head from the clip and runs it all over her skin, imagining the hot jets washing away the contamination of her husband’s body. Is it time to admit he’s beyond help? That they are both beyond help? This house, everything she’s been trying to salvage for the sake of Ben, for herself, for the salvation of Alex, is running away and she’s unable to stop it, like the water pouring through her fingers. He’s like one of those retired Army guard dogs that’s too fierce to be turned into a pet and so the only thing for it is to put it down.

It seems that too much time has passed for talking – to her, that is. One night she heard him screaming, begging almost: ‘I don’t want to die … please God … don’t let me die.’ She thought her heart had fractured. All she wanted to do was to gather him into her arms, but she didn’t dare risk it in case he attacked her. Sleeping beside Alex is a bit like sleeping in a minefield. If she kicks him or nudges him he is more than likely to explode into a full-on assault. How can you watch the man you love disintegrate like this? A man who’s fought and survived the bloodiest of battles, a man with medals to show how damned good he is, but who’s afraid to show his emotions just in case he might be considered weak. Weak. Now there’s a word. A word that doesn’t exist if you’re a trained warrior. She has said to him so many times, ‘Alex, it’s OK not to be strong all the time, it’s OK to be weak’, and all she’s got in return is his blank, unseeing stare of dismissal, as if she barely exists. Christ, what she’s had to put up with. And now this.

Is she supposed to feel OK about Caroline Hunt? How many women would
really
feel OK with their husband removing another woman’s knickers? And what will Caroline Hunt do about Alex? What would Juliet do if she were Caroline? Juliet – if she were Caroline – would spread the word that Alex had molested her. She’d have to do that in order to take the heat off herself, so that it didn’t look like she’d encouraged Alex. But she had. Without question she’d given Alex every come-on signal in the book. But maybe Caroline would say that she feared Alex would be violent. That she had to take her knickers off in order to get away. Her knickers or her life. Yep, that’s the way Juliet would spin it if she were Caroline. Question was, was Caroline manipulative enough, or clever enough to twist it in such a way that Juliet and Alex would be ostracised from the group’s inner circle before they’d even set foot over the perimeter.

What a fuckwit he was, as usual. And those were just the sexual politics, aside from the pain of betrayal, the cheapness and the downright seediness of her husband’s actions. She wonders how it is humanly possible to feel love for someone, to care about their suffering and their demons, to watch their disintegration with despair, and yet at the same time be able to feel so much hatred … and fear. It can’t be love that she feels for him. It has to be some kind of unhealthy emotional dependence. Traumatic bonding, maybe? She’s read about that, obviously.

She finds Ben standing on a stool in front of the cereal cupboard. ‘Ben, what on earth … ? You’ll fall.’

Ben turns and the stool wobbles. Juliet flies across the room and sweeps him safely onto the floor. ‘Ben! For God’s sake. How many times have I told you not to do that? You’ve got to wait until Mummy comes downstairs.’

‘I was hungry.’

‘Even so, you’ll fall and hurt yourself. You know what day it is today?’

‘Christmas Eve. Father Christmas Eve. He will come, won’t he Mummy?’

As Juliet nuzzles her nose into Ben’s hair, murmuring, ‘Yes, of course, darling’, she smells something acrid. ‘Oh, Ben.’

‘What?’

‘You know what. You’ve wet the bloody bed again.’

‘Don’t swear, Mummy. It’s rude to swear. Daddy says –’

‘Ben, I don’t care what Daddy says. It’s what I say that counts. Now come on, let’s get you upstairs and out of these pyjamas. I’ll have to strip the bed. Honestly, Ben. You’re five years old. You’re not a baby any more.’

‘Sorry, Mummy,’ Ben mutters quietly. Juliet knows she shouldn’t be cross, that her son can’t help it. But it’s such a pain. She seems to spend much of her life stripping and changing beds these days.

‘You need a bath. Go and take your pyjamas off and get into your dressing gown while I run it.’

Juliet goes into Ben’s bathroom and turns on the taps. The cistern next to their bedroom on the floor above will be noisy and will probably wake Alex. He’ll be angry. Not with Ben, but with her. She can write the script for the row. She’ll say: ‘I had to wash him, I couldn’t leave him like that.’ And he’ll say: ‘You could have waited until I got up.’ And she’ll say: ‘But his skin will feel sore and sticky and he smells.’ And Alex will say: ‘You’re so bloody prissy. He’s a boy. Let him man up a bit.’ And she’ll say: ‘Just because you’re used to spending weeks up to your neck in your own waste down some bloody hole doesn’t mean you have to put your five- year-old in training.’ And finally Alex will say: ‘For Christ’s sake, couldn’t you for once just do as you’re bloody asked.’