‘I’ve stopped recording now,’ he says. ‘TheSunis interested in the story. You’d be splashed all over the papers. Stephen would never get another job. You’d be labelled all kinds of things.’
‘How does that benefit you?’ I say.
‘I don’t like to be blackmailed, Lalla, so I want to show you what it feels like. You meet me in a hotel and apologize properly, and I won’t send this tape to the papers.’
Chapter72Georgie
It’s not been such a good day. The police interfering with my marriage. Krill getting the better of me. Husband keen on divorcing me. On the positive side, Nelly’s success is now almost guaranteed. Although Tor continued to squeal at me for the dreadful crime of ensuring my child succeeded at the expense of hers (surely the foundation of her own social class), when we received our children’s confidential candidate numbers the day before the exam, she caved in and swapped numbers with me.
Nelly, joyfully, said that she found the examination easy, which probably means she simply made up her own questions. I checked that she put the swapped examination number on her paper, and she said that she did, so as long as she’s not lying, her mark will be assigned to Hero, poor thing.
I just need to find a way to delete Hollis, nullify Krill’s disgusting demands, and keep Stephen. A problem of being over-married, over-desired, and under-loved, but at least it’s a puzzle that I can put right.
These tiny modern houses, essentially one small box beside another, go for £1.3 million. Kitchen, living room, two bedrooms with a bathroom in between, and a tiny back patio. There are several of them in a row. Once considered modern, with slotty windows like postboxes and a small front garden, they now look dated.
Georgie’s daddy, the baronet, probably bought the house some years back when it was a snip at £750,000 – a place just out of town for his darling daughter before he died, and a sound investment too. I imagine she eats salads out of plastic boxes, does home Pilates in full-on Lululemons, and spends the evenings chatting with Tiggy, Cozzy and Jasper on FaceTime about her latest status symbol purchases.
Having ensured I’ve not been followed, I sit in the car in a side street just off Southwood Lane, wearing gloves and a beanie. By 2 a.m., the lights are almost all off in the row of houses. I get out of the car and walk to Georgie’s house. I look at the locks. A Yale and a mortice. There are two such keys on Stephen’s spare keyring, which is in my hand.
I try the mortice. It turns easily and without a sound. The Yale also works, and the door opens quietly. I slip inside and smile at the sensation of being a secret and unwelcome guest. I walk through her kitchen and open her fridge, which is completely empty like everything else about her. Her living room is not only small, it’s so devoid of character I feel nauseous.
I stop at the shelf built into an alcove. There are several framed photographs of Georgie and Stephen from long before I met him, along with several more recent ones. I am simply an interregnum. From Stephen’s haircut and clothes, I can just about date them. Two go back to before Nathan was born and one is not long after, and I thought I was the deceitful one in our relationship. The more I find out about people, the more I realize that I’m the normal one.
At this point, I want to do harm. An emptiness rises within me and then a growing anger. I take each photograph, one by one, and place them face down. I leave my shoes by the door and tiptoe upstairs. Her bathroom is rather messy and there are flecks of toothpaste on the mirror. My pale face looks back at me steely-eyed. I take each precious tube, brush, stick and case from her bathroom cabinet and put them one by one in the toilet bowl. Each little splash of water fuels my anger.
I draw a broken heart on the mirror in red lipstick, then put the plug in the bath and run the hot tap. I head for her bedroomwith nail scissors in my hand and open the door. I stand there, watching her sleep, twisting the razor-sharp scissors in my hand. Her body is long and thin. I doubt there’s too much blood in it. I think of it as assisted suicide. Alcohol, pills, bath and wrists. Standard procedure for someone with a broken heart jilted by their married lover.
I take a bottle of vodka from my handbag and a large box of paracetamol. The bath will soon be ready. I move to her bedside and stare down at her. Even with a to-do list, I’ve struggled to make Stephen feel how I want him to feel. What does she have that I don’t? Is it just that he wants to be needed and I don’t have needs? Men are so weak.
By her bedside is a notebook from Liberty decorated with pretty pink and purple flowers. There’s a pen beside it. I can’t imagine what someone like Georgie has to write about. I open it and immediately realize who it was that sent the anonymous letter to Stephen. In these days of texting and sexting, Stephen didn’t even recognize her handwriting. Was this a clever ploy to push him to the edge or even to push me to the edge? It seems too clever for Georgie, who only managed to pass two GCSEs, one of which was PE.
Staring down at her rather innocent-looking face, I see that she’s clutching a teddy bear. It’s so incredibly threadbare that I can only presume she’s had it since she was young. An image of Nelly lurches from the recesses of my mind. I see her asleep with Dolly, clutching something that she knows, as the world around her seems so unknowable.
Without thinking, I reach out and touch Georgie’s cheek. I pull back as she stirs and find my eyes are wet with tears. I have no idea why, but looking down, I have a sudden change of heart. I don’t want to hurt this woman. I actually think it’s Stephen I want to kill right now, not Georgie with her teddy bear and romantic fantasy. She just tried to win something back that she’d lost, that’s all. Nothing wrong with a trier.
I reach down and slowly prise the teddy bear from her arms. If I’m not going to kill her, I should at least be allowed to annoy her intensely. It pleases me more than it should. I take the teddybear, pick up the diary and leave. Downstairs, there’s a large black leather Prada tote bag. I have an identical one. Something tells me that Stephen bought one for each of us, which is another sudden imaginary stab against him. I tip out the contents and drag the scissors through the sides of the bag, leaving three long gashes, like tiger claws.
Chapter73Electricity
Friday, 24 January
I feel truly blessed to be pregnant. Despite the daily sickness, loss of reliable biological functions and excruciating pain ahead, it’s a magical gift. If it is Zac’s rather than Stephen’s, it’s good to know my child will have more get up and go, even if they’ll never know their biological father.
Of course, there are one or two obstacles in the way of happiness. Stephen’s still going on about the incident in the kitchen with the knife, as if that’s the key issue! He’s probably upset at having his dream of running away with Georgie questioned. I told him that all couples bicker. And anyway, a wife wouldn’t kill her husband because it’s a pleasure she could only enjoy once.
My current mark is walking down Fleet Street after work with a large and rowdy group of bankers. He’s wearing a three-piece suit and a small pink party hat that he no doubt thinks is hilarious. I’m on the other side of the road, taking care to stay behind the group, in a beautiful deep red cashmere coat.
The group collect around the entrance to a high-end, glass-fronted bar with neon signs and a security man standing guard. They stop to have a loud discussion with the doorman, then pile through the door. I cross the road and follow them inside.
I realize that I have an unfulfilled urge after I wasn’t able to murder Georgie and was unable to sleep, worrying that I’ve discovered some kind of internal moral qualm. Josh Krill is not expecting to see me, I can tell that from his expression as he turns to me from the urinal he’s pissing into. I’ve put an out-of-order sign on the outside door of the gents that says: ‘Raw Sewage – Please Use the Ladies’. This should give me sufficient time.
It was galling to watch him and his shiny-suited mates laughing uproariously at the bar, drinking stupidly and poking fun at everyone around them, as if they had not a care in the world.
He looks up and sees me. His eyes widen. ‘You? I thought our date night was tomorrow? I’m looking forward to getting to know you intimately. It turns me on when a woman doesn’t want me. Is that weird?’
‘Yes, it’s fucking weird. You think I’d sleep with you because of those threats, do you?’ I say, closing the toilet door.
‘I think you just have to take one for the family. You might actually enjoy it,’ he slurs, swaying slightly.
