Obsession: A shocking psychological thriller where love affairs turn deadly Page 8
The fateful day arrives. Our alarm clock shrills into the bedroom. Rob rolls across the bed towards it and thumps it off with the palm of his hand. He buries himself back into the bed and nuzzles towards me.
‘It’s a first for the alarm to go off before we hear the children,’ he says.
‘Mmm. It’s nice to catch up on our sleep for a change.’
‘Sleep? Is that what we need to catch up on?’ he asks, running his hands over my naked breasts, caressing my stomach and moving down. I am ready, waiting for him to put me out of the frustrated misery I have sunk into, but just as he reaches the bud of my clitoris, sending pulses of electricity down my spine, there is a knock at the door and Pippa is there, standing in the middle of our bedroom in her pink velvet dressing gown.
‘Come on, you two,’ Pippa chirrups, ‘Nana’s here with Jenni’s boys, and breakfast’s ready. Scrambled eggs and croissants, remember, Mummy? Nana’s treat.’ There is a pause. She stands at the end of our bed, head on one side. Seven going on twenty-seven. An advantage to be on the right side of.
‘Nana asked me to remind you, Daddy,’ she continues, ‘the van is booked for 9 a.m. and it’s 8:20 now.’
Rob groans, reaches for his dressing gown from the floor beside the bed, wraps it around himself and heads for the bathroom.
‘Thank you, Pippa, we’ll be down in about five minutes,’ I say, hoping she’ll go away. With a toss of her straw-coloured hair, she obliges. Thank God.
By the time we enter the kitchen, the children have disappeared to watch TV or play computer games in another part of the house. My mother is washing the last few dishes. We skip breakfast and grab coffee before Rob leaves to get the van, whistling along the pathway as he goes. Rob always whistles when he’s happy. Why is he so happy, Jenni, that you’re moving house?
Craig and Jenni’s father, Stuart, arrive at the same time. They move along our garden path together, making polite conversation. Nodding their heads. Sharing clipped grins. Stuart, so fine-featured and thin, Craig broad and enormous beside him. Although Stuart is trying to be polite, his immobile eyes shout of disapproval. They come into the kitchen, and Craig stands there by the counter, avoiding eye contact with me, avoiding eye contact with anybody; an eagle of a man, proud and taut, attractive to look at and difficult to read. Today he is wearing builder’s overalls to demonstrate his readiness to help – thunderous, ponderous, stone-faced. The atmosphere hangs heavily. I am relieved when Rob returns with the ubiquitous white van he’s hired, and it’s finally time to go.
Rob and Craig take the van. Stuart and Mother take the kids. I walk to Jenni’s house on this dull damp morning, cold nipping at my exposed skin, damp seeping into my bones. Everything looks grey. Grey upon grey. The grey of Stansfield with its rain and mist and steely sky, rain spotting into metallic puddles, grey-faced people scuttling past, shoulders down, ducking from the wind. The council building, the library, Costa Coffee. The Travelodge. Everything is grey. The Travelodge. My stomach tightens. How much do I miss my visits? More than I can ever explain.
I arrive at your house, Jenni – a row of mock-Georgian townhouses up a side street near the fishmongers – before Rob and Craig get here with the van. As I walk up your front steps, which rise above your garage to your ground floor entrance, I see your face fleetingly at the window, hovering like a ghost’s – pale skin, eyes dominating it like saucers. You don’t smile. You don’t wave. Your face dissolves and you reappear at the front door to open it.
‘Thank you for coming,’ you mutter, eyes down. ‘Everything’s packed.’
I follow you into your living room where your life surrounds you in boxes, coffee tables on their side ready to be carried out, sofa and chairs pushed together.
‘The things with red dots on are mine and the ones with blue dots are for Craig,’ you say. There is a pause. ‘I thought we could load Craig’s stuff into the van last so that it can be the first out.’
You sniff and cough a little and then you are crying. You are in my arms, your head against my chest, gulping for breath, sobbing and wailing. I stroke your back gently to try and soothe you.
‘Rob and Craig will be here in a minute with the van,’ I warn you. ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’
‘You know I do,’ you whisper. ‘I have to.’
I see the van arrive, over your shoulder, through the hall window. Craig gets out of the passenger seat and walks up the steps to the front door, watching us through the window. He sees you crying in my arms and his body crumples. He turns, says something to Rob and walks off round the corner. He can’t cope. He still loves you. Even after everything you are putting him through. Everyone loves you, Jenni. What have you done to deserve that?
The doorbell rings. You detach yourself from me and move towards the doorway to answer it. By the time I reach the doorway you are clinging on to Rob, just as a few minutes ago you were clinging on to me. I stand behind you in the hallway, watching you clenched together, feeling superfluous again. Sanctimonious bitch. Do you want to move or what? And what makes it worse is the sight of Rob simpering into your ear.
‘I know this is difficult. But I think you’re doing the right thing. The brave thing.’ His voice is soft, coaxing.
I look at Rob holding you in his arms talking shit, and I want to damage him. Or you. Or both of you. Perhaps I’ll just settle for you.
‘Come on,’ he says, still holding you in his arms but leaning back so that he can look at you as if you are precious. ‘Are you ready? Shall we get going?’
You bite your lip and nod.
‘OK then?’
You nod again.
Rob pulls his phone out of his pocket.
‘OK. I’ll phone Craig and tell him to come back.’
After a while, Craig returns looking stoical, and we pack the van. You are coping now, Jenni. Except for the occasional sniff and long-ish visits to the toilet, you are fine. As requested, we clear each floor of red dots first then return for the blue. The whole process takes several hours. Working hard has softened the atmosphere, diverted our attention from each other.
We have almost finished. Jenni, you and I are on the top floor in the large bedroom your boys always shared. The men are downstairs making a cup of tea. This room is cluttered with boxes, more boxes than any other room has produced; boxes and boxes of toys. It is a light room at the back of the house, with two large windows looking out onto the neat row of gardens behind. It has always been my favourite room in this house. Jenni, you spent so much time decorating it for the kids, and interior design has always been one of your strong points. I stand looking at the remnants of the boys’ bedroom – not much left now, just the blue wallpaper with miniature rabbits on. The pale blue curtains and the beanbags are packed. The children’s beds with white, wooden, painted bed frames are in pieces, waiting to be removed. I look at what is left and I feel sad. Sadder than sad. What are you doing to your family, Jenni?
You try to guess what I’m thinking.
‘I can do it again somewhere else,’ you tell me wistfully.
‘I’m sure you can,’ I reply, trying to placate you, not wanting a cascade of hot tears to fall again.
In the far corner, to the right of one of the windows, one of the boxes has fallen over, spewing its contents across the floor. Duplo. The pieces have scattered everywhere. You move across the room, pick up the box and on bended knees start to scoop the Duplo back inside. Instead of helping you, I stand watching, wondering yet again why you are doing this – how you think it will make things better? Your shiny chestnut hair falls across your face. Your lean pale fingers with their perfectly manicured unpainted nails pick up the last few pieces of Duplo. You stand. You pick up the box. You turn and walk towards the door with it, weaving around dismantled furniture and other packing boxes. You are coming towards me; I am hovering between you and the doorway. You look distant, as if you aren’t concentrating. I move my body from your pathway but I leave my leg sticking out. By mist
ake.
You hit my leg with both of yours. It’s my right leg, and it seems to whack into your limbs, hitting you just below the knees. I see you tumble in slow motion. Bad things always happen in slow motion. You are falling forwards, rolling headfirst. The box is flying through the air. I cannot move. I cannot stop you. The box lands first and Duplo explodes across the room. You put your arms out in front of you to break your fall. You land heavily on your right arm and slide across the carpet. And now the paralysis that came over me has gone, and I can breathe and move freely again. So I move towards you and sit on the floor next to you.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask.
You wince as you sit up, rubbing your right elbow with your left hand to soothe it.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter. ‘I’m not sure what happened.’
You sit looking at me through your painful saucer eyes.
‘I wasn’t concentrating. It’s just carpet burn. I’m sure I’ll be fine.’
And Rob is arriving with a cheerful smile and a tray of tea, Craig glowering behind him. We sit and drink the tea, in a line, backs leaning against the wall, and when we have finished our tea, Rob inspects your arm. The way he touches you so tenderly makes me feel sick.
‘No harm done. I’ve got some antiseptic cream in my bag – I’ll put some on your arm when we go down.’
But there has been some harm done, I can tell from the way you keep looking at me, Jenni. And it was a complete accident.
Jenni Rossiter, how many times do I need to say this? You are such a sanctimonious bitch.
~ Jenni ~
Craig and Rob are waiting in the van, and Carly is waiting in her Volvo while I say goodbye to the house. I have lit some joss sticks I bought at TK Maxx and am sitting cross-legged in the middle of the sitting room, praying peace into the house. For this house needs peace after all that it has suffered. When I arrive at my new home I will pray for peace there too. I close my eyes and raise the palm of my hands to the ceiling. But the person I need to pray for most is Carly. Carly, who Rob has told me is severely depressed now. Carly, whose plan to ruin my life has seriously misfired.
~ Craig ~
At the end of a difficult day, Rob and I are having a pint in the White Swan. Oak beams. Warm beer. But the atmosphere is stilted. Rob’s disapproval of my treatment of Jenni emanates from every pore. Fortunately, despite the difficulties now percolating between us, we have managed to work really hard together to help Jenni move into her flat. She has been left there, as she wished, with all her furniture in approximately the right place. Carly has gone to help her mother put the children to bed. Our children are staying with her and Rob for a few days, until Jenni sorts herself out.
Will Jenni ever sort herself out?
It was almost more than I could stand seeing her leave the house we worked so hard to afford; the house we spent so much time and energy planning and decorating. It was our safe place. Our sanctuary. But Jenni said that after what I’d done it was no longer safe. She needed to start again. When I arrived this morning to find her weeping in Carly’s arms, I nearly collapsed with pain. I had to leave and walk along the river for a while to allow my body to quieten. By the time Rob rang me to tell me Jenni was ready, I knew I had to pull myself together and go back. And so I tried to suppress my mental anguish. To psychologically anaesthetise myself, so that I could help the wife I betrayed.
Despite my brave attempt it was almost too much for me to see the damp, cramped flat above the bakery that she has moved into, where our sons will soon join her. The flat is dark. The flat is cold. The only view from the front is of traffic pushing along the high street, and from the back, the bin storage area for the row of shops behind the flat.
After her rather tearful start, as the day progressed nothing seemed to perturb Jenni. She appeared calm and determined. Shortly after she arrived in her new home she sat cross-legged in the middle of the flat burning joss sticks, praying the peace of the Lord into the house. Does she really think this will help? I always was surprised about how religious Jenni was but her faith is becoming stronger and this joss sticks, mumbo jumbo thing is worrying.
The other worrying person is Carly. Carly has become like the bad fairy in a pantomime, bringing darkness and shadows across the stage. I am never relaxed when she is near. Is it because I’m frightened that she’ll spill the beans? No. I don’t think so. After all, she has more to lose than me now if she does. Carly represents the loss of my marriage and so for this reason I resent her. The other reason I want to pull away from her is because I no longer desire her, but she still desires me. It makes me feel unbalanced and uncomfortable. The desire I can no longer assuage drips off her in buckets. Has Rob really not noticed? Or is he too busy making eyes at Jenni? Is he making eyes at Jenni? Or is it just a loving friendship? I have been told loving friendships exist. And Rob is such an affable bloke, except now, sometimes, with me.
‘At least it’s over, mate,’ Rob is saying. He is smiling at me, pretending to be laddish over his pint.
Don’t try too hard Rob. I know you don’t mean it.
‘Yes. Yes,’ I reply. ‘Now I can live in peace and go internet dating.’
‘Would you dare?’ he asks, eyes on stalks.
‘Only joking. I’ve got to show Jenni I’m a one-woman man from now on. Even if it takes years.’
‘So not even the slightest online flirting?’
‘Definitely not.’ There is a pause. ‘What do you take me for? An idiot with my brains in my cock?’
‘Do you really want me to answer that?’
~ Jenni ~
Cross-legged in the middle of my new home, burning incensescented joss sticks in the corners of my living room, praying peace into my home, into my life, I sit in the lotus position, arms raised above my head in the shape of an Egyptian urn. My prayers sing across my mind; into the bones and carcass of my home, into every crack and crevice. I am cleansing it. I am cleansing myself.
~ Craig ~
Sitting on a bench at the play park watching my boys as they balance on metal tubes painted bright red and blue, as they swing like monkeys on plastic ropes, as they climb and jump like a pair of wild animals. Sitting on a bench on my own on a Saturday morning looking like a real plonker, waiting for DIVORCED to be branded on my forehead. It is only a matter of time, now, and then I will become a round-bellied scourge of society, red-faced from consolatory drinking, burdened with bad temper and disappointment. An internet-dating liability.
Jenni is the only woman I have ever loved, apart from my mother, of course. Jenni is completely different from all the other women I have ever chased. They have always been more brash, more like Carly. At the thought of Carly, my fist clenches and my jaw tightens. How could I have been so foolish as to get involved with a whore like her? When I had someone so gentle and sweet and kind as Jenni.
Jenni. I first met Jenni when she was working at St Jude’s Hospital. She gave up nursing when we had the children; balancing both sets of shifts was too difficult. I think she vaguely knew Carly when she was training, but they weren’t friends, just acquaintances. Their friendship came later, here in Stansfield.
I close my eyes and try and push the thought of sex with Carly from my mind, the memories of coming between her generous breasts, the blowjobs. No better or more interesting than my sex life with Jenni. Just different. Every woman tastes and feels different. Believe me, I’ve had enough of them.
I met Jenni singing at St Mary’s church, where the rehearsals for our local choral society were held. I was on temporary secondment to an office job, and they were advertising for new members. This was my opportunity to sing in a group. Something I had wanted to do for years. As a teenager I had wanted to be the lead singer in a band. Doesn’t every young lad? I went to a few auditions but no one ever wanted me. I resorted to hours of karaoke in my bedroom, but as the years passed I decided that to join a choir was probably the best option. People say that singing in a group is uplifting, cathartic. For me it wa
s the singing, for Jenni it was an extension of her religion. Singing for the Lord. Singing for the Holy Trinity. Jenni was still working shifts and didn’t make all the rehearsals. I had been attending for a while before I saw her.
She was an angel with eyes like hot chocolate, singing in the choir stall opposite me. Shiny brown hair. Oval chorister mouth. Cherry red lips. It was months before I managed to talk to her. It finally happened over lukewarm tea at a break during the rehearsal for the Christmas concert; an over-ambitious production of Faure’s Requiem in D Minor.
‘Do you think we’re strangling it or enhancing it?’ I asked.
She blushed. She laughed.
‘An interesting combination of both,’ she replied, drawing me towards her with her eyes. Jenni, your eyes are to die for. Jenni, as soon as I saw you I was lost.
But our first date was not a great success. She seemed so wary, later telling me that I seemed like the type to pounce on the first date, and that frightened her. I suppose I usually did. But it didn’t seem right with Jenni. It was that voice, that educated voice, which made me think maybe I should behave differently, and those eyes.
Eyes to take me to heaven.
I ended up spending more money than usual, trying to impress her. I made the wrong call, taking her to a fussy restaurant with food that mostly involved offal or cruelty to animals, or both, and soon found out that she was a vegetarian. A glance at the menu. A request for a cheese omelette. I ordered a bottle of wine and Jenni didn’t touch it, so I drank the whole bottle myself. I don’t think that impressed her either.
The second date was more relaxed. It needed to be or I don’t think our relationship would have progressed. And for all the stiffness between us on that first date, I wanted it to progress. I hadn’t felt like this before. Whether a date worked out was a matter of indifference. I went out with so many different women in those days. None of them ever moved me.