Хилари Боннер - A Deep Deceit

My shock was total. My cup of tea grew cold at my side as I stared dumbly at the letter on the table before me. This was nothing like the scratched words on our van, which surely could have been the work of kids. Someone out there was definitely threatening us. Or, more particularly, me. It was quite terrifying seeing my name there on the page. ‘FACE THE TRUTH, SUZANNE’, made my blood run cold.

My first instinct, of course, was to shout for Carl, but then, for once, I decided it was my place to protect him. I wouldn’t show it to him, wouldn’t give him more to worry about. When I heard his footsteps on the stairs I slipped the letter quickly back into its envelope and stuffed it into the pocket of my jeans. Then I forced myself to appear bright and normal as Carl ruffled my hair in passing – if he minded it being so much shorter he never passed comment – and went into our tiny kitchen to pour himself his breakfast coffee.

He was particularly buoyant and energetic that morning, the way he always was on those good days when he couldn’t wait to get to work. Encouraged by Will’s reaction to the paintings we had delivered to him, in particular Balloons , he was working on another even bigger abstract inspired by the kind of shapes we saw daily on the yachts out in the bay. Carl liked best of all to use the things he saw in our everyday life in St Ives in an innovative way. He soon retreated into his studio, humming something indecipherable. It was probably his great favourite, Leonard Cohen, but you couldn’t really tell. Carl was a hopeless singer, quite incapable of carrying a tune. His attempts did invariably make me smile, though.

But that morning I felt I had little to smile about. When I was sure Carl was safely engrossed in his work I took the envelope from my pocket and looked at it again without opening it. I told myself that what I should do was to rip the thing to shreds, dump it in the bin and force myself not to think about it. But for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. Instead, I hid it in the cupboard under the stairs, tucking it into a crack in a bit of old broken brickwork.

The day passed slowly for me, although Carl was in his element. He barely emerged from the studio. I made him some egg sandwiches for lunch but he seemed almost unaware of my existence when I took them to him.

‘It’s good, Carl,’ I told him, peering over his shoulders. The colours were more muted than Balloons , but the shapes even more clearly defined and dramatic.

‘Mm,’ was his distracted reply. He ate one of the sandwiches when I actually placed it in his hand and ignored the rest. That was how it was when he was working well. Normally I would have thoroughly enjoyed watching him work like this, but on that day I didn’t even attempt to. I was completely preoccupied too, but not happily so. I just wandered aimlessly about the house. I thought about going to the library but I wasn’t up to any banter with Mariette. I hadn’t seen her since our shopping expedition and I knew she would want to know all about Carl’s reaction, which I did not want to discuss.

Later I cooked dinner for Carl and tried to chat normally while we ate but did not succeed very well. It was only because he was having one of his work-obsessed days, his mind totally focused on his latest painting, that he was not aware of my unease. Usually he was acutely tuned in to my moods.

In bed I dared not sleep. Indeed, I had been dreading bedtime all day. When I heard Carl’s steady breathing and became aware of the stillness in his body that indicated he was asleep, I climbed out of bed, went downstairs, made coffee and paced the house all night, determined to stay awake, convinced it was the only way to keep the demons at bay – just as I had done when it all began.

I also kept peeping through the curtains at the alleyway outside. ‘I saw you together last night, I watched you in bed.’ Was somebody really watching us like that? I never saw any sign of it. Nonetheless the very idea made me feel sick.

In the morning, before Carl woke, I climbed back into bed beside him and allowed him to assume that I had been there sleeping all night long.

I continued to do this for three nights. During the day it was a struggle to keep my eyes open. In contrast, Carl was working so hard that he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. On the third day he finished the painting that had so engrossed him.

It was almost as if he awoke from a period of half-consciousness. I knew he was seeing me clearly for the first time in three days and became aware of him watching me acutely. At first I denied there was anything wrong, but he was not convinced.

‘You really don’t look well,’ he told me anxiously. ‘Are you sure you feel all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Really, I am.’

Again and again I tried to reassure him, but it was the wrong way round for us and I was not very effective in my new role. The way I looked didn’t help, either.

‘Suzanne, you look worn out. You haven’t been sleeping, have you?’

I knew I had bags beneath my eyes and that I looked drawn and tired. Three nights without sleep is not something many of us can survive without showing the unmistakable signs of exhaustion. ‘I’ll sleep tonight,’ I told him obliquely. ‘I’m sure of it...’

I didn’t, of course. I still couldn’t trust myself. And some time during that fourth night after the arrival of the letter, as I stood quietly by the picture window looking down over the rooftops at the harbour lights, afraid even to sit in case I fell asleep and entered my terrible nightmare world, I became aware of Carl standing beside me.

He reached out for me and I could no longer hold back the tears.

‘Tell me, my love, tell me what’s wrong,’ he coaxed. ‘Something has happened. Please tell me.’

I could no longer resist. I had tried to be strong, but I had no strength without Carl. I had always been weak. I had thought that maybe I would become stronger with the years but it seemed it was not to be.

I gave in. I took him to the cupboard under the stairs, groped about until I found the crack in the brickwork and removed the letter I had so ineffectually tried to hide from him.

He looked very grim as he read it, then threw it angrily on to the floor. ‘You’re completely exhausted, aren’t you.’

I just nodded.

‘You’ve been refusing to let yourself sleep. You can’t go on like that. You’ll make yourself ill.’

He led me upstairs, helped me undress, pulled back the duvet and made me lie down on the bed. Then he lay down beside me and wrapped his arms round me, giving me comfort the way he always did, the way only he could. ‘Nobody can see us, not in here, we’re quite private, you know that, really.’

As usual, he had read my mind. More than anything I hated the thought of someone watching us when we were together in bed, the way that awful letter had suggested. Of course it couldn’t be true. I held on to Carl tightly.

Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked quietly.

‘I suppose I didn’t want it to be real,’ I replied.

He kissed the top of my head, my face, my throat, my neck. ‘I’m going to make it go away,’ he told me. ‘It won’t be real for long. Nothing is going to hurt you, how many times must I tell you...’

I could not stay awake, then. The need to sleep overcame me. The unwelcome visitor could be kept at bay no longer.

I slept until early afternoon the next day. Carl had worked yet another of his miracles and I somehow managed it without dreaming – or certainly without any of the horror dreams.

He was sitting in our old wicker rocking chair watching me when I finally opened my eyes.

Nobody who has not suffered the kind of nightmares that have plagued me could ever understand quite how I felt at that moment. Nobody who hasn’t endured total debilitating exhaustion and yet fought off sleep as if it were his or her worst enemy, even though only sleep can bring relief, can know what it is like to have given in and to have survived a night of rest to wake in peace.