Jennie Ensor - The Girl in His Eyes

‘Suze, I don’t deserve you,’ he said. They sat on the sofa in the living room. On the coffee table, two of their most expensive crystal glasses, filled with a Bordeaux from the cellar. ‘You have every right to be upset. All I can say is, I’m sorry. I love you, I didn’t mean those things I said last night.’ He leaned over and looked into her eyes. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

She swallowed the lump in her throat. He wasn’t going to sweet-talk her out of what she had to say, not this time.

‘I don’t know anything for certain, Paul. When you talk to me like you did last night, I don’t know who you are. You say you love me. How can you love me when you’re thinking those horrible things?’

‘Darling, don’t talk like that.’

‘Please, listen to me.’ She gulped her wine. ‘There’s only so much more of this I can take. If you keep on treating me like this, I… I’m going to leave you.’

There, she had said it, those words she had never said before. The look on his face almost made her wish she hadn’t – as if he were a child who’d had his favourite toy taken away.

‘Please, stop. I’ll change, I promise. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, please, my darling. Let me make it up to you.’

Later, he insisted on cooking dinner.

‘Why don’t we go away somewhere different for our holiday this year?’ he said as they sat down at the table. ‘For two weeks this time.’

She thought of the ten days they’d spent in Barbados last year. Paul had spent most of it thinking about work and checking his emails, then, just as he’d started to unwind and enjoy the holiday, it had been time to go home.

‘How about Mauritius, or Madagascar? You’ve always wanted to go there. And why don’t we go somewhere special for our anniversary? What about that hotel Andy and Fiona liked?’

Her throat tightened. Apart from her father and her brother, she loved Paul more than any man she had ever known. How could she not forgive him?

They went to bed early.

Paul kissed her mouth and brought her towards him, pressing his hand into the small of her back. He began caressing her. Her skin became super sensitive under his touch, every stroke of his fingers sending a shiver through her. Then she was floating, falling from the tops of great clouds, then rising up again, weightless. She had no choice except to go with him, wherever he took her.

‘I love you,’ he said as she lay beside him. She knew it was probably foolish of her to be reassured by his words, but she needed his love now, more than ever. For a few moments she felt elated, as if she’d unexpectedly come across a dear possession given up as lost.

Then she remembered. What was it Paul had said last weekend after he had come back from the pool? Jane had wished he could be taking her to the theatre; that was it. Jane hadn’t been serious, surely. Paul was stirring, that was all. He’d said it in the joking way he often said things, so you weren’t sure if he meant what he was saying or not.

Was Paul having an affair with Jane? Was that why he was so keen to help her out with Emma’s swimming lessons? She was slim, even now, without effort. A little younger than her, Jane had attracted plenty of male glances in her prime. She still had an I-don’t-care-what-you-think glamour, that careless, sassy swagger that men loved. Even without make-up, her face had acquired a steely beauty.

Paul could hardly be shagging Jane at her house, though, with Emma and Toby around. Anyway, he wasn’t interested in Jane, not sexually. He’d said once after a dinner party that she was slovenly and wore frumpy clothes, and she really ought to pluck her eyebrows, people would think she was a lesbian. They got on well, that was all. He wasn’t having an affair with her, or with anyone else. He wasn’t that type of man.

Then she wasn’t so sure. What if he was that type of man, but she’d never realised?

Water dripped from the bath tap. The splash against ceramic echoed around the flat like gun shots. Down the hall, her neighbour’s door slammed.

Laura lay on the beanbag, listening. It was well past midnight, past the time she usually went to bed. However there was no point going to bed, she knew she wouldn’t sleep. She pulled the rug over her in an attempt to get warm. The flat was cold most of the time. It was on the top floor of the block and there were only two storage heaters, which she didn’t turn on often enough to try and cut down her electricity bill. Though it was described as a one-bed flat, the bedroom was more like a large cupboard, and the bathroom had no bath, only an erratic shower that squirted insufficient streams of tepid water.

This room made up for those deficiencies, however. It needed maintenance and hadn’t been decorated in a long while, but it had a large sash window that let in the afternoon sun, and an ever-changing view of rooftops, trees and streets interspersed with church spires and big stretches of green towards the horizon. Sometimes, when she was really down, she’d stand at the window for ages, just watching the changing colours and shades and shapes as the day went on. It made her feel light and free again, like a bird in its nest, ready to soar.

Her attention wandered among her sparse possessions, rendered sparser by the spacious, high-ceilinged room. Her laptop, earphones, The Sunday Times Magazine from last month, a half-eaten slab of Tesco finest chocolate, and other bits and pieces lay on the coffee table. On the other, not much bigger, table she ate at, an art deco lamp she bought from an antique shop in Durham, the first homey thing she’d bought while at university. A screen print, in the vague shape of an owl, from a charity shop. The vase Daniel gave her as a housewarming gift when she moved in. Three cherry-red, silk-covered cushions to brighten up the disintegrating sofa. That was about it. All the furniture had come with the flat, except for the bookcase her father had delivered, stuffed with paperbacks and textbooks from uni.

Her life was emptying out, and it wasn’t exactly full to begin with. But now it was definitely thinning, a little less substantial every day. She thought of the day ahead, alone, indoors, scouring internet ads for jobs, the occasional, brief phone call her only contact with anyone. Work had been pretty crap, but at least it had provided some social interaction, some sense of belonging to the everyday world that other people belonged to. Rachel had vanished too. The relief after her revelation to Rachel had turned into an anticlimax, then a niggling sense that perhaps she’d done the wrong thing to confide in her friend. Rachel hadn’t called for a week and hadn’t returned her last message, though that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Her friend was always busy with something or other.

Voices in the street outside interrupted her thoughts. Slurred words. Loud, happy sounding.

It arrived then, that feeling of terrible isolation. As if she must have done something so very bad, her punishment was to be excluded from the world forever. Not comforting or deadening. It surrounded her like a flock of angry birds. Sharp, jabbing. She couldn’t take refuge in it and she had no faith that she could find a way out.

Laura closed her eyes and began to hum.

She’s at school, in the playground. A slender, serious girl with sad eyes. She’s sitting against the wall, separate from the others. Pretending to read, to be absorbed in her book. Anything to look busy, like she doesn’t care that she has no one to talk to, that she isn’t part of any group with their excited chatter, their games, their pranks and dares.