Jennie Ensor - The Girl in His Eyes

Katherine’s eyes travelled down the hall. ‘Can you talk? Is Paul around?’

‘He’s off sailing – I said I’d stay home.’

‘I’m not surprised, you must be shattered by all this.’ Katherine’s arms wrapped around her. ‘I’m so sorry, m’dear. It must be hell, what you’re going through.’

Suzanne extricated herself from Katherine’s hug and poured boiling water into the cups. Something in her friend’s tone jarred.

‘Paul says Emma’s lying,’ she said. ‘He didn’t do anything to her.’

Katherine didn’t reply. Her friend leaned against the kitchen worktop, softly tapping her mug as if contemplating what she should say next.

No, surely not, Katherine didn’t believe Emma, did she? Suzanne ran her tongue around the inside of her parched mouth.

‘You don’t think Emma is telling the truth, do you?’

Silence.

‘Please, Katherine. Tell me you don’t believe her.’

‘I don’t know for sure,’ Katherine said slowly, ‘what Paul did or didn’t do. But it seems to me…’

No, it couldn’t be true. She knew what her friend was going to say. Katherine had swallowed Emma’s version, just as Jane had.

‘Paul didn’t do anything to Emma, Kat.’ The words came out in a desperate rush. ‘Emma had a crush on Paul. She was flirting with him, trying to come on to him. She kissed him and he slapped her. She was humiliated. She was trying to get back at him by making up this lie.’

Katherine looked at her, slowly shaking her head from side to side.

‘Suzanne, listen. I know that’s what Paul has told you, but I don’t believe it. Why did he bring her back to your house in the first place? Don’t you think that rather strange? He could have taken her back to Jane’s afterwards.’ Katherine’s voice swelled dramatically, as if she were trying to convince an entire jury of Paul’s guilt. ‘But he knew you’d be away until the next day, didn’t he? He knew he wouldn’t be disturbed if he took her back to your place.’

‘He came here to watch a film, that’s all. Come on, Katherine. If he really had done anything to Emma, why didn’t she tell Jane straight away, as soon as she got home? Why wait until now to tell her, all these weeks later?’

‘He threatened her. He made her feel ashamed.’

‘So, you’re saying Paul is lying, are you?’ She got to her feet. ‘You really think he molested Emma?’ Her voice was shaking, with fear as much as anger. A sliver of doubt was already uncoiling inside her.

‘I hate to have to say this, but yes, I do.’ Katherine took hold of her hand. ‘I think Emma is telling the truth and Paul’s lying to protect himself. Listen, I know how awful it is for you, I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s not unheard of. There are men like that around—’

‘And my husband’s one of them?’ She snatched back her hand. ‘You’re wrong, Katherine, you must be wrong.’

Paul was a good man, he had principles. He couldn’t have done it. Could he?

But what if he had? What if he had done the unimaginable, and lied to hide his guilt?

‘I’m sorry, Kat, I didn’t mean to shout at you. I just need to be by myself for a while.’

Katherine said she understood, she’d better be going.

Suzanne went into the bedroom and pulled the duvet straight. Paul’s slippers were side by side under the chair, as usual. Beside them, one black sock. She picked up the sock and hung it on the back of the chair. She went into the bathroom, took off her dressing gown and hung it on the hook. Paul had left the toothpaste cap off, which he never usually did. She rinsed the white slime away and put the cap back on. Then she tucked her hair into her shower cap and stepped into the shower. She turned it on full and stood there, letting the hot water pound her body.

Paul had brought Emma back here on purpose to molest her? He’d done the most heinous act imaginable and made her promise not to tell anyone? It was crazy. Her husband wasn’t one of those perverts who went after children.

She dried herself and went downstairs. Paul would be on the boat by now, miles away. She washed Marmaduke’s bowl, dolloped in some Whiskas and replaced the bowl under the chair in the kitchen corner. She wiped the sink and picked out the food that had collected in the sink tidy: white grains of rice, yellow teeth of corn, and scraps of red pepper. Then she turned on the radio very loud and began to clean the house to Beethoven’s fifth.

Dust, vacuum, polish. Plump the cushions, empty the bins, get everything straight.

The sun came out for a while then went back in. She lost track of time. After the living room and the hall, she started on the conservatory.

Water the plants, sweep the floor, polish the windows.

Don’t stop, don’t think.

Just after 4pm Suzanne switched on the kettle, her arms aching. Through the kitchen window, branches were flailing and the clouds were racing. Andy’s boat would be on its side, ripping through the water at breakneck speed. It was just as well she hadn’t gone – she’d be freezing and clinging to the side, trying not to throw up. But Paul loved sailing in rough weather, even though she’d reminded him often enough how her father had died. He seemed to almost enjoy the risk of something going wrong. Men were strange like that. She dropped a teabag into her mug.

From nowhere, a memory came.

She had come into the garden after lying down upstairs. It had been another sweltering day. Paul was watering the flowerbeds and Laura was on the lawn, leaning back on her elbows, legs stretched out. A book lay open beside her. She wore her white swimming costume and the wide-brimmed straw hat that she always wore when sunbathing. Her skin had gone a deep, un-English shade of brown, and her legs had seemed longer and slimmer than ever. Quite the Hollywood starlet, she’d thought with a pang of pride. And then she had noticed how Paul was watching Laura as he moved the hose, intently, with an oddly furtive expression, as if he knew he shouldn’t be watching her.

The kettle spewed steam and clicked off. She came back to the present. Why remember that, after all these years?

Suzanne picked up the kettle. She poured water on the teabag then opened the cutlery drawer and took out a teaspoon. The liquid in the cup was dark. It would be too strong soon. She removed the teabag and dropped it into the tall metal pedal-bin in the corner of the kitchen. The lid clanged shut. Now all she had to do was go to the table and sit down.

But she couldn’t move. A question was forming in her head, one which could not yet be put into words. Without permission, her thoughts rushed ahead. Paul used to bring home comics and sweets for Laura, sometimes drawing paper and felt-tipped pens too, little offerings he knew she’d like. Never anything for Daniel. He had taken Laura on visits to the shops and the park, just the two of them. She had been anxious to think of Daniel being excluded, had been a tiny bit envious of Laura. But she had always excused Paul’s behaviour, told herself that fathers did have special relationships with their daughters.

Something horrible was unwinding itself in her brain, unstoppable. That time she’d come home after her gall bladder operation. Daniel had been camping in Scotland, leaving Laura and Paul in the house by themselves for four days. She’d sensed a tense atmosphere, as if there’d been a fight between the two. Had something happened while she was away?

Laura had started to change around then. Sometime after starting her new school, she’d begun to withdraw. She stopped talking about what had happened at school and what she was doing with her friends; often, she would hardly speak at all.

Had Paul done something to Laura while the two of them were alone?