Jennie Ensor - The Girl in His Eyes

After downing the contents of the glass, he went to the downstairs bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror. He breathed in sharply. His left eye was a mess, spotted and streaked with red where the white should be. In the corner, a clump of congealed blood. He looked pitiful.

He lurched into the hall, considering whether to drag himself upstairs. He could lie on the bed and fall into a stupor. But the large, empty bed would be yet another source of pain, another reminder that he had lost Suzanne. Instead, he went into the office, the room that had once been his sanctuary.

The room was dark, the curtains drawn. He didn’t bother to turn on the light. He sat at his desk, leaned his head into his hands, and closed his eyes. The fury in Laura’s face, that moment before she dug into his eye, came back to him. He recalled his surprise at the excruciating pain, and at the fact she had the stomach for such a thing. How it had left him gasping, unhinged, and made him want to hurt her in return – hurt her very badly. How, as she was running away, he’d started the engine, intending to smash into her at high speed, to crush her with his metal machine. How, when he lost sight of her, he’d searched for her on foot, winded and stumbling, his one thought: to stop her for good. And how, much later, anger spent, he’d gone back to the car, put his head on the steering wheel, and sobbed for the man he’d become.

He listened to the soft chug chug of a distant train. His thoughts came and went; the happy times, early on. Fishing with Grandpa by the river on drowsy golden afternoons, sharing tangy homemade lemonade and cookies. Holding the net for him, asking why the fish let themselves get caught. Later, the long summer days left alone to do whatever he pleased: building cities out of handfuls of Lego, climbing into next door’s garden and stealing their best apples. And when he was older, after things had got worse at home, the sweet relief of escaping for a while to train at the local pool. Jacko, the swimming coach, who’d told him he had the potential to be a champion. Holding a trophy for the first time…

Then he saw Emma’s look, just before she’d climbed out of his car for the last time, as if he were the scum that floated on a pond. He felt himself falling into a deep, impenetrable darkness.

He opened his eyes. His heart was pounding, like a volley of hammer blows nailing down his own coffin. A chill went through him. He thought of the knife rack in the kitchen. It was filled with high-quality knifes, kept sharp. He hated cutting anything with a blunt knife. The largest had a blade that was seven inches long and capable of doing serious damage. He imagined the blade breaking the surface of his skin, the ease with which the steel would rip his flesh.

He didn’t want to die. The thought of perpetual nothingness scared him. But how could he go on living?

Heart racing, he turned on the desk lamp, opened the top drawer and removed last year’s leather-bound desk diary from the back-left corner. There, still tucked between the pages, was the photograph of Emma. It was the only one he’d printed. Not the one on his camera, which he’d left there as a decoy, just in case anyone questioned him about the photo shoot, but the image that had mattered the most. Several times he’d gone to the drawer to get rid of it, scared that Suzanne might find it as she’d found the other one, but he’d been unable to destroy it.

Emma looked back at him from the photograph. Her smile tugged on his heart again. That alluring, mischievous, all-too-familiar smile; her breasts cupped in the pale blue bra, her slim hips gently stretching the skimpy briefs. Desire rose like sap through his body, becoming an ache in his groin. He still wanted her, despite everything that had happened, despite the wrongness of it. If, by some magic, Emma could be here with him now, standing in this room, he would not be able to resist her.

He pushed away the photograph in horror. What was he truly, if not a monster? His daughter had only done what he deserved. She should have stabbed both eyes and blinded him.

The pain wasn’t only physical now, it was a mental anguish. It cut into the part of him that contained the residue of a decent man – the part that had once held fantasises of future happiness and was now no more than a husk of shrivelled dreams. The pain plunged and twisted, intolerable.

He found the cigarette lighter in the kitchen, the one used for lighting dinner candles. Sitting back at the desk, he guided the flame to Emma’s paper face. It distorted and blackened, then began to disintegrate. He watched the photograph become a pile of ash then pressed the lighter button again. Carefully, he guided the flame to the centre of his palm. The pain was pure, focussed, distracting him from the other, deeper pain. Ignoring the smell of charring flesh, he kept his hand open to receive the flame until he could take no more. Dropping the lighter, he slumped over the desk.

There was nothing left for him, he knew that now. Whatever he did, wherever he went, there would be no escape from his own mind.

He opened the front door.

The rain had stopped. A gust of wind scattered white blossom across the path.

His Porsche waited for him on the driveway. He unlocked it, lowered himself into the driver’s seat, and turned the key in the ignition.

Suddenly she was wide awake. Someone was at the window. The brisk rap of knuckles against glass. Suzanne pulled back the curtains. All she could see were streaks of rain on the windowpane and the swaying branches of the monkey puzzle tree, one of which came close to the window.

It’s only a branch.

Getting back into bed, she caught sight of a wispy light in the wardrobe mirror. Heart thudding, she went closer. But now there was only the vague reflected features of her own face. Outside, the wind flurried and sighed.

She switched on the bedside light. Her small collection of possessions lay on the dressing table, exactly as they were when she’d gone to bed. She glanced at the alarm clock: 2.17am.

At first she thought it was a church bell – in her dream she was walking out of a church, beside Paul, confetti drifting down.

The shawl of sleep began to dissolve but the ringing wouldn’t go away. What could it be? A burglar alarm? Or was the house on fire?

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. No, it was the doorbell. Someone was walking across the landing. Suzanne sat up.

A rap on her door. Katherine’s voice.

‘Suzanne? Are you awake?’

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘The police are here. They want to speak to you.’

She glanced at the clock. Nearly 3am. What on earth could they want with her in the middle of the night?

Laura. Something’s happened to her.

Suzanne put on her long cardigan, went into the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water. She’d hollowed out with dread.

In the hall stood two uniformed officers. A stocky, plain woman looked at her with dull eyes. Towering beside her, a youth with stuck-out ears like small Yorkshire puddings. The sleeves of his uniform were a fraction too short for his arms.

‘Are you Mrs Suzanne Cunningham?’

She stared at each of them in turn. ‘Yes. What do you want?’

‘Hello, Mrs Cunningham. I’m Sergeant Richards from Wimbledon Police.’ The woman’s voice grasped at warmth. ‘And this is Constable Trimble.’ The youth gave Suzanne a silent nod. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early in the morning. Would you mind if we came in and sat down?’

Katherine gave her a reassuring smile and headed upstairs. The police officers followed Suzanne into the living room.