A Fine Profession (The Chambermaid's Tales Part One) (39 page)

He sat in an armchair and softened.

“Please just talk to me and tell me what you're going through. I want to know so that I know it's not just in my own head! The silences of yours are terrifying, you know! I never feel certain what you're thinking or feeling.”

“
I hate myself,” I screeched, “I hate what I'm doing to you, to us. I feel, I feel… I am better off alone. I feel that deep in my bones. I feel it, oh, I really do!”

He moved
to my side and grasped my hands, in his, and kissed them.

“
You're telling yourself you don't deserve happiness, but, you do. You do!”

“
No, I don't,” I yelled, and threw him away. “And besides, if you loved me, you would have asked me to marry you by now. You would have fought for me. You would have realised that I never wanted to be Her.”

He stared at me and I knew what he was thinking…
But you are her. You need to come to terms with that.

W
e struggled in a frustrated manner; him trying to hold me and me throwing him away. Inevitably, we fell about until he flung himself on top of me.

“
Charlotte, I love you,” he said, kissing my deftly.

“
No, no, I can't,” I said.

He kissed me again
and told me between caresses, “I love you. I love you. I'll never stop loving you. Never. Even if we part. I'll always love you. You are the only woman to possess me… I love you.”

I fell to pieces and cried beneath him, shaking outrageously. I had attempted to push him away and
yet he had only sprung back toward me with fearless, renewed fervency.

He kissed my throat so
slowly, so gently, telling me, “Charlotte, I love this mole here on your jaw, and, these freckles across your chest. I love it when your skin gets patchy with flushes in the act of passion.”

He stared int
o my eyes and kissed me again.

“
I love you,” he reiterated, and squeezed my breast.

I bit his bottom lip in anguish and he retracted with the pain. I drew him back
towards me and sucked it all away again. I pushed him up and sat across his lap. I pulled his hair and he slapped my behind. His gaze was violent and greedy. I teased him so tauntingly and he groaned until he could no longer bear it. He tore away my top and grasped my naked breasts, before licking and biting them so savagely. I screamed with pleasure. He forced my sweat pants down before rubbing my pussy eagerly, digging his fingers in my belly so deeply. I contracted at least ten times as he pursued me. On the sofa, he forced me on all fours and rammed his cock inside my backside. It was immeasurable pleasure and it defied everything. He fucked me so mercilessly and like never before, he pounded me hard and fast and I begged and wailed, asking for more and more. In a fit of exquisite agony, we came together.

He held his arms around me afterward, and slipped me into b
ed without me really noticing. I woke a little while later to find his body hooked around mine, trapping me against him, and I fell back into a sleepy daze knowing that it would be our last night together. I felt I wasn't right within myself and that the best thing all round was to leave and ensure he wouldn't follow.

In the night, he woke, and we made love so tenderly.
I barely remember it; his hands wandered as I lay with my eyes still closed and fatigue still clawing at my mind. He did all the work and I let him. My lips were softly parted and he brushed against them slowly. The strokes of his tongue were enough to alight my desire. He wrapped my thigh over his and he made love to me as I lay on my side, with my breasts cuddled against his face tightly. I felt sure tears covered me as he kissed my skin but I could not be sure. All I knew was that I was swathed in this man's love for me, despite all the things I had done. I pulled on the back of his head and kept my eyes firmly shut. His rolling drives and tender licks of my nipples brought me to my peak. After that, he remained inside me most of the night, cradled against me. We had exhausted one another. I savoured every millisecond of every second of every minute of every hour of those last few moments together. I loved him but couldn't live with him.

When that weekend reached its end and he left for
London, I started looking for a house elsewhere. Two weeks or so later, my flat was empty and I was gone. Noah would have found it like that because I never called to tell him that our next meeting was off.

Dear Noah,

This is not exactly a
Dear John
but I guess it must feel a little like it is. Firstly, do I say sorry? Perhaps that would be cheap of me. It has now been a month since I left and I still believe that my actions were carried out intentionally and rationally. The latter you may not believe but it's true. I just needed to leave. A lot of people may not understand this thing I suffer with, including you. I have lived with it a very long time and sometimes there is no good way to cope.

You see, I love you so very much, and I know I am only bad for you. In the fibres of my being, I realise that. Neither of us knew that a night of passion would lead us here but it did.

To clarify, the pregnancy was not achieved dishonestly. I simply forgot to take the pills one week because I was so happy. You see, that is the thing about me. In our little make-believe world of pure love, desire and fulfilment, I could cope. Out in the real world, I am done for. The pregnancy and its abrupt end made me realise I've never really tackled my problems. Not really. I only found other distractions to bury my neuroses deep down. I use that word, though, in fact, what I really end up getting disabled by are the memories of what I went through. They are the horrors of my nightmares. When I was a child, my parents did not believe I was ill at first. They assumed I was lazy and refusing to get out of bed in the mornings. That's the horrific thing about illness: nobody wants to believe it can happen to you. Everyone tells themselves they should have some feeling and emotion about it all, but really, they only know the pain of watching someone they love disintegrate. Nobody who's ill can ever really tell anyone else what it is like. Out of love, the patient hides what they are really feeling from the people who cannot help but grimace at the slightest sign of your suffering. It was horrific being a bald child of 11 weighing less than four stone. Of being constantly hooked up and tested on. Not really understanding what was happening to me. I think my child's mind decided I was going to die and the fact that I lived wasn't in my plans. People might assume I am a brave survivor but what I actually am is a girl still, and one who just built so many imaginary foes inside my mind. To imagine villains and enemies is easier than to allow anyone entry into my heart. When you entered my familial world, that was unbearable. You were no longer part of my fantasies after that. The onset of depression after the miscarriage and the exhaustion that came with it made me feel like that child suffering cancer once more. The thought of going through that again is more terrifying than any other fear, and there are plenty. Mental anguish is something I am aware of but it is also something I have no control over and it is a battle. A daily battle. Feeling out of control is frightening. I have to take back control now and I can only do that alone.

Yes, I survived cancer. But there was a price. There's always a
cost for everything and that is what I've come to firmly believe. I cannot help it. To live, I had to shut down. My subconscious mind took over. I found a world to escape to. The Lodge and the work of the Chambermaid was an outlet for my imagination, which was kept behind bars for so long. You were right about everything you said too – she's the person I should be. She is the person I am trying to be a little bit like in my ordinary life. I dare not trust myself to hope happiness is possible. Something in me says that everything comes with a price tag. You as much confirmed that for me when you told me about your marriage. And so, I have done the best thing for both of us. We had so many good times and we can look back on them with fondness. I couldn't bear to have any bad memories of my time with you.

I imagine in a parallel universe that we meet again in the future and you are older but still gorgeous. We're both greying a little but it doesn't seem to matter. We don't need to fix each other because somehow the world finally levelled us out. And then, we just decide to give it a go. This is also the thing about me: imagination is a powerful thing and sometimes I cannot help but worry I am kidding myself about so many things.
I can't tell the difference between reality and illusion. I simply know this, Noah… I need more time before I'm solid enough to make anyone happy. If we continued as we were doing, I have no idea what I might have stooped to.

I'm dreaming of that day when I'm fixed and I see you, grey and stout, but still my Noah. You freed me and imprisoned me. You loved and hated me. You enthralled and
effaced me. I ask only one thing and that is, don't try to find me. I'll be okay. We never really needed words but you deserve some after what I've done to you. I am going to disable this account after this has sent.

I love you. C x

Heath had to speak. He had raced through the pages, desperate to know what might happen next.

Now, h
e was so shocked. Devastated, even. He could not contain his questions.

“
I don't understand.”

“
I don't expect you to,” the Chambermaid said.

Her face was
stony and evasive. It was like he was in the room with another person again. The meek woman he had met had been replaced by the Chambermaid and now he was faced with a maudlin figure.

“
You just… left him. Just like that. No contact. No,
let's just be friends
. I just don't get it, Lottie, I don't get it!”

Heath stood up out of his chair and moved to the window, looking behind the drapes. He saw the lights of the cars passing up and down the A-road do
wn below, plus the glow of Nottingham in the distance. In the other direction he just saw a vast expanse of black night and nothingness, with the odd star shining through the light pollution.

“
He loved you,” he muttered.

“
I guess you loved your wife but that didn't work out, did it?” She was cold and calculated in her response.

“
What do
you
mean?” he snarled.

“
Sometimes, the pain is too much. People can be better off apart.”

“
No, I mean, the tone of your voice. It's like…”

“
Okay, I admit, I met your wife.”

“
What!” he exclaimed, turning to step toward her.

She stood up and walk
ed in front of him; her feline eyes disarming him.

“
I needed to know what I was dealing with,” she revealed.

“
I'm not a fucking
client
,” he insisted.

“
You could be. You should be.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
Well, from what she said, you need some help.”

He shook
his head and walked to the fire.

She continued,
“Actually, I knew her already. Your wife taught an adult education class I took.”

“
Which one?”

“
The advanced creative writing course.”

“
Shit. It's a small world.”

“
I know. I knew I had heard the name Heath before.”

“
What did she say?” he asked.

“
She said you took your job far too seriously. You never talked about it. You'd come home shattered and narky. All you did was type and muse and you forgot you had a wife to fuck still.”

“
Oh,” he said, regretfully.

“
Why did you let it get to that stage?” she asked.

He now understood why the Chambermaid was so effective. She was too forward in her guise and so very intuitive. He wondered why she had this ability to help others but not herself.

“I was too wrapped up in myself. When she confronted me, I couldn't deal with it. I felt less of a husband. It just seemed irreparable.”

“
She loves you still,” she said.

He smiled and the news improved his demeanour
tenfold.

“
What do I do?”

“
Have you learnt nothing? Really?” she asked.

“
Oh, silly me. I just need to…
service
her,” he remarked, sarcastically.

“
She's the one who helped me secure a publisher. She is a very nice woman.”

“
She is.”

“
Why is it that you behaved that way with her? Be honest.”

“
I guess I reached a point where I wondered what I was doing with my life. I have been obsessed with finishing a novel that just doesn't want to be written and I felt like she wouldn't understand. She always says that if something needs writing it will be.”

“
That may be the case. Perhaps, you should forget that book. Concentrate on your marriage. Go back to it later. Or, start another.”

“
It's not so easy. It's a book about my father's life! And now, a lot more seems to make sense! I'd bet my bottom dollar all those missing persons were swallowed by the Lodge and the lifestyle there!”

“
But what about your life? Your real life? The Lodge and all that… it's fiction, you know?”

“
I know. But, all the same, it was a work of…”

“
A personal nature. A labour of love?” she asked.

“
Yes.”

“
And we all know where that gets us?” she asked, rhetorically.

“
Nowhere. Heartache. You're right… I should write something daft. A comedy.”

“
No, you should write your dad's story when it no longer hurts anymore. Distance is everything.”

“
Interesting, so, your separation from Noah no longer hurts? If you've written this all down now?”

She looked up from her
reverie and eyed him with contempt.

“
I wrote it because, for me, this was the only way to get over it. I felt I had to put the past behind me and this was the line drawn underneath it all.”

“
You have such double standards.”

“
Please ask yourself… is a story told from direct experience going to be better expressed than one told from the voice of another who wasn't there in that time and place but is telling the story from a second-hand perspective?”

“
Again, why did you leave him? I don't understand why. Fix everyone else, don't you? Just not yourself?”

She held her head in her hands. Some part of her did not have secure answers, another did.

“Noah and I had a once in a lifetime kind of love. I knew that I had to preserve that. I knew I was reaching the point where I'd make him hate me too much. He forgave so much. I knew he wouldn't forgive much more. We knew each other so well. But, he and I, are such complex souls. Not destined for the real world together.”

“
You say that but I know, when I see you speak about him, you are still in love with him, aren't you? I see it.”

“
I always will be. I freely admit that, of course. But I don't want to be with anyone. Not even him.”

“
So, after you left, where did you go?” he asked, somehow knowing she would not reveal much more about Noah.

“
I laid low for a long time. I rented a two-bedroom house in a nearby hamlet where I could hide. I spent nights crying and dwelling. Maybe I thought a miracle might drag me out of it all. I told my family I'd moved to Australia. I mocked up pictures on Photoshop to convince them of this fact. They offered to come over but I claimed I was moving around too often and not to bother. I made up some story about Noah blowing me off. I knew they wouldn't bother getting in touch with him and anyway if they did, he would be too much of a gentleman to reveal what had really happened between us…

“
I signed myself up for therapy and for the first time in my life, I told someone what it was like surviving cancer. I mean, what it was really like. It blew out those cobwebs no end. Then, I started writing. The shrink said that was good. I took your wife's course during that quiet period and this book battled its way out of me.”

“
Then, what else happened? What?” Heath asked eagerly. He could sense there was so much more yet.

“
Fate,” she replied, and nodded at the book. He turned to the next chapter.