Into the Darkest Corner (20 page)
Caroline was finally back at work today, after a long vacation with her kids. I saw her come in through the open door of my office. I was on the phone at the time; she waved a tanned hand in my direction.
“You’re looking well,” I said, when I went to find her. “Did you have a good time?”
“Fabulous,” she said. She was dressed from head to foot in a selection of autumn colors, from her russet hair to her tan to her evergreen skirt and a jacket the color of a pile of bonfire leaves. “It was hot every day, the kids had fun, I got to read four paperbacks with my feet up by the pool. And I met someone called Paolo.”
“No—really?”
“Yep, he was fabulous too.”
We went down to the canteen, even though she’d barely taken her coat off. “I can’t bear to think how many e-mails I’ve got,” she said. “Has it been horrendous?”
“Not really. I think it’s about to kick off next week, though. The CEO’s coming to talk about the new warehouse.”
Caroline groaned. “I need chocolate.”
We sat with our teas by the window, looking out over an expanse of green landscaped lawn and some colorful shrubs.
“And how was your Christmas?” she said, pulling off a chunk of chocolate muffin.
“It was good, thanks.”
“Spent it with Stuart?”
“I had lunch with him—and his friend Alistair,” I added, before she had a chance to get excited.
“Just lunch?”
“Just lunch.”
She was giving me a long look.
“It all went a bit wrong,” I said.
“Wrong how?”
“I overheard his friend talking to him about me. It just freaked me a bit, that’s all. I left in a bit of a hurry, I think he was offended. I haven’t heard from him since.”
It had been two weeks. I assumed he was at home, going to work every day, but I hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t knocked on my door, or sent any texts. I wasn’t surprised, really, after I ran out on him on Christmas Day—in fact I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was looking for somewhere else to live. Who needs a crazy lady living downstairs, after all?
“I thought you were onto a winner there,” she said brightly.
“No,” I said. “It’s okay, though. I’d rather just get on with things by myself.”
Caroline patted my hand, leaving crumbs of muffin behind. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said. “You know what men are like, they can be ridiculously oversensitive sometimes.”
I didn’t answer for a moment, drank some tea. “You haven’t told me about Paolo yet,” I said. “Was he young and impossibly handsome?”
“Oh, my God, I can’t tell you. He was one of the waiters at the hotel. Really cheesy, but at least he was handy and I didn’t have to leave the kids with my mother for more than an hour at a time. She thought I was going out with this other girl we met, Miranda. It was such a hoot.”
We went back up to the office half an hour later. I climbed the stairs, thinking about Stuart. Wishing it was home time.
Friday night, nine o’clock, and Lee and I were out in town. Later, he’d promised me we could go to the Red Divine and meet up with the girls, who were all out too.
I’d never before looked forward to an evening and yet dreaded it so much in equal measure. I was finally going to get to see the inside of the Red Divine, I was going to spend a night dancing and laughing and talking to my friends, and at the same time Lee was going to be right by my side the whole time. I wanted to be with him—but just not tonight.
When we got to the club it was already after eleven. Despite the line that snaked almost to the corner of Bridge Street, the door supervisor caught sight of Lee and waved us through to the VIP entrance. On the way in there was a lot of handshaking and backslapping and general greeting between Lee and the five or six gorillas dressed in suits who were working on the door. I kept my mouth shut and stood dutifully to one side.
For some reason, there had been no argument about what I was going to wear tonight. I picked out a short black dress with thin straps and a diamanté detail around the hemline. He looked at it and said, “You can wear that as long as you wear tights.” Fair enough, I thought, too cold to go without in any case.
I took off my jacket and checked it into the cloakroom. Lee had gone back to talk to someone else on the door, a shorter man with a beard who’d just arrived. I thought it might have been the owner; I’d seen his picture in the newspaper. Barry? Brian? Something like that.
I considered going through the mirrored doors beyond which all seemed to be noise and lights and warm air, find the girls, get a drink, start to relax without him, but I didn’t think about that for long. I’d better wait.
After a while he came to get me, took me by the arm, gave me a kiss on the top of my cheek and steered me through those beautiful mirrored doors.
The club was large, several rooms with dance floors and bars tucked away in odd places, which meant that although it was huge, and full of people, it felt curiously intimate. A lot of the church architecture remained, with some pews against the walls, arches leading from one area to another, and then, as Sylvia had said, a giant illuminated stained-glass window overlooking one of the bars. Beyond this, the space suddenly opened into what would once have been the nave, with the DJ sited at the position of the altar. The room was filled with incredible sound and lights and people dancing; above their heads two trapeze swings trailed red silk fabric just out of reach, two dancers wearing red bodysuits and horns swinging backward and forward, impressively in time with the main beat. Around the top of this space balconies emerged through stone arches; people with drinks leaning over chrome railings watching the dancers below.
As we weaved between the throng of bodies, my chest thumping with the bass beat, I looked and looked for the girls. Lee didn’t let go of my hand until we were at one of the quieter bars, where he bought us both a drink while I stood with my back to him, longing to go and find a space to dance, to relax.
I felt a tap on my shoulder—it was Claire, at last. I gave her a hug. “It’s great in here, isn’t it?” she yelled in my ear.
“Yes, it is! Where’s Louise?” I yelled back.
Claire shrugged and pointed vaguely in the direction of the main dance floor. “Where’s Lee?” she shouted.
I pointed behind me to the bar. He’d seen Claire and was making “do you want a drink” hand signals.
She shook her head and held up a bottle with a straw sticking out of the top of it. “He’s such a sweetie, isn’t he?” she yelled in my ear.
A few moments later he came back with our drinks. I drank about half of mine quickly, handed the glass to Lee and took Claire’s hand. “You dancing?” I looked at him for permission. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t say anything either. I knew he’d be watching my every move.
Claire and I threaded our way through to the main dance floor. Dancing made me feel better. For a fraction of a moment, about two songs in, I even forgot that Lee was there. For a moment, I was back to being on my own, the way things were, when I could dance however I liked, talk to anyone, flirt, chat, drink until I could barely stand if that was what I felt like doing.
Then I took a glance up at the balconies and there he was, almost invisible in his dark suit in the shadowy alcove, just illuminated quickly by the lights and then plunged into blackness again. I would have preferred it if he’d been talking to someone, or looking generally around the room, or at least looking as if he was enjoying himself. But he was just staring—at me.
I gave him a smile that he didn’t return. Maybe he wasn’t looking at me at all.
I started to feel a little bit queasy.
Louise, who’d found us on the dance floor, was watching me. She took my arm and shouted something in my ear but I couldn’t hear a word of it above the music.
But she didn’t need to, because suddenly from behind someone had taken hold of my waist and started grinding provocatively against my backside. I jumped half out of my skin and looked over my shoulder to see it was Darren, one of Louise’s friends from work whom I’d had a brief fling with last year. He kissed me quickly somewhere above my ear and looked pleased to see me, but his smile died within moments when he saw my face.
I managed a smile and moved a little away from him and kept on dancing. Darren kept dancing near to us, which, given how packed the dance floor was now, was very close indeed. When I felt brave enough I stole a glance up at the balcony.
He had gone.
For a moment I wondered if this was my chance. “Lou,” I yelled, “where’s the bathroom?”
“You what?” She cupped a hand behind her ear as though that would make any sort of difference.
I took her hand and started to pull her off the dance floor with me toward the edge, but I was a bit too late. From the throng of bodies pressed on me from all sides I suddenly felt a touch that was just a bit too intimate, an arm snaking around my body, one firm hand cupping my breast, pulling me backward, warm breath on my neck, his tongue suddenly on my skin, his voice loud and still barely audible in my ear. “Where are you off to?”
Louise’s grip relaxed on my hand as the momentum of the dancers carried her back into the crowd, while I danced for a moment with my lover, still holding me from behind so I couldn’t see his face. Despite the bodies all around I felt every part of his body against me, I knew it so well. I rested my head back onto his shoulder and with his free hand he swept my hair off my neck so he could kiss me, bite me. My long hair wrapped around his fist like a thick black rope, pulling my head back to expose more skin, until all I could see were the swirling lights moving across the vaulted ceiling far above, the swoosh back and forth of the twin trapezes making me feel as if I was spinning.
My knees started to give. He pulled me clear of the crowds, down a narrow corridor, into a dark corner. People walking backward and forward, shouting above the noise, laughing, ignoring us completely. He pressed me into the wall with his bulk, one hand cupping my cheek as he kissed me. His other hand holding both my wrists above my head, pressing me into the rough stone wall. I felt something digging into my skin and struggled against his grip. He pressed harder against my wrists. I didn’t want to be kissed. I felt claustrophobic and panicky.
“Suck me off,” he said, his voice low into my throat.
“No,” I said, quietly so he couldn’t hear.
He started trying to push me to my knees but I resisted. His hand was suddenly firm on my cheek, pulling me into the light from the other room.
“I don’t feel well,” I shouted.
He looked at me doubtfully.
“I think I need to be sick,” I said.
He must have believed me because he led me along the corridor to where the bathrooms were and let go of me, momentum stumbling me through the door.
It was surprisingly quiet in here, the music just a low pounding coming from a long way away. It was full of girls, crowded around the mirrors and the sinks, helping themselves to pump bottles of moisturizer despite the humid air.
The stall at the end was free and I stumbled into it, shutting the door and locking it. I sat down and cried. My legs were shaking. I folded myself down across my knees into a tight ball and sobbed and rocked myself.
Minutes passed, or maybe it was seconds. I wanted to be anywhere on the planet other than here. I pulled some toilet paper out of the dispenser and wiped my cheeks, looking at the black mascara and eyeliner and the wet, looking at the way my hand holding it was shaking. What was wrong with me? When had this all started going so wrong?
“Catherine!” I heard Louise’s voice shouting and then a knock on the stall door. “You in there, honey? Let me in. Are you all right?”
I reached up and unlocked the door and she came in, saw my face and locked the door again behind her. She squatted down next to me, took my hand in hers and held it, trying to stop the shaking. “What is it, honey? What’s the matter?”
“I just—I just don’t feel well,” I said, sobbing all over again.
She wrapped me in her arms and I fell into a faceful of her hair. She smelled of perfume and hairspray and sweat. I loved her and wished she were Sylvia all at the same time.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she sang, rocking me gently. She got some more toilet paper and wiped my face. “You want me to get Lee? Get him to take you home?”
I shook my head so hard the stall spun around me. “No,” I said, “I’ll be all right. I just need a minute.”
She pushed the hair back out of my face, trying to get me to look her in the eye. “What’s the matter, honey? You’re not yourself, are you. What’s up?”
“It’s all going wrong,” I managed to say before the tears came back. “I can’t—I can’t . . . anymore.”
Another bang on the door. “Lou? ’S me. Let me in.”
It was Claire. Louise unlocked the door and Claire came in too, just about managing to squeeze behind the door to shut it again. Three of us crammed into a stall meant for one. It had been a while. The thought that I was back here with my girls made me manage a weak smile.
“See, that’s better,” Claire said, “you only needed me, didn’t you, love? Louise, you’re such a half-job. Come here, honey.” She elbowed Louise out of the way and enfolded me into her one hundred percent natural and proud double-G cups until I quite literally couldn’t breathe.
“Come on, she’s choking, can’t you tell?”
Eventually all three of us were almost having a giggle. I’d stopped crying and I didn’t even feel nauseous anymore. We had a group hug, then we unlocked the door and all piled out again.
“We need some repairs,” Louise said, rooting through her tiny bag for emergency makeup. They both scrutinized my wreck of a face.
“So what’s up?” Claire said. “You know you can tell us. Whatever it is, honey. We’ll get through it, won’t we?”
“It’s—I don’t know. I’m not sure. Work’s been a bit shit. I’m just tired all the time. Not sleeping very well. You know . . . And Lee. I’m not sure about Lee.”
“What’s these marks?”
Claire had my hands, and was looking at the red marks on my wrists in the cool light from overhead. Where he’d pressed me into the rough stonework there were some long scratches, little pinprick threads of blood.
“I don’t know,” I said, “must have scratched them somehow.”
Louise and Claire exchanged glances for a fraction of a second while I stood still and had eyeliner applied to my lower lids by Louise.
“There—just as beautiful as always,” she said after a moment, and spun me to the mirror.
For a moment I didn’t recognize myself.
“Come on, Lee’ll be wondering what we’re doing in here,” Claire said. “I told him I was only coming in to look for you.”
“He’s waiting?” I asked.
“Yes, he’s right outside. He came to find me. Said you were feeling sick.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t moved.
“You’re so lucky, Catherine,” Claire said, coming back to give me a hug. “He’s fucking gorgeous, and he obviously loves you so much. I wish I had someone like him.”
“He’s . . . a bit intense. Sometimes,” I said.
The bathroom was full of women again, suddenly, jostling around the sink, shouting at each other.
Louise kissed me on the cheek. “Isn’t he just what we’ve all always wanted? Someone who’s going to look you right in the eye? Someone who is going to stand and wait outside the ladies’ room for you to come back? We’re too fucking used to whatever the opposite of intense is, Catherine. We’re too fucking used to guys not giving a shit. You’ve got someone who doesn’t just give a shit, you are completely and utterly his number one priority. The world doesn’t exist for him outside you. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? To find a guy like that?”
I had no answer for that, of course, but they didn’t need one: they were already weaving through the spangles and heels and LBDs toward the door to where, as they’d said, he would be waiting.
I put on the best smile I could manage, one foot in front of the other, thinking about what might happen later and how I could minimize the damage.