PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (27 page)

By
the time we reach the hotel I find myself feeling angry rather than satisfied
and it played on my mind throughout the dinner, the one which Gregory had
ordered in advance on our behalf and that I had not chosen any part of.  The
table on the private section of deck that offered no view of the lake was laid
with white linen and polished glass, but the details were lost on me.  I was
replaying the scene from earlier over and over in my mind, an unfortunate
version of Groundhog Day that was in no small measure entirely my own
creation.  Throughout the mental replaying of events I was surprised to see that
I morphed into Mary, taking her place on the arm of Dana, and Gregory more
often than not became Wexley.  But what seemed much less surprising to me was
that in any version that played out in my head, Ishiko always played the part
of Marianne.  And in my versions, the mental retellings that played out in my
head Mary never returned to the house in tears, and Ishiko/Marianne always came
off a lot worse than in the actual event.

“What
do you think of the scallops?”  Gregory seems determined that he fill the empty
silence hanging over our table with inane chatter.  This is another reason I
know that we have drifted apart, because he can no longer tolerate silence.  When
you are in love, truly in love in the way that the harsh details of life fade
to become nothing more than trivialities of problems, silence doesn’t matter. 
Flaws and silence are two markers of true love, and he cannot tolerate either.

“They
are very nice,” I say.  They are from the sea, rather than the lake, and
therefore he considers it a safe menu option.  We were invited to a local
restaurant a couple of months back by the Lovells.  The restaurant had an excellent
reputation for local trout, caught from the lake on one of the small fishing
boats by a man who had grown a beard to keep his face warm during the early frosty
mornings.  We didn’t go.  He told me he dislikes trout, but I do not believe
him.  I know he feared the conversation, the inference to the body of water in
which I had nearly died and left most of my memories.  “They are delicious,” I
say when my first compliment seems inadequate and unpalatable.  

Gregory
seems keen to steer the conversation away from this morning’s events, and on
the two separate occasions that I have tried to mention it he has batted my
conversation in a different direction.  The first time he did so by mentioning
the break in snow across the mountains and how grateful he is that the
Kirkstone pass has reopened.  The second time was his question about the sea
caught scallops.  He seems to think if we do not talk about it, it never really
happened.  I have raised it twice, and twice he cut me off like a landslide, a
swift shift of land in my path so that I am forced to take a different
direction.  But I will reach my destination.  I try a new approach.

“Perhaps
we should call on Marianne, see how she is?”  He positions his knife and fork
on his plate on the eleven and five o’clock axis.  I am sure he is holding the
last bite in his mouth, buying time so that he doesn’t have to answer me.  The
waiter comes and takes his plate.  Gregory dabs at his lips, each corner twice
with the napkin he has taken from his knees like a well mannered child at
boarding school.

“Why?” 

“Why? 
Isn’t it obvious?  After what happened this morning, she must be feeling
terrible.”

“I’m
sure she will be alright.  She understands the situation.  Anyway, I think it’s
a private matter.”

“She
looked like she was crying.”  Another waiter brings our main courses.  Chicken
covered in some sort of red sauce and organised on the plate in a fashion as
elaborate as my bandaged fingers.  “She must be sad.”

“Do
you feel sorry for her?”  He looks surprised, as if I am incapable of
compassion, that the thought of my feeling empathy was incomprehensible. 

“Why? 
Should I not?”

“It’s
not that.”

“Then
what is it?  Why should I not feel sorry for her?” I ask.

He
admires the plated food, angles it left and right as if he is appreciating a
sculpture which he himself has created.  Eventually he stops fingering the
plate and the smile he was sporting fades as he looks up at my expectant face
and realises that I am still waiting on an answer.  “It’s just,” he begins, before
clearing an imaginary obstruction from his throat, “that I can see why there
are tensions.”

“So
what, she deserves to be miserable?  That she reaps what she sows?”  He rolls
his eyes as if he is trying to think of a better way to put it.  Something less
harsh.  Something where John Wexley doesn’t come off as the bad guy perhaps,
even though without him none of this would have ever happened. 

“No. 
Rather, that they had to expect it.  Their relationship was bound to upset a
few people.”  I eat a mouthful of the chicken listening to the dull sloshing of
the lake striking the wooden posts upon which I sit, like flames dancing
towards a witch’s foot.  “The mother had been ill for some time now, they knew
it was on the cards.  Marianne should have known it was coming.”

“And
John?”  All I can hear is blame being heaped at Marianne’s feet, and I don’t
like the way he is causally shrugging his shoulders at the mention of John’s
name.  He curls his lips as if he is contemplating what to say, his arms
pleading with me to try to see his point, whatever that was about to be.

“He
needed somebody.  He is allowed a life.”  I was expecting some sort of argument
in John’s favour, but not one that was so explicitly ignorant of the fact he
has a wife.  In his eyes it was Mary’s fault.  Mary’s and Marianne’s.  “Mary
isn’t around now.  Marianne is.  But, it’s a bit quick for people to
understand.”  I have taken only a few mouthfuls of food, but I place my knife
and fork down and push my plate away.  He notices it and his eyes follow my
outstretched hand, but he doesn’t say anything and instead inserts another
small mouthful of food into his mouth, grinds it about against his huge tombstone
teeth.

“So
what, as soon as she is gone you think it reasonable for him to do what he
did.  You think when somebody isn’t around it is acceptable for their partner
to do anything he likes?”

“I’m
not saying that,” he says after a moment of contemplation, “but you have to try
and see it from his point of view.  The mother dying is at least one less thing
for them to worry about now, if you really want to look at it from Marianne and
John’s point of view.  It will be easier for them now.”

"She
died?" I ask.

"Yes."

"When?"

"Last
night," he replies without so much as a glance in my direction. 

"Why
didn't you say anything?" I ask.  He doesn't offer me a reply.

Whilst
he sits eating the dinner that he ordered, I can do nothing more than think
about what he has just said. 
Not acceptable, but an explanation. 
This
is the way he thinks.  He thinks that some things happen, irrespective of their
appropriateness or acceptability, and that the death of a sick mother will at
least, thank the Lord, help out in terms of facilitating their liaisons by
easing grief and guilt.  As long as actions are explicable, they are OK.  This
is the way my husband thinks.  This is how he justifies his actions.

By
this same standard, he should have had no problem with my chosen route of
suicide.  He should have understood without question when I chose to take his
boat, set fire to it, watch it burn until the point that I couldn’t stand the
heat of the flames any longer, and so slipped myself over the edge with the
intention to drown.  Even Dr. Abrams described my behaviour as
understandable
in the light of the circumstances. 
To watch your father slip beneath the
surface of the lake, his eyes rolling back in their sockets before he
disappeared underneath the blood stained waves, was enough in my doctor’s eyes
to explain my choices.  But I know that Gregory finds my behaviour unacceptable. 
Just as I do his. 

“I
didn’t mean to upset you, Charlotte.  It’s just, well, it isn’t really any of
our business, is it?  How they live their lives, it’s up to them.”  He has
looked at the almost untouched food still on my plate several times, but he
remains quiet about it.

“Hum,”
I smile through pursed lips and fight the urge to tell him that my interest is
not about them, but rather about us, and him, and his bitch back at our house.

“I
want us to start thinking about us again.  Our future.”  Very convenient of him. 
“We have the baby to think about.”

“You
haven’t shown me a scrap of interest in the baby Gregory.  What has changed all
of a sudden?”  

“Maybe
you don’t remember how much you wanted a child.  But you did, and finally it is
happening for you.  After everything that we have been through, I was scared of
any more changes.  But I remember how much you wanted a child.  You don’t, but
I do.  There is so much you don’t remember.” 
Try to remember,
I hear
Ishiko say. 
Beware the truth.
  He reaches over the table and his
fingers, cold and white tipped like snow capped mountain peaks stroke at my
gloved hand to the point that I can almost feel the cold through them.  “I was
scared, Charlotte.  But I am here for you now.”

 “Did
I really want a child?”

“Yes.” 
He looks anywhere but at me, pulls at his throat to cover up how hard he has to
swallow.  “There is a lot you cannot remember.”

“Like
what?”  There is a desperate part of me that wants to believe he is going to
fill in the blanks, to tell me all the things that Ishiko is prompting me to
remember.  I am certain in this moment that he is about to provide the missing
link, when finally we understand how man came from monkey and how the earth was
built from particles of dust.  Maybe he is about to tell me what Ishiko means
to him and I will feel sympathy and understanding because of one fact that I
have forgotten, and that in this moment my life will suddenly make sense.  He could
stop everything right now if he just says the right thing.  I would throw away
the tablets and put the next one in my mouth.  I would scrap my plans.  In
these few moments of impending revelation I am willing to hand him the power to
show me that which I have forgotten.  In my willingness to believe that there
is an answer, a solution, a way forward, whatever he tells me I think in this
moment I might believe it, just for the ability to say that I have a past that
has something to do with anything but death and the willingness to die.

“Dr.
Abrams told me that I should be very careful about telling you too much too
quickly.”  He looks at me but fidgets with his tie.  His hand releases mine,
and the anticipation that he had built seems to disintegrate, like dreams made
of dust, blown away by the gentlest of breezes.  Hope, once again it seems, is
for losers.

“When
did he tell you that?”

“In
our appointments.  I want to tell you, honestly I do.”

“What
appointments?”

He
waits a moment before saying, “It’s not just you that goes to see him,
Charlotte.”  I remember the day when he left the hotel so suddenly.  Was this
where he was going?  “What happened took its toll on both of us.  I have been
talking to him too, trying to find us a way back.”

“What
did he tell you not to tell me?”

“Nothing
specific, just general details.  That you have to discover things in your own
time.  That you'll remember when you are ready.”

“Tell
me what he said.  Tell me what I have forgotten.”  I am reaching across the
table, my hands scampering around like mice in search of his.  I couldn’t look
anymore pathetic in this moment if I was on my knees begging him for answers,
but I do not care.  I am fuelled by the grandest sense of desperation that I
have felt since that day when I slipped beneath the water and the only
distraction for me now from the possibility of learning the truth is the very
same sound of the water underneath me.  It seems louder somehow, as if it has
been awakened and excited by my proximity.  It can hear my desperation in my
pleas and it wonders if this is the chance to finally collect me.

“Well,”
he said, coughing.  The waiter comes out to clear the plates and Gregory bats
his hands frantically, sending him away.  He squares up the napkin and
rearranges the salt and pepper shakers.  “Well, like the problem of children. 
How much you wanted them.”

“But
the pregnancy was a surprise.”

“Yes,
it was.  But you wanted them.  Why do you think you took my boat out?”

“What?” 
This might be the first time I have heard him refer to that day.  Ever.

“You
were angry at me.  You said it was my fault.  You said I was preventing you
from, what was it you said, putting a stop to the past.  You said having a
child would give you a new label, you could be something new, something
different, and that it was my doing that you couldn’t.”  I know without any of
the doubts that usually afflict my life that he is telling the truth. 
Label. 
Something new.  Something different. 
These are all my words.  “That’s why
you burned my boat.  You said it was payback, so I would know that I could have
made the difference, but wouldn’t.”