Woman with a Secret (22 page)

I should have told him to get lost and stop messing me around. I should have spotted that something was very much amiss. Nothing I was reading in King Edward’s emails sounded anything like the confident, promiscuous Damon Blundy I was reading in the
Daily Herald
every week. I told myself the confident womanizer tone was a front, needed precisely because the real Damon was sexually timid and insecure.

I’d cure him of his shyness and his doubts, I told myself.

The day before we were due to meet at the Chancery, he emailed me and said, “Nicki, I’m so sorry. I don’t think I can go through with it.” I thought he was canceling on me and I lost my cool. Not that I have much in the way of cool, in any situation ever; it’s not my strong suit. I sent King Edward an outpouring of horrified hysteria by way of reply. He wrote back and said, “Go to the Chancery as planned. Take your phone or a laptop so that we can keep in touch. I will do my very best to get myself there.”

I told Adam I was going on vacation with some old school friends—a reunion—and I went to London. Adam had to take the week off work. He didn’t mind, but I felt sick with guilt every time I thought about him and the kids at home together, keeping each other company and being a normal happy family while I did what I was doing at the other end of the normality spectrum.

I sat in a characterless hotel room in Bloomsbury, containing a bed, a chair, a desk and a built-in wardrobe, and I waited. The first day and night, the second day and night, King Edward didn’t come. We emailed each other constantly—him saying how guilty he felt knowing he was letting me down, what a useless coward he was; me saying he mustn’t be too hard on himself, and please come, and if he doesn’t want to be unfaithful to his wife, we can just talk. No, he said—he couldn’t bear to be in the room with me and not touch me. Crazily, I suggested he book the room next door to mine, so that we wouldn’t even need to see each other. We could talk on the phone, maybe, instead. I would have settled for anything—any tiny morsel that would have allowed me to feel that we were moving forward. I’d have settled for knowing that the man I loved was on the other side of a wall in the Chancery Hotel.

Yes, I do hate myself rather a lot—thanks for asking
.

Halfway through my third day of sitting alone in an uninspiring red and grey hotel room, crying and never quite managing to muster sufficient dignity to draw a line under this ghastly experience and go home early, an email arrived from King Edward with the subject
heading “A possible plan.” My heart leaped sky-high. Everything might be OK, I thought; everything might be saved.

King Edward’s plan was an odd one—one no sane woman would agree to, I’m sure. Luckily, he suggested it to the only deluded fool on the planet who was deranged enough to say yes. Which I did.

He said he’d thought of a way that would make it possible for him to come and meet me. We would agree on a time in advance for the following day. I would, in the meantime, get hold of a blindfold. I would leave a key for him at reception, with instructions for the receptionist to give it to him when he arrived. At the agreed time, I would make sure I was in bed, wearing nothing but the blindfold. He would then let himself into the room. Neither of us would utter a single word throughout: no voices—this was very important to him. He would do what he wanted with me. (I was more surprised by this than by anything else, I think, because up until this point he had seemed so solicitous and caring about what I wanted.) With no words spoken, he would communicate his orders, using touch and movement only. I would obey those orders. I wasn’t to remove the blindfold at any point. We would make love, and then he would let himself out of the room and leave, without my having seen him at all.

I agreed to all of it. Yes, it was strange, but I told myself it might be fun too. Erotic. I tried to think of it as a fun, kinky thing, not alarming craziness.

The arrangements were made.

I had no idea where to get a blindfold, so I went to Accessorize at King’s Cross Station and bought a long black silky scarf that I could wind twice around my head.

The next day was the day we’d agreed to meet. He didn’t let me down—not then, anyway. He arrived at the agreed time. I couldn’t see anything because of the blindfold, and I desperately wished that I could see him, but not being able to was exciting too, in its own way. Maybe even more exciting. All my other senses were on overdrive. I breathed in the smell of him when he lay down next to me. Touching
him, tasting him, feeling his bare skin against mine—I’ve never experienced anything like it, before or since. Which is what makes it so much worse, given what happened next: that he was my best ever.

I can’t let myself think too much about that, or I start to go a bit crazy, and I’m crazy enough already.

He used his mouth and his fingers to give me so much pleasure, but I was aching to feel him inside me, and after several hours, I started to wonder when that would happen. I assumed he was working up to it—deliberately withholding what he knew I wanted for as long as possible, saving it up . . .

And then, without warning, it was all over. His skin was no longer touching mine. At all—not anywhere on my body. I heard the rustle of clothing, the metallic jingle of a belt buckle. I opened my mouth to speak and he clapped his hand over it, enforcing his no-talking rule. And then he left, slamming the door behind him.

Within fifteen minutes I was emailing him: “What the hell happened then? Why did you run off?”

No reply.

I emailed over and over again, all evening, all night. Nothing.

The next morning, I wrote several more times. My emails became progressively more hysterical. In the
Daily Herald
that day, Damon Blundy pulverized supporters of abortion rights who were against the death penalty, and supporters of the death penalty who were anti-abortion—“It’s either acceptable to end a life for a truly excellent reason or it isn’t”—but King Edward remained silent. In desperation, I nearly posted a comment in response to Damon’s abortion/death-penalty rant, saying, “Why the fuck are you ignoring me?” Thank God I didn’t, since he wouldn’t have had a clue who I was or what I was talking about.

I stayed in the Chancery Hotel for the full week, checking my email inbox every three seconds. King Edward didn’t get in touch. I wept a lot. Then, when my time alone ran out, I went home and tried to pretend I was OK, though I was far from it. So many times I nearly collapsed in a sobbing heap on the floor. I told Adam I was feeling
sick and that I was probably coming down with a bug. He believed me and was sympathetic. I felt like a repulsive zombie who had somehow infiltrated a lovely, respectable middle-class family.

Three days after I returned home, I got an email from King Edward—Damon, as I still believed he was, since by now he had been signing his emails “Damon” for more than six months. He apologized for his silence. It was unforgivable, he knew. The reason for it was guilt. I wrote him back a long email explaining why he mustn’t feel guilty—true love was true love and should never be denied, all that kind of rubbish.

His response came straightaway. “You don’t understand,” he’d written. “The man you were with at the Chancery Hotel, the one who drove you wild for hours and then disappeared without warning—it wasn’t me, or anyone you know. He was a stranger.”

“NICKI, IT’S MUM. WHO’S
King Edward?”

Involuntarily, my hands clench. Did I really pick up the phone and whisper his name out loud?
Get a fucking grip, Nicki
. “Oh, I’m just looking at Ethan’s history homework,” I say, glancing down at the failed test on the table in front of me. I must make time to read it, take it in, take it seriously. Soon. “Mum, I’ll have to call you later,” I say. “I’m bursting for the bathroom.”

“Call me straight back, please,” she says. “It’s important.”

“Is something wrong? You sound . . .” She sounds the way Kate Zilber sounded when I first told her I was being followed, the way I don’t want anyone ever to sound when they speak to me. Nothing horrifies me more than that
Please sit down because I have some very bad news
tone.
Please follow me to that room over there in which something deeply unpleasant will happen
. It’s never as bad once you find out what the thing is. I’d far rather someone screamed, “A nuclear war’s just started!” in my face, without warning. Why add a layer of presuffering suffering?

“Do you want to have the discussion now, or do you want to call me back?” asks my mother.

“I’ll call you in five minutes,” I say. As soon as I’m off the phone, I run to Adam’s and my bedroom and get my three tiny glass angels out of my bedroom drawer. It’s an embarrassing superstition that I have, one I can’t seem to shake off: if I’m going to be speaking to or seeing either or both of my parents, I need to have the angels with me—in a pocket, in my sock, somewhere. They’re my lucky charm. No one knows about them, not even Adam or Melissa.

Once they’re safely in my pants pocket, I go back to the spare room and call Mum, feeling adequately armed. That doesn’t mean she won’t wound me, but it will prevent the wound from being fatal.

“What’s so urgent?” I ask her.

“Did you kill this Damon Blundy man?” she asks without preamble. “Were you having an affair with him?”

I feel like a fisherman who, after an agonizingly long wait, has caught a large, rare fish. There’s something satisfying about getting proof—yet more proof—that I’m right not to trust my mother, right to believe she doesn’t and never has had my best interests at heart. Ideally, she would indicate that she thinks I’m bound to have murdered someone every time I spoke to her; that would save me the hassle of wondering, periodically, if she might not be quite as monstrous as my father.

“I definitely didn’t kill Damon Blundy, but thanks for thinking of me,” I say. “As for an affair, that’s none of your business.”

“It’s the police’s business, since he’s been killed,” Mum says. “And . . . Dad and Lee say, and they’re right, that it needs to be Adam’s business too. You’re the mother of his children, with them every day, their main carer. Adam needs to know the truth about you. We’re not happy about any of this, but you’ve left us with no choice. You’ve gone too far this time, Nicki.”

She thinks I did it. She really thinks I killed him. I didn’t, but I feel a cold, hard pride all the same.

“No, you’ve gone too far,” I correct her unemotionally. It’s not an
act. In the presence of my parents and Lee, my feelings do a runner. I couldn’t cry or get angry now if I tried. I’m an android, specializing in sarcastic put-downs. “By the way, the gone-too-far-this-time line would have had more impact if you hadn’t been saying it to me since I was a toddler.”

“Put Adam on the phone. Or do you want me to drive over there?”

I manage to force out a laugh. “So, wait, let’s see if I’ve got this right: Dad and Lee have decided to bring me to justice, appointed you as the messenger, and the message is that you’ve all snitched on me to the police? And you’re going to share your inventive theory with Adam too?”

“There’s no point lying any longer, Nicki. Melissa’s told us everything.”

“Everything and more, by the sound of it, since me killing Damon Blundy isn’t part of everything. Nor is me having an affair with him. And feel free to tell Adam whatever you want, but there’s nothing about me he doesn’t know, as of yesterday. After my interview with the police . . . I assume Melissa told you all about that?”

“She did, yes. She’s worried about you. We all are.”

“Thanks. I’m touched.”

“Melissa, as your best friend—”

“Best friend?” I laugh. “Yes, a best friend containing a Trojan horse containing a worst enemy—that kind of best friend. It was talking to her yesterday that made me decide to tell Adam everything. I had a feeling that some unwarranted suspicion of murder and a huge betrayal might be just round the corner. I didn’t want anyone holding me to ransom, so I told him all my secrets. Which, I’m afraid, means I’ve spoiled your fun. You can always tell him anyway if you want? I can ask him to pretend he doesn’t already know.”

I’m going to have to tell Adam, now that I’ve called Mum’s bluff. Confess all my sins. I will worry about that once I get her off the phone.

Some of my sins
. I don’t have to tell Adam everything.

Thankfully, Melissa knows nothing about King Edward and the Chancery Hotel.

“I even told Adam whether I did or didn’t kill Damon Blundy,” I say childishly.

“You just told me you didn’t kill him,” says Mum. “Are you admitting you did now?”

“No. I’m saying I told Adam the truth about whether I did or didn’t.”

“And you told me a lie?”

“No. I told you the truth too.”

“This isn’t a game, Nicki.”

But everything must be a game, mustn’t it? Or else it’s all too much to bear. Everything is a game and I have to win.

“Have you and Dad hired a man with streaked hair to follow me?” I ask. “Or has Lee?”

“What man with streaked hair?”

“I’ve no idea. That’s why I’m asking you. A man’s been following me.”

“You’ll probably end up in bed with him,” says Mum. It’s the first flare-up of anger I’ve heard in her voice since the beginning of the conversation.

“No, he runs away when I turn around,” I say. “Perhaps it’s a weird kind of sexual ‘What’s-the-Time-Mister-Wolf?’ role-play game?”

“What did Adam say when you told him about your various one-night stands and your long-running affair with Damon Blundy?” Mum asks.

“He said, ‘I’ll forgive you all your sins, but only if you take me on a no-expense-spared snowboarding vacation in the French Alps.’ No, he didn’t really. I’m kidding. And I had no long-running or indeed short-running affair with Damon Blundy. I thought you believed in honesty—doesn’t it bother you to make up a pack of lies about me and keep putting it forward as the truth?”

“What did Adam say, Nicki? When you told him about your many infidelities?”

Many? Melissa only knows about two since I got together with Adam. Add to those my fictional affair with Damon Blundy: three. Hardly “many.” Mum needs to get out more. Actually, given that she lives with Dad, she needs to get out permanently. If she’d been braver as a young woman and allowed herself to see him for what he is and act on it, there might have been some hope for her.