Thorn in the Flesh Read online

  No.

  No, please God, let it not be the case. She’d do anything, anything …

  The pain in her hand brought her back to her senses and she realised she was gripping the cheese grater so tightly that red marks had gouged themselves into her palm. Almost like blood.

  Nicky, Nicky, where are you?

  For the first time since she’d woken up, her face felt wet and, grabbing a section of kitchen towel, she wiped the tears away. No point being weak. She couldn’t afford any weakness now. It was a battle, she knew it, how she knew it, and for a while longer she would have no option but to be strong.

  ‘You won’t win, you bastard,’ she whispered as she hunched over the grill and laid the mushrooms on top of the cheese. ‘You won’t win.’

  ‘What’s that? What’re you saying?’

  David. Once again, she hadn’t heard him. She must be so full of her own thoughts and fears that she had no room for the acknowledgement of anyone else.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, without turning round. ‘Talking to myself, that’s all. I’m cooking us both supper. Bread, cheese and mushrooms. Which is all I could find. I hope that’s all right. Are the children well?’

  ‘Yes. I told them that you sent them your love. And that their mother did too. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.’

  ‘No, of course.’

  He said nothing more but, going to the fridge, he took out an already opened bottle of Chablis. ‘This should be finished off. It’ll only go to waste.’

  ‘All right.’

  He poured two glasses and they drank, Kate sipping hers but David swigging his down as if it were water.

  ‘You ought to go easy on that,’ she warned. ‘I know it’s good for the short-term but it isn’t going to help us in the long run.’

  ‘So? Maybe the short-term is as far as I can see at the moment. But, thinking of things that don’t help us, why did you decide to keep your letters secret and put Nicky in danger in the first place?’ he said.

  The air shifted, as if someone had lifted it up and turned it a fraction. Kate felt all her body stiffen. The trouble was that she knew he was right. Because of this, she couldn’t find the courage to turn to face him. Instead, she stared at the yellow wall behind the cooker. The delicacy of the colour misted through the grill’s earthy steam and sizzle and she had to blink several times before fathoming the means to respond.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered in the end, when it seemed as if the silence would last for ever. ‘Yes, I should have thought. I am sorry.’

  There was nothing else to say, nothing she could conjure from the minimal stores now at her possession. This was the partial truth; for now she could tell him no more. David made no reply. Why should he? What, she wondered, would be the point?

  Another beat of her heart, then another, and she could feel the air shifting again. In which direction, she didn’t know and she found she was holding her breath.

  The sound of footsteps, the swish of the door and he was gone.

  Kate took a deep breath, wiped the back of her hand over her eyes and tried to stop shaking.

  Ten minutes later, supper was ready. Kate tasted nothing of the meal. It might as well have been ice or shadows. Afterwards, she cleared the dishes and programmed the dishwasher. Then, clutching her half-finished glass of Chablis, she returned to the dining room.

  She sat down opposite David.

  ‘So tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me what it is like. For you. Tell me about your marriage.’

  He looked at her as if she’d asked something in a foreign language he had never been taught. For a moment more, he continued to stare at her before closing his eyes and beginning to speak, as if words were new and untried in his throat.

  ‘I love her so much,’ he said, softly at first but then louder and in a more committed fashion. ‘I love Nicky. I always have, from the first moment we met, although I know it took longer for her to think of me in that way. Being with her is … wonderful. And having the children as well was more happiness than I ever thought I could have. But, lately, we’ve been … having problems. It’s been difficult at work. I’m a middle manager, that’s what I do. Nothing special but it brings in enough for us all, and that’s what I wanted. I’m not interested in my career. It’s just a job, nothing more. But now I’m in my late thirties, the powers that be want new blood and I don’t know … I didn’t know if my job was going to be there in six months’ time, or if I’ll be the one doing it. I tried to tell Nicky, but I couldn’t find the words. I kept trying to tell her but I didn’t know how. The more I worried about it, the less I could … be with her. We’d hoped for another child, but of course now there was no chance of that. After a while we stopped trying so hard. We stopped being together. That was last Christmas and here I am, still in the same job – just, and even then for how long I don’t know – but the thing that matters most to me has slipped away.’

  When he’d finished speaking, Kate made no reply. She stretched out her hand, uncertain, and gripped him once, briefly, on the shoulder. He didn’t shake her away but he didn’t look at her either.

  She got up.

  ‘I’ll get another bottle of wine,’ she said. ‘In spite of what I said before, I think this time both of us might need it.’

  Finding a supermarket red, she opened it, sniffed the cork and took the bottle and two clean glasses back to David. She poured him a generous glass, and then another for herself. The gesture made her feel freer, untrammelled.

  ‘Drink,’ she said.

  When he did, she followed suit. And when he smiled, she did the same also. There seemed to be no need for words.

  For the rest of the evening, they watched television though, afterwards, Kate had no memory of what she might have seen. It was simply background noise and pictures. A necessary sound. Occasionally she sipped at her wine, but didn’t finish her glass. David on the other hand had gulped down his first glass, poured himself a second and finished that one also. After that, he left the bottle alone.

  Outside, the evening darkened and the wind began to rise. She could see the movement of the trees at the corner of her eye, although they seemed as if they were a thousand miles away from the warmth of the room. When it became too dark, Kate got up and drew the curtains to shut out the unknown world. Soon she must go home. Endure the night. The onset of this would, she feared, be too much to bear: another day without knowledge of Nicky. What would happen now?

  Behind her, she sensed rather than heard a movement.

  When she turned round, David was standing, the bottle of wine clasped in one hand. His eyes held hers.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, as if he was carrying on a conversation she hadn’t heard, ‘I don’t know how this will end, how things will be. Do you see that?’

  It came to her once again that when he spoke, she hadn’t recognised his voice. It sounded older, more uncertain, vulnerable in a way she’d never noticed before, not even during these last few hours. She thought again that all these years of knowing this man, through Nicky, and she didn’t really know him at all. How could she have missed so much? The answer of course was easy; Kate’s focus had always been on her friend. David had been accepted only as part of the package, part of the way Nicky’s life had turned out, not as someone worth knowing in his own right. How much damage might she have done by that assumption?

  Now, she simply nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I see.’

  With a swiftness she couldn’t quite follow, David deposited the bottle on the sideboard and took hold of her shoulders. His grip was light but somehow inescapable. When his lips touched hers, she was neither shocked nor sure of how to respond. He tasted clean. She allowed his tongue to open her mouth and kiss her properly while she rested her hands around his hips. It felt like something she might have wanted, one day, in another life, to pursue but in this one it was impossible.

  She pushed him away, but lightly, without anger.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We can’t do this. I’m sor
ry. It would be … wrong. There’s been enough pain.’

  In the soft wall-light, David’s face glimmered whiter. She saw him swallow, the swift movement of his Adam’s apple rippling across his throat.

  ‘Yes, I see that. Sure. I’m not thinking.’ He sighed then and turned away. ‘I’m very sorry. It was stupid of me. Would you like another drink?’

  ‘No. I’d better be going. Don’t worry. I’ll call for a taxi. Tomorrow, we’ll go to the police again. Make them act before they plan to.’

  ‘Kate.’ He spoke suddenly as if her name had been filling his mouth.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stay. Won’t you?’

  She hesitated, and in that hesitation he continued to speak. ‘Look, please stay. It would be stupid for you to go home. I promise I won’t try anything on again. No, I swear it. You can trust me. You can have the spare room. Nicky … Nicky always keeps it made up. I just don’t want to be alone in this house.’

  When he finished, she saw his hands were gripped into fists and his body was shaking. He wouldn’t look at her.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘All right. I’ll stay.’

  He found her towels, fresh soap and an old nightgown of Nicky’s. Blue and soft, it smelt of peaches, and, alone, Kate buried her face in it, trying to conjure her friend from its warm texture. From the landing, she heard David pad downstairs and then the unfamiliar sound of his locking up for the night, switching off the lights, securing them in.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Yes?’ Placing the nightgown on the bed, she slipped outside the room. David was standing at the bottom of the stairs, peering up at her. With the landing light on behind her and the darkness below, she thought that she must be nothing more than an outline in black to him.

  ‘You use the bathroom first,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll turn the light out. There’s a spare toothbrush in the cabinet.’

  ‘All right.’ She nodded.

  In the bathroom, she washed her face and smoothed down her hair. Opening the cabinet, she found the toothbrush still in its packaging behind a shelf of Clinique cleanser and dental floss. Keeping it company above were a carton of rose-scented hand soaps and a pair of tweezers. Unable to resist, she opened the other side and found two bottles of aftershave, a razor and a comb. A man’s side and a woman’s side, she thought, closing her eyes and leaning against the mirror. The easy intersection of a life spent together, the physical signs of long-term love. No, more than that, the evidence of a family, because scattered round the bath were the products and toys favoured by the twins.

  A family bathroom: Kate whispered the words to herself and knew it was something she would never experience. Still, each of them had a different path to walk and must walk it willingly and well.

  She brushed her teeth and left the toothbrush on the basin for use in the morning. On the way back to the spare room, she could hear sounds of movement in the main bedroom. Pausing in front of the door, which was ajar, she called out, ‘Good night then.’

  A second or two later, David’s reply came, ‘Yes, good night. See you in the morning.’

  In her bedroom, she undressed quickly and pulled Nicky’s nightgown over her head. In the long mirror behind the wardrobe door, she looked unnatural, not herself. As if she was wearing someone else’s life. With a sigh she turned off the light, heart beating fast, and got into bed. She listened for a while to the sounds of running water as David used the bathroom, then the pad of his feet on the return journey and the click of the landing switch. The line of light leaking in around the doorframe vanished and the silence of the house swung in around her.

  She slept.

  It was dark when Kate opened her eyes, but she was instantly awake, staring up into the blackness with, to the right, the faint glimmer above the curtains softening the room. What time was it? The light of her watch told her it was only just 1am. She’d been asleep for no more than two hours. Yet she felt as if she could have got up and faced a whole new day without exhaustion.

  Nicky, she thought. Nicky. I shouldn’t be sleeping. I should be up, out there, trying to find you.

  A sudden gulp in the throat, a feeling of nausea and she turned her face to the pillow, allowing the tears to come. As she wept, she twisted her friend’s nightgown in her hands, pulling it upwards, burying her mouth and nose in its softness. She cried until there were no more tears. The clock said 1.20am, but her crisis had seemed to be longer. Much longer. But still, it wasn’t enough.

  For a couple of seconds, Kate lay under the duvet, heart beating fast and several decisions vying for supremacy in her mind. Finding one, she took it. Stepping out of the bed, and without bothering with the light, she walked onto the landing and towards her destination.

  David’s room. Nicky’s room.

  The door was still ajar and the darkness inside was almost absolute. She knocked, waited and knocked again.

  At last she heard movement. A sweep of light from a corner of the room she couldn’t see, the creaking of a bed and the sound of soft padding in her direction. The door opened more fully and she could see David tying the belt of his dressing gown. His hair was sticking up and he blinked at her, like a small boy trying to focus.

  ‘Kate?’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I need to talk.’

  ‘Now? Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No. I don’t think it can.’

  For a moment, he stood there, as if weighing her up. Then, with a sigh, he switched on the main light, turned round and stepped back into the bedroom, leaving her to follow.

  She did.

  The bedroom was decorated in a pale mauve and two of Nicky’s paintings were framed on the long wall opposite the bed, one on either side of the window. The first was a picture of Winkworth Arboretum, near the lake where the trees were black and twisted by the wind. It was one of Kate’s favourite places, but she hadn’t been there since the attack. The other painting was of David and the twins, sitting in the living room. David was reading, and the twins were playing at his feet. The sunlight from the window highlighted them, giving them an aura of joy and domestic stability. Kate hadn’t seen this one before.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘When did Nicky do that?’

  ‘Just before France,’ David said. ‘She was going to show it to you, but …’

  He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. Instead, he pulled the small, burgundy stool away from the dressing table and towards the side of the bed, where he was now sitting.

  ‘What did you want to tell me, Kate?’ he said, his tone of voice not unfriendly. ‘Or would you rather go downstairs?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, here’s fine. Downstairs would be too formal.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Taking the stool and placing it at an angle between the bed and the door, she sat down.

  He waited.

  When at last she spoke, it was as if she were dredging words she didn’t know she possessed from the heart of her.

  ‘There’s something I haven’t told anyone,’ she began. ‘Not the police, not Nicky and, until recently, not even myself. At least, not directly. I’m telling you this now, as I think it’s important. It seems to be the right thing to do, and the right time. That’s all I can say.’

  In the silence as she closed her eyes, she could hear David’s breathing, but he said nothing, and she was glad of it.

  ‘When I was attacked,’ she continued, ‘the man wore a mask so I couldn’t see his face. But he couldn’t hide his eyes and his hands. Nor some of the things he said to me, which I didn’t understand then – I was too terrified – but I came to understand later, in spite of myself. I don’t know if Nicky told you, David, and it’s something she didn’t know until recently herself, but while I was at university I had a son whom I gave away. I had him adopted. His name was Stephen. I believe it was Stephen who attacked and raped me. It’s why I’ve been searching for him, when I never have in the past. It’s why …’

&
nbsp; But Kate was unable to complete the sentence. As the words left her, burning their meaning into her throat, a wave of grief and guilt swept up in their wake and she unexpectedly found she was crying. After such a long time of not crying about this, or not allowing herself to, she was knocked down, overwhelmed by it.

  From somewhere, she found she had tissues. Perhaps David had thrust them into her hand, she didn’t know. There was no way of telling. The tears were blinding her and she couldn’t stop the sobbing. The days and weeks of trying to trample down the knowledge of what had really happened to her on the night of the attack were torn away and she was left for the first time naked and vulnerable. The rape. The knowledge of incest. The guilt of that realisation adding to the horror of the rape. And underneath it all, the thought that her son – her own son – was a violent criminal who hated her beyond all things.

  She kept on crying, the very fact of it bringing a strange kind of relief. And glad too that David made no move to touch her or comfort her with platitudes. Even in his presence, the solitude of her grief seemed to be its most important component. For a while then, she let that grief have its way.

  Finally, although she didn’t know how much later it might have been, she was quiet. She dropped the last crumpled tissue into the wastepaper basket she could now see beside her before gathering up the others from the floor also. Then she was still. It was David who spoke. He sounded tired and distant.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Your son – if it was your son, and you only have your own suspicions to tell you that, Kate – raped you, and might have taken Nicky. Why? To make you suffer again? To take revenge for being abandoned? The rape, the incest – if that was what it was – isn’t your fault. You didn’t make it happen; he did. Other people are adopted and don’t do this. But it doesn’t matter; there’s nothing I can say or do which will make any of this any better, and, to be honest, as far as I’m concerned the only thing I’m worried about is getting my wife back. Everything else is meaningless. I’m sorry for what’s happened to you, but I can’t deal with it now. And maybe, until Nicky is back, safe and well, neither can you. Do you understand?’