Behind Her Eyes(69)

When the doorbell goes at seven I’ve poured myself the last of the Sauvignon Blanc in a failed attempt to settle my mood, and I nearly drop the glass when I open the door. I don’t know who I’m expecting. Laura, maybe. Sophie even, come to make the peace.

But no. It’s him. David.

The long summer evenings are fading and the sky has turned grey. It feels like a metaphor for everything that’s happened between us. Blood rushes to my face and I know even my chest is blotching. I feel sick. I feel afraid. I feel a whole host of things I can’t pin down. My ears buzz.

‘I don’t want to come in,’ he says. He looks an untidy mess, his shirt not quite tucked in right. His shoulders are slumped. I feel like a vampire. As I’ve grown stronger from getting better sleep, they’ve both grown weaker.

‘I wasn’t going to invite you,’ I retort, pulling the door slightly closed behind me in case Adam gets up. Also, I feel safer outside.

‘The office keys. I want them back.’

‘What?’ I say, although I’ve heard him clearly and my mouth has instantly dried with guilt.

‘I know it was you, Louise. I haven’t told anyone what you did. I just want the keys back. I think that’s fair, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I stick to my guns as my stomach roils once more.

‘You’re a terrible liar.’ He stares at the ground as if he can’t bear to look at me. ‘Give me the keys.’

‘I don’t need them anyway.’ I keep my chin up, defiant, but my hands are trembling as I take them from my shell key ring and give them to him. His fingers brush mine as he takes them, and my body betrays me with an urgent longing. Does he feel it too? What a head fuck all this is. How can I still have these feelings even though he part terrifies me?

‘Stay away, Louise. I told you before and I meant it.’

‘And I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I have stayed away. I’ve had enough of the pair of you.’ I deliver it fiercely, but it’s all lies, lies, lies. He can see through me. I hate that.

He looks at me for a long moment, and I wish I could read him better. His blue eyes have dulled to match the dying sky, and I can’t see what’s going on behind them. What he’s thinking.

‘Stay away from us. If you don’t want to end up hurt.’

‘Is that a threat?’ I want to cry and I don’t even know why. What have I got myself into? And after everything, why do I find it so hard to hate him when he’s right in front of me like this? My David.

He glares at me. That cold David is back. The stranger. ‘Yes, it’s a threat. Believe me, it’s a threat. You know what you forgot last night?’

I’m silent, just staring. What? What did I forget?

‘There’s a security camera outside the clinic.’

Oh God, he’s right. I can see where he’s going with this before he says it. He knows, but he says it anyway.

‘One word from me to get last night’s recording looked at and at best all that will happen to you is that your chances of future employment are screwed. At best.’

He jabs a finger at me and I flinch. The pills. The file with all the notes on Adele. Psychotic break. Sociopathic tendencies. Maybe it’s him who has them. Maybe he’s not only a mercenary after his wife’s money. Maybe he’s the madman. But still, although he has me over a barrel, none of this would look good on him if I got to have my say. I’m a threat to him too.

‘Stay out of my marriage,’ he finishes. Each word is spat out as if he wishes he could spit right at me.

‘Says the man who fucked me. Maybe you should worry about yourself rather than whatever I’m doing or not doing.’

‘Oh, I do, Louise,’ he says. ‘Trust me, I do.’ He turns to walk away, and then pauses. ‘There’s one thing I’d like to know. One thing I need to know.’

‘What?’

‘How exactly did you meet my wife?’

‘I told you. I bumped into her. I wasn’t stalking her or you or anything.’ Don’t flatter yourself, I want to add.

‘I know that. I mean when and where.’

I stare at him, hesitant. ‘Why does it matter?’

‘Humour me, Louise. I want to know.’

‘It was a morning. I’d just dropped Adam off at school. She was on her way back from walking with you to the clinic and I bumped into her and knocked her down.’ It feels like yesterday and yet so far away. So much has happened since then. My head starts to throb. Ensnared as I am, as much as I’m determined to help Adele, right now I wish I’d never met either of them.

David shakes his head and half smiles. ‘Of course,’ he says.

‘What?’

He looks at me then, directly at me, but his face is in shadow, his eyes glints of glass in the gloom, his words disembodied. ‘My wife has never walked to work with me in the mornings.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I say. ‘I don’t believe anything you say any more.’

He’s still standing there, a darkening figure, when I close the door, shutting him out, reclaiming my small world, my private space. I press my ear against the door to see if I can hear his footsteps on the concrete outside, but my head is filled with my heartbeat throbbing in my ears.