Her Perfect Family(32)
He felt a strange pull in his stomach, his mind moving to a new place. He took in her wild eyes and her pale skin. Her trembling hand. Laura was clearly unwell. In some kind of psychotic state. What had brought it on, he had no notion. Night terror, sleepwalking or whatever. All he knew for sure was that he wasn’t equipped to deal with this, not on his own. He needed to get her to snap out of whatever this was. But how to do that safely, without making it worse?
‘OK. So how about we get someone to help. Someone to come and help?’ What he was actually thinking was that he needed to buy some time. He was still assuming this would pass soon. That she would wake up properly very soon and this peculiar state would pass. ‘Shall we ring the doctor, Laura?’
‘Doctor? Why would I need a doctor? How dare you. You come into my home . . .’
‘OK. So how about your mother. Why don’t you phone your mother? Get your mother to come over here? Help us sort this out?’ He was wondering in fact whether he could phone the doctor secretly once Laura’s mother arrived. Laura’s parents were just ten minutes away by car. If this passed, they could explain when her mother arrived and then see what the doctor advised. He was remembering now that his father once had a bladder infection that went untreated and caused him to hallucinate. He thought there were locusts on the carpet. Maybe this was something like that? Some kind of infection causing her to see things?
‘You need to tell me what you’ve done with my husband.’
‘I am your husband, Laura. Look at me.’
She raised the torch higher.
‘OK, let’s just ring your mother. Get her to come here. Alright?’
She glanced to the left and right as if thinking. ‘No – the police. I think we need the police here.’
‘Let’s get your mother here first. And then if she thinks we need the police, fair enough. I promise you I’m not going to come into the room and I’m certainly not going to hurt you. You’re not in danger. It’s me. It’s Ed.’ He was looking at the heavy torch in her hand. What on earth was going on in her mind he had no idea, but he needed to calm this all down. Keep the police out of it. Could disorientation from a bad dream last this long? She’d never talked in her sleep. Walked in her sleep. But if it was some kind of infection, she would need antibiotics. He could phone the doctor discreetly once her mother was here.
Now at last she was dialling the phone again. She pressed it against her ear. ‘Mum? Listen. I need you to come over urgently. Something really terrible has happened. A man’s here in the house. He looks just like Ed but he isn’t Ed. I don’t know what he’s done with Ed. He won’t tell me.’
There was a pause and Ed could just make out the confusion and panic in her mother’s raised voice on the other end of the line.
‘I don’t know, Mum. I don’t know what’s going on. Can you just get in the car and come over here right now otherwise I need to call the police?’ Another pause. ‘No, no. You can’t speak to him. I can’t let him in the room. It’s too dangerous.’
And then she just hung up. She raised the torch again and continued to stare.
‘She’ll be here in ten minutes. You don’t move, you hear me. You don’t move a single muscle or I’ll take you down.’
CHAPTER 19
THE DAUGHTER – BEFORE
Waiting for Godot – did Samuel Beckett truly write for performance or did his work pose restrictions for actors and directors? Discuss.
I don’t understand it. I’m never late. I’m always careful. I’ve been on the Pill since I was seventeen and I’ve never had any problems or any serious scares. Why now? Why a scare now? As if I haven’t got enough going on.
OK – so I need not to panic here. It could be stress. Ten days over could still be stress. I read about that. Stress can mess up your cycle big time.
And I have been stressed . . .
The truth is I haven’t written anything about ‘S’ for a few weeks because it’s literally been changing daily, let alone weekly. At first he was so lovely and so honourable. He backed right off. Left it entirely up to me. He said that he had really strong feelings for me but didn’t want to put me in a difficult situation. I decided at first that it was best to write it off as a mistake. Just that one time. But the more I saw him and realised how he was struggling with his feelings, the more I kept thinking about him. About how different it felt with him, compared with ‘A’. (I’ve only just realised what an idiot I’ve been writing HIS name out in full. I’m having to sweep through and change that . . . I mean, if ‘A’ does ever get into my computer, he’ll do a search for his name, won’t he? Fake essay titles won’t be enough. Why didn’t I think of that before . . .)
Anyway. Back to ‘S’. I mean I do know it’s a cliché. My tutor. And I was embarrassed and thrown at first by what happened. But it’s so completely different being around someone older. It’s so nice. The maturity, I mean. The proper talking.
And yes – I get that he’s married. And it’s complicated and technically very, very wrong but there’s no way I would be seeing him if he wasn’t, in effect, separated. The thing is – his marriage has been dead for a very long time. Years and years. He’s tried to leave several times but she’s apparently a little fragile and he’s a really decent and kind bloke so he’s trying to help her build her confidence and help her settle into a new job and a new life before they split up formally. So they’re still living in the same home but more as a house share, not as a proper couple – sleeping apart, obviously – more as a front.