I didn’t turn up uninvited. He summoned me, with a text. The last thing on my mind was killing him.
My hands shook as I got ready. Not too much make-up; just a little eyeliner, a hint of blusher and lipstick. He didn’t like painted ladies. That’s what he called them. He laughed, quoting someone. Shakespeare, maybe. It usually was. That was Ralph all over. He didn’t just teach literature, he lived and breathed it.
When he made love to me, it wasn’t just the two of us between the sheets. We were Romeo and Juliet. Troilus and Cressida. Antony and Cleopatra. He let slip little lines, little phrases from all the poetry stored in that handsome head. A lass unparalleled. Or, she makes hungry where most she satisfies. I learned them by heart and googled them after he left, marvelling at how much he knew. He made me feel like someone special. Someone beautiful. Someone else.
I parked the car in the next street, to avoid notice. It was a warm night, but I pulled on a wide-brimmed hat that shielded my eyes, and strode briskly, head low, down the road and along to the house.
His street was deserted. The pavement was littered with spilled blossom from the spindly trees, as if I’d missed a wedding. It was still light and next door’s curtains were open, offering me a wide view of their sitting room. I took it all in with a quick glance, making sure no one had seen me, then strode past.
He’d left the gate open. He always did when he expected me because of the way it creaked. I slipped through like a shadow and crept down the path to the front door. It gleamed in the mellow evening light. Black and recently re-painted. Helen had organised the painter, of course. She organised everything, including Ralph. He joked about it sometimes, if it came up. Not quite poking fun. He respected her too much. It hurt to admit it, but I could tell there was feeling there, even now. Not love, exactly. Certainly not passion. A grudging admiration. A sense of duty.
He’d once read out a poem of his at the school writing group about Odysseus and Penelope, a love poem of sorts. That was in the early days, when I was still trying to resist him. But thinking of nothing but him. My breath catching in my throat like a teenager when I went up to the Upper School, his territory, for a meeting. My senses so keen as I walked through the corridors, scanned the main hall from the first-floor windows, that I thought my sexual longing for him must radiate from me like nuclear energy, illuminating me for everyone must see. The pain of disappointment if I headed back to my classroom, back to the Lower School, without even seeing him, was just as visceral.
His poem asked who was the real hero – Odysseus, waging war with a sword, or Penelope, waiting for him so faithfully, weaving and unravelling and again weaving to preserve her honour?
I asked him, afterwards, as we gathered up our coats, keeping my voice low, pretending not to be leaving with him but knowing, we both knew, that he’d hurry after me and walk by my side to the Lower School car park, chatting as we walked.
I asked, ‘What inspired you to write that?’
He smiled, his eyes crinkling, his gaze so direct, so full of feeling, that it made me shudder.
‘What do you think?’
And I saw in a moment that it was for me, his lyrical, passionate poem. It was a salute to my chastity, to my struggle to stay faithful to Matthew, the boyfriend who’d left me nearly two years earlier and broken my heart. I realised then that when he looked at me, he saw something no one else saw. He saw the real me.
The following week, when he walked me down to my car after the group and asked me out, yet again, for a drink, I was ready. I blushed and couldn’t meet his eye and said, ‘Yes.’
What made me think of that, now? I ran the palm of my hand over my eyes, drying them and saw a streak of light flash across the glistening paintwork, a reflection from my watch, and stood still for a moment, concentrating on my breathing, trying to steady myself.
I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know why he’d texted me. I was hollowed out. I hadn’t eaten – I hadn’t really eaten for weeks – and my hands, clenched into fists at my sides, shook. The tablets the doctor had given me to help with anxiety – we both knew she meant depression – gave me mood swings. Weepy one moment, enraged the next. I wasn’t myself. At school, people were starting to notice.
I swallowed, took a deep breath, then raised my hand and tapped with bare knuckles on the wood. The gentlest tap, for fear of waking Anna. Just as he’d taught me.
We bumped against each other as he shut the door behind me and we were crammed, for a moment, in the narrow hall. Awkward. He was so close, I could feel the heat of his body, radiating outwards towards me. His lifeforce. I reached out and put my hand on his lower arm, feeling the warmth of his skin through his cotton shirt sleeve.
He jumped as if I’d given him an electric shock and pulled his arm away. My insides contracted. It was still there, the bond between us. Why else would it affect him so powerfully? But he looked haunted, his face closed as he turned from me.
My legs shook. I realised too how much I’d pinned my hopes on the possibility he’d changed his mind, that he realised what a fool he’d been to let me go and wanted me back.
He said, ‘Drink?’
He led me through the hallway – past the narrow table with its neatly stacked mail and framed photos and the cellar door tucked under the stairs – and into the kitchen. My heels clip-clopped across the floor tiles and I tiptoed, trying instinctively not to make a sound. In the kitchen, I leaned against the counter, her kitchen counter, and watched him, learning him all over again. The way he ran his fingers through his hair when he was nervous, the breadth of the shoulders beneath his shirt, shoulders I’d so often clung to when we made love, his particular smell of male sweat and fresh laundry and shower gel. Ralph. I bit my lip.
He poured us both a glass of red wine and handed me mine. Shiraz, his favourite. He’d had it ready, there on the counter with two glasses. I wondered if Helen had bought it in her weekly internet shop.
I turned, nervous, and made a show of looking over the two neat shelves of recipe books there. They were ordered by region: Chinese, French, Italian, Middle Eastern. Each small section was arranged alphabetically, by writer. Helen, ever the librarian. How did he stand it?
I turned back. The kitchen clock on the wall behind him said nearly quarter past eight. They kept it five minutes fast, always. All the little things I knew about them and their life together. My insides tightened and coiled and I drank the wine, more quickly than I should.
‘Where is she?’
He looked at the floor. ‘Some school thing. A talk. About happiness, actually.’ He gave a dry laugh.
We’d once had sex right there on that neatly scrubbed kitchen table where they sat each morning for breakfast. It turned him on, the thought of how much she’d disapprove, not only of the infidelity but of how unhygienic it was.
‘So…’ I tried to sound nonchalant – just another ploy to make him want me again. ‘Where do we start?’
He answered without looking at me. ‘We need to talk.’
‘We do.’ My fingers gripped the stem of the wine glass. For weeks now, some of the most painful weeks of my life, he’d ignored my texts, refused to answer my calls, avoided me in the school corridors, however desperately I’d tried to stalk him, trailing him from class to class. I knew his timetable by heart.
He drank a gulp of wine. ‘I know you’re hurt. I’m sorry, really. I never meant—’
Something inside me clenched. ‘You never meant what?’
He paused and finally slid his eyes round to mine. They were wary and perhaps sheepish.
‘I’m sorry, that’s all. About what happened. But you’ve got to stop.’
I couldn’t answer. That was it, was it? After all he’d said. How much he loved me. How right we were together. I was so sure he’d leave her, in the end, leave her for me. I bit down on my bottom lip.
He couldn’t look me in the eye. ‘I know you’re angry. I get it. But you’re just making things worse.’
‘For you, maybe.’ I had nothing more to lose.
He shrugged. ‘Please. It’s over. I’m sorry but it is.’ He shifted his weight, his eyes looking across sightlessly at the cooker on the far side of the kitchen. ‘It’s not just about hurting me. Or Helen. It’s about Anna too.’
I snorted. ‘You should have thought about that before. What you’ve done isn’t just wrong, it’s illegal.’
He drank the wine. ‘I’m not doing anything with… honestly, it’s not what you think…’ He trailed off, embarrassed.
‘Stop it, Ralph. I know exactly what’s going on.’ I set down my wine glass and closed the gap between us, forcing him to look at me. ‘And I’m not bluffing. You know that, don’t you? I’m serious.’
His eyes widened. What had he expected? That I’d shut up and go away and let him carry on? I shook my head.
‘I’ll do it, Ralph. I will. I’ll tell everyone. I’ll write to the governors. It’ll finish you. Don’t you see? Not just with Helen. You’ll never teach again.’
‘They’d never believe you.’ His eyes were uncertain. ‘You’ve no proof. You can’t have because it’s not true.’
He looked so anxious, so vulnerable. A shock of hair spilled forward over his forehead and, without thinking, I lifted my hand and tucked it back. How many times had I done that in the past? It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be. We were too good together.
For a moment, neither of us moved. I saw myself reflected there in his brown eyes. Part of him.
Suddenly, I leaned in and kissed him on the lips. It wasn’t planned. It just happened. Gently at first, then harder. His lips parted under the pressure and my tongue slid into his mouth, searching for his. I fumbled to touch him and ran my hands down his chest, feeling his warm, smooth skin through his shirt.
He put his hands on my shoulders, holding them, and murmured, ‘Laura.’
I flushed. He wanted me. I could feel it. That was the real reason he’d asked me to come. He was just confused, held back by some misplaced idea of duty to his family and shame for what he’d done. He deserved better.
I surged with a sudden sense of my power over him, the hope that I could pull him back to me if I just kept going, if he let himself surrender to me. I wasn’t lost. I could still make him mine again. It wasn’t too late to cauterise the pain of the last few weeks.
I pressed against him a second time, my lips finding his. This time, he barely resisted. He let me kiss him, let me tease him with the tip of my tongue, then, finally, he shifted his weight, slid his hands from my shoulders to the small of my back, pulling me close, and kissed me back. I trembled, triumphant as well as excited. He wanted me. I was right, all along. He was mine for the taking.
Our kissing, sweet at first, became intense. I tugged at his shirt and slid my hands underneath the cotton. His skin was warm and familiar. He shuddered at the touch of my fingertips.
He pulled away a second time, less certainly than before, and looked down at me, safe now in the circle of his arms. I ran my tongue round my lips.
‘Oh, Laura.’ He sounded agonised.
I pushed against him, then smiled. His eyes were easy to read. He was too far gone, I could tell. No turning back. Whatever resolve he’d had, whatever plan to resist me, it was too late. It wasn’t over, this passion of ours, far from it. I would win yet.
I took control, seizing his hand and leading him through to the sitting room. I pushed him back onto the settee, scattering its neatly arranged cushions, then straddled him. He moaned and closed his eyes, his head falling back. I started to unbutton his shirt, kissing my way down his chest, my heart surging.
Afterwards, I slumped on top of him. My legs, bent on either side of his, were stiffening. My face pressed into his sweaty, cooling neck.
He whispered into my ear, ‘Laura?’
‘Hmm?’ My lips kissed the skin close to his mouth, breathing in his familiar smell. He moved his arms from round me and my back, naked and suddenly exposed, chilled. He shifted his weight, trying to lift me off, trying to move.
‘Oh no, you don’t!’ I tried to pin him down, playful.
He didn’t seem in the mood. Stronger than me, he pushed me to one side and I fell onto the mess of cushions. I watched, defeated but happy, as he got to his feet and padded across the room. My eyes drank in the contours of his body, the narrow hips, the long sweep of his spine, his buttocks.
I lay back, reliving the feel of his hands on my body. I imagined Helen sitting primly in this very spot later this evening, watching television, drinking tea, with no idea what we’d done here.
My body slowly cooled. I heaved myself to my feet, pulled on his large, crumpled shirt, discarded on the floor, and went in search of him.
‘Ralph?’
The kitchen floor was hard and cold under my bare feet. He was standing there in the shadows, just inside the doorway, hunched over his phone, thumbs tapping.
He turned, then started when he saw me.
I smiled, cheeky. ‘Hey, you. What’re you up to?’ I stepped towards him, imagining how alluring I must look, feeling the soft fabric of his shirt brush against my skin as I moved.
He dropped the phone on the kitchen counter as I reached him.
I pressed myself against his side, tilting my face to his. ‘Ready to go again?’
He couldn’t look me in the eye.
‘We can’t…’ He hesitated. ‘That wasn’t meant…’
He pushed past me, embarrassed, heading back into the dingy hall. I grabbed at him.
‘Wait. Ralph. What?’
He pulled away. His skin was slick.
My heart fluttered with panic. ‘Ralph, I love you. Don’t you know that?’
He shook his head, his face miserable. ‘Laura, I’m sorry—’
I raised my voice, willing him to stop and listen. ‘Is it what I said before? About telling people what you’ve done? I just can’t bear it. That’s all.’
He twisted away. I had the sense he wanted to shake me off and escape upstairs. I lunged at him, pushing him backwards and his back banged against the wooden panelling below the stairs. His abrupt change of mood frightened me, just when I’d let myself hope.
He rallied and grabbed my wrists. ‘Shh! Keep your voice down.’
Anna, of course. He was worried about disturbing her, his innocent princess. Asleep upstairs in her perfect bedroom, all pink and frills.
‘You miss me too. I know you do. Don’t lie.’ My voice became a shriek as I lost control. ‘That’s what drove you to do it, isn’t it? What you did.’
He pulled a hand from my wrist and tried to put it over my mouth, to shut me up. I twisted and grabbed his hair, kicked out at him. It was brutal, I was brutal, but something exploded in me, feeling him use his strength against me, the hands struggling to restrain me, when just a short time earlier, they had been caressing me.
Even fighting him made my heart pound. Our naked bodies slapped against the hall wall, twisting, slippery with sweat, limbs knocking. It was as if we were two halves of the same whole. I felt it again as powerfully as I had when we’d made love, lost in each other. As if we’d never been apart.
He rallied and tried to push me away and I pressed back, kicking out at his ankles, lunging at him with strength I didn’t know I had.
It happened in a moment. One second, we were locked together, wrestling in the narrow hallway, fighting with raw passion. The next, I shoved him away, hard, and he lost his balance, then fell heavily against the cellar door. It gave way under his weight and he plunged backwards into the darkness. His eyes were wide with shock, his arms flailing, as he struggled to regain his footing, slipping on a mess of buckets, brooms and boxes cluttering the top of the cellar steps.
He toppled sideways and disappeared from sight. Sickening bangs and thuds, muffled and quickly fading. I screamed, picturing his grasping body bouncing helplessly down the concrete steps. Then, finally, a dreadful silence.
For a second, I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even breathe.
A sudden noise at the far end of the hall. I twisted to look. The front door was thrown open. Helen stood there. Her jaw slackened in disbelief as she stared at me, frozen in the dark hall, wearing nothing but her husband’s shirt, my terrified eyes on hers.
Helen didn’t move. Her eyes were glassy. Her body looked rigid with shock. The house sucked itself empty of air, of sound, of life.
The moment stretched, unbearable.
Finally, Helen jolted into motion. Her handbag fell from her shoulder and landed with a thud as she kicked the front door shut and sped towards me with hurried strides, electrified by the panic on my face.
‘What?’ Her voice was hard and thin. ‘What happened?’
I couldn’t speak, just tore my eyes from her face to look again into the dark vacancy beyond the open cellar door.
She pushed past me and waded into the debris at the top of the steps, groping for a light switch just inside the doorway. At once, she let out a high-pitched cry, so primal it made the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. Her horror echoed, bouncing off the stone.
I pressed behind her, shaking, straining to see. The single, dusty lightbulb in the cellar below gave a faint light.
Ralph lay, crumpled and motionless, at the foot of the steps. He looked as if he’d hit the concrete head first, his neck tilted at an awkward angle. His limbs spilled in a heap, one leg bent under his body, the other trailing. I reached for the white-washed wall to steady myself.
Helen flew down the steps, hurtling into the cellar and collapsing over him, running her fingers over his chest, then higher, to his neck, with frantic, clumsy movements. For a moment, she seemed to be strangling him, then I realised why she was pressing her fingertips into his flesh. She was searching desperately for a pulse.
I imagined the marks rising on his skin, white, then red, where her fingers probed. She twisted suddenly and reached for his wrist and her fingertips circled it, again searching for life. My heart stopped, watching, waiting.
Another cry, desolate and heart-rending. ‘Ralph?’ I gripped the doorframe, my knuckles whitening. Sharp flares of pain stabbed my stomach. I crumpled, bending forward, my eyes fixed on Helen, a shadowy shape in the gloom.
She crouched over him, her legs drawn up, sinking her face in his side, her arms spread across the broad bulk of his body. She was wailing, a low guttural howl of misery and pain from deep inside her as she cradled him and rocked herself to and fro.
His hand lay limp, palm up, on the concrete floor. The fingers that had written so much poetry, which had caressed me, curled uselessly into the air.
My knees gave way and I sank abruptly onto the top step. I drew the edges of the shirt around me, shivering now, and put my face in my hands. Everything smelt of him. My palms. The shirt. What had I done? Dear God, what had I done? How could it be? This man who, just minutes earlier, had been strong and pulsing with life, how. . .
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