I’d never imagined myself succumbing to a state of emotional abandonment where I lost all rational thought, my sense of identity. Lost sight of me. It happens gradually, subtly and insidiously, until you really do believe the madness is ‘all in your mind’.
I know from experience that my passing from this life into oblivion won’t take long. My limbs flail instinctively as I slip into what will become my watery grave. The water is cold, much colder than the surface air. Hypothermia will set in quite quickly as my body constricts surface blood vessels to conserve heat for my vital organs. My head begins to throb as my heart rate and blood pressure increase. I can hear it, the strange whooshing, gurgling sound, which isn’t the water around me but the sound inside me. My muscles tense suddenly and I shiver uncontrollably. My lungs, bursting within me, scream at me to draw air. Once I do, of course, my lungs will fill and I will be gone. My hope is that my core temperature will drop rapidly and that my wasted life will fade to black before that happens.
My tears of regret mingle with the murky water as my thoughts ebb and drift. It isn’t snapshots of my past life that flash before me. The images that will fade with me are of them together, bodies entwined, tongues seeking each other’s – languid, sensual movements as they seek to pleasure each other, gaining satisfaction from the knowledge that I’m forced to watch. I truly believe she reached the height of ecstasy as she turned her smiling face towards me and whispered, ‘It’s all in your mind.’
The other women, I see them too, with their confused expressions, their bewilderment and deep disillusionment, which soon give way to fear as realisation dawns. They’re trapped. Butterflies in bell jars, they continue to flutter until their colours fade and their fragile wings crumble to dust.
My dog, offering me unconditional love whatever my mood; I see him, patient and loyal on the hall rug, waiting for the familiar thrum of my car engine, my key in the door. I will miss him. I hope they’ll look after him. Be kind to him.
Pain and sorrow turn to wisdom in time. You should have been more vigilant. Those were her last words to me. I wish I had been.
The service started and ended with Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’, a beautiful, moving piece. Rebecca guessed it would be a popular choice for funerals. She couldn’t help thinking it wouldn’t have been Nicole’s choice though. More likely she would have chosen Vaughan Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending’, with its solo violin reflecting the flutters and soars of the bird in flight. If any music ever evoked the rolling green hills of the English countryside, it was this piece, Nicole had once said. They’d been nowhere near the countryside at the time. They’d been lying on Nicole’s bed in the poky room they’d shared, having pigged out on chicken and chips and Neapolitan ice cream at the local Berni Inn. The crumbling Edwardian property they’d lived in had since been demolished to make way for a retirement village, but the pub was still there, not far from where they’d lived, on the Hagley Road into Birmingham. Rebecca had noticed it while driving out from New Street station, heading for the motorway that would bring her here, to the little stone-built Norman church in Worcestershire to say goodbye to the woman who’d been the other half of her as she’d made her first forays into adulthood. They’d been inseparable at university and had stayed in touch, although less frequently lately – time and geography widening the distance between them. Rebecca still couldn’t believe she was dead. Much less how she’d died.
Suicide.
Rebecca was struggling to believe that Nicole, the flame-haired, eighteen-year-old free spirit who’d whirled into her otherwise mundane student existence like a tornado, had taken her own life. Nicole had had a zest for living. She’d wanted to embrace all the world had to offer, experience everything. Bohemian in her choice of clothing, eschewing spaghetti-strap crop tops for ethnic print dresses, and with a rare, fragile beauty that belied her determination to tackle anything from abseiling to deep-sea diving, she would dance at the nightclubs until Rebecca dropped, dance barefoot in the rain at the festivals in the park. More talented than her by far, Nicole was going to ascend like the lark, obtain her fine art degree and exhibit at the Tate, the Birmingham Art Gallery and all the best London galleries. There would be no holding her back. She wasn’t overtly feminist but despised any institution that would define a woman as unequal to, or weaker than a man, thus prevent her achieving her ambition. Marriage hadn’t been on Nicole’s agenda – not for her some man to tame her and tie her down. She wouldn’t be shackled. Love had changed all that, of course, igniting hitherto unexplored passion inside her.
She’d fallen heavily the first time she’d married. After that relationship, one which had left her emotionally and physically broken, Rebecca had never imagined her friend would fall so easily in love again. She glanced to where Nicole’s second husband was standing at the open graveside. Smart and immaculately turned out in his black suit and overcoat, Richard Gray was a handsome man: tall and broad-shouldered; dark hair with wisps of silver at the temples, which was always unfairly complimentary on a man. Rebecca could understand the attraction. Nicole had been besotted with him, singing his praises. He was conscientious, caring, kind – a liberal thinker, she’d gushed in her first excited email regarding the new man in her life. He clearly doted on his daughter. Rebecca noted him reaching to squeeze the shoulders of the girl next to him: Olivia, his grown-up daughter, whom she recognised from the photographs Nicole had sent her.
Rebecca had been wary for her friend, initially. A year on from her divorce was no time at all in which to recover, to find herself again after a painful marriage to an abusive, cheating man whose mission in life had been to clip Nicole’s wings and stop her flying free. Nicole had quieted Rebecca’s fears, assuring her that she would recognise misogynistic traits from fifty miles away, and at the first sign – even his insistence on ordering her meal for her – she would run for the hills.
She’d been damaged. Like a lark beating its wings against the bars of its cage until it has no strength left for fight or flight, she’d been injured. Rebecca had assumed that, despite her first horrendous marriage, or maybe even because of it, Nicole had seized her new chance at life, at love, with both hands and determined to live it.
Nicole and Richard had soon married, making Rebecca wonder whether Nicole might have been keen to try again for the baby her first husband had so cruelly robbed her of. Rebecca’s son had badly broken his leg the evening before the wedding, so she hadn’t been able to make it back from her own home in France, but she’d wished her friend well, praying that this new man was everything she believed him to be. He had been, apparently, though Rebecca was aware that they’d been beset by problems once they’d moved into the house they’d purchased in the tiny village of Marley. She’d been relieved to receive Nicole’s last email. She’d said she was still working, thinking of exhibiting in the village hall – landscapes in watercolours, which had surprised Rebecca. Nicole had always painted in oils – huge, bold, abstract colours.
She’d been shocked to receive the email from Richard, informing her of Nicole’s death, of the sudden, swift demise of her mental health after her mother had passed away and of her eventual breakdown.
How had it happened? How had the strong woman she’d known – a woman who’d had the strength to survive all she’d endured, despite thinking herself weak – been so vanquished by life? Could grief really drive a person so deep into depression that they would do something so drastic?
Rebecca supposed it could. She’d felt as if she’d lost part of herself when her husband died. The rawness of loss diminishes eventually, but the pain is always with you, a tidal wave of grief when you least expect it. But she doubted it was that alone that had driven Nicole to such a dark place. More likely, as worn down and confused as she was by other events, it was a more gradual decline. Had Richard been aware of how much she’d been struggling?
Realising that she was staring at the man, yet seeing only the swirling, swollen waters of the River Severn, Nicole’s hair rising like flame-coloured seaweed above her as she sank silently to its muddy depths, Rebecca averted her gaze.
He was devastated. Rebecca swallowed back a knot in her throat as he turned away, wiping a hand over his face and heaving in a breath as if to contain his emotions. People stepped respectfully aside to permit him to pass. No one moved to follow him, apart from his daughter. Catching up with him at the periphery of the small crowd, Olivia slid an arm around his shoulders, and then stepped in front of him.
Feeling she was intruding on his grief, Rebecca looked away as they walked slowly together back towards the church. Despite her misgivings, it seemed that Richard had loved Nicole very much.
After waiting for the crowd to disperse, she crouched to place her own flowers at Nicole’s graveside: a simple arrangement of early golden daffodils. ‘Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.’ Wiping a tear from her cheek, she quoted the Wordsworth poem they’d both been so fond of, and which they’d quoted to each other while lying on their backs making castles in the sky one warm spring day. ‘Fly high little bird,’ she whispered. ‘Know that a little piece of my heart flies with you.’
Giving herself a moment, Rebecca was surprised to see Richard’s daughter hurrying back towards her. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,’ Olivia said, noticing Rebecca dabbing at her eyes as she got to her feet.
‘You’re not,’ Rebecca assured her. ‘Sorry.’ Wiping a hand under her nose, she rummaged in her bag for a tissue. She was sure she’d stuffed an abundant supply in there before leaving home.
Olivia smiled and quickly produced a tissue from her own bag. ‘We wondered whether you were coming along to the house,’ she said, handing it to her. ‘Dad wanted to have a word with you, but… well, he was a bit too emotional, to be honest.’
‘I know. I could see.’ Rebecca blew, and offered her a small smile of her own. ‘Quite understandable. I meant to approach him myself. It’s clear he loved her a great deal.’
Olivia nodded sadly. ‘He did. It took him a long while after Mum died to find someone he truly cared for. I think he was a bit scared, to be honest. You know, of giving his heart again, only to lose the person he loved.’
‘Oh God, of course. I’m so sorry, I’d forgotten.’ Rebecca was immediately sympathetic. ‘When did she die, your mother?’
‘Oh, ages ago now.’ Olivia waved a hand, as if she were long over her loss. ‘When I was five. I still miss her, but…’
Seeing the sadness in her eyes, Rebecca guessed that was the truth. Such a loss would be the hardest of all to truly get over. Her son – now almost twenty, she could hardly believe – had been just ten years old when his dad died. It had destroyed Rebecca to watch Sam’s little heart breaking, knowing there was no way she could fix it.
‘The pain never goes away, but it gets easier with time.’ Olivia reached to squeeze Rebecca’s arm, as if it were she in need of reassurance. Rebecca herself felt very much in need of reassurance, right then. She wanted to know that she hadn’t failed Nicole when she’d needed her. If only she’d managed to sell her house and move back to the UK sooner, she might have been able to be there for her.
‘You will come, won’t you? To the reception at the house?’ Olivia asked, her eyes searching hers hopefully. Striking eyes, Rebecca noticed, somewhere between amber and brown. Tiger’s eyes.
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I’d love to.’ Truthfully, she wondered if she could bear to see the empty house, where there would be only the ghost of Nicole, but she needed to. She needed to see where she’d lived, whether she’d ever truly made it her own. She certainly needed to talk to Richard Gray, the man with whom Nicole was supposed to be turning the house into a home.
‘Excellent. Dad will be really pleased. I know he’d like to find out more about you.’ Moving to thread an arm through hers, Olivia walked with her back to the path.
‘About me?’ Rebecca eyed her curiously.
‘About the things that Nicole and you got up to in your wild youth,’ Olivia added, giving her arm a conspiratorial squeeze.
‘Oh dear.’ Rebecca laughed. ‘I suspect I’d better leave out the eyebrow-raising bits.’
‘Ooh, no, please don’t,’ Olivia implored. ‘If you think it will make Dad smile, go for it. It would be nice to see him smile again. What should I call you, by the way? Do you prefer Rebecca, or…?’
‘Becky. Though Sam has labelled me Becks, as I apparently dribble a mean football.’
‘And I’m Liv to my friends,’ Olivia offered. ‘Who’s Sam?
‘My son. He’s coming up to twenty now.’
‘Really?’ Olivia looked at her in surprise. ‘Gosh, you must have had him young?’
‘True.’ Rebecca smiled. The girl was aiming to flatter, but she accepted it gracefully. ‘He’s actually here in the UK at university. His girlfriend is at the same uni, so inevitably he spends more time here than in France.’ Would Sam mind her sharing these personal details, she wondered? Probably not. He’d been a bit coy about it at first, but when Laura had come to visit and declared herself as besotted with Sam as he was with her, he’d whooped like a big kid and almost shouted it from the rooftop.
‘It would be lovely to meet him. If you’re holidaying here, we should get together and…’ Olivia stopped, her expression clouding over, as if she’d forgotten that the common link between them no longer existed.
Aware of how awful that feeling was: the momentary forgetfulness, followed by the overwhelming sadness when you recall that someone you care for is no longer with you, Rebecca felt for her.
‘That might be nice.’ She smiled but didn’t commit – though it would be an opportunity to learn more about Richard Gray.
‘Oh. Have all the funeral cars left?’ she asked, wondering how Olivia was travelling as she noticed the limousines gliding away from the church.
‘I told Dad to go on to meet the guests. I thought I’d grab a lift with you,’ Olivia explained. ‘Assuming you don’t mind?’
Assuming she was going, Rebecca thought, which Olivia must have done. But then, she had been Nicole’s closest friend. ‘No problem,’ she assured her.
They walked in silence for a while. Then, ‘She said she was painting again.’ Rebecca fished a little as she mulled over Nicole’s last email. ‘About to exhibit?’
‘That’s right,’ Olivia confirmed. ‘Landscapes in watercolours. They’re still up at the village hall. We could take a look later, if you like?’
‘No oils then?’ Rebecca enquired casually.
‘No.’ Stopping at Rebecca’s car, Olivia sighed sadly. ‘It’s a shame really. Some of the canvases she brought with her were quite good, but she didn’t want the mess in the house, apparently.’
Really? Rebecca arched an eyebrow as she unlocked the doors and climbed inside. That didn’t sound at all like Nicole, whose philosophy after her first marriage had been not to worry too much about the housework on the basis it would still be there tomorrow.
Dear lovely Becky,
Are you sitting down? No, of course you won’t be. It’s three o’clock in the morning. You will be sleeping, whereas I’m finding sleep as elusive as time itself. You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve met someone! A male someone, obviously. And, yes, I know, I said I would never trust another man ever again, but the thing is, I do trust him, Becky. I really do. We’ve only been going out for a little over a month, but we have so much in common; I feel as if I’ve known him all my life. He’s a widower, and everything looks-wise that really should have had me barricading my heart: tall, dark and handsome, got a little of the hair-greying-at-the-temples thing going on. In short, classically drop-dead gorgeous. I know you’ll think I’m seeing him through the same rose-tinted spectacles I first viewed the bastard ex through, but the thing is, he’s conscientious, a liberal thinker and genuinely caring. He lost his wife five years ago. He nursed her for a while and was devastated when she died. There’s still a lingering sadness in his eyes whenever he talks of her. He’s a single father. His daughter’s grown up – twenty-two – but he obviously dotes on her, and she on him, which did endear him to me, I must admit. I’ve only met her once. She seems lovely. He had her when he was very young, which I suppose made the loss of her mother all the more poignant. He’s also modest, can you believe, seemingly completely oblivious to his head-turning attractions. He was actually nervous about asking me to have a coffee with him. He’d thought I would turn him down flat, he said. I was at the Ikon Art Gallery with Peter – you know, the lecturer I used to work with at the art college years ago? You met him a couple of times – and when Peter dashed off, perpetually late as he always is, Richard approached me. I was viewing the current contemporary exhibition: transformation of materials and found objects. I was a little puzzled by one exhibit and Richard and I started chatting, and… I digress. What I’m trying to say is we clicked, immediately. We got talking and one thing led to another, as they say. Obviously, it wasn’t my body he was after, saggy boobs and soft belly not being something men generally lust after, but – brace yourself – I gave it to him anyway.
Have you recovered from the shock yet?
Now, before you imagine I’ve been seduced by a gigolo, I can assure you I haven’t. My father’s meagre inheritance and the settlement from the marriage is all tied up in my house and studio anyway, so he’d be sadly disappointed if his aim was to be a kept man. However, it isn’t, I’m relieved to report. He’s financially secure, lives in a great sprawling house in Worcestershire (he’s thinking of selling, which is a shame – it has glorious views over the river) and he drives a Jaguar XF Sportbrake, I think he said it was. And, in any case, it was me who did the seducing. Richard has been behaving like the perfect gentleman ever since we started seeing each other, his kisses passionate, but never overstepping the mark. Well, there’s only so much temptation a woman can take, and I’m afraid tonight my will to resist dissolved. I know! She whose confidence was reduced to nil by the control freak misogynist bares all and has sex with a man. My mind’s still boggling, too. And my skin is still tingling. Seriously. Richard might have been caught by surprise by my wantonness – pleasantly so, he told me when we cuddled afterwards. Repeat: cuddled! – but he rose to the challenge admirably. He certainly knows how to please a woman. As in, we reached a very fulfilling mutual climax approximately an hour ago and he’s currently sleeping as I lust. Thus my urgent need to drag myself back to bed.
I’m attaching a photo. No! Not of him naked. It’s one I took earlier while we were out lunching. Let me know what you think.
Much love and huge hugs,
Nicole. X
PS Sorry I haven’t written for a while. I promise to keep in touch now I’ve caught my breath.
PPS I’m an ignorant pig! Let me know all your news, too!
Nicole hurried back to her bedroom with the two glasses of San Pellegrino Sparkling Limonata she’d fetched from the fridge to find Richard stirring. She hoped he wouldn’t mind that she’d grabbed his shirt to pad downstairs in. She didn’t imagine for a second that she exuded the sexual allure of, say, Cameron Diaz, but it was infinitely more flattering than her usual night-time attire: a washed-out old onesie that resembled a pair of long johns, and which even the postman had raised an eyebrow at.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Richard said, hitching himself up on his elbows and looking her over so enticingly that Nicole felt her cheeks flush down to her décolleté. Being fair-skinned really did have distinct disadvantages – her face advertising her embarrassment being one of them. ‘I thought I might have frightened you off.’
‘It’s my house,’ she reminded him, depositing a perspiring glass on his bedside table. ‘I’d hardly run away, particularly with a red hot lover lying in my bed.’
‘That good, hey?’ Richard chuckled, catching her hand as she moved away.
‘Sizzling,’ Nicole assured him, at the risk of over-gushing. ‘You appear to know my body better than I do.’
Richard ran a lustful gaze over her. ‘My wife and I had a mutually satisfying relationship,’ he said, the smile in his eyes fading – as it would, thinking of her. ‘You’ve just reminded me how rewarding that can be. Come back to bed.’ Clearly making an effort to dismiss his understandable sadness, he tugged her gently towards him. ‘We have plenty of time until morning.’
‘Now there’s an offer a girl can’t resist.’ Nicole smiled, her eyes feasting on his torso as he threw the duvet back and patted the space she’d vacated. He really was unbelievable in every sense of the word: kind; attentive in and out of bed; attractive – most definitely that. Shamelessly, she stared at his chest, which was pleasingly toned and taut but not too muscular. He liked to keep himself fit, he’d said. Nicole was so glad that he did.
Her gaze strayed to his lips, which were full, but not too sensual on a man, and were now curved into a languid smile. She felt her cheeks heat infuriatingly again as she recalled where those lips had been – caressing her skin, her breasts, her nipples so slowly it was almost painful. Leisurely exploring every inch of her body.
After years of enforced celibacy in her marriage, she hadn’t known what to expect when she’d abandoned her resolve to steer clear of men forever and decided to sleep with him. Awkwardness, she’d imagined. And she’d hoped that that awkwardness wouldn’t be too excruciating when his hands found her breasts; that she wouldn’t turn him off.
She needn’t have worried. As unselfish in bed as he was out of it, Richard had soon shooed away the ghosts that had climbed under the duvet with her. There hadn’t been fireworks. Mercifully, no frenetic fumbling or thrusting either; none of the urgency that comes with first embarrassing sexual encounters of youth. He’d known instinctively where to touch her, how to touch her. Whispering softly, he’d encouraged her to relax, to trust him, while he’d led her on a journey of beautiful sensual discovery, taking her places she’d fantasised about but never imagined she would reach with a man. Her orgasm, when it came, was like a warm, exquisite ripple flowing right through to the very core of her. She’d never experienced that before. Never imagined placing herself, naked and vulnerable, in the hands of a man. When the misogynist ex had withdrawn from her sexually – one of his control games, she now saw, designed to deprive her of the child she’d so desperately wanted – she’d felt as desirable as cold tapioca. Worse, self-conscious and ashamed of her body, as if there was something fundamentally wrong with her that she could be physically repulsive to a man. So unattractive he preferred to pay for sex with other women, she’d eventually learned. The cruel fact of which he’d got an extra sadistic twist from by insisting it was, ‘All in her mind.’
She’d blamed herself for his cheating on her, just as she’d blamed herself for everything. She’d had no regard for herself in the end, only a self-loathing hatred that she could have been so pathetic, allowing someone to control her, subtly at first and then ultimately. Financially, sexually, he’d stripped her of everything. She had a long way to go to trust herself again completely. But she really did feel she could trust this man, who’d showed her how to love again, how to accept that she was attractive enough to be loved. He’d given her back her self-esteem.
‘You’re thinking,’ Richard admonished her, his forehead creasing into a mock scowl as he realised her mind was wandering. Squeezing her hand, he tugged her a little more persuasively towards the bed, sitting up to meet her as she allowed herself to plop down on to it. ‘Banish all thoughts of him,’ he said firmly, placing an arm around her and drawing her to him. ‘Think about it: if you’re wasting even a single thought on him, then he’s still wielding his power over you. Don’t give him the satisfaction, Nicole. Be here, in the moment, with me.’
Nicole looked up at him and saw the kindness in his eyes – ice-blue eyes, almost the colour of the midwinter sky, yet not cold. They were burning with desire. The misogynist had worn that same look at first. His desire, though she’d little known it then, had been to control her. Richard’s was to make love to her, to suppress her doubts and quiet her fears. There was an ocean of difference between them.
‘You’re right,’ she said, her lips drawn irresistibly to his. She was glad she’d confided some of her secrets to him, relieved she’d been brave enough to. Richard had told her that’s what she was. ‘A strong, brave, beautiful woman, with a mind of her own,’ he’d said, and then pulled her gently into his arms and held her. That’s when she’d known she could love this man, that she would be safe with him.
‘I always am,’ Richard said, an amused edge to his tone. ‘Do you think she’d approve?’ he asked, nodding towards the photograph of her mother on the bedside table.
‘Lord no. She’d be mortified, finding out her wanton daughter was forn. . .
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