The Rose Petal Beach Page 11

  ‘Why?’ he asks, confused.

  ‘I don’t want you to see me naked.’

  ‘I’ve been seeing you naked for sixteen years,’ he replies.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ The sobs are subsiding, calmness is starting to enter my body. ‘Just look away, Scott. Please.’

  He starts to protest, I can tell in the way he takes a breath, then he obviously changes his mind. When I see he is staring at the wall of wardrobes opposite, I slip out of bed and grab my dressing gown off the metal hook on the back of the door. The towelling material feels scratchy, like needles against my over-sensitised skin.

  My hand is on the door handle when he speaks again.

  ‘Are you going to make me leave?’ he asks, his voice small and fragile and frightened. I haven’t heard him sound like that since the night of the miscarriage when he asked the doctor if there was any hope of the baby being saved. Scott hasn’t shown that type of fear, real fear, since then. He might have felt it, but not shown it.

  ‘How can I make you leave, Scott?’ I say through the broken glass in my mouth. ‘You’ve already gone.’

  Eighteen months ago

  ‘I’ve invited Mirabelle over for dinner tomorrow night as well as Beatrix,’ I said to Scott as he sat reading reports in bed.

  ‘What?’ he replied, lowering the piece of paper in his hand, slipping off his reading glasses. ‘You what?’

  ‘You know Beatrix is coming over? Well, Mirabelle’s at a loose end so I said she should come, too.’

  ‘No,’ Scott said. ‘That’s not happening. Isn’t it enough for you two that I have to work with her all day, do I really have to eat with her after hours, too?’

  ‘No, you don’t, actually. You can sit up here and I’ll bring your meal up to you if you feel that strongly about it.’

  ‘You know what I mean, TB. It’s enough that she comes over and sees you and plays with the girls. Why does she have to keep invading our family time, too?’

  ‘“Keep”? This is the first time I’ve invited her.’

  ‘I don’t want her in this house when I’m here,’ he said firmly. He used that tone with his not very competent juniors at work, with difficult clients, with tradespeople who hadn’t delivered the things we’d ordered and were trying to wriggle out of it. He had clearly forgotten that I was his wife. I didn’t need that tone – about anything.

  ‘Well I do, and in case you’d forgotten, it’s my house too. And in case you’d forgotten something else – you’re not actually the boss of me, as the young people say.’ I mimicked him: ‘“I don’t want her in this house when I’m here.” Who do you think you’re talking to?’

  ‘You’re not being very fair on me, you know,’ he said sadly. ‘I come home from work to get away from the office, not to have to put on the face that I use there. This is my refuge from all the shit I have to put up with every day. I’m gutted you can’t see that I need a break from my work and that having her here puts me under pressure. You did this job once, I’d have thought you’d remember what that was like.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him, feeling ashamed. ‘I didn’t think. You’re right, of course. I’ll get out of it somehow.’

  ‘Thanks, gorgeous, I really appreciate it.’

  Sorry lovely, is it ok if you don’t come to

  dinner tomorrow night?

  Bea has some private stuff she

  wants to chat about. Will reschedule. X

  No problem, gorgeous. Hope she’s OK. Lots of love M x

  PS Remember that programme No Problem?

  Loved that show! M x

  Scott creeps down the stairs to find me because I haven’t returned to bed. I wanted to be down here rather than the spare room because I feel safer in here, in the kitchen. Wearing only my dressing gown, I am cuddled up on the sofa watching a gambling show on the television.

  ‘Come back to bed,’ he tells me, standing beside me as I stare across the room at the wall-hung TV.

  I ignore him, concentrate on the television. I have the sound down because I do not want to wake the girls whose rooms are above the kitchen, and I do not need the sound to watch this. I’m fascinated by what these people are doing, which is risking it all. Who would risk it all? Who would look at a set of numbers and decide to scoop up their whole life – house, wife, children, job, future – and place it on a bet? A sure thing. Except there are no sure things when it comes to taking a gamble. Even cheaters eventually get caught out.

  ‘Come back to bed,’ he urges. When I do not respond he marches across the room and switches off the television.

  ‘Come back to bed,’ he insists.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Tami, you can’t sleep down here, I won’t let you.’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘I can’t. You’re not behaving rationally. I need you to come back to bed. I’ll go and sleep in the spare room … Look, please. I can’t stand the thought of you down here all alone all night. Please.’

  He doesn’t even know he’s doing it: ‘I need you to come back to bed.’ ‘I can’t stand the thought …’ I laugh at him: ‘It’s not concern for me at all, is it? It’s all about you. Even something as simple as me sleeping on the sofa is all about you because you can’t stand the thought of me being down here. You need me to do what you want me to do.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he says.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘TB—’

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ I hiss loudly. ‘Don’t you dare call me that! Leave me alone before I decide to go and sleep in the car and all the neighbours see.’ That gives him pause, especially after his arrest.

  ‘I’ll go and sleep in the spare room anyway, in case you change your mind,’ he eventually says.

  ‘I won’t,’ I reply under my breath. Once I am alone, I go back to watching the gambling show, this time with the screen off.

  Tami

  ‘You have to go to the police and tell the truth,’ I say to Mirabelle.

  When she opened the door just now I’d had a visceral reaction to her, my body clenching in on itself. Her hair was in large twists and swept back with a headband she usually used for running. Her face was free of make-up and showed many imperfections – blotches and pimple scars as well as dark circles under her eyes. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, almost as if she had been crying. Unusually, she wasn’t clothed in a form-fitting outfit but in a baggy grey sweatshirt and over-size jeans.

  Last night, all night, from my place on the sofa, I kept thinking about who was most important in all of this and one answer kept coming back to me: Cora and Anansy. They did not need to have their father labelled a ‘pervert’, ‘criminal’, ‘rapist’ and every other name used to describe what he had been accused of. It didn’t matter if I’d been hurt in all of this, I was an adult, I could take care of myself. My children needed me to look after them. And that meant talking to Mirabelle and getting her to retract her statement.

  I waited for Scott to take the girls to school and came here. Every step has been an ordeal. I did not want to be here. I did not want to look in her face and imagine it as she went down on my husband. I did not want to see her hands and imagine them hooked into his hair as he pleasured her with his tongue. I did not want to see her body and imagine it moving beside and with his.

  My husband’s mistress is puzzled for a moment as she stares at me. ‘I did go to the police,’ she replies. ‘And I did tell the truth.’

  Surprise blossoms on my face. ‘What did they say when you told them why you’d made it up?’

  ‘Nothing, because I haven’t told them that. I told them what happened, what he did to me.’

  ‘Please, Mirabelle … Look, I know, all right? I know all about you and him and—’

  ‘What do you know about me and him?’

  I sigh. ‘He told me. He told me about the affair and how you said you’d get even with him for dumping you. I know and I’m devastated. I don’t think our m
arriage will survive. You got what you wanted so now call this whole thing off.’

  She stares at me, her dark eyes fixed on my face for an eternity. I am willing to beg if that will make it easier for her. I will do virtually anything to stop the girls finding out this horrible thing.

  Mirabelle throws her head back and starts to laugh. It’s genuine laughter, not something she’s forcing. Soon she’s clutching her sides, bent forwards as she continues to laugh. Suddenly she straightens up and refocuses on me. ‘Me and him? An affair? I wouldn’t touch him with yours!’ she shrieks, shaking her head.

  ‘How can you behave like this after what you’ve done to me?’ I say. How can she act like this when she’s helped him to smash up my family?

  ‘How can I behave like this?’ She sighs. ‘Actually, I’m not talking about this on the doorstep,’ she says. ‘Either come in and we’ll talk about this properly or go away.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll go.’

  ‘Your choice.’

  ‘Yeah, my choice.’

  I turn on my heels and start to march away, indignation burning through my veins. Who does she think she is? The woman who is holding the future of my family in the palm of her hand, that’s who.

  She opens the door as I reach it, steps aside to let me in without looking at me. I know I’m stepping into the lion’s den. And I know there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

  The hit-by-a-truck feeling is back. It crashed into me without slowing the second Mirabelle turned left towards her kitchen. I have to hold onto the wall for support as my knees soften. I have been in that room countless times in the last eighteen months, not knowing it was where they first did it. Did that give her some sort of thrill, to have me in there while she replayed the first time my husband made love to her? Did she smile to herself knowing she’d got one over on me?

  I can’t go in there. If I do, I know I’ll be confronted with full-on images of them. Of her pressed up against the kitchen sink, her pencil skirt shoved up around her waist, her knickers on the floor, his trousers and underpants around his ankles, the pair of them rutting, moaning loudly with each stroke.

  One of the truck’s wheels is resting on my chest and I can’t seem to breathe properly.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asks, returning to the corridor when she sees I am not following her. ‘Do you need a drink or something?’

  I shake my head, while trying to summon my anger again. ‘I’m fine,’ I say, straightening up, letting go of the wall. ‘I want to get this over with.’

  She comes closer to me, lowering her voice. ‘I take it he told you that nonsense about me and him having an affair?’ she says.

  ‘Of course. And I know it’s not nonsense.’

  ‘How … I mean … Do you really think I’d do that to you?’ she says. ‘I’m your friend, why would I sleep with your man?’

  ‘Why would you accuse him of … of what you’ve accused him of?’

  ‘Because he did it.’

  I shake my head at her. I don’t believe it. Not because I don’t believe her, I just don’t believe it was Scott. That doesn’t make sense, I know, but it’s the only thing that works in my brain at the moment.

  ‘You really can’t see what he’s like, can you?’

  ‘I know what he’s like, I married him, remember?’

  She inhales deeply, and then exhales loudly through her nose. ‘Tami, if I told you someone had tried to … to … mug me, would you believe me? Would you comfort me and support me?’

  ‘Yes, of course I would.’

  ‘And if I told you someone else had tried to break into my house and rob me, would you believe and support me?’

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘And if I told you someone had punched me in the face for no reason whatsoever, would you believe me?’

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘And if I told you someone else had tried to … to … had sexually assaulted me, would you believe me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why would you believe someone else had done that but not him?’

  ‘Because I don’t know the other person.’

  ‘So only a man you don’t know is capable of that?’

  I stay silent because there’s no real answer to that question, is there? I’ve known other people – people I went to school with, people I’ve worked with – who were accused of various crimes and who were often found guilty. I just know that Scott couldn’t have done this. The stilled porn film I saw flashes up in my mind. That was years ago. And it has no connection to this at all.

  ‘Tami, listen to me, I wasn’t having an affair with him. I have never had one and I never will have one. He tried to … He tried …’ She always seems to run away from that word.

  ‘Put yourself in my position for a moment,’ I cut in. ‘Would you rather the man you loved was accused of doing something hideous to someone else you love or would you rather he was having an affair with her?’

  ‘I would rather he was loving, faithful and not a monster,’ she replies flippantly.

  ‘Well that’s not an option for me right now, is it?’ I snap in retaliation.

  Impasse. We stand in the corridor, facing each other, both of us on the defensive.

  ‘You really can’t see what he’s like, can you?’ Mirabelle says. ‘He has such an overblown sense of entitlement. And his arrogance … I thought I was bad, but he is out of control. He demands nothing short of devotion, he almost spells out that he expects to be worshipped or there will be consequences. And of course, he thinks every woman on Earth adores him and if you don’t, you’re obviously frigid or a dyke.’

  ‘That’s the father of my children you’re talking about,’ I say quietly.

  ‘And I’m sorry about that. But it’s true. And it’s true what he did to me.’

  I shake my head. It’s not true, it can’t be.

  ‘I’m not a liar, Tami.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were.’

  ‘Yes, you did. This whole thing is you calling me a liar.’

  Without thinking, I bring my hands up to my mouth, clasping my left hand over my right fist I shove my left thumb into my mouth and bite down on the knuckle in an attempt to stop myself from breaking down. I want to shove my whole fist into my mouth as far as it will go and scream. I want to scream so loud it cracks the world.

  ‘This whole thing started when he made a pass at me about six months after we started working together. I let him down as gently as possible and he laughed it off so I thought he was all right about it. He really seemed OK with it, then the comments about my work started. Then the giving me a verbal dressing down in front of people in meetings. Then the comments when we were alone. Not constant, just every now and again so I wouldn’t be expecting it. I couldn’t ever relax because I didn’t know when he was going to get nasty again.

  ‘And, you know, when you and I became friends he seemed to chill out a bit. Maybe he was scared of what I might tell you, but things settled down and I started to enjoy work again.

  ‘Then we started running. Which must have pissed him off or something because it started up once more, the comments, the put-downs, the digs, but worse than before. And this time, there was also the porn talk.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Yeah, into the mix of everything else he was putting me through, he started asking my opinion on the films he’d watched. He’d describe the scenarios in detail and ask me what I thought.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound right.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t right. None of it was right. He put those scenarios there in my head and I couldn’t get them out. I tried to avoid being alone with him, but he made it so difficult. I still have the images in my head, you know, and I can’t get them out.

  ‘That night, he asked me in front of everyone to stay back so we could work on the take-over bid. He asked in front of everyone so it would look like I wasn’t devoted to my job, wasn’t as committed to the company’s expansion as he and everyone els
e was, if I said no.’

  I know the bid she is talking about. Scott had asked me to look it over when it was done to make sure it was perfect. It’d been brilliant, so creative and, mean as it sounded, I knew it hadn’t been his work. He didn’t even pretend it was, he said Mirabelle and his team had worked on it, he’d been so determined to get the niche firm to become part of the TLITI portfolio. If he landed that, then he would definitely be made partner, he said.

  ‘I was so anxious because if I didn’t do it, I’d be out of a job. If I did, he might try it on again.’

  ‘Is that what really happened?’ I say. ‘Did he make a pass at you that, horrible as it is for me, you didn’t welcome so you’ve blown it out of proportion? Is that it?’

  Her face closes in on itself, her lips twist themselves together briefly before she opens her mouth: ‘He waited until everyone had gone home. Until we’d eaten our food, until I had started to let my guard down slightly because we’d been alone for hours and nothing had happened. And when I started to relax a little he grabbed me, slammed me onto his desk and ripped three buttons on my shirt trying to get it open. Then he tore half the cup off my bra, all the while holding me down and saying this disgusting stuff I’ve never heard a man say before.’

  Like a creature that is about to become road kill, I stare at her wide-eyed and mute with horror at what is bearing down on me.

  ‘Is that how he made a pass at you the first time? Just curious, in case I’ve blown it out of proportion.’

  I don’t think my body can move, even though I want it to. I want my body to move because I want to get away from here, from what she is saying to me.

  ‘And did he tear the button on your trousers, while his hand forced its way into your knickers? Did he keep up the stream of filth, telling you what he was going to do to you, while he’s at it? Did he start—’

  ‘Stop, please, stop,’ I manage to utter. ‘Please, stop, I can’t listen to any more. Please. Please.’