Behind Her Eyes

By nine thirty on Monday I’ve dropped Adam off at Day Play and I’m waiting to catch a train to Blackheath. I should be exhausted – I’ve barely slept since Saturday – but my brain is filled with questions and fire ants of doubt. If Adele lied about having the second door then that changes everything. What else has she lied about?

Two questions burn brightest in my mind as I take a seat by the window, my back stiff with tension, my fingers picking at the skin around my nails. If Adele has the second door and can leave her body, how far can she go and what does she know? It sounds like a poem, and it goes around and around in my head in time with the steady rhythm of the engine lurching me across London Bridge.

Of course the bigger question is what does she know about me and David? Does she know about me and David? If she does, well, then … I feel sick contemplating that. I can’t take in that everything I’ve believed so readily might be wrong. How stupid I might have been. What I’ve done. The letter. All the detail I put into it about Rob and David and Adele – all guilt pointing at him. God, it’s so potentially awful. I think of Sophie sitting on my balcony. What was it she said? Fragile? Or crazy? Maybe she does have a screw loose? Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Rather than searching for a list of cafes in Blackheath, most of which probably don’t have websites anyway, I’ve looked for psychiatrists instead, and there are only three, which was a tiny wave of relief amidst my tsunami of panic. Even if there had been fifty though, I’m determined to find Marianne and talk to her. I need to know what happened between her and David and her and Adele. The notes in David’s file were so vague. Marianne not pressing charges – pressing charges against whom? Him or her? And for what?

It’s taken all my resolve not to buy a packet of Marlboro Lights at the station. Why should they drive me back to smoking? I’m not giving them that. Them. I can’t trust either of them right now. The tangles around me feel like barbed wire. Maybe my new panic is all for nothing. Maybe David is the bad guy here, just as Adele has made out. Maybe Adele doesn’t have the second door, and even if she does, maybe she still doesn’t know anything. Maybe, like me, she can’t go very far. She could still be telling the truth.

The thought feels hollow. I remember her cold hand and the gasp of her wakening in the chair in David’s study. If she can’t go very far, then why would she bother with the second door at all? I can’t imagine spending hours watching Laura and not being able to get past the end of our block’s walkway. It would be weird. And it would be dull, especially when the first door on its own allows you to dream anything you want.

She was through the second door that day when I found her in David’s study. I’m sure of it. But where was she? What was she watching? And why lie to me about it? My foot taps on the floor until we finally reach Blackheath and I rush from the train, as if trying to run from myself.

I walk quickly through the streets of the affluent suburb, mumbling the occasional apology as I barge through prams and strolling pedestrians, but not slowing my pace. There are a lot of cafes and restaurants here, but I focus on those closest to the clinics. If I’d been able to log into work then I probably could have checked which clinic David had come from, but he’s shut that avenue down, and if anyone ever told me, my brain has forgotten.

In one dead end, I order a bacon roll I don’t want, and when I find out there’s no Marianne there, I leave and dump it in the bin outside. Two take-away coffees follow and still no Marianne. I want to weep with frustration even though I’ve been here barely an hour. I have no patience left.

Finally, I find it. A small, chintzy, but on the right side of sweet rather than tasteless, cafe and tea shop down a quiet cobbled mews that you’d miss unless you knew it was there. I can see why David would come here. It’s homely looking. Welcoming. I know it’s the right place before I’ve even stepped inside. I can feel it. Just like I know when I see the earthy woman behind that counter that the answer to, ‘Are you Marianne?’ is going to be yes.

And it is. She’s older than me, maybe close to forty, and she has the tanned, toughened skin of someone who holidays in the sun maybe three or four times a year and relishes hours by the pool. She’s attractive, but not beautiful, and she has no wedding ring. Her eyes are kind though. I see that straight away.

‘I really need to talk to you,’ I say, my face flushing. ‘About David and Adele Martin. I think you knew them?’ The cafe isn’t busy, only a well turned-out older couple enjoying a full breakfast and the newspapers in one corner, and a businessman sipping a coffee and working on his laptop in another. She can’t use being too busy as an excuse.

She stiffens. ‘I have nothing to say about them,’ she says. The kindness has gone from her eyes. Now I see hurt and defensiveness and anger at someone forcing a memory of something wanted forgotten.

‘Please,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t have come all this way to find you if it wasn’t important.’ I hope she can see the utter desperation in my own gaze. Woman to woman. Perhaps victim to victim.

She does. After a moment’s hesitation, she lets out a long sigh and says, ‘Take a seat. Tea or coffee?’

I choose a table by the window and she joins me with two mugs of tea. I start to try to explain myself, to tell her something of what’s brought me here, why I need to hear her story, but she cuts in, stopping me.

‘I’ll tell you what happened, but I don’t want to know anything more about them. About her. Okay?’

I nod. Her. Adele. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

‘There was never anything in it, David and me. He was too young for a start, and he was a nice, quiet man. He’d come in early, have a coffee and sit and stare out of the window. I always thought he looked sad, and I hate to see people sad, so I started chatting to him. Not much at first, just in the way I try to, but then slowly we started to talk more, and he was charming and funny. I was newly divorced and feeling raw and it was like having free therapy.’ She smiles, almost wistful. ‘We’d joke about that. How I was paying him in coffee. Anyway, that’s how it was. She came in once or twice too, before I knew who she was. Right at the beginning. I was struck by her beauty. She was the kind of woman you remember.’

‘Like a movie star,’ I mutter, and she nods.

‘Yes, that’s it. Almost too beautiful. I didn’t know she was his wife. She didn’t say. She just drank her peppermint tea and sat and studied the place. It made me feel slightly uncomfortable, as if I was being inspected by the health board. But that was in the early days, and she didn’t come back after that. Not here, anyway.’

It all sounds so innocent, I can’t imagine what went wrong. My heart, despite everything else, thumps in relief that there was no affair. David has not done what he did with me, before. Adele was wrong, about this woman at any rate. I trust Marianne. She has no reason to lie to me.

‘So what happened?’

‘He started to open up to me a little. He might have been the psychiatrist, but when you’ve worked in the service industry as long as I have you develop your own way with people. I say he opened up, but actually it was more that he talked around things, if you know what I mean. I told him I thought that under his witty exterior he always seemed slightly unhappy, and we talked about love. He asked me once if it was possible to love someone so much that it makes you completely blind to them for a while. I told him that’s what love is at its heart. Only seeing the good in someone. I said love was a kind of madness in itself, because I must have been mad to stay with my John as long as I did.’

‘I think you should be a psychiatrist,’ I say. We’re warming to each other. A support group of two.

‘After that he started turning up half an hour or so before I opened, and I’d make us both breakfast. I’d probe him a bit more, and eventually, one day he said that he did a thing a long time ago that was wrong. He thought at the time that he was protecting the woman he loved, but it was always there between them and then, after a while, he began to worry that there was something very wrong with her. She wasn’t who he thought she was. He wanted to leave, but she was holding this thing he’d done against him as a threat. To keep him. She said she’d ruin him.’

She’s looking out of the window rather than at me, and I know she’s back in that time, those moments I’m making her relive. ‘I told him that the truth was always better out than in, and he should face this wrong thing he’d done, whatever it was. He said he’d thought about that a lot. It was all he thought about. But he was worried that if he did, and he had to go to prison, then there would be no one to stop her hurting someone else.’

My heart races and I barely feel my hands burning as they grip the hot mug. ‘Did he ever tell you what this wrong thing was?’ Rob. It’s something to do with Rob. I know it.

She shakes her head. ‘No, but I got the feeling it was something bad. Maybe he would have told me eventually, but then she turned up at my door.’

‘Adele?’

Her mouth has twisted into a sour pout at the mention of the name, but she nods. ‘She came to my house. She must have followed me home one day. She told me to stay out of her marriage. She said I couldn’t have David and that he belonged to her. I was shocked and tried to tell her that there was nothing going on, and after what happened when my own husband cheated I wouldn’t do that to another woman, but she wasn’t listening. She was furious. Beyond furious.’

I wouldn’t do that to another woman. Marianne is a better person than me. It’s my turn to look away, even though I’m listening intently, sucking in her every word to savour later.

‘She told me to stop talking to him,’ she continues, oblivious to my sharp pang of guilt. ‘To stop advising him if I knew what was good for me. She said he wasn’t going to leave her and that he loved her and whatever was in their past was their business and theirs alone.’ She pauses and sips her tea. ‘I felt awful. Mortified, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. I told her we were friends and that was it. She said I was a miserable old woman with only a cat for company and no man would ever look at me. It was such a childish insult that I actually laughed at it. Shock, I think, but I laughed all the same. That was probably my mistake.’

‘Did you tell David?’

‘No. I was actually surprised when he turned up at the cafe the next morning, to be honest. I’d presumed he must have told her about our conversations because how else could she have known about them?’

How else indeed. How far can you go, Adele? I can just imagine Adele hovering above them, invisible, as they talked. How angry she must have been. The image leads immediately to that of her hovering above my bed watching me fuck her husband. Oh God.

‘But he acted like nothing had happened. He looked tired, yes. Unhappy, yes. Hungover, probably. But certainly not as if he’d told his wife all about our conversations. I created the opportunity to say he should talk to her about their problems. He said they were beyond that and that she never understood. I was obviously feeling quite uncomfortable about it all, so I told him what I really thought. That he should stop talking to me about it, but if he was that unhappy then he should leave her and hang the consequences. I was angry with her by then, after the shock of her visit had worn off. She was a harpy, I thought. The kind of woman nothing would ever be good enough for. He’d be better off out of it.’

I like this woman. She’s a straight-talker. I doubt she has secrets or invites them from others or is great at keeping them. I’ve missed being that person. Open.

‘What I failed to realise, however,’ she says softly, ‘is that I’d be the one facing the consequences. Or, more accurately, Charlie would.’

She sees my quizzical expression.

‘My old cat. She killed him.’

My world spins.

Another dead cat. Coincidence? My thoughts sound like David’s notes. David, who Adele claimed killed their cat, and I believed her over him. Oh, Louise, you stupid fool. ‘How?’ I croak out.

‘He didn’t come in one night and I was worried. He was fifteen and his days of hunting mice to bring in for me were over. Mainly he slept on the sofa while I was at work, and then slept on me when I got home. As much as I hate to admit it, she was right on one thing – since my divorce, Charlie had been my main source of company. It’s hard adjusting to being single after being part of a couple.’

I know exactly what she means. That left-behind feeling.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I think she must have poisoned him first. Not enough to kill him, but enough to subdue him. He was a greedy bugger and very friendly. He’d come to anyone who had a scrap of chicken for him. I couldn’t sleep wondering where he was, and then just after dawn I heard a yowl from outside. It was a pathetic sound. Weak. Distressed. But it was definitely my Charlie. I’d had him since he was a kitten, I knew all his noises. I leaped out of bed and went to the window, and there she was. Standing in the road holding my limp, sick cat in her arms. At first, I was more confused than alarmed. I had no idea what she was doing there so early, but my initial thought was that he’d been run over and she’d found him. Then I saw her face. I’ve never seen someone that cold before. That devoid of feeling. “I warned you.” That’s all she said. So quiet. So calm. Before I could react – before I could really grasp what was happening – she’d dropped him to the ground, and as he started to try to crawl to the front door, she … she stamped on his head.’

As she looks into my wide eyes I can see the remembered horror in hers, and then the slight movement in her throat as she swallows. ‘She was wearing high heels,’ she finishes. No more elaboration is needed after that.

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘Yeah.’ She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as if she can sigh it all out of her head. ‘I’d never seen anything like that before. That level of rage. Of madness. I never want to see it again.’

‘Did you call the police?’

‘Oh, I was going to. But first I wanted David to see what she had done. It was nearly time for me to come and open up here, so I thought I’d show him – give him a short, sharp, shock – and then call the police. I was angry and heartbroken, but I was also afraid. I was afraid for him and for me. I wrapped my poor Charlie up in a blanket and took him with me. I had no intention of working that day, I just wanted to see David and then go home and cry. That probably sounds ridiculous over a cat.’

‘It really doesn’t.’ I mean it too, as I reach across the table and squeeze her arm. I know how bad it is to be alone, and at least I’ve always had Adam. I can only imagine how awful she felt.

‘David’s reaction was interesting.’ She’s thoughtful now the worst of her story is out of the way. Maybe my visit is unexpected therapy for her. ‘I didn’t see it at the time, but when I look back on it, I do,’ she continues. ‘He was appalled, that’s true. And disgusted and upset. But he wasn’t shocked. You can’t fake shock. Not well, at any rate. I actually think he was relieved that she’d only hurt the cat. That scared me most of all of it. That relief. What did he think she was really capable of, if killing a cat like that was a cause for relief?’

My hands are shaking so much I have to hide them under the table. Oh Adele. What games have you played with me?

‘He persuaded me not to press charges. He said he knew Adele and it would be my word against hers and she could be very convincing. That beauty of hers works for her. But he told me I’d never have to worry about her again. He’d make sure of that. He said he’d make a payment to the Cat Protection League. He basically begged me not to call the police, and I was too tired and emotional to argue. I just wanted them both out of my life.’

‘So you didn’t report her?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. I closed the cafe for a few days and stayed at home, grieving and also jumping every time the doorbell went in case it was her. But she didn’t come back, and I never saw him again.’

‘And that was it?’ I ask. ‘They vanished?’

‘I got a letter from David a few weeks later, sent to the cafe. He said he’d found a new job and they were moving away. He thanked me for my friendship and said he was sorry that it had been so damaging for me, and that he would never forgive himself for that. It made me feel sick to look at it. It went straight in the bin. I wanted to forget all about them.’

‘I’m sorry I’ve brought it all back up,’ I say. ‘And I’m sorry about your cat. But thank you for talking to me. For telling me. You’ve really helped. More than you can know.’

She gets up from the table and I do the same, my legs weak beneath me.

‘I don’t know how you’re involved with them, and I don’t want to know,’ she says. ‘But get away from them. As fast as you can. They’re damaged goods and they’ll hurt you.’

I nod and give her a weak smile and then rush out into the fresh air. The world seems too bright, the leaves too green on the trees, their edges too sharp against the sky. I need somewhere to think.

I order a large glass of wine and take it to a corner table, obscured slightly from view of the businessmen and early lunch customers who are slowly filling up the Blackheath pub with laughter and conversation. I barely hear them. Only when I’ve drunk half my wine does the white noise of panic in my head abate, and I’m left to face the stark realisation I can no longer avoid.

I believed everything Adele told me so easily. I sucked it all up. And it was all lies. Suddenly I see all my rows with David so differently. There was fear in his anger. When he told me to stay away from them, he wasn’t threatening me, he was warning me. His aggression was to protect me. Does he really care about me after all? Did he mean it when he said he was falling in love with me?

Oh God, I’ve been a stupid, stupid fool. I want to cry, and the wine isn’t helping. I’ve been best friends with a psychopath. Friends? I rethink the word. We haven’t been friends, not at all. I’m a fly caught in her web, and she’s toying with me. But why? If she knows about me and David, why didn’t she just hurt me?

I need to talk to him. I need to talk to her. But how much does she actually know? Does she know I’ve come here and spoken to Marianne? And why did she teach me about the dreaming if she knew about me and David? Why help me like that?

With no answers there, I flip my thinking to David. The pills, the phone calls, the money. Is it all containment? Trying to keep the world safe from her? Or is he protecting himself as much as her? I still don’t know what happened to Rob. He made a mistake in his past. No, I correct myself. That’s not what she said. She said he’d done something wrong thinking he was protecting the woman he loved. Something wrong is bigger than a mistake.

I get my phone out of my bag and find the clinic’s number in my contacts, and my finger hovers over the dial button. What if he did kill Rob and then I tell him about the letter I’ve sent to the police, then what? What will he do? Should I trust him and tell him everything? My heart races at the thought. Fuck it, I think. Trust your heart. For once in all this, trust David. Deal with Adele afterwards.

I hit the dial button and press the phone to my ear. Sue answers and I make an attempt to disguise my voice. I tell her my name is Marianne and I must speak to Dr David Martin as a matter of urgency. She tells me she’ll see if he’s free and to hold.

He’ll agree to meet me. He has to.