Beneath the Skin (12 page)

“Tomorrow,” said Louise decisively. “Leave it for now. We’ll go together tomorrow morning, in my car. You’ve got your children’s clothes till then.”

I picked up some cellophane-wrapped yellow roses from the checkout area, which I added to our trolley.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Louise.”

“Then don’t.”

A friend of Louise’s, called Cathy, came round for supper. She was extraordinarily tall and thin, with an aquiline nose and tiny ears. Louise had obviously told her about me, for she treated me very carefully, kindly, as if I were an invalid. I overcooked the pasta but the tomato sauce was fine, and anyone can chop up mangoes and strawberries and mix them together in a bowl. Louise lit candles and melted them onto old saucers. I sat at the kitchen table, in my new gray shift, light-headed, unreal. There was a hollow feeling in my stomach, but I couldn’t eat very much. I couldn’t speak very much, either. It was enough to sit there, listening to them; words buzzing lightly over the surface of my mind. We drank my Chianti, then most of the white wine that Cathy had brought, and watched an old film on TV. A thriller of some kind but I wasn’t able to concentrate on the details of the plot. My mind would drift away in one scene so in the next scene I didn’t know why the hero was breaking into that warehouse, what he was planning or what he was hoping to find. Outside, it started to rain, and the rain clattered on the roof and rattled on the window. I went to bed before Cathy left. Lying curled up on the sofa in the tiny sitting room, wearing Louise’s skimpy nightdress, I could hear them talking in the kitchen, the comforting hum of conversation, occasionally a peal of laughter, and I drifted off to sleep feeling safe.

The next morning, after breakfast, we went to my flat to collect a few clothes. I wasn’t going to pack everything just yet, although I had no intention of ever living in the flat again, just some basic essentials. It was still raining steadily. Louise couldn’t find anywhere to park near the flat so she stopped on a double yellow line a few yards down from the front door and I said I’d run up.

“I won’t be more than a couple of minutes,” I said.

“Sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

I shook my head and smiled.

“I’m just going to say good-bye.”

There was an air of general squalor and neglect about the place, though I’d only been gone one day, as if the flat knew that nobody cared about it. I went into my bedroom and gathered a few dresses from the wardrobe. Two pairs of trousers, four T-shirts, several knickers, bras, and pairs of socks. Some trainers. That would do for now. I shoved them all in a large hold-all. Then I went into the bathroom, took off the dirty clothes I was wearing, and threw them into a corner. I would collect all my laundry later. Another time.

I heard a click, like a cupboard door closing. It’s nothing, I said to myself. Imagination plays nasty tricks. Back in the bedroom I found some clean underwear. I closed the curtains and stood in front of the mirror to put them on. I saw my face reflected there, smudges under my eyes. My naked body, tanned arms and legs, white belly. I pulled my knickers on and took my new T-shirt—the one Louise said made me look like a flower—out of the bag I had brought with me and pulled it over my head. It was stupid, but I couldn’t quite face wearing anything that smelled of the flat, of my old life. I wanted to be clean and new.

As I pulled the shirt over my breasts, without any warning at all, I felt a grasp around my neck, around my body, and a weight on my back, someone on me. I lost my balance and fell hard with the weight on me, pushing my covered face hard into the carpet. I was stunned, in pain. I felt the hand through the shirt holding my mouth, a warm hand smelling of soap, apple soap from my bathroom. An arm wrapped round my rib cage, just under my breasts.

“Bitch, you bitch.”

I started to writhe, twisting my limbs this way and that, trying to scream, to howl. I couldn’t reach anything—my arms were held—couldn’t do anything. He made no sound, just breathed his hot soft breath into my ear. At last I stopped struggling. Outside someone shouted, the wail of a siren came closer, then faded away. Going somewhere else.

The grip on my neck slackened, I tried to move and to scream, but then it was on my throat. There was nothing I could do. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t scream. I thought about Louise sitting in the car outside, waiting for me, though she didn’t seem near to me now; she seemed a long long way off. Soon maybe she would come to find me. Not soon enough. How stupid, to die like this, before I’d even begun. Before I had had a life. How stupid.

Very slowly, the floor came up to meet me. I felt my head bounce on floorboards, my feet slide across the wood. I heard the rain on the window, pattering gently. I couldn’t speak, no words left to be said now, no time to say them anymore, but somewhere deep inside a voice that was saying: No, please no. Please.

Everything seemed to be happening, but then our house at breakfast time always seems to be rather like one of those medieval castles with donkeys and pigs and all the serfs coming in for shelter at the first sniff of trouble. In the weeks since our move, it had got even more chaotic, if that’s possible, and the medieval castle had a building site slap bang in the middle of it.

Clive had left the house at six, which is even earlier than usual because at the moment he’s working on some sort of horrific takeover bid. Just before eight Lena drags the two older boys into the Espace for the school run. Lena’s our nanny-slash-au-pair thing; lovely-looking girl, Swedish, infuriatingly blond and slim and young, though she has this thing through her nose that makes me wince every time I see it. Goodness knows what it must feel like when she blows her nose.

Then people started arriving. Mary, of course, our priceless cleaner, who came with us to Primrose Hill. She’s a treasure, except that I have to spend so much time standing over her and telling her what to do and then checking she’s done it that I’ve said to Clive I might as well do the cleaning myself. And then there’s all the rest of the people who were meant to be improving the house but instead have been reducing it to a slum full of brick dust. The rewiring and replumbing had been finished at the end of the week before, and the best that could be said about the house at that point was that anything from then on had to be an improvement.

I was satisfied, though, despite everything. This was what I had always wanted, what Clive had always promised me. A project. The house was down to bare boards and walls, back to the beams and rafters, practically. Now I was going to turn it into a home we could be proud of. I know you’re supposed to fall in love with a house but this house wouldn’t be worth falling in love with for another six months at least. There had been two old dears living there before in what looked like a secondhand bookshop that nobody had gone into since the fifties. The question wasn’t what to change, but what on earth one could possibly keep.

I spent four months with Jeremy, our clever architect, head down over plans, tanking him up with espressos. It was just a matter of being simple. Rip out everything. Put new roof on. Then kitchen and dining room in the basement, living rooms on the ground floor, Clive’s study on the first floor at the back, then bedrooms all the way up. Attic conversion for nanny to get up to whatever nannies get up to without scaring horses. Lavatories left, right, and center. A suite for Clive and me. Power shower for the boys in hopes it might persuade them to wash occasionally.

So this morning Jeremy popped in at around half past eight with Mick to go over a problem with an arch or beam or something. Closely followed by Francis, who we’ve brought with us to do—by which I mean completely
redo
—what passed for the garden. Hundred and twenty foot, which isn’t bad for London, but it looked like a giant rabbit run until Francis got at it. The ruck of electricians and plumbers have gone, thank God, but Mick comes with his entourage. Tea and coffee all round, of course, as soon as Lena gets back to make it. Somewhere in the middle of it I pop Christo—who’s four—along to his play-school thing, which he’d joined when we moved in. I’d become a bit dubious about it: no proper uniform, just blue sweatshirts, and wall-to-wall sandboxes and finger painting. But it was hardly worth chopping and changing. He’d be at Lascelles Pre-Prep in September anyway and, what is more, off my hands, which would be something of a relief.

Then it was back to the house and finally a sit-down, a coffee, and the quickest of glances at the paper and the mail before getting down to work—i.e., walking around stopping people knocking through the wrong wall and doing some liaising. Leo, my faithful handyman, was going to be dropping in and I’d been sweating over a list of things that needed doing. And I needed a serious discussion with Jeremy about the kitchen. That had been the really hard part of our planning. The thing is, in any other part of the house, if you get something wrong, you can live with it. But if the fridge door opens and blocks the cutlery drawer, you’re going to be irritated by it twenty-five times a day until you’re old and gray. What you ought to do ideally is build the kitchen, live in it for six months, then do it again properly. But even Clive isn’t rich enough for
that
. Or at least not patient enough.

Lena wandered in and I gave her some instructions. Then, while she got going properly, I sipped some coffee and finally got down to the paper and the post. I have a strict rule of never giving the paper more than five minutes, if that. There’s nothing
in
the papers anyway. Then the mail. In general, ninety percent of the mail is for Clive. The remaining ten percent is divided among children, pets, and me. Not that we’ve got any pets just at present. Our grand total of pets for 1999 consisted of one cat, missing and presumed dead, or having a better time in someone else’s house somewhere in Battersea. One hamster, buried in unmarked grave at end of Battersea garden. I’d been thinking of getting a dog. I’d always said that London wasn’t a place to keep dogs, but now that we were two minutes from Primrose Hill I can sometimes be caught with a wistful expression on my face considering it. Haven’t mentioned it to Clive yet, though.

Hence, mail was speedily dealt with. Immediate pile of anything with Clive’s name on it or variations thereof. All bills ditto. I can spot a bill at fifty feet, usually without even needing to open it. Anything addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Hintlesham, ditto. As usual, I put these letters in a pile, carried them upstairs, and deposited them on the desk in Clive’s sanctum for him to deal with when he got home or, more likely, over the weekend.

That left two letters to Josh and Harry, duplicated messages from Lascelles about sports day; various advertisements and solicitations that I filed straight in the bin. And then after all that there was one letter, addressed to me. Now, whenever there’s a letter addressed to me it almost always turns out to be a bill from a mail-order company that goes straight into Clive’s pile. If not that, then it’s a letter from a mail-order company who have obtained my address from another mail-order company.

But this was different. The name and address were neatly handwritten. And I couldn’t recognize the handwriting. It wasn’t Mummy’s or a friend or relative. This was interesting and I almost wanted to savor it. I poured another cup of coffee, took a sip, and then opened the envelope. It contained a folded slip of paper that was much too small for the envelope, and I could see straightaway that it didn’t have much writing on it. I smoothed it out on the table:

Dear Jenny,

I hope you don’t mind if I call you Jenny. But you see I think you’re very beautiful. You smell very nice, Jenny, and you have beautiful skin. And I’m going to kill you.

It seemed like the silliest thing. I tried to think if someone was playing a practical joke. Some of Clive’s friends have the most awful sense of humor. I mean, for example, he once went to this stag night for a friend of his called Seb and it really was awful, with two stripper-grams and lipstick on everyone’s collar. Anyway, Jeremy came down and we started talking about some of the problems with the kitchen. In these last horribly hot days I’d been worrying about the Aga and I wanted to see if the skylights above could be made to open. There were these funny window catches I’d seen in
House and Garden
that could be opened with string. I showed the picture to Jeremy but he wasn’t impressed. He never is unless he’s thought of it himself. So we had a big bust-up about that. He was very funny about it, really. Stubborn, though. Then I remembered the letter and I showed it to him.

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t find it funny at all.

“Do you know who might have done this?” he said.

“No,” I said.

“You’d better call the police,” he said.

“Oh don’t be so silly,” I said. “It’s probably just someone playing a joke. I’ll make a fool of myself.”

“Doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter if someone’s playing a joke. You must call the police.”

“I’ll show it to Clive.”

“No,” Jeremy said firmly. “Call the police now. If you’re too embarrassed then
I’ll
do it for you.”

“Jeremy . . .”

He was an absolute pig about it. He rang directory inquiries himself and got the number of some local police station and not only that—he then dialed the number himself and then handed me the phone as if I was a toddler talking to her granny.

“There,” he said.

The phone rang and rang. I put my tongue out at Jeremy.

“Probably nobody’s home. . . . Oh, hello? Look, this is going to sound really stupid, but I’ve just been sent this letter.”

I spoke for a few minutes to a girl who sounded like one of those people who rings you up and tries to give you a quote for some dreadful metal window frames. I was dubious and she sounded bored and she said she’d arrange for somebody to call round, but there might be a bit of a delay and I said it didn’t matter to me and I ended the conversation and thought nothing more of it.