PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (14 page)

“Now
I think,” he stops to correct himself, realising from experience that he
shouldn’t make predictions about what I will think or feel, “I hope, that you
feel more comfortable here.”  Before I can answer he has opened the door and he
is getting out of the car.  I watch him walk past the front of the bonnet, and
he peers in, tapping his knuckles on the car as if to urge me on, beckoning me
out.

As
I walk through the hotel I realise that I haven’t been here since the day I
attempted to take my life, the incident for which everybody consoled Gregory
and commented what a terrible accident it really was.  These same people I am
sure must have discussed in private that accidents like that simply do not
happen.  I am an interesting sight to them now, the one who came back from the
dead.  I am the one who has seen beyond our little world, the traveller who
returned home with tales of far off lands before people realised there was a
world beyond their own.  I am the one who has embraced and seen that which we
all fear, the loss of life, death, the end.  People pretend that they are all
living, and that death has no business to bother them.  They do not want to believe
that in reality we are all dying one step at a time since the moment of our birth. 
We pretend to ourselves that we are growing, that we are flourishing, and that
death will call to us only once we reach our final path.  They do not want to
accept that every step we take is part of a journey towards the inevitable. 

But
there are those of us who can feel the call of those already departed, the
bewildered souls who float between the real and spiritual worlds.  It is
especially true for those like me, who sank beneath the surface with the intention
to embrace a watery death, to be willingly pulled under by the vengeful ghosts
of those who drowned in the same water in years gone by.  They knew that I already
belonged to them, that I was an escapee, ready to be brought home.  They
promised me a quiet death, quick and suffocating.  They knew that I was ready, and
I knew it too.  Yet still I find myself here, living and breathing.  I came
back like a living ghost, bringing something with me from the other side as if
I had been marked by death.  I live as an apparition, moving furniture,
providing chills along the spine, gluing down photographs.  I never really
escaped.  I am still drowning.  Every day I splutter through life, choking.  Now,
under loves heavy burden do I sink.  They should have left me to it, because at
least now it would be over. 

A
woman in the restaurant spots us and stops what she is doing to walk towards
us.  She is holding out her hands as if we have been reunited, the best of
friends, or mother and daughter. 

“Oh,
my dear girl,” she says reaching her arms around me and kissing me on the cheek. 
I try to respond but the hug I offer in return is weak in nature, half
hearted. 

“Darling,
you remember Patricia,” Gregory says.  “She is the restaurant manager here.” 

“Charlotte,
look at you.”  She grabs at me without any hesitation, with no formality.  I
wonder if we were close before my brief departure and that perhaps I have
forgotten about her, that I lost our friendship underneath the waves and that
it is floating around down there with so many other things of mine which were
precious and that were taken from me.  “It is good to see you looking so well. 
Look at you!”  She stands back to admire me, and I smile without encouragement as
she regards what a wonderful example I am.  Gregory too is smiling, a sort of
nervous pride washes over him, and he looks abashed.  It’s as if somebody is
praising his own creation, which I suppose in many ways I am. 

“Thanks,”
I say, eyes down, infected by embarrassment as she puts her hand up to my face
and strokes my cheek.  I feel electricity between us and feel an inconsolable
need to reach out and touch her back.  I can feel my hand flickering at my side
and I think she notices it to because she reaches down for it and rubs at it
with both hands.  Even through my gloves she feels warm.

“We
have missed seeing you around here.  It’s nice to see you back.”  I have been
missed.  I find myself wanting to sit in her lap like an oversized child with
her arms around me, her hands stroking my hair away from my face.  She is
touching me and I do not flinch.  I image myself falling asleep with my head
resting on her ample chest which looks soft and cushiony.  She could be no more
genuine with an engraving or a stamp.  Or a watermark.  To be given the mark of
water usually makes something official and worthy.  It made me officially crazy,
and worthy of not much at all.

“Really?”
I pry. 

“Really?”
she mocks, looking to Gregory, who is still smiling to himself and feeling proud
of what he has achieved with me.  That I am here to walk and talk and smile
politely is quite something it would seem.  Like a baby who eats and sleeps and
shits in its nappy, I do very little and please her a great deal.  In this
moment, life has never been easier.  “Of course we missed you.  You must come
back here to swim like you used to, and then come and find me for your lunch.” 
She smiled at me again, patted me on the cheek and was then gone as quickly as
she arrived.

“That
was a little strange,” I say to Gregory after she leaves.  He has stopped
smiling now, the remnants of it visible only if you inspect him as closely as a
crime scene.

“Not
really.  You came here twice or three times a week.”  He turned and walked away
before turning back briefly to beckon me to follow.

We
continue up the corridor, me a few steps behind.  He waited for me by the
doorway at the far end.  I realise I have no memory of this door being there and
wonder if something else has failed to stay in my head, another bit of the past
which slipped out.  But I have other memories which make me think that this
time at least, I am right.  I remember the wall that used to be there, and the
table that sat in front of it that housed a collection of well read books, the
pages yellow and fusty, a smell that guests seemed to love.  The floral settees
that used to sit in collections of three have been replaced by leather seats,
coffee tables scattered throughout like a light dusting of snow.  The walls
that were once pink are now a shade of off-white, like egg shell or bone.  I
remember the flowers over the fireplace.  I know that if I got close they would
be made of satin, red and yellow tulips designed to last forever as if the
promise of spring could be captured and brought inside.  I am certain that right
about where Gregory is standing there were two oversized wingback chairs.  They
were once just far enough from the chimney to feel the heat of the fireplace,
but not so close that your skin would chafe as if you were sat too close to the
flames. 

“You
can see there are some changes here, yes?”  I have spent six months away from
this place.  I see that there is still a spectacular view from the far windows
which frame the lake like a postcard, and I can imagine the tourists taking
pictures from here before they return to their boring homes that are swallowed
up by the concrete of suburbia.  It is quite a beautiful view, if it doesn’t
make you want to kill yourself.

“You
have painted?” I ask.

“Yes,
and here we have extended the windows to allow more light to come through, but
look,” as if he knows the extra windows need justification, “I have created
areas with the settees and chairs, the way they are arranged.  There is no
chance that you have to look at the lake, if you don’t want to.  You can look
across from these seats,” he ushers me forwards and eases me into one of the armchairs,
“and see nothing but the forest beyond.”  As he casts open his arms I see that
his statement is true.  I can sit here and appreciate the view without a single
droplet of water impeding my enjoyment.

“It’s
beautiful, Gregory.”  He smiles again and I see the face that I saw the first
time when he stepped out from the party and offered to light my cigarette,
before he insisted I quit.  He has a perfect smile in spite of his oversized
teeth, a combination of cheeky and self assured.  It is so because he actually
closes his teeth together for it.  Most smiles I have noticed are all about
what the lips do.  But for Gregory, his lips simply tighten up over his
clenched teeth.  This combined with the gentle tip back of the head, his
self-assured
I knew it
look, combines together to appear, in my eyes,
quite perfect.  He is doing it now, and I realise how I have missed it.  He
leans down to my level as I am sat in the forest view armchair, his eyes
meeting mine.  “There’s more.”

We
move back through to another new set of doors which appear to lead out onto a
deck that I do not remember.  He stops outside them, blocking the view the best
he can.  “These doors are not for you.  They are beautiful, yes, but it is
those doors that are yours.”  He points across the lounge to a set of far
doors, identical to those behind him.  I see that somebody has put a red bow on
the handles, linking them together.  After walking towards the door he turns to
me and says, “This is a space for you.   I can’t change everything Charlotte,
but when I envisaged this plan, admittedly long before the events of the recent
past, I felt that this would make you happy.  Happier,” he settles for.  He
produces a pair of scissors from his pocket and pushes them into my hand.  He
steps back as I wriggle my leather gloves into the handle and he holds out his
hand, exposing the veins in his wrists.  For a second I cannot help but
consider how inviting they appear to me, now that I am clutching a blade for
the first time in six months.

The
red bow stares back at me, limp and hanging as if compliant with its imminent
catastrophe.  I wonder who chose the red, and if it was Gregory.  He is anxious
of my holding scissors, as if he can read my mind although nothing sharp and
painful has ever been appealing to me, even before he locked away the sharpest
of our kitchen knives.  I have never been a cutter, even in the darkest of
moments.  The bow is the colour of blood, of life, the same red that has flowed
through me and out each month until recently when life started growing inside
of me.  I wonder if subconsciously he has attached this bow to watch me cut
through danger, the colour of warning, of human fear.  To watch me march
ceremoniously through, leaving an old life in pieces on the floor would show
bravery and willing, a way forward.  I see the colour of sex staring back at me,
of excitement, and lust.  It is the colour men celebrate as they pull the
sheets out from underneath their virgin brides. 
She bleeds!  She bleeds! 
She is pure because she bleeds for me
.  Men want the blood of their women. 
They want to be the one to make her bleed, and only then do they feel her
worth.  I must not have bled enough for Gregory, my sacrifice insufficient, and
I see now why I have been supplemented.    

“Go
on, cut the ribbon.”  He is smiling so much, but his smile of beauty has been
replaced by an expectant smile, his mouth gaping and pink, wet and slick.  It’s
the face Ishiko has seen, just as I have, right before he touches a woman’s
skin.  It is the face I saw in the drawing room as he pulled and twisted
against my breast before retreating to his own pleasures in the shower.  It is
excitement. 

“OK,”
I say as I edge the blade to the cloth.  I make only one cut before the bow
falls away.  Without hesitation he opens the door, holding it with one hand and
sweeping me through with the other.  I feel the cold air as I step outside and
further away from the roaring fireplace.  I see a table before me.  There is a deck
here that was never here before.  It is wooden like a pier at the seaside, but
beneath me there is solid ground.  I look left and see that the new deck is
littered with tables, glass topped wicker tables like the one from our
conservatory.  The deck is almost enclosed by glass, and only occasionally
interrupted by a white column holding the whole thing together.  There is
almost an uninterrupted view of the lake in that direction.  But not here in
front of me.  Here it is something different.  It is something enclosed and
secretive, kept away from the rest of the deck.  It is like a secret garden,
hidden by wall or gate. 

We
sit and order coffee for Gregory and tea for me without the milk.  Patricia
brings us a small plate of sandwiches and scones and smiles unflinchingly as if
she were at a wedding or other such special event.  I wipe my gloves with a
disinfectant wipe before allowing them to air dry before I handle the first
scone.  Gregory pretends not to have noticed.  I indulge in two of them, cream
and jam on both, and Gregory looks on adoringly.  I get some on my gloves but I
wipe them without any panic on the napkin.  If there had been a plate of over
one hundred scones I would have worked my way through them, just to stay here with
him looking at me this way.

“Charlotte,
life has been very difficult of late.  I think you would agree.”  I look up
from my scone and see that the atmosphere has changed.  A fog from the past has
been allowed in and it has settled over us.  “I want to say that I am sorry.”

“Sorry
for what?” I ask.

“For
many things.  Perhaps the first, is simply that I am sorry that this has
happened to us.  I am sorry that six months ago you were so terribly depressed
and I let you out of my sight for long enough for you to do what you did.”

“It
isn’t necessary, Gregory.”  I leave my last bite of scone, knowing there is no
point in eating it anymore.  The ability to forget has passed us by.  We are
back in reality, the rot came back, our hypnosis over.