PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (24 page)

“I
know you are pregnant.”  She picks up my juice, drinks it all.  “Gregory thinks
the truth will destroy you, but it won’t.  It will help you realise.  It will
set you free.”

“What?” 
She appears to not even hear me speak.  She is twiddling a bracelet in her
fingers. 

“They
still call, you know.  People.  Asking.  Why didn’t you go to your office? 
Stephen Jones.  You remember him?  He still thinks you work there.”  She has
manoeuvred herself behind me and I can feel her fingers on my shoulder.  She
traces the length of my collar bone, her bony fingers ending up on my necklace
before she rests her hands on my shoulders and leans into my ear.  “Do you?  Do
you even remember him?”

“What?”

“You
don’t remember anything, do you?”  She stands up, walks in front of me and sits
on the edge of the table, her bottom disturbing my plate.  She takes my hands
in hers, and they remain limp because by this point I am as malleable as wet clay. 
She shakes her head and rubs her thumbs across the backs of my hands which are
so dry you could light matches on them.  Then she strokes my hair away from my
wet eyes and I let her do it.  “Don’t hate me.  It was me that nursed you.  I
washed you, I dressed you, I loved you when nobody else could bring themselves
to do it.  I filled the void in your life when they abandoned you, just like I
filled the one that you left behind when you abandoned them.”

“Gregory
didn’t abandon me.”  I manage to say the words, but in this exact moment I’m not
sure if I believe it or not.  

“Not
at first.  But I know that you are not so sure about that anymore.  Think about
what I said.  I don’t want to hurt you.”  She pulls my chin up towards her, but
her image is blurring.  I feel like I am five years old again sat on a bench
shivering from the cold, my eyes full of tears.  It almost looks like Ishiko in
front of me and the thing that holds me has her face.  But the voice sounds
deranged, synthesized, almost as if she is being electrocuted.  I am sure that
for a moment I can hear my father telling me that everything will be OK.  He is
saying
I will make it up to you. 
I am in his arms and we are running,
and there is a red haired woman behind us who is calling out for him to stop, right
before there is silence and I sit watching him float away, face down in the
water and bobbing along like a piece of old wood.  My feet are blanketed by the
lapping waves as they break on the shore, the water so cold that I can no
longer feel my toes as it seeps into my shoes.  I feel the fingers on my face
tighten and I realise that my father's face and voice have disappeared, and
that it is Ishiko who is still holding me.  She pulls my face towards her,
forcing me to look in her lightening infused eyes.  “If I were you,” she says,
“I would try to remember.”

It
was Ishiko that left me bewildered at the table, breathing hard and struggling
for air.  I am alone now, save a few birds braving the chill of the winter
temperatures who are circling like sharks above my garden.  She said a lot
during the last five minutes, but there are only a few of her words that I have
remembered.  A lot of them just hit me on their journey through, blinding me
and deafening me as they travelled like a shot from a handgun through my eye,
tearing through my mind and ripping it clean, the bang bursting my ears and
rendering me senseless.  But a few words, her final words to be precise, that I
heard so loudly that they have left me with tinnitus, ringing like cymbals in
my ears.  They scared me to the point that I now feel that I myself am my own
enemy. 
Try…..to…..remember.

There
is a woman in my house that knows more about my life than I do and I am
terrified by this fact.  I have lost so much of my mind that I cannot remember
things that she knows, and she makes me think there are important elements to
the past that I should remember and I simply cannot.  I have to see Dr.
Abrams.  Maybe he can extract these memories with the precision of a surgeon, and
force me to see what she tells me I am missing.  There is no more time for
softly-softly, or step-by-step.  I need to know.  Now.  I call him but he
doesn’t answer.  I replace the phone on its base.  I can hear her upstairs
moving around.  I pick up the phone and try again but he still doesn’t answer. 
I focus on the front door, then the rear door that leads outside from the
kitchen, and then the window in the hallway.  All exit routes.  She is carrying
on as normal, but there is something different.  She is faster today.  Moving
at a quicker pace, dashing rather than shuffling.  I can see the flowers in the
kitchen that she cut yesterday waiting for me.  I consider leaving them there
and going upstairs and confronting her but even the thought of it makes me
sweat and this level of tension isn’t good for me or the baby so I stay put
with one bare hand on the phone.  I watch my hand for a while, lounging like a
holidaymaker with not a care in the world.  As certain as I can be in this
state of tension I become convinced that I can see something moving from the
phone and onto my skin.  It is like a film or a shadow, a mist creeping over me
and I know that it is unsafe.  I pull my hand away and dash to wash my hands in
the downstairs toilet, fighting back the tears. 

Something
I remember.  Gregory’s touch when I came home.  His delicate fingers nursed me,
I know this.  They picked away individual hairs that stuck to my summer sweat-drenched
forehead.  It was as if each individual strand had the power to fight me, to
kill me, and so he picked them away one by one.  My eyes remained in a closed
state of recovering desolation.  My only hope was to die, to drown, to depart. 
Yet I remained.  But this is a pieced together memory, a patchwork of half
truths and flashbacks.  Perhaps this is nothing like what really happened.  Perhaps
she is right.  The truth is somewhere in those gaps in memory, the answers to
why I know that my life doesn’t feel like my own and why he doesn’t really love
me.  I will try to remember, and until I can I will do as he said.  I will
pretend.

I
go upstairs, enter my room.  I wash my hands again.  I pull away the plaster
and bite my lip as I open the wound on my hand, allowing the blood to pour out
into the stream of cold water.  I wash my hands.  I dry them.  I am bleeding.  I
remove the drawer from my bedside table and take out the pearl bracelet.  A
drop of blood drips onto the carpet.  I see Ishiko’s image staring back at me,
her head severed down the middle by a perfect fold.  I snatch it out and hold
it in both hands to my chest and chin.  The tension through my fingers
threatens to tear it apart without any conscious effort.  I feel my breath
reverberating back from the photograph to my own face, as if the image is
coming alive in my hands and by tearing it I would really kill her.  My own
blood has trickled down my arm and I imagine it is hers, pouring from her
sliced up body.  I tear the image, slow at first but then with a final
injection of effort she has been separated into two parts.  I shove her
dismembered image back into the drawer space and return the drawer.  I pick up
the bracelet and I hold it tight and…..

…..I
am holding the flowers and Marianne opens the door.  Snow has fallen and mist
surrounds me.  I cannot see the road behind me.  She is so pleased to see me. 
I feel myself smile.  She is speaking and I answer her, but I have no idea what
either of us is saying.  I am on autopilot.  She makes tea, we drink it.  We
talk.  We laugh.  At some point I say something that makes her touch my face in
a loving way but I don’t know what I said to cause it.  We are in the lounge
and I see Mary staring back at me from all directions.  In a moment of lucidity
she tells me that John has told her she must leave early today.  He is still
angry at her about last Friday.  She shows me how she has packed and that she
has to leave now, even though she would like to stay with me and chat.  There
is a small bag that waits for her at the side of the door that looks lonely.  I
help her to the car with it.  I tell her I have to use the toilet before I
leave.  I go upstairs.   The curtains are open and the bed is made.  The sun is
shining here.  Her things have been removed, the house consumed by reality. 
Marianne doesn’t exist here today.  She is in the car, packed into a small
overnight bag.  On one of the bedside tables there is a picture of John.  On
the other, Mary.  Assuming that they do not wish to look at their own faces, I
sit on Mary’s side of the bed, the one with John’s image.  I pick it up.  He is
younger here.  He is of an age when he loved her, maybe.  I rest the silver
frame back onto the glass table, leaving a bloody fingerprint on the glass. 
The cleaner has been in.  Looking around the room, there is a small collection
of stuffed toys, bears of variable sizes, lined up on an ottoman.  Some of them
have been positioned with their arm around another in an act of enforced
friendship, which makes me feel sad and I cannot bring myself to look at them
anymore.  There seems such hope and such dreams placed on these tiny animal
bears that I have to look away, close my eyes, for I know that real life holds
nothing of the same promise.  I feel my pain much more acutely in the presence
of others who know nothing of real life, but who in spite of their daily toil
manage to remain positive and hopeful, finding joy in the simplest of places.  The
sheets are edged with lace and the delicate rose pattern is repeated across
them like confetti at a wedding.  The carpet is pink and dated.  There are no
glasses on the bedside table.  There is a suit hanging that seems to have been
returned from the drycleaners.  I open the drawers and see Mary’s clothes in
one drawer, John’s in another.  They remain together.  I wonder where Marianne
leaves her things when she is here.

“Charlotte,
are you finished?” she calls up the stairs.  I pull the pearl bracelet from the
pocket of my jeans.  I rest it on the glass of the bedside table in front of
John’s picture.  There is a small drop of blood on it and more on my finger.  I
move across to the other side and tip Mary’s image on its front.  I close the
door behind me without making a sound. 

“Sorry
about that,” I say.

She
is smiling at me again, giggling but only briefly.  She takes a glance at her
watch, taps the glass face before saying, “Anyway, I really must be going.”  I
wonder if she picked up his suit.  I wonder if she rearranges the bears whilst
she is here.  If he needs a shirt ironing, who will do it?  Is she really his
substitute wife, filling the void that others have left behind them just like
Ishiko tells me she is doing?  I wonder why anybody wants to be the filler of a
void.  I hate Marianne for being such a willing filler.  It is pathetic not to
want to have your own place in the world, your own position in life, and I can
feel some of the anger that I previously fed off returning to my bones and I
feel better.  It is like a good old friend who has returned to me in the fog to
show me the way and guide me back.  I feel much.....

Later
that day I call Dr. Abrams again but still he doesn’t answer.  Where is he?  I
consider driving to his office but I am certain that if I get there and he is
not available the risk to me is greater than if I remain here and wait.  I try
to focus on the holes in the patchwork of my life and to remember the pieces
that should be there instead of lost.  I must fill in these voids myself.  I
must fill the void left by my absence and in turn push her out.  Push Ishiko
out.  Take back my life, whilst I still can.

Gregory
was late home and I was sat in the drawing room when he arrived.  I had already
eaten.  Long day, he said.  Didn’t want to talk about it.  Ishiko followed him
into the room carrying a small tray on top of which was a brandy.  Without
looking at her he handed her what looked like post, something I found odd
because I didn’t remember seeing any letters in the hallway.  “Deal with these
Ishiko,” he said, and she took them from his outstretched arm.  I was
captivated by the brandy still on the tray in her other hand.  It was a work of
art.  She had poured it exactly as he liked in a spotless beaker, over ice with
crisp sharp edges which reflect the light like mirrors.  It was perfect looking,
without any trace of a flaw.  His preference.

“What?”
he said as he finally looked up to question her continued presence.  “What’s
this?”

“Your
brandy, Mr. Astor,” she said, smiling.  He stared at her for a moment longer
than I would have liked.  Their eyes met and something was exchanged, but I was
uncertain as to what it was exactly.

“I
didn’t ask for it,” he says, resuming his hardened stance.  “Take it away.”  He
was muttering under his breath as she left the room about the waste.  We must
have both heard him.  We were certainly supposed to.

He
eats in the drawing room, with me.  We don’t speak whilst he balances the white
china plate that looks too fancy for a laptop dinner on an elegantly crossed
knee.  In any memory I have, it seems like the most alien thing to expect
Gregory to eat from his knees.  I notice that he tries to preserve his table
manners.  A napkin across his lap, a knife and fork to take only small
mouthfuls.  He has tried to look casual, ambivalent to the lack of etiquette in
his actions.  But eventually it all becomes too much for him and so he drags
over the occasional table and puts the plate down on top of it.  I can see the
relief wash over him as he sets about finishing his half eaten dinner.  I wait
with good intentions for him to finish and speak.  I am thinking about my hair,
my face, the fact I am wearing no makeup.  I wonder if he finds me attractive
today, or if I look swollen, puffy, ugly, or unworthy.  He stands and looks
through his CD collection, selects a song I have never heard.  It is a piano, a
violin, a lullaby of two halves, two individuals who effortlessly blend.

“It’s
beautiful, isn’t it?” he says as he turns to look at me as the music starts. 
He looks tired, and he bends down to light the fire.  Striking the match, he
cups it in his hand to allow the spark to catch before using it to set small
fires which look like ancient beacons along the Scottish borders to warn of
imminent invasion.  Satisfied with his effort he sits next to me on the settee,
his arms outstretched and around me.  We sit for a while, both of us entranced
by the flames as it blisters and cracks into life.  It is Gregory who breaks
the silence.  “I have not been fair.  I understand now.  You.....you, need my
help.”

I
turn my head slightly, but I cannot turn properly because he has gripped me as
tight as a straightjacket and his face is so close to mine that I cannot get a
proper look at him.  But I do catch a glimpse of his eyes and I see the fire
reflecting in them.  It makes him look wild, like a tiger.  “I do,” I say, and
I feel him tighten his arms around me even more, relieved at last to have a
victim for whom he can care.  He is needed again.

“Things
will get easier.  You have to understand, many things have been.....difficult. 
I was trying.  I mean,” he stops, and just for a moment I feel him take a
stuttered breath inwards that makes me wonder if he is trying hard not to cry. 
He controls himself and instead he says, “I tried, for a while at least.”

“I
know,” I say. 

“Back
then, it was too much.  What you asked of me.  I tried but I couldn’t do it.” 
I don’t say anything.  Instead I wait.  “I am scared.  I admit it.  I never
thought we would be in this position.  I told myself nothing between us would
ever be this hard.  Never.”  His grip loosens and he turns me around to face
him.  “But I will try.  I must try.  I must try to be here.”

“Can
you be here?” I ask.

“I
can try.  Can you?”  I don’t know if I can.  I do know that I still feel the
pull of the lake, but that I do try not to, which is a start.  I nod my head.  
Our discussion is broken by the sound of shouting.  It is coming from next
door.  I can hear tears, raised voices.  Something was smashed.  “I guess it is
not just us,” he smiles, glad of the break in intensity.  A shift in focus.

“I
was thinking that we could have a dinner party on Sunday.  Not here, but we
could go out.  Invite everybody.”  He turns his lips up, curls them as if he is
pondering what I said. 

“Sounds
good,” he says without a hint of interest.

I
can hear the phone ringing in the background and Ishiko answers it.  She is
telling Stephen Jones that I am unavailable, as she has been trained to do.  I
hear her say she cannot confirm if we will be in the house tomorrow morning. 
She hangs up.  Gregory shifts in his seat as he listens to Ishiko and gets up
to stoke the fire.