The Venus Trap (25 page)

‘ “Is he concussed, then?” I asked, and then, “Why are
you crying?”

‘Her friend spoke, finally. She was sort of little and skinny and her nose was all red. She said, “He was just so gorgeous. It’s terrible. I can’t believe it. Nothing like this has ever happened here before.” I was getting almost annoyed by this stage. I felt like
shaking
them. “Is he concussed?” I asked again, and they said, “You need to come with us.” I had this image of John sitting somewhere with a big lump on his head, and an icepack pressed against it. He’d have been irritated at how uncool it was, to have to sit holding a big soppy
icepack
. He wouldn’t have wanted me to see him like that—that’s why I didn’t know where he was. I looked up and down the
corridor
, at all the closed office doors on either side, thinking that he’d be in one of those, probably, hiding from me. Waiting till the lump went down. Thinking about how much Gareth, and all his other mates—you included, I suppose—would tease him for having a bump on his head . . . .’

I can’t look at Claudio any more as I talk, willing him to fall asleep, or pass out. I hate the thought that he was in any way associated with my beautiful John; hate it, hate it. I can’t bear to look, in case he’s wide awake. I start at his feet, in holey, stinky once-black socks, and work my way up his legs, encased in boringly generic jeans. How can a reasonably attractive man wear such dull jeans? Then again, how can such a reasonably attractive man be enough of a psycho to keep me here when I want to leave?

I feel sick again.

‘This is nice,’ he mumbles, and grabs my hand. So I keep talking.
Go to sleep
, I urge him silently, the way I used to when Megan was a baby, wide-eyed and restless in the wee small hours, looking over my shoulder as if looking at the rest of the world slumbering. Except that Claudio emphatically was not, nor would he ever be, my baby. I stroke his hand again.

‘So they took me down the corridor to an office behind one of the closed doors, and I was expecting to see John in there, but there was this awful man inside, with a polyester suit on. It was too big for him, and the sleeves came down to his fingers, like a little boy in a blazer at the beginning of the school year. His hair was greasy, and he was very spotty. He couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than John, but I just looked at him and thought, I’m so
lucky
to have John as my boyfriend. At last, something’s gone right for me. Dad might be dead, but Mum’s happy now with Brian, and I don’t feel half as fat and ugly as I used to—how could I, when I have this beautiful boy telling me I’m gorgeous every day? I’m so lucky . . .

‘Perhaps I knew I was deluded, even then, and just couldn’t admit it to myself . . . That spotty ice-rink assistant manager reminded me of the manager of Russell & Bromley, when I’d gone there for an interview for a Saturday job, a year or so earlier. I didn’t get the job, and I was outraged. Even more so when Donna ended up working there later. He’d asked me what the special qualities of a leather shoe were and I had no idea, so I’d said, “It’s waterproof?” and he’d looked at me pityingly, just like this ice-rink guy was doing now, and said, “No—the thing about leather is that it
isn’t
water resistant,” and I’d said, “Well, what’s the point of making shoes out of leather, then?” I still wonder about that, you know.’

I’m aware that I’m rambling now, but rambling is good, when you’re trying very hard to send someone to sleep. I should’ve used it as a technique on Megan as a baby, instead of singing all those fragments of songs to her:
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
,
Wish You Were Here
,
Under the Moon of Love
, even the Creed, indelibly imprinted in my mind from years of childhood churchgoing—anything low and hypnotic and soothing. I don’t quite dare to start singing the Creed now, though.

Just pretend that Claudio is a great big baby
. It’s not so hard—and infinitely preferable to thinking of him as a kidnapper, a
potential
rapist or a killer.

I dare to look into Claudio’s face and sure enough, his eyes are almost completely closed. There’s a movement from his direction, and I realise his head is slumping further down into the pillows. He is clearly fighting either pain or sleep really hard—just as Megan used to—but losing the battle.
Sleep, sleep, sleep
, I exhort telepathically from across the mattress.

He groans and snuffles and wakes himself up with a start, peering blearily at me. ‘Why don’t you come over here for a cuddle?’ he asks sleepily, and I think, oh boy, now who’s deluded? I hesitate, thinking that I should—but then smile tightly and shake my head. I can’t. ‘Suit yourself,’ he replies and his eyelids start to slide again.

As I’m looking pityingly at him, his mouth beginning to fall open, I catch a glint of something shiny near his waist, and my heart lurches, adrenaline back pumping with full force through my body. It’s a key, sticking out of Claudio’s front jeans pocket! Only the bottom part of it, the bit with teeth. I know it’s attached to the bunch, but still it gives me hope.

Suddenly I feel overcome with all the fear and anger and
helplessness
that I’ve had to suppress for the past five days, and the sight of that key, my escape route, makes grief well up inside my chest with the boiling ferocity of a volcanic eruption. But I can’t let it out. I just absolutely can’t, because if I make one single unexpected noise, he’ll wake up, and my chance to get the key will be gone. I have to keep talking, reminding myself again that this is like
some nightmarish
fairytale I seem to have got myself stuck in, where
the princes
s has to escape the evil ogre and steal the key to the castle without waking him.

This feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I could help myself by speaking about something mundane and trivial, perhaps what’s going on in the
Big Brother
house, or the weather, or whatever—but I can’t. For some reason I feel absolutely compelled to keep talking about John and that afternoon at the ice rink when everything in my world crumbled, and when it seems that everything I’ve done, said, or thought since that moment, comes back to that day in a thousand different ways.

Well, as far as therapy goes, I’d prefer someone a bit more
qualified
—I think longingly of Eileen’s Sofa of Emotion—but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. Needs must, and other such clichés. I take several deep breaths to quell the incipient storm of hysteria, and wait until my voice is steady enough to talk again. I
have
to make sure he’s fully asleep. I’m only going to get one shot at this. It’s not the most proactive method of escape, but I don’t dare do anything else. I am, as I’ve realised, an inveterate coward. But I can’t pass up an opportunity like this.

‘The spotty manager of the ice rink, or whatever his title was, had this ridiculous expression on his face; kind of a mixture of solemn, terrified and embarrassed, all rolled together. He asked me to sit down, and one of the girls—it felt like the whole place was staffed by adolescents: there we were, a room full of teenagers play-acting at being grown-up, having to say and hear things that children shouldn’t have to; it was like a bloody Youth Theatre production—anyway, one of the girls pulled out a chair for me. They were both hovering, still sniffling, but clearly fascinated to be right at the heart of the drama. They were staring at me as if they were waiting for me to collapse, or scream, or whatever. I didn’t want them to be there. But I didn’t want them to leave either—I couldn’t face the thought of being stuck in that office alone with the manager. And I think it helped me keep it together, actually, their anticipation that I was about to lose it. I wanted to prove them wrong.

‘ “I’m afraid there’s been an accident,” the spotty man said, sounding so embarrassed that I even got embarrassed for him. “Yeah,” I said. “Are you sure it’s John? Is he all right?” The manager cleared his throat really, really loudly—far more loudly than he’d planned to, I think, because he looked even more mortified. “Is your boyfriend’s name John Barrington-Brown? That’s what we found on the cards in his wallet.”

‘ “Yeah,” I said again. I was thinking about John’s bedroom in the stable block, about listening to The Jam, and his breath on my face under the duvet. About how I was planning to have Donna as my chief bridesmaid and how I’d let her pick her own dress and everything.

‘ “I’m very sorry,” he went on. I somehow thought he’d say it with more tact, but after all the hesitation, it came out really bluntly in the end.

‘ “Your boyfriend’s dead.” ’

Chapter Thirty-Seven
Day 5

I
have to take a breather. It’s the first time I have ever articulated that story. I’m no longer anywhere near crying, but the intensity
of the
experience is squeezing the air out of my lungs. When I stop talking, though, Claudio’s eyes flicker open. Shit. I thought he was almost asleep.

‘Do you really love me?’ he mumbles. He probably hasn’t been listening to what I’ve been saying, but I’m glad of the interruption.

‘Yes, Claudio, I really do. We’re going to be together, you wait and see. I’ll look after you whenever you have a headache, or a cold, or whatever. But what I don’t understand is why you want to keep me here. We have a future to start living!’

I’m trying not to sound fake or patronising, but it’s hard. I take the facecloth away from his head, go into the bathroom, and run
it under
the cold tap again. After I’ve wrung it out, I replace it on his forehead, trying to stop my hand from shaking. He has taken his phone out of his pocket and is now frowning intently at the screen, his lip wobbling like a child’s. I almost salivate at the sight
of th
e phone, contact with the outside world—police, fire, ambulance,
help
. He has a very tight hold on it.

‘What are you looking at? Could I see?’

I hold out my hand for the phone, hoping he’ll have a momentary lapse of concentration and pass it to me. But he just turns the screen around to show me his screensaver, a photo of his mum. She looks tiny in a huge wingback chair, her wig lopsided, her jaw collapsed in on itself, raisins for eyes.

‘Do you remember her from when we were in the Sixth Form?’ he asks.

‘No. I never went to your house.’

He looks surprised. ‘Yes you did. I had a party once, for my seventeenth. December nineteen eighty-six.’

‘Did I?’ I have no idea, and even if I did go, I obviously hadn’t thought it an event worthy of putting in my diary. Perhaps it’s
Claudio
who’s misremembering.

‘Where did you live?’

‘Estcourt Road, up near the fire station.’

‘Um. Right, yes, I think so,’ I say vaguely, not wanting to piss him off. Perhaps I do have a faint memory, but there were so many house parties back then. ‘And your mum was at the party?’ This would have been a bit unusual, to say the least. Claudio would’ve been mercilessly ribbed—no-one allowed their folks to be present at teen parties.

‘Only for the first hour. She remembers you. She said you were a beautiful girl, with a face like an angel.’

How weird.

‘Oh. Well, do send her my regards,’ I say, half-politely,
half-sarcastically.

‘I can’t,’ said Claudio.

When I look at his face, I realise why. And why I’m being held prisoner here. He opens his mouth and confirms it.

‘My mother is dead,’ he bursts out, perhaps unconsciously echoing the ice-rink manager’s words. He winces with pain at the sudden movement. ‘My mother died six days ago and now I have nobody at all except you in the whole world. I lost my job last year. I don’t have any friends. My fiancée jilted me. My mother’s dead! What am I going to do? You have to help me, Jo, I need you. Please help me . . . .’

Oh no . . . I am completely thrown by this, even though I knew Mrs Cavelli had been in a nursing home or a hospice or somewhere. But he hadn’t said that her demise was so imminent. And he certainly hadn’t mentioned that she’d died six days ago. We must have been sitting in that Greek restaurant within hours of him receiving the news. No wonder I’d thought he was behaving strangely. He’s completely flipped out.

‘I’m sorry, Claudio, I’m really sorry. That’s awful. But—but—why didn’t you tell me? You took me out on a date the day your mum died and didn’t say anything!’

Two fat tears squeeze out from behind his closed eyelids, and I glance desperately at his jeans pocket, to see if the keys are within reach. They aren’t. But at least I manage to inch my way to the furthest edge of the bed and put one foot on
the floor
, every muscle and sinew of my body poised for flight at the
first opportunity.

‘I didn’t want to spoil our date. Things were going so well for us and I thought that at last you were finally going to be mine . . .’

‘At last? Claudio, it was only our third date!’

‘I told you that you didn’t understand. But perhaps you are right about one thing—it’s not normal to have been in love with someone for twenty-five years . . .’

For a moment I think he’s talking about me and John, and my heart jumps painfully at the reminder. I think of John’s beautiful amber eyes and black hair and his long nervous fingers, and I want him more than I’ve ever wanted Richard and Sean put together.
Help me, John
, I implore him mentally, just in case he’s managed to score the job of being my guardian angel.
Help me do the right thing to get me out of here
.

‘ . . . to have her, then to lose her again for so long—and then, by chance, to discover her again.’

‘Who is that—the woman you nearly married?’ I ask, forcing myself to concentrate. Then I wonder if he was referring to his mother. Even though I am wide awake, the underlying lack of sleep from the past few days is doing strange things to me, clouding my brain like condensation on an aeroplane window that you can’t wipe away. No, obviously it can’t be his mother. I stupidly wonder if this woman might be someone I knew from school—even Donna, maybe. Twenty-five years ago we were at school.

‘No, Jo. It’s you. Surely you know I’ve always been in love
with you?’

Always
been in love with me? I’d gathered that he fancied me when I was with John, and obviously he had now decided I was the one for him—but how could he have been obsessed with me for all those intervening years?

‘Claudio, that’s crazy,’ I say slowly. ‘I haven’t seen you for over twenty years. It’s not like we went out together. Or even on a date, until three weeks ago.’

He kneels up suddenly and reaches over to me at my end of the bed, grasping the sides of my arms. I recoil and so does he—the sudden movement has obviously jarred his migraine. ‘But you said you loved me!’

‘I do, Claudio, I do.’ He doesn’t believe me, I can see it—but he lets go, tears still falling down his face.

‘How could you not have known that I care about you so much? I always have done. I came to your father’s funeral—’

‘
What
?’

‘I stood at the back. At John’s funeral, too. I cried for you, Jo, not for John. He never deserved you. But you were so sad. I wanted to make it all better for you, but I didn’t dare. I kept nearly plucking the courage to ask you out, but something happened every time. You were with John for such a long time, till he died, and I could see you were in love. You were always polite to me, nothing more, even when I wrote you that song. Then you moved to
London
and your mother and her driving instructor moved away and I lost touch with you, so I left Brockhurst and moved to
London
too. Besides, I thought you would be cross with me . . . I told you, I need to tell you something, now we’re together. I don’t want us to have any more secrets: this is our clean slate. But I made a little mistake with you, you see, got a bit carried away one night. I’m so sorry, Jo, I shouldn’t have done that. I thought I’d blown it then, and I didn’t dare to ask you out after that. Although I expect you won’t remember what I’m talking about, it was so long ago, and I didn’t mean to hurt you. I felt very bad that you grazed your face on that wall . . .’

Icy realisation crackles through me, freezing me almost solid with this new horror.

‘No,’ I whisper, shaking my head. ‘No. That’s impossible. It wasn’t you . . .’

I feel as if a wrecking ball has caught me in the belly, and then for a while I can’t say anything else. I’m having trouble
breathing
, I am so frightened. I’m back in that alley again, with the tall skinny man in a black bomber jacket and a balaclava. I never thought . . .
Claudio
is not skinny now, but . . . Oh no. He is a
violent
, brutal misogynist and has been since he was a teenager.

‘You do remember?’ asks Claudio in a small voice. ‘I am sorry, Jo. I felt very bad about it for a long time. But now I can make it up to you, I swear. I am older, and I would never do that now. It was a bad mistake. We all make mistakes, don’t we, Jo? And I’m being honest now, aren’t I?’

He sounds like a wheedling child.

We all make mistakes
. I think of my lovely Richard; of our
little
family that really had been so much happier than I’d realised—although I didn’t realise until it was too late. I think of Sean, the only one who’s brought me even close to the passion I felt for John. I pushed them both away, because I lost John, and Dad, and ever since then, according to Eileen the therapist, I have denied myself what I’ve really needed. But there is something else, too, that has defined and quite possibly ruined my life for all these years, clouding my judgement and making me mistrust the instincts that could have led me to take a different path on so many occasions: that night in the alley.

The night that Claudio blithely assumes I’d probably forgotten about. He’s like some kind of nightmarish Forrest Gump in my life, popping up at the centre of every major event, every trauma I’ve ever gone through.

‘You expect that I wouldn’t remember?’ I find my voice, albeit in a croak. ‘You think I’d forget the night that a strange man jumped on me from behind in a dark alley and tried to
rape
me? You think I’d forget that I had nightmares about it for years? That I got an eating disorder? That I had my breasts reduced because I thought that was why I got attacked? That I was afraid of men, afraid of the dark, afraid of walking anywhere on my own? You really think I’d just
forget
that?’

Without even realising, I have risen up from the bed and am standing, shaking with fury, over Claudio’s sheepishly bent head. I feel really sorry for him, that his life is in such a mess—his fiancée dumped him and now his mother’s dead and he’s too screwed up to even mention that until I’ve been held hostage in my own flat for almost a week . . . but it doesn’t temper the rage I’m feeling right now. I don’t care if he kills me, or rapes me, or hurts me. He can’t do any more harm to me than he’s done already.

He looks up slowly, his mouth open, tears on his face. A waft of his breath assails me again and, unbelievably, I do finally recognise it as that same stranger’s breath on my face, in the moment before Richard rescued me. My instincts scream at me that this is my chance to escape, that in this weird game of cat and mouse,
my spitting
rage and
his migraine have finally made me the cat.

It’s not only my chance to escape, it’s my chance to be proactive for once: to be decisive, to do something for myself rather than do what someone else wants. I married Richard because he wanted me to. I loved Sean because his ego needed me to. But over my dead body will I stay a second longer in this bedroom lying to this deluded man about loving him when I loathe every cell of him . . .

For the first time in twenty-five years, I trust my instincts again.

‘I FUCKING HATE YOU!’ I scream. ‘YOU’RE A PSYCHO AND I WOULDN’T GO OUT WITH YOU IF YOU WERE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH!’

Claudio’s head jerks up in surprise and horror and I seize my chance. With one swift and mercifully accurate lunge, I dart towards the bed and retrieve the golf club from the bottom of the duvet. Before Claudio even has time to raise his arms to defend himself, I am screaming at the top of my lungs, wordlessly now, just white noise, lifting the club above my head and bringing it down as hard as I possibly can on the side of his skull.