This Charming Man (49 page)

I was left with a breathless emptiness. ‘And her children had no mother? Or father, I suppose, if he was in prison.’

‘He wasn’t in prison. The judge felt sorry for him. He walked free on a suspended sentence.’

‘No!’

‘It happens a lot.’

‘But why do women get together with these psychos?’ I cried in a burst of frustration. Of course I knew the answer – at least theoretically I did – but the reality maddened me.

‘Because the men don’t advertise the fact that they’re psychos.’ Laura laughed sadly. ‘Often these men are very charming. And the process is a subtle one. Their initial controlling can seem romantic – you know the sort of thing, “Let’s stay in, just the two of us, I love you so much I can’t bear to share you.” Untilone day the woman finds that she’s alienated her friends and family, and she’s completely isolated.’

‘So why doesn’t she ring the rozzers?’

Again I knew the answer, but I couldn’t not ask the question.

‘Because he keeps promising he’ll change,’ Laura said. ‘That he won’t do it again. On average a woman is hit thirty-five separate times before she contacts the police.’

‘Thirty-five times? No, that can’t be right.’

‘Yes. Thirty-five times.’

‘Grace, baby, I’m sorry. I really am.’

Casey Kaplan, standing in front of my desk. I didn’t need to look up.
I knew it was him because suddenly the area around my desk smelt like a nightclub. ‘About what?’ I kept typing.

‘About your Madonna interview. I didn’t go after it. They offered it to me. I didn’t even know you were in the running.’

‘No big deal.’ I still didn’t look up. All I could see of him was the crotch of his jeans and a big, stupid, silver-eagle belt buckle.

‘I didn’t even know you wanted it.’ He shrugged helplessly. I knew this was happening because his hands appeared in my line of vision, then disappeared again after a moment. Just long enough for me to see his rings. Big, stupid, silver rings on many of his fingers. ‘Grace, I owe you. If there’s any way I can make it up to you, let me know… I’m begging you, baby.’

‘Fine.’ I bit the end off the word. ‘One more thing, Kaplan.’ I stopped typing for this part and met his eyes. ‘Don’t call me baby.’

‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ Dickie McGuinness said out of the side of his mouth. ‘And information brought it back.’

‘What?’

‘Information for you.’

‘Oh stop it, Dickie!’ I said. ‘Talk normally. If you’ve something to tell me, just tell me.’

‘Okay,’ he said, pulling a chair up to my desk. ‘I know who burnt out your car last September.’

I just looked at him.

‘Lemmy O’Malley and Eric Zouche.’

The names meant nothing to me.

‘And d’you know why they did it?’

‘… No…?’

‘Because they got paid, Grace. Three hundred euro each.’

‘They got
paid
?’ I’d thought it was just random, one of those things that happen when you live in a big city.

‘Yeah, Grace, they got paid. It was deliberate. You were targeted.’

The way he said ‘targeted’ tightened a fist around my heart.

‘Who paid them?’ The words came out as whispers.

‘Now that I don’t know.’

‘Why didn’t you ask them?’

‘I wasn’t dealing with them. It was just some information that emerged
in the course of another –’ he paused, searching for the right word – ‘
investigation
. Who has it in for you, Grace?’

‘Dickie, I don’t know.’ And I’m really scared.

‘Come on, Grace, up there for thinking –’ he pointed to his head – ‘down there for dancing.’ He pointed at his feet.

‘Dickie, I swear to you –’

My phone rang. Automatically I checked caller display: it was Marnie. Seized by a new, different anxiety, I said to Dickie, ‘I have to take this. But don’t go.’ I grabbed the receiver. ‘Marnie?’

‘It’s me, Nick.’

‘Nick?’ No. This was very bad news.

I was only half aware of Dickie tiptoeing away and mouthing an indecipherable message to me, pointing at the door and tapping his watch.

‘It’s… it’s happened again?’ I asked Nick.

‘Yes,’ he said.

No. No, no, no. ‘I thought after the last time… How bad is it?’

‘Very bad, Grace. She’s in hospital–’

‘Christ,
no
.’

‘– three broken ribs. Concussion. Internal bleeding.’

‘Jesus Christ. And it’s only been – how long? – six weeks since the last time.’

I should have gone to London then. I was seized by guilt.

‘The gaps are getting shorter and the injuries are getting worse,’ Nick said. ‘That’s what they told me would happen. I told you, Grace.’

‘Nick, you’ve got to
do
something. Get help. Professional help.’

‘I have!’

‘This can’t go on!’

‘Grace, I know. I’ve
tried
to get help, I’m
doing
all I can…’

We couldn’t agree on what to do and eventually I hung up and sat curled in on myself, my hands trapped between my thighs.

Should I tell Ma and Dad?

No. They had enough to worry about, with Bid: the chemo took so much out of her, so much out of them all. I’d go to London and sort this out myself.

He carried her bag from the car and solicitously helped her inside. ‘What would you like to do now?’ he asked
.

‘
I’d just like to go to bed.
’

Okay.’ He grinned. ‘Mind if I join you?
’

‘
Um…’ Perhaps she had misunderstood. ‘I’m going to go straight to sleep.’

‘
Come on, you can stay awake for twenty minutes.’ He was steering her towards the bedroom. He was opening his jeans, his intention clear. ‘Take your knickers off.
’

‘
But – no! I’ve just had an abortion.
’

‘
Excuses, excuses.’ He pushed her onto the bed, his knee pinioning her in position while he wrenched off her tights and pants
.

‘
Please stop, please. I could get an infection. I can’t have sex for three weeks.’

‘
Shut up.’ He was on top of her, he was shoving up into her, into the blood and loss, rubbing her raw with his frenzy. Then he pushed him self up on his hands, as if he was doing a press-up, and slapped her, hard, across the face. ‘For fuck’s sake, try and look like you’re enjoying your self.
’

Grace was coming.

‘She’ll be here tomorrow morning.’ Nick stood in the doorway of the bedroom. He delivered the information coldly, then seemed to relent. ‘Anything you need?’

She wanted to know how angry Grace was, but she couldn’t ask. Without looking at him she shook her head.

Nick left her alone with her unendurable shame. As soon as he shut the door, everything in the room looked like a weapon: she could smash the mirror and slash an artery with a shard, she could drink the bathroom bleach, she could fling herself from the window…

But killing herself wasn’t an option: she’d already treated everyone – her blameless daughters, poor Nick – so shabbily. Her penance was to stay alive.

I’ll never drink again I’ll never drink again I’ll never drink again.

The horror of coming round had been like being delivered into hell. This time she’d found herself in a hospital, rough hands on her, a foul-tasting charcoal drink being forced down her throat. ‘To detox you,’ the nurse had said.

‘Where am I?’

‘The Royal Free. Three cracked ribs, concussion, internal bleeding. Good night out, was it?’

In hospital. Jesus Christ, no. She needed to get out of there before anyone – Nick – discovered where she was.

But Nick had already found out and had been on his way; and now she wished she was still there because being injured enough to be hospitalized, even through her own fault, affected people, Nick, anyway, with a peculiar awe. It – at least temporarily – halted his anger, and perhaps it would have worked the same magic on Grace.

But the hospital trolley had been needed for ‘real’ sick people, not those who drank so much vodka that they thought it was a good idea
to nip across the road after the traffic lights had changed to green and get themselves knocked down by a motorbike. After only six hours she’d been discharged, and as soon as she was at home, in her own bed, the protection of hospital was gone and she was considered well enough for Nick to turn his cold silent fury on her.

The doctor had downgraded his diagnosis. Marnie wasn’t even, as he’d originally thought, concussed: the reason she hadn’t known what day it was, was simply because she’d been ‘stupefied with drink.’ That was the phrase she’d heard being given to Nick and it stuck in her head, repeating itself again and again.

Stupefied with drink
.

Stupefied with drink
.

The strange thing was that she hadn’t intended to get drunk. It hadn’t been a bad day at work for once, and when Rico had suggested a quick drink in the local, she’d refused. Whenever she went for a ‘quick drink’ with Rico, things got messy.

‘We’re bad for each other,’ she’d said. It sounded like a come-on line from a B-movie.

‘We’re just misunderstood.’ Rico had held her gaze, like a hammy hero. His puppy-dog eyes had suddenly given her the creeps.

‘Guy says I should stay away from you.’

‘Guy’s not here.’

But Guy might find out…

‘What if he sacks me?’ she’d asked. ‘Us.’

Rico had shaken his head. ‘He’s just jealous that you prefer me, but I’m the best broker he’s got. And he’s not going to sack
you
.’

She’d hesitated. No, she shouldn’t even consider this.

‘One drink, Marnie. It’s nearly Christmas.’

‘It’s only the first of December.’

‘What harm can it do?’ he’d wheedled.

What harm can it do
?

Indecision had paralysed her. She should be strong, but it would be so easy, so painless to simply…
slip
…

‘Just one,’ she’d said.

Maybe two. Definitely no more than three.

By the time they were on their fourth, it hadn’t mattered. She’d been happy and garrulous, friends with the whole world and free of all worry.
Nick would go mental when he found out she was drinking again – and worse, drinking with Rico – but
it didn’t matter
. Guy would also lose the head, but – again – it didn’t matter.

She and Rico had got talking to some people at the next table in the pub: a man in a blue tracksuit and three glammed-up women. Or maybe there had been only two, even now she still wasn’t entirely sure. She
thought
she had a memory of asking one of the women where her sister had gone and the woman saying, ‘No, love, she’s only the barmaid. God, you’re even more pissed than us.’ But she might have dreamt it.

The women had been deeply tanned and weighed down with jewellery, more than a bit chavy but they’d been friendly. And when one of them had poked Marnie in the shin with a pointy-toed, lizard-skin shoe and said, ‘We’re going on to a club,’ Marnie had decided to go too. Rico had tried to stop her. They’d had a row, but patchy though the details were, she knew it was a little half-hearted, they’d been too drunk for it to be anything more spirited.

‘They’re CRIMinals,’ Rico had kept saying. ‘They’re CRIMinals. They seem like a laugh but they’re CRIMinals.’

That was the last thing she could remember – blank, all blank – until the hospital. She’d lost eight hours of her life. Had she gone to the club? Had she stayed in the pub with Rico? She didn’t know. The ambulance had picked her up in Cricklewood, the far side of London – what had she been doing there? She was suddenly light-headed with horror.

Don’t think about it
.

She looked at her mobile. She could text Rico and try to piece things together, but the thought repulsed her.
He
repulsed her, and contacting him would mean that it had all really happened: the drunkenness, the argument in the pub. As for the stuff she couldn’t remember – she would prefer not to know.

And actually, everything was okay. Yes, everything was okay. Regardless of what might have taken place, she was at home and safe now. Home and safe, admittedly injured, but only mildly – anyone could crack a rib, she was sure she’d heard it had happened during a yoga class, when someone got carried away with their deep breathing.

Everything was okay.

Then she remembered that Grace was on her way from Dublin, and
Grace would only be getting on a plane and coming to London ifthings were very serious.

The fear was back, bad enough to choke her. How angry was Grace? She could ring her to find out but – again – she was better off not knowing. Until Grace’s arrival, she would cope by shutting down: hearing nothing, thinking nothing, feeling nothing.

But her head flickered on and off, on and off, incessant phrases echoing.

Stupefied with drink.

Three cracked ribs.

Could have been killed
.

A new wave of shock washed over her and suddenly, as if hearing about it for the first time, she was appalled at the extent of her injuries. Broken bones! Not just bumps and bruises, but actual broken bones. That was serious, serious, serious.

At least it made everything crystal clear for her: she could never drink again. She
would
never drink again. It was clear and easy. Her behaviour and its consequences were so far beyond the bounds of what was acceptable or forgivable or even explicable, that she had scared herself into a cast-iron certainty. No drinking, never again.

At supper time the girls tiptoed into the bedroom, proudly carrying a bowl of vanilla ice-cream. Marnie swallowed three mouthfuls before she had to stop abruptly: she couldn’t eat, she never could after a bout. And this one – she glancingly acknowledged – was probably the worst yet.

She slept alone that night, Nick refused to share the bed with her, and there was no relief from her flickering head. On and off, on and off, all night.

Stupefied with drink
.

Grace was coming.

Three cracked ribs
.

Now and then she drifted into a sweaty, confused half-sleep before crashing against the mattress in an explosion so filled with horror that she eventually decided it would be preferable to stay awake.