Watching You (19 page)

“She’s nothing without me. She’s fucking useless. I can make her hurt herself. I can destroy her.”

“It’s coming up now,” says the doctor.

The tape has ten seconds of silence. Then a little girl’s voice becomes audible. She’s crying in broken, breathless sobs. Dr. Sterne tries to comfort her.

“Did I fall asleep?”
she asks.

“Don’t you remember?”

“No.”

“Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know.”

“I talked to Malcolm.”

Marnie doesn’t answer.

“Do you want to hear him?”

“No, no, no,”
She is almost hyperventilating. Dr. Sterne has to calm her down. There is a long period of silence.

“Did you tell him to go away?”
she asks.

“Yes.”

The recording ends. Dr. Sterne resumes his seat.

“Whenever Malcolm let go and Marnie came back, she had no recollection of what had happened. Her personality had fragmented so completely, she might as well have been unconscious.”

“Did you ever manage to play the tape to Marnie?”

“She didn’t believe the voice was coming from her.”

“What about filming a session?”

“It might have traumatized her.”

Dr. Sterne taps the pipe against the rim of a glass ashtray and begins packing the bowl again.

“How did you treat her?”

“It was like negotiating the release of a hostage,” he says. “I attempted to confront Malcolm, draw him out, find out his reasons for choosing Marnie…I tried to face him down, order him to leave her alone, but he was manipulative and deceitful.”

“In what way?”

“He threatened to harm Marnie. He cut her arms when he was in control. She couldn’t explain the injuries.” The doctor hesitates. “He sexually abused Marnie, penetrating her with objects. Her stepmother found blood on her underwear and it led to an investigation by social workers.”

“How did you know the injuries were self-inflicted?”

“Malcolm bragged about taking her virginity. At one point I was under suspicion. It could have ended my career.” Dr. Sterne blows smoke from the corners of his mouth. “Marnie saved me. She denied I had ever touched her.

“As I said, Marnie had no knowledge of Malcolm. The division of her personality was faultless, but operated like a one-way mirror. Marnie could only see herself reflected in the glass, whereas Malcolm could look inside her mind.”

“Tell me about him.”

“He was clever. Manipulative. He learned to second-guess my line of questioning, but slowly I gained the upper hand.”

“How?”

“As our sessions continued, he began showing up less regularly. I attributed this to Marnie getting stronger and needing him less. He claimed to be protecting her, but was really the cause of her problems. He stole Mr. Logan’s car and crashed it. He sexually assaulted the girl in her class and set fire to Marnie’s bedroom.”

“And one day Malcolm just stopped showing up?”

“That’s about it.”

“How old was Marnie?”

“Twelve. I didn’t want to press her too hard because I didn’t want to call him back.”

“Do you think she outgrew him?”

“I honestly don’t know. Marnie had managed to talk about her mother’s death, although she remembered very little. By reliving the events, she learned to cope with them.”

Dr. Sterne stands and stretches. His joints creak. Sunlight bounces off the transparent roof of a greenhouse.

“Perhaps Marnie didn’t need him any more and she integrated the two elements of her personality.” He says the words as though trying to convince himself, but then wavers. “I would have been happier if he had said goodbye.”

“Malcolm?”

“I know it sounds stupid, but he didn’t deliver a final statement or make any last show of defiance.”

“And that bothers you?”

“No, yes, well, it’s just…”

“What?”

“I didn’t expect him to give up so easily.”

W
atching a woman bathe has a poetry that is far more intoxicating than watching a woman undress. It’s like a dance without music, every movement so practised and graceful, her breasts rising and falling as she breathes. This is a real woman doing something so matter-of-fact and everyday, rubbing a washcloth down her arms and along her legs. Squeezing water over her shoulders.

Even through the steam Marnie looks beautiful. Devoid of make-up and blandishments, stripped back to the basics, naked as the day she was born. Flesh. Blood. Family. A fragile package of flesh and bone, yet so cleverly put together. So beautifully designed.

But she has bruises and grazes. People keep hurting her and she’s not strong enough to fight back. She’s weak. Pathetic. That’s why she needs me.

Now she’s staring into the bathroom mirror, colluding with her other self, deciding what to wear and how much make-up to use. I love the way her bottom lip curls when she concentrates. I love her upturned nose and dimpled cheeks and her round ears attached at the lobes. She chooses her nicest outfit: the pink cami-knickers from Helene’s and the skirt and top she bought from Zara for her last birthday but two. Daniel went with her to the shop and sat outside the changing room, texting while she tried on outfits. How she agonized over her choices.

Why is it that women think they look lovely when they’re all dolled up, elegant as a champagne flute, when in reality they look just as beautiful when they’re home from the gym
wearing black leggings and an old T-shirt? They doubt their natural beauty and rely too much on blandishments and tricks.

A radio is playing somewhere, or perhaps it’s a TV in a nearby room. When I was younger I used to lie in bed and press my ear to the wall, listening to the sounds of the people living next door. They were foreigners. Iraqis. Mr. Khan ran a panel-beating shop and Mrs. Khan cleaned hotel rooms. Their grown up daughter, Fariba, was still living at home. She told people she was going to beauty school to be a make-up artist, but spent most days watching TV and reading diet books.

Fariba didn’t like me very much. I once lost a homemade kite over their fence when it crash-landed in their back garden. I knocked on their door. Fariba answered. I told her about my kite. She stared at me.

“Can I have it back?”

“No.”

“It’s sitting on the grass.”

“So?”

She picked at her painted nails and leaned on the door-jamb, challenging me. Her hair was wrapped in a towel. She had bleached it a lighter color, but I could see where she’d missed some of the roots. I went back inside, through the house and climbed the back fence, using the trellis to get my footing before climbing onto the roof of their garden shed and jumping down onto the grass. The kite was beneath the clothesline.

Fariba guessed what I was going to do. Head down like a horse in a harness, she charged along the back path still with the towel wrapped round her hair. She beat me to the kite
and crushed it with a single stomp, turning the spars into wooden wafers. She was bigger than I was. Fatter. Stronger.

“You’re trespassing,” she said. “Climb this fence again and I’ll tell my daddy.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a freak.”

I went home and tried to glue the kite back together. I could hear Fariba through the wall, playing her record player, listening to Madonna singing “Like a Virgin,” which I thought was “Like a Persian” until Rebecca Mortimer explained virginity to me. The idea of a girl safeguarding her virginity was a foreign concept to me when I was eight.

Fariba was a secret smoker. Her parents didn’t know that she sneaked cigarettes into the house, hiding them behind the drainpipe outside her bedroom window. At night I would hear the sash cords rattle as she slid the window upwards. She leaned out over the yard, propped on her elbows, blowing smoke into the darkness and singing along with her record player. Afterwards, she sprayed her room with air freshener and left the window open to clear the smell.

I waited until evening, when I heard her summoned downstairs for dinner. Crawling out of my window, I swung across the gap, jamming my toes against the bricks and using the downpipe to reach her windowsill. I had always been good at climbing. In those days I could wedge myself into a right-angle corner, bracing my arms and feet on each wall, and shimmy up to the ceiling. My mother would sometimes come looking for me, calling my name. She had no idea I was perched above her head, splayed out like a gecko. This one day she started tidying my room and I couldn’t hold on any longer. I dropped like a shot bird and almost gave her a heart attack. She smacked me so hard across the head I thought my left eardrum had ruptured.

Fariba’s window was still open and her bedroom messy, draped in clothes and towels. I took one of her cigarettes and placed it between my lips, breaking two matches before I got one to light. I swallowed the smoke. My eyes watered. I wanted to cough. Once it was alight, I put the cigarette on the edge of her mattress. Then I hid her cigarettes and matches inside her bedside drawer.

Smoke was billowing out of her window when I raised the alarm, hammering on the Khans’ door and yelling fire. They called the fire brigade and ran outside. Mr. Khan looked at Fariba.

“Were you smoking?”

“No, Daddy.”

“Are you sure?”

“I never smoke.”

Firemen dragged the smoldering mattress outside onto the footpath and doused it properly. The cigarettes were found in Fariba’s drawer. She tried to concoct a suitable excuse, but Mr. Khan wasn’t buying her sweet little angel routine. They were renting…without insurance. Fariba wore a black eye like a badge of resistance for the next few weeks before they moved out of the neighborhood.

O
ne corner of the brown envelope is poking out from under the door. Reaching cautiously to pick it up, Marnie wonders why nobody knocked. She hasn’t seen Trevor since yesterday. She never wants to see him again.

This envelope is large and flat, stiffened by cardboard. Like the last time, it has just her name written in block capitals. No address. No stamps or postmark. No details of the sender.

She thinks about the money. Two thirds of it has already been spent and the rent will be due again next week. Even if she’s careful, she won’t have enough to last another month.

Taking the envelope to the kitchen, she sits at the table and tears open the flap. A note flutters from inside. Handwritten. Unsigned.

A dozen photographs slip from the envelope. She studies the first one carefully. Taken with a long lens, it shows a blurred couple sitting outdoors at a café, chairs pulled close, whispering to one another. The photograph is part of a sequence. The remaining images show the same couple leaving the café and walking along the footpath, getting closer to the camera. Clearer. Marnie recognizes Daniel. He’s dressed in his leather jacket and baggy jeans. They stop at a car. The woman turns and kisses Daniel. Marnie can see her face. Penny. Something delicate seems to shred inside her.

He’s alive! This is the proof. In the same breath she realizes that the leather jacket is still hanging in Daniel’s wardrobe. These are old pictures. This is evidence of an old assignation. Her husband and her best friend are kissing at the side of a road. Holding hands.

Marnie turns the photographs, hoping to find time-code or a date.

“Put on your shoes,” she says to Elijah.

“Where are we going?”

“To see Aunt Penny.”

Adjusting Elijah’s hat, she tucks a water bottle next to him in the pushchair and sets off along Elgin Avenue. Crossing Maida Vale, they climb Abercorn Place into St. John’s Wood where the trees grow taller and the houses are grander. Marnie’s mind keeps racing ahead and she can picture herself arriving at Penny’s front door, demanding answers, explanations, perhaps even vengeance. A photograph doesn’t reveal how long a kiss lasted or how much passion it contains. Frozen by the blink of a shutter, a peck on the lips can seem like a fervent embrace. An accidental brush of the hand can look like a loving squeeze.

There’s no answer at the door. Marnie’s anger has nowhere to go. She sits on the front step, holding the envelope, letting Elijah wheel the pushchair up and down the path. She calls Penny’s mobile.

“Where are you?”

“On my way home.”

“I’m waiting for you.”

“Did we arrange something?”

“No.”

The black Audi convertible pulls into a graveled off-street parking bay. Penny waves and grabs polished paper shopping bags from the back seat before the roof closes and automatically clips onto the windscreen with a satisfying suction sound.

“Is everything all right?”

Marnie doesn’t answer. Penny keeps talking.

“Come, come, I have a house without shitty nappies. Keegan has taken Abigail to his mother’s.”

They go to the kitchen. Penny opens the back door and Elijah runs outside, skipping across the garden to a set of swings. Marnie puts the envelope on the stripped pine table. Penny hasn’t seen it yet. She unwraps a bunch of flowers and begins cutting the stems, arranging them in a vase. She looks older today, like a piece of polished bone or stick of driftwood, thinned and hardened by the sun and sea. Outside Elijah has found a stick and is thrashing the branches of a willow tree. He lies across the swing seat and turns in circles, winding up the chains before letting go and spinning in the opposite direction.

“Coffee? Wine? Tea?” Penny opens and closes cupboards as though she’s forgotten where things are kept. Marnie picks up the envelope and takes out the photographs, setting them side by side on the table. Penny stops. Turns. She picks up two of the images. Her fingers smudge the glossy surfaces. “Who took these?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you having him followed?”

“No.”

She drops the photographs dismissively. “We were meeting to talk about your birthday.”

“You’re kissing him.”

“I gave him a peck on the lips. I kiss everyone on the lips, you know that.”

Marnie feels it inside her, a tiny quiver of certainty that exposes the lie. Penny is still talking. “I didn’t take you for the jealous type.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“Let this go. He’s not worth it.”

“Were you sleeping with my husband?”

“Daniel abandoned you. He’s an arsehole.”

Marnie collects the photographs and puts them into the envelope. She goes to the back door and summons Elijah. Penny blinks at her, shocked by her reaction. The thought had never occurred to her that her friend might not believe her. Behind her a lead gray cloud is edging across the window. She sighs impatiently, a memory stirring in her mind, a moment of stupidity. Lust.

“It happened once,” she whispers.

Marnie turns. Penny has her hands outspread in a gesture of supplication.

“He turned up here one night. You guys had had a fight. He said you threw him out. It was late. Keegan was away in Geneva. I put Daniel in the spare room. He was drunk. I told him to sleep it off. He started crying, saying he’d let you down, lost your savings…He was hurting.” She blinks rapidly, her head dropping in a penitent’s pose. “I’d been drinking. I’m so sorry, Marnie, it just happened.”

Marnie has been moving closer, wanting to see Penny’s face. Without thinking, she swings her hand, slapping her hard across the left cheek. The violence surprises her, along with the noise.

“Nothing just happens,” says Marnie, shaking her stinging palm.

Penny is cradling one side of her face. “I fucked up.”

“No, you
fucked
my husband.”

“I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“Really?” Marnie points to the envelope. “So what was this—a favor?”

“I’m so, so sorry. How can I prove it to you?” Penny opens a drawer and takes out a checkbook.

“You think I want your money?”

“I’m trying…please…”

“You want to do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“I’m going to have Daniel declared dead. I need you to sign an affidavit.”

“Of course.”

“You have to say that you think he’s dead.”

“I do.”

Marnie ushers Elijah to the front door. Sensing something is wrong, he stays quiet. Penny begs them to stay but Marnie leaves quickly, knowing she’s about to cry and that some tears aren’t meant to be wiped away by others; they’re meant to fall.

Elijah falls asleep in the pushchair on the way home. Marnie doesn’t want to wake him and he’s too heavy for her to carry him up the stairs to the top floor. She sits on the front wall outside the mansion block, letting him sleep, while she contemplates a marriage that is becoming less golden as each day passes.

Children are riding scooters up and down the pavement. Marnie closes her eyes and watches the dappled light play behind her eyelids. She can picture them having sex, Penny pretending to be coy and naïve until she twigged that Daniel wanted her best
Pretty Woman
routine. She had always been very good at giving men the impression they were in charge when, in reality, she pulled the strings.

Penny made it sound as though Marnie had pushed Daniel away and should accept some of the blame for what happened. Why? She hadn’t let herself go. She had never withheld her body from Daniel. She was a loving wife. Supportive. Patient. Faithful.

Then she tries to remember the last time they made love. Daniel had come up behind her as she changed sheets on their bed and flipped her as easily as turning a pillow, burying his face between her legs. Then he turned her again, entering her from behind, pursuing his own pleasure, pushing into her until he was done. He went to the bathroom and back to the TV. Lying on the rumpled sheets, Marnie wondered when their sex life had become so artless and crude.

A shadow falls over her face. Marnie opens her eyes, shielding them against the glare. Craig Bryant is wearing dark glasses and carrying his suit jacket over his shoulder, his tie at half-mast. Even his shoelaces look laundered and pressed.

“I was hoping I’d run into you,” the lawyer says, glancing into the pushchair. “I could carry him upstairs for you.”

“He won’t sleep for much longer.”

Marnie doesn’t realize how hard her jaw has been clenched until she tries to smile. Dimples dot her cheeks. A long silence follows.

“Is everything all right?” he asks.

Marnie shakes her head, fighting her tears.

“What’s wrong?”

“Daniel was sleeping with my best friend.”

The lawyer sits on the low wall, folding his jacket over his knee and putting one arm around Marnie. She sobs into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

Mrs. Brummer passes on the footpath, taking an interest because this is gossip-worthy: Marnie crying on the shoulder of a strange man. The story will spread through the building within hours. That’s what Marnie despises. Her tragedy isn’t private and it isn’t public enough. With more headlines, perhaps Daniel would have been found.

“You were too good for him,” says Bryant.

“You didn’t even
know
him.”

“I know you.”

Marnie pulls away and wipes her eyes. She doesn’t want anyone sympathizing or feeling sorry for her. Even worse, people seem to model her pain as though trying it on for size and then hand it back to her, making her feel even sadder and emptier. Why should
her
shitty life help others appreciate what they have?

“Why are you here?” she asks.

“I’ve been looking into this issue of probate. The law changed after the Asian tsunami disaster. Nine hundred Britons were missing and their relatives were in limbo. The UK government allowed them to be declared dead after twelve months.”

“So we can do that?”

“That was a natural disaster. I’ve made an application for a court hearing. It might take a few weeks.”

“I’ve waited this long.”

Bryant pulls a loose thread from his folded jacket.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“Me?”

“Eleanor has taken Gracie to the country for the week. I hate dining alone and you look like you need cheering up.”

“I have Elijah.”

“Your older daughter could babysit. Zoe, isn’t it?”

“How do you know her name?”

“I’ve bumped into her at the shops.” Almost as an afterthought, he says, “We could discuss the case.”

“What is there to discuss?”

“I contacted the insurance company.”

“Did you talk to Mr. Rudolf?”

“No, he’s off work. He fell down two flights of stairs and fractured his skull.”

“Really?”

“So I was told.”

Marnie remembers her last words to Mr. Rudolf, her anger and violent thoughts. Instead of being shocked or saddened, she feels strangely vindicated and has to admonish herself.

“About dinner?” he asks. “I could pick you up at seven-thirty.”

“I can’t tonight.”

“Maybe tomorrow?”

She doesn’t answer. Elijah has woken, rubbing his eyes with balled fists.

“I have to go,” she says, unbuckling his harness. She folds the pushchair and follows Elijah up the stairs. Craig Bryant has gone when she finds her keys. What was she supposed to tell him?
My husband slept with my best friend, so I’m not in the mood for dinner.

Upstairs she runs a cool bath for Elijah and helps him undress, trying not to be shocked by how much weight he’s lost. She makes him dinner, which he barely touches. Washing up the dishes in the plastic sink bowl, she glances at the knife-block and notices an empty slot in the wood. She checks the cutlery drawer and benches, trying to remember when she last used the knife.

Her mind flicks to something the detective said when they first met. Niall Quinn had been killed with a kitchen knife. Marnie pushes the thought away. There are lots of explanations for a missing knife, all of them more plausible than the one she can’t bring herself to picture.