The Venus Trap (8 page)

Chapter Ten
Day 2

I
met Sean two years ago, soon after Stephanie and I started
renting
an office together. Steph and I have been friends for years; she used to be my neighbour until she moved in with her
glamorous
footballer boyfriend. Since we’re both freelance we decided that it would make sense to share an office—tax deductible and fewer
distractions
than working from home. Once we moved in, we then decided we spent far too much time sitting around
eating
croissants and gossiping and that we should both join the gym next door. We also thought that it would be a good way for her to meet a new man, since the men in our shared office complex were no great shakes, and she’d recently had another bust-up with the glamorous footballer boyfriend, who unfortunately loved himself as much as she loved him.

She had very exacting standards, being a sports journalist (her half of the office was full of books with titles like
Bestie, Foggy, Hizzy, Cloughie
and
Deano
) and thus accustomed to dealing with the more physically perfect of the male species. My first thought on clapping eyes on Sean was, honestly, that he’d be perfect for Steph. After all, I wasn’t looking for anyone. I thought I was happy with Richard.

It’s a bit embarrassing that Sean was my personal trainer. What a cliché. It’s like having an affair with your tennis coach: the fit young man who comes into your life and expertly shows you how to make it better. But two years ago I thought I was only signing up for personal training, for a limited course of physical pain. Stephanie never got a look-in, and I bloody wish now she had. What price a tight arse, eh?

The first time I ever saw Sean, I was on the treadmill on a quiet Tuesday lunchtime. Stephanie had gone to interview Frankie
Dettori
for a feature she was writing, so I didn’t have her to chat and puff to as I usually did. There was some tedious documentary about ants on the wall-mounted TV, so of course my eyes had drifted
elsewhere
, and there he was. He had the biggest shoulders I’d ever seen outside of a Chippendales calendar, his eyes were cerulean blue, and he even had dimples. He smiled a lot, not in a ‘wow, it makes me happy to be this gorgeous’ way, but in a warm, open way. I couldn’t wait to tell Stephanie. He was so good-looking.

I could tell that his client, an ungainly blonde almost as tall as he was, felt the same as me—she gazed into his eyes every time she straightened up from her squats. I was jealous. I thought, ‘I don’t care how much it costs, I want to gaze into his eyes too.’

I didn’t for a second want to lose Richard. We were still married then—happily, I thought, although the lack of sex and the long hours he worked did bug me—but I had never felt such a physical pull towards someone else. Not since John, anyway, and that had been well over twenty years ago. When I first saw Sean, I couldn’t stop looking at him.

I went straight to reception and signed up for twelve personal training sessions. It cost a fortune, but I didn’t care; we could afford it. There had to be some compensation for Richard working four hundred-hour weeks. The woman on the desk—my age, too much Botox—asked if I had a preference as to which trainer I wanted, and I said, trying to look casual, ‘The one who’s upstairs at the moment? He seems to know what he’s talking about. I’d like him.’

She laughed, in a bitter sort of way, and said, ‘Of course you would. That’s Sean.
Everyone
would like Sean.’

I was so nervous before our first session. I bought a load of new Nike gear, cleaned my trainers till they sparkled, and just about resisted the temptation to get my hair blow-dried in Sean’s
honour
. I’d told Stephanie I was having personal training—but when it came down to it, I found that I didn’t want to confess my feelings for the trainer, as I’d assumed I would. That, right there, should have warned me that I ought to proceed with more caution—Steph and I always told each other about our little harmless crushes.

‘Hello,’ he said when I arrived, trembling, at the gym, smiling at me and holding out his large, strong hand for me to shake. ‘Are you ready?’

Boy, was I ever ready. He took my blood pressure—that was nice, his hands slipping the little cuff up my arm, the pump squeezing it tight like an embrace. I wasn’t quite so happy when he made me get on the scales, mind you. Still, I just closed my eyes and thought—

What did I think? That I’d lose my marriage? That Sean and I would be together forever? That I’d ever betray Richard? That heading down this road of insanity would end up with me a captive in my own bedroom? No. None of those. I don’t know what I thought. I guess I wasn’t thinking at all, beyond breathing in his pheromone-y sweet smell, and the sheer bulk of him. The only pain was in my abs, as I groaned and flailed in a pool of sweat on the red mat—and that was made bearable by the proximity of his hand, hovering over my midriff.

‘Just a few more,’ he’d say, in that firm but amused voice, which, coming from anyone else, would have made me want to punch them in the throat. I must have
really
liked him, to put myself through all that. Gyms are unpleasant enough when you’re just
pottering
along on the Stairmaster in a big t-shirt, trying to ignore the glamorous petite girls in skin-tight Lycra. But having to lie there, puce and sweating, in front of a row of captive spectators on the treadmills . . . now there’s dedication.

The hour was over far too quickly. We hadn’t talked much—I tried to quiz him, but it was hard to ask questions when I couldn’t even breathe. I managed to find out roughly where he lived, though, that he was thirty-four, lived alone, did a lot of rowing in his spare time, and was a semi-professional pool player.

After the session, I could barely walk, and I had muscles aching in places I hadn’t even known I had
places
. But all I remembered
was his
blue eyes, and the brush of his fingers on my skin whenever he was showing me the correct technique for a move. I floated home, lactic acid and hormones streaming in equal proportions around my body.

Ugh. I don’t think I’m ever going to fancy a man again, ever. I don’t want to think about Sean any more, or Richard . . . Yet somehow I can’t seem to stop myself reading a selection from the first page of Sean’s texts:

– Hello beautiful! Just finished work . . . your gorgeous smile hasn’t left my mind 4 one minute . . . I’m the luckiest man on earth, you are AMAZING! Love you, sexy beast XXX

– You are mine 2 . . . Didn’t ever think I was capable of loving someone as much as this. You’re amazing! X

– Went 2 sleep thinking of you, woke up thinking of you & dreamt of you in the middle . . . am I in love or what?

– I’ve only ever wanted 2 love & be loved by one special
person
. . . so lucky 2 have found someone as amazing as you! (sorry 4 soppiness!) XX

– You are the best and I love you so much . . . XXX

– SO lovely 2 be close 2 you again, you are so beautiful . . . will be thinking of you in my dreams angel! XXX

– I am completely loved up with you. What have you done 2 me!! I love being in love with you. Marry me someday angel! XXX

The document makes interesting reading: the history of a rela
tionship in bite-sized chunks, from infatuation to passion to desperation to frustration to . . . well, weary politeness, by the end, I suppose.

When he dumped me, I printed out two copies. It took
thirty-five
sheets of A4 to print each one—there were hundreds and hundreds of texts. Then I posted one of the copies to him. I wanted him to read them, to remember how he’d felt about
me. I didn’t
know whether I wanted him to feel bad about it, or whether I hoped that they would somehow change his mind and rekindle the depth of passion we’d had.

Sean and I broke up six months ago, but I sent him a text just the other day. It’s funny, but whenever I miss Richard, I text Sean instead. I suppose it’s because in my head Sean is the reason I lost Richard, and I can’t quite believe that here I am, alone, with neither of them. I can’t have Richard, but perhaps, just perhaps, I could get Sean back again and then it would all have been worthwhile.

‘Remember the tower?
’ my text said
. ‘Remember how cold it was? We kept each other warm. No need to reply.’

But Sean, being a contrary bastard, replied almost immediately:
‘Of course I remember. That was the best time in my entire life. XXX’

We’d gone away for a long weekend, about three months after I left Richard, when Sean and I had recently become an official couple. It was the first time we’d been away together. Sean arranged it all on the internet—he had rented this odd little tower on the south coast, kind of like a windmill without sails, or a lighthouse
without
a light. It had a round kitchen and bathroom on the ground floor, stairs up to a round living room, more stairs up to a round bedroom, then more stairs to a tiny roof terrace. It was October and freezing cold. The tower had no central heating and our breath puffed out in clouds both inside and out.

The entire weekend was a blissful, romantic cliché. We spent the whole time walking on deserted beaches, through leaf-blown bleak woods, or huddled under the duvet with the rain lashing against the tower windows. It was utterly, utterly magical. We had sex in as many different places and at as many different times as we could: up trees, in sand dunes, on the kitchen counter, in the bath, on the roof terrace of the tower; dawn, midnight, lunchtime . . . I see it now like a scene in a movie, a wordless montage of togetherness. He told me he loved me a hundred times a day. He
cried
because he loved me so much, and couldn’t believe that we were finally together; that he’d finally found the woman he was going to marry.

This is what I’ve been missing all these years
, I’d thought, drunk on love and lust.
This is what I want to do for the rest of my life
. Sean would just have to stretch out a hand to me and before we could say a word we’d both be naked, and I’d be on him or him in me, gazing into each other’s eyes, moving together . . . it was magical.

But I suppose that’s not what love is all about. You can’t spend your entire lives locked up in towers, ivory or otherwise, walking on beaches, having fabulous sex. You can’t. Because there are children to look after, bins to put out, direct debits to sort, livings to be made. There is baggage: so much baggage! Guilt and regret and recriminations.

Obvious, really—but when you’re in your tower, none of that matters. You think that because you feel that strongly then and there, you will always feel that strongly. You are invincible, because you have discovered what love really is.

Except that you are wrong.

I loved Sean, still love Sean, perhaps will always love Sean. But I want Richard back. Richard loved me more, and I pushed him away. I made an enormous mistake, and it’s too late to change it now. It might be too late to change anything now.

Chapter Eleven
Day 2

I
f I can manage to convince myself that I’m here to help Claudio, I can just about keep the panic under control. I tell myself that he is a disturbed, lonely individual who is desperate for company and who I’m helping by talking to him. All I have to do is be able to fool him into thinking I love him. I’ve pretended to love people before—and in Richard’s case, the pretence became reality. Claudio’s not going to hurt me, if I can pull it off. He’s not showing any signs of violence. He can’t keep me here forever. He wouldn’t really kill me.

Would he?

I’m still kind of annoyed that Claudio wasn’t an internet date. It would be so much more . . . what? Credible? Interesting? Horrific? I could become the poster child for anti-internet dates. I could set up my own website and helpline. Whereas in fact the worst thing that ever happened to me on an internet date was Gerald screaming at me (which was, admittedly, quite bad).

Oh, and there was Dirk. That was pretty disastrous, but in a ‘makes a good dinner party story’ way rather than a ‘life in danger’ sort of way. Dirk and I had got along like a house on fire by email and on the phone. I’d seen photos and he didn’t appear too hideous, but it was his astounding intellect that had really impressed me.
The brain is the body’s biggest erogenous zone
, I kept telling myself, feeling a nascent tickle of sexual excitement after the first long telephone call. Here was a man who could teach me things I didn’t know. He used words in conversation that I had to look up in the
dictionary
—‘palimpsest’, ‘sublunary’, ‘nosocomial’—and I was far more impressed than I ought to have been. Particularly since
anybody
who actually manages to shoehorn those sorts of words into a casual sentence has got to be a total prat. But when I met him, my heart instantly plummeted. He looked like Elton John, short and podgy, with lots of teeth all clamouring for attention. Over insanely expensive cocktails at the Groucho, he was, within the hour, telling me about the night—not that long ago—he spent fifteen hundred quid on prostitutes and cocaine. Four prostitutes, all at the same time. I was shocked.

‘Are you shocked?’ he asked, perhaps hopefully, perhaps shamefacedly. I couldn’t quite tell which.

‘No, not at all,’ I lied, trying to stop my eyes bugging out. Then he told me a story about when he got caught short whilst driving along the M62 and had to pull over onto the hard shoulder and do a poo over a fence. Not quite sure how he got onto that subject after the coke and hookers, but never mind.

‘No kidding, Jo, it was the size of a wine bottle,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘I do have this big self-destruct streak,’ he added miserably.

I didn’t say anything, but I mentally agreed that he probably did. See, I knew lots of people had one; it wasn’t just me. I ditched him the next day, declining his offer of a second date. He sent me a sad little text: YOU’D BE AMAZED AT HOW GOOD I LOOK WHEN I’VE DROPPED A STONE. Personally, I don’t think I’d have been all that amazed. Plus, it made me think of the wine bottle again. Poor Dirk.

Anyway, Dirk and his wine-bottle-sized al fresco faeces fade into insignificance next to the horrors of Gerald and Claudio. Surely probability would indicate that my chances of meeting a decent man ought to be increased, not decreased, by the number of dates I’ve been on? I must have been on twenty dates in the last six months. It had become like a drug, a dependency. With the anticipation of every single date came the hope that maybe, if this one worked out, it’d prove that leaving Richard
was
the right thing to do after all, and not just another crashingly obvious example of my utterly crap instincts.

Like going out for that meal with Claudio when I’d already realised I didn’t fancy him anymore.

I swear that if I ever get out of here, I am going to pretend that I met Claudio on a dating website, and then write an article about it for
The Daily Mail
. Medical writing can be so dry—I’d like to
get into
journalism. Try to get something positive out of all this. And I’m never going on another date ever again.

I
t’s five o’clock in the afternoon and he’s back in my room. He came in when he got back from Sainsbury’s, carefully locked the door behind him, and put on some testosterone-y thriller movie that I don’t recognise and couldn’t be less interested in. Unbelievable! He sidled over and sat on my bed, almost as if he was hoping I’d snuggle into his side with a smile. When I shrank away to the most distant corner of the mattress, he sat uncomfortably upright to watch the TV, stubbornly gazing at the screen. He’s mad. I wish there was a chair in here so he didn’t have to keep sitting on the bed.

I’ve still got six days to convince him. I’m not going to spend all of them fawning over him: I’ll have to work my way up to it, otherwise it definitely won’t be credible.

The film seems to have been going on for
ever.
I have no idea what’s happening and couldn’t care less—there are a lot of shootings and explosions. I’d rather have
Bargain Hunt
on. I’d certainly rather not have Claudio polluting what little air there is in my bedroom. I am itching to scream at him to get out, but I can’t. I can’t speak. Maybe he’ll leave when the movie ends, but it’s clearly the world’s longest film.

Time is a tricky customer. I find it hard to believe I’ve only been here for a day and a half, when I think about the number of times I’ve got angry at being held up by mere seconds: by the tap that you have to turn three times before any water emerges; the traffic light that remains stubbornly red for minutes on end; the call centre that plays you wavery classical music while you’re on hold . . . All of these things, which are utterly out of my control. Shouting at taps or traffic lights never speeds them up.

I
could
shout at Claudio, though. I could change this.

My instinct tells me to do something, anything. But then the old fear comes sweeping back over me—what is the point of trusting my instincts? It’s never made any difference before and I would only do the wrong thing. If I had decent instincts, I’d never have walked down that alley. I’d never have gone on that first date with Sean. I’d never have left Richard. I’d have immediately walked out of Pizza Express when I first set eyes on Gerald. And I’d certainly never have agreed to go out with Claudio.

Surely it’s better to sit passively and mentally practise how to convince him of my ‘love’, than risk disaster by provoking him? I have to think of Megan. I have to be risk averse, for her sake.

But I can’t. I can’t just do nothing! My thoughts are whirling around in claustrophobic circles. I will think of something. I have to.

I look over at Claudio, who is doggedly watching the film whilst trying and failing to look relaxed. He is sweating, even though it is not particularly warm in here with the fan on and the sun blocked out. I almost—
almost
—wish he would flip out, just so the decision will have been made for me, and something will have happened.

‘Are you hot?’ I enquire.

He looks at me and an expression of pleasure, almost fondness, crosses his face. Does he really think I’m starting to care? He’s deluded. But perhaps this might just be easier than I thought.

‘Yes, it’s very warm in here, isn’t it?’

‘Wouldn’t it be lovely to go out?’ I say, trying to keep my voice light. ‘It must be beautiful outside. Just think of going to sit in a park with a rug and a picnic.’

It’s not hard to make myself sound wistful. I can see it: families playing ball, a cool breeze on my skin, the prickle of grass stems beneath my bare feet, the sun reddening my face. Birds swooping and calling from the expanse of blue sky above me.

Of course Claudio is not part of this image, but he doesn’t need to know that.

‘It would be lovely. Obviously it can’t happen.’ He wipes sweat off his forehead, then wipes his hand on my empty duvet cover (the duvet itself is at the foot of the bed—far too hot for that). I make a mental note to turn it upside down and the other way round before I sleep under it tonight.

‘Not yet, obviously. But soon, maybe?’ I force myself to smile at him.

‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘If you ever decide to be a bit nicer to me.’

‘Give me time, Claudio. It’s a big adjustment. I never was good at falling for people straight away. It took years for me to fall in love with Richard.’

I’m not sure if it’s a mistake to mention Richard or not. His expression doesn’t change.

‘You fell for that Sean bloke pretty fast, didn’t you?’

I swallow my shock. How the hell does he know about Sean?

‘Sean?’ I stall.

‘Your ex-boyfriend, I believe?’

‘How do you know about him?’ It’s a huge struggle to keep my voice steady, and I’m dreading the answer. What if he’s been stalking me for months?

He laughs. ‘You look shocked. I found a card in the filing
cabinet
in the front room. From him to you, dated last year. He mentioned how fast you fell for each other . . . along with a whole load of other slushy stuff.’ Bitter, jealous voice. ‘Mr Lover-Lover Man, by the sound of him.’

‘Sean was full of shit,’ I reply.

He’s been going through my stuff again. I know the card he means, and he must have dug very deep to find that, because I hid it from Megan. I couldn’t bear to part with it so I put it in the hanging file with my bloody utilities bills. Claudio’s even been through my household finances? My life is in that filing cabinet: bank statements, IVF correspondence, divorce papers. He must know every little thing about me.

‘You loved him, though, didn’t you?’

‘I thought I did.’

‘What does he do?’

‘Personal trainer.’

Claudio snorts derisively and I can’t bear to talk about it any more. ‘We’re missing the film—what just happened?’ Fortunately there is a big explosion on screen and Claudio’s attention drifts back to the television.

‘I don’t know. Shhh.’

I’m only too happy to
shhh.
I sit there seething. I feel as though he’s undressed me and is examining my naked body with a magnifying glass. I wrap my arms around myself and try not to rock.

What will I do if he gets fed up with my coldness and forces himself on me? I try to remember some of the moves from a long-distant self-defence class but find I’ve forgotten everything about that class apart from the fact that the instructor wore skin-tight Lycra that left nothing to the imagination, like he was using his lunchbox as a weapon.

I don’t
ever
want to see Claudio’s lunchbox.

Keep calm, Jo. You have to keep calm
. There was that flicker of pleasure when I asked him if he was too hot—maybe I should start trying to flirt outright with him? I can’t. Can I? Oh, I don’t know! I need advice. I wish I could talk to Donna.

I think back to my dating experiences to see if I can extract anything valuable from them. Other men have acted as though they were in love with me after just a few dates, when they couldn’t possibly have been. They just wanted to be in love with someone, and I vaguely fitted the bill. All those lonely, desperate men. And I have managed to find the loneliest and most desperate without him even needing to write an online dating profile!

Ironic, really—the most over-used line in men’s profiles on the websites is ‘I’m happy going out, but equally happy staying in, curled up on the couch with a bottle of red wine and a DVD.’ (Apparently the women over-use the exact same line, only
they st
ill say ‘video’ instead of ‘DVD’. Go figure.) I always immediately discount anybody who says this, on the grounds that they clearly have no imagination. Yes, it is a lovely thing to do with someone you care about. But why do so many people have to cite it as the ultimate example of social interaction? Or is it merely a euphemism for having sex on the sofa with the telly on in the background? And now here we are, not exactly curled up on the sofa, but watching a film in (reluctant) close proximity, Claudio’s warped facsimile of a night in.

‘Claudio, I’m hungry,’ I say, and he looks sharply at me. I’m not at all hungry: I just want him out of my bedroom.

‘Again? I’m going to cook later. It’s too early for dinner now,’ he says sulkily.

‘Why don’t we phone for a takeaway, save you the bother?’

Unsurprisingly, Claudio greets this suggestion with derision. ‘I think not.’

‘Would you like me to cook instead? I could rustle something up. A risotto or something. Or use what you bought.’

He hesitates and on cue I actually hear his stomach rumbling. Yes, I think, that was a good idea. After all, it seems that part of the genesis of this ludicrous situation is that he wants a girlfriend. He wants someone who’ll stay, voluntarily. Having a woman cook for him would make him feel normal. Ha. What
a soddi
ng nutter. Was he this mad when we were at school, or has it happened since he grew up? I rack my brains to try to remember if he had girlfriends when I first knew him. I never saw him with anybody.