What Goes Around: A chilling psychological thriller (32 page)

‘Don’t be daft.’ I tip more champagne into my glass. ‘As long as you don’t cut your toenails in the living room we’ll get along fine.’

‘Does that mean I won’t be allowed to hang my underpants up to dry in the kitchen either?’

We both laugh and somehow we manage to drink our way through the whole bottle, reminiscing about family occasions, about Mum and my grandparents and all the good things that create memories and encourage families to stay together.

‘Come back for your tea,’ he says a couple of hours later when he sees me to the door. ‘I was round at the fishmongers this morning. Thought I’d make a fish pie. You know how Molly loves her mashed potatoes.’

I nod. ‘I’ll be back for six.’

‘Bring Ben along.’

‘I think he might be playing five-a-side football. I’ll let you know.’

I walk off home and find myself smiling at everyone: old ladies who are holding up pedestrian traffic, fractious toddlers in buggies, surly teenagers. I feel generous and benevolent and my mood can’t be dampened by any inconvenience or moodiness because I’m going to live in Maybanks again and that makes me feel like I’m floating on air.

I step into the house and hear a noise in the living room. ‘You still here, Ben?’ I shout. I leave my coat and shoes at the front door and walk towards him, champagne giggling in my bloodstream. ‘You’ll never guess—’ I stop on the threshold. It’s not Ben – it’s Francis. I take a split second to register this thought and to remind myself of Leila’s warning, and then I turn round and run towards the front door I have the door open and am outside on the step before he’s caught up with me. He grabs hold of my hair with one hand and covers my mouth with the other. He hauls me back inside the house while I bite his hand and kick my feet against him.

‘What’s the matter?’ He shakes me hard and I bite the edge of his finger, so he slams my head against the wall. ‘I only want to talk to you!’

I’m shaking with fear and frustration. I can feel that the back of my head is aching but I’m barely aware of any pain. Adrenaline pumps through me, dispelling the alcohol and sharpening my senses to pinpoints of clarity.

‘I’m going to take my hand away,’ he tells me. ‘And you’re not going to scream.’

I nod my head. My neighbours are all at work and he’s just dragged me off the front step with no one to see me, so I know that screaming won’t work. I’m going to have to try to reason with him even though I have nothing to bargain with.
Just listen to him, Ellen. Find out what he wants.

When he takes his hand away from my mouth I notice a patch of blood on his sleeve. It’s a stain the size of a baby’s fist and the sight of it creates another level of dread inside me. He could have cut himself, but I don’t see any signs of that – could it be Ben’s blood? I take a surreptitious glance towards the front door and don’t see Ben’s sports bag there. He always dumps it by the door when he’s going out to football, so he must have left already. Please God. Please.

Francis steps away from me and leans his back against the opposite wall. I don’t speak or move apart from to breathe. He is shaking his head slowly as if he’s listening to a mellow tune inside his head, but when he glances up at me, his expression is anything but mellow. ‘You spoke to my sister,’ he says. ‘You went behind my back.’ He wags a finger in front of my face. ‘I know what you’re thinking but you’re wrong.’

He grabs my arm and drags me behind him into the living room. I’m tripping over my feet, knocking into the wall, and when my shin makes contact with one of the dining table legs, the skin tears and pain bites through to the bone.

‘Sit down.’

I sit on the sofa, my back ramrod straight.

‘Rescuer, victim, perpetrator – we all shift between these three roles but we tend to have a favourite.’ He points at me. ‘Take you, Ellen. I have been a rescuer to you, haven’t I?’ I nod. ‘My sister has always bagged the rescuer role for herself but she’s not the only one. No, no, no.’ He bangs his fist against his chest. ‘
I
can also be the rescuer. I hope you told her that.’ His face draws in close to mine. ‘Did you? Did you tell her that?’

‘I’m sorry.’ I try not to shudder. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Thought not.’ He sits down opposite me and says nothing for a minute or more. His legs move up and down and every now and then his arms jerk outwards and fall back to his sides. I can see he’s having an internal monologue with himself and then he says, ‘I’m not mad. I know that’s what you’re thinking but I’m not mad. And now you’re probably thinking it’s only mad people who say they’re not mad.’ He gives a loud laugh. ‘Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Story of my life.’

I don’t want to speak but pressure is building inside me. I need to know how he got into the house. I need to know that he hasn’t hurt Ben, that the blood on his sleeve isn’t my son’s.

‘How did you get in here?’ I say quietly, wincing as I speak because the waver in my voice is signalling my fear like a klaxon in a silent room and if I can hear it then so can he.

‘When I was looking for the jewellery I found your spare key.’ He points to the bureau. ‘I was going to come back to look again but you’d already given the jewellery back to Leila.’

I nod, relieved that Ben was gone when Francis got here. I relax my back a little and wait. Francis has lapsed into silence again. His expression is pensive and then it clouds over with sadness. ‘I have a son, you know,’ he says. ‘Did you know that?’

I shake my head. ‘I didn’t know that.’
Keep him talking.
It might help.
‘Does he live in Edinburgh?’

‘He does, but it might as well be Timbuktu because he doesn’t know who I am. His mother told him that his father was some nobody from years ago.’ He screws up his face. ‘How would you feel if you were excluded from your child’s life?’

‘I’d hate it,’ I say honestly.

‘Exactly! But that’s what’s happened to me. The mother won’t let me see him.’

‘Couldn’t you go to a solicitor?’

‘I don’t have the money. And …’ His expression is pained. ‘I don’t want my son to get to know me that way, through a lawyer, with all the trouble they cause. I mean, she could just agree, couldn’t she?’ I nod. ‘You think I’m right?’

‘I do. A child needs two parents and you want to be a dad. I think that’s admirable.’ I believe what I’m saying although not where Francis is concerned. From what Leila told me and the way he’s behaving now, I’m not surprised the mother is refusing to acknowledge him. Perhaps she tried to let him become involved in the child’s life but he pulled a stunt not unlike this. I go along with him, though, because feeling as if he has me as an ally might help him to relax. ‘How old is your son?’

‘He’s nineteen. Same as Ben.’

‘He’s an adult, then. I wonder whether you should approach him directly?’

‘I wouldn’t want to upset him. I feel it needs to go through the mother.’

‘I understand that.’

‘She makes it all about her.’

‘When did you last speak to her about it?’

‘Recently.’ He smiles. ‘He’s called Alex.’

More silence. Time for me to think. Leila’s son is called Alex. He is nineteen. I must be frowning as I make this connection because Francis says, ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I was just thinking that Leila’s son is called Alex … and he’s nineteen.’

The confusion must show on my face because he grows angry again, ‘You see – this is what I’m up against! It disgusts you, doesn’t it?’

I already know that their sibling relationship is dysfunctional but this is a giant step beyond what I imagined and I have no time to process it. ‘I’m not judging you,’ I say, sure that I mean it. ‘It’s just … it does take a bit of getting your head around.’

He throws his body towards me and pins me to the sofa, his weight heavy on my chest so that I can’t breathe. ‘You know nothing. Nothing about my life. Nothing about me. Nothing about my mother.’

I try to speak but there’s no air in my mouth.

‘I don’t hate you, Ellen. But I’m pissed off with you.’ His jaw tenses. ‘Really pissed off with you because you should have given me the jewellery. That’s why it’s all gone wrong. Because of you.’

Tears are running down my face as I struggle for breath. All I can move is my lower legs and feet and I drum my heels on the floor in desperation.

‘I’m not going to kill you,’ he says, and suddenly he’s standing up and I am gulping air. ‘You’re only a minor player in this story.’

‘I …’ I struggle to my feet, pain in my leg, in my head, in my ribcage. ‘Francis, please. Please just go. I won’t say anything. I won’t do anything. We can forget this. I—’

I don’t say any more because the front door opens and Molly’s voice calls out, ‘Grannie, it’s me!’

Immediately, Francis’s eyes scan the room as if for an exit or a hiding place.

‘Hi, Mum!’ Chloe shouts. The door closes with a bang and Molly runs into the living room.

‘Molly!’ I catch her in my arms as she barrels into the room. Pain bites inside my muscles and I cry out.

‘Grannie.’ Molly’s smile fades, uncertain. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘What’s going on?’ Chloe’s eyes are worried as she stares at Francis and then me. ‘Mum?’

‘Are you all right?’ Molly says to Francis, her expression serious. ‘You have blood on you.’ She points to his sleeve. ‘Did you cut yourself?’

‘It’s not you I want,’ Francis says to me.

‘Please, Francis.’ I hold Molly behind me. ‘Please leave.’

‘It’s not you I want,’ he repeats. He pushes past Chloe, walks along the hallway and out the front door. As it slams shut behind him my legs give way.

I have a busy week as I prepare for Alex and me to move on. The last sessions with my clients all go well, although Alison and Mark are convinced I’m leaving because of them.

‘I know we’ve argued in here,’ Alison says. ‘But we’ve always seen it as a safe space and we thought you did too.’

‘You told us that,’ Mark says.

‘And I meant it,’ I say. ‘I’d like to keep working with you but I’m moving away.’

‘We can travel,’ Alison says. ‘We are committed to our therapy.’

It takes me a while, but I finally make them understand that another therapist will be able to help them just as much, if not more, than I have. They leave with her phone number, their expressions disbelieving and hurt as if I’m abandoning them, casting them out on the high seas with neither a paddle nor even a boat. I close the door behind them with a sigh of relief, realising that I no longer have the patience for clients like these who make problems where there aren’t any. ‘Try my life on for size!’ I want to call after them. ‘See what that feels like.’

I sell my mother’s jewellery on Tuesday morning to a recommended dealer in Glasgow. ‘Such pieces are unattractive to buyers in the current market,’ he tells me. ‘But the stones …’ He screws up one eye to look through his eyeglass. ‘The stones are impressive. Very, very impressive.’

I leave the dealer with a money transfer for more than twenty thousand pounds, enough to see us through the move and cover our costs for several months depending on how long it takes me to find another job. This is the first step completed and it bolsters me for what lies ahead. I know the conversation with Tom will not be an easy one – and it isn’t.

I broach the subject on the Tuesday evening. We have just finished our meal and Tom is complaining about his wife again. He’s going to have to reluctantly give far more ground than he’s comfortable with. ‘I always suspected she’d make trouble eventually,’ he says.

I think of Ellen and the fact that, unlike Tom, she is almost completely without spite. She couldn’t resist the temptation to spoil some of my clothes and shoes but she could easily have hung on to my mother’s jewellery as payback and she didn’t. ‘I think you should let her have the house,’ I say.

‘What?’ He pours himself another glass of red. ‘This house?’

‘Yes. She put all the effort into it. She loves Maybanks. She should have it.’

‘Where on earth is this coming from?’ he says, full of surprise and indignation. He drinks a mouthful of wine. ‘We’ve made our home here!’

‘Tom …’ I take a breath. This part is never easy. I have left a good few men in my time and it’s so much simpler to just pack a suitcase and be gone when they return home from their day’s work. ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it.’

‘Make what?’

‘I don’t think we’re good together,’ I state. ‘So, I’m going to leave before things go sour.’

His mouth hangs open. He’s completely stunned. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to Tom. Tom is the man in charge; the women in his life occupy a supporting role. He is the one who makes the life-changing decisions. ‘You’re leaving me? You’re
leaving
me?’

‘I am.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, as I said, I don’t think we’re good together.’

‘Of course we’re good together! Why else would I have given up my wife for you?’

‘You told me your marriage was already over when we met.’

‘It was.’ He thinks for a second. ‘Almost. And I broke up my family for you.’

‘My children are grown up, you told me. I want another chance at happiness. That’s what you said.’

‘Darling, please.’ He treats me to his most benevolent, winning smile and comes round to my side of the table to persuade me. ‘Leila, let’s talk about this sensibly. If there’s something you need, then I will give it to you. I’ve already paid for Alex’s therapy—’

‘Thank you.’ I stand up. ‘I appreciate that.’

‘I know you do.’ He attempts to take my hand. ‘I know—’

‘There is nothing you can say, Tom,’ I tell him, my tone emotionless. ‘Please don’t even try. You will only embarrass us both.’

He is stunned for all of five seconds and then he reaches for his glass of wine and throws it across the room. The glass hits one of the kitchen cupboards and smashes instantly, splattering red wine in an arc across the white units and splinters of glass in a wide radius. And so begins a tirade of abuse: I’m a slut, a home-wrecker and a bad mother. I let people down. I’m selfish and hard-hearted. I’m completely to blame for my son’s drug-taking.

While he shouts, I clean up the mess and after five minutes of hearing myself insulted in every which way possible, I stand in front of him and say loudly, ‘That’s enough! Go and be angry with someone else.’