Relatively Innocent, page 9
part #1 of Colchester Law World Book 3 Series
“Why are you bothered about me?”
“From a professional angle. It’s an interesting case. Don't think I have any personal angle. Not even as your neighbour or your neighbour’s son. It’s my chosen field. I’m interested. And I’m completely impartial.”
He looked and sounded it too. Totally analytical. No emotion whatsoever. Eyes blue and cold. Sarah felt sorry for his girlfriend if he had one. But, she corrected herself, who was she to be thinking that emotion was a necessity? Hadn't she eliminated it herself? They would make a good pair, but she didn't feel remotely attracted to him. He was like a machine. But oops, there was the presumption again that emotion was a natural part of things.
Her thoughts strayed to Tony, to his departure and the prospect of not seeing him again. She’d been trying not to think about it. She only wanted him after all for the sex and his assistance with her current problem. There was absolutely nothing else there. She was certain of it wasn't she? No stirring of regret that it appeared to have ended for good? No missing him just being there. His immense desire for her. His gentle…..
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” she said too quickly. “I suppose we could try hypnosis. There’s nothing to lose.”
“Fine. But there isn't time now. And I need to prepare for it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It needs to be a bit structured that’s all. I just need to think about it. You know it’s not just asking random questions and hoping to get anything sensible out of it.”
“OK. You’re the expert.”
“Until the next time then,” he said and left.
SARAH WORRIED THAT she wouldn't be welcome at Cassandra’s house. It would be awful to be excluded. No Tony. No Cassandra. No parents. No anyone. Except Duncan’s totally impartial professional ministration’s and Denny’s confidences about her hopeless attachment to her two-timing doctor. Cassandra might even demand her door key back. They both kept a key to each other’s houses in case of emergency. If she did, Sarah would feel like a criminal.
But Cassandra was as relaxed and vague as ever. She wanted to know all about Sarah’s ordeal. It was the most exciting thing she’d been even marginally involved in for years she told Sarah. She was avid for details of Sarah’s incarceration. She didn't actually appear to mind if Sarah had been in Mrs. Watkins’s house and shredded her clothes.
“Serve the old bat right. Her and Naylor make a good pair. She probably made it all up to get attention.”
“That’s what my solicitor suggested to the police.”
“What was the solicitor like then? Any good?”
“I suppose so. Dr. Sutherland his name was.”
“Oh him. Haven't you heard of him? I’ve read about him in the Essex County Standard. He’s really well known. How did you get hold of him if you didn't know about him?”
“Oh, er, a friend called him for me.” She hadn't told Cassandra about Tony. There was nothing to tell anyway was there?
And Cassandra had then wanted to know who the friend was and so Sarah had lied and said it was Denny who knew about him because she worked in a forensic lab, which had the ring of truth about it for a spur of the moment lie.
“He’s quite tasty isn't he?”
“Who?” said Sarah drifting off a bit.
“Dr. Sutherland! Who’d you think I meant? Come on. Get with it. I’ve seen photos of him in the paper and he’s quite often on TV as well giving statements outside courts. I’m impressed. He must’ve cost a packet.”
“Er. I haven't had a bill yet,” Sarah said which was true. “Look I’d better go. Duncan’s coming round again tomorrow and he’s earlier now he starts work at twelve.”
“How are you getting on with him? He won't tell me anything.”
“Not too bad. He’s pretty good actually. Not at all what I imagined. Both him and what happens in the sessions. I thought it’d be him deciding on all my personality traits and giving me a sort of reading like, say, an astrologer. But it’s quite the opposite. He doesn't express any opinions at all. I thought it was frustrating at first but now I’m beginning to understand why. Though I’m not sure where it’s all leading. Still we’ll see.”
“Oh,” said Cassandra.
Sarah shrugged. “I can see you hoped for something more specific. But that’s what it’s like. It isn't specific. Or at least not yet at any rate and I couldn't begin to predict how it’ll develop.”
“Oh,” said Cassandra again. “Anyway take this if you want. It’s more wine left over from one of Naylor’s church do’s. He was over earlier. I must say that for church-goers, they must get through some alcohol.”
“Right. See you.”
Sarah went home and made up her diary for the evening. She did it more enthusiastically now she’d heard that her lawyer was apparently so celebrated. She’d already described the earlier part of the day including her session with Duncan. There seemed no harm in including it. He was a contact she had and obviously she didn't want to end up getting prosecuted for and found guilty of something she hadn't done. If it helped Dr. Sutherland defend her if she was charged with something in the end, then she had to be honest in the diary.
She put the white wine in the fridge but didn't drink any of it and put that in the diary as well including her time of going to bed.
SARAH NEVER HAD doubts. It was a fool’s game to pore over what happened and agonise over it. Just get over it and move on was her motto. To worry about things was too aligned to emotions in her opinion. If you cared enough about something to worry about it, that meant some sort of emotion was involved and hadn't she eradicated all emotions?
So every time she thought about Tony she pushed it out of or at least to the back of her mind. Same with the weird goings on, telling herself she didn't care about either of them. This strategy usually worked all right and any troubling thoughts normally avoided going back to such an arid, infertile stomping ground. Therefore it was odd that she was having increasing trouble casting aside thoughts and impressions about the odd happenings in the neighbourhood, her time at the police station which she’d loathed, a reaction which, had she been a ‘normal’ person, she would have characterised as trauma. And about having apparently lost Tony. Though of course she’d never had Tony. She’d never wanted to have him in the sense of being able to rely on his being there.
These thoughts kept crowding in on her ordinarily trouble-free consciousness. If you weren’t bothered about anything, then it couldn't hurt you could it, though that too seemed like a defence mechanism, which in turn meant you were still capable of being bothered, hurt even. Back to emotions again.
And something Tony had said during their last meeting was playing on her mind. That there was no hope of her ever thinking or behaving like a normal person. Of course there was always the old retort of: What does ‘normal’ mean anyway? Who actually is normal? But on the other hand she didn't want to be a freak. She didn't want to tip over into the realms of someone whom others thought so odd they maybe found it sad or laughable. The realms of someone who was so out of it that they went around during the middle of the night doing damage to people and property. She had to be normal enough to be bothered about that surely, without giving herself over to raw uncontrollable emotions.
When it came down to it, she still wasn't able or willing to confront the reason why she had tried to rid herself of all emotion. She wasn't willing to let herself go and revel in the sheer hurt of it. She just hoped that Duncan wouldn't deliberately or inadvertently stray into that area when he was hypnotising her or even during a normal session if she was caught off guard. So far she’d managed to keep her defences up. Did he realise that this was happening, that he wasn't getting a true picture at all? She wasn't really sure since he gave so little away himself. He gave her no clues of any kind.
But tonight was a girls’ night out with Denny and others. They didn't know about her arrest and she wasn't sure she wanted to tell them. She, who normally couldn't give a shit what people thought about her, didn't want Denny or the others shunning her, feeling sorry for her, talking about her as an object of mirth behind her back. Perhaps she was starting to venture back into the type of mindset that inhabited everyone else, something avoided since late childhood. Perhaps she was starting to think or behave like ‘normal’ people. The only way to avoid it would be to become a recluse like her dad’s great great aunt. But even the aunt wasn't known to have gone in for criminal damage or cat killing so far as she knew.
She sat down for thirty minutes and cleared her mind of everything by meditating and then started to get ready to go out.
CHAPTER 13
September
“I DON'T KNOW. It's practically terribly difficult.”
“What’s difficult about it?”
“It’s so complicated.”
“Tell me. Go on. Please.”
“Daniel’s….extremely awkward. In spite of what he’s done he just wouldn't accept a separation. He’d be obstructive. Now that I’ve left it two years, well I’ve sort of lost the initiative. It’s become assumed that I’ve accepted what he did, when actually I haven't at all, but that’s how it now seems.”
“So? You leave him and that’s that. What possible trouble could he make for you once you’ve left?”
“It’s not that simple. I wish it was but there’s lots of financial difficulties. Although he’s quite clever and has a degree, he’s never actually been able to forge any sort of career. He doesn't earn anything so I’d have to carry on paying the mortgage and we borrowed more money for a buy-to-let property we bought a few years ago so the main mortgage is really high. Then when he was going to start his own business we had to take on a second mortgage to start it up. He wouldn't start small and work from home so he rented a commercial unit. I had to be a guarantor and we’re saddled with the Lease now that the business has failed. And although we managed to sub-let, the sub-tenant pays less rent so I’ve got to pay the shortfall to the landlord. And there’s the second mortgage to pay for. At least the buy-to-let makes some money now that mortgage rates are so low but they might not be forever.”
“OK. So leave him and let him sort the financial mess out.”
“But he wouldn't pay for anything. He couldn't. Therefore the house would get re-possessed and we’d be left with a huge unsecured debt. I could be bankrupted and then be struck off. It’s just such a mess.”
“All right. But you could leave him and carry on paying all this stuff and I’ll look after you. You could divorce him and get orders for the sale of the properties if he wouldn't agree couldn't you?”
“I don't know how the house could be sold though. The second mortgage with a bank took the total borrowing over the value of the house. It’s in negative equity to the tune of about thirty thousand pounds. The mortgagees wouldn't allow it to be sold.”
“Oh God,” Andrew said. “Well what about the buy-to-let? Doesn’t that have any equity in it?”
“Well a little. Probably about the same amount, around thirty thousand pounds equity.”
“OK. What about getting an order in the divorce for that to be transferred to you and me and we could either live there or sell it and buy something else and take on a mortgage and a loan to pay off the deficiency on the house so that could be sold too.”
“But you’d be saddling yourself with a debt that wasn't yours! You can't do that!”
“Alison,” he said huskily, “either we want to be together or we don't. I….Alison. I feel as though we’re meant to be together. It seems permanent to me at least.”
They were having this conversation in bed. He was lying on top of her and they were both trying to keep calm. They often did this; had serious conversations while practically in coitus. She could feel her vagina throbbing gently involuntarily, a little like she’d felt as a schoolgirl when made to climb a rope in the gym. She had felt guiltily ashamed at the sensation, not at all unpleasant, that it brought about without any idea what it was.
His face was close to hers, above her, suffused with desire, their lips not quite touching, looking straight into each other’s eyes. It would have been impossible for her to lie to him in such a position even if she had wanted to. Doing this made her climax really quickly when they actually got going. She was trying not to squirm about too much so as not to set things off just yet.
In this way, they had found out a great deal about the other. The things that most mattered. She knew for instance how his separation had affected him, how very upset he was to be apart from his son and daughter and that the children had to become accustomed to living with another man. How he’d hated at first living in this soulless flat, although now she was here sometimes he liked it better. How, especially how, he’d been excruciatingly pained at his wife’s adultery. The hours he worked had apparently been to blame, so she said.
How he hated the artificiality of his meetings with his children, all too fleeting, trying to appear cheerful when he felt anything but. And how he was convinced that the tension would fatally damage his relationship with his children and make them not want to see him. How he had to go and collect the children from his old home and have them handed over by the other man who would be laughing and joking with the kids who’d be laughing and joking back but would suddenly go quiet when they were alone with him. And all the time he had to pretend it didn't feel like a knife was slitting him open from throat to groin and he knew the kids weren't fooled.
She in turn had recounted many of the things that troubled her. Most particularly in the immediate past Daniel’s adultery, and how it had felt when he’d just had to tell her about it even though he didn't want to go off with the woman and he’d ended the relationship straight away. How the other woman had been their friend, her friend supposedly in a group of couples they went about with from the tennis club Daniel had started to go to. Well he’d certainly had the time to develop his sporting and other interests.
How she, Alison, had unwittingly booked a lot of the hotels where the adultery had taken place because Daniel had spent weekends away on a course which had come to nothing. During those weekends, Alison had been back at the office working her arse off. How, when the woman had left her husband in an amicable separation and bought her own house, she and Daniel had gone round to the woman’s house for a meal with others and to be shown around apparently for the first time, whereas Daniel had actually been there already having sex with the woman.
How Daniel had changed leading up to and during this affair, becoming apparently seized of the notion that he was entitled to do just as he liked and that she, Alison, had no right to stop him. How he had drunk to excess and couldn't be stopped from doing so. How at first, for some years actually, Daniel and the other woman had flirted shamelessly with each other, in the guise of friendship, to which Alison had objected strongly.
How she’d found it hard to understand at the time how the woman Kaylee, an avidly sociable, perky blonde and an apparently popular person, or indeed anyone else in their group for that matter, had been able to find the behaviour even remotely acceptable but seemingly they had, which further undermined her confidence in herself, making her think she and her own feelings must be of no account to others. She became very low in spirit, thinking there must be something wrong with her if Kaylee was able to get away with the sort of assault on someone else’s marriage that she, Alison, felt fairly sure she would have incurred massive and universal condemnation over had she had tried it herself with another woman’s husband.
She felt further undermined as her objections to Daniel had only resulted in intimidation and increasingly in actual violence, though of a type that wouldn't show. Smacks round the ears and head mostly and once a punch in the chest so hard that, when the huge bruise eventually subsided, it had left a lump at the top of one breast that she’d had to have investigated just in case it was a cancer. She had had to have a mammogram. She'd painfully had to have a sample hypodermically taken from the lump with the resulting fluid being analysed. Daniel had never apologized to her about this, alleging she had pushed him when in fact she'd only wanted to stop him advancing aggressively on her after she'd supposedly upset him over something.
How Daniel exercised all sorts of more minor controls over her by intimidating her.
How she wanted to have children but was glad she hadn't now that her marriage was this empty warped edifice.
How she was adopted and, though she hadn't had an unhappy childhood, it had felt to her as she became more aware as though the adoption had been meant as much to benefit the adoptive parents as the child.
Over the few short weeks they learnt these things about each other and more. There started to be no untouched areas between them, she started to trust him implicitly and to love him profoundly, though love hadn't been openly spoken of yet.
Andrew was looking at her for a response to his last remark. Permanent he’d said. She wondered if she dared allow herself to hope that she could possibly disentangle herself from the financial and emotionally controlling mess she and Daniel were in.
“Eventually, I’ll get some money from my matrimonial home too. I wanted the kids to stay in their home for their own good but Claire and her bloke are going to want my name off the Deeds soon and I’m expecting that they’ll buy me out. I’ll get my name off the mortgage and then you and I could get a mortgage together. So come and live with me and just carry on paying your mortgage etc until then. We can sort it out.”
Still she didn't say anything. Actual separation would be a very big step for her. After all she hadn't insisted on throwing Daniel out after finding out about his affair. He might actually have gone at that point, but she’d been far too traumatised to make any decisions at that time and now it was far too late for that. Positions had become entrenched. She’d mentioned a separation since but he wouldn't even discuss it. She’d started to think she’d never be able to extricate herself from the unholy mess. He claimed he loved her, possessively so it seemed, like he had a right to her in a kind of Old Testament way. She didn't doubt he’d be violent to get his own way and preserve what he thought was rightfully his.
“From a professional angle. It’s an interesting case. Don't think I have any personal angle. Not even as your neighbour or your neighbour’s son. It’s my chosen field. I’m interested. And I’m completely impartial.”
He looked and sounded it too. Totally analytical. No emotion whatsoever. Eyes blue and cold. Sarah felt sorry for his girlfriend if he had one. But, she corrected herself, who was she to be thinking that emotion was a necessity? Hadn't she eliminated it herself? They would make a good pair, but she didn't feel remotely attracted to him. He was like a machine. But oops, there was the presumption again that emotion was a natural part of things.
Her thoughts strayed to Tony, to his departure and the prospect of not seeing him again. She’d been trying not to think about it. She only wanted him after all for the sex and his assistance with her current problem. There was absolutely nothing else there. She was certain of it wasn't she? No stirring of regret that it appeared to have ended for good? No missing him just being there. His immense desire for her. His gentle…..
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” she said too quickly. “I suppose we could try hypnosis. There’s nothing to lose.”
“Fine. But there isn't time now. And I need to prepare for it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It needs to be a bit structured that’s all. I just need to think about it. You know it’s not just asking random questions and hoping to get anything sensible out of it.”
“OK. You’re the expert.”
“Until the next time then,” he said and left.
SARAH WORRIED THAT she wouldn't be welcome at Cassandra’s house. It would be awful to be excluded. No Tony. No Cassandra. No parents. No anyone. Except Duncan’s totally impartial professional ministration’s and Denny’s confidences about her hopeless attachment to her two-timing doctor. Cassandra might even demand her door key back. They both kept a key to each other’s houses in case of emergency. If she did, Sarah would feel like a criminal.
But Cassandra was as relaxed and vague as ever. She wanted to know all about Sarah’s ordeal. It was the most exciting thing she’d been even marginally involved in for years she told Sarah. She was avid for details of Sarah’s incarceration. She didn't actually appear to mind if Sarah had been in Mrs. Watkins’s house and shredded her clothes.
“Serve the old bat right. Her and Naylor make a good pair. She probably made it all up to get attention.”
“That’s what my solicitor suggested to the police.”
“What was the solicitor like then? Any good?”
“I suppose so. Dr. Sutherland his name was.”
“Oh him. Haven't you heard of him? I’ve read about him in the Essex County Standard. He’s really well known. How did you get hold of him if you didn't know about him?”
“Oh, er, a friend called him for me.” She hadn't told Cassandra about Tony. There was nothing to tell anyway was there?
And Cassandra had then wanted to know who the friend was and so Sarah had lied and said it was Denny who knew about him because she worked in a forensic lab, which had the ring of truth about it for a spur of the moment lie.
“He’s quite tasty isn't he?”
“Who?” said Sarah drifting off a bit.
“Dr. Sutherland! Who’d you think I meant? Come on. Get with it. I’ve seen photos of him in the paper and he’s quite often on TV as well giving statements outside courts. I’m impressed. He must’ve cost a packet.”
“Er. I haven't had a bill yet,” Sarah said which was true. “Look I’d better go. Duncan’s coming round again tomorrow and he’s earlier now he starts work at twelve.”
“How are you getting on with him? He won't tell me anything.”
“Not too bad. He’s pretty good actually. Not at all what I imagined. Both him and what happens in the sessions. I thought it’d be him deciding on all my personality traits and giving me a sort of reading like, say, an astrologer. But it’s quite the opposite. He doesn't express any opinions at all. I thought it was frustrating at first but now I’m beginning to understand why. Though I’m not sure where it’s all leading. Still we’ll see.”
“Oh,” said Cassandra.
Sarah shrugged. “I can see you hoped for something more specific. But that’s what it’s like. It isn't specific. Or at least not yet at any rate and I couldn't begin to predict how it’ll develop.”
“Oh,” said Cassandra again. “Anyway take this if you want. It’s more wine left over from one of Naylor’s church do’s. He was over earlier. I must say that for church-goers, they must get through some alcohol.”
“Right. See you.”
Sarah went home and made up her diary for the evening. She did it more enthusiastically now she’d heard that her lawyer was apparently so celebrated. She’d already described the earlier part of the day including her session with Duncan. There seemed no harm in including it. He was a contact she had and obviously she didn't want to end up getting prosecuted for and found guilty of something she hadn't done. If it helped Dr. Sutherland defend her if she was charged with something in the end, then she had to be honest in the diary.
She put the white wine in the fridge but didn't drink any of it and put that in the diary as well including her time of going to bed.
SARAH NEVER HAD doubts. It was a fool’s game to pore over what happened and agonise over it. Just get over it and move on was her motto. To worry about things was too aligned to emotions in her opinion. If you cared enough about something to worry about it, that meant some sort of emotion was involved and hadn't she eradicated all emotions?
So every time she thought about Tony she pushed it out of or at least to the back of her mind. Same with the weird goings on, telling herself she didn't care about either of them. This strategy usually worked all right and any troubling thoughts normally avoided going back to such an arid, infertile stomping ground. Therefore it was odd that she was having increasing trouble casting aside thoughts and impressions about the odd happenings in the neighbourhood, her time at the police station which she’d loathed, a reaction which, had she been a ‘normal’ person, she would have characterised as trauma. And about having apparently lost Tony. Though of course she’d never had Tony. She’d never wanted to have him in the sense of being able to rely on his being there.
These thoughts kept crowding in on her ordinarily trouble-free consciousness. If you weren’t bothered about anything, then it couldn't hurt you could it, though that too seemed like a defence mechanism, which in turn meant you were still capable of being bothered, hurt even. Back to emotions again.
And something Tony had said during their last meeting was playing on her mind. That there was no hope of her ever thinking or behaving like a normal person. Of course there was always the old retort of: What does ‘normal’ mean anyway? Who actually is normal? But on the other hand she didn't want to be a freak. She didn't want to tip over into the realms of someone whom others thought so odd they maybe found it sad or laughable. The realms of someone who was so out of it that they went around during the middle of the night doing damage to people and property. She had to be normal enough to be bothered about that surely, without giving herself over to raw uncontrollable emotions.
When it came down to it, she still wasn't able or willing to confront the reason why she had tried to rid herself of all emotion. She wasn't willing to let herself go and revel in the sheer hurt of it. She just hoped that Duncan wouldn't deliberately or inadvertently stray into that area when he was hypnotising her or even during a normal session if she was caught off guard. So far she’d managed to keep her defences up. Did he realise that this was happening, that he wasn't getting a true picture at all? She wasn't really sure since he gave so little away himself. He gave her no clues of any kind.
But tonight was a girls’ night out with Denny and others. They didn't know about her arrest and she wasn't sure she wanted to tell them. She, who normally couldn't give a shit what people thought about her, didn't want Denny or the others shunning her, feeling sorry for her, talking about her as an object of mirth behind her back. Perhaps she was starting to venture back into the type of mindset that inhabited everyone else, something avoided since late childhood. Perhaps she was starting to think or behave like ‘normal’ people. The only way to avoid it would be to become a recluse like her dad’s great great aunt. But even the aunt wasn't known to have gone in for criminal damage or cat killing so far as she knew.
She sat down for thirty minutes and cleared her mind of everything by meditating and then started to get ready to go out.
CHAPTER 13
September
“I DON'T KNOW. It's practically terribly difficult.”
“What’s difficult about it?”
“It’s so complicated.”
“Tell me. Go on. Please.”
“Daniel’s….extremely awkward. In spite of what he’s done he just wouldn't accept a separation. He’d be obstructive. Now that I’ve left it two years, well I’ve sort of lost the initiative. It’s become assumed that I’ve accepted what he did, when actually I haven't at all, but that’s how it now seems.”
“So? You leave him and that’s that. What possible trouble could he make for you once you’ve left?”
“It’s not that simple. I wish it was but there’s lots of financial difficulties. Although he’s quite clever and has a degree, he’s never actually been able to forge any sort of career. He doesn't earn anything so I’d have to carry on paying the mortgage and we borrowed more money for a buy-to-let property we bought a few years ago so the main mortgage is really high. Then when he was going to start his own business we had to take on a second mortgage to start it up. He wouldn't start small and work from home so he rented a commercial unit. I had to be a guarantor and we’re saddled with the Lease now that the business has failed. And although we managed to sub-let, the sub-tenant pays less rent so I’ve got to pay the shortfall to the landlord. And there’s the second mortgage to pay for. At least the buy-to-let makes some money now that mortgage rates are so low but they might not be forever.”
“OK. So leave him and let him sort the financial mess out.”
“But he wouldn't pay for anything. He couldn't. Therefore the house would get re-possessed and we’d be left with a huge unsecured debt. I could be bankrupted and then be struck off. It’s just such a mess.”
“All right. But you could leave him and carry on paying all this stuff and I’ll look after you. You could divorce him and get orders for the sale of the properties if he wouldn't agree couldn't you?”
“I don't know how the house could be sold though. The second mortgage with a bank took the total borrowing over the value of the house. It’s in negative equity to the tune of about thirty thousand pounds. The mortgagees wouldn't allow it to be sold.”
“Oh God,” Andrew said. “Well what about the buy-to-let? Doesn’t that have any equity in it?”
“Well a little. Probably about the same amount, around thirty thousand pounds equity.”
“OK. What about getting an order in the divorce for that to be transferred to you and me and we could either live there or sell it and buy something else and take on a mortgage and a loan to pay off the deficiency on the house so that could be sold too.”
“But you’d be saddling yourself with a debt that wasn't yours! You can't do that!”
“Alison,” he said huskily, “either we want to be together or we don't. I….Alison. I feel as though we’re meant to be together. It seems permanent to me at least.”
They were having this conversation in bed. He was lying on top of her and they were both trying to keep calm. They often did this; had serious conversations while practically in coitus. She could feel her vagina throbbing gently involuntarily, a little like she’d felt as a schoolgirl when made to climb a rope in the gym. She had felt guiltily ashamed at the sensation, not at all unpleasant, that it brought about without any idea what it was.
His face was close to hers, above her, suffused with desire, their lips not quite touching, looking straight into each other’s eyes. It would have been impossible for her to lie to him in such a position even if she had wanted to. Doing this made her climax really quickly when they actually got going. She was trying not to squirm about too much so as not to set things off just yet.
In this way, they had found out a great deal about the other. The things that most mattered. She knew for instance how his separation had affected him, how very upset he was to be apart from his son and daughter and that the children had to become accustomed to living with another man. How he’d hated at first living in this soulless flat, although now she was here sometimes he liked it better. How, especially how, he’d been excruciatingly pained at his wife’s adultery. The hours he worked had apparently been to blame, so she said.
How he hated the artificiality of his meetings with his children, all too fleeting, trying to appear cheerful when he felt anything but. And how he was convinced that the tension would fatally damage his relationship with his children and make them not want to see him. How he had to go and collect the children from his old home and have them handed over by the other man who would be laughing and joking with the kids who’d be laughing and joking back but would suddenly go quiet when they were alone with him. And all the time he had to pretend it didn't feel like a knife was slitting him open from throat to groin and he knew the kids weren't fooled.
She in turn had recounted many of the things that troubled her. Most particularly in the immediate past Daniel’s adultery, and how it had felt when he’d just had to tell her about it even though he didn't want to go off with the woman and he’d ended the relationship straight away. How the other woman had been their friend, her friend supposedly in a group of couples they went about with from the tennis club Daniel had started to go to. Well he’d certainly had the time to develop his sporting and other interests.
How she, Alison, had unwittingly booked a lot of the hotels where the adultery had taken place because Daniel had spent weekends away on a course which had come to nothing. During those weekends, Alison had been back at the office working her arse off. How, when the woman had left her husband in an amicable separation and bought her own house, she and Daniel had gone round to the woman’s house for a meal with others and to be shown around apparently for the first time, whereas Daniel had actually been there already having sex with the woman.
How Daniel had changed leading up to and during this affair, becoming apparently seized of the notion that he was entitled to do just as he liked and that she, Alison, had no right to stop him. How he had drunk to excess and couldn't be stopped from doing so. How at first, for some years actually, Daniel and the other woman had flirted shamelessly with each other, in the guise of friendship, to which Alison had objected strongly.
How she’d found it hard to understand at the time how the woman Kaylee, an avidly sociable, perky blonde and an apparently popular person, or indeed anyone else in their group for that matter, had been able to find the behaviour even remotely acceptable but seemingly they had, which further undermined her confidence in herself, making her think she and her own feelings must be of no account to others. She became very low in spirit, thinking there must be something wrong with her if Kaylee was able to get away with the sort of assault on someone else’s marriage that she, Alison, felt fairly sure she would have incurred massive and universal condemnation over had she had tried it herself with another woman’s husband.
She felt further undermined as her objections to Daniel had only resulted in intimidation and increasingly in actual violence, though of a type that wouldn't show. Smacks round the ears and head mostly and once a punch in the chest so hard that, when the huge bruise eventually subsided, it had left a lump at the top of one breast that she’d had to have investigated just in case it was a cancer. She had had to have a mammogram. She'd painfully had to have a sample hypodermically taken from the lump with the resulting fluid being analysed. Daniel had never apologized to her about this, alleging she had pushed him when in fact she'd only wanted to stop him advancing aggressively on her after she'd supposedly upset him over something.
How Daniel exercised all sorts of more minor controls over her by intimidating her.
How she wanted to have children but was glad she hadn't now that her marriage was this empty warped edifice.
How she was adopted and, though she hadn't had an unhappy childhood, it had felt to her as she became more aware as though the adoption had been meant as much to benefit the adoptive parents as the child.
Over the few short weeks they learnt these things about each other and more. There started to be no untouched areas between them, she started to trust him implicitly and to love him profoundly, though love hadn't been openly spoken of yet.
Andrew was looking at her for a response to his last remark. Permanent he’d said. She wondered if she dared allow herself to hope that she could possibly disentangle herself from the financial and emotionally controlling mess she and Daniel were in.
“Eventually, I’ll get some money from my matrimonial home too. I wanted the kids to stay in their home for their own good but Claire and her bloke are going to want my name off the Deeds soon and I’m expecting that they’ll buy me out. I’ll get my name off the mortgage and then you and I could get a mortgage together. So come and live with me and just carry on paying your mortgage etc until then. We can sort it out.”
Still she didn't say anything. Actual separation would be a very big step for her. After all she hadn't insisted on throwing Daniel out after finding out about his affair. He might actually have gone at that point, but she’d been far too traumatised to make any decisions at that time and now it was far too late for that. Positions had become entrenched. She’d mentioned a separation since but he wouldn't even discuss it. She’d started to think she’d never be able to extricate herself from the unholy mess. He claimed he loved her, possessively so it seemed, like he had a right to her in a kind of Old Testament way. She didn't doubt he’d be violent to get his own way and preserve what he thought was rightfully his.
