and left him to help himself.
“Do you have a laundry basket or something?” she asked, stirring the heap of stinking clothes with her toe.
“They’re not worth saving. I’ll chuck ‘em out.”
“I can do that.”
He yawned.
“Bin bags. Second cupboard on the left in the kitchen.”
She carried the bundle at arm’s length and sealed the lot into three layers of clean white plastic. It took only a few minutes but when she went back he was asleep, his glass clasped in loose fingers against his chest.
She removed it carefully and put it on the floor.
What now? she wondered. She might have been his sister, so unaroused was he by her presence. Go or stay? She had an absurd longing to sit quietly and watch him sleep but she was nervous of waking him. He would never understand her need to be at peace, just briefly, with a man.
Her eyes softened. It was a nice face. No amount of battering and bruising could hide the laughter lines, and she knew that if she let it it would grow on her and make her pleased to see it. She turned away abruptly. She had been nurturing her bitterness too long to give it up as easily as this. God had not been punished enough.
She retrieved her handbag from where she’d dropped it beside the lavatory and tiptoed down the stairs. But the door was locked and the key was missing. She felt more foolish than concerned, like the embarrassed eavesdropper trapped inside a room whose only object is to escape without being noticed. He must have put the wretched thing in his pocket. She crept back up to the kitchen to scrabble through the dirty clothes bundle but the pockets were all empty. Perplexed, she stared about the work surfaces, searched the tables in the sitting-room and bedroom. If keys existed, they were well hidden. With a sigh of frustration, she pulled back a curtain to see if there was another way out, a fire escape or a balcony, and found herself gazing on a window full of bars. She tried another window and another.
All were barred.
Predictably, anger took over.
Without pausing to consider the wisdom of what she was doing, she stormed into the bathroom and shook him violently.
“You bastard!” she snapped.
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at! What are you? Some kind of Bluebeard. I want to get out of here. Now!”
He was hardly awake before he’d smashed the champagne bottle against the tiled wall, caught her by the hair, and thrust the jagged glass against her neck. His bloodshot eyes blazed into hers before a sort of recognition dawned and he let her go, pushing her away from him.
“You stupid bitch,” he snarled.
“Don’t you ever do that again.” He rubbed his face vigorously to clear it of sleep.
She was very shaken.
“I want to go.”
“So what’s stopping you?”
“You’ve hidden the key.”
He looked at her for a moment, then started to soap himself.
“It’s on the architrave above the door. Turn it twice. It’s a double lock.”
“Your windows are all barred.”
“They are indeed.” He splashed water on his face.
“Goodbye, Ms Leigh.”
“Goodbye.” She made a weak gesture of apology.
“I’m sorry.
I thought I was a prisoner.”
He pulled out the plug and tugged a towel off the rail.
“You are.
“But you said the key-‘ “Goodbye, Ms Leigh.” He splayed his hand against the door and pushed it to, forcing her out.
She should not be driving. The thought hammered in her head like a migraine, a despairing reminder that self- preservation was the first of all the human instincts. But he was right. She was a prisoner and the yearning to escape was too strong. So easy, she thought, so very, very easy. Successive headlamps grew from tiny distant pinpoints to huge white suns, sweeping through her windscreen with a beautiful and blinding iridescence, drawing her eyes into the heart of their brilliance. The urge to turn the wheel towards the lights was insistent. How painless the transition would be at the moment of blindness and how bright eternity. So easy… so easy… so easy…
FIVE
Olive took a cigarette and lit it greedily.
