and all of the shops and offices were in darkness.
I remembered the number of times I’d chastized Andrea for leaving a window, upstairs or downstairs, slightly ajar, or the back door locked but unbolted, and I prayed that my absence would spur her to take proper precautions. She must be feeling vulnerable without me and that thought only emphasized how useless I would be to her now.
At last—at long, long last—I was gliding up the road leading home. And despite the late hour, the lights were still on.
I paused at the gate. Oliver’s silver BMW was parked at the kerbside and I didn’t know whether to feel elated or angry. At least Andrea and Prim were not alone. But why should Oliver be here at this hour?
Maybe Moker would do me a favour and murder him.
I quickly pushed such worthless thoughts from my mind. Even if Oliver had killed me, pretending it was the work of another, he would be able to protect my wife and daughter. And it was my daughter I cared about most.
I passed through the gate and went up the path to the front door. I took a deep and unnecessary breath before moving through it.
I could hear their voices coming from the lounge—Oliver’s and Andrea’s—speaking low so all I could hear from where I waited in the hall were murmurings. The lounge door was open and, foolishly, I was tempted to linger outside and eavesdrop, as if I might be seen should I enter the room. I rebuked myself before slipping through the doorway.
They were together on the sofa. My best friend and my wife. Close, inclined towards each other, knees almost touching, Oliver with a casual arm over the back of the sofa, Andrea leaning sideways towards him, her hand on his knee. She was gazing into his face, but his eyes were cast downwards, focused on the small space between them.
Andrea wore one of my old high-necked FCUK coffee-coloured cardigans, unzipped over a black exercise vest and charcoal grey sweatpants. Her feet were bare on the plush carpet.* Oliver was dressed as if having only just returned from the office: light twill trousers, loose beige jacket over a burgundy sweatshirt. His brown ankle boots were suede.
*Even at the time I wondered why I noticed such irrelevant details and realized that since I’d left the dead woman’s body everything had become more clearly defined, my already enhanced perceptions now heightened to an incredible degree. I guess death and danger will do that whatever your state of existence.
Anger boiled inside me, but I had the sudden urge to see Primrose, check on her, make sure she was safe and sound. I left the room and took to the stairs, climbing them as if I were a normal human being rather than a lost spectre.
The door to her bedroom was partially open—we never closed Prim’s bedroom door at night in case she should call out, stirred by some threatening dream. We also listened for wheezy breaths, a sign that one of her asthma attacks was about to start. I slid through the gap and foolishly tiptoed towards her narrow bunk bed as if I still had the power to disturb.
Her flower-patterned duvet was down almost to her waist, a sign of restless sleep or that the room was too warm. One little arm was bent so that her hand, and particularly her thumb, was near to her face; the other arm stretched down her side, the hand on top of a ruffled sheet. Her hair was curled around her cheek, almost hiding her profile. How I longed to lie down beside her and cuddle her.
A soft nightlight—a happy pink elephant lit up from inside—threw its comforting but limited glow into the room and, as if by habit, I checked the small gaily painted cabinet that stood next to the bed. Beneath the Winnie the Pooh lamp was her puffer. I remembered when the family doctor had first prescribed the Ventolin inhaler for Prim’s asthma, and how it broke my heart to watch her place it within easy reach on the bedside cabinet every night, as comforting to her—no, more so—as the white teddy bear, Snowy. You know, all children are precious, but your own are beyond value. To watch them suffer illness from time to time is a torment that most parents have to endure, but to know that the illness could be life-threatening, well, that’s sheer torture. Even the fact that asthma was a common malady among children these days—at least three other kids in her class were afflicted by it—made it no more tolerable.
I bent down to kiss her cheek, wishing I could draw back her curls with my fingers and, although I made no physical contact, she stirred in her sleep. Her head turned and her eyelids flickered for a moment, but never opened. The movement surprised me and I pulled back a few inches so that I could observe her. The restlessness did not last long; she soon returned to deep slumber, her narrow chest rising and sinking evenly. Her movement though had disturbed the blankets and the top half of a coloured photograph still in its frame was uncovered.
I closed my eyes to hold back the tears. Even though in the photo only my head and shoulders and the top of Prim’s head were in view, I knew which one it was. Andrea had taken the shot at least four years ago when I was pushing my daughter on a playground swing. I was laughing as I held the swing’s seat in which Prim was locked, ready to give it another almighty push so that she would sail “high into sky”, as she put it. Although most of her face remained concealed, I knew that she was laughing happily, only a tiny bit of fear—no, it was more excited apprehension—in her eyes, a long strand of hair—red in the sunshine—loose down her face, almost bisecting it. My increased sadness was both because I would never live such wonderful moments again and because Prim felt the need to have my picture in bed with her, like the inhaler, close at hand.
But then rage began to override my emotions. Oliver was to blame for my death; Oliver was the one who had lost my daughter her daddy; Oliver was the “friend” who’d stolen my wife. I stood up, blinded by tears that brimmed unshed in my incorporeal eyes, raging at the duplicity of it all. Oliver. We’d shared so many good times together, hard times too, building up the business, bouncing off each other with creative ideas, sharing either celebratory or consolatory drinks depending on whether accounts were won or lost. At times we’d been like brothers—no, probably closer than brothers, because there was no sibling rivalry between us—and we complemented each other as a team, he the garrulous but smooth and convincing talker who could charm clients as easily as he could charm women, and I, the quiet but plain-speaking one who was just a little shy in front of both clients and women. A great team with no jealousy between us, not a common thing where copywriter and art director are concerned, when invariably the politics of protectionism (towards ideas as well as status) raises its ugly head. Or so I had believed.
All those years, those good exciting years, he must have envied me for winning Andrea as my wife, even though he, himself, had ruined their previous relationship. Envied me so much that he had plotted to take her back for himself. All those years of deceit…
These black thoughts swept through me as I stood at my daughter’s bedside, the melancholy of a few moments ago overwhelmed by a boiling hatred against someone who had taken not only my wife, but my life also. With one last look at Prim, feeling a love for her that softened only the edges of my anger, I stole back out onto the landing. I heard Andrea’s voice as I came down the stairs.
“What do you expect of me, Oliver?” she was saying. “Jim has been dead for no more than a week and you think I can just dismiss him from my life?”
“I’m not suggesting you should, or even could, do that.” Oliver was talking in low, reasonable tones, the way he used to persuade clients our ad or campaign was great even if they themselves were not quite swept away by it. “But I want to end the deceit, Andrea. I want us to be together all the time.”
Oh, he wanted to end the deceit. Well that would be easy enough with me out of the way.
Andrea again, rising frustration in her voice. “You don’t understand how much I loved him, how I miss him now!”
Loved me? That was hard to get my head around. How could she betray me if she loved me so much?
“You loved us both, I accept that, Andrea. But be honest with yourself—you love me more. You always have.”
“You never made it easy for me. You would never leave me alone.”
“Jim and I had a thriving business partnership. I couldn’t just clear out, it wouldn’t have been fair to him.”
“Did you hear what you just said? You were screwing his wife and you thought it would be unfair to split up your business partnership? I can’t believe you ever saw things that way.”
Nor could I. Oliver wanted it all ways. He wanted my wife and he also wanted the success and revenue that our partnership brought him. Unbelievable.
