The Woman Next Door: A dark and twisty psychological thriller

It took a year of him asking before I gave in and went out with him for a drink. At 35, I was seeing colleague after colleague leave to have babies and time was beginning to pinch.

I went for the drink, then we had some country walks together. He told me he was ‘really falling for me’, after a couple of months. He’d been married before, but she died quite young. As for me, well, I’d never really met the right person.

He had all sorts of ideas and he was quite unlike anyone else I’d ever met. He liked to invent things in his spare time and was always saying he would come up with a gadget that would make our fortune.

It all turned out to be rubbish, of course, from the remote control that was also a holder for a cup of tea (for goodness’ sake) to the teddy bear that contained a ‘nappy pouch’. Rubbish, all of it. No one wanted to invest in any of his ideas, and in the end he had to set up a painting and decorating business. He couldn’t get a job anywhere else after Bentley’s closed down. I didn’t know about how weak and useless he was in the early days. He behaved like a gentleman and seemed to have something about him, so I suppose I was fooled.

When he proposed, after a rather lovely evening in an Italian restaurant, he went down on one knee, and I think I was genuinely happy in that moment. The future seemed so rich and full of possibility.

In those early days, I still thought that the ‘other’ side of things would start to be more enjoyable with a little practice.

When he made the bath suggestion, I’d tried to laugh it off, saying it was far too small. Then he’d caught me up in his arms and whispered into my hair that it would only be nice and snug. So we tried it and it was every bit as uncomfortable and unpleasant as I’d imagined. He insisted that I lay between his legs, facing away from him, and I could feel bits digging into my lower back straight away.

I closed my eyes and pictured the wonderful prize that was waiting for me after all this: a smiling, pink-cheeked baby.

I had so much love to pour into a child. I would have been the very best mother. It had always been my goal, ever since I was small. I had a baby doll called Susie-Sue that I loved until she was merely a torso with staring eyes and a grubby grey patina to her once-pink flesh.

I even thought I might call my own daughter Susie, although I also loved the name Rachel. For a boy, I had William and Daniel picked out long before there was any chance of a conception.

I waited so long. So very long.

‘Damn you, Terry,’ I say loudly, shocking myself when the words bounce back at me. I realize I have been digging my fingers into my arm again, the old habit resurfacing today. It is almost as though I have been outside myself, and I blink, a little shocked to see I am still in the bath and that the water is now quite cool.

I’m only aware now of an insistent sharp ringing and realize with a start that it is the front doorbell. I can’t possibly answer. Whoever it is has to go away.

But what if it’s Melissa? I don’t want her to think I wasn’t going to apologize.

I quickly climb out of the bath and pull on my robe, which clings unpleasantly to my damp, mottled skin. Stuffing my feet into slippers, I hurry out of the bathroom, calling out, ‘Hang on!’ in a voice that sounds shrill even to my own ears.

There are two shapes lurking behind the frosted glass and I hesitate as I get to the bottom of the stairs. It could be Jehovah’s Witnesses or something. Whoever it is, they are very insistent. The doorbell rings sharply again.

‘All right, I’m coming!’ I say to shut them up and fling open the door.

‘Oh,’ I say.

Jehovah’s Witnesses suddenly seem like very much the better alternative.

‘Hello Hester. I’m sorry if we got you out of bed.’

Saskia is wearing highly age-inappropriate shorts, a tight t-shirt, and oversized sunglasses that obscure most of her face.

Nathan looms just behind her. He’s looking down at the toe of his grimy white plimsoll as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. Most bizarrely, he’s holding two bunches of flowers wrapped in brown paper that I recognize from Petal and Vine, the overpriced flower shop down the road. One must be for Melissa, to say thank you for the party. But why the heck are they here, on my doorstep?

Have they come to tell me off? I am incensed by this thought and find myself blurting words out before Saskia can speak again.

‘If you’ve come round here to make me feel guilty,’ I say, ‘then I can assure you there is no need. I plan to apologize later. You can’t possibly make me feel any worse than I already do.’

Saskia reaches out her hand to touch my wrist, but I take a step back. She’s always touching people; it’s like she can’t speak without making physical contact with the person opposite her. Well, I’m in no mood for her nonsense today.

‘No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,’ she says in a voice that is even more gravelly than usual. ‘We’ve come to apologize to you. At least, Nathan has. Haven’t you?’ She says his name sternly and he steps forward.

The boy – and he really looks like a boy today – turns his strangely coloured eyes on me and his cheeks flush a deep pink under his light tan.

‘Yeah,’ he says and clears his throat before continuing. ‘The thing is, I did something really stupid. So it’s sort of my fault you puked up everywhere.’

I flinch at his coarseness. As if I need reminding!

‘Fuck’s sake, Nathe!’

I tut, loudly. She’s almost as bad as he is! No wonder he speaks like that. The boy shoots a panicked look at her.

‘Sorry! Um, what I mean is, I did a really moronic thing for a laugh. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal.’

‘What did you do?’ I want nothing more than for these ghastly people to disappear.

‘I spiked your drink,’ he says in a rush, glancing at his mother. The thin, tight line of her lips reveals the true age of her face.

‘What?’ I can’t seem to make sense of any of this.

‘You asked for a Pimm’s and I added a massive slug of vodka to it,’ he says, blushing harder.

My stomach seems to drop. ‘Why?’ I manage to breathe. ‘Why would you do something like that?’

He shrugs with one shoulder. I want to slap him hard around the face for being such a childish, pathetic specimen of a boy at sixteen.

‘I dunno, I only did it for a joke,’ he says. ‘I thought it would be funny to see you a bit pissed because you’re always so …’

‘Nathan!’ barks Saskia.

‘Sorry,’ he shoots another panicked look at his mother, then turns back to me. I can’t help feeling this entire apology is only really aimed at her.

‘I mean, I just didn’t … think,’ he says.

‘No,’ I say.

I can imagine so very clearly what it would feel like to strike that cheek. The smoothness, despite the speckle of juvenile beard. It’s so vivid in my mind, the satisfying slapping ring, the warm tautness of his young skin against my palm, that for a second I think I have actually hit him.

They are both staring at me, a little curiously now.

‘I really am sorry, Hester,’ he says, a bit more boldly. ‘I bought you these to apologize.’

I eye the flowers and then reach for them. They are beautiful and totally out of my budget. But I can’t bring myself to say thank you.

‘He bought them with his own money,’ says Saskia, a wheedling note to her voice. As if I should be impressed!

I want to tell them to go away but force myself to be polite. I will not stoop to the level of these appalling people.

‘I have things to attend to,’ I say. ‘Good afternoon.’ And I close the door in their faces.

I do still have some vestige of dignity.

MELISSA

Melissa takes the last bag of bottles out to the recycling bins in the alley at the side of the house. She has been working on the aftermath of the party all day. Furious, almost frenzied, cleaning that has made her old lower back injury throb and her arms ache. But the activity has done nothing to quash the thoughts that still swirl in her mind like dirty, buzzing flies.

Tilly, thank God, wanted to sleepover at a friend’s house tonight. Melissa had jumped to the task of driving her to Chloe’s in a way that made Tilly look at her askance.

As she was climbing into the car, she’d wondered about leaving Jamie alone in the house and hastily hid her laptop and jewellery in the safe upstairs. When she got back, he was still sleeping in the second guest bedroom. He has been there all day. No doubt luxuriating in her good sheets, like a pig in mud. Maybe he realizes that she’s getting rid of him the minute he pops his head out of that door.

She lifts a weary hand now to wipe away a strand of hair that has fallen from the band of her ponytail. Coming into the kitchen she tries to take pleasure in the way surfaces gleam, taps and sink sparkle. Nothing is cluttering the surfaces, which hold only a large pewter bowl, crowded with bright green limes, and the heavy stone pestle and mortar set that she had found in a village in Tuscany last year. It was so heavy they’d had to pay a fortune to get it shipped home. It is bluish-grey and speckled with little chips of gold and silver; a thing of such beauty that she has never actually used it to crush spices.

The rain has passed and the sun streams buttery light over the floor. Usually this room can calm her like no other place. This is her home. Everything in it is beautiful or useful. A great deal of money, time, and care have gone into making it like this.

It’s her sanctuary.

No one can take it away. But the gravitational pull of the past seems to suck at her.

The kitchen feels as insubstantial as if it were projected on one of those green screens they use for special effects in the movie business. Like it would be a second’s work to make it vanish.

She looks down at her hands and presses them to the table in an attempt to stop the trembling. Acid sloshes in her stomach. She has only had a piece of toast and honey all day but can’t face eating anything else. Sliding onto one of the kitchen chairs, Melissa puts her head in her hands, resting her elbows on the table.

Oh God, what have I done? she thinks. If someone had handed her a script for what not to do last night, she couldn’t have handled it worse.

The first mistake was letting Jamie cross the threshold. She should have quietly pulled the door behind her and told him that she didn’t want him here; that he wasn’t welcome. He would have complained, of course, put up an argument. But she could handle Jamie. Or, she could, once.

If Tilly hadn’t arrived at that precise moment, bursting with good intentions like the nice, well-brought-up girl she is; all wide-eyed with curiosity about this blast from her mother’s past, it would have been so much easier to get rid of him.

Blast was right. Jamie’s presence felt incendiary.

When she had emerged from cleaning up Hester’s sick, and got the bleary-eyed, apologetic woman into the main guest bedroom, Jamie was still in the sitting room as instructed, but he was now holding a beer and chatting to Tom and Lucy from down the road, who were among the last straggling guests.

Her one piece of luck had been that Saskia had taken a very drunk Nathan home early and had somehow missed Jamie entirely.

Tilly wasn’t there; perhaps, thought Melissa, she had trotted off to get him a fresh drink, an extra cushion, or a three course bloody meal.

He was telling a story; something about an old lady with a well-spoken voice berating a group of teenagers with a barrage of foul language on the bus. Melissa winced at the words, ‘And don’t you forget that, you little cunts!’

Tom in particular was laughing so hard he’d gone quite purple in the face.

‘The gob on her!’ said Jamie, basking in the attention.

This was new too. This raconteur who was comfortable taking centre stage in a house like this one.

Melissa had been swept up in conversations with other guests who were leaving then, but a little later, she’d come back to find Tilly ensconced on the sofa, long legs curled to the side, feet bare.

She’d let her hair down from the habitual bird’s-nesty bun and even brushed it, so it lay in soft waves around her face. Melissa peered at her daughter. Was that mascara? She barely ever wore make-up. Melissa felt a sick lurch.

But she was more concerned about what they may have been discussing. Flickers of real fear licked at her.

Her daughter knew her mother had had a difficult childhood with a short period (so she thought) with foster parents. But she hadn’t given her many details, just said that her mother had been ill and died young. Tilly had a phase, when she was seven or eight, of being quite obsessed with the subject. ‘Did your mummy have freckles on her nose like me?’ she’d ask. Or, ‘Were you really, really sad when your mummy died?’

Melissa thinks Mark eventually took Tilly to one side and explained that Mummy didn’t like to talk about her past. He had long since stopped asking and so had she.

Tilly’s voice now, still so high and young, despite her belief in her own sophistication, was filling the room. She was telling Jamie about her Duke of Edinburgh Gold, which had involved a night rough camping in the Lakes. And exaggerating wildly. She made it sound as though a bunch of wealthy teenagers, North Faced to the eyeballs, were polar explorers.

Jamie was all smiles and open body language, listening to Tilly speak, and Melissa had the strongest urge to grab this dirty magpie by the shoulders and forcibly eject him. He was sprawled with his legs apart, arms stretched proprietarily along the back of the sofa. Owning the space. Showing that he too might belong here, given the right circumstances, just like she did.

No.

But she knew she’d have to play this just right, remembering a hard seam of stubbornness in Jamie.

‘Mum, I’ve been trying to find out what you were like from Jamie but he’s a man of mystery,’ said Tilly, smiling up at her as she entered the room. ‘Keeps telling me to ask you about when you two were brother and sister.’

She’d met his eyes. He gazed coolly back at her, a slight smile playing on his lips.

‘We just lived with the same foster parents for a while, as I said.’ Melissa kept her voice light. ‘We’re not related in any way.’

Jamie flashed her a sly grin and leaned over to pick up the voluminous glass of red wine he’d acquired since she had last seen him.

Melissa bought those wine glasses for Mark on his last birthday; they were almost eighty pounds each. Mark always said they made red wine taste even better because they were so pleasing to hold. Melissa had to fight an impulse to lean over and remove the glass from Jamie’s hand.

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