James sat at the end of the bar and drank pints of lager, steadily, throughout the afternoon. When the early evening brought the darkness he moved to an armchair near the fireplace and switched to whisky. He was aware of the woman behind the bar watching him, keeping an eye on his alcohol consumption, and he was pleased when she finally finished her shift and Jace Lewis took over.
The pub emptied out around six pm, apart from a couple of regulars at the bar and James nursing his whisky by the fire. He looked up, surprised, when Jace joined him with two cups of coffee.
“I’d rather have another whisky,” he grumbled.
Jace sat down opposite him and smiled, good-naturedly. “Humour me and have the coffee first. I’ve ordered you a ham sandwich too.”
“I’m not hungry,” James said, truculently. “And you’re not my bloody wife.”
“No, you’re right,” Jace agreed with a laugh. “I’m just a concerned landlord who wants a good customer to sober up a bit before I send him home to his bloody wife.”
James smiled, thinly, and picked up the mug. “You’re probably right. It will only make things worse if I roll up back at the damn house ten sheets to the wind.”
“Have you got far to go?”
“The white house on the outskirts of the village,” James replied, morosely. “I wish we’d never moved there. It was meant to be a new start, somewhere to forget the past and change our lives, but if anything it’s made everything worse.”
“You’re not going to improve things by sitting here getting drunk, James,” Jace said, quietly. “Drink the coffee, eat the sandwich and go home, my friend.”
James thought of Elise alone in the white house and all her expectations and the disappointment that crushed him the second he walked through the front door. He thought of Amy Collins in her cosy little home and the pleasure she would give him if he went there instead. He contemplated it for a few moments…imagined knocking on her door and the kiss she’d greet him with then he dismissed it from his mind. He was too drunk and she deserved more than a pissed confused middle aged man searching in the wrong place for things he had no business wanting.
He would go home to Elise and the white house. He had to forget about Amy Collins.
******
Night had fallen and a storm had blown in from the sea when Elise drove, slowly, back into Porth Kerensa. The wind howled, viciously, and the heavy rain battered, relentlessly, at her windscreen affording her little visibility. Her heart sank when she approached the white house and noted that none of the lights were on. James was obviously still out and the thought of going back into the house at night, all alone, terrified her now.
She had driven for miles, across the county border into Devon, and filled her day with new sights and sounds. However, she hadn’t managed to shake the memory of the horrifying growling laughter that had chased her out of the white house. She had been nervous and jumpy all afternoon, as if it was tailing around after her, waiting for an opportunity to hurt her again. The scratches across her shoulder burned and stung every time she moved, reminding her that she was dabbling in things she didn’t understand; things that suddenly seemed more realistic than she liked.
She parked her car and sat for a few minutes looking up at the house. She had loved the look of it, instantly, the day they had arrived, despite her reservations about whether she could save her marriage. Now, in the dark with the rain lashing down, the white house looked forbidding and unwelcoming.
She almost jumped out of her skin when someone tapped, sharply, on the passenger side window. It was Ben Lancaster, smiling apologetically and getting increasingly wetter in the rain. Elise gestured for him to get in the car and he did so, quickly.
“Are you okay? I saw you just sitting here staring up at the house and it worried me,” he said with genuine concern in his voice.
“Yes, yes…I’m fine,” she replied, quietly.
The look in his eyes told her he didn’t believe her, but he simply said, “I’m sorry about earlier. To be honest I thought it would cause less trouble for you if I didn’t answer you, but I felt awful about it all day.”
Elise sighed and said, “I’m the one who should apologise. James isn’t normally so unreasonable.”
Ben reached out and caressed her face, gently. “If everything is okay with you, why do you look scared and lonely?”
For a few seconds she leaned in against his touch, drawing strength from it before she said, “Honestly, I’m fine, Ben.”
Ben shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but a loud thud against the boot cut him off and a few seconds later James wrenched the door open, reached across and yanked, furiously, at Ben, pulling his hand away from Elise.
“I fucking knew there was something going on between you two,” he yelled, furiously. “Did you find a nice hotel and spend the day screwing my wife? I’m going to rip your fucking head off, you bastard.”
“James,” Elise cried, disbelievingly. “What the hell are you doing? There’s nothing going on between us, for God’s sake!”
“I just fucking saw you,” James growled, angrily. “I saw you, Elise.”
Despite the fact James was shorter than Ben he managed to drag him from the car even as Elise was scrambling out and running round to break up the scrap. James threw a drunken punch which Ben avoided before Elise threw herself at her husband, grabbed hold of his clenched fist and hung on to his arm for dear life.
“Please, Ben, just go,” she begged. “I’ll sort this out.”
“I will kill you if I ever see you near my wife again,” James snarled, venomously, trying to shake Elise off his arm as if she was nothing more than a tiresome puppy. With a vicious flick he achieved it and she fell against the car.
James charged at Ben who responded by sidestepping him at the last second and James lost his balance, slipped and crashed down onto the wet driveway with a humiliated cry. He lay, winded, face down on the floor, gasping for breath and Elise ran to his side, kneeling down in the puddle to make sure he was alright.
She glanced up at her neighbour and pleaded, “Please just go, Ben. I’ll get him indoors and sober him up. He’ll be mortified about this tomorrow. I told you he’s not normally like this.”
“Get off me, Elise, I’m going to kill the bastard,” James muttered, trying to get to his feet.
“I don’t think I should leave you, he’s a drunken mess,” Ben said, tightly.
Elise pulled James to his knees. “It’s this bloody house,” she mumbled. “I have to get him away from here. Please, leave us alone, Ben. I promise you it’ll be alright.”
Reluctantly, Ben backed away, watching Elise drag James, who was still shouting insults, into the house.
James pulled his arm free of Elise’s grip the second she pushed him through the front door and flicked on the lights. He stumbled upstairs, muttering under his breath, and Elise went into the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. She leant against the counter and covered her face with her hands, replaying exactly what had happened in the last few moments. Upstairs she could hear James thudding around the lounge, cursing, and she shuddered.
He was pacing the room, holding a glass of whisky, when she went upstairs with two mugs. He watched her place them on the table and pick up the magazines which she tidied into a neat pile and his anger grew hotter the longer she pretended everything was fine and he hadn’t just caught her saying goodbye to her lover.
His voice was low and vicious when he said, “How long has it been going on, Elise? And don’t deny it, because I saw you together. I saw him touching you.”
Finally, she turned to look at him. Her voice was calm and her eyes were kind when she said, “We’re not having this conversation when you’re drunk because it makes you completely unreasonable.”
He knew he had no right to accuse her of anything when he’d been buried inside Amy Collins the night before, but her tone of voice irritated him. It was patronising and it piled fuel on his fire of rage, guilt and humiliation.
“Why don’t you just answer the fucking question, Elise?”
Impatience flared in her green eyes and she sighed. “Because it’s a ridiculous question, James, and you know it. I’ve never given you any reason to think I’m cheating on you with anyone, let alone Ben Lancaster.”
The word cheat flashed through his thoughts, flaming his blazing guilt and he snarled, “I’m not stupid, Elise; I know you’re attracted to him and I saw him touching you.”
“I was attracted to a man who served me at a café today, too; but it doesn’t mean I’m shagging him or Ben,” Elise replied, crossly. “You’re being silly, James. This thing with Ben is all in your head, for goodness sake, and if you were sober you’d know that.”
“That’s rich coming from you, Elise. Don’t talk to me like I’m a bloody child,” he said, quietly.
“If you weren’t acting like one I wouldn’t.”
He took a step towards her and his voice oozed venom when he said, “You’re not my mother, Elise. You’re no one’s mother.”
She paled and swayed, as if he had stabbed her in the chest. “You bastard,” she whispered, bitterly. “You utter fucking bastard.”
Remorse sliced through him when he saw the hurt in her eyes and he moved closer, holding his hand out towards her, apologetically. “Elise, I’m sorr…”
She pushed his hand away, for her anger was like a tsunami crashing through her veins. “You don’t even know who your fucking mother is. You’re right; I am no one’s mother anymore, but at least I never abandoned my baby boy. At least I never did that to my child,” she hissed, spitefully.
“You can’t keep any of your babies alive, Elise, so you hardly win ‘Mother of the fucking year’ award,” James replied, maliciously. “You’ve always made me feel like it was my fault you had to resort to using someone else’s sperm, but we both know that it’s your poisonous womb that’s really the problem.”
Elise flew at him with both fists flailing and hitting at whichever part of him she could reach. She didn’t even realise she was screaming, unintelligibly, until he grabbed both her wrists in one hand and clamped his other over her mouth. His face was dark and his grey eyes burned with rage when he glared down at her. She whimpered beneath his hand and wriggled, trying to get away from him, but his hold on her only tightened.
James stared into the depths of her green eyes where fear warred with sadness and he felt the familiar surge of power and anticipation flood through him. She was frightened of him because she knew he was in control and could do whatever he wanted. Slowly, he moved his hand from her mouth, ready to shut her up if she began screaming again.
“James, please stop this,” she whispered, timidly. “Please, stop, before we go too far.”
His anger dissipated, instantly, but he didn’t let her go. “We always go too far,” he replied, roughly.
“Please, I want us to be happy together, like we used to be. I don’t want this anymore,” she begged, squirming uncomfortably in his grasp.
He lifted his left hand and caressed her face, oddly tender. “You want what you’ve always wanted, Elise, you can’t hide that even if you think you can. Is it any wonder I don’t believe you won’t take the first opportunity to jump into bed with any man you think might give you the child you crave?”
Tears sprang into her eyes and she lent her head against his hand. “James, what can I do to make you believe that part of my life is over? I’ll get sterilised if it will convince you that I’ve given up that dream.”
He let go of her wrists and sank down onto the sofa. “Almost every fucking night I find you somewhere in the house; singing a lullaby whilst you rock an imaginary child in your arms. You’re obsessed, Elise.”
She knelt in front of him and held his hands, gently, in her own. She gazed up into the face she had loved for half her life and she cursed herself for the insecurities she had given him, for the doubt in his eyes and the walls she had built between them. She had loved him, but with every miscarriage she’d been through she’d grown to hate him too.
She’d resented him for not being the one who had to suffer. She kept him away from the scene so he never saw all the blood that poured out of her…so much blood it had made her want to puke. However, she’d hated him for all the nights he had slept, peacefully, while she’d sat hunched up on the toilet, crying out at the pain that ripped through her womb as yet another foetus tore itself out of her.
She’d hated him most after Noah died. She detested the easy way his life went back to normal while she drowned in unimaginable grief. She hated him for staying strong when she completely fell apart. She hated herself more for wishing it had been him she’d lost instead of Noah.
For a few seconds she imagined telling him about the ghost-child haunting the house, but she didn’t think he would ever accept it. Her track record would make it impossible for him to believe her. He had seen her in the grip of the very worst tricks a mind could play on itself and he would probably always doubt her. She knew that however much he loved her he was the closest he’d ever been to walking away from her and never coming back.
Only a few weeks before she would have shrugged and sagged with relief when he left, but it was different now. She had lost too much in her life and she didn’t want to lose James too.
She wouldn’t allow herself to lose him, not after all they’d been through.
She raised his hands to her lips and kissed them. “I promise that you’re the only one I want, James. I swear to you.”
He bent his head and kissed her hair, inhaling the scent of her Freesia perfume and he remembered Amy Collins wrapped around him the night before. The anger he’d wallowed in was gone now, leaving only the terrible guilt churning inside him, but he couldn’t help wondering where it had come from in the first place and why he’d said such horrible things to the only woman he’d ever truly loved.
Raising his head he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the patio door and he almost gasped for he didn’t recognise the face that appeared to mask his own for a few seconds. His expression could only be described as a snarl and his eyes glinted with a fury that James instantly reconciled with. It was the anger that overwhelmed him when he gave it room to grow in his head.
James flinched and Elise looked up at him, worried.
“Are you ok?”
He pulled his hands from hers and wiped one across his forehead. “I feel strange, El. I don’t know what keeps coming over me, but I don’t like it. This house…” he whispered.
She tried to keep the eagerness from her voice when she said, “This house…what?”
He shook his head, roughly, and stood up. “Nothing, I’ve drunk too much as usual. I’m sorry for the things I said, El, and for trying to hit Ben bloody Lancaster. I’m going to bed, if you don’t mind.”
He didn’t wait to hear her answer and he stumbled upstairs after using the bathroom and collapsed, fully dressed, on his bed. He had never thought of Elise as someone who would cheat on him; until the day she broached the subject of having an IVF baby, fertilised by someone other than her husband. He had looked into her green eyes, shining with determination, and he’d known exactly how far she would go to get the baby she yearned for if he said no. In the light of her cat’s eyes he had glimpsed a woman who would do whatever it took.
She never knew that he cried with relief when the first two attempts failed and he never admitted to anyone that he spent the first three months of her pregnancy with Noah, hoping that her body would reject the IVF embryo as easily as it had the babies he’d made with her. He watched her get bigger and happier as the months passed…and his jealousy grew as quickly as the baby in her traitorous womb.
He hated the anonymous donor for giving his wife the one thing she wanted most in the world, but he had tried not to hate the growing baby. He hated himself for being a failure and he hated himself more for the tiny twinge of relief he’d felt, deep in his gut, when the doctor told them the baby had died in his wife’s womb. It had assuaged his unspoken fear that the problem had always been him and that another man would eventually give Elise what she was desperate for, but he had detested himself.
When they’d been in Greece, after the death of Noah, James had tried to broach the subject of adoption, but Elise had told him that it was all over. She’d said nothing in her life again would ever live up to the feeling of her own baby growing and moving inside her. If she couldn’t have that she would rather die.
A few days later she’d attempted suicide and he’d had her sectioned. They’d never spoken of adoption again and she moved into a different bedroom when she came out of hospital. She was cold and distant; making it crystal clear their physical relationship was over.
He recalled the vicious words she had thrown at him during one of their rows.
“Why would I want to? We can’t make a baby that survives past nine weeks. Deep down you hated me for having another man’s baby, but it’s you who drove me to it. All you ever gave me was heartache and loss. So much fucking loss; is it any wonder I stopped wanting you to touch me?”
It had been one of the most honest and hurtful things she’d said to him in years and it had only confirmed what he’d suspected for a long time. The wall she had erected between them was built on foundations of blame and he was too weighed down with guilt to try and climb it.