Three
O kay, so the thing is, until this point I wasn’t really seriously believing that his niceness was a facade designed to conceal the truly evil man that lurks within. But after seeing his board that belongs to every conspiracy-theory-wielding psychopath in a movie, and his ninety-seven pictures of random heads from magazines, and scribbled questions that scream I killed my wife and need to now cover it up ?
I feel like my fear seems a little more reasonable.
In fact, it feels so reasonable that when he knocks on my door some time later, I do not answer it. I go up to it and put my eye to the peephole instead. Then I just stand there watching him for far too long a time. As if maybe he’s going to reveal more of his terrible nature, if I just observe him enough.
Instead of what he actually does:
He paces. Bites his thumbnail. Stops himself biting his thumbnail and mutters what I think is ‘That is a terrible habit, stop it.’ Then he goes to knock again, but hesitates with his fist an inch from my door. Before very clearly saying, ‘Shoot,’ and drawing back. Like he thinks knocking twice is some sort of hideous faux pas.
And instead of doing it, he should start writing me a note.
Swear to god, he gets out a little pad and a pen, and starts scribbling. While murmuring whatever it is he’s trying to write down. ‘Don’t make excuses, don’t try to rationalize, just apologize for the ungodly things she just saw,’ I hear.
At which point, I realize I may have gotten this just ever so slightly wrong. Mostly because it’s not really possible to just apologize for wife murdering – and he will definitely know that. But also because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so sincerely do something like this.
And without even knowing I’m watching, too.
Halfway through composing the note he stops, seems to realize his shirt is untucked on one side, and then undoes his trousers to re-tuck it. I briefly see his whole underwear – and it’s even as mad as Mabel suggested. Full-on long johns, of the kind nobody would ever willingly let a stranger see. He’s definitely not putting on any kind of show for me.
So I open the door.
Hesitantly, and just a crack.
But a crack is enough. He turns at the sound, quite clearly shocked to hear it. Then he hits me with such an openly hopeful expression that it floors me even further. I’ve never seen a man look like that on seeing me. Hell, I’ve never seen anyone look like that on seeing anything.
It’s the kind of raw and naked expression you usually only get courtesy of the awful emotions, like agony. And then to cap it off, he says: ‘Let me just start out by telling you that I am so hugely, hugely sorry for everything you saw. Goodness knows what you must think of me.’
So really the only thing I can respond with is this:
‘Well, probably not that you murdered your wife, if this is any indication.’
And he clutches his chest when I do. Like that idea is so awful, it turns him into a cartoon dad having a heart attack. ‘Oh my stars, you think I murdered my wife and you still answered my knock on the door?’ he says, then just as I’m recovering from the animated character reaction and the fact that he said Oh my stars , he blows out a big breath and shakes his head. ‘Constance, for something like that you should be putting more doors in my way. Not opening the single one you have. In fact, you know what, probably you should close it again. Then keep it like that, until I’ve convinced you I’m not gonna sneak in and turn all your tin cans around the right way, while ominous classical music plays.’
Like in the movie with Julia Roberts , I think.
And it takes me by so much surprise that words just pop out.
‘So basically the plot of Sleeping with the Enemy ,’ I say, even though, with strange men, I usually keep any very specific nerdy movie knowledge I have on the inside. In fact, sometimes I keep it on the inside with friends. You can never tell who is going to think you’re weird for knowing about some nineties thriller.
But he just grins, and touches his nose with one finger, and points to me with another. ‘Precisely. Heck, I even have the scary moustache.’
‘Your moustache is not scary.’
‘Why, thank you. I really aim for super friendly with it.’
‘And you definitely achieve that. Except when you’re clearly enacting some kind of complicated, harrowing nightmare plan and don’t have time to fully maintain it, and then it gives off just a slight air of a perfect facade slipping.’
He snaps his fingers the second my words are out. Nods and hangs his head in this rueful, so that’s what it was kind of manner. And all of it so clear I know what he means before he says it. ‘Shoot, so it was the lopsidedness of it that gave me away.’
‘Yeah. And maybe also the slowly tilting hair.’
He nods again, with some vigour. ‘Oh, totally, I can see how that would be suspicious.’
‘It was. But not as much as the lines you stopped ironing into your khakis.’
I point, and he follows my finger with his eyes. This time, though, he kind of blinks, and half laughs, and shakes his head. And again, I feel I can almost read what he means right off his open face, before he explains. It tells me no, that one is evidence of something else.
Still, though, it’s pretty weird when he confirms.
‘Oh see, now the line thing – that wasn’t stress over being Julia Roberts’s evil husband in a movie. No, that one I just figured I should stop doing because I’m pretty sure it’s the reason kids throw things at me on the streets. Well – that and wearing a backpack over both shoulders. The other day they followed me all the way to work yelling, Hey, two straps . Which I have to assume, going on their fury, is some sort of terrible slur only Brits know,’ he says, and I want to reply explaining that it isn’t and I’ve no idea why anyone would shout that. I truly do.
But I can’t, because I’m too busy trying to take all of that in.
To process that he isn’t just messing around somehow. These things really happened to him. And he’s just completely matter-of-fact about them. Like he’s used to people being randomly abusive to him.
Then other people not finding that disturbing at all.
‘I’m babbling way too many things at you, aren’t I,’ he says – as if that’s why I’m speechless. But before I can correct the record, he continues, ‘If it helps at all, I’ve always been prone to talking a lot about things I should probably not reveal about myself. This isn’t just nervous energy because you’ve uncovered my dark secret.’
Aha , I think. But manage to restrain myself enough to not sound like a TV detective nailing the villain when I actually speak. ‘So you do have a dark secret, then. It’s just not wife murdering.’
‘It isn’t. But you’re probably going to think it’s almost as bad,’ he says, so gravely I’ve got to imagine it’s not that far off. Even if he does write extensive heartfelt apologies in hallways while adjusting his long johns, and has a face like an open book I’ve already read.
‘Then you kidnapped her somehow.’
‘A little less almost than that.’
‘You mutilated her dog?’
Man, the expression he makes for that one.
I almost wish I hadn’t said it. He looks like disgust at the idea and devastation for this imaginary dog are going to war all over his face. ‘Oh my gosh, that’s not a little less. That’s gonna give me nightmares until the end of time,’ he says. And you know what? I think I might be starting to seriously believe him on stuff like this.
It would certainly explain why I go with something sillier.
Like all of this has become almost fun now.
‘Okay, then, how about this? Maybe you kept moving her favourite ornament just a little to the right every day while denying that you had, so that she would just ever so gradually start to believe that she was going mad and voluntarily commit herself to an asylum,’ I say. But in response, the war on his face only deepens.
And now something like astonishment has joined in.
‘Dear lord, how on earth are you coming up with these things?’
‘I don’t know. You’re the one who said it’s close to murdering someone.’
‘Well, sure, but in my defence I clearly do not have anything like your incredibly powerful imagination for terrible things a frankly demonic person might do,’ he says, and to be fair to him, he’s right about the way my mind works. I am able to come up with some horrendous worst-case scenarios.
But the thing is, I’m not really doing it here.
This is me going easy, and yet I’m scandalizing him.
So I have to at least suspect, at this point, that he may not be the best judge of these things. ‘Either that, or your scale of evil is massively off,’ I say – but here’s the thing. He doesn’t even immediately seize on that as proof of his innocence in all matters.
Instead, he leans into it.
‘Okay, but how would we go about determining a thing like that?’ he asks.
Then, somehow, I’m leaning right back. I’m leaning right back, as if it makes all the sense in the world to do so.
‘Maybe by you suggesting stuff that belongs more in the middle.’
He scrunches that big face up. ‘Gee, I don’t know. Possibly... littering.’
‘I refuse to believe that’s a real suggestion you’re making.’
‘Not even if I mean the super-bad kind? That strangles sea turtles?’
‘Truthfully, the fact that you’re mentioning sea turtles only gives me more cause for alarm. And by cause for alarm here I mean either you are the greatest actor of all time or oh god, I think I have misjudged you really badly.’
Let it be the former , I think.
But I really don’t think it’s going to be.
He’s already shaking his head, sadly. ‘I wish I could say you have. But I reckon you’ll feel differently when you hear what I’ve done. Because I promise you, it’s definitely worse than the sea turtles thing. And the sea turtles thing made me cry when I saw a documentary about it,’ he says. And not even sheepishly, either. Or like he’s making some sort of weird joke. No, he’s completely matter-of-fact about it. Like it’s simply no big deal to him to admit tears.
Even though tears are never something men usually admit to.
It runs so contrary to everything I’ve ever known that I’m flummoxed.
‘You cried over a documentary?’ I find myself asking, even though my number-one rule is never letting men know that you’re starting to believe in them, or trust them. In fact, I barely let anyone ever know this.
Because the moment you do? That’s when they let you down.
Yet somehow, here I am totally sounding like I buy what he’s selling.
And he doesn’t even seem aware of how astonishing that is. He just looks pained, and then he blows out a weary breath. ‘Honestly I don’t want to say yes, because I can see how much I’m totally throwing you. But I’m afraid I have to, because one lie is enough on its own to make me feel incredibly nauseous. Two lies at once and I’m going to have to take another motion sickness tablet just to keep my dinner down.’
‘Okay, first of all, you need to know I am not thrown because I hate anything you’re admitting to me. This is just surprise on my face, not horror or disdain. And second of all: I feel like the motion tablet thing has got to be a joke. Like I know it probably must be. But now I kind of have to ask if it is, because you are so massively messing with my ability to judge what is real and what is not,’ I say. Then I laugh. I laugh, waiting for him to laugh, too.
But he winces.
He winces .
‘Hoo boy, no, it is not.’
‘So every time you lie you have to pop cruise ship pills.’
‘That is about the whole kit and caboodle of it, yeah.’
‘Even though that would mean either you don’t lie much, or you’re definitely taking over the recommended dose,’ I spell out. With firm underlining hand gestures, just to make it extra clear.
And somehow I get a nod. He nods . ‘Well, I didn’t need to before. But now I’m in this situation, probably yes.’
‘Beck, exactly how many are you taking of these tablets per day?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe three or four,’ he says.
And I swear I almost let out a sigh of relief.
Over a man I was terrified of five minutes ago.
‘Well, I guess that’s not so bad,’ I switch the sigh for at the last second.
But he does not give me a break. Instead he gets this look on his face, like he’s fighting something inside himself. Like he’s just bursting with it. Then, just as I’m about to ask if he’s okay, he lets out a bunch of words like a breath he can no longer hold. ‘Yeah, it wouldn’t be if I didn’t now need to take another one after lying to you about how many I’m taking. Because honestly it’s closer to twenty, but I just didn’t want to say that considering how absolutely terrifying it totally sounds.’
Then he actually makes a relieved noise. He puts his hands on his knees.
Like: thank god that agony is over . Though it’s not as if it’s over for me.
Honestly I’m thinking of calling an ambulance. In fact, the only reason I don’t is because I have no idea how to explain to paramedics that someone probably needs his stomach pumped due to a lie-induced overdose of motion sickness tablets.
And especially when I still don’t even know what said lie is.
I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s not something terrible, at this point.
But I kind of need to know, if a coroner is going to eventually inquire.
‘Look, as long as your wife is okay I don’t care what you’ve invented,’ I say. Only in response he doesn’t look relieved. He doesn’t seem pleased that he can now unburden himself. He just gives me the most despairing look.
And answers, in an even more despairing voice, ‘See, that’s the problem. Because the thing I invented? Is her .’