The Vanishing Point

24

The first shockwas that Pete was still there. His carwas parked outside my house and the bedroom curtains were still closed at half past ten. ‘That doesn’t look good,’ Scarlett said. ‘I thought you said he was supposed to be at work this morning?’

‘That’s what he said.’ But it looked as though he’d changed his mind. Or I’d changed it for him.

‘Do you want me to come in with you?’

To be honest, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go in at all. Pete’s rage had unsettled me as well as frightened me. That he was still there indicated I’d been wrong about him getting over his tantrum. I didn’t want to confront that anger again. Ever. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life. In my head, I was finished with him. No amount of contrition could undo those moments of unchained fury and the promise of violence they held. ‘Let’s wait a bit,’ I said.

‘OK.’ Scarlett reclined the seat and closed her eyes. Since Jimmy’s birth, she’d developed the enviable habit of being able to catnap anywhere, at any time. I might be on tenterhooks. But Scarlett was asleep within a couple of minutes. I listened to the radio and her soft snores, trying to slow my own breathing to her rhythm.

It was almost eleven when the front door swung open and Pete emerged. Even from a distance, he looked wild-eyed and unshaven. As shocking as his appearance was the fact that he left the front door wide open behind him as he hustled down the path and into his car. The tyres screeched as he shot away, rousing Scarlett from her slumber.

‘Wassup,’ she grumbled. ‘Wassit?’

‘Bastard,’ I said, already halfway out of the car.

She caught me up on my doorstep. ‘He left the door open?’

‘Obviously hoping for some passing burglar,’ I said bitterly over my shoulder as I walked in. Then stopped short. The hallway looked like the burglary had already happened. And a pretty spiteful one at that. Pictures had been stripped from the walls and dropped to the floor. Broken glass and fragments of frames were trodden into the carpet. A couple of the prints themselves were torn where a foot had gone through them.

‘Oh, shit,’ Scarlett said from behind me. I was beyond speech.

I didn’t want to go any further for fear of what I would find. A heady brew of smells was enough of a clue to what lay ahead of me. But uncertainty was worse than anxiety. I walked into what had been my beautiful open-plan ground floor living space and staggered as my knees lost the power to hold me straight. Scarlett grabbed me, saving me from collapsing amid the ruins of my kitchen. Now I knew what Pete had been doing all night.

It looked as if he’d opened every cupboard and drawer and swept the contents to the floor. Broken crockery, jars and bottles lay in random heaps linked by piles and pools of flour, rice, jam, pasta, ketchup, olives, oil, melted ice cream and alcohol. In the living space beyond, books and CDs were strewn all over the floor, more broken pictures and frames scattered over them. I thought I was going to throw up.

‘I’m going to fucking kill him,’ Scarlett said. ‘I swear to God.’ She picked up an overturned chair and lowered me into it. ‘But first I’m going to call the cops.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t do that. He’ll twist his way out of it.’

‘How can he? We saw him leave.’

‘I saw him leave. You were still asleep.’

‘So? He doesn’t know that. I’ll tell the five-oh I saw him walk away and leave the door open.’

‘He’ll only lie about when he left. He’s got mates that’ll lie for him. It’s what they do, men like him. They gang up on us. And he’ll drag you into it. He’ll get his version out there. Hysterical men-hating women, that’s what we’ll be.’ I dropped my head into my hands.

‘You can’t let him get away with this,’ Scarlett protested. ‘Bastards like him, we need to stand up to them.’

‘Let somebody else do it,’ I said, on the verge of tears. ‘I haven’t got it in me, Scarlett. He’ll win and then I’ll wind up feeling worse. If that’s possible.’

She looked mutinous, but she backed off. ‘You’re coming back to mine, then,’ she said decisively. ‘I’m going upstairs to pack a bag for you. No arguments.’

I sat there, stunned. The wreckage of my home felt like a dark stain inside me, spreading like dirty oil over a warehouse floor, tainting everything in its path. I loved this house and what I’d made of it. And he’d trashed it without a care, all because I’d wounded his precious male pride. How could I have missed this coiled rage lurking inside him? How could I have loved someone with this darkness at his heart?

Eventually, Scarlett reappeared, looking shaken. ‘I sorted out some clothes, and packed up your laptop and all the papers on your desk. Let’s go.’

Numb, I followed her out to the car, pointlessly locking the door behind me. I let Scarlett drive. Traumatised as I was, I still wanted to survive and I knew I wasn’t safe behind the wheel in that state.

Back at the hacienda, she dosed me up with tea and Valium and packed me off to bed. I slept on and off for the best part of twenty hours, and when I re-emerged into consciousness, I felt almost human.

I found Leanne and Scarlett in the kitchen, diaries open on the worktop as they went through their plans for the week. Scarlett leapt up and swept me into her arms. ‘How’re you doing, babe?’

‘Crap. But I’ll live,’ I said, disentangling myself and heading for the coffee machine. ‘I think I need to get a locksmith over there to change the locks. The bastard didn’t have keys before but he might have helped himself to my spares.’

‘No need,’ Leanne said briskly. ‘It’s all sorted.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I got a locksmith out there soon as we got back yesterday,’ Scarlett said. ‘And a professional cleaning crew. You won’t have to look at the state he left your place in again.’

That’s when I finally did cry over what Pete the bastard had done. Looking back at it now, I do take solace from the fact that it was kindness rather than malice that provoked that response.

Pete had done everything in his power to make me doubt the reality of Scarlett’s friendship. If I’d harboured any doubts, they died that morning. I knew Scarlett and I had the kind of bond that makes women friends for life.

I only wish we’d had longer to enjoy it.