The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

HE DID NOT ALWAYS SEE HER by Claire Seeber

JEFF HELPED OLIVIA choose the February book, steering her heavily towards Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There were a few inward groans when Olivia had mumbled her idea at the last meeting. The group preferred modern books: they often enjoyed the Daily Mail’s selection, or the ones that chat-show couple chose. But actually, they all agreed at the meeting, Shelley had hit on something with the creation of the monster. It was hard to imagine it being written by a woman. And, of course, they were most happy to be at Olivia’s house with Jeff on hand, so charmingly attentive.

When the women left that evening, tapping out into the cold clear night beneath the few stars visible in Chiswick’s busy skies, Olivia loaded the dishwasher, wiped all the worktops down, and went up to bed. Jacqueline had lingered; was taking a particularly long time to finish the oily Chardonnay Jeff had so thoughtfully provided, still simpering with spectacular adoration at his jokes. Olivia didn’t worry that they’d think her rude for slipping off; her husband would be happy to see Jacqueline out.

Upstairs Olivia peeped in at her daughter, cleaned her teeth and then checked her son. Her heart turned over to see he’d slipped his thumb into his mouth, a habit long fought. His hair was slightly damp and his face flushed. Olivia turned the radiator down and gently tried to disengage his thumb, checking quickly over her shoulder. By the time Jeff had managed to steer an equally flushed Jacqueline out towards her enormous car, Olivia was asleep. He didn’t want to have to, but Jeff woke her anyway. He was off on business for ten days early the next morning.

If you keep still for long enough, do you cease to exist? Olivia wondered as she stared out of the kitchen window. The late snow was melting slowly on the small green lawn until the patch looked rather like the Pacer mints she used to steal from Woolworth’s as a child. Absently Olivia rinsed the last plate until it shone, gazing at the pathetic leaning ball of raisin eyes and carrots that had once been a snowman, the radio beside her rattling with a phone-in about women being ignored in the bedroom.

“If he doesn’t see me as I want to be seen, do I not exist?” moaned a well-spoken academic-type called Miriam. “Do I simply not count in his eyes?”

The presenter murmured sympathetically and moved on swiftly.

Olivia felt a sudden urge to scream loudly. Instead she staunched the hot tap, sealing off the heat that aggravated the deep welts on her left hand. She stared down at the marks, labels of her own weakness. Her youngest wandered in, treading neat muddy footprints across the spotless floor.

“Can I have some crisps?” she asked, but she was already rifling through the cupboard where they lived, her auburn ponytail sleek against her back.

“Can you see me?” Olivia asked her daughter curiously.

“Dur!” her daughter replied, rustling plastic. “I’m not blind, Mum, you know. I don’t have a white stick.” She chose a packet of prawn cocktail flavour and wandered off again. They were ridiculously pink, Olivia observed vaguely, wiping down the sink. Prawns weren’t naturally that pink, were they?

He came home early, before Olivia had a chance to clean the mud off the back step. “Hello,” she said nervously. “Good trip?” He checked the kitchen in silence. She held her breath; she thought she’d got away with it – then he opened the back door to check. He looked at her just once, his handsome face inscrutable. In silence, he went upstairs; in silence he came down again, out of his shirt and tie now, wearing a blue tracksuit with white stripes down the side that showed off his tall frame nicely but was frankly horrible in Olivia’s eyes. He wasn’t the young boy she’d fancied from afar in the refectory any more; he’d taken up running recently to fight his paunch. She wondered if he thought the stripes would make him go faster. Not that she would offer such a frivolous opinion these days.

Olivia had cleaned the mud up now but it was too late, she knew. She also knew that if she crouched in the corner she only inflamed his rage, inflamed it ’til it bubbled; he saw her rather like a dog, cowering from its master. Well, she was a dog, to him.

“Bitch,” he would snarl, his face contorted until he was positively ugly. So instead she chose to stay still when she recognized the signs.

Now she lay flat on the gleaming kitchen floor. She lay flat but her head felt fuzzy.

“What the hell are you doing?” he scoffed, opening the fridge and helping himself to a pork pie. It was very sturdy and compact, Olivia noted from her horizontal position. A small tight structure of pastry, meat and fat.

“I thought I’d save you the bother,” she answered her husband quietly. She could see dirt, some old cat-hairs, a bit of fluff stuck in strange yellow muck on the skirting-board. Luckily he never got this low.

Her eldest walked into the room and stopped when he saw her. “Have you hurt your back again, Mummy?” he asked, but his eyes were anxious. He moved towards her.

“It’s a bit sore, sweetie, yes. You go on now.” She forced a smile. “Get on with your maths. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Her husband laughed mirthlessly, throwing his head back, spraying tiny fragments of pork pie across the sparkling worktop.

“Your mother’s a daft bint,” he spluttered to his son, eventually recovering himself. When he laughed, his tracksuit top rode up, showing the top of wiry dark-red pubic hair. Olivia felt quite nauseous. “Did you know that, Dan? A daft fucking bint.”

“You shouldn’t call her that,” her eldest muttered, his eyes steadfastly on the floor.

Her husband stopped laughing. He stared at his son.

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Dan said, a little louder now, his pale face flushing with the effort of challenging his father. “It’s horrible.” He looked up this time, directly at the older man.

“Get out, Dan,” Olivia said quickly, scrambling to her feet. She knew what came next.

As her husband made a lunge for Dan, the remnants of the pork pie smashing on to the shining tiles, Olivia thrust herself in front of her ten-year-old son. “Go!” she shouted at him. With a stifled sob, he went.

After the beating, a hot-eyed Olivia struggled to hold back the tears – but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Long gone were the days when he held her and cried himself, begging for forgiveness. Long long gone.

She had found that if she kept very still he did not always see her. Over time, a long and weary time that eventually amounted to most of her adult life, Olivia realized that this was likely to be her safest option. Not necessarily her salvation, but the best bet laced on a short string of bad ones.

She leaned against the worktop trying to quell her shaking; eventually she asked her husband, “If I leave you, what would you do?”

He regarded her calmly. He picked a bit of pork out of his teeth and spat it on the floor. “Him, for a start.” He gestured with his head at the door their son had left through. He smirked at her, then trod the pork pie carefully into the small cracks between the terracotta tiles. “Little shit.”

On his way out of the room he picked up the copy of Frankenstein stacked neatly with the cookbooks.

“And this was quite obviously written by her husband,” he snapped, “stupid bitch.” He chucked the paperback at Olivia’s head; she didn’t duck quite in time. Then he scooped up the phone to call his great friend Bert. “Booked the course, you hound?” Jeff barked with laughter at the response, and slammed the door behind him.

Olivia stared down at the squashed pork pie, his words reverberating round her throbbing head. “Him for a start.” The pork pie reminded her of her wedding breakfast, the time when love and hope meant more than empty promises. He hadn’t hit her until a few weeks after the honeymoon. Until they were on the other side of the world; settling in Jakarta for his work. Until she made the wrong rice for his dinner; until she had no one familiar to turn to and no money of her own. Until she could only wander tearfully on the beach, stepping over the coconut-leaf offerings outside each Hindu home and wondering what she’d done; already sick and pregnant in the humid nights with her beloved son.

When the book club arrived for their next meeting at Olivia’s house, they were surprised that Jeff was out. He was always there, welcoming them, pouring the wine, joshing them gently in the way they loved, flattering them and making them think: If only. He took so much more interest than any of their husbands; in fact, sometimes he even suggested the books that Olivia picked to read.

“Lucky Olivia,” they’d sigh. “Such devotion. Such a family man. And still so handsome too.” Olivia would smile wanly and deep down they’d think: Stupid cow, she doesn’t deserve him, such a cold woman, so difficult to get close to, so thin and brittle. But they put up with her for Jeff. Lovely man.

This cold March night, Olivia had served up a proper treat. Bowls of glistening green olives, sparkling wine, thick pâté and creamy Brie, a plate of crusty, homemade-looking pork pies beside dark red tulips as the centrepiece. Olivia seemed different too. She had some colour in her cheeks for once; she didn’t look quite so thin and she’d cut her hair to a sleek and shiny bob that hung just above her shoulders. If you looked closely you might have seen the small scar that marked her forehead, the exact shape of a book corner, but her new fringe hid it well.

“I thought Jeff loved your long hair?” Cathy asked quizzically.

“He did.” Olivia took a big sip of her Prosecco. “But I hated it. So I had it cut right off.”

“And where is he?” Cathy asked girlishly, looking through the open door into the hall as if Jeff might step in at any moment. “I quite miss him now he’s not here.”

“Do you?” Olivia smiled shyly. “I find it very – quiet now he’s away on business.”

“And where’s he gone, the naughty man?” asked Jacqueline with a pained fuchsia smile, secretly ruing the two hours she’d spent that afternoon in Hair Flair having her thin hair bouffed.

“Back to Indonesia; they couldn’t do without him, they found. He really is a telecommunications expert, it seems.” Olivia drained her wine. “He might be gone some time.” She picked up the plate of golden pastry with a steady hand, the little handmade leaves on top of each pie curling in the soft electric light, and offered it around. “Pork pie, anyone?”