The Widow

Chapter 45

Friday, 18 August 2006

The Husband

GLEN TAYLOR HAD first caught sight of Bella Elliott on Facebook after meeting Dawn (aka Little Miss Sunshine) in a chat room. She was telling a group of strangers about her daughter and a trip to the zoo.

One of her new friends asked if there was a picture of Bella from the trip – one with the monkeys she had loved. Glen had eavesdropped idly on the conversation and when Dawn had referred everyone to her Facebook page, he’d looked. There was no security on the page and he flicked through Dawn’s photos.

When the image of Bella appeared, he looked at that small, confident face and committed it to memory, to be retrieved at will in his dark fantasies. Bella joined his gallery, but she wouldn’t stay there like the others. He found himself looking for her whenever he saw a blonde child in the street or in the parks where he sometimes ate his lunch when he was on the road.

It was the first time his fantasies had moved off the screen into real life and it frightened and thrilled him in equal measure. He wanted to do something. He wasn’t sure what at first, but during the hours at the wheel of his van, he started to plan a way to meet Bella.

Little Miss Sunshine was the key and he adopted a new avatar especially for encounters with her. Operation Gold had taught him that there must be no trail, so he’d stop at the internet café near the depot on his way back from jobs to enter Dawn’s world. He’d draw her into his.

He called himself TallDarkStranger and approached Little Miss Sunshine quietly, joining group chats when he knew she was in the room and saying little. He did not want to draw the wrong kind of attention to himself so he asked occasional insightful questions, flattering her, and gradually he became one of her regulars. Little Miss Sunshine sent her first private Instant Message to TallDarkStranger within two weeks.

Little Miss Sunshine: Hi, How you?

TallDarkStranger: Good. You? Doing much?

Little Miss Sunshine: Stuck at home today with my little girl.

TallDarkStranger: Could be worse. She sounds lovely.

Little Miss Sunshine: She is. Lucky really.

He wasn’t there every day. He couldn’t be, what with Jean and his job, but he managed to keep in contact for a while, using a quiet internet place Mike Doonan had taken him to once, when they were still speaking. Still visiting the same chat rooms and forums. Before Glen told the boss about the disability scam Doonan was pulling. He’d seen him jump out of his van outside Internet Inc. like a man half his age and felt it was his duty to expose his lie. It was what any right-minded person would do, he’d told Jean. And she’d agreed.

It was in the club that he built up the details of Dawn’s life. He had known her real name and Bella’s birthday from her Facebook page, and found out they lived somewhere in Southampton from a chat about child-friendly restaurants. Dawn favoured McDonald’s because ‘no one tuts when your kid cries – and it’s cheap’ and made special mention of her local one.

He called in the next time he was making a delivery down there. Just looking, he told himself, as he unwrapped a burger and watched the families around him.

When he left, he had a drive round. Just looking.

It took a while, but Dawn finally let slip the name of Bella’s nursery school as she chatted to another mother in the careless way she had developed online. Dawn treated every exchange like a private conversation – like the people on buses who talk on their mobile phones about the break-up of their marriage or genital warts. Glen mouthed a silent Yes and hugged the information to himself.

Later, sitting across from Jean over a chicken casserole, he asked about her day.

‘Lesley said I did a lovely job on Eve’s hair today. She wanted a Keira Knightley bob with red flashes. I knew it wouldn’t suit her – she looks nothing like Keira Knightley with that great round face – but she loved it.’

‘Well done, love.’

‘I wonder what her husband said when she got home. Do you want this last piece of chicken? Go on or it’ll go to waste.’

‘OK. Don’t know why I’m so hungry – I had a great big sandwich at lunchtime – but this is delicious. What’s on the box tonight? Isn’t it Top Gear? Let’s get the washing-up done quickly and go and have a look.’

‘Go on, you go. I’ll see to the dishes.’

He kissed the top of her head as he squeezed past her at the sink. While it filled with hot water, she put the kettle on.

Only when he was sitting in front of the television did he let himself take out the new information and examine it minutely. He knew where to find Dawn and Bella. He could go and wait outside the nursery and follow them. But what then? What was he thinking of? He didn’t want to think about it here, in his sitting room with his wife curled up on the sofa.

He’d think about it when he was on his own. Figure something out. He just wanted to see them.

Just wanted a look.

He wouldn’t speak to Dawn. He’d been careful to make sure she didn’t know what he looked like, but he couldn’t risk speaking to her. He had to keep her at arm’s length. Keep her behind the screen.

His next south-coast delivery was the following week, the day after his and Jean’s fifteenth wedding anniversary. It was crystal, according to Jean, and he’d made a big fuss of her with flowers and a meal out. But he hadn’t really been there at the table in their favourite Italian. Jean hadn’t seemed to notice. He hoped she hadn’t.

He felt sick with anticipation as he drove down the motorway. He’d looked up the nursery school in the internet club and had an address. He’d sit down the road and watch.

Glen arrived as the children were beginning to trickle out of the building, clutching pictures nubbled with painted pasta with one hand, their mums with the other. He worried he might have arrived too late, but parked so he could watch in his rear-view mirror and no one would be able to see his face.

He almost missed them. Dawn looked older and scruffier than in her Facebook photos, with her hair tied back and an old jumper swamping her. It was Bella he recognized first. Skipping along the pavement. Glen followed them in the mirror until they passed his van and he got his first direct sight. Close enough to see the smudged make-up under Dawn’s eyes and the golden glint of Bella’s hair.

They went round the corner and he started the engine. ‘Just want to see where they live,’ he told himself. ‘That’s all. Where’s the harm in that? They won’t even know I’ve been here.’

Driving home the back way, he pulled over and edged up a farm track, turned off his phone and masturbated. He tried to think about Dawn, but she kept sliding out of the picture. He sat afterwards, shocked by the intensity of the experience and afraid of the man he’d turned out to be. He told himself it would never happen again. He would stop going online, he’d stop looking at porn. It was a sickness and he’d get better.

He never used TallDarkStranger again and he dropped off Dawn’s radar in the weeks that followed, but on 2 October he was given a delivery in Winchester and he knew that he would drive down Bella’s street again.

He turned on the radio as he made his way, to distract himself, but all he could think of was that golden glint. ‘I’ll just look to see if they are there,’ he told himself. But when he stopped for fuel on the motorway, he bought a sleeping bag from the bargain basket and sweets.

He was so wrapped up in his fantasy that he missed his turning and had to double back to the garage. It felt dreamlike as he acted the delivery man for the customer, joking and asking after business, holding his secret close. He was on his way to Manor Road and nothing could stop him.

The danger was part of the reason he was doing it. Glen Taylor, former bank executive and devoted husband, could see the shame, the disgrace he risked by his actions, but TallDarkStranger wanted to stand close to it, to touch it, be singed by it.

‘See you soon, Glen,’ one of the blokes in the Parts Department called.

‘Yeah. Bye,’ he replied. He walked to the van and climbed in. There was still time to turn back, to go home and be himself again. But he knew what he would do and indicated to pull out.

Manor Road was deserted. Everyone was at work or indoors. He drove slowly, as if looking for an address, playing the part. Then he saw her, standing behind a low wall, looking at a grey cat rolling in the dust on the pavement. Time slowed and he found he’d stopped the van. The sound of the engine had distracted the child and she was looking at him and smiling.

He was jolted back to reality when a front door slammed shut behind the van, and in the wing mirror he saw an elderly man standing on the doorstep. Glen pulled away, turning left into a side street almost immediately, and drove around the block. Had the old boy seen him? Seen his face? And if he had, so what? He’d done nothing wrong. Just parked up.

But he knew he had to go back. The little girl was waiting for him.

The van pulled forward to turn back into Manor Road and Glen could see there was no one there. The only living things were the cat and the child, standing inside her garden, waving to him.

He didn’t remember getting out or walking over to her. He remembered picking her up and holding her and getting back in the van, strapping her into the passenger seat. It took less than a minute and she didn’t make any fuss. She took the sweetie and sat quietly as he took her away from Manor Road.