By Brian Wright
I loved her once, I think to myself, looking on from the shadows as she slowly undresses in front of the large mirror in what used to be our bedroom.
Perhaps I still do, in spite of everything.
She goes into the bathroom and switches on the shower, giggling as the water strikes her supple frame. If she saw me watching her, the laughter would soon turn to screams.
But perhaps she never really noticed me, even from the first.
I always accepted that she was shallow and self-centred, fascinated by her own good looks. That was half the attraction, perhaps, to get her to register my presence. I was full of confidence in those days. It helped, too, that I was wealthy and successful in my job. She expected no less.
The warning was there from the start, I suppose, the vindictiveness she showed in her divorce case.
Yet all I could see were the big hazel eyes filled with tears, the perfect mouth that spoke of ill-treatment and neglect. The poor wretch, her husband, didn’t stand a chance, even the judge surreptitiously admiring her tragic beauty in the courtroom.
She made her gratitude plain when we went for a drink to celebrate victory. Hoping it was more than sympathy on her face as I spoke of my own divorce, I received only a peck on the cheek at the door of her luxury flat, the home I’d enabled her to keep. But there seemed to be a promise in her eyes.
I pursued her ferociously after that - with costly flowers and astronomically expensive meals. She accepted my generosity with thanks and a dazzling smile, but obviously felt no obligation to return any favours. I still couldn’t get past her front door. She told me she was seeing someone else.
Although I had no reason to think she was lying - my own eyes revealed her attractiveness to other men - it made me redouble my efforts.
The breakthrough came when I invited her to Paris for the weekend. I could see her pleasure at my offer, the realisation on her face that perhaps I was turning into a good long-term bet.
As we were shown into one of the best suites in the Ritz, I sensed that she was even more impressed. That same afternoon, under silk sheets, we made love for the first time. She wasn’t especially passionate, but I felt privileged just to be so close to her, to feel the softness of her lips, smell the fragrance of her skin.
In the evening, over dinner, we talked seriously for almost the first time. I was curious about the reasons for her bitterness towards her ex-husband, knowing the stories about mental and physical cruelty were half-truths at best. This woman wouldn’t take easily to any kind of bullying, not for a moment.
She was frank with me. There had been blazing rows about the marriage still being childless after three years.
‘There was no way I could have a family with him,’ she said simply, looking me in the face. ‘I didn’t love him enough for that.’
I think it’s pathetic now, her fear of growing old and losing her looks, the true motives for her decision against pregnancy. Not wanting to disfigure her body, nor having children around to mark off the years. At the time, however, it seemed to take the challenge to a still higher level.
I had to make her love me enough.
Watching from the dark as she re-enters the bedroom, a towel concealing her slenderness, I think back to those days and would like to weep with bitterness and regret.
I was so absurdly sure of myself. Success and riches can have that effect, creating monsters of hubris, spoilt brats, dead souls.
Extreme beauty has a similar potential.
We were on a collision course from the first, I realise that now.
After we got back from Paris , I felt that I had the upper hand at last. She accepted it meekly when I said she had to stop seeing the other man. I still remember my satisfaction on first being introduced as her boyfriend. The people she knew were, like her, much younger than me, but I got on well with them all. She told me, laughing, that everyone considered I was a good catch.
There were several hundred people at our engagement party. Even my ex-wife came, looking tired and older than her years, and I thought I could read wonder in her eyes as she gazed on her radiant successor.
She was probably debating my sanity. How right she was.
We’d been married for less than twelve months when my new partner complained of being bored, said she was tired of shopping and lunching with her girlfriends.
She decided to invest the money from the sale of her flat in a shop, in one of the more expensive parts of Chelsea . Selling the kind of jewellery she loved to buy. She indicated that we might start a family once the business was up and running. And somehow, with a promise here and a melting smile there, she persuaded me to put money into the venture, more than I would have liked. But I was happy to see her happy.
Then the spending began for real.
She proved to be a hopeless businesswoman, more interested in show and glitz than hard economics. The shop was massively overstocked and she sold almost none of it; I sometimes thought the whole operation was only an excuse to enable her to wear all the fancy and over-priced bits and pieces of her choice at any time she wanted.
I realised the extent of the problem when she asked for more cash to keep the concern afloat. We had our first quarrel then and she sulked for days afterwards. Until I gave in when she talked about leaving me.
From that moment forward I always felt one step behind. Neither of us raised the subject of children again.
Now I look on as she sits in front of the mirror and starts to apply mascara to those glorious eyes. Pulling a pretty face, she laughs to herself, still in love with her own loveliness. I feel sick with frustration.
I had to bail her out when the shop went bankrupt, although she acted as if the disaster was entirely my fault. To console herself, she went on a clothes-buying spree. When I saw the bills, I shouted at her again. She looked hurt and, feeling guilty, I said I was sorry. It grew into a familiar pattern.
As she became ever more spendthrift, our quarrels turned public. My wedding gift to her had been a brand-new Mercedes. When she told me in a restaurant that she’d sold it to pay off some debts, my angry response made her cry - artfully staged tears, I’m sure - and I was almost punched by a chivalrous fellow diner.
She proved adept at making me out to be the aggressor, goading me in an undertone at parties, flirting with other men until I exploded with jealous rage. She would at once play the innocent, a shocked look on her face. People would invariably take her side.
I had the feeling she was even turning my work colleagues against me, phoning them to complain of my unreasonable behaviour. I was fully aware that more than one of my friends would have willingly taken her off my hands. With or without my consent.
Then she began to drop hints that I would go the way of her first husband, stripped of my dignity and assets in a court of law. She was threatening me, a top divorce lawyer!
I couldn’t believe her cheek, but had the uneasy feeling her confidence was justified. I had made a fool of myself with her in front of too many people to be sure of anything any more. My self-belief was draining away, along with my money and my feelings for her.
Certain of her power over me, she began to spend more and more time away from home.
I grew convinced that she was cheating on me and saw it as my chance to strike back and safeguard my interests. Even the most besotted judge would be unable to take her side if presented with evidence of her infidelity. I hired a private detective to follow her.
She seemed to accept defeat gracefully when I showed her the photographs. As she apologised for hurting me, I told myself that it wasn’t genuine sorrow in her dark eyes. But I couldn’t be sure.
While I considered my options, we moved into separate bedrooms. Although still reluctant to take the final step - stupidly hesitant to let go of our short-lived marriage - I made preparations to write her out of my will.
Unknown to me, she was dreaming up a plan of her own.
She’s putting on a frilly negligee now, dabbing expensive perfume on her neck and shoulders. All paid for with my money, subsidised by my overconfidence and fatal pride.
The belief that I’d won, her words of remorse, caused me to dither about changing my will. Arrogance back in its customary place, working its assumption that I could still get her to love me. And all the time she was plotting her surprise.
Someone is coming to spend the night with her to judge from the careful preparation, the smirk of anticipation on that exquisite face.
At least it won’t be her partner in crime.
I’ve scared that bastard away for good, fixing him with a baleful stare whenever he visited the house - until he sensed that something was badly wrong and broke off the relationship. It hasn’t taken her long to replace him, though.
She has never felt me watching from the dark.
It’s the last and most wretched of all my misfortunes. I long to drive her, screaming, from the room at this moment, but know that I will never be able to hate her enough, even my worst memories adulterated by her smell and touch.
The irony is that I was probably always just a shadow to her, in common with the rest of mankind. It’s the secret of her success, I suppose, coldness and infinite self-regard wrapped in the most alluring of packages. There’s nothing in the world that can touch her.
Nothing out of it either, I know now.
When they found my body in the street, apparently the victim of a hit-and-run driver, she must have fallen under suspicion although she was on holiday in Jamaica at the time. Everyone knew we were on the point of divorce, had quarreled massively over several months.
I guess, as usual, she talked and cried her way out of trouble, flashing her eyes at policemen and court officials and anyone else who could get her off the hook.
I know for a fact that she slept with one of the investigating officers - probably the most senior - in this very bedroom, in our bed. I was already peering from my darkness by then.
The case against her must have fallen through for lack of evidence, the photographs in my study safe long since burned, the private detective no doubt paid - or scared - off.
The man is middle-aged and greying and impeccably dressed. He reminds me of myself.
He’s a new one to me, but she treats him warmly when they come into the bedroom, as if they know each other well. I try to lip-read as they chat, curious to know whether he’s already taken her to Paris .
They are lying together on the bed now and she undoes his shirt at the neck. They will make love soon, I know, and remember our first time. The Ritz Hotel.
I wonder how I can remember.
I wonder what I’ve done to deserve this. Watching from the shadows. With my memories.