The Woman Next Door: A dark and twisty psychological thriller. Cass Green

I’ve never been a drinker but I’m sure I didn’t have that much Pimm’s. Maybe it is just more potent than I ever realized? The memory of its cloying taste makes my stomach churn again, and I close my eyes then sink under the surface of the water, allowing it to close over my head like a baptism.

      When I emerge I am crying in great gulps. I keep picturing Terry laughing at me being in this state. Oh yes, he would have found this very amusing, I’m sure. He was always trying to encourage me to ‘have a drink and let go a little’.

      I was always the butt of his jokes. Always the ‘funny old thing’ who took things too seriously and didn’t seem to know how to enjoy herself. Funny old, silly old Hester.

      This is another reason to avoid alcohol. It causes all sorts of unwanted memories to surface. The dirty silt at the bottom of my mind has been stirred up.

      ‘Leave me alone, Terry,’ I gulp into the steamy air.

      He once suggested we take a bath in here together, in the early days. I was quite unable to think of an excuse. My parents were gone by then and the house was all mine, but it still felt wrong.

      But I agreed. It was the early days, as I said.

      We met at Bentley’s, the engineering works that has long been closed down. I was an Office Manager, having started as an assistant straight from secretarial college and working my way up. He worked on the shop floor.

      It took a year of him asking before I gave in and went out with him for a drink. At 35, I was seeing colleague after colleague leave to have babies and time was beginning to pinch.

      I went for the drink, then we had some country walks together. He told me he was ‘really falling for me’, after a couple of months. He’d been married before, but she died quite young. As for me, well, I’d never really met the right person.

      He had all sorts of ideas and he was quite unlike anyone else I’d ever met. He liked to invent things in his spare time and was always saying he would come up with a gadget that would make our fortune.

      It all turned out to be rubbish, of course, from the remote control that was also a holder for a cup of tea (for goodness’ sake) to the teddy bear that contained a ‘nappy pouch’. Rubbish, all of it. No one wanted to invest in any of his ideas, and in the end he had to set up a painting and decorating business. He couldn’t get a job anywhere else after Bentley’s closed down. I didn’t know about how weak and useless he was in the early days. He behaved like a gentleman and seemed to have something about him, so I suppose I was fooled.

      When he proposed, after a rather lovely evening in an Italian restaurant, he went down on one knee, and I think I was genuinely happy in that moment. The future seemed so rich and full of possibility.

      In those early days, I still thought that the ‘other’ side of things would start to be more enjoyable with a little practice.

      When he made the bath suggestion, I’d tried to laugh it off, saying it was far too small. Then he’d caught me up in his arms and whispered into my hair that it would only be nice and snug. So we tried it and it was every bit as uncomfortable and unpleasant as I’d imagined. He insisted that I lay between his legs, facing away from him, and I could feel bits digging into my lower back straight away.

      I closed my eyes and pictured the wonderful prize that was waiting for me after all this: a smiling, pink-cheeked baby.

      I had so much love to pour into a child. I would have been the very best mother. It had always been my goal, ever since I was small. I had a baby doll called Susie-Sue that I loved until she was merely a torso with staring eyes and a grubby grey patina to her once-pink flesh.

      I even thought I might call my own daughter Susie, although I also loved the name Rachel. For a boy, I had William and Daniel picked out long before there was any chance of a conception.

      I waited so long. So very long.

      ‘Damn you, Terry,’ I say loudly, shocking myself when the words bounce back at me. I realize I have been digging my fingers into my arm again, the old habit resurfacing today. It is almost as though I have been outside myself, and I blink, a little shocked to see I am still in the bath and that the water is now quite cool.

      I’m only aware now of an insistent sharp ringing and realize with a start that it is the front doorbell. I can’t possibly answer. Whoever it is has to go away.

      But what if it’s Melissa? I don’t want her to think I wasn’t going to apologize.

      I quickly climb out of the bath and pull on my robe, which clings unpleasantly to my damp, mottled skin. Stuffing my feet into slippers, I hurry out of the bathroom, calling out, ‘Hang on!’ in a voice that sounds shrill even to my own ears.

      There are two shapes lurking behind the frosted glass and I hesitate as I get to the bottom of the stairs. It could be Jehovah’s Witnesses or something. Whoever it is, they are very insistent. The doorbell rings sharply again.

      ‘All right, I’m coming!’ I say to shut them up and fling open the door.

      ‘Oh,’ I say.

      Jehovah’s Witnesses suddenly seem like very much the better alternative.

      ‘Hello Hester. I’m sorry if we got you out of bed.’

      Saskia is wearing highly age-inappropriate shorts, a tight t-shirt, and oversized sunglasses that obscure most of her face.

      Nathan looms just behind her. He’s looking down at the toe of his grimy white plimsoll as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. Most bizarrely, he’s holding two bunches of flowers wrapped in brown paper that I recognize from Petal and Vine, the overpriced flower shop down the road. One must be for Melissa, to say thank you for the party. But why the heck are they here, on my doorstep?

      Have they come to tell me off? I am incensed by this thought and find myself blurting words out before Saskia can speak again.

      ‘If you’ve come round here to make me feel guilty,’ I say, ‘then I can assure you there is no need. I plan to apologize later. You can’t possibly make me feel any worse than I already do.’

      Saskia reaches out her hand to touch my wrist, but I take a step back. She’s always touching people; it’s like she can’t speak without making physical contact with the person opposite her. Well, I’m in no mood for her nonsense today.

      ‘No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,’ she says in a voice that is even more gravelly than usual. ‘We’ve come to apologize to you. At least, Nathan has. Haven’t you?’ She says his name sternly and he steps forward.

      The boy – and he really looks like a boy today – turns his strangely coloured eyes on me and his cheeks flush a deep pink under his light tan.

      ‘Yeah,’ he says and clears his throat before continuing. ‘The thing is, I did something really stupid. So it’s sort of my fault you puked up everywhere.’

      I flinch at his coarseness. As if I need reminding!

      ‘Fuck’s sake, Nathe!’

      I tut, loudly. She’s almost as bad as he is! No wonder he speaks like that. The boy shoots a panicked look at her.

      ‘Sorry! Um, what I mean is, I did a really moronic thing for a laugh. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal.’

      ‘What did you do?’ I want nothing more than for these ghastly people to disappear.

      ‘I spiked your drink,’ he says in a rush, glancing at his mother. The thin, tight line of her lips reveals the true age of her face.

      ‘What?’ I can’t seem to make sense of any of this.

      ‘You asked for a Pimm’s and I added a massive slug of vodka to it,’ he says, blushing harder.

      My stomach seems to drop. ‘Why?’ I manage to breathe. ‘Why would you do something like that?’

      He shrugs with one shoulder.