She heaved the splitting plastic bags onto the kitchen table, dislodging bills, flyers, an old unused tea bag, empty cigarette packets and a plastic hairgrip. She’d pick those up in a second. Bella unpacked the shopping, loading the fridge with fresh vegetables and plastic-wrapped meat, stacking tins and packets in the cupboard set aside for her and Jake. She uncorked the expensive bottle of red wine that she’d bought to serve with dinner and left it to breath on the kitchen counter. Then she washed up yesterday’s dishes in a snowstorm of detergent, wiped down the counters and swept the kitchen floor.
She paused for a long drink of water and then headed upstairs, hauling the vacuum cleaner behind her. Despite her long day at work, she felt energised at the thought of the tidy room that would await her at the end of her efforts. She stripped the bed of the musky old sheets she and Jake had lain on for a month. She struggled with the mattress, eventually succeeding in turning it, and then dressed the bed in the brand new linen that she’d bought that day.
Bella picked up all the clothes that were flung on the carpet and festooned across the furniture, throwing them all in a pile for the washing machine. She tidied the dressing table, lining up the bottles and jars that littered its surface, clearing the clumps of cotton wool and crumpled tissues that lay in drifts amongst the cosmetics. Finally, she stood back and, hands on hips, surveyed her handiwork.
Only one thing remained – the desk. Bella had never gone near it – the piles of paper that always threatened to topple to the floor were Jake’s alone. She picked up the top sheet of the pile – a mobile bill. For a moment, she looked at the list of phone numbers that scrolled down the page and continued on the back of it and then put the paper down. It’s none of your business, she told herself. Bella shuffled at the pile of paper, trying to neaten the edges. She only succeeded in dislodging the entire pile and it crashed to the floor.
“Shit – “
She knelt and began to shift through the heap, attempting to scoop it all back together. Something caught her eye. It snagged her vision; a glimpse of flesh, trapped beneath the glossy surface of a photograph. Slowly, she reached out to free the Polaroid print from the surrounding debris.
Bella brought the photograph closer to her face with a trembling hand. Jake, Carl, on a bed – naked, tumescent, Carl kneeling, his penis pointing as if in exclamation. Veronica lying next to them, dressed only in a tiny thong, buttocks bisected by red lace. And another girl, another blonde, mouth stretched wide in a laugh, large dark-nippled breasts, one hand in the black curls of hair on Jake’s chest. Bella realised she was holding her breath and let it out in a rush. She couldn’t see much of Jake in the picture, but it was unmistakeably him, his hand resting on the curve of Veronica’s hip, the smudge of his pubic hair just visible behind the rising slope of her backside. The other girl was splayed wide, Carl slotted between her heavy thighs. Veronica lay beside her, blonde hair falling in a curtain, only a slice of flushed pink face showing. Bella felt her own face go hot and then cold. Her stomach bounced. She looked again at the photograph; at the light glinting from the glistening end of Carl’s cock; at the scribble of a tattoo on the outer thigh of the unknown blonde girl; at the slack-mouthed expression on Jake’s face. She looked at Jake’s hand, resting on Veronica’s hip, resting casually there, as if it had every right to be there, as if he had every right to be touching her. Bella swallowed. When had this been taken? Who was this other girl? Another thought struck her – who had taken the photo? The slightly wonky angle made her think it had been set up on a self timer. What the hell – no, what the fuck, was this all about?
She dropped the photograph, wiping her fingers on her trousers, as if the bodily fluids on display in the photograph had soiled her skin. She found she was swallowing convulsively. Quickly, she scraped the pile of paper into a rough stack, hiding the photograph back somewhere in the middle. She returned it to the top of Jake’s desk. Then she ran, first to the bathroom to wash her hands and bend for a moment over the sink, trembling with nausea, then downstairs to the fridge to pour herself a large glass of wine.
She drank it down in two large mouthfuls and lent back in her chair, eyes closed. For a brief and giddy moment, she wondered if she’d imagined it. But no, she’d seen it in full and undeniable Technicolor. Jake, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend – not to mention this mystery blonde – naked in a bed together. The image of Carl’s erection kept returning. Bella swallowed again, feeling sick.
She heard the sound of a key in the door and panicked, scrambled for the door and ran up the stairs as the front door opened. She didn’t wait to see who it was but reached the false sanctity of the bedroom and lay face down on the bed. She didn’t dare look at the desk. Bella pushed her face into the pillow. She had a sudden, horrible thought – was this the bed in the photograph? – and groaned aloud. How was she going to face Jake? Or Veronica? Or Carl? Hurriedly, she undressed, armoured herself in the thickest, most enveloping pyjamas she possessed, and got into bed, turning out the bedside light. Lying there in the dark, still too shocked to cry, she listened to her stomach rumbling and thought suddenly of the meal she’d planned for tonight. The thought of food brought another bubble of nausea up in her throat. She felt trapped suddenly, panicky at the thought of Jake coming home and yet wanting him too in a perverse way. The thought of him was like poking at a sore place. How could he not have told her? And was – horrible thought – was this still going on? Had his request for her to move in with him been the first step in inveigling her into his brother’s bed? Bella curled her knees into her chest, hugging herself. What the hell was she going to do now? She breathed deeply, in and out, trying to damp down the panic. Briefly, she thought again of the bombings and felt for an instant the same turmoil of emotion that had enveloped her then. Don’t crack up. She unclenched herself and lay back down flat, pushing her hands down by her sides, forcing herself to relax.
Chapter Fifteen
“You coming for a drink?”
Bella paused, hairbrush in hand and looked at Tracey’s reflection in the mirror.
“Um – “
“Come on Bel, you never come out with us. Be a devil.”
Bella slid the brush down to the ends of her hair.
“Okay then. Just one, though.”
Sitting in the pub across the road with the others from work, Bella nursed a glass of cider and listened to the gossip flowing from one workmate to the other. She felt a little out of place, a stranger to this cosy group who lunched and socialised together, the eight hours a day spent in each other’s company at work evidently not enough. Part of her sneered at their banal exchanges. Another part of her wanted to join in. She’d lost confidence in speaking to a crowd of relative strangers. Bella had the unwelcome realisation that this was probably because she’d been out with absolutely no one except Jake, Veronica and Carl for weeks. At the thought of the three of them, she took another hefty slug of her drink. Her discovery of the photograph was a week old but she could still see it in piercing, eloquent detail, every time she conjured it in her mind.
“ – doing at the weekend?”
“What?”
“I said, what are you doing at the weekend?”
Tracey was shouting at her through the fog of cigarette smoke that hung over the table. Bella shook her head, dazed.
“Sorry, didn’t catch that – “
“Oh, never mind. Get us another drink, Bel, there’s a love. I’m wedged in here.”
Bella struggled to the bar and gesticulated at the barman. With the hard edge of the counter pressed painfully into her ribcage, at first she wasn’t aware of the finger prodding her gently in the back. Then she felt it and turned round.