Best of 2017

And then I head upstairs, to the storage room at the far end of the landing.

Cindy said we don’t clean in there. She shrugged when I asked her what was inside and told me nothing of note.

Boring paperwork, she said, and yawned at me.

I no longer trust Cindy’s idea of nothing of note, so I step on inside and survey the boxes.

Paperwork. Lots of paperwork. She’s right about that. But there’s more.

A floral crockery set that I can’t ever imagine him using.

An old games console with about a billion boxed up cartridges. I can’t imagine him using those either.

The next box takes my breath.

Boys’ toys. An old stuffed rabbit. Some scribbles on coloured art paper. An old punctured rugby ball from a few years back.

His kids.

It feels so sad to see their things in here, all boxed up.

The boys staring out from the mantelpiece look happy and confident, full of life as they smile for the camera. I wonder how much he sees them. Cindy said not much. She said they’re over in Hampshire with his ex-wife and her new boyfriend. I seal the box back up and move along to the next.

His wedding album.

It makes my heart pound, and I can barely look. I turn the page just once, to see them smiling on a lawn somewhere, his hand in hers as she smiles up at him. Blonde hair with a natural curl. Blue eyes. Pretty.

The people to the side of him must be his parents. His mum looks… stern. Her hat is this crazy big thing with feathers and roses on, and her smile is so obviously false.

Alexander Henley looks like his dad, but I knew that before I saw this photo. I knew a lot about his dad from browsing the internet. His dad is one of the greatest legal legends of all time. They quote him in text books. I know, I had them. Before…

Anyway.

I seal that box right back up again and move along.

The next looks older, much older.

And I hit the jackpot.

At least it feels that way. Like peeping into someone’s soul.

Alexander Henley’s old school books. Several old reports writing home to tell them how exceptional a student he is. How serious. How dedicated. How talented.

There’s an old clipping of him in a rowing team, his hair longer, with a hint of curls.

Some postcards with no writing on the back. Egypt. New York. Sydney.

And then, in the bottom, an old packet of condoms with one left in there. A dirty magazine that looks thumbed.

And…

Pictures of a blonde woman in a zebra print dress. Debbie Harry, I think. Her blonde bob blowing in the wind as she poses. There are loads of these, pictures of her, clippings from magazines, and a couple of old CDs.

It makes me smile to think of a young Mr Henley, cutting out pictures of his crush.

One is particularly tattered, with the sticky tape still on the corners from being on a wall. She looks so innocent in this one, eyes wide for the camera, in a pale pink dress with lipstick to match, her hair messy and at odds with her outfit.

He liked this one.

He liked her.

He likes blondes.

My hair is mousy. A nothing colour that’s never really bothered me one way or another.

I could be blonde.

I forget about that for now and move along to the last box.

More paperwork, but this one has been packaged more carefully. I have to lift the lid slowly so as not to damage the tape on the sides.

Divorce paperwork.

It gives me flutters.

The decree absolute is right on the top. Eighteen months old.

And underneath is a file of… correspondence… settlement figures that take my breath.

Emails back and forth. C.Henley to A.Henley. Unreasonable conduct.

I shouldn’t look, but I do. Of course I do.

It leaves me under no illusion that the divorce was in any way amicable. Her emails are vicious and persistent, accusing him of sleeping with other women, so many other women, having perverted interests… and…

My eyes widen.

…fucking men.

…wanting men.

Disturbed by childhood abuse, the text says, and a reply from him denying that. Strongly.

But he doesn’t deny the other.

He doesn’t deny fucking men, just denies that he fucked any other asshole in all the time they were married.

She tells him that’s bullshit. That she found the emails from other men. The videos they sent him. The chat logs from the bareback forum he’d been logging into from their office computer.

Shit.

I close the box up tight and put it right back on the shelf where it belongs. And I’m thrumming, tingling, filled with… nerves… and excitement.

Because I’m close. So much closer than I ever dreamed.

And my head is spinning, full of ideas I’m not yet aware of, just the beginnings of something… crazy…

Something really crazy.

Something…

Big.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MELISSA

AND SO IT BEGINS.

The goalposts move from playing with myself in Alexander Henley’s dirty sheets, to playing with him in them.

After the accident I couldn’t imagine myself ever making plans again, ever using my brain again, not properly.

I was living for Joseph and that was fine. I didn’t want anything else.

I couldn’t do anything else.

My dreams of being a lawyer were crushed into oblivion. But not my dreams of Alexander Henley. The fantasy of a life in the arms of the man I’ve been fascinated by for all those years held strong.

And now here I am. So close. So very close.

I’ll be a whole lot closer if I manage to pull off my crazy scheme.

It is crazy. It’s so crazy I should probably never speak it out loud, not to Dean and not even to myself.

But I’ll have to, because I’ll need his help.

I drop into an internet cafe on my way home, and the soup kitchen location I followed Mr Henley to is easy to pinpoint. New Start. A charity-funded initiative with three branches across the city.

Newtown Lane on a Monday.

A place called Eastspring on a Wednesday.

And Brickwood, where he went, on a Friday.

I call Eastspring in my finest telephone voice and tell them my name is… Amy… and I’m… looking to volunteer… on a Wednesday… this Wednesday…

The guy’s name is Frank and he seems really nice. He tells me they’d love to have me, Amy, and I should head on down for seven o’clock sharp, with some warm clothes and a smile and that’s all I’d need.

But it isn’t all I need.

I pick up some hair dye and bleach at the local chemist when I get off the underground, and dig out my makeup bag once Joseph is bathed and in bed.

Dean watches me sorting through my old lipsticks until I find a light pink, and the expression on his face lets me know he’s expecting an explanation.

“It’s nothing to worry about…” I begin as he hands me a coffee.

“If it’s to do with Henley it’s plenty to worry about.”

I ask him for his help with the hair dye, just so I won’t have to see his face when I explain myself.

He gloves up with an expression of impending doom, and the silence is heavy as I sit in the chair, an old towel slung around my shoulders.

When he’s safely out of my eyeline, I confess in one long monologue that I’ve discovered Alexander Henley uses escorts, about the paperwork in his drawer, about the porn I’ve seen on his browsing history, but I don’t stop there, rattling off all the things I’ve seen and all the things I’ve learned. Big things, small things. Any things.

I tell him I’m going to volunteer at Eastspring, and then, when the time is right, I’ll transfer to Brickwood, I’ll run into Mr Henley and I’ll introduce myself as someone other than his cleaner, and it’ll

be great… it’ll be just fine…

I take a breath. A long breath.

“What do you mean, it’ll be fine? Are you …”

I twist in my chair and I don’t need to say anything as my eyes meet his. His widen, the bottle of dye paused in mid-air as he realises what I’m really planning.

“No,” he says. “No fucking way, Lissa. Just no.”

“For Joseph,” I tell him. “I have to get him out of here, Dean. He’s only got me, and this place, and it’s not enough. Being a cleaner’s not enough. He needs more.”

“He has me, too,” Dean snaps. “And he’d rather you were poor than dead.”

Dead.

The word hits hard.

I take a another breath. Compose myself.

“I saw the guy’s card. Some swanky auctioneer from Chelsea. They don’t kill people, Dean, that’s crazy. They just pay them… for sex…”

“And you’ve never had sex. You’ve never been an escort. You’ve no fucking idea what these people are into, Lissa, swanky or not.”