Hearts and Arrows Read online

“Hope my beard didn’t give you stubble rash.”

  Her jaw flopped open. Lovely grey eyes scanned my face, hunting for a beard I no longer had, a pair of golden-rimmed glasses I no longer wore. But otherwise, the same face she had seen and talked to and even kissed twice before.

  “You!”

  “I know women like you, ‘Christine’”, I added, making finger-quotes in the air. “You’ve probably spent so long pretending that you’ve forgotten who you really are anymore.”

  Horror on her face. She started to move – but my hand snaked out and gripped hers, freezing her in place.

  “Let me tell you a little story about you,” I said. Like she had a choice.

  “Mrs Sandra Claire Renfrew, née Smith, thirty-three years old, no children, homemaker, part-time volunteer with Oxfam, married to Dr Robert Renfrew, a forty-two year old genetics researcher. Last year he was awarded a highly-paid research post at the University of Edinburgh, his home city. At the Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, to be precise. But Mrs Sandra Claire Renfrew refused to move out of their lovely house in Crouch End which they bought only three years ago. Maybe it’s because she’s a Londoner. So ever since last September, Robert has been working in Edinburgh and occasionally coming back to visit his good lady wife.”

  As she listened, her head twisted from side to side in disbelief. She looked like she might be sick.

  “During that time, all alone in London, Mrs Sandra Claire Renfrew has been keeping herself amused by going to speed-dating events like this one. Meeting dozens, maybe hundreds, of new men. Talking. Flirting. Kissing.” I shrugged. “At least, that was as far as you went with me, but maybe with some others you...?”

  “No!” she snapped. “No, I’ve never done anything more than...” She clamped her mouth shut, realising she’d just confirmed everything I had said.

  Not that it mattered. I’d been watching her for weeks.

  “Dr Renfrew told me he isn’t a suspicious man by nature,” I went on. “But even he could tell that something was different about you. Obviously he didn’t know that you were pretending to be different women entirely. But he suspected something was going on. And that research post is very well-paid indeed. There’s not much else for him to spend his money on, except private detectives to follow his wife around, and lawyers to advise him on divorce settlements...”

  “Oh God!” Sandra looked on the verge of panic. She struggled to stand up – but I grabbed her other hand and pulled her across the table towards me. If anybody else in the circle was watching, it probably looked like we were making a real connection.

  “It’s all right! He hasn’t done any of that yet,” I told her. “He’s just hired me to find out what’s going on. If it’s over between you, he wants to know precisely why. He said he needs details.”

  Sandra stared at me, then nodded. “Yes. He always... he has to know every tiny detail about everything.”

  I smiled softly. “Bet that’s a right pain in the arse sometimes.”

  Despite herself, a half-laugh escaped her. She stared into the middle distance, as if remembering.

  “Thirty seconds, everyone!” called the facilitator.

  I squeezed her hands. “Listen to me. I don’t think Dr Renfrew wants his marriage to be over. But he needs to know if it is. He doesn’t know what you’ve been up to yet. But he does want you to make your decision.”

  He wasn’t the only one. This had been on my mind too. I’d been uncertain about taking on the Renfrew Case (as this was logged in my company database) in the first place. Sandra was clearly addicted to the adrenalin and excitement of first dates, of meeting new men and being reminded she was still an attractive woman. But technically, she hadn’t properly cheated on her husband yet. Lied by omission, yes, but was it proper infidelity? She had to decide. Time to place her bet.

  “Choose,” I said. “What would you rather lose – the dating or your husband?”

  Sandra’s eyes had been darting back and forth, like a gambler watching the roulette wheel spinning round and round. Chance, take a chance, take-a-take-a-chance-chance.

  But now her eyes filled with tears, and I could see that she was definitely remembering something. Something about him, that only she knew. His habits, his phrases, his expressions. Imagining never seeing them again.

  Sudden emotion crumpled her face.

  “...Robert,” she cried.

  A bell chimed. “Time’s up!” called the facilitator.

  I let go of her hands. Switched off the microcamera built into my wristwatch, unstrapped it and handed it over to her.

  “All the evidence is on there,” I said, then stood up to move to the next table. “Nice to have met you, Mrs Renfrew. Give my regards to your husband when you see him.”

  There was the usual bustle and chatter as the wheel of people rotated, and the song changed to ‘The Winner Takes It All’. But there was no winner tonight. The ball had landed on zero. All bets were off. Obviously I’d still claim expenses (especially for that wristwatch – surveillance equipment doesn’t come cheap), but I would refund my client’s fee first thing tomorrow.

  Mission aborted. And here’s why.

  Rule One: Never kill a relationship that isn’t already dead.

  It was one of the guiding principles of Infidelity Ltd – not to break up two people still in love. If a relationship is still healthy, I walk away. I don’t break this Rule for anyone. Not since

  ...Becky...

  not since the Hargreaves Case. Never again.

  Sandra sat in silence, as the next man after me took my place on the chair and said hello. She was staring down at the watch in her hands. Abruptly she stood up, grabbed her handbag and strode off, heels click-clacking loudly like an empty gun being fired. She crossed the room towards The Glasshouse’s exit, pulling her mobile phone out as she walked, wiping her face with her other hand.

  There was a shocked murmuring for a moment. But then the facilitators turned to the little crowd of people by the bar, and before long a young woman was squealing and running into the circle, brandishing a pink namebadge. She slid into the chair Sandra had vacated, beaming excitedly at the startled man opposite her. Another eager player. Game on.

  I wasn’t going anywhere. Even when you’ve lost the game, you can still practise your skills. And there was plenty of practice there for a relationship assassin.

  The pretty Asian woman sitting opposite me was all nervous smiles and tight shoulders. I gauged her instantly. Shy. A listener. She wouldn’t say anything until I took the lead. Phew, it was going to take at least four minutes to make this one feel like she was The Centre Of The Universe, but I was sure I could pull it off.

  “Let me tell you a little story about me,” I said. Like she had a choice.

  David Wailing, author of

  Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin

  Fake Kate

  Cupid’s Warhead (sample)

  David Wailing writes contemporary relationship-based fiction, a blend of character drama, mystery and humour.

  The key theme of David’s novels is ‘identity’ - people pretending to be something they're not. All his work is focused around characters that fake being someone else or take on others’ characteristics.

  David currently has two ebooks on Amazon and a third available later in 2012:

  ‘Bang’ is the memoir of a relationship assassin, a man of many faces who is a honeytrap for married women, seducing them to provide evidence of infidelity for private detectives to discover.

  ‘Fake Kate’ focuses on online dating and two sisters, one of whom pretends to be the other and goes on her dates, to investigate why she has vanished.

  ‘Cupid’s Warhead’ features a gay man trying to train himself to be straight, in order to follow an obsession to find one particular woman.

  David lives in North London and is working on future novels and short stories.

  www.davidwailing.com

  facebook.com/davidwailing

 
twitter @davidwailing

  Rollercoaster

  By Ann Madden-Walsh

  It was so very long ago and yet, it seems like only yesterday, that fateful moment; each tiny inauspicious detail imprinted on my memory, suspended in time to be replayed over and over again throughout my wretched life. One small lapse of concentration, one slip of the foot and, in the blink of an eye, it was all over. One life lost, another forced to carry on year after year after year. A million unanswered questions, a million what ifs, a thousand why’s; and afterwards, one crematorium, one frightened teenager on her first teetering steps into womanhood, one dark, polished casket, a multitude of unfulfilled dreams lost forever, and then, just as suddenly as it began it was all over. A week in a life, one unimaginable week that changed my destiny, my world.

  I did what I was told, what was expected of me, I carried on regardless. Or was it regardless? Days, weeks, months, decades have passed and still I wait for that one moment, that one split second of my life when he will come back to me, hold my hand for the very last time, say goodbye.

  ‘Life goes on,’ I was told over and over again by those who knew better and it did, it had to. I had no option but to carry on, making new dreams, new memories, but still, deep inside, untold secrets make daisy chains inside my brain, dancing around the thoughts and dreams of today, of tomorrow.

  On reflection, for the last forty years I have lived two lives. The outwardly normal life of wife, mother, grandmother, meeting the challenges of everyday life, taking each step in my stride and in contrast, the secret inner life, the one that holds me together, the one that should have been. I can’t remember when the pain began to ease or if it has ever eased, but what I do know is that I stepped back onto the rollercoaster of life, strapped myself in and have been riding it ever since.

  As I reached a zenith or plunged into a nadir on the ever-eventful ride of a lifetime, each brought a new challenge, a new chapter in my existence. I cannot argue the fact that I have had it all, everything any human being could wish for. Handed to me on a plate and given with such love that it is hard to conceive that I wanted none of it. All I ever wanted was that one last smile, that simple last word. I don’t know; will never know what might have been had that moment in my life ended differently or if it had never happened at all. All I know is that at each important point in my journey, I believed that he was there, somewhere, watching, waiting for me to declare my innermost feelings to him, to reveal the next chapter of my secret life.

  At first it was easy for me to envelop myself with my secret world. I had a career. I had friends and family but no one close enough for me to want to reveal my innermost feelings to. I would carry on, believing that he was still there, living my life the way I dreamed it should have been, searching for him at every turn. My heart would quicken at the sight of a golden headed man in the distance, same build, same height, but within seconds I would be plunged into despair as the object of my attention drew nearer and with it, the realisation that it wasn’t him. I would hear a noise, a sudden rustle of leaves in a hedgerow, a creak within a cooling house, a twig cracking on an autumnal tree and I would spin round straining my eyes to see… nothingness.

  It didn’t matter much back then. I was young, free, single, and all that mattered was my dreams, my imagined life. Whatever I became during the day for the benefit of those whom knew no different, my secret self changed when I was alone away from prying eyes. Then I would be the real me, no need to hide my feelings, no need to act out what others believed me to be while deep inside I was another person in another world. I was free to speak to an empty room, to have long one-sided conversations; my ears straining for a faint reply that never came. Hoping at each passing moment that the next time would be the one where he would suddenly appear before my eyes, like in the movies or in the pages of a tragic novel. It never happened, deep down, within the crevices of my mind I knew it never would but I hoped, oh how I hoped.

  Life went on and before I knew what was happening, the next chapter began. I met the man of every other woman’s dreams, tall, dark, handsome and rugged. He loves me, he loves me so much and to a certain extent I love him too. Not the love I felt for my first love, my lost love, but I love him all the same. He doesn’t know. I have never told him my secret, it doesn’t seem appropriate and my life has to be appropriate at all costs. When we are together he has my undivided attention, it doesn’t seem right to me that I should be with him while pinning away inside for another. I suppress my innermost feelings, have created an inner sanctum for which to hide them. We married, he asked, I said yes and… we married. Oh what a day that was. Everything in place, all as it should be, the perfect wedding, happy bride, happy groom. Yet as I walked down the aisle I remember looking up towards the apex of the beautiful church, sighing deeply and with eyes closed, that silent whispering inside my head, ‘It should have been you.’

  We are successful. As a couple we are magnificent, executive house, prestige cars, long exotic holidays. We have wanted for nothing. Our lives entwined, we have conquered the world and yet, still I watch, wait for that one fleeting moment. We have been truly blessed. As we enjoyed the fruit of our labour we were suddenly bestowed with the fruit of our union, twins. Three men in my life but still my heart yearned for the one I had lost, and as each tiny bundle arrived safely into the world, deep inside the recesses my brain I whispered ‘they should have been yours.’

  I look back at that moment and wonder at the callousness of my attitude. How could I think those thoughts at a time when my only concern should have been for the happiness of the doting husband by my side, enwrapped in the new lives that he had created? I don’t deserve him; I’ve never deserved him. He treats me like a Princess, no, he treats me like a Goddess, bestowing me with everything my heart desires except the one thing my heart desires the most. What do I give him in return? Respect. Respect and cupboard love.

  After the birth of my beautiful boys I gave up work to become the doting stay at home mother that many would like to be but alas are unable to even conceive. Was I happy? Was I grateful? No. Once again I indulged myself with my own selfishness. I would blissfully flit about my domestic duties. Believing every shirt I ironed, every meal I created, every surface I polished, I was doing it, not for the man who was working all day to provide for his beloved family, but for him - the one who lived within my heart.

  As my boys grew, so did my obsession for what, I cannot even now, explain. When they started school I would leave them at the gates and embark on long walks through the surrounding countryside. In my own secular world, within my head, I would live out my fantasies, still watching, still listening and ever hoping, oh how I hoped. I once believed that I was going mad. How could I feel the way I felt and be sane? How could the heart that beat within my body beat for something so unobtainable so beyond my reach, yet still allow me to carry on a living?

  It was around that time the rollercoaster ground to a halt. I was at the lowest point in my life. I needed answers. The fantasy I had moulded for myself seemed to encroach on everything I knew. I was in danger of letting my obsession take over my life, take over the lives of the ones I loved. I had a choice of course. The rollercoaster was at a standstill and I could have got off there and then but without the answers, I couldn’t step into the unknown. I had to know that life was infinite, that there was a world outside the one I occupied and that within that world he was waiting for me. There were no answers of course, if mortal man had found the answers then this world would be a totally different place. I had to make a decision, a very hard decision, should I climb down from the rollercoaster hoping that I was right, that infinity existed or should I stay, wait for the ride to begin again, let it take me forward onto the next chapter of my life?

  Months and months of deliberation ensued and with it came tears, oh so many tears. My body wept so many tears, that, I believed I should one day drown in its torrent, but with those tears came a new realisation. In all those years I had never wept for my
lost love, I had simply believed that he would one-day return to me. Maybe that is when I realised that it was time to let go, to wait for my time. If I had stepped off the rollercoaster there and then what would have become of my three boys? Would history have repeated itself, would they now also be looking, listening for that which never comes? It didn’t stop me looking, listening but I realised that the life I have now is what is important, not the life I hoped existed elsewhere, in another place, another time. People talk about closure, maybe that was the time when I found closure, I don’t know but what I do know is that I fastened my seatbelt and let the rollercoaster carry me to the next pinnacle in my life. Crisis over I once again embarked on the journey through life, only this time there were no more fantasies, there was still hope, I still watched, listened and waited but I no longer let life and dreams intertwine.

  All has been well until now but tonight, I fear, the rollercoaster has suddenly ground to a halt. I feel strange. It’s hard to explain but from somewhere deep within my very soul the feeling of dread of total trepidation that something beyond my comprehension is about to happen, something that will change my world forever, but what? My nemesis is back, filling my head with dreams with illusions of what should be, of what should always have been.

  He’s out there now, working late into the night to give me the lifestyle he believes I should have and what am I doing, looking into a darkened room, straining my eyes, my ears for any sign that the object of my desire is here with me. No, I don’t deserve him; he deserves so much more than I can give. That poor, poor man has been, living a lie for years and he hasn’t a clue. How cruel am I? Why can’t I return the love he has for me, wholeheartedly, without holding back that one part of me that he should have unconditionally? How could I have spent so many years pining for the one thing I cannot have? Soon he will be home and all these thoughts; all these feelings I have at this moment will be pushed aside like unwanted junk mail. As soon as he walks in through the door I will once again become the person he thinks I am. I should tell him, I should have told him long ago but this is my secret, my dream.