Safe as Houses Read online

  ‘I think you’re better off not remembering,’ Niels says. ‘It’ll probably save you a lot of nightmares. And then we’d have had to leave the lights on all night.’

  Everyone laughs, even Senta. A few months ago they’d persuaded her to watch a horror film, and it had been weeks before she’d dared to go to sleep in the dark.

  The atmosphere becomes more relaxed. The children all chatter at the same time, making jokes. Jelmer gets down from the bed and thoroughly investigates the catheter and the monitors next to the bed. Frank quickly takes the place next to Senta and strokes her hand again and again.

  Senta doesn’t say much. She looks, listens and enjoys. The visit from her family tires her out, but she’d rather bite her tongue than say anything.

  Niels is right, she thinks. It’s probably better that she can’t remember anything about the accident; she doesn’t want to end up with a lifelong trauma.

  But this knowledge is shot through with something else: a nagging feeling that it would be better if she could remember the accident. And the reason why she was driving so fast.

  21

  Lisa answers the phone with an uncertain voice. ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘Hi, darling, it’s me,’ her mother says, rather unnecessarily. ‘How are you doing?’ Her voice sounds relaxed: she’s clearly ready for a nice chat, and she has all the time in the world.

  Lisa pictures her mother in the corner of her red sofa, a cup of tea within reach.

  ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Anouk is a bit ill.’

  She doesn’t know why she adds this; perhaps because it’s what she normally would say. But a second later Lisa is ready to bite off her own tongue. Her mother immediately begins to ask worried questions and suggests coming round.

  ‘Really, Mum, it’s not that bad. But she’s coughing, so I’m keeping her in as a precaution.’

  Her mother has to agree that this is sensible. ‘So I don’t need to come over? I don’t mind at all, you know that. And you’ll need to pop to the shops at some point.’

  Lisa panics. ‘Then I’ll take her with me or leave her at home. She’s old enough.’

  ‘I don’t agree, Lisa,’ her mother argues. ‘No one leaves a five-year-old at home, do they? You wouldn’t really do that, would you?’

  Under different circumstances, Lisa might have argued with her, just on principle, but now it seems better to give in quickly. ‘No, I don’t. You’re right, Mum, anything could happen.’

  Opposite her, Kreuger leans his arms on the table and gives her a broad grin. Lisa ignores him and half listens to her mother, who hasn’t stopped talking.

  ‘Maybe I’ll drop by later in the week. Let’s see. Or is Mark coming round?’

  Lisa takes a deep breath and forces herself not to look at Kreuger. ‘I don’t know,’ she says as nonchalantly as possible. ‘He’s very busy.’

  ‘He has other commitments, you mean.’ Her mother’s voice suddenly sounds bitter, and Lisa knows what’s coming.

  ‘Mum, I have to hang up, I’m expecting someone. It’s a mess here and I still have to do the washing-up—’

  ‘Who’s coming, then?’

  ‘A friend of mine. You know her – Julia.’

  ‘Oh,’ her mother says disapprovingly. ‘She’s allowed to come round and your own mother—’

  ‘I’m hanging up now,’ Lisa says. ‘I’ll see you later in the week, all right? But give me a ring first.’

  Her mother’s exclamation that she wants to have a word with her granddaughter is cut off as Lisa hangs up.

  Kreuger curses. ‘Why did you hang up on her? You don’t want that woman turning up here.’

  Lisa reassures him that she has just ensured this won’t happen: her mother and her friend Julia hate each other.

  ‘And if she’d got Anouk on the line, she’d surely have slipped up.’

  Kreuger thinks for a moment, but then nods in agreement. ‘All right, well done.’

  ‘I told you I’d play along.’

  ‘Very sensible of you.’

  ‘But what will I get in return?’ Lisa wants to know, as if she’s in any position to make demands. ‘I mean, I’d like to know what’s going to happen. How long are you going to stay here, do you think?’

  ‘What do you mean? Are you fed up with me already?’ Kreuger leans forward over the table. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Lisa. I thought we were getting on nicely.’

  ‘We are, but—’

  Kreuger stands up in a flash and pulls Lisa from her chair. He is suddenly so terrifyingly close that she can see the bloodlust in his eyes.

  ‘We are getting on nicely,’ she says quickly. ‘Really! I think we’ve got a lot in common. Don’t we?’

  If she hadn’t been so scared it would have been fascinating to study the transformation in his bearing: from aggressive to somehow helpless.

  ‘I loved her,’ he says with difficulty. ‘And you know, you look just like . . . you look just . . .’

  To her dismay, Kreuger slowly brings his face towards hers. His mouth comes closer, much too close. His dark shaven head, the stubble on his chin, his spots, his greasy skin – they all fill her field of vision. His smell penetrates her nostrils and makes her feel sick.

  Suddenly she feels his hands on her body. First only on her shoulders, but then they slide downwards in a single liquid movement to her breasts, where they rest for a moment before beginning a kneading motion.

  It is though she’s standing stark naked in her kitchen, instantly stripped of all feelings of self-worth. The adrenalin rushes through her body, spurring her on to push him away, to knee him in the crotch, to claw at his eyes.

  Instead she remains motionless, frozen in revulsion. Who’d have thought that she’d ever allow a stranger to put his hand down her top and get her breast out of her bra cup? At the same time she feels his other hand grab her behind and pull her to his crotch. His mouth descends to her neck before returning to hers.

  Lisa clamps her lips shut reflexively, but he forces them open with his tongue, which he then sticks down her throat until she practically gags. Her entire body resists, and all of sudden she can no longer allow him to carry on.

  ‘No!’ she says with a strangled cry and pushes him off her.

  He looks at her warily, like a predator wondering whether its prey really has the guts to fight back. ‘What do you mean, no? Don’t try to tell me you don’t want it.’

  ‘That . . . that’s not it,’ she says with difficulty. ‘It’s just . . . here in the kitchen, with Anouk so near by . . .’

  There’s a silence.

  ‘I get it.’ Kreuger’s soothing tone makes it clear he’s not angry. ‘No problem. We’ll just go upstairs.’

  22

  He places a chair under the bedroom doorhandle. To prevent Anouk unexpectedly coming in, he explains. He knows Lisa wouldn’t like that. He always felt uncomfortable himself about his children catching him in the act.

  Lisa doesn’t dare look at the chair for long. Maybe she can toss it aside, pull open the door and run away.

  And then? Kreuger is determined to have sex with her, and there is no escape. If she had any doubt about this, the erection, visible through the sturdy fabric of his jeans, dispels it.

  What would happen if she resisted? He’d probably take it out on her struggling body, angered by her protests and tears. She can’t afford to make this man angry.

  Kreuger observes her from a few feet away. ‘Take that top off, will you?’

  Lisa doesn’t move.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? I said take that top off.’ Kreuger sits down on the stool in front of her dressing table and waits.

  The thought that he wants a striptease suddenly hits Lisa. Oh my God, this can’t be happening . . .

  She slowly pulls the white top over her head. She is wearing a T-shirt underneath it, which she also takes off slowly after a nod from Kreuger. Then she stands before him in her jeans and bra – a white lace bra that he appears to find very exciting. His mouth
gapes slightly and a twinkle appears in his eyes.

  ‘I think there are lovely tits under there,’ he says softly.

  She has to force herself not to cover herself up with her T-shirt. She drops it to resist the temptation.

  Kreuger leans back. He doesn’t seem about to approach her. Let’s keep it like this: stay where you are.

  ‘You must find yourself pretty,’ he says. ‘Especially when you walk round in a tight top and all the men stare at your tits. I’m sure you like that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lisa confirms.

  He doesn’t have a reply to that.

  ‘All women like to be looked at. It’s a compliment,’ she says in a defensive tone.

  Kreuger’s face suggests that her comment is a revelation to him. ‘Yes, I guess so. They like that. Even if they get whistled at or are the butt of sexist jokes. They just walk on pretending to be annoyed, but deep in their hearts they like it. If you don’t whistle at them, they’re even offended. All women have double standards. There’s no telling with them.’

  Why are they having this conversation? Isn’t he going to rape her? Did he just want to frighten her? No, his eyes are still fixed on her breasts.

  Kreuger moves slowly towards her.

  Lisa’s mind races. ‘Anouk was born in this room,’ she says, nodding at the bed. ‘It was a terrible birth. That’s why we never had a second: I never wanted to go through that torture again.’

  Lisa pretends not to notice Kreuger’s frown. She lowers her voice as though sharing a deep secret. ‘The midwife misjudged it. I should have gone to hospital, but we ran out of time. Luckily I didn’t see the knife they cut me open with. But Mark did; he was standing next to me. He almost fainted. Can you imagine? They just chop your vagina open. And then they shoved in a vacuum pump and pulled out Anouk. We used to have a carpet, but we had to get rid of it. It was covered in blood.’

  She looks at the floor, as though she can see through the laminate to the bloodstains below, and experiences the satisfaction of Kreuger’s gaze also being pulled down.

  ‘I could hardly walk for weeks,’ Lisa tells him. ‘Peeing was incredibly painful, and of course sex was out of the question. I had stitches everywhere. Mark didn’t feel like having sex for ages either. He said: “Once you’ve seen a vagina in that state, lust abandons you.”’

  Kreuger’s face contorts in disgust.

  ‘How were your children’s births?’ Lisa inquires.

  ‘Really easy. Angelique just shat them out and a week later we were having sex again.’

  His body is closer now; she smells his sweat.

  ‘Really?’ Lisa takes a step back and leans against the door of the wardrobe. ‘Life’s not fair. Why should one woman suffer so much and another woman’s children just pop out? But anyway, I’m just happy I live now. A lot of women used to die during labour.’

  ‘Can’t you shut up for two seconds?’ He comes and stands right next to her, puts his hands on her breasts and squeezes.

  Lisa inhales sharply. He seems to take this as a sign of pleasure, because he squeezes harder. Then he moves one hand to her buttocks and pulls her against him. She feels his cock growing and a wave of nausea washes over her.

  ‘We’re going to have a party together,’ he whispers in her ear. ‘You and me – how do you like that? I don’t think you’ve been properly fucked for a good long time.’

  His mouth descends to her right breast.

  Lisa searches for a point somewhere above Kreuger’s head and escapes outside – to the tops of the tall trees in the distance, their yellowing crowns rocking gently in the wind.

  This isn’t really happening, this isn’t really happening, she repeats to herself like a mantra.

  Kreuger detaches himself from her breast with a slurping sound and nods at the bed. ‘Lie down,’ he says.

  23

  Before the accident, Senta would often work at night; that way she could avoid being disturbed by ringing phones, colleagues coming in with questions, conversations going on around her. It was impossible to write her articles at work. She saved her creative energy for late in the evening, when the children were in bed and Frank slouched on the sofa watching a film. The night sheltered them then, formed a blanket around them.

  But now there’s nothing safe about the darkness that creeps towards her from the hall. She doesn’t like the silence it brings either. She needs distraction, noises, voices – everything that prevents her consciousness from weakening and those unfathomable depths from opening up beneath her.

  She knows that this is nonsense. Dr Reynders has assured her that the test results were good. But fear prevents her from sleeping.

  Senta turns her head to a stream of light that falls into her room from the corridor outside. She is tired, exhausted. After Frank and the children left, the tests continued. The entire evening. And now, now that she is finally alone with her thoughts, they flow over her like a waterfall.

  ‘What can you remember from the day of your accident?’ Dr Reynders had asked her.

  She can remember everything, apart from the accident itself. The traffic jam on the way there, the idiot driver who’d hugged her bumper the whole time, her irritation. She’d deliberately slowed down, and when the man had tried to overtake her she’d accelerated, so that he became stuck in the queue in the slow lane. She’d seen in her rear-view mirror that the driver couldn’t get back into the busy fast lane, and she remembered the contented feeling with which she’d driven on.

  She had told Alexander and he’d laughed heartily. ‘I always do that if someone’s chasing me. Bait them a bit. I didn’t know women did it too.’

  Outraged by his sexist comment, she’d thrown the least dangerous object to hand, a banana, at his head. He had caught it laughing and pointed it at her like a pistol. ‘Surrender or the punishment will be terrible!’

  She had run away and he had chased her around the whole house, until their wrestling in the bedroom had turned into the best sex in ages.

  She remembered all of it. Her feelings of shame, and the guilt when she drove off in her car, back to Frank and the children. She knew that her relationship with Alexander had to come out at some point, and each time she resolved to stop in order to prevent the major drama waiting for her. But each time she also knew she’d arrange to see him again.

  In the beginning, she’d managed to keep her feelings for Alexander in check. After their first meeting, when they’d only kissed, she’d avoided further contact, afraid to start something over which she’d lose control. But, while she’d always given her life an eight out of ten, without Alexander it suddenly lost some of its shine, and she had trouble making a six of it.

  Frank had noticed. Of course, he’d noticed; he knew her so well. After more than twenty years of marriage you no longer go weak at the knees with lust for your other half, but having sex once every three or four months was too infrequently. She didn’t miss it, but Frank got grouchy.

  Their relationship reached an all-time low one night when they were about to go to a party. She’d been wearing a new skirt with a low-cut top and a matching necklace, and had spent a lot of time styling her dark brown hair, which she’d put in rollers to add extra volume. Frank didn’t like thick make-up and nor did she, but it had taken her at least a quarter of an hour to give herself a natural look. She’d come downstairs feeling really pleased with the results.

  ‘Are you ready at last?’ Frank said, picking up the festively wrapped bottle of wine from the table.

  When he failed to compliment her, Senta walked past him into the sitting room and combed her fingers through her thick dark hair. ‘Wow, Senta, you look nice,’ she said.

  Something in her voice made Frank look up and she glared at him accusingly. ‘Do you realise you never pay me any compliments? You never say that I look nice.’

  ‘You always look nice.’

  ‘But it’s sometimes nice to be told!’

  Frank looked back at her with a twinkle of amuse
ment in his eyes. ‘Wow, sweetheart, don’t you look nice.’

  She shrugged resentfully, went into the hall and put on her coat.

  ‘What? Now I give you a compliment and it’s all wrong!’

  ‘You should work on your spontaneity,’ Senta snapped.

  ‘If I don’t pay you a compliment, you complain that I never pay you a compliment; and then when I do pay you a compliment, you complain that I can’t be spontaneous any more. What do you want?’

  ‘Boy oh boy,’ Senta replied irritatedly. ‘As far as you’re concerned I could go around in dungarees and a bowl-cut.’

  ‘You’d be just as pretty,’ he said sweetly.

  He meant well. That was the problem – he meant everything well, but he couldn’t sense what was missing in their relationship. And what was missing was the spark that prevented this kind of argument from happening in the first place.

  It’s strange to have lost a part of your memory. Even though it was a small part, it was still the most crucial moment of her life. She could have died. She’d thought she was going to drown, and experienced panic and mortal terror. Or had she lost consciousness immediately and been oblivious to the car filling with water and sinking? Is that the reason why she can’t remember the accident?

  The idea of a sinking car makes Senta shudder. Niels was right: she should be thankful she can’t remember anything.

  Did Alexander know she was in hospital? There’s no telephone in her room, and her mobile is irretrievably lost. Senta forces herself to think. Of course, there’s an advantage to this: no one can one can pick up her voicemail or read her text messages. She is surprised when she realises that she still knows Alexander’s number off by heart.

  Tomorrow she’ll ask Frank to buy her a new mobile phone. As sleep slowly engulfs her, the bitter irony of this plan hits home.

  24

  Lisa can’t get to the bed: her legs are too weak to control. His saliva burns on her breast, and her knees have almost given way.

  ‘Don’t be nervous. You’ll enjoy it.’