She knew the terrible things her son had written to the girl after she had rejected him. They’d been read out in court. Many times he had threatened to stick a knife in her and worse; sometimes he’d been specific in his threats, talking about cutting bits off her, all sorts of horrible stuff she felt sure he’d got from videos.
He wouldn’t do it, of course. She knew that, she was certain of that. On the other hand, he’d looked so very desperate. But Peter’s mother would rather have her son arrested for breaking a court order than for murder, which was why she had decided to call the police.
“He’s been told not to go there but he couldn’t resist it, I’m afraid,” she said to the duty officer at the police station. “He’s just hanging about in her street in the rain… and… well, I know he’s taken his knife with him… Just against yobs and muggers, you understand! I mean, he wouldn’t actually harm anyone with it… not her, I’m sure, but perhaps you could send someone down to talk to him anyway – tell him to come home.”
The duty officer promised that they would send a car round.
“Thank you, officer. Thank you. He’s a good boy, you know.”
50
For perhaps a minute afterwards Polly lay staring at the ceiling. She had pulled her shirt around her but apart from that she had not moved. The only sound in the room was the milkman’s radio and a faint clatter as he made his breakfast in the room below. Polly felt foolish, angry. She had stripped herself naked in front of Jack. She had practically begged him to make love to her. He had let her do it, too. Oh, there’d been no doubting the way he’d looked at her. Jack had certainly allowed Polly to undress for him, and then he’d walked away.
She got up and put her knickers back on, buttoned up her shirt and put on the plastic mac again. Up to this point she had not looked at Jack once. When she finally did so she found that he was not looking at her but had returned to his old habit of staring into his glass.
“I think you should go now,” she said.
Jack did not move. “I can’t go,” he said.
“I don’t care what you can and can’t do, Jack.” Polly’s voice was cold with hurt. “I want you to leave.”
Still Jack did not face her. “I can’t leave, Polly.”
“You rejected me before, Jack. I got over it. Now you come back and reject me again. I’m not strong enough for this.”
Jack attempted to explain, but he could not. “It wouldn’t have been right for us to-”
“Is it your wife? Is that what’s stopping you?” Polly asked. She had not intended to discuss it any further, but she knew that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. She could see it in the despondent way in which he sat.
“No.”
Polly felt she had no more dignity to lose. “I’m lonely, Jack.”
Jack did not respond.
“I’m lonely,” Polly repeated.
Again he did not respond, except perhaps for the smallest of shrugs. Polly finally decided that she really had had enough. Loneliness was better than this. The evening was over.
“I want you to leave. Now, Jack,” she said. “And this time don’t come back. Not after sixteen years, not ever.”
Polly walked over to the door and opened it.
Outside the door Peter froze. Terror and excitement in equal proportions deprived him of the means to move. He’d returned to Polly’s floor and had been trying to listen, not very successfully what with that damn radio music, his ear pressed to Polly’s door. Then suddenly, more quickly than he would have thought possible, he had heard her footsteps approach, her hand on the latch, and the door had opened.
He had had no time to move even had he been capable of such a thing. He stood transfixed, a knife in his hand, blood still dripping from his nose onto his mouth and chin.
“Goodbye, Jack.”
Peter heard her voice through the open door. One thin sheet of panelled wood separated them. In two steps he could be inside her flat, facing her, facing him. He held his knife. He held his breath. He could see the shadow of Polly’s arm on the latch through the crack between the open door and the frame. He could see partly into her flat, the carpet, the edge of the table, a shelf with all sorts of stuff on it.
“I’m not going, Polly. Not yet.”
It was the American’s voice, the despised voice of his hated rival. Peter wondered about running in then and there. He wondered whether he would have the chance to stab the man before he fought back. Peter knew that his enemy was assured, he remembered that from the confrontation at the phonebox. He did not wish to find himself beaten to his knees again, shamed and at the man’s mercy in front of Polly. He decided against such a full-frontal attack. Much better to leap out of the shadows at the man later when he left. Instead Peter remained dead still, now more excited than scared, luxuriating in the exquisite tension of the moment, scarcely able to believe that he was almost inside her flat, that she was hardly a foot away from him. For sheer, tense, sensual pleasure this certainly beat swearing at her over the telephone.
“What do you mean, you’re not going? You’ll go when I bloody well tell you, and I’m telling you to go now,” Polly said from behind the door.
It dawned on Peter that Polly was ordering the American out. They must have had a row and now he was being told to go. Peter raised his knife. The blade was already crusted black and crimson with his own blood.
“There are things I need to tell you, Polly,” Peter heard Jack saying from within the room, “and something I need to do. Unfinished business.”
The door closed millimetres from Peter’s face. He stepped back from it, limp with the tension.
Inside the flat Polly turned on Jack.
“Hey, Jack. Look at me,” she said. “Don’t tell me what’s what in my own place. This is today Polly, not yesterday Polly, not twenty-years-ago Polly. Not a little girl who you can screw and screw up. Not a vulnerable, exploitable fucking teenager. This is my place, right? It isn’t much, but it’s mine and while you’re here you will do what the fuck you’re told. And right now what I’m telling you to do is leave.”
“I’m not going, Polly.”
Polly looked at Jack and she did not like what she saw. She felt a surge of resentment. Who the hell did he think he was? She’d got by without him for sixteen years and she was happy to continue to do so.
“Yes, you are going, Jack, because I don’t want you as a part of my life any more. What’s more, I want you to forget about what we talked about earlier, about hurting that man. I don’t want your help with that. I can fight my own battles and if anyone’s going to hurt him it’s going to be me.”
“Whatever,” said Jack and Polly despised his tone. He did not believe her. He did not believe she could defend herself.
“You think you’re pretty tough, don’t you?” Polly said.
“Tough enough,” Jack replied.
Polly took her time before replying. “Jack, I’ve known a hundred men tougher than you. Men who don’t need a uniform and an army to give them strength, because their strength is on the inside.”
“That’s nice,” Jack replied.
Polly went back to her bed, kneeled down and dragged a bag from under it. This time Jack refrained from studying her legs as she did so. He had allowed himself to be distracted for too long. It was time to get on now.
She stood up and put the bag on the bed. “I could kill you right now,” she said, looking Jack in the eye.
“Yes, I imagine you could,” Jack replied with the same old charming smile. “You’ve certainly got cause.”
Polly could see that Jack had misunderstood her. “No, Jack, I mean really kill you. You could be dead at any moment. I have the means.”