Page 37 of The Women

‘But don’t you think it sounds personal this time?’ she pushes. ‘The house on the hill with the pictures on the walls? Whoever it is has been here.’

He shrugs. ‘I’ll admit it’s creepy. But a house on the hill is a dramatic staple, isn’t it? What’s that Fleetwood Mac song?’

She looks at him blankly, no idea what he means.

He shakes his head. ‘“Big Love?” Never mind. All I’m saying is that it’s a well-worn phrase and lots of houses have pictures on the walls. Most, I expect. It’s how we customise where we live; it’s part of how we show who we are.’

‘But what about that stuff about liking girls and clothes and red wine? And Peter Pan? Your name is Peter!’

He gives an amused exhalation through his nose. ‘My name is not Peter Pan though, is it? I can see why you feel unsettled, I’m not minimising it, not at all. Which is why I think you should go and see Harry. But it’s the quintessential predatory male, isn’t it? Likes girls, well, that’s bog standard; men like women, so what? And clothes, well, I wear clothes but I wouldn’t say I’m particularly interested in them. I need them. They serve a purpose and I don’t want to look like a Central Casting academic, which is fair enough. As for red wine, well, everyone likes red wine, don’t they? And again, it’s synonymous with sophistication, seduction, sensuality.’ As if to illustrate the point, he pours himself another glass. ‘Peter Pan is a household name, a byword for youthful men everywhere and, look, you’re overlooking this bit here …his daughter, all grown up now. I don’t have another daughter, only Emily, and she’s a baby. Honestly? I think whoever wrote this is a woman who has been jilted. Didn’t you mention that your Polish student had had a bad boyfriend? Didn’t she even say that was what she was going to write about?’

Lana. Yes, she did. She did say that. Samantha has thought this before, and now Peter’s said it too. If Peter hasn’t mentioned a former student lover, so what? It’s none of her business and it looks like it was a few years ago, four or five, yes, that’s years. She hasn’t mentioned Aisha by name, so he has had no reason to feign ignorance. Heisignorant. He has no idea that his ex is in Samantha’s class. And Aisha was probably about to tell her when she rushed off.

Suddenly it doesn’t seem possible that Aisha wrote this. Or at least it seems possible that she didn’t. It is too mad for Aisha, too bitter. And the writing itself is perhaps too basic for an English literature graduate who casually drops a T. S. Eliot reference into four lines of verse. But then it doesn’t seem likely to be Lana either. The correct use of the definite article suggests it was written by someone with English as their mother tongue. Jenny? Jenny is pretty strident. Jenny was alone with the folder today. Jenny is close to Aisha; could she have some sort of crush on her, be in love with her even?

Could Jenny be writing on Aisha’s behalf, perhaps even without Aisha knowing?

‘Samantha?’ Peter says. ‘You’re miles away.’

‘Sorry.’ She smiles, sips her wine. ‘Do you think I should call the police?’

‘Don’t be silly, what would you say? A student with mental-health issues is writing dodgy poetry? I’d like to report a sinister piece of prose?’ He laughs, reaches for the back of her neck, strokes it.

‘But …’ She flounders. He is right, of course. It’s hardly a body or a burglary. ‘But the other thing is that I went for a walk with Emily earlier, just after you’d gone, and I bumped into that guy I told you about, the one who’s writing about the last man on earth.’

‘What, here?’

She nods. ‘Outside. Sean, his name is. I mean, I thought he was harmless, but he was coming up the road from the direction of our house. It was quite dark by then, although he did see me and say hello, but he looked … weird. Off, you know? He didn’t stop. Usually he tells me a load of stuff I don’t need to know, like where he’s going or about roadworks or whatever. It’s a sign of anxiety, that whole over-explaining thing, I think, but I’ve never felt threatened by him.’ She doesn’t mention the open back door. Peter would kill her. The lamp on a timer, the safe in the cellar, the alarm she secretly never uses, the double locks on the windows … He is very security conscious.

Peter is silent for a moment. Samantha finishes her wine. She feels better for having told him, for his poise, his logical reasoning, and for his hand on the back of her neck. His life before he met her belongs to him. For all she knows, Aisha was just a fling. Peter has the right to have had flings, girlfriends. To get worked up over a photograph is silly, paranoid. He’s with her, Samantha, now, and Aisha turning up in a local writing class is not exactly the weirdest coincidence in the world. She obviously got to know the area while dating Peter. Samantha herself loved this area from the moment Peter introduced her to it; it’s completely understandable that Aisha loves it too. And besides, even if Aisha did enrol with some dodgy agenda, that isn’t Peter’s fault, is it?

It might have seemed strange that the piece of writing didn’t appear to freak Peter out even a little bit, but then again, if he has nothing to feel guilty about, he would be exactly as calm as he is now. All he has been is kind and calm. She loves his calmness. She loves him. She needs to stop being so suspicious.

‘I think,’ he says slowly as she curls up against him, ‘you should take the three pieces of work to Harry next week and just chat it through. I think it’s time to let the college know and put it on record. I can have a word with this Sean guy—’

‘No, it’s OK. I can do it.’

‘OK. Well, you can ask him what he was doing in your road, and if he can’t provide a decent answer, tell him gently and kindly that if you see him near your house again, you’ll call the police.’ He puts the flat of his warm, dry hand to her face, presses her head softly against his chest. ‘But most of all, don’t worry,’ he says. ‘I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Some people are just a bit messed up, you know? Most cases of actual violence come from people we know. Trust me.’

‘If it gets worse,’ Peter says over breakfast the next day, ‘I was thinking you can hand in your notice. The pay is peanuts anyway and you should do an MA come September. If your poetry collection is accepted, we’ll get you something in a university, all right?’

She nods, although that’s not what she wants. She hasn’t given her poetry a single thought. It belongs to a past life, a past her, a youthful obsession, a phase. Her priorities have changed. She wants to help the illiterate and the dispossessed. She has seen foreign students in the college, heard them speak. She cannot imagine where they have come from, what they have come from, but she knows enough to understand that they are seeking better, safer lives.

‘I’m sure it won’t come to that.’ She spreads butter on her toast. When she looks up, she sees that Peter is watching her. She passes the knife back over the butter, scrapes off the excess, wipes it on the side of her plate.

Peter grimaces, tears off a strip of kitchen roll and, with one swift swipe, removes the butter from Samantha’s plate and puts it in the swing bin.

Wordlessly he returns to the table and spreads sugar-free strawberry jam on his own butter-less toast. He is still a little flushed from his early-morning run.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I need to tell you I can’t have Emily the week after next.’ He bites his toast, smiles, as if this represents the most minor inconvenience. His matter-of-fact delivery, his whole demeanour in fact, is so different from the tender way he was last night, his willingness to take her worries seriously, and later, when they were in bed. Last night he was a warm and gentle breeze; this morning an icy blast.

She tries to meet his eye but he is looking at his phone. ‘But it’s only for a few hours. And you know I don’t have anyone else.’

‘I know, it’s a pain. Could you ask your mum to come and stay?’

‘She has to work, you know. She can’t just take a holiday when she feels like it.’ Most people have to work to eat, she doesn’t add, much as she’d like to.

‘What about the crèche at the college? Yes, that’s it.’ He is standing up, throwing his navy Harris Tweed jacket over his shoulders. ‘Book Emily in next week as a practice run. She’ll barely notice. But it’d be good to try her out while I’m here to come and get her if it doesn’t work out. If it does, it might be better to have her there anyway going forward. I’m losing a lot of time on Tuesdays.’

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