doesn’t it?”
Alicia’s eyes ever so slowly moved in the direction of the ring.
“It tells you I’m a married man. It tells you I have a wife. We’ve been married for nearly nine years.”
No response, yet she kept staring at the ring.
“You were married for about seven years, weren’t you?”
No reply.
“I love my wife very much. Did you love your husband?”
Alicia’s eyes moved. They darted up to my face. We stared at each other.
“Love includes all kinds of feelings, doesn’t it? Good and bad. I love my wife—her name is Kathy—but sometimes I get angry with her. Sometimes … I hate her.”
Alicia kept staring at me; I felt like a rabbit in the headlights, frozen, unable to look away or move. The attack alarm was on the table, within reach. I made a concerted effort not to look at it.
I knew I shouldn’t keep talking—that I should shut up—but I couldn’t stop myself. I went on compulsively:
“And when I say I hate her, I don’t mean all of me hates her. Just a part of me hates. It’s about holding on to both parts at the same time. Part of you loved Gabriel. Part of you hated him.”
Alicia shook her head—no. A brief movement, but definite. Finally—a response. I felt a sudden thrill. I should have stopped there, but I didn’t.
“Part of you hated him,” I said again more firmly.
Another shake of the head. Her eyes burned through me. She’s getting angry, I thought.
“It’s true, Alicia. Or you wouldn’t have killed him.”
Alicia suddenly jumped up. I thought she was about to leap on me. My body tensed in anticipation. But instead she turned and marched to the door. She hammered on it with her fists.
There was the sound of a key turning—and Yuri threw open the door. He looked relieved not to find Alicia strangling me on the floor. She pushed past him and ran into the corridor.
“Steady on, slow down, honey.” He glanced back at me. “Everything okay? What happened?”
I didn’t reply. Yuri gave me a funny look and left. I was alone.
Idiot, I thought to myself. You idiot. What was I doing? I’d pushed her too far, too hard, too soon. It was horribly unprofessional, not to mention totally fucking inept. It revealed far more about my state of mind than hers.
But that’s what Alicia did for you. Her silence was like a mirror—reflecting yourself back at you.
And it was often an ugly sight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
YOU DON’T NEED TO BE A PSYCHOTHERAPIST to suspect that Kathy had left her laptop open because—unconsciously, at least—she wanted me to find out about her infidelity.
Well, now I had found out. Now I knew.
I hadn’t spoken to her since the other night, feigning sleep when she got back, and leaving the flat in the morning before she woke up. I was avoiding her—avoiding myself. I was in shock. I knew I had to take a look at myself—or risk losing myself. Get a grip, I muttered under my breath as I rolled a joint. I smoked it out of the window, and then, suitably stoned, I poured a glass of wine in the kitchen.
The glass slipped out of my grasp as I picked it up. I tried to catch it as it fell, but only succeeded in thrusting my hand into a shard of glass as it smashed on the table, slicing a chunk of flesh from my finger.
Suddenly blood was everywhere: blood trickling down my arm, blood on broken glass, blood mingling with white wine on the table. I struggled to tear off some kitchen paper and bound my finger tight to stem the flow. I held my hand above my head, watching blood stream down my arm in tiny diverging rivulets, mimicking the pattern of veins beneath my skin.
I thought of Kathy.
It was Kathy I would reach for in a moment of crisis—when I needed sympathy or reassurance or someone to kiss it better. I wanted her to look after me. I thought about calling her, but even as I had this thought, I imagined a door closing fast, slamming shut, locking her out of reach. Kathy was gone—I had lost her. I wanted to cry, but couldn’t—I was blocked up inside, packed with mud and shit.
“Fuck,” I kept repeating to myself, “fuck.”
I became conscious of the clock ticking. It seemed louder now somehow. I tried to focus on it and anchor my spinning thoughts: tick, tick, tick—but the chorus of voices in my head grew louder and wouldn’t be silenced. She