Between You and Me: The bestselling psychological thriller with a twist you won’t see coming
We almost seem like a normal family. My plan to keep Maggie at home all day so I could be near the phone seems to have worked, as I manage to answer every time you call (I think, at the last count, by 4pm, you had called me six times), and when you stride through the front door just before seven o’clock, waving a bag of sweets at me, your mood is buoyant. I heave a sigh of relief and come through from the kitchen to greet you. Your good mood is infectious and I find myself humming under my breath as I cook – an old Italian love song that my mum used to sing to me at night when I couldn’t sleep. It’s moments like these, little fragments of our lives together, when everything is peaceful and you’re happy … these moments are part of the reason I stay when things are bad. There is nothing that compares to an evening indoors with you and Maggie, a nice family meal eaten together, time spent as a family, with no arguments, recriminations or fear. These few and far between moments are what I wanted when I married you, when we had Maggie. These moments are what I hang in there for, when you’re screaming at me, or throwing something at me because I’ve let you down again.
After a meal complemented by vegetables that Maggie and I have grown in our vegetable patch, we settle in for the night. Maggie and I are very pleased with ourselves today, after plucking a bumper crop from our little mini allotment. We created our patch at the back of the garden last year, as soon as Maggie was old enough to start helping out. I dug the patch over myself, weeded it and set up a little fence to try and keep the rabbits out. We visited the local farmer and requested his help with fertiliser (it turns out that horse poo comes free of charge) and then, once it was all ready, Maggie helped to plant various fruits and vegetables. It’s become a little parcel of pride for me, down at the bottom of the garden, a small achievement that doesn’t mean a lot to anyone else, but when I stand back and look at it, I think, ‘I did that.’ You, on the other hand, don’t think it’s anything terribly special and can’t see the attraction in growing things from scratch, telling me that it probably works out cheaper just to buy the vegetables ourselves. You don’t understand that it’s the sense of pride that comes with it all that makes it all so worthwhile.
We finish the second bottle of wine, and before long you’re snoring softly on the couch. Every day is a long day for you, and by Friday the hours seem to catch up with you. I think back to our uni days, to when we first met, and we would stay up until all hours, just talking about nothing and enjoying being together.
After that first meeting in the Student Union bar, we are inseparable. You call me the next day, to see if I want to meet for lunch, and of course I say yes, despite feeling terribly nervous. I hadn’t had a lot of luck in relationships, and although I come from a large, vibrant family, it is easy to hide the fact that you are the shy one when everyone around you is so noisy. I can’t quite believe my luck that I have managed to pluck up the courage to speak to you in the first place, and that now, after spending an evening in my company, you want to see me again. We meet outside the local coffee shop, on a day not unlike today. It is hot, the air thick and muggy, making every action an effort, but it doesn’t stop me from looking forward to our date. There are butterflies in the pit of my stomach as I walk towards the coffee shop, worrying that you will have changed your mind, but as I round the corner you are already there, sunlight bouncing off your fair hair, a huge picnic basket slung over one arm.
‘It’s too hot for lunch inside.’ You greet me with a kiss, with no sign of the nerves that I am suffering. ‘I’ve brought us a picnic. We can go to the park, eat outside, get to know each other a bit better.’ You wink at me, and take my hand with your free one. As we walk towards the park, the butterflies in my stomach calm to a mere flutter and I know, just know, this is going to be the start of something big.
We spend an incredible, long, hot summer together and by the time September rolls around and it is time to head back to university life you have persuaded me it makes more sense for me to move in with you than to go back to my shared house with three other flatmates, despite us only knowing each other for a matter of months. You share a house with only two others; your room is a huge, light, airy double room as opposed to the tiny box room that I inhabit in our grungy student house, and your place is nearer to the university than mine. Your final convincing argument is the car. I have a car, and you don’t, although you have your licence. I am one of those lucky ones whose parents have splashed out on a car prior to my starting university in the hope that I will use it to come home every holiday. I say ‘splashed out’, but it is a 1988 Ford Escort, never one hundred per cent reliable, and the exhaust fell off within three weeks of them buying it.
‘Just think, Sal, if you live with me you won’t have to use the car half as much – we’ll be together in the evenings anyway, and you’ll be able to walk to lectures from here. You know it makes sense.’
You have it all planned out and, after a few weeks of you presenting your arguments like a typical lawyer, it just seems easier to go along with it. So I do just go along with it, despite the fact that I’m going to miss the friends I’ve house-shared with since my second year at uni. That summer I don’t get back to see my parents even once. I am flattered that I have become such an important part of your life so quickly. But nothing stays the same for ever; things change and, while I am pretty sure I am still the most important person in your life, I’m not sure how it went from being a good thing to being something that, to be honest, I sometimes find quite frightening.
CHARLIE
I wake up with a start on the couch, after snoozing for an hour. The wine we drank after our meal was enough, coupled with the early starts and late nights that go alongside working on a case as huge as the Otex acquisition, to send me over into oblivion for a little while. Sal is smiling down at me when I wake; dark curls falling over one eye.
‘God, sorry, Sal, did I snore? Jesus, I’m shattered.’ I yawn, a huge jaw-stretching yawn.
‘Ha, no. You’re OK. I know you’re tired – the case must be taking its toll on you. No, I was just thinking about when we met. Remember that summer?’
‘How could I forget?’ I pull Sal in for a hug and squeeze tight, last night’s row completely erased from my mind. ‘Picnics in the park, your crappy old car that could barely get us from A to B without something dropping off it, drinking cider in the sun – those were the days!’ I laugh. Those were the days, once I persuaded Sal that moving into my place was the right idea. Those flatmates Sal shared with were a nightmare – all they wanted to do was take Sal away from me, with their promises of gigs to see obscure bands that no one except them (and Sal) had ever heard of, and wild house parties, full of dodgy punch and people being sick on the stairs. An actual nightmare. One of them actually had the nerve to tell me that he thought I was ‘too controlling’ of Sal – he soon shut up once I told him I knew he had slept with his lecturer and did he want me to let the head of department at the uni know? It’s amazing what information you can pick up when everyone else around you has had too much to drink, while you stay sober – that and the fact that the lock on his bedroom door was incredibly easy to pick. Once I had Sal moved into my place, I could decide who Sal saw, where Sal went, everything. I could keep Sal with me, all night, every night. There’s nothing controlling about it – it’s just keeping an eye on your other half.
‘It seems like a long time ago now.’ I smile at Sal, ‘And here we are still, together, despite it all. Together through thick and thin, that’s us, Sal. We don’t need anyone else, you know that. I love you more than anyone. More than anyone ever has or ever will. Remember that, Sal. I’d die if you left me.’ A tiny frown drifts across Sal’s brow before Sal stands and, disentangling our arms and legs from each other, holds a hand out to me.
‘Enough of that. Come on, sleepy head. Let’s go up to bed.’
SAL
The weekend passes without any incidents, and the calm and tranquillity carry on into the following week. Things always seem to follow the same pattern – I do something you are not happy with, you go crazy, and punish me