‘Take your hair down,’ he said, his voice hoarse.
I did as I was told, wondering if we’d continue like this – the commands, the straddling, his thrusts through unzipped trousers – once we were married. If a part of me hated him – despised him, even – that only abetted the performance he most enjoyed. His smooth hands ran down my sides and I closed my eyes, shutting out the consequences, the devastated wife, and even my own motives, to enjoy what pleasure there was, in completing the task at hand.
The Disappearance
Last Day Seen
Friday, 3 December 1926
AT HER NEW home in Ascot, not far from Sunningdale, Miss Annabelle Oliver – aged seventy-seven – was experiencing lady troubles.
It had been going on for some days. It was what her mother used to call heat from the bladder. Not the sort of thing one likes to talk about, even to a doctor. Doctors were men, after all. It would be better if she took care of it on her own. Drinking lots of water was the thing to cure it. That had always worked in the past. There was no telephone at the house she’d inherited when her brother died. He hadn’t believed in them and neither did she.
It was a clock that woke her up with unfamiliar chimes. Gongs, ten of them, sounding through the house that was much too big for just one person. Miss Oliver’s eyes flickered open. Her face felt rather hot but she had the distinct feeling she ought to be somewhere. A party, that was it. She got out of bed and dressed, disappointed with the clothes she found. High of neck and dark of colour. Why, you would think they belonged to an old lady.
She walked outside expecting to find a carriage waiting for her. Instead there was only a car, a black Bentley, sitting unused and forlorn in the drive. Very well. She preferred horses to engines but was used to doing things for herself. It was not entirely appropriate for a young lady to arrive at a party alone but if she didn’t show up, her hosts might worry. She rolled up her sleeves, cranked up the car and sat herself behind the wheel to drive off into the night.
The car, like the house, had belonged to her brother. Miss Oliver didn’t remember that at the moment. She did remember how to drive, and so she did, away from her house, lurching down the dark roads in no particular direction, only her phantom destination.
Goodness, it was hot. She lifted the back of her hand to her brow. It was almost pleasing, the pulse of heat, skin on skin, proof that she was alive and heading somewhere exciting, where many loved ones awaited. She only had one light hand on the wheel and the car swerved a bit to the left, one wheel skittering on pebbles and brush. She grasped the wheel and righted herself on the road, peering through the windscreen at the road ahead of her.
An awful pain seared, sharp enough to snap her into a moment of clarity. The car lurched and she slammed on the brakes, smacking her head into the windscreen.
Now there was a new pain, and blood trickling into her eyes. She pushed the door open and stepped out of the car. Terribly cold. Head clearing. And terribly lonesome – a dark country road in the dead of night. For a moment Miss Oliver could understand. She was not a young girl on the way to a party, but a confused old woman who had driven miles from home and then off the road. The car sat there, looking whole and well. Not even needing a push. If she could just crank it back up, she could turn around and drive on home to her own bed.
‘What was I thinking?’ Miss Oliver said, crossing her wrists and pressing her hands to her chest. ‘I might have been killed.’
Oh, it was hot. The fog descended upon her again. She took off her wool coat and threw it upon the driver’s seat.
‘I must get to the party,’ she said. ‘My hostess will be so worried if I’m late.’
She walked off into the night, leaving her car by the side of the road, not heading back towards home, but straight into the brush and brambles. Nettles scraped across her wrists. Still she kept walking, even when her feet began to sink into murky water, icy enough to feel like something was biting her about the ankles.