Free The Gift of Shame by Sophie Hope-Walker Page B

lived opposite her in Eastbourne had been spying into her bedroom with a telescope. Night after night she had tormented the man, sometimes giving him full view of what he sought and on others coming to the brink and then closing her blinds before he got what he wanted. She had been knowingly cruel in her exhibitionism and thought herself a monster while consoling herself with the thought that he was only getting what he deserved.
    Night after night she had revelled in knowing his eyes were on her and, goaded into even more daring acts, she had felt like a latter-day Scheherazade and found fuel for her own fantasies. One night her mother, looking out from another room, had discovered the man spying from a tree to which her exhibitions had lured him, and called the police. The man had been dragged into court and lost his highly placed position with the local authority. He had, to his honour, never mentioned what must have been obvious to him – that she had known and conspired with him – while shame had prevented her saying a word about her own repeated complicity, and he had been hounded out of town, his reputation in ruins. This incident was known to no one but themselves and remained her most shameful secret. From time to time she would calculate how old the man must be by now, and by what standard he must judge her own behaviour. While that man lived, the only other guardian of her guilt, she knew she could never be truly free. Not even now, not even with this man who had brought her to the edge of paradise, could she share it. Instead she sought to divert him.
    ‘I used to run an airline,’ she said and then waited as he absorbed her meaning before reacting precisely as she had hoped he would.
    Raising himself on one elbow he stared down at her. ‘You what!?’
    She laughed, delighted by his reaction. ‘I did!’ she insisted.
    ‘An airline?’ he asked.
    She nodded, almost unable to contain her happiness that she had managed to surprise him.
    ‘A real airline? I mean, one with aeroplanes that flew?’
    She nodded again.
    ‘Which one?’ he demanded.
    ‘Well, all right,’ she confessed, ‘it wasn’t exactly an
airline
, but we did have planes and they did fly.’
    ‘What was it then?’
    ‘A club. There was this small airfield near where I used to live. The owners would sometimes rent their planes to other people and sometimes, if they were qualified, they would fly them as air taxis. I used to run the office.’
    Sinking back onto the pillows he sighed with relief. ‘For a moment I thought I was in bed with the Chairman of British Airways!’
    Her laughter rang round the bedroom.
    ‘I always wanted to learn to fly,’ he said, and when she stayed silent, went on. ‘Never had the time.’
    Her silence had become palpable and, curious, he looked across to see that tears were flowing from her eyes.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked with immediate concern.
    ‘That’s where I met Kenneth.’
    ‘Kenneth?’ he asked and then immediately felt stricken as he remembered. ‘Your husband?’
    Her chin trembling now, she nodded.
    ‘Christ!’ he said feeling an idiot. ‘I’m sorry. Look, I blundered into that! Millie had told me what happened, of course. The last thing I wanted was to upset you.’
    Her shoulders were shaking now, and she turned away, murmuring into the pillows.
    He reached for her but she, now openly weeping, shrugged him off.
    ‘Look, there’s nothing that’s happened between us for you to be ashamed about.’ He felt helpless seeing her pain and feeling he had nothing to offer. ‘You’re a young woman. No one could blame you. Please don’t …’
    She spoke savagely into the pillow. ‘You don’t understand! I killed him!’
    Her words jolted him for a moment until he understood they couldn’t have literal meaning. Now he reached for her more positively and forced her anguished face to look at him. ‘That’s crazy!’ he told her. ‘How could you have killed him?’
    She