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Vicky swirls her wine dismally, staring down into the depths of her glass. There’s a strange acidic taste in her mouth and she doesn’t know why she doesn’t feel more jubilant, more exultant – he’s coming after all, isn’t he, her John? Hasn’t he left his wife, hasn’t he come to prove that he loves her? The idea of that does please her rather and she presses her lips together, not allowing the thrill of excitement to crack her cool mask. Later, when she’s had a bit more to drink she can allow herself to show her feelings a bit more, but for now she doesn’t want to show John how excited she is – if she wants to keep him by her side, doesn’t she have to wrangle, to ensnare? She has to allure, she has to hook him in, and surely, showing him pure genuine excitement simply isn’t going to do that? She has to have him entirely in her power, because, she reckons to herself as she takes another shaky sip, how else could she know that he truly does love her?
Vicky doesn’t allow herself to think any deeper than that; if she does she starts to worry, starts to regret things, wonder if the blackmail was really that necessary – but she’s never known any other way than this. She’s lonely, that’s the truth of it. Vicky Fleming is desperately lonely, has been for years and it’s twisted her up, changed her. She’s the sort of person who needs people, who needs fuss and attention to thrive and flow and simply feel like she properly existed – and so by being without people, she hasn’t ended up doing things right.
She’d been popular, once, when she was younger, she’d had heaps of friends but they’d all gone away in the end – Vicky frowns. Why had they gone away? Why had they left her, why did everyone always leave her? She feels a clutch of anger and squeezes her wine glass in frustration, her mouth turning down into a petulant scowl. At least she’s managed to make John stay, and the thought mollifies her a little. At least her John will stay. She’s proud of what she’s done in a way, glad she’s found the trick to keep people close. It’s a bit low, perhaps, but the wine helps numb the guilt, and at the end of the day, she doesn’t care, doesn’t care if it’s not very nice of her, doesn’t care if it’s cruel for the other person. She simply cannot bear to be alone, her life on hold.
The thing was with Vicky that she’d never really seen anything good or right to model her behaviour on. All her family are dead. She grew up in a strange environment, shunted around from pillar to post, one disinterested auntie to another disinterested auntie until they died too, and she was twenty one by then anyway so she was able to take a flat by herself and a job doing the typing for a well-built businessman in a black suit that made her lips curl into a smirk and his eyes flash darker whenever he looked her way. Something within her began to stir.
She’s always been determined to do herself well, do herself right, what with never having anything much as a girl. She’s cultivated her image, built up her glamour and her fondness for nice things. She loved working for the businessman, loved shooting him covert looks under her eyelashes as he equally gravitated towards her, both of them racing with desire. He was the first man she ever slept with and she thought him quite wonderful.
He died though, her boss, six months into their affair, a heart attack taking him down in the middle of a meeting whilst Vicky was sitting in the corner typing up the minutes and she screamed the office down as he fell – she’s nothing if not dramatic – and that was that. Alone again. And so Vicky began to whirl through life a little more on edge than before, miserably, achingly, always with a never ending string of men, each one the love of her life until they left her for better things – she can’t remember a time, hardly, when she wasn’t somebody’s mistress. Vicky could charm, she could flirt, she could wrangle – she managed to terrify all her lovers by the end of it – everything she did seemed so superficial, like just a bit of fun; it was never til the end of it when they were tired of her and she was screaming that the men actually realised how deeply Vicky’s feelings ran. She took every mistake as a personal blow; everything that went wrong was a deep wound that she wouldn’t allow to heal.
And so Vicky had quickly realised that if the men didn’t want her after three weeks, six months, a year – well she might as well use them, hadn’t she, might as well get a bit more cash out of them. What were they there for if not to help her out? They were all weak and foolish anyway; Vicky saw no reason as to why she shouldn’t. She had to find some way of looking after herself in the bloody world even if no one else would. She conducted her affairs in such a way that it seemed ludicrous to even entertain the notion that one day there might be a man who wanted to stay, who she could love so much and be so loved by in return that they could marry and live together and hold each other on cold dark nights, that could soothe the aching wound in her chest that loneliness had spat into her. All she wanted was this. All she’d ever wanted was this; she just didn’t know how it was done.
And then came John and with him came hope. She loves him for that more than anything, John and his promise. He brought hope for the future, hope for everything. It had gone so well to start with, and then it had crumbled, just like it always did; he wouldn’t leave his wretched damn wife. It seemed like everything had fallen apart, like she was going to be alone again and Christ, why, why was she always left in so much pain like this? Vicky had shaken her head violently, forced herself to control her breathing. She wasn’t having this. She wasn’t.
So she rolled out the inevitable, the stuff she always did to protect herself, the thing that always seemed like a good idea at the time although later she was never so sure, something she conveniently managed to forget every time she repeated her actions – she bought the drug online, which made her laugh, it was such a good joke, John never saw it coming – and took the photos, and was waiting, ready, for the money. She had to protect herself somehow, had to make him stay. And… it has worked, hasn’t it? For once in her life it seems like Vicky is actually victorious.
For John’s on his way, isn’t he, hasn’t he finally left his wife, isn’t he coming? She’s all dressed up, ready to go. She’s even deleted the photographs, without any hint of reluctance. She trusts John, trusts him to stay. She can let herself be excited now, let the feeling in her stomach mount and grow til he gets here and she can really set things right. She nods firmly. She deserves a future, a happy one. She knows it.
Victoria Fleming sits and waits, moussaka hot in the oven, best cutlery polished and waiting at the table with another bottle of wine. There’s a knock at the door and Vicky jumps to her feet, positively quivering in anticipation as she takes off her reading glasses that she’s never let John see and carefully tucks them onto the bookshelf. She squares her shoulders as she dashes to the door, unable to stop herself from smiling. John is here. Her life can begin at last.