‘Of course. Although one more thing – I will need your pass,’ he said, ‘before you go.’
‘Right. I’ll hand it over. I just have something I have to do. I’ll return it later today.’
‘I think it’s best you give it to me now,’ he said.
Her insides clenched like a fist and her voice pierced straight through the room like a rod of steel. ‘I said I’ll hand it in, Tom.’
He let it go. She was older than him. That should count for something in this world. Next he’d be telling her she ought to get some professional fucking help.
*
‘Feel the weight of your eyelids. Be aware of the rhythm of your breath, in and out. Listen to the birds out there … the faint sound of cars in the distance somewhere, that siren a long way off, the aeroplane way up there in the sky, just a hum … listen until you can hear it no longer. Try and empty your mind of any thoughts that might be going round. Let them go; they are not important. Just focus on what you can hear outside … then come back into this room …’
Emma was surprised at the power of her own voice, at her own conviction. She was going to get Connie to the end of this. Connie was sitting in the chair with her eyes shut, her hands loose on her lap. Because it was so warm in this place she was wearing only a T-shirt and some boxer shorts, and it was the first time Emma had seen the burns on her upper leg. They covered her entire right thigh and the inside of her left and were now a dark maroon, scabby in patches, a few areas still an angry red where she’d picked at the scabs, the skin around them taut and thin, peeling in places. Emma had grown used to the deep dark gashes striping Connie’s left wrist and the acid burn marks up the inside of her right arm, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to stare before. What a wrecked thing she was.
‘You are feeling alert but relaxed now, Connie, and all you have to do is listen to the sound of my voice. You are in a safe, calm place and nothing bad is going to happen to you. If you want to stop you just say so. Nod if you understand …’
Connie nodded.
‘I’m going to take you back to Milton House … I’m going to count down from ten and when I get to one you will be in a deep state of relaxation. All right … ten … nine … eight …’
Connie was surprisingly receptive for such a combative spirit; she’d been wary of doing this and only agreed when Emma had insinuated that their time was extremely limited.
‘Three … two … one … I want you to tell me what happened at Milton House when you started taking yourself off the Clonazepam … What’s it like there? How are you feeling?’
Connie sighed heavily and shifted herself. She bit her bottom lip and frowned.
‘They’ve just put a tree up in the reception area although Christmas isn’t for ages. It’s really naff; it’s from Poundland by the look of it but we’re all staring at it like it’s the Taj fucking Mahal. I can stare for hours at the lights. They have all sorts of different settings, flash flash gap flash flash gap, which they have to change because one of them sets off the epileptics. But this is not a normal Christmas, is it …’
‘Do you still feel like dying?’
‘No.’
‘What’s changed?’
‘It’s not right.’
‘What’s not right? What’s not right, Connie?’
‘Her in my house with my babies. I need to get home where I belong … that’s what my mother says.’
‘But your mother is dead.’
‘She speaks to me … I can hear her.’
‘What does she tell you?’
‘The first thing I have to do is think straight and I can’t do that on my meds. I know I have to stop taking them. So at med-time I queue up with all the others, swallow them then regurgitate them in the toilet. Lin says Clonazepam is twenty times the strength of diazepam. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘She used to be a doctor in China.’
‘What’s the withdrawal like?’
Connie shook her head and paused. ‘Not good …’
‘Tell me.’
Connie continued to shake her head back and forth. She was getting agitated and Emma leant forward. ‘Observe yourself, Connie. Stay calm and focused on the question in hand …’
‘OK,’ she said, nodding. ‘It’s frightening …’
‘Why is it frightening?’
‘He comes to me. No one else can see him.’
‘Who comes to you?’
‘Him …’ She was shaking.
‘Who is he, Connie?’
She whispers, ‘The Devil.’
‘The Devil? But the Devil’s not real.’
‘He’s real to me. He’s been waiting for me, he says. Waiting in the darkness; he appears on the wall in the shadows.’
‘And what about your mother?’
Connie shook her head as if she didn’t have an explanation.
‘Why’s he come to you, Connie?’
‘He’s come to get me,’ she said, as if it was obvious. ‘I’ve been bad.’
‘What does he look like, the Devil?’
‘Like in the picture books. Exactly the same: red eyes, horns, a goatee, cloven hooves.’
‘But he’s not real, is he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What does he do?’
She was still whispering. ‘He moves about the room at lightning pace. I never know where he’s going. He wants to get into my bed with me …’
‘What does he want from you?’
She crumpled up her face, as if about to cry. ‘He wants to drag me to hell …’
‘Why would he want to do that?’
‘Because I’m evil, because my children are scared of me, because I’m rotten to the core.’
‘Does he come only at night?’
Connie nodded; she was scared. ‘Mostly. He comes for three nights in a row … I’m so frightened I defecate in the bed … I wake up drenched in sweat with the stench of shit … I call for my mamma …’
‘It’s all right Connie, the Devil isn’t real.’
‘I close my eyes tightly and just keep repeating I’m in heaven, I’m in heaven. I find a staple on the floor and scratch it into the glass of the window, convinced that will stop him coming. I’m in heaven.’
Connie was breathing rapidly.
‘It’s all right, Connie. You’re past that now. You are safe. Tell me what happens on the day you escape …’
Connie sighed again and frowned and slowly rocked herself back and forth.
‘It’s pouring with rain outside and a group of us are watching the downpour through the window in the canteen. It’s like Armageddon out there and I wonder if it really is the end of the world. It sets a lot of people off; they’re dancing on the tables. Not me. I’m standing there with Lin, watching it, but I have this ache in my chest, in my heart – a real pain and it won’t go away. I can’t stop thinking of my children …’
‘And what happens?’
‘Suddenly there’s a loud crash from the reception area and raised voices and the whole herd of us rush over to the door to see what’s going on, myself and Lin included. Two men in boiler suits are freaking out. One of them is holding up the end of a pipe which has just burst and is now hanging from the ceiling, water gushing down on to the lino. The Christmas tree lights flash like crazy for a bit and then go out completely. We stand there in a huddle watching the gushing water fill the hall; it’s fantastic, it’s exciting, it’s sheer chaos. The security guy on the door is shouting at us, swearing, telling us all to leave the area, but it’s impossible, people are already paddling in the water and one plucky old bird, she has to be about eighty, she’s trying to swim …’
Connie began to smile, to laugh. ‘It’s mayhem. Several staff rush down the corridor and are trying to get people back to their rooms and the plumbers are trying to stop the water from going into the main block. Lin and I have moved over to watch the proceedings through the internal window in the canteen where some of us have bee
n told to wait. Lin sees the opportunity: just for a moment there is no one on the door. The security door is open and the guard has abandoned his booth to talk to the plumbers outside while they get their kit from the van.
‘“Go now!” Lin says. I turn to her: “Come with me.” But she doesn’t want to, she’s just about to burst herself. She promises to put some pillows down my bed later and she gives me her slippers and her cardigan …’
Connie paused, lost in a reverie.
‘So you just walk right out of there?’ Emma asked, her voice low, urging her on.
‘I never thanked her. I don’t even know if she had a boy or a girl.’
For a moment, she looks as though she’s finished talking.
‘Then what happened, Connie?’
‘I just race out of there into the rain in the clothes I have on and dart into the bushes towards the gate. I have no idea where I am, the outskirts of the city somewhere, in this forgotten place that no one wants to go to. I have no memory of even arriving there. I start to run, heading down side streets until I feel far enough away to stop. No one’s following me so I stop running and just follow the sound of the traffic until I come to another main road where people seem to be going about their rushed businesses in the rain. Nobody pays me any attention at all.
‘I feel good. I’m free; I can’t believe it. But it’s getting dark and I’m cold and wet so I decide to catch a bus. The first bus that pulls up says it terminates at Sloane Square. I know I can get the 22 home from there. I wait with a group of people under the shelter and the bus pulls up. I slip on at the getting-off doors behind a couple of young girls. The girls are giggling and I wonder whether they are laughing at me and my patches of hair and Lin’s slippers. I suppose I look a right sight. I climb to the top deck and sit at the back and soon warm up. A man in front of me has glasses on and I’m pretty sure he is spying on me, filming me; they are special spy glasses. Then he gets off, pretending to ignore me. The journey takes for ever but I don’t care; I look out of the window at the wet streets and people have started to put Christmas decorations in the shops, in the houses. I start to get excited. I think of the kids. I think of all the Christmas shopping I need to do, stocking fillers and presents. There’s so much to get on with. It seems like hours before I change buses and get back to Putney …’
Connie’s eyes were still closed but she paused; she was thinking, lost in remembering.
‘And what happened when you got there?’
‘I walk down the short cut, cross the little bridge and pass the cemetery. I feel as if I’m in a different reality, like a ghost, indomitable. I walk down Ness’s street and slow down as I approach her house. I stand outside looking in. She has a tree in the window, flashing tasteful white lights, delicate baubles – Evie has probably decorated it. It feels strange to be here where absolutely nothing has changed except me. There’s a light on in the kitchen at the back but I know no one is in – she always leaves it that way if she’s going out. I keep staring at the house, the bright yellow front door behind which lie so many of my memories: happy times of bringing up our children, playing games, all of us watching Saturday night TV, the kids enacting their tangos or their waltzes, the adults marking out of ten, the kids racing around the house, the adults sitting round the table drinking wine and putting the world to rights, back to the days of Leah dishing the dirt on the entertainment business, New Year’s Eves, birthdays, kids’ parties, adult parties … happy days indeed. And now here it is, the same bricks and mortar, but all broken and riddled with invisible cracks. I slowly walk around the side of the house to the back.
‘Nobody’s in the kitchen. I take the back door key from under the flowerpot where she always leaves it. I open the French windows and let myself in, closing the doors behind me. The smell is as familiar as my own house; hers is fruity and sweet, silent save for the buzzing of the fridge. Ness is messier than me; there’s washing-up in the sink and kids’ work all over the table, a pile of dirty clothes in the laundry basket, clean clothes hanging up everywhere, over radiators and off the backs of chairs.
‘I step in, taking off my wet clothes and putting some of her dry ones on. I feel much better now. I go to the fridge and notice a photo on the door of us all at the school ball, laughing, oblivious to the misfortunes that lie ahead. I take it off to see it better but it makes me nostalgic, homesick for something that’s long gone. It actually hurts to look at it. So I open the kitchen drawer, pull out her big scissors and snip straight through her head between the eyes, and straight through his between his lips, and I feel the pain subside. The pieces fall to the floor.
‘I hook the scissors on my thumb and open the fridge. I eat a piece of leftover apple tart before moving through to the hall, where I open the coat cupboard and see that one of Karl’s jackets is hanging up inside. I press my nose into it. I can smell him on it. Next to it is Ness’s leather jacket – one of mine actually, a brown leather jacket that I’d bought for myself but gave to her because she looked better in it. These scissors are very sharp – it’s easy to slice clean through the leather, it’s … satisfying. I cut both jackets clean in two before closing the cupboard and heading onwards, running my hand along the wall, deliberately knocking the photos off kilter, my damp fingers leaving a mark on the blue paint – chosen by me in happier times; my shoes squelching on the floorboards that I had helped her nail down.
‘I go up the stairs, dragging the scissors along the wall, noticing the dirt on the carpet. I stop outside the bathroom; she’s painted it an insipid pale yellow – or maybe he has; these things are new to me. I go to her bedroom and turn on her bedside light. I look around; I remember lying in this bed with her after Leah had left, comforting her as she cried, reading out loud to her from Seeing Stars to stop her sobbing and holding her tightly when she couldn’t, bringing her tea when she couldn’t sleep – this bleak future truly unimaginable then. Everything will be all right, I’d told her, quite sure of it. But it hasn’t turned out that way …’
Connie moved her head this way and that as if she were standing in Ness’s room, smelling that sweet fruity smell.
‘I notice that he is in this room as well: a pile of loose change by the bed – his trademark night-time deposit. I pull back the duvet for more night-time deposits. I lean over and sniff their fuckdom; it’s a familiar smell, musty and sweet, enticing and repulsive. I snip across the sheet in messy jagged lines. Then I look in the laundry basket for more evidence. Yes, there’s some of his underwear, stains and all. I go over to the wardrobe and open it wide. I give myself a fright. In the reflection of the mirror is a monster with peculiar tufts of hair and ripples of burn scars down its neck. Its mauled arm reaches up to touch its patchy bald head. I turn back to the job in hand and bunch all her clothes together and smoothly chop the entire lot in half.
‘I pause in my scissor-play when I hear a key in the door downstairs. It’s too late to turn the bedroom light off so I swiftly move into Evie’s room next door and hide in the alcove where the sink is, above which is a mirror where I can see both the door and the bed. I can hear a man’s voice. I listen carefully – Evie is laughing. Then I realize that it isn’t a man at all, it’s Josh. Josh and Evie are coming up the stairs, chatting, giggling. I crouch down as they come into the room, pressing myself deep into the alcove, the scissors still in my hand. I watch him in the mirror, my boy, my man-boy. He doesn’t see me for he has eyes only for Evie. He takes her in his arms and kisses her, like a man might. They lie down on the bed and I wait until they are lost in each other’s bodies before I leave the room. I walk straight past them and leave them to their love. I go back down the stairs and exit the house the same way I came in, spinning the scissors in my hand like John Wayne might his gun.
‘It has stopped raining now but everything is wet and gleaming in the street light. I look up. From outside Ness’s house I can see the back of my own. What a beautiful house it is. We had it re-pointed and painted a very pale blue a few years ago,
a lifetime ago. The lights are all on and smoke is coming out of the chimney, dark grey against the orange sky – Karl must have a fire going. The house radiates home, it’s all warmth and security. I let out a little gasp of joy as I see small figures running up and down the stairs in a chase, shadows bouncing off the walls. I know they’re Annie and Polly. I have to see them better. At the back of our house is a narrow overgrown alley that the neighbourhood cats crap in. I go down it, reach my hand over the wooden door and unlock our garden gate.’
Connie paused as if she were waiting for the time it took her to open the gate, her fingers twitching. ‘I close the gate behind me. From the back of the garden, I can see people downstairs in my kitchen. I know perfectly well that they can never see me. You can go right up to that window and still not be visible because of the lights inside. I hear sporadic muted laughter but I can’t make out the conversation. I walk down the garden path, past a pile of wilting footballs. Had Josh’s obsession ceased now that he was having sex? Ah, there’s Karl. He’s entertaining. I haven’t imagined him entertaining without me but there he is at the table, the jovial host, pouring out the wine, cracking the jokes. I stop.
‘Oh.
‘There she is, the jovial hostess, in my place, drinking from my glass, eating from my plate, lapping up my life. I wonder whether I ever existed at all. She is glowing, dressed in a T-shirt, hair tied back, radiant and unscathed as ever. I bend a little to see who the other adults are: the Stevensons and a woman I don’t know. The Stevenson kids must be upstairs hogging the PlayStation. They are the worst guests; it’s always the kids whose parents don’t let them play who make the dullest play-dates, glued to a screen of any sort. They are more Ness’s friends than ours. Karl and I don’t know them well at all, only in a social media sense where they seem rather earnest, saving-the-world type people, posting dull photos of unappetizing health drinks and sugar counts, running moonlit marathons, permanently outraged by the fascist regime yet furious if someone disagrees with them. Karl and I, we used to take the piss. Not any more, obviously. Where had we gone, he and I, the thing that we were?
Too Close Page 23