Rebound

by Aga Lesiewicz

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I say at last.

  She sighs.

  ‘Obviously, it’s not going to be easy, because we’re neighbours . . . Tom’s always had a soft spot for beautiful women, a harmless, almost childish fascination I’ve learnt to live with. But with you . . . basically, if you could try to avoid him . . . not encourage him . . .’

  ‘I’ve never encouraged him in any way.’

  Suddenly I’ve had enough of her. I get up from the table. ‘I’ll do my best. But now I’d like you to leave.’

  She gets up, not looking at me.

  ‘I understand. I’m so sorry . . .’

  I open the front door for her and she leaves, hunched and frail-looking. What a weird woman, I think. Has working at a sexual health clinic somehow impaired her way of seeing the world? Or does she really think I’m a total harlot?

  This is all too much, I think as I go back to the kitchen and let Wispa out into the garden. My life has suddenly transformed itself into a dark farce and I’m not laughing. I feel suffocated by the walls of my own house, by the village, by the whole city. I need to get out. I pick up my phone and call Kate, who left a message for me yesterday.

  ‘Kate, it’s Anna. You know I’ve been threatening to visit you for ages, so . . . what are you doing this weekend?’

  ‘Not much, do you want to come over?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Great, just text me when you’re on the way, so I know what time you’ll arrive.’

  An hour later the car is packed and Wispa is sitting in the back on her travel bed, wagging her tail excitedly. She loves our trips. I negotiate a bit of traffic on the North Circular and soon we’re heading up the M11 towards the gentle fields of Norfolk. Seeing the open space right past the M25 makes my heart sing. There is something comforting and reassuring in the amount of land that hasn’t yet been turned into a concrete jungle. I get off the M11 onto the A11 and then I’m on the A1065 towards Brandon, Swaffham and Fakenham, my favourite stretch of the road. I stop briefly at a pub on the way to let Wispa out and grab a stodgy, half-baked baguette filled with grated cheese that doesn’t resemble any cheese I know. Then we’re off again, both looking forward to our seaside adventure.

  Kate sold her London flat a few years ago and bought a charming cottage overlooking the sea in the picturesque village of Burnham Overy Staithe. She used to own a successful broadcast recruitment agency, got burnt out at the age of forty-three, sold her agency to the highest bidder and moved to Norfolk, to practise her two newly discovered hobbies: photography and gardening. The latter has developed beyond the hobby status as her allotment has grown from an amateur two-veg patch to a blossoming organic enterprise selling fresh herbs, salad garnishes and edible flowers to a nearby Michelin-star restaurant. I tease Kate that she’d left London to retire and relax, but she’s never worked as hard as she works now. She laughs and says it’s an entirely different kind of ‘hard’, the nurturing and fulfilling kind she’d never experienced running her agency. And it’s true: she’s never seemed as happy and healthy as she is now.

  We arrive in good time and Kate, tall, tanned and handsome, welcomes us outside her cottage. I’ve always envied her Mediterranean complexion, her black hair framing her face in lovely curls and her striking green eyes. Since she’s been in Norfolk she’s developed the healthy countryside glow of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors.

  Wispa is going berserk, running up and down Kate’s garden, quite an uncharacteristic expression of joy for the overweight old puppy that she is. But she loves Kate and loves to be here, especially if there’s a walk on the dunes and a swim in the sea in store for her. I unpack the car and bring Wispa’s bed and bowls to Kate’s kitchen, which is lined with beautiful stoneware tiles.

  Kate suggests we go out straight away to catch the afternoon sun and we get into her vintage Range Rover and drive the short distance to Holkham Beach, the most beautiful expanse of sand I have ever seen. We walk along a wooden boardwalk erected amidst the pine trees above the sand dunes and arrive at the salt marshes and the tidal foreshore. I have to stop and take in the view, which always fills me with awe. We pass a flock of serious-looking birdwatchers in camouflage gear and walk towards the sea, which seems miles away. Even though it’s a warm day, the stretch of sand is almost empty, dotted here and there with a few silhouettes of walkers. We turn left and walk along the dunes, our bare feet luxuriating in the fine sand. Wispa makes circles around us, her chocolate snout covered in sand.

  ‘So, what are you running away from this time?’ asks Kate. She knows me well enough for me not to protest. As we stroll on, I tell her about my split-up with James, the assaults on the Heath and the mind-boggling visit from Tom’s wife. What I don’t mention are my encounters with the Dior Man. She doesn’t say a thing, but I know she listens to my every word, a consummate listener with years of practice.

  ‘Wow,’ she says when I’ve finished. ‘It’s quite a surreal story.’

  ‘I know. Even as I was telling you, I doubted it’d actually happened.’

  ‘It is quite weird of her to come to you. Why would she mind her husband jogging with a neighbour from time to time?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I shrug my shoulders, then change my mind and tell Kate what had occurred to me when I was driving here. ‘Maybe she suspects he’s the Heath rapist?’

  ‘But if she knew he was a rapist, would she be protecting him? I’d go straight to the police.’

  ‘Well, the lengths women go to stand by their men . . .’

  Kate laughs. I think of her ex-partner Robert, a TV executive accused of molesting a teenage intern when she still ran her agency in London. She’d never said a bad word about him, but divorced him almost immediately and moved to Norfolk shortly after. I don’t know if there’s anyone in her life now; she certainly hasn’t mentioned any men since she’s left London.

  A couple of riders pass us, their horses frothing with excitement. I watch with envy as they gallop away, free and exhilarated. We walk on a bit further, then turn off and take the path through the pine woods back to the car park. Back at the cottage, Kate makes me sit down in the garden with a book while she prepares dinner. As usual, it’s a work of art, entirely vegetarian and consisting of produce only from her allotment. I savour her nettle soup with sour cream and a few wild garlic leaves, followed by freshly dug potatoes and houmous made from different varieties of beans, accompanied by salad adorned with pansies. After dinner, pleasantly relaxed by Kate’s elderflower and wild rocket wine, we sit in the garden watching the creek-side harbour, bustling with bird life in the dusk.

  Seven Days Earlier

  Next morning I’m up before Kate, buzzing with anticipation of my favourite morning run. Wispa is waiting for me by the door, and we sneak out quietly, cross the harbour car park and climb the coastal defence bank alongside Overy Creek. There is no one here yet, except for the cows that watch us lazily as we trot along the high bank. It looks like the tide is at its highest, the currents flowing fast between the mudbanks. I remember Kate telling me that apparently this is where Nelson learnt how to sail as a boy. I fill my lungs with sea air and feel the pure joy of being surrounded by natural beauty. We run all the way to the boardwalk at the foot of a high dune, then turn and start running back. A swift breeze that was pushing us forward when we ran towards the sea hits me in the face and makes my body work harder. The windmill at the centre of the village is beckoning us now and I’m thinking of Kate’s breakfast. It’s only by the harbour car park that we encounter the first humans of the morning, an elderly couple walking their Jack Russell, Pocket, who makes instant friends with Wispa.

  I enter Kate’s kitchen and the glorious smell of fried bacon and freshly brewed coffee welcomes me. A quick shower and I’m sitting at the kitchen table, tucking into Kate’s scrambled eggs with mushrooms and bacon. The coffee, smooth and almost sweet, with a delicate cocoa aftertaste, is from the Monmouth Coffee Shop in Covent Garden, which Kate visits
whenever she is in London. Once the breakfast is over, we move to the sun-drenched bench outside the kitchen door.

  ‘I think I could get used to this gentle decadence,’ I say and Kate laughs.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re ready to retire.’

  ‘Well, television is an ageist business.’

  It’s true, the creative hubris, so characteristic of young, talented and hungry ‘media people’ is very quickly replaced by the need to settle down and make some serious money. By the age of forty most producers are either burnt-out, frustrated failures who hang on to their jobs for as long as they can, or they’ve moved on, swapped their low-crotch jeans and woolly hats for suits and white shirts. And for all those who hang on comes a moment when their phone stops ringing, their work email account is empty and their accountant tells them they should drop the idea of having their own production company. From the point of view of big corporations it’s simple economics: it’s much more cost-effective to employ inexperienced but cheap kids than to have to fork out for mature producers who know what they are doing, but are expensive. The quality of their work is a secondary issue.

  ‘Maybe I should find myself a self-sustainable hobby and just quit the whole TV thing . . .’

  ‘You’re far too young and ambitious for that,’ says Kate, although I’m not sure she is right. ‘Talking of hobbies, I want to show you something.’

  We go to her study, a quaint room on the first floor with a huge double-glazed window facing the harbour. There is a massive oak desk by the window, with a twenty-seven-inch ultra-thin iMac in the middle of it. She touches the mouse to wake it up and the screen comes alive with the most beautiful close-up of a beanstalk.

  ‘This is my new project: photographing my garden as it goes through all the seasonal transformations.’

  We look through the stunning collection of macro-shots, revealing unexpected details of fruit and flowers. The quality of the photographs is impressive.

  ‘You should publish a book.’

  ‘I’m thinking of it.’ Kate closes the macro folder and clicks on a jpeg icon on the screen. It opens up to reveal a huge photograph of the harbour and the marsh bank along Overy Creek.

  ‘And this is you this morning.’

  I can see myself now, the grey silhouette of a runner with the brown speck of Wispa’s fur beside me, right in the middle of the frame.

  ‘What’s this?’ I lean towards the screen.

  At the very bottom of the picture, almost by the harbour, there is the shape of a man, wearing a black hooded fleece and jogging pants. He is just standing there, looking at the stretch of bank I’m on, his back to the camera.

  ‘Another runner?’

  ‘I didn’t see anyone there, except for this old couple with a dog.’

  ‘Maybe he went another way.’

  ‘There isn’t any other way,’ I say quietly, paranoia seeping in. There is something familiar about the man’s silhouette.

  ‘Well, he must’ve changed his mind.’ Kate gets up and stretches herself. ‘Do you want more coffee? Then I’ll take a quick shower and we’ll decide what we want to do today.’

  ‘Great,’ I say, hiding my anxiety. We go back to the kitchen and Kate brews a fresh pot.

  When she’s gone to the bathroom I sneak back to her study and move the mouse of her iMac to wake it up. It’s locked and the box in the middle of the screen asks for a password. Damn, I really wanted to see that picture again.

  We decide to drive up to Blakeney, have a walk on the coastal path and then pick up some fish for lunch at the Cley Smokehouse. I try to hide the anxiety caused by Kate’s photograph, but I know she knows something isn’t right.

  Back at her cottage Kate prepares a beautiful food spread on the table in her garden. As we dig into the smoked crevettes, dressed crab and kiln-roasted salmon from Cley, she pours some of her wine for us and looks at me.

  ‘Tell me what’s really bothering you.’

  ‘If only I knew myself . . .’ I wipe my fingers on a linen napkin.

  ‘Just give it a try.’

  She’s not going to be fobbed off.

  ‘Seeing that man in the photograph this morning really unsettled me.’

  She nods and waits for me to go on.

  ‘I don’t know, I get this weird sensation of someone’s presence hovering around me. And it’s not friendly, benevolent, like knowing that a friend thinks of you. It’s dark and menacing. Sometimes I feel I’m being observed, that my every step is being noted and judged. That’s why I freaked out a bit when I saw your photograph.’

  ‘But you do realize it’s very unlikely it was someone you know?’

  ‘Yes, I do . . .’

  We sit in silence for a while, watching the butterflies chasing each other in Kate’s garden.

  ‘Since those rapes on the Heath, weird things have started to happen to me, or maybe I just started noticing them.’ I pause, thinking of the best way of telling Kate as much as I can without mentioning the Dior Man. I realize I’m ashamed to tell her about him, not because I worry she might judge me, but because it would reveal something about me I don’t even want to know myself.

  ‘For instance?’

  ‘For instance, someone had left a bouquet of red roses on my doorstep the other day. No card, no sender, just flowers. Then the vase with the roses magically flies off the kitchen table and smashes on the floor, spooking my cleaner.’

  ‘Could be Wispa?’ At the sound of her name Wispa pricks up her ears and looks at Kate.

  ‘No, I doubt it. She’s never damaged anything in the house.’

  ‘It may seem unsettling, but there might be a perfectly innocent explanation for it. You’re obviously worried and stressed and that makes everything get slightly out of proportion.’

  She takes a sip of her wine and continues.

  ‘It’s good you’ve come here. When you go back, try to look at the whole situation with fresh eyes, without the emotional baggage. If it still feels wrong, call the police.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I say and just talking to her makes me feel better. But the dark cloud that has been obscuring my judgement remains: I haven’t told her I’m convinced all the weird things that keep happening to me are somehow connected to the rapes on the Heath.

  Six Days Earlier

  I drive back to London after a leisurely Sunday breakfast at Kate’s and another walk on Holkham Beach. Kate has been right, after all: the short holiday has helped me to shake off the oppressive atmosphere of the last few days. I feel refreshed and refocused. The good mood lasts until I stop to enter Tottenham Hale’s monstrous gyratory, hear a crash and my car jerks forward. Great. Someone’s just rear-ended my pristine BMW. I reluctantly get out of the car, keys in hand. Sitting on my rear bumper is another BMW X5, an exact replica of my car, down to the colour and the design of the alloy wheels. Its driver’s door opens and a tall black guy in a dark suit gets out. Wispa starts barking and I shout at her to stop, getting ready for a verbal fight. But the guy approaches me with his hands raised in an apologetic gesture and a smile.

  ‘I’m so sorry, it’s my fault entirely. Hope you’re OK?’ he says and I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing.

  ‘Yes, I think I’m fine.’ All the fight has gone out of me in a flash.

  ‘I can’t apologize enough,’ he says, getting a card out of his wallet. ‘Here are my details.’

  The cars behind us begin to honk; we’re blocking the entry to a major junction.

  I take his card and he continues, ‘Would you care to give me your phone number, so we can sort it out as soon as possible? My name is Ray, by the way, Ray Chandler.’

  No way, I think to myself, shaking his hand, this guy is too good to be true.

  ‘I’d like to take a few pictures of this.’ I take out my phone. I can see there isn’t much damage, just a dent on the bumper.

  ‘Sure, by all means,’ he says while I snap a few shots. ‘I’d like to take care of it without involving my insurance comp
any, if you don’t mind. A mate of mine runs a great car body workshop in Tottenham – he’ll fix it straight away and I’ll cover the cost.’

  Everything he says sounds dodgy, but I like his smile and his charming manner and, against my better judgement, I trust him. So I give him my phone number, he promises to ring tomorrow morning, we get back into our cars and drive off.

  What’s going on with you, Anna, I think, where’s your streetwise attitude, your fighting spirit? The truth is, I don’t feel like fighting and I enjoyed the whole encounter in some perverse way. It helped that the guy was charming and handsome, his laughing eyes and sensuous mouth not lost on me, even in the middle of Tottenham Hale gyratory.

  I get to my house and unlock the front door with slight trepidation. But it seems fine, no sign of an intruder, everything is exactly as I’ve left it. I catch up on work emails and start getting ready for a busy Monday, then I remember that Nicole’s gone and there’s no one to take Wispa for her walk tomorrow. I go on Gumtree and do a quick search for Hampstead dog walkers. All the usual culprits come up, students who want to house-sit and look after your animals for a small sum, professional dog-walking companies who stress their ‘individual touch’ and a few disturbing ads, ‘practically raised by dogs’ and ‘your dog’s mistress’. There’s one ad that looks promising – ‘I am a student and an experienced dog walker looking for work in the Hampstead area’ – but the guy’s name is Tom and I quickly move on. Looking for a reliable dog walker in London is a tough business. And having one is expensive. On the off-chance I text Nicole, but she’s still at her parents and doesn’t know when she’ll be back. Eventually I fall back on my ‘emergency babysitter’ as he calls himself, Michael. He’ll be happy to take Wispa out for a spin, but I’ll have to drop off the keys to my house for him on my way to work. Problem solved, at least for a day. I take Wispa for her evening walk and we stop in front of the High Street newsagent, looking through the ads. Just as I thought, it’s still the best local noticeboard and there are a couple of names and numbers I take a photo of with my iPhone. I’ll check them out tomorrow, if I have time.