Safe With Me

by K. L. Slater

  I glance down and see a cluster of angry red welts inside my wrist. I stop scratching and press my fingertips together in a steeple shape.

  ‘I’ve always lived there,’ I say. ‘I mean, I grew up there and then when – well, the house just became mine in the end.’

  ‘Not many people your age own their own home outright,’ Liam remarks. ‘That’s impressive.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’ I pick at the edge of the blanket while heat channels into my cheeks.

  ‘What about friends and stuff?’ His forehead furrows. ‘Is there anyone special in your life?’

  I stand up quickly then, fanning my face with an NHS Guide to Beating Infection.

  ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ I ask brightly. ‘I could go and get us one from the machine downstairs?’

  Liam shakes his head but he doesn’t say anything. I pat the white box on the side table.

  ‘I brought cakes in,’ I say. ‘To cheer you up.’

  I open the box and peer inside, speaking as casually as I can.

  ‘Have the police been to talk to you yet, about the accident?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘That woman, the other driver, she nearly killed you. You can’t let her get away with it, Liam.’

  He shrugs his shoulders and looks down at his hands. ‘I can’t even remember what she looks like.’

  ‘I don’t want to alarm you but it is vital that you ask the police to come and speak to you soon, to tell you what they know about her,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t matter if you can’t remember anything about the accident. There were other people there who saw what happened that day.’

  ‘Tell me what about her, though?’ He yawns and watches as thin dashes of rain spatter the window.

  ‘Her name, address, that sort of thing,’ I say again, moving in front of the glass to get him to concentrate on what I’m saying. ‘She mustn’t get away with what she did. You need to make sure the police don’t keep anything from you, that they tell you everything they know about her. For insurance purposes, you see. If you want, I could contact—’

  I look up, annoyed, when I hear someone entering the room.

  A young nurse I haven’t seen before walks forward a little nervously and holds up a clear, plastic bag containing items I don’t recognise.

  ‘I’ve been asked to give this to Ivy Bradbury.’ She looks at me.

  ‘Thank you.’ I take the bag. ‘I’ll make sure she gets it.’

  ‘Looks like keys and stuff,’ Liam murmurs, disinterested. ‘Probably mine.’

  I pop the bag into the pocket of my coat that is hanging over the back of my chair while the girl scurries out.

  ‘I’ll give them to Ivy later,’ I say briskly. ‘Now, time for the big decision. Chocolate éclair or vanilla slice, which is it to be?’

  He looks at me, confused.

  ‘My birthday.’ I reach for the cake box. ‘I thought I’d treat us.’

  I think about those beautiful lilies and the joy of seeing several pastel-coloured envelopes on the mat.

  I send myself birthday cards every year, but it was the first time I’d done flowers.

  * * *

  The drive back home seems to take forever.

  I’m eager to scrutinise the contents of the bag the nurse gave me.

  When I left the hospital, I decided to make myself wait until I got home to look and now I am savouring the anticipation of it.

  In the end, although she had improved somewhat, the hospital staff decided Ivy should remain there overnight for observational purposes, seeing as she would be home alone if they discharged her.

  I realised then that I couldn’t possibly burden her with the bag containing Liam’s belongings. It would only serve to upset her even further.

  So I decided to take them home with me, for safekeeping.

  When I get in, I snap on the lights and shut the lounge door behind me, ignoring Albert’s mews of discontent. He’s going to have to wait for his supper for once.

  I take out the self-sealed clear plastic bag, which is about the size of a hardback novel. The contents take up only a third of it but I lay the items out in front of me on the coffee table.

  There is a battered mobile phone, a few coins and a five pound note, a folded-up letter and a small bunch of keys on a leather Suzuki fob.

  The letter is from a photographic studio, confirming that Liam is booked on to a course for instruction on how to use a wide-angle lens. I realise then that I haven’t even asked him what his job is yet, and whether Ivy has informed his employer that he’s in hospital.

  I sniff the air. The smell is still here in the house, perhaps not quite as strong as before, but still.

  Thoughts about that are swiftly dispersed when I pick up the bunch of keys and spot immediately that one of them is a pale gold Yale. It looks very much like a front door key.

  Intruding on other people’s privacy isn’t something I’m proud of doing or that would usually occur to me, but there is a growing urgency to this situation. It is of paramount importance that I gather a little more information about their lives.

  With Ivy reluctant to even discuss the accident or police progress and now that it’s apparent that Liam has lost his memory altogether, albeit temporarily, someone has to keep an overview on what’s happening.

  Ivy mentioned something about a police contact number lying around in the house. Finding it would be a good starting point in getting things moving.

  In that moment, I decide I am more than willing to battle through my own personal discomfort and use Liam’s door key, if there’s a chance I can help move things along.

  I suppose that’s just the sort of person I am.

  It is still early evening, only seven thirty.

  To my annoyance, the nurses suggested I left early to allow Liam to rest after the drama of Ivy’s collapse. Obviously intimidated by them, he didn’t object.

  I can’t seem to settle. Too antsy to watch TV, too tired to comb the house in search of the mystery smell again.

  I try to put Liam’s key out of my mind while I decide on the best course of action but I keep thinking about Ivy’s cat, Boris, and how there is no one there to feed him tonight.

  It occurs to me how much she’d appreciate me dropping by just to make sure he is okay.

  And that’s what decides it.

  * * *

  It is dark when I turn in to Heath Close and park up halfway along the street.

  It’s quiet here, everyone will already be tucked away into their warm, snug houses chatting about their day over a glass of wine.

  A collarless dog of unidentifiable breed systematically sniffs and pees its way along the hedge on the other side of the road but, thankfully, that’s the only sign of movement.

  Heath Close isn’t a long stretch and it takes me just a couple of minutes to saunter casually past two unlit lamp posts and a discarded bicycle frame to number fifty-three.

  It is surprising how many people leave their curtains open at night. I get a good look inside a number of houses as I make my way down the street.

  An old man wearing wire-framed spectacles pores over a small table creating some kind of structure from tiny sticks of pale wood. His light is provided from a single, stark light bulb.

  There is something achingly desperate about the tableau that makes me look away.

  I reach Ivy and Liam’s house. It occurs to me I should go around to the back door to get in if I want to avoid walking straight off the road into the porch and be lit up like a Christmas tree.

  The darkness folds around me as I walk down the side of the house. I can’t see if there’s another key on this keyring that looks like it might fit the back door.

  If Ivy’s neighbours are anything like mine, the nets will be twitching.

  My visit is nobody else’s business, but you usually find most people are far too interested in the lives of others for their own good.

  There is no outside light at the rea
r of the house either and I fumble with the keys, trying to find the right one. Then I remember I’ve got a tiny little flashlight on my own keys.

  I illuminate the lock on the peeling wooden door and my heart sinks. It requires a long key, like the one that opens the bike shed at work.

  I shine the light on Liam’s bunch of keys again and quickly sort through.

  Nestling between his motorbike key and the Yale, a longer key glints. It turns easily in the lock, and I push open the door, wondering for the first time what I am going to do if an alarm starts wailing. But I needn’t worry, silence remains.

  I can’t see him but I feel Boris soundlessly winding himself around my legs in a figure of eight.

  I tap my fingers along the wall until I find the light switch, but before I snap it on I turn to look up at the row of houses that overlook the small back garden.

  There are bedroom windows that look down directly on to where I’m standing.

  I relax a little when I can’t see any obvious signs I’m being spied on. I snap on the kitchen light, then close and lock the back door behind me.

  I move quickly into the middle room, kick off my shoes out of habit and shut Boris in the kitchen while I have a quick look around to get my bearings.

  There is a patterned carpet and a dark oak table with four chairs in the middle room. A picture rail runs around the walls displaying gaudy patterned plates, some of them chipped and cracked.

  I have to say, it’s a treat to be able to look round leisurely and take it all in. Anything that gives me a clue about Liam’s life can only help him, after all, in the absence of his memory.

  When I’d called in here to use the bathroom the night I dropped Ivy off, I had to be in and out. It was all so rushed and it had felt impolite to hang around but now I have the chance to see the house properly, to form an impression of how they live and how they might be able to use some help.

  I take a cursory glance into the front room with its cold stone fireplace and greenandbrown patterned carpeting. The carpets don’t have the feel of proper wool underfoot: they are cheap, nylon imitations.

  The house looks tidy enough but it smells fusty, like it could do with a good airing. It feels very different to being in my own home but in a thrilling kind of way.

  I place my hand on the handle of the door leading to the stairs and swallow hard, trying to relieve the dryness of my throat.

  Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be here but I remind myself I’m doing it for the right reasons and that’s what counts.

  The stairs are steep and narrow, and the air feels even colder up here and smells faintly damp.

  Strange as it sounds the house itself feels distinctly unfriendly, like it doesn’t want me around. Similar to the vibes I sometimes get from Ivy.

  I wonder if Liam is happy living here, holed up with an old woman who doesn’t seem to know when to keep her trap shut and listen to the advice of people who know better.

  I stand at the top of the stairs, in exactly the same place I had been two nights before, looking at the closed doors along the long, narrow landing.

  I’d wondered which room belonged to Liam back then but now I’m free to look anywhere I please.

  The first door I open leads into Ivy’s bedroom at the front of the house, overlooking the street. I make do with the light shining through from the landing and peer in.

  The room is decorated sparsely but in feminine colours. The pink candlewick-style bedspread is strewn with pulled threads, and mismatched pastel flannelette pillowcases poke out at the top.

  Dusty bottles of what look like lavender water are clustered in a corner of the mirrored walnut dressing table. Damp. Lavender. Old.

  I feel sorry for Liam. In the prime of his life but having to live with an old lady he doesn’t know any more and suffering those smells.

  He probably dreams of meeting someone around his own age and making a fresh start together.

  Chapter 16

  Thirteen years earlier

  Carla opened her eyes, registered the relentless pounding in her head and groaned.

  She reached over to her bedside table and pressed the home button on her iPhone. She immediately squinted against the brightness. It was 4.25 a.m.

  Despite promising she wouldn’t, Carla had gone out again last night.

  It was just for a drink, she kept telling herself as the cab wound its way into the city. It was just to be amongst people again and enjoy a comforting buzz around her.

  But Carla hadn’t believed any of those things, not really.

  She knew how it would end up. How it always ended up.

  The Asian cab driver had barely looked at her apart from taking instructions of where she wanted to go when she first climbed in the car.

  He spent the twelve-minute journey talking hands-free on the phone in his own language.

  Carla was glad he did. She didn’t want conversation, just the relief.

  The cab dropped her off outside Lexi’s just before eleven. It was too early to be completely lost and anonymous in a big crowd of people, as she would have liked. But unless she intended going into work the next day having had no sleep at all, she couldn’t afford to leave it any later.

  She huddled in close behind a group of squealing, laughing girls who’d reached the entrance just before her. She even shared a joke with one of them when the woman stumbled walking in.

  Carla grabbed her arm to steady her.

  ‘Bloody hell, I wouldn’t mind but I’m the nominated driver.’ She laughed to Carla as they walked past the two burly doormen who looked young enough to be Carla’s sons.

  Carla saw them check out a couple of the younger women in the group and then watched how their eyes just sort of drifted past her as if she wasn’t there.

  She knew the white dress looked good on her. She was still the same dress size as she had been in her twenties: a size twelve bottom and a size ten top.

  Admittedly, it wasn’t a result she’d gained through working out. Her lifestyle wasn’t exactly healthy.

  She drank way too much wine now and existed largely on ready meals because Mark had been the chief cook and bottle washer.

  Beef stroganoff, creamy chicken pasta, green Thai curry and sticky rice. . . it had never been too much trouble for Mark to rustle up an amazing dinner at the end of a long day.

  ‘It relaxes me,’ he used to say. ‘Must be my creative genes.’

  Maybe he’d have been better training as a chef than an artist, Carla thought glumly. Even on minimum wage he’d still have earned more money than the paintings ever brought in.

  Carla visited the hairdresser once a month to keep her glossy chestnut-brown bob neat and free of the annoying wiry grey hairs that had suddenly started appearing when she’d turned forty. And she had spent time tonight putting on her make-up; even making the effort to wear false eyelashes that enhanced the large, brown eyes that Mark had told her were “utterly incredible” the night they met.

  But the two doormen noticed none of it. She might as well be invisible.

  It was as if an inner sensor told them she was simply too old to be of interest, even without them having to check her out.

  That was why she’d got into the online dating, although she wasn’t interested in an actual relationship.

  You could cut through all the silly games and hook up with someone for the evening.

  Just long enough to touch skin to skin, to feel the warmth of another body and arms around you that felt like someone cared when you closed your eyes.

  Just long enough keep the hurt at bay.

  * * *

  His name was Chad.

  He was a medical supplies salesman from Kent, and he was working in the East Midlands for the week.

  She was sitting with her third Pornstar Martini at the bar, surveying the dance floor, when she got the notification.

  A message box popped up on the screen.

  Fellow user nearby! Chad Brownlow is looking for fun and he is only 3 me
tres away!

  She clicked on the photograph and a man – she’d guess in his late thirties, with salt-and-pepper cropped hair and a crooked but attractive smile – filled the screen.

  She looked around her and saw him immediately – smiling back at her from a nearby table.

  He beckoned to her and pointed to the empty chair next to him.

  The budget hotel had been her suggestion.

  It was just a five minute walk from Lexi’s and the place she usually used.

  Chad talked to her all the way there and as they checked in, too. He paid. He told her about his job and his kids. She wished he hadn’t.

  Afterwards, she couldn’t remember much he talked about, at all. Only the longing to be held close, to feel his manliness, his warmth.

  The room was minimal but adequate with a sterile bathroom that smelled like a hospital.

  Carla pushed aside the voile net that covered the window and looked down onto the street.

  A dishevelled man staggered across the Market Square, shouting. People laughed and walked around him, avoided him.

  Chad came and stood next to her. He pulled her chin gently towards him and kissed her on the lips.

  The walls were cast in a pink glow from neon lights on the building opposite. She heard a nearby siren wail louder and then gradually fade into the distance until it disappeared completely.

  She lay her head against his chest and closed her eyes. Chad felt different to Mark, more cushioned.

  When they undressed she saw his body was pale with a slight paunch and he had more body hair than she usually liked on a man.

  But he was there and he was kind and afterwards, he didn’t talk about his job or his kids and Carla had stopped feeling quite so alone.

  And now here she was, back home and in her own bed. At least she’d managed that, this time.

  She vaguely remembered hailing the black cab outside the hotel and falling into the back seat.

  The driver had insisted she hand over the fare before he would even begin the journey. That had bothered her more than anything.