After I've Gone
Page 1
Praise for
Praise for Linda Green
‘Clever and compelling. This is a brave story, which is touching right down to the final word’
Dorothy Koomson, Sunday Times bestselling author
‘A beautifully crafted novel of knife-edge suspense that held my attention to the very end. I wanted to compare the author to Gillian Flynn or Alice Sebold, but that wouldn’t be right. This book is one hundred per cent Linda Green, and Linda Green is bloody brilliant!’
Amanda Prowse, #1 bestselling author
‘The suspense becomes quite unbearable – and there’s a final flourish in the form of a very punchy twist. A terrifyingly plausible story, that will have parents looking over their shoulders’
Sunday Mirror
‘A powerful and provocative read that will get under your skin’
Sun
‘This novel is fantastic. I couldn’t put it down . . . I read it with my stomach fluttering the whole time’
BBC Radio Leeds Book Club
About the Author
About the Author
Linda Green is a novelist and award-winning journalist who has written for the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and the Big Issue. Linda lives in West Yorkshire. Her previous book, While My Eyes Were Closed, was a paperback bestseller and in the top five bestselling Amazon Kindle books of 2016. Visit Linda on twitter at @LindaGreenisms and on Facebook at Fans of Author Linda Green.
Also by
Also by Linda Green
While My Eyes Were Closed
The Marriage Mender
The Mummyfesto
And Then It Happened
Things I Wish I’d Known
10 Reasons NOT to Fall in Love
I Did a Bad Thing
Title
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2017 by
Quercus Editions Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © 2017 Linda Green
The moral right of Linda Green to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78648 301 0
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook by CC Book Production
Cover design © 2017 Andrew Smith
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Dedication
In memory of Samantha Hunt
Contents
PART ONE
Jess
Jess
Jess
Jess
Jess
Jess
Angela
Jess
Jess
Jess
Jess
Angela
Jess
Jess
PART TWO
Jess
Jess
Jess
Angela
Jess
Jess
Jess
Jess
Jess
PART THREE
Angela
Jess
Jess
Jess
PART FOUR
Jess
Jess
Angela
Jess
Jess
Jess
Angela
Jess
Jess
Jess
Angela
Jess
Jess
Jess
Angela
Jess
Angela
About This Book
Book Club Questions
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Everybody loses their mum at some point. But your mother is supposed to be old when it happens; wrinkled and stooping and frail.
They are not supposed to be cut down in their prime. When they are still bleeding every month, haven’t received any ‘keep calm at forty’ cards, or even started using anti-wrinkle moisturisers, for goodness sake.
When life ends so rudely, so prematurely, it makes no sense at all. The world stops turning. Your foundations have been removed. The floor beneath you could give way at any point. It’s like playing one of those ball in the maze games and knowing that at any second you could fall down the hole.
Precarious. Life is precarious. And if people try to tell you otherwise, and say you are crazy for thinking that way, you have to remember that the crazy ones are those who deny it. Because the only thing which is certain in life is that we are all going to die one day. And that day could be sooner than we think.
PART ONE
Jess
Monday, 11 January 2016
I smell his bad breath a second or two before I feel his hand on my arse. That’s the weird thing about public transport gropers, they always seem to have personal hygiene issues.
‘What’s your problem?’ I shout, as I spin around to face him. Immediately, the crowd of people jostling around the ticket barriers parts. The one thing commuters hate even more than delays is a confrontation.
The guy with the dodgy breath and wandering hand obviously hadn’t expected this. He looks to either side, desperate to pass the buck.
‘Nope, it’s definitely you, middle-aged man in the shiny grey suit. Get off on touching women’s arses, do you?’
He shuffles his feet and looks at the ground then pushes his way towards the ticket barrier.
‘That’s it, you run along to work. I bet the women at your office can’t wait to see you. Keep your mucky hands to yourself next time, OK?’
I glance behind to see Sadie looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
‘What?’ I say. ‘He got off lightly if you ask me.’
There is now a clear path in front of me to the ticket barrier. I go straight through and wait for Sadie on the other side.
A young guy with dark hair stops in front of me. ‘Nice takedown,’ he says with a smile. ‘Do you want me to go after him for you?’
He is wearing a plum-coloured jacket over a white T-shirt, like he’s come in for dress-down Friday on a Monday by mistake.
‘What I really want is for all members of the male species to go to hell and stop bothering me.’
The smile falls off his lips. ‘Point taken,’ he says, before walking off.
‘What did you do that for?’ asks Sadie, staring at me. ‘He was only trying to be nice.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s difficult to tell sometimes.’
Sadie shakes her head. ‘I don’t get you. Is this national bite-someone’s-head
-off day or something?’
‘PMT and hunger, always a bad combination. Come on, I need food.’
Breakfast (I hate the word ‘brunch’ so I refuse to call it that, even when it is after ten thirty) for me consists of a huge blueberry muffin (that I hope will count as one of my five a day) and a can of Tango (that possibly counts as another). Mum used to tell me that the day would come when I wouldn’t be able to eat and drink all that crap without looking as if I did. I’d taken it as a green light to have as much of it as possible while I could still get away with it.
I hear footsteps approaching as I stand waiting to pay. Sadie gives me a nudge. I look up. The guy who’d offered to go after the groper is standing there, bunch of flowers in hand. Actually, it isn’t a bunch; it’s a proper bouquet. Hand-tied, I think they call it, not that I’ve ever seen a machine tie flowers.
‘An apology for earlier,’ he says. ‘On behalf of the male species. To show we’re not all complete jerks.’
All conversation in the queue stops. I am aware my cheeks are turning the same colour as the roses in the bouquet.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking them from him. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’
‘I know, but I wanted to. I also want to ask you out to dinner but I’m not sure if that would be risking a massive public bawl-out so I’ve left my business card in there with the flowers. Call me if you’d like to take up the invite. And thanks for brightening my morning.’
He turns and walks away, one of those supremely confident walks that stops just short of being a full-blown swagger.
‘I hate you,’ says Sadie. ‘I have no idea why I chose someone who strangers give flowers to as a best friend.’
‘You didn’t choose me,’ I reply. ‘I chose you, remember? Mainly because you had the best pencil case in reception.’
‘Well, whatever. I still hate you. You don’t even have to try. You wear a puffer jacket, leggings and DMs and you still get a gorgeous stranger asking you out.’
‘I might not call him,’ I say, lowering my voice, aware other people in the queue are listening.
‘Then you’re a bigger mug than I thought.’
‘Well, I’m certainly not going to do it straight away.’
‘Playing hard to get, are you?’
‘No. I’m just starving and I’m not going to do anything until I’ve stuffed this blueberry muffin down my gob.’
Sadie smiles at me and looks down at the flowers. As well as the roses there are lilies and loads of other things I don’t even know the names of. ‘They must have cost him a packet,’ she remarks.
‘Shame he didn’t know I’d have been happy with a blueberry muffin then,’ I reply. She laughs. I hold the flowers a little tighter, despite myself.
Leeds city centre is its usual Monday morning self: grey, drizzly and slightly the worse for wear from the weekend. Someone presses a copy of a free magazine into my hand as I stand at the crossing. I take it, not because I want to read it but because I feel for anyone who has to get up at the crack of dawn to force magazines into the hands of grumpy commuters. I roll it up and wedge it into the side pocket of my backpack as I cross the road. The woman in front of me has her right arm turned out and a bulging tote bag hanging from it. I resist the temptation to tell her she looks like a Barbie doll that has had its arm twisted the wrong way by a little boy. I am convinced that if the female species carries on like this, baby girls will eventually be born with their right arms protruding at this weird angle, ready for the midwives to hang tote bags on them.
Sadie follows my gaze and smiles knowingly at me. We are both fully paid-up members of the backpack brigade.
‘I wonder if they’ll do something for Bowie at work,’ Sadie says. ‘Put Labyrinth and Absolute Beginners on, maybe.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I bet a lot of people would come if they did.’
I decide not to tell Sadie, who has spent most of the train journey talking about David Bowie, that, actually, I am already fed up with it all. Every time I look at Facebook it’s full of people posting tributes to him, all doing that RIP crap as if they’d actually known him, actually suffered some deep personal loss. Never stopping to think about what that must feel like to someone who had genuinely lost a loved one. The most important person in their life, even.
We turn off the road into the comparative warmth of the shopping centre. Someone had the bright idea of not putting any sides on the building, so people have to sit at the tables outside the restaurants with their coats and scarves on in winter, even though they are technically inside.
I follow Sadie up the escalator. The cinema is on the ‘leisure’ floor, with all the restaurants. It’s a trendy independent one with squishy sofas and pizzas served in your seats. That’s how I justify working there (well, that and the fact I don’t have to start work before 11 a.m., even on an early shift). I could never work at a multiplex. It would be like letting the Dementors suck out your soul.
Nina, who’s on a rare outing as duty manager, is on the front desk. She looks down at my flowers and raises an eyebrow. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of starting a Bowie shrine here.’
‘It’s nothing to do with him. I was given them, actually.’
‘What for?’
‘Telling a guy he was an arsehole.’
‘Very funny.’
‘No, really,’ I reply. ‘Only the arsehole wasn’t the guy who gave them to me.’
Nina shakes her head and sighs. ‘So, basically, you bought yourself some flowers on the way into work to make it look like someone gave them to you.’
‘Actually,’ says Sadie, jumping in before I have the chance to say anything, ‘she got them from a drop-dread gorgeous guy who came up to her in the station and asked her out. She’s just too modest to admit it.’
‘Oh yeah? What’s his number then?’ asks Nina.
I reach for the business card inside the cellophane and read it out to her. ‘Call him if you like,’ I say. ‘I might not bother.’
Nina rolls her eyes and goes back to whatever it was she was doing on the screen. Sadie nods at me and we head off towards the staffroom. When we get there, I realise I still have the business card in my hand.
‘What’s his name?’ asks Sadie, following my gaze.
‘Lee Griffiths. It says he’s an associate director at some PR firm in Leeds.’
‘Woo. Big cheese. Call him.’
‘Nah. It’s probably a wind-up.’
‘Well, if you don’t want him, I’m very happy to take second-hand goods.’
I smile at her as we step back into the lobby to find Tariq and Adrian laying the new red carpet leading to screen one.
‘Here you go, ladies,’ says Adrian, ‘just in time to try it out.’
‘Me first!’ cries Sadie. I laugh as she sashays up and down the red carpet, posing for imaginary photographs for the paparazzi.
‘Hang on,’ I say, throwing myself on the floor in front of her. ‘Name the film premiere.’
‘Suffragette,’ she shrieks, before joining me, prostrate on the floor.
‘What’s all this noise?’ asks Nina, sticking her head around the corner.
‘Guess the film premiere!’ I say. ‘Do you want to have a go?’
‘No. I want you two to stop treating this place like a soft-play centre and get to work.’
Sadie groans as Nina returns to the front desk. ‘I bet Carey Mulligan never had to put up with this,’ she says.
*
I wait until lunchtime to text Lee, when I am on my own in the staffroom. I want to be sure no one else is around in case the whole thing is a wind-up. I decide to keep it short and sweet.
Hi, thanks again for the flowers. Let me know a date and time to meet up. I finish work at 7pm until Wednesday, then I’m working late for a week. Jess.
I hesitate for a second, aware tha
t I might be about to make myself look incredibly stupid, but then I decide to do it anyway. I exhale deeply and press send. It is only once I have done so that I realise how bothered I am about whether or not he responds. Fortunately, I have to wait less than thirty seconds before my phone beeps with a message. Clearly he is the sort of guy who doesn’t have to worry about looking desperate.
Hi Jess. That’s great. How about Wednesday @ 7.30pm, the Botanist?
The Botanist is an uber-trendy bar just along from the shopping centre. I have never been there, mainly on account of the fact that I am not uber-trendy and don’t know anyone who is.
I text back to say that I’ll see him there, as if it’s a usual hangout of mine. He replies, Great, looking forward to it already.
I am still sitting there with a smug look on my face when Sadie comes in.
‘You’ve called him, haven’t you?’ she says.
‘Texted.’
‘And you’re going out with him.’
‘Might be.’
‘If you two get married, I’m going to hunt down the arse-groper guy and invite him to the wedding.’
‘I don’t think there’s any danger of us getting married.’
‘Why not?’
‘Er, different leagues.’
‘Bollocks. You’re well up there with him.’
‘I still reckon he did it for a dare. Anyway, you’ll be on your own on the train home on Wednesday. Think of me surrounded by hipsters trying to order cocktails I’ve never heard of.’
Sadie snorts. ‘I hope he’s paying.’
‘So do I. Otherwise we’re going to Subway, I tell you.’
*
It’s only as I’m walking home from Mytholmroyd station later that I realise Dad will ask about the flowers. I think for a second about chucking them over my head – bride-style – but a quick glance behind confirms that they are likely to be caught by a long-haired, overweight guy, who probably wouldn’t appreciate it. I decide to tell Dad a censored version of what happened. He may be able to cope with a guy hitting on me but I’m pretty sure he would freak if I mentioned the arse groper.
I walk past the rows of little back-to-back terraces, lines of washing hanging across the backyards like something out of a bygone era. I bet the people down south watching the Boxing Day floods on the news couldn’t believe that a place like Mytholmroyd even existed. It does my head in most of the time, the smallness and oldness of the place. Some people have lived here all their lives, have never even been to Leeds, let alone London. I think that’s why I took the first job that came up in Leeds when I left college. No, it wasn’t doing what I had planned to do, but at least it meant I could get out of Mytholmroyd.