From the Inside

by Collette Heather

  I feel sick, and my head is spinning. Stop it, just shut up, I tell myself. Trembling now, my eyes burning hot with unshed tears, I put down his jacket. I don’t know what I’m looking for, exactly, I guess I’ll just know it when I see it. Perhaps, subconsciously, I am looking for the phone number scrawled in lipstick on the paper napkin – either literally or figuratively.

  I find nothing in his pockets, just his smartphone and wallet in the inside pocket of his jacket. There is nothing of interest in the wallet, just money, the usual array of bank cards and an oyster card. I stare at the dark screen of his phone, my heart hammering, but I don’t know the code to his phone. All his secrets will be on there, I just know it.

  Luke doesn’t have any social media accounts, deeming them unseemly. At least, he doesn’t have any that I know of. Perhaps he does. Maybe he messages and texts other women. Or woman.

  Or maybe he uses prostitutes.

  When I think that, the bottom drops out of my world. I don’t know why I should think such a thing – I have no real reason to – but it’s taken root now, and I can’t shift it. Yes, he has a wild past, but he promises that he is a changed man since he met me.

  Putting his phone and wallet back where I found them, I leave the room, not taking his suit with me to the laundry room as intended. I feel weirdly dirty for having looked through his wallet, and just for wishing that I had the password number to his phone.

  The guilt clings to me as I exit the bedroom and go back downstairs. I tell myself that I’m overreacting. I tell myself that I have to act normally when he joins me downstairs.

  Because everything is normal, I tell myself. There is perfume on his clothes. So what? It doesn’t mean anything.

  I just wish that I could believe it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  You don’t expect to be mugged in broad daylight, do you? It’s something awful that happens to other people, never to you.

  I pay little attention to the two young men walking towards me along the path. Why would I? This is a public path in London’s Hyde Park, and lads that look like them are two-a-penny. Just because they’re dressed from head to toe in designer sportswear, caps, and baggy jeans, it doesn’t mean that they’re thugs. It doesn’t mean that they’re out to rob me. By that reckoning, I’d be mugged hundreds of times per day, at least.

  I am trundling along with Bella in her pushchair, lost in my own little world of thought. I am thinking about the perfume I had smelled yesterday on Luke’s suit and shirt. I have decided – mostly – that I am being paranoid. It could’ve come from anywhere, even a business acquaintance from work with whom he shared an air kiss, perhaps. I’ve seen him greet women in such a way plenty of times.

  The fact is, I have to stop agonizing over it, otherwise I’m going to send myself mad. Also, at the back of my mind, I’m stressing over the Lavingtons who are coming to dinner tonight. Tony Lavington is Luke’s work colleague – his much older work colleague – and every so often, the four of us have dinner together. I’m not looking forward to it all as I find his wife Diane insufferable.

  I am thinking about Diane – about her sanctimonious, know-it-all smug attitude specifically – as the boys approach. They part ways on the path, so that when they pass me, they’re flanking me.

  Again, I think very little of it – it is far easier for them to change course than it is me, as I am the one pushing the cumbersome object. If anything, I take it as a courtesy, which is a rarity in central London. Only when the boy on my right grabs my slouchy, brown-leather shoulder-bag hanging from my shoulder and tugs, do I realise what is happening.

  “Hey,” I cry, instinctively grabbing at my bag.

  “Let it go, lady,” says the lad on my left.

  I twist my head to glare at him when he grabs my arm, gasping in shock on seeing that he is brandishing a flick-knife. Dimly, I am aware that I am not as frightened as I possibly should be. Perhaps that is because I see fear in the boy’s brown eyes; eyes that are cast in shadow from the rim of his Adidas cap. I sense an almost childish uncertainty, as if he knows what he is doing is wrong.

  Or perhaps it is just because it is all happening so fast, I don’t have time to be scared. I am incredulous, mostly. I feel like this is happening to someone else.

  The skinny boy with the quick, frightened eyes yanks on my arm, and the other lad tugs harder on my bag. Not having much of a choice, I relinquish the bag, still feeling quite numb to it all.

  And then they are running away from me, back the way they have just come.

  “Hey! Give that back, you little shits,” shouts a new voice. A female voice.

  Still stunned, I am aware of a blur of movement passing me, giving chase to the two boys.

  But the boys are way up in front, and the woman soon gives up, coming to an abrupt stop and hunching over her knees. I can’t see her face, for she has her back to me, her backside in the jogging bottoms the only thing I can see of her. It’s a nice bum, I think, in a dazed kind of way. Full, but muscular, putting me in mind of the Kardashian clan. It’s the kind of bottom that I was never able to get, despite the fact I used to be a PE teacher and a personal teacher. It’s just not in my DNA – I am naturally thin, and tend to put on weight around my middle on the rare occasions that I gain a pound or two.

  I don’t know why I’m thinking this, maybe it is the shock, and I hurry towards her, pushing Bella before me, still distinctly dazed and with that sense of unreality wrapping around me.

  The woman straightens up and turns to face me, walking in my direction. As she does so, her high, long, blonde ponytail flops back into position, swinging in time with her assertive strides. She is wearing a proper sport’s t-shirt in white – the kind with the collar that I used to wear when I was teaching – and black sweatpants. She is top-heavy and small-waisted – an absolute classic hourglass.

  We both grind to a halt when we meet on the path.

  “Are you okay?” she asks me, panting slightly, concern flashing in her blue eyes. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t catch up with them. I’ve just jogged three miles, I’m done in.”

  In the pushchair, Bella starts to gripe. The sound of it snaps me back to myself, and I discover that I am trembling. I crouch down next to her, fumbling with the clasp of her belt, but my hands shake so much I am entirely incapable of this simple action.

  I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I flinch.

  “Come on, there’s a bench over there, you look like you’re in shock.”

  “I’m fine,” I say shakily, far more abruptly than I had intended.

  “You are clearly not fine,” she says, still slightly breathlessly. “You need to sit down for a moment. It’ll be much easier for you to see to your baby if you take a seat.”

  She’s right, I know she’s right, and I allow her to guide me the short distance to one of the park benches that line the path. A handful of people bustle past us, and dimly, I recognise that I should be more grateful that such a kind Samaritan happened to be passing in my hour of need.

  “There. That’s right.” She hovers over me when I sit down, holding the pushchair steady as I extract my sobbing daughter from the seat.

  I’m still trembling, and now I’m crying, too.

  Well, that’s just marvellous, I think.

  I feel foolish – it’s not like my daughter or I are hurt – and I hastily swipe at the tears. I busy myself hugging and jiggling Bella, who immediately calms down. Her nappy isn’t full, which is a blessed relief. She’s clearly just disturbed by all the shouting and the sudden rush of movement.

  The woman sits down next to me on the bench and I can’t quite bring myself to look at her, as I’m feeling sillier and sillier by the second.

  “How old is she?” my new companion asks.

  I clear my throat, in an attempt to sound normal. “A year and a month.”

  “She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”

  “Bella.”

  “Bella. Beautiful Bella. Hello, Bella,” sh
e coos, gently tracing a fingertip down her plump cheek.

  Bella gazes up at her, sucking on her dummy. She’s not crying at all now, and neither am I. I still feel shaken, but at least I’ve got the tears under control.

  Sort of.

  “Thank you,” I say, remembering my manners at last.

  She shrugs. “I didn’t do anything. Anyone would’ve done the same.”

  “But they didn’t, though, did they? You did. My God, you even tried to chase those thugs down.” It was only then that a thought occurred to me, and I immediately – and unthinkingly – blurted it out. “What would you have done if you had caught up with them?”

  She laughs – a free, easy and unaffected sound that I like. But at the same time, it strangely makes me feel sad, too. It reminds me how much I miss female company; how much I miss my mother – who was my last living relative – and how much I miss having girlfriends.

  I love Bella, but no one told me how isolating having a child would be. This woman’s lovely laugh reminds me that I’m lonely.

  “I don’t actually know. I guess I can be kind of impulsive sometimes.”

  “Yeah. I see that. You were like Wonder Woman back there.”

  She grins. “I was, wasn’t I? Shame I left my cape at home. Lucky for them I was winded, right?”

  “Totally,” I say gravely.

  We fall silent for a moment, both of us focused on Bella, who is making funny little humming noises behind the dummy, or the plug, as I have come to christen it.

  “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t have been passing.”

  “Probably much the same as you’re doing now. I didn’t do anything.”

  She has a point, I guess, but I’m still touched by her impulsive act of kindness, by the way she was trying to do the right thing.

  “Yeah, you did. Thankyou.”

  She shrugs. “What was in your bag?”

  I had momentarily forgotten the true casualty in all of this – my bag.

  “Oh God,” I groan, the tears dangerously close again as I try to picture the contents of my bag. “My wallet, with all my bankcards in. There was only twenty quid in cash in there, I think. Thank God my phone is in my pocket, ‘cause it’s usually in my bag.” I pat my right hip in the skinny black jeans where my phone resides. “And God, my housekeys. Nothing else, I guess. Nothing important, anyway. Just stuff, you know? A packet of Paracetamol, a few odds and ends of makeup. A hairbrush.”

  Weirdly, I experience a sharp pang of stabbing loss when I think of the hairbrush. I love that hairbrush.

  Then I think of the bankcards and I feel quite sick.

  “Don’t panic, those boys looked like chancers, I can’t imagine that they’ve been stalking you, or anything. They won’t know where you live.”

  “Oh God,” I say, feeling the way my eyes widen in my head. I hadn’t even thought of that.

  But now I am.

  She places a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, you can change the locks at your house, just to be safe. But first, I think you need to report your bankcards stolen. Do you have a driver’s licence? And if so, was that in your wallet, too?”

  I groan again, burying the side of my face in Bella’s silky hair. I had completely forgotten about my driver’s licence. I may not have driven since I moved to London, but I still have a licence.

  Or, I did.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then. Come on,” she says, jumping to her feet. “Strap Bella back up, we need to get you sorted. You could sit here on the phone to the bank and the police and the locksmith, or we could just go to the police station. It’s only ten minutes from here.”

  She’s right, I realise. Again. “Yes. Right.” I am trying not to sound quite as overwhelmed as I feel right then. She keeps the buggy steady, holding the straps to one side as I place Bella back in her seat. “You’ve done so much for me already, you don’t have to come,” I say, as soon as the penny drops that she has said we.

  “Yes, I do. I saw the muggers, I can give a positive ID on them. It’s only just happened, you never know, the police may even catch them and you’ll get your bag back. Come on,” she says, placing a hand on my forearm. “Let’s get the ball rolling.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Beth Jameson – for that is her name, I discover – is brilliant. So are the police, who put in the preliminary call to Barclays for me. Beth also accompanies me to the bank, which is only a few minutes from the station.

  After all that, I call Luke, who tells me to come straight home. He also tells me not to worry about the keys, that he’s on the case right away and will sort out the locksmith. I press end call and smile at Beth. We are standing in the middle of the wide pavement on the busy high-street, all the London bodies bustling and flowing around us.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” I say.

  She smiles warmly at me. “It’s nothing. Really.”

  “It’s a lot. Let me buy you lunch,” I say impulsively. “It’s the least that I can do.”

  “You’ve just been mugged, remember? And I don’t have any money on me, either; just my oyster card and some loose change.”

  “Right,” I say, feeling foolish. I pat myself down, and pull out a five-pound note, plus a small handful of change from my jeans. “But I’m pretty sure I can buy you a coffee, at least.”

  She beams at me. “Sure. Coffee sounds great.”

  *

  We find a trendy little coffee shop on the high-street, and even manage to nab a window seat.

  Bella is quite content in her pushchair, sucking on a premade bottle of formulae. I always bring one with us on our walks, even though I’m trying to phase out her milk. She’s in that transitional, baby to toddler phase, and she does so love her milk, I just hate to take that pleasure away from her.

  “It really was so kind of you to stop today,” I say, probably for the hundredth time now.

  “Will you please stop? Anyone would’ve done the same.”

  “No, they wouldn’t. And they didn’t. So. Do you live around here?”

  “No, I live in Bethnal Green.”

  I’m slightly surprised at this. “Really? That’s a long way to come, just for a jog.”

  She laughs. “You reckon? I love the park here, and it’s only a tube ride away.”

  “I guess.”

  “I would love to live around these parts. One day, maybe, if my career ever properly takes off. I take it you live near here if you’re out walking with Bella?”

  “Yes. Just around the corner, actually.”

  When she asks specifics, and I tell her the name of my street, her jaw almost hits the little round table between us.

  “Bloody hell,” she exclaims, loud enough for a woman on a nearby table to turn around and glare daggers at us. “You must be loaded! So, what do you do then, to be so rich?”

  A familiar feeling steals over me – that I am a fraud, an imposter. I’m not, at least, I don’t think that I am, but the whole, what do you do for a living, line of questioning always leaves me feeling exposed, somehow, and woefully inadequate.

  “I was a gym teacher. And then I gave it all up to become a personal trainer.”

  “Wow, fitness instruction must pay really well, huh?”

  The smile drops from her lips on seeing my expression. I’m trying to hide my sudden sadness, but I’m clearly not doing a very good job of it.

  “I didn’t mean anything by that,” she hastily continues. “I certainly didn’t mean to cause offence. You’re absolutely right, of course – it’s so crass to talk about money.” Her voice lowers in a mock conspiratorial whisper and she leans in closer to me. “You’re not a drug dealer, or anything, are you?”

  “No,” I laugh, thinking how much I like this girl. “My husband works in the financial sector, he makes megabucks. I met him when I started up as a personal trainer.”

  “Right. Happens all the time in Hollywood. A-listers are always running off with their personal traine
rs. But you don’t look like a fitness freak any more than you look like a drug dealer. No offence.”

  “None taken,” I reply honestly. “I’m hardly Eisenhower. Or Miss Universe, for that matter.”

  “Indeed. Fitness instructors are usually built like bulldogs. You have a model build, so elegant and willowy. In fact, I think I hate you. How old are you, anyway? You look about twenty-two, but clearly, you can’t be that young.”

  “I’m thirty-four.”

  “Same. Well, almost. I’m thirty-five,” she says.

  “You don’t look it, either.”

  “Thanks.” Another look passes over her face – one of embarrassment, I think. “God, you must think me so damn rude, passing judgement on your finances and now your age and body. It’s just all coming out wrong today. All I meant was you’re so elegant, rather than stocky, like me.”

  “You’re not stocky. Besides, you’re right, I did used to be much fitter. I could certainly stand to put on a pound or two.”

  I laugh, but I still feel a tiny bit lost and sad inside. I think that I must still be shaken from being mugged. And she’s spot-on about me being so skinny. I am skinny, there’s no two ways about it. I don’t eat as much as I should. I forget to, mostly, because of my anxiety.

  “You know who you remind me of?” she asks me suddenly.

  I nod. “Nicole Kidman?”

  “Guess you get that a lot, then?”

  “You could say that. And my husband looks like Tom Cruise.”

  “Get away with you,” she laughs. “That’s hilarious.”

  “Yeah. Look what happened to them.”

  “Well, I didn’t like to say. But I’m sure your husband isn’t a crazy Scientologist.”

  The laughter dies on my lips. “No. He’s not.”

  I don’t particularly want to talk about Luke. My marriage isn’t bad, exactly, it’s just empty.

  And I certainly don’t want to start obsessing about yesterday’s perfume incident again.