Dead Girl Walking

by Sant, Sharon

  ‘This is the thing you couldn’t tell me about the other night, isn’t it?’ he says.

  ‘Why do you have to be so damned perceptive?’

  He gives a shrug and a lopsided smile. ‘One of my many gifts.’

  ‘It’s an annoying one.’

  ‘You didn’t say whether I could see you today.’

  ‘That’s because I hadn’t decided.’

  ‘I couldn’t stay away.’

  ‘I see that.’ I wrench my gaze away and take my seat at the table.

  He leans back against the sink and looks at me thoughtfully. ‘I know you can’t say what the deal is with the police,’ he says slowly, ‘but just tell me that you’re ok.’

  ‘I’m ok.’

  ‘And that’s the truth?’

  ‘It’s what you wanted to hear.’

  He takes a tentative step towards me and reaches out to smooth a stray hair away from my face. His lightest touch sends a quiver through me.

  ‘I can’t do this now.’ I push his hand aside.

  ‘I’m not asking you to do anything.’

  ‘Not with words.’

  He takes the seat next to me and leans across the table. ‘I don’t know what it is about you,’ he says slowly. ‘I should be scared, but I’m not.’

  ‘Scared of me?’ I laugh. ‘Gran always said I’d inherited the acid-tongued gene but I don’t think I’m that bad.’

  He pauses. He looks as though he wants to tell me something, something massive. Then he looks away.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s nothing.’ He turns back to me and forces a smile. ‘What are your plans today?’

  I look at my watch. ‘I have to see Helen in an hour.’

  His smile fades. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll feel like doing anything afterwards?’

  ‘A visit to Helen doesn’t really make me feel amorous, if I’m honest.’

  ‘We could just hang out,’ he says. ‘We could talk, see a film, get a drink, whatever you want.’

  ‘I’d really rather come home,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I’m up to nightlife yet.’ My attention wanders over to the bin bags piled at the wall.

  ‘What’s in those?’ he asks, following the direction of my gaze. I know he’s only asking to take the sting from my awkward rejection.

  ‘Gran’s stuff.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I look into his eyes and I’m freefalling. I want to feel his arms around me, his body pressed tight against mine, the warmth of him on my skin.

  ‘I have things I need to do later,’ I say.

  ‘Are you dumping me?’ he asks.

  ‘How can I dump someone I’m not dating?’

  ‘We’re not dating?’

  ‘I’m not sure. You never actually said.’

  He rubs a hand through his hair. ‘I thought it was obvious.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘So, you don’t want to date me?’

  I can’t help smiling. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’

  He grabs my hand. ‘Will you go on a date with me?’ He looks so earnest I suddenly want to laugh in a way I haven’t done in what feels like a lifetime.

  ‘I’ve just got so much to sort out.’

  ‘You can’t spare one night for me?’ He leans forward a little. A little more. Slowly, cautiously, as though he’s testing resistance. His lips brush mine. It’s hardly more than a graze at first, tentative and questioning. He moves in, his kisses harder. Against my will, I kiss him back. Somewhere, in a dusty corner of my mind, there’s a small voice nagging me that this can only end badly.

  I pull away. ‘I have to go,’ I whisper.

  ‘Now?’ he asks, holding me in that dark gaze again.

  I nod. ‘Helen…’

  He looks as though he might kiss me again. But then he sits back and gives me a crooked smile, more pain than contentment. ‘Want me to walk there with you?’

  ‘If I said no, you’d follow me anyway.’

  ‘That obvious?’

  I nod.

  ‘Not in a stalker-ish way, though?’

  ‘Kinda.’

  His smile is easier now. ‘What can I say? I’m a sucker for red hair and Doc Martens.’

  ‘I’ll make it brown.’

  ‘It’s too late, I have my memories,’ he gives me an impish grin, ‘and a really strong left arm.’

  ‘You’re gross.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to let you come then. What if Helen disapproves?’

  ‘Of us?’

  I nod.

  ‘She can’t tell us who to see beyond her walls.’

  ‘Yeah, but we’re both patients.’

  ‘Clients…’ he says, mimicking Helen’s voice.

  ‘That’s the most Irish English accent I’ve ever heard. Please, don’t do it again, it hurt my ears.’

  He salutes. ‘Ma’am.’

  I glance up at the clock. ‘We need to leave if we’re going to make it.’

  ‘If we’re walking together,’ he says as he gets up from the table, ‘does that count as a date?’

  ‘No,’ I reply, pulling my coat from the back of a chair.

  ‘So… when am I getting my date?’

  ‘I didn’t say you were.’

  ‘But you’re going to?’

  I turn to him and the smile fades as I stare at him. ‘Why would you want to date me?’ I ask.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Let’s see… because I’m half-dead, because I’m screwed in the head, because everyone who gets close to me, anyone who ever meant anything to me, dies.’

  ‘We all die,’ he says quietly, with something that sounds like fear in his tone.

  ‘And some of us die sooner than is fair.’

  He has that look again as he measures me. I feel like he wants to say something to me, something stuck in his throat.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head slowly. He speaks as if to himself. ‘I thought I’d be scared, after the nightmares and everything. But when I’m with you, I’m not. That’s weird, right?’

  ‘I don’t know, because you have never told me what’s in your nightmares,’ I say. ‘What have they got to do with me?’

  ‘Why do you have policemen round your house and talk about murdered girls?’ he asks.

  ‘Touché.’ I glance at the clock. ‘We have to go, so the interrogation will have to wait.’

  ‘We can walk and talk.’

  ‘If you want that date, you should concentrate on being entertaining during the small time I’m allowing you to be in my presence.’

  He grins and salutes me. ‘Entertaining… right.’

  When I come out of Helen’s office, Dante is there. He sits in the waiting room, where there is silence other than the tip-tapping of nails on a keyboard as the receptionist works. We parted outside the clinic building as we arrived and hadn’t really agreed that he would wait, so I’m a little surprised to see him. After I get my new appointment at the desk, I head for the door. I’m not sure what the etiquette is here – do I acknowledge him or not? He gets up and starts towards me.

  ‘Want me to walk back with you?’ he asks in a low voice, throwing a shy glance back at the reception desk. The receptionist looks up, from me to him and back at him again, then returns her attention back to her screen. Her faint smile is a bit too smug for me.

  ‘Sure,’ I reply.

  We step out together. A bright dusk is settling over the city, the sun skimming low across the streets. The road is busy with rush hour traffic and I’m secretly so glad to have Dante beside me. It’s like he absorbs some of the mess in my head. I reach for his hand. He glances across at me, his expression one of surprise for a moment. Then his grip tightens, as though he needs the reassurance of my presence as much as I need his.

  ‘So, we’re on a date now?’ he asks, looking straight ahead.

  ‘This is how you show a girl a good time?’ I riposte. ‘Walking down the high stre
et?’

  ‘If you’re a really good girl I’ll take you down the tyre dump.’

  ‘I hope that’s not a euphemism.’

  He turns to me with a slow smile. ‘You want to get a drink or something?’

  I shake my head. ‘What I said before hasn’t changed. I don’t think I’m ready for that stuff.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be alcohol. MacDonald’s is close, we could go there.’

  ‘Monsieur,’ I say in a rubbish French accent, ‘with this milkshake you are really spoiling me.’

  ‘It’s better than my last girlfriend got.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Mr Whippy and a quick feel in the park around the corner.’

  I raise my eyebrows and look up at him. ‘Another euphemism?’

  He laughs. ‘What do you say?’

  For a minute, I’m tempted. ‘I’d rather go home, if that’s ok.’

  He doesn’t answer straight away. ‘Ok,’ he says finally.

  We lapse into silence again. Then he breaks it.

  ‘How did it go with Helen?’

  ‘The same as always.’

  ‘Do you think it’s helping?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘You mean me or you?’ he asks.

  ‘You.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he says slowly.

  ‘That sounds kinda hopeful,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure I can be helped, ultimately.’

  ‘Ultimately? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means, in the absolute end.’

  ‘Smartarse. I mean, why can’t you be helped ultimately?’

  He pauses. ‘Because I can learn to cope with my fears, but I know the future I see is going to play out no matter what I do. Going to see Helen feels like playacting. I do it for my mum and I tell her that it’s working so she doesn’t feel like she’s failing me.’

  ‘You’re that certain that your dream is going to come true?’

  He’s silent. I look up to see the muscles in his jaw work as he looks straight ahead.

  ‘You really are screwed,’ I say.

  ‘And you’re normal?’ he says quietly.

  ‘No, I’m screwed too,’ I say, ‘but at least I can admit it.’

  ‘That’s the first step to recovery,’ he says in his Helen voice.

  ‘You did the terrible English accent again.’

  ‘You love it,’ he says.

  ‘It makes me want to slap you.’

  ‘I’ll take that over indifference.’

  A motorbike roars past us, too fast and too close. My heart seems to stutter. His hand tightens around mine as he looks at me, concern etched in his features.

  ‘You ok?’ he asks.

  I nod, my breath coming in short gasps.

  ‘You want to get off the main road?’

  I shake my head. ‘It’s just…’

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to explain it to me. I guess traffic must be scary, after what happened.’ He looks at me thoughtfully. ‘That’s why you don’t travel by car?’

  ‘I do, but only if I have to. Being killed in a car kind of puts you off getting back in one.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  We’re silent again for a while, his hand still gripping mine as though he thinks he can absorb my fear through the contact. There’s something sweet about it, yet oddly melancholy.

  ‘What scares you?’ I ask.

  ‘Lots of things; just like everyone.’

  ‘You know what I mean. What’s your big one, the one that makes it so you can’t function?’

  He pulls me to a halt and holds me in that dark gaze. There’s a sentence, an admission, something burning to escape his mouth. He looks as though he will speak it, but instead he pulls me into a kiss.

  ‘Ok,’ I whisper as our lips part. ‘That wasn’t the reply I was expecting.’

  I’m jostled by a woman trying to pass us on the narrow pavement. She doesn’t apologise and I don’t shout after her. I just watch as she bustles on her impatient way, her head probably full of shopping lists and gas bills. When I look up, Dante is staring at me. He kisses me again, harder this time.

  ‘Stop doing that,’ I say as I break away.

  ‘I can’t,’ he says, ‘even though I know I should.’ His expression is suddenly pained. ‘I don’t know how long I’ve got left and the only things I could do to save myself… I don’t want to do them. It’s like I have this whole other person controlling me and sending me to my doom.’

  ‘That’s called your libido,’ I say with a shaky laugh. ‘I’m sorry to break it to you, but all men have that whole other person.’

  He continues to hold me in his gaze for a moment, and then seems to collect his wits. ‘That’ll be it,’ he says. The smile that he fakes for me doesn’t reach his still-troubled eyes. And the one I give back is its twin.

  The street empties of traffic and for a fleeting instant, quietness falls over it and over us too. The moment is broken as my phone buzzes a call.

  ‘You want to get that?’ he asks.

  I shrug, but pull out my phone anyway. It’s a number I don’t recognise and I’m about to reject the call when Dante stops me.

  ‘You’d better answer,’ he says, ‘it might be important.’

  I sigh. ‘Hello…’

  Karl’s voice is at the other end. I hear the words girl and murder, and everything goes dark.

  Ten: The Path

  When I open my eyes, Dante is leaning over me. My head is cradled in his arms. There are other faces too, a curious crowd. I can hear somebody asking for an ambulance. I try to get up but I’m shaking and my limbs won’t obey. My gaze stops on a face that I recognise and I want to cry out and run, but I’m too weak, so I stare at him. With a leering grin, he slopes off and disappears amongst the passers-by of the busy street.

  ‘The perv guy,’ I whisper.

  Dante frowns. ‘Who?’

  ‘The one who was chasing me that first day I met you. Remember?’

  ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘He was just here.’

  Dante’s head snaps up, his gaze piercing the crowd. ‘I can’t see him now. If he was here he’s gone and he wouldn’t dare do anything with all these people around anyway.’ He strokes a hair away from my forehead. ‘You’re safe. What happened?’

  I shake my head slightly. ‘Where’s my phone?’

  He holds up the pieces. ‘You dropped it.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘I might be able to stick it back together for you,’ he says.

  ‘Do you still need the ambulance, love?’ a woman asks Dante.

  He glances quickly at me and then shakes his head as he reads the silent plea in my eyes. ‘No, thanks,’ he says, looking up at her.

  The woman studies me for a moment, clearly unsure whether he’s right to dismiss her offer. Finally, she seems satisfied and gives a friendly smile and nod. ‘If you’re sure, sweetheart.’

  Dante looks at me.

  ‘I’m ok,’ I croak, trying to make my voice sound as strong as I can, though I think the only person I’m fooling is myself. Despite this, the woman turns and leaves and the rest of the small crowd begins to disperse. People don’t really want to help. They’re afraid to. They have good intentions and noble sentiments, but in the end they’re thankful to be relieved of the burden of altruistic responsibilities.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For not getting the ambulance.’

  ‘Lucky I caught you,’ he says, ‘your head could have ended up like your phone.’

  I push up with a shaking arm to sit. My head thuds in time with my heartbeat and sweat cools all over my body.

  ‘You think you’ll be ok to walk?’ Dante asks. ‘We could go and sit in a café while you get yourself together.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ I say, even though I don’t want to go home because I know what’s waiting there for me. I don’t k
now where I can be that feels safe anymore. Even inside my own head doesn’t feel safe anymore.

  He supports me while I get to my feet. ‘Who was calling you?’ he asks, catching me as I wobble slightly.

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘So you black out every time your phone rings. I must remember to always write.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘You want to try walking now?’ he asks, ignoring my sarcasm and circling a protective arm around me.

  As much as it makes me feel safe, I want to shrug it off. The feeling of contentment is one that needles because I know I don’t deserve it.

  ‘I’m fine now, it was nothing,’ I say.

  ‘It didn’t look like nothing.’ He lowers his voice. ‘It’s not something to do with what happened to you after the accident, is it?’

  ‘What? Like I’m going to die again?’

  ‘No, like… you said you wondered whether you’d been in some rare type of coma. Maybe this is to do with that?’

  I shake my head. ‘Trust me, this has nothing to do with the car accident.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I just know.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  I turn to him. ‘I don’t know,’ I say slowly. ‘I just know it’s not that.’ I start to walk and he keeps pace with me.

  ‘You can share things with me, Cass.’

  ‘So can you.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that I know there’s something you’re not telling me.’

  ‘Believe me, if I thought I could tell you then I would.’

  ‘Then please don’t nag me when I say the same thing to you.’

  He opens his mouth to reply but then closes it again and we lapse into a silent truce.

  The hall phone is ringing when I get home. I snatch up the receiver, and this time I know who it will be and that I have to talk to him.

  ‘What happened?’ Karl asks. ‘One minute I was talking to you, the next the line was dead.’

  ‘I dropped my phone.’ I glance at Dante who is watching me, the front door still open behind him. I can tell he’s confused about my lie but he doesn’t say a word. ‘Hang on…’ I say to Karl. I cover the mouthpiece and whisper to Dante. ‘I need to sort something out. How about you call me later? Give me a few hours, though.’ I grab a pen from the telephone table. ‘You’d better have my landline,’ I say as I write the number on the back of his hand. He looks at the marks on his skin and then up at me. Then he hands me the pieces of my phone. ‘I could stop by later to have a look at it… if you’re not busy,’ he says.