by Louise Voss
I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say to Siobhan. I thought I might tell her that I looked up her address because I was originally planning to send the review of her book to her house, but that I’d decided that would be a breach of her privacy and that I really regretted looking her up.
But then something happened:
I went into a newsagents to buy some fags. And just as I was about to open the door to leave the shop, I saw her. Siobhan, coming down the road towards me. Her eyes were downcast, and she didn’t see me, so I hid behind a card rack until I felt it was the right moment to come out. But when I did, she was gone. She had been heading down the hill, away from her house, towards Camden Lock. Suddenly, I had a decision to make. I could either follow her down the road, trying to stay out of her sight. Or I could go towards her house – where I might be able to check if she’d received any messages about me.
I pushed open the newsagent’s door and headed up the hill.
I was sweating by the time I reached Siobhan’s house. There was a guy with a black dog coming along the road towards me. I stopped just before Siobhan’s gate and pretended I was trying to find something in my pocket. After he’d passed, I had one more look around then went up her front path. My palms were damp and the key almost slipped from my grasp as I pushed it into the lock. I didn’t want to look furtive, so I didn’t look around again. More aware of my heartbeat than ever before, I turned the key and went through the door.
It was utterly silent inside the house. I couldn’t even hear a clock ticking. Which was why I jumped when my footsteps made the floorboards creak.
I laughed, the noise very loud in the silence. I guess it was just my conditioning – a voice telling me that this was wrong. But really I knew I wasn’t doing anything bad. I was just checking out Siobhan’s territory, exploring the place where she lives. Pretty soon I knew she would be inviting me inside anyway (oh God, I like the way that sounds: inviting me inside), so, telling myself this, I relaxed. There was a Modigliani on the wall inside the front door, a dark-haired woman stretched languorously on a bed, naked, gazing out intently at the artist and the viewer. Looking at the curve of her breasts and the shadow of her pubic hair, I felt myself become aroused. Why had Siobhan put such an erotic picture just inside her door? What did it signify? I held my hand up in front of me, yearning to touch the glass that screened the print. I held back. I didn’t want to leave any marks.
I looked up the stairs. I wanted to go up there, see where Siobhan slept, but I had to hold myself back again. I wouldn’t find what I was looking for up there. Instead, I went into the living room. It was quite small, but filled with light. More pictures on the wall, though I didn’t recognise the artists. And the place was so neat – astonishingly so. It looked like a hotel suite just after the chambermaid’s been round. No, it was even tidier than that. There were no magazines or papers scattered on the floor: instead, they were stored neatly in those boxes you get in Habitat. The carpet was spotless – I felt like I ought to take off my shoes. What a contrast to my room, with the stacks of books on the floor, the underwear overspilling the drawers, the ashtray that I always forget to empty.
There was no sign of the flowers I bought her, nor the card. I imagine the card is tucked away in a special place – under her pillow, maybe, so she can get it out and read it at night when she can’t sleep. Maybe she touches herself as she reads it. I like to think that – my words helping her come.
I crossed over to the sofa and sat down, rubbing the fabric beneath my palms. This, I thought with a tremor of excitement, is where Siobhan sits and watches TV. I could almost see her shape in the upholstery. Could smell her; a clean, sweet smell. I put my face to the fabric and inhaled. Delicious.
I stood up and moved towards the back of the room, where a computer sat on a desk. It was a small laptop; a very sexy little iBook. She hadn’t turned it off, which made me worry a bit – was she intending to return soon? – but I couldn’t stop myself from sitting on her desk chair and running my hands over the keyboard, the instrument with which she wrote her fiction. The keys that knew the feel of her skin so well; that had felt the soft press of her fingers a million times.
I needed to check her emails to see if there was anything from Bookjungle. I opened the Mail program and scanned the list of messages received. Nothing. But what if one had been sent since Siobhan had last polled her emails? I clicked the internet connect icon – how sweet, that she didn’t even have Broadband! The modem chirruped away, horribly loud in the quiet room. I held my breath, then, after the internet connection was established, I pressed ‘send and receive’. A new message arrived. I sighed with relief - it wasn’t from my old company. Instead, it was from a woman named Patricia Collins. I recognised the name, though it took a few moments for me to realise where I knew it from. It was on the Acknowledgements page of Tara Lies Awake: Huge thanks to my wonderful editor Patricia Collins.
I read her message:
Dear Siobhan
We haven’t spoken for a while. But you know how sometimes opportunities arise out of the blue? I’ve just returned from business in Amsterdam and while I was there I got chatting to someone from your Dutch publisher, Mareliese van der Zee. She asked after you and wanted to know if you had a second novel in the offing.
The interesting thing is that, as you know, Tara Lies Awake was something of a cult hit in the Netherlands. And a radio station over there recently broadcast a serialisation of it, which has reawakened a small amount of interest in the book. She asked if you’d like to go over to Amsterdam to do a couple of signings. Nothing huge – but I think it would be good for you to get ‘out there’ again.
Of course, you might prefer to put TLA behind you for good and concentrate on the next one. It’s up to you. But her email address is [email protected]
And please do contact me when your new book is ready. I’d love to see it first.
Best wishes
Patricia
I stared at the email for what felt like a very long time. Amsterdam? I had this awful image of Siobhan going out there and deciding to stay! Or even if she didn’t stay, how long would she be gone? Days! The thought of her being so far away from me made my guts churn.
I had no choice but to delete it. Besides, she was bound to think it suspicious when she noticed that the message had already been opened, when she hadn’t read it herself.
I disconnected from the Web and then spotted something beside the laptop: a credit card. I picked it up and held it by its edges. I had an idea. I reached down to the printer, took out a sheet of paper and copied down the number, expiry date and three digit code on the back. I folded up the paper and slipped it in my pocket.
Next, I went back into the hallway and checked her phone for messages. Again, there was nothing. Thank god for that.
I walked into the kitchen. Here was her oven, her fridge, her washing up. There wasn’t a single dirty piece of crockery on display – in fact, there wasn’t any crockery anywhere to be seen. I opened the cupboard above the sink and there it all was, gleaming and spotless. I reached up and took a mug down: a plain white one. I lifted it to my lips and kissed the edge.
Something went thump in the hallway.
I dropped the mug. It landed on the worktop, rocking on its base, thankfully not smashing. I swivelled towards the hall, my stomach freezing, my heart forgetting to beat. I expected to see Siobhan coming through the front door.
But it was a cat. It must have jumped from halfway up the stairs, the crazy creature, and now it was padding towards me. It was pretty fat, and heavy-footed for a cat. It came into the kitchen and started to rub round my ankle, purring.
‘Hello. Do you want some dinner?’ I said.
I opened a couple of cupboard doors and found a box of cat biscuits. The cat’s purring grew louder and I crouched down, sprinkling a few of the biscuits on the floor. I stroked it as it ate. ‘I’ll be your daddy soon,’ I whispered.
I put the biscuits a
way and looked out the back door at a small garden. Washing was pegged out on the line. A couple of T-shirts, a pair of jeans, a jumper. A black bra and several pairs of knickers. I leaned closer to the window to get a better look. The T-shirts looked a bit worn, the bra was fading and the knickers were quite tatty-looking. I couldn’t help but feel that she deserved better. If only I could afford to buy her nice new clothes; lingerie that would feel like silk upon her skin; that would flatter her and make her feel sexy. But now that I’d lost my job there was no way I could spare the money.
I felt sad. And I was very aware that I had to go.
I said goodbye to the cat, who was still munching on his biscuits, and headed back towards the door. I had no doubt that this had been an important event. (I now feel as if I know Siobhan much better. I can hardly wait for my next visit.) I wanted to go upstairs, to see her bed, to visit her most private place, but perhaps, I thought, it would be better to save that pleasure, to deny myself now so that it will be even sweeter when it happens.
I opened the front door slowly and looked out through the crack. As I stood there, looking up and down the road, making sure I wasn’t going to be spotted, I felt a movement by my feet. The cat pushed past my legs and squeezed through the gap in the door, bounding down the path towards the road. Shit. I closed the door and followed the cat. But it ran across the road and disappeared into someone else’s garden.
I’m sure it will be okay, though. And as I walked home I stopped worrying about it, and everything else too – I’d already forgotten all about the loss of my job.
I was too excited to fret. I was going to show Siobhan that it wasn’t wrong to be a little self-indulgent. It seemed obvious that she didn’t know how to treat herself, and that it was up to me to do it for her. After all, isn’t that what lovers do?
Chapter 9
Siobhan
Thursday
OK, now, something very weird is going on. Either Biggles has suddenly developed prehensile abilities – which he’s hiding from me – or else I’m going crazy.
No matter how hard I rack my brains, I can’t think of any logical explanation as to how he managed to get a handful of Go-Cat out of a packet in a closed cupboard. It was fresh Go-Cat, too – I checked it to make sure that he hadn’t perhaps previously ingested it and puked it back up again, but it wasn’t remotely soggy. It still had that dusty feel to it, like when it comes out of the box. And I can’t figure out how he was outside the house when I got back from the gym – I’m sure I left him asleep on the sofa. He must have scooted out with me, I suppose.
And more strangely, I can’t think how he could have climbed up on the kitchen counter, got a mug down, and left it there…! It’s got a big chip in the base, which definitely wasn’t there before. The mug wasn’t there before. I never go out without leaving the kitchen tidy – mostly because I don’t want Biggles up there padding around leaving cat hair in my tableware, or worse, licking stuff. I know that cats are clean – I wouldn’t have one if they weren’t – but still, I don’t like the idea of his paws all over my surfaces. What if he’d just been raking his litter tray?
I assume I must have left the mug out, although how did I not notice that I’d chipped it? I don’t like this feeling at all. I hate not being in control; it’s like being on a fairground ride, when you can’t tell them you want to get off. Oh God, please don’t let this be the start of me losing my marbles; I couldn’t bear it. I wonder if I should ask Paula what her thoughts on voluntary euthenasia are – I’ll need someone to help me put a pillow over my face if it all gets that dire.
I can’t wait for Paula to get home. I’m dying to tell her about Phil and the dead flowers and the filthy postcard. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe it was Phil after all; some kind of macho screwed up way of proving his masculinity, or something… I don’t even want to go there. I’m sure if I don’t respond then he’ll stop bothering. It must have really got to him, to go to the lengths of asking somebody to leave dead flowers on my doorstep even while he’s in Portugal. What is it, some kind of special branch of Interflora? Maybe he used one of those ‘prank’ agencies you see advertised in the backs of magazines, offering to carry out practical jokes for revenge. Wilted lilies for jilted willies. It almost makes sense.
If it was just the postcard, I’d suspect Alex – after all, he did ask me out, and he put a pink ribbon around the review – but there’s no way he’d leave dead flowers, is there? Unless he’s angry with me for turning him down? But he didn’t seem angry, or at all upset. And besides, like Brian, he’s got no way of finding out my address. The college would never give it out, and McGowan is a pretty common surname.
Monday
Paula’s back; I rang her. Annoyingly, she was so jet-lagged that she couldn’t understand what I was going on about, when I tried to tell her about Phil, etc. She just wanted to talk to me about her holiday, which sounded exactly like the stuff of my worst nightmares: slumming it in those cheap and atrociously dodgy guesthouses in Phuket, no toilet paper, mosquitoes in swarms, constant stomach upsets and the runs – and she calls that a holiday? It’s my idea of complete hell. Still, she’s only twenty four. She’ll learn.
Tuesday
Well, dementia is clearly encroaching fast. I got a package this morning, special delivery: a beautiful box with the most delicious underwear in it; a slinky dusky purple body with teeny little spaghetti straps and ivory lace, in the sort of silk that’s so smooth it feels like it’s not even there, resting like an invalid in layers of fat white tissue paper.
But my delight at receiving such an exquisite package was ruined when I found the bill in the bottom of the box. £75.00, on my credit card – Lady Alzheimer is surely calling… I must have ordered it and then forgotten about it, or made some stupid blunder on the internet. I can’t think how it happened. I suppose it must have been when I was browsing through those fashion websites ages ago, the ones whose addresses Paula wrote down for me. They do brilliant reductions on last season’s stuff, from all sorts of different designers. I must have accidentally clicked on BUY at some point. I don’t understand how it works – would they be able to tell my address from my credit card details? Maybe it’s the same as that One-Click thing I’ve got set up for when I buy books and CDs on Bookjungle. I’ll ask someone more au fait with these internet things – Dennis Tennis might know.
I’ll have to send it back. I can’t afford seventy five quid at the moment, not until I get some articles accepted. I’ve still got four out with editors who should all have got back to me by now (must chase them).
It’s so beautiful, I can’t stop stroking it. The silk is so cool, and I can imagine how it would feel on my body. What a shame. I wish I was rich! But fortunately I seem to have ordered a size 10, and I can tell just by looking that it would be far too tight. It’d be up the crack of my arse in two seconds flat and I’d be uncomfortable all day, dying to hoik it out and not being able to unless in the privacy of my own home. Let’s be pragmatic here – ten minutes of that sort of torture and I wouldn’t care how soft the bloody silk was.
Wednesday night.
Something horrible’s just happened. I was walking home from the pub where Kathy and I had a drink after class (I’ll write about that later, when I’m calmer). I‘d cut across the swimming pool car park and was nearly at the far side, when suddenly I was sure I could hear footsteps behind me, secretive sly little steps. I glanced round, but there was nobody there. After what happened when I was fourteen, this is the one thing guaranteed to freak me out more than anything else. I instantly lost the ability to breathe properly, and started to kind of huff. I sped up, and just before I reached Colne Road – I am NEVER going to walk across an empty car park at night again – I spun around a second time. This time I did see someone, a dark figure pressed up against the wall by the disabled parking spaces, trying not to let himself be seen. I started to run, flat out, trying to clutch my bag close to my side in case h
e was a mugger, trying to figure out how accessible my clothes were in case he was a rapist.
I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast in my life. I ran so hard that all I could hear was my footsteps banging on the pavement and my own panting– but just as I got to the gate, I turned round again and, oh God, he’d run after me. I saw him, I just didn’t see his face but I swear it was the same man, lurking again at the end of the road, watching me.
He knows where I live. He knows where I live. He knows where I live. Who is he?
I need to talk to someone.
Tried Mum and Dad, and Paula, but they both had their answerphones on. M&D must be asleep, and Paula’s probably out. It’s only midnight, early for her. Better keep writing. Maybe I’ll feel better if I get it all out, get the terror down onto paper and then all it is is little black letters and white spaces; nothing scary about that.
I hurled myself inside the house, bolted the door, and ran around yanking every single set of curtains closed, making sure that the back door and all the windows were locked, shaking so much that I could barely get my fingers to work. Then I poured myself a huge gin and tried to sit down in the armchair, but I couldn’t sit still, even when Biggles jumped on my lap and wanted stroking.
I tipped him on to the floor and paced up and down, dizzy and fidgeting with fear. What did the man want? Was he outside the house now? Had he been after my bag, or worse? What if he tried to get in? I didn’t know whether I should phone the police or not. I wished Phil wasn’t in Portugal. I had a sudden urge to call Kathy, but of course I didn’t.
I’ve been sitting in my bedroom for ages, peering through a tiny slit at the side of the curtains, scanning the road until I got a draft in my eyes and I was beginning to imagine dark shapes behind every garden fence. But whoever it was has – I hope – long gone. It’s late now; well past two o’clock but I can’t sleep so I’m just going to keep writing.