by Jaye Ford
The light in the half bath was brilliant. It washed the colour from her skin, made the weal on her chest look crimson. A curve, like a large apostrophe above the flesh of her left breast. Memory shuddered at the back of her mind. Thrashing, grappling, hands that flapped.
It was a dream, it was a dream, it was a dream.
Leaning closer to the mirror, she saw a spot of blood at the top of the apostrophe. Under the light, there were more dots of blood on her arms, one mark like a perforated line on a tear-off brochure.
And suddenly her whole body itched and stung. She lifted her top, inspected her stomach, checked her back in the mirror. Dropped her trousers, ran her eyes over her legs, her buttocks, closed her eyes briefly before examining between her thighs. Not there, thank god. Only her arms and chest.
Six scratches.
She checked under her nails for skin, telling herself it was her, she’d done it, then saw in the mirror the fear that bloomed in her eyes in the second before she ran. To the doors, checking the locks. Flicking on lights, running her hands across the plaster, pushing, knocking, wanting to see inside it. Remembering a hole in the wall. Talia had made it and she’d covered it with sheet music. She’d had pages and pages of music stuck to her walls and lots of holes that had to be repaired. Has she done this too? Had she found the way in? There’d been another hole in the loft.
Carly took the stairs two at a time, stopped breathless at the top, alarm sparking like fireworks in her blood. She eyed the rumple of bedclothes, the pillow on the floor, lifted her arm and peered again at the damage. And something forceful charged at the corners of her mind.
Thrashing, jerking, flailing. Hand shoving at her chest, wrenching her hair.
Like a wave that started in her feet, the tingling, sweating numbness rushed upwards. She gasped for breath, grappled for the railing, holding it with both hands as the stairs swam and pitched in her vision. Panic. A flood of it, filling her with molten fear. She couldn’t stay in the loft, didn’t want to fall to her death so she gritted her teeth and forced herself to move. Knees juddering, palms slippery, planting her feet carefully, cautiously, all the way to the bottom. Her vision blurred, her breath came in gulping, hitching breaths. She lurched as far as the kitchen before she hit the floor.
Carly was curled on her side when her breath finally slowed to something close to normal. Sweat was cold on her skin, tears dry on her cheeks. There was a crumb near her face and the starburst shape of a water droplet. She heaved herself upright, shaky and weak. The fear that had fizzed and shouted was quieter now, subdued as though it had been slapped.
You’re good tonight, Carly.
She fingered her cheek where the warmth of the words had fluttered.
You’re my best, Carly.
She wanted to be a better person, a worthy person. Was it a nasty mind game she was playing with herself? Or …
She dropped her hand to her chest, felt the tenderness of the graze.
Had someone done it to her?
Dean Quentin was waiting for her at the enquiries counter in the police station, just off night shift and changed out of his uniform. He hadn’t asked why she wanted to see him, his smile as he shook her hand was a mix of professional gravity and pleased-you-called. He directed her to a couple of chairs in a corner.
‘How can I help?’
Now she’d left the apartment, the agitated pacing had reached its limit and the heavy-boned fatigue was settling in. It made the station feel overheated and sweat prickle in her hair. ‘It’s about the break-ins.’
He watched her, waiting for more.
She’d thought about Nate and Liam before Dean Quentin, decided she didn’t need sex or reassurance, she needed someone who could do something. ‘It’s still happening.’ She unwound her scarf, fingers trembling. ‘Actually, it hasn’t stopped, I just haven’t called the police. Last night, it was …’ She dropped the coat from her shoulders, searched the ceiling for an all-encompassing description. ‘It really scared me.’
He nodded.
‘You said I could talk to you. And, I guess …’ She spread her hands, palms up.
‘You’re ready to do something about it?’
‘I want it to stop.’
‘That’s a good start.’
Relief made her relax enough to smile a little.
‘Can you explain it to me?’ he asked.
‘That’s the thing. I’m not sure I can. It’s why I’m here. To get another opinion.’
‘Is it someone you know?’
‘I’ve no idea. It could be. It’s dark, I can’t see properly, I’m not really …’ Awake. Asleep. ‘… sure. And then it might be …’ No one. An invention.
‘But you think someone is there?’
‘Yes.’ In her heart, even though it didn’t make sense –yes. Yes, she did.
‘Where do you see them?’
‘In the loft.’
‘Is that the only place?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This person, they’re not at your apartment, are they?’
She frowned.
‘What’s really going on, Carly?’
She stalled for time, pulling her arms from the coat, draping it across her lap, trying to understand his question. Did he think she was exaggerating the story so he’d listen? ‘I don’t know what’s going on. That’s why I’m here.’
He shifted his shoulders as though adjusting his approach. ‘Tell me what you know then.’
‘I wake up and someone is in my bedroom. It’s dark, I can’t see properly. He lies on top of me then he’s gone.’
He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, doubtful.
‘I know,’ she jumped in before he said anything. ‘My doors are locked, there were no fingerprints. I’ve also called my psychologist and I’m not crazy.’ She forced a laugh. Dean’s expression didn’t alter. ‘Look, I haven’t called triple-O since you warned me. I don’t want to be arrested for being scared. But I am scared and you said I could talk to you.’
He folded his arms. ‘Okay, Carly. We’re talking.’ It wasn’t This better be good, not entirely.
She took a breath and another, urging herself to be calm, to at least sound calm. ‘I’m asleep, I wake up in the early hours and I see a man. It’s not every night, once a week usually. Two weeks this last time. I can’t see him but I can feel him on top of me. He touches …’
‘Carly, I’ve heard this.’
‘I know, I know. You need to understand all of that before …’ Her bag slipped to the floor, spewed keys and a lipstick at Dean’s feet. She wiped sweat from above her lip. ‘Shit.’
‘It’s okay. Leave it for the moment.’
She righted her bag, rubbed at her sleeve, her bones aching.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
No. ‘Yep. Sure.’
‘You need to tell me something new, Carly.’
Frustrated and angry now, she yanked at her sleeves, her volume climbing as she shoved her forearms at him. ‘This is new.’
His eyes dropped to the marks on her skin.
‘And this.’ She pulled the neckline of her jumper down to reveal the red curve on her chest.
‘They’re scratches,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘How did you get them?’
‘I don’t know. I found them this morning. I think he did it.’
‘What do you mean you found them?’
‘It’s what I’m trying to tell you. I woke up in the loft with a man on top of me. I struggled this time, he left and I found these. It must have happened when he was trying to hold me down.’
She wanted him to stand and shout for detectives but he’d been to her apartment three times – locked doors and no fingerprints. She figured the best she could expect was an offer to take another look. It was what she’d come for.
He didn’t do anything more than look at her for a long moment. She took it as a good sign, that maybe he was thinking about it. Finally, he took hold her wrists.
‘Did you do this to yourself?’
‘What?’
‘Did you hurt yourself, Carly?’
She tried to pull her arms back but he held on, turning the scratches to the light from the fluorescent above. ‘No,’ she ground out.
His voice was gentle. ‘Maybe you thought you needed these to make the police take notice.’
Carly snatched her hands away. ‘What the fuck?’
‘It’s okay, Carly.’
‘No. It’s not. You think I gouged myself for attention.’
‘I’ve seen it before. Scratches, cuts, broken bones.’
‘That’s not what happened. I didn’t do this.’
‘You think it was the man in your apartment?’
‘Yes.’
‘You think.’
Her jaw tightened. ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. He was trying to hold me down and I was struggling. Then I was running to the front door. I felt stinging on my arms and I found these.’ She lifted her forearms again, kept them out of his reach.
He didn’t speak.
‘It’s sounds ridiculous, I know, but …’ She swung her face away, unable to talk to his doubt any longer. ‘I just want to know what’s going on. You said I could talk to you, I thought you might help.’
It took him a long moment to decide. ‘You said you had a psychologist.’
She faced him with a glare.
‘If you give me a name, I can make a call for you.’
‘I don’t want a psychologist. I want someone to look at my apartment.’
‘If your doctor isn’t here, I …’
‘I meant you,’ she cried. ‘Will you check my apartment? Please.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got some time now. I can take you to see someone. If you don’t …’
‘No.’ Carly stood, tore her coat from the chair. ‘I don’t need to see anyone.’ This was a mistake. A big fucking mistake. She snatched up her bag.
‘I know some people at the hospital. I’ll go with you.’
‘The hospital?’
A step towards her. ‘There’s a psychiatric unit there, Carly. You need to get some help.’
She backed away. ‘Don’t touch me.’
He raised his hands, something cautious and soothing in his tone. ‘I won’t. It’s okay, Carly.’
Christ, he thought she was losing it. She was holding her handbag to her chest like a shield – she looked like she was losing it. ‘This is not what you think. I haven’t slept. I’m tired, not crazy.’
‘Carly.’
As he moved towards her, she stumbled away, almost falling as she bolted for the door.
33
It was late afternoon when Carly woke groggy and cold, the lethargy only a ghost in her bones now. She’d come back to the apartment, taken her first sleeping pill in six months and slept like the dead on the sofa. She now stared blearily at her few pieces of furniture, the French windows, the view. She hated it all. Hated the loft and the long hallway and the exposed bricks and the stainless-steel kitchen. Hated how it felt now. Hated that this was fucked up too.
There were sounds from Nate’s apartment. Carly looked at her arms again, wondered what he would say. He knew things that others didn’t understand, about pain and grief and reproach. About wanting to feel and not feel. About being crazy and still sane.
Outside, afternoon was becoming evening, the approaching darkness making her skin prickle with apprehension. She couldn’t stay here again, not with scratches on her arms and no idea how they got there. Maybe she needed protection. Maybe she did need to go to a hospital. Maybe she needed to know what Nate would say.
Carly took a packet of crackers. Nate opened his door, eyeing them with amusement.
‘Are you looking for cheese to go with that?’ he asked.
‘I thought we could pool resources.’
He pulled his door wide. She smelled soap and deodorant on him as she passed, rubbed at her arms as she stood at his kitchen counter. He pulled out wineglasses. She said, ‘Can we talk first?’
They sat by the windows. Carly rested her elbows on her knees, the ends of her sleeves tucked into the palms of her hands. She told herself to do a better job this time.
‘I have nightmares. Bloody, awful dreams. I’ve had them for years, since my friends died. When I came here, I started dreaming about a man in my apartment, in the loft. It’s why the police came, I thought it was real. It’s what you hear on the other side of the wall – I wake terrified, running for the door, thinking someone is there. Last night, he was on top of me, whispering to me. I tried to fight him off. When I woke up, after I’d freaked out and calmed down, I found these.’ She pulled up her sleeves, showed him her arms.
He looked at them, something suppressed about his expression, as though he wasn’t sure what he was meant to say.
She opened the top of her shirt, revealing the gouge on her chest. ‘They’re scratches,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how they got there. Every time I have the dream, my doors are locked and nothing is disturbed. It’s just me, scared and half asleep and convinced someone is in my apartment, on my bed.’ She ran a palm over the scratches on her forearm. ‘I don’t remember doing this and there was no skin under my nails.’ She raised her eyes to him. ‘I don’t think I did it to myself. I’m scared of what it says about me if I did. But if it wasn’t me it was the man from my dream, and that makes no sense.’
Nate pulled in a breath, the sound of it uncertain.
‘Don’t say anything yet,’ she told him. ‘Right now, I need you to listen.’
He sat back in his chair like he was settling in for a while. ‘Okay.’
Wishing she had a drink now, she said, ‘Six months ago, I took a bunch of sleeping pills.’ She worked her way back to the night at the canyon, keeping it simple. It took a while, it was a long, painful tale.
When she was done, she walked to the windows. It was night now, the neighbourhood below in the glow of a quiet evening, lights from the harbour twinkling in the distance like sparks of hope. Nate hadn’t interrupted her flow and didn’t interrupt her now.
‘People judge what they see,’ Carly said, turning around. ‘I’ve hurt people and hurt myself. I have anxiety, I wake screaming, I fall apart sometimes. I came here to start again, where nobody knew any of that, so I could find out for myself who I am.’ She pulled at her sleeve again, held out her arm. ‘I look at these and have no idea. I showed them to a cop today and he offered to take me to a psychiatric ward.’ She felt it again – the humiliation, the doubt. But it was time to get to the point. She sat on the coffee table, knee to knee with Nate. ‘If I’m hurting myself, I don’t know I’m doing it. If someone else is hurting me, I don’t know how. Either option is pretty fucking scary.’
Nate took a long time to speak. Maybe waiting to see if she was finished. Maybe deciding how he was going to handle it. Whatever it was, it made her nervous. He leaned forward, took both her hands. ‘You’re not crazy,’ he said.
‘You haven’t seen me when I wake up from those dreams. When I’m frightened, I feel crazy.’
‘Frightened can look crazy. I know.’
His voice was firm but it was his eyes that loosened the rigid ball of trepidation inside her. She thought of him in the ocean at night, calling for a woman he loved and trying to keep his crew alive. ‘I’m scared, Nate.’
He shifted to the edge of his chair, knees either side of hers. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, Carly, but you’re not sleeping in your apartment tonight.’
She didn’t know if he thought she was a danger to herself or she was in danger. It didn’t matter. He’d heard her story and hadn’t jumped to conclusions.
‘You should change your locks tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I can do it, if you want.’
‘You think someone is getting in?’
‘I think you should eliminate possibilities.’
‘Should I tie my hands together, too?’
He watched her a moment, pulling hi
s answer together. ‘You didn’t do it accidently, there are too many scratches for that. It’s possible you did it in your sleep, but it’s both arms and your chest – that’s some deep sleeping. It’s possible the dream you remember was some kind of hallucination. I don’t know anything about that stuff but you remember a struggle, so, theoretically, you could have imagined that and fought yourself.’
‘“Stuff” meaning mental illness?’
‘No idea. Let’s find out what’s happening before you worry about that.’
She nodded, wanted to kiss him for that.
He reached for her hand, held it between both of his. ‘I was in a yacht that capsized at sea because a wire in a radio was faulty. We had years of experience, we took every safety precaution and my girlfriend drowned.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Things happen that you can’t predict,’ he said. ‘That don’t make sense until you get all the facts. Even then …’ He tipped his head, didn’t finish. ‘We could set up a camera in the loft.’
‘This one sounds good,’ Carly called down her hallway. She was googling motion-sensor apps for mobile phone cameras while Nate replaced the deadlock on her front door. ‘Fifteen shots per second instead of video. Uses less memory, saves straight to cloud storage and it won’t send me broke.’
‘Download it and we’ll give it a trial run. I’m almost done. How’s the coffee coming?’
‘Brewing.’
On the balcony with mugs, they agreed on a contingency plan: if she thought there was someone in the apartment, she would lock herself into the ensuite or wardrobe, phone Nate, and he would let himself in with a spare key. If it happened another way, if he heard sounds of a struggle or thought she was hurting herself, he could use said key to get to her.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Nate said as he wound the new key onto a ring with his others, ‘about the wiring and plumbing.’
‘You think now is a good time to call in a plumber?’
A small smile. ‘We should check your manhole.’
‘Have I got a manhole?’
‘Somewhere. Mine’s in the ensuite ceiling.’
She looked up, wariness tightening her shoulders. ‘You can get into the ceiling?’