Look What You Made Me Do

by Nikki Smith

  I press the switch and light floods the room but it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust and take in the full horror in front of me. Without my contact lenses in, everything is slightly out of focus, but I can see my white duvet cover is moving – a swarming brown sea of insects. I throw it back and hurl myself off the bed and across the room, away from their chirping noises, feeling them twitch as I crush them beneath my feet. I run my hands over my hair and pyjamas, shaking every limb to dislodge any creatures that are still hanging on. I can still feel them even when they aren’t there. My body continues to jerk despite my instructions, an automatic response that I have no control over.

  Crickets. He knows they’re the one thing I have a phobia about ever since one had got stuck in my hair when I was little. I pull on the handle of the bedroom door in desperation but he’s shoved something under it on the other side so I can’t get out. I try shouting his name, but my voice comes out in a whisper. There’s no answer. The crickets hop around over the carpet and on the chair, fuzzy blurs of movement, and even though I push myself into the corner of the room next to the door, making myself as small as possible, I can’t avoid them.

  I swallow huge gulps of air, gasping for breath, and try lifting one foot up at a time to KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME. The words fill every inch of space in my head but come out of my mouth as a small squeak, barely audible above their chirruping noises. I’m too terrified to open my lips more than a few millimetres in case one of them tries to hop inside, its thin feelers twitching as it crawls down my throat. I run my fingers over my face, scratching my eyelids and cheeks with my nails, needing to be absolutely certain I haven’t got any still attached to me.

  Their chirping merges together into one high-pitched song and I put my hands over my ears to block it out. Blood pounds to a crescendo in my head and I watch as the floor below me turns from cream to grey, coming closer and closer towards my face, rising up off the floor to meet me. Now I can only hear a faint high-pitched humming, and I wonder whether the crickets have gone, or whether I have; the sensation of the carpet under my cheek oddly familiar as I slip quietly into oblivion and everything turns black.

  We looked at photos this afternoon, you and I. It was as if our encounter at the weekend had never happened. I tried to keep my distance from you whilst you took them, but I could feel your breath on the back of my neck as you leaned over behind me to check the shot. Not photos that you’d put in a family album. Not like the pictures of people that I’ve seen on your phone with their heads back, laughing. Someone blowing out candles on a birthday cake in the dark, the flames lighting up their disembodied face, small legs pedalling bicycles, someone lying on the grass with her eyes shut, her hair fanning out like a wave. Not like the ones on my phone either. I don’t take any of people. Not anymore. Mine are of trees. Taken at the bottom of the trunk looking up at the branches above. Thick canopies of green through which I glimpse fragments of a cerulean blue sky. A view into infinity and nature’s attempt to reach it. The shots today were practical. Black and white images of open laptops, pencils arranged artistically in a pot, someone’s hands looking like they’re pointing at something when they’re not. That’s the problem with photographs. They only capture one moment in time. An infinitesimally tiny fraction of a second when people are usually pretending to be something they’re not. Smiling for the camera, not smiling because they want to. And then we look back and remember a reality that never existed in the first place. A futile attempt to capture perfection. I used to think you were perfect and it’s only now I can see I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  THURSDAY

  Jo

  I glance at the clock on the kitchen wall and shout to the girls to come downstairs as we’re late for school. If we don’t leave soon, we’ll get caught in traffic and then it’ll take me forever to get to the office after I’ve dropped them off. Grace appears at the top of the stairs, holding onto the bannister, bumping down one step at time, dragging out the process as long as possible.

  ‘Shoes on. Now, please. Where’s your sister?’ I hear the toilet flush and Livvi skips out, catching up with Grace on the way down. I walk into the kitchen whilst they finish getting ready, reaching for my handbag that’s lying on the kitchen counter.

  ‘Did you hear Grace last night?’ Paul asks, deliberately keeping his voice low so the girls can’t hear.

  ‘No?’ I look at him as he says the words, the one subject that we appear, for the moment, to be united upon.

  ‘I found her standing by the back door again.’ I frown. ‘It’s fine,’ he continues, ‘she can’t reach the key now I’ve put it up on the hook. She was staring out across the lawn, same as last time. She scared the living daylights out of me when she came into the kitchen. We need to get a stairgate. I’m worried she’s going to hurt herself wandering around in the middle of the night. Those stairs are steep.’

  I nod. ‘I don’t want to make a big thing about it, though. It might make her feel worse than she already does. Now she’s seeing the counsellor I’m hoping she might stop doing it.’

  He raises his eyebrows, leaving me feeling I’m being naive to place my faith in someone we’ve never even met. Grace won’t tell me anything about her counsellor other than that she’s a woman, and she’s younger than me. I don’t even know her name – I think she’d been worried I’d look her up online and try to contact her.

  Paul tips what’s left of his tea into the sink and walks into the hall where he plants a kiss on top of Livvi’s head. She giggles and squirms away from him.

  ‘All ready, girls?’ He turns back towards me. ‘You’re OK to pick them up from school tonight? You don’t need to bother with any dinner for me.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I told you. I’ve got a meeting with a client that’s probably going to run late.’

  I search through my scrambled thoughts but don’t remember him mentioning it. It feels as if he’s barely been at home long enough for us to have a conversation, going back out to his office to work after we’ve eaten and not returning until after I’ve gone to bed, climbing in silently beside me as I pretend to be asleep, unsure if I want to hear the answers to the questions I know I should ask.

  I swallow my disappointment as he opens the front door, not wanting the girls to see us argue, part of me relieved that I’m not going to have to spend another evening avoiding certain topics of conversation about scans and dates. ‘I mean, what are you doing now?’ I say.

  ‘Putting the bins out.’ I’d forgotten they were collected today.

  ‘I can keep something in the oven for you, if you want?’ I say.

  He shakes his head. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll probably need to work when I get back.’ He walks out, his face redder than usual and I wonder how much time he’s been spending in the garden rather than his office.

  I pick my car keys up off the hall console.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything?’ I look at Grace as I say the words. She’s the one who forgot her flute yesterday, which meant we’d had to turn back when we were already halfway to school, a detour that meant I’d ended up being forty minutes late for work. I’d wondered if she’d done it deliberately, trying to extend the minutes she’s not at school for as long as she can. She’s been reluctant to go in ever since the fight with Maddie. I watch out of the open door as Paul passes us, dragging the bins down to the end of the drive. My husband is slipping away from me and I’m not sure how to stop him. Grace shrugs, pulling her rucksack onto her shoulder. ‘Well, can you double check before we leave, please?’ I ask.

  She looks inside her bag before I usher her outside, expecting to see Paul walking back in, but he’s at the bottom of the drive, leaning against one of the bins, chatting to Anna. He’s laughing at whatever she’s saying and it grates against my skin, like someone rubbing me with sandpaper. I don’t notice Grace is watching him until Livvi pulls on my top.

  ‘Can I go and say hello to Jess?’
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  I shake my head. ‘Go and get in the car, I’m just going to have a word with Dad.’ I hand the keys to Grace who visibly relaxes once she realises she’s not going to have to risk seeing Maddie whilst Livvi stomps off in a huff.

  Anna looks up to see me approaching, the sound of the gravel crunching beneath my feet. She smiles briefly, but I strain to hear what she’s saying as she lowers her voice and by the time I reach them, they both stop talking.

  ‘Hi, Jo,’ Anna says, her greeting an attempt to cover the silence. ‘I was just saying to Paul he’s so lucky to work at home when it’s like this. Never known it so hot for so long.’ I nod, noticing she’s done her hair and put on her make-up before tackling the school run.

  ‘Can you remember to feed Buddy before you start work?’ I ask Paul.

  He glances at Anna. ‘Sure. I’d better get back to it.’

  ‘See you later,’ Anna says as he heads back into the house and I wonder if that’s just a turn of phrase or whether she means it literally.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to come and speak to you,’ I say. ‘Please don’t tell Maddie I’ve spoken to you, but I heard the girls got into a bit of trouble last Friday at school.’

  Anna frowns. ‘I don’t know what Grace has told you, but –’

  I interrupt her before she can finish. ‘Grace hasn’t told me anything. The school nurse explained what happened when I was called in to collect her.’ Anna looks back across the road to where I can see Maddie and Jess getting into their car. ‘Has Maddie said anything to you that I should know about? The girls used to get on so well, I can’t believe they’ve fallen out. Or that it turned physical.’

  Anna looks down at the gravel, avoiding my gaze. ‘Grace just fell over.’

  I hesitate, weighing up in my head whether I’m angry with her over what Maddie has done or whether this has nothing to do with my daughter and everything to do with Paul. Ever since Dad’s death, I can’t seem to get a proper grip on things that used to feel as solid as concrete. My husband, my daughter, my friendships; they all seem to be sliding away from beneath my fingers.

  ‘It’s really affected Grace. She doesn’t want to go to school anymore,’ I tell her.

  ‘And you think that’s all Maddie’s fault?’ Anna straightens herself up, as if she’s preparing herself to go into battle.

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

  Anna stares at me and I can tell she’s debating whether to say something. ‘Perhaps you need to look a bit closer to home, Jo. Grace hasn’t been happy for a while and that has nothing to do with Maddie.’ She turns around and walks across the road before I have a chance to ask her anything else. I have a horrible feeling that she’s right and Grace hasn’t told me something I should really know about.

  Alice knocks on my door just before lunchtime to ask me if I know where Caroline is. I hadn’t even realised she wasn’t here; I’ve been avoiding her this week, deliberately shutting myself away in my office. I know she’s going to want to know if I’ve made a decision about what to do with the business and I don’t want to give her the opportunity to ask the question. At the moment I’m tempted to give her what she wants. To sell up, take the money and move away from here, back to Bristol where Grace wasn’t sleepwalking and I didn’t wonder what Paul was hiding from me. The only thing stopping me is the reluctance to give up something I’ve put so many hours into to make a success, the feeling that if I give it up, the move to come back here that I pushed for will have been a complete waste of time. I used to think I owed it to Dad, but the conversation with my mother a couple of days ago has tainted those memories too, like someone scribbling over a picture I’d spent ages drawing, ruining it forever.

  I tell Alice that I don’t know where Caroline is, that she’s probably out on a viewing, but she tells me there’s nothing in her diary. I try calling her, but her mobile goes straight to voicemail and there’s no answer on her home phone so I send her a text, asking her to message me to let me know where she is. She’s probably off sick again. She’s been off a lot recently; I think it’s an excuse for her not to have to spend time with me. But she usually calls Alice to let her know she’s not going to be in and I feel a flicker of concern, despite myself.

  She knows she’s supposed to put all viewings in the diary; it’s basic safety procedure. The thought briefly crosses my mind whether to call Rob to check she’s all right before I dismiss it. I try to think about Rob as little as possible. He might be my sister’s husband but I can’t forget what he did. Sometimes I manage to dull down its intensity so it’s like a song playing at low volume in the background, but it never fades away completely. I can always hear it. He pretends it never happened; although sometimes I catch him looking at me and I know he knows it did. His hand sliding under the blanket on the sofa where I was lying that afternoon. The sharp smell of the cut-up apple lying on the plate on the table in front of me, three quarters of it still uneaten, the edges turning a soft brown colour. I’d pushed him away, too scared even to ask what he thought he was doing, the words I wanted to say expanding in my mouth, stopping me speaking. I’d scrabbled off the sofa and onto the floor with the small amount of energy I still had left, knocking over the glass of milk that my mother refilled at every opportunity, the white liquid spilling over the coffee table and dripping over the sides onto the carpet.

  She’d come in at that point, alerted by the noise of breaking glass, helping me back onto the sofa, my body too weak to resist her efforts as she’d tucked the blanket back around my legs whilst Rob had sat on the other side of me, smiling at her, offering to get a cloth to clear up the mess.

  Caroline hadn’t believed me when I’d told her later. She’d said I must have been mistaken, that I’d misinterpreted what he’d done, that he’d just been trying to comfort me, that I was saying it to get attention. I always wondered whether things would have been different if my eating disorder hadn’t swallowed up so much of the spotlight that should have belonged to her. He’d been the reason I’d moved away; not trusting anyone else with my shameful secret and over the years the memory had blurred, the feeling of his hand on my thigh, sliding it upwards until his fingers reached my knickers, pulling the elastic to get at what was underneath becoming less distinct until sometimes when I wake up in the night, my duvet twisted around me, I wonder whether it had ever been there at all.

  The girls jostle to find a spot in the shade by the front door once we get home from school whilst I try to get my key into the lock, bracing myself for Buddy to run out. I hadn’t shut him in the utility room before we left and Paul had said he wouldn’t have time to walk him today, so I thought he’d be going crazy. They kick off their school shoes, leaving their rucksacks and cardigans in a pile on the mat before bundling out of the back door. Livvi had managed to emotionally blackmail me into having Jess back to play; standing in the playground hand in hand with her when I’d arrived. I’d proffered a few feeble excuses, my embarrassment growing at a rate equivalent to Anna’s, who was attempting to say something similar to Jess. Finally, I’d given in, not wanting to make a scene in front of the other parents, telling Anna I’d drop Jess back before tea, watching Maddie pretend to be engrossed in conversation with Katie whilst Grace stared silently at the asphalt.

  I hear Livvi and Jess squeal as they climb onto the trampoline, but Grace comes back into the hall, frowning.

  ‘Where’s Buddy?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know, sweetheart. Probably in his bed?’

  She shakes her head. ‘He’s not, I’ve looked.’

  ‘Well, go and have a hunt around for him.’

  She disappears and I can hear her calling his name as I pick up their bags off the floor, waiting for him to scamper out, but there’s silence as I walk into the kitchen and Grace stares at me, her eyes wide.

  ‘He’s not here, Mum.’

  ‘Go and have a look upstairs.’

  She walks off, and I go to get a glass of water but don’t want to run the tap whilst I’m tryi
ng to listen to Grace. I can hear her footsteps as she comes back downstairs again, appearing from behind the door with a furry bundle in her arms.

  ‘He was asleep on my rug.’ She smiles. ‘I must have left my bedroom door open.’ I take a deep breath as I fill the kettle. I don’t know what she’d do without him at the moment.

  Livvi looks so devastated when I tell her Jess has to go home that I almost relent, giving them the extra half an hour they’re pleading for, but then I catch a glimpse of Anna’s house out of the window and change my mind, walking Jess back over the road and standing at the bottom of her drive by the gate as Anna opens the door to let her in. She waves at me and I lift my hand in response against the velvety blue sky, still cloudless, an uneasy truce.

  I walk back into our house, past the dark red peonies that appear almost black in this light, their floral scent overpowering, my stomach growling in protest, mistaking the smell for food. There are toys strewn all over the floor of the snug and I shout to Livvi who has disappeared up to her room to come back downstairs and help tidy up. There’s no answer so I call out again, my irritation rising.

  ‘If you want to have your friends over, then you’re responsible for clearing up the mess afterwards,’ I say, my head beginning to throb. ‘Grace, can you help too, please?’ She swings her feet off the couch, staring reluctantly at the mess in front of her. ‘Don’t just expect me to do it. I want everything picked up off the floor and put away.’ I march into the middle of the room and pick up a teddy, some felt-tip pens and a colouring book off the carpet.