I remembered Anna’s words. ‘People like this prey on the vulnerable. They pretend all sorts of things, and then they reveal their true selves.’ Anna would say Bo had never loved me, was faking it all along, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe that. No one could mimic emotion that deep, they just couldn’t. Bo’s sea-change was rooted in something complicated. Those stories about her childhood, all her talk of strength and being alone…
‘Don’t think like that, Alice,’ Anna warned.
No. I wouldn’t think like this.
Brighton was calling me back. I had houses to look at next week. Shared houses, with other people. I’d had enough of living on my own. I wanted the company of others. I couldn’t afford anything other than a damp room in a tumbledown house in an area where crime rates were high and people were poor, but I didn’t mind. It was life.
I looked at the screen in front of me. Exquisite. It was flying from my fingers. I’d already written ten thousand words.
Bo, I knew, had told everyone about me. She’d made it clear in her statement to the police, telling them about my message to her publicist. She hoped to spread the news around the book world that Alice Dark was a stalking madwoman.
Well, Alice Dark was not a stalking madwoman. Alice Dark was a woman of sound mind, and she was fighting back. My story was going out in the world. And Bo Luxton, the famous author that everyone loved, could fuck herself.
12
Bo
So the house was going on the market and Gus was leaving me. I was brisk and matter-of-fact about it. There were things that needed sorting out. Custody of the girls and money. I’d need more money. I was going to come out of this with half of all we had. Half – when in fact for the last fifteen years, my earnings had been so much higher than his, and when I’d done all the childcare, all the school runs, all the birthday parties as well. His contribution to our life together was nothing more than occasionally feeding the cat, and he only did that to stop it mewling at him.
I was not going to become a woman that someone had left. Oh, no. I was leaving him; I would make sure of that.
‘Have you seen my keys?’ he asked, barging into the study without knocking and spilling a bottle of water onto the floor.
‘No.’
‘I left them on the side, where I always leave them, and they’re not there.’
‘I haven’t got them.’
He went out again.
We’d agreed to tell the girls that afternoon that we were separating. I said I’d do it on my own, but Gus said it was something we had to do together. ‘They need to hear it from both of us, so they know it’s definitely happening, that we’re both agreed on it and their lives aren’t going to be ruined by it. It’s really important.’
I suspected he didn’t trust me. He was worried I’d tell them it was all his doing, tell them he’d had an affair. Tell them he was an ageing bastard. Still, they’d find that out for themselves soon enough.
I could hear him stomping around somewhere in the house, still hunting for his lost keys.
For two more hours, I sat at my desk, mapping out my new novel, Stalked. I would make sure my version of the story was the only one the world would know. I needed to get it out before Alice did, or she’d ruin me.
Gus didn’t make it to his appointment. His keys didn’t turn up, and I wasn’t going to lend him my car, or offer to take him myself. If he wanted to end our marriage, then he had to swallow the downside of independence.
I finished my work, then emailed the New Writers’ Foundation to let them know I was available for teaching next year. It was a pain, having to spend a week away, but it was a thousand pounds in the bag, and at the moment, a thousand pounds wasn’t to be taken lightly.
In the afternoon, we called the girls into the living room. Gus had decided we would tell them, and then afterwards I was going to take them to Lancaster, to see Cinderella at the Grand Theatre. Show them that life was still good, that nothing would really change. They’d just live in two smaller houses instead of this one big one. That was all. The only perceptible difference.
The girls sat down on the sofa. They appeared to sense that something serious was happening, because they didn’t fight or argue or whinge. They just sat there, straight-backed and silent, waiting for the blast.
I said, ‘We wanted to talk to you, to tell you that some things are going to change.’
Then Gus said, in his calm therapist’s voice, so replete with compassion and understanding that I could barely hear it without wanting to slap him, ‘And change can be frightening at first, can’t it? But we want to help you understand that this will all be OK. It’s not bad, just different, but it will take some time to get used to the change.’
Lola said, ‘You’re getting divorced.’
Gus looked taken aback.
Lola continued, ‘That’s the only thing it can be.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. We’re separating. We will have to sell this house and buy two smaller houses, one for Daddy and one for me.’
Maggie said, ‘Which one will we live in?’
‘Well…’
Gus said, ‘You can live in whichever one you like, whenever you like. The houses will both be in Grasmere and you’ll have a bedroom in each one.’
Lola said, ‘Alright. We can decide all of that stuff later, then.’
I felt as if I was watching my older daughter take sudden, giant strides to maturity, years before she ought to.
Maggie cried. I moved to comfort her, but before I was able to, Lola took my place. ‘It’s alright, Mags,’ she was saying. ‘It’ll be fine…’
I watched, and as I watched I saw the rift open. Lola and Maggie stood on one side, Gus and me on the other. The girls were uniting, child survivors of their parents’ war.
I drove the girls to Lancaster for the matinée performance, then afterwards took them for dinner at Pizza Express. I was bored and irritable. A whole afternoon on my own with them always left me like this. But I had to get used to it. This was to be my life now. A single mother, on my own with two children, steering them alone through childhood and the endless drama of the teenage years.
I had so many reasons for regret. I regretted it all. I wished there was something I could do to make it up to them.
To make it up to Alice.
13
Alice
There was no food in the flat and I needed to eat. I stood at the window and looked out for several minutes, checking for Bo. The thought of her out there, lurking among the trees and the shadows, frightened me. Nearly a week had passed since I’d dropped that envelope into her mailbox. She would not be hovering outside, waiting to spring a surprise proposal for a lesbian marriage, that much was certain.
I put on my coat and jogged to the shop, where I filled my basket with fruit and vegetables and brown rice. All those things Bo had said I must eat in order to keep body and mind working together. ‘Remember that good nutrition is vital for spirituality as well as physicality. Don’t forget the two are linked,’ she’d said. At the time, I thought Bo was profoundly insightful. Now, I thought she was a wanker. But even so, I did what she said. I was putting myself back together, piece by piece.
I paid at the self-service checkout. For weeks now, I’d avoided cashiers, in case my card was declined and I’d have to face the shame of putting everything back on the shelves. At least if it was refused at self-service, I could just drop the basket and run.
But again, it was accepted. On the way home, I risked a trip to the off licence to buy some cigarettes. Again, my card worked. I stopped off at the cash point and checked my balance, something I usually avoided doing.
The illuminated text came up on the screen: £3002.67 credit.
Good God.
I went into the bank and asked for a statement. There it was, clear as anything: 16 Nov 15. Paid in, Mr Augustus Hartley and Ms Bo Luxton – £3000.
An admission. An acknowledgement by one or other of them that they accepted what I’d sai
d. Vindication. I had money again. And freedom.
I walked home, lighter than I’d felt since coming up here. A weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My life, my future, was becoming affordable now, not something I was attempting on nothing but a wing and a prayer.
I was still lost in those thoughts as I rounded the bend to the main street where the bakery stood with my flat above it; so I didn’t notice her straight away, not until the figure stepped out in front of me, smiled and said, ‘Hello, Alice.’
Bo.
For a moment, I stood still and speechless and stared at her. Then I walked on, up the stone steps to the door.
Bo stood at the bottom. ‘Please, Alice. I would like to talk to you. I’d like to explain.’
I turned back to face her, ‘I have nothing to say to you.’
That wasn’t true. I had plenty to say to her.
‘I understand why you don’t want to speak to me. I do. But please give me five minutes and I’ll explain it all.’
I couldn’t help it. I was curious. I was more than curious. I was eager – desperate, perhaps – to hear what Bo had to say.
Let me not weaken, I thought. Let her not cast that spell over me and reduce me to a powerless wreck. I am alright now. I am ok.
I opened the door, stepped inside and held it wide for her. Bo tripped delicately up the steps and I was torn between wanting to knock her back down them and wanting to beg her to stay, to come back and let things be as they’d been before.
14
Bo
I walked in and looked around. The flat was small but charming, and Alice had put some pictures on the wall and a rug in front of the old fireplace. I said, ‘You’ve got it looking lovely in here.’
Alice spoke crisply. ‘Thanks.’
I pulled a chair away from the table at the side of the room. ‘Can I sit down?’
Alice nodded and took the seat opposite me. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
I sighed. ‘I don’t blame you for being angry.’
‘Right.’
‘I want to apologise.’
‘What for?’
I looked at her blankly.
‘Tell me what you’re apologising for.’
‘For…’ I gestured widely. ‘For everything.’ I wasn’t going to spell it out, that was certain. ‘Things were very difficult, Alice,’ I went on. You’ve met Gus, my husband, so you’ve seen what he can be like.’ Here, I looked at her, wanting acknowledgement.
Alice nodded.
‘He’s aggressive and controlling. And jealous. He’s always been jealous, of everyone in my life. He won’t speak to my friends, he resents all my success, and he…’ I let my voice trail off for a moment before continuing, ‘…he thinks I’m going to run off with every man I meet.’
Alice was listening.
‘Just before you left Brighton, he found his way into my emails. He read everything you’d sent and he…’
She was hanging on every word.
I took a deep breath before I continued. ‘You were right, that week I didn’t get in touch with you, when you worried that he’d hurt me.’ I looked at Alice. ‘He did hurt me.’ I shook my head, as if I couldn’t continue.
‘Bo, I’m sorry.’
‘He couldn’t cope with the shame of it, the blow to his ego. You know – his wife running off with another woman. He would never have coped, never have lived that down. He was worried word would get out somehow, and so he forced me. He forced me to say you’d stalked me, and that you were crazy. He wanted you silenced, so no one would ever find out.’
Alice let her breath out all at once. ‘And the phone calls?’ she asked. ‘Where do they fit in?’
I said, ‘I don’t know. To be honest, I think they were just a coincidence. I think one of the girls got hold of my phone that night and accidentally called us.’
Alice nodded.
‘But anyway, it has been like this for many years between Gus and me. I learnt to live with it and protect myself because he wasn’t usually violent, just mentally abusive, and I am good at coping with that. But after this – now he has hurt me and made me inflict so much damage on you – I have finally decided enough is enough and I’ve told him I’m leaving. We’re putting the house on the market. A few rooms need decorating first, but it should be for sale in a few weeks. I don’t know how long it will all take. These things have a habit of dragging on … But Alice, I want to make this up to you. I want to prove how sorry I am.’
‘OK,’ she said.
I looked at her and smiled sadly. ‘I think you don’t believe me,’ I said.
‘It’s not that. I do believe you. But I was just starting to recover from what happened. I’ve made plans…’
I looked at her with interest. ‘Really? What plans?’
‘I’m going back to Brighton, to start an MA in creative writing.’
I clapped my hands. ‘Oh, Alice. That’s wonderful! Good for you.’
‘And I was planning to move at the weekend. Saturday. I don’t want to stay here in Grasmere.’
‘Then don’t. You know I would never stand in your way. You must do whatever you need to do, and I can wait. We can take it slowly. Much more slowly than before. It was all such a rush last time, such a wonderful whirlwind. We could try again, and keep our senses this time.’
Alice said, ‘I’m sorry you went through all that.’
‘Me, too. But I’m sorrier for what you went through.’
I reached over and took her hand.
Alice let me.
15
Alice
I made myself remember. I took a notebook and wrote it all down, everything that had happened. The lies, the viciousness, the police. These were not the actions of someone in love. They were the actions of someone who loved no one. What would Anna say? I asked myself. Or what would I say if this were happening to one of my friends? I knew exactly. ‘Get away. Run.’
Bo had been here again this morning. I was on my way out to buy milk for the coffee that was fuelling my work, and there on the doorstep was a bunch of white roses, with twigs full of white berries scattered among them, and a book: Creative Writing.
Poor narcissistic Bo, trying to prove her love. The love she wasn’t capable of. The happiness that lay always out of her grasp.
I picked up the roses and brought them inside. The berries seeped. I took a breath, then wrapped them in newspaper and folded them into the bin. Bo was seductive. She was tempting, but I knew she was horseshit.
The rift was wide and unmendable. My mother had gone to her grave without my forgiveness, and Bo would, too. There was no need to forgive and forget. I would never forgive the unforgivable.
16
Bo
I was working and working in a frenzy. All night, I went on, writing and writing and writing. I hardly slept. This was it, I thought, this was how it used to be, in the old days when ideas had flown from my hands like birds and soared into the skies.
I was writing the book as a collection of short stories, told in random order. It was a structure that was meant to reflect the terror and confusion of being stalked, of having your life broken by someone obsessed with you. The stories were gothic, creepy, a hybrid of styles, thrilling to read. Thrilling and frightening and devastating.
I’d finished five so far and sent them to Vanessa, who gushed and gushed. ‘I love them,’ she wrote. ‘Bo, these are brilliant. I am going to email some editors now and start whipping up a buzz around them.’
Yesterday, she’d phoned and said the buzz was happening. A major editor had read the samples and wanted an exclusive on the finished book. She wanted to be the first to get the real thing in her hands and make a decision about it. ‘Fingers crossed, Bo,’ Vanessa wrote. ‘Fingers crossed.’
My computer pinged – an incoming message.
It was Alice: ‘Bo, I’m leaving Grasmere and I’d like to see you before I go. I’ll be off on Tuesday, but will be home from now until then if you want to come
over. A.’
I eyed the message carefully. This wasn’t what I’d expected. There was no darling, no beautiful Bo, no love you endlessly. There wasn’t even a kiss.
There was just the news that she was leaving.
I wrote back, ‘Darling, why?’
But no answer came.
17
Alice
My bag was packed. I was ready to go. Tomorrow. I was going back to Brighton, to sleep on Jake’s floor until I’d found a room of my own. My last hurrah. A final fling with youth.
This studio held nothing precious. No special memories, nothing meaningful except that this was the place where I’d aged. I’d lost my mind and got it back again, and now I was re-emerging. I hadn’t shed my skin. I’d shed my core, replaced it and now I was unrecognisable.
A knock at the door.
I opened it. Bo, of course, standing before me in blue jeans, a pink v-neck and boots. I knew I was meant to want her. I was meant to reach out for her, and, without words, the two of us would kiss and tumble into bed and love would be there between us again, tangible and deep.
‘Hi,’ I said.
Bo came in and looked around. ‘You’re really going?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘And what about us? How will we stay in touch? What do you want to do, sweetheart?’
Her tender concern fell like rain.
I said, ‘There is no “us” now. I was tempted. I really was. But I can’t forgive you for what you did.’
Bo looked hurt and bemused. ‘But I explained all that. I thought you understood. My husband. He…’ her voice trailed off and she started to cry.
I did not budge. ‘I know what you said, but I’m afraid I don’t believe you. The phone calls…’
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