Untouchable

by Ava Marsh

  I peer into the mirror. A dark shadow for a reflection. I lie back, struggling to remember where I am.

  My friend from the crisis centre Stacy’s holiday home. Devon.

  Yesterday’s relief at leaving the city seems to have curdled during the night. My mind hums with anxiety. I feel almost paralysed with dread, dregs of that headache still lingering like an echo in my skull.

  Deep in my stomach something churns. I stumble into the bathroom and throw up into the toilet bowl. Nothing much to show for it, but the retching sensation is so violent, so shocking, I’m left weak and shaky even after it subsides. I lean on the basin, trying to ignore the acrid smell of vomit and damp, then run the cold water, scooping several handfuls into my mouth, forcing myself to breathe slowly until the panic recedes.

  Michael says hello.

  One sentence and here he is, resurrected from my five-year attempt to bury him in the deepest recesses of my mind. My own special purgatory, the penance for my sins.

  Michael. He may be locked up, but that man let him loose in my head. Knowing, I’m sure now, the damage he would do.

  I dress quickly, shivering, my breath visible in the frosty air of the bedroom, and find the airing cupboard on the landing. I twist the dial on the thermostat, listening for a responding click in the central heating. Nothing. Maybe there’s a switch somewhere. I search around the lagging surrounding the hot-water tank, but find only dust balls and an old pair of swimming trunks. Child-sized.

  Outside, the streetlights are still visible against the watery sunrise. I pick up my new phone and text Stacy to let her know I arrived. In the kitchen I find the carrier bag I dumped on the table before collapsing into bed, and confirm I forgot to buy coffee or anything for breakfast. A cursory scan inside the cupboards reveals nothing besides a pack of ageing peppermint tea bags and a jar of instant that looks like it’s been here since Stacy’s aunt died and left the place to her.

  I pull on my coat and boots and set off into town. Halfway there I realize that nowhere will be open yet, this not being the city. So I turn left towards the seafront. The rain has stopped, but the streets are still lagooned with puddles. It’s nearly light, the sky above the sea watery and pale, and I can see properly now just what a dreary little place this is. I can’t imagine spending a week here, let alone a summer. Or a life.

  But the sea is the sea wherever you are, so I trudge down to where the water laps and teases the shingle. I watch the restless grey waves for a minute or two, then pick my way along the beach, listening to the soothing suck and swish of the tide. It’s hard going, the stones constantly subsiding under my feet, and it takes nearly fifteen minutes to reach the distant point where the headland narrows to a few rocks covered in greeny-black seaweed.

  I stop underneath the cliffs, sheer crags of red mud. Not very stable, judging by the landslips slumping towards the tide line, the absence of any vegetation suggesting recent collapse. Some thirty feet up several stunted pine trees are growing precariously close to the edge. I stare at them for a few minutes, wondering if they have any sense of their predicament.

  Christ, it’s cold. The wind nips my face and sidles between my neck and my coat and I make a mental note to buy myself a scarf when the shops open. I take my phone out my pocket and check the time.

  Six fifty-nine.

  I turn and climb the steps to the concrete promenade separating the town from the sea and head back towards civilization. Walk past the little rotunda café, closed up for the winter, boards over the windows and a padlock on the door. Further along, a stretch of empty ground. This must be where they put the beach huts in summer. Stacy mentioned you could rent one in high season, though quite why you’d want to sit in a glorified shed and stare at this desultory little patch of coastline is beyond me.

  I pass a block of toilets, a small gravel garden surrounding a large rusty anchor and, at intervals, huge metal gates guarding the various entrances to the promenade.

  Sea defences, I realize – the last resort against storms and high tides. God only knows what this place is like in winter.

  Up on the high street most of the shop windows are dark. I’m on the verge of giving up and going back to the house when I notice a light on in a small café further up the hill.

  The man behind the counter looks up from his newspaper.

  ‘Are you open?’

  ‘Just about,’ he smiles, folding his paper. ‘Given you’re so keen. What would you like?’

  I scan the menu board above the counter. ‘A cup of tea. And a couple of slices of toast, if it’s possible.’

  ‘That I can manage.’

  He disappears into the little kitchen out the back. I sit at one of the tables by the window, watching a few cars climb the hill towards me and disappear inland. Other than that, the town appears deserted.

  Somehow putting this distance between myself and London has brought everything into sharper focus. My mind churns over all that’s happened. Amanda’s death. The blackmail. That man’s hands around my throat, those bruises on Kristen’s neck.

  Feeling, in some vital way, that it’s all my fault. That everything I’ve done – or tried to do – has only made the whole situation worse.

  What the fuck can I do to put it right?

  As I struggle for an answer, I sense my anxiety settle into something darker, bleaker. I’ve known this, I think, exploring the feeling, its depth and texture. Remember emerging from the hospital nearly five years ago, brain numbed by antidepressants, to face a wasteland no medication could restore. Different situation now, granted, but the tone is familiar. The sense of disintegration, of options narrowing.

  What did I do then? The only thing you can do when you’ve tried and failed to end the life you have – construct a new one. And make it so very different that nothing can ever touch you again. Or so I wanted to believe.

  So what to do this time?

  I have absolutely no idea.

  ‘Here you go, love.’ The café owner places a large mug of tea and two slices of buttered toast in front of me.

  I thank him and take a tentative sip of tea. It’s hot, strong and bracing, and instantly I feel a little better. The toast helps too, and by the time I pay and walk out the door, I’ve found the strength to face the rest of the day.

  35

  Tuesday, 7 April

  Time passes more slowly this far from the capital, like a spaceship light years from Earth. With so little to fill them, the hours stretch out before me as a wilderness, nothing on the horizon except my next meal, and the more distant prospect of bed and sleep.

  I shun the Tesco megastore and explore the high street. The usual suspects – Boots and WHSmiths and a sizeable collection of charity shops. I stock up in the independent grocery near the library, cooking myself the kind of comfort food I haven’t eaten in years. Bangers and mash and shepherd’s pie, a rich creamy curry and a stodgy cauliflower cheese. Even an apple crumble. I become addicted to those cheap little cheesecakes you get in plastic tubs, their cloying sweetness an antidote to the general cheerlessness of the landscape – within and without.

  My days quickly assume their own rhythm. Every morning I go to the café for toast and strong tea. An affable greeting from the owner, but beyond asking how I am, he leaves me to eat my breakfast in peace.

  Afterwards I lug my laptop up to the Costa in what passes for the town’s shopping precinct and check my emails using the free Wi-Fi. Same routine every day. Delete all the junk mail, dumping client enquiries into a separate folder. Then open what’s left.

  There’s never much. No word from Rachel, and so far none from Tony. One – after a few days – from Stacy explaining how to turn on the heating, though by this time I’ve bought thermals and a thicker jumper and have grown used to the chill.

  Nothing from Alex. Or Ben.

  A couple of afternoons, when spring gets the better of winter, I venture out in the car. I don’t plan where I’m going – I have no map – just drive and see where I en
d up. I discover a resort a little way up the coast. It’s famously appealing, but its studied air of quaintness, its arty gift shops and boutique cafés seem contrived. Too obvious, somehow.

  Another trip lands me up in a well-to-do market town with a handsome stone church and an impossibly chintzy tea shop on the central square where I’m served a cream tea by a large man in an apron, his bulk in painful contrast to all the flowery delicacy. He looks as if he should be off grappling with bullocks in some sodden field rather than serving scones and jam on rose-motif china.

  Most of all I enjoy pottering around the country lanes, irritating more time-pressed locals with my sedateness behind the wheel. This is how I’ll drive when I am old, I imagine. Assuming I ever make it. This is how you descend into old age, I realize – first ironically, then unavoidably.

  Sometimes as I’m driving I find myself thinking about my ex. Wondering how he’s getting on. Part of me would like to call, to find out; another tells me to leave well alone.

  Other times I catch myself re-running that video in my head, the one Amanda took at the party. I see that girl, pinioned between Rob and Harry, staring into her phone camera. The look of shock and mild outrage on her face as she frowns into the lens.

  Stella.

  Leaving me wondering who the fuck she really is.

  Evenings are the best. Towards dusk, I walk along the beach. It’s more pleasant at night, the soft orange glow of the lamps on the seafront lending the place a cosiness it lacks in daylight. It’s quieter too, once the gulls have hit the sack. By day the seagulls own this town, perching on rooftops, screeching and cat-calling like pissed-up youths with an ASBO.

  Usually at this time there’s no one around except a few people walking dogs and the odd fisherman casting off from the shoreline. Now and then a bunch of bored-looking teenagers, hanging out in the concrete shelters under the cliff, the tantalizing smell of cigarette smoke and the occasional spliff mingling with the air of palpable boredom.

  I remember how I felt at their age, on the cusp of adulthood, waiting to find out what numbers you’d drawn in life’s genetic lottery. A good brain or a pretty face the winning ticket to a less tedious existence; neither, and likely as not you were destined for dull anonymity, a life stalled in the mundane.

  Or like me, I think, hovering somewhere in between, with maybe four numbers out of a possible six. Making the best of things.

  Or possibly the worst.

  Back at the cottage I hole up in the lounge, huddling on the sofa, draped in the wool blanket found in the bedroom wardrobe. I watch telly on the bulky old set in the alcove – the picture isn’t great, but at least it works. I stick to sitcoms, soap operas and anodyne chat shows. TV analgesia. Nothing that might upset the delicate mental equilibrium I’ve established in this unlikely bolthole.

  Time out, I tell myself whenever anxiety surfaces about my self-enforced exile. I’m just taking time out. Like a satellite orbiting Earth, continuously falling at a speed and angle that keeps it suspended in space, safe from the turbulence below.

  And it seems to agree with me, this hiatus. In a week I’ve rounded out, my jeans beginning to pinch around my waist and thighs, my pubic hair reclaiming whole areas razed by wax and razors. I haven’t bothered with make-up since I got here. I’m comfortably numb, I realize, as London recedes in my mind. I feel safe here, anonymous. Finally off everyone’s radar.

  This morning, as I drag myself out of bed, it occurs to me that I could stay. I could rent somewhere, one of those shabby little flats off the seafront. Get a job when my savings run out. Work in a tea shop or behind the tills at Tesco.

  Over breakfast in the café I ponder how easy it would be to set up a new life under a different name. I could change it by deed poll, apply for a new passport – should I ever need one. I’d live alone, confining myself to brief chats with neighbours or customers. I’d get hairy and fat and no one would care – least of all me.

  Not an island, exactly, but close enough. A sanctuary of sorts.

  It’s a sustaining thought. A comforting one.

  At least until I open my emails.

  36

  Tuesday, 7 April

  Back down to earth with a sickening bump, before I even read them.

  My eyes gravitate to the first, sent from an address I haven’t seen for several years. I stare at it for a while, my finger hovering over the delete button. Eventually I click it open.

  It’s not from my father, but his wife. His second wife.

  She informs me, curtly, that my father’s heart condition has taken a turn for the worse. And suggests pointedly that I might like to ring him.

  Thank you, Julia. I can think of nothing I want to do less.

  I read the email several times over. Let its import sink in. So my father wants to talk to me. He really must be sick. We’ve not spoken since the trial, since he told me I disgusted him and that he didn’t want anything more to do with me.

  ‘Don’t imagine for a minute that this absolves you, Grace. Nothing absolves you of what you did.’

  His exact words. A life sentence – in contrast to the one they gave Michael.

  I close the email and open the next. It’s from Tony. Finally.

  ‘I’ve got news. Let’s meet tomorrow.’

  I haven’t the heart to cook on my last evening in the bungalow, so order a takeaway from the garishly-decorated Indian on the corner of the shopping plaza. I watch a show about computer dating while shovelling doughy naan bread and biryani into my mouth, barely tasting any of it.

  None of the carefully matched blind dates lead to anything. So much for science. I switch off the TV, bored. I try reading the paperback I picked up in a charity shop, but the words flatline on the page.

  Fuck. I’ve been jolted out of orbit. I’ve lost my equilibrium and all those nerve-endings that have been happily anaesthetized are reviving, leaving me tense and edgy. Restless as hell.

  Don’t do it, Grace. You know you’ll be wasting your time.

  I can’t stand it any longer. I pick up the phone and dial his number. It rings over and over, and I fight the urge to end the call before he answers. A little worm of worry when I think he won’t.

  ‘Hello?’

  In that one word I hear the toll that illness and advancing age have taken on my father.

  ‘It’s me. Grace.’

  Silence at the end of the line. Perhaps a full ten seconds before he speaks.

  ‘Grace.’

  It’s a statement. A fact. Nothing else.

  ‘Julia emailed me. She said you’ve been ill.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I swallow. ‘How are you, then?’

  Another long pause. ‘Better than I was. Thank you for asking.’

  There’s just the faintest edge of complaint in his voice. The perpetually injured tone of the lifelong narcissist. I suppress a sigh, noting the absence of any enquiry into my wellbeing.

  ‘I was wondering if I was ever going to hear from you again.’ My father’s resentment now undisguised.

  ‘It was you who said you didn’t want any more contact, Dad,’ I remind him.

  He makes no response to this. I hear him cough then clear his throat. A distant voice murmurs in the background. Julia, maybe? Or perhaps the TV.

  I have a pain in my chest like heartburn. I can’t do this again, I think, remembering how he always manages to reduce me to this.

  Hopeless. Flawed. Wanting.

  A psychology degree, three years training in clinical therapy, five years in practice, and my father can still make me feel like crap with just a few words.

  ‘Is there anything you need, Dad?’

  I’m desperate now for the conversation to end. I want to get off the phone and go up to the supermarket and buy enough wine to help me forget this ever happened.

  ‘I don’t believe so,’ he says finally.

  ‘Well, ring me if you do.’

  I give him my new number and end the call with a simple goodbye. Then sit
there, dazed, my head in my hands and my breath stilted, bitter memories flooding my defences like waves breaching the sea wall.

  37

  Wednesday, 8 April

  The campus is a vast sprawl of lawns and low-rise buildings, wedged between two dormitory towns on the outskirts of London. I find the car park, using up most of my remaining cash to feed the meter.

  The café, a giant Starbucks up by the student union, seems to form the beating heart of the whole university. The place is heaving, full of undergrads nursing huge lattes and raspberry muffins that must eat through their loans like a cancer. Girls, boys – hopelessly young – peering into the screens of their smartphones and laptops, affecting that slightly bored, seen-it-all expression universal to those who’ve not lived enough to know they’ve seen nothing.

  Everyone dressed in a uniform of T-shirts and skinny jeans, the girls wearing those flat little ballet shoes that are impossible to keep on your feet. Only one, a tall blonde in her early twenties, bucks the trend, teetering in a pair of the highest stiletto heels I’ve encountered in a long while. If she took them off, I reckon she’d be a head shorter.

  You have to wonder how she might be supplementing her student loan.

  I join the end of the queue, feeling disorientated, having lost the knack of tuning out so much noise and bustle. Christ, how will I cope again in London?

  The idea of my empty Pimlico flat prompts a surprising surge of nostalgia for the little house in Devon. You could go back, says a voice in my head. You could walk out of here, hit the motorway, you’d be there in four hours. You could forget all this and start again.

  I reach the front of the queue. There’s still no sign of Tony. He’s had a change of heart, I think, before another thought steals up behind it and shallows my breathing.

  Perhaps something or someone has stopped him coming.

  Don’t be ridiculous, I tell myself, ordering a mug of tea and sitting in the far corner with a view of the entrance. Stop being so bloody dramatic.