The phone rang – their landline, which practically nobody used these days.
‘Bugger,’ Jez said. ‘Who the hell is that?’
She had no idea but knew he would get up to answer it. She would probably have let the answerphone take it.
She heard him say his name to the caller, but one of her favourite soaps was about to start so she wasn’t focused on what else he was saying until she heard, ‘Yeah, that’s right. It’s registered to this address.’ A pause. ‘Yeah, that’s Sharon. My girlfriend. It’s her car.’
Sharon jumped off the sofa just as she heard him saying, ‘I don’t think she was out that night. Hang on, I’ll ask her.’
She snatched the phone out of his hand and pressed the button to end the call.
‘What the hell did you do that for?’ Jez asked.
‘Who was it? Who wanted to know about my car?’
‘Jesus, Shaz, what’s got into you? It was the police, okay?’
She shook her head, gripping both of Jez’s upper arms tightly and giving him a small shake.
‘It wasn’t the police. If it rings again, don’t answer it, okay?’
‘What the hell are you talking about? You’re behaving like a loony. He said he was calling from Greater Manchester Police. He was a detective.’ He shook himself free of her grasp.
‘No, he wasn’t. He was lying.’
Jez grabbed hold of Sharon’s hands. ‘Come and sit down. Talk to me.’
Just then the phone started to ring again. He reached for it.
‘No!’ she shouted.
Jez shook his head and cancelled the call. ‘I wasn’t going to take it, babe. Not until you’ve told me what on earth’s wound you up.’
She had no idea what to say. How was she going to get out of this? She had the few seconds it took them to return to the sofa to come up with something plausible and as close to the truth as possible.
‘What night was he asking about?’ she said to Jez.
‘A couple of weeks ago – that Thursday night when I stayed at Al’s. You were in all night, weren’t you?’
‘No. I forgot to tell you. Some of the girls from work had organised a surprise pre-wedding do for me at that new club in town. I took the car because I didn’t want to drink much.’
Jez gave her a puzzled frown. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Oh, with everything else in my head, I forgot. You were full of your night out with Al, and we had so much other stuff to talk about that was more important. It was no big deal.’
‘Okay, so why do you think someone other than the police would be phoning about your car?’
Now came the difficult bit.
‘When I left the club – before all the others, by the way – I got in the car to come home and I felt a bit…I don’t know, nostalgic, I suppose. We’re getting married soon, and everything will change.’
Jez raised his eyebrows, his face registering his shock. ‘What are you talking about? What’s going to change apart from your surname? It’s you and me, same house, same jobs, same car, same irritating families. What the hell do you mean?’
Oh God, what had she got herself into?
‘I know all that. But it will feel different. Anyway, whatever the reason, I decided I’d pootle about a bit – go to some of the places I went as a kid, or you and I went to when we first met. So that’s what I did.’
‘And?’
‘I thought I was being followed. I took some odd turns and there was this car. It was always behind me, no matter which way I went. I was scared.’
‘So – I repeat – why the hell didn’t you tell me about this?’
Sharon looked at his concerned face and felt sick at what she was doing. ‘I didn’t want to worry you.’
‘Shit, Shaz, that’s not good enough. We’re getting married. You should tell me everything!’
Sharon dropped her head and said nothing. She didn’t want to make this worse.
‘How did you lose him, then?’ Jez asked.
‘I pulled into a twenty-four-hour petrol station. I was going to talk to the cashier through the speaker and ask him to call the police. The car pulled in but parked on the edge of the forecourt. I looked over and I saw the driver writing something. I thought it might be my number plate. Then he drove off.’
Jez pulled her close and stroked the back of her hair. ‘That must have been bloody awful for you. I wish you’d told me. Have you seen him since?’
‘No, but it seems that somehow he’s traced me, and I’m scared, Jez. Really scared.’
That was no lie. She knew the man must have been involved in the death of that woman at the Flash. And now he was coming for her.
16
It is over for another night. I was subjected to nothing more than an hour of words, but such powerful words. Words chosen intentionally to confuse me.
They must know I’m not eating the food they give me. I pick at it and push it around my plate, trying to look as if I have lost my appetite. I feel ungrateful because they say they only want to help me. But I don’t understand what is happening to me.
All I know is that I have done something terrible, something that defies belief. Worse, though, I don’t remember a thing about it, and that keeps coming back at me time and time again, hitting me with a force that almost knocks me down. Could I really have done what they tell me I have?
I look at the other two women who are here with me, sitting at the wooden table under the bare light bulb. Both of them seem resigned to their lives and how things have to be. We are here for our late-night cocoa. But I won’t let a drop past my lips, however enticing the sweet smell of chocolate.
It’s been a hard day for all of us, as is every day. But while the others accept it with resignation, I can’t do that. There are things I want to know, to understand. They don’t get it. They can’t figure out why I have to question everything.
One of them seems a little more focused. She’s the younger of the two – even younger than me, I think – and from time to time I see a spark of intelligence in her eyes, as if her real self is trying to battle through the fog.
‘Why are you here?’ I ask her, keeping my voice low, my mouth disguised by the mug of cocoa that I’m pretending to drink.
It’s not the first time I’ve asked, but tonight she seems a little more responsive than usual.
The other woman raises her weary eyes. ‘You shouldn’t ask questions. It’s not allowed.’
I want to tell her that I’m an adult, not a child, and I will make my own rules. But I don’t want to show my hand. She’s more likely than the other to tell tales, I think.
‘Sorry,’ I say. I have to think of a way of getting the younger woman on her own when she is slightly more alert than usual. In the end, though, the matter is taken out of my hands as the older woman excuses herself and heads towards the bathroom.
The younger woman’s head is bowed, staring into her cocoa, but then I realise that without raising her head she has lifted her eyes and is looking at me.
When she starts to speak, her voice is cracked but low so she can’t be heard by anyone except me. I move closer. From behind the mug, I whisper one word: ‘Careful.’
I think I see a slight nod. Then she puts down her cup and rests her head between her hands, squeezing as if she’s trying to force some sense into her brain. She knows we can be seen and heard by others outside the room.
‘I don’t know why I did it,’ she says softly. ‘I loved him. Why would I do that?’
I want to ask her what she means, what she did, when it was, how long she has been here, but before I get the chance the buzzer sounds and we push back our chairs to return – as we must – to our rooms. As we shuffle along the corridor, I hear her mumble two words.
‘Safe here,’ she says with a nod, and I’m not sure if she’s trying to convince herself or me.
She may think we’re safe, but right now all I can think about is why they are coming back tonight. Only one of us is ever
selected each night – and that was me earlier.
They know something is wrong. They have to. That’s why they’re coming back.
17
The two days since I returned from holiday have been dreadful. Being with Ian in the house is almost more than I can bear, but I have nowhere else to go – no friends who are close enough to welcome me if I turn up on their doorstep asking if I can stay, no family who are interested in my problems.
I have to go back to work today, so I need clean clothes and my work stuff. Everything I own is in my home, so what choice do I have? And besides, it’s my house. Ian is the one who has to leave.
The journey home from the airport was driven in silence. With my mouth clamped tightly shut, I gazed out of the window at the winter scene. The streets had all been cleared, but the pavements were a mixture of packed snow and filthy water washed up from the gritted roads. I could sense Ian getting more and more furious with me for not talking to him – not that he wanted to hear anything about Myanmar or the people I had met, of course. But like all bullies he thought he could back me into a corner and I would give in under pressure. My lack of response to his ‘forgiveness’, though, was telling him that something in me had changed.
As Ian drove – rather faster than was entirely necessary – I decided it was better not to speak at all than to start a battle of words that would end badly. I knew I had it all to come and by letting him fester I was possibly making everything worse, but his driving was erratic enough without risking him speeding even more just to scare me.
I was relieved to get home safely, but when I walked into the house it didn’t welcome me. It felt alien, cold, and there was a cloying smell of cheap rose-scented air freshener trying to disguise the stink of stale beer. The sitting room was littered with newspapers, the waste-paper basket overflowing with empty cans. I turned to look at Ian. My face must have shown what I thought, but he ignored it.
‘Glad to be home?’ he asked. ‘The weather’s been shite while you were away – I barely made it out of the door.’
He was smiling, but it was a fixed smile that didn’t reach his granite-like eyes, and his actions were exaggerated – throwing the door open a little too hard, kicking off his shoes so they banged against the wall. I could feel his fury, but he was waiting for me to do something, say something, that would allow him to vent his anger on me.
In the end my silence became too much for him. He flung himself into an armchair. ‘Spit it out, then,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you that you’re forgiven, but you’re still behaving as if you’ve got something to say. Sorry might be a good place to start.’
I took a deep breath. I knew what had to be said, but I had no idea how he would react.
‘Ian, I told you before I went away that we are done. I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out, and for my part I can only apologise. But I would appreciate it if you would find somewhere else to live.’
He laughed. He actually laughed. ‘I’m going nowhere. If we’re done, you’re the one that’s going to have to go. This is my home too, and I’m not the one ending things. I said I’d forgiven you. I even bought you fucking flowers to show there were no hard feelings, and I had a clean-up to welcome you home. As I said, I know you’ve been upset and maybe that’s an excuse for your behaviour, but with a little effort from you we can go back to how things were before.’
I stared at him. Putting used cans into the bin and giving each room a quick squirt of crappy air freshener was, I knew, Ian’s idea of a clean-up, but I couldn’t get the smell out of my nostrils, the taste out of my throat, and it made me nauseous.
‘It’s my house, Ian. You know that. I paid the deposit, and I pay the mortgage. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. It’s time to go our separate ways.’
‘You invited me to share your home,’ he said, a hard, knowing smile on his face that chilled me. ‘I left my roots because you promised we would be a couple for life. I’ve supported you emotionally, moved to the other side of the country to be with you, shopped, cooked and cleaned so that you have the freedom to do your job. I’ve been the main carer.’ I glanced around the room at the mess, but he just laughed. ‘That means I have what is known as a beneficial interest in the property. It’s the law. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? This is my home, and I’m going nowhere.’ He folded his arms and sat back.
‘That can’t be right,’ I told him, my voice rising. I tried to bring it down a notch, but I struggled. ‘You know it’s not. I’ve paid for absolutely everything while you’ve sat on your backside and done nothing.’
He couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face. It was clear that he genuinely believed he had some rights, and I felt my eyes fill with tears of frustration. How do you handle someone who is so unreasonable, irrational and deluded? I didn’t know, and the only thing I could think of was to run from the room before one of us said or did something from which there could be no coming back.
I heard Ian’s voice, laced with derision, calling after me, but I couldn’t hear the words over the thundering of my feet on the stairs. I fled to the bathroom, locked the door and leaned against it, my breath coming in gasps. But in moments they had turned to sobs, and I slid down the door until I was on the floor, knees pulled up to my chest.
I don’t know how long I sat there. I never heard him creep upstairs, but I knew he was outside the door. I could hear him breathing. He was waiting for me to come out.
‘Go away, Ian,’ I said, keeping my voice level.
‘You’re going to have to come out of there some time, and I’ll be waiting,’ he replied, his speech slow, sinister. ‘It’s time you learned that you can’t have everything your own way.’
It was a clear warning, and there was a sense of inevitability about what would happen the minute I stepped out of the room.
I had never been afraid that Ian would turn violent before, but I had been wrong about so much. I couldn’t risk it, so I pulled my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans and dialled three numbers.
‘Police, please,’ I said as quietly as possible, my voice shaking.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I heard him shout.
‘I’m calling the police,’ I yelled. ‘I’m scared to come out of my own bathroom and you won’t leave my house. What do you expect me to do?’
I heard the calm voice of the operator, asking for my name and address. Biting back a sob, I told her.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Ian screamed. ‘For Christ’s sake, hang up the phone. Tell them it’s all a mistake. It’s just a disagreement. Please, we don’t want this, do we?’
All of a sudden I felt stupid. Surely Ian wouldn’t hurt me, especially now he knew I had called the police? Maybe I had overreacted. The operator was still talking, but I couldn’t do this. It was going too far, and as the fear abated it was replaced with shame. How had I ended up like this, in a relationship that needed intervention from the police?
I apologised to the operator and told her it was just a row, that I had panicked unnecessarily, and asked her to please forget it. I had to reassure her that I really was okay, but eventually she believed me and I hung up.
‘Ian,’ I shouted, my lie prepared. ‘The police want me to call them in an hour to tell them I’m okay. Now move away from the door, please.’
That did it. He looked at me warily as I inched open the door, but he backed away and didn’t threaten me physically.
The potential for violence was only part of the problem, though. Nothing seemed to shake Ian’s conviction that he deserved to be in my house, and those first hours at home set the tone for the weekend. I did my best to keep out of his way, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to change his mind.
Today I’m relieved to be going back to work, out of the stifling atmosphere of the house. I need to work out how to reclaim my home, and I don’t think Ian has a case based on what I have read online, but I have no idea how long it might take me to prove it, and I can’t go on living with him.
&
nbsp; I can feel the frown on my face as I walk into the office, and assume that is why I’m getting some strange looks. I expected people to smile and ask me about my holiday, but nobody does. I look around the room, trying to plaster a grin on my face to show that all is well, but nobody will meet my eyes. Instead, they look at their computer screens or their phones. What’s going on?
I plug my laptop in, but before I can open it, the internal phone on my desk rings.
‘My office, please.’
It’s my boss, Tim, and he doesn’t sound happy either. It’s strange because I checked over the weekend to see if there were any emergency emails – anything that I might have missed with regard to the event I’ve been helping to manage. But I hadn’t received one single message, so I assumed everything was going to plan. Maybe I was wrong.
I walk into Tim’s office and smile. ‘Hi,’ I say and stop dead. Heather from HR is with him, and I look from one to the other in surprise. ‘Is everything okay?’ I ask.
‘I presume you’re here to hand in your laptop,’ Tim says, and there’s not a trace of a smile on his face.
‘What do you mean? Have I done something wrong?’ My eyes flick to each of them in turn. ‘What is it?’
Heather picks up a sheet of paper. ‘Have you forgotten your Facebook post?’ she asks.
I’ve no idea what she means. I had intended to do a bit of posting when I was away, but I’m not addicted to social media and after the first couple of days I decided not to bother any more. I was too worried about seeing something derogatory that Ian might have posted.
Heather reads from the paper in front of her.
‘“Can’t believe I’m going to have to leave this beautiful country to return to my lousy job, made all the more lousy by my idiot boss, who cocks up everything and is a bit too free with his hands, if you get me. He should be sacked. Our clients get such a bum deal.” What do you have to say to that?’ Heather adds, putting the sheet of paper back down on the desk.
My heart pounds. What is she talking about?
‘I didn’t post that!’ I know full well that I have been known to say that Tim’s an idiot, but I’d never be stupid enough to post it on social media. And he might make the odd sexist remark, but he’s not a groper.
Come A Little Closer Page 7