by Claire Allan
I was woken with a start at 2.37am, my blurred eyes trying to focus on the shadows drifting across the room, cast by a car driving by. In my half asleep, slightly drunk, Tramadol-induced state, I was sure I saw her, standing, head still twisted at an unnatural angle, eyes glazed, blood dripping from her hands. But smiling – because life was perfect. Because even dead, it was still better than mine. My heart froze, I pulled the blanket over my head and concentrated on trying to steady my breathing, aware of the thumping of my heart in my chest, trying to chase away the ghosts of the sound of the car crunching into her, the noise and the screams of those around her. For the first time I heard my own scream join the mêlée. Had I screamed that day? I didn’t know any more.
I woke again when it was just getting light and my phone was beeping incessantly. I glanced at the low battery warning, and spotted five missed calls and six text message notifications.
Rubbing my eyes and spreading the dregs of yesterday’s mascara across my dry skin, I tried to focus on the screen. The missed calls were, all but one, from my friend Maud. The other was from Andrew; I gave my phone the finger at seeing his name. I scrolled down my messages. Five from Maud, panic increasing in each of them.
Ben Cullen? WTF?
Called work. You’re not there? Kieran said you were let go. WTF happened?
Tried calling you. You’re not answering.
Emily, call me. I’m really worried.
ANSWER YOUR PHONE.
The one from Andrew was a simple: HR would like to see you on Monday morning. 10am.
I swung my feet around and stood up, fighting the nausea in the pit of my stomach. I wandered to the bathroom, used the loo, splashed cold water on my face and pulled my hair back in a loose ponytail. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I was a fetching shade of grey, dark circles under my eyes. I gulped water directly from the tap and brushed my teeth before going back to my bedroom and peeling off my clothes from the day before. I pulled on some tracksuit bottoms, a T-shirt and a pair of mismatched socks and walked through to my kitchen where I made toast (after cutting the slightly mouldy corner off the bread) and a mug of tea before walking back into my living room, sitting cross-legged on the sofa and calling Maud.
The phone rang twice before she answered, her voice thick with sleep. Remembering it was only 3am in New York – I immediately apologised for waking her.
‘Jesus, Emily. I’ve been worried to death. Ben? And then you going off grid? And work? What the hell is going on?’
Maud could be confidently called my one true friend. And Andrew’s predecessor at the call centre. She’d taken me under her wing when I started at CallSolutions. I liked to think she saw something fixable or loveable in me; but whatever the reason, she helped me find my feet again.
She kept me (just) on the right side of the company’s many policies. The day, 17 months earlier, she announced she was moving to the States to head up the opening of a new call centre for our multinational company was the day my time with CallSolutions started to slide towards the inevitability that one day I would end up eating stale toast and wondering where it had all gone wrong.
‘I went to Rose’s funeral. Told Andrew I was going to a dental appointment. He fired me.’
I heard her sigh. ‘Jesus, Emily. Was that wise? To go to her funeral? And to lie about it?’
Ignoring her question as to whether I should’ve gone to the funeral, I told her I had lied to Andrew because he wouldn’t understand why I needed to go. If Maud couldn’t understand it, there was no way Andrew would.
Her sigh was heavier this time. Before I’d told Andrew, Maud had been the only person who knew I had seen the accident – she had told me to look into counselling, or at least talk to my GP if I felt my mood slipping or my anxiety growing. Actually, she had made me promise I would talk to my GP and look into counselling.
‘He would have understood, if you’d told him. You know that. Anyone would have understood. You witnessed a major trauma,’ she said, cutting through my thoughts.
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t want him to know. I don’t want anyone to know. They’ll make me go over it all again, or talk to the police …’
‘And Ben, how does he come into all this?’
‘He sent me a friend request, I told you that.’
‘Did you accept it?’ she asked.
‘No, of course not,’ I almost shouted, without letting her know it was still sitting ignored in my account.
‘So just ignore him. Leave it at that. Nothing to worry about.’ She sounded so sure that I wondered was I overreacting or simply going mad?
‘But what if he wants back in my life?’ I asked her, omitting the fact that I feared he already was and that he might be tied up in the whole Rose situation. I knew what she would say. She would rationalise it to nth degree – but little about Ben Cullen was ever rational. He was just one more big reason why I couldn’t and wouldn’t go to the police myself. They had been so firmly on his side before – willing to believe whatever he told them. Everyone believed Ben over me. Everyone. I couldn’t go through being made to feel like a liar again.
‘Do you want me to talk to Andrew?’ Maud interrupted my thoughts. ‘Perhaps I can persuade him to give you one last chance? Although, he has given you enough chances before.’ Her tone was soft, but I still felt the judgement in her words. Yes, he had given me chances but then any other decent boss – like Maud had been – wouldn’t have made such a big issue over such little infractions anyway.
‘God no. No, it’ll be fine. I’ll get another job. It will work out. It was probably about time for a change anyway. It’s not been the same since you left,’ I said with more confidence than I felt.
‘Hmmm,’ Maud replied. ‘Well maybe this is the kick up the bum you need? And I say that with love in my heart. You can do so much with your life, Emily. You need to go out there and grab it by the balls. Maybe you were too comfortable in CallSolutions. It didn’t challenge you. It was easy – which is what you needed at the time, but comfortable isn’t rewarding, is it?’
I stifled a laugh. I was never comfortable in CallSolutions – not really comfortable. I found most days unbearably dull and I lived with the constant feeling of being the odd one out. The co-worker who was never invited for Friday drinks, or Saturday nights out and who wasn’t even invited to be part of the Lottery Syndicate. But Maud was right – it didn’t challenge me in any way. It had been a safe place when I needed to feel safe. Now, even though I still needed medication to switch my mind off at night and help me sleep, I needed more than safe.
‘What could I do?’ I asked.
I heard Maud yawn. ‘I don’t know, honey. But you could try your hand at anything. Get online – see what’s on offer.’ Then she stifled a laugh. ‘Oh I’m going to hell for saying this, but I’m pretty sure there’s a post for a dentist’s receptionist that’s just been made available?’
I laughed back, said my goodbyes, told Maud I was sorry for waking her and for worrying her.
‘Don’t apologise, Emily. And most of all try not to worry about Ben. It was a long time ago. Everything got a bit out of hand back then. Maybe he just wants to say sorry? Now, try to keep calm and carry on, as the saying goes. You’ve got this. This is your new start.’
I ended the call and sat on the sofa, the tea going cold at my feet, and wondered if this was all some strange karmic intervention. Maybe I was meant to see Rose die so that I could move on to a job where I would be happy and fulfilled, and where everyone would be lovely and friendly and supportive? Maybe Maud was right – she always could talk me down. Ben may just, finally, be saying sorry. That this apology came at the same time as Rose’s death was more than likely just a twisted coincidence. I chided myself for being so paranoid. Thought about my options.
There really wasn’t anything to stop me from applying for Rose’s job, was there? In fact, given that Derry ranked among the top three unemployment blackspots in the UK, it was probably wise that I did. I had e
xperience in customer care. I had, years ago, gained all my admin qualifications. I could answer phones with cheeriness – even when people were being complete pains in the ass. I could do it. I knew I could.
And even if contemplating taking over a dead woman’s life – or a facet of it – was a tad morbid, it wasn’t as if she had use for it any more.
Chapter Six
Scott’s Dental Practice operated out of shiny bright offices on Shipquay Street, one of the city’s main thoroughfares.
The old Georgian façade had been updated – it was now glass fronted and everything inside was decorated in soft white tones, from the comfy sofas to the reception desk and the calla lilies in their clear glass vases on every table. With light marble floors and soft music piped through the room, it felt more like a hotel lobby than a dentist’s waiting room. Except, that is, for the unmistakable smell of dentists – a kind of minty disinfectant smell mixed with sheer fear.
I’d had my hair done that morning. Asked the hairdresser to slip a few blonde highlights into my otherwise mousy brown hair. I had spent money I could ill afford on a nice suit – a pencil skirt, blazer and a soft silk blouse – which I wore with a classic pair of nude patent heels. I had taken extra time applying my make-up. I had seen enough pictures of Rose Grahame and her colleagues to see that they were all the well-groomed type. Contoured, plucked and preened – and of course with glistening white smiles – they looked as if they spent their days in the boutiques of Milan rather than in a busy dental surgery, answering phones, making appointments and staring down the throats of countless patients.
If I was to fit in – and I wanted to fit in – I had to look the part. I had to be Rose, mark II. And I wanted to be Rose, mark II. Although it had been three weeks since her funeral, I had not yet beaten my addiction to her Facebook page. People hadn’t stopped posting on it – even though she had been laid to rest and the news columns had largely moved on. Except for the occasional appeal for information about the car’s driver, Rose Grahame’s tragic demise had become yesterday’s news. Except to those who loved her. People still shared pictures. They still expressed their shock. They still wrote about how they missed her.
Cian posted almost every day – pictures, love quotes, messages that would take tears from a stone. Sometimes he sounded so utterly lost that I found myself wondering if anyone was there just to give him a hug and tell him that it was going to be okay. Sometimes he sounded angry – not at Rose of course – but at the injustice of the situation. At other times there was an underlying fatigue behind his words, as if he was tired of waking up every morning and realising, once again, that she was gone and not coming back.
I read every word. Facebook had become my window on the outside world – a world I was starting to feel like I could become a part of again. Ben’s Facebook request still sat in my inbox but it didn’t scare me the way it had. I’d heard nothing more from him and reassured myself that all reports still had him living in England. I reminded myself what my counsellor had said to me over and over – to deal with the facts and not catastrophise every situation.
So I focused on what I knew. I lost myself in what decent men were like. Men like Cian, who wasn’t afraid to share his vulnerability and grief. His posts garnered him a host of responses, ‘likes’ and words of comfort. I hoped he listened to them and I hoped they helped. I wondered how the girls at Scott’s Dental Practice felt, as I was waiting for my job interview. Were they too still wading through the metaphorical mud of each day, trying to make sense of their grief? Certainly, the bright (dazzling, definitely paid for) smiles on the faces of the two ladies at reception would con a person into thinking no sadness had ever visited them in their lives.
But it was when I was brought through to a small staff kitchen and offered a cup of coffee while I waited for Owen Scott that I saw evidence of a workplace in mourning. On a small table by another white wall sat a framed picture of Rose, a candle lit in front of it along with a small posy of flowers. The receptionist who had let me through the kitchen must have spotted that I was gawping at the picture.
‘That’s Rose,’ she said. ‘She died a few weeks back. She left very big shoes to fill.’
The receptionist sniffed slightly. I put her in her mid-forties; her auburn hair was swept back in a glossy ponytail, make-up perfect, dressed in her white tunic and trousers, which helped show off her perfectly applied fake tan. I could see her eyes filling. I tried to think of something to say but I was caught in the moment of looking at the picture of Rose, here in her workplace where her presence and her absence could be keenly felt.
‘I read about that,’ I stuttered. ‘It was awful.’ I decided not to tell her I had actually witnessed the moment the life had been knocked right out of her on the cold tarmac.
I watched a tear slide down her cheek, leaving a trail through her foundation. She reached in her pocket for a tissue and dabbed her eyes with it. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m giving you a really bad impression. We knew today would be tough – having people in interviewing for her post. We wanted to wait a bit longer but we’re busy and we can’t afford any downtime. You must think I’m an awful bitch – all that big shoes to fill stuff.’
I shook my head. I didn’t think she was a bitch. I knew Rose Grahame wasn’t far from sainthood.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, rubbing her arm. ‘It must be very hard.’
The woman nodded. ‘I’m Donna,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I haven’t even introduced myself. Thanks for your understanding.’
My mind whirled. Donna. Probably Donna O’Connor, who posted on Rose’s Facebook to say that no day would ever be the same without her smile. I didn’t have a visual to go by – as almost all of Rose’s friends had since changed their profile picture to one of their deceased pal in some bizarre act of solidarity.
‘Were you very close?’ I asked.
Donna laughed, then sniffed back more tears. ‘We were the closest. I called her my work wife. She was the person I could always go to when I had a tough day, or was tired, or the kids had kept me up all night and I was on my last nerve.’
‘It must be so hard,’ I soothed, watching this perfectly put together woman unravel in front of me. ‘I can’t imagine,’ I lied, because I had clearly spent much of the last three weeks imagining.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered, taking a long, shuddering breath to settle herself. ‘You don’t think things like this actually happen. You hear of it, but you don’t think it will happen to someone you know. It’s just wrong. Everything about it is wrong.’
Did it make me a bad person that as I watched this woman deal with her grief in front of me, my primary thought was that here was a woman who could use a friend and I could be that friend to her? I could walk in here and work with someone who had already confided in me, who I had seen at her most vulnerable, and we could bond. Maybe I could be her new work wife? Maybe she would come to me when she’d had a tough day? Maybe we could go for drinks after work (I’d be good, I promise!) and take selfies to fill my poor, neglected Facebook page with? A bubble of excitement started to fizz in the pit of my stomach. I pushed it down. I wasn’t there yet. I had to impress the man who made the decisions.
*
Owen Scott was not a man I recognised from any of the group pictures on Rose’s Facebook. He was the kind of handsome that creeps up on you. At first glance, I saw this slightly greying, craggy-faced man, with a dimpled chin and a mild look of irritation on his face. He looked uncomfortable as he took a seat behind a messy desk in what must have been the practice’s admin office. He swore quietly under his breath as he rifled through some paperwork to find just what he was looking for, and my confidence from just five minutes before started to fade.
I clenched my fists at my side, rubbing my fingers across my palm to fight off the clammy sensation I was feeling. I tried to steady my breathing. Reminded myself that it was okay. I could do this.
I looked at the top of his head, the sprinkles of salt and pepper colour thro
ugh his dark locks, which really could have done with a trim. Watched him run his hands (no wedding ring) through his hair before he sat upright and looked at me, taking a deep breath.
‘I should have been more prepared,’ he said. ‘Things have been a bit difficult here lately.’ He looked tired and I nodded.
‘I spoke to Donna. She told me about Rose. I’m very sorry for your troubles.’
With sad, grey eyes he nodded. ‘Rose kept things running fairly smoothly here – I’m afraid we’ve all kind of let things go a bit since … well, since.’
‘That’s understandable,’ I said. ‘It must have been a great shock.’
He nodded again, but didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The shock was written all over his face.
He took another deep breath, cleared his throat and pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘Now, Emily D’Arcy?’ he began.