by Tina Seskis
‘Would you like to go out for a drink with me?’ Gavin said.
Eleanor just about managed to stifle a gasp. ‘Gosh, that’s real kind, but, you know, I’m not sure when I’m free.’
‘Saturday?’ Gavin persisted.
‘Er . . . can I let you know?’
‘Yes, all right. Shall I ring you and check later? My parents have got the Davenports’ number.’
‘Er, yeah, that’ll be cool. See you later.’ Eleanor grabbed the twins and walked away from him, up the tiled path towards the front door, just as the skies let rip again – and so she was unsure whether Jessica’s balefully proclaimed, ‘I don’t like him, Ellie,’ had been heard by Gavin or not.
17
ALEX, A FEW MONTHS LATER
Alex could tell that Gavin Hewitson thought he was a jerk. Some people seemed to hate the police almost on principle, and it was annoying. This one especially had that air about him, as though he thought Alex was the type of guy who’d only joined the police to get a badge and a uniform so he could feel better about himself – and maybe it was too close to the truth to sit comfortably. People like Gavin Hewitson pissed Alex off – and that was regardless of the fact that this creep was allegedly harassing the delectable Miss (not Mrs, as it had turned out) Jackson. But at least it had made Alex’s stint in the station office, normally the lowest-of-the-low gig that only the losers got, nothing if not interesting.
Right now, Gavin was leaning back in his chair, staring insolently at Alex and Gillian. He was a weedy, shifty-looking bloke, and he seemed familiar somehow. Alex tried to work out who he reminded him of, but for the moment it eluded him. It would come to him.
As Alex started his questioning, Gavin seemed to be trying hard to regulate his temper, and there was definitely something odd about his responses. His speech was stilted and staccato, ever so slightly too high-pitched. Yes, he did know Eleanor Jackson. Yes, he did live next door to her, with his parents. Yes, he had asked her out a couple of times, that was true. No, she hadn’t ever said yes, that was also true. No, he hadn’t made silent phone calls to her; there must have been something wrong with the phone, and she simply hadn’t been able to hear him. No, he most certainly had not sent Miss Jackson unwanted gifts; he’d just bought her some flowers once, and what was wrong with that? Yes, he had driven her home one time, and helped her when Mrs Davenport’s car had had a flat tyre, but was that a crime? No, he did not stare out of his window at her specifically; he just liked looking out of the window, which he was entitled to do. No, he wasn’t prepared to divulge whether he smoked marijuana from time to time, saying that that was none of their business. Yes, he was unemployed at the moment. Yes, he did have a tattoo of the sun and the moon on the inside of each of his wrists . . . but Alex hadn’t actually asked him about those. Instead Alex had merely stared at Gavin’s arms, and tried to remind himself that the markings, along with his assorted-patch-covered jacket and overlong hair, were not necessarily evidence that Gavin Hewitson was a stalker.
At last Alex and Gillian ran out of things to ask, and it seemed the only option was to issue a harassment order and let the suspect leave. Yet still Gavin Hewitson sat there, looking as though he were debating whether to say something further . . . until at last he stood up and started shuffling on the spot for a second, like a little child wondering whether it was safe to come out of their bedroom once the parental banging and shouting had stopped. He was definitely a freak, Alex decided, and clearly suffering from unrequited love, but unfortunately there was nothing more they could do. For a moment the two men stared each other out, and then Gavin shrugged his shoulders insolently, turned his back on Alex, and followed Gillian out of the room. As Alex tailed them down the long corridor towards the exit, there was something about the lope of Gavin’s walk that set off an alarm in Alex’s brain. It was one of the most annoying things about being in the police – when you had to watch the suspect just walk away, knowing that they had won. The number of times Alex had wanted to take the law into his own hands . . .
Alex checked himself. Women like Eleanor Jackson didn’t cross his path very often, and so he couldn’t let his emotions get the better of him. In this case especially, he had to make sure he played it right. This wouldn’t be the last they’d see of Gavin Hewitson, though, Alex was pretty sure of that. He just had to be patient. He just had to sit tight and wait.
18
ELEANOR
The twins were still at nursery, tea was all prepared, Eleanor had put a wash on, tidied up the toys – and now she was holed up in her sweet little bedroom in the loft, curtains drawn even though it was daytime, lying on top of her bed, her mind tumbling, gathering pace. She had tried so hard not to feel sorry for herself, but it seemed like whatever she did, however she fought, life was destined to be one long uphill struggle. Jesus. All she’d done was be friendly to the neighbours’ son, because he’d rescued her and the twins from a thunderstorm, yet it seemed as though he’d got completely the wrong idea. Fine, he’d asked her out for a drink, which wasn’t a crime, but it had so taken her by surprise she hadn’t known how to handle it, what to say. And even though she’d politely declined when he’d phoned her to get her answer, the next week he’d asked her out again, and then the week after that, and she’d tried so hard not to be rude about it, but perhaps that had been part of the problem. Maybe she’d somehow encouraged him. Soon after that the silent phone calls had started, in the middle of the day, when he knew she was alone. And then the unwanted gifts – and now her next-door neighbour’s presence was like a curse and a threat and an irritant, all rolled into one, and it was weighing her down, scaring her. Even the police didn’t seem able to help. What was the point of her even having gone to them if they couldn’t actually do anything?
Eleanor turned over, stared at the wall. Half-formed sentences dipped and dived, emotions flitted, her heart squeezed and released, squeezed and released, time passed . . . until at last, at long, long last, she acknowledged what else was bothering her. She missed Rufus.
Eleanor let out a long, low groan, and it sounded tortured, otherworldly, as if it were coming from someone else. How could she have imagined she could simply put her lover out of her mind, turn herself into an au pair extraordinaire, and forget what London was supposed to have meant to her? Denial. Denial was her forte, she could see that now. When in doubt, stick your head in the sand. When you’ve been hurt, stick your head in the sand. The sand was proverbial, of course, and could take all forms. Love, drugs, toddlers. She’d turned to them all.
As Eleanor lay there, a picture entered her head, and it was vivid and photographically remembered. A camp in the middle of the woods, where the lodges were nestled into the trees, and the water in the stream ran fast and cold, and the moon hung in the air like a promise. Rufus himself had been floppy-haired and complicated and British, and her heart had opened up to the most enticing of possibilities, and she had felt as pure and loved and complete as she ever had. And now he was lost to her, and she wanted to know why things had to change. Why nothing could ever stand still in time, just when it was all so wonderful . . . And that was what destroyed her now, realising that that was just the way life was, and would always be. That things never ever stay the same, not even when you have it all, there in your hand – it’s always destined to change. Get better. Get worse. But never remain. Never stay perfect. After all, timeless perfection was what paintings were for.
Eleanor jumped up from the bed, paced the room, clenching her fists together, clamping her jaw. Where was Rufus? What was he doing? Having tried to deny his existence all these past months, she longed to go out right now, head over to Hampstead and knock on his door, tell him he’d broken her fucking heart and that she’d trusted him, and she was so very tempted she even put on her coat, started doing up her sneakers. But when the phone rang again, its baleful rhythmic trill cut through her madness and stopped her in her tracks . . . which was almost certainly just as well.
She had to answer it, of course, just
in case it was the nursery, or Lizzie or Oliver, and he knew it. She awaited the not-quite-heavy breathing that often followed her brusquely aggressive ‘hello’ and which she’d become used to, but thankfully today she was spared.
‘Miss Jackson? Hello, this is PC Alex Moffatt from the Metropolitan Police.’
‘Oh. Hi.’ She wasn’t sure whether she was pleased to hear from him or dreading what he had to say. Eleanor could feel that her own breathing was heavy now, rising and falling, reverberating against the phone’s mouthpiece, and she prayed PC Moffatt couldn’t hear it. She tried to stay calm, but it was as if her energy were throbbing through the phone lines, sparking against his. She gazed out of the living room window and saw a silver plane flying low in the sky, and the way the sun glinted off it reminded her of a freshly caught fish, like the ones her uncle had sometimes brought her mom. She vaguely wondered where the plane was going, whether it was headed for America. For home.
‘I was calling to let you know that we’ve spoken to Mr Hewitson,’ the nice young policeman was continuing, ‘and we’ve issued him with a harassment warning, which means he shouldn’t approach you any further, or attempt to talk to you.’
‘Oh.’ Eleanor paused, rubbed mindlessly at her ring finger. ‘So he’s definitely not allowed to phone me any more?’ she added.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Or talk to me?’
‘No, he mustn’t approach you.’
‘But what if he carries on spying on me out of his window for hours on end?’
Eleanor heard PC Moffatt pause. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about that, Miss Jackson, as unfortunately he does live next door to you. You’ll just have to continue to keep the curtains drawn. The only real option, if you wanted to have no further contact at all with Mr Hewitson, would be for you to move out.’
The plane had disappeared into the ether now, and for a moment Eleanor wished she were on it, could give up, go home. Instead she turned her attention to the acer tree directly outside the window, watched its leaves rustle and shimmy, occasionally detach themselves, and they were so brilliantly scarlet they reminded her of Maine too. Did America beckon? She wasn’t sure. But in this moment her situation felt hopeless, as if wherever she went she would always feel the need to move on, for the most unpredictable of reasons, and suddenly all she wanted was for someone to rescue her, protect her from feckless faithless lovers and stalkerish next-door neighbours.
‘Are you still there, Miss Jackson?’ PC Moffatt asked now.
‘Oh. Yeah, sorry.’ Eleanor held the phone between her chin and her shoulder, scraped her silky hair on to the top of her head, tied a slippery knot in it, and attempted to unravel her thoughts.
‘Listen, I know it must be hard for you,’ PC Moffatt continued, and he sounded kinder now, more understanding. ‘But if you have any more bother at all, please feel free to come back in, or you can call and ask for me directly.’
‘Thank you.’ She recalled now how nice PC Moffatt had looked in his uniform, how blue his eyes had been. At least she had him on her side. That was one thing in her favour. She thanked him for the call, said a polite goodbye and put down the phone.
19
PAUL
The evening was in full swing, but Paul’s thoughts were elsewhere. As he grimly tackled the taste-free lemon tart that constituted dessert, he found himself remembering word for word the conversation that had changed everything. It was as though it were stuck on an interminable internal loop that was taking hold of a part of his brain and constricting it. He’d come home from work one evening, and she’d run to meet him at the door, her eyes fizzing with happiness, and she’d thrown her arms around him, and he could still feel the shape of the words now, as she’d kissed him and told him simultaneously. He’d pulled back, his tie akimbo, his mouth smeared with her lipstick, and stared at her.
‘You’re what?’ he’d said.
‘I’m pregnant!’ And then she’d started covering him in kisses again, but he hadn’t wanted to kiss her any more. He’d wanted to run out of the room, flee the house, tear down the street and get as far away from her as possible, until he could get his head around it. But he hadn’t, of course, and maybe in hindsight that was where the real problems had started.
‘Christie, it’s too soon, darling. I’m not ready to be a father. In fact, the truth is, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.’
Paul cursed himself now, that he’d never said that. That he’d never said anything. Maybe just saying it, voicing his fears, would have been enough to get beyond them. He’d been worried about upsetting her, though – of arousing her newly acquired insecurities, of making her think he was suggesting an abortion, which he wasn’t, not necessarily. He hadn’t known what he’d been suggesting. All he’d known was that he’d been terrified for her, for him, for the baby. He’d dreaded what kind of a father he could possibly hope to be.
And so instead of being truthful Paul had gently extricated himself from his wife and disappeared into the bathroom, and by the time he’d come out he’d rearranged his face into the one he thought she wanted to see. The one he’d done his utmost to keep up for the best part of a year. It had been a corrosive and wearying secret to keep. It seemed he’d been tired ever since.
Paul felt a pressure thrumming in his temple. The room was too warm and Steve Channing, the Financial Controller, was sitting next to him, droning on about EBITDA, which Paul wasn’t remotely interested in, especially not over dinner. As Paul nodded politely, he was thinking about how much he hated these events. His presentation that morning had gone OK, but he hadn’t felt a hundred per cent sure of the figures, and it was as if his brain hadn’t been working properly, and he knew his boss had noticed. The afternoon had been quite fun, taken up as it was with the obligatory naff team-building exercise, but constructing a raft had all felt so pointless to Paul that by the end he’d felt like resigning on the spot and walking out.
And now it was much later, and Paul still didn’t want to be here, but for a different reason. With the benefit of distance, he realised how much he missed Christie, missed how they used to be together. Baby or not, they loved each other . . .
And he loved Daisy too.
What the hell. Of course he did. He’d been being a fool. In fact, Paul felt such a sudden strong need to see his little family, sort everything out, make amends for his hitherto secret aversion to fatherhood, that he longed to drive home right now and beg for them to start over, but he couldn’t. He was drunk.
Paul took another slug of wine and gazed helplessly around him. The hotel was modern and cavernous, and architecturally so bereft the word ‘bland’ was a compliment. White cloths had been thrown over the round tables, and a five-by-five-metre square of melamine floor had been taped to the carpet, creating a dance floor where a DJ played cheesy pop songs, complete with flashing lights. Paul stifled a yawn. A couple of rounds in the pub would have created a far greater camaraderie than this dismal event, he thought, and would have been way cheaper, to boot. Maybe he should offer to organise the next one.
Just as the waiters (black-suited, bored-looking) were bringing pots of coffee and bomb-shaped petits fours, a sure marker that Paul would be able to sneak off to bed without attracting comment, the Sales Director arrived to grace them with his presence.
‘Now, then,’ he boomed, as he sat down beside Paul. ‘Let’s get this party started.’ He clicked his hairy fingers, and soon a tray-load of shots was delivered to the table, in celebration of the company’s best first quarter since 1988, to be consumed in a communal display of enforced, chest-beating bonhomie. As the liquid burned and danced its way down Paul’s throat it made his head swim a little. Almost immediately afterwards another round was ordered, and a cheer went up. Paul smiled dutifully, longing for the Sales Director to bugger off and accost the next table, so he could go up to his room and call Christie, try to explain his epiphany.
When Paul eventually got his opportunity to escape, ‘It’
s Raining Men’ had started playing. As he stood up, his head felt light. Carol from HR was just walking past on her way to the dance floor, and so she dragged him with her, and despite his protestations he was given no choice, and it was a catchy song, and it felt so good to finally accept that he was happy to be a father, on top of all the vodka, he was almost euphoric. And then after that ‘Step On’ came on and the Happy Mondays were his favourite ever band, and then Trevor from Purchasing handed him yet another shot, and soon they were all on the floor doing ‘Oops Upside Your Head’, and Sonya from Accounts was sitting on the floor in front of him, between his legs, and it felt so great to be carefree, laughing again . . .
When the song finished Sonya giggled as she pulled him up, and he staggered a little, and everything went hazy, and there were bright disco lights spinning, as if inside his eyeballs, and the music was booming, and he had a vague memory of more shots, and more laughter, and more dancing . . . and then the next thing he was aware of was a tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when he awoke, confused and feeling like he’d had his head bashed in, at some time in the early hours of the morning.
20
ELEANOR
Finsbury Park felt marginally less threatening the second time Eleanor visited it, and it occurred to her that familiarity was a powerful weapon in dealing with life. At least she knew exactly where she was going this time, plus she found she was almost looking forward to seeing that handsome young policeman again. There had been something about him, and maybe it was his uniform, or the fact he’d been so kind to her on the phone, which had made her feel marginally less terrified, knowing she had him on her side. And even though the silent phone calls had continued, as had the packages through the post, at least Gavin Hewitson had stopped physically approaching her now.
Eleanor pulled open the station’s heavy black door and entered the strip-lit anteroom, moving out of the way of the obese, football-shirted man coming out. She approached the glassed-off front desk purposefully. She was wearing a plain white shirt and tight dark jeans, and her shiny hair cascaded over her shoulders. She looked wholesome and clean, out of odds with her surroundings.