Sincerely, Yours

by Charlotte Barnes

  With a smaller sense of urgency than Sarah’s own, I took the stairs down to the hospital’s entrance. She wasn’t there; I don’t know whether I’d expected her to be. But the knucklehead paramour of hers – I had no way of knowing for certain, but I’d guessed that there was a history there – was standing outside with a cigarette between his lips and his phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. He fumbled with a lighter as he spoke.

  ‘She called me on the drive in…’

  I hated the thought of Sarah using her phone while she was driving, especially when her concentration had been so frayed already. Whatever her reason for being here, then, it wasn’t because something had happened to this one; an idle fantasy that had crossed my mind more than once.

  ‘I don’t know, Jessie…’

  So, person number two was safe.

  ‘She’s gone straight in… I’m smoking… Fucking right I’m smoking…’

  ‘Excuse me,’ someone pushed, and when I turned to avoid them I found myself face to face with–

  ‘I’m sorry.’ My words were so hurried they knocked into each other. ‘I didn’t–’

  ‘No bother.’ He turned away from me. ‘Brooks called her… I don’t know… Jess, I – I just don’t know, okay?… Maybe you can come down, or Tyler…’ I heard his words catch in his throat, as though feeling had made a mixer of his voice box. ‘I can’t see her go through this again, Jess, I can’t.’

  Someone dropped a small weight into my stomach. I grabbed the nearest railing outside of the hospital to steady myself, vying for space with a patient being propped up by a metal walking frame. They already had something to hold on to, I reasoned my need was greater. I listened as knucklehead repeated the same denial – ‘I can’t… I can’t watch it happen to her a second time over…’ – all the while thinking, No, neither can I.

  Over the afternoon and into the evening I moved my car from one spot to another, to another. When I could sit in the passenger’s seat and crane my neck for a view of Sarah’s car, I decided to wait it out until I saw her leave. Another two hours passed before that happened. When she walked into view, the boy had his arm around her waist; it wasn’t a romantic gesture, though, but more of a structural decision. He looked as though he were holding her upright. Their faces were cherry-blotched with the aftermath of tears. He looked worse than Sarah – but she was well-versed in this loss, I thought. She pulled away from him and leaned against the boot of her car. When she was free-standing, she only lasted seconds before her knees cracked beneath her weight and she slid down the paintwork, landing in a crouch at the back of the vehicle. He dropped in front of her and held her head pressed against his shoulder; her whole body stuttered with feeling. I felt a strange tingling at the roof of my nose, almost between my eyes. I wondered whether sympathy tears were a recognised phenomenon; is this sympathy, then? I thought.

  After a full two minutes of watching them feel things I undid my seat belt and slid my seat back for leg room. My hand rested on the doorhandle. It was an automatic gesture; I couldn’t recall having moved.

  ‘And what do you think you’ll do if you go over?’ I asked under my breath, before dismissing whatever idea had been brewing. But I wanted so badly to be there for her.

  41

  Dear Sarah,

  Sarah, I’m just so sorry. For someone so young, you’ve known so much loss, and so intimately, too, I can’t imagine what it must be to have people die around you – not like this, anyway. I’ve tried to keep up with the news, Sarah, but there’s little information available. You may be glad to know that; take some comfort from the little coverage this loss has gained for you. I’m sure you have fans who are aware of what’s happening. They’ll be feeding on the matter, no doubt. But, Sarah, you must grieve in the way that feels best for you. I don’t suppose it’s my place to tell you that. You must already know these things. You’re a woman of the world, aren’t you?

  I will say, Sarah, that in the cluttered forum spaces of the internet, there are flickers of unpleasant things being said. I’ve no idea of the details of Madison’s death. What I can say, though, is that it wasn’t me, Sarah. My last letter was sent not so much in jest, but more in a teasing way. You should know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t take a second mother away from you. Of course, it isn’t careless of you to have lost a second one either. I wish, Sarah, that I could take that back. If only I’d known what might happen. Although I know so many people feel that way about so many things when they lose someone.

  In all these thoughts, new and old about what’s unfair to you, Sarah, it strikes me that one of the unfairest things of all is that I can always reach you – but you can never reach me. I wish there were a way around that, because I imagine – no, I like to imagine I might be of some use at the moment. After all this time together, Sarah, I’m almost a familiar face, aren’t I? It’s selfish – although we’ve already decided I’m a selfish person, haven’t we – but I wonder whether you’ve thought of me at all during these weeks. Have you clung to the comeback tour as something to keep you rooted, or have you cast it out entirely as something with no belonging in your life anymore? It feels dramatic to suggest it, even, but I’d be lying if I said the worry hadn’t crossed my mind.

  I suppose we’ll find out the answer soon enough, won’t we.

  I do hope you’re being kind to yourself, Sarah. Handle all of this with great care.

  Sincerely, yours –

  I was two people behind her in the queue at the coffee shop. Since Madison I’d found sleeping harder than usual, and I’d sworn off caffeine entirely to try to help it. My medication should make sleeping easier, too, but even that didn’t seem to ease the night-time struggles of it all. Still, when I edged closer to the front of the queue I started to eye up the listings of herbal tea and fruit smoothies, for the sake of ordering something – for the sake of, perhaps, being closer to her for a minute or so while we waited at the end of the counter for our drinks. I half-heard her order – ‘…with two shots, please.’ – and thought she must be struggling to sleep, too. I’d seen the lights on at her house well into the early hours of the morning for the last few evenings. But you never could be sure whether it was someone up past their bedtime, or someone who’d been too tired to even turn out a light. The make-up she wore had covered the evidence well. It was more than she normally wore; more than I liked her to.

  ‘What can I get for you today?’

  I looked at the menu boards with wide eyes. ‘Something with low caffeine.’ There came a snort from the end of the counter – her. ‘I’m sorry?’

  She laughed. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m on the opposite end of the caffeine spectrum.’

  ‘Hard time sleeping?’ I was torn between grabbing the opportunity to talk to her and shying away from the contact. The woman behind the counter appeared with a takeaway coffee cup that she set down on the counter. ‘Hence the giant coffee.’

  Another laugh. ‘I need something to get through the day. Bye now.’

  The goodbye trailed after her and I didn’t reciprocate for fear of appearing too involved. Instead, I stayed rooted to the spot, ordered my peppermint tea, and patiently waited for the cup to arrive. Outside the shop, though, her car was still parked ten strides away. Wherever she’d gone, it wasn’t far.

  It was the first time we’d spoken.

  I pulled in a hungry amount of air and smiled wide on the exhale. This was a special moment and I needed to give myself enough time to remember it, before the adrenaline made it impossible to recall the intricacies. On the walk to the shop I’d noticed a post box, so I re-traced my steps until I came across it again. I’d carried the letter in my pocket for so long that the corners had started to wear blue from the denim of my jeans. This wasn’t the first time I’d tried to post it. Since Madison, every letter I’d drafted felt inconsequential – incomplete, somehow. I knew there wasn’t anything I could say to improve things for Sarah, though the letter at least might be a welcome distraction. W
ith the envelope resting on the lip of the post box, I pulled in another greedy breath before letting the paper slide through the allotted space.

  On the walk back – to where her car might still be parked – I wondered whether Sarah would notice the city where the letter had been franked…

  42

  Alison Harris was a finance officer at a private hospital in Leicester city centre. According to her LinkedIn profile, she’d been there for nearly ten years. According to the expression she wore when she walked into the building every day, she hated it. But she always looked so much happier when she was leaving. Alison worked regular hours, which made it easier to learn things; much easier than it had been with Sarah – or Evelyn.

  I watched her tread into the building with a glum expression. Her hair looked darker in the autumnal sunshine and I liked that; it made her look different to the others. Her shoulders were hunched over underneath a jacket that looked too big for her, and I wondered whether she’d lost weight since I first saw her. When she was inside the building, I knew that I had a set number of hours to get my work done – including a visit to Alison’s house. If I could get back to the hospital for lunchtime, though, there was a real possibility that I’d find her at the same coffee shop that she’d been visiting lately – the one where we’d spoken. My belly rolled at the memory.

  Her house was a drive away from the city, so I left to get my car from the side street where I’d stashed it. It took nearly twenty minutes to get out of the centre’s traffic and I wondered, not for the first time, whether this was a contributing factor to Alison’s sadness when she arrived at work every day. But then, the happiness at going home alone for an evening with a microwave meal and too many glasses of wine – if her recycling bin in the garden was a fair indicator – was another thing I couldn’t quite understand about her.

  I left my car one residential street away. Her house was buried inside a winding burrow of cul-de-sacs and sideroads that I trod through, before arriving at her garden gate. She never locked it, which seemed a reckless decision for a woman living alone. I pushed gently, opening the way into the property. I closed the entryway behind me, in case anyone should pass, and then slowly walked along the path. Alison always took care with the garden. There were plants in bloom, still, despite the recent changes in temperature. She knew the right time of year for things to seed, I guessed, and it showed in her neat borders and bright colours that clashed with the day. It was due to rain.

  I tried the backdoor, although she’d never been careless enough to leave it open. The house – all of this, in fact – felt familiar, despite my sporadic visits. I hadn’t spent as much time in Leicester as I had in other areas. But the opportunity had arisen to spend at least a weekend in the city and I’d thought of Alison, thought of Sarah, and packed a bag.

  I pressed down the handle of the backdoor and leaned into the hinges of it. Even though it was locked, I thought, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t give way under the right pressure. When my shoulder landed against it, though, it didn’t budge at all, and I mentally crossed it off the list of entry points that might prove useful. Window by window I tapped my way around the downstairs of the house. But I struck luck on something I hadn’t seen before. On my last visit there had been a set of garden furniture; chairs and a table. They had now been packed away in preparation for the winter months. In moving the furniture, though, Alison had unveiled a squat window towards the bottom of an outside wall; a basement, I assumed. I lowered myself down and pressed a gloved hand against the pane – and it opened.

  I was careful to leave everything as I’d found it. During the walkthrough my phone vibrated and caught my attention – a new article uploaded at Sarah’s workplace, but not one that was written by her – which alerted me, too, to the time. The morning had fallen away in the cracks between Alison’s floorboards.

  I’d explored the kitchen, downstairs bathroom, the living area that looked to double as an office. There were lots of hospital logos on the paperwork and I decided she likely knew more about the order of things better than I, so I left them as I found them.

  When I saw the time, though, I realised the rest of the house would have to wait for another day. I didn’t want to miss her leaving for her lunch.

  The side street in the city centre that I had parked in for the morning was clogged with other vehicles when I got back to it. It was a blessing in disguise, I realised, because spending the whole day in a well-populated area wouldn’t have served me well. I pulled a cap from my glove compartment and searched for a nearby multi-storey instead. When I’d parked the car I checked my phone again – still nothing written or posted by Sarah – and decided to go straight to the coffee shop. Alison would have left work already, ten minutes ago if not more, and I didn’t want to waste the lunchtime.

  The pavements from the car park to the coffee shop were alive with people rushing through their lunch hours. Three people apologised – a grunted, ‘I’m sorry,’ in passing – but four others said nothing at all as they knocked shoulders with me. I could be pick-pocketed and not even realise in a city this busy. When the thought dangled in front of me, I found I was reaching for my phone – clutching it in my palm until sweat beads formed – and checking for my wallet with the other hand. The coffee shop itself spat out a flurry of youngsters with their high-caffeine drinks and avocado smoothies, but when they’d cleared it was easy to see straight into the building. I looked first to the queue, where I had bumped into Alison before, but when I failed to find the wave of her dark hair I scanned the room at large. It was her silhouette I noticed first, a hazy outline of a white shirt, disturbed by strands of hair. Like a spasm of the mind, I imagined grabbing it by the fistful.

  There was a man with her. They weren’t standing and talking, either, but sitting and having lunch. I hadn’t seen them together before and there’d been no mention of a new relationship on Alison’s social media. In a rush I flicked back through the house as I’d seen it earlier; there were no signs there, either. But I hadn’t made it to the bedroom, where all manner of male trinkets might have been stashed away. I needed to get back there in the afternoon, I decided, then, to make sure I knew my options – knew what I was going to find, when I eventually made it to Alison.

  Under normal circumstances, this might have been enough to scupper a plan. But as I watched them – Alison, with her slim figure and pale complexion; him, with his angular shoulders and slim legs – I thought for the very first time: I could take them both.

  43

  When I walked into the office on Tuesday morning a wave of good mornings came at me from various points throughout the room.

  I hadn’t missed much, Phil told me, while I was trying to brew my morning coffee at the drink station. ‘Sandra landed a big deal with PhotoTech so that’s something exciting, I suppose.’ He tried to sound like it wasn’t exciting at all. But that was largely because Phil had also been bidding for the PhotoTech advertising contract. It must have irked him to his core that she’d beat him to the punch. Phil had always been the type of man who couldn’t stand to be bested by a woman. I’d always disliked that about him.

  ‘How was Leicester? Did you get what you needed?’ he asked, as I was trying to walk away. I swallowed a mouthful of coffee, even though it was too hot, to buy myself another second or two to think of an answer.

  For a full hour I had watched Alison walk around her kitchen making an elaborate dinner. I’d never seen anyone go to such effort to dine alone. So it wasn’t a complete surprise when she disappeared out of sight – to answer the front door, I assumed – and then walked back in with the same man from the coffee shop. Two dates in a twenty-four-hour period seemed keen. But they were both enthusiastic by the looks of their body language. They sat at the kitchen table drinking red wine, like something tumbled from the opening credits of a romantic comedy. My stomach lurched over when Alison got up to check whatever was in the oven. She bent over – I couldn’t work out whether she was being deliberately sl
ow, to make a show of the action – and he watched her. I didn’t like how he looked at her, though, as though he were hungry for something – something else. Another half an hour rolled out with them like this. I watched them get to know each other: the feet knocking beneath the table; the way Alison kept pushing her hair behind her ears, leaving her powdered face pale in the overhead lighting, and open to adoration. More than once I had thought of going in through the bottom window – still loose, as it had been earlier. But I hadn’t been able to work out the practicalities of overpowering two people; even if one of them did happen to be petite.

  ‘It was a bit of a wash-out,’ I said, and shrugged. ‘Worth trying though.’

  ‘What was the product again?’

  I didn’t know whether Phil was asking to be reminded or asking to check whether I’d give the same answer as before I left. ‘It’s a private hospital up that way, looking to do a big revamp on their advertising campaign, but I didn’t like the look of the place.’ I made a grimace. ‘You know when something doesn’t feel right about a company? I just couldn’t see us working with them.’

  ‘Shame. Next time, eh?’

  He turned away, then, and I felt a wave of relief at how easily he’d let it go.

  With my morning coffee, I skimmed through the online pages of The Herald. Every morning there was a print copy distributed with the post, but until that arrived I’d have to make do with the digitised pages. The crime section looked sparse and I wondered whether Sarah wasn’t yet back at work. But that seemed unlikely. She needed it, after all. I picked through page after page looking for her until I was two thirds of the way down my mug – and then I found her in the obituary section.