by Anna Kent
She stopped dead and grabbed both my hands. ‘Oh my God. I’ve just thought! We could try to have lunch at Brown’s. I used to love Brown’s! I haven’t been there for years! Come on!’ She pulled me down a side street. ‘If I remember right, it’s not far!’
And she was right: Brown’s was lovely, and the theatre blew me away and, with Grace at my side, I began to think that maybe I could ‘do’ Central London after all, if I was careful, if I was with someone. But, as we threaded our way back to Charing Cross after the show, we saw, up ahead of us, a knot of people gathered on the pavement. As we drew closer, I saw that some of them had their hands over their mouths; others had their phones pressed to their ears; a couple were shaking their heads. A man was kneeling on the ground near the back of a bus, which I realized now was unnaturally still, the engine off and the driver pacing helplessly nearby, his hands tearing through his hair. The traffic lights moved robotically through their cycle but the traffic didn’t move. Shock echoed in the air.
‘Something’s happened.’ Grace peered forward, straining towards the scene. Dread pushed upwards from my stomach; my hands suddenly cold and clammy inside my gloves.
‘It looks serious,’ I said. ‘Maybe we should…’
‘I don’t see an ambulance. No paramedics,’ Grace interrupted. Her tone was brisk. Professional. ‘Whatever it is, it must have just happened. They might need me.’ She broke into a run.
‘Grace…’ I said. My legs were weak and my breathing shallow. Heat flooded my face and I swallowed. Already I’d clocked the distant wail of sirens. We should turn back, I wanted to tell her: go a different way; let the emergency services deal with whatever it was that had happened, but this is what Grace did. This was her thing. I followed as she hurried towards the scene.
‘I’m a doctor! Let me through!’ Grace shouted, twisting her way through the onlookers. At the kerb, she paused for a second and took in the scene then, within moments, she threw her handbag down and was on her knees close to the rear wheels of the bus.
I shouldn’t have looked. It was my mistake. I should have turned and walked the other way. I should have sat in a pub or stood in a shop; I should have done anything but look. I saw the bicycle bent out of shape. I saw the leg protruding out from under the bus. A woman’s leg, bent at an unnatural angle and deathly still, the trainer on the foot a shocking pink that stood out against the black of the tarmac. I saw the look on the faces of those standing watching.
Then suddenly the air was rent with sirens. A paramedic motorbike roared up, followed by two police cars. The air pulsated with sound. The buildings, the people, the wet road, everything lit with the flash of blue lights. In slow motion, I watched Grace stand up and I saw her mouth move as she spoke to the paramedic, her hand pulling at her hair. A policeman jumped out of one of the cars and herded people away from the bus with his arms spread wide while another marked off the scene with tape, and then it came: the panic spiralled up inside me, pressing down on my heart.
I clutched at my throat and gasped in a breath but the panic was a wave I was unable to suppress. It crushed my chest, and my mouth opened wide as I struggled to suck in air. An ambulance cleaved its way through the stopped traffic and, from the corner of my vision, I saw Grace walk slowly back towards me, her face white and her features tight. She shook her head as she saw me, then the world started to close in: darkness crept in from every angle, and I swayed. The blue lights flicked on and off, on and off. I tugged at Grace’s arm, unable to speak, unable to tell her.
‘Very sad,’ she said, and that was the last thing I heard as the world span around me and I sank to my knees.
‘Grace,’ I gasped. ‘Grace!’
Thirty-Two
When I woke on Sunday morning, my head was still echoing with the trauma of the accident, my grief for the dead woman I’d never known a palpable thing. How old was she? What did she do? Did she have a boyfriend, a husband, children? My thoughts went down the rabbit hole of her life as I pictured where she might have been going, what she was doing; how she came to be at that junction at that time; how she felt when the bus surged way too close to her; the jolt of terror when it brushed her, pushed her, knocked her down and dragged her under. I lay in bed and felt not just for her, but for her family and her friends; and for the shock of her co-workers arriving at work tomorrow to find out that their colleague was dead.
It was a negative train of thought and I wrestled myself away from it, heaved myself out of bed, wrapped my dressing gown around me and went gingerly downstairs, where I made a coffee and drank it looking out at the garden. In contrast to the stillness of the woman’s leg yesterday – an image I couldn’t get out of my mind – the garden was full of life; movement. The wind ripped leaves from the oak tree, sending them scurrying across the lawn like rats. The pink roof of the old Wendy House was completely covered in the brown mulch of dead leaves. All I could see of it was the faint gleam of the broken glass in the window and, behind that – a shadow? A movement? I squinted, craning my head towards the window but then the wind gusted harder and the whole tree creaked and swayed. For a terrifying moment I pictured it toppling towards the house, its claw-like branches reaching out for Grace and me.
‘What are you looking at?’ I spun around to see Grace in the doorway. She, too, was wrapped in a gown, her feet poked into a pair of my slippers. She had her glasses on; her hair in a messy bun.
‘The oak tree. Rohan said I should have it removed. I think it’s rotten inside. I completely forgot to find someone.’
‘What a shame. It’s a beautiful tree.’
‘He’s worried it’ll fall on the house.’
‘Then we’ll both die together.’ Grace smiled. ‘Anyway – morning. How are you feeling?’ Her face creased with concern. ‘That was quite a “thing” you had yesterday. Do you remember getting home?’
I shook my head, although there were fragments: a taxi, Grace’s arm around me, the blur of lights, rain on a windscreen.
‘Do you get them often, these panic attacks?’
I blew air out through my mouth. ‘I used to. But no, not so much these days. I try to control them.’
Grace nodded.
‘It happens sometimes. In crowds,’ I said. ‘It’s why I don’t tend to go into Central London.’
Grace smiled. ‘Well, no harm done.’ She paused. ‘It was worth it, though, wasn’t it? I thought the show was fantastic.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about the woman.’
Grace sighed. ‘I think it would have been pretty instant. That’s something, I suppose.’
‘I hope so. I hope she didn’t know what happened.’
We lapsed into silence. I could barely remember Phantom – it was as if I’d watched it in a previous life. I sighed. ‘I haven’t been into the West End for ages. I can’t believe that happened the one time I went. Maybe I’ll leave it a while before I go back.’
Grace opened the fridge and surveyed its contents.
‘Ah,’ she said, with her back to me. ‘I was thinking about that… you know what they say: you gotta get right back on that horse.’
‘What?’
‘Well, if you stay stuck out here in the suburbs, you’re never going to get over it. Are you? It’s going to become a phobia and before you know it you’ll become a recluse. A cat lady flicking at the lace curtains.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘The way to deal with it is to submerge yourself in the thing that scares you, until you learn there’s nothing to be scared of.’
‘You want me to go back into London?’
‘Well…’ Grace said carefully as she spooned Greek yoghurt into her bowl. ‘Not specifically. I was thinking about 32b. I always remember it.’
My heart thumped. ‘Really?’
‘Yes! Don’t you? So what do you say? Should we go back and take a look at the old pad, for old times’ sake? We can take a cab if you like.’ Her tone softened. ‘It’ll be fine.’
My hands clenched under the kitchen table, the nai
ls digging into my palms. It wasn’t the journey that bothered me.
‘Really? You want to go back?’ I said.
‘Well, we did spend two years living there.’ Grace stared out of the kitchen window for a moment and chuckled. ‘God, I’ll never forget those steps. That feeling I got going down them.’ She closed her eyes then nodded. ‘Yeah. I’d like to see where it all… played out.’
She said the last two words slowly as if she’d chosen them carefully, and I guess she really had, because ‘played out’ covered a lot of situations, many of them unpleasant. I pushed my chair back and stood.
‘Sure. What time do you want to go?’
Grace waved her yoghurt spoon at me. ‘Just give me a chance to eat this and get ready. So, maybe, like, forty minutes? Does that work?’
Thirty-Three
Grace didn’t tell me that she’d got together with Tom. Neither did he. They left it for me to find out myself one night in the March of Grace’s final year. I’d woken, thirsty, around two in the morning and padded to the kitchen of the basement flat. I was used to Grace bringing men home and, unless they were drunk and rowdy, it never bothered me. They were always gone in the morning. That particular night, I stood at the sink drinking water from the tap when I heard a giggle come from her room. Then, like a slap in the face, a murmur in a male voice with the exact same timbre as Tom’s. I froze, ice in my veins, wondering if I wanted confirmation, yet already knowing in my heart what I was hearing. I tiptoed to Grace’s door and pressed my ear silently to the wood, straining.
It couldn’t be him. She wouldn’t.
The sound of rustling bed sheets was followed by more giggles; more murmurs. I stood there, heart galloping as I struggled not to comprehend what I could patently hear, but then Tom had moaned, and it was unmistakeably him, and, in the end, it was not from Grace, but from the rhythm of the bed springs that I’d found out the truth.
It was my fault. I should have realized that Grace was a threat. That she took whatever she wanted from me.
The cab dropped us at the end of the road we used to live in. Grace strode in front of me, her head swivelling right and left as she took in the buildings, shops and landmarks she remembered. My breath came faster as I rushed to keep up.
‘Oh my God! This place is still here!’ she exclaimed, standing outside the small souvenir shop that sold everything from London trinkets to snacks, ready meals, alcohol and cleaning products. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever paid as much for vodka as I did buying it from this shop late on a Friday night. I’m sure his prices had a sliding scale.’ She shook her head and walked on and then, there it was: the black railings, the steps down to the front door, and the half windows that formed the top of the living room peeping up at the street. We stood on the pavement and looked at the windows. They were frosted now; it was difficult to see inside. Somehow it all looked smaller, older, seedier than it did in my memory, despite the fact the building’s façade had clearly had some sort of paintwork done.
‘I wonder if it’s still a rental place,’ I said. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’
Grace was already halfway down the steps.
‘Come back!’ I said. ‘That’s trespassing.’
‘Not if we knock,’ she said, looking back at me. ‘Come on. Don’t tell me you’re not curious?’
And so I joined her at the bottom of the steps and it was my hand that pressed the doorbell. It was me who spoke to the woman who answered, a small baby clutched in one arm.
‘Hello,’ I said, already regretting disturbing her. Dark circles were etched on her face and her skin was pale. She looked as if she was trying to rock the baby to sleep. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you but I’m looking for a friend who used to live here… I moved away and, I mean, I know it’s random, but I was just passing for the first time in ages and I wondered if there was a chance she still lived here?’
As I spoke, Grace and I peered around her like meerkats, as if our mystical friend might suddenly appear out of the bedroom. The woman sighed as if one more unexpected glitch was exactly the kind of thing she expected in life.
‘Her name was Grace Shaw?’ I said. Over the woman’s shoulder and through an open door I could see that the separate living room that had served as my bedroom and studio was once again being used as a living area, while the small open-plan area outside the kitchen, which we’d used as our main living space, now housed only a dining table. It all looked so much smaller than I remembered; like a toy version. The kitchen where I’d spent so much time cooking for Grace was cluttered with baby paraphernalia.
The woman screwed up her face as she tried to remember someone called Grace. Her hand patted rhythmically on the baby’s back and she shifted her weight from foot to foot in that dance new mums all seem to do.
‘Grace? Nah.’ She shook her head. ‘We bought it from a Pakistani couple. Tall guy. Quiet. I don’t remember the wife’s name. Lianne? Liyana? Leela? Something like that. Definitely not Grace.’
‘Oh you bought it?’ I nodded my interest, buying more time. ‘Recently, or…?’
‘About a year ago, give or take a duck’s fart.’
I edged closer to the door and inhaled. I picked up the smell of coffee and toast but was it my imagination or, underneath that, could I still detect that hint of – what was it? A sort of dank smell we could never shift. The smell of subterranean living that had permeated our clothes at the time, yet which I never noticed until I left the flat. The woman’s face was blank, uninterested.
‘And it wasn’t tenanted when you bought it?’ I asked desperately. ‘Grace rented it, I think. But maybe she’d moved on by then?’
The woman nodded. ‘I guess.’ In her eyes, the conversation was finished. I looked toward the bedroom door; the door outside which I’d stood that night and listened to Grace fucking Tom and the thud in my abdomen was visceral: muscle memory. I wondered if Grace, next to me, was remembering the same thing. On the woman’s shoulder, the baby’s eyes were closed, its head finally flopped down in sleep.
‘Sorry, I need to put him down,’ she said, stepping backwards, ready to close the door.
‘Ah, well, thank you anyway,’ I said, understanding that this was all we were going to get. ‘It was worth a try.’
The door clicked closed. Back on the street, out of sight of the windows, Grace high-fived me.
‘That was brilliant!’ she said. ‘Asking for me when I was standing right there. Can you imagine if she’d actually known who I was? Then what would you have said?’
‘Well, she obviously didn’t.’
We walked in silence for a minute or two and I wondered if seeing the old place – smelling the old smell – had brought the memories flooding back to Grace as it had to me. We reached the Tube station and my steps slowed and stopped. I felt short-changed, the visit an anti-climax.
‘Now what?’ I said, my mouth full of words left unsaid.
‘We could get some lunch?’ Grace suggested with a shrug, so we wandered toward a café and took a table. We ordered, then Grace slumped back in her plastic seat.
‘So what did you think?’
‘It looked different.’
‘Yeah, I thought so, too. It looked so much smaller today. Maybe all the furniture they had in there.’
‘Maybe.’
‘It was a big flat for the two of us. We did well!’
I let it go; the fact that it was ‘my’ flat that she’d gate-crashed; that it was I who’d paid the all the rent on a flat I’d chosen for one.
‘Speaking of flats,’ I said, ‘have you thought any more about looking for your own place?’
‘Not really.’ Grace smiled, the gleaming white of her teeth just showing through her lips. ‘Are you sure your husband doesn’t want to stay in New York a bit longer? Like, six months and really get ahead with his career? I wouldn’t mind! Then it could be just us.’ She gave me a full-beam smile, but I laughed. Not this time. I wasn’t falling for her tricks again.
‘God, no. I
want him back as soon as possible.’
She shook her head as if I were a lost cause. ‘Why did you get married, Abs? I don’t understand why women shackle themselves to a man.’
‘Ironic coming from the girl who had the wedding folder. Remember? All the details? The dress, the apple pie, the children? Two girls, wasn’t it?’
She had the decency to laugh. ‘Yeah. That was then. I knew no better.’
We lapsed into silence while the waiter brought my wine. I took a sip and looked at Grace across the table. She was checking her phone, giving little smiles and private laughs at the screen as she did so, and I thought: is that it? Is that all that’s going to be said? I was going to do it. I had to.
‘Happy days,’ I said, even though they weren’t. Not for me, anyway.
‘Yeah.’ Grace didn’t look up.
I took another swig of wine, then dived in.
‘How’s Tom?’ The words exploded out of me, unplanned, then hovered there over the table like blimps as the scar she’d etched onto my heart throbbed. ‘Do you still see him?’
Grace laughed then. ‘Tom?’ She scrunched up her face as if she barely remembered who he was. ‘Oh God. No. We broke up – wow – years ago.’
‘I thought he was a “keeper”,’ I said, my voice brittle. ‘That’s what you said on Facebook.’
Grace laughed dismissively and I waited for something else – an explanation, an apology – but she just smiled to herself and carried on tapping and swiping her phone until the food came.
Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
‘So, would you say things started to go wrong properly once you’d departed for New York?’
‘I guess so. I suppose the first sign that things weren’t going so smoothly was when Abi missed the dinner with my family. It’s just not the done thing and everyone knows that. You don’t miss those dinners. [pauses] But she said she was painting, and I know how she gets when she’s in that “zone” so I kind of understood. Or maybe she was going out with Grace and didn’t want to admit it. But, yeah, looking back, that was probably the first sign.’