Girl A: an astonishing new crime thriller debut novel from the biggest literary fiction voice of 2021

by Abigail Dean

  ‘Yep,’ she said. Gabriel occupied her old cot, now, his limbs long enough to bump against the bars, and she was in my bed. It was a good sleeping arrangement for winter, when I couldn’t feel much past my knees. ‘We’re doing animals from different countries.’

  ‘Which was your favourite animal?’ I asked. She was falling asleep, but I didn’t want to return to Dustin’s. I wanted to stay here, with her.

  ‘The walruses,’ she said. ‘From the North Pole.’

  ‘Why the walruses?’

  She was quiet. I nudged her in the ribs, and she huffed.

  ‘Lex.’

  She was the first person to call me that. She had needed to ask for me before four syllables fit in her mouth. The name stuck. It was easier on the school register, and lighter for my parents to throw up the stairs. Besides, even my family wasn’t entirely without sentimentality.

  ‘Can’t we talk about the walruses tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow? Well. OK.’

  My stomach panged, again. I rolled away from Evie and tiptoed down the hallway. The bathroom door was locked, and through it I could hear the intermittent gasps of somebody trying not to cry.

  ‘Ethan?’ I whispered.

  I cradled my stomach, knocked.

  ‘Ethan? Ethan, I need to go.’

  He opened the door and pushed past me, one hand across his face. ‘Fuck off, Lex,’ he said.

  I sat on the toilet in the cold little room, examining the strips of mould along the bathtub, the clotted soap bars, the bathmat askew and still printed with the dirt of barefooted summer days. The teenagers in Dustin’s had been right. We were odd and unclean. We were a spectacle. It made you uncomfortable just to look at us.

  I tried to mitigate the dirt. I left for school a few minutes before Delilah and Evie, and went straight to the disabled toilet, which was set apart from the other bathrooms, just past the staffroom. I locked the door and removed my school jumper and my polo shirt. I leaned over the sink. I splashed cold water under my armpits and around my neck, and luminous pink hand wash after that. I unravelled a handful of toilet roll and dried myself, carefully, to stop any crumbs of paper from sticking to my skin. There was a pocked mirror above the basin, and I tried to avoid catching my own eye. There were a few mornings when the Year 5 teacher, Miss Glade, saw me opening the toilet door. She was always the last to leave the staffroom, lumbered with exercise books and a coffee and a leopard-print handbag. ‘Are you feeling particularly disabled this morning, Miss Gracie?’ she asked, or: ‘Do you have your disabled parking card to hand?’ But she never reported me, and when I provided my excuse – that the other girls’ toilets were occupied, or that I had felt unwell – she always smiled, and waved me away.

  My period posed a more significant problem. It came when I was ten; I had expected another few years to prepare myself. We had been informed, by a video in school, of the practicalities: the blood; the cramping; the sanitary products. It had seemed sterile and simple. Now I stood in the bath, half-naked and baffled. Nobody had mentioned the smell, or the clots, or what you were meant to do with one shower a week. I tried to reassure myself, in the same stern tone taken by the actress in the school video. It was a problem, and like any other, it would have a solution. For now, I lined my knickers with toilet paper and prayed. I was unconvinced about God’s credentials in this particular sector. I would need a better plan.

  My social currency had never been particularly high, but there was a handful of things that I could exchange for friendship. I was fast enough to be picked in the upper quartile in PE. I was intelligent, but quietly so. I didn’t raise my hand in class, or share my marks. It had already occurred to me that, if I was going to be clever, I needed to be smarter about it than Ethan. I hovered at the periphery of a studious group of girls, who were preparing for entrance examinations to better schools, and I suffered their occasional ridicule, like a dog content with a kicking. You can endure an awful lot when you know that you’ll be fed at the end of it.

  ‘Why don’t you ever have a sleepover, Lex?’ Amy or Jessica or Caroline asked (to which I responded that my parents were too strict, so that it would be boring anyway). Or: ‘My sister’s in your older brother’s class, and he’s really weird.’ (Yes, I would say, he really is; and then, feeling bad: He’s really smart, though.) Or – worst of all, because I had given something away – ‘When did you last wash your hair?’

  The slights made it much easier to carry out my plan. Amy was holding a party on a Saturday afternoon for her tenth birthday, and I walked across town to attend it. A heavy summer day, strung with flies. I carried my school bag, and wore a church skirt and one of Mother’s old blouses; I had outgrown my jeans and T-shirts, and now they hung off Delilah. We sat in the family garden, sipping squash, and I watched the girls paint one another’s nails. There was an odd number of attendees, said Amy’s mother, and I would have to wait. I thought of Father’s face in the event that I returned home with red nails – with glitter – and I smiled. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘but I’m afraid that I’m allergic.’

  When Amy’s mother carried out the cake and the other girls started to sing, I slipped inside and upstairs, and locked the bathroom door behind me. I surveyed the clean porcelain and the concoctions around the tub. I considered climbing in and running it full, so full that it flooded under the door and down the stairs, and submerged the whole stupid house. No. That wasn’t what I was here for. I opened the cupboards behind the mirror and under the sink. Plasters, pills, cleaning products. Outside, they were cutting the cake, and I heard my name. In the corner of the room, there was a prim hemp basket, sealed with ribbons. I untied the bows, lifted the lid, and opened a treasure trove of tampons and sanitary towels, stored in their cardboard packets, row after row in soft lilac, baby blue, hot pink. I imagined Amy and her mother in Boots, selecting the right boxes, and the resentment made me braver. I took an instruction leaflet and half of the products from each box and tucked them into my satchel, then I flushed the toilet, and rejoined the party.

  On Saturday morning I took the Underground as far north as I could go, out of the tunnels and away from the city. By the end of the line, I was the only person left in the carriage, still blinking in the shock of light. The coffee kiosk at the station was closed. See you Monday! said a sign, printed in Comic Sans and propped in the window.

  I had spoken to Bill the evening before. He always seemed to call at a time when Devlin wanted something, so that whenever we talked, I sounded less grateful than I was. He had spoken to the council, he said, about our initial thoughts. I stopped scrolling through the ChromoClick report, and turned away from my screens.

  ‘OK. How did it go?’

  ‘They were unconvinced.’

  ‘Unconvinced?’

  ‘If you ask me,’ Bill said, ‘they’d like to see it demolished. You mention Hollowfield, and what do people think of? They think of the seven of you, standing in that garden. As soon as your mother died there were people sniffing around for scraps. Photographing the house for some feature or other. They mentioned something written by your brother, just the other day. I think they’re tired of the whole thing.’

  That, I understood. Ethan had sent me the essay. This one was titled ‘Memento Mori: What Death Makes You Remember’, and had just appeared in T. In the accompanying photograph, Ethan sat in monochrome in the house in Summertown, gazing out across the garden, with Horace in his lap. I didn’t read the essay, but I did respond to the message: Your kitchen looks fantastic.

  ‘We pitch it in person,’ Bill said. ‘That’s what I think. You’ll come across well, Lex. You know what you’re doing. They’ll see that this isn’t some – some exercise in vanity. They’ll see what you’re trying to do.’

  I pressed my forehead against the window glass. From here, with the buildings dimming to lights, I could be back in New York, with an empty weekend awaiting.

  ‘In the meantime,’ Bill said. ‘How’s the family?’

  I picked
up a hire car and drove towards the Chilterns. All summer, the sun had worn the fields, and now they were dull and patched, like cheap metal. The hospital had been built between two market towns, and I ended up visiting them both; there was a discreet turn-off, which I missed from each direction. Back in the first town, I found a cafe on the roadside and pulled over, already bored with the day. ‘You’ve come too far,’ the waitress said, warily. She was the kind of person who would inflate this encounter for the next customer and for girls’ drinks tonight. By eight p.m., I would be psychotic, and seeking readmission. ‘It’s a green sign. You can’t miss it.’

  The drive of the hospital passed through forest shadows before opening out to an empty lawn. The white, white palace waited at the end of it, like the final destination in a fairy tale. The building had been the country villa of a Romantic writer, Robert Wyndham, and I had spent Friday night in bed and online, reading his accounts of evenings in the garden. There were visits from royals and ambassadors, and from Byron. There were statues of nymphs on the edge of the woods, designed to move in the dusk light. There were reports of pagan ceremonies and a great abundance of food and wine. These ironies were unacknowledged on the hospital website, and the statues had been removed.

  There was a clump of smokers by the entrance, craning into the shade like flowers in reverse. A framed note explained that the interior had been refurbished last year, and had been painted in colours which promoted wellness. Wellness, it transpired, was white with a shot of pastel, and pink shirts at the reception desk. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m here to visit my brother, Gabriel.’

  ‘Surname?’

  ‘Gabriel Gracie.’

  ‘I’m afraid that Gabriel’s occupied,’ the receptionist said.

  ‘Occupied?’

  ‘He has another guest.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That isn’t information which I’m able to disclose.’

  The receptionist smiled pleasantly.

  ‘Can I join them?’ I said. ‘I’ve come a long way.’

  ‘Our policy is to allow one group of visitors at a time.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, and still the receptionist smiled.

  ‘You’re welcome to wait.’

  I waited. The smokers traipsed past, lugging the smell of it. I turned the pages of a stale magazine, which seemed to be about houses and plastic surgery. An old fan turned behind the desk, moving the receptionist’s hair.

  Half an hour in, a man passed by, walking like he was heading somewhere more important. In the light of the reception, his skin was pallid, with the sheen of raw meat. Clothes stained at the collar and cuffs. When he was above me, he smiled, as if he knew me well. As if he had been expecting me. He had immaculate teeth: a last pocket of health, preserved from the general decay. ‘Thank you,’ he said, to the receptionist. ‘As ever.’

  Then he was outside, shielding his eyes against the afternoon.

  ‘You’re up,’ said the receptionist. ‘He’ll meet you here.’

  Gabriel came inconsequentially down the corridor. His face was clean and pale and preserved, like an undertaker’s interpretation of my brother. He wore cotton trousers and mismatched socks, and a long, long shirt, buttoned to the neck. He gripped the sleeves, like they would roll away from him. Next to me, he removed his glasses, and smiled at a space close to my eyes, his pupils roving for the right spot.

  ‘You found me,’ he said.

  ‘With a little help from Delilah,’ I said. ‘Yes. How are you feeling?’

  ‘That’s a dangerous question, around here. Can we go outside?’

  ‘I don’t know. Can we?’

  ‘I’m not asking you to help me escape, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  We stood together, and I offered him my arm. I was surprised when he took it, and leaned against me. We moved as one cumbersome creature down the corridor and towards the sunshine. ‘No further than the end of the lawn, please,’ said the receptionist, and Gabriel chuckled.

  ‘Do people actually escape?’ I asked.

  ‘Apparently. There are rumours that the whole forest’s full of bodies – all of the sad, lost souls, you see – but I think they usually call for a taxi.’

  ‘Do you want to sit down?’

  ‘No. Let’s walk.’

  ‘One lap?’

  ‘Let’s try for that.’

  He had lost most of his hair. The last clumps were shaved to the scalp. He pulled thick sunglasses from one pocket and a stick of gum from the other. ‘Don’t look at me too much, Lex,’ he said. ‘It’s the medications. I’m a fucking mess.’

  I wondered if he felt the same way about sunglasses as I did: the childish notion that you become invisible when you put them on. I had left mine in the car; I would have to allow him to see me, for now.

  ‘Are you here for Ethan’s wedding?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Because of Mother. The wedding’s not for a few months.’

  ‘It’s nice, isn’t it,’ Gabriel said, ‘that he’s so happy.’

  He laughed, but without much savagery to it. There was self-deprecation in all of Gabriel’s laughter, which made you reluctant to laugh with him.

  ‘You had another visitor,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. A friend. He comes every so often. Delilah, too.’

  ‘I’m glad that you’ve kept in touch.’

  ‘It’s been on and off, over the years. She tried to keep me on the straight and narrow. And these last few weeks – she’s been good to me, Lex. Once you get over the Jesus shit – she’s been good to me. In the hospital – the real hospital, I mean – she was the only person I could think to call. I was hacked to bits, and she didn’t bat an eyelid.’

  ‘Well. It’s hard to surprise Delilah.’

  ‘Her husband’s come with her a few times,’ Gabriel said. ‘But he always waits in the car. Anyway. Do you know what he calls her? “The Roach” – the last thing standing on earth.’ Gabriel laughed. ‘She told me it,’ he said, ‘like it was the greatest compliment she could have received.’

  ‘The Roach,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. And he’s right. She’ll outlive us all.’

  We stopped at a bench, the first one on the lawn, and he sat as old men do, checking that the chair was still there on the way down. The last time that I saw him, he had been a teenager, installed in front of the London skyline, on the television.

  The truth is, Gabriel was the early triumph. He was inaugurated in a modest family home, with proper parents and a new sister. His happy ending is still available on YouTube, for public consumption. Here he is, starting secondary school on BBC News; talking to the camera on an episode of I Survived; receiving a birthday present from a middling footballer on Children in Need. Gabriel, with his crooked smile, strolling into breakfast television studios, both for an extensive, anonymity-waiving interview, and as an artefact dusted off for a feature called The Big Debate, which, that particular morning, was ‘Child Abuse: Can we talk about race?’

  ‘Are you going to tell me how you’re feeling?’ I asked.

  He sighed, pantomime-wide.

  ‘The thing about this place,’ he said, ‘is that I’m so bored of talking about myself.’

  Gabriel’s new parents, Mr and Mrs Coulson-Browne, had made it quite clear that he was a special child, so school, when it finally came – after nearly two years of one-to-one tuition, and at least three appearances on the actual television – was a disappointment. His psychologist, Mandy, had advised his adoptive parents that he might have additional requirements, or difficulties settling into the routine of school life; Mandy had a whole arsenal of carefully curated distraction techniques which the teachers wouldn’t have the time to deploy. ‘He’ll be fine, I think,’ said Gabriel’s new mother. ‘If you’ve done your job.’

  ‘The important thing,’ Mandy said, in their final session before school began, ‘is to remember what we’ve learnt about communication. If you feel one of the Rages coming, you get up and out of that room. You tell a t
eacher, or you call me.’

  The Rages had started at Moor Woods Road, although they only became the Rages afterwards, when Gabriel started working with Mandy. He might be chained to the bed, or exercising in the garden, and a minor occurrence – a fly in the room, or Evie straying clumsily into his path – would set off a mounting pressure in his head. It wasn’t something that he could subdue or ignore; the pressure would continue to build until he released it. He would writhe in the chains so much that they left raw, weeping imprints around his wrists. He would throw his whole body to the ground and batter his head against it. Once, he bit Father’s hand, as hard as he could and hoping that his teeth would meet. Although he was punished, terribly, he knew that he would do it again.

  He had thought that the Rages would stop when he left Moor Woods Road, but that wasn’t the case. Sometimes they happened in the Coulson-Browne household, where there was an unfortunate number of precarious items. Mrs Coulson-Browne kept a collection of crystal animals, and there was a set of wedding china displayed atop an antique cabinet (fake, Gabriel later ascertained, when he researched whether it would be of any value). Once, unforgivably, a Rage came in the dressing room of Britain This Morning, when one of the runners insisted on taking Gabriel’s relics from the House of Horrors from his hands, in order that they could be cleaned before they appeared in the studio.

  But he and Mandy had worked on it. There was a tepee in the corner of his new bedroom, and he retreated there when a Rage was on the way. Inside, he kept a projector night light and the bear the Coulson-Brownes had given him when he first entered their home, which wore a T-shirt imprinted with Survivor. If he wasn’t at home, he was to find somewhere quiet when the pressure began to build. He was to imagine the tepee and the slow movement of ocean mammals across the canvas.