The Man I Thought You Were

by Leah Mercer

  And it’s not just my body that’s being battered. Every time I close my eyes the events of that terrible night join the horror parade of memories scrolling through my head. The images tear at my heart, ripping off the protective layers I’ve built up to expose the soft, tender flesh inside me. Anna’s cries mingle with Margo’s pleas – my wife’s frenzied pounding on the glass sharply contrasting with Margo’s deathly stillness. The past has risen up to meet the present, colliding in a fireworks display of pain.

  I still can’t believe Anna and my father found out about my cancer, then discovered where I was . . . in just a few weeks. How the hell did they manage that? Was it Anna or my father who tracked me down? I can’t imagine the two of them working together – they’d never even met.

  I shouldn’t have turned around when I heard the commotion. I knew the voice was hers. I should have just ignored it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I had to see her. I wanted to glimpse her face one last time.

  God, I wish I hadn’t. I can’t erase the memory of Anna’s smile when my eyes met hers – the sound of her anguished screams as she was dragged off. I’ll never forget the blind rage inside me, propelling me to twist away from her . . . anger at my cancer, anger that she somehow found me, anger at life. I was shaking after she left – shaking so much that the nurse asked me if I was all right. I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t all right. I’d just rejected my own wife . . . I’d hurt her so much.

  I stare at the letter beside me – rather, the empty sheet of paper – and wonder yet again if I did the right thing. Anna knows about the cancer now; despite my best efforts, it’s too late to keep the knowledge from her. And by tracking me down she’s made it clear she wants to be with me. She’s not my father – she never deserted me. She’s done everything she can to find me. Am I really going to force her to stand on the sidelines as I go through this? Keep her at arm’s length while my life fades away? Keep her away from the man she loves?

  I don’t know, I don’t know. I let out an agonised sigh as I get out of bed, then I pad across the room to retrieve my jacket and shoes. I’ll think about it more later, when my mind is clear. Right now I need to head back to the cancer centre to have the incision for my catheter checked. The wound is red and angry-looking, and the last thing I need is an infection. I can barely move as it is.

  ‘Cleaner!’ There’s a rap at the door, and I run a hand over my mouth, trying to look halfway presentable. I don’t know why I’m trying, though. If I haven’t scared her off by now I’m not going to. She comes and goes at very random hours – I could barely rouse myself to answer her knock these past few days. She pushed inside anyway, her face a mask of efficiency, and proceeded to tidy everything as I lay there, barely moving. Given the state of the room (never mind me) I wouldn’t blame her if she ran away screaming. I certainly would, if I were her.

  ‘I bring you food and water from downstairs,’ she says in her thick Eastern European accent each time she arrives. I don’t argue – just nod and say thanks as she sets down several bottles of water and bowls of soft oats I can just about manage to choke down.

  She pokes a head around the door. ‘You’re up! Feeling better?’

  I nod, grateful she’s seeing me on my feet for once. ‘Yes. Thank you so much for bringing me the water and food.’

  ‘No problem.’ She shrugs. ‘I bring you some fresh towels and more water. Do you need anything else?’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Okay.’ She shrugs again, then turns to go.

  ‘Thanks . . . what’s your name?’ After everything this stranger has done for me, I feel like I should at least know something about her.

  ‘Anna.’

  The name hits me between the eyes and I slump down on to the bed, trying to suppress a low groan. Anna. Of course it is. Even when I try to run from her – even when I turn away – I can’t escape.

  ‘Anna,’ I say, my voice hoarse. ‘Thank you.’

  I feel like an old man as I trudge down the street. Drizzle floats through the air, and I tip up my face to let the moisture settle on my skin – to feel something tangible other than the emptiness echoing inside me. Because in the month since I left my wife I feel just that: empty. Seeing her face was a harsh reminder of the love I have – the love I’ve pushed down deep just to get through the hours. I want to be with her and I know she wants to be with me, but I still don’t know if I can pull her into this terrible place where I find myself now.

  It’s warm inside the centre and the bright lights burn my eyes. I head up to the first floor and check in, then follow the nurse to a bay and lie down. I’m exhausted already and I’ve only walked about one street. The sounds of the centre fill my ears, and in the bay next to me I can hear a man and a woman settle in for their treatment.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ the man is saying to the woman. ‘Just go and get Chloe from nursery before you’re late.’

  ‘It’s okay. Mum’s going to collect her,’ the woman responds. ‘I don’t want to leave you.’

  ‘I’m not going to die right now.’ I can tell he’s trying his best to keep his tone light, but I can hear the tension in his voice, too. ‘Give me at least another few weeks.’ I hear him shuffle, groaning to get up. ‘Right, well, I’m going to head to the loo before we get started. If they come, tell them I’ll be back in a tick.’

  ‘Okay,’ the woman says.

  I hear a rustle and the scrape of metal rings as the curtain is pulled back, and after the man has left, the woman speaks again.

  ‘Hi, Mum. Are you on the way to get Chloe?’

  There’s a buzz as her mother responds on the phone, and then I hear the woman’s muffled sobs.

  ‘Oh, Mum. It’s awful. I hate it here. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but this whole place feels like a room full of dying people. And Dylan . . .’ She lowers her voice. ‘He just looks awful. I can’t sleep at night. I’m afraid he’ll die at any second. He’s having problems with his breathing now, and the doctors say it will only get worse. And Chloe . . .’ I hear a gulp. ‘Chloe’s actually scared of him. This morning she wouldn’t even come into our bedroom. She asked me who he was, and where Daddy had gone.’ I can barely make out the words through her crying. ‘I can’t bear it, Mum. I can’t.’

  My heart aches as I listen to the woman try to control her sobs. God. At least Anna and I didn’t have children, I think. I never thought I’d be grateful for that, but I am now.

  I hear footsteps returning and the rasp of the metal rings as the curtain opens again, and the man groans as he lies back down on the bed.

  ‘Did the nurse come?’ he says.

  ‘No, not yet!’ The woman’s tone is bright and cheery, with no sign of her tears from just a moment earlier. If I hadn’t overheard her telephone conversation, I’d believe she was coping brilliantly.

  I lean back in my chair, thinking that Anna would be like that. She’d show me her strength – she’d be brave. But away from me . . . I close my eyes against the image of her breaking down, just like the woman beside me has – saying she can’t bear it, can’t take it any more.

  And I know without a doubt that I cannot do that to my wife. I made the right choice: watching me go through this is worse than staying on the sidelines, and if distance will protect her, I’ll do whatever it takes to stay as far away as possible.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Anna

  I barely stop over the next week, whirling from the print shop to collect the flyers I’ve made up with Mark’s face on them then back down to Euston. I begin my assault on hotels, B & Bs and guest houses, knocking on doors, pushing into busy receptions and interrogating staff. My cheeks and nose are red from the cold and my fingers are constantly numb despite my gloves. My feet ache, my calves strain and I’m permanently exhausted, but I won’t allow myself to give up . . . not even when I sink down on to our sofa at the end of a long day with Sophie’s voice creeping into my head, saying that Mark has changed – that if he could
hurt me like that, he’s not the man I married.

  He is, I remind myself. He’s doing this to protect me – because he loves me. But even as I try to keep this in mind, my brain continues asking me – over and over – if my sister could be right. Has he changed? Or is there a part of him I never really knew – a part that would push me away, no matter what I said? Mark’s cold, distant stare that night he rejected me floats before my eyes, and I think of Margo and everything from his past that he never told me. Surely something so tragic had a huge impact on him . . . an impact I knew nothing about.

  I just need to find him. If I can tell him about the baby, everything will be all right. I’ll make everything all right with Sophie, too – she’ll understand once she knows I’m pregnant. It’s been a week since we’ve spoken, and despite our harsh words, I can’t help thinking of my sister and that she might need my help. Does she need my support? It’s hard to imagine; in all these years, she’s never asked me for anything. I bite my lip as guilt curls through me. She’s strong, I remind myself. She’ll get through this . . . and so will Mark and I.

  I slide a hand down to my stomach, and I’m so grateful for this child that makes me feel like I’m not alone. Without anyone around me, my world has shrunk down again: to this flat; to the streets I’m searching, which are so familiar from my years working in the area, yet now feel foreign without my job to anchor me here . . . and to the baby inside me. But the baby is all I need right now – that and Mark. To feel his arms around me, pulling me close to him. To know that, whatever lies ahead, our love can carry us through. Because this past month – God, has it been a month since he left? – amidst all the uncertainty, the fear and the confusion, I’ve never doubted one thing: that Mark loves me. He wouldn’t have tried so hard to protect me if he didn’t.

  I can’t wait to break the news to him that we’re going to be parents. I smile, shaking my head. It still hasn’t sunk in completely – I guess because I’ve kept the news to myself, waiting for the moment when I track my husband down. The tiny baby T-shirt is tucked away in my rucksack, lodged against my back as I make my way up and down the streets . . . a kind of talisman to draw him in.

  It’s dark as I climb the stairs of yet another guest house just a few streets from the cancer centre. The Christmas lights strewn haphazardly in the grimy windows of this B & B make it look more sad than cheerful, the garish colours illuminating the peeling paint and stubborn weeds poking through the paving slabs. The door is open and I stick my head inside. No one’s around, so I pad through to reception.

  ‘Hello?’ The small, cluttered space behind the desk is vacant. I notice a bell and ring it, the noise sounding even louder in the hushed silence.

  ‘Sorry, I was just out back.’ A woman with a pen stuck in her frizzy hair appears from behind a curtain. ‘How can I help?’ She shoots me a distracted smile that only lifts the corners of her mouth, then looks down to read a paper on the messy desk in front of her.

  ‘Hi, sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for this man.’ I shove the printout with Mark’s photo in front of her nose, hoping she’ll focus on it for just a second.

  Her eyes slide over it and then she shakes her head. ‘No, sorry. I’m just a temp, though, so . . .’ She shrugs, not even bothering to finish her sentence.

  ‘Can I leave this here?’ I put the paper on the desk, praying someone will see it before it gets buried in the avalanche of other documents arrayed there.

  ‘Fine.’ She’s already halfway back through the curtain and I sigh, making a mental note to circle back here tomorrow.

  ‘Lady?’ A woman in her early twenties wearing a tabard and carrying a mop approaches me shyly. ‘I have seen this man.’ She nods towards Mark’s photo on the stack of papers in my hands.

  ‘You have?’ My heart leaps. ‘In this hotel?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, not here. At another hotel I clean for – down the street, around the corner. Called Euston Stay Inn. I – N – N.’ She spells this out automatically, as if she’s done it a thousand times.

  I grasp her arm. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’ My heart is racing and I rush to the door, eager to get down the street as fast as I can and over to the place where my husband is.

  ‘I hope he feels better,’ the cleaner says. ‘Tell him Anna says hello.’

  I spin towards her. ‘Anna? Your name is Anna?’

  She nods, and a huge jet of hope spurts up inside of me. It’s a good omen that the woman who has led me to Mark has the same name as me, surely.

  I run down the street, the cold night air ripping at my lungs, then turn the corner. The lights of yet another row of hotels beckon. The names flash past me as I hurry towards the Euston Stay Inn. I race up the steps and open the hotel’s front door, then hurry to the desk where thankfully a receptionist is waiting.

  ‘Hello, welcome,’ he says.

  ‘Hi,’ I huff as I try to catch my breath. ‘I’m here to see one of your guests. Mark Lewis?’

  The man nods and checks on his computer, then shakes his head. ‘No, I’m sorry, there’s no one registered here by that name.’

  ‘There must be.’ I almost insist he check again, but then I remember that Mark may not have given his real name. I turn the stack of flyers in my arms towards him so he can see Mark’s picture. ‘This is the man here,’ I say, tapping the paper.

  ‘Ah, yes. Up the stairs, room four.’

  I don’t even say thank you. I just turn and rush up the stairs, struggling to breathe as my heart pounds with hope and love. I stop for a second outside the door, wipe the sweat from my face and remove the gift from my rucksack.

  Then, with my smile growing bigger and bigger and excitement fluttering inside me, I lift my hand and knock.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Mark

  I collapse on the bed when I return from my appointment at the cancer centre. The nurse told me I was fine – she simply changed the dressing on my incision, took my temperature and implored me to return if I feel feverish – but my insides feel like jelly. It’s not just the walk that’s taken it out of me, though. It’s that couple – hearing the woman’s sobs as her partner battles cancer. Whatever tiny, lingering hope I harboured that somehow Anna and I could get back together has been crushed. I couldn’t stand to have her cry by my bedside like that woman – not like I did with Margo . . . although I never cried, I realise now. Did I? I hurt so much I practically vibrated with pain, as well as with guilt and regret. But crying? I couldn’t. I tried to lock away all my emotions, like the memories in the storage unit. I couldn’t let them overwhelm me if I wanted to move on.

  But now . . . I sag on to the bed. I feel raw and exposed, and it’s not from my illness. There’s no barrier now between me and my past; not any more. I’m right back in that awful time with Margo – unsure which way to turn, uncertain if I should try and get my niece back or focus on making my sister better.

  I shake my head as grief crashes through me. My sister died and my niece is missing. And what did I do? Tried to move on. Tried to build a life away from the horror . . . a life away from pain.

  I failed at that, too.

  There’s a knock on the door and I glance up in surprise. The cleaner usually comes in the daytime, and it’s almost six in the evening. I shrug and call out, ‘Come in!’ I wait to hear the key turn in the lock, but there’s nothing, so I heave myself from the bed and plod to the door, thinking that maybe reception wants to talk to me. The landline in my room doesn’t work (not much here does) and, if memory serves, I need to pay my rent for next week.

  I swing open the door and step back, everything inside me freezing as I take in the person standing before me.

  It’s not the receptionist.

  It’s my wife.

  ‘Mark,’ she says, her voice shaking despite her smile. She makes a move as if she’s going to hug me, but then drops her arms to her sides.

  I stare at her. I can’t look away, as much as I need to. Now that she’s right in front
of me I want to drink her in – every bit of her, from her red cheeks to the hair that’s stuck to one side of her face. Her eyes are wide and I can tell she’s nervous by the muscle twitching under her eye. I long to take her in my arms, to burrow myself into her warmth.

  But then . . . then I remember my wasted body, and the sound of the woman’s sobs at the cancer centre tear through my mind, my heart. I cannot do this to Anna. I know this with a surety that throbs in every part of me. I made a vow to put as much distance as possible between us, and now I need to keep it. I can’t fail again – not this time.

  I take a breath, summoning up every ounce of strength left inside me to fight this battle – a battle I need to win; a battle that will crush my wife, but ultimately save her. I need to see her as the enemy, I tell myself. It’s the only way I can do this.

  ‘Mark, look,’ she says, the words bursting from her before I can launch my attack. ‘I know you didn’t want to talk to me, but we really need to. There’s something I have to tell you, something I—’

  ‘Stop,’ I say, wrenching the word from inside of me. ‘Anna, you need to stop.’ My voice is so cold – so heartless – that I barely even recognise it. I can see by the way she draws back that she doesn’t, either. ‘There is nothing you can tell me that will change things. Do you understand? Nothing. You’re having twins, you’ve discovered a cure for cancer, you’re taking off to the moon. Nothing at all.’ She flinches as if I’ve struck her, but I harden myself against her. ‘I don’t care what happens to you any more, and you shouldn’t care about me. We are done, over, finished.’

  ‘But—’

  She tries to step forward but I block her way, giving her a little shove back. Surprise flickers through me at my actions, but I need to do this. I need to end this, once and for all. I marshal all my energy for a final assault, blinding myself to her anguished expression.