The Gift

by Louise Jensen

  ‘They’re all busy. I want to register here anyway. My cousin used to work here and I’ve heard such good things.’

  ‘Really?’ She looks up. ‘Who is your cousin?’

  ‘Callie. Callie Valentine.’ I can hardly believe what I’m saying.

  ‘Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I’m Sara. I was quite good friends with Callie. Did she …?’

  ‘Sara!’ I remember the photo I’d found online and I hazard a guess. ‘You did the fun run with her for Cancer Research?’

  ‘Yes!’

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  ‘We were all so shocked to hear what happened. Look, let me ask Chris. He’s on his lunch break but I’m sure he’ll see you. He had a real soft spot for Callie.’ She pushes a piece of paper and a pen across the desk. ‘Fill in these forms so I can register you as a patient.’

  ‘Thanks.’ As she speaks on the phone I scan the posters on oral hygiene stuck to the walls but the words seem to blur into one. What am I doing? Lying. I’m bound to get caught out.

  ‘He’s on his way down,’ Sara says, and seconds later footsteps pound down the stairs.

  A man around my age wearing a white lab coat bursts into reception.

  ‘This is Chris,’ Sara says.

  ‘Hello,’ I say, and after a few awkward moments he says: ‘You look like her. Like Callie.’ There’s a catch in his voice. He’s staring at my hair as though committing every strand to memory. I shift my weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

  ‘Not really.’ I raise my hand and touch my head. ‘It’s the red hair. It’s very distinctive. Thanks for seeing me without an appointment. It’s really good of you. I don’t know if Sara explained…’ I’m gabbling. Filling the silence between us.

  ‘Yes. You’re worried about your gums. Come on up and I’ll take a look.’ He turns and I follow him up the steep stairs and into his room, where I drape my bag and jacket over the coat stand in the corner.

  I ask if I can use the loo before we start. I splash my face with cold water. I’m unnerved and I’m not sure if it’s his reaction to me, or being in Callie’s workplace that’s making my breath come a little faster, my cheeks feel a little warmer.

  Back in his room, Chris gestures towards the huge black chair and hands me a plastic apron to cover my clothes.

  ‘Were you close to her? Callie?’ I ask, desperate to fill the silence.

  ‘You’re her cousin?’

  ‘Yes.’ I falter. ‘She talked about you. Of course…’ I trail off and tie the apron straps around my waist as I gaze around the room, shiny white and chrome. There’s a corkboard hanging from the wall, a jumble of photos and postcards pinned with multicoloured tacks. In the centre is a photo of Chris and Callie, cheeks pressed together, smiling at the camera.

  ‘Work barbecue.’ Chris follows my eyeline. ‘So how long have your gums been bleeding?’

  ‘A few months.’ I tell him what medication I’m on but I don’t say what for.

  ‘That’s usual, I think, but you did the right thing calling in. It’s better to be safe than sorry, isn’t it?’

  I sit down as Chris snaps on plastic gloves. The chair whirrs as it tilts back, and as Chris picks up a stainless-steel instrument which glints in the glare of the overhead light I close my eyes and stretch my mouth wide open. I am conscious of a dribble of saliva that trickles down my chin. Sharp metal scrapes against my teeth and pokes my gums, and I try to concentrate on the radio in the background. It is tuned to a classical station.

  ‘I think the bleeding is an inevitable side effect of the drugs but everything looks good otherwise. Make another appointment for six months and we’ll keep an eye on it.’

  The chair whirrs again and I’m sitting upright, blinking at the brightness and swooshing pink liquid around my mouth and spitting into a stainless-steel bowl that gurgles and hisses. Chris pulls off his gloves and drops them into a wastepaper bin by his feet.

  ‘I’m sorry about Callie. I was very fond of her. We all were.’

  There’s a tap at the door.

  ‘That’s my next patient,’ Chris says, and I’m disappointed I haven’t been able to ask him any questions.

  ‘Thanks for squeezing me in,’ I say.

  ‘You’re welcome. See you again.’

  Downstairs, I rummage through my bag for my purse and wait while Sara bags up an orange toothbrush with a lion on the handle and a tube of toothpaste with strawberries on it for the toddler I saw on my way in.

  ‘Look. Doggie.’ The little boy points at his sticker of Scooby Doo, and I tell him I didn’t get a sticker, that he must have been a really good boy and he beams in delight.

  ‘How did it go?’ Sara asks me once they leave.

  ‘All good,’ I say. ‘Sara, do any of the staff here live in Woodhaven?’

  ‘Goodness. No. That would be a bit of a trek over here, wouldn’t it? Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s where Callie had her accident. We’re not sure why she was there. We’re desperate to find out.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Sorry.’

  ‘Is there anyone who might know? We don’t really know her friends; you know what it’s like with family. You don’t always share everything. Who did she hang around with?’

  ‘Just Nathan, I think. We used to take the mickey a bit, in a friendly way, but it was sweet. The way they were always together. He often dropped her at work and picked her up if their schedules matched. “Wish I had a man like that” I said more than once.’

  ‘How did she seem to you? In the days before she died?’

  ‘Let me think,’ Sara screws her face up. ‘She was off sick on the Monday. Some sort of bug. Nathan rang, wanting to speak to her so it must have come on suddenly after he left for work if he didn’t know she was at home. When she came back she looked awful, really pale. She had a black eye too. She said she’d slipped getting out of the shower. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said. “You’ll only pass it on and I don’t want to be throwing up for my birthday next weekend. If I catch it, I’ll kill you.”’ She lowers her gaze. ‘If I’d know she was going to… Well I’d never have said that.’

  ‘It’s just an expression. Please don’t feel bad. She’d hate that,’ I say, as if I really knew her.

  ‘She wouldn’t go home. She was too conscientious. She never liked taking time off. I made sure she didn’t do too much that week and I made a bit of a fuss of her. I even brought some homemade soup in but Nathan came and met her for lunch every day so she never got to have any.’

  Like Tom, Sara seems to think Nathan really looked after Callie but it almost sounds a little obsessive to me.

  ‘I’m sure she appreciated the thought.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Sara sniffs. ‘Anyway, how are her parents? Sophie?’

  ‘Tom and Amanda are coping as best they can but Sophie’s not here. She’s been in Spain for months but no one has heard from her.’

  ‘I suppose Sophie getting away is not a bad thing considering.’

  ‘Considering what?’

  Sara’s face colours. ‘She used to drink in the Prince of Wales; you know the pub on Green Street? Didn’t you know? She went a bit off the rails. Callie wasn’t happy about some of the crowd she was hanging out with.’

  ‘I’ll pop in there on my way home and see if anyone has heard from her. Thanks.’

  ‘Hang on a sec, I’ve remembered something.’ She turns and rifles through a drawer and when she turns back to me she passes me a clear plastic bag containing a chunky Nokia mobile phone. ‘I found this when I was clearing out Callie’s drawer. She had an iPhone so it wasn’t her current one. It hardly seemed worth bothering her parents with. It’s such an old handset, it’s probably been there for donkey’s years. It doesn’t switch on anyway. There were some Kit Kats too but I ate them. Is that terrible? We used to share.’

  ‘She wouldn’t mind.’ I’m beginning to believe I really did know her.

  I take the phone. Even though Sara has told me the
battery is flat I can’t help pressing the button, but the screen remains dark.

  As I leave the surgery, clutching the phone against my chest, I am conscious of eyes burning hot into the back of my head and I turn and look up at the consultation rooms. Chris’s shadow looms in the window.

  24

  After leaving the dentist I call into the Carphone Warehouse and pick up a charger for the phone Sara gave me, but rather than going straight home I head towards the pub Sophie used to drink in hoping to catch the crowd calling in for an after-work drink. Someone must have heard from her. Imagine how delighted Tom and Amanda will be if I can contact Sophie and convince her to come home?

  The Prince of Wales looks as far removed from royalty as you can get. The chipped and faded sign depicting a crown creaks in the wind and the single-paned windows vibrate with the sound of heavy rock music. Motorbikes line up against the kerb like soldiers, shiny chrome and slick black seats. It’s still early. The sky is peppered with smudges of indigo and grey as the moon and sun occupy the same space. I peep through the cracked glass panel in the door; the pub is surprisingly busy for the time of day. I take in the row of silver tankards hanging above the bar but when there’s a roar I step back hurriedly, my ankle turning in the process, but the door remains closed. As I peep inside once again I notice the TV hanging from the far wall, silently showing a football match while a couple of guys jeer at the screen.

  ‘You going in or what?’ I jump at the growling voice behind me and stutter my apologies, standing aside and letting the man push past me into the pub. As the door swings open the smell of stale beer rushes towards me. I follow the customer inside, my ankle throbbing as I walk.

  It might be my imagination but as I stand at the bar it seems the chatter in the pub quietens. There’s a chill on the back of my neck as though someone is standing beside me, softly breathing, but as I swing around no one is there. My hand is shaking as I pull a ten pound note out of my purse and wait for the barman to notice me. The thwack of pool balls behind me makes me jump and all at once everything seems loud. Too loud. Coins clatter from a fruit machine and sweat trickles between my shoulder blades. The urge to run away, back to the safety of my own flat is all-consuming, and I don’t notice the barman standing before me until he slams both palms down on the bar.

  ‘You deaf or something? I am talking English right, Neil?’

  The guy on the stool to my right sniggers. ‘Yeah. I understand you, Steve.’

  I open my mouth to speak but my words are stuck to the dry roof of my mouth.

  ‘Do. You. Want. A. Drink?’ Steve asks.

  My face is burning now but as I think of Tom and Amanda my sense of unease pales into comparison against their loss. I can do this. I lick my lips and swallow hard.

  ‘Lemon and lime.’ I look him in the eye. ‘Please.’ I add as he doesn’t move.

  ‘And do you want a straw with your lemon and lime?’

  I start to answer but Neil twists his head to look at me and says: ‘Perhaps she wants a cherry and an umbrella,’ and I know they’re laughing at me. The hope I’d felt that I could find some answers here seeps from my body, sapping the strength from my muscles as it leaves. I scrape a stool towards me and sit.

  My drink is banged on the bar in front of me and it spills over the side of the glass. Steve’s stare is challenging, almost daring me to say something. Lowering my eyes, I pick up a beer towel to mop up the puddle but the material is hard and crusty and I drop it and wipe my fingers on my jeans. My lemonade is flat and warm but the zing from the lime revitalises me. I straighten my spine and raise my head, pushing my drink back across the bar.

  ‘I’d like some ice.’

  There’s a beat and then a ghost of a smile flickers over Steve’s face. Neil roars with laughter and drags his stool closer to me, bringing the ice bucket with him. He stinks of oil and stale smoke, and I suppress the urge to recoil.

  ‘I’ve not seen you here before?’ Neil unzips his black hoody and shrugs it off. His hands are filthy and dark hair springs from the pale skin on his forearms. He lifts the lid on the bucket and scoops up ice cubes with his fingers, and I try not to grimace as he plops them into my drink. Pushing the thought of the dirt under his nails out of my mind I smile gratefully and pick up my glass, even though I can’t bring myself to take a sip.

  ‘I’ve just moved here,’ I lie. ‘My friend used to drink here. So I thought I’d try it out.’

  ‘Oh?’ He raises his pint of ale and sips. A frothy moustache covers his top lip, and he wipes it off with the back of his hand. ‘Who’s your friend?’

  ‘Her name’s Sophie.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone of that name. We get lots of girls in here.’

  ‘Hang on.’ I remember the photo Tom had given me, and I take it out of my purse and show it to Neil.

  ‘That’s Sophie, on the left. Do you know her?’

  ‘No. And I’ve drunk here for years.’ His expression is unreadable as he stares at me, and I shift uncomfortably, bracing my feet against the floor as my bottom slides across the wooden stool. I start to put the photo back in my bag but he plucks it out of my hand.

  ‘Steve,’ he hollers. ‘This girl is friends with someone called Sophie who apparently used to drink here.’ He dangles the photo between his fingers. ‘You’ve been here longer than me. Do you know her?’

  ‘Nope,’ Steve says without even turning and looking.

  ‘So where is she? This friend of yours?’ He leans towards me as he speaks. His breath reeks of onions.

  ‘I don’t know.’ His scrutiny is making my skin crawl. ‘She’s not really a friend.’

  ‘But you carry a photo of her around? She must be quite important to you? You look a bit like her sister.’ His tone has changed now as he studies me.

  ‘How do you know Callie is Sophie’s sister if you don’t know her?’ I challenge.

  ‘You must have said.’

  ‘I don’t think I did.’ I try to replay our conversation in my mind, but I’ve been so nervous already the details are sketchy.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ Any pretence of friendliness is gone as he stares at me, eyes narrowed.

  ‘No. Of course not.’ I grab the photo and open my bag but my hands are shaking and it slips from my grasp and the contents spill over the floor. Crouching down I slap my palm over a tampon that’s rolling away, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me.

  ‘You’re from Forest Gate? Not very local then?’ Neil has opened my purse and is reading my ID.

  ‘That was from before I moved,’ I lie as I snatch it back from him and stuff it into my bag, rising. ‘Is there a toilet here?’ Perhaps I can slip out of a fire exit.

  He jerks his head towards the back of the pub, and I rush towards the darkened doorway, the soles of my shoes sticking to the wooden floor with each and every step.

  I can’t see another way out and so I push my way through a chipped door marked ‘Ladies’. The toilets are pungent with chemicals. Bright pink liquid sloshed down stained toilet bowls. The opaque window above the ring-stained sink is cracked open, and I lean towards it, desperate for fresh air.

  Shadows move outside and there’s a scuffle. The sound of something being slammed against the wall. I hardly dare move as I hear a man pleading: ‘I’m sorry. I can get it. Please don’t—’

  There’s the sound of a thump. A cry. Another voice, deeper this time.

  ‘You’d better. You know what will happen if you don’t, and you don’t want to leave your kids without a father do you? Imagine how they’d feel if you had an accident?’

  And I think of Callie driving without a seatbelt and my blood runs cold. I know I have to leave the pub right now, but how?

  Peering around the door leading to the bar I can barely hear the sound of the jukebox over the whooshing of blood in my ears. The stool Neil was sitting on is deserted; his empty pint glass rests next to my full lemon and lime but his hoody is draped over the stool. Is it him I heard a
round the back? I dart towards the front door, ignoring the call of Steve behind me: ‘Don’t you want your drink, princess?’

  Outside, a couple of men loiter, cigarettes in hand, smoke curling into the air, and I shiver as I feel their eyes on me. I half-run down the road, my ankle pulsing with pain. Night is quickly drawing in, the sky turning to inky blue, and only every other street lamp is lit. It’s a long walk home and I hesitate when I see a bus stop, but I feel exposed standing still. The threat I’d heard outside the toilets fills my head, ‘we could make it look like an accident,’ and the circumstances of Callie’s crash bounce around my mind but I shake them away. The weather is turning, a mist descending, and as I walk I wrap my arms around my ribs in an effort to keep out the biting wind that stings my cheeks and numbs the tip of my nose. I’m only wearing a light jacket and a cotton scarf with sunflowers on; I’d forgotten how unforgiving spring evenings can sometimes be. Cars rumble slowly past, headlights slicing through the gloom. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle as I think I’m being watched, and I swing my head around but there’s no one to be seen. Increasing my pace, I stride along the street. Behind me there’s a noise I can’t identify and I stop. My heartbeat is pounding in my ears. I twist my head from left to right. The glow of a TV flickers through net curtains, and the thought someone is so close is comforting and I berate myself for being so paranoid. I’m toying with the idea of ringing Sam when there’s a shuffling from behind a parked car. Adrenaline heats my body as I strain my eyes, waiting for a movement. Everything in my peripheral vision fades away and there’s nothing to see but blackness. But then there’s a shift. A shadow. And I turn and run. Feet pounding along the pavement.

  It’s not too far home now but I’m breathless by the time I reach the crossing. I jab the button but I don’t wait for the lights to change before I race across the road. It’s quiet as I hurry across the park. In the pond, the ducks have tucked their heads under their wings. There are no toddlers chucking crusts into the murky water. As I pass the play area there’s a creaking, and I freeze. What was that? The wind gusts again, and I realise it’s a swing moving as though a ghost child is playing in the deserted playground.