Catch Me When I Fall

by Nicci French

  ‘You would have had to tell him in the end.’

  ‘I guess,’ she said.

  ‘Was it awful?’

  ‘Not entirely good.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘Who can blame him? Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not much.’ She drank some water. ‘He went very, very blank. He retreated into his study. You know, the place where he pretends to work.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said blankly.

  ‘He can’t take any more. I was remembering something while I was waiting for you to arrive. When I cracked up in the street, attacked those people and was dragged off to hospital, I’d just run away from the house. He didn’t know where I was. For all he knew I could have gone off and thrown myself under a bus. The police rang him and told him and he came to the hospital. I was raving like a lunatic…’ She gave a sour laugh at that. ‘What do I mean like a lunatic? But when I saw the expression on his face, the anger and despair, there was a sane bit of me that felt so guilty. I knew I’d never be able to make good what I’d done to him. He could shout at me and storm out a thousand times, and it would never be one iota of what I’ve done to him, day after day and week after week. He should never have met me.’

  ‘Don’t say things like that.’

  ‘I wreck everything.’

  ‘Come and stay with us,’ I said, suddenly urgent without knowing why. ‘Just till things get better. Don’t go home, Holly.’

  She looked at me and grinned ruefully. ‘You keep telling me everything’s all right,’ she said. ‘Are you now saying it isn’t?’

  ‘Just for a bit,’ I said.

  ‘Finish your tomato juice, my friend,’ she said gently, ‘and get back to your desk.’

  36

  I told myself that Charlie was a nice enough man, not a hero but not a villain either, who was having an affair with Naomi. After what he had been through, who could blame him? It was painful to think about Holly struggling to save her marriage while all the time Charlie was having this fling, if that was all it was. I wasn’t going to tell her. Whenever I thought of her, it was as someone fragile, with a delicate mechanism that could go wrong at any time, and I knew I mustn’t jeopardize her recovery.

  I didn’t see Holly for several days, but as I sat at my desk, I kept trying to imagine what she would say. It was as if I had her voice inside my head as well as my own. I spoke to her on the phone, just to check she was all right. She sounded fine, quite steady and determined. A date for Stuart’s trial had been set for May and she said she felt ambivalent about the whole thing. ‘I keep thinking it was my fault.’

  ‘He broke into the house and attacked you.’

  ‘Still,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll be no good in the witness box.’

  ‘I’ll just say what happened. Warts and all.’

  She told me she was running and swimming every day. Three times a week she had therapy with a woman in Muswell Hill. ‘It’s a pretty narcissistic existence,’ she said. ‘I’m just concentrating on looking after my body and healing my mind. Boring, boring, boring. I can’t begin to tell you how much I long for work – something outside myself. I’m sure it would do me good to come back now.’

  ‘You’ll be here soon enough,’ I said. ‘Just a few weeks now.’

  I asked her how Charlie was doing, and she said he was being ‘sweet’ again. ‘No sex life, though. Sometimes I think maybe I’ll never have sex again.’

  ‘Is it the pills?’ I asked, feeling like a traitor.

  ‘It’s not me, it’s him. He thinks of me as an invalid.’

  ‘It’s early days,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe I can try and seduce him on holiday,’ she said. ‘Pounce and not take no for an answer.’

  ‘When are you going? Where are you going, for that matter?’

  ‘I don’t know the answer to either of those questions. Charlie’s arranging it all. He’s trying to get some cheap deal.’

  ‘I’ll come and see you after this weekend-away thing with those chartered surveyors, unless you’ve gone by then.’

  ‘I wish I could be there too.’

  She sounded so wistful. I saw how easy it would be to say, ‘Then come to work now.’ Or even, ‘Don’t take the drugs, then: go back to your old wild happiness and your days of infinite sadness.’ I forced myself to sound blandly cheerful. ‘I bloody wish you could too. It won’t be the same without you. It won’t be fun.’

  When I put the phone down, I felt a nagging anxiety, like an unreachable itch in my brain, and it didn’t go away through all the meetings and tasks. I got a sandwich from the deli for lunch and sat in the empty office, staring at my computer screen but seeing Holly’s face.

  The phone rang, making me jump: it was our solicitor, asking further questions about Deborah’s terms of employment. I pulled open drawers to find the details and, while I was doing so, saw the square brown envelope Rees had dropped on to my desk that day, full of photographs of Holly. I’d stuffed it out of sight, like a dirty secret, but now, after putting the phone down, I took out the sheaf of glossy images. I was amazed and dismayed by how many there were.

  They had all been taken secretly. Holly had thought she was alone, free from the gaze of strangers, and all the time she was being spied on and captured on film. I could hardly bring myself to look at them, and yet although it felt almost indecent to do so, I couldn’t prevent myself picking each one up and gazing at it, trying to see in Holly’s face what she was going through at the time. The pictures were a chronology of her illness, tracing her journey of euphoria, depression and finally florid madness. Views of her that nobody was ever meant to see.

  The first one I picked up was a bit blurred, just Holly, quite close up and in half-profile. She was wearing her suede jacket and a funny little beret with her hair tucked inside it, and on her face was an expression I’d rarely seen: a kind of dreamy, vague pensiveness. Another showed her outside the office, but this time she was further off and I was beside her. I was anxious, hands pushed deep into my coat pockets, head down, frowning. I looked as if I was in a different world from Holly, who had been caught mid-stride and in exuberant conversation. Her open coat flew behind her; her hands were up in a wide, familiar gesture; her hair was snaking down her face; her mouth, painted bright red, was open and grinning. She looked so alive I almost expected to see her move. She also looked hysterical.

  There she was again, on the arm of a man I recognized as Stuart and wearing some ridiculous shoes. She wasn’t looking at Stuart, who was gazing rapturously down at her, but straight ahead, and her mouth was pursed.

  I flicked through them. One of Holly from the back. She was carrying several cans of paint and climbing into a taxi, and a man with a cadaver’s face was leaning forward to help her in; there was another figure in the cab, but the photo had been taken at night and it was impossible to make out who it was. One from the distance of Holly walking in the park with Charlie, in a grainy light that might have meant rain. Again, I noted how while his arms were folded, hers were raised in the air. Even in photos you could see how rarely she was still. One of Holly in shapeless tracksuit trousers and greasy hair, looking like an old woman, her shoulders drooping.

  And then, suddenly, a picture I almost dropped with the shock of it. For there was Holly looming into view and at first I didn’t recognize her: it was like a cartoon version of her, everything recognizable but exaggerated. She was wearing a nightdress and mismatched high-heeled shoes, a scarf trailing from one shoulder on to the pavement. Her hair was a tangle and her mouth was wide open in – what? A scream of terror, an animal howl of pain, a shriek of mindless sexual pleasure? I could scarcely keep my eyes on the intense, terrible intimacy of that picture. I saw now that I had never let myself fully imagine what Holly had experienced over months and years: the torment she had been in.

  My eyes glanced over the faces of the people near her. They were almost all staring at her,
so that even though she was on the left of the picture, you got the impression she was in the centre. A young man was laughing and pointing at her. I flushed to the roots of my hair, and then I felt angry. Nobody would ever look at this image again, or see my dear friend so mad with pain and grief that she had almost ceased to be human. I held the two edges of the photo between finger and thumb and tore it in half, then dropped it into the bin beneath my desk.

  And then, without knowing why, I froze. I had seen something and hadn’t seen it. I had a memory of something but I didn’t know what it was. I stooped down, and retrieved the two halves. I looked at Holly, at the figures around her – in front of her and behind her. I saw what I had seen without seeing, and known without knowing. I saw him. Just on the edge of the frame, several paces behind Holly, wearing his leather jacket and looking towards the distraught woman with a calm, scrutinizing face quite different from any of the curious, gleeful, pitying faces around him.

  Charlie.

  I closed my eyes and heard Holly’s voice speaking to me: ‘When I cracked up in the street, attacked those people and was dragged off to hospital, I’d just run away from the house. He didn’t know where I was. For all he knew I could have gone off and thrown myself under a bus. The police rang him and told him and he came to the hospital. I was raving like a lunatic…’ That’s what she’d said. That’s what Charlie had told her. But he’d been following her all the time, watching her break down on the bridge. Watching? And waiting? Waiting for her to kill herself? I stared at the photograph again, and saw how collected he was.

  I pulled the phone towards me and called her mobile, but got voicemail. ‘Holly,’ I said. ‘Holly, it’s me, Meg, and when you get this, call me. At once, do you hear? Just call me. It’s urgent.’

  Then I dialled her home number, and listened to the phone ringing and ringing in an empty house.

  37

  I forced myself to be calm so that I could go over and over it in my mind, although I could almost feel my brain working: sparking, fizzing, crackling with energetic horror. I made a mental checklist of the sort I would do while preparing for a job, just to make sure that everything fitted together, that nothing had been forgotten. So: the way that Charlie had talked about her suicidal mood, about losing her, it had sounded as if he was preparing for something. He had spiralling money troubles caused by Holly. There was Naomi. And now there was the photograph. Any of them on their own might not have been decisive. But put them together. Was it a real pattern or was I, like a child, seeing pictures in the clouds?

  And then it struck me like a blow to my skull that Charlie had been in the house while Holly was trying to kill herself. It was he, rather than Holly, who’d called Naomi’s number, as his wife lay dying. He had been there and he had done nothing. He must have known suddenly that life for him would be better with Holly dead. Without her he would be free again: not the crushed, shamed husband of his present, but the carefree, handsome man he had been before they met.

  But this was Charlie, I reminded myself. I pictured his face in my mind. Charlie, the man I’d almost been in love with once. The man I’d liked, admired, pitied and called my friend, my kindred spirit. I saw his creased, smiling face, the crow’s feet round his eyes, his comfortable rumpled clothes. I remembered his expression as he concentrated on some bit of DIY, the way he half frowned but looked so contented. I pictured the way he always smiled when he saw me, laying a warm hand on my shoulder. I remembered him as he’d been at first with Holly, almost dazed with love, basking in the warmth of her passion. No, it couldn’t be true. It was ludicrous, repellent, hysterical, insane.

  But even as I thought this, I gazed down at the photograph, at his cool, watching face. This was a man I didn’t know, a man in the grip of a new, unfamiliar emotion. And I looked, too, at the raw, grotesque image of Holly, out of her skull with self-destructive energy. Fear ran through me in little spasms. I jabbed in Holly’s number again, knowing she wouldn’t answer.

  ‘Come on,’ I said into the phone. ‘Pick up.’

  Where were they? I tried frantically to recall my last conversation with Holly. Had she said anything that might give a clue? She had talked about their last-minute holiday but nothing had been arranged and it was Charlie who was planning it, not her. Who might know? I rang a couple of friends, but Holly hadn’t been in touch with them recently. I rang Holly’s mother, but there was no answer. I felt almost feverish with anxiety, but forced myself to calm down. Finding them shouldn’t be so difficult: there had to be an easy answer. Suddenly I remembered the phone number Holly had given me for the brochure. That was it, surely. I fumbled in my purse and found the torn-off piece of paper, folded in half. I noticed that Holly’s writing was scribbled across it, even more slapdash than usual, and glanced at it before opening it up for the number: ‘My dear and loyal Meg,’ I read. That was all. I didn’t have time to think about it, only to feel emotion punch me once more in the chest. I was her dear and loyal friend and I had to help her. I jabbed in the number with trembling fingers.

  A woman answered. I said that friends of mine had booked a holiday with them and I needed to contact them because of a private emergency. I thought that was a good phrase: it sounded scary but would also discourage too many questions. She was reluctant. She said that it was a matter of policy and that she wasn’t allowed to give out customers’ details. I very nearly lost my temper, except that when I nearly lose my temper I don’t shout. I do the opposite and become very cold and quiet and almost legalistic.

  ‘You’re a travel firm not a doctor’s surgery,’ I said. ‘There’s been an emergency. I need to contact them to give them some information that is very important to them. If this is a problem for you, could you please pass me on to your supervisor?’

  She asked me to wait. I could hear a murmur as she talked to someone.

  ‘I’ll see if I can trace the booking,’ she said to me finally.

  I waited for several minutes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said. ‘I can’t find anything.’

  ‘That’s not possible,’ I said. ‘Have you checked under both their names?’

  She had and it was hopeless. I almost burst into tears of frustration and rage. A thought came into my mind: Naomi. If anyone knew, she would. I couldn’t do this on the phone. It was too important. I had to see her in person and I had to think tactically. Trish was back from lunch. I told her I would be out for a bit and I wasn’t sure when I’d be back. I’d ring her. I caught a taxi to the house, thinking all the way of how I was going to handle this. The driver was talking about something, illegal immigrants, I think, but to me he was like an annoying noise in the street. I tuned him out. When I arrived, I rang Charlie and Holly’s doorbell in case. Nothing. So I tried next door. As I rang Naomi’s bell, it occurred to me for the first time that she might not be there and all this would be a disastrous waste of time when there was no time to lose, and then she opened the door and I felt I was stepping on to a stage under the glare of the lights, with the audience watching and expectant.

  ‘Meg?’ she said, surprised.

  I walked into the hall, without her inviting me.

  ‘I, er,’ I said, forgetting my lines, ‘I came to see Holly about something. Something important. Can I come up?’

  ‘I…’ she began, but I was already mounting the narrow stairs towards her bedsit.

  ‘Just for a minute or so.’

  ‘I think they’ve gone away for a few days,’ she said, opening the door on to a spotless but depressing room: a beige sofa, a small table pushed against the wall with two chairs beside it, a rubber plant in the corner, swallowing up the light.

  ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell Holly,’ I said. ‘To do with work. They didn’t leave a phone number, did they?’

  There was too long a pause and Naomi forced a smile. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not with me, anyway. Why would they?’

  ‘Charlie has a mobile, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Then
, too hastily, ‘But I don’t have his number.’

  ‘It’s important,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t have his number,’ she repeated.

  ‘Naomi,’ I began, but saw the stubborn set of her jaw, her watchful eyes, and stopped dead. It was no use trying to persuade her.

  I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what to do. Then I saw a ring-backed diary on the low table by her sofa. Was it possible? And what could I do about it? I mustn’t leave. Not yet.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘how do you think things are? With Holly, I mean.’

  ‘Not good,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Charlie thinks…’

  ‘I know – he thinks she’ll try again. Do you?’

  ‘I’m sometimes very scared that…’

  ‘Can I have some coffee?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Coffee, do you have any?’

  ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ she said.

  ‘Just instant.’

  ‘I don’t have instant.’

  ‘Or a tea-bag.’

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  We looked at each other, each hating the other, then Naomi left the room.

  I waited a moment. ‘Can I help?’ I shouted.

  ‘Come on through,’ she called back, sounding horribly close through the thin walls.

  I picked up the diary and flicked through it until I got to the current week. There was something. I’d hoped for an address. It was a phone number, a long area code, not London. Of course, it might be her mum or a builder or anything. Oh, please, God, I thought, please, please, I’ll be good for ever and ever. It was too long to memorize. I found a pen on the mantelpiece and wrote it on the back of my hand. I heard footsteps, flicked the book shut and scribbled the last numbers.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She had come into the room behind me. I spun round. ‘Ideas,’ I said ludicrously.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ideas come to me and I have to write them down or I’ll forget them and I never have a notebook when I need one so I just write them on anything that comes to hand. Such as a hand. I had a thought for a presentation.’ I flashed my hand very quickly so she couldn’t see there were only numbers. ‘But you don’t want to hear all this.’