My Second Life

by Faye Bird

  My heart started beating faster.

  I felt hot.

  I coughed and opened my eyes to check where I was.

  We were moving slowly through a tunnel. I closed my eyes again.

  I willed for something more to come. Nothing.

  I could feel a pain—in my head—a pressure, building.

  Where was my dad?

  I looked up again to see where I was.

  I couldn’t settle.

  The pain was hovering over my eyes now, crawling over my scalp.

  Embankment.

  I’d killed her.

  The little girl. Catherine. I’d killed her.

  I held my hands up to cradle my head … to soothe the pain.

  I could just about see the sign. “Embankment.” It was definitely Embankment.

  I was a good person, wasn’t I? I’d always been a good person.

  Did I have to pay for what I’d done?

  I screwed my eyes shut.

  Is that why I was here again? To pay?

  I squeezed my eyes shut—tighter still—there was only pain.

  I had to get rid of the pain. I had to.

  My head felt like it was going to explode. A constant high-pitched tone in my ears was drowning out the rattle of the Tube. Every movement of the carriage hurt me … every rock and turn … I’d seen Frances—and now this. Was it only ever a matter of time? Frances and the memories, the feelings, this knowledge—that I’d killed Catherine—it must have all been sitting there, like a tumor growing quietly on the brain. And now—now I had to find a way to stop it, to nuke it, shrink it, make it go away … I wanted to scream out with the pain, with the fear, with the feeling that I might just explode into a thousand tiny pieces if I did nothing. If I just sat there and did nothing …

  Gloucester Road.

  A voice told me it was Gloucester Road.

  I had to change.

  I had to go now.

  To the hospital.

  I had to see Frances.

  It was the only thing I could do.

  And as soon as I had the thought—as soon as I decided that I would go and see her—the pain lifted slightly, and I was certain that it was the right thing to do.

  5

  THE CLOSER I GOT to the hospital the more sick I felt. The pressure had lessened in my head, but the black feelings, they were all still there. When I walked up to the nurses’ station in the ward my hands were visibly shaking. I didn’t want to see any of the same nurses I’d seen when I was here visiting Grillie.

  “Who are you here to see then, my love?” the nurse said. She was new. She didn’t know who I was, and as I went to answer my mouth was dry as a pit. The words felt like they were stuck to my lips.

  “Frances Wells … I’m her niece,” I lied.

  The nurse said how nice it would be for Frances to have a visitor, how Frances hadn’t had any visitors since she’d been in, and the nurse kept on talking as we made our way through the ward to the room. No one had taken Grillie’s bed yet, and I was only half listening to the nurse because I could see Frances now. She sat strong and upright in bed, reading. She looked better, better than she had before. She glanced up at me and then back at her book, smoothing a cloth bookmark between her fingers as she read.

  She didn’t look up again.

  She clearly hadn’t seen me, or recognized me, but then she had been asleep when I’d visited before.

  I wished she would recognize me. If she recognized me—if she saw something in me that reminded her of Emma—then she would be more likely to believe me. I was sure of that. I wasn’t as beautiful as Emma. I knew that. People had told me I was beautiful when I was Emma. They didn’t do that now. But maybe, just maybe, something—my eyes, my voice—would remind her of Emma.

  “I’m not sure that she’ll recognize me,” I said to the nurse as we neared the bed. “It’s been quite a long time.”

  “I’ll leave you to it then, my love,” she said, and she left.

  “Hello,” I said.

  Frances looked up at me. She didn’t speak.

  “I’m Millie’s granddaughter. Millie who was here, in that bed next to you,” and I pointed.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know Millie.” She was very clear, very definite with her words. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  I felt so nervous. I’d never felt this nervous about anything before.

  There was a pause.

  “You know Millie’s gone home now, don’t you?” she said.

  “Yes, yes I do. I … I came to see you.”

  I was stumbling over my words now. I swallowed, to try to calm myself down, to get some saliva in my mouth.

  “To see me?” Frances said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  My legs started to shake uncontrollably. “Can I sit down?”

  Frances nodded to the chair next to her bed. There was a white plastic bag full of wool and needles on the chair. “Move that bag—here…” She motioned for me to pass it over to her, then set it down on the bed and put her book on the bedside table. Everything she did was very slow, ordered. She didn’t take her eyes off me once, and her fingers, resting on the edge of the sheet, were constantly rubbing the material between her forefinger and her thumb, as if for comfort.

  “Do I know you?” she said.

  And my heart beat so loudly when she said it that my chest shuddered in response.

  “Yes. I think so,” I said. “That’s why I came back—to see you. Because—because I think I know you. I mean … when I saw you here, lying in that bed … I knew who you were.”

  “Right,” she said. And I felt cold now. So cold I was shivering. But I had to keep talking. I had to.

  “You lived on The Avenue, didn’t you?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I still do.”

  My heart bashed my chest again. I could feel the blood rushing around my body, or was it adrenaline? Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. I pressed my hands together in my lap to stop them lifting up toward my heart. I wanted to protect my heart, cup it, soften the bashing, make it slow. If Frances still lived there now in the house I remembered, and she was in hospital here, then The Avenue couldn’t be that far away.

  If I was this close to Frances, to where she had lived, where she still lived now, could I be close to my mum too? Could I be close enough to find her? To see her? And Dad?

  “You’ve lived there a long time,” I said, trying to hide the weakness in my voice.

  “Forty-five years next April,” she said, and she looked at me with a stare that was utterly unreadable. And I realized that the whole time we’d been speaking she hadn’t blinked. Not once. “Do you live nearby? I’ve never seen you. I’m quite sure.”

  I shook my head.

  And I said it—

  “I knew your daughter.” I just said it.

  And I held my breath, after I did, to hold on to the sob that was rising in my chest.

  “Millie told me that she lives on Connaught Gardens. That’s close by. Perhaps we’ve seen each other, in the street.”

  “No—I knew your daughter!” I cried out, standing up as I spoke.

  Frances paused before she answered, her eyes still firmly fixed on mine.

  “I heard you the first time,” she said. “Now sit down.” I sat automatically, at her command.

  “I … I know it sounds like the most unlikely, most unbelievable thing you’ve ever heard,” I said, “but—”

  “My daughter died thirty-four years ago. Thirty—four—years.” She repeated the words, emphasizing every syllable, as if the pain of all those years was encapsulated in each and every sound.

  “I know, but…” I had to tell her I was Emma. I had to tell her. If I couldn’t tell her, then there was no one I could tell. No one.

  “I’d like you to leave now,” she said.

  “Don’t make me leave!” I said. “I’ve got to talk to you.” Suddenly I was desperate.

  A nurse a
pproached the bed with a fresh water jug and said how nice it was that Frances had a visitor and how she must be pleased. Frances just nodded and smiled. I waited for the nurse to leave. It felt like an age, but eventually she went. And then Frances spoke again.

  “Memory is a strange thing,” she said. “I’d say you’ve seen me before, around and about, but you just haven’t remembered, until now.”

  “No! That’s not it—it’s not—” My voice was getting louder now.

  “Your grandma lives near me. You’ve probably seen me somewhere in Teddington when you were visiting her.”

  “No!” I said again. “It’s not that—”

  “My memory plays tricks on me all the time,” Frances said, interrupting me, slow and strong. And as she spoke she cast her eyes around the ward as if she were looking for someone to call over, to raise an alarm. Was she going to call security? Was she going to get me removed? I panicked.

  “Please—please,” I said. “I want to talk to you about Catherine—” and my voice cracked as I said her name. “Please—” I was leaning forward now, speaking in an urgent half whisper. “Please—”

  Frances turned her head back toward me and looked straight into my eyes. It was a hard look.

  “I was Catherine’s mother,” she said. “Once. A very long time ago. But as I told you, she died.”

  “I know,” I said. It was all I could think to say.

  “Did Millie tell you?” she asked

  “What?”

  “About Catherine.”

  “She told me you’d lost your daughter.”

  “And that’s why you’re here?”

  “Well, yes … no … I knew already … That’s why I’m here. Because I knew.”

  “I don’t know how you could have known Catherine. I don’t even know how you know her name. I never told Millie her name.” And she looked suddenly pale, pale as paper, and I was scared. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to make her ill again.

  I shouldn’t have come. What was I thinking? I panicked.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” And I stood up and reached out and touched her hand, to try to make better what I’d said, what I’d done by coming here, and as I did I was shocked by a sudden tightening in my chest. I felt like I was being squeezed from the outside in, tighter and tighter, and I opened my mouth to try to pull in some air, but the air, it was less and less clear to breathe. I couldn’t grasp a breath, not even one, and I thought my chest would cave in with the trying. I pulled my hand away from Frances’s—and a breath came to me. I felt the oxygen seeping back into my lungs, my chest, rising and falling in relief. The panic subsided.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  Frances didn’t speak. She just watched me. She watched me as I walked out of the ward, out of her sight, and as soon as I was, I broke into a run. I ran through the corridors, down the cold stairwell, and I didn’t stop until I was outside in the bright and natural light of day.

  I sat on the wall in front of the main entrance of the hospital and put my head between my knees. I was immediately and urgently sick, all over the pavement between my feet. I raised my head to pull my hair out of my eyes and to wipe my mouth. People walked by, but no one came over, and I was glad. I didn’t want to see or speak to anyone. I just wanted to be alone, to be away from everyone. To cry and cry and cry.

  But the tears, they wouldn’t come.

  6

  I WALKED HOME. IT took me an hour. I was tired and my body felt heavy. Three buses passed me, but I didn’t care. However tired and emotionally sick I felt now, I had to be alone. I couldn’t sit with a stranger on the bus, and I couldn’t go home. I’d suffocate in my own sadness if I did. I’d been so close to my first life. I’d reached out and touched it. I’d never dared to think that it would have been possible before. But now it was, and it wasn’t in any way what I’d wanted it to be.

  I felt my phone vibrate in my bag as I turned onto our road. It was a text. Jamie.

  I didn’t see you this afternoon. You OK?

  I put my phone back in my bag and opened the front door and went straight up to my room. I needed to avoid Rachel. I quietly closed my bedroom door and slid down to sit with my back against it. Rachel called out a “Hello.”

  “Hi!” I shouted back, trying to hide the upset in my voice.

  “You want something to eat? I’ve made us lasagna.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  I pulled my phone out of my bag and looked at Jamie’s text again. He wanted to know if I was okay. He didn’t normally send me texts asking whether I was okay.

  I closed my eyes.

  I wanted to cry, but still, nothing would come.

  I screwed my eyes shut and held my breath, like I could wring out a tear, force something out of me, but all I could think about, in that moment, was Jamie and the way he’d looked at me yesterday in the café.

  Thinking about Jamie felt good. Better than anything else.

  I opened my eyes, looked at my phone, and texted him back.

  Went home sick. OK now. See you tomorrow.

  “It’s on the table!” Rachel’s voice came up the stairs.

  “I’m coming!” I got up off the floor and looked at myself in the mirror. I grabbed my brush and pulled it through my hair so that I didn’t look so weird. I rubbed my face with my hands, as if I could wipe away the sadness and confusion. But it was all over me. So I tried a smile—a fake one, a practice—and I headed down.

  “Are you all right?” Rachel asked as soon as she saw me.

  “Yeah,” I said, sitting down at the table.

  “You’re flushed.” She stood up and put her hand on my forehead, like she did when I was small. I looked up at her and saw Mum. Not Rachel, but Mum. My first mum. Her soft blond hair and her twinkly eyes, and I felt sick with the loss of her.

  “You haven’t got a temperature,” Rachel said. “Do you feel okay?”

  “I’m not that hungry, actually,” I said, pushing my plate away from me. The smell of the food made me want to gag. “Do you mind if I just go up to bed?”

  “Sure. Do you want anything?”

  “I’m just tired, I think.”

  “Well, go up then. I’ll come up in a bit and see how you are.”

  I climbed into bed with all my clothes on and I wrapped the duvet around me. It felt comforting and I was warm. I closed my eyes and turned myself over onto my back, ready to try to feign sleep. It felt like a familiar thing to do, to lie down, to close my eyes, to shut out the world. I knew I’d lain like this many times before when I was Emma; I’d buried myself in duvets and blankets—cocoonlike—and it was reassuring. I could hear Rachel scraping the plates, and the general kitchen clatter below me as she loaded the dishwasher, and I knew she’d be up soon.

  And then the phone rang downstairs. Rachel answered. It was Grillie. I could tell it was her from the way Rachel chatted on. And then she was quieter, listening. “Right,” she said. “Okay … Who…? What do you mean…? Today?” There was a pause. “Right … I’ll talk to her and let you know … Of course…”

  And then she hung up, and I lay still and closed my eyes, waiting for her. But she never came to check on me like she said she would.

  thursday

  7

  WHEN I GOT UP the next day I was completely starving. I’d slept in my uniform. I should have put on a clean shirt, clean tights, but I didn’t care about changing now. I was just so hungry. I got straight out of bed and went downstairs and had a pile of toast and some juice and then grabbed some biscuits, a banana, and my water bottle and stuffed it all in my bag. Rachel had left early for work, and I was glad that I could just take what I wanted without her asking too many questions. I raided the back of the cupboard for chocolate and found some. Brilliant. I was going to need it. Because when I’d woken up it had come to me—what I had to do. I’d skip school, just one more time, just this morning—school wouldn’t expect to see me after
yesterday anyway. I’d sort out a sick note later. I had to go to the library—see if I could find something about Catherine’s death. Something in an old newspaper report. Something that might tell me more. Because the thought of talking to Frances again was just too hard. Talking to her had frightened me. She was old and ill and I didn’t want to make her worse. I couldn’t bear the thought that I might do that—upset her. Not again.

  I picked my bag up off the table and slung it onto my back, ready to leave.

  My phone rang in my pocket. Rachel’s work number.

  “Hi,” she said. “Did you get my note?”

  “What note?”

  “The one on the kitchen table, Ana.”

  “No…” I looked around for it, but I could see nothing.

  “Nevermind,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” I said.

  “Good. Did you eat this morning?”

  “Yes. Just toast.”

  “Have you left the house yet?”

  “I…” I didn’t know what to say. Why was she asking me? Did she know I wasn’t going to go in? That I had ditched yesterday? If she did, why wasn’t she saying anything about it?

  “Ana? Are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, have you left the house yet or not?”

  “No, not yet,” I said. “I’m—I’m just packing my bag now…”

  “It’s just I seem to have lost my phone. I thought I’d left it at work, but it isn’t here. Can you see it anywhere?”

  “Where would it be?” I said.

  “I don’t know—try the hall.”

  I walked into the hall and moved the mail around, searching.

  “Why don’t you ring it?”

  I bent down to look under the side table.

  “Got it—I’ve got it,” I said, picking up the phone.

  “Brilliant. Look, I’m expecting a call this afternoon. I’ll come to school at lunchtime. How about I take you for a crepe. You can give it to me then. Okay?”

  I turned Rachel’s phone over in my hand.

  There was a missed call from school.