Before I Let You In

by Jenny Blackhurst

  ‘And what happens to you when they don’t need you any more?’

  ‘That’s not going to happen,’ she replied confidently. ‘They will always need me.’

  38

  Bea

  Her eyes were closed but she could smell cut grass and river water. The breeze cut through her hair and she pumped her legs harder to push herself further out over the water. The branch that the rope was twisted around creaked dangerously, and Bea’s fingers gripped the swing until her knuckles turned white. She hadn’t thought too much about how she was going to get herself back on to the riverbank, not stopping to consider when she pulled the dirty old tyre swing towards her that her thirty-five-year-old body might not be as supple as her sixteen-year-old one had been. Not to mention that it was long summer days she and her friends had spent down here rather than cold autumn ones, and their forays on to the rope swing had nearly always ended by plunging into the refreshingly icy water. These days the water just looked filthy and scum-topped; it was a wonder none of them had caught E. coli.

  She often came back here – although she didn’t tell the others – to relive those carefree teenage days, the days before any of them realised that bad things could happen to them.

  They had found this stretch of river, with its dusty mud platform reaching out into the water and hidden by trees and bushes higher up the bank. You had to climb or slide down a narrow gap in the greenery to where half a dozen teenagers lounged on the dirt platform passing around two-litre bottles of White Lightning and lemonade bottles filled with whatever concoctions they could steal from their parents’ alcohol cupboards. The sun cast leafy patterns on their denim shorts as they took turns boosting each other on to the rope swing – it had been a branch back then; no sophisticated tyre set-up back in the old days – screaming as they tried to make the leap back on to dry land and failed.

  And then there was the last time …

  They hadn’t visited the river in years; they had grown up, moved on. All three of them were at university, and the boys they used to try to impress had long moved on to other girls, less educated and more fun. Adulthood had grown on them like a tumour, almost undetectable at first, and by the time they had noticed, it was terminal. They had returned home for the summer after their first year – the year Bea’s life had veered so far off course it had formed a permanently new track – with an urgency that none of them could explain. It was as though with the knowledge that bad things could happen to good people the veil had been lifted from their eyes and they were fighting it with everything they had. That summer they reverted to their adolescent selves: they took Saturday evening jobs in bars and spent their days sunbathing in Eleanor’s parents’ garden, or down by the river. The nights they had off work were passed in an alcoholic haze, just the three of them this time, wearing jeans and Doc Martens rather than as little as they could get away with. It felt to Bea as though her friends knew she was spiralling out of control and they had two choices: try to pull her back, or stick as close to her as possible while she fell.

  ‘Who’s going to boost me?’

  The sun had begun to push its way through the clouds now, and Bea let her legs stop pumping and leaned back gently. She could hear the words as clearly as if she’d spoken them out loud only seconds ago; pictured herself stumbling to her feet, dusting off her jeans and attempting an upright position.

  ‘Come on, we can’t come to the river and not swing. Who’s going to boost me?’

  Karen had opened one eye lazily, looked at her and closed it again.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t go swimming with the amount you’ve had to drink.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ Bea poked a finger in the direction of her friend, despite Karen not being able to see her. ‘That’s eating. You can’t go swimming until two hours after you’ve eaten. There’s no law on drinking.’

  ‘Karen’s right, Bea.’

  But Bea wasn’t listening. She was already wrapping the rope around her wrist, wedging her foot against the tree to boost herself up. She’d grown taller since the last time she was there, slimmed down a bit too, and it was easier than she’d expected to pull herself on to the seat without any help. It wedged uncomfortably between her legs and the branch above groaned almost theatrically, but she’d consumed too much alcohol to notice, or maybe just too much to care. She kicked her legs against the tree, sending herself spinning out over the river, closing her eyes to stop the alcohol surging back up into her throat. When she opened them again, the world was a blur of green and brown, the trees, the bank, the river itself all merged together so completely that she couldn’t pick out what was what any more.

  That was how her whole life felt, the days blurring into night, alcohol blurring the edges until every day seeped into the next, indistinguishable from the last. Even Karen and Eleanor didn’t know the extent of how much she’d been drinking, how her tutor had told her that if she came back in the same state she’d left in, then she might as well not bother.

  The crack of the seat had sounded to Bea like a gunshot echoing out over the river. She was falling almost before she’d registered what was happening, the force of entry and the temperature of the water sucking the air from her lungs. Instinctively her legs kicked towards the surface and she pulled in gulps of air. Shock gave way to relief and she was about to wave to the two women screaming on the bank that she was okay when the current yanked her under.

  Every time she’d thought about the incident since, it was with humour. She and Eleanor laughed – remember when you were so wasted you almost drowned in the river? – but Karen refused to talk about it ever again. Karen had never gone back to that stretch of the river after Eleanor had waded in to drag her friend on to the bank, pounded on her chest weeping until Bea had coughed up half of the river and half of her stomach contents at the same time. Maybe it was because she’d frozen – capable Karen frozen stiff in an emergency. She’d never been in the river all the time Bea had known her, but after that she treated it almost as an enemy, a physical being that had conspired to remove her friend from the world. In time, as they realised, they stopped talking about the episode in front of her.

  Bea herself had been scared enough to spend a few days off the alcohol, and then it had seemed less necessary to get blasted every day. She’d gone back to university more or less sober and spent her Saturday nights catching up on what she’d missed the year before rather than searching for something she couldn’t put into words and trying to prove to herself that she was unaffected by her experience. She had allowed herself to heal. So in a way the river had been the third-best friend she’d ever had. It had saved her life once and maybe it would work again, she thought now as she pulled herself upright and launched herself into the water.

  39

  Karen

  The café was practically empty when Karen arrived. She was surprised to find that she was first – normally the other two were already there, heads together conspiratorially, when she walked in. She ordered them a pot of tea and three slices of chocolate cake and pulled out her iPad to check if any emails had come through in the fifteen minutes since leaving the office. It might sound crazy, but she had to keep herself busy – unfilled time was thinking time, and she couldn’t bear too much of that. There was nothing new in her inbox, so it was a huge relief when she saw Bea walk in, dragging a handbag the size of her car. She wore trainers with her fitted pencil skirt and frilly-necked blouse and still looked unsteady on her feet. Her face was pale and her eyes dark-rimmed.

  ‘Jesus, Bea, you look like crap,’ Karen remarked as Bea threw her bag on the seat next to her and sat down opposite.

  ‘Thanks.’ Bea scowled. ‘Like I needed telling. Four people have asked me today if I need an ambulance. Do I seriously look like I’m about to drop dead?’

  ‘You look a bit like you already dropped dead and someone propped you up in your chair. Still not sleeping?’

  Bea ignored the question. ‘Has anyone ever told you that honesty
isn’t always the best policy?’

  The waitress came over with their cake and Karen pushed a slice in front of Bea, who looked as though she might throw up at the sight of it.

  ‘You have got to be kidding. Can I just get three pints of blood and an IV, please?’

  The poor girl couldn’t seem to figure out what the joke was, or how to respond. Looking like a deer trapped in headlights, she stared at both of them in turn before muttering, ‘I’ll just bring your tea,’ and scuttling off towards the kitchen.

  ‘Seriously – no patience for the flat-earth brigade today,’ Bea grumbled, pulling her phone out of her bag and placing it on the table. ‘And enough with the living-dead comments, you’re not exactly looking sparkling yourself. What’s up? Were you and Michael up all night doing the horizontal tango?’

  Far from it, although she was right about Karen not looking herself. She didn’t feel it. She’d been thinking about Jessica Hamilton every quiet second since their last session, her words, her animosity towards the woman she prayed wasn’t Eleanor filling her head like honey in a jar, sticky and unyielding with no room for anything else to seep in.

  ‘I wish,’ she muttered. She didn’t want to mention Jessica to Bea. Bea didn’t have Michael’s gift for discretion – she’d want to know every last detail, and Karen wouldn’t even know where to start.

  ‘Where’s Eleanor got to?’ She was relieved when Bea changed the subject so she didn’t have to. ‘Have you heard from her recently? I didn’t know whether to keep my distance and all that; I didn’t want her to think we were interfering …’

  A convenient excuse for Bea to forget about Eleanor and her problems the minute she was out of sight. It wasn’t that Bea was intentionally selfish; she was a good person – the best – and when she set out to be thoughtful, she excelled at it. It was just that thoughtful wasn’t a journey she set out on very often these days.

  ‘Did she tell you about what happened with Noah?’

  Bea grimaced and nodded. ‘Yeah, what do you reckon social services will do? Are they going on a list?’

  ‘Most definitely on a list. What did she tell you?’

  ‘That she’d forgotten where she parked the car and called the police. Poor thing must have been out of her mind.’

  Karen nodded but didn’t mention the part about Eleanor swearing blind that someone had moved the car. If Eleanor hadn’t told Bea, there was a reason for it and Karen should respect that – although she was dying to ask what Bea thought of the whole idea. Maybe Eleanor was just embarrassed.

  ‘I’m a bit worried that she’s showing signs of—’

  ‘Oh God, Karen, you’re not going to start the psychiatrist stuff on us again, are you? We agreed.’

  They had agreed. They’d sat down early in her university days, when she’d perhaps been a little overzealous with the psychoanalysis and got carried away with the jargon. It was hardly something she could help. Psychology excited her: the way the past could account for much of the present, the way people’s actions could be examined and understood. People were literally textbook. There was rarely a problem that couldn’t be explained by careful assessment of the factors.

  But unsurprisingly, Bea hadn’t taken well to hearing that her constant need for attention came from being the youngest female child of an overbearing mother and an emotionally absent father. In her own words, she was quite happy with her ‘fucked-up childhood’ and the person it had made her into, and she’d balked at talking about why her relationship with men was so unhealthy. Equally she had warned Karen never to mention to Eleanor that her constant mothering of Adam and need for control over every aspect of her life stemmed from the insecurity and lack of control she’d had over her weight issues as a young child. They’d agreed then that Karen wouldn’t use her new found-knowledge on her friends, their families or boyfriends – potential included – and they wouldn’t tie her to a bag of rocks and throw her in the River Severn.

  ‘Okay, fine. Once she calmed down, she was all right.’

  Bea scoffed. ‘I don’t believe that. It’s more likely that she was as uptight and highly strung as ever, which is hardly surprising given that she has a newborn baby and gets no help from her feckless husband—’ She broke off as Eleanor walked into the café and cast a look in their direction. ‘Jesus, look at her. Remind me never to have kids. Ever.’

  She plastered on a smile as fake as her nails as Eleanor approached the table. She took one look at the cake and managed a weak smile of relief.

  ‘Thank God for chocolate cake.’

  There were no two ways about it, Eleanor looked terrible. And not in a frazzled, new mum, ‘I forgot to put any make-up on this morning and my knickers are inside out’ kind of way. This was much worse. A picture of Jessica Hamilton flashed into Karen’s mind. When I thought about hurting her, I felt excited.

  ‘What’s up? Are you okay? Did something happen?’

  Eleanor sighed and sat down, putting her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. Her hair was scraped back into a knot secured with elastic bands. Stray strands had escaped and stuck out at right angles to her head, giving her a slightly ‘nutty professor’ look. She lifted her head and Karen couldn’t help but notice the rash of spots on her chin and the redness under her right eye as though a sty might be forming.

  Eleanor made a groaning noise and for a minute Karen thought that was all they were going to get out of her. After a few minutes of silence, Bea reached out gently and touched her arm, the way you might approach a tiger at feeding time.

  ‘Els? Tell us, we might be able to help.’

  Eleanor shook her head and put it back in her hands. ‘I doubt it.’ Her voice was muffled, but Karen could still hear the exhaustion. And something else, something that sounded like defeat. A knot of panic formed in her chest.

  ‘Try us.’

  Eleanor looked up, her eyes struggling to convey a message Karen couldn’t quite understand.

  ‘I just feel as though I’m not in control of my life right now,’ she said slowly, as though she was choosing her words very carefully. ‘I realise I’m probably just being paranoid, baby blues or whatever, but it feels like there’s something going on, some outside force that I’m not aware of controlling things. I don’t know how to put it, but the more I think about it, the more it explains things. I keep feeling like there’s someone watching the house …’

  Karen fought to control the gasp that threatened to escape from her lips. She understood now the look Eleanor had given her before she started to speak. She was thinking about what Karen had told her about Adam, and her warning to be careful, but she obviously wasn’t ready to tell Bea about it yet. Karen didn’t know why, but if she were to hazard a guess, she’d say that Eleanor didn’t want to say the words out loud in case acknowledging that her husband might be having an affair made it real somehow.

  ‘And then there was my car being stolen … I just feel as though I’m going crazy.’

  Bea leaned over and lowered her voice. ‘You’re sounding pretty crazy right now. I thought you said you forgot where you parked it.’

  Eleanor sighed. ‘I convinced myself at the time that it must have been that, but now I’m not so sure. Or maybe I’m trying to convince myself there’s someone else involved because I can’t bear to think that I might just be screwing things up on my own. Me and Adam barely talk to each other, we’re both so tired; Toby thinks I only care about Noah. Everyone seems to be irritated by me all the time and all I wanted to do was my best. My stupid business idea has gone out of the window and my house is only clean one day of the week. I don’t know how to fix things, so maybe I’m blaming someone else so I don’t have to shoulder the responsibility.’

  Karen took a breath. If she was going to tell them her suspicions about Jessica, she had to do it now, but she’d never broken patient confidentiality before and it was a big thing for her. Yet she could hardly ignore what Eleanor had just said.

  ‘Look, Eleanor, I don’t think
you’re crazy. I’m going to tell you something now that you cannot repeat to anyone.’ She glanced around the café to check there was no one close enough to overhear. ‘I have this patient. I can’t tell you her name, but I think she has developed some kind of fixation on me, which might extend to one or both of you as well. I can’t say any more, really I can’t but I think you should both be very careful, keep an eye out for anything unusual happening.’

  She sat back to gauge their reactions; both of them just looked confused.

  ‘But I thought you said …’ Eleanor stopped. ‘Why would we be in danger if she’s obsessed with you?’

  ‘Obsessed how?’ Bea asked.

  ‘I really can’t say any more. Anything more specific could get me into real trouble. But you don’t have to worry, I’ll fix this. I’m not sure how yet, but I’ll deal with her.’

  ‘You two are nuts,’ Bea announced. ‘Obsessed stalkers, car thieves – you sound like you’re in Hollyoaks.’ She turned to Eleanor. ‘Shit stuff happens all the time. Do you remember when you first had Tobes and you went into town to do a ton of stuff and came home and had forgotten to do every last thing? Was someone stalking you then, whispering forgetting spells in your ear?’

  ‘Well, no …’

  ‘And you filled the car up with petrol instead of diesel, and you had that break-in, and—’

  ‘All right,’ Eleanor interrupted. ‘I get it, you don’t have to detail every time I’ve failed in my life.’

  Bea turned to Karen. ‘No offence, Karen, but if you had any evidence this girl was dangerous, you’d have done something about it by now. So obviously you don’t have any. Now I don’t know about you two, but I don’t fancy spending my days looking over my shoulder for someone who is going to hide my toothbrush and use up all my loo roll just to make me think I’m losing my mind. I have enough going on to keep me awake as it is. Don’t give me that look, Karen. I love you, but you’re dramatising and poor Eleanor is sleep-deprived enough to take you seriously. You should know better. I bet you a hundred quid this girl is totally harmless.’