The Girl I Used to Be

by Mary Torjussen

  There were six of us that weekend. I met them at the airport; they’d flown in from Gatwick and had waited around for my flight from Liverpool to come in. I know this sounds weird, but I felt like a normal person, meeting them. I’d had my hair and nails done, just as I knew they would have. I’d bought clothes and shoes and bags specially for the weekend, and spent a fortune on a cabin bag for the flight. I’d scoured Facebook for details of where they’d shopped and I made sure I went to the same places. I looked just like them when I arrived and saw a couple of them look at each other in surprise. I’d always been a bit of a mouse at university; I had so many responsibilities at home, making sure the bills were paid and my mum was fed and looked after, and I neglected myself a bit. I couldn’t see the point in wearing makeup or fashionable clothes when all I did was sit in lectures and go straight home again. I had been depressed—I can see that now—and it had showed in the way I looked. Now, now that everything was going well, I looked better. I spent a lot of time on my clothes, my hair. I went to the gym regularly. I felt great, really I did.

  At university I’d never felt part of their gang; at least now I looked as though I was. I made so much effort to fit in that weekend, but by the time I came back, my face was strained with smiling too much, my head pounded with jokes I didn’t quite get, and I knew that now, just as then, I didn’t fit in. And I knew why—it was my secrets that kept me apart.

  I’d never told them a thing about my mum when I was at university, and I didn’t mention her now. They had no idea she’d died or even how she lived. I don’t know why I said nothing; I knew they would have supported me, come to the funeral, helped me with the house. I couldn’t bear them to set foot in my house, though, to see it as it was now. I couldn’t bear to tell them about my mum and why she was the way she was. Our lives were too different and their pity would have been too much for me. It was easier to be alone, I’d found.

  In those days at university, while they trooped off to a house party at the end of the night, I’d leave them to it and look for a taxi that would take me through the tunnel to the Wirral—not easy when the drivers knew they wouldn’t get a return fare. I’d tell them I was tired, that I had to go home, and they’d lose interest, sometimes going off without even saying good-bye. I got nervous if I stayed out too long; I had to check that my mum was all right, that she hadn’t set the house on fire or done some drunk-dialing.

  Now, when I look at it objectively, I can see that I have to take some responsibility. I could have forced her to see a doctor. I could have moved away and left her to it. I could have told my friends about her. Instead I got used to living two lives; one in public and one in private. That was good preparation for now, really.

  My mum would always be awake when I got back. Not waiting up for me, nothing like that. We’d switched the mother and daughter roles long ago. She’d be awake because she was drinking. She’d go out to the taxi to pay my fare, no matter what time of night it was, and would try to spark up a conversation with the poor taxi driver who just wanted to get back on the road. I’d hover around her, trying to get her back into the house.

  “It’s a miserable night for you,” she’d say, and I’d hear the guy say, “What?” and I’d realize that by now she was so far gone that nobody else knew what she was saying. And of course taxi drivers are used to drunks; it was a sign of how bad she was that they couldn’t understand a word she said.

  She’d stumble back into the house, having given the guy a huge tip or, once, a penny, and she’d look at me and my heart would sink. It would go one of two ways then: Either she’d cry and talk about the past, or she’d turn on me.

  I don’t know which I hated more.

  But all that was over now and I knew I shouldn’t dwell on it. That afternoon, as agreed, I called David and spent ten minutes giggling on the phone. I missed him so much; it was hardly worth my going away. I was sharing a hotel room with my friend Emma, so I wasn’t sure how much I’d be able to talk to him at night. He and I had never been apart since the day we met. I wasn’t sure how it would feel to be alone now, after being with him.

  I must have looked miserable at that thought, then, because the bride-to-be, Laura, nudged me and whispered, “Are you okay?”

  I smiled at her. “Yes, I’m fine. Having a great time.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I’m sorry you can’t make the wedding.” This had been a bit of a sore topic within the group; we’d had over a year’s notice, after all, but as David said, there was no way we wanted our photos on social media.

  “Oh I am, too!” I said. “I would have loved that. I’d already paid for the holiday, though.”

  “That’s okay. And thanks so much for the wedding gift. It arrived last week.” She looked so pleased then, her irritation at my pulling out of the wedding assuaged by my choosing one of the more expensive presents she’d registered for at a top department store. She put her hand on my arm and the diamonds in her engagement ring twinkled. “It’s so good to see you again. You look great. So much happier.”

  I really didn’t want to go into how I’d been in the past. As David said, there was no point in thinking about that now. So I shifted the attention back to her.

  “That’s a lovely ring,” I said. “What’s your wedding ring like?”

  She curled up next to me and I was treated to a long, long description of her shopping trip with her fiancé for wedding rings. When she’d finished she squeezed my arm and said, “It’ll be your turn soon. Maybe that guy you were calling just now?” She winked at me. “Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  I laughed. “Maybe.”

  I’d never told her or my other friends about David. None of my friends knew anything about him and none of his knew about me.

  “We’re the world’s best-kept secret,” he’d say.

  He was right; it was much more romantic that way.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  GEMMA

  I STAYED ON the staircase for a moment after David went into Rachel’s apartment. I didn’t know what to do. The late-afternoon sun shone through the hallway window upstairs and I stood, my face and body hot and sweating, as I strained to hear him in the apartment below. If I leaned over the banisters, I could hear the deep rumble of his voice as he talked on the phone.

  Silently I tiptoed into Zoe’s apartment. I hesitated in the doorway, wondering whether to shut the door so that she’d have to use her key, but I worried that she’d forget I was meant to be there and be startled by me. Instead I left the door ajar and moved as quietly as I could through the living room and into the kitchen. I stood to one side of the kitchen window and looked out into the yard below. It had been a hot day; I saw that the back door to Rachel’s apartment was opened out onto her patio, and thought, So he must be staying a while, then.

  I looked at my watch. It was five twenty. He’d said he was going to Liverpool for a night out with his friend. It would take him an hour or so to get there. I guessed he’d be having a shower before he went, but couldn’t be sure. I was terrified of bumping into him as I left the house; just the thought of that was enough to make my heart race. And then I remembered that the bathroom in this apartment was above Rachel’s; each apartment was identical to the others in the block. I went into Zoe’s bathroom and opened the window as wide as I could. Down in the yard below I could see steam coming from the drain there. He was running the shower.

  I grabbed the clipboard and my bag and left the apartment, locking the door quietly behind me. I crept downstairs as fast as I could, then left the building, making sure that I went up the road away from Rachel’s living room window, just in case he was looking out. At the end of the road I stopped and sent Zoe a quick text saying I’d been called on an emergency but that everything looked fine. I’d get Brian to do the inventory. I had no intention of setting foot in that place again.

  As I walked down the side street to get to my car, I trie
d to process what I’d seen. So Rachel was seeing David. When did that start? I knew she was single when she started work for me six months ago; we’d talked then about Liverpool and what it was like now, and she’d told me about being a caregiver for her mum and how it had been hard for her to go out at night. It sounded as though she hadn’t had much of a life, and I’d felt really sorry for her. She’d said she was looking for somewhere to live and I’d asked her whether she had a partner; she’d said no, she hadn’t, and she was quite happy that way. I hadn’t thought anything of it; hadn’t given it a second thought. I knew she’d made a few friends in the area and went to the same gym that Sophie went to, but I’d never heard her talk about a boyfriend.

  Of course I’d never told them anything about what had happened to me in London two months before or anything that had happened since. She’d been in the office when he came in that day and definitely didn’t seem to know him then. I remember her giggling with Sophie because he was a good-looking guy.

  I frowned. We didn’t have a rule about dating clients; there had never seemed the need, but we did have a rule about acting professionally around clients. He was single and she was single. She wasn’t dealing with his house purchase; she wasn’t in a position to negotiate on his behalf.

  Did he call her? How would he have known her name? Maybe he’d called in when I wasn’t there, but why wouldn’t she say something? Or maybe they’d met on a night out. There wasn’t really a reason why she couldn’t date him—surely she would have told Sophie, at least? I thought about that. Sophie couldn’t have known anything about it, either. She would never have been able to keep that to herself. And yet Rachel and Sophie were good friends. Why would she keep quiet about seeing a new man?

  I felt responsible for Rachel, in a way. She had no family to talk to and she’d never mentioned any friends. I’d been surprised when she went on the hen weekend; she’d been so excited about that trip. I did remember that when she first started work she was always on her phone; I’d had to talk to her about that and she’d said it was just her university friends wondering how she was getting on.

  I thought of the policewoman, Stella, then. I should tell her, I knew that, but I wanted to ask Rachel myself, speak to her face-to-face and give her the chance to tell me what she knew. And then I would call the police. I owed it to her to give her fair warning, though. I needed to tell her what her boyfriend had done to me.

  * * *

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING I got to the office early and slipped the keys to Zoe’s apartment back in the key safe. When Brian and Sophie came in, I made a point of telling him that he needed to do the inventory for the apartment, because I hadn’t been able to go the night before.

  “I thought you were going on your way home from work,” said Sophie, who was looking worse for wear after her Friday night out.

  “I was,” I lied, “but Joe called and reminded me he had a doctor’s appointment, so I had to go home to Rory.”

  She accepted this without another thought and simply poured herself another coffee and hunted in her bag for more painkillers. But that morning I watched Sophie and wondered again what she knew. All the time she was photocopying house details and putting them on the racks in the window, I watched her and thought again about whether she knew about David and Rachel. Did everyone know?

  And then I realized that if Sophie had known, she would also have known that Rachel wouldn’t want me to find out. Surely she would have tried to put me off going there the night before?

  * * *

  * * *

  WHEN WE STOPPED for coffee that afternoon and Brian had gone off to do the inventory at Zoe’s apartment, I said to Sophie, “Did you have a good time last night?”

  She smiled. “A really good time! And I’ve got a date for tonight.” She whipped out her phone and showed us a photo of a young man who was beaming at the camera, his face flushed, his hair damp. He held a beer bottle up to the camera; clearly it wasn’t the first he’d had that night.

  “Oh he’s nice!” I said. “Where did you meet him?”

  She named a local club in the center of Chester and told us how he’d singled her out from her friends and they’d talked all night.

  “Is that where you usually go at weekends?” I asked casually.

  “Yes, either on Friday or Saturday.”

  “Does Rachel normally go with you?”

  She shook her head. “No, she doesn’t like places like that. She likes to just go to the gym or to meet up for lunch or shopping. I go with my school friends or my sister.”

  Lucy joined in. “Maybe she’s seeing someone.”

  “No, she’s not,” said Sophie. “We were setting up dating profiles the other day.” A shifty expression crossed her face. “Not at work, obviously.”

  “And when you had that barbecue at Easter she came on her own,” said Lucy.

  I’d forgotten the barbecue. The weather around Easter had been great, so one Sunday evening I’d invited all the staff round to my house for a couple of hours. Lucy and I had watched Sophie chase Rory round the garden with a little bucket of water from his paddling pool, threatening to drench him with it. Both of them had been almost crying with laughter.

  “She’s just a kid, isn’t she?” Lucy had said. “She looks so glamorous at times, but look at her now. This is the real Sophie.”

  Rachel had arrived later than the others. She’d stood in the kitchen talking to Joe for a while and Lucy had looked over at them and said, “They’re getting along well, aren’t they?” I’d laughed. Joe got along with everyone. I don’t think I’d met anyone who had a bad word to say about him. His Irish charm had been obviously working on Rachel, though; I could see her laughing, her face pink and excited, as she talked to him.

  “I think she’s said more to Joe today than she has to us since we’ve known her,” Lucy had said that day. “He’s obviously charmed her.”

  “He does have that gift,” I’d replied. “It works on me, anyway. Or it did.”

  Lucy had looked at me sympathetically. “It’s always like that when you have a little child,” she had said. “You’ll get back to normal soon.”

  I’d nodded. I’d hoped so.

  “Rachel seems to have settled in well, hasn’t she?” Lucy asked now. “I noticed you’ve been giving her more responsibilities lately.”

  I said, “Yes, she’s been fine,” but I was too distracted to chat. I couldn’t stop thinking about David. Had he called in one day when she was there alone? Had he liked her from the moment he saw her, that day he came to the office? Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a spark between them. She’d blushed when she gave him coffee, but she was a nervous person at times. She hated attention drawn to herself. And when I’d met him in London he hadn’t mentioned her.

  Had he targeted her since then? Had he seen another way to get to me?

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  GEMMA

  BY THE TIME it was five P.M., I was determined to go to the police there and then. I just had to trust Stella to do her best to make sure Joe didn’t find out. I could hardly bear to think of the lies I’d told him. There were so many now. At night, unable to sleep, I’d go through them, my face burning with shame.

  In the car park I got into my car and sat wondering what to do. My phone beeped with a message, and as I reached into my bag to read it, my heart sank. What was this going to be now? I relaxed when I saw it was from Joe, but when I read his message, I panicked.

  What time will you be home? We need to talk.

  Had he been sent something? David clearly knew our address, but did he know Joe’s name? Why would he want to send him something, anyway? Wasn’t he content with making my life miserable?

  My fingers were damp on the screen as I answered.

  Just setting off. What’s up? x

  There was no reply at first. I panicked and had t
o stop myself from sending another message that would incriminate me. I had just started up the car and had reached the gate of the car park when I heard another message arrive.

  Just come home now. I’ve sent Rory to Sam’s house for a couple of hours.

  I started to shake. What had happened? I sent a reply:

  Don’t just say that. Tell me what you’re upset about. I don’t want to drive home panicking.

  I reversed back into my parking space and waited. I thought I was going to be sick with the tension and couldn’t have driven then even if I wanted to. It seemed ages before another message came through:

  I’m trying to think of a reason why you would stay in a hotel in Chester when I was away in Ireland.

  My heart flipped. How did he know that? How did anyone know that? I’d left our house just before seven P.M. and I knew nobody had seen me. I’d been on the lookout for that. And yes, I’d driven up and down our street at midnight, just to check that he hadn’t tried to burn the house down, but when I saw that everything was okay, I’d gone straight back to the hotel. Nobody had been following me. I’d driven at least two miles without anyone behind me at all. I’d never been to that hotel before, never mentioned it to anyone.

  And then I thought, maybe he knows because of our bank statement? I took out my phone and went onto our online banking service. It showed that the last time it had been accessed was this afternoon, just an hour earlier. I scrolled down the list of credits and debits and saw that the hotel’s charge was there.

  I could have cried with relief. Nobody had told Joe, he’d just figured it out for himself.

  But what could I tell him? Why would I go to a hotel when I could stay in my own house? There had to be a reason. I hadn’t even thought about the hotel bill at the time; I’d been in such a state that I’d used our joint debit card to pay for it, without thinking he’d see it.