The Girl I Used to Be

by Mary Torjussen

  “No problem. I’ll send Brian round with them tomorrow and I’ll get him to place an advert, too.”

  “Great.”

  With that, he was off. The apartments were empty and clean, ready for the decorators to start work before they were let. Rachel and I measured the rooms and made a note of any work to be done. We moved from apartment to apartment, careful not to miss anything.

  “So Brian would normally do this, wouldn’t he?” asked Rachel.

  “Yes, but if you’re going to take over in my absence, you have to know exactly what’s involved in every job in the office.” Not that I had the slightest intention of even keeping her in the job, never mind promoting her, if she was going to carry on seeing David.

  “This is the apartment I’d like,” said Rachel. “Imagine seeing that view every day.”

  We were standing in the last apartment, looking out through its huge windows at the Welsh hills. Beautiful as they were, I hardly noticed them. All I could think was that now was my chance. There was nobody around.

  It was time.

  My stomach was knotted tight as I turned to Rachel. “This would be a bit big for you, though, wouldn’t it?” I asked.

  She gave a little smile. “Oh, that’s okay. I like a lot of space.”

  “But living here on your own,” I said. “It’s a lovely apartment, but it’s more suitable for a couple, isn’t it?”

  The difference in her was minimal, but I saw it. She stayed still, looking out of the window, and it was only because I was so fired up that I could see that her hands, which were touching the windowsill, now gripped it.

  I took one step closer to her and watched as the tiny blond hairs on her arms prickled to attention.

  “I know,” I said.

  She jumped then and turned. “Know what?” Her voice was brave and strong; there was no sign of the nerves that had hit her earlier. She moved away from the window and gathered up the clipboard and laser measure that we’d brought with us, holding them against her chest.

  I moved closer to her. “How long have you known him for?”

  “Who?” Her voice was uncertain then, and she swallowed hard after she spoke.

  “You know who.”

  She said nothing. I could hear her breathing, short, shallow breaths that made her face pink and damp.

  “David Sanderson.”

  She looked at me, her face defiant. Cool, almost. “I don’t know anyone called David Sanderson.”

  She was probably telling the truth. I’d realized a while ago that that it was unlikely he’d used his real name.

  “I think you do. I don’t know what he’s really called, but I know you know him.”

  She stayed very still and so did I, both so aware of each other, aware of every move. I wasn’t going to be the one who broke that silence.

  She caved. “How do you know?”

  “I saw him going into your apartment.” The tension hit me and I gave a huge sigh. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? We manage that property. The chances of my discovering that you knew him were always high.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I waited. It had worked before and I knew it would work again.

  “It’s my business who I live with.”

  My stomach lurched. So he was living there. Ever since I’d seen him, I’d tried to persuade myself that maybe it was all innocent, that she’d only just met him and had lent him her key for some reason. Even now, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  “I’m really worried for you, Rachel.”

  She looked scornful. “Why?”

  “I don’t think you realize what you’re involved with. Your boyfriend . . .”

  She cut in. “He’s not my boyfriend.” She looked at me straight in the face then, and it was clear he gave her courage. “He’s my husband. We’re married.”

  FORTY-ONE

  RACHEL

  Last year

  I’VE KNOWN DAVID for years; he was one of my brother’s oldest friends, but I hadn’t been expecting him to turn up at my mum’s funeral.

  It was held in late October on such a gray, bleak day. My mother had distanced herself from so many of her friends over the years, and I hadn’t had the nerve to get in touch with them at the end. When I say distanced herself, I really mean she’d phoned them up and screamed at them in the middle of the night, so I was reluctant to call them then.

  The end of her life dragged out for over a year. A year when I wasn’t able to work, wasn’t able to do anything except look after her. Not that she was grateful, mind. I’d take her to hospital appointments where I’d hear mums talking about their daughters. “I couldn’t have asked for a better daughter,” they’d say. “She’s been such a comfort to me.” I would sit stone-faced when they’d talk like that. My mother had enough sense of propriety to pay lip service at times, though. Once I’d heard her saying she wouldn’t have been able to cope without me. I was amazed, both by the sentiment and the idea that she was coping.

  So her funeral was poorly attended. My dad wasn’t there; that would have been one way to get my mother back from the grave. There was just me and a couple of neighbors who’d seen the ambulance come to the house and who’d called round later, when they saw I was home. She’d died in the ambulance, exerting her will right to the end. She’d been determined not to go into a hospital or hospice, but to die at home. When I’d found her unconscious one morning I called for emergency help, thinking she’d be furious when she came to, but that didn’t happen. Ten minutes into the journey to Arrowe Park, she gave up the fight altogether.

  I sat in the front row of the chapel at the crematorium, and our neighbors came to sit with me. An elderly cousin of my mum’s turned up; she gave me a sympathetic look and touched my arm, but she hadn’t been there when I needed her, so I was polite, but that was it.

  The short service had just started when I heard the door to the chapel open. I wasn’t expecting anyone else, but then, I didn’t know what to expect. The only other funeral I’d been to had been quiet, too. I was torn between looking at the minister and turning around to see who was there. The latter instinct won.

  David stood in the doorway. I knew him instantly, though I hadn’t seen him for more than ten years. He was taller than I remembered and broader now, his hair still black and wavy. He turned to close the door, then walked up the aisle toward me. For a moment I felt dizzy, as though my brother was there beside him, just as he always was.

  When he saw me looking at him, he winked, and that seemed so inappropriate but such a welcome diversion in all that misery that I winked back. As I turned back I saw that the funeral director had noticed and looked shocked. As well he might. I think that was the first time I felt like laughing in over a year.

  He was waiting for me outside, after the service ended. “Poor Coco,” he said, and suddenly it was like the old days. David had been visiting our house one day when I was little; I think I was four years old and the boys must have been eleven or twelve. I’d been playing with my mum’s makeup and had made a right mess of myself. They’d laughed so much when they saw me and called me Coco the Clown. The nickname had stuck. I hadn’t been called that since my brother died, and as soon as David said it, it was like I had my family back. “You’ve had a tough time, haven’t you?”

  For the first time since I lost my mum, I felt tears prickling the back of my eyes. I’d done everything—all the legal stuff, arranging the funeral, sorting the bills—on my own and I’d known that if I started to cry I’d never stop. Now at this hint of kindness from someone who’d known me as I was before, I could feel myself well up.

  “It’s all over now,” I said. “Finally she’s at peace.”

  The neighbors said good-bye then, and my mum’s cousin promised to keep in touch, though I wasn’t going to hold my breath on that. They kissed
my cheek, told me I’d been a good daughter, the very best, and they were off.

  I stared after them thinking I’d have to go back to the empty house, with no clue what to do with myself, when David said, “You know what you need, don’t you, Coco?”

  “To sleep for a year?”

  “You need to get drunk,” he said.

  I laughed. “What?”

  “We should have a wake for your mum.”

  “Wakes are usually held before the funeral.”

  He shrugged. “And did you have one?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, then. Better late than never.” He smiled at me then and I couldn’t resist. “Come on,” he said. “My treat.”

  So off we went into Liverpool on the train, both dressed in our sober black suits, on a Tuesday morning, to have our wake. We hopped from bar to bar, and with each drink we had to toast my mum and say something nice about her. I struggled a bit with that, but he did well. He had the best memories. And then he went up to the bar to get more cocktails and when he came back I asked what they were.

  “Between the Sheets,” he said, and he leaned over the little bar table and kissed me.

  We were married within a month.

  FORTY-TWO

  RACHEL

  Present day

  GEMMA STARED AT me, so shocked that her mouth fell open. She was clearly struggling to process what I’d said.

  “You’re married?” she said. “To David Sanderson?”

  I started to speak, to tell her that that wasn’t his name, but stopped myself just in time. “I’m married, yes.” I could feel myself flush. I hadn’t told another person that I was married and it felt weird, as though I was pretending to be grown up.

  “Since when?” she asked.

  I bristled. What did it have to do with her? David and I had agreed I wouldn’t go into detail. There’s no need for her to know anything, he’d said. Keep it to yourself. When in doubt, keep quiet. So I did keep quiet, but it seemed Gemma could keep quiet longer than I could, as eventually I heard myself saying, “A while.”

  “And yet you said you were single,” she said. “When you came to the interview I asked you and you specifically said, ‘I’m single. Never been married. Don’t particularly want to get married.’”

  It sounded as though she was mimicking me, and I scowled at her. “You’ve got a good memory.”

  “Damn right, I have,” she said.

  I had to figure out how to play this. I’d known she’d find out sometime—that was part of it, knowing she would—but I’d thought we had time. I hadn’t dreamed it would be today. One glance at her told me she wasn’t going to leave here until this was sorted.

  Oh well. So it was time. I was ready for her.

  “Did you know him when he came into the office?” she asked.

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed at the thought of that day when I had to pretend I didn’t know him and ask him how he liked his coffee.

  Gemma looked shocked. “Were you married to him then?”

  I just looked at her. I wasn’t going to tell her anything. I’d been preparing for this for a long time. Don’t incriminate yourself, David had said over and again. Don’t give her anything, not one piece of information, that she can hang you with. I turned away and counted to ten. Keep calm, I thought. Keep calm. She has nothing on you.

  “Rachel,” she said, “there’s something I should tell you.”

  I readied myself. “What?”

  “He’s trouble. David is trouble.”

  I laughed again. “I don’t think he’s the one I should be worried about.”

  “He is!” she said. “He’s trying to destroy me.”

  I was trying to keep quiet, trying to remember David’s instructions, but I couldn’t help it. It had to be said. “Come off it, Gemma,” I said. “You’re making it sound as though you’re a complete innocent here.”

  She blinked. “What? I am!”

  The heat was rising now; I’d felt it simmering for years and all the time I’d tried to control it, to keep a lid on my feelings, but faced with her innocent expression, I couldn’t control myself. “Little Miss Perfect, always doing the right thing. That’s how you portray yourself, isn’t it?”

  She looked at me as though I’d gone mad. “Rachel, I have done nothing wrong. Nothing at all.”

  I hardly heard her. I felt if I didn’t tell her then, I didn’t know what I’d do. “But you and I both know you have, don’t we?”

  She was staring at me. I knew my cheeks were red, knew she was wary now. I could feel anticipation rising in me. It had been dampened down for so long and now I was going to set myself free.

  “We both know exactly what you are,” I said. “What you’ve done. The question is, who else knows? Does Joe know, I wonder?”

  She stared at me, her eyes boggling. She took a step back and I realized I was frightening her. Well, good.

  “Did you tell him, Gemma? Do you tell him everything? Did you tell him what happened that night?” I gave her a hard, contemptuous look. “Or did you lie, just as you always do?”

  She looked like she’d been slapped. “Are you saying that was my fault?”

  “You and I both know the truth. That’s what you can’t stand, isn’t it? You can say what you like, but I know the truth.”

  “The truth about what?” she yelled. “What your pervert husband has been doing to me?”

  I flinched.

  “You really know all that and you’ve the nerve to stand here talking to me?” she asked. “You realize I risk losing everything because of him?”

  And then the heat was in my face and I couldn’t stop myself. Tears filled my eyes and I dashed them away. “It’s time you knew what it felt like,” I said. I felt like my heart was bursting. “To know what it feels like to lose everything.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” she said. “You know nothing about me!”

  She was such an idiot. “Oh I do, Gemma. I know everything.”

  “So you know that your husband—your own husband—has been blackmailing me?” she said. “You know that?”

  I shook my head. “You had that coming to you,” I said. “It’s what you deserve.” I drew myself up then and pushed my shoulders back. “And he hardly did anything anyway.” I moved away a little, my eyes still on hers. “Unlike you.”

  “Unlike me?” she shrieked, as though she were blameless. “What have I done?”

  I was cold now; the heat had left my face. Left my body. I could feel my hands shaking. “You’ve no idea, have you?” I said.

  “What?”

  I took a deep breath. “You’ve no idea who I am.”

  “What?” she said again, and to be fair, she looked completely bewildered. “Of course I know who you are!”

  “No, you don’t,” I said. “I’d always wondered if you knew.” I drew my shoulders back and looked her straight in the eye. “I’m Alex’s sister.”

  FORTY-THREE

  GEMMA

  Fifteen years ago

  IT’S ODD THE dreams you have sometimes; they’re so powerful, so vivid, and yet the second you wake up, they vanish, no matter how hard you try to cling on to them. How does that happen? And other times the dreams morph into reality and you find you’re no longer dreaming. You’re living in a nightmare.

  When I woke that night at the party, my body was heavy and exhausted. My head was buried deep into the pillows and the smell of laundry was so intense I had to lift my head up to breathe fresh air. As I opened my eyes all I could see was darkness and for a drunken moment I didn’t know where I was. Then I remembered. This was Alex’s room. I’d fallen asleep here while the party was going on downstairs.

  I thought I’d go to find Lauren and realized I couldn’t. The heaviness on my body wasn’t exhaustion. It wasn
’t that I was too tired to move.

  I couldn’t move.

  Something was on top of me, weighing me down. Something heavy. I tried to take a breath and couldn’t. Then my legs were suddenly wide apart and something was moving inside me in hard, vicious stabs. I tried to turn but I couldn’t move. I wanted to shout but something was pressing down on my chest. I felt like I was being buried into the mattress, as though all of the air in my lungs had been pushed out of me.

  My arms were dead by the side of me. I tried to move them, but couldn’t.

  And then I heard the breathing. A rasping breath, hot on the back of my neck, just beside my ear. I wrenched my head away and the weight lifted slightly.

  This time when I tried to turn the pressure lifted completely and I gasped in air. I struggled to sit up and a blanket was thrown over me, over my face. In the pitch black I heard someone moving around, then the sound of a zip. I tried to push the blanket off me but then another one was thrown on top of me and I was tangled up in them.

  I was still drunk, still unable to think straight. Panicking, I tore at the blankets, but the room was dark and I couldn’t find a way out. And then I heard the bedroom door open and the landing light shone briefly in the room. I turned toward the light, ripping the blankets away from my head. In the second it took for the door to quietly shut again, I saw someone tall and dark-haired, wearing a T-shirt with The Coral on the back hurrying from the room.

  I fell back onto the bed.

  Alex?

  * * *

  * * *

  AFTER HE CLOSED the door, the room was back in darkness. Panicking, I tried to get off the bed, to work out what to do. I couldn’t think clearly; couldn’t see anything. What had happened? Why was Alex in here? I floundered around in the dark, then remembered there’d been a lamp on in the room when I first lay down; it was on the bedside table. I scrambled over the bed toward it and fumbled for the switch.