The Girl I Used to Be

by Mary Torjussen

  I thought about her going back into her mother’s house after everything that had happened there. She’d had to deal with so much. I summoned up all my courage. “And you’ll only be a few minutes?”

  She breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I know where the papers are. That’s all I want, to just run in and get them, then get out again.”

  I looked out of the window at Rory. He looked up and waved at me. “I promised Rory I’d spend all day with him,” I said. “I could be there for seven o’clock, if you like.”

  “Thanks so much. I know I don’t deserve it, after everything I’ve done.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  “I’ll text you the address.”

  “There’s no need.” Even fifteen years later, I could still remember her family home.

  * * *

  * * *

  MY PARENTS AGREED to put Rory to bed that night. I took a while getting ready and when I came downstairs my mum was waiting for me.

  “You look nice,” she said. “New top?” She gestured toward my blue cotton shirt.

  “I bought it yesterday. It was in the package that arrived in the post this afternoon.”

  “Oh, I saw you had a couple of parcels. What else did you buy?”

  I held my wrist out to her and she smelled my perfume.

  “Oh that’s lovely. Isn’t it similar to the one you had at Christmas, though?”

  I ignored her and looked at my watch. “I’d better run. I won’t be late back.” I fastened her house key onto my car key fob. “Don’t wait up.”

  But still my mum hung around the hallway. “So you’re just meeting a friend? Anyone I know?”

  I was prepared for this. “A friend called Helen,” I said. “I went to university with her. She’s in Liverpool with work and asked if I wanted to meet up with her for a drink.”

  “Helen,” she mused. “Did I know her?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She studied languages. French and Spanish, I think.”

  “Oh, okay.” My mum didn’t sound convinced. “I don’t remember you mentioning her.”

  I didn’t reply, but just opened my shoulder bag and checked that I had my phone and purse. Once out of the house I breathed a sigh of relief. I loved my mother but she really did miss out on her true vocation; she would have been a fantastic detective. If she’d had any idea where I was going tonight, though, I knew she wouldn’t have gone back into the house with a wave and a smile.

  * * *

  * * *

  IT TOOK THIRTY minutes to drive from my parents’ home to Rachel’s. On the way I passed Lauren’s old house. A different family lived there now; they’d been there for years. There were lights on in the bedroom windows at the front of the house and my mind flashed back to the last night I was there: the night of the party.

  Tonight I took the same route that the taxi driver had taken then. Unlike that night, there was no music playing, no excitement, and no breeze rushing through my hair. I wasn’t with my friend, looking forward to the night ahead. Where last time I felt free, as though my life was beginning, tonight I was dreading going into the house again.

  I slowed down as I approached Rachel’s house. It was so much easier to think of it as her house, rather than Alex’s. The front garden was surrounded by high hedges and I started to shake as I approached them. I’d intended to park on her driveway but my palms were sweating and at the last moment I overshot the entrance to the driveway and parked farther down the road, just after the bend. There was a little shop there with a car park for clients and I pulled into an empty space. I was feeling dizzy with tension just at the thought of going into their house.

  My phone beeped on the dashboard. It was Rachel.

  Just saw you drive past. I’m here now.

  I thought of her there in her mother’s house, a house that had seen nothing but sadness in all those years. She seemed friendless, lonely, and it was only the pity I had for her that made me go there that night.

  I climbed out of the car, then took my phone and left my bag in the locked boot. It would just be in the way if I had to carry boxes of papers. I slid my phone into the pocket of my jeans and put my key fob into the other pocket, pushing it right down.

  I had to gather all my courage to walk toward Rachel’s house. Her car was parked on the gravel driveway and she was waiting for me by the front door. As I approached her she waved and turned the key in the front door. She pushed it wide open.

  “Hi, come on in,” she said, and all I could think was that was exactly what Alex had said, the night we arrived at the party.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  GEMMA

  IN THE HALLWAY I tried to keep a lid on the panic that rose in me. I hadn’t been here since that night, fifteen years ago, but I remembered it well. Then, though, it looked well tended and loved. The oak floor had been polished and glossy; the Persian rug in the center of the large hallway had been thick and expensive, its colors rich and vivid. I remember when Lauren and I had first arrived we’d looked around and she’d whispered, “This is exactly what I thought Alex’s house would be like.”

  Now, though it was exactly the same inside, everything was dull, untended. There were marks on the rug, scratches on the floor. It was clear nobody had redecorated since I was last here. The curtains lay heavy and dusty and lifeless, and I saw cobwebs draped over the chandelier that hung unlit from the ceiling. Everything was drab and I knew then that when Alex had died, the light had gone out of their lives.

  I shuddered.

  I saw Rachel watching me and my face flamed. This was her house, after all.

  “It must be hard for you, being here,” she said. “Thanks for coming.”

  “It’s okay.” I felt far from okay, though. My stomach was tight with nerves and I couldn’t stop thinking how stupid I was to come here. Rachel looked so expectant, though, so trusting and so young that I smiled at her to reassure her. “Where are the documents?”

  “They’re in my mum’s room,” she said. “Can you give me a hand?”

  I hesitated.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to go upstairs.”

  “I won’t be able to carry them on my own,” she said. “It’ll just be one trip if we both do it.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  She took my arm and we walked upstairs. I clung on to the banister, wishing I hadn’t come, wishing I were at home with Joe. Why hadn’t I told him? He could have come with me, helped us do this.

  My heart thumped as we reached the top of the stairs. The bathroom was ahead, just as I remembered. Its door stood open and I recognized the black-and-white tiles in a diamond pattern on the floor. Though I hadn’t thought of it in all those years, in that one glance I remembered kicking a towel that was on the floor that night, knowing I was so drunk that if I bent to pick it up I would have fallen and hurt myself. I wished now I’d picked it up. Wished I’d hurt myself and called for help and gone home. None of this would have happened.

  We paused at the top of the stairs. I glanced to the right. The door to Alex’s room stood ajar. Immediately I averted my eyes.

  “Mum’s room is here,” said Rachel. She led me past Alex’s door and to a room at the front of the house. There were windows overlooking the front garden and the room was lined with photos of Alex. You wouldn’t know she had another child. At the foot of her bed she had a large flat-screen television on a stand, with a DVD player underneath it. It seemed to jar with the rest of the room, which was old-fashioned and dreary.

  “She had all our old family videos put onto DVD,” explained Rachel. She wouldn’t meet my eyes and I wondered whether she was embarrassed or ashamed. “She would play them all the time.” She winced. “Constantly. Wherever I was in the house, I’d hear them. And she’d fast-forward through the bits I wa
s on, or my dad. She’d replay the parts with Alex on again and again. All his old rugby matches. Every time he won a prize. Every party and every holiday.”

  I thought of her living there with that running commentary of her dead brother’s life playing on and on while she gave up the chance of her own life to care for their mother. She must have experienced such mixed emotions when her mother died.

  She put her shoulder bag on the floor and crouched down to look under the bed. “Oh thank God, they’re still here.” She crawled under the bed and dragged out several box files. They had stickers on them: Maths, English, French, Psychology.

  “They look like your old school files.”

  “That’s what I wanted them to look like,” she said, “in case he saw them.”

  I was desperate to get out of there. “Do you want us to pack all this up while we’re here?” I picked up a pile of her family DVDs and looked around for something to put them in. “Have you got a box? A suitcase?”

  “Until the other day,” she said, “I didn’t want to see any of it again. And now . . . now I don’t know what to do.” She turned away, but not before I saw that her cheeks were flushed. After a few seconds she said, “Gemma, you have no idea what it was like.”

  A photo of Alex with his arm around his mum sat on the bedside cabinet and caught my eye. It looked like they were on holiday; a bright blue pool was behind them and a white towel lay on the edge of a sun lounger. He was about sixteen, tanned, his dark hair wavy and wet. His mother stood beside him, looking so proud. She was inches shorter than her son; even at that age he towered above her.

  I turned away. I couldn’t look at him. I felt such a complicated mix of shame and pity and anger.

  “Rachel, there are no photos of you here.”

  She tried to laugh but didn’t quite make it. “Well, no. He was the one, wasn’t he? He always was.”

  My heart ached for her. “What, always? Even before he died?”

  She shrugged. “Look at her room, Gemma. You decide.”

  “And yet you and he got on so well.”

  “Oh I loved him,” she said. “Absolutely loved him. My mum used to say, ‘He was the light of my life,’ and I’d agree. He was the light of mine, too. But he’d gone and she and I were the only ones left.”

  I closed my eyes as I thought of them both losing that one person who meant more to them than anyone else. How could either of them go on?

  Then the tension in the room changed. I noticed it even with my eyes closed. I turned to Rachel. She was at the window, looking out at the driveway.

  “Oh no,” she said. “He’s here.”

  “What?” For a wild moment I thought she meant Alex. “Who?”

  “It’s David. He’s here!”

  * * *

  * * *

  I DROPPED THE DVDs onto her mother’s bed and flattened myself against the bedroom wall. My heart banged in my chest. “David?” I felt dizzy at the thought of seeing him. “What’s he doing here?”

  Rachel’s face was white with shock. “I don’t know! What should I do?”

  “Don’t let him in. Pretend you’re not here.”

  “But my car’s in the drive. I’ll have to go down.”

  “Put him off. If you have to go with him, don’t worry about me. Try to get him away from here.”

  “Okay, okay,” she whispered. “But you’ll have to hide.” She backed away from the window and quickly shoved the box files back under her mother’s bed. “Have you got your phone? Mute it, just in case.”

  Quickly I did as she said, and then his car door slammed and we both jumped. Rachel grabbed my arm and pushed me out of the room. I was willing to go; I wanted to run out of the house. “Don’t stay in here!” she hissed. “He might come in.” She hurried me along the corridor and pushed open the door to Alex’s room. “Wait in there. Quick!”

  I found myself flung into the room, and then she pulled the door so that it was open just a few inches. “Don’t make a sound,” she whispered.

  I stood behind the door to Alex’s room, staring at a room I’d last seen fifteen years before.

  Everything was as it was then. His bed was ready-made, the quilt cover and pillows just the same. Two blankets lay folded on a chair by the window; I remembered blankets had been thrown over my head as he left the room. I’d had nightmares about that for years, where I’d relived the struggle to break free of them. In the corner were his drums and guitar, beside me the large chest of drawers. His desk overlooked the rear garden, and books and cardboard files were piled up high. I swallowed. He’d died after a term at Oxford. I thought of his mum—and Rachel, probably, too—going there to his rooms to collect his things and knew how brokenhearted they would have been.

  And then I heard the doorbell ring and David call Rachel’s name. My heart pounded. He was here, within reach of me.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  RACHEL

  I’VE NEVER BEEN as frightened in my life as I was then, going downstairs to let David into the house.

  “Hey,” he said, when I opened the door. He came into the house and put his arms around me. I reached around and squeezed him tightly and kissed his cheek. The last thing I wanted was for him to notice any difference in me.

  “What are you doing here?” I said. “I thought you were staying over in Newcastle?”

  “Yeah, the last meeting was canceled and I couldn’t be bothered hanging around for the guys to finish work,” he said. “I’ll see them next time I’m up there.”

  “How did you know I’d be here?”

  “Oh, I was coming through Liverpool and thought I’d see what you were up to. Find My Phone showed you were here, so I thought I’d turn up and surprise you.” He spoke as though this were completely normal behavior. I didn’t know anyone else whose partner tracked them like that, but he always said he liked to know where I was. It was hard to believe I’d thought it was romantic when he first did it.

  “I had nothing to do so I thought I’d come up and check that everything was okay here,” I said.

  He walked around the hallway, pushing the doors to the kitchen and living room open and looking inside. “Everything seems all right, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s fine. I was just about to leave, actually,” I said. “I’m starving. Fancy a takeaway? Chinese?”

  I was really struggling to sound normal. David could pick up anything different about me from a mile away; my heart raced at the thought of him noticing anything now.

  “Are you okay, darling?” he asked. “Are you tired?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I just hate being here. It makes me feel really weird.” I put my hand in his and he kissed my knuckles. “I want to be back home.”

  “Come on, then,” he said. “Pity we’re in different cars. Fancy going for a meal somewhere near here instead?”

  “If you like.” It was always important that I gave him the choice, let him make the decisions. “Though I’d like to get into a hot bath and have a glass of wine.”

  He gave a soft laugh and said, “I’ll join you.” My skin prickled with disgust. “Got your keys?”

  In a flash I remembered that my handbag was in my mother’s room. I cursed the fact that I hadn’t just let him take me home in his car.

  “My bag’s upstairs,” I said. “I won’t be a second. You go and get the car started.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

  He took the stairs two at a time and I hurried after him.

  “It’s in my mum’s room,” I said.

  “Is there anything you want me to bring back now? Have you decided what you’ll keep?”

  I thought of the boxes of papers under the bed and hoped he wouldn’t notice them. He would never believe that I knew nothing about them. “Honestly?” I said. “I never want to see any of it again.”

/>   “Oh, sweetheart.”

  We went into my mum’s room. I wanted to shut the door, to give Gemma the chance to escape, but I didn’t have the nerve. He’d know something was up immediately if I did that. And then he’d see her from the window. I nearly collapsed at the thought of him chasing her.

  I picked up my handbag. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go. I’ll call around some charities tomorrow and ask them to take the whole lot. They can sell whatever they want and chuck the rest.”

  “But there’ll be things you want, surely?” He stood in the doorway of my mum’s room. “What about the television? It’s fairly new, isn’t it? We could have it in our bedroom.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want it. They can take it all.”

  I was just about to say that I could afford a new television if I wanted one. I could afford a new house to put the new television in, if it came to that, and then I realized that in his mind, the money belonged to him. Not that it belonged to both of us, even, but that it was his. I knew if I wanted to buy something, whether it was a television or a house, he’d have to approve, and if he said no, it wouldn’t happen. The rage I’d felt since I realized what he’d done nearly overwhelmed me: He’d caused my brother to commit suicide and my mother to die young and yet he thought her money was his.

  And it was then that the courage to say something struck me. I knew Gemma was in Alex’s room and she’d hear everything I said. I hoped she had her phone out, ready to call the police if he turned nasty. So quick as anything, before I could think about the sheer lunacy of saying something, I stopped dead in the hallway, just outside Alex’s room.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “I wanted to have a chat with you about Alex’s party.”

  SIXTY-SIX

  RACHEL

  I FELT AS though my lungs were only half full of air; my voice sounded completely different. Higher-pitched. Breathless.