by Emma Curtis
9
Laura
BACK TO WORK today. I shower in the dark, because one of the bathroom walls is mirrored and I don’t want to look at my naked body. I drink coffee and eat toast and marmalade standing up, while I check messages on my phone. I clean my teeth, rub soothing cream into my flaring skin and make the bed.
Will I know him if I see him? Will I sense him? Will he seek me out and let me know who he is? Or will he take a perverse pleasure in my discomfort?
Some days I bump into my neighbour on my way out, in the hall with her baby, waving goodbye to her husband, but not this morning, and I don’t realize until my shoulders relax how much I’ve been dreading that contact. The calm of the morning leaves me in a rush. If I can’t face seeing the neighbour I barely know, how will I face my colleagues? It takes a supreme effort of will to get me out on to the street. I wish I had my bicycle, but it’s still in Percy Row, on the roof.
At Kentish Town, I step on to the crowded platform. Once I’m on the train, I huddle against the glass panel by the door, fixing my eyes on the adverts running along the curve of the ceiling. I don’t look at anybody. I barely even breathe as the train shrieks into Old Street. I walk blindly to work and when I get to Percy Row, I stop and pretend to be messaging someone, steeling myself. But I’m left alone. People’s memories of that night are about Guy, not me making a fool of myself on the dance floor.
I want to go in, but my feet won’t move. I wonder if he’s there already, waiting for me; if he’s terrified too. How much does he know about me? If he doesn’t know about my face-blindness and he’s relying on me having been paralytic to keep him safe, then he’ll be nervous. I look up at the windows. If he’s in there, I will find him. I can’t imagine being near him without my skin prickling. The only problem is, how do I get to him and what can I do that will hurt him without making my own life worse? There’s always the Internet; I could stalk and troll him, but somehow that seems weak and unfulfilling. Once I know, once I’m sure, then something will happen. My mind swirls with half-formed plans and possibilities: confront him publicly, learn his secrets and unravel his life, start the whispers that will ruin his reputation. Get him fired.
I hate myself for obsessing about this when every single person in the building is still reeling, when Guy’s desk is empty, his mug unused in the cupboard. There was a big piece in the press – Last London Cyclist Killed This Year. A gorgeous young man in the prime of his life. Devastated parents and bereft girlfriend and a plea for the driver to do the decent thing and come forward. But there wasn’t much after that. We’ve grown used to these tragedies in London.
As I walk across the media floor towards the door to my office, all I can hear is my own breathing, magnified a hundred times. Everything else: the phones ringing, computers humming, people catching up – all that is wallpaper. I study each of them, but I feel like a goldfish peering out of the tank, trying to remember who fed me yesterday. These humans all look the same. We are much of a type here: young, attractive, trendy, fit.
The mood is understandably sombre, less banter, more moving around with frozen expressions. Coming back to work to find one less person, even when you’ve been warned what to expect, is pretty harrowing. Guy hadn’t been with the company long, but he was well-liked. And for the regular cyclists amongst us, it’s another case of it could have been me. It could so easily have been me.
Eddie is unpacking his laptop as I walk in and he greets me with a sad smile. We don’t need to say anything. I sit down and switch my computer on. It feels strange being here, and yet it’s so familiar. In the light of what’s happened, both to me and to Guy, everything that was solid seems insubstantial. It’s as if the walls, the windows, the floor, could all fold in on themselves in a moment. Although it’s me that’s changed, not the space.
Eddie isn’t showing it, at least not yet, but he’s annoyed. My head hasn’t been where it ought to have been; in sync with his, playing with ideas, reacting to his snatches of copy; but I’m not going to use Guy as an excuse. My hands are shaking, and I keep them below my desk. The ideas I sent Eddie last night were better than decent, but I should have had more, and thought them through, not treated it like a piece of homework, dashed off at the last minute.
Eddie is one of the few people I count as a friend even though we don’t see as much of each other as we used to. He and Esther moved to Sussex when she got pregnant. Before, we would have a quick half in the pub after work once or twice a week and I relied on him for company. I miss that.
‘Did you manage to have a look at the pictures I sent you?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘But it feels like you didn’t look at it until last night and …’ He sighs.
‘And what?’
‘Well, you didn’t make me want to grab a bottle off the shelf. We can both do better than this. I know GZ is rank, but that’s what we love, isn’t it? The challenge.’
It was what I used to love. Now I just don’t care. My shoulders droop. I owe it to Eddie and my own sanity to make more of an effort.
I organized the Christmas party – not that it needed much organizing – but I found and booked the venue and I have the email I sent out to all the staff, so I have a list of everyone who works in this building. What I don’t have is a list of who actually came. I’m not even sure if such a thing exists. There was pressure to attend, but no one was ticking names off at the door. I find the original Excel spreadsheet I took the emails from, save a copy from which I remove all the women. And Guy. I highlight his name, pause, and then click delete.
Eddie is sitting opposite me, his coat-hanger shoulders hunched, his brow furrowed as he stares into his monitor. I can’t start checking off the names with him sitting there. I’m meant to be working.
He senses me watching him, raises his head with a grin. I smile back.
‘Sorry I was grumpy,’ he says.
‘You had every right to be.’
‘So, what happened between you and Jamie at the Christmas party?’
I dart a look at him. Jamie. Is that who it was? ‘Nothing much.’
‘You were all over each other. There’s no need to be embarrassed about it. It was nice to see you having a good time.’
‘We were both drunk. It was a mistake.’
‘He likes you. And he’s a nice guy. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. Why don’t you give him a chance?’
‘He’s not my type.’
Eddie gazes at me, the corners of his lips twitching. ‘You must like him a little bit.’
‘Not really.’ I pick up my pencil and tap it on the desk. ‘He’s a lovely bloke but …’
‘But what? Surely if you know for a fact that a man fancies you, you’d explore that, unless there was something wrong with him. You’d give him a chance, see if you connect.’
I frown, unable to tell him why he’s wrong, to explain that I feel violated and that the thought of being in a relationship, putting my trust in someone, would be like asking me to swim a piranha-infested river. Restless suddenly, I stand up and glance through the window in our door.
‘He’s not here,’ Eddie says, correctly interpreting my thoughts. ‘He’s down with the flu.’
‘Oh dear. Poor Jamie.’ I try not to look relieved. ‘You’d make a fantastic agony aunt,’ I say instead, keeping it light. ‘And you’re probably right, but now is not the time. I have some other issues I need to straighten out before I can think about that.’
‘Time stops for no one.’
‘I know. I’ll be twenty-nine next month, and my mother is starting to twitch.’ I remove my glasses and give them a wipe. ‘We should crack on, or we’re not going to be ready for the meeting.’
I smile to set his mind at ease, but I’ve already decided that my situation here is untenable. I knew that as soon as I walked in and felt the fear descend. The feeling that I’m being watched, examined for every expression and reaction by someone who has abused his power in the most unspeakable way, is eventually goi
ng to warp me beyond recognition. I will become someone else.
I glance at Eddie. If I have to go, I’d want him to come with me, to apply with me as the other half of a winning creative team, but why should he do that? He has a great future with Gunner Munro and loves it here. He has an excellent relationship with the senior editors and account managers and the more junior teams love him. I’m the one who has failed to develop the relationships. Rebecca was right: if I don’t join in more, I won’t cut it, and it’s only going to get harder.
On the other hand, why should I be the one to leave, while that man keeps his job and his reputation?
I try and work, but my mind won’t let it go. Abused doesn’t feel like the right word for what he did. If he knew I was face-blind and deliberately tricked me, then it was something else, something much worse. But how could he know? – I haven’t told anyone except Rebecca about my condition – or is he just an idiot who got too drunk at a Christmas party to exercise his judgement? Was it my fault as much as his? I still think about going to the police, but if I’m not clear about what happened or what to call it, then how can I possibly expect anyone to believe me?
At lunchtime, I slip out of the building unnoticed. I walk through Hoxton and beyond into Hackney, to one of the cafés less frequented by Gunner Munro employees. I buy a wrap and a cup of tea and sit down at the back. I take the sheet of names out of my bag and carefully, diligently, rule out some of the men through familiarity with their individual characteristics, their build or race, and see who’s left. It could be any of them. I need pictures.
It’s time to go back. I fold up the list and clasp my hands in front of me. I’m going to have to learn to compartmentalize if I’m going to survive this. I close my eyes and make myself picture two people in a bed, all the things we did. I go hot, so hot that I think I’m going to faint, but I make myself see the images and imagine placing them in a box, closing the lid and sticking packaging tape all over it, then hiding it away at the back of a deep, dark cupboard.
It turns out Bettina has uploaded the photographs she took on her smartphone of the party on to her Facebook page. And I don’t even have to ask; she insists on showing me. Some of the pictures have tags. The first is of Guy with his Father Christmas hat on and a glass raised to the camera. She’s written something about him and there are lots of messages responding and commiserating. I scroll through, haunted by his face. There are several pictures that include me and Jamie together. Thanks to Eddie, I can put a name to him now. It makes me feel both better and worse. I know who he is, and can rule him out, but I’m also excruciatingly embarrassed. Thank God he’s away.
Jamie in his pink shirt. I am flooded with the memory of music, the heavy dancefloor pulse, the cacophony of people trying to be heard above it, the clink and clatter of the bar. I have physical recall of his proprietorial hand on the small of my back, his breath on my neck. I see myself laughing and breaking out of his grasp, twirling away and then turning back in alarm, not wanting to let him out of my sight in case I can’t find him amongst the sea of sweaty, gurning faces. How much of that was worry, how much of it attraction? I was enjoying myself, feeling my freedom and an unfamiliar power. Most of all I was alive in a way I haven’t been for a long time, if ever. Even as a child I was rarely unrestrained. I hope he didn’t see me leave with that other man. I hope he does believe my version of events.
I frown as another memory surfaces, dissipates then melds. Someone, a man, put his hand on me and I didn’t like it. He said something creepy. What was it? Dark horse. I shudder.
I keep looking. Oddly enough, I don’t see any blue shirts, even allowing for the effect of the disco lighting. Not a single one. Could he have changed for some reason? It seems unlikely, but he must have. Perhaps he spilt his drink and happened to have a spare shirt in his bag. Perhaps he had cleaned out his locker for the holidays. Even if this was the case, I still can’t find anyone who fits my memory. Some of the men are the wrong race, others have the wrong hair or build. I zoom in on a tattoo under a cuff, or a sprout of dark hair at a collar. I make a list of those I’m not sure of, and then seek them out discreetly. I associate my colleagues with their desks. It’s a memory game to me, like covering a random collection of objects on a tray. I used to play it as a child and would always win. My excuse for wandering into my colleagues’ line of sight is that someone left a pair of gloves behind at Hoxton 101. This is true. Bettina collected a large carrier bag of lost property, including a pair of glasses and some wonky festive headbands. She left it with Chris at reception, but I took the gloves, saying I knew who they belonged to.
After I’ve dismissed all the beards and visible distinguishing marks, there are five men in the running; John Cormack, Graham Ludgrove and Lucas Bradley, Finn Broadbent and David Gunner. John barely uses Facebook and hasn’t posted since November but the pictures I find show a happy man. He got married to Hannah in July and they are expecting their first baby in March. I don’t think it’s him; his build is all wrong for a start, his shoulders sloping. I close my eyes and I picture myself running my fingers down the man’s neck, discovering him inch by inch. I can still feel the shape of his shoulders. They didn’t slope; I can swear to it.
Lucas uses Facebook a lot more, documenting his life with gusto. He is a kick-boxer and keen climber and there are pictures of him clambering up rock faces trussed in a harness, giving a grinning thumbs up. He also enjoys rugby and likes to take selfies with his girlfriend, Sian. I don’t discount him at first. For all I know, she was out that night, perhaps already on her way to spend Christmas with her family. A deeper scrutiny, and I discover Sian and Lucas flew to Dublin on the morning after the party, making it extremely unlikely, if not impossible, for him to have accompanied me home. Scrolling back to their summer holiday, I find several of him in his swimming trunks, sporting a tattoo on his stomach. Lucas is out. I can only find one picture that Graham is featured in, and I have to ask Bettina, couching it as gossip.
‘Did Graham pull at the Christmas party? Only, I thought I saw him get into a taxi with one of the girls. I didn’t see her face.’
‘Graham pulled?’ She smirks. ‘I don’t think so. Anyway, he left early. I saw him sneak out about the same time as Rebecca and he didn’t have anyone with him, unless they were hiding under his coat.’
Which leaves Finn and David.
It feels too easy, as though he wants to be found.
David is a married man and a father of three; surely he wouldn’t risk his family and reputation on what amounts to a throw of the dice. On the other hand, successful men do this from time to time, self-destructing while in the grip of a primitive urge. I need to know if David’s family went away for Christmas, and if they left before him. I now regret not accepting Felicity Gunner’s offer of a lift back from the funeral later this week. I could have used that time to find out.
Agnes keeps David’s diary on management software these days. She, Rebecca and Paul Digby, the senior account manager, all have access. His holiday arrangements will be on it; it’s just a question of getting into one or other of their offices while they’re still logged on.
Over Christmas, our mail is held in the post room, then distributed by the interns or whoever isn’t mad busy. Someone has been in with ours. Eddie’s pile is bigger than mine, which he doesn’t hesitate to mention. I make a face and sit down, flicking quickly through the letters. Apart from a couple of Christmas cards that missed the last post, most of it is junk or industry contractors selling their services. There are one or two parcels; most of us get our online shopping delivered to work these days.
As I reach for the pile, a jiffy bag slides on to the floor. I pick it up. Whatever is in there is soft and I try to remember if I’ve ordered any clothes recently. I open it and peer inside. There’s no dispatch form, just a piece of dark fabric folded up. I put my hand in and feel it and I go cold.
‘Any idea what’s eating Bettina?’ Eddie asks. He doesn’t look up from his laptop, for whic
h I’m grateful.
I push the packet into my bag. ‘I haven’t noticed anything. She seems the same as usual.’
‘Maybe I’m imagining it.’ Eddie glances up when I don’t respond, and frowns. ‘What’s up? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
I shake my head. ‘Nothing.’ I pause. ‘Actually, I have to go. I feel dreadful.’
‘What kind of dreadful? Can’t you wait until after the meeting?’
‘No, I don’t think I can. I had a chicken sandwich for lunch and I think there might have been something wrong with it.’
To make my point I push my chair back and race out of the room, colliding with a colleague. I apologize, but before I can even start trying to work out who it is another question pops into my head. Was it you?
‘Sorry.’
He’s blocking my path. There is something challenging about him. He’s standing close enough for me to see the pores in his skin. He takes my elbow to steady me.
‘Finn, do you have a minute?’ someone says, and he turns away, letting me go, but it feels as though his hand is still there, his fingers lightly pressing into the dips around the joint.
I run into the Ladies, slam the door of the cubicle. I can’t breathe, my brain feels wild, unable to focus on anything. I know what’s in the envelope, I don’t have to take it out and inspect it. It’s a pair of black knickers, the ones I wore to the Christmas party, the ones he peeled off me. I am fragmenting, coming apart at the seams. I can’t do this. I cannot keep walking past those rows of desks, knowing that someone here has seen me naked.
My mind goes back a few minutes, to the man who was about to speak to me. Finn Broadbent. Thinking about it, I realize that he fits better than anyone else. He works alongside Eddie and me, picking up our campaigns when they need a boost on social media. In my situation, I can’t know anyone well – even those I should. They don’t have a face to show me, so I rely on gut instinct. I close my eyes and try to remember something about that night and the man in my bed, anything that could tie his body or his mannerisms to Finn, but I can’t. I can taste my own frustration.