But something strange was happening. She was falling, her body collapsing like a rag doll. Sinking to the floor, hands at her throat, she observed the lower half of the room in a haze – the legs of the coffee table, the bottom half of the sofa, dust and clumps of fluff underneath. Must give it a clean tomorrow…
His feet, in slow motion, brown leather loafers flexing, heading towards the window.
*
There’s no question in her mind that it happened. At last she understands what’s been sitting at the back of her mind, trying to surface, ever since her memory started to trickle back. And as she sits there in Graham’s room, the horror of what she did hits her, her chest enclosed in an iron grip, her head bursting with the knowledge.
Thoughts race through her head, questions leaping. Did I know this all along? Did my memory shrink from the shocking truth, refuse to recognise it, hide it away until now? Did I knowingly block it?
How can I face Ali’s family now? How can I face my mum? How can I face myself? I can’t recover from this. I’m a monster. There is no life for me. How can I forget what I’ve done, now?
A deep chasm of despair opens up and she drifts towards it, helpless.
“Her.” That one little word, is at the heart of everything.
She made the choice.
*
Graham draws it out of her. He’s patient and gentle. He has to be. The final piece of the jigsaw, the realisation that she’d chosen to save herself over Ali, has shocked her. Her body is numb.
She can barely speak. When she opens her mouth, a sob escapes. He provides tissues, waits while she calms herself and wipes away her tears.
“I chose. He wanted me to choose between Ali and me, and I chose her. It’s my fault she died. Connor was right all along. I did save myself over Ali. Oh God…”
He continues to wait, as if nothing has changed.
The pain in her chest has spread. She tries to breathe deeply, but it hurts too much. She’s overwhelmed by a feeling of utter exhaustion, as if all her energy has seeped out of her. She swallows a few times, wipes away the tears that continue to fall. But he’s still waiting.
“Is it worth carrying on with this?” she says.
“Carrying on with what?”
“With the therapy, with trying to deal with the guilt.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because now I know it was my fault that Ali died, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.”
“On the contrary. You don’t know it was your fault and there’s a lot we can do. I’d like to explore that moment – when he gave you the choice. If you think you can.”
She feels too weak to object, though she knows it’s hopeless.
“What happened after you fell to the floor?”
“I’m not sure. I was in shock, I think.”
“You must have been very afraid. He was holding you by the hair, with a knife cutting into your throat.”
“Yes, I was terrified. I just wanted him to get off me, to let me go.”
“At that moment, when he was holding you, what did you think he meant?”
“I had no idea what he meant. It didn’t occur to me that he might want to kill us. It was all so sudden.”
There’s a long pause as if he’s waiting for her to give him more.
“So when you answered him, what was going through your mind?”
“I just said it – I didn’t mean him to kill Ali!” It’s an anguished shout. She regrets it straight away but Graham doesn’t react.
“Of course you didn’t. So what did you think might happen?”
“I suppose I thought he might let go and I might be able to kick him, or grab his arm. Or just get away. I’d have said anything to get him off.”
“So it was a primal, instinctive reaction. You just wanted him to let you go.” It wasn’t a question.
“I suppose so.”
“And when he did release you, what did you do?”
“I tried to grab him – I wanted to, but my body wouldn’t move. I was already blacking out. I was bleeding. It all gets a bit hazy after that. But as I collapsed, I saw him moving towards the window where Ali was. I watched his feet.”
There’s a pause. Lisa stares into Graham’s face, looking for disapproval, shock, disgust. But his eyes, fixed on hers, show none of that. After a moment he leans back in his chair.
“In replying to him, by saying the word ‘her’ what were you doing?”
For a moment she’s not sure what he’s getting at. “It was a reflex – a gut reaction. I had to say something, he was waiting.”
“You reacted by?”
“By answering.”
He stays quiet, looking into her eyes, as if waiting for more.
“By choosing.”
“So you chose to say ‘her’, rather than ‘me’.”
“Yes.” Her whole body aches.
“What did you mean when you chose to say ‘her’?”
“Hurt Ali, not me,” she whispers.
“Did you really mean that?”
“No, no, of course I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want him to hurt Ali, but I was so scared. I was clutching at straws, I’d have said anything, I don’t know what I meant.”
“Did you know what his next move would be?”
“It was just a reaction, there was no logic.”
“It’s all right, Lisa. There was no intention on your part – so what did it mean?”
She’s still not sure what he’s getting at. Then she feels a whisper of recognition and something unfolds in her mind.
*
“It was a reaction to him yelling at me.” She says the words slowly, deliberately. “I had to say something. He wanted an answer. I didn’t know what he would do.”
“So how do you feel, understanding that?”
She’s unable to answer for a while. He waits.
“Oh God, I don’t know. Why didn’t I say ‘me’?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because he already had me, I was helpless, bleeding, I couldn’t do anything. And at least if I said ‘her’, he might let me go. It’s strange, though. A part of me feels relieved. Now that I know. I did choose, but I didn’t know what it meant.” She searches for disbelief in Graham’s eyes, but finds only expectation, interest.
“So by saying ‘her’ in response, you were hoping he’d let you go?” He sits back in his chair, as if to emphasise the point.
“Well, yes.”
“Can you hold on to that, do you think?” She’s quiet for a while, thinking it through. It’s all so new, shocking and yet so obvious.
“I don’t know. Maybe. As long as nobody else knows.”
“Would it bother you if other people knew?”
“I’d hate people to misunderstand. It would be easy for them to think I made a conscious choice, that I wanted to save myself and purposely put Ali in danger. I don’t think I could bear that.”
“Nobody will know, unless you tell them.”
Another realisation pricks at her. “Oh God, what if I’d remembered before the court case?”
“Would it have made a difference to the outcome?”
“I don’t know. I suppose not. He would still have had to plead guilty.”
“The only difference is that other people would know what a horrible thing he forced you to do. Anyway, you didn’t remember.”
She sits thinking about this for a moment.
“He could say it’s my fault Ali died, I suppose. It won’t change his situation. He’d still be guilty of manslaughter and GBH. But what if he tells people?”
“Are you frightened he’d tell someone in particular?”
“I don’t know. Ali’s family, maybe.”
“What would he get out of it? He’ll just look even more guilty because he forced you, at knifepoint, to choose.”
“He could do it to be vindictive. They might blame me if they knew.”
“He could, but there’d be nothing in i
t for him. What’s he got against you? It wasn’t your fault he went to prison. He managed that all by himself.”
*
What she hasn’t told Graham, or anyone else, is that she’s remembered the night they spent with Fergus and the nature of their relationship, both before and after that. That twinge of recollection which bothered her over weeks and months is now a memory – and it’s accompanied by deep shame.
She agonised over withholding it, but now she’s convinced herself that it’s irrelevant, it doesn’t make any difference to the outcome. The police don’t need to know. Graham doesn’t need to know. The true cause of her psychological state is Ali’s death, not that mad, stupid night. And her mum doesn’t need to know. Does she? What if Fergus lets it slip – would anyone believe him now? They’d think it’s all made up, wouldn’t they? The idea that she’s let her mum down badly, after everything that’s happened, intensifies her shame. But the idea of telling her is worse. Unthinkable. She just has to hope that Fergus won’t use it against her.
*
The only time she and Ali had argued was about Fergus.
Because it hadn’t ended with the text. Yes, he’d worked away from home for a while – more than six months, as it happened. But when he returned, he’d appeared again at the pub and Ali had bumped into him on a night when Lisa was working late. They’d kissed and made up, sat in a quiet corner and agreed to be friends.
Ali dropped this casually into conversation soon afterwards. Lisa was horrified. She wanted no reminders of that night, nothing to do with Fergus or his drugs. She’d yelled at Ali, accused her of being thoughtless, of forgetting how upset and ashamed she was. Ali, always the more laid-back of the two, had stuck to her guns, argued that Fergus meant them no harm, wasn’t pushing them to do anything, just wanted to clear the air. In the end, they’d agreed that Ali would see Fergus if she wanted to. She would tell him that Lisa was too embarrassed about what they’d done and preferred not to see him.
As time passed Lisa became more optimistic. They started going to the pub again, and sometimes Fergus would be there. She would tolerate his presence, be polite, civil. If he joined their group, she would be careful not to end up next to him and avoided him if she could. He seemed to accept the situation and left her alone. There was only one moment that unnerved her. He was at the bar with some friends, the whisky flowing, and she noticed him looking at her, an odd expression on his face. She looked away, pretending not to have seen him. When she glanced back, he was laughing with the group, his back turned.
*
She sits on a hard plastic chair in the corridor, trying not to pick at her fingers. She bites her lip instead, so hard she can taste the blood. Chloe sits close, their arms touching, Sarah on her other side. They’ve travelled here together on a long, uncomfortable journey from home, arriving at last late in the morning, but in plenty of time for the meeting. The prison is a sinister building that squats in the countryside of northern England. It couldn’t look more like a prison, grim and menacing.
More than once on the journey, listening to the rhythm of the train on its tracks, Lisa asked herself what the hell she was doing, putting herself in the most confrontational, stressful position she could possibly think of. But she made it, and now she’s here, she’s not going to turn back.
She’d expected Fergus to be reluctant to face her, but he’d agreed straight away. There followed a long drawn-out exchange of questions by post and email, handled by Sarah at one end and Fergus’s representative at the other. Once she’d committed to it, she was determined to make it work.
She’s spent a lot of time with Graham, working through her fears, finding ways to calm the demons. She’s rehearsed the questions and imagined the scene over and over, hoping that familiarity and visualisation will calm her.
Her stomach refuses to settle. All through the three-hour journey she tried to ignore the cramps and the sickness that threatened to overwhelm her. When they arrived at the prison gates half an hour early, she was so near to panicking she nearly turned and ran. It was only because of her mum that she carried on.
The mass of grey stone and curling razor wire on the outside walls were deeply intimidating. At the entrance their bags were searched, and Sarah surrendered her mobile phone. Lisa hung on to Chloe’s arm as they followed a guard through a labyrinth of corridors, their painted walls reflecting the hard fluorescent light. Closed doors lined each side, their dark secrets hidden from view, and unpleasant smells hung in the air: cabbage, sweat and a faint whiff of disinfectant.
The group stopped at a sign marked Chaplaincy, and the guard motioned them to the chairs lining the corridor. He disappeared through a glass door.
They wait in silence, shifting nervously on the hard seats.
She just wants to get it over with. She starts to pick at her fingers, where the skin beside her nails is already torn and inflamed. The glass door swishes, the guard reappears with a key and opens the door opposite them. Sarah leads the way into a large square room, cold and bare but for a small circle of six chairs. A small window, high on one wall, frames the grey sky outside.
They sit facing the door, where the prison officer stands. Sarah, Lisa, Chloe in a short row. Lisa takes her mum’s hand, which curls over hers.
“They’ve gone to fetch him now,” Sarah says.
*
The minute the door opens, the room is infused with tension. Lisa shrinks into her chair, feeling its power.
Two men lead the way and Fergus follows, head down. There’s a general shuffling and scraping of chairs as they sit.
Lisa can’t take her eyes off him as he takes his place in the circle. He’s small and thin, his face pale, his hair cropped to a fuzz. She looks at his feet, remembering the brown leather loafers, but he’s wearing scuffed trainers. He seems ordinary, scared even. The thought calms her a little as she waits for Sarah to start.
After a brief introduction when she names each person and their role in the meeting, Sarah outlines the format. They start with the questions they’ve all seen in advance. They speak when they’re invited to by Sarah, in turns. Afterwards there’ll be tea and biscuits. They don’t have to stay for that part if they don’t wish to. They all nod in silence, except Fergus.
“Let’s start with you, Fergus,” Sarah says. “How would you describe what happened that evening in June last year?”
His eyes flash onto Sarah’s face, then flick down again. He sits slumped, arms folded, says nothing. Lisa holds her breath. Oh God, what if he refuses to speak?
“In your own words, Fergus. Take your time.” Sarah says. They all focus on him.
He clears his throat, shifting in his seat. When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet, monotone, his eyes almost closed.
“I met up with the crowd at the pub. I’d had a lot of stuff, drugs, and nearly a bottle of whisky before I went. The work had dried up and I’d had a bad day. I’d been drinking since lunchtime.”
“What happened at the pub?”
“Not much. When the girls left, I followed them to the flat. I asked to use the toilet and they let me up.”
“So, you went to the toilet – and then?”
“I wanted to stay, just for a while. I wanted company. They were drinking coffee…” He pauses and glances at Sarah, as if for approval.
“Go on,” she says.
“I dunno. I said something stupid – about a threesome.” He finally glances at Lisa. She holds her breath as he looks down again.
“They asked me to leave and, I dunno, I just lost it. I just wanted to talk, wanted a bit of company – and they were trying to chuck me out. I was mad with them. So I went to the kitchen and took a knife.” He stops again and leans forward, elbows on knees, head hanging. “I was totally out of my head. I lost control.” His voice drops to a hoarse whisper.
Lisa’s rigid, her eyes glued to his face.
“And then?” Sarah says.
“And then, something happened to me, I dunno what, but I was
so angry, it just took over. I grabbed hold of Lisa. There was lots of screaming. It was so loud, I was confused, my head was gone.” He stops and looks at Sarah again. “I wanted to stop the screaming. That’s all. I didn’t mean… I just wanted to stop the screaming.”
“What happened next?”
“I can’t remember anything after grabbing Lisa, and the screaming. The next thing I knew, they were locking me up.”
Lisa is incredulous. She studies his face. He must have remembered more than that, surely.
Sarah nods. “Thank you, Fergus. Lisa, do you want to ask something?”
Lisa stares at him, willing him to make eye contact. “Do you remember what you did with the knife?”
He stares at the ground.
“No.”
“But you do remember grabbing me.”
“Yes.”
“What were you going to do with the knife?”
“I said, I dunno.” The probation officer shoots a look at him, a silent reproval. He sits back.
“You had the knife to my neck. Look.” She pulls the scarf away from her throat and lifts her chin so that the light falls on the scar, the blood-red slash across her white skin. “That’s why Ali was screaming. You don’t remember that?”
He looks up, but not into her face. To Sarah, he says, his tone still unemotional. “I don’t remember that.”
“You cut me, there was blood everywhere. Ali was trying to stop you. I don’t believe you don’t remember.”
“I don’t remember.” His tone is flat, stubborn.
“So do you remember what happened to Ali?” Lisa says, persisting, anger beginning to rise.
“No. Nothing else.” He still doesn’t look at her. Why doesn’t he look at me? He’s holding something back. She wants to shake him, hit him, kick the truth out of him.She looks at Sarah again, who nods her permission.
“You don’t remember how Ali came to fall out of the window?”
“No, I don’t.” It’s a flat response, a little louder than before. He’s trying to shut me down, she thinks. Her mum’s hand is on her arm now, a gentle restraint. She ignores it, the blood rising. She needs to control her voice. She doesn’t want him to hear the emotion. But he’s got to know what he’s done – to Ali, to her, to all of them.
Dare to Remember: Shocking. Page-Turning. Psychological Thriller. Page 22