Second Life

by S. J. Watson

  I know I have to do something. I know I have to do it now.

  When I get home I call Adrienne. She’s the person I always ring, when I need help. She understands, though she’s never been in the programme. Her addiction is to work, if it’s to anything. She answers straight away.

  ‘Darling, you’re home. How was it?’

  I’m silent. I don’t know what to say. So many years of vigilance, all wasted, all gone in one night. I should confess everything, yet part of me doesn’t want to.

  ‘I just . . .’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can I talk to you about something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I can’t say it. Not yet.

  ‘Did you know Kate was using websites? To meet men, I mean?’

  ‘Well, I know she used dating sites. Like everyone else. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Yes. But she wasn’t just dating. Anna said she was having fantasy sex.’

  ‘Cybersex?’

  ‘Yes. And she’d meet up with people, apparently.’

  I hesitate. I’m aware this isn’t why I called her, this isn’t the reason I wanted to speak to her. But it seems easier. It’s a build-up, a preparation. Adrienne says nothing.

  ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Yes. She told me.’

  Jealousy prickles my skin.

  ‘She never told me.’

  Adrienne sighs. ‘Darling, she was having fun. It wasn’t a big thing, just something she did occasionally. And, anyway, you hadn’t really been talking for a while.’

  She’s right. Not about anything that really mattered, I guess. There’s another wave of nausea.

  ‘What if the man who killed her was someone she met online?’

  ‘The police know what she was doing. I’m sure they’re looking into it.’

  Are they? I think. I can’t focus on it, now. I close my eyes. I take a deep breath. I open my mouth to speak, but the words still won’t come.

  ‘Darling, are you all right?’

  She knows, I think. She’s my oldest friend and she can just tell. I lower my voice, even though the house is empty.

  ‘Julia, what is it?’

  ‘I had a drink.’

  I hear her sigh. I can’t bear her disapproval, but I hear her sigh.

  ‘I didn’t mean to. I mean, I wasn’t going to, but . . .’

  I stop myself. I’m making excuses. Not taking responsibility. Not admitting that I’m powerless over alcohol. Basic stuff.

  I take a deep breath. I say it again.

  ‘I had a drink.’

  ‘Okay. Just one?’

  ‘No.’

  Please don’t tell me it’s a slippery slope. I know that. Please don’t make me feel worse than I already do.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she says.

  ‘I feel pretty bad. Awful, in fact.’

  Another pause. Please don’t tell me it’s nothing and I ought to forget it.

  ‘Adrienne?’

  ‘You’re going through a lot,’ she says. ‘It happened. It’s a slip, a relapse, but you need to forgive yourself . . . Have you thought about what we talked about?’

  She means therapy. She agrees with Hugh, and like everyone in therapy she thinks I should go too, or see a counsellor. She’s even recommended someone. Martin Somebody-or-other.

  But the truth is, I don’t want it. Not now, not yet. Not while I’m like this. I think it would fail, and then it would no longer be something I can have in reserve.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Okay, well, I won’t say any more, but I wish you would. Think about it at least.’

  I tell her I have, and I will. But I’m beginning to wonder if I deserve this pain, if somehow I owe it to my sister to live through it. I couldn’t save her. I took her son.

  ‘Have you told Hugh?’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘About having a drink. Have you told him?’

  I close my eyes. I don’t want to. I can’t.

  ‘Julia—?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘There’s no need. It won’t happen again—’

  She interrupts me. ‘Darling. Listen. You’re my oldest, dearest friend. I love you. Unconditionally. But I think you need to tell Hugh.’ She waits for me to speak, but I don’t. ‘I know it’s entirely up to you, but I’m sure it’s the right thing to do.’

  She’s being tender, kind-hearted; yet still it feels brutal. I tell her I’ll do it tonight.

  Hugh is out for the evening. He’s playing squash, then there’ll be drinks afterwards. He isn’t late, though, and Connor has only just gone to bed when he gets in. Almost straight away I decide I’m going to tell him.

  I wait until we’re sitting in the living room, watching television. At the first ad break I pause the screen then turn to him, as if I’m going to ask if he wants a cup of tea.

  ‘Darling?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  I stumble over the words.

  ‘I’ve had a relapse.’

  I don’t say any more. I don’t have to. He knows what it means. He hasn’t been through the programme, or even to a meeting, but he’s read the literature. He knows enough. He knows what a relapse is, just like he knows he mustn’t try to control my behaviour by modifying his own, that he can’t stop me drinking by never drinking himself.

  He also knows better than to ask how many drinks I had, or when, or why. It’s pointless. The answers are irrelevant. I had a drink. Whether it was the tiniest sip or a whole bottle makes no difference at all.

  He takes my hand. I thought he was going to be angry, but he’s not. It’s worse. He’s disappointed. I can tell, from his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologize to me.’

  It’s not what I want to hear. But what do I want to hear? What can he say? Addiction is a sickness unlike those Hugh is used to facing. He’s someone who cuts the bad parts out, sends them to the incinerator. The patient is cured, or not.

  I look at him. I want him to tell me he loves me. I don’t want him to tell me he knows what I’m going through. I want him to remind me that a lapse doesn’t have to be a relapse, or tell me that I can start going to meetings again, or make me feel that we’re in it together.

  ‘I won’t drink again,’ I say.

  He smiles, and tells me he hopes not, for my sake, and for Connor’s. He tells me he’s here for me, always, but it’s too late. He layered the guilt on first, and now I’m hardly listening. Instead, I’m thinking of my sponsor, Rachel. I wish I could ring her, but she’s moved away, it’s been too long. And I’m thinking of Kate.

  Finally he’s silent. I wait for a moment then thank him. We sit for a few more minutes, then I tell him I need to go to bed. He kisses me, and says he’ll be up in a minute.

  I’m on my own, but I won’t let this happen again, I tell myself. I’ll be vigilant.
Whatever happens, whatever it takes, I won’t drink again.

  Chapter Six

  I wake early. My eyes flick open. Another bad night. It’s June, two months since I went to Paris, four since Kate died. It’s still dark. It’s the middle of the night.

  The room is hot and airless, the sheets soaked. Hugh has kicked the duvet off and lies next to me, snoring gently. The clock on my side of the bed ticks, too loud. Four forty. The same time I woke up last night, and the night before that.

  I’ve been dreaming of Kate. This time she was about four, it was summer, we were in the garden. She was wearing a yellow dress, angel wings made out of yellow paper, black tights. She wanted me to chase her; she was making a buzzing sound, pretending to be a bee. ‘Come on!’ she was saying, over and over, but I was bored, I wanted to stop. I wanted to get back to my book. ‘Come on, Julia!’ she was saying, ‘Come on!’ then she turned and ran, towards a wood. I wanted to tell her not to go in there, but I didn’t. I was too hot, too lazy. I just let her run away from me, and then turned to go back to the house. As I did the dream morphed, we were adults now, something terrible was happening, and suddenly it was me who was running, running after her, calling her name, and she who was disappearing into an alleyway. It was dark, I was desperate to catch up with her, to save her. I ran round a corner and she was there, slumped on the floor. I was too late.

  I sit on the edge of the bed. Every night it’s the same, a dream of Kate, bleeding to death, and then in a dream behind a dream there’s Marcus, always Marcus, his mouth open and accusing. I know I won’t sleep again, I never do.

  Tonight I’m weak. I can’t help it. And so I let myself think of him. Of Marcus. For the first time in years I think of the day we met. I close my eyes and I can see it. I’m back there. Marcus is sitting opposite me, the other side of the circle. It’s his first meeting. We’re in a church hall, it’s draughty, a tea urn fizzes in one of the corners. The chair – a guy called Keith – has already outlined the programme and introduced the first speaker, a woman whose name I’ve forgotten. I barely listen as she speaks; I’ve been coming for a while, ever since I caved in and admitted I’ve been drinking too much for too long. Plus, I’m watching Marcus. He’s the same age as me, and we’re both much younger than the others in the group. He sits forward in his chair. He looks eager, attentive, yet at the same time he doesn’t seem wholly interested. Something about him is wrong. I wonder if he’s here for himself, or for someone else. I picture a girlfriend, someone who he’d hoped to persuade here tonight but who refused to come. Perhaps he wants to go home, back to her, and tell her what he’s learned. It’s not so bad, he might say. These people want to help. Next week come with me.

  I wanted to find out. I don’t know why; maybe he looked like someone I thought I could get on with. I went up to him, during the break. I introduced myself, and he said his name was Marcus. ‘Hi,’ I said, and he smiled, and in that moment I realized just how attracted I was to him. It was a desire that felt solid, had a shape, a pull that felt physical. I’d never experienced it before, not like this. I wanted to reach out, to touch his neck, his hair, his lips. Just to be sure he existed, was real. ‘First time?’ I said, and he said yes, yes it was. We chatted for a while. Somehow – I don’t remember how, or even whether he volunteered the information himself – I learned that the girlfriend didn’t exist. He was single. When it was time to go back to our seats he came and sat next to me, and after the meeting we went outside. We paused to say goodbye, about to head off in different directions.

  ‘Are you here next week?’

  He shrugged, kicked the kerb. ‘Probably.’ He turned to leave, but then he pulled a scrap of paper out of his wallet.

  ‘Got a pen?’ he said.

  Was that it? I wonder now. Was that the moment my life slipped out of one track – recovery, stability, sobriety – and into another? Or did that come later?

  I open my eyes. I can’t think of him any more. He belongs in the past; my family is here, now. My family is Hugh, and Connor.

  And Kate.

  I get up. This can’t go on, this waking up in the middle of the night. This avoiding of things. I’m haunted by the place she lost her life; I should’ve gone to see it when I had the chance, but there are other ways.

  I go downstairs and sit at the kitchen table. I’m determined, I have to do this. In Paris I was a coward, but now I can put it right. I open my laptop and log on to the map programme. I type in the address.

  I press enter. A map appears on the screen, criss-crossed with roads, scattered with points of interest. There’s an arrow dropped into it and when I click on Street View the map disappears, replaced by a photo of the road. It looks broad, lined with trees, with shops and banks and a stack of prefabs covered in graffiti. The photo has been taken during the day and the place looks busy; passers-by frozen as they walk along it, their faces blurred inexpertly by the software.

  I stare at the screen. It looks ordinary. How could my sister have lost her life here? How could it have left no trace?

  I steel myself, then navigate along the road. I see the alleyway, cutting down between a building and the raised railway line that crosses the road.

  I’m here, I think. The place she died.

  I zoom in. It seems anodyne, harmless. At one end there’s a kiosk, painted blue with a sign advertising Cosmétiques Antilles, and there are two rows of bollards dotting the pavement. The alleyway curves after what looks like four or five yards, and I can’t see down it.

  I wonder where it leads, what’s at the other end. I wonder why there was no one there to save her and, for the millionth time, what she was doing there.

  I need answers. I fetch the box that Anna gave me from under my bed and take it back downstairs. I look at the picture on the front, the woman in the red dress. For two months I’ve tried to ignore this, terrified of what I might find, but I can’t any longer. How bad can it be? I ask myself. Didn’t Anna say it was just some paperwork? That’s all.

  Yet still I’m afraid. But what of? Evidence of how far she’d come, perhaps. Proof that she was right, that Connor would have been better back with her?

  I take out her passport and hold it for a moment before putting it to one side. Underneath it there are some letters, and beneath them her birth certificate and driving licence, along with her medical card and a note with what I assume is her National Insurance number.

  It calms me, somehow. I’m facing something that’s been waiting for me. I’m doing well. I feel surprisingly okay.

  I dig further in. It’s more difficult; there are photos, taken at parties, one of Connor that I’d sent her, another of some friends on a boat trip along the Seine. I tell myself I’ll look at them properly later. Further down there’s a pink Filofax, pocket-sized. This seems hardest of all, but when I flick through its pages I see she seems to have stopped using it when she got an iPhone last summer. Tucked into it is a single sheet of paper. I take that out and unfold it.

  Straight away I see a name I recognize. Written at the top is ‘Jasper1234’. It’s the name of the Labrador we had when we were little, followed by four digits, and next to it she’s written ‘KatieB’, and then a Web address, encountrz.com. The rest of the page is filled with a list of odd words – ‘Eastdude’; ‘Athletique27’; ‘Kolm’; �
�Ourcq’ – all written at different times, in different inks and with different pens. It takes me only a moment to piece it together. Encountrz is the site Anna told me about, the one they both used. Kate used our dog’s name as a password, KatieB as her username.

  I refold the page and put it back. The guilt I’ve told myself I shouldn’t feel rolls again in my stomach. I should’ve looked at this sooner, I think. It might be important, something the police have missed. I’ve let her down; there was something I could’ve done to save her, something I could still do to make it all right.

  I dial Anna’s number. It’s early, but this feels urgent. And it’s an hour later in Paris. Nearly six.

  She answers almost immediately. Sleepy, anxious. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Anna? It’s me. Julia.’

  ‘Julia. Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes, fine. I’m sorry to call so early. I didn’t mean to wake you, but that box you gave me? You’re sure the police have gone through it?’

  ‘Box? You mean Kate’s things?’

  ‘Yes. The police have definitely looked at it?’

  ‘Yes, I’m certain. Why?’

  ‘I’m just looking at it all now—’

  ‘Now? It’s very early . . .’

  ‘I know, but I couldn’t sleep. The thing is, there’s a list of names. I think they might be people she was talking to. Online, I mean. I thought the police should see them . . .’

  ‘They did, I think. They had everything in that box. They said they’d kept everything they might need.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I think so, yes. Give me a second.’