Second Life

by S. J. Watson

  I light a cigarette, my third of the day. I guess this means I’ve started smoking again. I inhale. Hold. Exhale. Its rhythms calm me, even in these desperate circumstances; I can’t believe how much I’ve missed it. I look at my watch.

  I’m late. He’s even later, I think, but then I feel his gaze burning into me and I know. He’s here, out of sight, watching me.

  Suddenly I see him approach. He’s in front of me, wearing a blue parka jacket. He’s walking slowly, his head up. I’m aware my hands are shaking. Instinctively I put my hand in my pocket, feel for my phone, just as I’ve been practising. By the time he’s level with me I’m ready, composed. For a long moment we stare at each other, then he speaks.

  ‘Hello, Julia.’ He glances at what I’m wearing: jeans, a sweater, my Converse trainers. I tell myself not to react. I mustn’t let him make me angry. I’m here to find out exactly what he wants, to make him stop.

  I notice the red mark on his cheek. I open my mouth to speak when he lunges for me. He grabs my arm, I yelp.

  ‘What the—?’ I begin, but he silences me. His grip is strong, and then he kisses me on the cheek. It’s rough, unpleasant, yet brief. Even so, every part of my body reacts powerfully, reflexively. I pull away.

  ‘For old time’s sake. Come on.’

  He tries to direct me down Goding Street, towards the arches under the railway. A street of bike shops and storerooms, the shuttered rear entrances of the bars and clubs of the Albert Embankment. I resist. ‘What’s down there?’ I say, my voice high and anxious. ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Somewhere quiet,’ he says.

  I have visions of being found, my neck broken, bleeding, gutted like one of Hugh’s patients. I have to remind myself again that he didn’t kill Kate, that I mustn’t let him see my fear. Whatever else he did, he didn’t do that. I repeat it like a mantra.

  I shake my arm free. I could run, I think. Into the pub, though its shuttered windows suggest it might not be open.

  ‘Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.’

  ‘Just stay away from me.’ I’m shaking with fear, my voice is unsteady. ‘We can talk here—’

  ‘You want me to stay away from you?’ He looks incredulous. ‘I want you to stay away from me, and from Anna.’ I begin to protest, but he continues. ‘You’re the one who’s messaging me non-stop, who’s ringing me up day and fucking night, over and over. I had to change my fucking number, just to get rid of you.’

  I stare at him. We’re both totally still, as if locked in stalemate, then I speak. ‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’

  ‘So, you’re the one who won’t leave me alone.’ He points to his cheek. ‘I mean, look at this. Crazy. You’re crazy.’

  The wound has healed, more or less. It’s superficial. Soon it won’t be visible at all.

  ‘You did that.’

  He laughs. ‘Are you mad? I brought the knife down with me to protect myself, not so that I could stab myself! I didn’t know you were going to lose it and try to grab it out of my hand . . .’

  ‘No. No, no . . .’ I take a step back. I remind myself why I’m here. To protect Connor. ‘You’re stalking my son!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bowling alley. He told me.’

  He laughs. ‘You’re crazier than I thought! So keep away from me, okay? Or else—’

  ‘Or else what?’

  ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet? I can do anything. Anything at all . . . Hugh? Anna? I can destroy them both. Unless there’s a way you could make it worth my while not to . . .’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ I try to keep my voice steady. I want it to have a strength I don’t feel. I want him to think I’m telling the truth. ‘You think I care, but I don’t. Hugh and I are only staying together because of Connor. I’ve already told him all about you. He understands. So,’ – I shrug – ‘what you’re trying won’t work. Show those photos to anyone you like . . .’

  ‘Anyone?’

  I nod.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How about Connor?’

  I try not to recoil, but I can’t help it. He sees it.

  ‘Connor’s grounded. You won’t get near him again. Coincidentally or not.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. Me and Connor? We have history now. We’re virtually friends.’

  I feel a chill. What does he mean? Is there something else, something I don’t know about? Again the fear comes, that he’s got something to do with Evie. I have to remind myself that Hugh’s spoken to her, in real life. He’s heard her voice. It can’t be Lukas. I have to remember that.

  ‘You don’t scare me.’

  ‘Don’t you get it? You and me? It was fun while it lasted. But now I just want what’s owed to me. You have to back off. I’m having my fun with someone else. You have to get it into your stupid head that it’s over.’

  I’m shocked. ‘Anna? Anna? You make her sound like an object, but you asked her to marry you!’

  ‘There are lots of different types of games, you know . . .’

  He’s a few feet away, a little further than arm’s length. It might not be close enough. I step towards him. I raise my voice.

  ‘What’re you doing with Anna? Really? I know you’re using her. You don’t love her, like you didn’t love me.’

  He’s smiling. It’s an answer in itself, but I want to hear him say it.

  ‘What are you doing with her? I know this is about the money, my sister’s money, but why involve her?’

  He leans in. ‘How else was I going to get close to you?’

  I remember why I’ve come here.

  ‘You don’t love her? You’ve never loved her?’

  I’m careful to phrase it as a question. It takes him only a moment to reply.

  ‘Me? Love Anna? Look, we have a nice little arrangement going on, but I don’t love her. The sex is great, that’s all. And you know what? I like to think of you as we do it.’

  I take a deep breath. There, I think. I have it. I almost smile. It’s my turn to feel smug now.

  ‘Oh, by the way, don’t even think about contacting Anna again.’

  I can’t help but reply: ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘How so?’ He hesitates, he’s enjoying this. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘You think you’re having lunch with her tomorrow?’ His smile is chilling. ‘I guess she hasn’t told you? She’s changed her ticket. Some family emergency, I think. Or something at work? I can’t quite remember. Maybe it’s just that she thinks you’re absolutely crazy and wants to get as far away as possible. In any case, you won’t be seeing her tomorrow. In fact, I reckon she’ll be leaving the hotel,’ – he looks at his watch – ‘around about . . . now.’

  My eyes narrow. I have to make him think he’s beaten me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Anna thinks you’re crazy. She’s on her way back home, and I’m joining her in a few days. So why don’t you just toddle off home? Go back to your husband and be a good little wife for him? Eh?’

 
I don’t react. I can’t. I don’t want him to see how scared I am. I haven’t won, not yet. Not until I can speak to Anna. I have to make him think I’m going to do exactly as he says. Go back home.

  I shake my head. ‘Fuck you,’ I say, and turn away from him.

  His gaze burns into me as I retrace my steps. I don’t run, I have to look unconcerned. I daren’t turn round, I don’t want him to know how much I hope he’s not following. Everything depends on him leaving me alone, just for a couple of hours. Everything depends on me getting to Anna before she boards her train. I turn the corner and am out of sight. Then, I run.

  I head through the bus station, on to the main road. I look behind me, but he’s nowhere in sight. Why would he hang around? He’s won. A taxi pulls up, at the lights. It’s available and I hail it. ‘St Pancras,’ I say, then get in.

  ‘Okay, love,’ says the driver. She must sense my urgency. ‘Traffic’s bad today. What time’s your train?’

  I tell her I don’t know, I’m meeting someone. ‘Please hurry,’ I say again. The lights change and she pulls away. She says she’ll do her best. I take my phone out of my pocket, where it’d been the whole time, the voice memo recorder already running, and press done. I’d hit record as soon as we met. With any luck I’ve recorded our entire conversation.

  I look over my shoulder. Lukas is still nowhere to be seen.

  We’re in luck. Our route through Lambeth is pretty clear, the lights are in our favour. I listen back to what I’ve managed to capture. It’s muffled, recorded as it was from the pocket of my jacket, while the two of us were moving around. Some of it is okay – in places my voice is loud but it’s Lukas’s reply I need and it’s barely registered on the recording – but a good deal of it is usable. I can hear him saying ‘For old time’s sake’ after he kissed me, and he’d also raised his voice to say, ‘You’re crazier than I thought.’ But that’s not good enough. It isn’t what I’m looking for. I fast forward, desperate to find a section that is incontrovertible proof of what I need Anna to know; that he’s not who he says he is, that she’s in danger and that we need to help each other.

  It’s there. The part I’d hoped for. Luckily, I’d stepped towards him, he’d been close; plus, my plan to raise my voice in the hope that it would encourage him to raise his had worked.

  I rewind. Play it again. At first it’s broken: ‘. . . using her . . . love her . . .’ but then there’s a gap and the next sentence is clear. ‘I know this is about the money, my sister’s money, but why involve her?’

  Lukas’s answer is clear, too.

  ‘How else was I going to get close to you?’

  Then it’s me. I must’ve shifted on my feet as I spoke; the first part of the sentence is lost as something rubs against the microphone of my phone’s recorder. I recognize my own voice, but what I’m saying is all but lost. Only one word is audible: ‘her’.

  It shouldn’t matter, though. I know it’s his response I need next; I remember what he’d said, but the whole recording is meaningless unless it’s audible.

  Luckily, his answer is perfectly clear. I play it twice, just to be sure.

  ‘Me?’ he’s saying. ‘. . . Look, we have a nice little arrangement going on, but I don’t love her.’

  I close my eyes, as if in victory, then rewind and listen to it a third time. It should be enough to convince my friend, I think. I just need to get there in time now.

  I freeze. It occurs to me, as if for the first time. I don’t have to do this. I could just leave it, just walk away, go home. Lukas has demanded I leave them alone, so why not?

  I think of his hands on me. I think of the places he’s taken me. Can I abandon my sister’s best friend to that? What kind of person would that make me?

  From nowhere I think back to Anna’s reading, at the funeral. ‘To the angry I was cheated, but to the happy I am at peace.’

  She thinks she’s happy, but it won’t last. I can’t abandon her now and live with myself, knowing I’ve betrayed her. I can’t.

  I glance at the time and shift forward in my seat. It’s just after one o’clock. The traffic is bad, but we’re moving; already we’re over the river and skirting the city. If only I knew what time her train was, I think, then I’d be able to work out whether I have time, or no chance at all.

  I look on my phone, navigate to the Eurostar webpage, to the timetable. It’s grindingly slow – I need to press refresh two, three times – but it makes me feel like I’m doing something, at least. Eventually the page appears. There’s a train just after two, and she’ll be checking in at least half an hour before it.

  I look up. We’ve got as far as Lambeth North. It’s a twenty-minute trip, I’d guess, then we’ll have to find somewhere to pull in. I’ll need to pay the driver, then I have to find my friend. I’m desperate, yet helpless. I will the traffic to move, the lights to change. I curse as we get stuck behind a cyclist, as someone steps out on to a pedestrian crossing and we have to brake.

  I’m not sure we’re going to make it, plus Lukas may ring her and tell her I’m on my way. It’s hopeless.

  It’s almost one thirty when we pull up outside the terminal; I’m numb, certain I’ll have missed her. I pass my fare over to the driver – far too much, but I tell her to keep the change – and then I start to run. She shouts, ‘Good luck, love!’ but I don’t answer, don’t even turn round. I’m already frantically looking for Anna. I run in, towards the gates to the terminal, past the coffee shops and ticket offices, remembering as I do the times I’d met Lukas here. The images assault me, in Technicolor. I think of the second time we’d met, just after he’d lied to me and told me he lived near London after all. Back when I felt almost nothing for him, by comparison to what came later, at least. Back when it would’ve been easy, relatively, to walk away. Back when I was worried he had a wife, when really he was about to ask someone else to marry him.

  Not just someone, I think. Anna. And now, I realize with increasing panic, I’m here rushing to try to save her.

  The station is crowded; I can’t see her. I stop running. ‘Find Friends,’ I think she’d called it. We’d linked our profiles. I scrabble for my phone, drop it, pick it up again. I open the map, but there’s only one dot. Mine.

  She’s disconnected her profile from mine. She hates me. I’m about to despair. She’ll go back home; all is lost. I could try to call her, yes, but she probably won’t answer the phone, and even if she does how will I make her believe me? I need to be there, in front of her. I need to make her understand.

  I see a flash of red in the crowds, and somehow I know it’s her coat. When the crowd clears I see I’m right. She’s at the gate itself, pulling her case behind her with one hand, with the other already fumbling her ticket over the automatic scanner. ‘Anna!’ I shout, but she can’t hear me and doesn’t respond. I start running again. My words are lost in gasped breath, caught up in the noisy chaos of the station, rising and echoing in the vault of the ceiling. I shout again, louder this time – ‘Anna! Wait!’ – but by the time she looks up and sees me I’m too late; the automatic gates have registered her ticket, swung open and she’s gone through.

  ‘Julia!’ she says, turning back to face me. ‘What’re you . . . ?’

  I stop running. We
’re on either side of the gates, a few feet apart. There’s a security booth just beyond her, and beyond that the waiting rooms and restaurants of the international terminal. ‘I met Lukas.’ She looks momentarily confused, then I remember myself. ‘I mean, Ryan. I saw Ryan.’

  She looks at me, her head tilted, her mouth turned down. It’s pity. She feels sorry for me. Again I’m reminded that Lukas has won.

  ‘I know. He called me.’

  ‘They’re the same person, Anna. I swear. Ryan is Lukas. He’s been lying to you.’

  She seems to well up. Something she’s so far been holding in check erupts to the surface.

  ‘I thought you were my friend.’

  ‘I am.’ But then my mind goes to the scar on Lukas’s cheek, just beginning to crust. I can only imagine what he’s said to her.

  ‘Whatever Ryan’s told you, he’s lying.’ I look her in the eye. ‘Believe me . . .’

  She shakes her head. ‘Bye, Julia.’ She turns to leave.

  I grip the barrier. For a second I think I could jump it, or push through, but already we’re attracting attention. A staff member is watching us, he’s stepping forward, as if he expects trouble.

  I call instead. ‘Anna! Come back. Just for a minute. Let me explain!’

  She looks over her shoulder. ‘Goodbye, Julia.’ She begins to walk away.

  ‘No!’ I say. ‘Wait!’

  The guy in the uniform is standing right by us, now looking from one to the other. Anna doesn’t turn round.

  I cast about for a way to convince her. I’m desperate. I need something that proves I know him as Lukas, have slept with him. Then I remember.

  ‘He has a birthmark. On his leg. His thigh. His upper thigh.’

  At first I don’t think she’s heard me, but then she stops walking. She turns, then slowly comes back towards the barrier that separates us.