‘How’s Jamie?’ I ask.
He frowns, trying to place the name.
‘He used to be my delivery man,’ I explain. ‘Hasn’t been for a while but I assume he’s still working at the company?’
‘Oh… Jamie. Big bloke?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tall?’
I nod. ‘Yes.’
‘Friendly chap?’
‘Yes, that’s him,’ I say.
‘He’s on a couple of weeks’ leave, I think.’
Relief sweeps over me. I decide there and then I’m going to order some plants, timed precisely for his return to work. Before then I can get outside and tidy up the beds. I could say I’ve been sick, ideally with something people are actually sympathetic about, like laryngitis or shingles – something solidly unpleasant and worthy of compassion.
‘When is he back? Next week? The week after?’
‘Oh! No, hang on. I think he might not be coming back.’
‘What?’
‘Yes… did he say something about going to live in Sweden… ?’
‘He’s moving to Sweden?’
‘That can’t be right, can it? I don’t know. Maybe it is. Do you want me to phone the office to find out?’
A sickly feeling rises up my chest. ‘Yes, please.’
I stand back from the door, trying not to shiver as he telephones the office and ends up in conversation with a receptionist called Shirley about her dog’s rheumatoid arthritis. When he gets onto the subject of Jamie, he explains that a customer is asking after him and wondered if she could confirm what he’d thought was the case about Sweden. Her response goes on for ever, a drone of chatter and half-heard explanation that only finally ends when he says, ‘Rightio. I’ll let her know.’
‘What did she say?’ I ask.
‘She’s just been on a data protection course,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Apparently I’m not allowed to say where he’s gone,’ he replies.
‘But… we were friends,’ I argue. ‘We are friends. I just… has he really gone to Sweden, do you at least know that?’
‘Sorry, I don’t.’ He lowers his voice conspiratorially. ‘He has left though – that I can say for definite.’
Chapter 56
Lucy is leaving for Singapore in six weeks. She’s been very busy. There’s a lot to organise when you’re moving to another continent. I knew she was coming over today because she texted me, but when she knocks on the door, I still jump like a child spooked by noises in the night. I let her in and she surveys the living room, her lip tightly curled.
‘What’s that smell?’
‘I don’t know.’ I sniff my left armpit. I do know.
‘Ellie, you need to empty your bin. It stinks of fags in here. You do realise Mum and Dad know you smoke, don’t you?’
‘Have they said that?’ I ask, alarmed.
‘Believe it or not, that’s the least of their worries. For God’s sake, at least open a window.’
She marches to the kitchen and reaches for the latch.
‘Don’t!’ She turns. ‘Please. I prefer it like this.’
She sighs. ‘Ellie, I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to let some air in here.’
She pushes the window open and a cold breeze rushes in. Goosebumps prickle along my arms, which I fold tightly across my chest.
‘Come and sit down,’ she says, gesturing to the sofa. I do as I’m told. ‘What’s going on?’ she asks. This gentle voice is infinitely harder to take than the one when she’s being a pain in the neck.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
She swirls her hand around and I realise she’s referring to my appearance.
I tug the belt to my dressing gown tighter. ‘I’m allowed a lie-in, aren’t I?’
‘This is more than a lie-in. You look like you’ve been crying for a week. You’re refusing to go to see Colette. You’re not looking after yourself.’
‘Well, I’m sorry if I don’t look like Grace Kelly. I’m tired, that’s all.’ I stand up and walk away, marching to my bedroom, where I scratch under the bed for my cigarettes. I find one and light up, then return to the living room with it flagrantly clamped between two fingers of my right hand.
‘What happened to your inside smoking ban?’ she asks. ‘Couldn’t you at least vape?’
I let out a long plume of smoke. ‘Have you come here to lecture me, Lucy? Because, as they say in all the best movies, I’m not in the mood.’
I wait for her to fire back a response. But she suddenly looks so unbearably sad that I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes.
‘I didn’t come to lecture you.’ Her larynx sounds thick and woolly. ‘I came here to try and help. Because, I’ll be honest, Ellie, I don’t think Mum and Dad know how any more. But now I see that I don’t either.’
‘I don’t want help,’ I shrug.
‘Yes, I know. That’s what I’m worried about.’
Then she doesn’t say a thing. For the first time in all the years I’ve known her, I appear to have silenced my sister.
‘Is this about Guy? Or Tabitha? Or me – the fact that I’m going to Singapore?’ The question bursts out of her as if it’s all she’s thought about.
But it’s impossible to answer, at least in the way she wants me to. I don’t have the ability to deconstruct which setback engulfed me, tipped me over the edge. What I’m feeling seems completely disconnected from any of those events. I’m barely even thinking about them any more. So I give her the closest answer to the truth.
‘This is about none of those things, Lucy.’
It’s only about me.
There’s no real way of explaining. How do you explain to someone your absolute and certain knowledge that if you leave the confines of your house something terrible will happen? And how the fact that you do not know what the terrible thing is only adds to its immensity. How do you explain the overwhelming threat posed by what is beyond your door, the threat only you recognise and register, through something that can’t be rationally outlined, but is closer to a kind of sixth sense? The answer is, you can’t, because you’d sound like a lunatic. Even I know that and I’m the one thinking all these things.
Either way, she isn’t listening. She sits forward on the sofa, her eyes glazed. ‘I won’t go if you don’t want me to,’ she says. ‘I could never forgive myself if I was the cause of… if you did something and I was to blame and…’
I sit down next to her on the sofa. ‘What are you saying? You’re worried I’m going to kill myself?’
‘Yes. We all are.’
‘Lucy, listen to me. I’m not going to do that. Okay? I promise you. I absolutely promise.’
‘Have you ever thought about it?’ she asks, lowering her chin. ‘Tell me. I need to know.’
‘No. Never.’ I’m not sure this is one hundred per cent true. There have been bleak moments, but they have been fleeting. I don’t want to admit they’re real by saying it out loud. ‘Plus, even if I had – which I haven’t – I’d never have the guts to go through with it. The thing is, Lucy, nothing would depress me more than the idea that I’d held you back from your dream job and your dream man. So you’re just going to have to go to Singapore and that’s that.’
She lowers her eyes. ‘Wherever I am, I want you to know that I will be there for you on the phone or Facetime at any time of the day or night. You mustn’t ever, ever think you’re alone.’
‘I know that,’ I say shakily.
She sniffs. ‘I’d love you to meet Jakob, you know.’
She’s imagining dinner à trois at one of her favourite London restaurants. She’s thinking about clinking glasses and laughter, sharing anecdotes about our childhood and squeezing his hand secretly under the table. Absolutely none of which is going to happen.
‘He sounds lovely,’ I say.
‘Well, I’ve earned him. You’ve got to meet a lot of dickheads before someone like him comes along, just remember that. You, Ellie, only me
t one dickhead. Count yourself lucky. Though I’ll give you this, he really was a supreme dickhead. Did you notice what happened on his Instagram feed yesterday?’
I look up. ‘No. Why were you looking at his Instagram?’
‘Working out a way to use my voodoo doll. Someone had called him out about that post you sent me a while ago. What did it say: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called present.” Rather good, wasn’t it? It was a quote from Kung Fu Panda.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘Someone threatened to report him, a heated exchange followed, and now he’s deleted his account. Tea?’ she asks, and heads to the kitchen.
‘Um… okay.’
‘So what about Jamie? Have you seen anything of him?’
‘He’s not working for Green Fingers these days.’
‘Oh. Really?’
I swallow. ‘I didn’t mention this but we had a falling out.’
‘What about?’
I consider telling her the whole saga but feel urgently in need of retiring to bed. ‘It doesn’t even matter now.’
‘Ellie, I’ll phone him. Can you give me his number?’
‘No!’ I say, alarmed. ‘Absolutely not. Promise me you won’t try to find him.’
She frowns.
‘Seriously, Lucy. Don’t.’
‘Okay. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. But… can I ask you one thing?’
‘Of course.’
‘Please just give Colette a ring. For me.’
But I can’t answer her. Because just the thought of it is completely exhausting.
Chapter 57
The days begin to blend into one. There are no mornings, afternoons, evenings or night-times. I am simply either awake or asleep, and I know which I prefer. When I’m not in bed, I do one of three things. Watch Netflix. Post on Instagram. Or look online at what some of the people who once had a place in my life are doing.
Guy is now in Indonesia. He reactivated his account and posted a photo on Instagram today, or maybe it was yesterday, in front of the Uluwatu temple with the balls of his feet tickling his eyebrows. He was deluged with admiring comments about his ‘one-legged king pigeon’, which is apparently a yoga pose and not an alternative to turkey on Christmas Day. I don’t feel numb to him exactly, but neither do I feel any of my previous longing, or even, surprisingly, anger. I don’t actually feel anything, other than a complete disconnection from any of my old feelings about him.
I also find myself drifting onto social media platforms I don’t usually visit and typing in the name Tabitha Florescu. Predictably, I find nothing. So instead I end up searching for old school friends. I don’t know why. But I discover that Isabel works in the human resources department of a hospital in the West Midlands. She has a long-term girlfriend called Ashanti and a puppy called Villanelle. Helen has a high-flying finance job and lives in Hong Kong, where her hobbies include feng-shui, networking over cocktails and dating pneumatic Australians called Jack, Jake, Nick or Luke.
And Jo, it seems, is doing exactly as Jamie said: living two miles away with her parents and two children and working as an environmental lawyer in east London. She’s going through a divorce. Of all of them, she’s the only one I’ve considered contacting. I even got as far as composing a message on Facebook. I know I should, that she might be lonely or in need of a friend at a time like this.
But what do I have to offer? How could I possibly help? Plus, knowing Jo, she’d want to meet for drinks or go looking for a new boyfriend. She might already have booked a singles holiday and try to persuade me to go with her. I can’t do any of those things. So instead, my long message sits as a draft in the depths of my little-used Facebook account.
Then there is Jamie, the only man on earth, it seems, not on social media. Except, when I search on Instagram under the hashtag #DannyOchIsbjörnarna, it unleashes a stream of images from book events in Stockholm. Jamie isn’t tagged in any of them as he doesn’t have an account, but he is pictured in at least a dozen different stores, surrounded by children and parents. Then, one evening, as dusk becomes twilight, an event appears on Facebook, advertising a short UK book tour to celebrate publication of ‘the most magical children’s book you’ll read this Christmas’.
Danny and the Polar Bear
Listen to author Ulrika Sjöblad read from this future classic, while budding young artists can join illustrator Jamie Dawson for a drawing workshop. 3pm to 4pm, Saturday December 1st, Hatchards, Piccadilly.
I click on the link.
‘Going?’ it asks.
For a fleeting moment I almost consider checking my diary.
* * *
My sleep is disturbed that night. I can’t remember the last time I had insomnia – for weeks I have crashed into a near unconscious state at any hour of the day when I’ve felt inclined to climb into bed. Tonight, although I drift off repeatedly, it’s never for long and my dreams are odd not merely because of their fragmented nature. In them, Jamie and I are standing at the gate outside Chalk View, like we did the first time we walked together. The field is dredged with wildflowers and the sky a yawning, cobalt blue. Skylarks circle above, butterflies swoop and dive.
I should be sick with fear but I’m not. Now, everything is the same but slightly different, as if I’ve stepped through an alternative set of sliding doors. In this version of my world there is no Guy. There is no cancer nurse-cum-school teacher. There is only me and Jamie. But we’re not just friends.
The reason I know this is that, instead of clasping my fingers before we walk across the field, he turns to me and lifts my hand to his lips. He tenderly kisses my knuckles, his melting brown eyes on mine. Something surges through me: a rush of euphoria, an explosion of lust, an indefinable, dynamic thing that’s as pure and clear as a mountain stream. Suddenly, that something is unmistakable. This is love. This brief kiss is one of an infinite series, the first chapter in a book that does not end here, but only starts. Then I feel the tug of my sheets and open my eyes to find Gertie attempting to lick my feet and everything exactly the same as it was before.
Chapter 58
For the rest of the night, I lie in bed with my laptop, Gertie by my side as I interact with a few followers and drift onto my favourite accounts to comment on their posts.
@Bobturpin
You’re planting under some pretty mature trees there. I always find it impossible to get anything to thrive in those conditions. Do you have any tips?
@TheMontyDon
I love those pruning shears. Which brand are they?
I do this for much of the night and, unsurprisingly given the hour, receive a limited response, at least from anyone living on my side of the planet. But as people wake up, so does my Instagram feed. One of the first notifications comes from a well-established influencer called @GardeningBetty, who comments on the picture I posted yesterday.
Gorgeous. Ellie, you are the best advert there is for getting outdoors, despite the weather. An inspiration!
My fingers hover over the keyboard. I begin to type.
Actually @GardeningBetty, I’m not an inspiration. I’m a fraud.
I sit and look at the words, feeling an almost preternatural urge to hit Enter. To blow the whole gaff. To tell the world that no, on the contrary, I can’t even walk out of my own front door and have been bypassing this bothersome issue by using old photos that I pretend were taken this week. Would that be the right thing to do? It would certainly be the honest thing to do. Gertie appears at the side of the bed. I lift her up but she wriggles away and hops down again, circling the room before she disappears and returns with a ball. She drops it on the floor and yaps. I throw it across the room.
We repeat the exercise approximately thirty times, until I’m irritated and weary, but most of all conscious that I have no right to be. She needs exercise. And though I feel lousy texting Mum to ask if she’s free to walk her, I have no alternative. She responds to say she’ll be over i
n an hour. I use the time to drag myself into the shower, wash my hair and pull on some clean clothes. I even put on some mascara. It’s all a disguise, of course, though not a good one.
Mum appears at the door in a Barbour jacket and bobble hat, her phone loaded with Radio 4 podcasts. She walks in and coughs, her throat catching on the half can of Febreze I’ve unloaded into the atmosphere. Gertie jumps up and down, lavishing Mum with affection.
‘You’re her favourite human these days,’ I say.
‘She’s just excited about her walk,’ Mum replies. ‘Why don’t you come with me? Even just for five minutes. This place is so stuffy, I know you’d feel better if you got some fresh air.’
‘I’m tired, Mum. I didn’t sleep very well last night.’
‘Well, I was thinking of making the Christmas cake later today. Will you come over? You and Lucy used to love joining in.’
I feel a pang of nostalgia at the thought of my sister and me excitedly stirring the mixture, before helping Mum to tip in the dried fruit, which there was so much of that she’d had to soak it in brandy in a washing-up bowl. The memory is completely at odds with the way I feel now, but I can see how much Mum wants me there. ‘Yes, all right,’ I say, though I already know I won’t go.
She brightens. ‘Oh, good.’
When she’s gone, I return to my computer and read my un-posted words. I gently rub my finger on the return button, but delete them and shut down my laptop.
Instead, I pick up my phone and scroll to Colette’s office number. It goes straight to voicemail, but I don’t leave a message and decide to try her mobile.
‘Hello, Ellie. Nice to hear from you.’ It sounds like she’s been expecting this call for some time.
‘Sorry to phone on your mobile. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’
‘Not at all. What can I do for you?’
‘Well, first of all, I need to let you know that I haven’t done my homework. I’m really sorry. I don’t know why. It’s been impossible.’
The World at My Feet Page 27