by Lesley Kara
I jerk my head up and stare at Helen’s concerned face. ‘Someone’s trying to frighten me,’ I say, immediately wishing I hadn’t. Because now that I’ve said those words, now that I’ve admitted it aloud, in the presence of another person, the threat has become more solid, more real. Someone is trying to frighten me. It’s not just in my head any more. And now that the words have escaped, it’s inevitable that the rest will follow. A dam has been breached.
Helen leans forward and touches my forearm. ‘What do you mean, trying to frighten you? Who is?’
I look around at the other people in the café. One old man hunched over a mug of tea and the Sun. Two men in high-visibility jackets silently stuffing butties into their mouths, and Bob in his grease-splattered apron, wiping down the counter with a stained dishcloth. It’s hardly crowded, and we’re tucked away in the corner by the window. Nobody would hear me if I spoke in a low voice, but, even so, I’m self-conscious, wary.
‘I can’t do this. Not here.’
Helen nods. ‘Let’s finish our coffees and go for a walk, shall we?’
17
We walk along the tops of the cliffs, the sea a deep summer blue that sparkles in the sun to our right. After about five minutes I have to take my jumper off and tie it round my waist by the sleeves. Helen folds her raincoat over her left arm. Ever since leaving the café we’ve been chatting about inconsequential things: the unseasonably warm weather, the Thames barge on the horizon and the way, on days like this, if you filter out the Englishness of the buildings and streets to our left, the North Sea looks almost Mediterranean.
But hovering below and between and on the edges of our words is the thing I’m not talking about. The reason we’re now wending our way down the cliff path towards the wide expanse of sand where I can speak freely, with only the swooping gulls to eavesdrop.
At last, when we’ve settled into a comfortable pace across the flat sand, I tell Helen about the photo and the picture. The words spew out of me. A tide of broken sentences, ragged with emotion. God knows how she’ll make sense of it. It’s like someone’s dropped a manuscript on the floor and I’m picking all the pages up and trying to put them back together, but they aren’t numbered and I can’t organize the story into any kind of coherent order.
So many scenes and images, so many memories. It all feels too sketchy and inadequate. The emphasis is all wrong, but I have to keep going. One by one, the facts emerge.
‘He’d been dry for eight and a half months.’
I stare straight ahead of me, but it’s not the beach I’m seeing. It’s Simon’s face that day in the park. Proud, confident. Handsome. If he hadn’t seen me first and come over, I doubt I’d even have recognized him. He could have walked straight past me while I sat on the bench in my beer-soaked reverie.
‘I told him I was impressed, but really I was jealous. There he was, getting himself sorted out at last. He even had a job on a building site, only as a labourer, but it was clearly doing him good. He looked so fit and healthy it made me ache inside. I wanted him back.’
I pause to take a few deep breaths.
‘He was talking about some work he had coming up, as an extra on a film. It wasn’t much, but he was so excited about it. He thought it might lead to something else.’ My voice breaks. ‘Maybe if he hadn’t met me again, he’d have had the chance to make something of his life, fulfil his dreams.’
I don’t fight the urge to cry this time. It all spills out in snotty sobs and heaving gulps. Helen pats me gently on my shoulders till I recover enough to go on.
‘It was a really hot day, a bit like today. I had six cans of ice-cold lager in my rucksack.’
I take a deep breath. Even now, I can still see the little drops of condensation clinging to the outside of the cans. The sun beats down on the back of my neck. I sneak a look at Helen from the corner of my eye, see the tip of her tongue slide across her bottom lip. It isn’t a great time to be talking about cold lagers, but I can’t stop now.
‘Maybe I had him at the hissing noise as I pulled back the tab. Or maybe it was when I took one long, greedy gulp. I was probably crass enough to waggle one under his nose. I can almost hear myself telling him that one little drink wouldn’t hurt and that we should celebrate his good fortune.’
Helen makes one of those cynical little noises in the back of her throat.
‘The truth is, I don’t know how it happened. But it was my fault. All of it. All I can remember is waking up, sick and jittery, God knows how many hours later, with Simon passed out on the floor next to me. He came to, eventually, but he kept throwing up and passing out again. He had it really bad, the worst DTs I’ve ever seen, thought his skin was crawling with maggots, kept tearing at his flesh with his nails.’
We’ve reached the headland now and run out of beach, so we walk up the ramp and on to the promenade in front of the beach huts. Helen points to a bench and we sit down. I light a cigarette and draw on it deeply.
‘I remember taking slugs of vodka to calm my nerves and then, the next thing I knew, two paramedics were hammering on the door. Somehow or other, I must have got myself together enough to phone for an ambulance. I don’t even remember doing it, but I must have done. It was the only decent thing I did.’
I feel light-headed all of a sudden. Nauseous. Instinctively, I lean forward and put my head between my knees. I take long, deep lungfuls of air and focus on the concrete between my feet and the crack that runs through it. Helen’s hand is on the back of my neck.
‘Go on,’ she says, her voice soft, encouraging.
‘Two weeks later, after he’d been discharged, Simon threw himself off Seaford Head in Sussex.’
Her hand falls away. ‘Oh my God! Oh, Astrid!’
‘I read about it in the paper. That’s how I found out. So yes, whoever sent me that photo is right. There is blood on my hands. I didn’t push Simon off that cliff, but I might just as well have done.’
I sniff to clear my nose, but it’s completely blocked. Helen passes me a tissue.
‘Everyone says I shouldn’t think that way. Counsellors, and people like that. But I can’t help the way I feel, can I?’
‘Of course you can’t.’
‘And even if they’re right and it isn’t my fault, it doesn’t make it any better. He’s still dead.’
Helen turns to face me. ‘Where is it, this photo? Can I see it?’
I think of the brown envelope gathering dust and bits of carpet fluff at the back of my wardrobe and my palms start to sweat.
‘No, I left it at home.’
‘Have you thought about going to the police?’
I swallow hard. The very thought of walking into a police station makes me cringe.
‘I doubt they’d take much notice of an ex-addict, do you? And if they start asking me a load of questions … well, let’s just say, I haven’t exactly been a model citizen. I’ve …’
Shit. I wish I hadn’t started this now. It’s all coming out. The wreckage of my life, spilling out in a great ugly heap. I know if I’m going to do this Twelve Step thing properly, then at some point I’m going to have to confess all this anyway, and the rest of it. It’s one of the stages you have to work through. But some secrets are too shameful to share with anyone. Even more shameful than goading Simon to take a drink. In fact, they’re so off limits that when they creep into my head at night I ward them off before they can torment me, crowd them out with other thoughts, other images.
‘I’ve taken things that weren’t mine,’ I say. Keep it vague, Astrid. ‘Things I could sell to buy booze. I know the police are never going to find out and there’s bugger all they could do about it now, but still … I’d feel uneasy talking to them. Guilty conscience, I suppose.’
Helen rests her hand on my forearm again. ‘We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. I know I have. But remember’ – she makes the inverted-commas sign with her fingers and adopts the familiar, smug tone that I instantly recognize as her impression of Rosie – ‘we�
�re only as sick as our secrets.’
It feels good to laugh after the emotional intensity of the last half-hour.
Helen pats my hand. ‘The sort of haters who post anonymous mail through people’s letterboxes are usually cowards at heart. They’re like internet trolls. They get pleasure from upsetting people.’ A crease appears between her eyebrows. ‘It’s a particularly vindictive thing to do. Was there anyone else, do you know? Another woman, perhaps?’
‘After me, do you mean? I don’t think so. There was an ex who kept sending him Facebook messages. An old schoolfriend who used to have a crush on him. I think he was seeing her when he met me, actually, but it wasn’t serious.’
‘Well, whoever it is, they’ve made their nasty little point now. I doubt you’ll be hearing from them again.’
‘I hope you’re right, Helen. I really do.’
18
Filled with a fresh resolve not to be intimidated by some pathetic saddo’s twisted mind game, I say goodbye to Helen and head for the British Red Cross shop. Flinstead has more than its fair share of charity shops so I’m bound to find something I like.
Soon, I’ve bought a pair of Next shorts that look almost brand new, some cropped linen trousers that’ll look great with my trainers, and two Zara T-shirts – a real find. The only new things I’ve shelled out for are some Rizlas and tobacco – I can’t afford to keep buying cigarettes – and a cheap swimming costume from Peacocks. Just in case Josh suggests a swim.
I was going to ignore the Oxfam shop so I don’t have to face Rosie again, but I can’t stop myself looking in the window. The creepy mannequin is now sporting white chinos, a navy blazer and a panama hat. It still freaks me out, thinking about that T-shirt. It’s amazing the tricks a mind can play, even without alcohol, and yet, now that someone’s sending me nasty messages, someone who knows about Simon and me, I can’t help wondering whether the mannequin was a message too. No, that’s ridiculous. I’m just being paranoid.
My eyes wander over to a 60s smock dress on a dressmaker’s dummy. It’s exquisite, and only £6.99. It’s too much of a bargain. I’m going to have to go in.
The customer Rosie’s serving says goodbye. Now it’s just the two of us. Her mouth twists into a smile.
‘Good walk?’ she says.
I nod. Why the hell did I have to look in the window in the first place?
‘It’s lovely, isn’t it, that dress you were looking at? My daughter used to have one just like it.’
Her daughter. Somehow, I didn’t imagine Rosie as a mother.
She comes out from behind the counter. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her wearing it, though.’ She exhales slowly. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, full stop.’ She gives a wry smile. ‘She can’t forgive me, you see. For ruining her childhood.’
I don’t know how to respond to this, or even if I want to. She acts as if we’re already friends, assumes there’s some kind of intimacy between us. As if the fact that we’re both alcoholics automatically binds us together. Or maybe it’s a ploy to draw me into conversation, and I know exactly what will happen if I let her. She’ll start asking me questions and smiling at me in that smug way of hers, as if she already knows the answers.
‘You can try it on if you like,’ she says. ‘There’s a changing room at the back.’
‘Erm …’
‘Go on. It’ll look great on you.’
She peels the dress off the dummy and gestures towards a changing cubicle at the back of the shop, just off the room where all the donations are stored and sorted. It’s tiny and dark, with stained carpet tiles. I tug the flimsy curtain across, but it doesn’t fit the frame properly so there’s a gap of about an inch on one side.
‘Don’t worry,’ Rosie calls out. ‘There’s nobody else here.’
I squeeze out of my jeans and take my top off, then wriggle into the dress. It fits perfectly. I peer at myself in the mirror, but it’s so gloomy in here it’s hard to get a good look. I’m sure I noticed a bigger, full-length mirror propped against the wall in the back room, near the workstation and the PC. I step outside and almost bump into Rosie. She must have been standing behind the curtain the whole time.
‘Stunning,’ she says. ‘You look like a young Mia Farrow.’
She stares at my body for a beat too long and my mind returns to when she pressed her phone number on me, tucked it into my shirt pocket, her fingers brushing my left breast. I feel her eyes on me as I pick my way past all the donations heaped on the floor. The fusty scent of old books and second-hand clothes is even riper back here. Some attempt has been made to freshen things up with one of those floral room sprays. There’s an undertone of something else too, though I can’t put my finger on what it is. It reminds me of some of the squats I’ve dossed in.
On a large table in the centre of the room things are being grouped into categories: men’s jackets and old suits, ladies’ woollen jumpers and cardigans, a heap of shoes and strappy sandals. It makes me think of one of those hideous old photographs from the Holocaust – the possessions of the dead. I blink the image away.
It’s been a long while since I’ve worn a dress. I feel exposed, vulnerable, although I know it looks good on me. Short, but not too short. Sexy, but not in an obvious, provocative way. I wish Rosie would go away and leave me to decide on my own, but she’s still right here next to me, nodding and smiling. Telling me how great I look in it, how for £6.99 it’s a no-brainer. Christ, talk about hard sell. Anyone would think we were in an expensive boutique and she was on commission.
At last, another customer comes in and Rosie goes off to deal with them. Her reluctance at leaving me here on my own is obvious. I take one last look at myself in the mirror. The dress is great. I’ll buy it. But just as I’m about to return to the cubicle to take it off I hear Richard Carter’s voice. He’s dropping off a bag of old clothes. The second this week, by the sound of it.
‘I think that’s the lot now,’ he says.
I linger by the mirror, unwilling to walk over to the cubicle in case he spots me. The last thing I want is for these two completely separate parts of my world to collide.
My eyes drift round the room as I wait for him to leave. They settle first on the PC that’s been left open on the Word template screen, and then travel down to the floor and Rosie’s cloth bag, the one with the patchwork design she always has with her at AA meetings. It’s stuffed behind the mirror and I can’t help noticing that there’s a rolled-up sleeping bag in there with a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste sticking out the top. There’s something else in there too: a torch.
Didn’t she say something a while back about looking for somewhere to stay?
At last, Richard leaves and I dash back into the cubicle to change. I suppose if you had the keys to a small shop like this and knew what you were doing, you could get away with it, as long as you covered your tracks and cleared out before the morning-shift person turned up. Is that what Rosie’s been doing? Why else would she be lugging a sleeping bag and torch around with her? I know I’ve dossed on a fair few floors in my time, but to still be doing it in your sixties? How tragic is that?
When I come back into the shop she’s sifting through a massive laundry bag, her dyed hair hanging in front of her face. She straightens up at my approach and walks towards the till. I put the dress down and rootle around in my pocket for my last tenner. Where the hell is it?
I empty my rucksack on to the counter, heat staining my cheeks: a packet of green Rizlas, a pouch of Golden Virginia, Simon’s juggling ball and a handful of screwed-up tissues. The ball rolls towards Rosie and, just as I’m about to grab it, she picks it up and gives it a squeeze. Damn. It won’t be the same any more, not now she’s touched it. Why the hell did I have to bring it out with me in the first place?
‘Here.’
I place the tenner on to the counter in front of her and put the tissues, tobacco and Rizlas back into my rucksack. She’s still playing with the ball, tossing it slowl
y and rhythmically from one hand to the other, a strange trance-like expression on her face. I want to grab it back, but all I can do is wait till she takes my money.
Eventually, almost reluctantly, she puts it down and I grab hold of it. It’s ruined now. I won’t be able to hold it for comfort any more, or bring it to my face at night and kid myself it smells of Simon, because her hands have been all over it.
She drops the dress into a brown paper bag.
‘I bet your new fella’s going to love you in this,’ she says. ‘He is your new fella, isn’t he? The good-looking guy with the blond hair?’
How does she know what Josh looks like? She must have seen me come out of the Fisherman’s Shack with him that time, or else she’s seen us down on the beach. That’s the trouble with a town this small. Everyone knows your business. Thank God Richard isn’t still here. I’d have died from embarrassment if he’d heard her say that.
‘I guess so.’
She folds the top of the bag and passes it over to me. She lowers her voice. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Astrid, but when you were sharing the other week I got the impression that you’ve lost someone close to you recently.’
I take hold of the bag. I need to be more careful at meetings in future. I must have said more than I thought I had.
‘I know it’s none of my business,’ she says. ‘But, well, you know, I lost my mother recently, so if you ever want to talk …’
‘Thanks.’ I turn to leave, but she hasn’t finished with me yet.
‘There’s a lot of guilt when someone dies, especially if it’s …’ She pauses. ‘Especially if it’s a … troubled relationship.’
I stare at her. ‘I don’t remember saying anything about having a troubled relationship.’
Her face reddens. ‘Oh, but you must have done. Maybe you don’t remember. You were very upset when you were talking. Was it someone close to you? A brother or boyfriend, perhaps?’
‘A boyfriend.’ The words are out before I have a chance to think better of it. This is how they operate, people like her. They latch on to some little snippet you’ve told them and use it to reel you in.