by Alex Day
Dan nods, the humour of our earlier exchange having disappeared from his voice. ‘I’m talking about mushrooms. We had an unfortunate episode once with some that Charlotte inadvertently gathered.’ He pauses, sighing ruefully. ‘There are all kinds of dodgy ones, some really quite nasty.’
His voice, with its suave and soothing cadences, continues but I’m feeling dizzy and finding it hard to concentrate.
All of a sudden, Dan stops talking. ‘Are you all right?’
His question is tinged with anxiety, my sudden silence after so much jollity causing him to break off from his chatting. ‘You look like you’re about to faint.’
He’s at my side, his hand on my elbow.
‘I’m sorry,’ I stutter. ‘Just a sudden head rush. Low-sugar blip – I haven’t eaten anything yet today.’
‘So get yourself indoors and get something hot inside you,’ he says commandingly, shaking his head disapprovingly as if I’ve broken a rule and let him down. I almost titter at the double entendre, but stop myself just in time as Dan is clearly oblivious and I don’t want him to think me crude. ‘And don’t go out running on an empty stomach again.’
‘No.’ I smile at him gratefully. ‘I won’t. You’re right. Silly. Silly thing to do, silly me.’
Dan’s forehead creases with concern. ‘Would you like me to come in with you? To make sure you’re all right?’
I shake my head.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, ‘really.’ I rub my fingers across my forehead as if that will erase the headache that’s gathering there. ‘Before you go, though, can I take Charlotte’s number? I don’t actually have it. I’d like to invite her over for a coffee. Get to know her better, you know.’
‘Of course. She’d love that.’
Dan writes down the number, tears off the piece of paper and hands it to me.
‘I must fly now; I’m due in the office in an hour. Take care of yourself, won’t you? Eat something!’
He speeds away, my ‘goodbye’ floating feebly in the Porsche’s slipstream.
After a renewed tussle with the lock, I manage to get the front door open. The house is gloomy and dank, the curtains still drawn, the heating off. There’s a permanently fusty airless smell about the place that makes me think that perhaps the damp hasn’t been adequately dealt with, despite what I told Miriam so confidently. Either that or we’ve got mice.
I perch on a chair in the kitchen as I create a new contact in my phone and add the number Dan gave me. Then I get up and stash the piece of paper carefully in one of the dresser drawers, just in case my ancient and outdated mobile packs up, which gets more and more likely as each day passes.
I force myself to eat a banana, shower and change, and then go up to the boys’ bedroom to do a bit of ineffectual unpacking of yet another box of toys – Lego, Playmobil, and some weird orange remote control thing with wheels and claws. I have no idea where it came from and nor do I ever recollect either of the boys playing with it. I want to throw it in the trash – after all, if they ask about it, I can always say that it got lost in the move. But somehow I lose heart. Maybe it’s something really important and they’ve lost so much else that it would be cruel to wrest it away from them.
I look around at all the rest. I should probably try to sell it on eBay – someone told me that you can get a fair bit for Lego, even incomplete sets and all mixed up. I sit back on my heels and consider this. I actually have no idea how to sell things on eBay; it’s just one of those terms that people bandy about but probably half of them don’t actually do it, either. I half-heartedly put some potentially saleable bits of Lego in an empty box and then ponder the mess anew, despairing of ever sorting it and knowing that, even when the boxes are all unpacked and the toys binned or stowed away in cupboards or under beds, the metaphorical mess which is my tattered life will still surround me.
A rapping at the front door jerks me forcibly from my reverie. I’m immediately on high alert, my body tensed for the next noise. When the bailiffs called, all those months ago, I unwittingly opened the door without using the chain because I lived in Barnes and didn’t think about danger on the doorstep. And certainly hadn’t ever envisaged six-foot bully boys coming to call.
A size eleven shoe was immediately placed on the door jamb, and a letter from the local authority thrust towards me saying that the bailiffs were authorised to collect money and/or goods from the house in payment of substantial council tax arrears. After that, everything descended into a horrific blur; I didn’t have any money to pay them off and whilst I tried to call Justin to find out what the hell was going on, the two large and intimidating men made themselves busy carting away the flatscreen TV, the Bose sound system, and the Gaggia coffee machine that were his pride and joy.
That was how I found out that my world had fallen apart and that we were going to lose everything. Talk about a rude awakening.
I get up nervously and peer over the banister and down the stairs. A bundle of post lies on the doormat. The noise was just the postman, after all. His visit also terrifies me, albeit for different reasons. I go downstairs to pick up the sheaf of envelopes, flicking quickly through them. My eyes are pierced for the franking stamp I’ve come to dread but don’t see it.
In fact, most of the letters are addressed to the previous owner who obviously hasn’t bothered to set up a forwarding service with the Royal Mail. I’ve already marked her as a cheapskate; she took every lightbulb, every loo roll, every curtain pole from the house, leaving it ripped bare, an empty shell. She also hasn’t left her new address so I dump all her post in the bin. It’ll serve her right if one’s about her win on the premium bonds or an inheritance she needs to claim.
All the remaining letters are bills. Nothing unexpected, not today. Just bills, bills, and more bills. There’s an electricity red notice, demanding instant payment, which I can’t understand given that I’ve only just moved in. And a council tax bill, the very thing that Justin neglected for years, resulting in the bailiff’s visit. It’s for a huge sum, much more than I expected. I had harboured the notion that it was cheaper to live in the country; that was half the reason for the move to the sticks, the hope that I would be able to eke out the little I have a bit further if my expenses are less and all we eat is budget-range pasta and tinned tomatoes. I laugh bitterly to myself. As if. Everything costs just as much here as in London, if not more: a longer drive using more petrol to get to the supermarket, a colder climate so higher heating bills.
Opening my bank statement does nothing to alleviate my black mood. I need a job and I need it fast but it’s been so long since I was in gainful employment outside the home that I can hardly remember how to go about it and, having dropped out of uni without finishing my Pharmacy and Toxicology degree, I’m not really qualified to do anything. All I have to my name are a few GCSEs and A-levels; zilch recent or relevant experience. I’m not a pharmacist and never will be, nor can be.
I ran a gift shop for the ten years between the aborted degree and marrying Justin and that kept me going, but there’s no point in setting up something similar now. Nobody goes to shops for presents anymore. Or at least, if they do it’s only to do research before they buy it cheaper online. And anything I find has to be something that can be done during school hours because if I have to pay for childcare it won’t be worth it, and it also needs to be local as I can barely afford to fill the car up these days. That doesn’t seem to leave many options.
A loud buzzing noise echoes out into the silence around me and I start. But it’s just my mobile; none of Justin’s creditors ever had that number, and anyway, it’s all over and done with now so I shouldn’t be letting it worry me anymore. I should be able to forget it.
I pick up the phone from the pile of debris on the table and read the message.
Tennis, 11am Sunday. And do contact Charlotte. She’ll be expecting to hear from you. Dan x
I read it carefully several times, a smile spreading slowly across my face, before putting the phone back
down and continuing with the tidying up. At last I have something to look forward to.
Chapter 9
Charlotte
The black car is here. Again.
It cruises past me as I walk along the high street on my way back from the church, blacked-out windows making invisible ghosts of those inside, side lights shimmering eerily in the dusk. My pulse soars, my mouth is dry with fear, my clenched palms damp with sweat. The car pulls into the petrol station. Quickening my pace, I try to see out of the corner of my eye if it has emerged yet, and in which direction.
It is right behind me.
I suppress a scream. My breathing is laboured, and my legs feel weak. I can’t face this now; I can’t do it. I’ve done everything they’ve asked – nearly everything, anyway. Why are they chasing me, hunting me down? What else do they want from me?
The tone of the car’s engine changes as the driver moves up the gears. It purrs as it passes me, as sleek and smooth and quiet as a cat. It’s an expensive model, a top of the range BMW. It disappears around the bend at the end of the high street and soon I can’t hear it anymore. I’m just aware of the sounds of televisions issuing forth from the living rooms of the cottages that sit right on the road here, and of a blackbird singing on the telegraph wire above.
Perhaps it wasn’t them. How do I know? How can I tell? How can something so evil be stalking me in the quiet tranquillity of an idyllic English country village in the springtime? But the reality is that although they may be based on another continent, their reach is long, infinite. They can seek out whoever they are looking for with ease. They can definitely find me if they want to. This much I have always known.
I turn off the road and across the green where the wide, sympathetic front of my beautiful house awaits, calm and serene as always. I can’t wait to get inside, to shut the door behind me and hope that I am safe.
I used to dream, whilst living in a series of soulless modern apartments in foreign cities, of a house just like this. It was something I held onto, a lifeline that kept me going through the worst of times. That one day our peripatetic existence would end, and I would have a permanent base where Dan and I and the boys could grow and flourish. I let myself believe that when that time came, everything would be perfect.
That I would break my habit.
That Dan’s affairs would end.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? That’s what I often ask myself. If Dan didn’t play away from home, would I have fallen prey to the predilection that has all but sucked the life-blood out of me? Did he play away because I was so preoccupied?
Was it his fault or mine?
I shiver and remember the heat, the steamy, enervating mugginess of the Far East that I associate most clearly with my folly. Even now, after so many years back in England, if I step into our sauna I will be immediately transported back there. Not to plush, high-security, over-air-conditioned suites, but to seedy, oven-like bunkers where condensation ran down the walls. Two different environments. Two different types of punter. Apart from me, who frequented both.
I don’t tend to use the sauna if I can avoid it.
The humidity was extreme, the boredom of day-to-day life intense. Moving to Singapore from Hong Kong at least brought a change of scene – and legal situation – and at first the city state’s cleanliness was a welcome relief from the crowded chaos of the enclave. After a while, though, the sterile atmosphere became as cloying as Hong Kong’s had been febrile. At least there, if you could summon the energy to brave the heat, you could wander the vibrant streets and there would always be something new and strange to see, from the jade merchants’ stalls in the market, to whole pigs roasting on spits, to the gentle offerings of neon-bright flowers, flickering candles, or burning incense sticks outside Buddhist temples. In Singapore, the main entertainment was the luxurious shopping malls with their opulent window displays and immaculate customers, seemingly untouched by the sweat and tears of the real world’s travails.
My dabblings alleviated the tedium of it all. But they turned into obsession and obsession leads only in one direction. When we left the east and headed west, to America, that continental shift should have been the opportunity to start again. In San Francisco, I swore that would be the end of it. And for a while, it was. My relationship with Dan got back on track. In fact, if anything it was better than before. It was so much easier to live in San Fran, to enjoy life, away from the stultifying surroundings and relentless, unmitigated pursuit of material gain that seems to be the ultimate goal of every single person in the places we had come from. And in America I could legitimately hope to get a job, to be something in my own right rather than just existing as Dan’s wife. We moved to New York and I began work as an assistant in a film company.
I enjoyed it.
Then I fell pregnant.
We were delighted, obviously. I was still young by my peers’ standards – only twenty-six – but having been with Dan for so long by then, it seemed the obvious next step. Secretly, I hoped that the arrival of children would fill the gaps of my isolation and force me to curb my bad habit forever. But the pregnancy was a difficult one, as is often the way when expecting twins. The weather was awful: bone-cold and grey, day after day. Having grown to hate the heat, now I missed it like one of my own limbs. I dreamt of the sunshine, of the constant feeling, when outside, of being just a bit too hot for comfort, that had characterised the last few years. The glacial conditions were accompanied by ever-worsening morning sickness, which soon developed into hyperemesis gravidarum. At its worst, I was vomiting up to twenty times a day. I spent a week in hospital on a drip.
After that, Dan refused to let me go back to my job. He told me that the only thing that mattered was my health and that of the babies. Which was good, really, as I no longer had a job to go back to. I’d been sacked, caught ‘misusing’ the company phones and computers for personal matters. Pregnancy turned out to be the perfect cover story. Dan never knew. It was a close shave but I got away with it. Perhaps it was that lucky escape that gave me the courage to believe that I always would. Though right now I’m not so sure.
It’s not just the car. The phone calls are more frequent than ever.
They come at odd hours, always number withheld, and when I pick up, there’s a slight pause – just enough to set my heart racing – and then silence, before the long, flat tone of disconnection. Two in one afternoon during the party is some sort of a record, but since then there’s been at least one every five days or so. Which makes me wonder if they are watching me, if they know my routines, have access to my calendar.
If they know my children’s routines.
That latter thought is too chilling. I will stop asking the au pair to do the school run for Toby and Sam and I’ll do it myself. I need to be alert, to know if we’re being followed. That black car gets everywhere. Purring down the main street, past the post office and the greengrocer’s. Slowing down outside the general store as if I might be about to step out onto the pavement.
When we’re friends, if I tell you about it, about any of this, you’ll probably say I’m overreacting, that I’m being paranoid. That I have an over-active imagination. That’s the way people like you, who are somewhat staid and uninventive, think. You might even be right. But in any case, I’m not planning on divulging.
No matter how well we get to know each other, I can’t share this with anyone.
The house is quiet when I enter. I go through to the kitchen. Opening the huge glass windows, I step onto the terrace. I can hear shouts and cries drifting towards me from the adventure playground. We had it constructed not long after we bought the house. It’s custom-designed and hand-built and fits perfectly into the back of what was once the walled vegetable and flower garden. These days, Toby and Sam rarely play on it when they’re alone, but your boys are with them today.
Now that the weather is improving and the evenings are getting lighter, they often go out onto the green for a football match after school and it
’s not uncommon for various village boys to drift back here with them afterwards. I don’t mind; in fact, I love that they all congregate here. I like the house and garden to be full of laughter and happiness. I like having my children around me, knowing they are near. Especially in the current circumstances, where fear lingers, ever-present, in the outside world.
Walking along the terrace, I make out four little figures clambering over the wooden structure. They’re supposed to be supervised when playing here. However safely it’s been built, there’s enormous potential for accidents. I’m absolutely against our risk-averse society but, were someone to fall, I’d want there to be an adult around to deal with it. I look for the au pair and see her sitting at a picnic table that the gardener uses for potting plants, huddled into her winter coat even though it’s now May. She’s not only too far away, but she’s also on her phone, which is strictly forbidden when on duty.
She jumps when she sees me approaching and hurriedly shoves the phone in her pocket, starting to explain in her broken English that she needed to make a call and came to get a better signal nearer the house. But she falters halfway through as she realises she’s landing herself in it even further.
I wave her excuses away and tell her she can knock off work now that I’m back. She’s fairly stupid and inclined to be truculent, but the boys quite like her and the main thing is that she’s monumentally unattractive. No temptation for Dan there. She’s also always available for extra babysitting by dint of the fact that she doesn’t ever go out or do anything other than watch YouTube videos in her room in her free time.
Tramping onwards over the grass towards the fortress structure, I soon make out Jamie and Luke with Toby and Sam. They’re cute, your kids. Somewhat over-indulged, I must say – you don’t seem to do discipline in the way that I understand it – but nevertheless, they’re still cute. Little Luke with his spiky hair and cheeky smile. Dan told me how piteously he begged for his party bag, poor lamb. He probably doesn’t get lovely treats very often. And Jamie, so tall and handsome, with that shrewd, intelligent look in his eye. I can’t help feeling sorry for him, condemned to attending the local primary and then the comp.