The Housemate

by Pattison C. L.

  The inquest was held last week. I didn’t want to attend, but Megan said we should, otherwise it might look suspicious. The hardest thing was listening to the results of the post-mortem. The cause of death was given as ‘intracerebral haemorrhage, caused by skull fracture’. The pathologist told the inquest it was one of the worst skull fractures he’d ever seen; I felt sick to my stomach when I heard that. And his report suggested one more contributing factor – alcohol intoxication. A fellow journalist who’d been with Sammi at the magazine awards ceremony she’d attended that night testified that he’d seen her drink at least three glasses of wine. As he recorded a verdict of accidental death, the coroner commented that the alcohol level in Sammi’s blood was ‘not insignificant’ and would certainly have impaired her judgement and coordination. He concluded that Sammi most likely fell to her death after becoming disorientated while trying to find the bathroom. Her bladder had been full at the time of her death, lending weight to this theory.

  There were no members of Sammi’s family at the inquest. Her foster mother also failed to attend, but a day or two later she made contact via her solicitor and asked if she could arrange a convenient time to pick up Sammi’s belongings. She was due any minute and I wasn’t looking forward to it, praying that she didn’t ask any awkward questions. I wished Megan was here for moral support. She’d be much better at dealing with Alison than I would, but unfortunately, she had to work and wouldn’t be back till the evening.

  The first thing she did when she arrived was ask to see the exact spot where Sammi died. I wasn’t prepared for that and my tongue felt clumsy in my mouth as I explained the position of the body and pointed to the cheap, fringed rug at the bottom of the stairs. The floorboards beneath the rug were covered in dried blood that no amount of scrubbing would get out; I didn’t think Alison needed to see that. She stood there for a long while, not saying anything, just staring at the rug. It made me so uncomfortable that I walked away, telling her to join me in the kitchen whenever she was ready.

  When she eventually appeared in the doorway, her eyes were glistening and she was dabbing at her nose with a tissue. I hadn’t been planning to offer any refreshments, not wanting to encourage her to linger, but it seemed callous not to. I invited her to sit at the table and began to prepare a cafetière of coffee.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, Chloe,’ Alison said, as I poured milk into a jug. ‘How have you been? It must have been dreadful for you two, finding Sammi at the bottom of the stairs, so badly injured.’

  ‘Oh, you know . . .’ I replied ambiguously. ‘Good days and bad days. How about you?’

  She sighed. ‘The same; I still can’t believe she’s gone. I hadn’t seen her since my husband and I moved to Northumberland eighteen months ago, but we Skyped each other regularly.’

  I placed the cafetière on the table and went to get mugs. ‘I had no idea Sammi was fostered. Did you look after her for a long time?’

  ‘Four years; she came to me just after she’d turned fifteen and stayed until she moved to London to do her journalism training.’

  ‘What happened to her birth parents?’

  ‘Her father had a mental breakdown. He walked out on the family when Sammi was eleven or twelve and, to the best of my knowledge, she didn’t have any contact with him after that. Her mother had been unwell for some time and after her father left, Sammi had to step into the role of carer.’ Alison shook her head sadly. ‘It must have been an incredibly difficult time for her. From what I understand, she didn’t have any support at all and I think her schoolwork really suffered as a result. Then, less than two years after her father left, her mother died of pneumonia and that’s when Sammi went into care. She’d been through quite a few foster families before she came to me – passed from pillar to post like an unwanted puppy.’

  ‘How awful,’ I said quietly. ‘Sammi seemed like quite a sensitive person; all those changes in her life must have affected her very deeply.’

  Alison nodded. ‘Oh, they did. Sammi was suffering; I could see that right away. When she first came to live with me, she was quite a handful. She was rude and she’d fly off the handle at the slightest little thing. She self-harmed too. I think it was her way of exerting control over some small part of her life. Her arms were covered in scars, I don’t know if you noticed.’

  ‘I didn’t, but Megan saw them once,’ I replied, as I pushed the plunger on the cafetière. So it wasn’t a suicide attempt, just a young girl, desperate for love.

  ‘She needed a huge amount of reassurance and support,’ Alison continued as I poured the coffee. ‘It wasn’t an overnight fix and I had to work very hard to gain her trust, but we got there in the end.’

  ‘Did she have any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘No, Sammi was an only child. Her grandparents are long dead and her two uncles both live overseas, so really I’m the only family she’s got.’

  I felt a rush of sympathy for Sammi. I knew there had to be some reason she’d turned out the way she had. After everything she’d been through, was it any wonder she was mentally unstable? I thought about asking if Sammi had ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia but decided there was no point. She couldn’t hurt us now, so what did it matter either way?

  ‘Poor thing, it sounds as if she had an appalling start in life,’ I said, placing a mug of coffee in front of Alison. ‘I wonder why she never said anything to Megan and me.’

  ‘She was worried that people would judge her if they knew she’d grown up in care; at least that was the impression I got. She kept it all bottled up inside her, but perhaps that was a mistake. I certainly think she’d have found it easier to make friends if she’d been more open with people.’

  I pushed the milk and sugar towards her. ‘You must have been pleased that she went on to have such a successful career. Megan and I thought Sammi’s work sounded impossibly glamorous; we used to love hearing about all the people she’d interviewed.’

  Alison pinched the end of her nose, as if she might be about to cry. ‘Yes, I was very proud of her. She was a bright girl and I know there was so much more she wanted to do with her life.’ She paused and reached for the tissue that was tucked in her sleeve. ‘I was quite worried about her when she first moved to London. She suffered with anxiety and I thought she might find a big city overwhelming. I was afraid she’d struggle with communal living as well. Sammi liked everything just so and I know she locked horns a few times with various housemates over the years.’ She gave a lopsided smile. ‘But she was happy living here.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because she told me so, on more than one occasion. She spoke particularly fondly of you, Chloe. I know Sammi seemed confident on the outside, but she was an introvert at heart. She had lots of acquaintances, but not many real friends.’ Alison looked up at me and we made eye contact. ‘I think she regarded you as a friend, though.’

  All at once, I felt as if I was in a big black box and gradually all the oxygen was being sucked out of it. I picked up my mug and turned towards the door. ‘Let’s take our coffee upstairs, shall we, and I can show you Sammi’s things?’

  Just as I had feared, Alison took her time looking around Sammi’s room, not that there was much to see. The bed had been stripped and Megan and I had spent the previous evening packing Sammi’s things in cardboard boxes we got from the supermarket.

  ‘I’ll help you carry everything to your car,’ I said, in a bid to hurry things along.

  Alison gave me a grateful look. ‘Thank you, Chloe. I really appreciate you doing this; it can’t have been an easy task.’

  ‘Do you know what you’re going to do with it all?’

  ‘I’m not sure; I’ll decide when I get back to Northumberland. I expect I’ll give most of it to charity; I’d like to keep a few things, though.’ She ran a hand over the top of a soft mohair scarf that was sitting on top of one of the boxes. Then she noticed the cash box that was tucked underneath it. ‘What’s in here?’

&n
bsp; I felt my cheeks reddening. ‘I don’t know; it’s locked.’

  ‘Is there a key?’

  ‘Megan and I did find a key inside an empty jar of lip balm that’s about the right size. I popped it in Sammi’s make-up bag for safekeeping.’

  Alison picked up the mohair scarf carefully, almost reverentially, and laid it down on the bed. Then she lifted the cash box and gave it a gentle shake. Whatever was inside made a dull thud.

  ‘It’s quite heavy, isn’t it?’ I said.

  Alison smiled sadly. ‘I think I know what this is. Where did you say the key was?’

  I poked around in a few more boxes until I found Sammi’s make-up bag. I unzipped it and handed the small silver key to Alison, watching as she fitted it into the lock. She gave the key a half turn and the cash box sprung open to reveal a worn orange photo album.

  My heart was racing; it was Sammi’s scrapbook, just as we’d suspected. I’d wanted to try the key in the cash box as soon as we found it, but Megan persuaded me not to, saying it would be disrespectful.

  ‘My hunch was right,’ Alison said. ‘This is Sammi’s book of memories; it was one of her most treasured possessions.’ She sat down on the bed and placed it on her lap. ‘Sammi once told me that when she first went into care and was being shunted from one foster home to the next, she felt as if she didn’t exist – or if she did, it was only on the periphery of other people’s lives. So she decided to start this book, as a way of proving to herself that she was real. It was never intended for public viewing and she was very protective over it; I think I’m one of the few people she ever showed it to. But I want you to see it, Chloe, because I know you meant a lot to her.’ She patted the bed beside her. ‘Come on, let’s look at it together.’

  I gritted my teeth. Yes, I’d wanted to see the secrets that the scrapbook held, but not like this, not in front of Sammi’s nearest and dearest. But I could hardly refuse. I sat down next to Alison, as she began to turn the pages.

  For the next half an hour, Sammi’s messy childhood was laid bare. I felt like the worst kind of voyeur as I studied the album’s contents and listened to Alison’s commentary. There were photographs of Sammi with her various foster parents, important letters from Social Services, newspaper cuttings of her modest achievements – shaving off her hair for a leukaemia charity, runner-up in an inter-schools swimming gala. Despite my discomfort, I was moved by it. As Alison turned to the final page, a tear fell from my eye and landed on the plastic pocket, behind which a teenaged Sammi grinned toothily over the top of a lit birthday cake. Alison put her arm around my shoulders. I wish she hadn’t; it took every fibre of my being not to break down and admit what I’d done.

  ‘Here,’ she said, easing the photograph out of its pocket. ‘Why don’t you keep this, to remember her by?’

  I made a gulping noise. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And Alison, I’m so very sorry for your loss.’

  She looked at me and the pain in her eyes was raw. I felt a shaft of pity for her, deep and immediate, like a blow to the solar plexus. Whatever Samantha Charlesworth had or hadn’t been, she was loved, and that made me feel even worse than I already did. I knew I wasn’t a bad person, but I had done a very bad thing. It didn’t matter that I’d been semi-conscious when I pushed Sammi down the stairs. Or that she had done some vile things to Megan and me. The fact remained that I had killed another human being and I was going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. The only trouble was, I didn’t know if I could.

  48

  Megan

  Ever since I pushed Anouk out of that window, I’ve been waiting for two things. Waiting to get caught and waiting to feel bad. Neither has happened yet and I know that neither will.

  For some reason, Anouk’s been on my mind a lot lately. Sometimes, I even fantasise about reaching out to her. She lives in a lakeside home on the French-Swiss border these days, with her financier husband and their adorable twin boys. It’s an affluent area and a beautiful place to bring up children, judging by the pictures she posted on Facebook (she really ought to think about adjusting those privacy settings). But in reality, there’s not much point contacting her, because she won’t have a clue who I am.

  The gap in Anouk’s memory is due to more than just the passage of time. She sustained various physical injuries in the fall, including two broken legs and a shattered elbow. Her brain was damaged too and as a result she has no memory of the incident itself, or of any part of her life before it. According to what I heard, she didn’t even recognise her own parents when she regained consciousness.

  To be honest, I was surprised Anouk survived, especially when it was so long before they found her. Her father’s flight was delayed, as flights often are, and by the time an ambulance was called, Anouk had already been lying unconscious on those unforgiving patio slabs for several hours. By which time I, of course, was long gone.

  In an article I read in the local newspaper, shortly after the event, both Anouk’s parents and the doctor who treated her concluded that her injuries were the result of an unfortunate accident. The consensus was that she had been standing on the window seat in her bedroom – perhaps to look at something in the garden that had caught her eye – when she overbalanced and toppled out of the window; I guess it’s easily done. She spent a number of weeks recovering in hospital and then, almost as soon as she was discharged, her family left the UK and returned to France, where her rehabilitation continued in an expensive private clinic. Most people assumed that Anouk’s parents couldn’t bear to go on living in a home that held so many bad memories – and who can blame them?

  But that was all a very long time ago and since then I’ve turned my life around. I worked hard at secondary school, then sixth form college, and ended up winning a bursary, which paid for my university education and got me the hell away from home. Why did I settle on a career in pharmacy? Forget all that crap about wanting to help people and volunteering for Médecins Sans Frontières. Why should I help others when nobody has ever lifted a finger to help me? Everything I’ve achieved, I did on my own, and I’m very proud of the fact. No, I chose pharmacy because I like the feeling of power it gives me . . . dishing out little white pills that can save a life – or snuff it out. What could be more satisfying than that?

  I’m good at my job, I know that, and it frustrates me no end when my fellow professionals fall short of the mark. Take the A&E nurse who mucked up that prescription for Clindamycin. I know she’d probably say she was tired and overworked, but really there’s no excuse for making such a basic error. I was tempted to pretend I hadn’t noticed the discrepancy . . . to follow the instructions on the prescription to the letter and let that little boy’s mother go ahead and give him an overdose. It might have caused nothing more than an upset stomach, but the worst-case scenario doesn’t bear thinking about. Still, at least then, I thought to myself that day in the out-patient dispensary, the nurse in question would be held accountable for her error and, hopefully, learn a useful lesson in the process. But then I came to my senses; here, after all, was a golden opportunity to demonstrate my superior abilities to Serena and I would be foolish to throw it away.

  I always knew the sky was the limit, but I am surprised at how well I’ve taken to my chosen profession, especially as I’ve never been much of a people person. Over the years I’ve learned how to be sociable, how to win people’s trust, how to blend in with the crowd. At first, it required a conscious effort on my part, but I’ve been doing it so long now it’s practically second nature. Sometimes, I forget what a fucking weirdo I was as a kid. That’s why I like to read my old notebook every now and then, to help remind me what a long way I’ve come. But occasionally, usually when I’m least expecting it, I’ll catch a glimpse of my former self. I’ll look in the mirror and see an eleven-year-old girl with disappointment in her eyes and a heart that’s been crushed so many times, it’s a wonder it’s still beating.

  It would be nice if I had some photographs to look at, but precious few ex
ist from the latter part of my childhood. I have my annual school photo, of course, and the odd snap taken by my paternal grandmother. But the picture I treasure the most was taken by my teacher at St Swithun’s, just before we set off on a school trip to the seaside. I’m holding hands with Anouk and, despite the ridiculous homemade shorts I’m wearing (what on earth was I thinking?!), I look impossibly happy. That photograph not only reminds me of the blissful times I spent with Anouk, but also of my teacher, Miss Pickering, and how kind she was to me. She didn’t know what life was like for me at home – nobody did – but she could see how much I struggled to fit in and she did her best to make my life at school as pleasant as possible. It’s a shame she betrayed me in the end, just like Anouk did, but I try not to be bitter. The last I heard, Harriet Jane Pickering was working as a receptionist at a shipping company. After the very serious allegations against her, she was certainly never going to work with children again. Nothing was ever proven, of course, but there was enough circumstantial evidence to force her resignation.

  Schooldays are supposed to be the happiest years of one’s life, but for me, it’s been the last decade or so. Until I found Chloe, I didn’t know what it was to have a best friend – a real best friend, someone who’s always there for you and who will never let you down. The very first time I met her, I felt as if a film were sliding off me, a murky slick of grime that had clung to me for years, and I emerged all clean and shiny and new. On the face of it, I’m the stronger half of our partnership. I’m the decisive one, the one who shrugs off disappointments and setbacks, the one who can deal with any crisis and figure out a solution to every problem. But the truth is I’ve always needed Chloe more than she needs me; I just hope she never manages to figure that out. I don’t think she will; most of the time, she’s too wrapped up in herself to see any further than the end of her cute little nose.