Too Close

by Natalie Daniels

  ‘I was on antidepressants,’ I told her, just because I felt like it. ‘After Annie’s birth, I took a dip.’ She didn’t really react or appear to judge me. Thank God there’s not quite the same stigma attached that there used to be.

  We were both lying back on the grass, looking up at the sky, pretty stoned now, talking about cause and effect, accidents and fate, serendipity and coincidence. We were watching the eagle and the eagle seemed to be watching us. It kept swooping and climbing – we reckoned it was getting the odd waft of sweet sinsemilla up there, had the old rabbit-munchies and was boring the arse off the other eagles. We chuckled away for a while before drifting off into our own worlds.

  ‘What was this guy like you were in love with?’ she said, her voice breaking my reverie. I paused.

  ‘Which guy?’

  ‘The guy before Karl. You said you thought you’d found the one.’

  I sighed. That guy. My God, how do you describe it, Dr R? Have you had it? Did Si Hubby make you feel as if you’d been half asleep all your life? Did he wake you up and fill you to the brim? Have you suffered from that particular madness? Or wasn’t it Si Hubby at all?

  ‘I’d known him years ago. He’d been my professor at uni. But then I bumped into him a few years later at a party and … it was … it was complicated.’

  She was inhaling and turned her head to me with a raised eyebrow. ‘You mean he was married.’

  I raised an eyebrow back at her. ‘It turned out he was, yes.’

  ‘How long were you together?’

  ‘On and off for four years.’

  She whistled a bit and lay there looking up at the sky. ‘I bet you had cracking sex.’

  I laughed. ‘We did.’ We really did. I watched Ness stretch herself out, her arms over her head. She had rolled up the sleeves of her T-shirt and I was momentarily distracted by the curve of her breast against the side of her body.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we were allowed just one day of pure passion, to shag our brains out, with no repercussions or consequences?’ she said with a sigh. For a moment I thought she was talking about us, her and me, and my heart surprised me when it did a little cha-cha-cha.

  ‘Who would you do it with?’ I asked. (Yes, in my book, that is flirting. What do you think?)

  ‘I don’t know. Whoever floated my boat.’

  The sky seemed to prickle with stars despite the daylight.

  ‘Would you call yourself bisexual?’ I asked her.

  ‘I don’t like all these labels.’

  ‘Don’t you miss sex with men?’

  She looked at me and shrugged. ‘No.’

  ‘You and Leah have a good sex life though, don’t you?’ I asked. Seeing as she’d opened the portal to this conversation, I stepped right in. I’d always assumed that they had, but now I thought about it, I hadn’t seen much affection between them recently.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said loyally, but I heard the doubt in her voice. Well, you can’t say no, can you, Dr R? ‘You and Karl?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, because I was a liar too. ‘But let’s just say I might have to brush a few cobwebs off the old French maid outfit at the back of the cupboard.’

  She sat up on an elbow and stared at me. ‘Do you dress up?’ She looked really flabbergasted. I told you, there was a touch of Edwina about her. But I also liked this about her, that she thought dressing up ridiculous. It suddenly felt very feminist and empowering not to appeal to men’s fantasies. And yet, on the other hand, it seemed to me that there was an element of imagination missing from her make-up. (What about you? Do you carry on playing doctors and nurses when you get home? Does Si Hubby like a bit of sexy Santa?)

  Ness was staring at me, waiting for an answer. ‘No! I’m serious! Do you?’ she repeated.

  ‘I used to,’ I said. Karl was into all that dressing up when we started. ‘He has particular tastes. For example, he likes white underwear. It has to be white.’ I kid you not, Dr R – he gives me some every birthday. To be honest, I don’t really consider that a proper present, do you? He might as well give me a QPR season ticket.

  ‘My God, I can’t believe you dress up!’ Ness cried, shaking her head, laughing with disbelief. ‘Not me, no way, I can’t bear any of that stuff. I’d just feel utterly ridiculous dressed as a schoolgirl or … or … what do you wear?’ she asked, an uncomprehending grin on her face, the whole concept unfathomable to her.

  I started laughing. ‘Well, I used to have a kind of bunny girl thing …’

  She burst out laughing now. We both did – we were pretty wrecked. We got up and started hopping about pulling our best fuck-me bunny faces. Which reminds me, Dr R, some free sex advice you can pass on to your clients: if you’re on all fours, taking it from behind, never ever turn around and try to look sexy. It’s not going to work. Ness and I proved it: we tried every angle we could and it really is impossible to look good. But it is hilarious to try.

  We laughed until the jokes slowly petered out, and the birdsong and the buzz of the insects took over. Then we thought perhaps it was time to carry on our walk and we started getting our things together, without much success: I found her intently studying the map upside down. She pointed out that I had two socks on one foot. Eventually we did get our acts together and headed off again.

  ‘So,’ she said, after a little while; we were walking alongside the lake, ready to veer off. ‘What was his name, this professor?’

  I wonder what percentage of happily married people still have a small place in their hearts reserved for someone other than their partner. Not in a real way – they would never do anything about it, their lives are good – but in a fantasy way. Are you any good on stats? I’ll tell you a secret: this man was capable of reducing me to nothing, to just an essence of being. You lot probably have a name for it, a condition, don’t you? Or is it just falling in love? I was glad I wasn’t that person any more. I did not want that kind of love again. I had lost myself in him. And then, when he went, he left a hole in me. I filled it up with concrete. I hardened up. I have rock in me now. Everyone tells me that.

  ‘Jonathan Hapgood.’ Saying his name was like lifting a buried artefact out of the mud into the light. Not necessarily a good thing – think of the curse of Tutankhamen.

  ‘Jonathan Hapgood,’ she repeated. How exciting to hear his name on her lips. The spliff had made me indulgent, for you must understand I was very happy with my life, with Karl, with my kids, with the choices I had made. That soft melting love was no basis for rearing a family. Families needed solidity. I had a past – that was all.

  ‘What happened with Mr Hapgood?’ she asked, looking at me in that sideways way she had.

  ‘Oh,’ I said carelessly. ‘He finished it in the end. I’ve heard since that his wife went off with someone else.’

  ‘What goes around comes around. Do you still see him?’ she asked.

  ‘God, no. I’ve not seen him for nearly ten years.’

  She turned to look at me. ‘Are you still in touch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  ‘New Year’s Eve text maybe. Birthday email.’

  ‘But you still think about him.’ She was so insistent and probing.

  I sighed. ‘Occasionally.’

  She was drinking from the water bottle as we began to head onwards. ‘Like when?’

  I felt guilty, disloyal, but also strangely free. I had never spoken of these things. ‘I don’t know. Actually I thought of him earlier, looking at this,’ I said, gesturing to the hills, the lake, the majesty of the place. ‘Or sometimes if I hear particular music … the usual corny old tosh. Anyway, it’s your turn now.’ I wanted to stop talking about me. I felt unnecessarily exposed, like I was having one of those naked dreams. I had said too much, made a bigger deal out of something than it was. Perhaps I needed to explain myself. ‘Sometimes, Ness, I think it’s because I’m not very good at letting go; I’m a fiercely loyal person. If I love someone I never stop loving them. Men, g
irlfriends … I have never fallen out with anyone …’ (I realize that I was self-aggrandizing, making myself sound a bit special, that my loyalty was to blame, not my fickleness.)

  We were walking side by side now and she laughed and took my arm in her hands. ‘Constance – that is your name, after all. Don’t worry! You’re not being disloyal. I think you could be the most honest person I’ve ever met.’

  It gave me a thrill to hear her say that and to see her looking at me in that particular way, although I have always believed that honesty is vastly overrated. (Loyalty, on the other hand …) Her hand was soft against my skin and she let her fingers stroke my inner arm all the way down to my hand, which she squeezed. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘there are lots of different kinds of love.’

  Men will never understand the beautiful intimacies of female friendship.

  Chapter 6

  DS Allen has stains down the front of his cheap suit. I’m sure Dr Robinson has noticed too. I imagine her to be a clean freak, judging by the state of her handbag; it’s lying open at her feet, the clasp not doing its job. Everything has its own little compartment. I see some antibacterial wipes, a plastic make-up bag, a low-calorie oatmeal bar, her menthol cigarettes, the spine of a book. I lean forward to read the title: Hotel du Lac. We read that in my book club. Ness hated it. Dr Robinson sees me looking, pretends she doesn’t, leans down and snaps the bag shut, and places it on the other side of her chair.

  We are in a different room; I have been escorted out of my own room and through various corridors by the receptionist, or jailer, whoever she is. Actually she might even be a man; it is hard to tell. Whichever, she’s built like a rhinoceros. At one stage we crossed a courtyard and the fresh air took me by surprise. I paused. I turned my face to the sun and felt its rays on my skin. My hair is red but my skin is sallow; it craves the sun. I thought of all those times I have taken sunlight for granted. The Rhino gave me a little tug and I moved on across the courtyard, following the heavy roll of her bulk.

  We passed Mental Sita in the telly room. I gave her a little wave and she stared at me as if she’d never seen me before. But then she is mental. It’s a veritable rabbit warren, this place, grey lino and mint-green walls. We passed the canteen and I saw the Squeak laughing with the chef. I make a mental note – looks like they’ve got a thing going on. She says something to him and he turns to look at me, his smile dropping. I see it everywhere; heads look up and necks crane as I pass and, to my surprise, I realize that I’m something of a celebrity. Maybe this is how Leah feels – except the smiles don’t drop when she passes.

  This room we’re in now has an unbreakable glass panel on the window with that black squiggly thread going through it. Beyond the glass a goon is patrolling the lino in his polyester uniform and the Rhino waits. There are no other windows. The room smells faintly of Josh’s feet and Monster Munch. Essentially it is a police interrogation room complete with recording equipment at the side of the table. I am on one side, DS Allen and Dr Robinson are on the other, and between us there is a screen. DS Allen seems at home here; he has loosened his collar and taps the lid of a small cardboard box in front of him. I am not at home here; they have handcuffed me to my chair.

  I watch him as he leans forward to turn the recording equipment on.

  There is nothing remarkable about DS Allen. He is pushing sixty I’d say, grey hair, red face, slightly bloated, drinks too much. If there were a policeman production line, he would roll out.

  No, I take that back, there is something remarkable about him: he has a strangely breathy voice that sounds like the hand dryer in the visitor’s loo. Everything he says seems a bit painful for him. I know the feeling. We could have a rasp-off.

  ‘Beginning of session with Mrs Constance Mortensen. Present in the room with her are Dr Robinson, her forensic psychiatrist, and myself, Detective Sergeant Allen. The time is 14.55 and I am about to show Mrs Mortensen footage from CCTV cameras on Lower Bridge Road from the night of Thursday November 16th.’

  With that he turns on the screen. After a dull stretch of black-and-white footage of an empty road in the dead of night, a car whizzes by. I know nothing about cars but it does look familiar. DS Allen pauses the tape, rewinds and zooms in. ‘Is that your car, Mrs Mortensen?’

  It could be, I can see that now. I squint at the screen. Then he zooms in on the number plate.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I’m good with numbers. He comes up to the driver, who is in white, blurry-faced, leaning forward clutching the wheel, looking like something from one of those zombie shows Josh watches. I can’t see anyone else in the car, only darkness.

  ‘And is that you?’

  Fuck. It is me.

  ‘It might be.’

  He zooms in a little more. I look ghastly. I have a vague recollection of it now. I nod.

  ‘Yes or no, please,’ says the hand dryer.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Constance Mortensen has identified herself as the driver of the vehicle on the night in question.’ He seems pleased about this. Confident now, firing on all his Dyson cylinders, he pulls out a small pile of photos wrapped together with an elastic band from the box. For a moment, I wonder whether he’s going to show me his holiday snaps. Here’s the wife and me in Margate … Here’s a Boeing 747, transit number 0985 … However, his face suggests otherwise. I watch him as he undoes the band. I try to catch Dr Robinson’s eye but she is avoiding mine.

  The band makes a snapping noise and he neatly puts it to one side. He looks at the first photograph for some time. I can’t see Dr Robinson’s expression; she has her head bowed but at an angle – she is looking at it too. DS Allen slowly turns the photograph around, places it on the table and slides it smoothly across to me. At first I only notice his stumpy bitten fingernails.

  I meet his eye and then I look down at the photo.

  It is a picture of Annie lying on a white sheet: naked torso, hair loose, eyes shut and mouth gently open with a tube coming out of her nose – it looks like she’s taken that water tube from her hiking pack. She has fantastic bruises over her chest; they look incredibly real – dark reds and purples. I smile fondly: she’s excelled herself with the game this time. Another photo is pushed before me. It’s another one of Annie, from a different angle this time. I can see her felt pen-stained hand lying open at her side. She’s wearing my black nail varnish on her fingernails; it’s mainly chipped off. And her thumb is sticking out – she’s probably just taken it out of her mouth. I look for evidence of her snuggler in her other hand, the bit of manky old fur she likes to sniff as she sucks, but I can’t see it.

  Another photo is pushed into my sightline. Ah, yes. It’s Polly. She’s lying on a white sheet too. She looks more restrained; Annie’s gone for the ghoulish look, perhaps overdone the bruising a tad. She too has a water tube coming out of her nose – they must have used Josh’s. He won’t like that.

  I can’t help but laugh.

  I look up at DS Allen and Dr Robinson. They are not smiling. They are both staring at me with quietly shocked expressions on their faces. No one says anything.

  Then DS Allen suddenly gets up, his chair making a loud scraping sound. He leans forward, placing those podgy fingers on the table, a little grey quiff of hair falling down the middle of his forehead, his face quite flushed and his strange voice oddly calm, ‘May you rot in hell, Mrs Mortensen.’

  I’m not sure policemen are meant to say things like this.

  He turns around and walks out of the room, letting the door slam behind him. Dr Robinson lets out a kind of gasp, like a sob.

  ‘Hey!’ I cry. ‘It’s the death game. They play it all the time … they do it at the swimming pool, in the street …’

  She bends down hurriedly to pick up her bag; she won’t look at me. She is putting her jacket back on. The Rhino has come in and is uncuffing me from the chair.

  ‘There were three of you in the car, Connie,’ Dr Robinson says, her voice harsh and cracking. She’s lying. Anyone can see that there wa
s no one in the car apart from me. I haven’t seen Dr Robinson like this before. She’s really angry; she keeps dropping things on the floor in her rush. She is desperately trying to get away from me, to get out of the room as fast as she can. How dare she be like this? How dare they lie? I get up and rush after her, making the most of being uncuffed, but the Rhino grabs me by the wrist, spinning me round, making me cry out in pain. I lash out, I hit her. I scream after Dr Robinson.

  ‘No, you wait!’ I shout at her. ‘What are you doing? Trying to make me think my daughter is dying? Fuck him and fuck you! You don’t play with people like that. You don’t tell a mother that her daughter is dying! You’ve got no fucking idea what that’s like!’

  Dr Robinson is in the corridor just outside the door but she stops quite suddenly and turns around to look at me, her face flushed and blotchy, her perfect shiny hair partly hanging over her face.

  ‘You’re wrong there, Constance,’ she says. ‘I know exactly what that’s like.’

  For a moment I don’t understand what she means. Then I see it, her gaping sadness, the black grief that fills her up. And all my anger leaves my body; the Rhino seems to feel it too as she lets me go.

  And slowly I move towards Dr Robinson. No one stops me. And she doesn’t try and get away; she is staring at me, her blue eyes boring through me. I stop right in front of her. I reach out my right hand, the cuffs hanging off my wrist. I touch her cheek and still she doesn’t move. She is trembling. Then she nods briskly, turns and heads off.

  Chapter 7

  The woman on Emma’s left was a television producer and the man on her right was a gynaecologist. Emma had arrived late and missed the introductions and the Martinis. She missed the beginning of things because, however hard she tried to be on time, she always seemed to be late. It drove Si mad; he had argued vehemently once that late people were deliberately inconsiderate. She had been shocked – she hated to be thought of that way – and yet she never seemed capable of rushing. Perhaps she was on a different clock to other people. Everything took time: deciding what to wear, booking a holiday, having an orgasm.