Sarah Before

by Craig Shepherd

  “I’m here,” said Sarah, the tears and the distress in her voice now gone, thanks to the distraction of the person on the balcony.

  “Great,” Jane’s voice lowered a bit. Sarah could almost see her lowering her head at the same time, eyes darting around ensuring nobody could overhear the conversation she was having, like a lonely housewife in the old movies, telling her lover on the phone that he must never call her there again, while her husband sat in the dining room eating the meal she had lovingly cooked for him in between the dusting, vacuuming, and blowing the neighbors son who is home from college. All the chores of a homely woman. “Do you live far away from the store, Sarah?”

  Sarah was taken aback by the question, but replied she was only half a mile away.

  “Ok, I’m really not supposed to do this, but I think I can help you out. My shift finishes here in three hours. If you give me your address, I think I can get your groceries out of here and bring them to you.” Before Sarah could point out the obvious fact that she was yet to pay for said groceries, nor did she have any means to do so, Jane continued “I know you haven’t paid for them, but I think I can get everything in about three bags. I always leave the store through the back anyway and it’s only a small detour from the cool room. If anybody asks I’ll tell them I’m dropping them off for an old lady who was in the store earlier and bought more than she could carry on the bus. I don’t even think anybody will notice.”

  Sarah couldn’t speak for a second. She never expected this kind of help, and the truth was she didn’t even feel comfortable taking it. She had come from a good family. A family who worked for the things they had, and throughout most of her life, at least up until she left Pokona, she had been the one to help others. Jason had earned a good living and she had worked on and off between children. She’d put money aside in cash, even - something she was thankful for now more than ever, although she was almost at the end of those funds.

  Since working in a traditional job was now out of the question, she had played around with ways to make money online, but nothing had really become a consistent source of income. Writing under an assumed name was about the only thing to garner any real financial rewards. Opinion pieces for small news websites, the occasional commentary on current events. It was hardly going to sustain her for the next thirty years, but it did bring in a few extra dollars here and there, most of which was used on essentials and the rest of it saved. If only the readers knew the insightful commentary they were reading on current affairs was coming from a housebound woman who couldn’t even do her own shopping, let alone fully experience the world on which she would narrate.

  “You would really do that for me?” It was the best Sarah could offer. She could feel the tears starting again, this time ones of shock and happiness rather than despair.

  “It’s no problem, but I do need to be quick, I don’t want anybody to hear. What’s your address?” Jane sounded more urgent now, obviously aware she was taking a risk for a complete stranger, and Sarah took no offense at the sharper tone in her voice, understanding the position Jane was putting herself in.

  She gave her address to Jane, quickly explaining it was just a little way down the road from the store and thanked her again before ending the call. Placing her phone on the table, she lit another cigarette. With still no idea what she would do about her missing purse, a few more calls to stop bank cards would be in order, she really did feel a huge weight had been lifted from her. At least she would have food for however long it lasted. She let out a long sigh with the first mouthful of smoke she exhaled, a physical expression of the relief she felt, and her amazement at the kindness of strangers.

  Her attention turned to tidying up the house. She didn’t know if Jane would be likely to accept an offer to come in and join her for a drink, but since it was the first time since moving to Calston she could even see the possibility of having a visitor, she was going to make an effort. The thought of that human contact was almost as longed for as the groceries she needed. It wasn’t people she was afraid of, just as it wasn’t specifically the outside world that scared her. If she had more friends, any friends, she would gladly have them over to her house for chats, dinner, drinks and movies. All the things she remembered doing when she actually did have acquaintances. In her own safe place, the company of others was fine.

  Of all the problems associated with her illness, the attacks, the restless sleeping, the persistent feelings of lethargy and the obvious logistical problems with getting the things she needed, paled into insignificance when lined up against the gaping void of friendlessness she had inflicted on herself. Sometimes even feeling like a cartoon character who had let a cannonball pass through their body. They were still alive, still upright, but there was a massive hole right in the middle of them. Although in cartoons the hole was gone and they were back to normal by the next scene. In her sad, sunken life, the hole was always there.

  Taking the last drag of her cigarette, she remembered the disturbing incident with the person on the balcony. She cocked her head to the right, once again focusing in on the middle balcony of the bottom row, which she assumed was the second floor of the apartment since the first floor was obscured by houses like hers in the foreground. There was nothing there, so convinced she was worrying about nothing, Sarah turned back to the cigarette she was grinding into the brickwork and let it fall into the small tin ‘Smokers’ tray below.

  Going back inside, she paused for one last glance over her shoulder, and although it was probably her mind playing tricks on her, she could have sworn she saw a piece of pulled aside lace curtain fall loosely back into place on the balcony, as though someone was watching her.

  CHAPTER 5

  Sarah was putting the finishing touches on her attempts at tidying by adjusting a purple throw rug she had tossed carelessly over the back of the couch when she heard a knock on her the door. She glanced up at the cheap, plastic clock on the wall. 5:30p.m. Had she really been tidying the house for more than three hours? She’d always had a problem with focus when it came to domestic chores. Starting on one area, dusting cloth and spray bottle in hand, she would inevitably see some papers sitting where they didn’t belong across the other side of the room. After the papers were thrown out, she might finally get back to that dusting half an hour later but at least the toilet would be clean and the dining chairs wiped down. There was no order to how she did things around the house, but as she surveyed the living room, her work spoke for itself. Not a hair out of place. She didn’t want to run to the door – the timber floors held no secrets and she didn’t want to come off as crazy.

  Like calling a supermarket and confessing her agoraphobia to a complete stranger hadn’t already tipped Jane off about that one, she thought to herself. She did move quickly though, without running, and made her way through the door unlocking process, but stopped short of releasing the door chain just yet. She pulled the door open and a young lady at the door said “Hi, Sarah?”, and she immediately knew it was Jane.

  “Yes, you must be Jane?” she replied, still phrasing it as a question when it really didn’t need to be. The girl at the door was holding bags of shopping, and for a completely unexpected stranger to drop by with a free food delivery would have been one hell of a coincidence.

  The mental picture Sarah had developed while speaking to Jane on the phone wasn’t too far removed from the girl standing in front of her, except the real Jane was probably a few years older than she had imagined. Perhaps twenty-six or twenty-seven, if she had to make an assessment. She was indeed blonde – a few strands were sticking out of the heavy, hooded jacket she was wearing. When she brushed the hood away from her face, she revealed a pretty face, not chubby at all. Even before she smiled, Sarah noticed that although her features were somewhat plain, it was the life in her eyes that made her pretty. The sort of person who looks, if not happy, at least content regardless of the situation she was in. Her eyes were a rich green, vibrant and excitable, despite Jane being obviously cold and st
anding on a stranger’s porch holding bags of groceries. These eyes, combined with a fairly pale complexion and blonde hair was not unusual to Sarah. Irish ancestry filled a great number of homes in this part of the world and Jane was obviously of that stock. Although mostly hidden by her heavy black jacket, Sarah could see she had a small figure. She thought she had been right about Jane not having children, although with her full lips, thin face and eyes splashed with bright green – she would be very surprised if Jane wasn’t married, or at least had a boyfriend.

  Sarah also noticed a distinct lowering of temperature outside since she had last been out there. Her house was warm from the electric wall heater, and while it wasn’t windy outside, the crispness of the air flowed in as the door was opened and instantly swept its icy hands around her face. “Come in, please, you must be freezing!” She would admit to experiencing a short burst of pleasure that there was now a further requirement for Jane to come inside, and it made her feel a little predatory, the way an opportunistic serial killer must feel when he is flagged down by a hitch-hiker or drives by a broken-down vehicle. Of course it wasn’t lustful opportunism driving her thoughts, but rather her ever-present loneliness and desperation for human interaction. She reached out to relieve Jane of the shopping bags as she stepped inside.

  “Thanks, are you sure it’s OK for me to come in?” asked Jane, and Sarah knew what she meant. Most people thought agoraphobia had something to do with a fear of people.

  “Of course! Please,” she gestured with her arm as if she were displaying a wonderful prize package on a TV game show, except the only prize on offer was a 1950’s style living room with a couple of chairs and a couch crammed around a TV. “My problem isn’t with people at all. It’s more about panic attacks. But you’re fine. We’re fine here.”

  The last part of the sentence came out a little nervously, but she hadn’t intended it to be and hoped she hadn’t made Jane nervous in the process. Although people’s concepts of agoraphobia and panic disorders were often not even in the same post code as the facts, Sarah wasn’t frustrated at the prospect of explaining this to Jane. She wasn’t tired of explaining herself at all, because the truth was, nobody really ever asked.

  After closing the door behind Jane - she didn’t lock the doors, not wanting to give off any more of a creepy vibe than she already had, she explained her problems. The panic attacks. The vomiting. The fear of both occurring in public. She stopped short of going into the explicit details of the nausea, blurred vision, clammy skin and all the other physical gifts an attack gave her, but thought by the end of it Jane would understand why she would frequently freeze in place on her front porch if she tried to leave, regardless of how much she so desperately wanted to.

  Once she had finished lesson one of Sarah’s Condition, she realized the two of them remained standing just inside the door, Jane probably extremely uncomfortable and sweating under her thick jacket, which she had unzipped at the front. Sarah hadn’t noticed her do this.

  “I’m so sorry! Please, throw your coat anywhere. My coat rack is still in storage,” Sarah joked. Did she actually joke? Sarah spoke with a smile and a small laugh afterwards. She remembered this as joking, and tried to remember the last time she had done it with another human being. “Can I get you a drink? I don’t have much unfortunately – tea, coffee, water?”

  Jane grinned and raised her eyebrows, tilting her head in the direction of the grocery bags Sarah had sat down against the back of the couch. “I didn’t know what you liked. Tell me if I was close.”

  Sarah’s brow furrowed in confusion as she looked back at Jane, but she played along and started pulling open the tops of the bags. There was nothing obvious in the first two bags she checked, but in the third she saw an almost forgotten, but still familiar set of six silver circles staring back at her. Pulling the cans of beer from the bag, her fingers slipped in the gaps between them. Halfords Beer. She recognized the blue and red labelling without even needing to read the writing. She and Jason had regularly favored Halfords in their youth. A youth she was noticeably excited to relive, judging by the dumbstruck look on her face as she turned back to Jane.

  She smiled gleefully, as if it were 1991 again, and a sixteen-year-old Sarah was peering into Josie Kirk’s bag at the beach party she had attended with friends. She’d seen beer around the house before, but it had been the first time she saw beer that was marked for consumption by her. The excitement of that moment over two decades ago had turned to shame and self-loathing within hours of course, when she had arrived home, drunk and vomiting in her front yard, knowing all the while her parents were sitting inside, not coming out to cause a scene on the street, but just waiting. Waiting for the moment their first-time drunken daughter had the courage to open the front door and face the music, so to speak. She remembered there was no music when she did open that door, just silence. It was the most horrible sound she had ever heard. She’d never seen her parents’ faces so full of disappointment before, and had hated it, and herself, immediately. They didn’t even speak. Not a word, and they didn’t need to. Their drawn down, tired faces held enough words for a thousand novels to be written. The first one probably being ‘We Have Never Been So Let Down, Volume One’. They had both sullenly, slowly, shaken their heads as a crouched over Sarah looked up at them, before turning and walking towards their bedroom, carrying with them the deafening silence that was only broken by Sarah’s own footsteps as she hurried to the toilet where she vomited again.

  Her father, however, had relented on his disappointed parent display after around forty-five minutes. Once the last of the vomiting was done and Sarah was groggily climbing into bed, Tom Benson had walked in with a warm washcloth and a bucket which he placed beside her bed. He kissed her forehead and said “Get some rest. I love you Sare-Bear.” She had never forgotten that. Even in the moment she had caused her parents the most distress and disappointment in her short life, she was still daddy’s little girl.

  The incident would later be referred to by her parents simply as ‘1991’, as if it were the only event to take place during those twelve months – conveniently forgetting the Gulf War, the fall of the Soviet Union and the beating of Rodney King. All of these things would forever be pushed off the front page of her family’s history books, overshadowed by the night their daughter tried beer for the first time. Although she had been physically sick in frequent bursts that night, and it was definitely a moment she would never forget, it wasn’t linked to her current problems. It did make her laugh now though. Due to a month’s worth of grounding handed down by her parents the next day, a cheap psychologist could argue that vomiting in the front yard let to Sarah’s first instance of house arrest, and here she was, twenty-six years later in much the same boat.

  “Oh my God, Jane, you really didn’t have to do this. Any of this. I don’t know what I can ever do to thank you,” she said, almost letting a tear escape from behind her eyes. She fought it back in the interest of not embarrassing herself in front of the first visitor to her home in years.

  “It’s nothing, really. You don’t have to thank me. I’d like to think a lot of people would have done the same thing,” Jane spoke casually, showing she really meant it – to her this act of kindness was really nothing out of the ordinary and she was genuinely happy to help. “But one thing you do need to do?” Jane’s eyebrows raised and she smiled as she spoke, “Is share those beers.”

  The way Jane spoke seemed so foreign to Sarah after such a long time experiencing no meaningful contact with others. She was put so effortlessly at ease by Jane’s whole personality; that was what stood out. She had a way of speaking, a way of interacting, that made her feel as though they had been friends for years. In her head, Sarah was telling herself not to get too excited about this. Jane could share a beer, and then take her warm, faux-fur lined jacket and charismatic nature out into the cold and foggy night, disappearing from her life like a wounded bird being set free after being nurtured back to health. Common sense was tellin
g her this was the most likely outcome, but the part of her still able to generate hope after all these years wanted to break through and take over. That part of her was practically planning dinner parties.

  Finding a happy medium to her thoughts, she reminded herself meeting Jane was great, but she shouldn’t be too consumed with thoughts of friendship. It had been so long since Sarah had properly spoken to anybody except real estate agents and removalists, that she was probably not a great judge of how people acted when they were just being friendly versus how they acted when they too wanted to develop a friendship.

  “Of course! You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. You can probably guess, I have no plans,” Sarah smiled, joking again as Jane pulled her arms out of her jacket and laid it over the back of the couch. She picked up the bags of groceries and beer. “Did you want to come through to the kitchen? I’ll just put these away.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Jane Monaghan, twenty-six, explained she was in Calston merely as a temporary resident. She had moved to town three years ago with her boyfriend at the time, Joe, who was transferred to the Calston office of the real estate company he worked for. Jane had found the move harder than expected though, and harder on her and Joe’s relationship than she could ever have foreseen. She’d been young and in love, and figured that would be enough, but she found fairly quickly love wasn’t always enough – contrary to the movies she’d grown up with.

  “Joe made enough money for us to pack up and move without me needing a job straight away, but I knew I needed to find work once we settled in. After a few weeks, I took a job behind the bar at Mixers,” she said, explaining Mixers was one of the popular drinking spots in the southern part of Calston where the majority of after dark revelry took place. Sarah noticed a lamentation in Jane’s voice as she recalled this part of her life. She had never wanted the job, or even that line of work, but in her early twenties with precious few options, it was where she landed. “It was mostly night work, and with Joe working days we never really gave ourselves much of a chance, I guess,” Jane had considered their relationship to be bulletproof before they moved, and even as decisions were made about employment, along with the promises they made to each other that it wouldn’t be forever, her new job was really just the first chip in the glass she had figured would never crack.