by Luca Veste
‘Someone is coming,’ I said, standing up and staring at Chris. We had barely disagreed about anything in the twenty-odd years of friendship, but this was beginning to feel like one of those things that could break us. ‘You know that’s the truth. You know Michelle isn’t just making things up, that neither am I. I know what I saw. You know what those candles mean.’
‘They mean nothing . . . ’
‘You know what they mean,’ I said, leaning on the table with both hands and leaning closer. ‘I love you like a brother. That’s why I came to you first. And I promise I won’t go to anyone just yet; I just need you to think about it properly. Will you give me that at least? Speak to Nicola about all of this. You need to be totally sure, I get it, but I don’t see any other way out of this.’
‘There’s plenty of ways out.’
‘Speak to her. And Michelle. She’ll tell you the same as she told me. See if that changes your mind.’
I left him at the table and walked out of the pub. Paused in the car park and looked back. I wanted to go back and let him convince me that there wasn’t anything to worry about – but there was a part of me that knew he couldn’t.
No one could.
I kept walking.
Twenty-Three
I was driving back home when she called. My phone was in its cradle, linked by Bluetooth to the speakers, so I couldn’t ignore the ringing even if I’d tried.
Her name was on the screen as I glanced at it.
‘Hello,’ I said, answering as I looked for somewhere to pull over. I indicated left and stopped the car. ‘You okay?’
‘Hi Matt,’ Alexandra replied, sounding like she always did, even if there was a little resignation in her tone. ‘I’m not bad. Not great either.’
If I closed my eyes and forgot everything I knew, I could almost believe it was a year earlier and we were still together. That this was just a normal conversation. Instead, I had to live in a world where that wasn’t the case.
‘I’m just . . . I don’t know,’ Alexandra continued, a deep sigh filling the car, as I pulled the phone away and put it to my ear.
My stomach lurched, as I thought about what had happened to Michelle recently and heard a note in Alexandra’s voice that worried me. ‘What’s going on? Has something happened?’
‘No,’ she replied, the note that concerned me being replaced by confusion. ‘I guess I’m just worried about you, that’s all. Can we talk?’
I breathed a sigh of relief, then thought about what she’d said. The idea of meeting up with her before that week would have filled me with hope and excitement. Now, I couldn’t work out what I felt. Only that I didn’t want her around if Michelle and I were right.
‘Yes,’ I said eventually, knowing there was no other answer. ‘Now?’
‘Give me a few hours. I’ll come to your house after work.’
The call ended and even though I knew it was true, the words still hurt.
Your house.
It was supposed to be ours. Our home, our future. Now, it was a reminder now of all that had been lost. A daily ritual couldn’t erase it. Nothing ever would.
She hadn’t been round since the day she’d left. In fact, I struggled to remember anyone being in there for months, besides Chris. I didn’t have visitors. My family – of which there were basically very few – lived far enough away that a simple visit was barely worth it. Everyone was getting older, so it was on me to make the trip to them.
I plugged the phone back in and set off. Outside, rain fell in spots, dotting the windscreen and smeared away with wipers. A fine rain that I would barely feel if I was outside, but now was a minor annoyance in a day, a week, filled with them.
That’s what I was feeling. Annoyed. I had created a sheltered life, which I now realised I wanted to protect. A bubble in which I could pretend the outside world didn’t exist, so I could live in peace.
Only, there was never peace. Not for me. Not for any of us. I didn’t think there ever would be.
Back home, I turned the volume up loud on the music blaring from my Alexa and tidied up what needed doing. There wasn’t much. Along with creating a shelter, I’d also become more frugal. Mainly because I had to, given I was paying a mortgage I could barely afford and didn’t have much left over for any luxuries. No takeaway containers littering the rooms, no empty bottles of soft drinks, no clinking bottles of alcohol to hide. I didn’t drink, I barely ate, and coffee remained my only extravagance. Even that only cost me about a tenner per week.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, just as I finished vacuuming a living-room floor that had barely been walked on for months. I pulled it out and saw the alarm I’d set a week earlier and forgotten about, then swore under my breath. Wondered if I should reschedule, then thought about the two hours still to go until Alexandra arrived and thought it would save me staring at a wall.
Decided I could at least fill the time semi-productively.
*
We’d been talking about nothing for forty-five minutes before her name came up. The counsellor doing what she’d tried on my previous visit – to get me to talk about what she knew was hiding behind the veiled answers of everything I was saying.
I had made a decision to never return, but there I was. Back again. It wasn’t just because I couldn’t sleep. I was there because I needed help. Because I could kid myself that I was trying by going and speaking to this stranger, as if by doing so I was at least trying. Yet, it was like a game, where I couldn’t tell her all of the rules or where the pieces were supposed to move.
So, instead, we danced around subjects and she prodded and pried, trying to back me into a corner that would have me reveal all. Asked open questions, trying to get me to disclose things she knew I didn’t want to.
It didn’t work. It wouldn’t work.
‘The ex-girlfriend,’ she said, flicking back a page or two in her notepad. ‘Alexandra?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any contact?’
She knew there must have been. I’d told her about Stuart’s death – leaving out as much detail as was possible – but she had the knowledge that of the friends I had, they were all connected. And that included Alexandra. ‘Briefly.’
‘How was it?’
‘It was . . . it was nice. Polite. I’m actually seeing her after this.’
Her eyebrows raised at this. I felt like for the first time in that room I’d actually said something that had surprised her somewhat. ‘Really? How do you feel about that?’
‘Nervous, excited, I don’t know. I’m not thinking it’s going to lead to anything, but it’s the first time we’ll be on our own since we broke up.’
‘How is the sleep going?’
I frowned at the sudden shift in conversation. ‘Same as it was before.’
‘And you think it’s insomnia?’
‘Well, yeah, I guess so,’ I replied, trying to work out the possible path she was trying to take. I was paying for the privilege of this, I realised. Money I couldn’t really spare. I wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, but kept myself in check. ‘It certainly seems to fit the criteria.’
‘Did you do any of the exercises I told you about last time we met?’
‘Yes, they didn’t work,’ I lied, knowing that the truth would be too difficult to explain without straying into territory where I couldn’t go. ‘Still can’t sleep.’
She tilted her head and stared at me long enough for me to look away. The silence grew until I couldn’t take it any longer.
‘I don’t know what it is,’ I said, feeling a sense of relief when I could hear the sound of my own voice. ‘I just can’t seem to switch off.’
‘You seem uncomfortable.’
It was the first statement she had made. Not a question – she was identifying a fact and she seemed to be happy with the assessment.
‘I’m fine. I just don’t know how useful this is turning out to be.’
‘After one and a half sessions?’
Back
to the questions. I rolled my eyes in annoyance. Frustration. ‘I know. I understand that it probably takes a lot more than that, but I’m not a wealthy person. I’m not even a half-wealthy person. I can’t really afford to spend a fortune coming back here over and over, just to be told the same things. I tried the exercises, they didn’t work. Maybe I should just go the sleeping pills route.’
‘You told me you’d tried that and it hadn’t worked. Do you think anything has changed since then?’
I shook my head. ‘Probably not. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try again. A prescription charge is cheaper than these hour-long meetings though.’ I smiled so she knew I was speaking with some humour, but she was unbreakable.
‘When you wake up in the mornings, is it always at the same approximate time?’
I nodded. ‘I set my alarm. I work from home, so it’s important to have some sort of routine. Otherwise, I could end up never doing anything productive.’
‘The alarm wakes you up?’
‘Yes,’ I said, frowning again, as she steered the exchange in another seemingly odd direction. I wondered if she was intentionally trying to make me feel off-kilter – unsure of where the next turn would be, so she could trip me up and make me reveal more than I wanted to. I was locked into a game now, it seemed. I was sure she knew I wasn’t telling her the entire truth, but I wasn’t going to give up. ‘I lie in bed awake for hours and eventually my body just gives in. Never early enough for me to feel right though.’
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Now?’
She shook her head, almost imperceptibly so. ‘When you’re lying in bed trying to sleep. You said your brain won’t switch off. What are some of the thoughts that run through your mind? Give me some examples.’
I sighed and leaned back in the chair. ‘All sorts of things,’ I said, running through the images that immediately sprung to me. The man in the woods. The sounds he made. The anger that coursed through him and us. The smell of sweat and blood. Michelle’s crying. Alexandra’s face. Chris’s fear. Stuart’s barely constrained panic. Nicola trying to ground herself back into reality. The boy. His body.
The red candle. Burning. Mocking us, after what we’d done.
The empty patch of ground where the boy had once been.
‘Just normal things,’ I lied, refusing to catch her gaze now. I looked around the room and settled my eyes on a large oak bookcase that held numerous red leather-bound books. Thick and probably unreadable to most people. I squinted to try and read some of the titles but failed. ‘Money worries, social anxieties. Whether I locked the back door before I came to bed. Something I watched on TV before going upstairs. That kind of thing.’
‘When you did the exercises, did any of this dissipate whatsoever?’
I thought about the list she had given me. All of them had involved the same issue I couldn’t deal with – silence. They all required me to turn off the music, the radio, the podcasts. Everything that I used so I wasn’t lying in the darkness in total quiet. I couldn’t tell her that though, because it would just lead to even more questions I couldn’t answer. Instead, I had to lie to this person and pay for it. Literally. Hand over cash I couldn’t spare to lie to a stranger.
Now, I did laugh out loud. A short sharp bark of laughter that momentarily broke her blank expression. I recovered quickly and held up a hand in apology. ‘I’m sorry, but I just don’t think this is going to work . . . ’
‘Matt, what is it about silence that bothers you?’
The shock of the question almost made me shout in response. In truth. I closed my mouth and stuttered around a reply, before composing myself. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘That’s the problem here, isn’t it? Every time there’s a lull in the conversation, you feel the need to fill it. You don’t realise it, but when there’s quiet in the room, you begin to exhibit signs of some distress. Is this something that happens at night also? Does it become worse then?’
‘I have to go,’ I said, getting to my feet and grabbing my jacket from the back of my chair. ‘Thanks for trying, but I don’t think I’ll be coming back.’
‘Wait, Matt, what is it that you don’t want to say?’
I didn’t answer, shouting a goodbye as I left the office and closed the door behind me. I didn’t breathe again until I was outside the building and leaning against my car. I looked over at the window where the counsellor’s office was, half expecting her to be standing there and holding a phone.
Calling who?
I knew the answer and how stupid it was. My breathing slowly returned to normal as I realised it was just fear. That she hadn’t seen through me and knew what I was hiding. The noise filtered back through now – the calming sounds of traffic passing by, the wind in the air, the conversation from someone talking on their phone as they walked past me. It all coalesced into a cacophony of aural pleasure.
It wasn’t silence.
It was soothing.
Twenty-Four
I reached home with just enough time to get inside and switch on the coffee machine before Alexandra arrived. The drive back had been a blur. I tried to remember it as I waited for the cup to fill, but found myself unable to recall any part of it. Just the sound of the music filling the car, as I turned the volume up louder and louder until it hurt.
Her car pulled up behind mine as I watched from the window. I was holding the cup in my hands, cradled around it, enjoying the warmth, humming a tune to myself. I breathed deeply as she got out and paused looking at the house. I averted my eyes briefly, worried about being seen, then checked myself in the mirror.
I walked into the hallway and opened the door, just as she was opening the gate and walking up the path. She smiled tightly, then I felt her hand on my shoulder and her lips on my cheek briefly. She murmured a greeting, then she slipped past me and inside. The smell of Armani Code perfume drifted along with her and I wondered if she was still using the bottle I’d bought her on her last birthday. Then I realised that would have been fifteen months earlier and unlikely.
There was a moment when I almost said ‘make yourself at home’ out of politeness, but managed to stop myself.
The awkwardness I was feeling wasn’t something I expected.
I didn’t need to say anything, as it happened. Alexandra went straight into the living room and sat down on the sofa. As I followed her in and stood opposite against the fireplace, I realised she had chosen the same space she’d always occupied when we lived together. I chuckled softly, as she looked up at me. ‘At least some things don’t change,’ I said, knowing she’d get it.
‘It was always the best seat in the place,’ Alexandra replied with a smile that showed her teeth. It disappeared as quickly as it came. ‘Anyway, how have you been?’
‘You know,’ I said, placing the cup of coffee on the mantelpiece and folding my arms across my chest. ‘Same old, same old.’
‘Liar.’
‘Want a drink?’ I said, before she could say anything more. ‘Coffee, tea . . . a large gin and tonic?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Good. I don’t have any gin and the tonic water has been open in the fridge for about a year. Probably less fizzy than water by now.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, looking me over. ‘Still not sleeping?’
‘I get enough.’
Alexandra saw right through me, but didn’t push me on the lie. She breathed deeply and looked away. ‘Everything looks the same.’
‘I never was much of a decorator.’ I unfolded my arms and moved across the room back to the window. I didn’t want to sit down, wasn’t sure why. ‘So, how are you doing?’
‘I was doing okay – not great, but well enough – until a few days ago. Now . . . now I’m not so sure.’
I knew what had prompted the visit now. ‘Michelle.’
‘She called me last night,’ Alexandra said, sitting back and seeming to struggle with the urge to slip her shoes off and tuck her feet underneath her. Tha
t’s what she would normally do on that sofa, but that was a different time, I felt. Now she wasn’t sure what to do.
‘She told you,’ I replied, as I watched her continue to battle against habit. ‘What’s been going on, what she thinks is happening. All of it.’
‘Yes. She’s scared.’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘Of course. Doesn’t mean any of it is right though. She said you’d been round. You can’t have believed what she thinks is happening if you just left her there.’
I hesitated, just long enough for her to read me like a cheap paperback.
‘I can’t believe you . . . ’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ I said quickly, not meeting her eyes as she looked at me. Shame almost drowned me. ‘She didn’t want me to do anything and I knew I couldn’t stay there. She wouldn’t let me. And she wouldn’t come and stay here, didn’t want me to call anyone.’
‘That doesn’t matter and you know it. You’re supposed to be her friend. You’re supposed to be there for her. How could you just leave her on her own if you thought she was in danger? For God’s sake, Matt . . . even if this is all just your overactive imagination, I would have thought you would care for her a little more than that.’
‘Have you been over there yourself? I doubt Chris or Nicola have either and they both know now as well. And I’ve not heard you once say you believe her. Don’t lay all this at my door. That’s not fair.’
Alexandra made to argue more, then held up her hands in mock surrender. ‘Okay, okay, this isn’t helping. None of us have done the right thing. Yet.’
