Cross Her Heart: A Novel

by Sarah Pinborough

  But not no more him. Not that. I want to wreck this place with all the pent-up frustration of not being able to contact him. What must he think of all this? Will he still love me? Think I’m some kind of freak? Or is he going out of his mind worrying about me? What about our meeting? We had it all set up. What now? I have to be there. I have to. I’ll do whatever it takes. I need to start thinking cleverly about this. Like a grown-up. A woman, not a girl.

  From the kitchen I hear the sound of voices before there’s a quiet knock on my door. Alison pokes her head in. “Cuppa?” she asks.

  I nod and smile. “Thanks.”

  She looks surprised at my lack of sullenness and smiles back.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” I say.

  When she’s closed the door I lean back on my pillows and stare up at the awful swirling plaster patterns in the ceiling. What I need is for them all to go away. Just for a bit. One night in fact.

  The TV twenty-four-hour news is loud in the other room as if she can drown it all out by drowning herself in it. I swallow the anger and hurt that make me want to go in there and scream my rage at her again. Shouting won’t get me anywhere. I need to be nice. I can do that if it means I will get to see him. I’ll do anything for him. He’s all I have left.

  I love him.

  29

  2000

  After

  He always comes in on a Tuesday and she walks to work more quickly on those days as if by getting there earlier she’ll see him sooner, which she knows is stupid but she does it anyway. It’s not as if she talks to him. Not properly. She doesn’t know what to say, so she mutters answers to his polite questions and blushes and clumsily sets whatever he needs to print. Still, she likes Tuesdays best. Tuesday is her Saturday.

  Some days, when the winter sun is shining and the sky is bright and clear, days like today, she can almost believe the past doesn’t belong to her at all. She imagines her legacy life, as Joanne, her probation officer, calls it, as an invisible tattoo imprinted on her skin, slowly soaking through and becoming part of her. She looked up legacy in the dictionary. A gift. A gift of a new life. She likes to think of it that way. It makes her feel special. She was in care since she was small. A series of foster parents. She doesn’t like to talk about her real parents and has no contact with them. It’s all so close to the truth she can almost believe it herself.

  Sometimes, when a moment of old daring comes back to her, she embellishes her new life with stories made up from the photos she develops. The pictures are part of why she likes this job so much. Seeing all those happy memories coming through the machine. Pictures of lives she’ll never know. Holiday snaps from the seaside. Children’s birthday parties. Teenagers out having fun in bars and clubs. She studies those sometimes. The makeup, the clothes, the smiles. Arms flung around each other. Bright shining eyes. She practices the poses in the mirror at home even if it makes her feel silly.

  She found some “other” photos once—very different pictures. Mr. Burton told her there was nothing illegal in them, however distasteful they might be, and to package them up like the rest. He marked the envelope though, and made sure he served the customer when he came in, and she knew he’d had a “quiet word” about how he didn’t like his young assistant having to see things like that and to perhaps invest in a digital camera, from which he could print his own photos at home. Mr. Burton is a good man.

  Her days are routine and she likes that too. Even the overwhelming terror of the first few months of trying to catch up with the world has faded, and she’s been in her small flat above the video rental shop for a year and she pays her rent and manages her money and hasn’t asked for a single handout. Everyone is, apparently, “very happy with her progress.” Even the home secretary. He’s a dark cloud. She doesn’t like that the home secretary has a special interest in her progress. It reminds her who she is in the meat of herself, the sticky red flesh under the skin. Under the legacy life she wears like the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter.

  She loses herself in the routine and likes the blandness of it. Up, work, home, tea, bed, repeat. She likes the budgeting of what’s left of her meager wages when the rent’s paid. What she can spend on food. Deciding which tin to take from the shelf. Adding it all up. Counting the pennies left over. There’s a solid satisfaction in it.

  She hasn’t woken to wet bedsheets in nine whole months, although she keeps the plastic sheet on the mattress. She’s not sure she could sleep without the familiar rustle. She’s nearly twenty-three and she’s finally stopped wetting the bed. Of all things—the job, the college certificates, these markers of her new self—this is the one she’s most proud of. Joanne says it’s a very good sign that she’s integrating into her new life. Integrating. Like the world has shuffled up to make space for her, Lego squares locking her in.

  She likes Joanne. Is she a friend? She feels like a friend. She’s been there through all the ups and downs since her release. Joanne getting a new job or moving away is one of the fears.

  The fears are worst in the days after the dreams come. She has the dreams more now that she’s trying not to take any of the pills they gave her. Pills to keep her calm, pills to help her sleep, pills that all left her half empty. She didn’t have the dreams so often in those days, but although she now wakes from them filled with horror and dread, she also thinks it’s what she deserves. She can’t imagine not having the dreams. It would be worse than having them. They’re a reminder of the past, yes, but they’re also like photographs she doesn’t have. A way of seeing Daniel that isn’t from a newspaper picture. A way of holding his hand.

  Oh, but they leave her with so much fear, like plastic wrap across her face. Always the fears. Joanne leaving. Being recognized. Letting something slip. Becoming Charlotte again. Doing something terrible again, even though she’s sure she wouldn’t, she couldn’t.

  At the beginning, when each step outside of the sheltered accommodation made her freeze and tremble, and she hesitated every time she went to open a door herself, Joanne told her something that made the fears ease. It’s become her talisman. Joanne said the cells in the human body are constantly regenerating. She said it takes seven years for all of a person’s cells to be different than they were before. So basically, by the time she was released, she was an entirely different person from when it happened. She clings to that in the dark moments. She is not the person she was then.

  Today is Tuesday though, and not a day for dark thoughts. Today is a different kind of knot in her stomach. Not the slicing pain of her worries, but bubbles like Babycham. Tuesday is his day. Ten minutes of bright color in the bland grays of her life.

  This time, when he comes in for his flyers, he lingers a little at the desk. She can’t bring herself to look at him directly as he tries to make polite conversation and she nods and mutters her answers while worrying at a strand of hair behind her hot ear. She can see Mr. Burton watching from his office. He’s not concerned though, or annoyed. He’s smiling indulgently. Like he’s known this was coming, which is a shock because she didn’t know at all. He asks her then, when the tension between them has become almost unbearable. Nothing big. Just would she like to go for a drink sometime. Fireworks go off in her head. He doesn’t ask her to dinner and she’s glad about that. That would be too much and she’s not sure she’d know how to do “going out to dinner.” A drink is fine. She’s done that before with Annie, who comes in on Saturdays to help. Her skin burns bright as a beacon as she nods. Her blush fits into the colors of the world. He smiles and his eyes light up and they set a time for Friday.

  She doesn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day. These are all new cells, she tells herself. It’s the start of a new century. She needs to embrace the gift of her new life. New beginnings. For the first time in such a long time, she feels happy.

  30

  Marilyn

  Now

  Simon Manning’s a charmer, not like Toby wants to be, but the kind of man who smiles because on a subconscious le
vel he knows how to make other people feel good. At ease. It’s a rare skill. But today, when he comes out of Penny’s office, every crease in his face is visible. He doesn’t look at anyone, although he must know all our eyes are on him. It wasn’t a scheduled meeting. Penny would have booked a meeting room to keep it out of the way of prying eyes as best she could. He’s caught her unawares with this visit.

  He’s already in the lift by the time I make my sudden dash to go after him, but the second one is empty and waiting and on our floor. I grab it and hit the ground-floor button. The doors take an age to close and my heart thumps. I’ll probably miss him. I don’t know what I’m going to say if I do catch up with him, but I need to say something. The lift pings and I rush out and across the shiny tiled floor to the rotating doors.

  “Wait!”

  He’s about to get into his car when I stop him. It’s a sleek Jaguar. The kind of car Richard would love. Richard would hate Simon Manning. He’s everything Richard would want to be. Charming. Rugged. Successful. Please God, don’t let Richard be watching me today. Don’t let him see this.

  “Wait!” I say again and he turns. I feel like I might burst into tears. Chasing after him has made my ribs ache and I’m so tired of keeping up this front of cool calm. As if everything is A-OK. If anyone can understand how I feel, it’s going to be Simon. He’s had a sliver of it. Inside. A splinter of dirt that’s wormed its way in.

  “I’ve got to get to a meeting,” he says.

  “Bullshit.” The word’s out before I can stop it, but fuck it. If he’s taking his business from PKR, then he’s taking it. My swearing isn’t going to change that. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to hang around here—God knows it’s no fun for me right now—but don’t bullshit me. You’ve got time to talk.”

  “I really do have to be somewhere.”

  “Are you canceling the contract with us?” My stare is as direct as my question and he has the good grace to look uncomfortable. “Because if you are, it’s not fair. It’s not fair on Penny, it’s not fair on the company, and it’s not fair on all those people on our books who were looking forward to a decent working contract. It’s tough for them out there. A lot of them are people who’ve fallen through the cracks. And to be fair to Lisa, she—”

  “To be fair to Lisa?” His eyes are wide and I’m not sure if it’s shock or anger or both and I cringe at my own words.

  “I mean in this context. A lot of those people wouldn’t have been taken on by anyone else. She fought for them. Persuaded them to take all the free courses. And they’ve become some of our most reliable workers.” I pause, the heat in me draining away. “Look,” I say. “I know you liked her. I know you guys had been flirting for a while and she told me about your dinner date.” I see the flash of anger in his eyes as if I’m about to blackmail him and I hold my hands up in supplication. “I have no intention of telling anyone. Trust me, I don’t want to talk about her at all.” Tears sting my eyes. “Because I’m not actually sure how to. Ten years of friendship have been ripped away from me and I feel like she’s fucking died or something, and yet everyone is looking at me as if I should somehow have known, like she maybe even told me or something. But Jesus, how could I have known something like that? Who thinks a real person can do something like that?”

  He slumps back against his car as I wipe the threatening tears away. “I always pride myself on not being conned,” he says quietly. “I can smell it coming, you know? I’ve got a past myself. I can sense a con man. It’s why I’m good at what I do. I can read people. But this time . . . I didn’t think . . . I feel like a fool.” He’s bitter, that much is clear. His mind has fast-forwarded through all the what-ifs. What if he’d married her and this had come out? What would it have done to his business? Everything he’d worked so hard for? Would she have told him? How would he have felt if he’d fallen in love with her? What if, what if, what if.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever trust a friend again,” I say. It’s an awful thought, dark and lonely, but how could I get so close to another person now? How could anyone fill the hole Lisa has left in my life? “And the worst part is,” I say without looking at him, “there are moments when I really miss her.”

  I pull myself together and straighten my shoulders. I didn’t come out here to cry about my miserable lot. “We all have our own shit to deal with in this. Penny, me, you. But what we have to remember is that it’s none of our faults. That’s what I keep telling myself. When I feel everyone looking at me funny. It’s not my fault.” I meet his eyes. “And it’s definitely not the fault of all those people who are excited at the prospect of a long-term contract with a weekly wage packet. None of this makes you a bastard or an idiot. This is a one-in-a-million situation. A one-in-thirty-million situation. This is not something you can plan for. We were just unlucky for being in Lisa’s world.”

  “Charlotte’s world,” he says.

  “No.” I’m adamant. “Lisa’s. She may not have been real, but she was real to us. The fact that you liked her doesn’t make you a bastard. But taking out how you feel about yourself on all those strangers? That would.” I let a moment of silence hang between us. “Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say.” I’m tired and bruised and I don’t even know why I’m out here. “You do whatever you’ve got to do.”

  I turn and head toward the building.

  “Marilyn?”

  I look back at him.

  “I’ll think about it, okay?”

  They all look at me when I get back to my desk, but I ignore them as if I’ve just been to the loo or something. My steel plating is back on, but I’m lighter for having talked to Simon. To know that someone else is feeling at least a little of what I am.

  Penny calls me to her office after lunch. Up close under the bright lights I’m surprised at how tired she looks, but I don’t comment. Glass houses and stones.

  “Thank you,” she says. I don’t have to ask for what. The relief is palpable.

  “It was nothing.”

  Penny nods toward the door. “How is it out there?”

  “Gossipy,” I say. “Pretty much as you’d expect. It’ll calm down.”

  There were more homemade cakes today—we’re a team, we must all pull together—and although Julia could maybe still pass as a twenty-something, she’s taking on the mother role with the others since I’m now an outsider. Stacey has pulled in closer to Toby, who’s oh so happy to look after her. At least Stacey showed some sadness. She’s sweet enough to be able to say, “But I liked her,” out loud and have nobody judge her. It’s the power of youth, I suppose. No one will give me that leeway. I’m too old. I should have known better.

  “I still can’t get my head around it,” Penny says. She’s been so busy firefighting, she probably hasn’t had any time to think until now.

  “Tell me about it.” I smile at her. Maybe she’s realizing now that it’s no different for me. In fact, it’s worse for me. I’m the one next to the empty desk, a desk I was so keen to have alongside mine when we were planning the new office layout. She doesn’t look at me, but instead stares at the door as if she can see through it to the others.

  “I bet it was her who stole the petty cash,” she says sharply.

  My mouth opens and closes like a goldfish. In all this, I’d forgotten what Lisa had seen at the party. What she’d told me the last time I saw her. What she thought about Julia. Had it all been a cover? Had it been Lisa who’d been stealing all along?

  “Maybe,” I say, but my disagreement slithers inside me. “But then why did it only start going missing now?”

  Penny gives me a sharp glance. “Maybe I only started to notice now. Things have been hectic.”

  “True,” I concede quickly. “And it was Ava’s sixteenth birthday and I know she bought her expensive presents. She always does.” Poor Ava. Has she told Lisa? I wonder what she’s going to do and I wish I could talk to her. I wish I’d said something that last night. Gone to her room and spoken to her instead of pretending
I hadn’t seen it.

  Penny’s gaze softens now I’m onside. There’s no way I’m going to mention the Julia suspicions. I don’t have the energy for more conflict, and why should I consider defending Lisa? I’m here on my own while she’s headed off to another new name and new life. No doubt where she’ll make another mug of a best friend, ignorant that she’s a child killer.

  And not just any child, I remind myself. Her own two-year-old brother. Eleven is old enough to know what you’re doing. My best friend was a monster. My anger takes hold again and it’s a good feeling. A rush of energy that gives me strength.

  “Do you fancy grabbing a glass of wine later?” I ask. “The old pub we used to go to?” I haven’t been for a drink with Penny in ages—not since she decided to expand the business. She’s quite caustically funny after half a bottle of sauvignon blanc and I could use a good laugh.

  “Oh, I can’t.” Her eyes slip away and discomfort radiates out from her. “I’ve still got so much to do.”

  “No problem.” My smile is too wide. “It was only a thought.”

  “Another time?”

  “Sure. Whenever.”

  She looks grateful I haven’t pushed it and I keep my walk confident as I leave her office and go back to my desk, my emotions simmering under the skin. I should have let Simon Manning take his business elsewhere. Ungrateful bitch. And fuck you, Lisa. Fuck you for swanning off and leaving me tarred with your guilt.

  Richard’s hanging up the phone when I get home, and he does it a touch too quickly, as if he didn’t want me to see and hadn’t heard me coming in. His eyes are bright and he’s grinning. Handsome. I used to think it was wolfish, but now I see the hyena. Now he’s started to show me the hyena.

  “A new job?” I ask. It’s delicate ground. Work has been thin, and that’s a generous view. The housing market has slowed and no one seems to need reputable builders anymore. Of course I never paid any attention to what he was doing with money during the good times, and he failed to ever mention there were bad times until it had all got out of hand. It’s such a mess. Our marriage is showered in a confetti of final notices.