I flatten the newspaper as best I can, then push my hand a little to each side. There’s something else here. It’s paper, but it is thicker, smoother, so I tease it out. It’s an envelope, yellow with age and grey with dust. It has been opened carefully, with a clean, straight cut along the top, and it is empty. It is addressed to a Mrs E Bellingham at an address in London NW1. The name means nothing to me, but is that where I am? My knowledge of London districts is poor, but I know it must be north of the river, and if that is the case, if that is where I am, what are the chances that anyone will ever find me? I have no connection to London and my flat is at least a hundred miles away. Did Greg ever mention London? I wrack my brains, trying to remember our conversations, but he only ever wanted to talk about me so it is hopeless.
For a while, I sit on the floor with the envelope in my hands. It has taken all my enthusiasm away, but I have to replace my useless barricade, if only to demonstrate that I am not sitting here waiting for him as if it were some romantic tryst. If he is going to have me, at least I will put up a struggle, so even his warped mind will not be able to tell him I wanted it really. I am crying now, as the awful reality of my situation becomes clear. No-one is going to come charging up the stairs to rescue me. I am somewhere in London, the best place in the world to hide, and Greg has had two years to work all this out. He has won, and all our resolve, all Nat’s technology, could not save me in the end, as I was the weakness in the plan.
I replace the barricade, then continue my search. I have no expectation of finding anything useful, but at least it passes the time. I cannot move the fridge-freezer or the wardrobe, so those sections have to be missed, but then I get to the bed. I could just about squeeze enough of my upper body underneath to reach the skirting board, but then I have a better idea. If this bed is as new and cheap as it looks, it may not have a solid base, so I drag the mattress and bedding onto the floor and yes, I was right. It’s just as I imagined, a rectangular frame with a series of wooden slats at regular intervals from top to bottom. Now I can see the space under the bed perfectly, and I reach through to slide my hand along the skirting board, but all I find is a couple of loose tacks and now I am back where I started.
What do I have to show for my exertions? A coin, two tacks and an empty envelope that may or may not give a clue as to my whereabouts. Mrs E Bellingham may have lived here, but if she did, she may have lived in London previously and brought the letter with her. How can I tell if I am in London? I remove the chair from the barricade and take it to the window so I can peer through the tiny patch of slightly less-frosted glass. Are these the shapes of London houses? Is there anything in the distance, some kind of landmark?
But the answer to all these questions is the same as before. No, there is nothing to help me to know where I am, and what use would it be anyway? Wherever I am, it is Greg who has left me here, and he is most probably planning his next move right now. All along, it has been inexorable, the progress towards this moment, and I should have seen it at the time.
***
There isn’t much point in remembering everything that happened in the weeks that followed. It has all become muddled, and it all leads to the same point anyway. What does it matter if the next lot of flowers came first or the hand-made card? What difference does it make when I first saw his car parked in the street at home time? It happened enough after that, but all the time, he was so nice, so pleasant. He never again approached me in person, but he let me know, through all these little acts of supposed kindness, that he was not giving up and that was actually worse in some ways than if he had been threatening.
It was the same with my friends. He had sent friend requests to a lot of them, and several must have accepted him, but what could I do? I didn’t want to ask them to block him as it seemed so hysterical, but now he was embedded in my network. Even if I held back on posting, I could hardly expect my friends to do the same, so there were the photos of me with the band, of Richie and me at a party, of the pair of us with a crowd of happy faces as this pub or that club. We had a great social life and the evidence was there for him to see, however painful it must have been. He followed the people I followed and he liked everything that included my name, and there was nothing I could do about it.
It was just after half term that he got hold of my school email address. I suppose he must have called pretending to be a parent and the office staff gave it to him. They wouldn’t now – all that was changed – but I didn’t blame them. Who could have guessed that anyone would do such a thing? There were occasional messages at first, but they gradually increased over time until, eventually, there were several each week.
Hi Amy,
Just to say I enjoyed the gig on Sat. Great version of Mustang Sally! You and Olga make a great team!
Love as always,
Greg
Hi Amy,
I happened to see you as you came out of school and you looked a bit down. Is everything ok? You know where to find me if you want to talk, or a shoulder to cry on!
Love,
Greg
As if! He was seriously deluded if he thought I would turn to him in times of trouble. I never replied, not once, but still the emails kept coming, and the little gifts delivered to the school, and his car outside the gates from time to time, although it always pulled away as soon as he saw me. I tried to ignore it, but it was beginning to affect me quite badly as the end of term approached. I saw him everywhere, even when he was not there, and dreaded opening up my emails. I actually failed to do so on more than one occasion, luckily with no serious consequences, but I could have got into trouble if I’d missed an important communication. I started arriving at school very early, in case he was in the car park, and leaving later and later, in the hope that he would give up and go home if I delayed it long enough, but nothing worked. Richie became quite worried about me, although I begged and pleaded with him not to do anything. It was all so stupid and embarrassing, and I was certain people would think I was exaggerating. How ludicrous to think I could have a problem with a fan when all I’d done was to sing a few songs with a pub band!
It was a Friday evening, a week before the end of term and we were both exhausted. It was one of the first really mild evenings of spring and we should have been sitting in a pub garden somewhere, unwinding, but neither of us had the heart for it. We sat in my flat, my haven, and tried to decide what to do, but we were stumped. We couldn’t go to the police as it all seemed so harmless. What had he actually done apart from praise me, send me presents, offer his support? Surely there could be no law against any of that? We hadn’t even seen him at any gigs, although he always professed to have been there, and he hadn’t got close enough for either of us to have told him what we thought even if I had agreed to it.
“You know what?” said Richie, sitting forward. “I’ve had enough of this. We are turning into victims here – well, you are, and that means I am too. We’ve tried to ignore it, we’ve made light of it, we’ve waited for it to go away, and nothing has changed. It’s time we took back control.”
I asked him what he was going to do and shed tears on his shoulder when he wouldn’t tell me, but deep down, it was a relief to feel that something was going to happen. I could start to think about the end of all this, even though I hardly slept that night and was plagued with dreams of being pursued when I did.
The next morning, Richie was on his phone when I surfaced. I could hear him speaking, his voice low and serious, but he wound up the conversation quickly when I shuffled out to the kitchen to see what was happening.
“OK, thanks mate. Yeah, yeah, I know. Will do. See you later, bye.”
“Who was that?”
“Nat,” he replied, and refused to say more, only that he was going out to see him in a while and that I shouldn’t worry.
Of course I did worry. With Richie gone I was jittery and tearful, finding it difficult to do the simplest of tasks and becoming increasingly obsessed by the stalking websites I had started to
visit. I had resisted these until now, convinced that they would turn me into a victim when that was the last thing I was going to be, but now I was beginning to realise that Greg’s behaviour was typical of many stalkers and that it had to be addressed.
Stalkers. Just reading the word gave me the shivers, and it was so hard to believe this could be happening to me, but the evidence was there and, by the time Richie returned with Nat, I was seriously considering going to the police.
“No need for that,” said Richie, when I told them what I had been reading. “Think of all the hassle. You’ll have to expose every little detail of your life to them. They’ll be in school, wanting to see CCTV footage, emails. They’ll grill the office staff about how he got hold of your school email address and it will all be common knowledge in no time. I’m not saying you have anything to hide, of course not, but you’re not in a good place right now, are you? And what if the kids get to hear about it?”
He was right, it would be a huge step to formalise all this, and there would be repercussions, but what else could I do? I think I knew what they were going to say, but it made my heart go crazy all the same when they said it.
“We’re going to have a word with him,” said Nat. “Nothing heavy, I promise, nothing that could possibly be considered threatening. We’re just going to tell him to stop, and we’re going to do it in front of his parents. Sounds like he’s a bit of a mummy’s boy from what Richie has told me, and they might support us.”
Immediately, I was gripped by the memory of Greg’s mother leaning in to me, that terrible evening, with the remains of the Sunday dinner still on the table and Greg upstairs, wrestling with his fake grey irises. How awful for her, for both of them, to be confronted by two strangers accusing their boy of pestering me at best, if not stalking. But then I thought of the alternative, of a couple of police officers coming to take him away for questioning, with the eyes of the neighbours trained on the police car outside the house, watching as they walked down the path and posted Greg into the back seat. That would be so much worse and they didn’t deserve it.
“OK,” I said, “but you have to promise me, on your lives, or mine, that you will keep it calm. They are really nice people, his parents, and I don’t think even he is a bad person. He has a problem, and he’s got to stop, but … well, you know. Try to be nice.”
They agreed, naturally, and in return I agreed to show them where Greg lived. I didn’t know the address, but I was pretty sure I could find it again, and that is what we did, after a late lunch in a pub. We drove there, pulled up about halfway down his road, and I pointed out the house. It looked naked without its decorations and slightly shabby, especially in the light of the spring afternoon. The intention had been to make a note of the number and for Richie and Nat to come back another time, but Greg’s car was parked outside the house and there didn’t seem any point in putting it off so they got out, slammed their doors purposefully and marched up the road, side by side.
I was sitting in the front passenger seat, so I could see them knock on the door. I couldn’t see who opened it, but there was some conversation on the doorstep before they went in, Richie first. Then all I could do was wait and watch, my eyes fixed on the space they had left behind for what seemed like hours, rehearsing what could be happening inside. Would there be a row, would he deny it all or would he break down? What would his parents say? Would they defend him, or would they know in their hearts that this was probably true? These scenarios played on and on, changing and developing until I thought my head would explode and I was ready to go and knock on the door myself, just to make it all end, but then it ended anyway.
In fact, it was only about fifteen minutes before they re-emerged, Nat first this time, to walk back down the path in single file. There were no friendly waves as they went, and the door closed behind them before they reached the end of the path. I could tell little from their demeanour, but Nat smiled and gave me a thumbs-up sign as he approached the car and opened the rear passenger door.
“All done,” he said, as if he thought that could possibly be enough for me, and Richie wasn’t much more informative.
“Honestly, it’s fine. We spoke to all three of them. Explained it was upsetting you, that it had to stop or we’d have to take it further. He blustered a bit at first, tried to play it down, but his mum knew the score, I could tell. It’s over, I promise. Now we need to go back and buy this guy a drink,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Nat. “I doubt it would have gone that well without him!”
That was all they would tell me and I had to accept it. Obviously I wanted it to be true, but just hearing the words didn’t make it so and I still had terrible butterflies in my stomach the rest of that day and, intermittently, for a couple of days afterwards. However, I put on a good show of being relieved and happy and the three of us had a brilliant night out, with as much laughter as I could remember for a long time.
***
The mattress is back on the bed, the bedding has been replaced exactly as it was before and I have hidden my finds at the back of the drawer containing underwear. I can’t call it mine, as it isn’t, but now I realise I am still wearing the clothes I put on yesterday morning for my trip into town, and I have not washed, or showered, or cleaned my teeth. I have to make a decision. Do I use the things he has provided for me, the clothes, the toiletries? I have eaten his food, but I had no choice in that. Would it be a symbolic acceptance of my status as prisoner, or sex slave, or even partner, if I wash and dress as he obviously wants me to do?
I decide that there is little point in becoming smelly and uncomfortable. With so much else to worry about, the fact that he has bought all these things, carried them here, arranged them so neatly and carefully, is sickening, but boycotting them is not going to make me one bit safer. I decide to wear my own jeans, but I choose clean underwear and a top that is very similar to one that I have at home. It comes from the same shop, and this shows the level of his surveillance. He must have been following me in the days before I stopped going out. He must have been watching me so much more than I could ever have guessed.
I head to the bathroom but now my heart is hammering and I break out in a sweat. Suppose I am in the shower when he comes? There is no lock on the door – obviously – and I will be so vulnerable. He will read something into it, I’m sure – that I am preparing myself for him, making myself beautiful for the moment we have both been waiting for, or some other kind of twisted, deluded nonsense. I imagine him popping his head around the door as he had that time at band practice, then coming in and starting to remove his clothes, smiling, flashing his fake grey eyes, and I retch and lean over the basin. But then I think he will have other, equally twisted explanations for everything else I do, including remaining unwashed, so I pull myself together, turn on the shower and undress, diving in and soaping myself all over in the fastest shower I have ever had. Even when I was running late for school I would allow myself more time than this, but I feel terribly exposed and in danger and I can’t see the bathroom door properly through the mist on the screen. I turn off the water and push open the door, my breath coming fast.
I dress quickly. I am not really dry, and I have to wrestle with my jeans to pull them up, but at least I am covered now. I wipe the steam from the little mirror above the basin and look at my frightened eyes, staring back at me. I look ten years older than I did before all this. My cheeks are sunken and there are permanent little creases between my eyebrows. The marks of fear. Nothing very attractive there, I think. Maybe Greg will notice how I have altered and change his mind, but I know that is silly, clutching at straws. If he can imagine that I want him, that the past two years have been some bizarre form of courtship, or foreplay, he will have idealised my physical appearance to the point at which no evidence to the contrary will affect how I look in his eyes. Oh, if only I had looked a mess that night at The White Horse. If only he had taken a shine to Olga. She would have given him the brush-off straight away, and she and I would still b
e friends.
Without even thinking, I take a cloth from the pipe beside the basin and turn to the shower. This is what I do at home – put the shower gel back on the little shelf and run the cloth around to ensure the walls and the tray are clean. I got into the habit of doing this when I lived in shared houses, and it has stuck. That’s when something hits me, and I drop the shower gel with a clatter and sink to the bathroom floor. It is my shower gel! Not the actual bottle, of course, but the brand I always use. Milk and honey for sensitive skin. How did he know that? Suddenly I have a terrible feeling that he has been watching me in the flat as well as outside, as I know I started using this brand after I stopped working. I got a rash all over my back, which was probably nerves when I think about it, but this seemed to help.
I look around and it’s all the same. My shampoo, my toothpaste. Even the toothbrush is similar to mine, and panic is really setting in now, as I throw open the door and rush to the fridge and check there, in the freezer, everywhere. There is hardly a thing in this room that does not have some kind of reference to my life in my flat. He has got my whole life on some kind of database, knowing him, and his research is immaculate. It was all so familiar that I didn’t even remark on it! What chance do I have against a man who has dedicated so much time and energy to me?
I throw myself on the bed and allow myself to cry, to feel despair. I even drift off into a troubled sleep when the tears dry up, but when I awake the cloud has lifted, to be replaced by a grim determination. I am up against something probably more dangerous than even Nat suspected, but there is still the hope that he is out there, making enough waves for someone to act. I must not give up. Maybe Greg would not want to kill me, having invested so much in making this prison, this love-nest, whatever he thinks it is. Maybe I can keep him calm, even after he has forced his way in.
The Butterfly Effect Page 7
