The Butterfly Effect

by Julie McLaren

  “Sounds great,” I said. “I imagine you’d get something pretty good round here if the house is in Camden. You could convert them to a really high standard, live in one yourself ...”

  “... And you could live in the other!” he said. “Exactly! It’s the perfect solution. I wouldn’t charge you the commercial rent, obviously, and you could have complete control over the décor, the fittings, all that. I’d always be there for you, but you’d be completely independent.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. I had been going to say that he could sell the other flat. It hadn’t even entered my mind that I could live in it. I was already seeing myself ensconced with Olga, in a flat which represented our different but complementary personalities, a flat that was vibrant and homely, with Olga’s big, squashy sofa in the centre and the walls lined with our books and music. I didn’t want to live by myself , however beautiful the flat. I was still young, and I was looking forward to the fun and laughter, the queuing for the bathroom, the coming home to find someone had cooked dinner or baked a cake.

  “Oh, Nat, that’s so kind, so thoughtful of you to include me in your plans. Another time it would have been perfect, but I’m going to move in with Olga for a while. We’re looking for somewhere at the moment, as she’s got to leave her place and I want the company. She’s my best friend, and we’ve lived together before. But thanks, thanks so much for thinking of me!”

  That wasn’t all I said. I rambled on about what a good idea it was, how he should go ahead and do it anyway, but he left shortly afterwards and I don’t know what he did with the money from the house. Certainly he didn’t use it to convert any flats. That just shows the kind of person he is. The only reason he had for doing it was to provide me with a comfortable and safe place to live, and when I rejected that he lost interest. Poor Nat. He was obviously disappointed, but it didn’t affect anything. He was just as kind, just as thoughtful, in the weeks and months that followed and thank goodness for that.

  So, I was taking my first tentative steps towards repairing my life. Obviously I was still very fragile, and there were times when the enormity of it all overwhelmed me or when I wondered whether it was worth carrying on, but there was always someone there to pick up the pieces. I would go round to Olga’s, or Nat would come round to mine. There would be tears, there would be anger at the pointless stupidity of it all, hours of ‘if only’ conversations in which they would listen whilst I berated myself for not preventing it in some way. Then they would help me to understand that I couldn’t have, that life and death really are randomly cruel sometimes, and that would work for a while, until the next low point.

  Slowly, the gaps between these episodes of despair became longer and I became stronger. I got up on stage with Olga in March, not to sing alone, but it was a first step, and our flat-hunting became more serious. I had only a short notice period on my lease, as Nat thought that was best when he renegotiated it for me, but Olga had to be out by the end of June. There was never a day that passed without Richie popping into my mind, never a morning without the ache of realisation that he wasn’t there, but there were days when I could be almost normal, at least when I wasn’t alone. I spent more and more time at Olga’s flat, poring over the property sites on her laptop whilst she rustled up a pasta dish in that way that she had, making something tasty from an apparently unpromising selection of sad-looking vegetables.

  When Nat made his regular calls to ask how I was, I could quite honestly tell him that I was fine. I hoped that he, too, would be able to start building up more of a social life. I was only too aware that I was not the only one who had been bereaved on that terrible night, and sometimes I felt guilty that he had done all the supporting whilst he must have needed support too. But I could not fill that gap for him. He had been Richie’s friend, not mine, and I could not replace Richie. That’s what I told myself as I hung up one evening, knowing that Olga was looking across at me with that ‘not him again’ look on her face, and I felt terrible about the slightly sinking feeling I would get when I saw his number on the display. What a heartless, ungrateful person I was, to feel this way when he had been so kind, so supportive. I would never have said anything to him, but I did cut him short from time to time.

  It was just as well that we never fell out about it, that he didn’t give up on me as, completely out of the blue, Greg started to contact me again. I couldn’t believe it was happening, but there it was, a card in my pigeonhole at school. The address was printed on a label and the envelope was plain and white, so I didn’t think anything of it as I tore it open, but the elaborate heart on the front made my heart pound and I opened it with shaking hands. The inside was printed too, a piece of paper glued beneath the message, so the whole thing read:

  To the one I love

  I have missed you so much and have been thinking

  of you in your time of unhappiness. Maybe I can

  help you to move on?

  Your friend always

  I don’t know how long I stood there, with the card in my hand, reading it over and over again. How could this be? Obviously he would have known about Richie’s death – it had been in all the papers and on the local news – but why wait this long to make contact? If I thought about him at all, which was very rarely by then, I assumed he had forgotten all about me, found someone else. It was incredible, but it seemed he had been thinking about me all this time, watching and waiting for the time he could step into Richie’s shoes. I dropped the card, ran to the toilets, and was violently sick. This could not be true.

  But it was true, and it was only the start of it. To begin with, I was strong, and I threw away any post with printed labels, or gave them to Olga to open. The staff at reception were given instructions to reject any flowers delivered for me, and there were strict procedures about divulging any staff email addresses in place by that time, so I thought I could manage it. I didn’t even tell Nat, as I was worried about him charging round to Greg’s house and making a scene. Richie had told me how brilliant he had been the first time, keeping the situation calm when Greg denied it all at first, making it possible for it all to seem like a misunderstanding, but I doubted it would be the same now. He was very protective of me, and I couldn’t predict what might happen.

  I suppose it was no surprise that I couldn’t keep it up. It was less than a year after I had suffered a major trauma and I began to dread going into school for fear of what I might find there. I couldn’t talk to my colleagues about it as it seemed so ridiculous. Who was I to have a stalker? Was I claiming to be some kind of a celebrity? Of course I know now that there were many, many people in school who would have listened sympathetically and offered me support. I doubt that anyone would have thought I was being self-obsessed or any of the other things I worried about, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and that is what I thought at the time. I thought they would talk about me behind my back, or make light of it in that way that teachers do when there is something serious to worry about. I couldn’t bear the thought of being the subject of staffroom gossip, so I told the reception staff a story about an ex-boyfriend who was trying to win me back. I laughed and said it wasn’t anything serious, but could they just send any flowers away, and keep it to themselves? They may have told people, I don’t know. It wasn’t long before flowers were the least of my problems.

  ***

  Today, I have eaten some granola with a little milk, and heated some water in the microwave to make tea. I had to make up the milk from powder, and it’s not the best option for tea, but now I feel fortified and a little stronger. It is hard to imagine that a third day will pass with no contact, so I turn my thoughts to the door. There has to be a solution.

  I close my eyes, and let my mind travel around the room. There is something there, some little thought that won’t quite come to the surface, so I get up and pace up and down. There’s the wardrobe; only clothes and bedding in there. There’s the fridge-freezer; only food in there. There’s the little cupboard; nothing substant
ial in there. There’s the bed. Nothing there, but what is it made of? It’s made of wood, and it’s new, and it’s almost certainly self-assembly. Somebody brought it up here in pieces, so … That’s it! If it has been put together, the chances are it can be taken apart. I am gripped by a great rush of excitement. This could be the answer.

  But there is a problem with this bed. Not only is it fixed to the floor, but most of the sections are held in place by metal fittings with a hexagonal head. Some kind of Allen key will have been provided in the pack, and Greg is not stupid enough to have left it behind. I would have found it by now if he had. However, I pull the mattress onto the floor, and I can see that some of the slats are not fixed at both ends, and that they are held in place with screws. Nothing complicated, not even cross-head, just normal screws. If I could only find some way to loosen those screws, I could remove some of the slats and use them. I don’t know how yet, but I will think of something, if I can get them off.

  I sit there for quite a while, pondering. Sometimes the answer to a problem will come to me if I do that, but not this time, so I try pulling one of the slats, jiggling it around, tapping it from underneath with my shoe, but it does not loosen. Surely there must be a way.

  It is quite a while later that I remember my little coin. It is so tiny, that it might just fit into the grooves in the screw heads, so I find it in the drawer and take it across to the bed. Some of the screws are tight, and flush with the wood, but some are not. Greg’s craftsmanship seems to have been a bit sloppy, or maybe he was in a hurry when he got to this part of the assembly, but this could work to my advantage as several of the screws stand proud of the wood and are not completely tight.

  I take my little coin and try it in one of the promising screws, and yes, it fits. It will only work on those that are already a little loose, but I persevere, until I have two slats and four screws there on the floor in front of me. Quickly, I drag the mattress back onto the bed frame and arrange the bedding. If Greg were to arrive now the game would be up, so I hide the slats and the screws in the wardrobe and lie back on the bed. My fingers are sore from twisting the coin, and I am sweating from the exertion, but there is no way I’m going back into the shower, so I try to relax. I need a few minutes to think clearly.

  ***

  Dreams are funny things, aren’t they? I can remember no nightmares after Richie was killed, no horrific visions of dark figures approaching, wielding knives. I had plenty of dreams in which Richie explained to me, in apparently reasonable terms, how he was able to continue talking to me despite being dead, and quite a lot of dreams in which he wasn’t dead at all, but they were not scary. He would just be there, his usual self, often in a quite mundane context, and sometimes, if my dream self remembered that he was supposed to be dead, he would tell me that it had all been a mistake. This would provoke a huge wave of happiness and relief that would only dissipate as I awoke, and this was hard at first, but after a while, there could be something approaching comfort in waking up and remembering what I had dreamed.

  I’d had a particularly vivid dream on the morning the next stage started. That’s probably why I remember it so well. Richie and I had been in the staffroom together, and I was explaining to colleagues that he hadn’t died really and now he was back to take up his post again. It was only a brief snippet, but Richie himself was very clear, even to the point of wearing his school suit – a shiny blue one that had seen better days, with an open-necked shirt. The image kept popping into my mind as I made my breakfast, so I went through into the lounge to watch TV whilst I ate. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to think about Richie, I still thought about him all the time, but this dream was making me sad.

  I heard the letterbox rattle as I put my plate and mug on the coffee table. It was unlikely there would be anything exciting in the post, but I went to fetch it anyway as it might help to take my mind off that recurring image of Richie in the staffroom. There was one brown envelope on the mat. My name and address were on a printed label, but I didn’t think anything of that. This looked like an official communication, although I suppose, if I had been thinking clearly, I would have remarked on the fact that it was stamped rather than franked. Anyway, I started to open it as I walked back to the lounge, and put the contents on the coffee table whilst I turned on the TV. Sitting down, I picked up the single, folded sheet of paper and opened it out, and it is just as well I hadn’t picked up my coffee, or I would quite probably have tipped it all over myself.

  Dear Amy,

  I understand how difficult it must be for you to receive my gifts at your workplace. None of us likes our private lives to be on display, and you have suffered enough of that in the past few months. That is why I have decided to stop communicating with you at school but to use your home address instead. This way it will be just between ourselves, and our relationship will be able to develop normally.

  I must say that I have huge admiration for the way you have picked up the pieces of your life. You often seem to be smiling these days, and it was lovely to see you back on stage. Now I can’t wait for your next appearance – will there be a solo this time?

  I’ll finish now. I just thought it was important to let you know that I do understand why you didn’t feel able to receive anything at school and I’m not at all offended! I know you would never want to upset me, so you can put your mind at rest on that score.

  Bye for now, and I’ll be in touch again soon,

  Your friend

  I was stunned. Assaulted by waves of conflicting emotions: anger, fear, disbelief. I think I may even have laughed out loud. What on earth was he thinking? How could he possibly believe that our relationship – which did not even exist – could ‘develop normally’ through the medium of unsolicited letters and gifts? Did he really think that I had been worrying about upsetting him? Even more concerning were the remarks about how happy I appeared to be and about seeing me sing. There had been no sign of him at the gig, and I had not seen his car outside school since Richie and Nat warned him off. That meant he was somehow watching me in secret, and that was very scary indeed.

  I grabbed my mobile, and it was Nat that I called. I had been seeing much more of Olga recently, but Nat understood about all this. He had been there from the start and I knew he would take it seriously. Of course I had told Olga about what had happened before Richie died, but her response had been that we had been much too soft and, if she’d known, she would have got some friends to hold him down whilst she kicked him where it would hurt the most. She had been joking, but it wasn’t the kind of response I was looking for now, with the letter lying on the table in front of me. I wanted someone who was calm, sensible and practical, and Nat was all of those things and more.

  Of course he dropped everything and came round straight away, and we spent ages analysing the letter, looking for clues. What were his intentions? Could he really be that deluded? We decided not to confront him, at least not for the moment, as he had stopped signing his name and there was no actual proof that he was involved. Nat said this demonstrated that he was not completely mad, as he would have seen no reason to withhold his name if that were the case, and that meant we would have to tread more carefully. He told me not to worry, then took my laptop and showed me a security website.

  “I deal with these people at work, and they’re good,” he said. “Plus, I can get a discount. All we need is a security light that comes on if anyone approaches the door, and a couple of these little cameras that link up to your laptop. You will be able to look at the footage every day when you get home, and see who has been to your door. We can make one of them look outwards, to the street, in case he is standing there watching.”

  The thought of Greg standing there watching my flat made me shiver, but I agreed to everything Nat said. He didn’t even want any money in advance, and then he took me out for a late lunch before dropping me off again, right at my door. He wouldn’t even hear of me walking down the street by myself and made me promise to take the car everywhere
for the time being.

  “Just until we get the cameras in place,” he said. “I’ll feel more comfortable then.”

  I spent the next few days feeling anxious and jittery. Olga and I had planned to go out that night, and it would have been much more sensible to have gone, to have put it all behind me and had a good time, but I was queasy and my head was thumping, so I cried off. I made it to band practice the next day, and that gave me a few hours of respite, but I had a terrible sinking feeling as I drove home.

  As if to confirm all my fears, there was a bouquet of flowers on the doorstep. I could hardly leave them there, it would look as if the flat were empty and that could attract trouble so I picked them up, gingerly, as if a bomb or a venomous snake might be hiding between the blooms. There was no snake, only a small card. Nothing was written on it, just a rather badly-drawn heart, but that was worse if anything. I took the flowers inside and spent five minutes cutting them into tiny segments and cramming the whole lot into the bin. It was far too full really, but I would have had to go out to the bulk bins at the back of the flat, and that felt unsafe. This was the first time I had felt this way, even in the aftermath of Richie’s murder, so I phoned Nat and asked him to order an extra camera for the back. That would do the trick.

  So, by the end of that week, there were cameras trained on both the entrances to my flat, and one on the area of the street beyond the front gate. Nat fitted it all himself, as he said it would save me a fortune, and then he showed me how to log into the system and replay the footage. I have no idea how it all worked, and haven’t to this day, but it was not difficult to operate once it was all installed. The cameras would only record any significant movement, so I did not have to scan hours and hours of footage in which nothing happened, but as we flicked through on the first evening, it was a surprise to find out how many of the neighbourhood cats considered my flat to be in their territory.