by Lauren North
Shelley’s yawn is catching. It sweeps over me and I feel the weight of exhaustion pulling me down. I’m desperate to crawl upstairs and drop into bed while I still have enough energy to move, but after all Shelley has done for us I can’t say no.
“Sounds good,” I say. “But let me do it.”
“No, I’ll go. You sit for a minute. You look beat.”
I am beat, I think, slumping my head against the sofa.
Do you think I’ll ever laugh properly again, Mark?
Of course you will, Tessie. You love to laugh.
I loved how you made me laugh. Nothing made me laugh like you did. And now you’re gone. The film was funny, proper laugh-out-loud funny, but I barely mustered a smile. Right now, I can’t imagine ever laughing again.
You will. Just give it time.
Shelley returns with two steaming mugs. She’s fetched her bag from the kitchen and drops it down beside her feet as she slides onto the sofa and hands me the lion mug you bought me from the zoo that time. “It reminds me of you,” you laughed, nodding at my curls. I can hear your laughter in my head. I miss your laugh. I hug the mug of hot chocolate closer to my body, feeling cold to my core. I wonder what animal you’d choose if you could see me now.
“Tess, can I ask a favor?” Shelley says, blowing on her mug.
“Of course.”
“Would you mind if I stayed on your sofa again? I wouldn’t normally ask but I’m shattered and don’t fancy driving back to Ipswich in that.” Shelley nods to the window and the spatter of rain filling the silence.
“Oh . . . of course. I didn’t realize how late it was getting. I shouldn’t have kept you. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It was my idea to watch the film. I think I needed a girly evening more than you did.” She looks at me and I feel a pinprick of warmth inside me. I’ve missed having someone to spend my evenings with. Even if it is just one. “Tim and I haven’t been getting on too well lately, which I guess is why he’s staying at the golf club tonight. Every time we see each other we seem to argue. I don’t fancy going home to an empty house. But if it’s a problem—”
“No, of course it’s not,” I say. “I can unearth the spare bed from the boxes in one of the upstairs rooms.”
“Oh, no, don’t do that. Your sofa is perfectly fine; better than fine, in fact. Staying will save me part of my journey to the pool in the morning too. Thank you.”
“Anytime. It’s the least I can do,” I say, glad Shelley is happy on the sofa. The thought of clearing space in one of the bedrooms makes my muscles ache, but I will do it soon. Maybe tomorrow, just not now, not tonight when I feel so tired. “I’ll get some pillows and a blanket.”
“Hang on,” Shelley says. “I wanted to ask about last week and our trip to Manningtree. How are you feeling about what happened?”
I wonder if Shelley is talking about the man in the black baseball cap who followed me, or my panic attack in the shop, but I don’t ask. What difference does it all make now?
The more days that pass, the more the moths feast on my memories, the less real it all seems. “I’m fine. I think you’re probably right. I think it was just in my head.”
Shelley nods. “It happens, Tess.”
“I’ll get you some bedding.” I make a move to stand but Shelley’s hand is on my arm.
“In a minute. Drink your hot chocolate while it’s still hot,” she says.
So I do.
CHAPTER 30
Thursday, March 15
24 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
Iam yanked from the depths of sleep suddenly and unwilling. My eyes feel sewn shut. I listen for the noise of whatever disturbed me but there is only silence. Sleep is already dragging me back into its depths but somewhere in the deep fog I know something woke me.
The faceless man in Manningtree flashes behind my eyes and I force them open and stare out into the pitch-black room.
My fingers fumble for my phone. I squint against the bright light of the display screen until I register the time: 3:05 a.m. I should check on Jamie. I wonder if he’s fallen out of bed like he did on his first night in this house, when he turned in his sleep, expecting to meet the wall of his small bedroom in Chelmsford and finding the floor of his new bedroom instead.
I feel dopey as I fumble out of the covers I’m twisted in and stumble to the floor. Goose bumps crawl like insects over my skin but the cold does nothing to shake the thick film of sleep.
The hall is swaying—a boat on choppy seas—one way, then the other. Except it’s not the walls and the floor that are moving, it’s me. I am the one swaying. I cling to the wall with both hands, planting my bare feet one after the other, fighting the vertigo that is pushing me downward.
I’m aware of a growing panic in the back of my mind. Something is wrong with me. But the thought is hidden behind a wall of thick fog.
It’s only when I slump my weight against the doorframe of Jamie’s room that I hear her voice and the soft, mellifluous lullaby she is singing.
Jamie’s blue nightlight seems too bright against the black hallway as I push open the door and blink the room into focus.
Shelley is sitting on the edge of Jamie’s bed. His eyes are closed but I can’t tell if he’s asleep or awake.
Shelley’s face in the soft light is angelic and loving as she stares down at our son and starts to sing again.
“Your mumma loves you, oh yes I do
I’ll always be with you whenever you fall
I’ll pick you up, I’ll help you out
Never have a single doubt that your mumma loves you, oh yes I do
Your mumma loves you, oh yes I do”
The tune is enchanting and I’m mesmerized, dumbfounded by the sweetness. Then the words filter into my consciousness and I must make a sound in my throat because Shelley’s head jerks around, her eyes no longer filled with love but with something dark and hateful.
The awareness is back—something is very wrong—but it is no longer hidden in the haze of sleep but staring at me with black eyes that make the room spin like a carousel before me. My hand fumbles for the doorframe but all I find is empty space and suddenly I’m falling to the floor and into a cloying darkness.
The next time I wake I am not dragged from sleep but clawing my way out of it. A heady dopiness cloaks my waking thoughts, making the memory of the night feel dreamlike.
My mouth is bone-dry and it hurts to swallow. I touch a finger to my lips and find them cracked and sore.
I look around me for a glass of water but all I see is my phone on the bedside table. Just then it vibrates against the wood. My arm feels achy and heavy as I reach for it and focus my eyes on the message from Shelley: Hey Tess, thanks again for letting me crash on the sofa. I had a really nice evening! Sorry to leave so early. I’m getting a swim in before work. xx P.S. You never told me you sleepwalked. I found you wandering the upstairs in the early hours.
She signs off with a kiss and an emoji of a grinning face with laughter tears sprouting from its eyes.
So it was a dream, I realize with a sigh of relief. I sleepwalked and dreamed the whole thing. I haven’t done that since I was a child and my mum would tell me in the morning how she’d found me in the kitchen in my nightie. I wonder if it’s the grief dredging up the old habit, or a side effect of the antidepressants.
* * *
—
The dopiness lingers all day, but at least the medication seems to be kicking in. Despite the strange headiness, I feel OK. I’ll take feeling dizzy over the deep pit of despair I was living in yesterday. The pit isn’t gone. It is still there, lingering on the outskirts of my thoughts as if I might lose my balance at any moment and fall back into the darkness, but right now I’m in the light.
Jamie is so quiet after school today, and more and more I wonder what he’s thinking. I
ask, of course, in every way I can think of. “How was your day? Are you OK? Is anything bothering you? What are you thinking about? Are you missing Daddy a lot?”
The answer is the same each time—a moping shrug accompanied with a sad sort of smile and a glance over his shoulder as if he can’t wait to be somewhere else, anywhere else but with me.
He shut himself away in his room the minute we were home from school, and I find myself making excuses to go upstairs and walk past his closed door again and again. I guess I’m listening for crying, but it’s not tears I hear coming from behind the closed door now, it’s humming. A soft little tune that makes my feet stop dead and my mouth run dry. I hold my breath listening to the tune, willing myself to be wrong. Shivers travel in waves over my body. I’m not wrong.
I know that tune.
I remember the words too. I heard them last night. “Your mumma loves you, oh yes I do.”
How does Jamie know the tune if it was just a dream?
I think of the hot chocolate Shelley gave me, the one she insisted on making. Did she slip something into it? A sleeping pill to knock me out? I try to remember if it tasted any different, but I can’t. My memory of yesterday is patchy. Why did Shelley come over? Did I invite her? A scream swirls in my throat. I don’t remember. I don’t remember Jamie sitting with us. I don’t remember putting him to bed. The only image in my mind is Shelley and the cold hateful eyes that turned on me.
That night I stare at the pages of my notebook, searching for the answer that I can feel is there. What am I not seeing?
I add several lines: Jamie is more quiet than usual.
Found Shelley in Jamie’s room in the middle of the night. She was singing to Jamie. Why?
Guilt pricks my insides rereading my own words. After everything Shelley has done for me I shouldn’t be questioning why Shelley was in Jamie’s room. I should be asking if she was in Jamie’s room. Right now I trust Shelley more than my own memories.
I see the photo of Dylan in my mind and try to imagine the helplessness she must have felt watching him lose his fight with cancer. My throat aches thinking of her loss. Four years on and she seems so strong. Will I feel that strong in four years’ time? Will I have found a way to cope without you, Mark?
Of course you will, Tessie baby.
I can’t see how.
I stare at the final lines on the page before crossing them out, running the pen back and forth until the ink is shiny and the paper worn.
CHAPTER 31
IAN
The whole thing was weird. This woman appearing out of nowhere and inserting herself into Tess’s life. You really have to ask yourself why someone would do that.
SHELLEY
It was about a week later when I ended up staying the night again. There was a horrible storm. It hadn’t stopped raining all evening. I knew the lanes out of the village would be flooded and I didn’t want to drive home, so I stayed. Tess was fine with it and she’d been really down that day too. I thought it would help to have someone else there. I woke in the middle of the night feeling a bit spooked by the old house, so yes, I went upstairs to check that everything was all right. I don’t know why, but I went into Jamie’s room and sat on his bed for a while. It was a mistake, but that photo—the fridge magnet—Jamie looked so much like Dylan in that photo. I felt connected to him. I heard Tess on the landing. She was sleepwalking, so I put her back to bed.
CHAPTER 32
Transcript BETWEEN ELLIOT SADLER (ES) AND TERESA CLARKE (TC) (INPATIENT AT OAKLANDS HOSPITAL, HARTFIELD WARD), WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11. SESSION 2 (Cont.)
ES: Are you happy to continue now, Tess?
TC: Of course. It wasn’t me who wanted a break in the first place. Is there any news? Have you found Jamie? What has Shelley said? Did she tell you she had a child who died? A little boy. He’d have been Jamie’s age now.
ES: Someone will be bringing in your notebook shortly. Why don’t we start now with Mark’s plane crash. Can you tell me why he was going to Frankfurt?
TC: Why does that matter? You’re here to find Jamie. The plane crash has nothing to do with it.
ES: This is a complicated situation we’re in here, Tess. I think it would be prudent to start from the beginning with the plane crash.
TC: (Mumbles)
ES: Pardon?
TC: (Sigh) The beginning wasn’t the plane crash, it was the day Shelley knocked on my door. She has Jamie. I’m sure of it.
ES: Humor me. What was the reason for Mark’s trip to Frankfurt?
TC: (pause) It was nothing important. Some kind of away-day team-building thing. Mark moved from software programming into the sales team just before Jamie was born. There were a lot of motivational events. It was canceled. Have I told you that already?
ES: What was?
TC: The event Mark was going to. The people in Frankfurt had the flu. Mark didn’t even need to get on the plane.
ES: There wasn’t a special reason for this particular trip?
TC: I made a Batman cake.
ES: Excuse me?
TC: You wanted to know about Jamie’s birthday, so I’m telling you. I made a chocolate sponge. Jamie hates plain sponge with jam, so I made chocolate. I cheated and bought slabs of black and yellow icing that you roll out. The yellow bat wings were a bit wonky but he loved it. I bought him the Millennium Falcon Lego set. It’s huge. It will take weeks to build.
ES: What happened that day?
TC: Please find Jamie. He isn’t safe. I can feel it.
ES: Who stabbed you, Tess?
TC: (Silence)
ES: Let’s take another break.
CHAPTER 33
Monday, March 19
20 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
Idon’t know where the weekend has gone. Only that it has gone—a blur of playing in the garden, sleepless nights, and dozing on the sofa in the afternoons while Jamie watched TV.
We’ve not seen Shelley since the night she stayed over, but she’s called me every evening.
The more we’ve spoken, the more certain I am that I was dreaming that night when I thought Shelley was in Jamie’s room. She’s our friend, Mark. She has no reason to sing to Jamie like that, no reason to stare at me with hateful eyes.
I only heard Jamie hum the lullaby once. In my dizzy exhausted state I could’ve imagined that too. Or maybe he heard the tune from me.
You’ve always been a bit of a hummer, Tessie.
Exactly. Most of the time I don’t know I’m doing it.
I know. It drove me up the wall.
Sometimes when Shelley calls it’s just for a quick “hi,” a rundown of our days, and other times it’s something more. Last night she told me about Dylan’s cancer. How they’d had every diagnosis imaginable before the real one. Growing pains, anemia, rickets, flu. Weeks of doctors’ appointments before X-rays were offered and the cancer found, the battle started. I could tell she was crying on the other end of the phone, and it made me cry too.
“I miss him so much some days, Tess. I’m supposed to help people who are grieving, but sometimes I want to tell them it won’t get easier, it’ll get harder, because you’ll start to forget what they smelled like and the sound of their voice.”
“Oh, Shelley,” I said, because what words of comfort could I possibly offer?
“Hey,” she said then, her voice bouncing once more. “I meant to say I’ve got a free morning tomorrow. I was planning to hit the pool and go food shopping on the way back. Why don’t I pick you up and we can do a shop together? We can keep each other company.”
I smiled down the phone. Trust Shelley to make it sound like I’m doing her a favor when really it’s the other way round. I haven’t left the village for over a week—since Manningtree and the man in the black baseball cap who almost grabbed me, and then in the shop when my lungs stopped taking in
air. Every time I’ve thought about nipping to Tesco or even to the store in the next village, I’ve heard Shelley’s warning in my head. “If this happens again and you’re alone it could be much scarier for you.”
“Good idea,” I replied.
* * *
—
We were in Tesco for hours. Not that I minded. Shelley made it fun as always. We pushed our trolleys along, side by side, nattering away like two old grannies. Shelley ignored my list and filled my trolley with loads more than we needed, and enough vegetables to feed a football team.
“I think that’s the best fun I’ve had shopping for food my whole life,” Shelley says as the wheels of her Mini crunch on our driveway. The back seats are crammed with bags and there are more in the boot, half Shelley’s and half mine.
“Me too.” Jamie will be cross to have missed it, even if it was a trip to Tesco, which he usually hates. “Thank you. Do you want to come in for a cuppa?” I ask, trying to sound casual, trying to keep the desperation from my voice. I’m not ready to be alone yet.
Shelley glances at her watch and pulls a face. “I’d better not. I’m seeing a client in an hour. The poor man lost his wife of sixty years to Alzheimer’s disease last month. I’ll give you a hand getting the stuff in, then I’d better scoot off.”
“Oh . . . OK.” I nod, my voice betraying me.
“Tim is out tonight at some work thing. Why don’t I come back for dinner and help you eat some of this food?”
“You don’t have to do that. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”
“Don’t be daft.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand and I feel her energy diffuse into my body. I stare at Shelley for a moment and take in her face and her smile, so full of kindness, and I’m absolutely certain that the other night was a dream.
“I want to,” Shelley adds, opening the car door and letting the scent of dewy grass and freshness fill my senses.
