Your Life For Mine

by Karen Clarke

  ‘Sounds perfect,’ I’d said, comforted by its solid feel and huge activation button. ‘What if I can’t get it out of my bag in time?’

  ‘You could always wear it on a cord around your neck.’

  ‘Someone could strangle me with it.’

  ‘You’ve definitely watched too much CSI.’

  I’d decided to keep it either in my hand, or where I could easily grab it, and felt less afraid as I got out of the car at Fernley House and caught up with Marianne, who was heading inside.

  ‘You look better than you did yesterday,’ she greeted me.

  ‘Bit of a back-handed compliment, but thanks.’ I wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but I didn’t feel any better, especially after my conversation with Jamie. ‘You OK?’ Once more, her smile lacked its usual dazzle.

  ‘Oh, it’s Carl,’ she said with a shrug. ‘It’s hard, having him home, if I’m honest. He’s so lazy around the house, and he’s talking about going back to college and doing a course, which he’ll expect me to pay for.’

  ‘I thought he worked for that insurance company in Bicester.’

  ‘Not anymore.’ Her mouth turned down. It was so unusual for her to look miserable, I felt a prickle of alarm. ‘He was late too many times, kept missing his train now he’s not living down the road, so they’ve let him go.’

  ‘Oh, Marianne, I’m sorry.’ I linked my arm through hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘I’m sure things will improve.’

  ‘Ironic, isn’t it, that we do so much to help people here, but when it comes to our own families, it’s bloody hard.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that.’ I thought of Jamie as we entered the house. ‘Marianne, what do you know about Katya?’

  She stopped, flashing me a puzzled look. ‘Kozlov?’ she said, and I remembered there was a Katya in her creative writing class.

  ‘My Katya,’ I said. ‘MacDonald.’

  ‘You’ve seen her records.’ Marianne swung her satchel across her body, where the strap dissected her substantial bosom. Her smock-like top was creased, and there was a tea stain on the front. I wondered whether things were even worse on the home front than she was letting on. ‘You must know the story,’ she added.

  ‘I do, but you had a couple of sessions with her when she was referred,’ I said. ‘Before she came to me.’

  ‘I don’t know any more than you, love.’ She frowned. ‘Problems?’

  I hesitated. ‘No, no. Just curious.’

  Marianne nodded and looked at her man-sized watch. Aware my first client would be arriving any second, I said, ‘See you later for lunch?’

  ‘Sorry, Beth.’ Marianne shook her head. ‘I’m not good company today.’

  ‘Look, why don’t you talk to Carl and—’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ she cut in. ‘It’s coming up to the anniversary of Mick’s death. Twenty-seven years, but it doesn’t get any easier.’

  I felt ashamed for forgetting, too wrapped up in my own approaching ‘anniversary’. At least I was alive – for now – unlike Marianne’s poor dead lover. ‘Let me know if you want to talk about it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She looked as if she could burst into tears for a moment, then someone called her and she bravely refreshed her smile. ‘No peace for the wicked.’

  Watching her stride away, her cropped trousers straining around her hips, I felt a burst of admiration. Mostly, Marianne got on with life and enjoyed it, despite being dealt a rough hand when it came to the father of her children.

  Maybe if I’d known my life was going to end when I turned thirty-three, I’d have made more of an effort to appreciate it, instead of worrying that every minute I was alive was a minute someone was suffering because of me.

  ‘You’re not going to die,’ I muttered, making my way to the art room, clutching the alarm on my bunch of keys as if my life really did depend on it. ‘At least, not today.’

  *

  I finished my session on a high, after a breakthrough with my last client Claire, a slender woman in her sixties, who always dressed smartly, her shirt tucked into her knee-length skirt. Claire had lost her daughter to breast cancer two years ago and had struggled since to find any meaning in life, despite having a husband and two sons. On her first day at Fernley House, three months ago, she’d shown no enthusiasm for painting, despite asking to be referred by her GP. She’d studied art when she was younger, she told me, her eyes dull with grief, but gave it up when she married and became a mother, taking a job as a school secretary to fit around the children.

  Halfway through that first morning, she walked out of the art room. I didn’t think I’d see her again, but she returned the following week and every Tuesday since, gradually opening up as she painted beautiful landscapes, mostly of Snowdonia where she’d holidayed as a child, sketching scenes from memory before adding splashes of colour.

  Today, she’d told me with a spark of excitement that a friend had asked her to create a piece of art for her new home and she’d accepted.

  ‘I used to feel so guilty for doing something I enjoyed when my Chloe’s not here anymore, but I don’t think she’d want me to be unhappy for the rest of my life,’ she said, tears not far from the surface. ‘She used to tell me I was wasted being a secretary, that I should do things I loved, especially once she and the boys had grown up and left home.’

  ‘She was right, you should,’ I told her, and although there were a few tears, she quickly dabbed them away and chatted easily while washing her brushes, about her plans to return to Snowdonia with her husband for their fortieth wedding anniversary.

  ‘We’re only here once, aren’t we?’ she said, blinking at me over her half-moon glasses. ‘Chloe’s time was cut short, but I still have Ted and my boys and I want to be here for them.’

  I sat for a while after she’d gone, her words like an echo in the air.

  We’re only here once.

  I’d spent half of my life feeling guilty for being alive, secretly waiting to be found out. Now that I had been, part of me wanted to confront it. But how, when I didn’t know for sure who my enemy was?

  Frustrated, I decided to go home and begin painting. It was the only way I knew of losing myself for an hour and calming the confusion in my head.

  First, I hurried to Nell’s to buy a loaf of bread, surprised when she looked up and beckoned me to the front of the queue.

  ‘Someone was asking about your picture today. Asked if it was of anywhere in particular.’ Her eyebrows rose, creating a gridwork of lines on her deeply tanned forehead. ‘Seemed really interested, but didn’t buy it in the end.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Nell gestured for her son Kenny to take over serving. ‘I said it was just the sea, not anywhere in particular as far as I knew. That’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true.’ I turned to look at the picture in question, adorning the opposite wall with several others – one of them a self-portrait by Katya, her wide eyes dominating her face.

  ‘He seemed to think it might be somewhere in Cornwall,’ Nell said, removing her disposable gloves. ‘Heron Cove, or somewhere.’

  For a moment, I felt suspended in time, as though the world had stopped turning. ‘Perran Cove?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  The air felt too shallow to inhale.

  ‘Beth, are you all right?’

  ‘This man,’ I said faintly. ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Not sure.’ Nell’s face puckered. ‘It’s hard to tell when they all have beards these days.’

  ‘He had a beard?’

  She raised her eyes, thinking. ‘Yes, he did, sort of darkish.’

  ‘What was his accent?’

  ‘Couldn’t really tell.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Local, maybe?’

  ‘It wasn’t him who asked about the painting, Mum, it was the other one.’

  We turned to look at Kenny, who was scooping vanilla ice-cream into a cone, his mop of grey hair squashed under a hat with Nell’s on the upturned peak. �
��She’s getting mixed up,’ he said to me with a grin, seeming not to notice I was rooted to the floor. ‘Her eyesight’s not what it was.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my eyesight,’ Nell huffed.

  ‘You were serving someone else.’ Kenny’s voice was mild, used to placating his mother. ‘It was the bloke with the scruffy blond hair. I thought it was odd he was wearing a leather jacket when it’s so warm outside.’

  ‘Maybe he had a motorbike.’

  ‘He didn’t have a helmet.’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t the one who asked about the painting,’ Nell insisted. ‘You were distracted by that woman you fancy and weren’t paying attention.’

  Kenny rolled his eyes. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the girl waiting impatiently for her ice-cream. ‘Let me start again.’

  Nell looked at me, eyes sharp as pins. ‘Is there a problem?’ she said. ‘Do you know this man?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ I loosened my grip on the edge of the counter. ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘Just to tell you he’d been asking, if you came in.’

  Perran Cove. It wasn’t a name someone would pluck from thin air, and the painting wasn’t even of a cove. It was a stretch of golden sand, dotted with tourists, the tide a long way out. It had to be someone with knowledge of that day.

  ‘He was with a woman, I think,’ Kenny piped up, taking payment for the ice-cream he’d handed over. ‘She was standing with him, anyway.’

  ‘Are you sure they were together?’ Nell narrowed her gaze at him. ‘If it’s who you’re thinking of, she was standing behind him.’

  ‘Well, they left together.’ Kenny shook his head and gave an exasperated laugh. ‘Honestly, Mum, you’d be terrible trying to identify a criminal in a line-up.’

  ‘Eyewitnesses often make mistakes.’ A youngish man in board shorts and a neon-green vest stepped up to the counter. ‘Memory’s unreliable, and visual perception varies, depending who you talk to. I’m studying criminology,’ he said with a grin.

  I turned to Nell. ‘You’re certain he wasn’t a regular?’

  ‘I’ve never seen any of them in here before.’

  ‘I vaguely recognised the man in the leather jacket,’ Kenny ventured. ‘Wouldn’t swear to it though.’

  I left without the loaf, hardly aware of anything but the buzzing in my head as I returned to Fernley House.

  A man. Could he have been asking about the painting on behalf of the woman Kenny had mentioned? Maybe I’d got it all wrong and there were two people out to destroy me, working as a pair. Should I call Rosa? But say what?

  Oh, a man was in my local café today, asking about one of my paintings. He thought it looked like the spot in Cornwall where I nearly drowned.

  Hardly damning evidence. Coincidence? I’d read somewhere that there are no coincidences, just synchronicities – two events that come together for a purpose. The purpose in this case being to warn me my time would soon be up. Or make me think it was. But to what end? It was still hard to imagine Matt on some twisted campaign to bring us back together, but … messy blond hair, leather jacket. Both could apply to Matt – or Jamie. Matt’s wardrobe didn’t vary much between seasons, and the studded biker jacket Jamie had bought with his first wage was usually in his van, if he wasn’t wearing it.

  By the time I reached my car, I was sweating, my clothes clinging unpleasantly to my skin. I threw myself in the driver’s seat and locked the doors. Scanning the area for signs of anyone watching, my gaze snagged on something.

  There was a leaflet trapped beneath my wipers.

  Chapter 15

  I scrambled out of the car, the attack alarm digging into my palm, and tugged the square of shiny paper free. There was an image on the front of a girl in glittering water, googles pushed into her hair, giving a jolly thumbs-up to the camera. Learning to Swim Saves Lives! a cheery line of text informed me. Below that, Drowning Prevention Week was stamped over a cartoon lifebuoy. Across the bottom was the number of the leisure centre where Hayley went swimming every week, opening hours and session times listed beside it, with an invitation to book a course of private lessons for adults.

  Success guaranteed, or your money back.

  A cold feeling reached through my limbs to my heart.

  There was nothing homemade about this message. I’d probably seen the flyers at the leisure centre without really taking them in, but it didn’t matter. The meaning was as clear as the first time I’d found a note on my windscreen.

  A LIFE FOR A LIFE.

  I swung around, looking at the other cars. Maybe it was an advertising gimmick, but as far as I could see, mine was the only car to have been targeted.

  With a frustrated cry, I threw the paper on the ground. As I bent to pick it up again, I saw a movement in my peripheral vision and swivelled round. A figure was peering round one of the pillars into the car park – a pale face, curtained by long dark hair. Katya?

  Realising she’d been spotted she shrank back. ‘Katya, wait!’ I slammed my car door shut and ran, colliding with someone walking up to the house.

  ‘Beth?’ It was a red-faced Marianne, hair frizzing around her face. I registered her startled expression, her words a fading hum as I hurried past.

  By the time I reached the pavement, Katya had got to the end of the street and was glancing over her shoulder, her hair as shiny as a crow’s wing beneath the sun’s glare.

  I waved, but she didn’t slow down. I started running again, catching my breath when she darted across the main road to a blast of horns. ‘Katya!’

  She didn’t look back. As her tiny figure was swallowed by a crowd, I juddered to a halt, heaving air into my lungs. Had Katya left the leaflet on my car? Why had she run away? What was she even doing here?

  I jogged back to the car, my breathing fast and shallow, every nerve end prickling. I should call Katya’s foster mother Dee and ask if everything was fine, but when I called the number I stored in my phone for emergencies, it went to voicemail.

  Unsure what to say without alarming Dee, I hung up. Worried she would wonder why I hadn’t left a message, I called back. ‘Hi, Dee. It’s Beth Turner from Fernley House.’ My voice was full of fake energy. ‘I thought Katya had left her phone behind, but just realised it’s not hers. So sorry to bother you. Bye!’

  I dipped my forehead to my fingertips, pressing hard. I shouldn’t have called. Dee was bound to question Katya. Unlike most young people, Katya wasn’t permanently attached to her phone, but it would be unusual for her to forget it.

  Hot and tearful, my eyes skimmed my surroundings for anyone lurking as I tried to figure out why Katya had taken off like that. Seeing no one, I started the car and swung away from Fernley House.

  I couldn’t face going home, so drove to Oakdale, the private hospital where Vic worked for half the week; a large, brick and glass structure softened by clever landscaping, designed so the building didn’t intrude on the expensive houses in the surrounding neighbourhood.

  I parked haphazardly, grateful there was a space right by the entrance. One of the perks of a private hospital was an abundance of amenities sadly denied the NHS – something I stopped teasing Vic about when I realised it made him defensive. Dividing his time between Oakfield and the John Radcliffe Hospital made him uncomfortable with the disparity, but he’d argued there was a place for private practice that wasn’t about him earning more money, but easing the burden on the NHS by treating patients who could afford it.

  I entered the plush, air-conditioned, hotel-like lobby, ignoring the smooth-featured woman on reception as I hurried past and down a well-lit corridor, lined with botanical prints. I paused to check I had the right room before knocking. Vic Berenson, Consultant Ophthalmologist was engraved on a nameplate fixed to the door. I couldn’t hear voices inside, so knocked and let myself in, thankful to see he wasn’t with a patient, but sitting behind his mahogany desk, looking bronzed and healthy as he stared at his computer screen, long fingers tapping the keyboard. For a momen
t, I was thrown back to the first time I stepped inside this room, with no idea the man I was about to see would change my life.

  Back then, he’d risen to greet me with a smile and an outstretched hand, before guiding me into a comfy leather chair and offering me refreshments.

  ‘I’m Vic Berenson,’ he’d said, smoothing his tie as he sat down, regarding me with intense dark eyes that seemed to see into my soul. ‘Tell me how I can help.’

  This time, he stood with a startled expression and said, ‘Beth!’

  I had the feeling I’d interrupted something private and was struck by how different he seemed at work; not a stranger exactly, but someone quite separate from me with his own thoughts and routines, doing and saying things I’d never be privy to.

  Had I ever felt that way about Matt? But Matt had mostly worked from home, his career not as critical as Vic’s, not as dependent on discretion.

  Disorientated, I took a step back. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have just turned up.’

  But Vic was coming towards me and took my hands in his, eyes searching my face, which I knew was flushed and damp.

  ‘Has something happened?’ he said. ‘You look hot.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I deadpanned.

  His mouth tilted. ‘Not that kind of hot, although …’ He looked down, hand tightening around mine. ‘You’ve got your alarm,’ he said, noticing I was gripping my keys. ‘You won’t need that in here.’ He drew me to him, his arms closing around me. I rested my head against his chest, aware my hairline was sweaty. Vic smelt citrussy and fresh, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. I breathed him in, my muscles slowly unclenching. I reached up to kiss to his jaw just he turned his head and our lips met, I melted against him, remembering our first kiss, outside this very building.

  After our first coffee date, Vic told me he had a patient to see and I’d walked back to the hospital with him, stopping on the way so he could show me the house he’d shared with a Finnish eye surgeon called Lilja, before she took up a teaching post at a hospital in Helsinki.