by Rosie Fiore
Helen sat down at the desk. She took a notebook and pen out of her bag and placed them carefully on the empty surface. When she moved the mouse, the Mac gave a little growl and lit up, showing a log-in screen.
‘[email protected]’, Helen typed, and then entered the password Sophie had chosen for her. As the icons popped up on the desktop before her, Helen allowed herself a slow breath out. She was here. She had fought her way free, and this was the first door opening, leading to the rest of her life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sam
Who the hell calls a meeting at Canary Wharf at 4.30 p.m. on a Thursday? A psychopath does, that’s what I reckon. Either that, or a person who doesn’t have kids. Or a partner. Or a life. I was fuming as I got on the Tube at Westminster. Luckily, Lara had agreed to take the girls home with her. Again. I felt a grinding guilt. I owe her so many favours that I have no chance of being able to repay them. I wish I was the kind of guy who could go round to her house at the weekend and do all those niggling DIY jobs, or make her garden beautiful, but I’m useless in both of those spheres. Helen was the gardener, and any DIY she couldn’t do, we’d pay to have done by someone else. I could mow the lawn I suppose, or offer to kick a ball with Jonah in the garden, but that’s scarcely repayment for countless pick-ups, meals and kindnesses to my girls and me.
To aggravate me further, there wasn’t a seat. I found a segment of pole to hold on to as we moved through the City towards the east end of town. I kept an eye out, in case someone got up. My back ached, and I was hoping to have five minutes to check my emails before I went into the umpteenth client meeting of the week. I’d be working till eleven that night to catch up on messages otherwise. As I looked further down the carriage, I saw there was an elderly woman who had her bulky shopping bags on the seat beside her – a remarkably selfish act on a crammed, almost-rush-hour train. I seethed inwardly at the lack of consideration. I thought I might make eye contact with the person sitting next to her, to get them to ask her to move the bags. The seat was too far away for me to claim it, but someone else might like it.
There was a woman sitting in the next seat, engrossed in a book. It’d be difficult to catch her eye; she didn’t look as if she would be likely to look up or look my way. She had the typical Londoner’s pose – closed-off body language, eyes firmly down, neatly tucked into her seat with her elbows drawn in and her bag flat on her lap. Taking up the minimum room, attracting no attention. Funnily enough, I thought idly, she had something of Helen about her. Not in any overt way – she was plumper than Helen, with short blonde hair and a rather severe tailored business suit with trousers. Still, there was something. The curve of her cheek, the way she kept her fingers fanned along the top edge of the book, ready to turn the page quickly so as not to interrupt the flow of her reading.
We pulled into Waterloo and a great mass of people wedged their way into the carriage. Someone pressed the sharp corner of a briefcase against my calf, and I had to strain to keep hold of the pole and stop myself being knocked over. There was someone close to me who had had a lot of garlic for lunch, and someone else who was clearly a shower dodger. I silently cursed the inefficient product manager who was making me travel across town for this unnecessary meeting.
The torture continued for a few more stops until London Bridge, where most of the people on the train piled off. I breathed in deeply, relishing the sweat- and garlic-free air. There was a seat a little way down the carriage, and as I made my way towards it, I glanced idly towards the woman I had noticed earlier. She was still in her seat, still reading, and as I looked at her, she reached up and stroked her finger over the top of her ear, as if she was tucking her hair behind it, although her hair was too short to tuck. It was an utterly familiar gesture. Helen’s gesture. Judy’s gesture. I shook my head. I was being ridiculous. Women everywhere did that. I was back to seeing shadows of Helen everywhere I went. It was talking to Judy that had done it – put her front-of-mind again.
I sat down with relief and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I should be able to type at least one reply before we got to Canary Wharf, I thought. But somehow I couldn’t concentrate on the email from my manager about revenue forecasts. I glanced over to the woman again. I was much closer to her now, but she was oblivious to everyone around her. In profile, her face was very like Helen’s – the straight nose and the neat round chin. Her body was nothing like Helen’s though; where Helen had been lean and firm, this woman was soft, with a roundness to her hips and a little rise of soft tummy under her smart jacket. And obviously one of Helen’s most striking features had been her beautiful bright russet hair, whereas this woman was blonde. Not that it was inconceivable for Helen to be blonde. I mean, hair can be dyed. The woman had a neat, short crop, well cut, with a sweep of straight hair that fell over her forehead. As I watched, she reached up again to tuck her hair behind her ears and in that instant I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. There was a scar on her earlobe. A clearly visible vertical line, white against the honeyed tones of her skin.
Helen
It took her three months to create her first solo marketing campaign. It was a social media competition, with some online advertising support, for their energy gel client. The day it went live, she sat late in the office, watching the statistics, checking for click-throughs, responses, retweets. She knew it was far too early to see if the work was a success, but she couldn’t look away. She’d spent hundreds of hours working with design agencies and creatives, tweaking, reporting back to the client, assessing, testing, reworking. Eventually, on that first night, the building security guard came up and gave her a stern look, so she reluctantly turned off her computer and headed home.
The next day she was in at eight, watching the stats again. Simon eventually dragged her out of the office for a celebratory lunch to stop her obsessing. She looked at him across the table at Wagamama. She’d become fond of him over the months they had worked together, in a distant, slightly maternal way. He was a sweetheart, full of enthusiasm and verve, but no great shakes as a businessman. If SSA ever got a half-decent client, they’d be bought out by a bigger agency in a heartbeat. He wasn’t ruthless enough to make it with the big boys. From her own perspective, she knew SSA was a stepping stone to better things. She needed everything she did there to be outstanding, so she could take a gigantic step up on her next career move. She’d lost years. She had to move fast.
The energy gel campaign vastly outperformed its targets, and the sports nutrition company paid SSA a bonus, some of which went to Helen. Simon was delighted and immediately gave her another, bigger project to work on for a new brand of running shoe. If there was anything Helen knew a lot about, it was running, and she threw all her knowledge and experience at the project. She worked twelve-hour days, and spent her evenings researching and writing notes. Perversely, the more she thought about running for work, the further she moved from wanting to run herself.
She had stayed off alcohol completely, ever since she had begun her new life, but she comfort ate all the time, indulging in fast food, snacks and chocolate almost every night. She had a constant ache in her centre, which she knew came from missing Miranda and Marguerite, more than she had ever imagined possible. She worried constantly about how they were, what they were doing, how Sam was managing to care for them. Somehow, eating the sugary snacks made the ache abate slightly. She knew that eating her way out of emotional pain wasn’t the answer, but even though the months were passing, she didn’t miss the girls less or think of them less often. She needed a more practical, long-term solution to deal with the ache, and she set about finding one. It was dangerous, she knew that, and meant taking a gigantic risk, but she decided it was worth the gamble.
She had gained almost two stone, and her lean, muscular tautness had softened into pillowy curves. She rather liked her new body with its pale plumpness and the unaccustomed voluptuousness of her larger breasts. She liked to stand naked in front of the bathroom mirror and stroke the curv
e of her belly and admire the roundness of her thighs. She had also changed her hair. Every time she had a success at work, she took herself off to the little hairdresser’s she had found in Stratford, and cut her hair a little shorter and went another shade blonder.
The running-shoe campaign was another storming hit, and Simon called her into his office – or at least his corner of their open-plan office – and told her he was giving her a 20 per cent raise. She knew he was trying to buy her loyalty and was desperate to keep her. She smiled and accepted the raise, but of course her CV was already out there on the desks of the biggest recruitment consultants in the field. She was almost ready for her next move and she would walk away from SSA without a backward glance when the time came.
She’d been offered a few interviews, but, as yet, nothing had been good enough to tempt her to leave SSA. Simon kept pushing good, exciting work her way, so for the moment she was prepared to bide her time. The latest project was a kinetic sports tape campaign, linked to a big international football tournament. It would mean liaising with agencies in Europe and South America if it came off. Less than a year into her new life and her first goal – building an international network – was within her reach.
‘Go and see Gareth at the design agency this week,’ said Simon. ‘Get him to start scamping some ideas. It’s early days, but I want to be ahead of the game when the brief comes in.’
She had agreed and had spent the morning and half the afternoon with Gareth. She would normally have gone back to the office afterwards, but she wanted some quiet time alone to work on the final feedback report for the running-shoe campaign, so she decided to head home and work there instead. The agency was in Green Park and she got on the Tube and managed to find a seat, even though it was almost rush-hour.
She’d probably spend three or four hours on the report when she got home, so she decided to indulge herself and read a book on the Tube. She was reading something about the future of virtual reality in marketing. Now she had a seat, she should have an uninterrupted twenty minutes or so before she had to change trains at Canary Wharf to go home.
Sam
I had to get a grip. All those times I’d been convinced I had ‘seen’ Helen, only to discover I was hallucinating. It was happening again, and before I embarrassed myself, I had to look away. This was just a woman who bore a passing resemblance. I must be imagining the scar. The train halted at Canada Water, where a lot of passengers got off and comparatively few got on. There was hardly anyone at all sitting between us now. I knew I shouldn’t, but I used the commotion of people getting on and off to move a few seats closer. She didn’t notice me. She was utterly engrossed in her book. I could see it was non-fiction, about virtual reality or something. Was that something Helen would read? How would I know? How would I know anything about what Helen might or might not do?
I stared at her hands. Were they Helen’s hands? They were smooth and pale, with neat, short nails. Shorter than Helen wore hers, but then nails could be cut. No wedding rings. I looked again at her ear. There was definitely a scar there. But that in itself proved nothing. Anyone might have a scar on their ear. It could all just be a coincidence. There was more about this woman that was unlike Helen than like her.
I was suddenly aware of someone watching me. I looked up, and a woman in her early fifties with fierce, dark, arched eyebrows was staring at me. ‘I can see what you’re up to,’ her eyes broadcast to me. ‘Stop ogling her, you perv.’ I stared back at her defiantly, and after a few seconds she looked away.
In that brief moment, the train pulled into Canary Wharf. I glanced over. If the almost-Helen was staying on the train, so was I, no matter how bonkers that seemed. I’d be late for my meeting, but that was too bad. But she wasn’t. Her seat was empty, and as I looked around wildly, I saw her stepping off the train at the door furthest from me in the carriage. I leapt up and ran after her, stumbling over legs and bags. I half fell out of the door of the train, and to my immense relief, she was right there. She hadn’t begun to move off along the platform, so great was the crush of people.
‘Helen!’ I shouted, above the hubbub, and she turned instantly, looking up at me, her face within inches of mine.
It was her. My wife. I was staring into Helen’s face. Her eyes were wide and shocked, and her mouth opened. She tried to step away, but I caught her hand.
‘Helen,’ I said again, and for a moment that stretched endlessly, we stood in the impossible mass of people, utterly alone, just the two of us.
‘Come on, mate!’ yelled an aggressive voice behind me, and someone jostled me and shoved me firmly between my shoulder blades.
There was a fraction of a second where I was distracted. But it was enough. Helen snatched her hand free from my grasp and dived back through the doors of the train as they slid shut. The train whined and began to move slowly as I hammered helplessly on the closed doors. I watched Helen’s bright blue eyes slide away from me and she disappeared into the dark tunnel.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Miranda
Dad wasn’t back to pick us up. Again. For the third time in two weeks, Lara came to get Marguerite and me from the after-school club and took us back to her house. She said that Dad had a meeting. Dad always has meetings. It didn’t bother me before, when we had Helen, because picking up was always her job. But now Dad pretends it’s his job, except it seems like it’s a job he can skip doing when he feels like it. It’s not Lara’s job either, and she always does her best to look like she doesn’t mind, but I know she does. She looked tired when she came today. Jonah was hanging on to her hand and screaming. Frances looked cross too – she told me later she was in the middle of watching a programme on TV and she had to turn it off to come and get us.
Lara let us all go into the living room to watch TV, but I was thirsty so I followed her into the kitchen to get a drink of water. She was standing staring into the open freezer. She turned when I came in.
‘Oh, hi, Miranda,’ she said, and did her best ‘none of this is your fault’ pity smile.
‘Is everything okay?’ I said.
‘Hmm? Oh yes, all fine. Just trying to work out what to give you all for dinner.’ I knew what she meant was that she was trying to work out how to make dinner go far enough for Marguerite and me, and possibly Dad too, when she hadn’t expected to have to do that.
‘Are we staying for dinner?’ I asked. ‘When’s Dad coming?’
‘He wasn’t sure,’ she said, and I noticed that she wasn’t as good at keeping that tight bit of irritation out of her voice as Helen had been.
‘Look!’ she suddenly said brightly. ‘Pizza bases!’ I’ve got lots of cheese and pepperoni and ham and stuff. Homemade pizzas it is!’
I don’t really like pizza, but it didn’t really seem like the right time to say so.
‘I can help you, if you like,’ I said.
‘No, don’t worry,’ she said, and lightly touched my arm. She’s careful about touching me. No mumsy hugs or kisses. I’m glad about that. Marguerite will go and sit on her lap sometimes, when Jonah’s not looking (he screams the place down if he sees her doing it).
The pizzas were okay. Well, not okay. They were doughy and horrid with cheddar cheese and plasticky ham, but the little kids and Frances liked them. Lara let us eat them in front of the TV. I thought about Helen’s grown-up meals, with homemade pasta and beautiful salads with lots of colours in them. Sometimes she even put flowers in the salad.
It got to seven o’clock and Dad still wasn’t there and hadn’t phoned. Lara started to look stressed. She didn’t have work tonight, but I know she was thinking about us and school tomorrow.
‘Marguerite, Miranda, you’ve got pyjamas and things here, haven’t you?’ she said in that fake, bright, grown-up way. ‘It’s probably best for you to sleep over. When you go up to bath, give me your school uniforms and I’ll give them a quick wash and iron.’
‘I need my PE kit for tomorrow,’ I said. ‘And my geography book. They’re all at t
he flat.’
Lara looked even more stressed. ‘Well, when your dad gets here. . .’ I could hear her silently thinking, ‘if he ever gets here’. ‘. . . he can go and pick up everything you need.’
I wanted to argue, because it wasn’t fair, but I also knew it wasn’t Lara’s fault. I went upstairs and took off my uniform. I had a drawer of weekend things in Frances’ room, and I put on shorts and a T-shirt and made sure Marguerite did the same. I knew Marguerite’s reading book was at our flat too. She was supposed to do reading every evening and now she would miss another night. She wasn’t all that good at reading. She needed more practice. And then I thought, what if Dad doesn’t come? Or what if there isn’t time in the morning to get my PE kit and books?
I thought about this boy who used to be in our class called Mickey. No one wanted to sit next to him because he often smelled bad. His uniform was always dirty, even on the first day of term. He never had the right books or PE kit, and he was always late. The teacher used to get cross with him if he didn’t bring in his homework, but then he’d say, ‘I’m sorry, miss, but I slept on the sofa at my auntie’s house yesterday. I haven’t been home.’
I didn’t like Mickey, and I would never have been his friend, but even I could see it wasn’t his fault. Would everyone know it wasn’t my fault either?
I went next door to Jonah’s room and fetched Marguerite’s uniform and took the bundle of clothes down to Lara in the kitchen. She was standing at the sink, staring out of the kitchen window, and she looked tired and cross. She tried to smile at me when she took the school things and put them in the washing machine. I couldn’t help noticing that the other things in the machine were dirty dish towels, and I hoped my school uniform wouldn’t come out smelling like greasy old pizza.
