Land of the Living

by Nicci French

  "I was just giving her a bath' she began, then stopped. "Jesus! Look at you!"

  "I should have phoned in advance. I just .. . sorry, I needed to see you."

  "Jesus!" she said again, stepping back to let me inside.

  A sour-sweet heat hit me as Sadie closed the door behind us. Mustard and talcum powder and milk and vomit and soap. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  "Bliss," I said, and put my face towards Pippa. "Hello, sweetie, do you remember me?" Pippa opened her mouth and I could see right down her clean pink tunnel of throat to her tonsils. She gave a single thin yell. "No?" I said. "Well, that's not surprising, really. I'm not sure I remember me either."

  "What on earth's happened to you?" asked Sadie. She pulled Pippa more firmly towards her and jiggled her slightly, in that instinctive way that all mothers seem to have. "You look'

  "I know. Awful." I put the globe on the kitchen table. "This is for Pippa."

  "What can I get you? Here, sit down. Move those baby clothes."

  "Can I have a biscuit or a bit of bread or something? I feel a bit wobbly."

  "Of course. God, what's been going on with you?" Pippa began to grizzle and Sadie lifted her up higher until she was bunched under her chin. "Sssh, it's all right now," she crooned in her new sing-song voice, which none of us had heard until Pippa was born. "There, there, my little poppet."

  "You need to deal with her. I've come barging in at just the wrong time."

  "She wants her feed."

  "Go on. I can wait."

  "Are you sure? You know where everything is. Make us both some tea. There are some digestives, I think. Have a look."

  "I brought wine."

  "I'm breast-feeding, I shouldn't, really."

  "You have a glass and I'll manage the rest."

  "I'll just change her, then I'll feed her in here. I want to hear everything. God, you're so thin. How much weight have you lost, anyway?"

  "Sadie?"

  "Yes?" She turned in the doorway.

  "Can I stay?"

  "Stay?"

  "Just for a bit."

  "Sure. Though I'm surprised you want to, really. It's just the sofa, mind, and the springs are gone and you know how Pippa wakes in the night."

  "That doesn't matter."

  "You said that last time, until it happened."

  "Last time?"

  "Yes." She looked at me strangely.

  "I can't remember."

  "What?"

  "I can't remember," I repeated. I felt so tired I thought I'd fall over.

  "Look, make yourself comfortable," Sadie said, "I'll be back. Five minutes, max."

  I opened the bottle of wine and poured two glasses. I took a sip from mine and at once felt dizzy. I needed something to eat. I rummaged in the cupboards and found a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, which I ate standing up, cramming them into my mouth. I took another cautious sip of wine, then sat down on the sofa again. My head throbbed, my eyes burned with fatigue and the cut on my side was prickling. It felt so wonderfully warm and safe in here, down in the basement, with baby clothes draped over radiators and a big vase of dark orange chrysanthemums on the table, like flames.

  "OK?" Sadie was back. She sat beside me, unbuttoned her shirt and undid her bra. She held Pippa to her breast, then sighed and settled back. "Tell me, then. It was bloody Terry, wasn't it? Your poor face, it's still bruised. You shouldn't have gone back. I thought you'd gone on holiday."

  "Holiday?" I repeated.

  "You said you were going to book one," she said.

  "There was no holiday," I said.

  "What did he do this time?"

  "Who?"

  "Terry." She peered at me. "Are you all right?"

  "What makes you think it was Terry?"

  "It's obvious. Especially after what happened last time. Oh, Abbie."

  "What do you mean, "last time"?"

  "When he hit you."

  "So he did hit me."

  "Yes. Hard. Abbie? You must remember."

  "Tell me anyway."

  She looked at me, puzzled, wondering if this was some kind of joke.

  "This is weird. You argued, he hit you, you left him and came here. You said it was over for good this time. You were very determined. Almost excited, really. Happy, even. So you went back?"

  "No." I shook my head. "At least, I don't know. But it wasn't him."

  "You're not making sense." She stared at me, frowning, and then turned back to Pippa.

  "I got hit over the head," I said. "Now I can't remember things. I can't remember leaving Terry, or coming here, or anything."

  She made a whistling sound between her teeth. I couldn't tell if it was shock or incredulity. "You mean, you were concussed or something?"

  "Something like that."

  "So you really can't remember?"

  "I really can't."

  "You can't remember leaving Terry?"

  "No."

  "Or coming here?"

  "No."

  "Or moving out again?"

  "Did I move out again? I suppose I must have done nothing of mine's here, is it? Where did I go?"

  "You really can't remember?"

  "No." I felt tired of saying it.

  "You went to Sheila and Guy's."

  "So I went there on the Sunday?"

  "I guess. Yes, that must be right. Days of the week seem to merge for me at the moment."

  "And you didn't see me again, till now, I mean?"

  "No. I thought you were away."

  "Oh, well."

  "Abbie, tell me what happened. The whole story."

  The whole story: I took a sip of my wine and looked at her, while she whispered endearments to her baby. I badly needed to talk to someone, to pour it all out, everything that had happened, the terror in the dark, the shame, the horrible, terminal loneliness, the sense of being dead. I needed to tell someone about the police and the way they'd taken all those emotions and turned them back on me and I needed that someone to be solid as a rock in their faith in me. If they weren't ... I drained the wine in my glass and poured myself some more. If not Sadie, then who? She was my best friend, my oldest friend. I'd been the one she'd turned to after Bob dumped her, when she was eight months pregnant. If Sadie didn't believe me, who would? I took a deep breath.

  I told Sadie everything. The ledge, the noose, the hood, the bucket, the wheezy laugh in the darkness. How I knew I would die. She listened without interrupting, though occasionally she made little sounds of amazement or muttered expletives. I didn't cry. I had thought I would cry and she would hold on to me and stroke my hair the way she stroked Pippa's. But I felt absolutely dry-eyed and dispassionate and told my account calmly, right up to this moment. "I'm not going mad, am I?" I finished.

  "They didn't believe you! How could they not believe you? The bastards!"

  "They thought I was in a vulnerable state and fantasizing."

  "How could you make up something like that? Why would you, for God's sake?"

  "I don't know. To run away, to get attention. Whatever."

  "But why! Why didn't they believe you?" she persisted.

  "Because there's no evidence," I said flatly.

  "None at all?"

  "No. Not a shred."

  "Oh." We sat there in silence for a few seconds. "So, what on earth are you going to do now?"

  "I don't know that either. I don't know where to begin, Sadie. I mean, I literally don't know what to do next. When I get up tomorrow morning, I don't have a clue where I should go, who I should see, who I should be even. It's like I'm starting from zero. A blank. I can't tell you how odd it feels. How truly horrible. It's like an experiment designed to drive me insane."

  "You must be furious with them."

  "Yes, I am."

  "And scared."

  "Right." The warm room suddenly felt chilly.

  "Because," said Sadie, following her thoughts, 'because if what you say is really true then he is still out there. He may still b
e after you."

  "Yes," I said. "Exactly." But we'd both heard her say it. If. If what I said was true, if I hadn't made the whole thing up. I looked at her and she dropped her eyes and started talking to Pippa again in her baby voice, though Pippa had fallen asleep by now, her head tipped back like a drunkard's and her small mouth half open, a milk blister on her top lip.

  "What do you fancy for supper?" she asked. "You must be famished."

  I wasn't going to let it drop. "You don't know whether to believe me, do you?"

  "Don't be ridiculous, Abbie. Of course I believe you. Of course. One hundred per cent."

  "Thanks." But I knew, and she knew I knew, that she was unsure.

  Doubt had been planted, and it would grow and flourish. And who could blame her? It was my hysterical Gothic tale against everyone else's measured, everyday sanity. If I was her, I'd doubt me.

  I made supper while Sadie put Pippa to bed. Bacon sandwiches, with fat white slices of bread that I dipped in the fat first, chewy and salty, and big mugs of tea. Being here should have felt like a refuge from all that had happened and might again, but that night on Sadie's lumpy sofa I slept fitfully and several times I lurched awake from dreams of running, tripping, falling, with my heart racing and sweat pouring off my forehead. Pippa woke often, too, howling angrily. The walls in the flat were thin and it was as if we were in the same room. In the morning I'd leave. I couldn't stay here another night.

  "That's what you said last time," remarked Sadie cheerily, when I told her at six the next morning. She seemed remarkably fresh. Her face was rosy under her mess of soft brown hair.

  "I don't know how you manage. I need at least eight hours, preferably ten, twelve on Sundays. I'll go to Sheila and Guy's; they've got room. Just till I work out what to do."

  "And you said that too."

  "So it must be a good idea."

  I made my way to Sheila and Guy's in the dawn. It had snowed some more in the night, and everything even the dustbins, even the burnt-out cars looked eerily beautiful in the soft light. I walked, but I stopped at a baker's on the way to buy three croissants as a peace-offering, so I now had exactly 5.20 left. Today I'd phone my bank. What was my account number? I had a flash of panic that I wouldn't be able to remember it, and that lots of bits of my life were disappearing now, as if there was a delete cursor randomly at work in my brain.

  It wasn't even seven o'clock when I rapped at their door. The curtains upstairs were all drawn. I waited for a decent interval, then rapped again, longer and louder. I stood back from the door and looked up. A curtain twitched. A face and bare shoulders appeared in the window.

  Sheila and Sadie and I have known each other for more than half our lives. We were a quarrelsome threesome at school, breaking up and re-forming. But we went through our teenage years together: exams, periods, boyfriends, hopes. Now Sadie has a baby and Sheila has a husband, and I ... well, I don't seem to have much right now, except a story. I waved furiously at the window and Sheila's face changed from scowling grumpiness to surprise and concern. It disappeared, and a few moments later, Sheila was standing at the door in a voluminous white to welling robe, her dark hair in rats' tails round her bleary face. I thrust the bag of croissants into her hands.

  "Sorry," I said. "It was too early to ring in advance. Can I come in?"

  "You look like a ghost," she said. "What's happened to your face?"

  I edited the story down this time, just the highlights. I was vague about the police. I think Sheila and Guy were obviously confused, but they were effusively supportive and welcoming, fussing over me with coffee and offers of a bath, a shower, money, clothes, the use of their phone, of their car, of their spare bedroom for as long as I liked.

  "We'll be at work, of course. Just treat the place like your own."

  "Did I leave any of my things here?"

  "Here? No. There might be odds and ends floating around."

  "How long did I stay then? Just one night?"

  "No. Well, kind of, I suppose."

  "What do you mean, "kind of"?"

  "You stayed here Sunday and then you didn't come back on Monday. You phoned to say you were staying somewhere else. And then you picked up your stuff on Tuesday. You left us a note. And two very expensive bottles of wine."

  "Where did I go after that, then?"

  They didn't know. All they could tell me was that I had been rather hyped-up, had kept them up till the early hours of Monday, talking and drinking and making fine plans for the rest of my life, and then had left the next day. They glanced at each other surreptitiously as they were telling me this and I wondered what they weren't telling me. Had I behaved disgracefully, thrown up on the carpet? At one point, I came back into the kitchen just as they were getting ready to leave for work. They were talking urgently in low voices, their heads close together, and when they saw me they stopped and smiled at me and pretended they'd simply been making arrangements for the evening.

  Them too, I thought, and I looked away as if I hadn't noticed anything. It was going to be like this, especially after Sheila and Guy had talked to Sadie, and they'd all talked to Robin, and then to Carla and Joey and Sam. I could imagine them all ringing each other up. Have you heard? Isn't it terrible? What do you think, I mean, really think, just between us?

  The trouble is, friendships are all about tact. You don't want to know what friends say about you to other friends or to partners. You don't want to know what they really think or how far their loyalty goes. You want to be very careful before you test it. You might not like what you find.

  Four

  I had no embarrassment. I was down to about five pounds and I just had to borrow money from Sheila and Guy. They were very nice about it. Of course, being 'very nice' meant a lot of huffing and puffing and gritting of teeth and rummaging in purse and wallet and saying that they would be able to get to the bank later. At first I felt like saying it didn't matter and I could manage without the money, but it did matter and I couldn't manage without it. So fifty-two pounds in assorted notes and coins was dropped into my open hands. Then I borrowed a pair of knickers from Sheila and a T-shirt and threw mine into her dirty-washing basket. She asked if she could give me anything else and I asked if she had an old sweater that I could take for a day or two. She said, "Of course', and went and found me a lovely one that didn't look old at all. Sheila was rather larger than me, especially now, but I was able to roll up the sleeves and didn't look too ridiculous. Even so, she couldn't keep an entirely straight face.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "You look great but.. ."

  "Like someone living rough," I said.

  "No, no," she insisted. "I'm used to you seeming, I don't know, more grown-up, maybe."

  As they left for work, I thought they looked a little concerned about the idea of leaving me alone in their house. I don't know whether they thought I would raid the drinks cabinet or the fridge or make international calls. In fact I raided the medicine cabinet for some paracetamol, and I made four calls, all local. I ordered a cab because there was no way I was going to wander around the streets on my own. I rang Robin at work. She said she couldn't meet me for lunch. I said she had to. She said she was already having lunch with someone. I said I was sorry but she had to cancel it. There was a pause and she said, "All right', with a sigh.

  I was calling in a lifetime of favours. I rang Carla and leant on her to meet me for coffee in the afternoon. I rang Sam and arranged to meet him for another coffee, forty-five minutes after my meeting with Robin. He didn't ask why. Neither did Carla. It seemed worrying. They must know something. What had Sadie said? I knew the feeling. I, too, had been feverish with some amazingly hot piece of gossip and had run around spreading it like Typhoid Mary. I could imagine it. Hey, listen, everybody, did you hear what happened to Abbie? Or was it simpler than that? Hey, everybody, Abbie's gone mad. Oh, and by the way, she'll want to take all of your loose change.

  I looked out of the window until I saw the cab draw up. I reached for my bag and
realized I didn't have a bag. I had nothing except a small amount of Sadie's money and quite a bit more of Sheila and Guy's crammed into my pockets. I told the cab driver to take me to Kennington Underground station. The cab driver wasn't exactly ecstatic. And he was puzzled as well. It was probably the first time in his career that he had taken a passenger to a tube station a few streets away. It cost three pounds fifty.

  I took the train to Euston and walked across the platform, where I changed on to the Victoria Line. I got off at Oxford Circus and walked to the Bakerloo Line platform. I looked across the rails at the map. Yes, this train led to places satisfyingly remote from anywhere I'd ever heard of. A train arrived and I got on. Then, as the doors started to close, I stepped off. The train pulled out and for a second or two, until other people arrived on the platform, I was alone. Anyone looking at me would have thought I was a lunatic. And obviously I had known that nobody was following me. Nobody could be following me. But now I really knew and that made me feel better. A bit. I went to the Central Line and took the tube to Tottenham Court Road.

  I walked to a branch of my bank. I felt a great weariness as I pushed through the doors. All the simple things had become so hard. Clothes. Money. I felt like Robinson Crusoe. And the worst bit was that I had to tell almost everybody I met some version of my story. I gave a very truncated version to the woman behind the counter and she sent me to the 'personal banker', a larger woman in a turquoise blazer with brass buttons, sitting at a desk in the corner. I waited for some time while she opened a bank account for a man who apparently spoke no English. When he left, she turned to me with an expression of relief. Little did she know. I explained that I wanted to withdraw some money from my account but I had been the victim of a crime and I didn't have my cheque book, credit card or debit card. No problem, she said. Any form of photographic identification would be perfectly acceptable.

  I took a deep breath. I didn't have any form of identification. I didn't have anything. She looked puzzled. She almost looked afraid. "Then I'm sorry' she began.

  "But there must be some way of getting at my money," I said. "And I need to cancel my old cards and get new ones. I'll sign anything you want, give you any information you want."