by Jess Ryder
25
Now
Anna
* * *
This must be about my sixth session with Lindsay and I’m not convinced it’s helping much. Not that she’s not good at her job or makes me feel uneasy. We are different in every way imaginable, but I like that. She’s very small and round; in her early sixties, I’d guess. Her hair is cut short, its greyness jollified by a pink wash. She wears coloured jeans with pockets in the legs, baggy cotton shirts and flat, ugly sandals. Sometimes her toenails are painted green. The counsellor I was seeing before I moved to Morton always dressed very neutrally, taking the view, I guess, that adopting a particular look might put some clients off, or at least cause a distraction. But distractions can be useful. I’ve filled many a long silence by studying Lindsay’s brave colour schemes.
‘So, Anna,’ she says, smiling at me with uneven teeth. ‘We haven’t met for a couple of weeks. How’s it going?’
‘Oh, good days and bad days,’ I reply. ‘How was your holiday?’
‘Lovely, thank you. More good than bad, or more bad than good?’
I push out my bottom lip, unsure of how to respond. I’m not adding them up to see which type of day won, I’m calculating how much I’m prepared to give away.
‘Slightly more good than bad,’ I say after a long pause.
‘An improvement, then.’
‘Hmm … I suppose so.’
‘How do you think you could increase the number of good days?’ Lindsay asks. I give her a weary look. She seems to have become attached to the concept, investing it with meaning when it wasn’t much more than a turn of phrase. ‘I’m fine,’ would have done. I remind myself to stick to even blander generalisations in the future.
She gives me an encouraging nod. ‘Let’s start by you telling me what makes a good day.’
There’s no getting her off the subject, so I try to consider the question properly. ‘Not thinking about it every single second of every minute of every hour. Getting through some action like cleaning my teeth or making a cup of tea and realising that I was thinking about something else for a few moments. That cheers me up a lot.’
‘By “it”, you mean the accident?’ she says, uncrossing her legs and crossing them again the opposite way.
I nod vaguely, not wanting to tell an outright lie. The accident is always there in the background, but I think about everything that led up to that moment just as much. It’s all bizarrely connected, like the games of Consequences I used to play with Hayley when we were teenagers. But I daren’t unfold the paper and show Lindsay the extraordinary picture of my life. It would put her in an impossible professional position.
‘That’s great,’ she says. ‘You can build on that, a little at a time. Take notice of those thought-free moments and give yourself a pat on the back. Soon you’ll realise you haven’t thought about the accident for a whole hour, or a morning, even a whole—’
‘I can’t imagine that ever happening,’ I interrupt hastily. ‘Everything’s on a loop, you know? Like a playlist in a shop. If you stay there long enough, you hear the same songs playing again in the same order. That’s what it’s like inside my head. It never stops.’
Lindsay has pointed out before – very gently – that I have a tendency towards pessimism. ‘But you’ve just said that sometimes you do forget to think about it. So it’s possible that you’ll forget for longer and longer, and one day the music will simply stop and you won’t even notice.’
‘But I don’t want to forget,’ I say. ‘I shouldn’t forget. It’s wrong of me to want to. Because the real problem is that I can’t remember.’
She pulls a face and a piece of pink hair flops forward. ‘You can’t stop forgetting and yet you can’t remember? That’s a contradiction, surely?’
‘No, it’s not.’
She replaces the stray hair and thinks for a few moments. ‘Sorry, I’m not understanding you.’
‘I’m talking about the moments leading up to the accident,’ I say. ‘They’re a complete blank. One minute I’m driving along, the next I’m in hospital. I don’t remember colliding with other vehicles, I don’t remember being pulled from the car …’
‘I’m sure you’ve been told this is a very common experience among victims of traffic incidents.’ Lindsay gives me a reassuring look. ‘It’s normal.’
I shake my head. My situation is anything but normal. ‘I’m sure the memories are there somewhere. It’s like I’m constantly playing hide-and-seek with my brain. Every time I get close to the truth, it moves and buries itself in a new location. Sometimes I think the game will never end, that I’ll spend the rest of my life searching, that it’ll eventually drive me mad.’
‘There’s a lot of interesting stuff to unpack there,’ muses Lindsay, screwing her mouth up. ‘But assuming for a moment that this “truth”’ – she makes inverted comma signs with her fingers – ‘exists, why would your subconscious hide it from your conscious mind?’
I give her one of my ‘how stupid can you be’ looks. ‘Because the accident was my fault.’
‘But there’s no evidence to suggest that, is there?’ She pauses to flick back through her notes. ‘You weren’t prosecuted for dangerous driving, you hadn’t been drinking or taking drugs.’
‘A witness saw the car lurching about, seconds before the first collision,’ I blurt out. A gaping hole opens in my guts and panic floods in. We are entering dangerous territory here. I’ve never gone into this level of detail with Lindsay before; we’ve always skirted around the subject, talked about feelings rather than facts. Loss. Grief. Depression. Survivor’s guilt.
She checks her notes again. ‘The investigation concluded you’d had a burst tyre and lost control of the vehicle.’
‘There were no conclusions, just probabilities. It was impossible to tell from the forensics exactly what happened.’ I can feel the blood leaving my extremities. I retch and clutch my stomach. ‘Sorry, I can’t go on. I feel sick.’ I close my eyes and bend over, trying to push away the encroaching blackness.
‘Are you okay?’ Lindsay’s voice sounds as if it’s coming from a long way off. ‘Anna, listen to me. Take some deep breaths … Remember your exercises … Good, that’s it, Anna, good.’
Anna, I think, as I try to force the air into my lungs. Why did I choose that name? I don’t even like it much.
I feel Lindsay’s hand on my knee. ‘Shall I get you some water?’
‘Please,’ I whisper. After a few moments, I slowly lift my head and open my eyes. The dizziness retreats and the world locks back into its uneasy place.
She gives me a glass. ‘You’ve had some really valuable insights today, Anna. You’ve been incredibly brave.’
‘I’m not brave, I’m a coward,’ I say, taking a sip. The water tastes warm and metallic. ‘If I was brave, I’d remember.’
‘You’re doing fantastically well.’ She stands over me, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her red, shapeless trousers. ‘Here’s something to think about for next time. What if you’re not suppressing the memory? What if it’s simply not there?’
* * *
I return from my extra-long lunch break, quietly slipping into my chair and bringing the morning’s draft report back onto my computer screen. Within seconds it looks as if I’ve never been away. Nothing gets past our Margaret, though. She waddles over bearing two steaming mugs of tea.
‘Here you go.’ She puts mine carefully on a coaster. ‘I missed you at lunch. Thought you must have sneaked off with Chris.’
Poor Margaret has got the wrong end of the stick. She saw us arriving at the office together last week and has decided that we’re an item.
‘I told you, we’re just friends,’ I say. ‘Flatmates. We keep each other company and it saves on the bills.’
‘Yes, duck,’ she beams. ‘Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. Just let me know if I need to buy a hat.’
I find myself laughing with her. ‘Oh, Margaret …’ She gives me a wink and goe
s back to her desk.
I text to remind Chris that I have to stay on later today, as I have thirty minutes to make up. He replies to remind me that he’s at St Saviour’s this evening so can’t give me a lift home anyway. The mention of the homeless centre sends panic into my fingers and they fumble over the screen. Sorry, forgot. See you later. We don’t do kisses at the end of our texts. It’s part of his knightly code of respect, and I don’t want to give mixed messages.
Chris lives on a new housing estate a twenty-minute bus ride out of town. The council sold off some school playing fields to provide three hundred new homes. Not all the flats are occupied yet, and the communal parts still smell of paint. I often see strangers lurking about; I think most of them are potential buyers or tenants, but I’m always relieved when I make it inside safely and turn the lock on the internal door.
I unpack my bit of shopping and start chopping vegetables for a ratatouille. Since moving in – correction, since I’ve been staying here – I’ve been cooking again. Nothing fancy: Chris is a man of simple tastes and I no longer have the budget for expensive cuts of meat. He won’t take any rent, so it’s the least I can do. We don’t eat together every evening, but I always cook for two, so he can heat his meal up in the microwave when he comes in. It’s an easy arrangement, free of resentment. I like not worrying about when he’s going to turn up, or whether to wait for him. If he doesn’t eat his meal, I put it in the freezer for another day.
After dinner, which I eat off a tray while sitting in front of the television, I wash up and do a bit of ironing. Just my own clothes, not Chris’s. Our domestic bliss doesn’t extend that far. It’s been years since I had to do my own ironing and I’ve realised I’m not very good at it. I seem to be ironing creases in, rather than out. The activity is too boring for my mind not to wander into dark places, so I put the television back on to distract me. It almost works. Will this count as a good day or a bad day? I wonder, as the iron hisses over my shirt. How many seconds did I manage without thinking about it? Ten, perhaps. Twenty at the most. I’m pleased and disgusted with myself at the same time.
As I hang my tops over the top of the wardrobe door to air, Lindsay’s final words drift back to me. What if the memories of those last seconds don’t exist? I don’t know anything about neurology, but I know that sometimes I can’t remember doing something only moments after I’ve done it. How did I get home? Did I just use the bathroom? Perhaps the brain doesn’t bother to store the incident because it already has thousands of virtually identical ones clogging up the system.
When I was driving that day, my brain was occupied with other important things – things I can never tell Lindsay about. That’s what worries me the most: that I wasn’t concentrating. The crash happened so quickly, it’s possible there wasn’t enough time for my brain to switch its attention and those last moments were never recorded. In which case, my search for the truth is fruitless and I should stop. It’s a liberating thought.
Too liberating.
* * *
When Chris comes home, I’m already in my room, reading in bed. Trying to read, at least. The words circle around my head, then fly out, and I keep having to start again at the top of the page.
I can hear him moving around the flat, running taps, boiling the kettle. His plate whirrs in the microwave, then comes to a halt with a loud ping. It only takes him five minutes to eat the ratatouille, then he goes to the bathroom and has a shave. I’m about to turn out the bedside light when he knocks at my bedroom door.
This is unheard of.
‘Yes?’ I say cautiously. ‘Erm … come in.’ I put down my book and pull the duvet up to my neck.
Chris squeezes open the door and puts his head round. ‘Sorry to disturb you. I saw your light on. I just thought you might like to know …’
‘Know what? Please come in.’ He takes a few steps forward and I see that he’s only wearing a dressing gown and slippers. A waft of aftershave drifts across the bed and I slip another inch beneath the duvet.
‘I was at the centre tonight,’ he says. ‘It was packed. We ran out of pasties. People are getting to know about us; we had new people I’d never seen before, which is good in one way but makes you worry ’cos they’re just the tip of the iceberg …’ He tails off.
‘What did you want to tell me?’
He pulls his dressing gown across his chest. ‘Oh yes. I thought you might like to know that that lad you were worried about, Sam, the one who was asking about you, well, he’s gone. Nobody’s seen him for over a week.’
‘What do you mean, gone?’ I say. ‘Gone where?’
‘Back to London, apparently. You’re safe.’ He gives me a reassuring smile. ‘Not that it means I want you to move back to your flat, not at all; you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. But I thought you’d like to know that he’s buggered off. Good news, eh?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say slowly. ‘It could be very, very bad news.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t put any extra meaning into it.’ Chris waves his arm dismissively. ‘These homeless types are always flitting from place to …’ He catches my expression and stops. ‘What’s wrong? Oh dear, you’re shaking, Anna. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘I’m not upset,’ I say. ‘I’m scared. I may have to move out, find somewhere else to live.’
‘No, no, you mustn’t do that!’ He sits down on the edge of the bed and takes my hands. ‘Please don’t go. I’ll take care of you, I promise. We’ll … we’ll go to the police, ask them for protection.’
‘Not the police, Chris. I’m sorry, but that’s out of the question. Don’t ask me to explain. It’s complicated.’ He moves closer and gazes into my eyes, the smell of his aftershave intensifying in the small room. Please don’t try to kiss me, please, please don’t, because I might kiss you back and that would be wrong …
‘Let’s pray,’ he says, closing his eyes. ‘Our Father, who are in heaven …’
I breathe out with relief.
The familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer wash over me and I’m instantly taken back to the few times I’ve been to church. My own wedding, a windy day in late November. Shivering outside in my sleeveless dress while Hayley fussed with my train. Then over twenty years later, in the same church, standing with Nicky at the font while the vicar sprinkled holy water on our godson’s forehead.
‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.’ Chris’s voice is full of energy. For the first time in my life, I’m listening to the meaning of the words. ‘And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’
Sam told him what I did, I think. He knows.
26
Then
Natasha
* * *
Mum was not impressed with the plan. She was livid that I’d contacted Jen and asked for her help, and thought I was mad to even consider abducting Emily.
‘It’s not abduction,’ I tried to explain. ‘I’m her mother, I’ve a right to take her.’
‘I still say you should go through the courts. Now that you know where he is, you can get one of those orders and he’ll be forced to bring Emily home. I’ve already told you I’ll cover the costs,’ she said, her voice thin with exasperation. It was late, and she’d just got in after a long cleaning shift.
I was wired with excitement, having spent the evening packing a bag for Emily. I’d been to Asda and bought some clothes and a pack of disposable nappies. I’d found a torch in the garden shed and checked it for batteries. I wanted Mum to be enthusiastic and supportive. I’d even wondered if she’d insist on joining us, and whether Jen would be okay with that.
‘Look, Mum, let’s not row about this. You’re tired.’
She banged the kitchen cupboard doors as she took out a mug and a box of tea bags. ‘If you don’t want to take my money, have it as a loan, pay me back once you’re divorced,’ she said. ‘You should get half of everything; you’ll be rich. A few thousand will be nothing to you.’
‘I don’t want Nic
k’s money.’
‘Don’t be so proud, Natasha.’
‘I just want Emily.’
‘This is not the way to go about it. Let the courts sort it out. You’ll be fine, they always favour the mother anyway.’
‘I know, but I don’t trust Nick to comply,’ I said, popping a tea bag into a second mug. ‘Jen says Nick hates sharing, and she’s right. The court could make a home arrangement order, and then as soon as he has Emily for the weekend, he’ll run away with her again.’
Mum poured in the boiling water, then went to the fridge to fetch some milk. ‘So what are you going to do once you’ve got her back? Where are you going to hide?’
I screwed up my face. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Of course, Nick would look here first, which meant I’d have to find somewhere else. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to a refuge or something.’
‘Those are for battered wives. Anyway, a lot of them have been shut down after all the funding cuts. You’re not thinking this through; you’re letting your emotions run away with themselves, as usual. Get real, Natasha.’
‘I am getting real,’ I protested. ‘That’s exactly what I’m doing. Jen says—’
Mum slammed down the milk bottle. ‘I wouldn’t trust that woman any further than I could throw her.’
‘Oh, really? You’ve changed your tune. I thought you sympathised with her.’ I could feel one of our spectacular rows brewing. When we fell out, we did it big time and always ended up saying things we regretted.
‘Forget about Jen,’ Mum said wearily. ‘She has her own agenda. Just take my money and go through the courts.’
She was making me so frustrated. Why couldn’t she understand?
‘I’d love to, but it won’t work,’ I said for what felt like the twentieth time. ‘Not with Nick. He fights dirty. I have to play him at his own game.’
